The moment Bacchus took a step toward the door, he heard a soft curse behind him. He turned, but the foul word had not come from any of the dinner guests. He peered toward the heavy curtains drawn across the windows.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. The opposite door burst open, and sure enough, Elsie toppled through, her hat askew. Her wild blue eyes found him. “Bacchus! You have to—”
Lightning shot out from the drapes.
Bacchus dived, and the electric bolt blasted through the backrest of his chair. He hit the carpet, tasting static in the air. Both daughters screamed. Master Merton cried, “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Get the duke!” Bacchus shouted, grabbing the chair in front of him and throwing it back toward the windows. The air prickled again, and lightning raced across the room, flashing bright in his vision.
“Fire!” Miss Josie shouted.
Cursing, Bacchus turned toward the second ruined chair, which had fallen on the fine carpet, a small blaze springing up from it. He crawled toward the fire, intent on putting it out, and at the same time Elsie screamed, “I know who you are, Abel Nash!”
That voice cursed again, this time louder, and a man dressed in all black, his face hidden save for his eyes, leapt out from the curtains. The duchess pulled the duke toward safety, and Master Merton ushered the girls toward the rear exit. Baxter rushed into the room.
But the man—Abel Nash—had eyes only for Bacchus.
Wielding a lightning staff, the thin man charged and flung its head forward.
Calling upon a spell, Bacchus threw up his hands and demanded the air to move.
The lightning flew just over his head as a gust of wind slammed into Abel Nash’s body, shoving him back toward the curtains. It wasn’t enough to knock him against the wall, and the assailant proved surprisingly nimble, flipping over upon landing, returning to his feet in an instant.
It was then that Bacchus realized this man was an assassin—the assassin—armed and ready to take out a master aspector. To steal yet another opus.
Bacchus was his next target, and somehow Elsie had known it. Had her shouts called this criminal from his hiding place early?
There was no time to think of it.
Bacchus darted toward the fire and calmed it with another spell, then grabbed a broken chair leg. He armed it with a spell for speed and hurled it at his attacker. The wooden missile whistled through the air like a bullet. The assassin disintegrated it with a burst of lightning and ran forward, closing the space between himself and Bacchus.
The duchess screamed.
Bacchus sprinted to meet the man, causing him to hesitate; Bacchus was by far the larger opponent. Before they collided, Bacchus dived to the ground and pressed his hand to the carpet, willing the floor to open.
It did, but not quickly enough to send Abel Nash into the basement. Nash leapt out of the way and pointed his lightning rod.
It sparked as Elsie collided with him, knocking them both to the ground. The lightning grazed Bacchus’s leg, searing his skin and igniting the fabric of his trousers. He clenched his teeth and snuffed the embers with his hand.
Turning, he saw two servants in the doorway, Master Merton gaping, and Miss Ida still at her side, tugging on her sleeve. “Go!” he bellowed. “Now!”
Master Merton’s gaze flickered from him to Elsie to the assassin. Perhaps she hesitated because she wished to help, but spiritual aspecting would do no good in this situation, unless she had a curse ready and could get close enough to Abel Nash to touch him.
She grabbed Miss Ida’s forearm and jerked her toward the door.
Bacchus looked back just in time to see Elsie take an elbow to her face as the assassin flung her away.
The burning in his leg blazed to fill his entire body.
Flying to his feet, Bacchus grabbed another chair and, bespelling it with speed, flung it at the man. It went wide, but the assassin ducked, nevertheless. The chair bullet crashed into the wall, ruining a portrait as it smashed into hundreds of splinters.
From a kneeling position, Abel Nash aimed his lightning staff and sent a fiery bolt for Bacchus’s head.
Bacchus jumped to dodge, only to realize he was on a path to collide with the dining room table.
His hands touched it first, and the entire center leaf shifted from solid to liquid as his master spell overtook it—shifting it directly to gas would have been the equivalent of setting off a bomb. The lightning bolt soared overhead and cracked as it struck the opposite wall. Bacchus dropped into a puddle of strange woody liquid that was already beginning to resolidify. Pain surged from his head into his shoulders, not from the landing, but from the sudden and extreme use of the spell.
The air prickled. The lightning rod had been activated again, and he didn’t have enough time to escape.
He turned just as the blinding light shot at him—and the familiar silhouette of a woman stepped in front of it.
“No!” he shouted, but the lightning hit—
—and then vanished.
Blinking spots from his eyes, Bacchus pushed himself upright. Elsie’s shoulders heaved with her breaths. Both of her arms stretched in front of her as though frozen there. She stared with wide eyes. So did the assassin.
It took another heartbeat for Bacchus to understand what had happened. She’d dis-spelled the lightning. As it struck her.
He’d never heard of such a thing.
The awe fled Abel Nash first. He flung the staff forward again, a huge serpent of lightning flying for them. Bacchus wasn’t quick enough to tackle Elsie before it hit. She moved her palms up slightly, and the light surged into them—the brightness was nearly blinding, but Bacchus could have sworn he saw a glimmer of blue where light hit skin. A broken rune.
The lightning choked out, leaving them both unscathed.
Bacchus acted immediately. Grabbing a shard of porcelain from a broken dinner plate at his feet, he bespelled it with speed and chucked it. The porcelain zoomed through the air like a bullet before piercing through one side of the assassin’s chest and bursting out the other, spattering blood as it went. It collided with a curtain and hit the floor, breaking into three pieces.
Abel Nash’s knees quivered. The lightning staff fell from his hand and hit the floor. He followed after, dead.
CHAPTER 23
Elsie stared at the bleeding, slumped body of Abel Nash on the floor and did the very thing she’d always promised herself she’d never do.
She fainted.
It was brief, a quick blackening of her vision. The sensation of falling. A snippet of memory, lost. But when her senses returned, she found herself bent back in a very uncomfortable position, held aloft by a single strong arm that smelled remarkably of oranges.
“Elsie. Elsie!” Bacchus’s voice was low and close. A second arm joined the first in supporting her, warm and sure. “Someone call the police!”
“Already done!” The butler she’d been arguing with mere minutes ago ran back into the room, surveying the damage with wide eyes.
Straightening and steadying herself with the crook of Bacchus’s elbow, Elsie took stock of the room, intentionally keeping her eyes away from the . . . corpse. Ahead, the floor gaped like an open mouth. Chairs, dishes, and cutlery were a mess. Part of the table was missing, and there was a brackish puddle on the rug beneath it. Charred gouges scarred the walls, ceiling, and carpet.
She could still feel the heat in her hands from the lightning strikes. She’d dis-spelled enchanted staffs before, but never what they emitted. The runes on the lightning had a similar feel—so fast, so hot—but she hadn’t even seen the threads, the knots. She’d just . . . done it.
She didn’t understand it at all. But she was still alive. And so was Bacchus.
Bacchus.
She threw her arms around him and buried her face into his collar. She felt his quick pulse beneath her nose. Tears wet her eyelashes. “I didn’t know if I’d get here in time.” His shirt muffled her words.
Just as embarrassment began to surface, those strong arms encircled her. “We made it, Elsie,” he whispered, words flavored with his Bajan accent. “We’re all right, thanks to you.”
In that moment, Elsie had never felt safer.
Bacchus pulled back, but kept one arm around Elsie as he guided her into the poorly lit hall. She reached for the wall, her legs feeling weak, and lowered herself to the floor. Bacchus crouched across from her.
“Are you well?” He took her face in his hands. “Should I call the doctor?”
She grasped his hands, squeezing his fingers. “Bacchus, it’s Ogden.” Her voice caught. Voicing the words made it so much more real, and it felt as though that morbid piece of porcelain had cut through her, not Nash. “He’s the one behind it. The opuses. It’s him.”
His green eyes narrowed. “What?”
She glanced down the hall, and Bacchus followed suit. She wasn’t sure who else in the household, if anyone, had witnessed her grand spellbreaking, or if they’d even recognize it as such. But Elsie would rather not add incarceration to her extensive list of worries.
She swallowed. Then, to her chagrin, tears sprang to her eyes.
“Bother,” she muttered, wiping them on her sleeve.
Bacchus tucked some of the mess of her hair behind her ears. “You’re safe, Elsie. Nash is dead.”
But she shook her head and released him, breaking away from his warmth, his concern. “You don’t even know.” She hated the squelch to her voice. She wiped her eyes again, then a third time. The bloody things wouldn’t stop leaking. “I did it, too, Bacchus.” And there it was, an ugly piece of her, displayed for him to see. She’d so hoped to stay in his good graces before he left. But to stop Ogden, she had to confess the truth. “The doorknob. All of it.”
“You’re not making any sense,” he murmured, and he wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb.
She laughed. “Could you please not be tender while I tell you what a terrible person I am?”
He hesitated, then sat back on his heels.
Checking the hallway for eavesdroppers once more, she went on. “The ones I wouldn’t tell you about. The Cowls. The ones who . . . who hire me for spellbreaking. I didn’t know it, but Ogden is one of them. And they are behind the theft of the opuses.”
His brows drew together.
She wiped her God-forsaken eyes again. “Every time they needed me to do something, they sent me a letter—it was always through letters—and told me about all the good I was doing. How I was helping someone in need. How I was stopping a wrong going unpunished. How I was balancing out the world. Freeing innocent boys, helping farmers, keeping families in their homes . . .” She laughed again, but it ripped up her throat in a most unpleasant manner. “And I did as they asked, blindly. For a decade, I did it all so blindly. But in the last year, it’s been so frequent. More and more. And then I found their seal in Ogden’s room. And when I went to Juniper Down, I realized every spell I’ve broken for them is connected to one of the thefts, one of the murders. I was the key that unlocked all those doors. I helped kill all those . . . people . . .”
She covered her face with both hands, the guilt unbearable. If only the floor would open up here and swallow her whole. Dying in a basement didn’t sound completely terrible at the moment.
She thought she heard new voices in the house. Had the police arrived?
She felt him shift. “Elsie—”
Ripping her hands away, she said, “You must tell them. Now. The police. I swear to you as the sun rises in the morning, Ogden is the criminal behind all of this. Please!”
Her voice rose with every word, until even the servants down the hallway were looking at her like she was a specter risen from the grave. But Bacchus, bless him, was taking her seriously—he left, and she hoped it was to carry out her request.
She stared down the servants. “Are you deaf? Cuthbert Ogden of Brookley is a killer! Tell the police!”
They scattered.
Closing her eyes, Elsie leaned her head back against the wall. Her wrists itched something fierce, and the annoying sensation flowed up her arms as though carried in her veins. She tried to scratch, but her sleeves were so damn tight.
She sat there for a while, listening to the back-and-forth of servants, the occasional wail. The duchess came by once, asking after her. Elsie managed a half-hearted assurance, and the woman let her be. The itching started to recede.
Would the police require a testimony? Would they use another truthseeker? She’d have to confess her spellbreaking to make her story work, wouldn’t she? Or was there some other way around it? She needed to think, but she’d been thinking so much lately. Her brain was exhausted.
Grabbing some wainscoting, Elsie heaved herself to her feet. She needed to go. She needed to protect Emmeline. Heaven help her, she would be so frightened if she was in that house when the police arrived—
Several policemen chattered among themselves in the dining room, pointing at the body and the damage, taking notes. Someone had informed them of the situation on the way over, perhaps. Could she slip out without being seen? It would be hard to find a cab back home, since she hadn’t told the previous one to wait for her. She hadn’t told the driver anything, merely left his coin on the seat and bolted for the house—
“Elsie.”
She jumped, hand flying to her breast. “Bacchus, you blend with the shadows.” She’d had enough frights for one day.
He offered her that subtle near smile. “Let’s pull you away from all this.”
Elsie eyed the policemen in the dining room. Two blocked the sight of Nash’s body.
“I’m not turning you in,” he assured her, and took her hand, guiding her down the hallway. The noise of the investigation slowly quieted behind her. A relief.
He stopped by a massive staircase to the first floor. Turned toward her and took both her shoulders in his hands. “You never answered me. Are you hurt?”
“No. Not really.” Her gaze fell to the floor.
He let out a long breath, forceful enough to stir her mussed hair—she couldn’t recall where her hat had gone. “That’s twice now.”
“I wouldn’t have broken in if that butler weren’t such a daft—”
“I mean twice that you’ve saved my life.”
She lifted her gaze almost unwillingly. His hands on her shoulders were too warm, and a flush crept up her neck. She cleared her throat. “Well, if you want to focus on that part of it.”
He chuckled, which almost helped her relax.
“Bacchus,” she pressed, “you did hear me, didn’t you? I’m part of this.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
He lowered his hands, but only so they held her upper arms instead of her shoulders. “Did you at any point know or suspect that you were part of it?”
She paled. “Of course not!”
“Then you’re fine.”
“But the police—”
“I told them Abel Nash confessed Ogden’s name before his demise. I told the others that I’d invited you to dinner and you must have seen Nash sneaking in. The police shouldn’t question you outside of a recounting of the events that occurred tonight. As long as they match my retelling, you’ll be fine.”
Elsie gaped, a numbness she hadn’t noticed lifting from her limbs. “But a truthseeker—”
“The duke has sway. They won’t use one on you.”
She rolled her lips together. “You’re interrupting me a great deal tonight.”
He smirked at her.
Remembering herself, Elsie pulled away from his touch and folded her arms against the chill that rushed in to replace his warmth. “Thank you. Truly.” She glanced toward the dining room again. “They came quickly.”
“The duke owns a telegraph. And the High Court employs spiritual aspectors who can project themselves to further the message.”
“That’s fortunate.” Her pulse quickened. “Oh, poor Emmeline. She’ll be so confused. I need to get to her.”
>
“You didn’t come from Brookley?”
She shook her head. “Reading. Before that, Juniper Down.”
“Why were you away?”
Her shoulders sank. “Well, funny story. I was led to believe my father had come looking for me, but it turned out to be some highwayman who’d mistaken me for someone else.”
Bacchus ran a hand down his face. “Elsie, I—”
But a police officer swept down the hallway at that time, his hard-soled shoes echoing in the corridor. Bacchus stiffened. “Has word come in?” The man must have been walking from the direction of the telegraph.
The young officer hesitated a moment, perhaps unsure what he was allowed to share, but he gave in easily enough. “Cuthbert Ogden has fled his home, but a neighbor claims to have seen him headed north.”
Elsie’s chest tightened. The last vestiges of hope dissipated, making her feel like a dried corn husk. She added Ogden’s name to the list carved into her heart. He was yet another person who’d left her behind. Another father who’d abandoned her. Maybe he’d always planned to, once Elsie’s usefulness ran dry.
Elsie rubbed her wrist. “Why would he head toward London? If I were a fugitive”—she very much did not like how that sounded—“I wouldn’t go into the crowds. I’d run away from them.”
“He has the cover of darkness,” Bacchus offered. “He can get lost in the throng.”
Elsie bit down on the knuckle of her index finger hard enough to leave prints. Pulling it free, she asked, “Would you ask after the maid? Emmeline Pratt? Make sure she’s all right?”
“We do have priorities, miss. Any staff will be seen to.” He tilted his hat toward her and continued on his way toward the front entrance, perhaps to report to someone outside. Elsie watched him go, her stomach cramped.
After several seconds, Bacchus asked, “Are you hungry? You’re welcome to stay here tonight, until we sort this out.”
“I doubt I’d be able to sleep.” Though she’d gotten precious little of it lately. It suddenly struck her that the policeman had said a neighbor had seen Ogden leave home. He’d taken off before the police had arrived. Why? “How would Ogden even know to flee?” she asked. “I sent no word ahead, and I know Abel Nash didn’t, either.” She paced at the end of the stairs. “They shouldn’t have too much trouble catching him. He doesn’t own any horses. You can’t get a cab at night in Brookley unless you order it ahead of time. But there’s no possible way he’d have known to do that—”
Spellbreaker Page 25
