Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 31

31

The next morning…

Nellie

S weeney is waiting for me, whistling a hymn off-key as he paces the shop floor. My man is as chipper as a Labrador this morning; full of piss and vinegar, as my cunt father used to say.

He’s decided we’re stepping out, taking a walk like a regular couple. It’s unlike him, but the thought of walking through the park, my arm in his like the romantic couples I remember seeing as a child—it’s too delicious to spoil.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve developed airs, and to that end, I’ve spent money on fripperies: clothes, shoes, and hats. The other big expense has been bandages and sewing implements because now and again, one of us goes a bit too far.

More and more, I like to indulge in fantasies of improving our station in life. Not that I can see Sweeney chuckling cheek-by- jowl with the toffs, but the bourgeoisie is within reach if he doesn’t kill them all first.

It seems impossible that no one has asked us any questions, given the rate at which people are going missing, but the success of the pies brings a massive volume of potential stock through my doors, which means they tend to wander upstairs, too. Thus, Mr. T can afford to be picky, and so can I.

I sweep through to the shop and twirl, showing off my new red frock. Sweeney looks me up and down appreciatively.

“Lovely,” he says. “I’ll try not the shred it when I take it off you. Are you feeling better?”

How sweet of him to ask.

I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a carriage, my body aching all over as though every muscle had contracted at once and held the tension overnight. I had to bathe to ease it, and I winced at how my fresh cuts stung in the hot water.

“I do,” I reply, popping open my parasol and resting it on my shoulder. “So, where are we going? I thought we could go past that lady who does the flowers. I need to talk to her about the wedding set, see if we can get a good price for?—”

“Church,” he says, cutting me off. “We’re going to church.”

No. Fuck off and fuck you.

“That is bloody ridiculous,” I say. “What have you got to say to God?”

“Nothing much. He and I are not exactly sympatico.”

“So, why church ?” I ask. “Is there something wrong with you?”

“Yes. I would have thought that was obvious.”

He closes the space between us and takes my hand, dragging me to his side as we head for the door.

“We have to post the banns, treacle, and to do that, you have to at least pretend to be pious. And besides, I have an image to rehabilitate. Even the chastened elite don’t hide from God on Sundays, so this is our chance to check the lay of the land.”

“Sweeney, it’s done. Done , I tell you!”

I try to pull away, but it’s useless—his grip on me is too strong. “There is no Johanna, and someone out there still knows who you really are. What if the only reason they are yet to expose you is that you’re staying in your proper place?”

His face looms fast, inches from mine, and his jaw clenches. He draws a fingertip over the hollow of my neck.

“Is that a threat?” he whispers. “It sure as fuck sounds like one.”

He closes his fingers around my throat. “Do you have any thoughts of enlightening me about where my proper place is?”

A threat ? Oh sweet cunting Christ and the saints preserve me; why would he say that?

My pulse hammers under his palm. It’s fear, but not of the kind we cultivate between us, and a man like mine can tell the difference.

“Here with me, love,” I say, my voice hoarse. “That’s all I meant.”

He knows. No, does he fuck; if he did, we wouldn’t be going to church, that’s for damn sure.

He may be trying to resist picking a scab on his heart, knowing it may fester into a mortal wound, but he doesn’t know what I did to him.

I hold his gaze, forcing him to see the love in my eyes, and he releases me with a smile.

“I’m just playing, pet. Now, come along. I’ll concede it’s taking the piss somewhat, but you and I have ladders to climb, and seeing as His door is always open, where better to start than God’s house?”

To my surprise, the Church of the Apostles is still the province of one Pastor Sommers, a priest who was old as the hills when I was born and seems doomed to remain on Earth forever.

So many are cut down by disease or happenstance in their youth; it is ironic that a man with so much to look forward to in the hereafter persists in living.

Sommers greets his parishioners at the door, patting shoulders and bowing occasionally, but he has the look of a man who has lived too long by far.

His papery skin hangs in folds on the back of his neck, his white hair dancing in the breeze like a willow-the-wisp, and I try not to laugh as we reach him.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, sir,” the priest says, extending a shaky hand to Sweeney. “Peace be with you.”

Sweeney makes the correct overtures, but he’s not interested in Sommers. His eyes scan the pews, and he nudges me as we walk down the center aisle.

“There,” he hisses. “The bloody Beadle, no less, right up front with the gentry like the hypocrite he is.”

As Sommers takes his place at the lectern, Sweeney and I are forced to perch at the back, where the draught is particularly bitter.

The morning sunshine is strong and judgmental as it glows through the stained glass, and the attendees of Jesus’s Baptism seem to train their painted eyes on us.

Despite its larger-than-average size, the church has a smothering humidity, like sin in the atmosphere is creating its own smog.

Sommers clears his throat with a disgustingly productive cough and begins his homily.

At his side stands a choir boy of around eleven years old, the shadow of the lecturn casting him in darkness. He watches the cleric keenly, mindful of his master’s apparent propensity to wobble on the platform.

A cold, sick feeling grips me.

Beatrix said that a priest had taken kiddies into his home. Trained them for service and life as the bed-pets of perverted people, but is no longer in the game.

Is this the horrendous creature in question, and did he keep this one for himself?

I taste bile on the back of my tongue. Sommers talks about man’s essential humanity and imposes on his congregation the need to see suffering through the eyes of Christ.

A joke indeed; these are people for whom suffering is grist for the mill. And if this is the elderly ecclesiastic who shepherded the unfortunate Johanna through her misery, then I want to be a million miles away.

I glance at Sweeney, watching his face for signs that his thoughts align with mine. He isn’t paying the slightest attention to the sermon, of course; instead, his dark eyes bore into the back of the Beadle’s head as though he might be able to kill him stone dead with a murderous glare alone.

The Sunday message is received in pious silence, and at its conclusion, the assembly stands. The organ starts up as Sommer’s boy vanishes into a side room, taking the heavy Bible with him, and the priest leads us in a full-throated rendition of All Things Bright and Beautiful.

My man can sing, it turns out, and I’m surprised to hear him carry the song evenly in a fine baritone.

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them, high or lowly,

And ordered their estate…

Not so for Mr. T and me.

We are on our way up, out of the gutter, even if we have to stand on a thousand stacked-up corpses to see over the heads of our so-called betters.