“I must say, I didn’t get nearly as much accomplished on my manuscript as I’d hoped,” Christine groused. “The director will be most dissatisfied.”
“I’m sure Dr. Hart will understand, given the circumstances,” Griffin said.
“Your knowledge of Dr. Hart is sorely lacking, detective,” Christine informed him. The fading remains of an ugly bruise showed on her forehead, just below her hat, but she had recovered from her injury without incident.
As we emerged from the depot and headed to the line of hansoms waiting to be hired, a familiar figure in a dark suit approached us. “Mr. Fenton?” I exclaimed. What on earth was Father’s butler doing here?
Fenton ignored Christine and Griffin as if they were no more than luggage I’d brought with me from the train. “Master Whyborne. Your father sent me to collect you.”
“Collect me?”
“Indeed. I believe he has some questions as to why you saw fit to blow up a very lucrative mine.”
Apparently, the reason I’d given in my letter to Father earlier—that monsters from outer space, which wished to kill everyone in town, had infested the mine—wasn’t good enough. It probably wasn’t to him. More workers could always be hired, and I was the expendable son.
“The motor car is this way,” Fenton said, turning away. Because, of course, I would follow, just as I always had.
“How very nice for it,” I said. “Do enjoy your drive back to Whyborne House.”
Fenton froze. The scowl on his face had terrified the staff—and me—for as long as I could remember. “Your father has summoned you, Master Whyborne. I wouldn’t suggest you keep him waiting.”
“And I don’t give a fig for your suggestion,” I replied with a false smile. “I’ve already informed Father of the circumstances, and if he doesn’t like the results, I suggest he not hire Griffin to do his dirty work the next time.”
Fenton gaped at me, rather like a large-mouthed frog. I led the way past him to an empty cab, Griffin giving Fenton a sardonic tip of the hat as he passed by.
“What an odious little man,” Christine remarked, when we settled into the cab. “He reminds me of those awful lap dogs whose owners think it adorable when they bite the servants.”
“You are more correct than you know,” I told her.
Before very long, the cab pulled up at our gate. “Goodbye, gentlemen,” she said. “Whyborne, I’ll see you at the museum. Do try to keep Griffin from accepting any more cases involving creatures from other worlds, if you please.”
The cab left us, and we walked through our gate. Saul ran to greet us, meowing loudly. We’d arranged for the cleaning lady to feed and water him each day, but he clearly had missed our companionship. Griffin picked him up and carried him to the door with us.
“Home at last,” Griffin said, when we were safely inside. He put down Saul and turned to me, slipping his arms around my waist and tilting his head back for a kiss. I gave it gladly, having had nothing but a few snatched moments over the last week. It was unspeakably good to simply hold him again, without constant fear of discovery. To spend the night in his arms, in as much safety as we might find anywhere, felt like a blessing.
We went up to the study and opened the windows to let in the breeze. Griffin took off his suit coat and sat on the couch with a weary sigh. “I feel as if I could sleep for days.”
I settled in beside him, hesitated, then took off my suit coat as well. He arched a brow at me. “First you defy the butler, now you sit about in your shirtsleeves? Whatever will people think?”
“Very funny,” I said. I did, however, rise to hang it in my wardrobe, to guard against creases. When I returned, I draped my legs over his lap and slid my arms around his chest, tucking my face into his neck. The scent of Widdershins’s fishy breeze drifted through the windows, and the familiar sounds of our home were like a soothing balm spread on my soul.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “About Elliot. He did the right thing in the end.”
Griffin’s breath was a soft, sad sigh in my ear. “Yes. He did.”
“And he loved you.”
“Maybe.”
“And you loved him.”
“No.” Griffin shifted to press his lips against my forehead. “He was my friend, and I cared about him. I was grateful to him for everything he did for me, and devastated when he abandoned me to the asylum. But I didn’t really understand what love was.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. Not until I came to Widdershins and met you. At the time, I hoped we might be intimate friends. Instead, I found someone who has made me happier than I ever dreamed I might be.”
The fingers of his free hand caught my chin, gently turning my face to his. His green eyes shone, and the smile on his mouth was soft and sweet. “You are my joy, Ival, and I love you more than I thought possible.”
Emotion tightened my throat. “As you are mine.”
“Even if I’m just the son of a farmer from Kansas, who happened to have a talent for mimicking his betters?”
I traced the line of his jaw, until my fingers came to rest just beside the curve of his lips. “You’re not just the son of a farmer from Kansas, or even the orphaned son of an Irishman, or anything else.”
“I’m not? Then who am I?”
“A good man. A man who wants to do what is best, by his friends and the world. But more importantly, the man I love.”
His smile was like the breaking of sunshine through clouds. “I think I can live with that,” he said, and kissed me again.
Stormhaven
Chapter 1
Newly installed electric lights blazed from atop the department store, theater, and even the street corners where ordinary gas lamps had burned just a month ago. An ugly tangle of wires cut across the night sky like the weaving of some huge, and quite demented, spider. The harsh light revealed the cracks in the sidewalk and threw sharp-edged shadows, far less kind than the radiance of either sun or moon.
I’d not seen the lights in operation before, as I didn’t generally stray outside after sundown without reason. Christine had wished to observe them, however, as had Griffin, and so here I stood on the sidewalk, just past sunset on a mild August night.
I’d rather have remained home.
“Very impressive,” Christine said, as we strolled down River Street. Christine, or more properly, Dr. Christine Putnam, was my colleague at the Nathaniel R. Ladysmith Museum and one of two people I truly called friend.
“Electric lights have been in use in Chicago for a while, although of course the battle between the electric and gas companies still rages on,” said my other friend, Mr. Griffin Flaherty. At least, the rest of the world considered us to be good friends who lived in the same house because we found one another’s company congenial. Which we did, although our relationship consisted of a more romantic nature than most would imagine.
Griffin touched the brim of his hat to a group of laughing young women who passed us on the street. One or two took a lingering look at his overlong curls and trim form. I did my best not to glare at them. “Still, I feel certain this is the way of the future,” he went on. “I’ve been thinking about having electricity installed at the house.”
“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed. Had the man gone completely mad?
Griffin gave me a surprised look. “Why ever not?”
“Well…” I flailed for a moment, trying to put my objection into words, “for one thing, these electric lights are too steady. Sterile, one might say. Not like real light from a candle or gas lamp.”
“Weren’t you just complaining about the dimness and flickering in the study last week?”
I ignored his absurd question and forged ahead. “They have no warmth. And they lack the aroma of gas lighting.”
“This summer, you claimed to be dying first from the heat, then from the fumes.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” I said crossly. “These lights are far too modern for Widdershins, or an
ywhere else, for that matter. They will never catch on.”
Griffin’s green eyes flashed with amusement, and a dimple appeared on one cheek when he grinned. “My dear Whyborne, things do change, even here in Widdershins.” He gestured to the garish lights above the department store. “And once they do, nothing ever goes back to the way it was before.”
“Hmph.”
“Well I, for one, rather like them,” Christine put in. She walked with her arms swinging at her sides, rather than holding onto either of our elbows, as a woman might normally be expected to do when in the company of two men. But normal didn’t really describe any of us. “Can you imagine having electric lights to use in a tomb during a dig?”
“When do you leave for Egypt?” Griffin asked, diverting the conversation from the lights with a skill which no doubt served him well in his occupation as a private detective. Of course he would be in favor of these hideous new lights: they diminished the shadows in which criminals might hide their secrets from him.
We turned away from River Street and meandered through the side lanes, which would eventually return us to Christine’s boarding house. Griffin and Christine discussed plans for her excavations in Egypt, once the field season began anew. The stars shone out thickly above. Moths clustered around the gas lamps, which, in my opinion, gave more than adequate illumination. A friendly cat on a doorstep meowed at me, and I stopped to give it a scratch between the ears.
A shriek of horror shattered the night.
The cat bolted. I spun around, searching frantically for the source of the cry. Ahead of me, Griffin gripped his silver-headed sword cane, while Christine swore in Arabic and dug through her purse for her pistol.
The shriek came again, from another street over, high and fearful as that of someone trapped in a nightmare. Griffin bolted down an alley between homes, and I followed, with Christine at my heels.
A man stood in the street outside one of the houses, staring down at his hands. In the dim light, they looked to be coated with some black substance although, as we drew closer, I realized from the rusty smell it must be blood.
He raised his head as we approached. The light from the nearest streetlamp fell across his face, his features startling me with their familiarity.
“What’s going on here?” Griffin asked, the same instant I said, “Allan? Allan Tambling?”
He stared at us in confusion, his bloody hands still held out before him. “Dr. Whyborne? Dr. Putnam? What…what’s going on?”
I hadn’t the slightest idea. Allan Tambling was a quiet young man, hired to restore any damaged but valuable paintings which entered the museum’s collection. What little I knew of him suggested he was unusually focused and sober for an artist and certainly not the sort I expected to find staggering about in the street, bloody as if he’d just come from apprenticing at a butcher’s.
Christine stopped just out of Allan’s reach, gripping something in her purse—her pistol, no doubt. “Good Gad, man, what happened to you? Are you hurt?”
Tambling blinked slowly, before shaking his head. “I…I don’t know. I had dinner with my uncle, we went to his study…and I found myself outside, with blood all over! I don’t know how I got here. I thought I saw someone running away…”
“Which direction?” Griffin asked instantly. When Tambling pointed a shaking hand, Griffin immediately dashed in pursuit, although I doubted he’d catch anyone at this point.
“Here,” I said, pulling out my handkerchief and passing it to Tambling. “Where is your uncle’s house?” Perhaps if we convinced him to go inside, we could discover if he’d been injured or at least calm him down.
“Th-there,” he said, pointing to the house behind him. The door stood open, and a warm scarf of light lay across the front stoop.
Before we took a single step toward the house, however, a woman’s scream came from within. A moment later, a maid appeared at the doorway.
“Police!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Help! Mr. Bixby’s been murdered!”
~ * ~
Some time later, Allan Tambling sat on the stoop, his face buried in his now clean hands. Police milled about, bustling in and out of the house. As the body had already been taken away, I couldn’t imagine what business so many of them had within, outside of the desire to gawk at the spot a man had died.
The maid had left, swearing never to return. I’d remained out of some sense of loyalty to a fellow employee of the museum although, so far, my presence hadn’t proved at all useful, except to answer one or two questions for the police.
“Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Tambling?” I asked awkwardly. What I would do if he requested something, I hadn’t the slightest idea. I couldn’t exactly boil him a cup of tea or procure a stiff brandy here on the street.
He took a deep breath, as if to master himself. “No, I…no. Thank you, Dr. Whyborne. I’ve sent for my older brother, but otherwise I don’t think there is anything to be d-done.”
“Yes. My condolences,” I added. “I’m certain the police will catch whoever is behind this very soon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Feeling utterly useless, I turned away and looked for my companions. Christine waited on another stoop, ignoring a policeman’s attempts to escort her from the scene. Griffin, however, seemed engaged in lively argument with a man I recognized as Detective Tilton.
I wandered close enough to listen in. “But you didn’t see anyone,” Tilton said.
“No,” Griffin replied, “but I’m only one man. If your men conducted a thorough search—”
Tilton’s eyes narrowed, and his mustache quivered. “I don’t need you telling me how to do my job, Flaherty. You believe you know something about investigation just because you were a Pinkerton thug, but I assure you, I’ve forgotten more than one of your ilk will learn in a lifetime.”
I bridled at the insult. “Mr. Flaherty isn’t some heavy-handed strike-breaker,” I snapped. “I daresay he knows as much about investigation as anyone in this town.”
Tilton gazed at me coolly, and my anger drained away abruptly. What was I thinking, drawing the attention of the police? Although Griffin claimed they weren’t trained to somehow spot men like us without any other signal being passed, my stomach turned over queasily nevertheless. In the eyes of the law, Griffin and I were criminals many times over by the very nature of our relationship.
“Dr. Whyborne,” Tilton said neutrally. “I’m sorry to see you’re still keeping company with this lout.”
“A sad state of affairs,” Griffin agreed cheerfully. “Very well, Tilton, I see you won’t listen to reason. I will keep my advice to myself from now on.”
“See that you do.”
We collected Christine and started back the way we had come. As we passed Allan, I slowed my steps, intending to give him some look of sympathy or encouragement. But he sat on the stoop, staring fixedly down at his hands with a dazed expression, as if my presence couldn’t penetrate the fog of grief and fear around him.
“Why can’t I remember?” he whispered to himself. Although he’d wiped off his hands, blood still caked beneath the nails. “Why?”
His words sent a little shiver down my spine, and I hastened to catch up with my companions.
~ * ~
In the small hours before dawn, I opened my eyes and found myself drowning.
Water pressed down upon me with palpable force: cold and dark, as if I had sunk to the very bottom of the sea. I thrashed madly, struggling for the surface, but I might as well have been swimming through treacle. Some force held me in my watery grave, until my burning lungs gave up the fight, and I inhaled sharply.
I breathed.
A blink, and the darkness receded, my eyes mysteriously able to penetrate the blackness of the abyss. A great city rose up around me, its cyclopean architecture humbling even the mighty pyramids of Egypt. A single block of barnacle-encrusted granite loomed larger than a house. But I found the architecture oddly repellent. None of the lin
es seemed to meet quite as one expected, so perspective became distorted, angles which appeared acute one moment seeming obtuse another.
The ghastly place showed no signs of inhabitants, but life filled it nonetheless. Barnacles clung to every surface, corals sprouted, and a thousand fish swarmed high above my head, like flocks of birds. Thin, shell-like tubes projected from many surfaces, their fan-shaped inhabitants stretching out delicate tendrils in a thousand colors, resembling living flowers. I reached out to touch the nearest, and it ducked back into its cylindrical home.
How had I come here? I struggled to remember, but found nothing to explain the city or my presence in it. Where was Griffin? Was I alone?
The ocean current stirred against my cheek, bringing with it a scent both noxious and strangely familiar.
No, I wasn’t alone.
My heart jerked against my ribs at the sudden, overwhelming conviction something else occupied this Tartarean city. And whatever it was, it knew I was here…and it wanted to find me.
I tried to run, but the heavy water clutched at me, slowing my steps. A slot between buildings offered a place to hide, but as I rushed toward it, an abnormal eel lunged out, snapping teeth like glass needles.
I fell back from the misshapen thing, casting about frantically. I had to hide! Whatever searched for me was almost here, and if it found me, something terrible would happen. It was getting close; fish fled before its coming, and even the monstrous eel darted off into the murky distance. The fan-like worms shut themselves into their tube homes, and the muck beneath my feet came alive as even the foul, crawling things of the ocean floor sought to escape.
Oh God. It was behind me now. I knew it with an unshakeable certainty. Every muscle locked into place, and I struggled to breathe through the blind, animal instinct which equated movement with death.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 48
