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The smell wasn’t getting any easier to take.
There were rats everywhere, scuttling and scurrying and pausing now and then to bare their yellow teeth at us. Many were bigger by far than any rat had a right to be, and they didn’t seem nearly scared enough of us to suit me. I’ve got a bit of a thing about rats. Most just watched us pass from their holes and lairs, dark beady eyes gleaming malevolently. Molly amused herself by pointing her finger at those who got too close, whereupon they immediately exploded wetly in all directions at once. Girl Flower squeaked loudly every time this happened and finally stopped to pick up most of a dead rat and hold it close to her bosom.
"Poor little ratty."
"Oh, ick," said Molly.
"I am flowers, darling," Girl Flower said stubbornly. "And all dead things are compost to my pretty petals."
She slipped the rat carcass inside the front of her dress, and it immediately disappeared. Molly looked at me. "Think about that, the next time she invites you to unbutton her blouse."
I looked determinedly in another direction. "If she starts coughing up owl pellets, she’s going back."
We moved on, into the darkness. Tu
We stopped abruptly as Mr. Stab broke away from us to study a particular section of brick wall close up. I moved in beside him for a look, but it seemed no different from any other wall we’d passed. The curving surface ran with damp, as though sweating in the uncomfortable heat, and the original colour of the brick was lost under layers of accumulated filth and clumps of bulging white fungus. Mr. Stab ran his fingers caressingly over the surface, ignoring the thick residue that appeared on his expensively tailored gloves. My first thought was that it seemed there were definite limits to Molly’s protective field, and not to touch anything with my hands, but I was quickly distracted by the look on Mr. Stab’s face. He was smiling, and it wasn’t a very nice smile.
"I remember this place," he said, and something in his soft voice raised all the hackles on the back of my neck. "It’s been a long time since I was down here. I think they were still building this section then…I used to come here all the time, to get away from the bustle and noise of Humanity…Yes, I remember this place."
He pressed a particular brick, and it sank inwards with a loud click. Mr. Stab put all his weight against the wall, and a large section swung slowly inwards on concealed hinges. Only darkness lay beyond, and silence. Mr. Stab gestured sharply for Molly to come forward, and she thrust her illuminated hand into the new opening. We all crowded around, to see what was to be seen, but Mr. Stab couldn’t wait. He took Molly by the shoulder and urged her inside. They moved forward into the gloom, and Girl Flower and I followed close behind.
There was a room behind the brick wall, a very secret room. I stood still, just inside the entrance, held there by what I saw. I felt appalled, and sickened, and terribly angry. My first thought was that it looked like a ghastly doll’s house. The room had been fitted out as an old Victorian parlour. Heavy furniture, thick carpeting, stiff-backed chairs on either side of a long dining table, complete with heavy tablecloth, silver settings, and candlesticks. Even framed portraits on the walls.
Dead women sat in the chairs on either side of the long table, dressed in the fashions of widely varying times, all of the bodies in varying stages of decay. The enclosed setting had preserved them to some degree, but that only added to the horror. The dead women stared across the table at each other. Some had eyes; some did not. Some had faces; some did not. They all carried their death wounds openly, and there were so many of them…Some had the front of their dresses cut open, revealing bodies that had been hollowed out. A few held teacups in their clawed hands, as though they were all attending some hideous tea party.
"Hi, honey," said Mr. Stab. "I’m home."
Molly looked back at me. "I never knew about this, Eddie, I swear."
I stepped forward to stand between her and Mr. Stab. "This is sick! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now!"
"How many have you killed down the years, young Drood?" said Mr. Stab, not even looking at me. He moved slowly down the line of corpses, smiling slightly, trailing his fingers above the bowed heads, not quite touching them. "Could a room this size even contain all those you’ve cut down? I know; you were only obeying orders. You did what you did out of cold duty; at least I’m honest enough to enjoy what I do." He leaned over one gray shoulder to peer into a desiccated face. "I keep stashes of my victims all over London. In my secret hidden places, where no one will ever find them. I like to visit them, and…play with them. I enjoy the ambience, and the smell…Like coming home."
I looked at Molly. Her face was taut and strained, but the illuminated hand she held aloft was still steady. "What was that you said?" I murmured. "About monsters not being monsters all the time?"
"I never knew," she said. "Never even suspected…"
"You know nothing about me," said Mr. Stab.
He stood at the far end of the table, tall and proud like a typical Victorian patriarch, his chin held high and his eyes alight with a terrible regard. "You know nothing about what drives me to do the things I do. Once women fascinated me, and then they horrified me. Teasers, liars, betrayers. I took a proud vengeance upon them, hurting them as I had been hurt, and gained much in return…But now the only intimacy I can ever know is with my victims. That moment when their eyes meet mine, that little sigh as the blade penetrates…is all I have, now. When I was just begi
"You can’t kill him, Eddie," Molly said quietly. "You can’t. Not even your armour could undo what he did to himself."
"What about your magic?" I said.
"Don’t ask me that, Eddie. He has been my friend. He has done…good things, because I asked him to."
"Enough to make up for this? And all the other stashes we don’t know about?"
"Don’t ask me that. Not here."
Girl Flower floated prettily around the room, bending over withered shoulders to stare into corrupt faces, humming a happy song to herself.
"You shouldn’t let this get to you, darlings. All living things have their roots in dead things. It’s the way of the world." She slipped a hand inside her dress and frowned prettily for a moment, and when she brought her hand out again it was piled high with seeds. She walked up and down both sides of the long table, dropping a few seeds into the gaping mouths and empty eye sockets of every corpse. "Let new life bloom," she said. "It’s nature’s way."
Mr. Stab looked at her, and Girl Flower smiled happily back at him, entirely unafraid. And the man who was once called Jack by a whole horrified city nodded slowly.