‘Dr Seward will be in there, Miss Lucy.’
‘Thank you so much.’
Constrained by her burden, the matron attempted a creaky and impertinent curtsey. Suppressing nasty laughter, she sloped off up another staircase, leaving the visitor alone. Mary Jane had hoped to be announced, but contented herself with taking one hand from her muff and rapping on the office door. A voice from within rumbled something indistinguishable, and Mary Jane admitted herself. John stood at a desk with another, both poring over a pile of documents. John didn’t look up, but the other man – a young fellow, dressed well but not a gentleman – did, and was disappointed.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not Druitt. Where can Monty have got to?’
John ran his finger down a column of figures, totalling them in his head. Mary Jane knew her numbers but could never put them together: it was the root of her problem with the rent. Finally, John finished his calculation, jotted something down and raised his glance. When he saw her, it was as if someone had struck his head from behind with the blunt end of a ball-peen hammer. Unaccountable tears pricked the backs of her eyes, but she kept them in.
‘Lucy,’ he said, without expression.
The young man straightened and brushed his lapels with his knuckles, presenting himself to be introduced. John shook his head as if trying to put together two mismatched halves of a broken ornament. Mary Jane wondered if she had done something terribly wrong.
‘Lucy,’ he said again.
‘Dr Seward,’ began the young man, ‘you are being remiss.’
Something inside John snapped and he began pretending everything was ordinary. ‘Do forgive me,’ he said. ‘Morrison, this is Lucy. My... oh, a family friend.’
Mr Morrison’s smirk was complex, as if he understood. Mary Jane thought she had seen him before; it was possible the young man knew her for who she was. She let him take her hand and bobbed her head slightly. A mistake, she knew at once; she was a lady, not a tweeny maid. She should have let Mr Morrison raise her hand to his lips, then nodded grudgingly as if he were the lowest thing on earth and she Princess Alexandra. For such an error, Uncle Henry would have taken the rod to her.
‘I’m afraid you find me frightfully preoccupied,’ John said.
‘One of our stalwarts has gone missing,’ Mr Morrison explained. ‘You wouldn’t have happened across a Montague Druitt on your travels?’
The name meant nothing to her.
‘I feared as much. I doubt that Druitt is much in your line, anyway.’
Mary Jane pretended not to know at all what Mr Morrison meant. John, still taken aback, was fiddling with some doctor’s implement. She began to suspect this social call to be not entirely a well-conceived endeavour.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Mr Morrison said, ‘I’m sure you’ve much to discuss. Miss Lucy, good night. Dr Seward, we’ll talk later.’
Mr Morrison withdrew, leaving her alone with John. When the door was firmly shut, she slipped close to him, her hands on his chest, her face by his collar, her cheek against the soft stuff of his waistcoat.
‘Lucy,’ he said, again. It was a habit of his, just to say the name out loud. He looked at Mary Jane, and saw the twice-dead girl in Kingstead.
His hands touched her about the waist, then climbed her back, finally fixing at her neck. Taking a grip, he pulled her away from him. His thumbs pressed under her chin. If she were warm, this might hurt. Her teeth grew sharp. John Seward’s face was dark, his expression one with which she was familiar. Sometimes, this look would pass over him when they were together. It was his brute self, the savage she found inside every man. Then, something mild sparked in his eyes and he let her go. He was shaking. He turned away and steadied himself against his desk. She smoothed the strands of her hair that had come loose, and rearranged her collar. In his rough grip, her red thirst had been aroused.
‘Lucy, you mustn’t...’
He waved her away but she took a hold on him from behind, easing his collar away from his neck, undoing his stock.
‘... be here. This is...’
She wet his old scars with her tongue, then opened them with a gentle bite.
‘... another part of...’
Intently, she sucked. Her throat burned. She shut her eyes and saw red in the darkness.
‘... my life.’
Taking her mouth from his neck for a moment, she chewed her glove, biting away the tiny shell buttons at her wrist. She freed her right hand and spat out the cloth skin. Her fingers had extended, nails splitting the seams. She reached into his clothes, displacing buttons. She stroked his warm flesh, careful not to cut. John moaned to himself slightly, lost.
‘Lucy.’
The name spurred her, put anger in her appetite. She tugged at his clothes, and bit again, deeper.
‘Lucy.’
No, she thought, gripping, Mary Jane.
Her chin and front were wet with his blood. She heard a choke in the back of his throat and felt him swallowing his own scream. He tried to say Lucy’s name again but she worried him harder, silencing him. For the moment, in this heat, he was her John. When it was over, she would dab her lips and be his dream Lucy again. And he would rearrange his clothes and be Dr Seward. But now they were their true selves; Mary Jane and John, joined by blood and flesh.
42
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME
Geneviève Dieudonné,’ Beauregard introduced her, ‘Colonel Sebastian Moran, formerly of the First Bangalore Pioneers, author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, and one of the greatest scoundrels unhanged...’
The new-born in the coach was an angry-looking brute, uncomfortable in evening dress, moustache bristling fiercely. When warm, he must have had the ruddy tan of an ‘Injah hand’, but now he looked like a viper, poison sacs bulging under his chin.
Moran grunted something that might count as an acknowledgement, and ordered them to get into the coach. Beauregard hesitated, then stepped back to allow her to go first. He was being clever, she realised. If the Colonel meant harm, he would keep an eye on the man he considered a threat. The new-born would not believe her four and a half centuries stronger than he. If it came to it, she could tear him apart.
Geneviève sat opposite Moran and Beauregard took the seat next to her. Moran tapped the roof and the cab moved off. With the motion, the black-hooded bundle next to the Colonel nodded forwards, and had to be straightened up and leaned back.
‘A friend?’ Beauregard asked.
Moran snorted. Inside the bundle was a man, either dead or insensible. ‘What would you say if I told you this was the veritable Jack the Ripper?’
‘I suppose I’d have to take you seriously. I understand you only hunt the most dangerous game.’
Moran grinned, tiger-fangs under his whiskers. ‘Huntin’ hunters. It’s the only sport worth talkin’ about.’
‘They say Quatermain and Roxton are better than you with a rifle, and the Russian who uses the Tartar warbow is the best of all.’
The Colonel brushed away the comparisons. ‘They’re all warm.’
Moran had a stiff arm out, holding back the clumsy bundle. ‘We’re on our own in this huntin’ trip,’ he said. ‘The rest of the Ring aren’t in it.’
Beauregard considered.
‘It’s been nearly a month since the last matter,’ the Colonel said. ‘Saucy Jack’s finished. Probably cut his throat on one of his own knives. But that’s not enough for us, is it? If business is to get back to the usual, Jack has to be seen to be finished.’