I’d been knocked down, struck time and again by those who did not believe I could accomplish anything other than smiling prettily. I’d been told I was wretched for my curiosity and scorned for following my heart. It was time to tell myself a different tale. One where I was the hero, battling against harmful words and doubts.

“I will not be afraid.” I repeated it silently as I maneuvered to my knees, wincing as a new memory came to me along with the bright spots of pain. I’d forgotten I’d cracked my bones again. I prodded my leg, relieved it wasn’t rebroken, just badly bruised from the feel of it. Determined to escape before the devil returned, I got to my feet and took in the full sights around me. “Don’t be afraid.”

It was a nice sentiment, though like most areas of my life, it proved false as the true horror of my situation came into view. I was not alone in this basement chamber.

Lying on a large slab, as if a tribute to the gods left on some unholy altar, was a female corpse. Half its face was missing its outer layers of skin, the angry red and white of meat and muscle glistening in the dull light. The other half seemed frozen in an eternal scream.

I clapped a hand over my mouth, praying that I could choke my own scream down before the devil found me. I was looking at what remained of sweet Minnie.

Her partially missing face was not the worst of what had been done to her, however. As my gaze slowly moved down what remained of her body, I noticed strips of flesh had been cut away, exposing the milky-white bone beneath. An image of the goat in the meatpacking district of New York City flashed through my mind.

One leg appeared to have been set in a vat of sulfuric acid—there was nothing left but charred fragments of skin and the pungent scent of foul eggs. Sulfur. I inhaled again, immediately regretting it as the sweetness of decay got stuck in my nose. It was a sickening aroma—worse than any I’d had the misfortune of experiencing before.

I’d woken up in Hell. And Hell smelled of rotten flesh and felt like eternal screams.

My pulse was near hysteria as it rushed through my body. I forced my attention on the rest of the room, all traces of the drug burned out as fresh adrenaline coursed through me. My body understood the laws of nature—it was ready for fight or flight.

Shadows and dust twirled and danced to their own macabre beat, spurring my heart into a greater frenzy. Nathaniel had created a hidden lair in our home to practice his dark deeds, but it was nothing compared to this castle built of blood and bone.

Barrels lined the walls, some larger than others. Human skulls were piled high in one, and I stared, unable to comprehend the magnitude of how many people had to die for the number of skulls needed to overflow from those barrels. I swallowed my revulsion, continuing to scan what must be hundreds of victims. Some barrels were small enough to fit a—

I squeezed my eyes shut as a tiny skull caught my attention. Was that Pearl? What sort of monster would harm a child? I knew who in an instant. It was the very same man who ripped women apart and left them in discarded heaps as if they were rubbish. The one we’d stalked and foolishly assumed was dead. This chamber reminded me so much of my brother’s secret laboratory, and yet it was nothing like it. Nathaniel’s had been dark and twisted, but it was focused on science. This… this was only a crypt filled with death. A tribute and prize of remembrance. A place of torture.

A shiny bit of metal glinted in the flickering light. I slowly moved toward it and wished I hadn’t. It was my brother’s prized silver comb. I stopped breathing. I wasn’t sure how Holmes had gotten it, but there was no doubt in my mind it belonged to Nathaniel. Which meant the Ripper had snuck into my house in London sometime after my brother had died.

Even though it was the last thing I wished to do, I brought myself back to that fateful November night when I’d confronted my brother with the crimes I thought he’d committed, replaying each detail as if it were a moving picture.

I’d claimed Nathaniel was the Ripper.

I’d accused him of committing such violent acts. But, like Mephistopheles had warned me time and again during that hellish carnival, I needed to beware of my mind conjuring its own tale. I knew now that it had been creating stories, but why hadn’t my brother confessed the truth?

I closed my eyes, seeing that night clearer. At first Nathaniel seemed surprised, but then he’d recovered quickly. He’d fed me line after line, almost as if he’d made it up on the go. But why? Why lay claim to something so unspeakably horrid if he was innocent? Had he been coerced? What on earth would possess him to—The answer hit me so swiftly, I gasped. It was so simple, yet I couldn’t process it. There was only one force on earth with that power.

Love.

Not necessarily romantic love. My brother likely felt so deprived of true companionship that he’d been led onto a dark, twisted path. I imagined the murderer had seen the hunger in him for the love and acceptance of a friend and exploited it. After my mother’s death, Nathaniel was emotionally broken in so many ways I hadn’t seen, but someone else did.

And used it against him.

My brother was mad about science and Frankenstein and reanimating the dead; perhaps carrying that dark secret had been a much bigger burden than I’d imagined. He could have shared those desires with someone who he thought understood. Who didn’t judge him. Who encouraged his mad beliefs. All the while hiding the dagger behind his back.

If that were true… hatred coiled in my core. I would take pleasure in killing this devil not only for Thomas, but for my brother as well. Nathaniel had never been Dr. Frankenstein; he’d been twisted into the creature. One who’d taken the blame for his creator.

I was unsure how Nathaniel had managed to do so, but he’d tricked Thomas with his lies as well. In my mind’s eye, I relived Thomas stumbling down those laboratory stairs, his expression frantic, until his attention landed on me. Back then I didn’t recognize the depth of his fear—how his own emotions had interfered.

I was both Thomas Cresswell’s weakness and his strength.

When he feared for my safety, his deductions were rushed, less razor-edged than when he had no emotional ties. He’d claimed cuts on Nathaniel’s fingertips had indicated he was the Ripper, but what if there was another reason for those? My brother had been handling sharp bits of metal, fusing them into his contraptions. Those actions could produce the same wounds. I opened my eyes, seeing the clues in an entirely new light.

“Dear God above.” Terror, I soon realized, had its own taste. It was sharp and coppery, much like blood. Each hair raised itself from my body as if it hoped to sprout wings and take flight. If Nathaniel had help with creating his laboratory, then any deficiencies in the design had most certainly been worked out. This house was a weapon itself, ready to destroy those who dared cross its threshold.

My home was the prototype. This was the grand masterpiece.

I glanced at the skulls and poor Minnie’s body, which had been partially skinned. If this chamber was located under the hotel—then I was only in one small portion of the underground maze. The hotel took up an entire city block. I almost sank to my knees. Getting out with my life would be nearly impossible. Maybe this was always how my story was supposed to end, in this earthly version of Hell. Perhaps if I let him have me, his murderous rampage would come to a close.

I stopped looking at the mangled corpse that used to be the bright and cheerful Minnie. Would her fate soon be my own? A cadaver ripped apart into something hardly recognizable as human? A flash of Thomas’s body crumpled with poison battled against my fear. I promised I’d make it home to him. I would not let this murderous castle or its owner win.

This time when I scanned the chamber, I was searching for items to assist with my escape. Much to my surprise, my dragon cane lay against a barrel. I retrieved it, not looking any closer at the skeletal remains than was necessary.

For the sake of moving as stealthily as I could, I ripped my hemline into strips, then tied them about the bottom of my cane. Ignoring the ever-screaming corpse, I took a turn about the room, my breath catching at each muffled sound of my cane meeting the floor. It wasn’t the best, but it would make it harder for anyone to hear me moving around.

I crept over to the door, pressing my ear against the cool metal, listening for any movement on the other side. I stayed that way, doing my best impression of a statue, until my good leg prickled with needles. Not one sound stirred. Slowly, I reached out, trying the handle.

I winced as metal slid over metal, creating a sound much too loud for my liking in the oppressive quiet. I froze, waiting for the door to swing wide as Holmes came charging from the opposite side, knocking me backward, but no such force came.

Bolstered by my small victory, I leaned against the door, adding more of my weight, ready to rejoice at freedom—it was locked. Of course. Part of me wished to kick it, to beat it with my cane until either it or I surrendered to this fate.

“Be still,” I commanded myself as Liza had done after my ruined wedding. “Think.”

I turned around and pressed my back against the door, staring at the room from this perspective. A smaller doorway was tucked near a corner, almost hidden by the overflowing barrels of bones. Unlike the door I rested against, that one wasn’t closed.

With a quick reminder to be fearless, I crept toward my escape.

FIFTY

OF BLOOD AND BONE

MURDER CASTLE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

19 FEBRUARY 1889

As I stood in the small doorway leading out of my current nightmare, an even greater one greeted me. Suspended from hooks in the ceiling—reminding me much too closely of the butchers’ row in New York—hung rows of corpses and skeletons.

The objects of horror were evenly spaced on either side of the small room, leaving a narrow path between them. It was wide enough for a person to pass through, but only just. I barely noticed that this corridor of death opened to another chamber. The skeleton nearest me moved, and the sound of its bones chattering like teeth sent shivers along my spine.

I couldn’t tear my gaze from the skeletons. Some had been entirely stripped of flesh and bleached until their bones gleamed like the streets of the White City. Others hadn’t yet been fully treated. Metal wire glinted from the joints where the bones had been fastened together. The less-stripped skeletons had wire piercing rotting skin. The decaying tissues from flesh stained those bones and dripped to the floor. A slimy, greasy puddle saturated the ground beneath them. Maggots crawled about, their little milky bodies teeming with energy, enjoying their feast.