he took in her scars and the doctor’s black valise clamped tightly in her hands. The sight of a mental patient was just as entertaining as the dead, and he elbowed the person next to him, whispering something. The white moon of another curious face filled her peripheral vision, but Grace remained unmoved, her attention focused solely on the girl and Thornhollow as he knelt beside her.
“Step back, now. C’mon, step back.” The policemen walked in a widening circle around the body trying to move the crowd away. Grace’s spine stiffened as she recognized Davey. His eyes met hers and she willed herself to show no reaction as he approached.
“You’re all right,” he said quietly, reaching for her elbow, then pulling away as he thought better of it. Instead, he gestured for her to move closer, separating her from the crowd. “Can’t do the doctor much good from back here, can you?”
Grace stepped forward, letting a long exhalation escape silently as she left the press of other bodies behind.
“Look here—why’s she get to go in front?” the man who had stepped on her foot protested.
“What do you think this is? An exhibition?” Davey shot back. “This here’s a murder scene and that girl is the doctor’s assistant.”
“What good is a doctor on a murder scene? Seems to me she’s already dead.”
Grace left their argument behind her, their words sliding away as she lost interest in all but the girl, whose blank stare was so like her own. Thornhollow glanced up as she moved closer, his eyes glazed with concentration as he feverishly cataloged all he could in the moments allowed him.
“Ah, there’s your girl,” the heavyset policeman said as he joined them, having successfully threatened the onlookers enough that they kept a distance. “Almost makes a murder worth it, seeing her pretty face. Shame about the scars, though.”
Thornhollow rose, and she caught the slightest whisper of his words as he leaned into her. “Watch the crowd.”
“Hardly a shame,” Thornhollow countered George in his next breath. “The surgery made her violent fits much less common, although admittedly, less predictable. Just yesterday she chased a squirrel across the front lawn, caught him too. The nurse told me she spent hours picking all the hairs from Grace’s teeth.”
“You don’t mean to say she ate it?” Davey asked.
“That’s the tale. I wasn’t there to see it, but one of the patients told me the doomed thing was still trying to climb out as she was chewing.”
George backed away from Grace. “Might want to keep your distance, in that case, Davey. No face is pretty enough to outweigh having something chewed off.”
Davey hovered nearby, nonetheless. “There’s a fella over there not too happy about the girl, uh . . . Grace, getting to come up close for a good look. I’ll just stay near.”
“She knows no difference, either way,” Thornhollow said, looking at Davey shrewdly. “If the gentleman in the crowd were to bother her past her point of endurance, Grace would handle it. Now, if I could direct both your attentions to the girl on the ground and not the one standing, that would be most beneficial.”
Grace’s eyes wandered over the crowd that had gathered in a loose circle around them, the girl’s body on unwitting display as her death provided the night’s entertainment. People pressed against one another three deep, the ones in front informing those in back what was going on. Eyes bounced off her own as Grace took in each face, each reaction as they noticed her scars.
The three men conversed in low tones, their words suddenly scattered by the shrill piercing of a train whistle. Several people in the crowd jumped, hands going to their ears.
“Some vagrant’s done it,” someone shouted. “Probably hopped the next train out too. Never catch the bastard once he’s on the rails.” The man broke to the front of the crowd. “You’d best be watching the tracks, coppers.”
George rounded on him, hand dropped threateningly to his billy club. “You let me decide what I best be doing.”
“Make way,” Davey shouted, parting the crowd on the opposite side of the circle. “Coroner’s wagon is here. Make way, all of you. Show’s over.”
Thornhollow took his valise from Grace, and she followed him to the carriage. “Back to the asylum. We’ve seen all we need here,” he said to the driver, who nodded.
“It seems vultures of all types follow the dead, don’t they?” Thornhollow asked Grace as they watched the crowd gather around the coroner’s wagon.
“Vultures don’t have