The Alloy Heart Read online

  “Sophia, you wound me. We’ve known each other for, what, fourteen years now? I know that you aren’t sort of woman who mopes. You are a lot of things, my dear, gracious, stoic, and resilient, but mopey is not one of them.”

  Sophia rolled her eyes. She knew where this was heading. Another invitation, another rejection. If Jackson could only see what he was doing to her by coming here, day after day, week after week. She would give anything to be able to surrender to his advances. Though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, even herself, she loved the tall doctor. Of course she was attracted to him physically, with his dark, wavy hair and chiseled features, all set on a lean muscular frame. His eyes were a piercing blue and always seemed to be searching for new knowledge. They took in everything, missed nothing, and when those eyes landed on her, Sophia felt as though he could see into the recesses of her mind and pick out all her insecurities and fears. He was, for all intents and purposes, beautiful.

  But that wasn’t what held her captive. Rather, she admired most his kind heart, the fact that he would give his last pound to an urchin on the street who needed bread. She loved how he worked tirelessly in the free clinic, and she’d never seen him be unkind to any living creature, even an insect. Even as a teenager he’d shown this kindness, not just to her, whom he’d always fancied, but to anyone, regardless of their station in life. That was the reason Sophia had waited for him when he’d been off fighting in the Indian War, serving as an apprentice combat medic. It had nothing to do with the ridiculous stunt he’d pulled two days before his deployment, scaling Big Ben in the dead of night and painting her name inside a heart across the face of the giant clock. Though she had to admit she’d never even heard of anything quite so romantic.

  If only Sophia could just throw herself into Jackson’s arms, bury her face into his neck, and shut out all the problems of this world. She longed for such safety. But it wasn’t meant to be. She was a prisoner of her circumstances, a captive to the ticking time bomb in her chest. When the clock ran out, there would be no explosion, however. Instead, her life would merely blink out of existence, leaving her brother and sister with another undeserved loss. It was unfair and she hated it, but she was determined to minimize the pain for her friends and family when that time came. Jackson was already going to be losing her as a friend when she passed. There was no reason to compound his misery by letting things between them become romantic again.

  “Now,” continued Elliot, “I have surgery mid-morning. I should be done around tea time. There’s a lovely new tea room that’s just opened up on Elephant and Castle, a Madam Zephora’s, I believe it’s called. Shall I pick you up around four?”

  “Oh, I would love to, but I’m afraid I cannot,” Sophia responded, attempting to match the lightness of his tone. She knew he was deliberately pretending she wasn’t sick, that it didn’t matter to him. But it did matter and they both knew it, even if he refused to acknowledge it. “Dexter Hughley informed Olivia yesterday that he intends to call upon her at tea time today. Of course, Dexter can be a bit of a bore, but you know Olivia, always the gracious host. And I cannot have those two here alone, unchaperoned, so I agreed to the meeting, only if I was here to ensure that my sister’s reputation isn’t in any way sullied. You know how quickly the passions of youth can be inflamed.”

  “Too true,” Jackson remarked with a smirk. “And you are certainly right not to let those two dally about without your unscrupulous supervision. Very responsible of you.”

  Why is he smirking? He should not be smirking.

  “In fact, I feel that I too should take an interest in your fair sister’s unsullied reputation,” Jackson continued. “After all, I’ve known the dear girl for most of her life. She is like a little sister to me in everything but blood. And I certainly know this Dexter Hughley to be a handsome devil. You say rightly that he is a bit of a bore, but handsomeness can overcome the lack of an engaging personality. How much safer would it be for young Olivia if she had two sets of eyes watching out for her instead of just one?”

  Sophia ground her teeth. I walked right into that one.

  “Oh, no need to trouble yourself, Dr. Elliot. I’m perfectly capable of the task. Believe me, Olivia will have my undivided attention.” She immediately regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

  Jackson’s countenance darkened immediately, and lightning crackled behind his blue eyes. “It’s Dr. Elliot again, is it?” His tone was icy now, all pretense of levity gone. “After all we’ve been through, you insist on continuing with this charade? I’ve told you never to call me that.”

  Sophia bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

  “Was it Dr. Elliot when we used to sneak away from your brother, hiding from him in the top of an oak tree? Was it Dr. Elliot when you would catch me staring at you during tea time, always hoping your father wouldn’t notice me? Was it Dr. Elliot you used to giggle at? Was it Dr. Elliot who you met when I came back from India, hoping, nay praying, that you had kept your promise while I was away?”

  Unshed tears were forming in Sophia’s eyes now. “We’re not the same people,” she stammered. “You’re not that little boy anymore, and I’m not that carefree girl. You know we can’t have a future. I may not be here next year, and I certainly won’t be here two years from now. You’re a surgeon—a doctor. You of all people should know better than anyone why we can't be together.”

  “I do know,” Jackson barked. “I know that your time is short. Which is why every moment I can have with you is precious, more precious to me than anything.”

  “Don’t you see you’re only making it worse? Don’t you see how much harder it’s going to be? On both of us?”

  “It will be unbearable. I understand that. But how much more unbearable will it be if I don’t spend as much time with you as I can? I know it’s going to tear me apart, but, unlike you, I’ve accepted that fact.”

  Sophia stood motionless. The tears had finally escaped her eyes. Elliot took a breath and barreled on, his own voice shaking now. “You want to cut ties with everyone around you? You want to shut everyone else out? That’s fine, Sophia. But who will be there for you at the end? We will,” he shouted. “Thom, Olivia, and I will be there for you. No matter how much you push us away. People love you, and there is nothing you can do to stop that.”

  Jackson turned and thundered out the front door, not pausing to look back at her. Sophia bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut as she heard it slam behind her, rattling the pictures on the wall. Despite the tears, she still refused to break down completely and surrender to the onslaught of despair welling up inside of her.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday, 3rd May 1887

  Sometime around 10:00 a.m.

  Dr. Quincy Adams scuttled back and forth between the two bodies lying in his exam room. He wore rubber gloves and a dark suit covered by a white smock coat, the front of which was, unfortunately, smeared with fresh blood from a young woman recently brought in only earlier that morning. The doctor carried a small scalpel that he had just used to make the majority of a ‘Y’ incision in the abdomen of the young woman in question. A complete ‘Y’ incision was unnecessary, as the woman had a large hole in her chest over the area where her heart would normally be located. Of course, the presence of the empty space made the removal of this particular organ much easier than it otherwise would be. Except, however, for the fact that this woman’s heart was not flesh and blood, and every time he tried to touch the organ in order to remove it, in addition to producing a loud pop and an electric blue spark, the thing would give him a nasty shock to his fingers, despite the fact that he was wearing rubber gloves.

  Dr. Adams growled at the heart. “Later then, when you’ve cooled off.”

  The doctor took a deep breath, pulling off the gloves and rubbing his completely bald head while looking around his examination room. He spotted his quarry—a metal tray on wheels resting in the corner—and pulled it over next to the corpse. On the tray was a replica of
the heart still lodged inside his examination subject. The heart on the tray had been pulled from the other corpse when she was brought in six days ago. This corpse, whom a brother had identified as Lorraine Tanner, was to be buried later this afternoon. The girl’s internal organs, all of which had been measured, weighed, and stored in formaldehyde, were sitting on a shelf behind him.

  Quincy picked up the metallic heart and held it close to the one still resting in the chest of the newly arrived body. He stared long and hard at both organs, comparing every detail.

  “Curious,” he muttered to himself.

  “That, my friend, is an understatement.”

  “Thomas,” Dr. Adams said jovially as he looked up to see Inspector Hill coming through the door. “I’m glad it’s you. When the girl came in, I knew that one of the Yard’s detectives would be down here soon. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be that ham-fisted assistant of yours. The man’s got the manners of a Neanderthal.”

  Hill chuckled. “That he does, Doctor. But, he’s handy with a truncheon. And, in our line of work, that is sometimes much more useful than manners.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” replied Adams, “but I still don’t want him down here.”

  “Duly noted,” said Hill. “Now, what is curious?”

  He laid the heart back down on the metal tray between them. “Well, I’ve removed the mechanical heart from the first victim and given it a good cleaning. Now, as you can see, it has a hinge.” He placed his thumb in the groove of the organ and popped it open, much like opening a peanut. The front flap of the device, which contained a torn hole in the metal surrounded by pink scorch marks, made a clattering sound as it fell onto the metal tray. “It allows the device to be opened so that one can examine its inner workings.” The doctor grabbed a pair of tiny forceps and began probing inside the mechanical heart. “I find it curious,” continued Dr. Adams, “that the thing appears very much like a regular human heart in most respects. There are four distinct chambers. There is a thick metal piece bisecting the middle of the device that appears very much like a septum. And take note of this metal tubing at the top of the device. If I’m not too much mistaken, I believe these represent the aorta and the superior vena cava. There is a matching small tube at the bottom—just here.” Dr. Adams turned the heart so that Inspector Hill could see under the device. “This I’m sure is meant to act like the inferior vena cava.” Dr. Adams could tell by the look on Thomas’ face the inspector wasn’t terribly interested in the specific anatomical terms.

  “Okay, Doctor, even I could tell the thing was a heart. So what?”

  “Notice these two bits of machinery in the middle of each chamber, Inspector. These appear to be some kind of motor. Look at the gears and the tiny flywheel, made of catgut, if I’m not much mistaken. And most important, this tiny propeller-looking object between the top chamber—that’s the atrium, and the bottom chamber—that’s the ventricle.”

  “I see them.”

  “What you see, I believe, is a tiny man-made pump, much like a bilge pump on a ship, designed to move liquid from one place to another. It looks to me like this pump is intended to direct the flow of blood through the heart, from the atrium to the ventricle and then out through the veins, just like a real heart would do.”

  “Curious indeed. Why would anyone make something like this, Doctor?”

  “Ah, well, isn’t that your job, Inspector? I’ve long since given up on trying to determine the motivations of humans. That’s why I work with the dead.”

  “Sometimes I don’t blame you.”

  “What do you make of this, Adams?” asked Hill as he picked up the front flap of the device, indicating the crude hole and its accompanying scorch marks.

  “What do you mean?” replied the doctor.

  “These pink marks.” Thomas turned to the corpse lying behind them and held the flap up to her midsection. “Look at the marks on this one. They’re brown.”

  “Ah, well, I’m not sure why the colors are different … yet. But I have an idea.” Adams reached down and quickly tapped the heart still lodged in the body of the second victim. “Still hot,” he said. “But at least there was no zap.”

  “What’s your theory?” asked Hill.

  “That brings me to the most curious thing of all, Inspector. Look at this.” He carried the heart over to the eastern wall of the exam room, which was the only place in the entire basement room with any natural light. This came from a very high street-level window. For most of the afternoon, when the sun was in the western part of the sky, no light was admitted, but it was late morning and a small shift of white light came streaming down to the floor.

  “Look closely,” Dr. Adams said as he placed the contraption into the shaft of light.

  Hill leaned in and saw, glittering throughout the inside of the device, tiny pink crystals, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. He’d never have noticed them had they not been refracting the natural light of the sun.

  “Amazing. What are they?”

  “A royal geologist I am not,” replied Adams. “But … and again this all just a theory … I think they might be the device’s power source.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Hill, a perplexing look on his face.

  “How does a heart beat, Inspector Hill? How does it pump blood throughout the body?”

  Thomas screwed up his face, no doubt trying to remember something from some past anatomy class he took as a child. “Electrical signals, if I remember correctly.”

  “Precisely,” said the doctor. “And I’m sure, like me, the first thing you did when you saw this contraption was reach down and touch it.”

  “The shock,” said the inspector, comprehension finally dawning. “It shocked me when I touched it. Electricity.”

  “Right again. And what do you know that can create, if not electricity exactly, a power similar to that of electricity? Except this power is even stronger, more potent, more dangerous. This power is strong enough to make dirigibles fly, make tanks roll, make lasers fire.”

  Inspector Hill exhaled. “Flux crystals.”

  “The crystals are known to be volatile. If the rumors are true, then merely cutting one can cause a catastrophic explosion if not done correctly. What would happen then if someone were to cut one multiple times? What if they were to grind one into tiny pieces, as it appears someone has done here? Unfortunately, I do not know, and I probably don’t want to know. Could doing such a thing make the crystals more powerful, or less? More volatile, or less? I’m afraid only a mechanic could answer that question.”

  It was mid-morning and Assistant Inspector John Foster and Constable Irving Jones had knocked on the doors of a dozen houses in the vicinity of Hyde Park, where the body of a young woman, complete with a gaping hole in her chest, was found earlier that morning. So far, no one had seen nor heard anything.

  “Bloody frustratin’, this is,” Foster growled to Constable Jones, who had finally beaten back the queasiness in his stomach that had plagued him since he’d practically stumbled over the disfigured body several hours earlier before dawn. A grunt was his only reply. The two were on foot, coming up the walk of a townhome at the corner of Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place, the only remaining house whose occupants they’d yet to interview and who could have had any view of the location where the body was found.

  “You saw that thing in her chest, right?” Foster continued.

  “Hmm.” Another grunt from Jones.

  “No doubt the same bloke got this ’un and the other ’un. I mean, no way there’s two psychopaths out there scooping out girls’ chests like melons, then puttin’ some weird contraptions in there. Right?”

  Jones heaved a large sigh. “Wouldn’t think so,” he responded.

  It was obvious to Foster that Jones was just hoping to speed the assistant inspector along so as to get home to his warm bed, his wife, Rosie, and their new baby. The constable was clearly exhausted, as he was past the point of pleasantries, and past the point of trying to unpuzzle the
mysteries of a mutilated woman in Hyde Park. Foster couldn’t blame the man if his head still swam with the vision of her open chest, her wild unblinking eyes staring up at the stars.

  “And you remember what those other witnesses said after we found the first girl. All three of ’em said the same thing. The woman was flippin’ and floppin’ like a deer wit’ new legs, the whole time screamin’ at the top o’ her lungs. Then she fell down on her face and crawled around on her hands and knees like a toddler.”

  “Yeah, so?” replied Jones, tapping his foot as they waited at the bottom of the steps of the house while Foster flipped through pages in his grubby, worn notebook.

  “So, how come no one ’round here’s heard nothing? Just don’t make no sense, that’s all.”

  “Does anything about this make sense?”

  “Guess not,” said Foster, and he too heaved a labored sigh. “Let’s get this over with. I’ve got to make a trip to Islington this afternoon.”

  “The mechanic’s guild?” Constable Jones seemed to awaken from his haze for a moment. “What in the world do you need to go there for?”

  “You are something, Jonesy,” Foster responded, deadpan. “Credit to the force you are. Why do you think? Woman turns up with motors in her chest. Who do you think I should ask about it, the Junior League?”

  “Bugger off,” Irving responded and tramped up the steps, rapping hard on the oak front door.

  After a few moments of chuckling by Foster and sulking by Jones, an attractive woman answered the door. She appeared to be in her early twenties and held a squalling baby on her hips. Jones and Foster glanced at one another. This was not going to be a pleasant interview.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Foster began in a soft voice, as if he were addressing a child of tender years. “My name is Assistant Inspector John Foster and this is Constable Jones. We are with Scotland Yard. Do you have a few minutes? We can see you’re busy. That is a beautiful little boy ya got there. We promise not to take up too much ’a your time.”