The eyes of this man—sweet Lord, that newspaper boy was right. The Devil walked the streets at night. His eyes were missing—just two scorched holes gaping in pale flesh. Long, sharp, blackened teeth peeked behind his lips as he cocked its head, sniffing me.
My breath came in shallow gasps. Move, I told my body, but my bones had turned to stone.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. Regret burned inside me. If only I hadn’t gone to see Nellie Melba! If only my parentshadn’t listened to that doctor years ago, they’d have been alive, and my life would have been different.
Hurried steps and shouts from the main street startled the demon. He snapped his head toward something behind me. A sound followed one that made little sense, like clothes tearing. The sickening rip of fabric gave way to something worse—the wet, leathery slap of wings unfurling behind him. I stumbled backward, slipping in the mud.
A heartbeat before a dozen police officers flooded the back alleys, the creature spread a pair of black wings and took off.
When my knees buckled, and the men surrounded me, it vanished like a nightmare, consumed by the blood-and-smoke-filled night.
Daphne
“Abandon All Hope, ye who enter here”
“I
didn’t kill her, Arthur. There was a man—” Dread dried my throat; my voice cracked. I repeated what I saw hundreds of times, first to the police officers and then to my brother, who arrived shortly after. I crossed my shaking arms over my chest. Arthur hadn’t spoken a word since he got me into the carriage. He was just looking at me with wide, bloodshot eyes full of disdain. He wasn’t listening.
Sweet Mary and Joseph, what was he planning? He hadn’t hit me even once since he picked me up from Scotland Yard, though he had plenty of opportunities. He usually hit me where clothes covered the bruises, so I expected a punch in the ribs or a kick in the shin since we boarded the carriage. But he didn’t bother, as if he was saving his strength for what was coming later.
“He’d kill us both this time,” Tilly told me earlier. And the way he stared at me…
Pressing my trembling lips together, I looked outside. We’d been on the road for hours. Grey, dirty morning light filtered through the narrow window. That cursed mist still consumed the world, but I knew we had left London. The air had changed. Gone was the lingering reek of coal and horsemanure; trees reached with bony fingers and scratched the carriage we were sitting in.
Arthur was taking me somewhere away. Somewhere isolated, where he could finish me and bury me in an unmarked grave. I’d known this moment would come since that fateful night our parents drowned. He never stopped blaming me for the accident.
But now, I was stupid and reckless in giving him the perfect opportunity.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked. There was nothing to lose anymore.
To my surprise, he answered, his voice rough from the long night of drinking. “You’ll see soon enough.”
The monotonous sound of the wheels and the hooves faded into the mist. A loudkraaw kraawstartled me, and I peeked out. A metal fence with spikes stretched endlessly, and the carriage passed through a rusty gate, shaking over the uneven cobblestones. Leafless trees entwined in a dark canopy above us. The early spring hadn’t arrived here yet.
A specter emerged from the fog—a living cadaver reaching for us with a bony hand from the grave. It was a woman with pale lips, haunted eyes marked by dark circles, and tattered clothing. She cradled a bundle of rags close to her heart as if it were a child. Heavy shackles hung on her ankles, and I shuddered, noticing that her feet were bare.
“What is this place, Arthur? What are you going to do?” It was pointless to control my shaking. My whole body was trembling in terror, for I knew the answer too well.
“Something I should have done long ago, Daphne,” he rasped. “Something I was postponing since you murdered our parents.”
The carriage shook, stopping abruptly, and the door opened. Two short, strong women in white aprons and bonnets peeked in, their pristine, starched attire sprinkled with fine crimson droplets. Blood that clearly wasn’t theirs. My eyes darted from the strangers to my brother and back.
“Be careful!” Arthur warned. “She’ll fight. She always does.”
For once, I agreed with him, for I knew very well that as soon as this door locked behind me, I’d be as good as dead. Better take a clean way out. Kicking, pushing, and biting didn’t help much. The older nurse, with a terrifyingly strong grip forged by decades of experience, got me in a chokehold. Back dots danced before my eyes. I was suffocating in the smell of bleach and cheap meals from her apron while the other one shoved me into something—
“Let me go!” I screamed. It was a restraining jacket.
No, he couldn’t just—
“Doctor Vexley awaits you in his office, Lord Draymoore,” the younger said, her voice not even shaking.
“Let me go!” I cried, my lungs burning with the effort. Something hard was stuffed into my mouth and fastened at the back of my head, cutting off my scream.
Then they dragged me up the stairs into the cold grey building.
St. Dismas Asylum
