Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)(87)

“Let’s go, Nathaniel. Please,” I said, urging him toward the stairs. “We’ll have some tea. All right?”

It took a moment for him to respond, but after a few breaths, he finally nodded.

When I thought he’d finally seen reason, he painfully gripped onto my arm, brandishing the syringe. “‘Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light,’ dear Sister. We must continue our chosen path. It’s too late for turning back now.”





TWENTY-NINE


SHADOW AND BLOOD


WADSWORTH RESIDENCE,

BELGRAVE SQUARE

9 NOVEMBER 1888

I clung to my brother in the midst of our shared hell, not wanting to step away and make this nightmare real.

Dragging me back across the room, he threw me into a wooden chair next to our mother. “Look what you’ve done! Now I must tie you up for your own safety, Sister.”

I sat there immobile, unable to comprehend what he was saying, which cost precious time. Before I could react, he yanked my arms behind the chair and swiftly tied my wrists together. No matter how hard I strained against the rope, there was no escaping my new prison.

Nathaniel had secured me so soundly the tips of my fingers were already turning icy cold. I tugged and pulled, managing only to scrape my skin raw with each panicked attempt to break free of my bonds.

I screamed, more out of shock than hurt, as he thrust the syringe into the thin skin on my inner arm. “Stop it, Nathaniel! This is madness! You cannot revive Mother!”

My pleas didn’t stop him from sinking the plunger in and drawing out my blood. His first attempt failed and he drove the needle in a second time, ripping a yelp from me. I clenched my teeth and gave up struggling, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

He was too far gone. Science had overtaken his humanity.

Once he’d filled the glass tube with my blood, he smiled kindly and blotted at my skin with a cotton swab he dabbed in alcohol.

“There, now. That wasn’t so bad, was it? A little prick, no more. Honestly, Sister. You act as if I was torturing you. Half the women I freed from their chains of sin didn’t cry so much. Have some dignity, would you?”

“What have you done?”

Nathaniel jumped and I jerked in my chair, startled by the sound of Father’s voice at the edge of the stairs. He hadn’t shouted, making it all the more terrifying. I cringed, more from habit than from true fear at being caught doing something potentially dangerous. I was strangely less intimidated of Nathaniel, even knowing the atrocities he was capable of, than of Father when he got angry.

Perhaps I was simply used to the daily mask of a good son and brother that Nathaniel wore. Father never hid his demons, and maybe that scared me more.

“You… you…” I watched Father’s gaze leave my bindings then linger on the steam-powered heart, the muscle in his jaw twitching ever so slightly as his attention moved onto who the organ was residing in.

Father walked over to the contraption, then lifted one of the tubes carrying the black substance. He followed the tube around the table, halting when he got close to Mother. In that moment I saw an entirely new side of my father. Here before us was a man who seemed as if he’d been fighting a battle for years and had just realized it was close to coming to an end. He sucked in a deep breath and turned his attention back on me, his gaze locked onto my arm restraints. “How could you do this, Son?”

It disturbed me how still we all were. Nathaniel seemed to be stuck to the floor, unable to move his feet even the slightest inch, while Father shifted and quietly stared at his wife with growing horror and denial.

Without turning around again, Father said, “Untie your sister. Now.”

“But Father, I’m so close to waking Mother…” Nathaniel squeezed his eyes shut at the glare Father shot at him. “Very well, then.”

Finally, my brother faced me, jaw clenched and eyes still defiant. I followed his gaze taking in my bound wrists and tear-stained cheeks. He nodded curtly. Once. The heavy charge electrifying the room seemed to build to a crescendo.

For a few tense seconds he glanced between the syringe and our mother, his chest rapidly rising and falling to the same manic beat of the steam-powered heart.

“Very well.” He peeled his own fingers away from the syringe, then set it on the table. A sob broke out of my chest and he turned to me once again. I steeled myself against my fear as he slowly stepped closer, mumbling.

“Be quick about it,” Father barked.

Nathaniel took a deep breath, then nodded again, as if comforting himself about something before finally loosening the ropes at my wrists.

I stared at my brother, but he simply hung his head. Whispered voices cried, “Run! Run!” but I couldn’t force my feet toward the stairs.

Father lifted a lock of Mother’s hair, his expression wiped clean of all emotion except for one: disgust. “I’ve never claimed to have succeeded in taking care of either of you. As parents, we only do what we think is best. Even if we fail miserably at our duty.”

Tears collected in the corners of his eyes as he continued staring at my mother’s ruined face. I swallowed, unsure of where to go from here. It seemed my family relationships were not at all what they appeared to be. Nathaniel moved closer to our father and gazed down at Mother. It was too much. I had to leave this place.