40

To some party . . . somewhere on High Street.

Hans’s words beat a frantic rhythm to Molly’s footsteps. How could she have been so stupid?

Our city’s very own Jezebel. Tattooed with the devil’s own mark.

LaValle must have found out about her through Ursula’s misguided snitching, but it was Molly’s fault. It was Molly who had led him there, who had led the Knifeman right to the door of her friend.

No.

Surely there was still time. There had to still be time.

Puddles caught at the hem of her dress, soaking the fabric and weighing her down. Plants reached out at her from the large overstuffed urns while the horrendous statues leered at her from the dark. She felt like she was running through hell itself.

Gasping, she forced herself to run faster. Along the footpath, lanterns had been lit, and she followed them to the church.

The door was locked.

Of course it was. The doctor had already lost one body; he would not risk losing another.

She sank against it with despair.

“Molly!”

Behind her, she heard footsteps crunching on gravel, and then there was Tom. Following closely came James and Ursula.

“What’s going on?” Tom sank beside her, taking her hand.

“It’s Ginny,” she whispered to them. Then, her voice rising, “That’s his Jezebel—he’s taken Ginny and killed her! Dr. LaValle is the Knifeman!”

James stared at her, face white. “What? But surely—”

“We have to get inside! The keys, James!” She had no time for explanations now.

James fumbled in his breast pocket. “I don’t have the keys.” His face fell in disappointment. “I already gave them back to LaValle. I’m sorry, Molly.”

Tom gently moved her aside. “I didn’t make my way as a body snatcher without learning how to pick a few locks.”

The others watched silently as Tom pulled a pin from Molly’s hair, twisted it, and then inserted it into the lock. He worked for several seconds.

Molly’s nose flooded with the sweet scent of rose as Ursula sank down beside her. “Is Ginny one of your friends?” she asked gently. “One of the girls I told him about?”

Molly nodded, unable to speak.

“Then this is my fault!” Ursula’s voice climbed in distress. “I’m so sorry. I never would have told the doctor if I thought he’d hurt someone.”

Ursula’s useless apology grated at Molly’s ear. She returned her gaze to the lock, Tom’s pale hand worrying against it as ineffectively as a moth at a paned window.

Dr. LaValle was a monster, and now he’d taken not just a life but a friend.

From behind them, voices sounded in the distance, gravel crunching beneath dozens of eager feet—the lecture was about to begin.

“We have to stop them,” Ursula said. But she stood motionless, staring toward the approaching shadows.

It was hopeless. Molly knew that this night would go on no matter what she did. Dr. LaValle would find a way.

From behind her, Tom gave a final, angry grunt and then a choked cry of triumph.

Hardly daring to believe, Molly flung herself against the door. It groaned open, and she fell inside.

Stillness swallowed her whole.

The room was filled with candles, and never had there been a moment when it looked more like a church. Or a tomb. The flames flickered off the stained-glass windows, sending eerie prisms of colored light into the surrounding blackness. The scent of ancient dust mixed with the fresher, coppery scent of blood.

The clutter of student tables had been removed so that now the pews had a clear view to the single operating table in the room’s center. On it lay a supine figure, covered in a sheet.

“Ginny!” Molly rushed forward. She flung back the cover, praying it was some other girl, some other body. She had already lost Kitty. She could not lose Ginny too.

But there was no mistaking the angelic figure beneath it.

Golden hair curled in soft swirls about Ginny’s still neck. Her face had been carefully made up with an expert’s hand, so that it looked like she was a painting of herself. Her lips were jeweled the finest ruby, cheeks lightly blushed with a soft pink so that they glowed in a cruel imitation of health.

It was easy to imagine a hundred men falling in love with a girl like this, a thousand princes begging for her hand, just like the story Dr. LaValle had told his enraptured audience. LaValle could easily spin this event to be as thrilling as the dissection of any giant. The titillating spectacle of an unusual girl, in the prime of her beauty, ready to be cut up, piece by piece.

Tonight, in this city gripped by a madman, they would all get to be the Knifeman.

And to set this victim apart from all other women, even the Knifeman’s other kills, was the body itself. Molly pulled the sheet farther back and cried out.

She’d seen the beautiful tattoo of the snake wrapped around the apple, its green skin glittering against the ruby of the forbidden fruit, but uncovered, Molly saw now that Ginny’s tattoos did not end there. Every inch of the girl that a dress might hide, including her thighs and legs, was covered in the most beautiful drawings Molly had ever seen. Here in the church, she was a dangerous echo to the stained-glass windows, the bejeweled invitation to sin against the heavenly promise of salvation.

The tableau could not have been more perfectly set for a show—and Dr. LaValle, in his devil-red velvet suit, had known it. Each quick knife nick of skin would be a feat as thrilling as if the audience itself had been allowed to penetrate Ginny. And all the while would be the unspoken judgment that she deserved it. The audience would need only to look at her skin, her body, her job. Most of them had never even seen a tattoo before, and almost certainly no one in the room had ever seen one on a woman. Like the priests with Kitty, the onlookers tonight would believe Ginny had been born with the devil inside. Cutting her open, LaValle would simply be looking for where that devil hid.

“Molly,” Tom said softly. “We should go.”

Outside, the footsteps grew louder, drunken voices lifted in eager anticipation.

Molly clenched her fists. No. She would not allow it. She may not have been able to save her friend’s life, but she would not let Ginny’s body be cut up for some parlor trick, hacked into pieces for amusement, the inked bits floating, like Kitty, in a jar.

Wrapping her arms around her friend’s shoulders—she could swear they were still warm—she tried to lift the body.

“Stop!” Tom begged. “Please. It won’t do her any good.”

Molly brushed his voice away as one might an irritating fly. Pulling the heavy body toward her, she embraced her friend as Ginny had once embraced her. She sank her head against the dead breast, seeking its familiar scent—the warm, living smell of sweet onion and bread that spoke of the comforts of home.

It was gone. Erased completely.

Instead, only the intense scent of peppermint remained, the same smell Molly remembered wafting from Ginny’s room. Dr. LaValle must have been eating his never-ending operating candies when he paid her to come here and then killed her, the scent as distinct as a fingerprint.

“I won’t leave her,” Molly whispered.

“Then let me help you.” James moved beside her. Tom, too, stepped in, and now the three of them lifted together.

Ginny’s body rose from the table, and with it a nearly imperceptible noise sounded—the barest issue of a sigh.

Molly let go, unable to bear this final trick of death, the whisperings of the dead air.

It was madness, but . . .

“Wait.” Carefully, she pulled back one of Ginny’s eyelids. Then the other. The eyes stared up at her, perfectly blue. Turning the girl’s head gently to the side, Molly waited.

Ginny’s gaze stayed steady.

“She’s alive.” Molly’s words were a bare whisper.

She turned the girl’s head again. Once again, the bright-blue eyes stared straight ahead.

Outside, the voices grew louder.

“Molly,” Tom pleaded. “We have to go.”

But she did not move. “She’s alive.” Louder this time. “The doll’s eye test,” she said to James. “Her eyes didn’t move. Ginny’s alive!”

---

Molly could now hear Dr. LaValle’s teasing cry to the crowd for patience.

She laid two fingers across Ginny’s lips and felt the faintest stirrings of breath.

“We haven’t much time.” Her face grew serious. “It won’t make any difference if she’s breathing or not once the doctor gets in front of the crowd.”

She thought of the dog, completely still as the doctor removed a piece of its flesh, and shivered. Dr. LaValle could just as easily finish killing Ginny in front of an audience as without—no one would ever know.

From behind them came the groan of the heavy church door opening.

“If we try to move her now, he’ll stop us,” James said. “He’ll say we’re stealing the body, and I guarantee there’ll be no doll’s eye test then to prove him wrong. He won’t give us the chance.”

Frantic, Molly searched Tom’s face. “The man in the pub. Do you remember?”

His brow wrinkled in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“We’ll carry her out. Just as we did him. Walk her between us like she’s a lady who’s had too much to drink. As soon as the crowds come in, they won’t notice us at all.”

“But even if we move her, they’ll see the table’s empty.” James looked worriedly over his shoulder.

It was true. And it would be the first thing LaValle would check for.

“Then it won’t be empty.” For the first time, Ursula spoke. Without warning, she began pulling her gown over her head.

“What are you doing?” James stared, mouth agape.

Ursula didn’t bother answering. Standing in her undergarments, she thrust the dress at Molly. “Put this on her.”

She took it, forcing Ginny’s horribly still arms through the sleeves.

Ursula crawled on top of the table, pulling the sheet over her thin chest. “Use my carriage,” she said to James. “Get her to a hospital.”

“What about you?”

Ursula laughed, and a wicked smile traveled to her face, lighting her violet eyes. “I’ve had plenty of practice playing dead at Mama’s meetings. At least it will buy you some time.”

James looked at her appreciatively, as if seeing her for the first time.

Tom wrapped an arm around Ginny’s waist and moved her now fully dressed body toward the shadows. He motioned to Molly. “Let’s go.”

But Molly didn’t move. “Have James help you. Get her to the hospital. Then go to the police.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

She shook her head. “If the doctor could do this to Ginny, he’s capable of anything.” She had not seen Ava all night. Not even at the party. And in that instant, the tiny warning bell of alarms became a full-fledged siren. “I need to find my aunt. Warn her.”

No matter what, you mustn’t let the doctor know what’s happened.

“Wait, and I’ll come with you,” Tom said. “I’ll get them to the carriage, come back for you. I’ll . . .”

“There’s no time. Ava will be the first person the doctor will look for when he discovers all this.”

Or had looked for already.

She would not let her mind finish that horrible thought.

Tom pressed something cold into her hand. “Then take this. Promise me you’ll use it if you have to.”

It was the surgeon’s knife, the red ribbon still wrapped around its handle.

She took it.

“I won’t hesitate,” she promised. “Tonight the doctor’s going to pay for what he’s done.”