Firebrand

by A. J. Hartley

  I tried it, and went through silently, finding myself in an open area with a broad staircase to my right and a pair of corridors that led to different parts of the house. Figuring that Willinghouse had gone to a kitchen or pantry, I chose the hallway that looked the most functional. The one that led directly away from the front of the house had less elaborate moldings, and the door at the far end showed more wear, as if it had been repeatedly pushed open by people whose hands were full.

  The door was hinged to open in both directions and had no latch. The corridor on the other side was painted simply and tiled with plain but clean ceramic. An iron bracket held a small luxorite globe, its light soft and verging on amber. There was no sign of Willinghouse, Dahria, the driver, or the silent manservant, the only person I had seen so far who appeared to live in the house. I remembered Dahria’s bitter hostility to coming here and being with “that woman,” and I couldn’t help but be curious. It would take someone remarkable to jar Dahria out of her world-weary unflappability.

  “Hello?” I tried again, aware that my sense of the uncanny was swelling unsettlingly. “Sorry to disturb you, but I was looking for Mr. Willinghouse.”

  But there was no one to disturb, and I was getting more and more uneasy.

  Something is wrong.

  I moved more slowly now, more cautiously. The corridor smelled different from the rest of the house. Old cooking smells, some of it, the metal and stoneware of the kitchen, but there was something else, something that didn’t belong. I stopped for a moment and closed my eyes, inhaling, and caught it again: dirt and musk and grass. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but it was a hint of the outside world that the rest of the house seemed at pains to banish. With it came a movement of night air.

  An open window, I thought.

  I turned the corner at the end of the hall and found myself in another junction of doors, all black and simple, lit by another aging luxorite bulb. I tried one of the doors and it revealed a pantry, all shelves and cupboards and racks of drying herbs and peppers. Another larder had stone walls that lowered the temperature considerably, and in it were trays of butter and cooked meats, summer sausages and game birds hanging from hooks.

  There was still no sign of anybody, but as I considered the larder, I heard what seemed to have been the first sound in ages that I hadn’t made myself. It came from beyond the largest door. I forced myself to stop and make sense out of the noise.

  It had been a soft clunk, dull but with a fractional metallic tinkle somewhere inside the sound. I had no idea what it might be, but as I stood there, trying to understand it, the sound came again. There was an almost inaudible sweeping before the clunk. I closed my eyes again, trying to focus on the noise, wondering if I could connect it to the sound of a servant making tea for unexpected guests.

  It came once more, and this time there was a different sound in the silence between the noises, one that raised the hair on the back of my neck. A grunt, I thought. There were no words in it, so I couldn’t be sure it was human, but it sounded like … effort.

  Caught between fear and embarrassment, I set my hand against the door and pushed very gently. It opened a crack, almost weightless against the pressure of my hand. I peered in.

  Inside was a large, stone-flagged kitchen. There was no visible luxorite, though there was a pair of gas lamps turned very low, their light soft and blue so that everything in the room was drained of color: sinks and countertops with cutting boards and knife blocks, a vast gas-fired stovetop, a pair of ovens in one wall, and a huge soot-stained fireplace, the only thing in the room that did not look scrubbed.

  I opened the door wider and stepped inside. Then the sweep and thunk came again, and my ear traced it.

  For a moment, my heart flooded with relief. At the far end of the kitchen was an external door that had been left unlatched. It was swinging softly in the breeze from outside, thunking shut but never latching, so that the next rush of air pushed it wide, then sucked it closed again.

  I took an instinctual step toward it along the side of the long island where the stove was mounted, but stopped. Perhaps it had been left open on purpose. Perhaps the manservant had stepped out to some cellar which was inaccessible from inside the house.

  The stillness of the place continued to unnerve me, and I immediately doubted such easy explanations. I didn’t know the layout of the house or grounds and couldn’t be sure that the high-gated wall we had entered didn’t go all around the house, protecting it from the bush beyond. Surely it would. So the open space through the kitchen door would be merely a kind of courtyard. Surely. No one would leave an external door open out here, particularly after sunset. That would be madness. I frowned, then took another step. I would call out, and if no one came, I would close it. If I accidentally locked someone out, they could knock at the front door.

  I took three more steps and saw movement in the shadows outside. I froze, staring.

  There was a soft splash of the kitchen’s gaslight playing over the threshold, but it faded to nothing only a couple of yards beyond the doorframe. Something had passed the entrance only feet from the house. Something large. Something that loped in uneven bounds. I kept very still, uncomfortably aware that the gaslight would reveal me to whatever was outside far better than the other way around.

  Perhaps if I rushed the door and slammed it shut, I could find a way to latch it before whatever was out there chose to come in.…

  And then, in spite of the warmth of the night, I felt a chill run the full length of my spine. Out of the dark had come the sound of a child’s laughter. A strange, mad child.

  I knew what that meant long before the creature loped into view only a yard beyond the door.

  Hyena.

  I felt my eyes widen and my nostrils flare. The animal moved into the light, its gaze on me, nose high, bat-wing ears wide and alert. It was a huge brute of a beast, probably my own weight, maybe more. Its legs were delicate, almost spindly, but its haunches were powerful and its back sloped up to hulking shoulders and a long, thick neck, all muscle and sinew. Its head was pointed, eyes glass-hard and alight with the milky glow of the gas lamp, muzzle black, jaws lolling.

  It was absolutely still. When my eyes caught the next flicker of movement, it wasn’t the animal in front of me, but another one a few feet behind.

  So there’s a pack.

  One hyena was dangerous, lethal even, but a pack could kill anything that walked on land. I had heard about them all my life—the way they stole prey from weancats, the way they coordinated to bring down one-horns. There wasn’t a creature in the world that scared me more.

  I could slam the door, I thought, but that would mean taking two substantial steps toward it, toward them, and that was beyond me. Without taking my eyes off the lead hyena, I began a slow step backwards. The maniacal chuckle came again, and this time it was behind me.

  They were already inside.

  CHAPTER

  8

  FOR A MOMENT I did not move. Could not. Then I pivoted slowly at the waist, revolving a few degrees, terrified of taking my eyes off the hyena in the doorway, but desperate to see the one that was already in the kitchen.

  It slunk out from behind the stove island, head low, eyes watchful. There was another behind it, skittering out where it could see, and producing that unnerving giggle. It was a chilling sound, and it spread through the pack like madness. There were at least three more outside.

  I could smell them clearly now, a rank musk that shifted in the hot air.

  I had to get out.

  I inched back toward the door through which I had come, but the hyenas responded, circling back around me. Two more came in from the yard, trotting almost casually, though their eyes were fastened on me. Suddenly unsure I could reach the door without a fight, I let my gaze rake the countertops for something I might use as a weapon. I had left my satchel of tools in the sitting room. The knives were agonizingly far away, heavy handles sticking out of their blocks over by the ovens. If I went
around the island …

  Before the thought could complete itself, the nearest hyena shifted, cutting off my route as if it had read my intent. It bared pointed teeth crowded behind thin black lips. The chuckling began again.

  My heart was hammering, and the blood sang in my ears. There was a coppery taste in my mouth, and my knees felt unsteady. I had no idea what to do.

  Another hyena, leaner than the others, edged in from the darkness, turning its striped flank on me as it moved to the wall. They were spreading out, surrounding me, noses held high, drinking in my terror.

  I had to move, but my feet refused to shift. I considered shouting, but had no idea what that would do. It seemed more likely to incense them than scare them off.

  The pantries.

  If I could get out of the kitchen and get those larder doors open, surely all that aging meat would hold their attention while I got behind a lockable door.

  The idea was what I needed to stir my legs into action. I began to move slowly, but even my fractional start alerted them. For a split second they froze, staring, calculating, and then the yipping chuckle began again. I could stand it no longer.

  Thought evaporated.

  I sprang for the door. Three long strides and I was smashing it open, racing out into the orange glow of the corridor, knowing they were at my heels. I dragged one larder door open, but dared not wait to do more, as the first hyena gave chase. It hesitated only a second at the open pantry, then came galloping after me. The others followed.

  I ran, bellowing Willinghouse’s name.

  Down the corridor I pounded, exploding through the swinging door into the open lobby with the staircase, and into the front hall. I could hear them coming after me, gibbering hysterically, blundering through the doors. I saw the main entrance directly ahead, no more than fifteen yards away.

  It might as well have been a thousand.

  It was fastened shut with two heavy bolts, and there was no key in the lock. If I got to the door and couldn’t get it open, I would be trapped. I needed to buy myself some time.

  “Willinghouse!” I shouted. “Dahria!”

  I tried the nearest side door and found myself in another elegant sitting room. The windows were high and small, but I ducked inside, pulling the cord that released the shades on the luxorite chandelier so that the room was instantly bathed in hard white light. I closed the door behind me, making sure it latched, then moved quickly to the hearth, where I selected a brass poker with a pointed hook that swept out just below the tip. Not much of a weapon against the jaws of a hyena, perhaps, but it would have to do.

  The room was decorated in cream and ivory, the prim chairs and sofa trimmed with lace and brocade. There was a pair of decanters on a highly polished sideboard, a tray of crystal goblets, and a silver flask with a bulb, but the chamber was otherwise sparsely decorated. There was nowhere to hide.

  Maybe they would return to the pantry, or even to the kitchen door and out into the night. I just needed to stay still and quiet until they gave up looking for me, and that, I thought, couldn’t take long.

  There was a distinctive creak from the door. It was a familiar sound, but my mind didn’t process it until I saw the handle move.

  No.

  It snapped back into position, and I heard a grunt from the hall. Then there was the muffled thump of weight being thrown against the door and the handle shifted again. More this time.

  I stared, hardly able to believe it. The door handle was the long, bar kind, not the round knobs that would surely have defeated an animal’s paw.

  It flicked back into place once more, and now I heard the mad giggle of the hyenas echoing down the hallway.

  The handle began to move again.

  There was nowhere to go. If only one of them got in, we could chase each other around the couch a few times, but if there were more than one of them, even that brief absurdity would be prevented. They knew how to hunt as a pack, and they would have caught my scent by now, even if they hadn’t actually seen me come in.

  Scent.

  I looked wildly round the room, and my eyes focused on the silver flask on the cabinet. The bulb where its stopper might have been was the size of a small lemon, covered in glossy fabric. I strode over and snatched it up. Liquid swilled inside it. Then I moved behind the door as the handle twisted again, stuck for a second, then tipped all the way down. The latch snapped, and the door juddered.

  For a moment it just cracked a little, and then the black nose of the lead hyena nudged it open. It entered cautiously, shoving the door wider with its striped shoulder. I braced myself, the perfume bottle in one hand, the poker in the other, not breathing as the beast committed to its search and moved all the way into the room. My body ached and twinged from my fall into the river. I was not ready for a fight.

  The sense of being inside a dream came back like a heady aroma as the great hyena, tawny and black striped with a pale splash across the ridge of its spine, moved around the elegant, cream-colored furniture. Everything in the room denied the wildness outside these walls, yet here it was, moving with low menace between the end tables of crystal decanters.

  I waited till it was as far from the door as it would get before making my break, but it saw me. It turned snarling, lips fluttering as a deep rumbling growl came up from its throat, eyes narrow and fixed, ears flattening to the sides of its head. It was less than ten feet from me. Its haunches rippled and flexed as it prepared to spring—

  I sidestepped around the door, hoping against hope that there wasn’t another hyena poised to come in, leveled the perfume bottle, and squeezed the bulb. It sprayed a fine mist, finer than I would have liked, but the scent of roses and lavender filled the air, and the hyena flinched away, eyes stinging, nostrils momentarily overwhelmed. In its instant of hesitation, I slid out of the door and slammed it shut.

  I knew that wouldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds, but that might be all I needed to get the front door open. I checked the hall for the other animals, but there was no sign of them. I didn’t pause to examine my good fortune and flew along the hall to the entrance.

  The scream came from above. A female voice.

  And at once I knew where the missing hyenas were.

  They had gone upstairs.

  I hesitated for a second, feeling the inadequacy of the poker in my hand, and then I turned sharply and ran back into the house. I was halfway up the stairs before I heard the second scream.

  CHAPTER

  9

  THE HOUSE WAS WARMER upstairs, the musky tang of the hyenas sharper on the still air. To move into it, to run to where they were, meant shutting off all instinct, all thought, in the pursuit of a single flickering certainty: someone was going to get killed unless I could get to them. The poker shifted in my slippery grip, but I ran on.

  There was a carpeted landing at the top. A single shaded luxorite bulb showed four paneled doors, then a turn in the corridor. One of the doors was ajar. I was almost through it when a hyena rounded the corner, doubling back toward the stairs. Its gaze fell on me, and it stuttered to a halt, hackles rising, teeth bared.

  I didn’t hesitate, blundering into the darkened room to find three hyenas already inside. Dahria was crouching on the bed against the far wall, sheets drawn up to her throat, eyes wide and horrified under the thin veil of the mosquito netting. The hyenas were clustering around her, watching her, till my arrival caught their attention and they hopped away, chuckling.

  I brandished the poker at the nearest of them, and it bounded easily out of range. The one from the landing had slunk into the doorway at my back. I gave it a warning lunge, but it barely moved.

  Their chittering laugh rippled around the group again as they sized me up, and I made another slashing motion with the poker at the nearest of them, shouting wordlessly. It was as if they were calculating the odds. Dahria was frozen, whimpering. If they attacked, she would be no use.

  My eyes flashed around the dim chamber. I had only come up one story, but t
he room’s sole window was behind the headboard and looked to be heavily shuttered. We would have to leave the way we came in.

  “Move toward me,” I said. “Quickly.”

  Dahria stared at me. In the gloom she looked mad with panic, paralyzed. I reached a hand toward her, looking for a gap in the mosquito netting. The hyenas reacted, forgetting her entirely and giving me all their attention. Two of them took little mincing steps toward me, heads lowered. I was now the center of a tightening circle whose radius was the reach of the poker.

  The one in the doorway hopped closer, and I swung at it, knowing even as it stepped lightly away that the two by the bed were closing in. I felt the brush of fur against my legs and turned, shouting out in terror.

  Dahria had not moved, but even in the horror of the moment, I saw something in her eyes that seemed … wrong.

  Not scared. Curious. Even amused.

  Her look distracted me, and I was too slow to react when the hyena from the doorway pounced.

  Its weight caught me off balance, and I went down hard, dropping the perfume bottle and catching my elbow on the end of the bed. There was pain, but I was too aware of the crowding hyena muzzles to feel it. I rolled onto my back and they were there, their paws on my chest, their narrowed eyes inches from mine. Their scent was overpowering, and as their faces dipped and bobbed toward my throat, it struck me in the wild madness of the moment that their fetid rankness was the last thing I would ever smell.

  I flailed wildly with the poker, catching one of them on the side of the head, but another caught my arm in its jaws and wrenched it aside. I writhed and kicked, but it was over.

  I didn’t recognize the voice for what it was until the hyenas pulled back, shrinking away.

  There was an elderly Lani woman in a dressing gown standing in the doorway, looking down at me, her face hard, her arms spread wide in command. She was shouting words I didn’t understand.

  Names.

  One by one, the hyenas pulled away and dropped like dogs, panting, to the floor.