Chronicles of Steele: Raven: The Complete Story

by Pauline Creeden

  When they reached an area of Ipswich where the gas lampposts became fewer, the coach pulled to a stop. The coachman hopped from his side of the carriage and traversed to the other side. Raven jumped down before he could offer a hand. His eyes narrowed, before he lightened his expression and took Marietta’s hand. She lit from the carriage with lady-like grace, chancing a glance in the direction of the back of the cart, where the men were disembarking as well.

  The snow on the streets had all but cleared, and the rest remained black with soot. Where they’d stopped, the buildings stood close together with narrow alleys between them. No one stood on the street like they had in the earlier section. Raven’s eyes darted in every direction, straining to check the shadows for any sign of life.

  The red haired witch had already taken Colton’s arm and inclined her head toward the cabbie. “Thank you, Max. Could I ask you to come in the morning at about seven-thirty? I will be travelling with my guests to Cirrus Mountain and would like you to take us as close as possible before we need to negotiate the remainder on foot.”

  Max narrowed his eyes at Colton. “Yes, milady. But I’d rather go no farther than Corsair, if possible.”

  She nodded and guided Colton toward the brick structure, dismissing Max with a wave of her hand. “That will be fine.”

  The steel door had three locks the witch produced keys for. Raven assessed the structure and took note of the lack of first story windows. “Which floor will we be staying on?”

  Marietta eyed her and nodded upward. “I own the entire building, but the top two floors are my laboratory, and the first floor is my shop. My quarters are on the second story, and there are four bedrooms.”

  Raven nodded and took a few steps to the right. Monroe followed her lead and headed to the left. Both the reapers checked for a means of escape. Raven’s side of the building sat next to a shorter structure, consisting of one story. The alley was about three meters wide. It would be possible to jump from a window to the roof of the building if escape became necessary. The river backed the building. It might be possible to jump from a window in the rear into the river. Monroe reached the group again a moment before Raven.

  He nodded her direction. “There’s a fire escape on the other side.”

  Raven nodded back. There was a means of escape from each side of the building. This was a safe location for staying the night provided no one was stuck on the first floor or the upper floors except when on the left side of the building. The situation looked promising.

  The small retinue continued after Marietta. She turned the handle of a lamp vein on the wall and punched the button to light the fuse. Instantly, the lights in the downstairs shop brightened up every corner. She swept her arms in a smile and twirled in a circle. “My humble abode. Please make yourselves at home. I have a kitchen down here, and the icebox has a few victuals within. Upstairs the mattresses are straw-stuffed and lying on the floor, but they are preferable to sleeping outside. I will be as gracious a host as possible.”

  Raven stepped toward her, spying the spiral staircase to the second floor. “Is this the only way up or down?”

  Marietta laughed. “Unless you want to use the fire escape on the outside, yes.”

  No one felt at home. The small group huddled, refusing to spread out, and continued en mass toward the kitchen. Marietta preceded them and turned the knob to light the burner. The icebox had been recently stocked with a large block of fresh ice, and there was room for little else in the small fridge. Marietta pulled out a plate of cheese and a ham. Then she reached over her head into a cupboard and took hold of some quick porridge. After measuring the amount she needed and the water, she set the pot on the wood stove and turned toward the group.

  Rupert, Colton, and Monroe had taken three of the chairs at the small table in the kitchen. Grant and Raven remained standing, neither of them heading for the last chair. The last thing Raven wanted to do was let him be gentlemanly or magnanimous, so she refused to make eye contact with him. Instead she remained standing at the counter and set her eyes on watching the witch flit about the kitchen.

  Marietta turned about. “It seems I only have a few items, but I can put them together into an edible dish with enough for everyone.”

  Colton reassured her. “Whatever you are willing to serve us, we’ll be grateful for.”

  She gushed and squeezed his shoulder.

  Raven rolled her eyes and abhorred her uselessness. Even though she had been making meals for her father since she was nine years old, she felt awkward asking to help. Because she was taught to cook by her father, her technique was rough compared to just about any woman she’d watch prepare a meal.

  Rupert’s leg bobbed under the table in an anxious manner. He eyed Grant. “So what is our plan?”

  Grant stepped toward the table and leaned on the top. He met the eyes of each man and nodded for Raven to draw closer. “We will be making for Mount Cirrus. Where we’ll find the witch is uncertain.”

  Marietta interrupted, standing over top of Colton with a hunk of cheese in her hand. “I know where the witch will be heading and am willing to lead you there.”

  Grant nodded. “Right. And we thank you for your help.”

  She smiled and danced back toward her stove.

  “So we have some idea of where we’re going. The witch has the power to incapacitate–both Raven and I have been put out of commission by a blue light from the woman’s hands. Monroe has the theory that the woman is stronger in her own home than she would be on the outside.”

  Marietta tsked. “Actually, Cirrus is a bewitched mountain. She will be just as strong there as she was in her own home, possibly stronger,” Marietta called over her shoulder.

  Silence swallowed the room as each person at the table assessed what that meant. The oblivious woman continued to slice the cheese and meat, adding each to the boiling pot on the gas burner. In the quiet she began to hum.

  Monroe cleared his throat while his eyes darted between Grant and Raven. “What sort of spell did the witch use to debilitate you?”

  Grant’s expression turned grave as he stared at the table. “I couldn’t move. No matter how much I attempted to get my muscles to move, I sat there frozen. I couldn’t even blink my eyes.”

  Raven nodded when Monroe shot her a questioning glance.

  Grant continued, “It was worse than that, though. The witch put a voice to all my doubts and fears. Her words stabbed me, and the thought that Raven could hear them, too, made me grossly ashamed.”

  Raven slapped her hands on the table. “What do you mean, she voiced your fears? I never heard her say a word about you. She only poked her fingers in my open wounds.”

  His eyes widened. “But the words weren’t in my head. I heard them aloud. I know I did.”

  With a curt shake of her head, Raven said, “I heard it audibly, too. Unless you killed your father, she was talking about me.”

  Monroe leapt to his feet. “You did not kill your father, Raven. Why do you feel as though you did?”

  Grant held his hand in the air to stop Monroe, and his grey eyes locked onto Raven’s. “My father is alive and living in New Haven. I heard her say nothing about your father.”

  The red-haired witch chuckled as she turned from the stove with wooden bowls. She set them on the table. “Sounds like you both were taken in by the spell of fear and shame. Nothing incapacitates a person to inaction more than those two feelings.”

  Raven shot a menacing look at Marietta who never returned her glare.

  The woman continued back and forth from the counter to the table as she continued her prattling. “Yep, blue light is the sign of confusion. She probably used the tongue of the elves. Those words twist into any language for the target’s hearing. It’s dark alchemy, and I’ve never used it myself. It costs too much. The bearer of the curse ends up taking into their own body some of the same sort of lactic acid that builds up in the victim. It can cause all muscular dysfunction in the witch if it’s used often.�
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  As the woman ladled a portion of her gruel into Monroe’s bowl, he looked up at her. “Is there a way to defeat the curse or render it useless?”

  “Of course. You must counteract the curse. Don’t fight it by struggling against the immobility. Speak affirmations to the curse—in your mind of course, since you are unable to actually verbalize.”

  Relief washed over Raven, and she saw the reflection of her release in Grant’s loss of tension. He almost melted to the floor in a puddle before he straightened. “It makes perfect sense now that we know how the curse is formed. The method of counteracting it seems too…obvious.”

  Marietta shook her head and smiled wider. “Alchemy is usually so simple that it’s amazing that the common man doesn’t use it on a daily basis. Of course they can’t, since all magic takes its toll on the user.”

  “You’ve said that before. What sort of price does the Wood Witch pay for what she’s doing now to the young baron?” Raven’s stomach growled, and she picked up her bowl. She spooned a portion into her mouth. It was a little salty, but as a beggar, she couldn’t be choosy.

  Marietta’s face turned grave. “Any time a witch takes another’s life, she loses a bit of her soul. It starts her on a track of bad decisions, where she becomes unable to redeem her ways. If she continues that route, it will shorten her life.”

  Part of Raven felt smug. The purpose of redemption for each life a reaper took was to keep from going down that road. But another part of her felt guilty again. Wasn’t the feeling of smugness part of the pride she’d amassed, evidence that she was not the humble servant she was supposed to be? Could her father be proud of her as she was now?

  Grant frowned and set his spoon into his empty bowl on the table. “So are you saying the Wood Witch is not an old woman? We saw her, and she appeared to be at least seventy.”

  Marietta’s eyes were sad, and she shook her head. “The Wood Witch is only a few years older than me, thirty-five at the oldest.”

  Raven gasped, and almost choked on the spoonful she’d just put in her mouth. Thirty-five? She swallowed hard. “So why does she keep doing this? If she’s aging at such an incredible rate, how can she determine it’s worth the price?”

  After a shrug, Marietta began collecting the men’s empty bowls. “Power is a consuming thing. Once you have a taste of it, you keep trying to get another. It’s a vacuum. What once gave you a great thrill diminishes with each passing day. You must have more in order to maintain the same level. I also think she must be chasing the present dream of the alchemist. We used to try to turn lead into gold. Now our goal is to create life eternal without God, heaven, hell, or even death.”

  Rupert narrowed his eyes at the woman as she clattered the bowls into the kitchen sink. “Death is more certain than anything on earth. It cannot be cheated. As for the rest, it is mere speculation.”

  She turned from the sink and smiled at him, holding up a finger. “If you spend much time in the study of alchemy, you become certain of many things the common man finds mere speculation. After all, who discovered the elements but the alchemist? You can neither see nor sense an atom in any way, but you know it exists because the alchemist says so.”

  Rupert rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “Science holds more irrefutable evidence than religion.”

  She shrugged and stepped toward the table. “Who said anything about religion? I’m talking about science. Alchemists know the existence of the soul—we’ve experimented on the moment of death. There is a portion of the human which appears to live on…to exist after the body has taken its last breath.”

  Raven shivered at the thought.

  “Ghosts?” Rupert retorted with a smirk.

  Exasperated, Marietta gestured toward the ceiling. “Could be. Who am I to say? My interpretation of the evidence might be different from yours, but we’ll all find out someday, right? The alchemists who chase after eternal life in the same manner as the ones who chased after gold will draw the same conclusion. Impossible.”

  Monroe stood and stretched, making a big production of yawning. “Well, thank you for the pleasant meal and for your generous hospitality. However, I believe we should all get some rest. The morning will be upon us faster than we imagine.”

  Colton stood and nodded in agreement. After he yawned, it became apparent that Monroe’s affliction infected other members of the party.

  Without a word, Marietta headed for the spiral staircase. “One at a time on this old thing, if you please. I don’t know if it will hold the weight of two to three full grown men.”

  Like gentlemen, the three guardsmen motioned for Raven to start up the staircase first. To her relief the black painted steel steps felt solid to her foot and the banister didn’t sway. She and Marietta waited at the top of the stairs, in a long hall of doors. Another spiral staircase headed up at the opposite end of the hallway. If someone had been on the third floor, they’d have to run down the expanse of the narrow way to make it to the next set of stairs down. It made logical sense that from the fourth floor, the same sort of building pattern would occur. Going up or down from floor to floor would be an arduous task.

  Four large bedrooms occupied the space on the second floor. Two bathrooms with indoor plumbing sat across the hall from each other in the center of the hallway. Marietta began assigning bedrooms. “I’m offering Raven to stay with me, as she’s the only female. The four of you may determine two each per room if you’d like. My fourth bedroom is a workspace and there’s no mattress in it.”

  Raven kept herself from sighing at the thought of attempting to sleep in the same room with this woman. The alchemist prattled so much she might keep Raven up all night with her constant small talk. Grant and Colton started for the room across the hall. Rupert and Monroe headed for the one next door. Both the older reaper and Grant questioned her with their eyes if she’d be all right. Raven gave a slight nod, took a deep breath, and headed into the powdered and perfumed bed chamber of the alchemist.

  Take every opportunity to prepare. Take in one's whole surroundings.

  Never be caught off guard.

  THE MOMENT SUNLIGHT entered the room he shared with Colton, Jack woke. But it wasn’t just the light that woke him. The factory across the street had begun its daily production, polluting the room with the sound of hammering, cranking, and other mechanicals. He continued to lie on the straw-stuffed floor mattress, watching the golden hued light come in through the window and the puffs of black smoke drilling into the sky from the smoke stacks.

  Stiffness kept him from moving with agility as he pushed himself off the bed. Colton still lay asleep under the rough canvas blanket they’d used. After standing, Jack straightened his waistcoat that had twisted in the night, one of the many downsides of sleeping fully clothed. He peered through the window to the street below. Not much movement on the dead-end factory road.

  The morning grind of the factories continued their steady noise, becoming more tolerable as he grew accustomed to it. He drew his belt tight and checked his pistol before returning it to his holster. Stretching helped him loosen the tightness in his muscles, but a walk would be beneficial as well. Because of the solidly built floors in the converted factory, Jack had no fear of waking Colton as he made for the door. He turned the handle slowly and stepped into the hallway. Shadows cast the narrow space darker than the room had been. The windows faced north and south and didn’t have the direct sunlight pouring in. He started for the downward spiral staircase and continued his quiet exit to the street.

  Outside the noise had grown exponentially, and the smells of smoke and salty air combined to almost choke him. Underlying them, a faint but pleasant odor of baking bread made his stomach growl. He started toward the river first. The sharp drop-off from the street to the water made him feel dizzy when he leaned against the railing.

  Across the half-mile wide river, the city of Ipswich woke. Faint shouts and the peculiar drone of a fishmonger auctioneer carried across. Steam-powered
tugs pulled boats into the harbor, occasionally tooting their horns.

  The smell of the bakery called him. Jack stretched again and walked through the narrow alley to the other side of the factory with two billowing smokestacks. It seemed to be the only factory in close vicinity that started work so early. The mortar between the bricks of the building varied between black and grey depending on its proximity to a chimney. Hugging the side of the building, he skirted along the ledge between it and the river.

  The next street over bustled with foot traffic and carriages. Instead of it being a dead end like Marietta’s street, it led to a bridge over the river. At first, the vendors and the flurry of activity distracted Jack. With a shake of his head, he focused at the store fronts below each factory to see what each manufactured and sold.

  The smoke stacks of the building he’d been watching belonged to a canning factory. Kippers and fish- paste cans filled the front window in a triangle formation. Across the street, Jack spied the little bakery open to the public and strode over to order for the group’s breakfast.

  With the push of the shop door, the bell overhead jingled. Immediately, the smells of fresh baked goods assailed Jack. He stepped up to the line and stood behind two other customers. The glass cases were set in an “L” shape and displayed a bevy of pastel iced confections. A jovial baker took orders in a booming voice with a smudge of flour on his cheek. His cheer made Jack smile. Rupert would have hated it—never a morning person, that one.

  When he’d finally stepped up to the counter, Jack had made his choices. “Could I procure two Ipswich sweet loaves, a dozen of your freshest hardtack, and a half dozen of your iced sugar biscuits, please?”

  The door to the back kitchen swung open, and a girl stepped out with her apron in flames. A high pitched squeal emanated from the girl though her mouth remained closed. Jack didn’t hesitate, and before the baker could turn around, he’d darted around the counter. He ripped his oilskin coat from his shoulders and wrapped it around her, patting out the fire. She continued to bear a terrified look of horror frozen on her face.