Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3

by Jordan L. Hawk

  He chuckled. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “I know.” I tightened my hold around his waist. “I love you, Griffin.”

  “I love you too, Ival,” he whispered.

  Chapter 22

  An hour or so later, we walked down to the Pinkerton barracks. Clouds massed to the south and west, and the damp, humid air pressed down on us like a heavy hand. Thunder rumbled, still distant, but promising the storm would be on us soon.

  As we passed through the dingy streets of what remained of the town, I stole frequent glances at the man at my side. Griffin looked perfectly calm and composed, but I knew him well enough to note the small lines of worry around his eyes and the slight tightness of the lips I had recently kissed.

  We had not spoken much after making love, just readied ourselves in silence. Everything had already been said, I supposed. But I made certain to kiss him thoroughly before we left the room.

  Just in case.

  “Have you quite made up?” Christine asked cheerfully.

  Heat scalded my face. “Christine!”

  “What? It was a simple question. I hope the answer is yes. It’s very tiring when one’s friends are quarreling.”

  The tension eased slightly from Griffin’s mouth as a smile quirked his lips. “I’m sure it was very trying for you.”

  “Quite. Do try not to be so thoughtless in the future.”

  “Dr. Whyborne!”

  I turned in surprise at the shout. The newspaper editor—what the devil was the man’s name? Or had I never learned it?—ran up the road toward us, out of breath and wild-eyed. My heart lurched, and I imagined all sorts of disasters.

  Griffin pushed past me, as if he meant to fend off the editor. “What is it, man?”

  “The yayhos—the bodies of the ones killed—well—come see for yourself!”

  He turned and ran down the road, without waiting for our reply. Puzzled, we exchanged glances and followed him in haste. What was wrong? Surely the awful things hadn’t returned to life somehow, had they?

  He led the way to a shed; what its original purpose might have been, I couldn’t guess. Pausing at the door, he turned to me, his eyes wide with fear. “I came down here to photograph the bodies of the yayhos,” he said. “I thought, if we survive this, photos would be worth a great deal to the bigger newspapers. But I came down here, and well, look!”

  He opened the shed door, then stepped aside. I approached cautiously, ducking to enter. The foul reek of the yayhos overwhelmed the small area, and my nose and eyes burned. But of the yayhos themselves, only a small puddle of green ichor remained.

  “It’s like they evaporated,” the editor said, when I stepped back outside. “But how? How can this be?”

  Christine and Griffin both peered into the shed, as if they thought the bodies might be somehow hidden, even though nothing lay within but shadows and spiders. “The Indian legends said they came from the stars,” Griffin said.

  “Yes, but surely they’d still be made of the sort of matter as we are.” I said, bewildered. “Although the one I spoke to did say they could only enter our world in certain places. I’m no physicist, but perhaps they did come from the stars—just the stars of a different dimension than ours.”

  The editor looked skeptical, as well he might. Christine poked me in the back. “Just admit you have no idea, Whyborne.”

  “I didn’t hear you offering an explanation,” I said, annoyed. “At any rate, at least they don’t…don’t burst into flame or explode.”

  “They also don’t leave behind much in the way of proof we didn’t hallucinate their existence,” Griffin pointed out.

  I wanted badly to take his hand and offer him some word of comfort. He’d already been labeled a raving lunatic once before, and this must be a blow to him. But the unfortunate truth was we might not survive to be labeled anything except tragically dead.

  “There is nothing to be done about it,” I said to the editor. “But thank you for letting us know.”

  ~ * ~

  Elliot sat in the small cell on the first floor of the Pinkerton barracks, his head bowed and his hands clasped before him. He’d been allowed to clean up a bit, but not change his clothing, and he still wore a suit stained with smoke and blood. His hair was in disarray, and he hadn’t been permitted to shave. No doubt, no one trusted him with a sharp blade in his hand.

  He looked up as we approached, trepidation giving way to visible despair on his handsome features. I stopped just outside the bars, fixing him with an expression I hoped conveyed the depth of my anger.

  “You worked with them the entire time,” I said. “Yet you pretended not to believe they existed at all. You lied to all of us and tried to kill me. What happened to the geologists who vanished in the cave? Did you murder them?”

  “No!” Elliot came to his feet, his skin pale as chalk. “I wouldn’t! It was the yayhos!”

  “You wouldn’t?” Christine arched a brow skeptically. “Considering you were quite happy to murder Whyborne, I find your protests less than convincing.”

  “I swear, everything I did was to save the town.”

  Fredericks leaned against the wall, watching our exchange. “Don’t see how keeping mum about them monsters helped anybody.”

  “My thought exactly, Mr. Fredericks.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Would you terribly mind stepping outside for a bit? I’m sure they have need for you at the community center.”

  What he thought of my request, I didn’t know. Probably that we meant to dispatch Elliot without any witnesses. If so, he clearly felt no qualms about leaving us to it.

  Griffin wrapped his hands around the bars, still staring at Elliot with a cold, condemning gaze. I was devoutly glad it wasn’t turned on me. “Those men didn’t die in an accidental cave-in—they were murdered. You were with them, and yet you survived, and ended up in collusion with their killers. You don’t look very innocent to me.”

  Elliot buried his face in his hands. “God, Griffin, you don’t know what it was like! In the dark, in the cave, seeing your friends tormented at the hands of those—those monsters!”

  Griffin’s laugh held not even a trace of humor. “Oh, no, Elliot, how could I know what it would be like?”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Elliot raised his head, the expression on his face ghastly with horror.

  He hadn’t realized until now. Even after his own encounter, he’d never questioned he’d done the right thing by abandoning Griffin to the asylum. My fingers curled into a fist at my side, and I was briefly glad the bars kept me from him.

  “Stop protesting your innocence,” Christine broke in crisply. “Tell us what you know, or we’ll drop you into the mine and leave you with your monstrous friends.”

  Elliot sank back onto his chair. “I don’t know much. But I’ll tell you what I can. And perhaps you won’t judge me with such harshness.”

  I doubted it, but I kept the sentiment to myself, not wishing to dissuade him from whatever confession he wished to make.

  “We went to the cave,” he began. “You know as much. We found the black stone and sent it back to Threshold. But I went inside the cave with everyone else, in case a bear had made its home within. The geologists were puzzled—hell, everyone who knew anything about natural caves was confused by it being so wide and straight. Somebody said maybe the Indians had done some mining here, before white men came, but it didn’t seem possible. The walls were too smooth to have been shaped by crude stone chisels.” He shook his head and let out a bitter laugh. “When we saw the carvings…God! We thought we’d made a fantastic discovery. Everyone was laughing and clapping each other on the back. We were certain we’d be famous.”

  Elliot paused, moistening his lips, and when he spoke again his voice had gone hoarse with remembered terror. “We didn’t get very far. Just far enough to lose all glimmer of daylight. Then the yayhos came. It was…awful. I shot at them, but there were too many. They overwhelmed us in minutes.”

&nb
sp; “What are their numbers?” Griffin asked.

  Elliot shrugged. “Not many, I don’t think. Forty or fifty at the most. At least, such was my impression.”

  “If so, they all came to fight last night,” Christine said. “They weren’t holding an overwhelming force behind.”

  “They don’t need more force,” Elliot snarled, and a look of mingled rage and disgust distorted his features. “Don’t you understand? I’ve seen what they can do! I saw what they did to the chief geologist. Th-they opened up his skull and took his brain out. They put it in some kind of metal canister, hooked it up to other machines, and h-he spoke to me! Oh God, how he screamed!”

  Horror obliterated much of my anger. Bad enough I’d been in the caves alone. To be surrounded by creatures beyond nightmare, his companions vivisected and tortured in front of him…

  “And so you handed Whyborne over to them, to have the same done to him!” Christine exclaimed hotly. “And Mr. Orme as well, am I correct?”

  Elliot pressed his fingers into his eyes. “I didn’t know what they meant to do to Mr. Orme, I swear. At least they discarded his brain. He’s mercifully dead. But they seem to have an interest in collecting the brains of learned men. Dr. Putnam may be in danger as well, assuming they have interest in the brains of women.”

  “They damned well ought to!”

  “Lovely,” I said. “Perhaps you and I shall have adjoining jars.”

  “No one is going in a jar,” Griffin said, putting a bracing hand to my shoulder. “Is that why you led us to the cave?”

  Elliot shook his head vehemently. “No! The entrance had been sealed. I never imagined you’d find a second way in. I thought you’d poke about for a while, get bored, and return to Threshold.”

  “I still don’t understand how you could cooperate with such things,” Griffin said.

  Elliot seemed to shrink back into himself. “Once they had done…what they did…to the others, they spoke to me. I was sure they would kill me—no, worse than kill me. Instead, they told me they didn’t want to battle humanity. They wished only to remain hidden. We had suffered because we trespassed on their domain, but they offered a bargain. I could squelch all rumors of them, help conceal their presence, and they would leave us alone. Otherwise, they would issue forth and destroy us.

  “I had no choice! I’d seen what they were capable of! They’re motivated by no human mercy; they have no semblance of a conscience. We might as well be not even dumb animals, which might, at least, incite pity in a researcher, but plants to be taken apart and studied. How could we hope to win against them? Even though I hated myself for it, even though my very soul rebelled, I agreed because it would save the lives of everyone in this valley.”

  He slumped, as if all the strength had left him. “Then we got word Dr. Whyborne was coming here, with a private detective. When I saw you, Griffin…I knew I had to do something. Dr. Whyborne they wouldn’t let escape—they couldn’t pass up such an opportunity—but I might be able to save you. To protect you.”

  “Protect me?” Griffin’s voice shook in fury. “You consigned me to an insane asylum and abandoned me there! Do you have any idea what they did to me? If you meant to protect me from horrors, you failed long before I ever set foot in this damned town!”

  Christine gasped softly. She hadn’t known about Griffin’s confinement, of course. I cast her a worried glance; her gaze fixed on Griffin, a mixture of pity and uncertainty on her face.

  He hadn’t yet seen it, as his attention was still on Elliot. I nudged her sharply with my elbow. She started, and I gave a little shake of my head, trying to convey Griffin had not altered from man she’d known only minutes before.

  Either I did better than I had any reason to expect, or she knew me well enough to intuit it. Probably the latter. At any rate, she nodded firmly and turned back to glare daggers at Elliot.

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot whispered. “I didn’t know, Griffin.”

  “Of course you didn’t. It would have required effort on your part.” The anger had drained out of Griffin’s voice, leaving behind only weariness. “Our whole relationship was one of convenience and advantage. I didn’t see it at the time, but, believe me, it has become very clear since.”

  “Griffin, please. I-I care about you.”

  “Is that why you said such cruel things earlier?” I asked.

  Elliot closed his eyes. “When I told you of his confinement, thinking you ignorant? Or about his humble beginnings, in case he had presented himself as a man of class to you? In the hall of the hotel? Driving a wedge between you would make the deception easier to carry off in the end, once the yayhos had replaced you with one of their own. I’d hoped Griffin would put down any alteration in your manner to your estrangement. And as for the night at my house, I suppose I wished to punish you for Griffin’s stubborn loyalty to you.”

  Elliot was even more manipulative than I’d ever guessed. What on earth had Griffin ever seen in him? “I see. And now all that’s left is to decide what to do with you.”

  “Let me help you,” he pleaded. “I only did what I thought to be right. Let me make amends by fighting against them now.”

  I exchanged a glance with Griffin. Elliot had truly made a devil’s bargain. He assisted in—or covered up—the deaths of Orme, the Kincaid brothers, the outlaws, the Webbs, the Hicks, and possibly others I didn’t know about. Not to mention, he’d tried to add me to those numbers.

  At the same time, I believed him when he said he’d thought it the only way to save everyone else in the settlement. Including—or perhaps most of all—Griffin. Now that he knew it had been a false hope, clutched at in the face of despair, I didn’t believe he would turn on us again.

  “What do you think, Whyborne?” Griffin asked. “Shall we leave him to rot as he deserves? Perhaps if his masters succeed in overrunning the town, they’ll find him here. I wonder what will happen to him then?”

  Griffin hadn’t seen the yayhos’ lair. I could describe the horrors of it to him, but it wouldn’t be the same. He’d never understand.

  Just as I would never truly understand what had happened to him in the asylum, should he ever bring himself to confide any details. I could only acknowledge he’d been marked deeply by the experience, and give him whatever love and aid I could.

  I didn’t like Elliot…but my brief time in the caves beneath Threshold Mountain had been horrifying enough. What would it have been like to be trapped there for days on end? Surely it would have broken even the strongest of men and convinced him there was no means of escape, save to do the bidding of the creatures.

  “Let him out,” I said.

  Surprise filled Elliot’s blue eyes—clearly he hadn’t expected me to show any leniency.

  “Are you insane, Whyborne?” Christine demanded. “The man is a treacherous rat. He tried to kill you!”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “Where is the key?”

  Christine retrieved it from its peg on the wall and handed it to me with a dubious look. I stepped up to the cell and slid it into the lock. “You will do as instructed, do you understand, Mr. Manning? And if you show any sign whatsoever of treachery, I’m certain any number of men, miner and Pinkerton alike, will be quite happy to stop you cold.”

  “I understand.” Elliot stood up and brushed off his suit, as the door swung open. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”

  “If we live through this, you’ll resign from the Pinkertons, as soon as we reach somewhere with a telegraph.” It wasn’t a request.

  Elliot bowed his head. He looked utterly defeated, and had he not been complicit in such horrors, I would have pitied him. “Yes.”

  We started away, but he hastened after us and touched Griffin’s arm. “Griffin, please, I’m sorry. You have to understand, they would have thought me mad if I’d tried to warn anyone. I did everything I could to save you. Please, say you understand. Say you forgive me.”

  Griffin wrenched free, his eyes like chips of green ice. �
�You almost got Whyborne worse than killed,” he said. “For that alone, I would see you hang. Be glad the decision wasn’t mine, because I wouldn’t have shown you the mercy he has.”

  He turned and strode away. Christine and I hurried after him, leaving Elliot standing alone and silent behind us.

  Chapter 23

  By the time we descended into the mine a few hours later, the storm was almost on us. Black clouds covered the valley, smothering the sunlight. The wind swirled restlessly, rattling the trees on the heights and flinging handfuls of intermittent rain. Lightning flashed, briefly outlining the peak of Threshold Mountain.

  Our plan was simple enough. The miners had identified the pillar whose collapse would cause the most damage, even aside from the explosion. A great deal of blasting powder was already stored inside the mine, everyday convenience apparently trumping theoretical danger. The rest we loaded into mine carts, which would be dragged into the mine by hand, the yayhos having killed all the mules the night before. At least it was downhill all the way.

  Once as much blasting powder as possible had been brought in and scattered about, a team of men would bore a hole into the selected pillar and pack it in such a way as to encourage a “blow-out,” which I took was something normally avoided. The resulting spark would ignite the blasting powder, any coal dust in the air, as well of any pockets of gas which might have collected.

  In order to avoid blowing ourselves up, there would be a long fuse laid to the borehole. The hole would hopefully be somewhere relatively inconspicuous, to keep the yayhos from noticing what we were up to until it was too late.

  Which was why we hoped to distract them with a show of force, both to protect the miners scattering the powder and making the borehole, and to conceal our true intentions from the yayhos. With any luck, they wouldn’t believe we’d easily sacrifice the riches of the mine, and think our intrusion meant to destroy them during the daylight hours. To that end, the Pinkertons and the main force of the miners went first. Christine and I accompanied them.