The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (11 page)

He shook his head and emptied the entirety of his pockets into her hands. “Find as many of your lot as you can and take them to spend the night in safe shelter.”

The young woman gazed up in awe. “Are ye trackin’ ‘im, then, good sir? Are you the detective?”

“Of sorts, dear girl,” Alexi replied.

She reached up to stroke his horse’s black neck. “Then you’re our guardian angel.”

Reins in hand, Alexi could neither acknowledge the sentiment nor look the waif in the eye, knowing he must fail at guarding all the poor wretches society cast onto the street. “Don’t take long, and don’t part company,” he commanded gruffly, and set off.

“I won’t, sir!” she cried. “Bless you, sir. I was a friend of Annie Chapman, may she rest in peace! By God, she’s lookin’ out for me by sendin’ you this night!”

These wards were the poorest, the most hopeless. Their inhabitants were the dregs, hapless souls who had come to this city seeking fortune and finding no love in the bosom of the empire. All street lamps ended at Commercial Street and Whitechapel Road. Alexi had forgotten that fact, because when summoned here in the past, in the course of his work, there had always been ethereal light to guide his way. Spectres cast their own illumination. Tonight, the sector was black. Even the ghosts were hiding.

Heaven must have felt a bit of pity, for the clouds above thinned to allow a dim grey moonlight to filter down. It was just enough for navigation at a slow plod. Prospero stamped impatiently, messily splashing muddy puddles and then clacking forward across the cobblestones.

Past a wide corner just inside the dim sooty haze of Duffield’s Yard, just off a set of train tracks, Alexi drew the horse to a halt; he’d caught sight of something amorphous rustling
in a space between two miserable brick buildings. He could only make out sounds, however, because there was a black hole ahead, a pitch-black deeper than night itself, snuffing out all existence. Alexi gave a cry, shouted a command, a verse in an ancient rite of which he was the master. The shadows shifted. Two bloodred eyes fixed on him. Then ten. Then came a swish of air and a muffled cry, changing suddenly into an ungodly gurgling noise. There came the smell of blood.

Prospero reared. The cloud of evil rose, a flickering mass of violence and vermin, shifting doglike shapes floating up into the night sky. Alexi’s heart exploded with hopeless fury at the lifeless heap he dimly saw crumpled below.

He dismounted and ran, his hand flying to his mouth upon closer inspection: the woman’s throat had been slashed open, and there were also cuts visible on her cheeks. The victim’s eyes suddenly shot open—or so it seemed. Alexi retreated a step, watching as a ghost lifted from the woman’s body, creating a double image: the lit, monochromatic form of the spirit, unmarred and superimposed upon the stillbleeding corpse. In a frayed dress, the spectre rose to a standing position where both Alexi and she could evaluate the particulars of her bodily remains, which had been spared the more severe mutilation of the Ripper’s other subjects. But the beast hadn’t finished. Would it therefore strike again?

He turned to offer the victim’s ghost what paltry benediction he could, but her defiant face stared back at him. Her arm lifted and she pointed west, toward the black cloud roiling with horror, toward that bestial form floating above the crumbling tenement roofs near Aldgate. There was hatred for the beast in her eyes, and her transparent lips mouthed the word “Go.” Alexi hurried back to his horse.

The trouble was in the tracking. There were no direct paths. It was only a five-block stretch of sharp turns down bleary alleys and dank gutters clogged with refuse and the occasional corpse of an animal, but the course was painstak
ing. Alexi fought not to trample any huddled, sleeping children, the saddest of all the ward’s forgotten horde tucked into the endless shadows. Veering his course from the train yard, he kept his eyes fixed on the malevolent mass passing low in the sky. But then it stopped suddenly and plunged below the rooftops. Alexi loosed a string of curses and spurred his horse down another dark street.

As he rounded the corner of Mitre Square, an incantation died on his lips at the same moment the beast’s next victim did. Surrounded by brick, the small square was now her open, bloody mausoleum. A wispy ghost, a weary young woman confused and wide-eyed peeled upward and into the night sky. There was no sign of her killer.

Alexi murmured a benediction in the spirit’s direction, watching her ascend. He prayed that she would continue upward into what was now a calm haze of silver moonlight, rather than return and be tethered to the unspeakable reality of her mortal remains below. Ruffled skirts and pooling blood from a torn abdomen and something that was now hardly a face remained turned toward him on the ground, and Alexi wondered if the sight would ever leave his mind. He choked back a wail and darted back out the walled block, well aware that there were officers on patrol who would soon find her. Everyone was vigilant these nights, but no one was of any use. Not even him.

But Alexi no longer doubted that he had found the source of Whitechapel’s recent woe.

His pale eyes flew open and he gasped, and Elijah found himself in Michael Carroll’s modest sitting room.

“Elijah, thank God,” Jane murmured in her soft brogue, returning glowing hands to her sides.

“Where are the others? Are they safe?” he asked.

Another voice answered: Josephine. “Yes, we’re all here. Michael’s home was the closest to where you fell.” She placed a gloved hand upon Jane’s broad shoulder. “Nicely done.”

“Thank you, Josie,” the Irishwoman replied. Seeing that her hands were no longer glowing, she brushed damp hair from Elijah’s face.

He grinned. “Jane, darling, Irish or no, please know we’re nothing without you. You can place those healing hands on me at any turn.”

Jane frowned. “Lord Withersby, that was a rather frightenin’ display, and by the Holy Saints don’tcha ever repeat it.” Anxiety and exhaustion had heightened her accent.

“You think I planned it, do you? It passed through me with no warning—”

“We know. We saw,” stated a new voice. Another figure stepped into the light.

“Why, my dear Miss Thompson, you look dourer than usual.”

“Hush, you reckless infidel!” Rebecca retorted. Her expression softened into a fatigued smile but a moment later her tone was again sharp. “Elijah—truly, we thought we lost you.”

Glancing around, he frowned. “Where is our fearless leader?”

There was a tense silence. “On his way,” Rebecca replied.

Elijah shook his head. “Don’t tell me he
pursued
it?”

None of them wanted to answer. “Yes,” Rebecca finally murmured.

“Why aren’t you following him?” Elijah cried, struggling to get out of bed. “He needs our help!”

“I don’t, but London does.” The door of Michael’s sitting room flew open, and Alexi entered in a storm of dark robes, his face ashen. “Two!” he cried, pacing the room and pounding his fist against a window frame. “It shredded two women tonight! There was nothing I could do! I don’t understand what it could want with those poor wretches! What is it, and what does it gain?” He collapsed on the settee only to stand again and continue pacing. “It isn’t a ghost. We deal in spiri
tual disturbances, when spirits and humans mix poorly. This is a
demonic
force. I…” He trailed off, clearly not liking where his thoughts were leading, and walked over to peer down at Elijah. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, thanks for asking,” his friend replied. “Jane pulled me back from the brink, apparently, though it has taken her since you left.”

“Good.” Moving to the window, Alexi looked across London toward Athens, to where the first light of dawn was licking the horizon. He pounded a fist against the sill. “Damn it all! Those poor girls. It was my fault. I should have stopped it somehow.”

“Alexi, it was
our
fault,” Rebecca corrected, taking a step closer. “We should have stopped it. You cannot take it upon yourself—”

“What good are we if there are things beyond our power?” he cried. “In the end, are we just useless mortals?” After a long, tense moment, he turned to Rebecca. “Headmistress…” he began.

She anticipated him. “Yes, Professor. We’ll inform the students. And we must place guards there. For our peace of mind, we must implement whatever protections we can.”

“What do we do?” Michael asked, for the benefit of those who were not involved in the school. He moved to place a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder, which was trembling ever so slightly.

“We attend to whatever work we can manage. And pray Prophecy becomes clear,” Alexi replied.

“How cowardly,” Michael murmured. “This creature preys only on single, unaccompanied women. We must pray most heartily for their peace.”

The Guard nodded, sitting in uncomfortable, dangerously unresolved silence.

Alexi gazed out the window. “I need you now,” he murmured against the glass, yearning for his goddess. “Proclaim yourself before more innocents die.” But then a sudden
thought occurred to him. “Miss Linden. Where was she during all of this?”

Josephine replied. “I told her to remain at La Belle, locked in her room. She knows nothing of what transpired. Should we mention it to her?”

Alexi breathed a sigh of relief. “Heavens, no. I’ll not let a stranger in on our business until they give me good cause.” He scowled. “No matter how intriguing.”

Yet, it was time to consider Miss Linden. It was time to see if she was more than just beauty and a few leading clues. War was coming, just like his goddess had foretold. Or maybe he and his friends had missed the beginning and were running late to the front lines.

Athens’s students stumbled into the auditorium, having been abruptly roused by their house wardens at the break of dawn. In the front of the room, near the raised lip of the stage, several professors milled about, their arms folded as if in effort to contain themselves. As they’d filed through Promethe Hall, it immediately went up as rumour among the students that the murderer, the Ripper, must have come close, was perhaps in their midst or had perhaps struck down one of their own in the night.

The chamber where they assembled was a mix of function and form, with a vaulted, frescoed ceiling depicting birds on wing, and the center of the stage’s crimson curtain now parted as Headmistress Thompson stepped forward, dressed in her usual prim and conservative layers of grey. The ambient yellow glow of the gas lamps, set in golden sconces at intervals across the scalloped walls, created warmth in sharp
contrast to her cold expression. The assembled faculty took their seats. Mina Wilberforce scanned the crowd, found Percy, and the two shared a nervous smile before Mina turned back to the headmistress.

Percy felt her pulse quicken as there was a flicker of movement from stage left: Professor Rychman entered from a dark wing. He bowed to the headmistress, descended the stair to the floor and stood by the edge of the stage like a sentry, head swiveling, eyes searching. Unable to change her focus Percy waited, praying for him to find her where she sat in a shadowed seat to the side, Marianna fidgeting nearby. When their intent gazes at last met, his eyes actually lingered a moment as he gave a subtle nod. Percy thrilled. Had he truly been assuring himself she was safe?

Only an astute observer could have noticed the extent of the drawn looks, the hard weariness in the eyes of both Professor Rychman and the headmistress, but Percy had made a habit of studying them—especially together—and so was deeply concerned.

“Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed students and faculty of Athens,” the headmistress began. “I regret many things this morning. I regret the necessity of having to gather you. I regret that there must be a change in school policy. And I regret most deeply to report that there were two additional murders last night.”

The auditorium burst into hushed murmurs and a few soft cries. The headmistress took a step forward and the sound quieted to a hiss. “In response, there will be guards posted at every doorway, entrance or egress of Athens.”

The room buzzed. As Professor Rychman ascended the stage, there fell immediate silence. The ferocity of his expression would still a screaming infant, and his voice resounded throughout the chamber. A collective shudder went through the crowd.

“I am sure the sensationalistic rags of this city will address every question you may have, and relate every heinous, dis
gusting detail of the murders,” he remarked bitterly. “But let me come straight to the point. The murders fit the Ripper’s profile; he continues to attack the young and defenseless. For that reason, though the violence remains so far centered in Whitechapel, we shall take every precaution.” He cast a pointed glance at a few known pranksters among the crowd, those most likely to sneak out late at night. These few students had the good sense to stay silent or nod. “Our buildings are not fortresses. But until this violence is no longer a threat, our
grounds
shall be.” Alexi cast a sweeping stare across the auditorium; then he deferred to the headmistress.

“I expect full cooperation,” she continued. “I do not expect anyone to question the measures which we might be forced to enact other than the guards…but for now classes will remain on their regular schedule, and there are no substantive changes to protocol or to events. I wish I could offer a message of comfort and inspiration this morning, but until we hear more from the authorities, any such statement would be a contrivance. You are dismissed.”

Percy and Professor Rychman caught each other’s eyes once more before she filed out of the auditorium. There was something in the lines of his face that was new and infinitely more complex, as if something in this great tragedy was striking a personal chord. Percy didn’t know why this instinct fluttered in her mind, other than that studying him so intently perhaps gave her strange ideas. Her imagination was simply too vivid.

Marianna looked ashen. She took Percy’s hand as they exited into the hall, and Percy heard her utter a few Lutheran prayers. In the courtyard, many students were glancing up at the sky and doing the same. Percy noticed the dawn sparkled oddly.

There were already guards posted at the doors. Percy recognized some of them as janitors, some as teaching assistants, and a few were faculty themselves. This gave Athens a new air, as if both the school and London were preparing for a
siege, and before her first class Percy took out the small pearlbeaded rosary that Reverend Mother had entrusted to her. She prayed it several times. It had been too long since she had said even a word of the elaborate liturgies that she knew by rote, and she resolved to be better about her personal rituals of faith. She had a sense London could use every prayer it could muster.

A soft baroque melody crackled from a wonder of modern technology, the phonograph sitting in the corner of Professor Rychman’s office. He and Josephine clinked aperitif glasses, choosing to offer this toast to mankind’s finer sensibilities.

“I’ve noticed the guards. I hope they leave everyone with some small comfort.”

Alexi nodded. “We must be careful. Still, I’ll be damned if our Grand Work will affect the operations of this school. It’s the only thing Rebecca and I have to remind us that we’re really human and not merely freakish hosts to guardian angels,” he remarked mordantly, sipping his liqueur. Turning to survey the covered canvas she’d brought, he added, “So, you’re finished? Such expediency with this painting, Josie. I’m impressed—especially after the work we’ve been forced to do…and after your rude exit last time you were here. At least my students still respect me.”

“Fear you, appreciate you,” Josephine corrected with a meaningful smile. “Indeed, that ivory girl with the amazing eyes seems to appreciate you a good deal. Bless her gentle heart, I think she was rather put out by my presence in your office.”

Alexi scoffed. “What? Who? Miss Parker?”

“Eyes like that can’t conceal the way they look at you,” Josephine replied.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“A beautiful girl. She’s an inspiration.”

“If only she could hear you say that, Josie.” Alexi looked
thoughtful. “The poor woman considers herself repulsive. I think that’s hardly the case…” Josephine blinked at him as he trailed off, so he shifted and grumbled, “Of course, who am I to say, seeing as my ‘social graces leave something to be desired.’ I do say, Josephine, it is one thing to taunt me to my face, another entirely to undermine me in front of a student.”

“Ah, is the impenetrable professor actually concerned with what the young lady thinks?”

“That is uncalled for,” Alexi warned. “And dangerous to make any such impli—”

“There is something about that girl, Alexi,” Josephine cut him off. “In fact…I’ve worked so fervently on this piece, I’ve hardly slept.” Her saffron gown kissed the floor as she swept over to her covered canvas. Draining the last of her liqueur with dramatic flourish, she drew the curtain aside. Beneath was a sunlit seascape. Upon a jagged shore, two robed figures stood against the growing shadow of a dark cave entrance: a pale, regal young woman was being led into the increasing darkness by a man with luminous skin and unkempt auburn hair falling about naked, muscular shoulders. The woman’s pale hair blew before her, as if the locks were desperately reaching out, seeking purchase in the wind. A third figure stood near a rock, cloaked and hooded, raising a clenched fist. The clouds on the horizon were ominously black.

“Well?” Josie asked.

“Oh, my,” Alexi breathed. But the painting, while gorgeous, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Your student will like it, I trust. She was the muse, heaven alone knows why. As always, I chase inspiration.” The Frenchwoman sighed, pressing her hands to her eyes and taking a seat. “Also, Alexi…I must confess there is another reason I have worked night and day. I am frightened. Ever since that attack by
la bête
…I cannot sleep for the nightmares.”

“Change is upon us,” Alexi agreed.

Josephine noted the edge to his tone as he moved to hang her new work by the door. “You are scared, too.”

“It isn’t that I mind the idea of change. It’s the possibility we might react improperly.” He clenched his jaw and changed the subject. “So, you think there’s something to Miss Parker, do you?”

Josephine shrugged. “
Oui.
Miss Linden, too, but I do not know what.”

“Hmm.” Alexi’s eyes lingered on the painting, contemplating the shadows into which the slender woman was being led. Then the clock chimed and his brisk manner heightened. “It is six, my dear. Time for the arrival of the very girl in question.”

“Ah,
oui,
” Josephine murmured.

She had just risen from her chair when there was a brief knock upon the door.

“Come!” Alexi called out. “Now, good day, Josie, and thank you for the painting.”

Through the professor’s door, Percy heard music. She heard also her cue to enter but nonetheless hovered outside, drinking in the delightful sound. Her estimation of the professor’s cultural refinement was ever increasing.

A call from behind the wood made her jump. “Miss Parker, we cannot conduct a tutorial with a door between us, can we?”

She hurried into the room with a murmured apology. As she did, Percy noticed Josephine, and drew back for fear of interrupting. But the Frenchwoman beckoned her forward before amiably waving farewell and slipping out. Percy’s gaze did not follow Josephine out the door, and so she did not witness the knowing wink, nor Alexi’s glare in return. Instead, Percy glided to the desk and began removing her protections.

The lesson passed as usual and without event. The professor spoke, and she listened. But Percy’s mind was far from
the mathematical lecture. While integers and equations might prove an impassable gulf, she sensed their time together was of grave import aside from education; but she had no idea how to say so.

The professor handed over an assignment with a sigh and leaned back, pressing thumb and forefinger to his nose in characteristic thought. Percy bit her lip and read this as her cue to leave. With the same unconscious ceremony as accompanied her disrobing, she reversed the process. Wrapping her length of blue muslin about her head and neck, donning gloves and glasses, she rose from her chair and lifted books into her slender arms.

She didn’t know how to bring up the subject of the Ripper, yet she felt she must before walking out the door. Quietly she said: “It is good that the school has taken precautions, considering the recent state of affairs. It’s such a frightful thing—and it troubles you greatly, doesn’t it, Professor?”

“Yes, Miss Parker, it does,” Professor Rychman replied. He and Percy stared at each other, and she felt compelled to ask his further opinion, but the gravity of his expression stilled her inquiry.

He glanced past her, a smile flickering across his face. “On your way in, Miss Parker, did you notice the new addition?” he asked.

“Oh, no, Professor, I didn’t,” Percy replied, seeing Josephine’s newest painting. Her books fell from her arms. Papers scattered. Choking, she sank to her knees, glasses falling from her face and into the folds of her dress.

“Miss Parker?” Professor Rychman called out.

Dimly, Percy saw him rise from his desk and rush to her side. But compelled by the force that had overtaken her, she began to speak in a voice that was not quite her own, one that spoke in Greek, and her senses were no longer in England:
“No, I’ll yearn for the sea,”
she insisted, glancing fearfully at the cave entrance before turning back to the shore.
“I hear crying. Who’s crying?
”

“You are.”

An overwhelming smell accosted her nostrils; a very specific fruit. A beautiful, unearthly man touched her arm and she chilled. Light bounced off the sea before her. Darkness was behind. In the sunlight ahead, out on the rocks, a figure reached toward her in anguish.

“No.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t take me just yet; give me one more hour…”

“Your time has come, love,”
said the eerie man, and his cold hand seized her shoulder to lead her into the darkness.

She reached out to the figure who wept in the light. The sweet smell of fruit turned her stomach.
“Shall I never see them again? Him?”

“Perhaps someday, in some other era. But never the bird again. Never that bird.”
And the luminous man pressed something into her hand.

“Miss Parker!” Alexi said, kneeling before her. The girl’s eyes looked unseeing into the distance. He took her outstretched hand and squeezed it, hoping to bring her gently back from her sudden transportation. A soft breath escaped her lips, but she remained far away.

Staring at her with fascination, he tightened his grip about her fingers. A breeze rustled through the room, and he felt his powers rise. What was happening in that moment was unparalleled. He’d never encountered anything like it. And while there was no visible door to indicate Prophecy was occurring, this was unmistakably a sign. Perhaps his goddess was trying to speak through Percy Parker.

“Yes, come to me,” he breathed.

A sound came across the waves, a whisper to rouse a dreamer. Percy felt something in her hand and so she opened her palm.

Seeds. Juicy, ruby red seeds.

She stifled a cry. How could she be parted from her angel?
There was a sensation upon her outstretched fingertips, feathery like wings, which she heard rustling. And a murmur so like the waves called to her again and spoke a name that sounded vaguely familiar. She wanted to go to that voice. It was calling her.

“Miss Parker,” Alexi said again, patiently.

He felt her fingers stir in his palm and draw away. He murmured an ancient benediction known only to The Guard, then pressed his fingertip first to her forehead and then to her collarbone. She was still lost. He couldn’t help but notice her resonant beauty, captured in the passionate throes of this faraway vision.