Free The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures by Sebastian Gregory Page A

broken ears and a missing left eye. Curiously its mouth was covered by a surgeon’s mask. Confused by this, Alice noticed the rabbit’s paws. In one it held a blooded scalpel, in its other a human heart, still dripping. She held her hand to where her terrified heart should have been pumping; except it was now an empty wound.
    The rabbit placed her heart into a tiny knapsack tied around its waist. It leapt from Alice and over to a sewer pipe jutting from the bank, spilling London’s filth into the river. Underneath, the rabbit was covered in muck, crawling and struggling upwards. As it made its way to the pipe the spilling sewage washed it back down into the mud.
    “That’s my heart,” shouted Alice as she waddled over, heavy and sloshing with water.
    She managed to pick the rabbit up in both hands; it looked like a stuffed toy, yet had the feel of bone wrapped in wet rags. The rabbit immediately screeched a horrible sound when Alice lifted it from the mud. It tore away its mask and sank sharp teeth deep into Alice’s left hand. There was no pain but Alice shook the creature this way and that. The rabbit refused to let go, so she had no choice but to smash its head against the pipe. The rabbit spun from Alice’s hand and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer.
    “Well, I never,” gasped Alice. She held her bitten hand to her eyes.
    Two fingers were now missing. Strange, thought Alice, as to why there was no blood. The skin and stumps were a pale greenish. She tore a piece of material from her dress and wrapped the makeshift bandage over her wound.
    Alice’s mother had always taught her to keep her most precious emotions in her heart. Alice remembered her mother holding and stroking her hair. She ran her finger over her chest bone, making the shape of a love heart. Having the organ stolen was akin to having the love she held for her departed parents taken away. Alice searched herself for any feelings, only to find she had none. Death had hollowed her. This would not do at all; Alice had no choice but to follow the rabbit.
    The rusted pipe, although tiny in comparison to Alice, would still be able to accommodate her if she crawled on her stomach. She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark and her nose to the stench before using the bank to climb into the pipe. There was a lining of soft debris and a kind of slime not unlike that of slugs, so Alice slid along at a pace.
    This isn’t so dreadful, thought Alice.
    The running water washed away most of the mud and the rats that ran along seemed friendly enough, only occasionally stopping to nibble at her legs. However the rabbit was nowhere to be seen, but Alice could hear screeching further along. She believed herself to be getting closer to her quarry when all of a sudden the pipe took an impossibly sharp dip, sending Alice sliding down, sprawling.



CARINA™
    ISBN: 978 1 472 08397 5
    The Asylum for Fairy Tale Creatures
    Copyright © 2014 Sebastian Brown
    Published in Great Britain (2014)
    by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
    All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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