Damn the Consequences Read online

  Damn the Consequences

  A Catherine Harker, Vampire Hunter Novella

  Erin Hayes

  Erin Hayes Books

  Contents

  Preface

  Damn the Consequences

  O Little Town of Bedlam

  About the Author

  Preface

  Author’s Note: There is enough mythology and legend around Jack the Ripper to call it Ripperology. So many theories, explanations, and conspiracies have floated around to make the killer larger than life. Many have devoted their lives to solving the murder, some to skepticism and others to pure contention. My own interpretation of the Whitechapel Murderer isn’t necessarily accurate—I’ve taken a few liberties with his story. But this story asks the question: what if Jack were actually a vampire?

  Damn the Consequences

  October, 1888 London

  “I look like a leper.” I frown at my mottled reflection in the mirror as I get ready to go out for a hunt in Whitechapel.

  “You are essentially a leper, Catherine,” my little sister Hazel tells me, a sad smile playing about her rouged lips. “Your flesh is rotting and eating itself. Is that not what leprosy is?”

  She has a point.

  “Children must think I am the Bogeyman,” I tell her.

  “And you can tell those children that you hunt their Bogeyman.”

  Again, she has a point, although we are not supposed to tell anyone that we hunt the supernatural. Hazel always did have a macabre sense of humor. It is a must when you grow up in our family.

  I slip a lace glove on over my ruined right hand. It feels uncomfortable and pulls at my sensitive skin, but it does the job and covers up most of my disfigurement. “I suppose I am not contagious to normal humans, at least.”

  “So, are you saying that I should keep my distance?” Hazel counters in a dry tone. Despite her words, she reaches over and helps me with the glove on my left hand. This hand is faring better than the other, possibly due to the fact that my magical sword appears from my palm. It must help keep the infection at bay. The glove still feels constricting, though.

  “From me? Always. People always seem to die around me.”

  “It is the curse of being the Harker,” Hazel murmurs mildly.

  “Soon to be your curse.”

  Hazel’s eyes crinkle at the corners, her smile fading. But she does not deny it. We both know what happens to our family when a vampire attempts to Turn us. Scarring all over our bodies, violent fits of mania where we cannot control our bodies, and an untimely death.

  We both know I am dying.

  One such vampire attempted to Turn me nearly half a year ago. All the telltale signs of my demise are evident, from the red, pus-filled blotches that cover my body, to wracking coughs and manic episodes that leave me unconscious.

  I do not have much time left on this earth.

  I give her a tight-lipped grin as I pull the veil over my face. It masks the sores that are spreading across my forehead from anyone’s first glance, and I plan on not staying around humans long enough for them to get another look at me.

  Still, though…

  “This blasted hat is going to get in my way,” I mutter, adjusting it. I have a few hairpins in place to keep it from tumbling off my head, but it feels insecure. I know what will happen if we are attacked by vampires.

  Then again, maybe seeing my face will make those same vampires run away from me. No one is interested in a diseased food supply.

  “I think if you are in enough trouble to worry about your hat,” Hazel muses, “then your other fashion accoutrements will give you more pause. I am starting to think that vampires invented the corset to keep us from properly fighting them.”

  “That is giving them too much credit, my dear.”

  She crosses her arms, cradling her elbows. “I would rather overestimate their capabilities than have them catch me by surprise.”

  “Nothing could catch you by surprise.”

  She frowns, watching me. Her gaze is sad, pensive. “Some things still do.”

  My throat constricts at her hidden implication, but I turn away from her to continue preparations for our hunt tonight.

  I slip a knife into the garter on my upper thigh. In ten years of vampire-hunting, I have only had to use that knife once. But it certainly gives me peace of mind to have it there. I slip another knife into my laced-up boots. I have a spring-loaded pistol in the sleeve of my overcoat, and my parasol has a hidden blade in the handle.

  Those are the only weapons I carry, though. Mainly because the deadliest weapon is me.

  Finished, I smooth out my petticoats and face Hazel. “How do I look?”

  “Like you are in mourning.”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Perhaps you should see a physician, like I suggested.”

  “A physician will not help with this, Hazel.”

  “Neither will your stubbornness.”

  I answer with only a chuckle.

  She sighs, casting her gaze down, straightening up and smoothing out her own dress. She has a few more weapons on her person, but that’s because she is without my special powers, such as my increased strength and the ability to summon the enchanted sword Silver Bane from my hand.

  She will have those gifts soon, though. As next in line to the Harker legacy, she will walk in my shoes after I die. Like our mother before us. And her sister before her. And their mother. And so on and so forth. Only the women in my family carry the legacy of being the Harker.

  One’s life expectancy as the Harker is never very long. I have been the Harker for ten years, yet I don’t have children of my own to whom to pass my lineage. And, looking at my sister, I realize with a pang that she may have the same troubles I did finding love and starting a family.

  A veritable ice queen, Hazel remains unapproachable to suitors despite the odd gentleman who comes calling.

  Gaunt and statuesque, she is both too thin and too tall for conventional beauty. Yet there is something enchanting about her. Her dark hair curls around her temples, despite her attempts to pin it back and tame it. Her green eyes are wild and bewitching. Her jaw and chin are both a bit too strong and her milky-white skin is without a blemish.

  Meanwhile, whereas Hazel is severe, I am a version of her that is smoothed out and more refined. There are only eleven months between us, yet we are as different as night and day.

  And here we are, both in our twenties without husbands, practically spinsters by any measure. Hazel doesn’t seem to mind.

  I do, though.

  I suppose the Harker line will have to be passed on to our younger siblings’ children. Margaret already has a young man courting her, and Thomas should be looking for a wife soon.

  I have to believe that the Harker family will continue when I’m gone.

  I offer Hazel a quick smile. “Are you ready?”

  She lets out a soft breath. “As ready as I will…”

  “…ever be in the face of the unknown,” I finish for her, my grin widening. It is a saying that our mother repeated every time she went on a hunt. Hazel looks irritated that I cut her off.

  We leave our shared bedroom and head downstairs, the smell of dinner wafting its way out of the dimly-lit kitchen. I stop in the front parlor, close my eyes, and make a decision.

  “Catherine…” Hazel says, her voice breaking as I move to leave through the front door.

  It has been tradition for the Harker to say good-bye every time she goes on a hunt. We never know when a hunt will be our last.

  Tonight, however, I cannot risk it. I don’t want to see Margaret’s tear-stained face or hear Thomas tell me that he will go with us. Or have our father stare at me with that look of despair. I know I remind
him of my mother. I do not think I can take it again. Not tonight.

  “Catherine!” a shrill voice cries, and I involuntarily halt like I used to as a child. Our family retainer, Mrs. Hudson, could always make me behave with that voice. “Where are you going without saying good-bye?”

  I grit my teeth. Of course, Mrs. Hudson would catch me trying to sneak out.

  I lift the veil and turn back to the parlor. Hazel stands with the old woman, whose hair is slightly askew, and her apron has flour all over it. She has been baking honey cakes again, and my mouth waters at the very thought of them.

  “Dear me,” Mrs. Hudson cries, “but you look like you’re on your way to a funeral!”

  “Mrs. Hudson, she is going on a hunt,” Hazel explains in a tone similar to a parent shushing a child.

  “Dressed like that?”

  “Hazel and I have to hurry,” I tell her. “There has been some activity in Whitechapel that we need to look into.”

  I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily, so I keep the more lurid details to myself. It was a tip from Scotland Yard, that there is a cloaked figure roaming the district at night. The newspapers have dubbed him Jack the Ripper. Hazel and I recognize the telltale signs of a vampire on the loose.

  Mrs. Hudson pales, and I know why, even if she hasn’t read the news. Whitechapel is impoverished and overcrowded, a favorite haunt for prostitutes, brawls, and the like. It is no place for two well-to-do women to be at night.

  Yet that is exactly what the Harker must do.

  “Whitechapel?” she whispers. She clucks her tongue in worry, shaking her head. “I wish you would not do that.”

  I smile despite myself. “I am the Harker, Mrs. Hudson.”

  She puts her fists on her hips, unrelenting.

  I am glad she has not commented on the state of my face, which has only gotten worse since last night. I have been documenting the spread of my disease in my journals, but it has been hard to keep up with it as it accelerates. I am sure a physician would find me fascinating, but I do not want them dissecting me like one of their experiments.

  Behind her, Margaret bursts out of the door leading to the workshop below our house, and she coughs, covering her mouth. Smoke unfurls from the door, and I suppose that Father is working on another one of his inventions with her.

  “Definitely need to fix the torque, Papa!” she calls back down to the workshop. There is an answering shout from our father, muffled by banging downstairs.

  Margaret, as third in line to the Harker, always works with Father on his inventions to help us on our hunts. I know his obsession was to aid our mother, but it has turned into something else in the wake of her death. His steam-powered gadgets have always been a big help. When they work correctly, of course. I have had my eyelashes singed off when a light cannister exploded in my hands.

  Margaret pulls off her goggles and peers at the three of us with a suspicious frown. “You were going to go on a hunt without saying good-bye, weren’t you?”

  She has me at a loss. “I—”

  One thing about Margaret, she never takes “no” for an answer, and she gives me a cross look. “Don’t think you are going to escape that easily, Catherine. Mama didn’t get to say good-bye.”

  Margaret was barely ten years old when Mother was killed by a vampire. I was only fifteen myself, Hazel fourteen, and Thomas only twelve. We all had to grow up quickly when our absentminded father found himself raising four children. Without Mrs. Hudson, the house would have burned down a long time ago. Of that, I am sure.

  Margaret wraps me up in a hug, and I smell the soot on her clothes and hair from downstairs. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. I will always think of her like this—smelling of oil and smoke with her hair coming out of its plait.

  I see Hazel smirk, watching us silently. She is enjoying this on some level, although I think she feels just as melancholy as me. She knows that my time is short. And that any hunt could be my last.

  I clear my throat and step back. I am trying to think of the words I need to say, but they aren’t finding their way to my lips.

  Margaret waggles her finger at me. “Don’t think that is it.” She goes to the door of the workshop and shouts down it, “Papa! Thomas! Catherine and Hazel are leaving on their hunt!”

  Indecision freezes me to my spot as I hear the metal clanging stop, and a few seconds later, Thomas emerges, his hair sticking up in every direction. The whiskers of his scraggly beard are slick with oil.

  His bright blue eyes fall on me. “Catherine!” he exclaims.

  Once again, I am crushed in another embrace. I feel like my ribs are just about to pop when he lets me go and holds me out at arm’s length. When did my little brother get so much taller than me?

  “Good luck, sister!” he cries. As a boy born in a line of powerful women, Thomas has always been so innocent when it comes to vampire hunting.

  “Catherine,” a voice says behind us.

  Thomas’s grin widens as he steps aside, revealing our father standing in the doorway to his basement workshop. If Margaret and Thomas look askew from their work downstairs, Father looks positively frazzled. He stands taller than all of us and has the mop of russet hair that Thomas inherited. His blue eyes, which must have been covered up by the goggles on top of his head, are ringed with black soot.

  He wipes his hands on his well-worn leather apron, looking between Hazel and me. “Off somewhere?”

  “We are going to Whitechapel, Papa,” Hazel says. “A tip from Inspector Doyle.”

  Father turns his gaze on me for a brief moment before looking back at Hazel. “Inspector Doyle?” He frowns. “Does this have to do with that Whitechapel Murderer I have read about?”

  “Whitechapel Murderer?” Mrs. Hudson cries dramatically as she realizes who our target is. As if the Harker’s very birthright is not about dealing with murderers with fangs.

  Hazel nods with a wry curve of her lips. “Scotland Yard needs our help finding him.”

  Father scoffs in reply. “They need our help with everything, do they not?”

  I need to get out of here before I lose my nerve and get too frightened to leave. I want to stay here and help Father with his inventions, to laugh with Thomas and Margaret, and bake honey cakes with Mrs. Hudson.

  That has never been my destiny, though.

  “Excuse me,” I mutter, pulling the veil down to cover up my face. I turn to leave, then think twice and give Father a quick hug. “Papa.”

  His arms come around me, and he puts his cheek on top of my head. “Be careful, Catherine.”

  I nod, then let go. I take a circuitous route through the kitchen and grab a still-steaming honey cake before slipping out the door. No one calls after me.

  I guess it is to be expected.

  Baker Street is fairly empty tonight. I stand outside in the crisp air and take a few, deep steadying breaths, closing my eyes.

  It will be all right.

  I open my eyes, calmer now, and I nibble on the cake, savoring the hot pastry. Mrs. Hudson has always known how to make the best cakes.

  “You hurried out of there very quickly,” Hazel says behind me.

  I glance back at her. She stands on the steps with her arms crossed. She carries a basket with her that has a few honey cakes, but also has a few knives and weapons hidden within the handkerchief.

  “They were taking too long in there while a vampire is hunting humans.”

  “Catherine…” Hazel starts, her voice trailing off.

  “Are you coming or not?”

  Her nostrils flare. “Catch.”

  My Harker reflexes take over before I have a chance to consider her words, and I catch the object she throws to me. I look down at the one-handed pistol. The grip fits me perfectly, but the barrel of the gun swells before tapering to a point. Intricate carvings swirl around the cool brass, no doubt Margaret’s handiwork.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “A disrupter pistol,” Hazel says, her voice smug. “When fire
d, it paralyzes your target for three hours.”

  “Brilliant,” I murmur in awe, turning it over in my gloved hand.

  “Father said that had we waited a week, we would have been able to use his steam-powered automobile,” Hazel adds.

  My guts twists in regret. Even if we were not going on a hunt, I do not think I have another week left to live.

  “We will have to try that later,” I say noncommittally.

  Without another word, I turn to leave. I have been distracted too long as it is. I feel Hazel’s eyes on my back as I stride down the cobblestone streets, heading toward Whitechapel.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Hazel hikes her skirts and hurries to catch up with me.

  What always strikes me about the East End of London is the smell. Even before we arrive at the district, the smell of filth and too many humans living together hits me like a locomotive.

  As we step out of our hired carriage and onto Berners Street, I cannot help but feel my own sadness rise in my throat at seeing the extreme poverty around us. Irish and Jewish immigrants huddle among the sewage and the buildings while whores intoxicated by opium eye us warily.

  Too many broken dreams and promises from a world that let these people down. I swallow back the lump in my throat. Regardless of how tough life has been to me, I never ended up on these streets among the derelict and the hopeless.

  “Are you two ladies sure you want to be dropped off here?” the cabbie asks, his Cockney-accented voice strained in disbelief that two women would voluntarily be dropped off in these slums at night.

  “We will be fine,” I tell him, acting demure. Men like it when you act meek, as I have realized over the years. “We are just visiting our poor friend Mary who is suffering from consumption.” Hazel holds out a basket of honey cakes to illustrate my point. “Poor thing is down on her luck. Coughing a right fit.”

  It is our alibi, as usual. The police and Scotland Yard may know about our true identities, but we prefer it if civilians do not know we exist. Children may be worried about the Bogeyman, but when adults are afraid, that adds a new dimension to them. People prefer ignorance when it comes to the occult.