Behind the Veil

by E. J. Dawson

  “I didn’t imagine that, did I?” Alasdair asked. “Someone is watching us.”

  “Yes,” Letitia said. “Don’t say his name again.”

  Alasdair’s brows came together in confusion. “Why not?”

  “Because names have power.”

  Letitia didn’t say more, prodding him on toward the kitchens.

  Down a corridor to the rear of the hotel, there was a long, low room, which was full of stone benchtops and a great black stove that could have cooked for a hundred people. Letitia stopped to place the bags of salt on the table.

  “This way,” Alasdair said, and Letitia accompanied him as he opened a door and started to descend.

  It was not the cellar of the Driscoll house with its stone archways and wooden beams.

  Here they’d used brick. Pylons interspersed the extended darkness. Their lanterns cast shadows into the distance, but all was bare floor and there was nothing to indicate the lair of a deviant.

  Alasdair took several steps into the place, scanning the shadows. “There is nothing down here. It held a lot of furniture at one time, but I had the hotel cleared out about six months ago when I first gained access to the keys.”

  She acknowledged his words with a nod, but her senses stretched out around them, seeking the specter. Apprehension crawled over her at its silence as her inability to sense where Finola might be sent goosebumps over her skin.

  They walked around the pillars, Alasdair striding ahead and calling out Finola’s name.

  There was no answer.

  “She isn’t here,” Alasdair said with a frustrated growl. “No sign of her or where Calbright might have put her. Do you sense anything?”

  The question was angry and impatient, but Letitia’s growing dread smothered his rage as he waited for her assessment.

  “It doesn’t work like that, but there is something down here.” She walked around the room and stared at every pillar, every corner, every crevice.

  With all of her experience, there should be some revelation, a feeling or a sense to show Letitia a sign of the girl’s presence, or even physical evidence of the other girls—corpses tied to the floor, stains suggesting they’d been killed here. There was nothing but the dusty brick and an overwhelming sense she was missing something important.

  “Where else could it be?” Alasdair asked, studying the walls. She followed him almost in a daze.

  There was a simple way she could find Finola, but while she was brave enough to come here, Letitia wasn’t sure she was ready to scry for such a being within its own residence. But the longer she couldn’t feel the spirit’s presence, the greater her terror at what might have befallen Finola.

  She felt as though she were on a precipice, afraid to look over in case the enemy was looking right back. She would know where it was, but it would know her position as well.

  Letitia whirled around, staring at all the shadows and seeking out the phantom that had tortured Finola, but there was nothing in the dark of the cellar. Nothing but her and Alasdair.

  “Something isn’t right,” she said, frustrated by her helplessness.

  “If it’s not here, then we should try somewhere else,” Alasdair said. “You haven’t seen the creature, so this isn’t where Calbright left Finola.”

  Letitia turned to him, trying to explain why her doubt was building like a rising tsunami, slow to start but once she recognized it for what it was, she couldn’t help but spin about to look at every shadow.

  “Alasdair, this is wrong. I know it’s here.” She focused on the darkness. “It’s somewhere deep and dark—that much I remember from the other visions. It’s down here somewhere.”

  “Then we must look for it,” he said, striding off through the cellar. “We’ll check all the walls. I’ll give them a kick, and we’ll make sure none of these bricks are loose.”

  In uncomfortable silence, she watched as he examined the walls of the extensive basement, seemingly with actual construction experience rather than guesswork. He made comments as to the work involved in building the original structure and its integrity and craftsmanship.

  “I didn’t know you were a builder,” she said.

  “You have to know the material you are working with before you decide to buy,” he said. “And if it has strong foundations, you are mostly going to be fine.”

  He slapped a palm against the brick of a pillar thicker than the others, and something in his expression changed.

  Alasdair stood, one hand still resting on the stone, the other holding the lamp loosely, but his glance slid to her. It began on her shoes, roving up her body, and in its wake, she shivered as though more than his gaze touched her. His mouth was tilted in a wicked smile that caught the lantern’s light, flaring the ember green in his eyes. She was as hypnotized as a mouse before a cat.

  She took a step back, not so much afraid as wary, but her pulse hammered in her throat when he took an answering step forward.

  “Running, little one?” he chastised, and Letitia caught her breath.

  “I’m not running from you.” She shook her head even as her eyes stayed locked to his.

  “Aren’t you?” he asked, with a mocking lift of his brow as she took another step back, and then again when he moved toward her.

  “I think you’re scaring me.” She licked her lips as she searched his eyes, but she saw only Alasdair within.

  “Liar,” he drawled, and she knew it was true. Enraptured by his eyes, she wanted to run, wanted him to catch her and push her down to the cellar floor and show her how clever those wicked lips could be. On more than her mouth.

  Letitia gasped at the thought.

  It had been so insidious she hadn’t realized it wasn’t her own.

  “Alasdair,” she snapped, holding up her hand. “We need to leave. We need to go now.”

  But it was already part of the game. Even as she moved to the stair, he blocked her path.

  “Is it?” he said, “I thought it was one you were enjoying.”

  He’d stolen her thoughts. The gift of his daughter was open to him, through him, and was not his own.

  Lifting her lantern, trembling with a rush of dread as she did so, Letitia looked into Alasdair’s eyes.

  They were black.

  It was not him.

  Alasdair was on her in a moment, grabbing her arms to thrust her back against a wide, square column. The lantern was roughly discarded to the side, its flame flickering out. Both his hands were about her wrists, which he pinned above her head. His scent was there, the warmth burning her skin, but it was too hot, too intense.

  “Please,” she whispered, trying to free her hands.

  “Say it again,” he said, mouth coming to nip her ear. “I enjoy hearing that tone in your voice.”

  “Alasdair Driscoll!” Letitia called, putting as much power as she could into her voice, but it wavered as his hands touched her. “You are not yourself!”

  “I’m a man inflamed by a mysterious woman who taunts me with her juvenile blushes and evasive answers.” His fingertips flicked the buttons of her coat, parting it with his free hand.

  “I didn’t mean—” She broke off when she felt his lips on her throat, the slight sting of his teeth softened by the lapping of his tongue. Letitia couldn’t describe the lustful lethargy the action spread over her skin, even as she struggled against him.

  “Do you ever mean?” he countered. “You are not innocent, but there is something delectable about your naivete, Ms. Hawking.” The sound of her real name gave him pause, but the moment vanished as his palm brushed the buttons of her dress.

  Letitia’s eroticism started to fade as his hand became desperate, wrenching a panel of her dress aside, the popping buttons skittering over the brick work.

  “No, Alasdair,” she said, aware of his intent as he brought his body to press against hers,
nudging his hips between her thighs to press against her dress. The heat of his personality flooded her, reaching into her soul to warm the chilly depths within. She fought not to arch into his touch, not to give in to his desire as desperately as she wanted to. To drink him down until he filled the bottomless pit within her.

  “Why not?” he said, looking down at her, arrogance and lust painting his face with wicked delight. His eyes were green again, but something within was not him.

  “Do you think I don’t mean it?” He said and reached above her head to where one hand still held both of hers. “Why don’t you feel me like you did before?”

  He did know her thoughts, and he took a secret lust and goaded her with it.

  “Don’t!” she cried, writhing against his hold.

  Alasdair tugged off her gloves, and Letitia was afraid of what she might learn or what she could see, especially when she wasn’t even sure it was Alasdair she was speaking to.

  He wasn’t controlled in the true sense of the word, like some hell beast crawling across the floor toward her. Alasdair was a man restrained by convention to mere words, and they were fading fast under his desperation to possess her body.

  The gloves fell away, their palms touched, and an urgent hunger flooded Letitia.

  A crawling desire was within him to simply push her to the floor and take her. Hear her whimper in his arms as he put himself inside her. She shuddered at his elation of this fabricated imagination. She wasn’t immune to it, lusted after him too, her growing adoration turning to desire under his evocative touch.

  But in the dark of that thought, a figure lurked, one who wanted Alasdair to lose control, to push, to take advantage, to make Letitia a thing to use.

  She struck out with the light around her, but the darkness swallowed it. She’d taken a piece of Alasdair inside her, and now the specter used it as a doorway. The light vanished, and she couldn’t recall it—she could only feel Alasdair’s hot hands on her body. The inevitable taking was shrouded in revulsion because it was not Alasdair but the ghost.

  “No!” she screamed, and he stilled.

  “You weren’t that scared a minute ago,” he said, hand coming up to cup her face.

  “Alasdair, look at me,” Letitia said, eyes wide and breath panting in her chest, fluttering her with panic. “Don’t do this!”

  “You were never afraid before,” he said, but she heard the doubt and clutched his palm to her own.

  “Alasdair Driscoll,” she said, taking only a small moment to regret what she was about to do. “I’m sorry, but I need you to be yourself and to remember we are here to find Finola.”

  The name returned his own fear long enough for her to strike back at the spirit’s influence on Alasdair.

  She already had a connection to him, built since he took her to the sickbed and she sucked the warmth from him. It was just a touch, but she needed now more than ever to take away what was driving him. It was not her best skill, but Old Mother Borrows had shown her how to take away guilt and anger and to pull away sadness when it became too much. She never practiced the skill since she never intended to use it when it could be so dangerous, and so intimate.

  She used it now to remove his covetousness.

  Her fingers reached for the pulse on his wrist where he touched her, and she took it all away.

  Adrenaline, excitement, the thrill of having her under him.

  Like a tidal wave the warmth rushed into her, but rather than feed it back she replaced it with her fear. The growing terror of the single lamp and the burgeoning noise of the storm overhead and the panic that someone she trusted would violate her.

  It flooded into him, smashing against the will of the spirit invading him, snatching away the compulsion to take her.

  Letitia had never been the spirit’s target. He didn’t need her when he could take someone far stronger and bend an already growing attraction into something vile.

  Dread that he would lose her, break her, take away something he didn’t yet have the right to ask filled Alasdair. The horror of what he had nearly done overtook his body, and he leaped back, shaking his hands as though they’d been stung. When he took in her appearance—dress torn, gloves cast aside—he flushed. She could feel his burning shame as he dropped his gaze to the floor and shook his head.

  “Letitia,” he cried. “Oh, God…what have I done?”

  Letitia couldn’t answer him. She leaned against the wall, panting, eyes on the shadows for any sign of the figure’s perverse voyeurism. They were alone.

  Whatever strength the spirit possessed appeared to weaken after bursts of intensity.

  It was one small mercy.

  She held a hand to her torn dress, and another fell by her side to touch the brick wall, to ground herself. As her bare hand brushed the stonework, the impression on the stone struck within her, sending her spinning into a vision.

  Letitia was falling into an abyss, opening to swallow her whole. She felt the roaring of the sea in her ears, the darkness filling her throat to drown her. She was tossed on the waves of insanity, which ripped aside her carefully constructed walls to wash into her with its taint.

  She could do nothing but scream.

  Hands were holding her too tight, the sense of dread overwhelming her senses as the dark ate at her mind. The cliff’s edge was before her and she was poised to fall into an unimaginable hell.

  Shaken like a rag doll, she batted at arms that trapped her own to her sides. Too many hands were on her, grabbing her skirt, squeezing against her chest, pinning her to the floor. A leg between her legs, forcing them apart.

  Curling in on herself, Letitia searched within to forces no one person was meant to control. It burned in her, silver bright, the power to hurt back, and she lashed out with it. The hands recoiled, but she sought them out, struck at them with her power, livid whip lines that lit up the dark.

  “Stop!” It was a voice in a panic, pleading with her, and she hesitated, unable to see. No one touched her.

  The dark of her eyes faded to the gloom of the cellar. One lantern out, the other was rolling behind a pillar. Alasdair lay before her, propped up on his hands and backing away from her. His suit was cut with great ragged tears, crimson in the dim light of the forgotten lantern. She and Alasdair were halfway across the cellar floor from where they’d been, and Letitia had no idea how they got there.

  Alasdair panted, one hand upraised as though to ward off a blow—from her.

  “Are you hurt?” she cried out, falling to his side.

  “I’m fine,” he assured but didn’t reach for her though she examined his wounds.

  Whip lines marked his chest. “But how did this happen?”

  He sighed, relief and tension expelled in his breath. “I want to berate you for nearly slicing me to ribbons but under the circumstances, it’s only fair.” Alasdair’s charm was there, but there was also a tremor of doubt. He was afraid of her.

  “Did I do that?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Letitia sat back, both astonished and alarmed. She’d cut him with her mind.

  Chapter 21

  “We need to go,” Letitia said, pulling Alasdair to his feet. “We are too much under his sway here in the cellar and it’s not where he’s keeping Finola. He can’t hurt us so he’s turning us against each other.”

  “Before we go any further,” he said, getting to his feet, “I must apologize.”

  “Can we please go?” She picked up the remaining lantern and used it to light the one she’d dropped.

  “But I—”

  “It wasn’t you!” Letitia yelled as she headed for the stairs.

  “Yes, it was,” he said, swinging her to face him. “I’ve wanted you like no other woman in over a decade. I tried, time and again, to find love and gave up after more than one night’s dalliance. The monster saw the monstrous part of
me.”

  He was begging forgiveness, and they could ill afford the time.

  “And what about me?” Letitia said. “I only stopped you when I saw it was goading your actions, that it wasn’t of your doing. If you were to…love me, for the first time, would we do it here on this dank floor?”

  His hand was tight on her arm, though he was silent.

  “You wouldn’t ever,” she said, taking his hand to soften his grip on her. “I know you would treat me better than that.”

  “I’ve been insufferably rude, and I’m not sure I deserve your forgiveness,” he said, drawing away. Picking up her gloves, he handed them to her without another word.

  “Oh, you are an infuriating individual,” Letitia cursed, snatching the items and leaning forward to place a firm but chaste kiss on his mouth. “When we are through this, we will discuss our mutual affection, until then kindly keep the self-deprecating nonsense to yourself.”

  “That was a tad harsh,” he rebuked, though there was a sliver of his roguish smile back.

  “Don’t you see?” Letitia said. “We were lured into a false sense of security, meaning we are close to seeing what is really here.”

  “And what is that?” Alasdair asked, stretching his neck and rolling tension from his shoulders.

  “Look around you,” she said. “Where are we?”

  “The cellar,” Alasdair said, scanning the darkness.

  “And what does it have?”

  He threw up his hands. “I don’t know—pillars, the floor, the ceiling… nothing else.”

  “Except that one,” and she pointed to the pillar they had leaned against before they both lost control. It was far thicker than the others. When Alasdair beckoned her over with the light, Letitia lifted it higher for him to better study the pillar.

  He traced his fingers over the markings of stonework. “This part is from the original foundation, you can see it meets the bricks here,” he pointed a long line down the column. “But the rest, a good five feet worth, isn’t part of the original design.”