“Father, who’s here at this hour? Has something happened?” A tired female voice spoke from down the hall.
Vic stiffened, his spine ramrod straight. Johnathan’s unease doubled as the woman shuffled into the room, her face hauntingly familiar.
Alyse Shaw stopped beside her father, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and very much alive.
Chapter Five
Johnathan froze, uncertain how to react. Alyse Shaw blinked at them, her confusion clear. The sleepiness quickly evaporated from her expression. A frown creased her brow as her surprisingly sharp gaze roved over his travel-worn appearance.
“Has something happened?” She addressed the question to Vic, who rocked back on his heels.
There was a giggle from across the room. Their presence appeared to have summoned Pastor Shaw’s full gaggle of children. A small cluster of boys and girls, varying in age, huddled in their night clothes around their open bedroom door.
Alyse’s frown switched to the children, centering on the oldest girl. “Maddy, get them back in the room,” she snapped.
The distraction gave Vic a chance to collect himself.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you. There was another murder. We believed you were the victim.” Vic blurted the words, his cool demeanor still thrown off balance. “It is clear there was a mistake.”
He gave a short bow to the stunned Pastor Shaw and turned, marching out of the house without another word. Johnathan caught the glance of confusion between father and daughter, though he was at a loss if he should attempt to explain the situation or complete their awkward exit.
Alyse Shaw rescued him from the ledge of bad manners.
“Pick your jaw off the floor and go,” she said. “I’ll get the story from Vic later.”
“You most certainly will not,” snapped Paster Shaw. Johnathan took that as his cue to leave, unwilling to involve himself in a family matter.
The door closed with a muted click behind him. Johnathan looked up to find Vic leaning against the carriage, his shoulders heaving. An odd tension crackled in the air between them when Vic slammed a fist against the side of the coach, hard enough for the wood to crack.
Johnathan silently gauged the thickness of the wood against the strength of a distraught man, but he climbed past Vic into the carriage, too tired to give proper weight to any misgivings or doubts. Dr. Evans’ admonishments echoed through his head as he settled into the seat. Vic clambered up beside him.
The coach traveled in pregnant silence. Johnathan was wide awake now, and after their encounter with a living, breathing Alyse Shaw, his mind spun with the image of her very deceased doppelganger. He didn’t fault the assembled townsfolk or Vic for the mistaken identity. The women could have been twins.
His gaze slid to Vic who sat stone-faced, his jaw flexing as he fought to control his temper. Vic’s countenance had been a pantomime of emotions when she appeared in the hall, his naked relief and shock followed by a brief yet fierce longing that seemed far too intimate for witnesses. Johnathan swore that if he and Pastor Shaw had not been present, the reunion would’ve been far more physical than Vic’s pining stare at the sleepy, confused Alyse.
Johnathan didn’t want to be the first to speak. He didn’t possess the right reactions for moments like these, painfully aware what he lacked in the department of human interaction. He knew the words that weighed down his tongue would be entirely inappropriate, his mindset far and away from the intimacy of lovers. He reached into his pocket to occupy himself, his skin cold and numb from the claw. He took it out to examine it as much as to relieve the pain of the biting aura it expelled.
Silence lent fluidity to time. The sky had subtly lightened during their long drive to Vic’s property, the first hint of the coming day, though dawn was still an hour or so away. There wasn’t enough light to read Vic’s conflicted features now, and Johnathan found he could no longer take the quiet.
“Are you angry Miss Shaw is alive?” he asked.
Vic startled at his words, but he managed not to jerk on the reins of the placid mare, who clearly followed a familiar route home. “What are you on about?”
Johnathan raised a brow. “You put a fist through your fine carriage, sir.”
“Back to sir?” The apparent amusement in Vic’s voice threw Johnathan. “I’m not angry she is alive, John. I’m angered at my relief. A family lost their daughter tonight, and I allowed my relief that it wasn’t Alyse to take precedence. Call it shame, if you will.”
He stared at the other man, surprised and cowed by his answer. In the confusion of mistaken identity, he, too, set aside the reality of the dead woman. Someone’s daughter, a lost child, torn to shreds, left exposed and alone on the street.
“Who was the other girl?” he asked.
Vic’s jaw flexed. “I don’t know.”
Johnathan fiddled with the claw, end over end between his fingers. “She looked exactly like Alyse Shaw.”
“The resemblance was rather striking,” Vic responded, his tone dry as dust.
“I wonder if the killer thought it was her,” said Johnathan. That time, Vic did jerk on the reins. The poor mare drew up with an indignant grunt.
“Sorry, Bess,” Vic murmured. His gray gaze lit on Johnathan with an unreadable expression. “I feel you are driving to a point, John. It’s been a long night, so forgive me if I don’t follow.”
“Is there anyone else in Cress Haven who looks like Alyse Shaw?”
Vic’s jaw flexed. “No. There isn’t.”
“Am I mistaken in my assumption this is a small community? Enough that you would know for certain?”
“I know every citizen who has settled in this town for the past five years I have lived here.” Vic looked over the road. “You believe Alyse was the intended target, regardless of the mistaken identity.”
Johnathan gnawed on the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he’d picked up from younger days. “Were the victims all young women?” This was what the dossier stated, but he needed to be sure, and the asking helped him maintain the appearance of an inquisitive newcomer.
Vic’s nostrils flared. His gaze slid to Johnathan and back to the road with a thoughtful flicker in the shadows of his face. “Three women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. Tonight marks the fourth.”
Johnathan frowned. “Were there any discerning features between them?”
“You look young, but you speak like a Bostonian detective,” said Vic. “Were you sent here?”
Vic’s tone was casual, but Johnathan’s cheeks burned. He’d overstepped, and he knew it. As he internally debated how much to reveal to his generous host, a sound caught his attention. A sound that wasn’t a sound.
An absence of sound.
Johnathan turned to the woods on their left, facing away from Vic. A prickling sensation slid along his skin, like a snake slithering over his bare flesh. He was being watched. This time, he was certain.
He searched back and forth through the shadows of trees.
There. His gaze snapped to a figure crouched between the tree trunks.
A set of eyes flared like crimson flame.
Johnathan’s gaze widened. His pulse pounded between his ears, a frantic hard thump that drowned out his other senses. He was an insect pinned down, his defenses stripped bare. There was a mental caress of claws, a violent promise whispered in his mind. The icy claw tore into the palm of his hand.
Johnathan yelped and clutched at his wrist as the claw landed on the carriage floor with a weighted thump. The pain was immediate, a spike of agony so intense his vision blanked. The awful roar of his heartbeat quickened to a thrumming flutter, fragile as moth wings in flight. His breath drew short at such a harsh sensation, caught off guard by its severity. He’d received bullet wounds on training missions that were less painful.
Vic swore and drew his mare up short. He yanked a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.
“How the hell did you manage this?” Vic guided Johnathan’s hand into
his lap.
That touch was a momentary distraction that caused Johnathan’s racing pulse to jump. He found his gaze drawn to Vic’s long, elegant fingers carefully assessing the wound.
Vic frowned. “What the devil…” His words trailed off as he gently flexed Johnathan’s palm.
His reaction forced Johnathan to refocus his attention to the throbbing hurt in his hand. The puncture mark was clear, the flesh ice white at the edges, but to the shock of both men, the wound didn’t bleed, not a drop. The pain rapidly faded to an insistent ache. Johnathan forced more air into his lungs.
“The devil indeed,” Johnathan murmured. His gaze flitted back to the tree line, but the figure was gone.
Chapter Six
The ache remained, a low throb that kept time to Johnathan’s pulse; it proved a catalyst for his current state of deterioration. As the miles crawled along, the sky continued to lighten with the inevitable approach of dawn. The sensation of unseen stares poured from every shadowy crevice they passed.
A fine sweat beaded on Johnathan’s skin, chilled by the morning mist. His teeth chattered behind his closed lips. Tremors twitched through his legs, between his shoulders, and along the tensed muscles of his forearms. The muted clicking noise of his teeth could be heard over the plod of the mare’s hooves.
What was happening to him?
The ache drew his attention to his hastily bandaged hand, a wound that didn’t bleed. The edges of his vision clouded, focused on the object that lay between his feet. The claw still sat on the floor of the coach. He swore he could feel its chill radiating through his leather boots. He couldn’t leave it there but couldn’t bring himself to pick it up.
The back of his neck grew damp with sweat at the very idea, as if contact would summon that shadowy figure.
“We’re almost there,” said Vic.
Johnathan started at his voice, the other man’s presence forgotten in the discourse between his mind and body. He intended to answer his host but found his tongue a thick, useless mass in a mouth gone numb.
A true thread of panic infused the tremors quivering through him. He glanced down at his palm, wrapped in Vic’s handkerchief. His fingers refused to cooperate as he tried to pry the fabric off his skin. What had that claw done to him? He had to see the wound, had to know.
“Leave it alone, Johnathan.” Vic’s sharp tone hooked into him, pulled him free from the swirling drain of his thoughts. “That gash needs proper care,” the man continued. “Besides, we’re here. Welcome to my home.”
Johnathan blinked, astonished to find the coach stopped in front of a large country home, the wood still raw. He made to exit the coach to find his strength had evaporated from his limbs. A hoarse cry escaped as he toppled off his seat. Vic caught him and supported him under one shoulder, something Johnathan found absurd, since his bulk eclipsed the slighter man.
“Easy now. Let’s get you inside,” said Vic. He half-carried, half-dragged Johnathan over the threshold into his home.
On his feet, the pulse of pain increased tenfold until all sensation in Johnathan’s body seemed to drag to the puncture mark. His vision was a wobbly gray mass; he couldn’t make heads or tails of Vic’s home. He didn’t realize how far inside they’d gone until his body twisted and collapsed onto a cushioned surface. A bed.
Johnathan felt more than saw Vic looming over him. He heard the other man’s indistinct murmur before the absence of shadow and warmth.
No. No, don’t go. The words, provoked by his helpless state, caught in his throat and dissipated from his thoughts into the ether.
A small whimper squeezed out as Johnathan’s consciousness faded. He began the tumultuous fall toward that dark place, where his buried memories were the vile shades that haunted his dreams.
Hands caressed Johnathan’s face, the fingers cool against his flushed cheeks. Icy, pallid flesh, as if the poor soul had been drowned in moonlight. An astute description for Sir Harry, drowned in moonlight, so that it saturated his skin, lent it a pearly luminescence befitting his ethereal appearance. From the corner of his eye, Johnathan could see Sir Harry’s fingernails and the deep, bruised, blue-black that limned the base of each nail.
Johnathan responded to the touch, turned his face into Sir Harry’s palm as the older man knelt in front of him to tug at the collar of his shirt.
“There’s my pretty Johnny boy.” Sir Harry’s breath blew over his face like stale sea water, rife with sweet salt and the slightly putrid undertone of decay. The scent made Johnathan recoil, but he hid the reaction. That defined his relationship to Sir Harry, a push and pull like the waves that lapped the shore beneath the harbor docks.
But the sea was always connected to the shore, as Johnathan was to Sir Harry. He kept still as the older man strategically tore the worn fabric at his collar. Sir Harry swept two fingers along the ground and smudged Johnathan’s cheek.
He leaned back to admire his handiwork. “There we are, a perfect little ruffian. Now, what do we say?”
“Please, help me sir, my mother, she’s hurt in the alley.”
“Good, good,” Sir Harry murmured. “Now close your eyes, sweet boy. We must make you authentic.”
Johnathan closed his eyes, his shoulders lax from a routine played out every night in memory. Wind brushed his cheek, followed by the sharp, immediate burn of torn flesh. Warmth dripped down his cheek. He let out a breath. The pain was familiar, necessary. Blood made him appear more distressed, made people uncomfortable. They wanted to fix it, to do their due diligence for the poor unfortunate waif who called to them from the shadows.
“Reel them in, Johnny boy,” said Sir Harry.
Johnathan didn’t have to force the stumble in his steps. It’d been two days since his last meal. Sir Harry, needing a waif, kept him lean and underfed. Johnathan didn’t mind. Not for Sir Harry, but sometimes his empty belly kept him up at night. However, if he landed a mark, he’d eat his fill, an extra incentive to succeed. He edged to the alley mouth, observing the passing men and women until he saw potential.
If Sir Harry drowned in moonlight, this woman bathed in sunlight. It soaked into her gold-wrought curls and peach-kissed skin. The blue morning sky shone in her wide, innocent eyes as she took in everything around her in guileless wonder. She was so brilliant, the sour-faced matron who shadowed her steps was easy to miss.
Johnathan took a step from the alley and froze. Push and pull. For a singular moment, the push was stronger. If he called out to her, her light would cease to be, snuffed out, engulfed in moon-borne arms, tighter than the embrace of the earth. Johnathan wavered, voice caught fast in his throat.
A pang punched through his empty stomach. His mouth watered at the prospect of eating tonight. He closed his eyes, swayed on his feet.
“M-miss,” he said. Blue eyes caught him. He flexed his clammy hands. “Please, my mother, she’s hurt…in the alley.”
The words felt like razors in his mouth. Each sliced his tongue as they fell from his lips.
“Oh, you poor boy,” said the woman. No, she was maybe a few years older than Johnathan, her curves newly formed and incomplete.
The pang flexed, sharp and unforgiving, but there was a new sensation in his empty stomach, a sour-sick feeling that coated his throat and made it hard to breathe.
“Oh, miss, don’t go in there. We’ll ring the constable,” said the matron.
Yes, thought Johnathan. Yes, don’t come in here.
The young woman worried her lip, her attention going back and forth between her chaperone and him, the little waif. Push and pull. Johnathan held his breath.
“At least let me make sure she’s alright, Anne,” said the girl. The matron hesitated, clearly torn by her mistress’s words. “Please, look at him. Poor mite is starving, roughed up. He couldn’t hurt a fly.” The matron sighed, a patient, indulgent sound. His stomach bottomed out.
“Where’s your mother, boy? Can you take me to her?”
“This way,” Johnathan whispered. He moved bac
kward into the shadows, each step scuffing along the cobblestones. The cut on his cheek burned where a tear tracked through it.
“It’s going to be all right,” said the girl. She reached for him, her golden hair dulled, enveloped by the shadows of the alley.
No, it won’t. The words sat, bitter on his tongue, but he never spoke them.
His steps continued until he’d drawn both the girl and her chaperone into the alley, flies into the spider’s web.
Sir Harry rose behind them. He wrapped his hands around the matron’s head and twisted in a quick, clean break. Johnathan thought it a waste, but two women meant screams, meant possible attention. One had to be silenced, and Sir Harry preferred the freshness of youth to age. The older woman’s body hadn’t hit the ground before he was on the girl, a hand over her mouth to catch her scream. He pulled her backward by her hair, exposing the creamy white column of her throat. Her blue eyes widened at the specter of death leering down at her with sharp, white teeth.
She shrieked into Sir Harry’s cool palm as he sank his teeth into her neck and drank, drank, drank her down. Johnathan didn’t look away. He watched as Sir Harry fed, watched as the sunlight leached from her skin, and she fell from Sir Harry’s arms—limp, cool, absorbed by moonlight. Her sightless blue stare bore into Johnathan, a silent accusation.
Johnathan was no longer hungry.
Sir Harry stepped over the corpse. He bit his thumb and smeared the blood across Johnathan’s cheek. The tingle of knitting skin broke the spell, or set the spell anew. Johnathan was never quite certain where Sir Harry’s influence began and ended. He breathed through his mouth to evade the sharp copper smell and slipped his hand into Sir Harry’s cool one.
“Well done, my sweet,” said Sir Harry. “You deserve a reward.”
Johnathan shivered at the dark promise in Sir Harry’s voice.
Push and pull.
The shiver pushed Johnathan from the caustic web of his memories. He broke through with a gasp, his head still muddled. He was freezing, his teeth chattering so hard he thought they might crack in his skull.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 4
