by Erin Hayes
“Mrs. Berry, we must speak with Mister Holmes,” I say. “It’s urgent.”
The housekeeper blinks in surprise, and opens her mouth to protest, but another voice cuts her off.
“Miss Harker, whatever is the matter?” I look up the stairs to see Mister Holmes standing there in his nightclothes. He looks frightened, out of sorts, and even in the dim light, I can see that his face is drawn tight with worry. “Is it Margaret?”
Admittedly, my heart melts a little bit that his concern is for my little sister. Maybe I do have it all wrong and he is not privy to Adelia still being alive. Maybe I am creating more trouble.
Lizzie, however, is single-minded in her purpose being here. “Mister Holmes, do you by chance know where Mrs. Holmes is?”
He frowns in confusion. “Mrs. Holmes?” He looks to me for answers. “I do not understand.”
“Apologies, for my cousin’s outburst,” I say, feeling a modicum of shame that we’re bringing up his dead wife in such a fashion. “What she means is the former Mrs. Holmes. Adelia.”
He stares at me for a long, shocked moment. “She’s been six feet under for nary three years now. Consumption took her.”
I nod. “Do you know if she’s still there?”
Then, I see it. Something akin to fear flits across his eyes as he looks at me, like there’s so much happening beneath the surface that he’s not revealing. He knows something is not right. And as we watch each other, realization strikes us both at the same time.
For me, I realize that he knows Adelia is still alive.
For him, he realizes that I know he knows.
“Where’s your workshop?” I ask, stomping around the main floor to hear if it’s hollow. Papa’s and Margaret’s workshop is just under the stairs, yet as I open the equivalent door in Mister Holmes’s residence, I see that it’s simply a broom closet. I slam the door shut. “Where is your workshop?” I snarl up at him.
“You cannot just barge in here and do this!” Mister Holmes cries in alarm. He takes the steps two at a time to reach the ground level. “You cannot do this!”
I pointedly ignore him. His response is all the evidence I need to know that something is not quite right. “Lizzie,” I tell my cousin.
“Yes,” she says, giving me a curt nod. “I’ll see what I can find.”
She ducks into another room, stalking the grounds. A woman with a mission in mind.
“What are you doing?” the housekeeper shouts as she follows her. She looks at Mister Holmes, as if for help. “Mister Holmes!”
He’s more concerned with me at the moment. He grabs me by the arm. “Don’t do this, Harker.”
His face falls as he realizes that he called me “Harker.” Not “Miss Harker” or “Hazel,” but simply “Harker.” My title and my role in life. He knows who and what I am.
Our eyes meet, and there’s another kind of fear in his eyes.
I grit my teeth. “Where is she?” I ask.
I don’t even have to specify that I mean Adelia. He knows exactly who I mean. The silence stretches between us, feeling as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
“Hazel!” Lizzie shouts, followed by a startled gasp from the housekeeper.
Mister Holmes’s eyes widen, and I use that moment to shove him away from me. He hits the opposite wall and knocks a vase off a table. Photographs and paintings fall and clatter to the floor from the force of my shove.
He’s stunned by my actions, and it gives me enough time to follow the sound of Lizzie’s voice. Near the back of the house, I spy an open door leading to the basement below, and it’s already lit.
“Lizzie?” I ask as I go down the stairs. I call my weapon to my hand and hurry. I’m more armed now than I had been in the alley earlier, yet I feel as though I’m still not prepared. It’s as though I’m going further and further into the belly of a great beast.
And if I’m not careful, I’ll never be able to leave.
I reach the bottom and turn a corner, coming to a halt, cursing under my breath at the scene before me. Both Lizzie and the housekeeper are still, in shock.
Margaret and Papa have a sizeable, impressive workshop underneath our house, however, Mister Holmes’s workshop is something extraordinary. A large room looms before me, more of a warehouse than a workshop. It’s messy too, with tables haphazardly lining every wall, with papers, vials, robots, and all manner of pieces that he’s been tinkering with.
That is not what we are looking at, however.
There are five coffins in the workshop, and dirt covers a few of them, as if they’ve been recently exhumed from the cemetery. Three have the lids off them, revealing that they’re empty inside. The other two, however, are closed.
And I’m not sure if they are occupied or not.
I almost feel sorry for the housekeeper, who turns toward us. “M—Mister Holmes?” she stammers. “What is this?”
I suppose that means she hasn’t cleaned down here for a time. The good news is, she’s no longer indignant at Lizzie or me. Yet I can tell that she is terrified.
“Nothing you should concern yourself with, Mrs. Berry,” he tells her gruffly from behind me. I turn and back away, keeping an eye on him as I take in everything around us.
This is all so strange. Yet isn’t this what I expected when I came here?
The housekeeper only stares at him. “Nothing to concern myself with?” she asks, her voice trailing off. She blinks and shakes her head. “You have coffins in your basement, Mister Holmes!” And she hasn’t yet mentioned that they look like they’ve been in use. And that their occupants have disappeared.
Vampires don’t need the use of a coffin in order to sleep. However, if they were presumed dead when they Turned, then it may be important to dig them up. Also, I do believe that some find comfort in sleeping in a coffin. As if it’s another barrier against the sun.
“I told you she would come here,” another voice says, and I recognize it from earlier tonight. “I told you she wouldn’t rest without investigating for herself.”
Adelia steps out from the shadows of the basement. I’m not certain what I was expecting, but perhaps maybe not such a blatant association with Adelia. Yet, here she is, dressed as if she is still the head of the household, the woman she’d been when she was still human.
The housekeeper looks as though she’s seeing a ghost. And I suppose she is. We all are.
“Muh-Mrs. Holmes?” she asks, putting a hand to her chest, stepping backwards, and breathing heavily. “How? What?” Nothing could have prepared this poor housekeeper for this night.
“Mrs. Berry,” Adelia purrs, and I can feel the slither of her glamour writhe along my skin as it passes me on its way to the housekeeper. “Why don’t you go upstairs and go to bed? That sounds like a splendid idea, doesn’t it?”
Mrs. Berry’s face falls into a complete blank slate, as if she’s lost all volition of her mind and body. “Yes,” she says in an oddly hollow voice, “yes, that does sound like a splendid idea. I will go to bed.” She gives us a fake, dreamy smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
She turns and trudges up the stairs in a leaden, slow movement that reminds me of pallbearers at a funeral.
The four of us are standing in silent reproach as the housekeeper leaves us. Whether it’s from an unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t do anything in her presence or it’s because Lizzie and I are just too stunned to react, it’s not until Mrs. Berry shuts the door upstairs that Adelia is back in motion.
“She will not remember this come tomorrow morning,” she says. “It would be best if she believes I am dead.”
“You are dead, Adelia,” Lizzie counters.
The vampire smirks. “For the moment.” She turns toward her widower and takes his hand. My stomach roils at the sight. Because he is my little sister’s fiancé, and Adelia is practically claiming him for herself.
“What do you mean by that?” I venture.
Adelia beams at Mister Holmes. “My husband, master tinkerer and inventor
, is creating a cure for my current state. He is going to save my life.”
I look at Mister Holmes, who doesn’t meet my eyes.
“You proposed to Margaret,” I tell him. “Why do that if your plan is just to bring Adelia back?”
His cheeks are flushed a deep red, and he looks ashamed of himself. But he doesn’t say anything to defend himself. He doesn’t speak.
Spineless coward.
Adelia stalks up to me, slinking like an apex predator. “It was to get closer to you, Harker. We had our suspicions about the vampire hunter, especially with the same last name.” She winks. “Do you know how many Harkers there are in London, Hazel? Many of them screamed as I killed them to get to their blood. Such a disappointment.” She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “But Margaret, sweet Margaret.” She looks reflective. “She brought Henry into her workshop to help you. She trusted him to help create weapons for you. Isn’t that sweet?”
I remember my argument with Margaret, how I was angry that she had brought Mister Holmes into our secrets.
It seems that I had been right. Still, it doesn’t repair that bridge between us.
“To what purpose?” I croak, my voice rough.
Adelia peers at Mister Holmes. “Sweetie? Won’t you tell her?”
He swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with the movement. “For the serum, I needed your blood. It carries your strength, your powers. And if I am correct, it will transform vampires back into humans. Only better. Stronger.”
There’s that word that makes me still.
Serum.
Lizzie glances at me, having reached the same conclusion as me. Mister Holmes is creating the serum that is causing vampires to turn into crazed killers. He is inadvertently responsible for the deaths of all the victims of the supposed Whitechapel Murderer.
In a way, he’s responsible for Catherine’s death.
I rub at my shoulder, where I’d been stabbed that night by that hooded human. Almost like it had been a coordinated attack with the vampires.
How could I have not seen it before?
“You were there that night,” I tell him. “You were the one who…” I glare at him. “Why?”
“I needed your blood,” he simply says.
So it was an elaborate scheme to get my blood that night. “Why not get it from me in any other fashion?” I ask. “Why bother getting close to Margaret if you just intended to stab me to get my blood.”
He looks at me, pleading with his eyes for me not to proceed further.
Then it hits me. He does care for Margaret. Maybe not in the same way that he does for Adelia—there’s a blind devotion there that not even having a bloodthirsty wife could dissolve. But he does care for my little sister.
He doesn’t want Adelia to know.
We stare at each other for such a long time, I almost forget about the vampire in front of me. And the vampires in the coffins.
Almost.
“Yet, even that wasn’t enough,” another voice says at length. And Lizzie and I look to see Florence standing over one of the coffins, crouched atop it like a house cat ready to pounce on a mouse. She holds up a stoppered vial, and it glows a ruby red color. “Your blood isn’t enough for the serum, Harker.”
Mister Holmes surges forward. “Let me try with a new sample,” he tells her. “Adelia did say that the Harker’s blood was different tonight.”
Florence cocks her head at him as a slow smile comes to her lips. I see the fear in his eyes. He may be doing this for Adelia, yet he’s terrified of the other vampires.
“There will be time for that later,” Florence croons as she removes the cork from the vial. “Later.” She jumps off the coffin, and with one, swift motion, throws off the lid with the same effort as one would use to sweep aside some leaves. “For now, I think the Harker needs to see what her blood has contributed to.”
I see the vampire in the coffin, his arms crossed over his chest in his state of death. He’s a fresh vampire, newly Turned and one of the lowest in vampire society. No wonder he’s in a coffin—he had just been interred into the ground.
His eyes are closed, and one would think he were sleeping.
“Let’s show the Harker what happens if she doesn’t help us,” Florence murmurs. She tips the vial into the vampire’s mouth.
I spur into action then, drawing my swords as I run at the two vampires. Lizzie joins me with a roar of her own.
Too late, though. We are too late to stop the inevitable.
The glowing liquid tips between the vampire’s lips.
His eyes snap open, and they’re completely black. Like the deepest, darkest pits of hell. And there’s nothing there that resembles any bit of humanity.
22
Hazel
The vampire screams, an unreal, inhuman sound that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Both Lizzie and I cry out in involuntary pain at just how damn loud that vampire is. We stop in our tracks and cover our ears, although it does little to help. I grimace, and somehow fight my way through the auditory onslaught.
Florence moves to intercept me before I can get to the new vampire, before I can drive a stake through his chest.
She simply draws me within her circle, then flings me to the side. I’m bodily thrown up against the wall, rolling along the tables that Mister Holmes has set up in the basement. Glass and beakers fly around me, shattering as they hit the ground. I’m cut and bruised, and I bring myself to my hands and knees, trying to gasp for breath.
Florence is strong, one of the strongest vampires I’ve ever encountered. It makes me wonder how old she is, since the older the vampire, the more powerful they are.
“You bitch!” Lizzie shouts and she springs into action, landing a blow on Florence with a stake. At the last possible moment, Florence feints, and the stake sinks into Florence’s shoulder. Certainly not a mortal wound.
Florence roars and smacks Lizzie with the force of a steam engine. My cousin flies through the coffins, splintering wood before coming to rest on the ground.
And rolls toward the new, crazed vampire that Florence has just created. I get to my feet, suddenly not concerned about Florence or Adelia or even Mister Holmes. I know that I must stop this vampire before he realizes what he’s capable of and terrorizes London again.
As the vampire gets to his feet, I rush at him, swinging Silver Bane in an upward arc. It slices through his arm, and his limb goes sailing. It also sprays me with blood.
But that doesn’t stop this vampire. In fact, he screeches in that weird voice again and grabs me by the throat. I gag as he lifts me so high up, my feet leave the ground and dangle helplessly.
Except I’m not helpless. I refuse to be helpless. My sword goes through his chest, directly through where I know his heart is.
And nothing happens.
“Hazel!” Lizzie shouts, and she’s there at his back and stabs him through the chest. The vampire roars and flings me aside. I slide across the floor, scratching and scraping up my face and hands. I hit another table and more glasses and vials fall onto the floor.
And still the vampire stands.
“My workshop,” Mister Holmes cries, and I look to him just as he reaches out in horror. I recognize that expression—it’s the same as Margaret when she’s working with her inventions. He loves his work almost as much as he loves life.
Then I get an idea.
His workshop. The space where he’s been creating these serums and horrors, where insane, crazed vampires are made.
I can stop him here. Even if I can’t stop the vampire that Florence created, I can keep him from doing anything more. Or at least put a great halt to it.
I scramble to my feet. “Lizzie, keep him busy!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” she shouts, parrying and catching the vampire as he attacks her. He should have gone down when I stabbed him in the chest. Or when Lizzie staked him. Still though, he continues, with fast, erratic movements that look like the twitches and seiz
ures of a madman.
I have my combustion pistol at my waist. I push myself to my hands and knees and snake my hand to my belt. If I can just set this workshop on fire, I can end this now…
I cry out as a foot kicks me in my stomach, and I fall flat on my face again. A boot slams down on my right wrist, the one that was trying to get to my pistol. I feel the bones of my hand shatter beneath the boot, rendering my hand useless.
“I don’t think so, Harker,” Florence snarls down at me.
“I do,” I mutter.
Painfully, I swing my legs and sweep them across her knees, bringing her down to the floor beside me. I spin and bring myself on top of her body, pinning her down. Except I know that I can’t hold her for long, not like this.
She smirks up at me. She knows this, too.
“Focus, Hazel. Focus.”
I’m not sure where the voice came from, but it’s familiar, soothing, and speaking directly into my mind.
Then I feel it deep in my chest, a spark that ignites in a combustion all its own.
My long-dormant magic. The magic that I should have been able to harness from the moment I was crowned the Harker. I mentally embrace the magic, calling it into me, welcoming it.
This fire inside me, even if it incinerates me, is my salvation.
And I feel my skin burn from the inside out. I open my eyes, and everything has taken on a hazy, murky characteristic.
I smile down at the vampire beneath me. For the first time, I see the fear in Florence’s eyes as she looks up at me.
“I am the Harker,” I murmur to her. “Arbiter of the undead in London and the rest of the world. And I judge you to be guilty of conspiring against the good of London. Punishable by death.”
Words form in my mind. I believe them to be Latin, but I’m not entirely sure, because I know their meaning more than the words themselves. A spell.
My lips curve into a smile as I call the power to fill every available space within my body.
And then I let go of it.
