by R. L. King
“Oh, dear God,” a voice gasped from behind him.
“What’s going on?” another demanded, and then, “No! Not Samuels—”
More voices. “Mr. Stone—?”
“You’re bleeding!”
“Oh, God, is he dead?”
“What’s happening?”
Alastair forced himself back to his knees, gripping the dagger and the shield. There was nothing he could do for Samuels now, but if he kept his wits about him and didn’t panic, he might be able to get the others to safety. “Listen,” he said, but his voice came out as a harsh croak. The hubbub of voices continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Listen!” he said again, louder. “Quiet, please!”
A couple of them muttered indignantly, but gradually they all quieted down. Alastair took them all in with a quick sweep of his gaze, both magical and mundane. He saw Esteban, Gretchen, the maids Marie and Natasha, the head housekeeper whose name he could never remember, and Max, the groundskeeper who’d lent him the Vespa. All were out of their uniforms or formal working clothes, clad casually or even in robes. Esteban and Natasha held flashlights. All of them had the wide-eyed, terrified look of incipient panic as their own gazes kept darting down toward Samuels and his bloody, ruined throat.
“Something’s in here,” Alastair said, his voice shaking. He climbed to his feet with effort, turning slowly in place so he could scan the area with magical sight. “Something magical, and dangerous—as you can see.”
Someone gasped, and the voices started again.
“What will we do?”
“We’ve got to get out!”
“Is that why the lights went out?”
“We can’t get out,” Alastair said. “It’s—done something to the exits. And it can’t get out past the wards. So we’re stuck in here together.”
More gasps.
“What do you mean, we can’t get out?”
“What happened to your back?”
“Oh my lord, and Mr. Desmond’s away—”
“Listen!” Alastair hated to sound so harsh—he felt suddenly awkward, a fifteen-year-old boy giving orders to a group of full-grown adults—but there was no helping it. “I can get us to safety, but you’ve got to come with me now. Where’s Kerrick?”
Muttering, they all looked at each other in confusion. “I think he went to find the fuse box,” Esteban said. “He’s been gone for a while now.”
“Oh, no,” Natasha moaned. “What if that—that thing got him, too?” Tears ran down her cheeks, and Marie put her arm around her.
Alastair did another check for the creature, making sure to look up as well as behind him, and thought hard. He didn’t want to leave Kerrick to his own devices with the creature still on the loose, but he had to get this group back to safety. He couldn’t leave them all here to be killed one after another while he went in search of one missing man. “Come on,” he said. “Follow me. We’ve got to move fast.”
“You poor boy,” the head housekeeper, a motherly woman in her fifties, said. “Let me take a look at your back, so you—”
Alastair drove his frustration down. The slashes on his back burned, and his headache was growing steadily worse, but none of that mattered right now. “No time,” he said. “Come on. Follow me, and stay together.”
“Where are we going?” Marie asked. She still had her arm around the sobbing Natasha.
“Mr. Desmond’s workroom.” Alastair gripped the dagger and took another look around. “You’ll be safe there—it’s warded.” Assuming you can get in at all. But then, Selby did.
“But—we’re not permitted in there,” Gretchen protested. “Mr. Desmond’s orders.”
“I don’t think he’d rather you got killed, do you?” Alastair growled. “Come on. Let’s go. I think I hurt that thing, but I’m sure it will be back.”
Still, they didn’t move. “Where’s Selby?” Esteban asked, turning back toward the staff quarters hallway.
“And what about Samuels?” Max indicated the body. “We can’t just leave him here.”
Alastair made another effort to quell his compulsion to start grabbing them and shoving them bodily in the right direction. He supposed he should at least be grateful that they were all familiar with magic, so he didn’t have to explain that to them. They’re scared, he reminded himself. Of course they are. I’m scared, and I know what’s going on. “Selby’s safe,” he said. “He’s hurt, but he’s already in the workroom. We need to go. Is anyone else in the house?”
“Samuels would know for sure,” Esteban said, shaking his head in dismay.
“The others are out tonight,” Natasha said. “It’s just us…and Kerrick, somewhere.”
“Good,” Alastair said, relieved. So he’d only have to go in search of Kerrick, if he didn’t return in the meantime.
“Grab Samuels’s feet,” Esteban ordered Max, bending down to pick up the dead steward under his arms. His gaze flicked up to Alastair. “We can’t leave him here, sir. It wouldn’t be right.”
Alastair let his breath out. It would slow them down, and they’d never get him down the elevator shaft and through the hatchway, but the chef was right. At least they could move him closer to where they’d be. “Okay. Okay. Just—hurry up.”
Esteban handed over his flashlight to Gretchen and hefted Samuels’s upper body; after a moment, Max picked up the steward’s feet.
“Stay close to the wall,” Alastair said. “Gretchen, you go in front with the torch. Natasha, you in back with the other one. Stay in a tight group. I’ll follow behind you and keep watch.” He swallowed hard and swiped sweat off his forehead. The slashes on his back were getting hot, and he could still feel blood—or was it more sweat—running down. He swayed a little as a wave of vertigo gripped him, waiting until it passed before moving again. He wished he could put a shield up to cover them all, but he hadn’t yet learned to extend any of his spells beyond himself. He’d just have to remain hyper-vigilant to ensure the creature didn’t sneak up on them.
Normally, it would have taken less than a minute at a brisk walk to cross the great room and get down the hallway to the lift, but now, in the shadowy darkness broken only by the shifting beams of Gretchen’s and Natasha’s flashlights, it seemed more like a slow slog across some kind of murky no-man’s-land. Alastair’s magical sight revealed tension gripping everyone’s auras, including his own, and the riot of shifting, agitated colors made it difficult for him to spot anything approaching. If the creature attacked them now, there was a very real chance it could take out one of the others, or even jump him, before he had a chance to react.
He hoped he’d hurt it sufficiently with the dagger slash that it would think twice about going after them again, but feared that wouldn’t last long. And he still didn’t know what the little shield thing did. Perhaps after he’d got this group safely downstairs, he’d have a moment to study it before he went in search of Kerrick.
By the time they reached the lift with its forced-open doors, Alastair’s tense vigilance had reached a point where every muscle in his body felt strained and stiff. He paused, looking behind them again, as they gathered around the doors.
“What’s wrong with the lift?” Natasha demanded.
“How will we get down there?” the housekeeper asked, casting a worried look down the dark shaft.
Alastair hadn’t given that a lot of thought. The drop to the top of the lift cubicle wasn’t a long one—perhaps twelve feet or so at most—but most of the staff weren’t in the kind of physical shape to manage it without help. If they tried, he was sure at least one of them would lose their footing and plummet through the hatch, or fall and break an ankle. If he tried to levitate them all, though, even one at a time, he’d use up valuable magical energy—and he didn’t have much to spare at this point. He still had to find
Kerrick, and he was sure that thing was lurking out there somewhere waiting to catch him alone.
“We’ll start lowering people down,” Max said, indicating himself and Esteban. “Natasha, you first.”
“Wait a minute,” Gretchen said. “If it’s stuck, how are we going to do this? We can’t get down to the workroom if it isn’t moving.”
“It’s at the bottom,” Alastair said. “If you can get down there and get through the hatch, you can push the doors open and get out. But we’ve got to hurry!” Once more he snatched a glance over his shoulder. The hallway was still clear, but he couldn’t help thinking that might be because the creature was off somewhere feasting on Kerrick to gain more energy before it came after them again.
Natasha looked dubious. “That looks like a long drop, even if you lower me down, Max.”
“Wait,” Alastair said. “Let me lower Esteban down first. He’s tall. Then he can help grab people when Max lowers them from up here.”
“How will you do that?” Esteban asked, clearly taking in Alastair’s thin frame. “You don’t look strong enough to—”
“Just hold still and don’t panic. It makes it harder for me if you flail about.” One more look down the hallway, then he focused on the chef. He’d never tried levitating anyone else before—only himself and inanimate objects. Desmond had never subjected himself to the indignity of potentially being on the wrong end of one of Alastair’s concentration failures. “And get ready to catch yourself if I drop you.”
He formed the pattern in his mind, ignoring the increased throbbing in his head, and lifted Esteban off his feet. Do this fast…don’t drop him…
The others gasped. Apparently, despite the fact that they were familiar with magic, they didn’t actually see a lot of it practiced. Alastair ignored them, carefully lifting Esteban, shifting him over, and lowering him down the shaft.
“I’m down!” the chef called up after a few long, agonizing moments. “Send the others!”
Alastair let his breath out in a rush and leaned against the hallway wall, gripping the dagger and the tiny shield-thing and letting the others manage the operation. Now that they had a plan, they seemed quite motivated to get everyone down there quickly, especially after Natasha and Gretchen together managed to pry the door open and announced that the wards hadn’t stopped them. Finally, only Alastair and Max were left on the ground floor along with Samuels’s body, laid as carefully and respectfully as they could against the wall with someone’s jacket covering his face and torn throat.
Alastair regarded the burly Max and gathered his strength again. “I’ll lower you down…”
Max shook his head. “I’ve got it, sir. You should come too, though.”
“I can’t. Kerrick’s still out there somewhere. I’ve got to find him.”
“Let me come with you, then.”
“No—help take care of the others. Selby’s down there, and he’s hurt. It’ll be harder on my magic if I have to look out for you too.” He blinked sweat out of his eyes. His back was on fire now, and he was tasting blood again. If he didn’t do this soon, he wouldn’t be able to. “If you want to help, tell me where he might be. Somebody said he went to check the fuse boxes—where are they?”
“In the basement, sir. Best way to get there is through the door in the back of the kitchen. I’m sure there are other entrances, but I don’t know where they are. The fuses are down there, not far from the kitchen.”
Alastair took a deep breath and tried to slow his racing heart. The last thing he wanted, now that they were so close to the safety of the wards below, was to go back out there and face that thing again. Nobody would blame him if he didn’t—if he chose to go to the workroom with the others and hide behind the wards until Desmond returned. But Kerrick had been his first friend and staunchest ally among the staff, and he was damned if he’d let the man get ripped to pieces without at least trying to help him. And if nobody told Desmond this thing was loose in his house, it might even attack him when he got home. Sure, the high and mighty William Desmond he could probably deal with it with one hand tied behind his back…but what if it caught him by surprise? What if he couldn’t?
A sly, mocking voice spoke in his head: So what if he can’t? He wouldn’t want you to use unauthorized magic, would he? That would be breaking his rules. So what if it means he could be killed over it? He didn’t seem to care about what might have happened to Rosemary…he messed up your whole magical career over breaking one stupid rule for a good reason. Let him deal with some consequences for a change!
But he quickly silenced the voice. He was better than that. Desmond might be a hidebound old fossil so set in his ways he couldn’t budge to save his own skin, but Alastair wasn’t.
“Okay,” he said again, gripping Max’s arm while hoping the groundskeeper didn’t notice his hand shaking. “I’m off. Can I have your torch?”
Max handed it over. “Be careful, sir.” He looked worried. “I don’t feel right about this, letting you go off to—”
“Go,” Alastair said, pointing down the shaft. “I don’t want to leave until I know you’re safe. Look after Selby. Kerrick and I will be back as soon as we can.”
“Good luck, sir.” He quickly lowered himself over the edge and a second later, Alastair heard his feet thump down on top of the lift box.
Right, then. Time to move.
He pushed himself off the wall and shined the flashlight down the hallway. Nothing moved, as far as he could see, but now that he’d gotten used to the dark, the light made him nervous. The shadow-thing’s jagged red aura wouldn’t be as easy to see in the harsh beam. Plus, he now had three things to carry, and he couldn’t be caught trying to juggle them if the thing attacked again. He hated to shut off the light, but instinct told him magical sight would be more useful.
He reached the end of the hallway and switched it off, stuffing it in the waistband of his trousers. Then he peered around the great room using magical sight and still saw no movement. His heart pounded faster again.
Had he hurt it badly when he’d slashed it with the knife before? Was it off licking its wounds? Or was it already downstairs, stalking Kerrick as safer prey?
You won’t know until you get on with it, he told himself angrily, trying to quiet his fast, nervous breathing. For a second, an image of his life back at Barrow flashed into his mind: this time of night, he’d either be in his room studying, or possibly down in the common room lounging on one of the threadbare old sofas, half-watching some mindless thing on the television. His biggest concerns would be the exam the next day, or whether he’d get permission to go into town on the upcoming weekend. Standing here now, fighting off pain, exhaustion, and panic, he thought it didn’t sound like a bad alternative, all things considered.
You wanted this, the mocking little voice reminded him. You wanted to learn magic three years early, like a big boy. So, are you an adult, or are you a scared kid who wants to run home to Daddy when things get nasty? Better decide soon. That thing’s out there somewhere, and your sorry arse is Kerrick’s only hope.
“Yeah…” he growled softly. Once again, he tightened his grip on the dagger and strode out into the great room.
Nothing jumped out at him. The hall remained dark and, except for the far-off sound of the grandfather clock tolling the hour, silent.
Alastair quickened his pace, keeping his magical sight up and glancing occasionally behind him. He hurried through the dining room and down the back hall into the kitchen.
Here, the faint moonlight shining in through high windows mitigated the darkness a little. Damn, this place was eerie at night: all massive, looming appliances, dark granite surfaces, and wide-open floor space between them to allow a large number of chefs and their helpers to work around each other efficiently when preparing multi-course meals for dinner parties and other events. So many places
for the shadow-thing to lurk while waiting for him.
He risked the flashlight for a moment, shining it around the room until he spotted the door near the back. That must be the one Max had referred to. He switched off the light and started across the kitchen.
“I will have you…” the sandpaper-on-rocks voice whispered.
Panicked, Alastair shifted back to magical sight and whirled around, dagger at the ready, but no jagged red aura was bearing down on him.
From the darkness, it chuckled. “You can’t hide forever…You will tire soon, and I will rip you to pieces and feast on your flesh…”
“You get right on that!” Alastair called, his voice a shaky croak. He took off running, his feet skidding on the fine stone tile.
The creature’s laughter echoed behind him as he reached the door and flung it open, then slipped inside and slammed it shut. He leaned against it, puffing. Could the thing get past the door? He was sure it could—in its flowing shadow form, it could probably get under the door. He didn’t have time to waste waiting for it, though. He had to keep moving.
He switched on the flashlight again. Ahead yawned a sturdy staircase descending into blackness. He started down.
“Kerrick?” he called. It didn’t come out very loud—unless Kerrick was at the foot of the stairs, there was no way he could have heard it. His breath rasped in his ears, and his hand on the dagger was slicked with sweat.
He reached the bottom. “Kerrick?” he called again, louder this time. “Are you down here?”
He thought he heard something, but couldn’t be sure. It was off to his left. It could be the creature, toying with him, luring him away—but if he let it play with his head like that, he might as well go back to the workroom with the others. It might not be the right decision, but at least it was a decision. He set off to the left.
