“Oh dear,” he said, dropping the musket to the ground. “I seem to have hit him in the posterior vena cava. I do believe that will be a fatal wound.”
“Christ in chains,” Mornaday muttered. He swung his revolver to de Clare. “You and your man. Drop your weapons and against the wall.”
De Clare grinned. “I think not, lad. There’s one of you and two of us.”
The little clock on the mantel began to chime, but I could not make sense of it, for time had frozen. We were a tableau: Pennybaker, horrified at his own actions, standing in rigid disbelief; De Clare and Quiet Dan opposite Mornaday, alone and outnumbered and attempting to hold them off.
And most significant of all, Stoker, lying on the hearthrug, his life’s blood pooling beneath him.
It was easy to see what would happen next. De Clare and his minion would open fire on Mornaday first, then Pennybaker. They would finish off Stoker and take me prisoner and that would be the end—the end of my life as I had known it, the end of my love.
I bent as if to look at Stoker, but I came up almost immediately. The gesture was simply a way to shield my movements as I slipped the knife from my boot. Once before, Stoker had lain bleeding from a bullet and I had thrown a knife straight into the heart of his attacker. This time, I did not throw it. I surged forward, blade in hand, and my aim was true. I buried the knife where I intended, in my uncle’s torso, pulling it up and sharply to the left as he stared at me, his expression one of complete disbelief. For a long moment we were locked together, his arms coming up to grip mine, almost in an embrace. And then he eased his hold on me, slipping from my grasp with a little shudder that gave way to perfect and final stillness.
Quiet Dan fired once, hitting Mornaday in the shoulder, droppinghim to the floor. Beyond where Mornaday had stood, framed in the windows, was my dance partner, the female liveried and masked porter from Madame Aurore’s, the deerhound Vespertine at her heels, a rifle hefted to her shoulder. Without breaking stride, she fired twice in quick succession, taking out Quiet Dan. Mornaday slumped on the carpet, grasping his bleeding shoulder.
He gazed in disbelief at the porter, who surveyed the room, rifle still at the ready.
“I told you to wait in the carriage,” Mornaday sputtered.
“And I told you this was my story,” said the porter, removing the powdered wig and her mask. She bowed in my direction. “Miss Speedwell, how nice to make your acquaintance once more,” said J. J. Butterworth. She peered at Stoker. “Mr. Templeton-Vane does not look at all well.”
“He must have a doctor,” I said, falling to my knees.
Mr. Pennybaker roused himself. “Let me see.”
He pushed me gently aside and began to probe the wound. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. “He needs a doctor.”
His gaze was placid as a millpond as he began to order J. J. Butterworth about, fetching instruments and implements. I continued to stare at him, my hands streaked with Stoker’s blood. After a moment, he glanced up at me. “Did I not tell you, my dear? I am a retired professor of surgery from Edinburgh University. I learnt my trade on the battlefields of Crimea. I am rather familiar with this sort of thing.”
I sagged in relief then. Guiltily, my attention settled on Mornaday, still clutching his bloodied shoulder. “You are wounded as well. You should have treatment.”
“It is a flesh wound,” he assured me. “Bloody bullet went right through.” He glanced down at the recumbent form of my uncle. “More than I can say for him. One of the Ripper’s victims wasn’t cut as badly as that,” he said, his expression one of mingled distaste and approval.
“I wanted him to know that I meant it,” I said dully.
He put a heavy hand to my shoulder and for the first time I realized his brows were white, heavy and unnatural. The odor of spirit gum and licorice still clung to him. “Of all the fiendish stratagems,” I breathed. “You were the porter outside Madame Aurore’s rooms. You are the one who brought her body to the Belvedere.”
He nodded. “There is much to tell. But later. When he can hear it too,” he added with a nod towards Stoker.
I returned the nod and went to help Mr. Pennybaker, mastering my shaking hands and the dull certainty that if anything were to happen to Stoker, life would not be worth living.
The next hours were not ones I remember with any great fondness. There was blood—a great deal of it—and copious swearing, both on Stoker’s part. He came to once or twice before Mr. Pennybaker, a gifted and courageous surgeon, managed to employ the necessary anesthetics. He administered ether with a liberal hand and Stoker finally slept, a calm and motionless sleep that mimicked death. Mr. Pennybaker, having received his training on the battlefield during the Crimean War, was just as comfortable performing surgery on his dining room table as he would have been in hospital, he said.
“And a man is as likely to die of dysentery or typhoid as his wounds in such a place,” he added calmly. “We will attend to him here so long as you can provide me with a steady hand and a strong nerve.”
I did as I was told, handing over instruments newly boiled and still hot from the pan, wiping his brow as he worked, never asking questions or daring to look beyond the ends of my own arms. I moved like an automaton, at his bidding, with no mind of my own save what he needed of me.
Mornaday was there, patiently waiting his turn, and J. J. Butterworth as well. We worked, this curious band, as one unit, with the surprising Mr. Pennybaker as our leader, giving orders in a calm,authoritative manner. He was patient with us, and because he displayed no nerves, we were able to do things we could not have even imagined. J. J. was quietly sick into a potted palm in the corner at one point, but she rallied and returned, and in that moment, I realized we were destined to be allies for the rest of our lives. Mornaday, whose loyalties had so often been tested, was the greatest help of all. Before Stoker was thoroughly sedated, he was in a mind to fight, and it was Mornaday who sat on his legs and held him down, even as the wound in his own shoulder opened and the blood flowed freely.
When it was finished and the last bandage had been tied and the last pool of blood had been mopped, Stoker lay, pale and unresponsive, as immobile as one of Madame Tussaud’s own creations. Ether, that glorious insensate elixir, was slowly being pumped from a bottle through a rubber mask over his face. It was J. J.’s task to squeeze the balloon on the bottle at regular intervals to ensure the anesthesia’s delivery.
I looked at Stoker’s face, a curious marble cast to it that I had never seen before.
“It is the ether,” J. J. said knowledgeably. “He will come around soon enough when Mr. Pennybaker removes the mask.”
“How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “I have nursing experience.”
