Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

“You’re going to kill them, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said, drawing a vial out of my pocket. “I only want to show them what they’re doing. I extracted this from Edward this morning while I gave him a shot of sedative. It’s twenty milligrams of his spinal fluid. Not enough to harm him, but enough to bring five of these creatures to awareness. We’ll lock the men and the creatures together in the smoking room upstairs.”

Montgomery’s jaw went very hard. “They’ll die.”

I tried to keep my voice steady, though my heart was fluttering with a dangerous kind of excitement. “Perhaps they will—that’s what they deserve. Or perhaps the King’s Men will be able to defend themselves. We have no idea what will happen, and that’s the beauty of it. Leave it up to nature. Survival of the fittest.”

Montgomery drew a hand over his face. “It’ll be a bloodbath.”

“All the better if it is.” I whispered the words, because such words were never meant to be spoken. “Imagine the spectacle in the newspaper. You know how the public hungers for blood—it’s why they’ve gone into such a fervor over the Wolf. The King’s Men control the London Times, but not the other newspapers. They’ll call it the Christmas Massacre at King’s College, or something with an equally macabre ring. No one in the city—the entire country—won’t know the truth about what they were trying to do.”

The blood had drained from Montgomery’s face, and yet he hadn’t left, nor had he called me mad and broken off the engagement. “And the creatures?” he asked.

I rested my hand on the nearest glass tank. “We kill them after it’s done. We haven’t a choice. We both know any creature of my father’s is fated to die either way.”

I tried hard not to think about Edward. Or Balthazar. Or myself.

Montgomery let out a weary sigh. “Hunting them down, just like on the island. I thought all that was behind me.”

“We’ll inject them with a large dose of stimulant that will stop their hearts after ten minutes. No hunting, no shooting. They’ll die quietly. That’s more mercy than the King’s Club would have shown them.”

He leaned on the worktable. “You have it all figured out, don’t you?” He looked over the creatures in the tanks, his blond hair slipping loose and veiling his face. “There must be some other way. If we just destroyed the specimens . . .”

“They’d make more.”

“We could warn the authorities about their plans for the paupers’ ball.”

“They are the authorities. Newcastle controls the police, and the members of Parliament have control over the military.”

He sighed, still unwilling to accept that my plan was the only option. “It makes me think of Edward, how I was so certain he had to die. Then I learned that we share the same blood, and it changed something. I’m so tired of killing, Juliet. Man or creature.”

I placed my hands over his, kissing each of his knuckles. “I wish there was another way too,” I said. “But I’ve thought it through. It has to be this.”

“You’ve never operated on one of these things. You’ve only seen it happen, and as I recall it was enough to send you running into the jungle in horror.”

“I won’t run this time,” I said quietly.

I could still see the hesitation written in the tense muscles of his neck. I walked over to the wall and took down two leather aprons. I slid one over my neck and cinched it at the waist, then handed Montgomery the other.

“I swore I’d never touch a scalpel again,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to touch a scalpel,” I said. “I’ve studied Father’s journal. I know every word he wrote about the procedures.” I held out the vial of Edward’s spinal fluid. “All we have to do is inject them with this material, and then stress the bodies with an electric shock. No cutting. No slicing. The electric current will weaken the cells to allow the material to permeate, which will bring them to life. We’ll awaken five and poison the rest, then throw all the journals and instructions into the tank water with them. The chemicals will destroy the writing.”

Montgomery leaned on the counter, studying the blood-red liquid in the vial. I would have paid dearly to know what was going through his mind. Did he think I was lying to myself? If he did, he was wrong. This had nothing to do with besting Father’s work, or even giving the King’s Men the cruel justice they deserved. This was about that family next door on Dumbarton Street, and the girls at Lucy’s teas, and Mrs. Bell and her cleaning crew. There was still beauty in the world, still innocence.

I squeezed Montgomery’s arm. “We can’t let them win. We’re to be married, and we’ve Edward, who’s practically your brother, and Elizabeth, who’s my guardian now. If you won’t do it for the good of the city, do it for them.”

His hand took mine, circled the silver ring. He spun it a few times, thinking, and then let my hand fall. He pulled the loose strands of his hair back into a ponytail and glanced at the chemistry equipment. “Go through the cabinets and look for a neural stimulant. We’ll need at least a hundred milligrams per creature to ensure their heart rate increases enough to give out after ten minutes.” His voice was flat, unemotional. He paused. “How exactly do you intend on transporting five ravenous creatures with claws and sharp teeth to the upstairs smoking room?”

I swallowed. “I have a plan for that. It sounds a bit mad, but hear me out. The entire upstairs was fitted with electricity within the last two years. They had to run the electric wires in external casings along the walls. It won’t be hard to expose a bit of wire. Enough to provide an electric shock if attached to living flesh.” I paused. “They won’t notice a few more animal bodies among all that taxidermy. Once they go in and flip on the lights . . .”

Montgomery looked torn between illness over what I was proposing and a strange sort of admiration. I swallowed back the part of me that was secretly thrilled by my plan.

Montgomery selected five of the healthiest-looking specimens, while I searched through the cabinets for a neural stimulant strong enough to kill the creatures after ten minutes. He handed me five needles.

Together, we brought to fruition the terrible plans of the King’s Club.

FORTY-TWO

EVEN WITHOUT SURGERY, THE work was a grisly task.