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“I wanted to follow you home that night. Your brother…” He shrugged. “Let’s just say he wasn’t keen on the idea of you and I meeting. That’s why he sent you home with that annoying companion of his.” A smile flickered across his lips. “I don’t believe he ever fully trusted me. Wise of him. I hardly trust myself. I have these urges, you see. They’re like feral creatures. Do you know what it’s like, having something wild and untamed writhe about within you? To hunger for things that other men tremble from?”
His hands fisted at his sides as if he were fighting off the unholy transformation this very moment. I swallowed hard, my sense of flight taking over. If I did not strike out at him, I would not leave this murder castle alive.
“I yearn for blood the way most men yearn for wine and women. When I lie down at night, I imagine the ecstasy of witnessing life leave a person’s eyes. Being the one who decides who lives and dies is the most intoxicating feeling.”
His lids fluttered shut and he tilted his head back as if in the throes of passion. A moan escaped him, and the sound made me freeze. My heart urged me to run, but my mind commanded me to hold my position. I thought of predators in the animal kingdom, how whether hungry or not, if a creature ran from them, their hunting instincts took over.
For this hunter, my fear was his favorite perfume. He was doing all that he could to make me afraid. He needed my terror. And I would keep it from him out of spite.
“You see, I feel so very little. I often wonder if I am human at all.”
His gaze followed my slow procession, calculating and adjusting himself so I was never completely out of his reach. Though I was careful to not bump into the skeletons, the movement of my body was enough to disturb the space around them. Bones knocked together like macabre chimes. I gritted my teeth, refusing to be disturbed.
“Should I plunge my knife through your chest this moment, Miss Wadsworth, I’d feel nothing aside from pleasure, watching you bleed out. It’s an incredible sensation—so at odds with itself. The warmth of blood flowing as the body cools. The flame of life being snuffed out by death. It’s all so short-lived, though. The satisfaction never remains for long before hunger strikes again.”
“Is that why you killed so many so quickly in London?” I asked, hoping he’d admit his role as Jack the Ripper. I needed to hear him confirm it. “You strangled them and then carved them open, why?”
He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing behind his mask. I wondered if he was growing bored of entertaining me. He was still shadowing my movements, like we were two magnets rotating around a small circle. Soon he’d be near the vault. Though I was now closer to the incinerator again. I’d have to be quick to reach him before he got too far from there.
“Well?” I asked, letting impatience slip into my tone. “Why did you kill those women one way and begin murdering others here differently?”
“Oh, I’ve found the method of killing isn’t what excites me. It’s death. Whether I strangle someone or flay them open, exposing their innermost secrets, or watch as they slowly asphyxiate behind a closed door, it’s their pain, their inability to conquer death, that thrills me.” He pushed past a skeleton, not nearly as careful as I was while weaving through them. “I wanted to be enthralled by the thought of using body parts to conquer death and reanimate them, but I couldn’t. It was your brother’s dream, not mine.”
“What?” I whispered. I hadn’t been anticipating hearing about my brother just yet. My curiosity spun out of control. I needed to know how he was involved in all this.
And Dr. Holmes knew it.
A cruel smile touched his face. It was a calculated strike and it had hit its mark.
“Your brother and I didn’t share the same vision or desire. I’d hoped he might join me, but then I watched you and there was no doubt of your nature. I wanted you to be mine. Tell me, Miss Wadsworth, how many have you killed and then lied about?”
FIFTY-TWO
HEAVEN OR HELL
MURDER CASTLE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
19 FEBRUARY 1889
I could barely hear past the blood pounding through my ears. “I have never taken a life.” I snapped my mouth shut. He was testing for holes in my emotional armor, searching for another place to land a blow, to distract me. I had not murdered anyone, but I would kill him before this battle was through. I practically growled, “How did you know my brother?”
He inhaled. It was the sort of sound that alluded to a long story about to be told. Or perhaps he was frustrated his attempt to rattle me had been in vain. I imagined he’d envisioned this meeting a million times and it wasn’t living up to his fantasy.
What a pity that I should disappoint him so.
“Nathaniel and I met at a pub. He was openly hostile, never afraid of shedding his mask. His convictions were strong enough to be appealing. I watched him watch the women plying their trade, his disgust practically vibrating off him. Here was a man barely leashing his rage. He loathed the way prostitutes spread diseases. You should’ve heard the way he’d rant about their destruction of good families and all the religious nonsense he associated with sin.”
I had heard my brother speak of such wrong notions, and I knew how that hatred had started in him. After our mother died from scarlet fever, Nathaniel became obsessed with how disease spread. It was a fear my father had passed along to each of us, though I rallied against it by using science to refute his claims. Nathaniel’s solution had morphed from good intentions to a gnarled, ugly beast. He’d used that same fear to experiment, hoping to rid the world of death. He preyed on those he deemed to be the cause, and I would never condone what he’d done.
“I did understand him, though,” Holmes continued. “I recognized a part of myself in him. I knew what it was like, trying to fight against the darker urges. Watching him, the seed of an idea was planted. You see, I couldn’t find a good reason to prevent that thought from flourishing. Not that I tried too hard to stop it.”
He smiled, I assumed from recalling the imagery. If my hands weren’t otherwise occupied, I’d have curled them into fists. I wanted nothing more than to shred that smirk from his face. I all but forgot my purpose as I let the rage over my brother’s unfortunate encounter with this demon’s spawn consume me.
As if sensing my fury, he continued his twisted tale. “It didn’t take much grooming on my part to make him my creature. He was only too willing to follow me, playing spy while I let my blade sing. Well, now, not my blade, exactly. Your brother always lent me his when the time came. He wanted to belong. I gave him that comfort.”
Bile seared up my throat. “Did he… did he watch the murders?”
