Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3

by Jordan L. Hawk

  “I didn’t,” I said. “I thought I was in an undersea city.”

  Griffin let out a hiss of fear. “The dweller—it couldn’t touch your mind, could it? You aren’t one of its followers, or mad.”

  “No, but…I’ve been having dreams.”

  The silence which followed my admission made me cringe. “You’ve what?” Griffin asked at last.

  I told them everything—the nightmares, the strange hallucinations, all of it. When I was done, I continued to stare fixedly at my coffee, awaiting judgment.

  Christine was happy to provide it. “What the devil were you thinking?” she demanded. “Why would you keep something like this to yourself?”

  I buried my face in my hands. “I told myself they were just nightmares. As Griffin said, I’m not one of its followers, or a lunatic—”

  “Not that one could tell from your actions!” she snapped.

  I lifted my head and shot her a glare. “They were just dreams! And visions. That’s all.”

  “Well, it’s a good deal more, now.”

  “You seemed to be making for the docks,” Griffin said.

  “The ocean. The dweller was calling me. I suppose it would have been rather disappointed when I drowned in the bay.” I let my hands drop to my lap. “I’m sorry. I should have said something.”

  “Indeed you should,” Christine agreed.

  Griffin’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Is there any way to…I don’t know, shield your mind from the dweller?”

  “Perhaps. The cult seems to be more interested in opening their minds to the god, not blocking it out. I didn’t get much reading done before the, er, incident, but the folio Father sent spoke of something called the oculares potion. Rather than rely on holy lunatics or years of meditation in order to communicate with the dweller, they were attempting to develop some sort of serum to act as a short cut. Even a sane novice could take it and receive the sendings of their god.”

  “Did they succeed?” Griffin asked.

  “No idea. The information is twenty years out of date. But if Zeiler is trying to develop it…”

  “The fourth floor.” Griffin’s skin took on a grayish cast. “He’s experimenting on them.”

  “Possibly.” I hoped, for Allan’s sake, we were wrong. If only we’d been able to find him while we were at the asylum!

  “So what next?” Christine asked. “If the growing intensity of Whyborne’s visions are any indication, the summoning will surely occur sooner rather than later. How are we to stop them?”

  Griffin rubbed tiredly at eyes ringed by dark circles. New lines bracketed his mouth; this case had taken its toll on him. “I’m not certain. Perhaps I will keep watch on Zeiler’s house, assuming they haven’t abandoned the location. Or speak with my contacts on the docks, among the sailors. But I cannot do much today.” I heard the frustration in his voice. “My parents and Ruth wish an excursion to the park, and I thought—”

  “No,” Christine said.

  Griffin cast her an irritated look. “Christine…”

  “Don’t you ‘Christine’ me, Griffin Flaherty! Whyborne may do as he pleases, but I refuse to take any more part in this absurd charade.”

  Griffin’s mouth tightened. “I don’t have a choice!”

  “Yes, you do.” Christine’s brows lowered and her eyes flashed with anger.

  “Don’t you understand? We could be arrested if anyone found out the truth!”

  “Are you seriously trying to convince me your own parents would turn you in?” She flung up her arms in disgust. “And if you’re so worried about it, why involve poor Whyborne at all?”

  “Because I wanted him to meet them.”

  “Which could have been accomplished at the museum. The rest of this—dinner, a turn around the park—why? Do you like showing off your friendship with Niles Whyborne’s son, or do you just enjoy tempting fate?”

  “Christine,” I started to object.

  Griffin overrode me. “Damn it, Christine, do you think I like living this way?”

  Oh.

  It shouldn’t have hurt. I’d certainly prefer things to be otherwise as well. To live in some other world, where everything was different, where we could embrace in the park like any other pair of lovers. But his words bruised me inside my chest, aching with each intake of breath.

  What had Griffin said, when he spoke of his time recovering from his experiences in the asylum? That he should have felt disappointment his inclinations hadn’t altered, despite the cures inflicted on him. Did some part of him secretly hate the things we did together? Hate me for evoking these feelings in him? Did he wish he had waited, remained merely friends, so he would have been free to try to make a normal life with Ruth?

  Was he free? We had agreed not to touch anyone else, so long as we were together. But of course he could break things off any time he wished.

  Christine glanced at me, and perhaps something of my thoughts showed on my face, because her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Make my excuses to your parents. Whyborne?”

  “I’m not letting Whyborne out of my sight,” Griffin said firmly. “Not after what just happened.”

  I started to object, to say I’d go home and wait there. I was weary to the bone of this pretense. If Griffin hated his life with me, he could find another more easily without my presence. But he had a point, as much as I was loath to admit it. If the dweller attacked my mind again, there was no telling where I might end up. Drowned off the end of the pier seemed most likely.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll come.”

  Christine let out a little huff, but said nothing further. Then again, given the glare she leveled at Griffin, she didn’t need to.

  ~ * ~

  “The park seems rather empty,” Miss Kerr commented later that evening.

  The setting sun cast long shadows over the green lawns and shady oaks. At one end of the small park, a fountain gurgled happily; at the other sat a large monument marked with the date of the town’s founding and a list of its original inhabitants. It neglected to mention a mad sorcerer had founded Widdershins, or that most of the families listed had carried on his nefarious traditions.

  “At least there’s a carriage for hire,” Mr. Kerr said with a nod to the lone vehicle at the stand. Its driver appeared to have fallen asleep.

  His wife patted my arm. “A shame your Dr. Putnam couldn’t join us.”

  “Er, yes,” I said, hoping she didn’t intend to start lecturing me on marriage again.

  Griffin gestured to the carriage. “Would you enjoy a turn about the park, Miss Kerr?”

  A blush crept over her cheeks. “That would be lovely.”

  “Will you keep my parents company for a few moments, Whyborne?” Griffin asked. I supposed he wanted to be certain someone would be keeping an eye on me. Then again, the park wasn’t so large. Did he expect to be distracted in some way, during which I might wander off?

  I didn’t care for the direction my thoughts tended. “Of course,” I said, struggling to keep my tone neutral rather than bitter.

  It was just a role he played, I told myself, as he escorted Miss Kerr to the carriage. His parents and Ruth would leave in a few days. Hopefully the elder Kerrs would be satisfied when Griffin wrote to them that Ruth, wonderful as she might be, was not the wife for him.

  But would he be satisfied? Or would he still wish for everything to be different?

  “Want to have a seat and enjoy the evening?” Mr. Kerr asked while the carriage rattled off.

  I followed them to a bench. Mrs. Kerr sat in the center, so I positioned myself as close to the end as possible without falling off.

  I’d thought Griffin content with our quiet existence in our little house. How could I have been so wrong? And if I was wrong about that, what else might I have mistaken? Was it possible he meant only to soften the blow when he bid me farewell and wed Miss Kerr?

  No. He would have said something. He wouldn’t be so cruel.

  Unless he h
adn’t yet decided. Unless he was caught between the twin prods of his inclinations and his desire for an ordinary life. A life he wouldn’t have to hide from the family who had welcomed a frightened orphan into their midst and raised him into the man I’d fallen in love with.

  Griffin loved me, I knew it. But love wasn’t always enough, was it? He’d known many men in Chicago, his own partner included, who found pleasure in the shadows but lived in the light, their standing in society assured by a wife and children. Doubtless, he wanted that for himself. And why shouldn’t he? He’d make an excellent husband and devoted father.

  My selfish heart rebelled at the thought. I stared down at my hands, loathing squirming in my gut. How could I chain him in the shadows with me, when by his own admission he longed for something else?

  Griffin’s parents chatted beside me on the bench, but I was far too wrapped up in my own misery to pay them much attention, until his mother straightened sharply. “What’s that fellow doing?”

  The note of fear in her voice caused me to look up. The carriage had reached the far side of the little park and come to a halt. For a horrified instant, I imagined the stop was to give the couple privacy, so Griffin could…what? Kiss Ruth? Propose to her?

  Then I realized the driver had fallen from the carriage and clutched his arm, blood bright on the crushed shell drive. A man in the dress and tattoos of a sailor had thrown open the door and climbed into the passenger compartment, a knife in his hand.

  ~ * ~

  “Griffin!” The cry tore from my throat. I sprang to my feet and ran for the carriage, stretching my long legs to their farthest. Griffin grasped his assailant’s arm and the two men struggled for control of the knife, which seemed to be inching closer and closer to Griffin’s chest. “Hold on! I’m coming—”

  A hand grabbed my wrist, spinning me around. I found myself staring into the face of a tattooed sailor, his pale skin burned from sun and wind, his lips drawn back in a triumphant grin. I tried to pull free from his iron grip, but he yanked me closer. “Yer coming with me.” A knife glittered in his other hand. “It’s up to you in how many pieces.”

  No! I kicked at him, but he evaded my blows. “Have it yer way,” he said, bringing the knife down.

  The sailor’s head snapped back, as James Kerr’s fist plowed into his jaw. The knife fell, and the sailor followed it to the ground, dropped by the powerful blow.

  There was no time to secure him. Mr. Kerr and I both ran for the carriage, where Griffin still fought off his attacker. Sea water filled my lungs, and made it hard to move, but…

  No, wait. That wasn’t right.

  Cyclopean architecture loomed on every side, overlain on the prosaic trees and fountain of the park. The temple towered directly before me, and Griffin called out…but was it the real Griffin, fighting for his life, or the dweller?

  No. No, not now! Not when Griffin needed me! I dug my nails into my palm, striving to hold onto reality, or at least, the reality around me. But I saw the mephitic glow in the distance, the fronds of the great creatures which seemed both worm and flower, and heard a song in a voice not remotely human. The world stuttered around me: park, city, park, city, alternating on every step. Did I breathe water or air?

  The horses neighed and fidgeted, upset by the fight, held in place only by a white-faced Ruth, who’d had the presence of mind to seize the reins. The sailor’s tanned face twisted into a snarl, muscles bulging beneath his suit, as he struggled to press the knife into Griffin’s chest. Its tip rested against the lapel of Griffin’s coat. Griffin’s lips drew back from his teeth; he blinked and his eyes were golden with oblong slits, then human again.

  I seized the sailor’s nearest leg and fell back, using my weight to drag him with me to the ground. He let out a furious cry, and I spared a moment to wonder exactly where the knife might be, and if he would stab me instead.

  Griffin leapt down, aiming a vicious kick at our assailant and sending the knife flying. Disarmed, the man bolted. For an instant, I thought Griffin would chase him down, but instead he fell to his knees beside me. “Whyborne? Are you hurt?”

  I tried to swallow, but my spit had grown thick and clogged my throat. Miles of black water stretched above me, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus my thoughts. “The dweller. It’s trying to take over my mind.”

  Griffin’s hands closed tight on my shoulders. “Fight it, Whyborne. You must fight it.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked a male voice from somewhere high above me. Fathoms above me, in a world of light and wind, while I drowned in a sea of crushing darkness.

  If Griffin answered, I didn’t hear. An arm around my shoulders urged me up off the muck of the sea floor. Somehow, I managed to rise to my feet. Opening my eyes, I saw again the park, although other shapes trembled in the corner of my vision, ready to rush back in again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, although I didn’t know if I actually formed the words, or if there was even anyone to hear them. Or if I wandered alone on the ocean floor, amidst the splendor of a kingdom so ancient not even legend remained to tell of it.

  “Shh, shh, it’s going to be all right, my dear.”

  “I’ll try to shut it out.” I blinked at the temple. “God, Griffin, look at it!”

  “It’s not real. Don’t pay any attention to it. Focus on me, Ival.”

  Pain spiked through my head, as if something huge pressed against the inside of my skull. I gritted my teeth and distantly wondered if the Kerrs thought I’d gone utterly mad.

  Somehow, we arrived back at our house, although as far as I knew I’d stumbled across a decaying black plain, barely avoiding great rifts which belched out sulfuric water. Starfish swarmed over the rotting corpse of a whale, like a heaving carpet of spiny limbs, and I gagged at the sight.

  “Here we go,” Griffin said, tumbling me into my bed. “Hold on, Whyborne. You can fight it; I know you can. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” Griffin gripped my arms tightly, pinning me to the bed, as if I’d tried to rise. “I won’t lose you, not to this. I won’t! Do you hear me?”

  A great current stirred in the underwater city, sucking me back toward the temple and the thing singing inside. To my horror, I saw the barnacles had fallen away from the statues outside, revealing the faces of shark-men, their mouths full of row upon row of teeth, their hair curling like the stinging arms of an anemone.

  The song grew louder, and I could almost understand what it meant, what it said. Pressure spiked in my head, and I screamed in defiance.

  No. No, I would not hear its damnable words. It sought to enslave me, to make me its hands and eyes and ears upon the land, as it had done with Zeiler and the sailors. I couldn’t fight its pull, but there must be some defense.

  Will was everything in magic. I had to focus my intent, even when my mind insisted I was in an abyssal city of nightmare.

  I tried imaging a barrier, a wall, somewhere safe. It didn’t work. What wall had ever sheltered me, after all? Where had I ever felt safe? Not in the house where I’d grown up, at the mercy of my father’s whims and my brother’s cruelty. The string of apartments I’d lived in had barely received any imprint of my personality; they were nothing more than somewhere to snatch a few hours of sleep and store my belongings. Not until Griffin had asked me to move into his house had I ever felt at home.

  Safe. Wanted.

  And I was home now; I knew that much at least. How dare the dweller take it from me? The only person who had such a right was Griffin. I would not allow some monstrous creature to force me out one second before I had to go.

  I bent all of my will to imposing an image of my room onto the colossal city before me. I clearly pictured the location of the window, the wardrobe, the feel of the sheets against my bare skin. The way it smelled, of cedar and lavender, of sheets soaked with sweat and spend after we made love, of the breeze blowing through the curtains. Even of Saul’s fur, which had a peculiar sweetness to it. I imagined his purr, vibrating his entire body as h
e curled against my leg.

  Then I locked the door and shut the window.

  Something lurked outside the room I’d built in my mind. Something huge, its shadow drifting across the drawn curtains. Water lapped against the walls, but couldn’t get in.

  I was safe.

  I opened eyes which felt gummed shut, caught a glimpse of warm candlelight and sensed Saul’s purr against my leg. Griffin sat in the chair by the bed, his hand locked in mine, his mouth curled in a worried frown.

  My eyelids grew too heavy and fell closed again. Exhausted from the struggle, I slipped into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 18

  I opened my eyes and found the soft glow of the night candle illuminating the confines of my bedroom. The chair where Griffin had sat, keeping watch over me, was empty now, and even Saul had abandoned his place on the bed.

  I sat up, taking in a long, shaky breath. My mind seemed my own, for the moment, at least.

  I still wore my trousers, but someone had taken my coat and vest, removed cuffs and collar, and opened my shirt to the waist. Griffin, presumably. I remembered him holding on to me, bringing me to my bed…

  In front of his family. He’d brought me to the house he supposedly lived in alone, to a bed in the room allegedly unoccupied. Perhaps he’d found some way of distracting his parents, or sending them away before they realized…

  As if to make a mockery of my fragile hopes, the sound of voices echoed from below, up the stair and through my half-open door. “Your ma and Ruth are at the hotel. Now quit evading my question, boy!” Mr. Kerr exclaimed.

  Griffin’s voice held a note of misery such as I’d seldom heard. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, a little of the rural accent of his youth slipping into his voice. “I didn’t want to lie, but…I didn’t want you and Ma to be disappointed with me.”