We stood on what had once been a lawn, now filled with the dry, dead stalks of weeds and brambles. The hedge bordering the drive was vastly overgrown, and some of the shrubs planted near the house were tall enough to obscure the windows. The house itself had once been grand, before slowly settling into ruin. From the outside, at least, it did not look as if anyone had been there in a very long time. But the padlock had been fresh; that alone suggested some recent activity.
A few flakes of snow fluttered down from the sky. The night seemed very dark, the stars and moon covered over by heavy clouds. The air had grown bitterly cold, excoriating my lungs with every breath. I should have worn a warmer hat.
We made our way across the yard, our shoes crunching softly in dead weeds and snow. My imagination insisted the unkempt bushes were actually the twisted shapes of Guardians, just lying in wait for us. Griffin led the way slowly around the house, as if studying it from all angles. Eventually, we circled around to the front. There were no prints to be seen in the snow covering the drive, thank goodness. If this site was used by the Brotherhood, it didn’t seem to be occupied at the moment.
“What do you expect to find here?” I asked, keeping my voice low just in case.
“I’m not entirely certain,” he murmured back. “Madam Rosa told me Philip Rice was seen a few days before his murder in the company of one Buckeye Jim, a notorious river rat.”
“Odd company for the son of a wealthy industrialist.”
“Quite. Some further inquiries showed Buckeye hasn’t been seen in his usual haunts as of late, but instead has taken employment of some sort, which apparently includes the delivery of large numbers of cattle and goats to somewhere along this stretch of the river.”
I looked around. “Cattle and goats? Here?” Even in its rundown condition, this was a residential area, without the space to keep a herd of any sort.
Griffin nodded. “I had the same thought. Earlier today, I took out a boat. It probably wasn’t obvious to you in the dark, but there is a path beaten along the back of the property to a large cellar door, as if a number of animals had been herded along it.”
“And where are they now?” I asked, although my mouth had gone dry. “Surely they couldn’t be kept inside the house, could they?”
Griffin shook his head grimly. “No. They couldn’t.”
My skin crawled, and I tried not to think what might have happened to the cattle, or what we might find inside. “The Arcanorum suggests the Guardians have great appetites for raw flesh.”
He was close enough I sensed a shiver pass over him. “Under the circumstances, I can’t say I’m happy to hear that.”
I rather understood how he felt. “Shall we enter through the back?”
“No.”
“No?”
Griffin’s breath steamed in the frigid air. “Hopefully any evidence of the Brotherhood’s intentions will be in the more hospitable part of the house, such as it might be.”
“But we’ll have to look in the basement eventually.”
“Perhaps.” Why did he sound reluctant?
He led the way up the drive and onto the porch. The snow had begun to fall in earnest now; with any luck, it would continue throughout the night, and obscure our tracks so no one would be any the wiser as to our visit. Griffin started to reach into his coat, presumably for his lock picks, then changed his mind and tried the door instead.
It opened easily. Someone had oiled the hinges in the not-too-distant past, for there was no accompanying creak such as one might expect from an old house.
We exchanged a glance. We didn’t have to speak to know that neither of us liked this conveniently-unlocked door.
But like it or not, we had to investigate. Griffin drew his revolver and held it ready in his hand as we stepped inside.
~ * ~
The light from our lanterns revealed a hall running the length of the building. A few pictures had once hung on the walls, but they were now on the floor, the glass broken and the frames curiously gnawed. A wide doorway on the right led to a parlor, where lurked shrouded furniture, as if the original owner had intended to return some day.
The house stank of mildew and stale air, underlain with the cloying sweetness of rot. No doubt mice had died in the walls…but great numbers of cattle had presumably disappeared into the cellar. There was no stink of manure or of penned animals, but rather something far more fetid.
I left the door open behind me; the idea of a quick avenue of retreat appealed. Griffin glanced back but made no objection.
Old cobwebs hung from the corners and ceiling, but the dust on the floor had been disturbed by many comings and goings. Griffin stepped into the parlor and scanned the room carefully. A gas lamp jutted out from the wall near the door; he reached over and turned the valve. The hiss of escaping gas rewarded him.
“Do you think it likely the gas company forgot to turn it off when the house was abandoned?” I asked, as he shut it off.
“Not really.”
The wind rose outside, and snow swirled more violently against the great bay window overlooking the lawn. The beams groaned in response, but beneath the sound, there was an odd scraping, as of something large being dragged over a hard floor.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
“The wind?”
“No.” But now I was no longer certain. “Perhaps.”
Griffin led the way back out into the hall. The kitchen was unremarkable, and seemed not to have been used in decades. Mirrors once hung on the walls of the dining room, but they were all smashed into fragments, which glittered in the light of our lanterns.
We made our way upstairs, the steps creaking beneath our feet. Two of the rooms were completely empty, and the third had only the same sheet-covered furniture as the parlor downstairs.
“I suppose it’s the basement, then,” I said, as we went back down the steps. We’d seen the door to the cellar in the kitchen, but hadn’t opened it.
Griffin drew a deep breath and let it out forcefully; it steamed in the frigid air. “I suppose.”
I drew close and noted how pale he looked. Was he ill? “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Then he let out a resigned sigh. “Actually, no. I don’t care for underground spaces.”
“Claustrophobic, are you?” He’d entrusted me with his weakness, and I wanted him to know I sympathized. “I understand. I don’t care for water, myself.” The thought of setting foot on a boat made my skin crawl; I wasn’t even fond of going over bridges. Not anymore, at least. “I hope visiting my office hasn’t put you out terribly?”
“What? Oh, no. Not at all.” He straightened self-consciously. “There’s nothing for it. Let’s…let’s go to the basement.”
I took the lead, hoping it might make things a bit easier for him. Once again, the door was unlocked, and the hinges moved more silently than might have been expected.
I paused at the top of the short flight of stairs and shone my lantern around. The basement was dark and dank, just like most cellars. Built into the steep hillside carved by the river, its wide door must open onto the back. Surely any cattle were driven inside here.
So where were they now?
I cautiously began to descend the steps. Griffin remained at the top of the stair, the beam of his police lantern sweeping the confines of the room. The walls appeared to be rough stone, but the floor was concrete, no doubt a newer addition.
In the center of the floor was a trapdoor. All around it were chalked symbols and circles, many of which I recognized from the Arcanorum.
My skin crawled, and not just from the icy air of the basement. Griffin came down one step, then another, then stopped.
“We have to go down.” His voice was hollow, like something from a grave.
“No.” I shook my head and backed up a slow step, then another, until I was abreast of him. “No. Something isn’t right here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The symbols, the chalk…nothing
is smudged. The way one would expect if there had actually been a ritual performed.” I glanced at him. “And if you had this entire house to yourself, would you do a complicated ritual down in the dark basement? Or on the upper floor, in a spacious room, with gaslight to see by?”
His eyes widened in alarm. “Oh hell. This is a trap, isn’t it?”
From above our heads came the sound of the front door slamming. I jumped—then jumped again when it was answered by the opening of the trapdoor below us.
~ * ~
A suffocating cloud of stench rolled out of the open trapdoor: wet fur, mildew, fish slime, and above all the putrescence of rotting flesh. A swarm of horrors boiled out behind it, every one of them howling like damned souls vomited up from the bowels of Tartarus itself. Guardians, in every shape and form madness could conceive: hybrid monsters mixing reptile, amphibian, and mammal with the shapes of men, side-by-side with things which had once been human, but were now shockingly, hideously incomplete.
My muscles froze in place, my brain scrambling to categorize these things even as they loped and crawled and flopped up out of the basement. Their suffocating stench burned my nose and throat, and I clutched dizzily at the stair rail.
“Run!” Griffin shouted. He seized my coat, and hauled me up with him, even as the first of the Guardians reached the bottommost step.
My paralysis broke. Griffin and I stumbled out of the basement; I slammed the door and threw the bolt. It wouldn’t hold them long.
We ran out of the kitchen and down the hall; from behind us came a storm of insane howls, accompanied by the heavy crash of bodies against the fragile wood. The front door was shut, and for a moment I prayed the wind had simply blown it thus.
Griffin seized the doorknob, but it refused to turn. “Damn it!”
“Just unlock it!”
“I can’t! It’s been jammed shut!”
The sound of splintering wood came from the kitchen, accompanied by howls of triumph. “Come on,” Griffin commanded.
He led the way into the parlor, just as the first of the Guardians emerged into the hall. The sight of them seemed to thicken the blood in my veins. There were too many—how could we hope to evade them?
“Close the door!” Griffin ordered as he ran into the parlor. I followed him, shutting the door behind us—and was knocked aside as a Guardian hit the wood from the other side at the same moment.
I went to the floor. The abomination loomed above me: it looked to have been made from two separate men, their faces half-fused together into a distorted mass of two mouths, two noses, and three eyes. Multiple arms flailed at me, and bile burned my throat as I scrambled back across the dusty floor.
Griffin’s revolver roared, and the Guardian jerked back. It started to howl—then abruptly collapsed into the same gray-blue dust as the one in the museum.
More of them forced their way through the door. Griffin kept shooting, emptying his revolver. “Whyborne! The window!” he shouted, drawing his sword cane. “Get out!”
A half-crocodile Guardian lunged at him. He ducked aside, and it struck the gaslight with such force the lamp sheered off. Gas jetted out of the broken pipe with a loud hiss.
I ran to the bay window. Whipping the cover off a smallish chair, I heaved it with all my strength, through the window in a shower of broken glass and snapped wood. Snow swirled in, along with a blast of frigid air.
I turned back. Griffin battled the monsters with his sword cane, his overcoat swirling around him, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a grim expression.
“Griffin! Come on!”
“Go!” he shouted over his shoulder. The Guardian lunged at him, all snapping teeth, and my heart skipped a beat, certain its jaws were about to close on his arm. In a quick move, he kicked it in the gut, shoving it into its fellows, where they formed a scrum in the doorway. The one beside it seemed to perceive an attack; it turned with a wet snarl and bit the first creature savagely.
“Damn it!” I ran back to Griffin, taking advantage of the few seconds of space the struggle brought. Before he could lunge at the creatures with his sword cane, I seized him by the arm and pulled him in the direction of the window. “Move!”
“I told you to run!” he exclaimed, as we both pelted back toward the window.
“I ignored you. By the way, I’m about to use the fire spell.”
“What—?”
I stopped just in front of the broken window. The Guardians had recovered; the crocodilian one lay slumped on its side, panting miserably in a pool of thin blood. As their hungry, mad eyes turned on me, I knew exactly how the rabbit feels before the pack of hounds.
Griffin’s arms wrapped around me, dragging me backward, but I kept my gaze focused on the air beside the Guardians as I whispered the ritual words.
Then we were falling backward out the window, even as the cloud of gas escaping from the broken pipe ignited.
Chapter 14
The explosion was deafening; a huge cloud of fire rolled out the window after us, its immense heat brushing against my face as we tumbled into the snow.
We hit the ground and rolled. Flaming debris from the house came down around us; Griffin shoved me flat on my back, covering us both with his heavy coat.
The echoes of the explosion reflected back across the river, then slowly dwindled away, like dying thunder. The leaping flames threw warm light onto the falling snow, turning it into a storm of sparks pouring down from the heavens.
Griffin started to push himself off of me, then stopped. His hands were braced to either side of my shoulders, his legs twined with mine. My heart pounded, my palms sweated, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close his face was to mine.
“You’re a madman,” he whispered. “An utter madman.”
“Perhaps,” I allowed. “But it worked.”
The leaping light from the burning house painted his features in gold, highlighting his patrician nose and finding the threads of brown and blue in his green eyes. His pupils widened, the irises contracting to slivers. “Whatever am I to do with you?” he murmured.
The warmth of his breath feathered over my skin. Heat collected in my groin, my lips. My mouth was dry, my voice hoarse, and perhaps he was right and it was madness when I whispered, “Whatever you want.”
A shiver went through his body, perhaps because we were lying on the cold ground. But instead of getting up, he leaned closer, his overlong hair tumbling over his forehead. He paused, his mouth almost touching mine, his eyes seeming to ask a question.
It was madness; it was folly; it was sheer selfishness. I was delusional, misguided, wrong, out of control. I needed to pull back, to say something sane, to re-establish mastery over myself. I could not do this. I could not take this risk.
Later tonight, I’d relive this moment in my lonely bed and wonder if I’d done the right thing. But at least that would be familiar, would be something I knew how to cope with.
And yet the very thought felt like dying.
I surged forward, crossing the final, tiny gap and pressing my lips to his. It was awkward and desperate and frantic, but the feel of his mouth against mine sent a bolt of electricity straight down my spine. Just a moment, just this one kiss, surely that would be enough…
Then he kissed me back, and it would never be enough, a thousand years of this would not be enough. His mouth was hungry and insistent, his tongue probing my lips, asking for greater intimacy. I granted it, tongues swirling together, mine following his when it retreated and tasting him in return.
There came the clanging of bells in the distance, the fire company alerted to the explosion. Griffin drew back a fraction. His breath was as ragged as mine, which left me dazed with wonder.
“My dear,” he whispered against my lips. Then he swallowed convulsively. “We should leave, before the fire companies come.”
“Y-Yes.” It was amazing I managed that much coherence.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling. �
�Will you come home with me?”
Was he asking…? “Yes.” Oh, God, yes.
His lips curved into a smile. Then he was on his feet, reaching down to help me up.
I took his hand; he hauled me up, shook the snow from his trousers, then scooped my hat from the ground and handed it to me. “We’d best go along the river,” he said. “Otherwise, I fear we’ll walk right into the fire companies and the police, who might have some awkward questions to ask.”
I nodded dumbly. He headed to the riverbank, and I followed, shivering in the lack of his warmth.
~ * ~
We walked along the river for a distance, skirting houses both inhabited and not. When the glow from the fire grew faint against the low clouds, Griffin led the way down an alley, then along the street, where he hailed a cab.
We climbed in and sat beside each other. I clasped my hands between my knees, unsure what to do. What did he expect from me? We were in a public conveyance. It would be foolish to make any overtly affectionate gestures even in the dark…wouldn’t it?
Griffin settled back against the seat, apparently at ease. “You were very clever,” he said.
Did he expect me to be as casual? He was no doubt a man of the world, whereas I was anything but. “Wh-what?” I asked, then cursed myself for stuttering.
“With the gas,” he clarified. His mouth pressed into a thin line at the memory. “I wouldn’t have thought of it.”
I shrugged awkwardly and looked away. “I couldn’t simply flee. And I’m not…well. I can’t fire a gun, or use a sword cane, or box, or anything really useful.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You saved our lives. Not to mention you were the one who realized it was a trap.”
Was this really what he wanted to speak of? What if I had mistaken his intent? What if he had invited me back to his home to review the case, not to do anything more intimate?
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before we arrived in front of Griffin’s house. My stomach roiled as the cab clattered away: I couldn’t quite tell if it was from anticipation or nausea. My mouth felt dry, and my palms sweaty.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 12
