“Yes,” said Renwick. “It’s thought that’s where she started.”
“Started?” said Newbury, surprised. “It sounds like quite the career already.”
Renwick smiled knowingly. “She was next seen in Prussia, almost five years later,” said Renwick. “It’s not known what happened to her in the intervening time, but by the time she surfaced in Berlin, she’d adopted the moniker given to her by the French newspapers. She was selling her services as a murderess for hire under the name the Executioner. And she had a trademark now, too. She always stabbed her victims with a curved blade, then opened up their chests and claimed their hearts.”
Newbury sat forward again in his chair. “You can’t seriously be telling me it’s the same woman. Is that what you’re suggesting?”
Renwick laughed, but otherwise ignored the questions. “Throughout the course of the nineteenth century she is seen again and again, popping up all over the Continent. St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Leipzig, Venice, London, Madrid, Bruges. Always she is known as the Executioner, and always, without fail, she removes her victims’ hearts. It’s thought that her death toll is in the thousands.”
“But how can that be?” said Newbury, sceptically. “Surely she’d be dead by now.”
“There are very few descriptions of her, as most who meet her do not live to tell the tale. But those few that I have found,” he indicated the pile of books on the stool, “all describe her in the same way. Slim, around twenty years of age, her pallid flesh completely covered in elaborate tattoos, said to describe ancient rites and pacts with the very devil himself. It’s claimed she has precious metals inlaid into her cheeks, highlighting particular runes or symbols. She wears a metal brace across her left shoulder which contains the clockwork mechanism that long ago replaced her heart. It bears a porthole in its outer casing, through which her own, decaying organ is still visible, now just a blackened, shrivelled lump. She is ruthless and unfeeling, and will stop at nothing to accomplish her goal-to kill the person she has been charged with executing-and claim their heart for her own unspecified purposes.”
Renwick leaned over and passed Newbury the black book he’d been holding throughout his tale. His thumb marked a specific page. Newbury took it and scanned the contents. The text was in Flemish, but the etching that filled the entire right edge of the page was of a woman, just as Renwick had described. She was dressed in a form-fitting black suit, and what flesh was visible-her hands, forearms, and face-was covered in intricate tattoos. She was wearing what looked like a sword guard on her left shoulder, and she carried twin scimitars, one in each fist.
Newbury took a deep breath. “You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. “How can it be the same woman?”
Renwick shrugged. “Whatever Dubois did to her, it worked. Whether it’s the machine he built to replace her heart, or whether he really did make a pact with the devil … I don’t know. Whatever the case, there’s no denying the truth. She exists. Her presence is felt on the sidelines of history throughout all the great nations. Everywhere you look, she’s there in the background, and she’s always the same, always killing to order and stealing people’s hearts.”
“Why has no one stopped her?” asked Newbury. “In all that time?”
“She chooses her clients well. Lords, ladies, governments … the sort of people who know how to suppress information,” replied Renwick.
“But if it is her…” said Newbury, gauging the immensity of what he’d just said.
“Then you have two problems,” finished Renwick. “The Executioner herself, and whoever is pulling her strings. She doesn’t kill for pleasure, and she is not aligned to any particular regime. She is a mercenary. If she’s here in London, she’s here because someone has contracted her services.”
Newbury glanced again at the image on the page before him. “It sounds like pure fantasy,” he said. “A fable. A myth. It’s utterly preposterous. And yet…” He trailed off again, deep in thought.
“I know,” said Renwick. “I know. It’s hard to stomach. But I’ve spent days looking into this, Newbury, and it’s all here in these books. Once you piece it together, her life story is right there, as old as the last century. If you have any doubt, think of the Queen. Life can be sustained beyond its natural span. Inevitably, however, something is lost in the process.”
Newbury nodded absently. The Executioner. The name he had heard in his dreams. The name he had scrawled upon ream after ream of paper in a clairvoyant frenzy; had screamed in terror and rage as he’d scratched it into the floorboards with his bloodied fingernails, back in his study in Chelsea. The name Amelia had warned him of, once he’d disclosed his secret to her.
The woman who would kill Veronica.
Renwick was right. Despite everything, it made sense. What he’d seen in his hallucinations had been real. The corpses told their own tale.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” said Renwick, flexing his shoulders and reaching for the flask on the still once again. He took another swig, shuddered, and put it back.
Newbury stood, placing the book back on the pile. “I’m sorry, Aldous. I have to go.”
Renwick frowned, suddenly concerned. “What is it?”
“It’s Veronica. She’s in great danger,” he said.
“So you agree? These deaths, they’re the work of the Executioner?” said Renwick-surprised, perhaps, at how readily Newbury had accepted his report.
“Yes,” said Newbury. “Yes, I agree. It’s her. And I have reason to believe that Veronica is likely to become one of her targets. I need to find out who’s directing this woman. I need to get to them before she gets to Veronica.”
Renwick stood, clasping Newbury’s shoulder. “Go, then go. And be careful. With the Executioner on one side and the Cabal on the other, you need to watch your own back, too.”
Newbury smiled, but it was mirthless. “Thank you, Aldous. For everything.”
“Thank me by keeping yourself alive,” said Renwick as he held the door open for Newbury to exit.
“I’ll do my best,” said Newbury over his shoulder as he left.
CHAPTER 23
This man was the same as all the other desperate souls who had sought out her most particular of services over the years. He, like them, had deceived himself that what he was doing-hiring a murderess to despatch those who might oppose him-was ultimately altruistic. He believed he sponsored these terrible deeds because they contributed to the greater good, and that by using her as an instrument to carry out such distasteful and necessary measures he remained one step removed from the responsibility. In other words, he wished to ensure that his hands remained clean and his conscience unblemished. He used phrases such as “a necessary evil” and “if I had any other choice” … but, truthfully, he was fooling only himself.
She had seen men-and women-struggle with such rationales a hundred times before, and she knew this behaviour for what it was. Their fragile minds were unable to cope with the truth: that they shared equally in the responsibility; that they, in effect, were guiding her hand as she hacked apart her victims’ chests and relieved them of their hearts. Men like this (for it was, predominantly, men) entered into the arrangements willingly, enthusiastically even. Afterwards, when she returned to describe the target’s death and show them the leather satchel containing the stolen, bloody organ, they wished to distance themselves from the results almost without fail.
She found this amusing, if, perhaps, a little tiresome. Only the Russian had remained impervious to such things, all those years ago in St. Petersburg. But he had paid for his inquisitiveness with his life.