Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [3]
‘... and so close to morning.’
She was not English. From her accent, I’d judge her German or Austrian by birth. The hint of a ‘ch’ in ‘chentleman’, a ‘close’ that verged upon ‘cloze’. The Prince Consort’s London, from Buckingham Palace to Buck’s Row, is the sinkhole of Europe, clogged with the ejecta of a double-dozen principalities.
‘Come on and kiss me, sir.’
I stood for a moment, simply looking. She was indeed a pretty thing, distinctive. Her shiny hair was cut short and lacquered in an almost Chinese style, sharp bangs like the cheek-guards of a Roman helmet. In the fog, her red lips appeared quite black. Like all of them, she smiled too easily, disclosing sharp pearl-chip teeth. A cloud of cheap scent hung around, sickly to cover the reek.
The streets are filthy, open sewers of vice. The dead are everywhere.
The girl laughed musically, the sound like something wrung from a mechanism, and beckoned me near, loosening further the ragged feathers about her shoulders. Her laugh reminded me again of Lucy. Lucy when she was alive, not the leech-thing we finished in Kingstead Cemetery. Three years ago, when only Van Helsing believed...
‘Won’t you give me a little kiss,’ she sang. ‘Just a little kiss.’
Her lips made a heart-shape. Her nails touched my cheek, then her fingertips. We were both cold; my face a mask of ice, her fingers needles pricking through frozen skin.
‘What brought you to this?’ I asked.
‘Good fortune and kind gentlemen.’
‘Am I a kind gentleman?’ I asked, gripping the scalpel in my trousers pocket.
‘Oh yes, one of the kindest. I can tell.’
I pressed the flat of the instrument against my thigh, feeling the chill of silver through good cloth.
‘I have some mistletoe,’ the dead girl said, detaching a sprig from her bodice. She held it above her.
‘A kiss?’ she asked. ‘Just a penny for a kiss.’
‘It is early for Christmas.’
‘There’s always time for a kiss.’
She shook her sprig, berries jiggling like silent bells. I placed a cold kiss on her red-black lips and took out my knife, holding it under my coat. I felt the blade’s keenness through my glove. Her cheek was cool against my face.
I learned from last week’s in Hanbury Street – Chapman, the newspapers say her name was, Annie or Anne – to do the business swiftly and precisely. Throat. Heart. Tripes. Then get the head off. That finishes the things. Clean silver and a clean conscience. Van Helsing, blinkered by folklore and symbolism, spoke always of the heart, but any of the major organs will do. The kidneys are easiest to reach.
I had made preparation carefully before venturing out. For half an hour I sat, allowing myself to become aware of the pain. Renfield is dead – truly dead – but the madman left his jaw-marks in my right hand. The semi-circle of deep indentations has scabbed over many times but never been right again. With Chapman, I was dull from the laudanum I take and not as precise as I should have been. Learning to cut left-handed has not helped. I missed the major artery and the thing had time to screech. I am afraid I lost control and became a butcher, when I should be a surgeon.
Last night’s went better. The girl clung as tenaciously to life, but there was an acceptance of my gift. She was relieved, at the last, to have her soul cleansed. Silver is hard to come by now. The coinage is gold or copper. I hoarded threepenny bits while the money was changing and sacrificed my mother’s dinner service. I’ve had the instruments since my Purfleet days. Now the blades are plated, a core of steel strength inside killing silver. This time I selected the postmortem scalpel. It is fitting, I think, to employ a tool intended for rooting around in corpses.
The dead girl invited me into her doorway and wriggled skirts up over slim white legs. I took the time to open her blouse. My fingers, hot with pain, fumbled.
‘Your hand?’
I held up the lumpily-gloved club and tried a smile. She kissed my locked knuckles and I slipped my other hand