Page 80 of Molly Boys

“HELP!” Ev yelled as loud as he could. “HELP, I’M DOWN HERE!”

Baxter slapped his hand over Ev’s mouth.

Shaking his head frantically to dislodge Baxter’s grip, Ev bit down hard, catching the edge of Baxter’s hand as it slipped.

“HELP!” Ev yelled hoarsely as his voice cracked.

Baxter bared his teeth, his eyes flashing furiously as he gripped Ev’s throat and squeezed.

“Be quiet,” he hissed.

Ev was dying, he could feel it, for even as the blood drained from him slowly, the hand wrapped around his throat tightened. He couldn’t draw in a breath, his vision greyed, but just when he began to sink into darkness, he heard a voice he recognised and his heart jolted.

“Let him go.” That beautiful growl cut through the layers of hopelessness and gave him something to hold onto.

The grip on his throat loosened and he sucked in a sharp breath, the sudden intake of air forcing him to cough.

“Let him go,” Archie repeated coldly.

“NO!” Baxter screamed, swiping his hand across the trolley and sending the surgical instruments crashing to the ground in a fit of temper. “He’s mine! You’re not having him, not when I’m so close.”

Ev turned his head. He couldn’t see Archie from this angle but he could see Baxter. Up until that moment the man had barely shown any real emotion, but now he looked livid, unhinged even. His eyes were wild and flecks of spit appeared as he yelled. His hand released Ev’s neck but he stood close to the table, his fists clenched.

Ev’s head spun alarmingly. He didn’t know if it was from the blood loss or the lack of oxygen, but it was getting harder to focus. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, but there seemed to be something wrong with Baxter’s face.

His flesh rippled, stretching grotesquely as if something was underneath it. His bones seemed to snap with an awful crunch, his jaw re-shaping itself into a broader, squarer shape. The bone beneath his brow became more pronounced and heavyset as his forehead lengthened.

The shirt he wore began to tear along the back and sleeves as his thin arms and chest filled, bulking up with heavy muscles so huge the skin looked like it was going to split as well, revealing thick veins which now bulged obscenely.

Ev’s confused gaze dropped to Baxter’s thighs as his trousers ripped loudly and his leg muscles swelled in the same way his arms and chest did. Baxter straightened, no longer bowed but now also several feet taller. He barely looked human, more like a monster from the penny dreadfuls sold on Fleet Street.

The brutish man opened his mouth and snarled, a shockingly animal-like sound, and Ev gasped loudly. Before him stood the giant who had abducted him, the monster Jack had been so afraid of, and the cold-blooded murderer who’d killed Charlie and David and all those boys from The Nichol.

Ev didn’t know how it was possible. But Dr Baxter and Mr Smith weren’t accomplices at all.

They were the same person.

23

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

Archie heard Shaw swear behind him but he couldn’t spare him a glance. His attention was firmly fixed on the huge growling man who was Baxter but also not.

He didn’t know how the hell the giant man and the crippled doctor had managed to do it, but right now Archie’s sole focus was on getting past the monster to Everett before he bled to death.

Having already put down his shuttered lantern at the top of the stairs, Archie gripped his truncheon tighter.

“You’re not actually thinking of taking on that beast, are you?” Shaw hissed.

“I don’t have a choice.” Archie edged closer to Baxter. “If we don’t help Lord Stanley right now, he will die.”

“Ahhh.” Shaw gave a growl of reluctance. “I don’t have a weapon. You distract it, I’ll get to Lord Stanley, and if I die, you can explain it to my wife.”

“Fine,” Archie muttered. “Now!”

Archie raised the small, stout wooden bat in his hand and rushed at Baxter. He ducked under one thick, meaty arm and brought the truncheon up, cracking Baxter hard across the ribs.

Baxter gave a snarl of fury and grabbed hold of Archie, throwing him clear off his feet with sheer brute strength. Unable to stop his momentum, Archie crashed into a long wooden table. It overturned, sending glass bottles, flasks, and distilling apparatus smashing to the ground. He hit the stone floor, then tried to roll away when he saw the table come crashing toward him, but he couldn’t move quick enough. It caught his side, sending a sharp pain across his midsection and knocking the wind from him.