Queen Victoria Vs… Chapter 13
Miss Nightingale’s hands closed around the heavy crimson velvet and, with a deep, ragged gasp, she yanked the curtains aside.
On the other side, a room opened out before her, the walls and floor twisted and swayed in a swirling maelstrom that caused the mutton she’d eaten for lunch to tumble over itself inside her stomach. A heavy, suffocating cloud of incense and jasmine stung her eyes raw. Tears blurred her vision and, mingling with the gritty soot that coated her face, ran down her cheeks in jet black droplets.
Blinking away the tears, Miss Nightingale watched as the creature within rose to face them. Its naked body twisted and jerked as it stood, its joints clicking rhythmically. Sallow skin, covered with patchy, mange-ridden fur, stretched taut against its skeletal frame.
What had she been thinking?
Barging in like that was a dreadful mistake. Another foolish, hasty move. She knew it the second she saw Miao’s green eyes glaring at her through the dim light.
Inside her boots, Miss Nightingale’s toes curled, gripping the hard leather soles. Her knuckles turned bone white as her hands balled into tight, trembling fists. She was ready to defend herself.
But how on earth was she supposed to defend herself against this creature? She had no idea, but she was braced for the violent pounce that she knew was coming.
It was an attack that never came.
Miao never lunged forward. Instead, she stumbled, her feet tangling in a discarded pile of pink silk. Falling backwards, she landed in a heap on the pulsating stone floor.
Her eyes lifted, settling on Miss Nightingale while a constant tremor racked her body.
“Why are you here?” Miao rasped in a grating voice. “What do you want?”
Miss Nightingale spared a swift glance towards Miss Kelly, who returned the same wide-eyed, puzzled look that she herself must have carried.
In front of them, the formidable creature was cowed, quivering on the stone.
“We’ve come to take Mr Dickens back,” Miss Nightingale said, forcing her voice, low and steady.
“This one is mine by rights,” came a frantic hiss from the floor. “My debts are all settled.”
The sharp clack of Miss Nightingale’s boots echoed loudly in the silence of the vast chamber as she took a step towards Mr Dickens. He lay slumped across a pile of crimson velvet cushions, their gold cord edging seemingly glowing in the dim, ethereal light.
Shivering, Miao shrank away from the soot-covered nurse, pressing her bare form prostrate into the cold floor.
Bending over Mr Dickens, Miss Nightingale slipped her arms under his and hauled him up. His mouth hung open as his vacant gaze brushed over her. A stray trickle of saliva traced a wet path through the wiry bristles of his beard. Letting out little more than the slightest grunt of effort, she hoisted the dead weight of his body upright, his legs dragging limply beneath him.
She had lifted far bigger than him between stretchers and the operating tables of the Crimean wards.
Her eyes flickered to the doorway. Mr Crackit and Mr Sikes couldn’t be far behind now; soot and camphor would only keep the dog at bay for so long. She would need to find another way out, and quickly.
Something was off about this room. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something not right, something missing. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this either. Every room she had been in felt the same, but she couldn’t quite fathom out what it was.
It mattered not. She had to get Mr Dickens to safety. She didn’t have time for idle speculation.
“Miss Kelly,“ she snapped. “Is there any other way out of here?”
“Yes, Miss. There’s an old service passage behind those silks at the back.”
“Humans!” a voice, like dry leaves skittering over an autumn pavement, hissed sharply, snatching Miss Nightingale’s attention.
Miao glared up at them. Her eyes twitched, glowing and flaring like pools of emerald fire, the pupils as narrow as a scalpel’s edge. Her lips drew back into a gruesome snarl. Sharp, yellowing teeth glinted in the shifting light of the stars overhead.
“You’re no demons, you’re just filthy humans,” she said, stepping forward with claws flashing from her fingertips. “Two females, nonetheless. The males can be… entertaining. The females I have no care for, not alive at least.”
Miss Nightingale scanned the room for any means of escape. Behind was the main corridor and a promise of a what would certainly be a most unpleasant encounter with Mr Sikes and Mr Crackit. In front of her were Miao’s claws.
The creature prowled forward, her eyes gleaming with predatory hunger. Her dagger-like claws retracting slowly into her fingertips, only to snap out again like a set of spring-loaded switchblades.
“Stay back from us, you hideous creature!” Miss Kelly’s shrill voice pierced the silence.
Miao let out a vicious laugh.
“Hideous!” she spat, baring her teeth as her twin tails flicked dangerously behind her. “You call me hideous, do you, female? I am the embodiment of beauty. I am grace and elegance. I am absolute perfection.”
That wrongness tugged at Miss Nightingale’s mind once again. Something was profoundly out of place. But why worry about such a triviality right then? With no means of escape, surely it was the last thing that mattered.
Only it did matter, and suddenly the realisation crashed into her with blinding clarity.
Mirrors! Or the lack of them.
There were no mirrors. What sort of house of vice wouldn’t be adorned with mirrors? It wasn’t as if Miss Nightingale was intimately acquainted with such establishments, but if there was one thing she did know, it was women. Why would creatures so vain, so self-obsessed with their own powdered skin and painted lips as these Blossoms, not possess so much as a single looking glass?
“Miss Kelly?” she whispered sharply. “Do you so happen to have a mirror about your person?”
“Yes, Miss, but why–“
“I don’t have time to explain. Give it to me! Now, girl!”
With fingers trembling violently against the soot-stained fabric of her robe, Miss Kelly pulled out a small, silver-backed hand mirror. Miss Nightingale snatched it from her grip and, not sparing a glance at her own reflection, turned it on the advancing creature.
“Gaze upon your own beauty,” she commanded.
“No!” the creature hissed. “Put it away!”
“Get to the service passage. Get Mr Dickens out of here; I’ll follow you up. Go now!” Miss Nightingale ordered sharply over her shoulder.
After giving the girl a firm nudge, she turned her full attention back to Miao. Stepping into the creature’s space, she thrust the silvered glass closer. “Look at yourself, Miao! Behold the ugly, wretched creature that you truly are!”
Miao unleashed an utterly chilling wail. Blinded by the horror of her own appearance, she recoiled in a frenzied rage. Slashing at the silk wall hangings, her curved talons shredded the fine thread into tattered ribbons.
“C’mon Mr Sikes, I reckon we’ve nearly got ‘em.” Mr Crackit’s voice thundered from just outside the room.
Miss Nightingale glanced towards the service passage just as Miss Kelly dragged the stumbling Mr Dickens into the dark opening.
Letting the mirror fall to the floor, she bolted after them and into the shadows.
Charles doubled over, a spluttering, ragged cough tearing through his chest. The heady scent of opium and jasmine was gone. Instead, his lungs choked on the stench of dirt and horse manure.
He blinked rapidly against the morning light as the Lotus Blossom and that divine creature vanished before his eyes. It was as if he’d been plucked from a truly delightful dream and dumped into the middle of a midden heap.
The clatter of iron-shod hooves filled the air, and the squat, yellow brick facades of the mews rose up around him, under a bruised, purple morning sky.
“Mr Dickens!” he heard Florence calling out in a breathless voice.
“What in heaven’s name is going on, Florence?” he gasped, gawping in bewilderment at the face of the soot-stained girl. A girl who was usually so immaculate. “Look at the state of you! What the blazers have you been doing and why are we stood out here? We should be in the Lotus Blossom gathering information.”
“We have all the information we require, Mr Dickens,” she replied flatly.
What was the silly girl going on about? They didn’t know anything. If only he’d had a few more minutes with that charming Miao… he had her wrapped around his little finger. She was about to tell him everything.
“I’ll explain it all when we get back to the Palace,” Florence muttered with a heavy sigh. “But tell me one thing, do the names Mr Sikes and Mr Crackit mean anything to you?”
Well, of course he knew Mr Sikes and Mr Crackit, not very pleasant fellows at the best of times.
“Certainly, they’re Fagin’s roughs.”
“Fagin?” Florence repeated. The Rat King? If his men are over this side of the city, then the truce truly had been broken. “We need to speak to Her Majesty, and quickly.”