Penny Dreadful Read Online Free PDF

And I would first have to steal three red apples. I ducked into a phone booth and realized with some amusement that I bother to dwell on the irony. The call was free, at least. I told the emergency operator that I was a police informant and was in relatively grave danger. The operator was not amused.
    This line is for emergency calls only, she said.
    I’m going to be dead in five minutes, I said. Is that an emergency?
    Your name, she said.
    The angry flipper-boy, I said.
    Hum of silence.
    Phineas Poe, I said. Please tell Detective Moon to come get me.
    Theseus the Glove:
    The stage was black but for an egg-shaped spot of orange light. One of Goo’s bare legs lay stretched there as if cut off at the knee. Her thigh-high boots were nowhere to be seen. Theseus reached under his jacket to pinch his left nipple. He had his doubts about this girl sometimes, doubts about her belief in the game. But she was lovely as a sleeping child when bound and gagged.
    A gloved hand entered the egg of orange light.
    Goo’s leg looked as if it had been discarded, a piece of firewood. The hand began to stroke, or measure, her ankle with blunt, velvet fingers.
    Theseus felt wet.
    A small wire cage was shoved slowly into the orange light.
    The wire cage had two doors. One of them was an ordinary door, with a hinge on one side and a latch on the other. The other opened like a set of flaps, with a semicircle cut out of each side. The gloved hands carefully pulled open these flaps and inserted Goo’s bare foot into the cage. The flaps were then closed and the cutout circle fit snugly, if a little tightly, around her ankle.
    There was a low, steady grunting from the crowd.
    Money. This was silver in his pocket.
    Goo’s pale, arched foot was trapped in the wire cage. Now the gloved hand opened the rear door and a gray pigeon appeared, as if pulled from a hat. The pigeon was quickly pushed into the cage and the rear door latched. The pigeon crouched there, placid and dumbly staring.
    The egg of orange light began to grow.
    It widened to expose Goo’s hips. Her other leg was crumpled, hidden. The tattered, yellow-white dress lay like dirty snow around her. Her arms were splayed and apparently powerless. She was not restrained, however. She was deliciously passive and Theseus wanted to laugh. The girl was dangerous. Her eyes were shut tight and her ears flattened, feline against her skull. There was a thin pillow beneath her head. The Lady Adore crouched at the edge of the light, near the wire cage. She wore leather pants and no shoes. The coiled black cloth around her torso resembled a bandage more than a shirt. In her gloved hands, she held a bundle of damp gray rags. Adore appeared motionless, barely breathing as the orange light swelled. Adore placed the rags at the rear door of the cage, perhaps six inches from the forlorn pigeon. She lit a match, and the little bundle began to burn. Theseus groaned, sweating.
    The pigeon was frantic. It hopped up and down and sideways, like a grasshopper. Adore pulled a straight razor from the cuff of one velvet glove and began to cut and slash briskly at Goo’s clothes. The pigeon threw itself against the wires as if it might kill itself, then abruptly stopped. Instead, it attacked Goo’s trapped foot. The wedding dress fell away from the razor like paper.
    The bird was a mad, thrashing blur. Goo’s slim white foot was a web of trickling blood.
    The corset was so thick that Adore was forced to hack at it. She peeled it away and Goo’s belly was bleeding here and there, from superficial cuts. Her ribs were fine and shadowy. Her breasts were plump, her nipples red. Smoke from the small fire hung over her body. The pigeon was growing weak now, its gray feathers dark with blood. The Lady Adore cut away Goo’s underpants and tossed them into the silent crowd. She reached into the cage and cut the pigeon’s throat just as the orange light faded to black.
    Theseus smiled, pouring drinks all around.
    Multiple