Page 89 of The Last Necromancer
Wine bottles lay on shelves to the left, most covered in dust. Sacks of flour huddled in the back corner, some empty crates beside them. Cook sat Holloway on one.
"How did you know where to find me?" I asked.
"You thought yourself clever." He laughed harshly. "You were seen leaving the cemetery."
"By whom?"
"By someone you have wronged before. Did you visit my beloved? Did her spirit talk to you, tell you that you revolt her?"
"That's not how it works." I wasn't going to try to explain my necromancy to him. Besides, I was curious about the person I'd wronged before. "Do you mean the costermonger?"
"He recognized you. You think a dress changes you, but it doesn't. The devil's creature is always recognized by the pure."
I snorted. "If this is the same costermonger who alerted the police to me, then he's anything but pure. I saw him fondling a whore one night, behind his cart. I believe he's married." It didn't surprise me that the costermonger recognized me that day when I left the cemetery with Fitzroy. He knew me well; I'd walked past his cart many times and stolen from him more than once. Holloway must have realized I would visit my adopted mother's grave and questioned him.
"Wait here," Cook ordered.
"The devil get you," Holloway hissed.
"One day. But not today. I be too busy."
Holloway's teeth ground audibly. "You'll burn in hell for this."
"No," I told him. "The bible preaches forgiveness. I will forgive you for this, in time, but you seem unable to forgive me for being born differently. Which of us deserves God's love?"
I walked away. It was only then that I saw the iron chains dangling from rings attached to the walls. I wondered if Cook had the keys to them. If so, he didn't chain Holloway up, but simply locked the door.
"I'll see to his wound," Cook said. "You rest."
Rest. I was too on edge to rest. Cook found a salve for me to use on my throat and I tied a clean bandage around the cut to protect it from my collar. I washed the dishes next, while he tended to Holloway's injury. I had to remember to thank him. If it hadn't been for the burly cook, I'd be dead.
That thought troubled me for the rest of the day. Holloway wasn't a large man, yet he'd completely overpowered me. And then there was the homeless fellow who'd almost raped me, the men in the holding cell… Too many times, I'd come close to either losing my life or my virginity. Today was one time too many. I couldn't rely on someone else being nearby to help me. One day my luck would run out, and I would be alone and helpless.
It was time to stop being helpless and learn to fight off attackers. Somehow.
The day went by slowly. Fitzroy and the others didn't return for lunch or dinner, and when darkness fell, I was sick with worry. Cook was no help. He insisted they always returned after such ventures, occasionally harmed and exhausted, but always alive.
But what if today was the day their luck ran out? What if Frankenstein had discovered them and captured them? While it seemed unlikely—three against one—I couldn't shake the anxiety needling at me.
I told Cook I was going to bed early. Instead, I changed into my boys' clothing when I returned to my room. Sometime in the previous days, the trousers, shirt and jacket had been cleaned, folded and put away in my dresser. I unpinned my hair and dragged the long fringe over my face. A familiar boy stared back at me in the mirror, and I offered him a smile. Charlie wasn't as afraid as Charlotte. He was tougher, more resourceful, and fleet-footed. It was good to walk in his boots again.
Cook kept to the kitchen so it was easy to sneak out the front door. It was a long walk to the docks, over an hour, but the night was dark, and nobody saw me as I crept through the shadowy lanes to Wapping.
It wasn't an area I knew particularly well and there were more warehouses than I realized. Fitzroy had said Frankenstein's was behind the larger dock-side ones, so I ran down streets and looked for windows that were covered. At each one, I paused and listened. When I heard nothing, I moved on.
After another hour, I was beginning to think I'd missed the right warehouse altogether, but then I spotted one at the end of a lane with a crack of light edging the window covering. I squatted beneath the window and listened. Only a faint humming came from inside. Not human, musical humming, but machine-like.
The window was locked; the door, too. A quick check showed there was no other way in through the front. I traversed back up the lane, past the row of joined warehouses, until an even smaller lane cut through the row. I scrambled over the gate and landed softly on the other side. The rear of the row was fenced off with gates providing access to loading yards behind each warehouse. I ran to the last one and tried to open it. Locked. Using a discarded crate as a step, I climbed over the top. My landing was as silent as all my movements had been so far. I may not have been able to fight off an attacker, but I'd been the best thief in the gang. None of the boys could match my combination of agility, speed and lightness. Dressing as a boy again reminded me of that. It was a skill I must remember to harness and use when necessary.
Now, it was vital.
The rear window was covered like the front. I squatted beneath it and listened. The humming sounded louder, like an engine coming to life. Then suddenly there was a crack, like lightning without the light.
I peeked through the window and had to cover my mouth to smother my gasp. Fitzroy had told us about the bodies of Frankenstein's creations, but seeing the six pale, scarred forms strapped to the chairs was far more gruesome than anything I'd imagined. The flickering light from a dozen candles revealed raw, ridged cuts across their chests, throats and foreheads, sewn up like seams. Blue veins formed intricate webs beneath their ghostly skin, and dark bruises circled their eyes. They were alive. I knew that much from the veins, yet they were utterly still.
So why the thick leather straps pinning their ankles and wrists to the chairs? And what kinds of chairs were made entirely of metal and had wires connecting them to a central machine? The humming and cracking came from that device. It was so loud now that any noise I made would not have been heard by Frankenstein inside.
He bent over another body, lying on a table at the far end of the warehouse. There were two more bodies on separate tables, their feet pointed toward me. Their ankles were strapped down too, but I couldn't see if their wrists were bound from my squatting position at the rear window.
