The Wrath of Wolves

by Kelley York

  Sid catches me watching and grins. “Want in?”

  Beside me, I can practically feel the heat of Preston glaring in her direction. I’m half-tempted to say yes, just to see if she’s being serious, but… “Quite all right, thank you.”

  I find I learn the most about these people by watching them interact with one another. The relationships they hold with each other. The tensions, the friendships, the uneasy alliances.

  The obvious bits of information are that Nathaniel Crane is the head of this operation, although not the man they all answer to all the time. They’re working for someone who has only their tentative loyalty; perhaps he’s paying them, perhaps he’s blackmailing them. Hugo mentioned someone named Solomon last night. I’ve filed that name away for safekeeping.

  Sid and Crane appear to be friendly. Their posture around one another is easy but not overly familiar. A sign of people who have known each other a while. There might be some level of trust there, even. Certainly more than between any of the others.

  Louisa and Philip are followers in every sense of the word. Philip is dark-haired with a thin mustachio that he tugs nervously at often, and he looks constantly worried. Louisa is a woman close in age to Preston’s Aunt Eleanor. She has a sharp eye and a mean stare, but she falls obediently in line when given direction and seems to prefer to avoid confrontations. I also noted the sour look she cast in Hugo’s direction when she discovered she’d be riding with him at her side on this little outing.

  Ah, Hugo. Most definitely the outlier in this group. After his encounter with Crane, he’s been cowed, but I wonder for how long. A beaten dog only behaves until it thinks it can get away with biting someone it does not like or trust. Should that happen, I fear Crane won’t hesitate to retaliate. Fatally.

  They play a few more rounds of their game before Philip grows tired of losing and calls it quits. Sid then busies herself playing a game of solitaire, though I cannot for the life of me figure out what rules she’s following. Her ghost hangs in the darkest recesses of the shadows, never far, watching all of us. A chill settles over me and I huddle closer to Preston.

  Over the next few hours, the city vanishes behind us, giving way to dusty roads and towering oaks and maples and stretches of vineyards.

  Dark is almost upon us by the time Sid says, “This is the road. I think we’re almost there.”

  Crane knocks on the roof of the cab. Louisa leads the horse off to the right, allowing the trees to swallow us from view of the road. We climb out. The woods around us are black and cold, a heavy layer of fog rolling in to make its home for the night. The carriage lanterns offer just enough light that I can make out the faces of my companions. Preston’s hand comes to rest against the small of my back as Hugo hops down from the driver’s bench, landing solidly only a foot or so from us.

  The others begin to assemble themselves, pulling on their dark coats. To my horror, Crane leans back into the cab to retrieve his revolver from beneath the seat along with a few firearms, which he begins to hand out to the others.

  I grab hold of his arm. “We had a deal. I said no killing.”

  Nathaniel Crane’s stare is as cool as the night air around us. He closes his gloved fingers around my wrist and squeezes until the pressure makes me wince and release him. “Our host is not going to allow us to simply walk in and take what we want because we ask nicely.”

  I pull my hand from his grasp. “If anyone dies, I’m not opening the chest for you.”

  Hugo laughs. “Go ahead. Give us an excuse to shoot you too.”

  Crane stills him with a stare before he turns and shoves one of the revolvers into Preston’s hands. Preston startles, staring down at it as though he hasn’t the foggiest idea what to do with it.

  “It ain’t loaded,” Sid assures him. “But wave it around like it is and it’ll make your night a helluva lot easier.”

  Preston’s mouth tugs down disapprovingly, but he tucks the barrel of the gun into his belt like he’s seen the others do. Crane turns to offer another of the guns out to me. He looks utterly unimpressed—and unsurprised—when I only stare back at him, defiant. He sighs and puts it away.

  “As it pleases his highness. All right, ladies and gents; here’s the plan. Neighbours are spread out enough that we ought not have too much of a problem being stealthy. Do the pair of you happen to know if any servants are present?”

  Preston shakes his head. “He met us at the hotel. There were two men with him at the time, but they didn’t look like servants.”

  “Probably hired muscle, is all. In a house the size of his, I suspect Carlton doesn’t have anyone who lives on-site, but you never know. Let’s proceed based on the assumption he has four on his staff and at least some of them might be there. I’d rather over-estimate.” Crane looks askance, peering through the trees where the moonlight illuminates Carlton’s house across a stretch of trees and grass. “Sid, Your Highness, you’re with me. Hugo, Louisa, Philip, you three take the guard dog here and go in through the back. Ensure anyone you find doesn’t sneak out to alert a neighbour.”

  I scowl at his use of insulting nicknames and bite back the urge to comment. The sooner we go in, the sooner we can get what we came for and be on our way.

  We approach the building on foot, keeping to trees and shrubbery as we step onto the property. Everything appears still quiet, only a single faint flicker of light coming from an upper storey window. With any luck, Mr. Carlton will be the only one home and we needn’t frighten his poor house staff.

  Crane gestures as we approach. Philip nudges Preston, who casts a forlorn, uncertain look in my direction. I nod and he reluctantly follows his partners. I’m left to approach the front door between Sid and Nathaniel Crane.

  A wolf howls.

  The sound sends a shudder straight down my spine and almost makes me gasp. Crane pauses, hand upon the doorknob. “What is it?”

  “You didn’t hear it?” I whisper.

  Crane frowns. “Hear what?”

  I wonder if Preston can hear it from where he is. I shiver again, rubbing the gooseflesh from my arms and shaking my head. “Nothing. Nevermind.”

  Crane tries the door, unsurprised to discover it locked. He steps aside and Sid drops to a crouch, pulling a roll of lockpicks from her coat. It takes her nary a minute before the door lets out a definitive click and she pushes it open.

  All the lights have been put out for the night, making what seems to be a neatly decorated space look haunted and abandoned. Still, I hear the howling and this time it rattles off every wall, and when Crane says something to me, I cannot hear it for the haunting sound ringing in my ears. The howls are like a warning as much as a summons.

  Sid gives my shoulder a nudge. “Hey. Get a move on.”

  I force myself to breathe in deep, trying to block out the noise in the same way I have learned to block out spirits in general all my life. It works, vaguely. “The skull is upstairs.”

  Crane and Sid exchange looks and we head for the stairs. Every breath, every creak of wood beneath our feet makes me cringe, convinced someone will jump out from the shadows to ambush us. At the top of the steps, Crane gestures, expecting me to lead the way since my sixth sense has a lock on the location of the box. That means I’m left to move ahead of the group, unarmed, into the darkness.

  I lead them toward the sound of howling to a closed door. It’s unlocked and swings open soundlessly, letting us into a wide study awash in moonlight.

  The chorus of wolves stops. The ensuing silence is almost as deafening.

  Sid steps around me, gaze sweeping the room. “So, where’s it at?”

  “I don’t know. In here…somewhere. The cabinets? Drawers?”

  “Find it,” Crane orders. He leaves the room, moving soundlessly down the hall. Sid and I begin to look about the study, searching shelves and drawers and cupboards, to no avail. It’s in here somewhere. I know it is.

  Commotion from elsewhere in the house draws us both to standing upright and Sid pulls he
r gun from its holster. The door slams open and in stumbles Mr. Carlton, hands above his head, dishevelled and disoriented in his pyjamas and mussed hair and drooping moustache. Behind him comes Crane, the barrel of his revolver jammed between Carlton’s shoulder-blades and his free hand fisted into the man’s shirt. He shoves Carlton into the centre of the room, and Carlton’s eyes land on me and grow wide.

  “You—”

  “Where’s the box?” Sid demands. She’s lowered her gun but has not put it away.

  “Who in the hell are you?” Carlton demands hotly. He braves turning around then, and it must be the first time he’s got a look at who dragged him from his bed, because all the colour drains from his face. “Crane…?”

  Crane doesn’t bat an eye. “Good to see you, Michael. Where’s the fucking box?”

  Carlton wets his lips, eyes flicking from Crane to Sid to me and back again, as though uncertain who here poses the largest threat. Or perhaps who stands to be his greatest chance at getting out of this unscathed. He seems to decide that person is me, because he swivels back in my direction. “Mr. Esher, please, remember what I told you…”

  Sid lets out a sharp laugh. “That ain’t William Esher, just like that other boy ain’t James Spencer. Just some buddies of theirs they got to do their little delivery for them.”

  Carlton falters but does not relent. “I don’t care who he is. He knows that box belongs to me.”

  “I don’t,” I admit quietly. “I thought that I did, but those notebooks… You didn’t write them, did you, Mr. Carlton?”

  A pause. “I…”

  “And the woman’s skull. Who did that belong to?” I advance a step, and he retreats two. “I’ve seen her, or whatever is left of who she used to be. And she is not happy.”

  His expression drops. “What skull?”

  “He ain’t opened the box yet,” Sid says.

  “Of course I haven’t opened the damned box. I don’t know the combination to get into it!” Not once do his eyes leave me. “How do you know what’s in there?”

  Crane makes an amused noise. “He’s a smart lad. Figured it all out himself.”

  “I did not. The spirit whose skull resides in there showed me.” I incline my chin as Carlton stares me down, unwilling to be intimidated. “I have no interest in the notebooks. You lot can fight for them all you want. All I want is that skull so I might grant the woman it belonged to some peace.”

  Carlton runs a hand over his face, tugging at his moustache. “I don’t understand. It was just supposed to be the books, so why…” He stops, turns, gapes at Crane in horror. “Nathaniel, what’s become of Ellie?”

  Crane returns that stare with a blank one of his own, brows furrowed, suggesting he doesn’t have an answer to that. “I don’t keep tabs on your wife for you.”

  I’ve the worst sinking feeling in my stomach. “She has long, dark hair. Dark eyes. She sometimes speaks a language I do not know. She was beautiful.”

  In a flash, Carlton rushes to his desk near the window, snatching a frame from its surface. He shoves it out to me—an old tin portrait of himself standing beside a lovely, dark-haired woman. He is smiling. She is not.

  There is something deeply unsettling about seeing a photograph of a person in life when all I have seen of them is their tormented spirit, but there is no doubt. “Yes. Yes… That’s her.”

  Carlton’s face falls, fingers curling around the edges of the wooden frame so tightly it might splinter in his grasp. Slowly, his eyes move past me to lock onto Nathaniel Crane.

  “Was it you, Crane? Did you kill her?”

  “I don’t make a habit of killing people who don’t deserve it. Ellie was a nice woman.” Crane shrugs. “The last I had heard, you’d taken your chance to get out from under the boss and you took it. You left your wife behind. I’m willing to bet Solomon had no more need of her. If that’s the case, I might go so far as to say you’re just as responsible for her death as anyone else.”

  Carlton’s face flushes crimson in shame and fury. He drops the frame to the desk and lunges for Crane, grabbing fistfuls of his coat and shirt and shoving him back against the fireplace mantel. Crane only lets out a bitter laugh, unconcerned.

  “Go on then. Take your anger out on me if it pleases you, but I did not kill your wife.”

  They stare daggers at one another while I’m struggling to keep up, to grasp the situation. If I had to wager a guess… “Solomon is your employer. Is he the one who runs The Order?”

  Stillness falls over the room. Carlton, Sid, and Crane all look to me as though they forgot I was even there. Carlton laughs, shrill and amused. “You really don’t know anything about what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you, boy?”

  “I know that woman’s spirit wants what’s left of her bones laid to rest. I know you did not seem to like the way things were being run under your employer, so you had some of his work stolen. Either to get back at him, or perhaps as blackmail.”

  “Smart lad. Not that any of that matters right now.” Crane lifts the revolver, jamming it into Carlton’s stomach to force him back several steps. “The box. Now. Unless you’d rather I put a few rounds into your face and then tear this place apart until I find it. Your choice.”

  My eyes widen. “We had a deal, Crane. No one dies!”

  “Boy, shut your goddamned mouth,” Sid snaps.

  He could be bluffing, but with that glint in his dark eyes, I do not think he is. I push past Sid, putting myself between Crane and Carlton, my heart racing so quickly I can scarcely breathe around it. Behind me, I can hear Crane letting out a low, impatient growl, but my focus needs to be on this man—the one we need something from.

  “Mr. Carlton, I implore you. Just tell us where the chest is. Mr. Crane will take back the notebooks to the person who wrote them, and all I want is that skull. If she was your wife, then surely you loved her and you want her laid to rest, don’t you?”

  “Coward left her at the mercy of wolves. Do you think he really cares?” Sid scoffs.

  Carlton’s lips pull back into a sneer. But perhaps he knows he won’t win this standoff, because he steps forward, gesturing for Crane to move aside. He removes the painting hung above the fireplace mantel, revealing a cabinet door behind it. Not locked but hidden well enough that it might have taken us hours to find it.

  From inside, he removes the box, still firmly sealed. He places it atop his desk and steps back as though a part of him also senses there’s something amiss about it and contact feels wrong. I can still feel the woman—Ellie, if that is her name—lingering there, her presence in every shadow in the room.

  “Open it,” Sid demands. “So we can make sure everything’s still inside.”

  A wise idea, at least in theory, but— “I’m not going to do that.”

  Sid groans, frustrated. “Why the hell not?”

  I turn to face her, shoulders squared. “Because if I open it now, what use will you have for me then? You’d have no reason not to kill Mr. Carlton, myself, or my companion.”

  “Our word ain’t good enough?”

  I almost laugh. “We have been kidnapped, beaten, and chased through the streets by the lot of you. So, no, your word doesn’t mean much.”

  “It’s fine. Just grab the box and let’s go.” Crane turns for the door. Minutes ago I’d have jumped at the chance to hurry out of here, but now I cannot help the inane urge to press, to find out more. There are so many pieces to this puzzle that aren’t lining up. So much of the picture is missing.

  I step over to Carlton, meeting his dark, sullen gaze. I keep my voice low, barely above a whisper. “Please, tell me… Who was it you worked for? This Solomon. He’s a part of The Order?”

  Carlton’s eyes narrow. “You want the God’s honest truth?”

  “I do.”

  “Boy,” Sid snaps from near the door. “Come on. No questions.”

  I hesitate. “Please, something. Anything.”

  Carlton wets his lips, gaze flicking to the other tw
o even as Crane is briskly crossing the room, removing his gloves. I need him to get anything out, just a few words.

  “You should go home before Solomon finds out you’re underfoot,” Carlton says. “If you encounter him, don’t trust him. Don’t trust any of them, do you understand? They’re all—”

  Crane’s hand shoots out, fingers closing around Carlton’s throat. Silencing him.

  Just like the night before, the room plummets into darkness all around us. Nathaniel Crane’s eyes glass over into the vacant eyes of a corpse. Carlton chokes on a scream that does not make it past his lips, but every drop of colour has drained from his face, leaving behind an ashy grey pallor.

  Crane is killing him. I can’t see it so much as I can sense it; a soul being wrenched apart from its body to…what, to go where? To simply be tossed into the void?

  Sid makes no move to stop her companion, and I…

  I cannot watch a man die like this.

  I latch my fingers around Crane’s wrist and forearm, intending to pry his grip from Carlton’s throat.

  Instead, every muscle in my body locks, frozen in jolts of pain and fear.

  Shadows swallow every wall, every crevice, smothered by a thousand garbled whispers of dead men and women and things far more sinister. The weight of it is crushing. Crane may as well have his grip on my neck, strangling the life from me.

  Except I am staring into his eyes, which have gone wide in horrified confusion and I realise he no longer has control of this, either.

  Neither of us knows what we have done, and neither of us knows how to stop it.

  It’s so much. Too much. I cannot breathe around it.

  Darkness. Cold. Howling.

  Then nothing at all.

  CHAPTER 17 – PRESTON

  The maid can’t be much older than seventeen, but she’s given us a run for our money. Two attempts to sneak out the back door when we arrived, then again out the kitchen window when we tried to confine her there. Now she’s tied to a chair, looking sullen and sour as she occasionally swings her legs to scuff her heels against the ground.