A Victorian Demon’s Guide to London, Love, and Being a Hero (Time for Monsters)

Jack

I could eat for hours watching her. There’s something about the way her head dips. Her hands flutter. Pretty, nervous little prey.

I want to see the flesh she keeps covered. The scent of her... She doesn’t smell like the others. I normally can’t wait to get to the meat underneath the stinking, dirty skin of the humans I ingest. Her skin is smooth in places and rough in others, but it’s delightful to touch.

It’s late in the evening, nearly midnight, when I finally see her leave the kitchen. I doze in front of the fire in the sitting room, hands supporting my chin as I watch her enter, see me, and jump in place. “You look overheated, Polly. That dress is too heavy for such work.”

“Yes, sir. My other dress is thinner, and it’ll be clean and dry tomorrow,” she gasps, a hand under her breasts.

With a sick realization, I know why Bunson wanted her. Oh, I realized before, of course, that he wanted her for carnal pleasures. It’s just a jolt to realize I feel the same way now. Her breasts are bountiful, and her beauty is the flawless, unassuming kind. She doesn’t know she’s so lovely. She simply knows Bunson was bad and would go after anything he wanted.

I’m far worse than Bunson, but she doesn't know that. Yet.

“We will buy you a new dress or two. Something light. Aprons. Shoes. Hats. Underthings.” I don’t flinch as I say the words that the prim and proper humans are loathe to say. Polly turns pink.

It’s all I can do not to bite her cheek.

“You don’t have to, sir,” she gasps as if she hasn’t enough air to speak. “You gave me two fine dresses today, plus this one.”

“You said part of your wages is in clothing. I’ll not have you fainting in those heavy dresses.” I rise abruptly as Polly seems to sag, her pink cheeks suddenly pallid as she stands in front of the fire. “You’ve been sweating in that all day, cooking, washing, cleaning.”

“I’m fine,” she says faintly. I know she isn’t, for she’s forgotten to say “sir” at the end of every sentence, a habit that’s gratifying but getting on my nerves.

“Are you?” I slide my arm around her waist. She stiffens and then pitches forward. “I think you’ve lied to me, Pretty Polly.”

“No, sir.”

“I think you need to get out of that dress and into a bath.”

“I—”

“If you argue with me, I’ll sack you.” I smile. Yes, I hold all the power over her. It should be very satisfying, and instead, it’s dawning on me that she has an equal amount of sway over me. She’s all I can think about. If something were to happen to her...

My claws fly down her back, splitting the dress until it falls off her shoulders and pools down to reveal those splendid breasts I was imagining. There was some little white shirtlet—also split—under the heavy black garment she wore, but nothing substantial, no heavy corsets or layers upon layers like some I’ve encountered.

Polly whimpers and squeaks. “Please!”

“Into the bathtub. Do I run this hot or cold?” I push her along ahead of me, her elbows in my chest as she crosses her arms to keep the split dress from revealing the rest of her.

“I don’t know. We’ve never... I never... We used a washtub every now and then, but usually just a towel and water.”

“We didn’t have these where I’m from, either,” I grunt, keeping hold of her with one hand and cranking open the tap with the other. “But they’re quite useful.” Blood washes away so easily when you can simply submerge yourself in water. “Don’t you faint on me, or I’ll have to scrub you down myself,” I warn in a stern voice.

Nothing I’d like more.

“The dress is torn,” she says in a dazed voice. “My underthings... I don’t have a night dress, sir.”

“We’ll add it to the list. I’ll fetch you something for tonight.”

I leave Polly in the bathroom and slide from my flat. The halls of the building are dark and silent. The flats stand empty. I’ve long since eaten their inhabitants, but I’ve left enough of their belongings about to make it look as though they might return.

Very hard to return when their bones are the ashes in the bottom of my fireplace.

This part of London—just south and west of the refined urbanity of Pimlico, seems to be full of well-bred humans who mind their own business. Of course, it helps that supernatural beings seem to be invisible to them, and our activities likewise. I move from flat to flat, trying to recall which once held female occupants. On the first floor, I think. Yes. White cotton. Voluminous. She was a fleshy woman with gray hair and a bitter stringiness to her.

Glimpses of Polly’s pale skin, almost as white as mine, glow in my mind. White and pink, blonde and blue. A pretty thing wrapped in sweet scents. She’s a confection after a year of fatty meals, lean meals, unappetizing, bitter, stinking—but always filling meals.

“She’s a cordial to sip on,” I whisper, heels igniting and sending me soaring up the stairs the second I leave the flat on the ground floor.

The blue flames that come from my hooves scorched through the heels of my boots, but I don’t mind. My feet aren’t delicate, soft things that can’t stand mud, snow, and rain. Of course, if Polly ever got her hands on these boots, she’d be shocked to see the heels are slit through, to find the thick, cloven hoofprints worn into the bottom.

I won’t make you do things you don’t like.

For the first time, I think about whether she’d like what I can do to her. What I want to do to her. Not eating her. Not that way.

If her hands slide through my hair and grasp horn, will she scream? Of course. What about when she finds my well-muscled thighs end in thick shanks and hard black hooves?

Or that my genitalia, which I’ve heard called everything from sausage and potatoes to wedding tackle, is considerably more bull-like in size than human...

“Hm.” A human’s dislike never stopped me before. Why should she be any different?

I TEMPT FATE. MY VERY existence in the human world tempts fate, so I continue my plan, unhindered.

The bathroom is silent when I arrive back in the flat. Has she run off? Has she drowned?

Fingers press against the door, and it opens without a squeak.

Polly glistens, back and shoulders to me, submerged to the waist. Her head is bowed. Is she crying?

I would hate that. Purely for selfish reasons, I don’t want her to cry. The sound is displeasing and ruins my appetite if I don’t stop it quickly.

She’s silent. Breathing deep and even.

Oh, poor thing. Poor little morsel. She’s fallen asleep in the warm water, exhausted.

Good.

I risk moving inside, silent, stalking my prey as I would in the Middling, a vast, open land where prey can run, even if they can’t hide. It’s best to sneak up on them as there’s no cover.

Here, there’s no cover. One tilt of her head will let her see me.

I want that. I want her to see me. Feel me. Beg me to taste her. Bite her. Devour her.

My hand inches toward her bare shoulder. I could yank her from this tub and under me in seconds.

Instead... I drop the nightgown over the doorknob and slip back out of the room. “Polly. I’ve slid a night dress through the door. Dry off and get in bed.”

I hear a splash and gasp. “Th-thank you, Mr. Springton!” her voice calls back, startled.

But sweet. So delectably sweet.

How long can I live like this without tasting her?

NOT LONG. A DAY PASSES . Polly is in a frenzy of cleaning and scrubbing and hauling home a giant chunk of ice, which shows me that under her frail appearance, she is surprisingly strong.

I leave to let her work in her shabby, thin dress, promising her that tomorrow we will go shopping and that today I will take care of the rest of her “wages”— meat for her little urchins.

I find the stockyards Polly speaks of, but there are humans everywhere. Walking, dead-eyed humans who have blood caked into the creases of their skin. For the first time ever, my appetite dulls while looking at strong, healthy prey.

Very strong, dedicated prey. I’m afraid they’ll work all night, but at last, most of them leave. In the distance, a church clock chimes nine. I’m late for supper. Polly will fret. My pace quickens at the thought of her frown, and that makes me frown, too. I need to get the meat and leave.

Sneaking through the giant building that looks so beautiful from the outside, with high arches and vaulting ceilings, I hide in the din and hustle of dirty men, barking dogs, bleating sheep, and squealing pigs. The market covers acres of ground in the heart of London. I head to the cattle. I take half a cow from a giant metal hook. Literally, it’s half of a beast, perhaps four hundredweight of meat, gristle, and bone, a giant carcass split and quartered, swaying in the constant jarring of bodies and the rumble of trains that lead straight to this building. The streets around the market run red with blood.

If only I’d found this place sooner. Perhaps I’d never have left, I think with a crooked grin, dragging the meat behind me.

I stop before I reach an exit. There are live beasts here, too. I know the humans kill and eat them—but I never had until yesterday. Beings like me prey upon humans, for that’s all that enters our realm. Nothing else has a sentient soul fit to find its way to Heaven, Hell, or in between.

With a moment’s hesitation, I sling the carcass onto a vacant hook and slip into the mass of giant black, shaggy bodies that are penned in, waiting for their date with a blade. I sink my claws into the coarse black hide of a steer and tear, the creature’s lowing surprisingly loud right next to my face. I bite and slash, sinking my teeth straight into warm, twitching muscles.

Oddly enough... its flavor is far more pleasant than humans. And the skin isn’t so unpalatable, which surprises me, as well.

I leave the beast bleeding. Tomorrow, it’ll die either way. A few chunks from its neck and shoulder won’t matter. Some workman in the stockyard will imagine one of the dogs savaged it, perhaps.

To me, the only thing that matters is that I leave the meat in front of Bunson’s and then vanish, my appetite still sharp.

As I turn towards home, the pain blooms in my middle.

Very sharp indeed.

Just one taste of her. That’s all I need—for now.