Beautiful Freaks (32 page)

He stuffed his pistol into his jacket pocket, needing his hands free to search the mirror for a catch or a handle. Desperation made him clumsy. Not finding anything, he fell against it, with his back pressing into the glass. With his weight the mirror moved from under him and tipped his balance. Realising the mirror was an opening
door,
he found his feet and pushed through into the chamber.

The room was dark, lit only by dimmed gas-lamps. At the centre of the room was a section of theatre seating; on the front row of which sat Miss Valentine and baby Elsie. Steptree stood, horror-struck. Elsie giggled at something Evangeline handed to her, then the baby saw her father,

“Dada!” she called, lifting her hands out to Steptree.

Evangeline turned and flashed Steptree a smile. “Good afternoon, Inspector.”

“Where’s Meg? Where’s her mother?”

Evangeline shrugged. “I don’t know. She was nowhere to be found. I brought Elsie here for safekeeping. She’d been left outside your house to wander about the street.”

Everything Evangeline was saying was a lie and she didn’t care that Steptree knew it. There was no way she would coincidently pick up a stranger’s child and take her back to her house. How would she know Elsie’s name? How would she know that she would be able to trace her parents? The whole thing was a ridiculous story. Evangeline had tracked down Steptree’s child and taken her.

“You’re lying. Meg wouldn’t leave Elsie.”

Evangeline shook her head slowly and painted a look of sickening sympathy on her face, “Women do the most irrational things, especially when they’re with their lovers.”

“Stop it, Miss Valentine. I know you’re playing games,” he snarled.

“It was fortunate I was passing.” Evangeline continued to spin the ridiculous tale despite knowing Steptree wasn’t buying it. “The child was crying on the steps. A passing neighbour told me it was your house. Imagine my surprise at such a coincidence.”

“I said stop it.”

Evangeline smiled and continued. “The rose seller told me that she’d seen the lady of the house leaving on the arm of a young man – without her shawl or hat … they’d headed out towards the park and she’d left the door open.”

“You’re lying. I know you’re lying!”

Evangeline shrugged. “Think what you like.”

“What are you really doing with my child?”

Evangeline turned to Elsie and reached out her arms to scoop her onto her knee. Elsie yawned and her eyelids fluttered. She was beginning to fall asleep, her body going limp. Steptree had never seen Elsie fall so quickly. Panic surged at him as he realised that she might be drugged, or worse still, poisoned.

“I want you to take the child and walk out of here, Inspector Steptree. I’ve made my point,” Evangeline ordered.

“Pardon? I don’t follow.”

“I said that I want you to take your child and walk out of here. You are going to close the investigation and never return to this address. You are not to mention what you have discovered here.”

“I can’t do that,” Steptree replied. He shook his head and looked down at Elsie. She was looking desperately pale. His whole heart was being ripped in two.

“I suggest that is exactly what you do.” Evangeline bent forward and kissed Elsie’s forehead. As she did, Elsie whimpered and her arm flopped down to her side.

“EVE!” A voice came from the shadowy corner of the chamber. It was Kaspian. Steptree shook his head, puzzled as to where the boy had suddenly
materialised from.
“PUT THE CHILD DOWN!” Kaspian’s voice was strong and controlled.

“Kaspian?” he whispered, but the boy ignored him – he was hurrying over to Eve, his arms outstretched in order to pull the child away.

“Don’t do this, Eve! She’s just a child,” Kaspian implored.

“Kaspian?” Eve was as surprised by his appearance as Steptree.

“She’s just a baby, put her down.”

Steptree had been paralysed by the shock of Kaspian’s appearance, but now that he glanced down on Elsie’s increasingly weakened state, he flew into a frenzied anger and pulled his pistol from his pocket, aiming it straight at the space between Evangeline’s eyes.

“Whatever you’re doing to her, stop it, or I will shoot.” As Steptree said this, he hoped beyond hope that a standard bullet would finish her.

Evangeline remained alarmingly calm. A smile danced over her lips. She looked at Kaspian and then to Steptree. “Both of you back away right now or I
will
finish this. I will kill her.”

Eve stood and cradled the sleeping Elsie to her shoulder. She stepped towards Kaspian and he backed away, afraid.

“You foolish boy!” she whispered to Kaspian. “You foolish, foolish boy! I was about to hand the child back to him, completely unharmed. I was using her as a bargaining tool; one that was meant to protect us all – one that was meant to protect
you
.”

“Hand her over.” Steptree waved his pistol at Eve. “I’m going to give you until the count of three and then I
will
shoot. ONE…”

Eve sidled up to Kaspian, dropped her head onto his shoulder and sighed onto his neck. “I love you. I wanted to protect you.”

Kaspian stroked her hair. “I love you.” He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Eve, my love, hand the child over.”

“TWO! I’m still waiting,” Steptree shouted.

Eve turned to Steptree and fixed him with her eye. His resolve instantly drained. He felt his energy pour out and away from him. He was so tired. So tired he could barely stand. The pistol wavered. He gritted his teeth and steadied it.

“It’s too late,” she said to Kaspian. “It’s all too late – they both must die.”

“Please, Eve, I love you – hand her over. Let them go.”

Steptree inhaled a slow breath. A bead of sweat travelled down from his forehead and onto his nose. He knew that on the next count he would have to fire. If he didn’t she would know that he was defeated and she would kill them both anyway. Eve looked at Kaspian and he saw how her lip trembled, she was having the same terrible dilemma.

“THR…” Steptree didn’t have a chance to finish his call. Kaspian launched at him and knocked the pistol’s shot off target. A shower of plaster fell from the ceiling like snow.

Steptree fell to the floor; Eve had drained him of almost all of his spirit and pressing the trigger had taken the last of his reserves. He lay on the floor inert and unable to move. He knew that very soon he would be dead.

Kaspian bent down and unhooked the pistol from Steptree’s hand. He felt the weight of it in the palm of his hand. Whilst Kaspian had been recovering the pistol, Eve had placed the sleeping baby onto one of the chairs. She advanced towards him, her arms outstretched to embrace him. At first, she didn’t see how he held the
pistol,
she was too busy looking into his eyes – captivated by the sight of a tear rolling down his cheek. He was truly the most exquisite heart she had ever met, and yes, she loved him. At last she had met someone who managed to soothe her painful memories of Eli. Kaspian returned her gaze.

“Eve, I love you – more than life itself, I love you!”

She smiled and then she suddenly caught sight of the pistol aimed at her heart.

“Oh, my darling, you can’t kill me – not with that.”

“Do you love me, Eve?” he asked. His face was full of sorrow and regrets for an action yet to be done.

She tipped her head and deliberately blinked. For the first time Kaspian saw a seam of vulnerability run across her smile. “Yes, I do.”

The pistol wavered in Kaspian’s hand and he asked her, “And if your heart still beat, if it ticked away the minutes of your own mortality, is that where you would hold me – in your heart.”

She stepped towards him as she spoke. “I have a heart, Kaspian; it’s a soul that I lack. And in my heart, I hold you. My heart is a fortress made of pride. No bullet can penetrate it, no blade kill it. It is here that I hold you. Safe.”

Kaspian looked at her and saw that she was exquisite, intoxicating; everything about her had pulled him in and made him love her. And now he understood, he knew that she loved him, but not as a lover might. She loved him in the way a collector falls in love with a piece – and they will do anything in their power to claim it. They will travel the world, starve – even kill. Kaspian was Eve’s prize. He was her heart’s desire and now he was trapped within the walls of its cold and empty chambers. He’d never be able to leave her; she was his mistress – his captor. In that moment he understood that if he didn’t break free then he would go mad – or yet worse she would erode his soul. She would lead him into the darkness and he would come to love it.

Her body pressed up against the barrel of the pistol and he felt the give of her silk-dressed flesh under the pistol’s mouth. Kaspian shivered; desire and hate and love all collided and rushed together. Eve’s lips brushed his lips and they responded but his finger tightened on the trigger. 

He pulled away from her mouth, “I know who you are.” He planted a kiss on her lips and breathed out. “I know
what
you are.”

“Sssh!” Her fingers reached up to his mouth and pressed against his lips. “We’ll leave,” she said. “We’ll go to Astarot. We’ll live happily ever…”

The sound of gunshot splintered her fantasy. The bullet made its way through the soft flesh of her abdomen and upwards, grazing her heart. Her eyes snapped open and as she pulled back from his lips, she saw him shake his head.

“I can’t love you!” The words came out of Kaspian’s mouth before he’d even time to think about them. “Kiss by kiss, you will destroy me.”

The words were silver bullets that ricocheted around the chambers of her heart and tore them apart. “I’ve given you my heart,” she whispered. “I opened it up to you. I weakened it for you.”

“My darling.” Kaspian stroked her cheek. As he looked down on her, he saw just how fragile she really was. “I know that I’ve betrayed you.”

Pain surged through Eve. It had been such a long time since she had felt anything so raw, she was surprised that it hurt so much. Where she pressed her hand to the wound, blood flowed through her fingers. It smelt of roses.

“I don’t understand. This shouldn’t …”All at once the room spun and she fell back through a tunnel of darkness. Kaspian’s face shone at the far end of it like a full moon. Dying wasn’t like Eve had ever imagined; it wasn’t dramatic or painful, there wasn’t time for regret or sorrow, it was just a dimming of a switch and a sense of emptiness.

Kaspian knew he only had a few moments left. When Eve’s heart beat its last, Kaspian would be destroyed too, for he’d destroyed the vessel that held him before he’d had a chance to flee it. The bonds of his love for Evangeline had held him fast as her heart shattered around him. He’d known when he fired the gun, that the single bullet would kill them both.

It was never that he didn’t love her, but that he couldn’t. The difference between the two was everything.

EPILOGUE

Steptree woke to find Miss Evangeline Valentine lying on the floor, a trickle of blood seeping from between her lips and her hand covering her heart. Kaspian Blackthorne was nowhere to be seen. A Malmaison Carnation lay just out of Miss Valentine’s reach.

As he looked up he saw a beautiful fairy with wings of red, holding a sleeping baby Elsie. Seeing him awake, she walked over to him and laid the child in his arms before leaving the room in a flash of sunlight.

Steptree pulled himself up and held Elsie close to his chest. Looking down at Miss Valentine, he felt an indescribable mixture of sadness and relief at something so unearthly and beautiful being lost to the world.

“Steptree!” Brown’s voice was strong and urgent.

Steptree staggered towards the mirrored door and pushed it open with his remaining strength. Brown was there to catch him on the other side.

“Good God, man! What’s happened?” he asked.

Steptree tried to talk but he’d seen so much that he couldn’t even begin. His mouth flapped open and shut like a gaping fish. Brown called out for Chester, who took Elsie from Steptree’s arms. He then manoeuvred Steptree into one of the armchairs and poured him a large whisky from one of the decanters. Steptree sat in the chair and looked towards the mirror. His heart was heavy.

The next couple of hours unfolded in front of him as if he were watching the life of somebody else. When Brown discovered Miss Valentine’s body he called out for assistance, causing a small flurry of urgent police activity to revolve around the traumatised Inspector. Chester commanded the team, and each time the flash bulb of the camera exploded, Steptree flinched at the distant memory of a pistol shot. 

Eventually, the medics arrived and he looked on as the stretcher carrying Miss Valentine’s body was lifted out into the waiting cab. She’d been covered by one of the black velvet curtains and some more sentimental character on the police team had placed the carnation on top. As the stretcher had passed by him, Eve’s hand fell out from under the covering and Steptree gasped to see the vision of a hand aged and wrinkled. The amethyst ring almost fell off the skeletal hand. By the time he was certain his mind had not been tricking him, the moment had passed. He should have chased after them, entered the carriage and pulled back the covers to confirm his suspicions – but he was tired of enquiry and truth.