by Vered Ehsani
The dwarf smirked, his goatee and mustache animated by the motion. “We have advanced hunting mechanisms that can take care of any such hindrances. Don’t you fret, my dear.” He patted my knee as if it had all been settled, and glanced at his minion.
“Bring my bag, if you please.” As he waited, he continued, “You and I have something in common, you know.”
Apart from the fact that we both possessed a humanoid skeletal structure, I couldn’t imagine what he was referring to but refrained from voicing my doubt. Gideon was floating about, inspecting the room. Perhaps for entry points when he finally left to summon a rescue?
“Yes, in fact we do,” Nameless continued. “While I can’t boast of your exceptional abilities, I do have a few modest ones of my own.”
The tattooed man he’d sent away returned with a large, black leather bag. Nameless indicated for the man to place the bag by his side and then waved him out the room.
As he opened his bag, the dwarf said, “I too can see certain elements of the supernatural world, in a very limited way, of course.”
Gideon swooped over the man’s head and stuck his own through the door.
From the bag, Nameless retrieved a silver pendulum. “I believe you are familiar with such devices, yes?” he asked.
I nodded, mentally urging Gideon to leave at once. Apparently a telepathic connection hadn’t been included in our wedding vows, for he lingered on.
“Well, this one has been modified somewhat,” Nameless explained. “Normally, when clicking away, these contraptions prevent anyone from listening in.” He winked at me. “We can’t ever be too cautious in regard to spies, now can we?”
I smiled, thinking happy, silly thoughts.
He returned my smile, tapped a ball and said, “Well, this one creates another kind of field, one that prevents anything from leaving it. A most useful contraption when hunting, let’s say, ghosts.”
My lips felt dry and stiff as I mumbled, “How amazing.”
He chuckled as the silver spheres clicked back and forth. I squinted and watched as a silvery bubble encased the room.
“Yes, it is quite amazing, really,” Nameless said. “I think your dear ghost husband will appreciate this. Won’t you, Gideon?”
Too late, Gideon flew toward the wall he’d entered in and I observed in dismay how he bounced off the energy field created by the pendulum.
“Oh, you needn’t look so astonished, my dear,” Nameless chided as he waved a hand at me. “And I wouldn’t fret overly about Gideon. After all, he’s already dead.”
Gideon sped about the room, searching for a crack in the energy field, but there was none.
“Well, Gideon,” Nameless said cheerfully. “I’m not normally one to judge at all, but I do think it’s in bad taste to haunt a spouse after death. It’s bad enough that you did so while alive.”
He pulled a silver jar out of the black bag and placed it beside the pendulum. He then tapped one of the spheres again and they all sped up, clinking sharply against each other. I squinted my eyes and saw the silvery energy field begin to shrink, pushing Gideon closer to the dwarf.
The dwarf straightened up, bounced a silver lid in his palm and sighed contentedly. “I trust you enjoyed your time defying death and all, but that time is about to end, Mr. Knight.”
“No,” I shouted but it was rather too late for that.
The energy field had shrunk around the jar and pendulum set. Gideon’s form began to stretch and become distorted as he was pushed or sucked into the jar. The last I saw of Gideon Knight was his thinned-out, elongated face, his mouth screaming silently, and then Nameless pushed the lid on.
Chapter 22
“And that’s that,” Nameless gloated, holding up the silver jar.
I pulled my jaw and myself together; there was little point in gaping or crying or begging; losing my dignity would be of no benefit to anyone. “What have you done to him?”
Nameless shrugged as he tilted the jar back and forth. “In a few weeks’ time, his energy will be dissipated by the chemicals lining the interior. And then, my dear Mrs. Knight, you can finally be free of him and start behaving like a proper widow.” He gazed down at me. “You can thank me later. Or now, as you wish.”
My throat tightened as I faced the prospect of a life without Gideon.
“And let me just say that I’m most impressed and, to be honest, relieved.” Nameless stroked his goatee as he eyed me. “For a while, I thought I’d kidnapped the wrong woman, for I’d been told you were rather clever. And it seems you truly are.”
“What do I have to do for you to release him?” I asked, my voice strained.
Nameless laughed as he packed the pendulum and jar back into the bag. “Oh dear, it’s really far too late for him now, Mrs. Knight, truly it is.” He shook his head. “Let’s move on to more urgent matters, shall we? For example, what has our delightfully smelly Prof. Runal told you in regard to myself?”
I stared at the bag in which lay the imprisoning jar. I had a few weeks before Gideon was wiped out of existence. I didn’t intend for my escape to take that long. I’d find Lilly again and our friends would figure some way to track me down.
“He mentioned that you’re hunting paranormals,” I answered around the jagged lump in my throat. “Although I admit to a certain bewilderment, given your own nature.”
The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “I assure you I’m quite human. My diminished stature is merely the result of a childhood condition, nothing more.”
I didn’t dispute his claim, although I’d seen in his energy that he was clearly a dwarf, not a human with dwarfism. Delusional and cruel: the combination didn’t bode well for me. I wondered if his self-hate extended to all humanoid paranormals, or did he reserve his bloodlust for ghosts, shape-shifters and other non-humanoids?
He smiled, the anger replaced by mirth in a rapid alteration of mood that was disconcerting. “Did Prof. Runal educate you on the nature of our relationship?”
“You have a relationship?” I asked, not bothering to disguise my skepticism.
“We do,” the dwarf said, his smile widening, reminding me of Mrs. Cricket’s demented, face-splitting grin. “After all, he hired me, once upon a time.”
“He. What?” I said, struggling to breathe through my frustration. Could that old dog never tell me the complete truth? Was I destined to find out bits and pieces in the most unlikely and inconvenient times and places?
“Oh yes,” Nameless said, leaning against a wall. “He hired me. On behalf of the Society, I might add. I was engaged to carry out certain…” His eyes gleamed with wickedness. “Let’s say tasks… that the Society’s Council deemed necessary. They of course didn’t wish to sully their own hands with the deeds.”
“You’re an assassin,” I guessed.
“Yes, indeed, my clever girl,” he said as he sauntered toward me. “And a good one at that, if I do say so myself.”
Delusional, cruel and narcissistic. I snorted in disgust.
Nameless squatted before me and reached a well-manicured hand to my chest. Before I could protest his indiscretion, he snatched at the medallion I always wore, and yanked at it. The thick chain bit into my neck as he twisted the necklace. He licked his lips as I focused on breathing through the constriction created. He held up the medallion, a metal coin with the Society’s symbol on its surface: an S-shaped dragon.
“Back in the days when the Society was ruled by men, this dragon had a sword through it,” he whispered. “That was when the Society held to its true mission, to ensure the non-humanoid abominations knew their place in our world.”
He released the medallion and I shrunk away from him. “They didn’t belong in it and still don’t,” he continued, his gaze fixed on my necklace. “Even that old werewolf should’ve been stuffed and mounted on a wall long ago. He barely made the grade and only because he could maintain his human form at will. He was the one who convinced the other Council members to let that be the standard. Now of course
any creature is admitted into the fold. There are no standards left.”
He rose up, spat a glob onto the floor and paced before me, a little man with large delusions and a dangerous vision.
“I intend to finish the job the Society gave me,” he said, raising a fist to the air. “I’ll purge the British Isles of the vermin and create at least one place on earth untainted by those atrocities.”
He stopped in front of me and leaned over to grab my chin, forcing me to gaze into madness. “You’ll help me, Mrs. Knight, won’t you? And why wouldn’t you? You’ve experienced first hand the true horror that occurs when we allow these beasts to inhabit our earth. Your scars bear eloquent witness to that.”
I couldn’t argue regarding my scars. But what of Burr, Nelly, Kam and his were-lion sister and nieces? And the numerous fairy folk and shape shifters I’d consorted with in England?
“Why do you need me?” I asked, my jaw pushing against the hand that gripped it.
He shoved my head against the wall and stood straight, which didn’t add much to his unimpressive height.
“Some of them hide in human form,” he said with a wave of a hand. “I need you to identify them. That’s all.” He smiled, his voice reassuring and matter-of-fact. “Just point them out to me. We’ll take care of the rest. You’ll be well compensated with continued life and sufficient gold to make you independently wealthy.”
The continued life part I could appreciate, but did he truly believe me so easily swayed with gold?
He must’ve seen my revulsion, despite my weary efforts to disguise it, for he added, “And of course there are other means to ensure your cooperation.”
He inspected his polished nails on one hand. “You might not be overly concerned about your own wellbeing, but what of your acquaintances? Someone who is much more susceptible to pain and other methods of persuasion? That cousin of yours, for example. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, now would we?”
His smile was hideous and I wondered how I could ever have thought him handsome. He snapped his fingers. The door to the room opened and the tattooed-covered man stood there, a beefy hand gripped around Lilly’s arm. Her mouth was gagged and her hands bound behind her back.
Before I could catch more than a glimpse of her frantic expression, she was yanked out of sight.
“I’ll need you to make a decision soon, Mrs. Knight,” Nameless said as he swung the bag onto a shoulder and turned to leave the room. “In the meantime, dear Mrs. Elkhart will be housed elsewhere, for her own comfort.”
He stepped into the passage. Before closing the door, he leaned in and, with a pleasant expression, he said, “The continuation or elimination of that comfort is entirely dependent on your decision.”
Chapter 23
If my arms hadn’t been tied by my side, I might’ve been tearing at my hair as I contemplated the predicament.
Then again, I might’ve saved my energy in order to throttle that insufferable dwarf the next time he appeared. Suffice it to say that at that moment, I developed an appreciation for Koki’s determined search for revenge, for I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d exacted my own against Nameless.
That I could sympathize with Koki on any level was in itself alarming. That my pregnant cousin was in the hands of this fiend was more so.
And Gideon…
“Best not to dwell on that,” I said into the darkness.
That was easier said than done. I kept expecting Gideon to pop his head through the wall, a cheeky grin on his face, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“And that’s not going to happen until we find our way out,” I reminded myself, quite needlessly I might add.
I closed my eyes, urging myself to sleep and return to Lilly’s dreamland. Not surprising, I experienced no success. My mind wiggled and squirmed all over the place, every place in fact except the place labeled “Sleep”.
And what use would it have been anyway? The chances were slim that Lilly had dozed off, and she couldn’t very well contact the others. Neither of us knew how Mrs. Cricket trapped souls in that void, and I hoped we wouldn’t have to resort to that, despite my aversion to the dwarf.
Something shimmered by my side.
“Hello, wolf,” I greeted it.
My energy wolf sat beside me, aloof and regal. As far as I could understand, it was the side effect of the werewolf venom I’d received as a child; my witch mother had given me a cure so I wasn’t prey to the lunar-induced changes. Something however had remained behind, surviving the cure.
That something stalked about the room, lighting up the darkness.
“If you happen to see a little man with a ponytail, bite him,” I ordered.
The wolf lay down beside my metal hand, sniffed at it and stared at me, a reproachful expression in its glowing eyes.
“Yes, I apologize profusely for not summoning you,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t. “I suppose the possibility slipped my mind, and now they have Lilly. It’s terribly complicated.”
The wolf cocked its head at me, as if wondering how stupid I could truly be, and then bit at my metal hand.
“Don’t do that, you foolish beast,” I said sharply, but the wolf ignored me. That’s why I’d always been hesitant to summon it to my side: I wasn’t fully in control of it, and I wasn’t convinced I could ever be. It was an energy from a wilder, darker, uncivilized place where the only law was the law of survival at any cost.
It was the ‘at any cost’ part I wasn’t too comfortable with, despite my desire to rid myself of my Mantis nemesis and now the dwarf.
“That’s what happens when you allow your heart to hold tender feelings,” I said with a sigh.
The wolf had the entire metal hand, the leather cuff and straps in its maw. I couldn’t be bothered to fight it. What use would it be?
As if sensing my dismay, the energy form looked up at me and vanished. The hand fell again to the stones with a clatter.
“That’s helpful,” I muttered and frowned. If the wolf was gone, why was there still a glowing light around the hand?
A metal finger twitched.
“So much for all that engineering,” I told it. “A couple knocks against the floor and you start malfunctioning.”
Another finger twitched and then all the fingers clenched. The palm rose up and the fingers clicked against the stone, looking like a five-legged, metal spider. The thing inched toward me.
“Oh dear,” I sighed. “It’s bad enough I must contend with a possessed horse, a werewolf brother and a fiancé with poor fashion sense. But now this?”
I squinted at the hand; a glowing field popped up around the mechanism. The field shifted in and out of a wolf form.
“That was unexpected,” I said, at a loss for what to say. And that in itself should indicate how discombobulated I was.
The spider hand tiptoed (or tip-fingered, as it were) to my side, climbed up my skirt and crawled around toward my back. I leaned forward slightly when a metal finger prodded me, and the hand continued its journey.
Muffled conversation echoed from outside the room, and distant footsteps punctuated the silence.
“Do hurry,” I whispered.
Another finger poked me, as if to remind me that it was after all just a hand trying to do its best. I could feel it tugging and pulling, and then the rope loosened about me.
“Brilliant,” I breathed out as I wiggled my right arm free. “Do you mind working on my ankles now?”
Another sharp prod and the metal spider-hand skittered around my waist and down my leg to follow my order.
The voices were definitely closer now.
I assisted my hand to untie my ankles, after which the hand wiggled its way to my stump and I strapped it on. The fingers continued to twitch and click together with the restlessness of a wild wolf.
“This could be most convenient,” I admitted to it. “As long as I can actually work out how to control you.”
My mind was inundated with images of my hand in
dependently throttling a poor, unsuspecting passer-by for accidentally bumping against me. That would never do, unless the person happened to be a delusional, conceited dwarf.
Oh, the possibilities.
I tried the door, fully expecting it to be locked. And it was.
“No lucky breaks for me,” I informed my wolf hand.
Nameless was correct about one thing: I was somewhat clever (please excuse the immodesty). While I was deprived of my highly useful and fully loaded walking stick, I did have a few hairpins tucked into my bun.
Never underestimate a woman with hairpins.
In the right hands, an innocent hairpin can be a dangerous weapon, or, in this situation, a makeshift key. With my glowing left hand to provide me light and my right hand to fiddle with a hairpin, I had the lock sorted in under a minute.
I paused before opening the door. The voices and footsteps were fading, which meant they’d taken another corridor leading away from mine.
It seemed Lady Luck was finally gracing me with her presence.
“About bloody time,” I told the vagrant lady as I eased open the door.
There was a dim light in the corridor and an impenetrable silence, and I wondered where we could possibly be. There were only a few buildings in Nairobi I hadn’t had cause to fully explore, and this place must’ve been one of them for I didn’t recognize the bleak, undecorated stone walls.
Holding my wolf hand before me to light the way, I tiptoed toward the end of the corridor, looking for other rooms in which Lilly could be held. There was only one other room, filled with sacks of nails and unmarked crates.
I headed in the other direction. The other rooms were likewise filled with construction materials. Railway material? I didn’t bother to peer too closely, for as long as the crates didn’t hold a pregnant cousin or a bottled husband, I wasn’t particularly interested.
