Razors & Ruin (Rare Horrors #1)

Chapter 35

35

Sweeney

W hen I arrive, the parsonage door is ajar, and I slide through the gap like a snake. The polite formalities of society have no place here.

I step into the dim hallway, lit only by a low lamp. The smell hits me first—oldness. Dust, parchment, gruel.

A meager life, but why? Undoubtedly, the man was paid handsomely for the terrible things he did. Perhaps it’s a facade to maintain the appearance of God’s humble servant.

My hand twitches toward the razor in my pocket. The handle is smooth and warm against my palm, like it’s alive, anticipating what’s to come.

I will enjoy making this disgusting man bleed for his crimes; even I, with my soul steeped in pain and degradation, never stooped as low as he did.

There’s a creak of floorboards in the distance, slow and deliberate. Sommers appears on the landing above, a bundle in his hands, his frame even frailer in the weak light.

Death is at the door, but he hasn’t knocked yet. A shame—he should’ve come by years ago, but I’m here now to make amends for his tardiness.

“Dear God,” Sommers exclaims. “It is you. I wasn’t sure this morning, but here you are. Currer Brook.”

The sound of my old name on his lips sets my teeth on edge. He fucking recognized me, but from where? And is that why he was ready to flee, knowing I would come?

I dart up the stairs, pulling the razor from my coat. The old man can’t draw a deep enough breath for a scream, nor wheel around fast enough to run, and I shove him to the ground.

I stand over him, blade unsheathed, blood rushing in my ears.

No. See it through.

“I heard all about you, old man,” I say, my voice venomous. “You took my Johanna and stole her innocence. The Beadle told me so.”

He frowns. “ Your Johanna?”

I brandish the razor at his stricken face. “I searched high and low for the truth, and all roads led to you. So spill your guts, you degenerate bastard, or rest assured; I will.”

To my surprise, Sommers doesn’t flinch. His eyes, cloudy with age, still hold a sharpness that unsettles me. He’s too calm. Too composed.

“Put the blade away, Mr. Todd,” he says, rolling onto unsteady feet. “You’ll find no satisfaction in killing me.” He gestures to a small sitting room off the landing. “Come. We should talk.”

The urge to drive the sharp edge into his throat is almost overwhelming, but something about his demeanor stops me in my tracks.

I am the lock and he is the key. If I don’t stop and take heed this time, there will be places within I can never go, and in those places, something will forever fester, rotting me from the inside out.

I follow him into the room, and Sommers sits heavily in an armchair.

“You want to know the truth about Johanna.”

I don’t sit. I can’t. My blood is too caustic, and my veins are like barbed wire. Instead, I stand by the fireplace, razor in hand, the metal flaring against my skin.

“She didn’t die in the workhouse fire,” I say. “I know that much. But what happened after? Where is she? Tell me now, or I swear I’ll?—”

“You won’t find peace in her,” Sommers interrupts, his voice infuriatingly calm. “She’s not yours to find.”

“How dare you!” I yell, taking a step closer. “You did unspeakable things to her. Made her into a plaything for?—”

He shakes his head. “I did not , sir. I love her dearly, with all my heart, but as a father should love a child.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The workhouse children did indeed come to me,” he says. “I heard that Wetherby and his ilk were looking for help to move the young ones to places no child should go. I volunteered, but never with the intention of going along with it.”

I sink into a chair. These are obviously lies, but oh, how I want to believe.

“I spent my family’s fortune on hiding them,” he continues. “They lived with me a little while, for appearance’s sake, but the wealthy perverts who coveted them were an invention.

Instead, I sent them to seminaries, orphanages. Gave my own money in fees to Wetherby, the Beadle, and others who were in on the racket. Of course, I could only take a certain number, and many poor things were not so lucky.”

Could it be ? I never imagined my daughter’s life could have been thus so charmed. With all the corruption and filth in the world stacked against her, did the stars smile on my little girl and give her blessed sanctuary?

“If what you say is true, where is my child?” I ask.

Sommers leans forward, his hands on his knees. He studies my face with eyes that have seen terrible things, maybe even worse than mine.

He will go to his God with the way before him clear and bright. This priest does not fear the hereafter.

“Do you not wonder why I know you?” he asks. “Gerald and Veronica Cope were regulars at my church. Veronica was a tortured, frightened girl when I met her, newly pregnant and so terribly afraid. She came to me one night after evensong and begged for counsel.”

My mind recoils at the mention of Veronica’s name, at the thought of her whispering her secrets.

“She told me of your indiscretion. How it’d started so passionately, and like any young, inexperienced thing, she thought it was love.

But you got possessive, controlling. Too close, too much, all the time. She wanted to end the affair, but you would not abide it. When she discovered she was with child, she was delighted, despite her fear.”

The splinters in my mind are back, sharper than any razor, jabbing deep into my psyche and slashing the veil that shields me from the void.

I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught as images flicker behind my closed lids, too bright, too vivid.

“Leave us alone, Currer! Just go. I’ll tell Gerald some lie, but I want you gone.”

“I will never abandon you and our child. It’s you, me, and Johanna, always.”

“You’re insane! Look at her! Her blonde hair, her bright blue eyes! Can’t you see she’s ? —”

My eyes fly open again, cutting off the fractured memory.

“Of course she was delighted,” I say. “We were in love, and she was having my baby. Then that bastard husband of hers put his hands around her throat and took everything that mattered to me.”

“You cannot go home to God without accepting the truth of your sins, my son, so I accept my fate in service of your salvation,” Sommers says. “I may die at your hands tonight, but know this.”

He holds my gaze, his foggy eyes calm and still. “Johanna is not yours. She was the dearly beloved daughter of Veronica and her husband.”

No. It can’t be .

And yet, even as I resist, the million shattered fragments of the past come together like a mirror breaking in reverse.

I’m standing there once more, coldly lucid, mercilessly clear, and Veronica is speaking.

“We can go anywhere, Veronica. Anywhere.”

Her expression is glacial, but her wild eyes are steeped in terror. Johanna fusses in her arms, her cornflower blues trained on her mother’s face.

“I don’t want to,” she says. “Dammit, Currer. I told you—Gerald and I, we want to sort things out.”

“He doesn’t love you like I do!” I yell, my hands twitching with fury. Why won’t this bitch love me right?

“No bad thing! You frighten me for crying out loud. I was naive, but not anymore. It’s over.”

No way is she running out on me. I know the child isn’t mine—she’s the image of her mother but with Gerald’s fair hair and fine nose. Not a drop of me sullies her bloodline.

But I don’t fucking care.

“You don’t get to decide, Veronica. Give me the baby.”

“If you so much as touch Johanna, I’ll kill you myself.”

She puts the baby in the bassinet and picks up a razor from the table, warding me off. “Get away from us! She’s not yours; she will never be yours!”

The sheer injustice of it boils over in my heart, and I fly at her, snatching the weapon and tossing it aside.

My hands close around her throat, and I search her face for the love I deserve, but there’s nothing to see. Not anymore.

Her jaw slackens, and the world slows to a crawl, smothered by a red mist of rage.

I hear Gerald’s roar of agony behind me. “Veronica! Sweet Christ, Currer, why?”

I let her go, watching with detached fascination as she folds neatly to the ground, her face a livid purple.

What have I done?

Gerald turns on his heel to run. I snatch up the razor and give chase, the Devil himself powering me.

The room surges back into focus, and the blade in my hand clatters to the ground.

I killed them both.

All these years, my mind protected me from what I’d done, shrouded my memory in falsehoods and half-truths.

I don’t know when it happened, but a blissful, weighted unreality settled over me like a snowdrift, entombing me in a cold but comforting alternate reality.

There was never any part of me that was good. I terrorized Veronica, then took her life and that of the man she truly loved. The hands that hurt her were mine, not his.

It was payback. Retribution for the crime of not loving me right, or enough, or in the ways I understood.

I thought I’d done terrible things for love, but in truth, I did them for me .

I want to stay in this moment and wallow in my agony, but there’s a voice coming from somewhere. In my delirium, I cannot be sure I hear it at all, but I see Sommers redirecting his attention to the door as the sound comes into focus.

“Papa?”

A young face appears around the door. It’s the boy from the church, his eyes obscured by his cap.

He’s wearing a coat, and I realize it was he who left the front door ajar. He must have been attending to some final duties outside before he and the priest escaped.

Sommers beckons him, and he goes to his side, tucking himself beneath the old man’s arm. I detect no inkling of fear; this child feels nothing but love for the priest.

It’s humbling and beautiful to see, and I’m ashamed to be in their company, shedding my evil like some flea-bitten hellhound.

Sommers takes off the boy’s cap and strokes his wheat-colored hair.

“It had to be this way,” he says. “Johanna was special to me, and I kept her away from prying eyes, but the Beadle found a buyer for her—a real one. I had no choice. So I told him the girl had died. The rest was easy enough. People who do not look never truly see. ”

I look at the boy again, seeing faces I once knew well, but not my own.

“Johanna,” I whisper.