Page 63 of A Treacherous Trade
A woman who died in so much pain or suffered such indignity that her spirit was cursed to relive the torment, and to visit it upon others. Her very scream would age a man twenty years, or warn another woman of her impending death.
Had one come for me now?
Was it Mary?
Did she screech at me from the shadows, shaming me for not delivering her wronged soul justice before seeing me off to Hell?
I blinked rapidly against pinpricks of perception permeating my confusion. The taste of terror in my mouth, thick and metallic. A throbbing ache in my head a percussion to the cacophony around me. Foul-smelling grit beneath my back. Cockney insults. Rank, shocking curses from shrill female voices. Two of them.
Not Hell, then.
Just London.
With a groan, I tested the mobility of my limbs before struggling to roll to my side. Pushing myself up with weak arms, I saw rocks and rubbish pelting my assailant, driving him back toward Fleet Street.
An owlish swivel of my neck revealed none other than Indira and Izzy behind me, charging like infantry, hurling projectiles with the accuracy of any rifleman in the Queen’s own regiment.
How the devil had they gotten here?
It didn’t matter. I’d never been happier to see anyone in my entire life.
I sat, immobilized, as they drove my attacker out of that alley with their female ferocity. After snarling some of the ugliest words I’d ever heard in my life, he turned tail and ran, the outline of my knife still embedded in the sinew of his shoulder.
I hoped it hurt like hell. Forweeks. I hoped the wound turned septic and killed him.
“Oh, Viola!” Izzy wailed, dropping to her knees beside me. “My God, when I saw him strike you into that wall, I was terrified he might have actually killed you. I’m so relieved.” Throwing her arms around me, she squeezed me hard enough that I grimaced.
Everything vaguely hurt.
Indira gently disentangled Izzy from me, and I sent her a grateful look. Though my eyes had now adjusted to the darkness, her dusky features were a little more difficult to make out than Izzy’s in the gloom of the alley. I couldn’t read her expression.
“You’re bleeding,” she said with little inflection.
I lifted my hand to where the throbbing in my face had concentrated to my bottom lip. Gingerly, I tested the skin there and found it broken. Blood now stained my best pair of white gloves, along with whatever unthinkable filth could be found in this alley.
“Is anything broken?” Izzy smoothed her hands down my shoulders and arms, searching for injuries that couldn’t be seen. “Can you walk?”
I moved one leg, then the other. “I think so,” I answered. “Once my head is finished spinning.”
“You poor, poor thing,” Izzy said, taking my hands and giving them an encouraging squeeze. “I’ll be grateful tonight in my prayers that we happened along in time.”
Indira rummaged around in her purse, extracting a vial and a handkerchief. Covering her finger with the cotton, she tipped a small amount of the contents of the vial onto the cloth. “This will stop the bleeding.” She lifted the handkerchief to my lip.
I flinched away, eyeing it with apprehension. “What is it?”
“Only cayenne and oil,” she explained impatiently. “It will burn but will stop the bleeding and clean the wound.”
“Indira knows just everything there is about everything,” Izzy said with unabashed veneration.
“Were your parents healers or doctors?” I asked, turning my face back to Indira with some lingering reluctance.
“My parents were forced to harvest spices grown on the land taken from my family by a wealthy English merchant, who sold me to pay their debts,” she answered matter-of-factly.
I could think of nothing to say that would properly contain the depth of my regret on her behalf. Luckily, she pressed the handkerchief to my lip, and the burning sting emptied my mind of all vocabulary.
“I told you it would hurt.” I heard Indira’s smile in her voice better than I could see it.
“Do you just carry this abominable concoction around with you everywhere?” I asked, my speech becoming a bit muddled due to the pressure of the handkerchief and a warm numbness settling into my lip.
