The Heartless City Read online

  Cam nearly sighed with excitement. “Do you remember much of it?”

  “I was three years old when we left, but I remember almost everything. We lived near a lake―a vast, clear lake that reflected the sky―and behind our house was a grove of pecan trees that seemed to go on forever.” Her gaze grew distant and wandered to the wall beyond their heads, as if she were seeing swaying branches rather than oil-stained lamps.

  “So, why did you come to London?”

  She blinked, regaining her focus. “My mother wanted to come here to work with English suffragettes. She liked that they were more radical than those in America.”

  “Suffragettes?”

  Elliot snapped his mouth shut as soon as he realized he’d spoken. He hadn’t meant to, but something about her voice had drawn him in, causing him to forget his shame, her rage, and everything else. He liked the way she spoke, the soft yet sturdy feel of her accent. It was comfortable and clean like cotton―bright and clear like the sky and lake she’d longingly described. The sound of her voice matched the pure, fiery beauty of her spirit; it sparkled and bubbled with light and made him feel almost… happy.

  But the spell of her voice was only part of the reason he’d suddenly spoken. He’d never heard the word “suffragette” and didn’t know what it meant.

  “Suffragettes were women who campaigned for the right to vote,” Cam explained. “I’ve read about them before.”

  “They still exist, just not in London,” she said, her eyes suddenly burning. “What use is fighting for suffrage in an absolute monarchy?”

  Elliot’s blood went cold even as her anger flared. What she’d said was true; there were no longer legislative bodies or votes in London. The Lord Mayor was the ultimate and only authority, but no one would dare to criticize that, especially in front of his son. He didn’t need to look at Cam to know he was stunned as well, but when he spoke, it was clear he’d been surprised for another reason.

  “You’re extremely well-educated,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound insulting, but most girls―I mean, most waitresses―”

  “The brightest men in this city―in this world―couldn’t match my mother. She attended prestigious schools in America, and she taught me well.”

  Her pride swelled, but as it did, Elliot’s chest caved in. What must it be like for women like her and her mother to be trapped in London? A place where education, passion, and pride did women no good?

  “She did at that,” Cam nodded, smiling. “What does she do now?”

  Iris’s face became placid again. “She was killed by a Hyde a few years ago. Like every one else’s mother.”

  Elliot clenched his fists and closed his eyes, preparing for the terrible wave of grief…

  … that never came.

  Confused, he lifted his head again and slowly uncurled his fingers. He hadn’t expected her grief to be as raw and fresh as Andrew’s, but he’d expected something. His own mother was killed over five and half years ago, and the thought of her still conjured memories that tore at his insides like claws: her reading to him before bed at night, laughing and running her warm, paint-stained fingers through his hair… her body covered up with a makeshift shroud in the cobblestone street, tubes of paint crushed flat and brushes stained red―not with paint, but her blood.

  If Iris’s mother was killed like that, she was either callous or lying, and Elliot already knew how much she was capable of feeling.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Cam said. “Is your father still alive?”

  The shame that flooded her chest would have caused most girls to avert their eyes, but she stared at them, unflinching, as she said, “I have no idea. It’s always been my mother and me. I don’t even know who he was.”

  After a moment, the shame dissolved, unable to withstand the fiery pride that burned at her core. An emptiness remained, however―a longing for something unknown―and Elliot knew this story, at least, was absolutely true.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Cam said, tactfully changing the subject. “Since you remember your home so well, do you also recall your journey? My whole life, I’ve wanted to know what it’s like to see the ocean.”

  She sat back in her chair, her face growing soft and distant again. “I do, and it was beautiful, but also a little scary. I remember one night my mother and I went out onto the deck. I don’t know why―perhaps we were seasick and needed a breath of fresh air. I’d imagined the sea would be glittering with reflections of the stars, but the sky was cloudy that night, so everything above and below us was infinite and dark. The ocean went on forever, even farther than the fields back home, and its waves were constant and rhythmic, like an ancient, endless song. I felt so small and frightened out there, but also strangely soothed. There’s something almost… hopeful about being dwarfed by something so big; it makes you feel like there’s more to the world. Like there’s… possibility.”

  For a moment, none of them spoke, moved a muscle, or even breathed. This time, Elliot wasn’t enthralled by her voice but by her words, and he wasn’t the only one. All three of them were feeling the exact same thing at that moment, a phenomenon he hadn’t come across since his affliction. They sat in silence amid a cloud of longing and desperate wonder, sharing the same audacious dream, the same perilous hope.

  It was Iris who finally broke the silence, shifting and tossing her hair back as if shaking off the memory. “I’m surprised you two even knew what an American accent was. One of the other waitresses here thought I was from some backwoods part of Ireland for a week.”

  “Well, we’d heard it before,” Cam replied. “Back when we were children. Remember,” he said to Elliot, “that woman who was friends with your mother? Her name was Miss… Ferrell, I think.”

  “Carroll,” Elliot murmured, clearing his throat. “Virginia Carroll.”

  “Right. I remember her and Lady Cullum coming over for tea. It didn’t happen often, as Lady Cullum was rarely on good terms with the Lord Mayor. Of course, that was before… well, before things went bad with her shelters.”

  Elliot recalled the Lord Mayor’s tirades against Lady Cullum’s shelters. He thought the Hydes were criminals who didn’t deserve to be “coddled,” and claimed that protecting them was a risk too dangerous to take. As it turned out, he was right: One day a Hyde broke loose in one of the shelters and killed Lady Cullum. After that, the Lord Mayor closed the havens and changed the law, declaring all infected Hydes to be enemies to the city. Active or not, infected people were now to be killed on sight, as were any who harbored, helped, or failed to execute them. Then, only a few days later, Virginia Carroll died as well, killed by an explosion in Dr. Jekyll’s old laboratory. This led to the second law that changed the city of London: Only those appointed by the Lord Mayor could seek a cure, as experimentation was simply too perilous, especially for women.

  “I should return to my tables,” Iris said, rising from her chair. She smiled and moved with a cool grace, but Elliot sensed a terrible storm of emotion building within her. This time, however, it wasn’t rage.

  For once, it was fear.

  “Wait,” Cam called. “You forgot, I haven’t paid you for your―”

  “Please, there’s really no need.” She paused a moment and looked at them, betraying a sadness that drifted through her storm like a heavy wind. “Keep your money.”

  She walked away, and Cam took a sip of the champagne they hadn’t touched. “What an outstanding girl,” he said. “Intelligent, bold, and beautiful, too.”

  Elliot stared at the surface of the table, jealousy searing his skin. The feeling was ludicrous, of course; Iris hadn’t desired either of them for their looks or their money, and even if she had, he didn’t stand a chance against Cam. He reached for his own glass of champagne then, and took a long, deep drink.

  “The places she’s been and things she’s seen,” Cam continued. “I envy her.”

  At that, Elliot’s jealousy abruptly turned to anger. “She’s an orphan who works as a wait
ress in a tawdry music hall,” he snapped, though he still wasn’t sure he believed the story she’d told about her mother. “She has no protection and no outlet for her passion or her mind. Her life is an endless cycle of danger, hard work, and disappointment.”

  He regretted the outburst as soon as he felt the shame creeping into Cam’s stomach. “You’re right,” Cam murmured, almost to himself. “That was thoughtless of me.”

  Elliot shook his head and sighed. “No, it’s not your fault. You meant no harm, and I understand. I envy her as well.”

  As terrible as it was, he did, in spite of all the advantages he had that she did not. He not only envied the places she’d been, but the fire that burned inside her, the unassailable passion and pride he’d never before experienced.

  “I’m sorry, Cam,” he continued. “Lately I… haven’t been myself.”

  Cam paused, took another drink, and turned toward him. “I know, El, and I understand, but…” He glanced at the floor and let out a breath. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about you.”

  Anxiety and affection filled his eyes and the air between them, and Elliot tightened his jaw and stared at the bubbles in his glass.

  “You can’t hide in your room with a bottle of gin for the rest of your life,” Cam continued, reaching over and gently placing his hand on Elliot’s. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but Elliot’s body clenched up like a fist when their skin connected. The nearer he was to the heat of someone’s feelings the stronger he felt it, and actual physical contact was like thrusting his hands in the fire. He closed his eyes and fought back tears, paralyzed by Cam’s love.

  “It kills me to see you this way, El. You’ve always been so open and warm, even after Edith…” His grief for Elliot’s mother rose like bile. “Even after that, you were you―expressive and unrestrained like her and like every brilliant artist. But now you’re cold and distant, putting up walls just like―” He didn’t finish, but there was no need. He’d meant to say, “like your father.”

  “My point is,” he recovered, “You need to stop punishing yourself. What’s past is past. It’s time for you to pick up and move on.”

  Elliot nodded and sucked in a breath, wishing he could explain this was the reason he’d never “move on.” The mistakes he’d made would be with him, crippling him, for the rest of his life.

  His first mistake occurred one month ago, just after Cam’s birthday. While walking down the street, he had passed a bakery with its door hanging open, and when he peered inside, he saw a Hyde crouched over the bloody, heartless body of the baker. Trembling, he drew the pistol holstered beneath his coat, building up the courage to strike before the creature saw him. But at that moment, the monster’s ebony eyes rolled back in its head, and its body convulsed along the bloodstained floor. Elliot watched as its body shrank and the color returned to its bloodless skin, revealing a scrawny teenage boy.

  A boy he knew.

  His name was Will, and he was only thirteen or fourteen years old, the younger brother of one of the palace stable boys, Milo Clements. When the boy saw what he’d done, his shoulders collapsed and started to cry, his high-pitched, wailing sob as raw as a frightened child’s. Elliot steadied the gun, knowing all Hydes must be shot on sight, but it was no use―he simply couldn’t kill the sobbing boy―so he turned around and dashed back into the street as fast as he could.

  It was only two weeks later when Elliot’s act of cowardice and treason came back to haunt him. While visiting Milo on the palace grounds, Will morphed into a Hyde and attacked Robert Heron, Andrew’s father. The guards shot and killed him, but not in time to save Robert’s life, and Elliot knew his friend’s father’s blood was on his hands. He told Cam and Andrew the truth that night, and they both claimed to forgive him, but nothing could assuage the guilt and shame inside his heart, so the next night, in desperation, he made his second grave mistake.

  A few months earlier, he’d overheard his father and the Lord Mayor discussing Dr. Jekyll. The Lord Mayor believed his mistake was not creating the evil drug, but trying to separate good from evil, when what men really needed was to separate weakness from strength. He said he wanted a serum that would remove all human weakness, making the user firm, resolute, and unwavering. Elliot knew where his father kept the notes for the secret project, so that night, sobbing and terribly drunk, he stumbled down to his father’s lab, turned the formula into a serum, and slid it inside his veins. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on the cold stone floor, staring up at his father’s face and feeling a panicked fear he somehow sensed was not his own.

  “I know,” he said to Cam, sliding his hand back out of his grasp. “You’re right. I need to move on. Just… give me a little more time.”

  Cam searched his face for a moment before he nodded. “Good,” he said, as if his apprehension were gone. “Christ, these heart-to-hearts are exhausting. Let’s not do it again.”

  He snapped open his cigarette case again and leaned back in his chair, masking the anxiety that still clawed at his chest, and Elliot drained the rest of his glass of champagne to block it out.

  When it came time for Cam to leave and meet Andrew at the docks, Elliot claimed he wanted to stay and order something to eat at the bar so he could sober up. Once Cam was gone, however, he stayed exactly where he was, finishing the rest of the bottle of champagne by himself. When he glanced at the stage, he saw the girls were dressed in even less clothing―dark green tights with no skirts at all and black, strapless tops. Instead of dancing, they now swung from ropes designed to look like vines, twisting and contorting their bodies midair like acrobats. The lighting was dim and grotesque, and the music was ominous and dark, so Elliot put on his coat, grabbed his hat, and stumbled out.

  The snow that had begun when he first arrived now coated the midnight sky, painting the sooty air and filthy streets a misleading white. Elliot, however, couldn’t feel the bite of the wind or the sting of the flakes. All he could feel was the wretchedness that gnawed at his own heart.

  This was to be the rest of his life: getting drunk, lying to Cam, hiding from the world, and bringing shame to his family’s name. And that was the best prognosis. One day, Cam might finally get fed up with his behavior, or even worse, discover his secret and shun him like his father. He was the only good, true thing Elliot had left. If he lost Cam, he’d have nothing.

  And not much of a reason to live.

  For just a moment, when talking to Iris, he’d felt as though he could almost touch the edge of a beautiful dream, that he could dare to hope for something better in his life. But it was a cruel delusion―a lie that meant nothing in the end. There were no fields or oceans for him, no strength or fiery pride.

  As he walked through the city this time, he followed the streets instead of the alleys. At midnight, few would dare to venture out without a carriage. Cam had taken a carriage both to the music hall and to the docks, and Elliot had planned to get a hansom to take him home, but somewhere between the eerie dance and snowy streets, he’d forgotten.

  He ploughed on through the thickening flurry, but eventually, he realized he’d gone west instead of north. Shielding his eyes, he turned around and took another left, but the icy streets and ghostly buildings looked unfamiliar now. His blood was still warm from the alcohol but the numbness was leaving his skin, causing him to shiver beneath his hat and overcoat. The wind picked up and he stumbled against it, sure he was heading north this time, but then he sensed an approaching feeling he’d never felt before, one so strong it pierced the haze of the drink and the cold night air.

  It was a hunger unlike any he’d ever known in his life, a raging desire that tore at his lungs and strangled his arid throat. Overcome, he collapsed to his knees and plunged his hands through the slush, gripping the freezing stones beneath. His chest ached and his blood burned as if it were on fire, but with the pain was also a strange and powerful elation, a high that blazed in his brain and made him feel unstoppable.

  O
nly then did he realize what it was he must have been feeling.

  He turned to see the Hyde racing toward him like a rabid dog, its bloodless skin as white as the snow that flew through the air between them. Instinctively, he reached for his gun, but between the creature’s hunger and his own inebriation, he knew he’d never make a clean shot.

  So he leapt to his feet and ran.

  Blind fear propelled him forward, but as he pounded down the street, he realized the savage hunger he shared with the Hyde was also making him faster. But no feeling, no matter how strong, could keep him out of its reach for long, so he jumped the fence to a cramped cemetery and searched for a place to hide.

  The monster followed, smashing the tops of headstones, crosses, and sculptures, its body healing immediately where the granite sliced its skin. Elliot scrambled through the cluttered darkness and blinding snow, but then he tripped on a raised tree root and plummeted to the ground. He crawled through the slush and huddled behind an enormous marble angel, but the Hyde seized the statue and tore the wings from its body like sheets of paper.

  Elliot backed away along the ground, but it was no use. This was it; this was how his pathetic life would end. He would die like his mother, Andrew’s father, and thousands of others, but the difference was that his demise would be completely his fault. Closing his eyes, he thought of Cam, of his mother and his father, but then something warm and wet shot through the air and sprayed his chest.

  The Hyde roared, and Elliot opened his eyes to see it rear back, crimson blood spewing from a wound across its neck. At first, he couldn’t see anything but a blade and a pair of hands, but then the creature crumbled onto its back.

  And he saw Iris.

  Immediately, the Hyde’s throat began to heal where she’d sliced it, so she picked up one of the angel’s wings and smashed it over its head. The creature moaned and squirmed along the ground as she rushed to where Elliot lay, thrust her hands inside his coat, and retrieved his gun from its holster. Without a word, she turned and hurried back to the writhing Hyde, shoved her boot against its face, and blasted its brainstem away.