The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

by Trisha Telep

  “Everyone’s going this way,” said Alice.

  Two large metal barrels bracketed either side of an alleyway, rusted sides cut into faces, like jack-o’-lanterns. Flames inside them illuminated their triangular eyes and mouths, lined with jagged teeth. Voices in the crowd proclaimed—

  Magician.

  They passed between the barrels. For a moment, utter darkness consumed them as if they spiralled without foothold into a bottomless crevice. But then light burned in the distance . . . embers in the night. Torchlight.

  A small stage had been set up with wooden boards and behind this was parked a large enclosed wagon, painted in colours of turquoise and orange. On the side were painted the words, “S. E. Ether & Son” as well as a placard advertising liniments, healing spirits and apothecary services. Several young women, with long hair, tightly laced bodices and saucy smiles bustled in and out of the wagon, accepting coins from the crowd in exchange for an assortment of green and brown bottles and small pouches.

  But at the centre of the stage, a tall man in a green velvet great-coat and tall stovepipe hat paced the centre boards. Long, blond hair fell in waves over his shoulders, in shocking, almost naptha-bright contrast to the velvet. With his bright green eyes and high cheekbones, he boasted a lithe, cat-like male beauty.

  He moved with his arms extended out to his sides, “—even now, my assistants are filling your orders for our miraculous healing elixirs.” Fervency burned in his eyes. “For those of you who have not yet decided, believe. I beg you to believe. Just one sip of our carefully formulated potion will ease the persistent pain in your intestines and repair the unsteady beat of your heart. Yes. Yes. Come forward good sir.”

  The crowd pushed forward.

  “Oh, what’s that?” the man shouted, cupping a slender hand at his ear, and looking towards the wagon. “My assistant tells me it’s time for another of our entertainments.”

  A roar of applause and verbal encouragements sounded all around Malise.

  Alice exclaimed, “Let’s get closer to the stage where we can see.”

  With her arm still through Malise’s, she pulled her forward. They lost the other nurses somewhere in the press of bodies. Soon, they stood at the edge of the stage. Others, also trying to get closer, pushed and elbowed them from the side and from behind.

  “All I need is another pretty girl to do the honours. This time, instead of one of my assistants, let us call someone out of the crowd.” The tall blond man surveyed the multitude.

  Young women surged forward, raising their hands to him. “Me. Me, please.”

  “You? Or you?” he teased them, his handsome lips curling into a broader smile. “No . . . I think . . . you.”

  Malise’s eyes widened on the tip of his finger, which was undeniably pointed at her.

  “Go on, Malise! It will be fun.”

  “I really don’t wish to—”

  Arms grasped her elbows and her waist, lifting her on to the stage.

  The man’s face appeared very close to hers. His hand pressed against her lower back. “Welcome to my show. I am Dr Ether.”

  Her pulse beat a frenzy. She whispered, “Really, I decline. I’ve never been one for dramatics.”

  He stroked a hand down her cheek, his smile widening. “Never fear, the part is small and involves no dialogue.”

  “No, truly—”

  Dr Ether disappeared and his assistants surrounded her, jostling her to the far edge of the stage, laughing and cajoling and praising how daring she was. Behind her, something weighty and creaky rolled against the wood, as if on wheels. The cold firmness of wood pressed against her back, and leather straps circled her wrists and ankles. She struggled but it was too late. The girls danced away, leaving her strapped to a large circular panel. They clapped their hands and encouraged the crowd to do the same.

  Dr Ether approached again. Her gaze fell to his sides, where he clenched a cluster of gleaming, foot-long blades in one hand. “I think everyone has a bit of actor in them. All it takes is getting oneself into the right frame of mind.” He spoke to her softly, as if oblivious of their audience. “Take the emotion of fear, for example. Even if one is on stage and with full realization there is no danger to one’s person, the successful actor must put themselves into a believing state of mind.”

  He tossed one of the blades from his crowded left hand to the palm of the empty right.

  Her pulse staggered. “Sir, truly, I don’t wish to participate—”

  “Shhhhh,” he soothed. “You must forget the existence of the audience. And the stage, and the curtains, and the ropes and pulleys, and the orchestra . . . and convince yourself to believe you just might be a breath . . . away . . . from death.”

  He bent and with a growl of effort, slammed the tip of the blade between her ankles. She shrieked. The blade pierced through the layers of her skirt and petticoats, into the wood panel.

  “For your modesty,” he growled, low in his throat. “Your skirts around your head would no doubt incite the crowd into a frenzy but that’s not at all the effect we’re going for.”

  She recognized something in the gleam of his eyes and hidden in his handsome smile. A potential for cruelty.

  He backed away, three remaining blades in hand. Reaching the far end of the stage, he offered her a dramatic, assessing glance. “Too easy. That is too easy, what do you say my friends?”

  The shouts from the crowd filled the alleyway, deafening in their intensity.

  “Too easy.”

  “Spin the wheel.”

  “What was that?” he asked. “Spin the wheel?”

  A unified chant emerged. “Spin . . . the . . . wheel. Spin . . . the . . . wheel.”

  “No!” shouted Malise but her protests were drowned by the enormity of the sound.

  He grinned at his adoring audience. “If you insist.”

  A young woman appeared beside her, someone familiar. One of the new nurses. The one named Jane. Only Jane had shed her coat. Her hair shimmered in long curls around her shoulders and her lips had been painted bright scarlet.

  “Spin . . . the . . . wheel.”

  “Jane?” Malise gasped, now not just frightened but panicked.

  “I’m sorry but do I know you?” laughed Jane, a stack of golden bracelets jangling on her arms. Her hands gripped the wooden handle above Malise’s head and with a lusty shout she pulled. Everything moved. Spun.

  THUNK.

  Malise struggled against the force of movement, bent her neck to see. A blade jutted out, a half inch from her right side.

  “No more!” she screamed, her hair loosening, and swinging about her face.

  THUNK.

  She froze. That one, just beside her ear.

  A sudden roar filled the alley. A flash of light blinded her and heat scorched her skin.

  “Seether!” a voice bellowed.

  THUNK.

  Midnight

  “Bloody hell,” cursed Dominic. “Your hair.”

  Nurse Bristol pushed up, and rubbed her eyes. She lay half-sprawled on the grass, her bodice torn and her undershirt parted, which bared the lovely swell of her breasts. Her hair, now streaked with silver moonlight, fell in soft disarray over her shoulders. After Ether and all of his new followers had disappeared, screaming, growling and hissing into the night, Dominic had brought her here to this empty field.

  Recognizing him, her eyes widened. “You.”

  His mouth went dry. God, had he done the right thing? He threw the now-empty ampoule into the darkness.

  “Why is my bodice wet?” She paused. “Ugh. That’s . . . blood.”

  He nodded. “Yours, Nurse Bristol.”

  “Malise. Call me Malise.” She searched her body. “But I’m not hurt.”

  “You were, though.” He reached out and with his fingertips, touched her bare skin at the centre of her chest. “Here. The knife went in here.”

  She pressed her hand over his, holding his palm against the swell of her breast. She appeared interest
ed. Not at all shocked.

  “That makes no sense. But . . . I believe you. I feel so different. Unafraid. You don’t know how that feels,” she whispered, her lips slowly forming a smile. If he’d found her beautiful before, she was that, tenfold, now. “I am oddly unconcerned that apparently something momentous has happened to me that I can’t explain. Would it have anything to do with the awful taste in my mouth?”

  St Vinet lifted the empty ampoule. “It was meant for them. There was enough for everyone in the crowd who drank or ingested Ether’s false elixirs.”

  “Those things never work. He’s a liar, only taking advantage of their hopes and stealing their money.”

  “Oh, but his elixirs do work. Only they don’t heal. They enslave.” He pushed himself up from the ground.

  She, too, stood, brushing the grass from her rumpled skirts. “Like opium turns people into addicts?”

  “Much, much worse, Malise. His victims are transformed into Seethers, who then grow ravenous for the emotion of misery. They prey upon weaker mortals. They exploit and kill, in terrible ways.”

  “But I didn’t drink any of his elixirs” she said softly.

  “I didn’t even consider that. I just . . . couldn’t let you die and hoped this might heal you somehow. Things went further than I expected. You are more than healed now. You are . . .”

  He closed his mouth.

  “What? What am I?”

  “Bloody hell, I’m not ready to say,” he growled.

  She did not shrink away, but stepped closer, so close her skirts brushed his trouser leg. “You didn’t know what its effect would be?”

  “Rathburn formulated it. We did not go over every possibility for its use.”

  “Rathburn . . . he called you an old friend. But he is old, and you are not. What will you tell him now? Mr St Vinet, what will you tell me?”

  “That I have, without your permission or consent . . .”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Turned you into an immortal.”

  Unable to watch her reaction, he gave her his back, and strode a few feet across the grass to snatch up his hat from the ground. He lowered it on to his head, and waited for the disbelief. The stuttered questions. The curses.

  Her hands and arms were around his waist. Something flared, deep inside his chest.

  He twisted round, facing her.

  She smiled up at him. “Do you know what it’s like to be unafraid? Do you understand this gift you have given to me? It is as if I have been freed from a lifetime of imprisonment. I feel as if I am capable of anything.”

  Her words assuaged much, but not all, of his guilt. Even so, to his pleasure, her hands spread across his chest and came up to his neck and his jaw. He had heard, but never observed for himself, that when the rare mortal was transformed into an immortal they experienced a wild euphoria for days, one that included . . . certain urges.

  She whispered, “St Vinet . . . I can’t explain it, but I want nothing more than to be closer to you . . . I need to be close to you . . .”

  He needed no further invitation. Amaranthines were a lusty lot, indulging when natural impulses struck. But with Malise there was something deeper. So deep he experienced only anguish that it had taken this long for them to stand face to face, breath to breath, when until now experience had told him he must forever stay away. From the moment their eyes had met, in Rathburn’s rooms at the hospital, she had captured him, heart and soul.

  Their lips and bodies met in a mutual frenzy of desire. Within seconds, they fell to the cool grass, a tangle of limbs, garments and bared skin.

  St Vinet lifted his head. “Agh! Wait. Stop.”

  “What is it?” she asked dazedly.

  “We’ve no time for this—”

  Malise nodded. “The Seethers . . . they are still out there.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “The newer Seethers, the Ancillaries, usually hibernate for a good two days before starting their mayhem, so there’s time to track them but I need more of Rathburn’s elixir in order to save them all. It’s Ether I’ve got to find tonight.”

  “Let me help you.” She re-buttoned her bodice. “He put a blade in my heart. Revenge sounds like a rather sweet pursuit.”

  “Rathburn.“ Dominic spun away from her, staring into the night.

  “What is it?”

  “I must go to him. Immediately.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He has summoned me.”

  “I thought he was mortal.”

  “He is mortal. If I were to attempt communication with him, he would never perceive my efforts but when his emotions are intense and insistent, I can sense them across land and sea. He knows this and in this way he has called out to me.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that he’s in danger. It has to be the Seether.”

  “Ether,” whispered Malise.

  They crossed the park and emerged on to the cobblestones. Dominic shook awake the driver of a hansom and instructed him to convey them to Winterview. The streets were near empty, so their travel occurred with speed. As they grew nearer to the hospital, an orange light illuminated the sky, the distinct colour of flame.

  The hansom shook and jerked to a stop. Even from this distance, Malise felt the heat on her skin and smelled the smoke. She leaned forward in her seat and grasped the door handle. St Vinet seized her arm, holding her back.

  “Stay here, Malise.”

  “No, I won’t. I care for him too. Perhaps even more than you.”

  Stepping down from the hansom, they raced across the lawn, passing residents in their nightclothes, seated in chairs and bundled up against the chill. Nurses moved to and fro, tending to the elderly residents. Three different fire brigades directed thick streams of water into the blaze.

  “Nurse Bristol,” shouted a nurse.

  “Where is Mr Rathburn?” Malise enquired, her voice husky with urgency.

  The nurse stared, wide-eyed. “You . . . you look so different.”

  “Mr Rathburn! Where is he?” shouted Malise, gripping the woman’s arm.

  “We got everyone else out.” The nurse peered toward the upper floors. “Everyone but Mr Rathburn. Nurse Henry said she would bring him down. She and that visiting physician, Dr Ether. They were so very brave, going straight up into the flames.”

  Dominic strode toward the burning structure. Malise joined him.

  He growled, “I suspect Nurse Henry is an Ancillary, here to set the stage for Ether’s arrival.”

  Malise added, “There were other nurses too, only recently hired. They helped Ether bind me to the wheel.”

  They grew closer to the hospital. The heat intensified but did not scorch Malise’s skin. In that moment, a great crash sounded, and the lower floor buckled. The roof sagged and collapsed inward. Flames blazed out from the gaping hole.

  “Oh, my God,” Dominic’s face paled. “We’re too late.”

  “No!” Malise cried, tears glazing her eyes. “Mr Rathburn!”

  St Vinet’s arm came round her, bringing her close to his side. Bending down, he pressed his lips to her tears. Winterview was now nothing more than a great burning heap. Rathburn, his mentor and friend, was dead.

  A stream of carriages arrived and soon all of the residents were whisked away to other lodgings. Their cause lost, the firemen retreated. Wagons returned to the street, they rolled their hoses and prepared to depart.

  A voice sounded behind them. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stand here all night when there’s a Seether to be Reclaimed.”

  Malise turned. A tall figure strode towards them, a charred, still-smoking leather case in hand. As he drew nearer, the light from the flames illuminated his features – those of a young man in the prime of his life. She recognized him from the tintypes in Mr Rathburn’s room.

  In shock, Malise broke free of Dominic’s embrace and raced towards the one who approached them.

  “Mr Rathburn,” she exclaimed, reaching out t
o touch his face. “It’s you.”

  He dropped the case, and seized her up into his arms.

  “I like the hair,” he murmured. “It and immortality suit you.”

  “What in the hell?” Dominic demanded, the intensity of his fury hotter than any inferno. “You played me for a fool. All these years, you were simply playing a part.”

  Anson released Malise and turned towards him. “No, I truly aged. There’s a way, little known and I begged the approval of The Primordial Council. But the method is dangerous. A gamble. I was never certain once I’d let things go this far that I’d be able to return from the brink. But remember, St Vinet, the process by which we are all given our immortality. We are baptized in fire – and fire reversed the process of my aging and returned me to my true, immortal state.”

  Dominic said, “But you gave up your immortality when you wed the mortal woman. Once you’ve relinquished your immortality, you can never go back.”

  Anson shook his head. “I never relinquished my immortality. I simply allowed my physical body to age. I loved Lavinia. She wanted someone to grow old with. She deserved that much. By then, you were already so furious with me for marrying her – curse your bloody temper – I let you believe as well. Then Ether returned, seeking revenge. I thought I’d already Reclaimed him with one of my elixirs but the formula was faulty. Though weakened, he murdered Lavinia, then disappeared. Disappeared so completely, I feared I would never have my revenge upon him. So I took a chance. The chance that he hated me so greatly that as he regained his strength, while he was watching and waiting, he would one day reappear when I was at my oldest and my weakest.”

  “And he did, and you Reclaimed him,” exclaimed Malise, gazing at him in admiration.

  “No, he’s still out there.”

  “Still out there?” growled Dominic. “We’ve got to stop him, then. Tonight.”

  Malise added, “And there are still his victims who must be saved. Returned to their normal state.”

  Anson took up the case. “Then let us be on our way. He can’t escape the three of us. Though not a Shadow Guard with final Reclamation powers, Malise can still join in the hunt.”

  Dominic rested a hand on Anson’s shoulder. “When this is all over . . .”