Penny Dreadful Read Online Free

clouds seen from the window of an airplane, she thought. She giggled like a foolish bird. Goo shook her head as if it were made of rags, disgusted with herself. She was thinking like Eve and she was still weak from the change, the glamour. The street she walked along did exist, she was sure of that. She had bent to touch it countless times. But the street was unnamed, and she could find it on no map of the city. In the end it didn’t matter. There was cracked pavement beneath her feet, was there not? And now there were other voices, other bodies. They moved around her, a current. She was not entirely safe, though. Goo was vulnerable still, when out alone. She touched her fingers to her mouth and the soft tip of her own tongue reassured her.
    Rain began to fall, a warm mist.
    She turned down a tiny alleyway lit by gaslights and entered the Unbecoming Club.
    You’re late, pet.
    Goo flinched. Hello, Theseus.
    Theseus the Glove stood behind the bar in a murky green suit with flared lapels and narrow trousers. He looked like a woodland mortician. He did not smile at her. He did not offer her a drink.
    The Lady Adore waits for you. And her patience grows thin.
    But there is hardly a crowd.
    Theseus nodded, staring moodily at the nearly empty club. There were several Mariners in the corner, playing knives and trumps by candlelight. Two lonely Tremblers lounged on a sofa, picking at their loose flesh. And a damp, foul-smelling Redeemer was perched on a stool at the bar, his nose nearly touching the cool yellow liquid in his glass. But there was a guttural swelling in the air outside and Goo could feel it in her fingers, her toes. The club would be full in minutes. The patrons would be hungry for her, for Goo.
    And not for the first time she felt a little carsick at the idea.
    Goo, she thought. They want Goo, not me.
    Her pale splintered torso, coming apart before her eyes and falling through dark glass.
    Eve, she thought. You stupid little bitch. She turned to the Redeemer at the bar and wondered what a few words of sympathy would cost her. My God. The man truly smelled. But he was not so pathetic and dirty as he looked at first glance. His hair stood up at freakish angles and was peppered with white. His face was long and sour, wrinkled. He looked like a pale gray prune. The man was old, maybe forty. And this was rare, she knew. The middle-aged were generally too gloomy and stubborn about reality for the game of tongues. The Redeemer looked at her now, his lips twitching into a smile. His eyes were red and scorched but still sharp and he was no wetbrain, she could see that. And he looked very familiar, he looked like someone.
    Will you hear me, she said. Will you hear a confession.
    The man sighed. As if amused. Why not, he said. I am a Redeemer.
    Yes, she said. Do I know you?
    No, no. I certainly don’t think so.
    But you look like someone, she said. What is your name?
    Gulliver, he said. His hand was dry, with blunt fingernails.
    Hello, she said. My name is Goo.
    The Redeemer sipped delicately from his glass of Pale. He wiped at his lips, which were thin and rubbery and morbidly prehensile in appearance. His mouth was ugly but no doubt fantastic when it came to oral sex, she thought. A man could be very popular with lips like that. He nodded and rolled his eyes as if he could hear her thoughts and finally said, Well? What is your problem?
    Goo sighed and glanced around, nervous and hating herself. Theseus didn’t seem to be listening but she could never be sure. He seemed to be anywhere and everywhere at once. I’m not happy, she said.
    Interesting, he said. I don’t hear that one often.
    Goo whispered, now. Sometimes I want to leave the game.
    But why? he said.
    I used to have a life, a dayworld life.
    The Redeemer raised his furry eyebrows. Do you drink the Pale?
    Rarely, she said.
    He grunted. Good for you.
    I love it here, she said. But I hate it, too.
    The Redeemer was gazing at her with pity in his eyes and she wondered