Free The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

to think of being a reporter now. Ellie dashed for the curtain, pulled it aside, and found a set of stairs. As she rushed upward, she heard human voices shouting in the hall below. Were they merely angry clients, or the rough men who inevitably policed establishments like this? Men like Crippen? The stairs switchbacked, leading up to the third floor, and to another velvet curtain. Ellie peeked around the edge of the flimsy barrier, and saw only another hallway, not unlike the one she’d just escaped. These doors were all closed, except for one on the left at the far end. She raced down the hall and looked into that room. It was furnished in the same style as the other boudoirs, but presently unoccupied by either man or machine. Ellie pulled the door shut behind her and listened intently.
    Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and a male voice—not Oswald’s—said, “He must be hiding here somewhere. Check the rooms.”
    Ellie rushed to the window, hoping for a ledge she could stand on, but when she threw back the drapes, there was no window; it had been boarded up, and the nails were driven too deep for her to pry them loose. She could hear, faintly, doors opening farther down the hall. They would reach her, soon, and when they did…
    She closed her eyes for a moment. They were looking for a man. Well, then. She’d just have to make sure they didn’t find one.
    Ellie tore off her false mustache and stuffed it in her coat pocket, then slipped off the coat, vest, shirt, shoes, and socks, and undid her trousers, finally removing her underwear. She unwrapped the bandages that constricted her breasts—worse than a corset, honestly, and at least unwinding them was a relief—and hurriedly wadded up the clothes and shoved them deep under the bed. Now she could just climb into the bed and try to look like a switched-off machine, with the covers arrayed to hide her modesty—
    Her hair. All the models had long hair, of course. She went to the sea chest at the foot of the bed, though it was a futile hope. The courtesan she’d examined hadn’t been wearing a wig, after all, the hairs had been sewn into her scalp—
    And yet, in the depths of the chest, beneath the frills and bits of leather, she found a blonde wig, a pair of ridiculously oversized high-heeled shoes, and a corset large enough to fit a gorilla. How odd. Clearly none of this clothing was made to fit the clockwork women, so whom—
    A door nearby opened with a crash, so Ellie hurriedly pulled the wig over her own head, trying not to think of who might have worn the false hair last. She checked herself in one of the mirrors, adjusting the wig and trying not to notice her own nude body, something she’d certainly never perused in a looking glass before. Ellie was not as bountiful in her figure as the Delilah model, but some of the sketches had shown slimmer models, so perhaps she could pass.
    After snatching up a flowing silk scarf and draping it around her neck and to cover her breasts, she hurried onto the bed, trying to remember how the courtesan in her room had been arranged. Not too lewdly, fortunately—it had been almost demure, like a sleeping woman, and she should pretend to be the same. She stretched on the coverlet, hoping the bedclothes were laundered between sessions but knowing they almost certainly weren’t, and rested her head on the pillow. Eyes open, or eyes closed? She settled for a sleepy sort of half-lidded gaze which allowed her to keep an eye on the door. The clockwork women appeared to breathe, and even to move, in imitation of life—now she would have to imitate their imitation. At least the alchemical light on the dresser was relatively dim.
    As she awaited capture, she wondered how much of this she could put in her story. Precious little if Cooper insisted on using “A Gentleman” as a byline. He’d sell more papers if he let it be known a woman had done the report, but he would also risk being denounced in Parliament. The story skirted