Hale, Ginn Read online

  "Do you have any idea where Mr. Roffcale might be now?" I turned the bundle of letters over, checking the postmarks and return addresses. All of the letters came from Hells Below.

  "He's in custody at the Brighton Inquisition House," Captain Harper said.

  I frowned at the thought. It was an unpleasant place to be for anyone, but the worst tortures were reserved for Prodigals. The prayer engines were a particular horror. The scars on my chest and arms burned from just the memory.

  "I'm not sure what you could need me for, then. If he's in your power already, I'm sure you'll be able to extract all the information you'd like to have."

  "Right now, I'm just holding him. If I have him taken in for a confession, then everything he says goes down in the confessor's records. I would rather not have his name mixed with Joan's if it can be helped," Captain Harper said.

  "If it can't be helped?" I asked.

  "We will do anything that is required to see that Joan is returned unharmed." Dr. Talbott's low voice trembled with conviction.

  Captain Harper gazed out the open window behind me. He studied the empty blackness for several moments and then turned his attention back to me.

  "All we want is for you to go in and talk with Roffcale. He's more likely to relax with one of his own. Hopefully, he'll let something slip to you that he wouldn't tell me."

  "You're paying quite a bit, just to have me chat a man up," I replied.

  "I'm sure I can find more for you to do if that isn't enough," the captain replied.

  I glanced up at him. I had no doubt that there was more he would have me do. I glanced out the window. Pairs of fireflies flashed and chased each other across the darkness.

  "I suppose that you'll want me to go to the Inquisition House to speak to this Roffcale?" I knew that would be the case but still asked, hoping that somehow I'd be wrong.

  "Tonight would be best." Captain Harper buttoned up his coat.

  "Yes, I suppose it would," I said.

  "Thank you so much." Dr. Talbott stood quickly.

  I nodded and picked my coat up off the back of my chair. As I pulled it on, I remembered my fallen hypodermic. I glanced down quickly, wondering if the captain might have caught sight of it. Fortunately, it had rolled under my chair. The only thing on the floor that the captain might have seen was a single, tattered insect wing.

  Chapter Two

  Silver

  Dr. Talbott had a patient who needed his attention and so parted company with Captain Harper and me at Baker Station. Captain Harper and I rode the carriage in silence to the Brighton House of Inquisition.

  The big stone building was clean and furiously lit. The doors separating the long halls were etched with blazing silver eyes. Pairs of eyes glared from the walls and stared down from the ceiling. Lime lamps were lit inside them so that the pupils shone like searchlights. Every reflective surface caught the light and ignited to white fire. I flinched from the searing illumination but couldn't find a dim corner or dark shadow. Silver light slashed through my thin eyelids. I held my hand up to shade my eyes. From beneath the shadow of my hand, I stole glances around.

  The bare intensity of the light burned the color out of everything. Beside me, Captain Harper's black form looked like a moth-gray shadow. His face was like a ghost's: so white that I could hardly distinguish one feature from another. Only the deep shadow that his cap cast over his eyes remained. It lay over his features like a velvet mask.

  "The silver must be burning you quite a bit now," he said as we walked through another set of doors. His tone was neither pleased nor sorry. He said it as if it was simply something to talk about as we walked.

  "Yes," I replied. "This particular House seems very well-designed to that purpose."

  "The light makes it easier to control Prodigal offenders. Turn right here. There's only a little farther to go." He turned and I dimly stumbled after him. I could imagine the power Captain Harper felt, having me so completely helpless. I decided that no matter what we discovered from Roffcale, I would make it my business to take the captain with me to Hells Below. I would find some reason that we would need to descend into that wet blackness and see how the man fared out of his element.

  Murky, gray tears filled my eyes. The light stung and seared every inch of my uncovered body. The tops of my hands turned pink. This was not the first time I had been in a House of Inquisition, and this was far from the worst pain I had endured in such a place. This was only the malevolent gaze. It was a look that could sear and blind, but alone, it could not kill.

  Death came by slow degrees on the hard metal tables of the Confessional rooms. It was done with simple questions and endless patience. Unlike the depictions in protest flyers, the Houses of Inquisition did not flow with rivers of blood. The walls were not stained with gore or hung with rusted hooks. The Houses were holy places. They were quiet, clean, and bright. Even the Confessional rooms were subdued and calm. The Inquisitors and Confessors never taunted or screamed threats. They asked politely for everything. The silver knives, nails, and prayer engines were merely devices with which they sought absolute truth. All they demanded was complete honesty.

  That was the true horror of the Inquisition's inner chambers. It was there in every pair of those unwavering eyes. The Inquisition would expose every inch of you. They discovered every function and flaw of your naked, shaking body. They dug every fear and shame out of its safe darkness. Sweet, private secrets and half-forgotten crimes, even those petty lies of vanity—none of them could be hidden. The Confessors extracted desire and illusion like rotten teeth.

  And then perhaps you would die.

  Some confessions were easier to make than others.

  "Here." Harper stopped. "We just put him in a holding cell."

  Captain Harper unlocked a door and we stepped into a cool dimness. The lime lamps in the room had been lowered. Someone had misted the room with rosewater. The humidity eased my burning skin, but the perfume only partially disguised the smell of urine and blood emanating from Roffcale's corpse. Harper stared at the body in shock. I turned away, preferring the blinding lime light to the gutted remains that lay in the shadows.

  Chapter Three

  Red Me

  After discovering a handsome young man with his bowels cut out and his genitals sliced like sandwich meat, I had no desire to remain in the Inquisition House. I closed my eyes and waited while Harper reported the murder and checked the visitor ledger for entries. No one unusual had come to see Roffcale before Harper and me. Far down the hall, I heard Harper's muted exchange with an acolyte. I only caught the last few words: "Well, he didn't do it to himself, damn it. Someone had to have gone in to see him."

  The smell of Roffcale's mutilated body drifted over me. The fecal reek of spilled intestines and the sharp odor of blood churned under a cloud of rose perfume. Nausea bubbled up through my stomach as acolytes carried buckets of Roffcale's remains past me. Acolytes wrapped larger sections of his body in cloths and carried them out like newborn infants.

  "Captain." I caught Harper as he strode back toward the cell. "There doesn't seem to be much sense in my remaining to talk to Mr. Roffcale at this point."

  "No." Captain Harper scowled. "Let's get out of here, before you start to blister."

  "That would be good."

  I followed Captain Harper through the halls and back out into the night.

  "Come on." He beckoned me down the street. "I owe you a drink after all of this."

  The idea of gin appealed to me. I certainly wasn't going to turn in for a night's sleep with the memory of Roffcale's corpse so fresh in my mind. I followed Captain Harper.

  He led the way through the narrow streets and cut across alleys, moving more like a cutpurse than a captain of the Inquisition. I followed him, pleased that we were sinking into an environment that suited me.

  The roads were muddy and piled with trash. Puddles of filthy water pooled over the walkways and mixed with the heavy smell of horse shit that permeated the str
eets. None of the buildings were well-marked. Harper turned to a squat heap of soot-stained bricks and disappeared down a flight of steps. As I descended after him, I noticed a faded painting on the right wall of the stairs. It looked like the head of a growling mastiff. The door at the bottom of the stairs was painted with the same dog. A circle of flames wreathed its neck like a collar.

  I followed Captain Harper into the heavy scent of cigar smoke, spilled beer, and sweat. Inside, the breath and bodies of the men packed into the rooms filled the air with hot animal odors. Warm condensation dampened the walls. The rumble of voices rose and dropped through a constant murmur. The men's faces were thick and awkward, like the dried remains of mudslides. They hardly glanced up when Captain Harper came in. I only received one fat splatter of spit hacked at my feet. Captain Harper chose a table in the back.

  We sat drinking in silence for some time. The easy collapse into an alcoholic haze made relations between Captain Harper and me simple. It became a matter of proximity. We were there together, but we were not there for each other. We were there for the drinks. It was the same with every other man in the cramped bar. In a way, it was deeply pleasant to share the sense that in this place no one wanted your concern or tactful conversation. It was a lazy community of mutual disinterest and alcohol.

  Captain Harper drained a pint of red ale and immediately started on a second. He drooped forward slightly, leaning his forehead on one of his gloved hands while he studied the contents of his glass.

  "It would be easy to get out of a carriage if you had the key," he said.

  I didn't reply. I wasn't even sure he was talking to me.

  I gulped back a shot of blue gin and quickly poured myself another from the bottle.

  "If she unlocked the door on the far side, while Edward was locking the other, she could have slipped out before the driver pulled away." Harper turned toward me. At some point he had pulled his cap down even farther over his face. I could only see his mouth.

  "But this with Roffcale... " Harper shook his head.

  I wasn't sure if it was the third shot of gin or my self-destructive nature, but I was suddenly very interested in getting that damn hat off of Harper's head. I leaned in a little closer.

  "I don't want you to tell Edward about Roffcale, all right?" Harper told me.

  "No?" I lowered my head so that I could peer in under the brim of Harper's cap. His brown eyes were almost closed.

  "I paid you and I made you give me your word. You're in my hire, not his."

  "So that's how it is," I said.

  "Yes, that's how it is." He sighed, then closed his eyes. For a moment I thought he might pass out, but he pulled himself back upright. "We're going to have to look into some filthy places, and I don't want Edward getting mixed up in it."

  "It's your money," I said.

  "What are you doing with my hat?" Captain Harper demanded as he felt my fingers slide up and grab hold of it.

  "Trying it on," I replied. Then I whipped it off him and slapped it crookedly onto my own head.

  "So, do I look like a captain in the Inquisition?"

  "Not by half." Captain Harper smiled. His hair was a little longer than I had expected, and lighter in color. "Those black claws of yours would give you away in a breath."

  "Not if I had a pair of gloves." I glanced down at Captain Harper's gloved hands.

  He laughed at that and then finished his ale in one long drink. I poured myself another shot of gin but didn't drink. I held the shot glass up and watched the way the liquid distorted the image of Captain Harper's face. There was something fascinating about the way it flawed his features. It only took a tiny shift, just a curve of glass, to ruin him.

  "So," I said, still watching Captain Harper through the shot glass, "you think your sister just got out of the carriage herself?"

  "I thought so, but..." Captain Harper broke off and stared at his gloved hands. "But finding Roffcale like that...I don't know, now."

  "Why were you holding Roffcale if you didn't think he abducted your sister?"

  "I thought she had run off with him." Captain Harper picked up my gin bottle and turned it slowly in his hands. "They were lovers when they were in Good Commons. Edward never knew about that. I wanted to save him from finding out." Captain Harper shook his head. "I figured that if I took Roffcale in, Joan would show up on her own."

  "That doesn't seem to have been the case." I held my full shot glass out to Captain Harper.

  Captain Harper stared at the glass in my hand, then took it. They say that blue gin can strip paint. He swallowed it like medicine. Then he poured out another shot and pushed the glass over to me. Briefly, the memory of Roffcale's delicate features and the filthy chasm of his belly came to my mind. I took my shot of gin and shoved the glass back to Captain Harper. He filled it slowly, with deliberate care.

  "What was done to him was exactly what he'd written about to Joan. I think he really was trying to warn her." He closed his eyes. "God only knows what's happened to her."

  "Drink up," I said.

  Captain Harper frowned at the glass. "I don't usually drink the hard stuff, you know."

  "It gets easier as you go," I assured him.

  "I know," Captain Harper replied. "That's why I don't do it often. It gets too easy."

  "I'd be the last man to criticize." I warmed to Captain Harper slightly at the thought that he had spent nights swilling drunk on blue gin.

  "I suppose so," he replied.

  Captain Harper tossed the shot back. Then he rolled the empty shot glass across the table to me.

  "I think I might have gotten the wrong impression of you when we first met." I filled the shot glass.

  "Oh?" Captain Harper asked.

  "I expected that you'd be stiffer," I said.

  Captain Harper smirked at my choice of words.

  "Mr. Sykes." Captain Harper leaned in closer to me. I could smell the thick scent of ale on his lips. "Don't be taken in by a priest's collar. We in the Inquisition dance with devils more often than most whores in Hells Below."

  "Well, if I ever need a partner, perhaps I should look you up, Captain Harper." I swallowed my shot and placed the glass in Harper's gloved hand. He filled the glass, drank, then poured another and placed it in front of me.

  "We're already partners of a kind, aren't we, Mr. Sykes?" he asked.

  "Of a kind," I agreed.

  "Of a kind," he repeated, as if there were some other meaning in the words.

  I matched him and he downed another. Steadily, we made our way through the entire bottle. We gave ourselves up to the act of going on. We drank shot after shot of searing gin. Sinking down into drunkenness, the constant rhythm of passing the glass and drinking became our purpose.

  When you drink like that, it isn't for pleasure. It's because your thoughts have become diseases. You do it because it's the only easy cure you can find.

  Captain Harper moved slowly and carefully, as if his body had become a mechanism that required all his concentration to navigate through the bar. His eyes were hardly open. He leaned against me and moved with my steps as I steadily lead him out of the dark solace of the bar and up into the city streets. The night was wearing thin. I could feel the golden light of the rising sun streaking the horizon with its heat.

  Behind us the bar owner peered out between his doors, pretending that he was locking up. He watched to see what business there could be between a Prodigal like me and a man of the Inquisition.

  "You know, Captain," I whispered, "staggering drunk down the street with me can't do much for your reputation."

  "Fuck em," Captain Harper slurred softly into my ear, then pulled his cap off of my head.

  I let him have it back. His breath brushed against the back of my neck. His lips just touched my skin for a moment as he sagged into me. It had been months since I had taken a lover, even for a night. It had been too long, I realized. I sank back into my temptations. Captain Harper didn't seem to care, and at the moment neither did I. By
my nature, I am a creature caught in the grip of my desires. At times they make me unwise, but it has never been in me to deny them.

  I led Captain Harper back to my rooms and peeled off his black coat and his priest's collar. Slowly, I worked his gloves off, exposing his long fingers. His nails were as pink and glossy as the insides of a seashell. Each was tipped with a perfect white crescent. I kissed the soft skin of his palm. His stainless body was everything my own would never be. I hungered for that perfection.

  I slipped Captain Harper's pistol out of its holster and had all that I wanted of Harper that night. I did not worry over the next morning or the lies we muttered as our bodies twined together. For one evening, the gin had cured us of our thoughts—that was enough.

  Chapter Four

  Old Ink

  Roffcale's letters smelled of dried blood and very cheap cologne. I pulled in his scent while my fingertips brushed over the clumsy lines of his reform school script. He was young and passionate. He poured himself into each word with absurd intensity. With every letter he set down, he fell in love and was overwhelmed with rage. His odes to Joan Talbott's beauty were terrible. Roffcale stacked cliche upon cliche until they achieved a staggering tower of artless adoration. Roffcale's miserable poetry acquired poignancy with its absolute conviction. He meant every word.

  Roffcale's desperate warnings to Joan were just that: attempts to protect a woman he could not even approach in public. Joan Talbott was from good society and Peter Roffcale was an underage con man with nails as black as any demon's.

  I leafed through the pages of his letters, touching the paper where Joan's hands had moved over Roffcale's words.

  Roffcale had pressed his palms into the pages to hold them still as he wrote. He had run his fingers under difficult words, checking his spelling. Joan had carefully pulled pages close to hide the contents from anyone else. I felt the faded places where she had run her fingers over his words again and again. Every piece of paper had carried his touch to her. Many of his letters were stained with a pale pink tint where Joan had pressed her lips to his closing signature.