Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Forty Three: What Jack is

Through his misted, letterbox-sized window, Danvers caught a flash of white streaking across the pavement below. He hurried down the stairs, flung open the front door, and almost collided with Dr Petrescu, who was standing on the doorstep with his Gladstone bag in his hand and a disgruntled expression lurking behind the moustache.

"Did you see her?" said Danvers, forgetting for a moment that he was talking to a gentleman and a former employer.

"Who?" said Dr Petrescu. But he seemed to guess the answer, because his moustache bristled with even greater irritation. "Oh. No. Obviously not. But it does bring me rather neatly to the fact that you have called me out on a night that is not unimportant to me."

"Believe me, doctor," said Danvers, trying to pull himself together. "I would never have called you if it hadn't been a matter of life and death."

"So I assumed. In which case, you had better take me to the patient, hadn't you?"

Danvers, realizing for the first time that his shirt was covered in blood, motioned for Dr Petrescu to come inside.

"There's a girl upstairs," he panted. "Horribly injured."

Dr Petrescu raised his eyebrows and paused for a moment, as though he was trying not to say the first thing that had come into his mind. "Why couldn't you take her to the Radcliffe? Were you afraid of a scandal?"

"Certainly not," said Danvers, bridling. But he had to admit that it didn't look good. A young girl without a chaperone in a bachelor's rooms at night. If she survived – and if she wasn't thrown into a cell or a laboratory – people would start to question poor Miss Cricket's character.

But these speculations weren't helping her – and nor were they doing anything to soothe the doctor's impatience – so Danvers mustered a smile and said, "I think it's better if you come and see for yourself. I doubt you'd believe me if I explained."

***

'Abundant materials' was something of an understatement, Fabienne thought, as she listened to the steady drip coming from the newest exhibit on Myrrha's shelves. Carver's death had caused an amount of mess quite out of proportion with his worth.

She had expected it to be his genitals – she had expected a nice, anonymous specimen in a jar – but instead, it had been the head, and now she and Myrrha were obliged to get on with their work while Carver's vacant, off-white face stared at them.

Blood was pooling underneath it and spilling off the shelf. It dripped onto the floor in an arrhythmic fashion that grated on Fabienne's nerves. The interval between two drips was never the same length, and sometimes, a number of them would rush down together, just to spite her sense of rhythm.

She wasn't sorry, but this was all a bit... hands-on for her. She was used to spirits, and theorizing, and writing monographs. The ugly, physical side of life – or, in this case, of death – had never intruded on her before now.

Myrrha siphoned off some of Carver's blood and made up the same mixture that Fabienne had seen her prepare that morning for John Danvers. Once again, she dipped a quill pen into the mixture and wrote out garbled words and symbols on a piece of notepaper. Moonlight from the window was streaming down and making the paper steam.

Her faithful cards were stacked beside her on the table, and Fabienne noticed that the Jack of Hearts was lying face-up at the top of the pack.

She couldn't help thinking of the nursery rhyme about the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts. And, somehow, it got caught up with the irregular dripping of Carver's blood, until it became a whole, fitful melody in her head. 

The Queen of Hearts

She made some tarts,

All on a summer's day.

The Knave of Hearts

He stole those tarts

And took them clean away.

The King of Hearts

Called for the tarts

And beat the knave full sore.

The Knave of Hearts

Brought back the tarts,

And vowed he'd steal no more.

"The fun part of this spell," said Myrrha, pausing in her writing and tapping the quill-pen against her teeth, "is that Jack's memories will come back to him in reverse order, starting with the most recent. That means he'll remember Ellini leaving him for Robin long before he remembers any good times they might have had together – although, for my part, I'm inclined to believe there couldn't have been many. And since it will only be his memories, and not his feelings, returning, he won't be in any danger of waiting around until the rest of the memories reveal themselves."

Fabienne watched her in prickly silence for a moment. "You want him to kill her – is that it?"

"My dear Fabby, he was always going to kill her. It was written down – and even illustrated – over six hundred years ago. Who are we to get in the way of antiquity like that?"

Fabienne drummed her fingers on the table-top. "But he's a man, and she's a woman. Granted, she's a very silly woman, but don't you think we should be taking her side?"

"It's not about sides," said Myrrha. "It's about everyone knowing what Jack is. And most especially, it's about Jack knowing what Jack is."

"What did he do to you, anyway?"

Myrrha cast an irritable glance at the playing-card and laid down her pen. "I wouldn't want you to think he hurt my feelings," she said sniffily. "It's the principle of the thing."

She thought about this for a moment. "You know, it will be rather similar for him when he gets his first memories back. He won't be able to feel the hurt – he'll just remember the facts: her betrayal, and the humiliating misery it plunged him into. He'll kill her in cold blood – out of principle rather than passion. And when he inevitably becomes himself again, that thought is going to hurt him above all others. He'll know what he is then. You see, it's all about education."

She turned back to the notepaper and went on scratching with her quill-pen. "It really is as though somebody sat around and planned the exact conjunction of circumstances that would cause Jack the most pain," she said. "And yet, they were there already – that's the beautiful part. This was always going to happen. It's been prophesied for hundreds of years. That's what magic is really about, Fabby. You see the inevitable collapse – the weak-spots that will undermine the whole structure – and, more for the desire to get it over and done with than because you feel any particular joy in destruction, you help it on its way."

"And yet Jack did hurt your feelings?"

Myrrha gave a little, pouting shrug. "For what it's worth, yes. He shared my bed for a month and then rode off to kill himself without even saying goodbye. How is a girl supposed to avoid taking that personally?" 

***

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