Page 1 of A Vocation of Violence
Chapter One
The Velvet Glove.
A den of iniquity draped in silk and lace.
It made me wish I’d donned some of the same for the occasion.
A place where London’s wealthy and aristocratic came to shed their cloaks of respectability along with their overcoats.
I stepped inside, the heavy door thudding shut behind me, sealing off the chill of the February night. The air was thick with the scent of exhaled smoke and the musk of human desire. Gaslights cast a golden hue across the rich mahogany and gilt of the gaming tables, where fortunes were lost and won on the turn of a card.
“Good evening, Miss Mahoney,” the burly doorman greeted me with a knowing leer. “I was told to expect you and to send you to the Shiloh room.”
“Evening,” I replied, my voice steady despite the tremor of anticipation that quivered through me.
His gaze lingered on my plain gray gown, but I refrained from wiping his smile away with a sharp retort. The courtesans of the Velvet Glove were swathed in less fabric but more finery than I would likely ever wear.
And that was all right with me.
Myriad mirrors reflected my image as I walked, a figure in an unassuming gown, designed to let me blend into the background. Yet I could not shake the feeling of being watched by unseen eyes.
In the corners, whispered deals conspired with seduction, while above, on balconies fit for royalty, women sparkled in jewels and little else, laughing with a timbre that landed hollow in my ear. The Velvet Glove caressed the wicked and washed away scruples and memories with glasses of amber liquid, sickly-sweet smoke, and white powder.
Here, secrets were currency, and I had come to spend a few of mine.
My hands, skilled in what some considered the macabre art of cleaning up after the dead, now clenched at the fabric of my skirt. I was no stranger to the remnants of violence, to the blood that spilled like a crimson confession upon the floor when a body gave up the ghost.
My best friend, Mary Kelly, hadn’t been the first murder victim I’d witnessed, but she’d been the first I’d cleaned up after.
Hers was what taught me how blood must be handled.
Making my way through the crowd of ten o’clock revelers, I chided myself. I needed to think of something other than murder. Tonight, I was at the Velvet Glove to commit a different transgression. But even as I sought distraction,hermemory anchored me to a purpose darker than the indulgences surrounding me.
Vengeance.
It was what fueled me to rise every morning. What kept me like a fly buzzing around what the greatest city in the world shat onto the cobbles. What had me peering for monsters in every shadow.
For a single monster, really.
Jack the Ripper.
The villain who’d taken Mary from this world in the most gruesome way imaginable. The reprobate who sent me letters to taunt and terrify me, all while aiding in the resolution of more than two murders.
In his last missive, he’d demanded I remain “pure.”
Which was why I’d come to the Velvet Glove.
To play with fire.
To disobey.
“Your first time is always the hardest.”The remembered words cut through the din, though spoken only in my mind. Mary’s young, singsong voice, a chime of the past, yet oddly fitting amidst this splendor.“But if you have a bloke who knows the business, it can be quite…well, really lovely, actually.”
Mary had been too young to know about intercourse that day when we put our heads together like silent sisters, giggling about newfound secrets and sins. I hadn’t understood at the time, in our early teens, that her life had devolved into providing men liberties in exchange for survival. We were romantics, then.
Well,I was… I didn’t think Mary was ever allowed the liberty of romanticism.
Not when it came to men.
