Hannah slid her arms around his middle. “With the passing of each day, I become more convinced it is the only way to find the answers we seek.”
Wycliff leaned back against the tree and pulled Hannah closer. Under her cheek came the steady thrum of his heart. When hers stilled, his would have to beat for her, too.
“Give me time to find Nash first. We might yet defuse this situation and in time, people will forget why they ever feared the Afflicted.” He stroked her hair as clouds piled up above them and the light dimmed with impending rain.
“A few days, but no more. The time has come to make that journey—together.” She stared at the sharp angles of his face that had come to mean everything to her. Any fear she held about dying dimmed, as curiosity grew inside her. They would find a solution in the underworld. She was convinced of it. And if not, well, the Duat did not seem such a terrible place, from all she had read of it. There were worse places in which to spend the afterlife.
Such as a coffin deep in the earth.
13
Late that night, rapping at the window woke Wycliff from slumber and Hannah stirred in his arms. He slipped from bed and grabbed a robe from the back of a chair as he strode to the window. He yanked the tie closed at his waist before pulling aside the curtain. An enormous owl with mottled brown and cream feathers and black ringed around its wide and unblinking amber eyes sat on the sill and peered at him.
“Is it Higgs?” Hannah murmured as she roused.
Wycliff opened the window and the bird hopped onto a side table, an envelope clutched in its beak. He took the missive with a heavy heart. Midnight visits from the Ministry secretary meant an urgent matter, and he doubted he would return to his bed this night.
The owl hooted but held its spot, as though expecting some sort of response…or possibly a mouse treat.
Wycliff extracted the piece of paper with its scrawled note and swore under his breath. He glanced at the owl. “I’ll be there immediately. Have someone guard the place and keep nosy onlookers back.”
The owl hooted again and took flight, swooping through the open window to disappear into the dark.
“What is it?” Hannah leaned against his side to peer at the note.
“Another blue fire and incinerated remains. This time at the rear of the Fiddler’s Theatre.” He removed his robe and tossed it to a chair as he snatched up his clothing.
“You go on ahead by horseback. I shall follow with Papa in the carriage.” Hannah took down the striped gown she had left hanging over the screen in the corner.
He placed a swift kiss on her lips and then shoved his feet into his trousers. Hannah dropped a shirt over his head and he needed to take a calming breath to find the armholes. Once he pulled on his Hessians, he ran down the stairs, tucking in his shirt as he went. By the rear vestibule, he did up his waistcoat buttons and grabbed an overcoat and hat. Then he hooked a lantern on his finger and lit the wick with a touch of hellfire as he walked out to the stables. The horses nickered as he approached, the swinging lantern and his tread having woken them from a light slumber.
Setting the lamp on the edge of the stall, he worked quickly to saddle the mare. “Sorry, girl. None of us are sleeping tonight,” Wycliff murmured.
Wycliff blew out the lamp before leading the mare from the stables and leaping up into the saddle. He put his heels to the horse and struck off into the night. On the main road, he reached deep for the hellhound and used its night vision to bring the darkness into sharp focus and to ensure they didn’t stumble and break either a leg or a neck.
He slowed the horse to a trot as they neared the pleasure centre of London and the swirl of traffic around Covent Garden. Despite the late hour, it was as alive and vibrant as an early morning fish market. Lights strung above their heads cast a yellow glow on all that passed below. Laughter swirled and strains of music reached his ears. People either bustled with purpose, or lingered for slow conversations on the edges of shadows.
Avoiding pedestrians and carriages, he turned his mount to the Fiddler’s Theatre, which sat a gentle stroll away from the main entertainments. The playhouse occupied a small brick building at the end of a lane. The troupes at the Fiddler’s performed lesser-known plays for smaller audiences. Wycliff rode around back to find a cluster of people gathered at the iron gates. He dismounted and handed his horse off to a Runner who acted as an impromptu guard.
“Sir Hugh Miles and Lady Wycliff will be here soon. Make sure they are allowed to pass,” he instructed the Runner.
A dirty white and brown terrier sat by the fence, perhaps drawn by the odour wafting from beyond. Wycliff growled at it and the dog let out a whimper and then shot through the crowd. Wycliff pushed through and entered the cobbled courtyard at the rear of the theatre. Red brick buildings encircled them, some two or three storeys high, others lower and half-timbered. A wide flight of stairs ran up to a door on the second level of the theatre. Another and much wider doorway lay in the gloom cast by the stairs above it.
In the middle of the courtyard were the smouldering remains of a fire. Lanterns suspended from wires running between the buildings cast their pale light on the scene. Smoke still hung in the air and swirled around the lanterns. Wycliff choked back the bile that rushed up his throat at the sickly sweet yet sharp aroma. He didn’t have to ask if another unfortunate had met their end here. The evidence of that tickled his nose.
The familiar tall, broad figure of Charlie Taylor stood to one side, and he hailed Wycliff. The Runner clasped his mitten-clad hands together, tonight covered in a forest green wool. “I had your man send for you immediately, Lord Wycliff. This looks the same as what we found at Bunhill Fields.”
Wycliff nodded. The Bow Street Runner had proven his worth in this investigation. He walked around the pile and searched for clues. Drifts of smoke curled from the deeper clumps and dispersed on the night air. All the while, he considered who might have been incinerated—and why here?
The former Lady Albright had been disposed of in front of her family mausoleum, and he had assumed her husband had been responsible. Now they had another fire in an entirely different, and far more risky, location. Did Lord Albright have a list of people he was working through, or was another responsible for this crime? If this proved to be another Afflicted, could there be some gentlemen’s agreement to help one another dispose of pesky former wives who refused to stay in their graves?
The fire had charred a roughly circular patch on the cobbles, some four feet in diameter. A half-burned shoe lay at the edge, perhaps kicked off in a scuffle. The heel had been destroyed, but the toe with its ornate and bejewelled buckle, a remnant from a bygone era, remained intact. Once again there was little left to identify their victim. From what he could see without poking into the mess, there were a few bone fragments at most.
“Did anybody see who did this?” Wycliff asked Taylor, standing at his shoulder.
“No. There’s no performances at the Fiddler’s this week, and the theatre was empty. Several people saw the blue and white flames and being not far away, the nosier and bolder ones came to investigate. Someone said a large black dog with red eyes ran away down the lane.” The Runner gestured in the direction the beast had taken.
Wycliff sucked in a breath. A hellhound, or just a large stray living on the streets of London like the terrier he’d seen earlier?
“There wasn’t much left by the time a group of men got here. One chap recognised the smell and found me. I posted a guard to keep everyone out, woke your man, and sent for you. Handy, his being an owl. Much quicker to deliver messages, I imagine.” Taylor hovered upwind of the snatches of smoke.
Wycliff grunted. The individual who recognised the odour had probably been a soldier. Some reminders of the battlefields were etched into their minds until their last breath. Time could not dull their effects. As he considered his next move, a small group pushed through the gates. Hannah had control of her mother’s bathchair, and Sir Hugh walked at her side.
The
doctor crouched close to the pile to conduct a visual examination. “There’s not much to go on, Wycliff. But let us hope somewhere in this is a fragment that might hold a clue.”
Wycliff glanced at Lady Miles as she wheeled herself closer. Faces pressed between the railings surrounding the courtyard and whispers grew as more people gathered to stare at the dead mage.
“She’s one of them Afflicted!” someone yelled, and gasps came from the others.
Another faceless Londoner cried, “I’m not wearing a hat!”
“Move them on, Taylor, before they cause trouble,” Wycliff said to the Runner.
The man drew a short baton from his waistband and advanced on the assembled people. “Sod off, you lot!” he called as he banged on the railing.
Seraphina stretched her hands out over the edge of the charred pattern. A long minute of silence followed, and even the curious onlookers who remained seemed to hold their breath.
She shook her hands as if she dispelled something stuck to them before clasping them together in her lap. “Mage fire, once again. It burns intensely, then once its fuel has expired, snuffs itself out. This is the same method as was used on the former Lady Albright. While I will need to hold any bone Hugh finds for confirmation, I suspect someone is indeed targeting the Afflicted.”
Wycliff glanced from his mother-in-law to his wife. Who would be next if the arsonist sought out the most visible of that community? He clenched his hands into fists. First, he needed to convince Parliament a crime had been committed. As Albright had so succinctly put it, one cannot murder someone who is already dead. Many of the lords were uncomfortable with the way Albright had treated his wife, but silently some probably wished for a solution that would clear the Afflicted from the drawing rooms of London.
“We cannot assume the victim was one of the Afflicted until Sir Hugh has examined the remains. It could yet be someone else. As Hannah often reminds me, hypothesise, then strategise.” He said the words, but the churn in his gut told him otherwise. He had a bigger problem looming on the horizon and it was gaining on them fast.
“Don’t let that undead thing near your brain!” someone yelled from behind the railing.
Wycliff turned and narrowed his gaze. Laughter rippled through the assembled people, but no one was brave enough to own their words. Taylor and his man tried to move them on, but there were too many people wanting to prolong their evening of entertainment.
Sir Hugh joined him and muttered under his breath, “Damned ignorant fools.”
The powerful mage murmured a few words and arched her hands, then swept them to one side toward the railing. A purple light shivered along the metal and people gasped and jumped back. An ethereal curtain hung over the length of the fence and rippled with tiny dots of silver light.
Wycliff arched an eyebrow at her. Since no one was crying out or dropping to the cobbles, he assumed the spell was mostly harmless.
“I have blocked their view with a simple shield to stop their prying. All they see is a mirror reflecting their own faces. Nor can their words penetrate the shield, and we can work without their shouted nonsense.” She wheeled herself toward her husband and gestured Wycliff closer. “I dislike this, Wycliff. Let us not forget the newspaper articles. While I set free my moth-like spells to disperse rumours, another works against them. Unwin and Alder have become a leaky boat and I find I cannot plug the holes anymore. If someone finds a jar of pickled cauliflower, I fear it will be the spark to a powder keg.”
He cast around, staring at the confused faces who could no longer watch the spectacle. Did someone among them watch to see if the discontent and fear they spread took root? Did Nash linger out there, penning his next scandalous story?
“There is at least one man working against us, two if we include the missing Unwin and Alder employee. But I wonder if their strings are pulled by another. Let us discuss this fully back at Westbourne Green.”
Seraphina nodded and wheeled herself to the smouldering remains.
Hannah returned from the carriage with a box and set it on the ground at the edge of the pile. “Could you make the ashes cool enough to handle, please, Mother?”
The mage held her hands before her face and whispered, then she opened them and blew over her palms. A white mist swirled toward the remains and then shook itself out until it resembled a blanket. Then it dropped over the patch with a soft hiss.
Hannah picked up what appeared to be a fireside set to shovel up the ash and bone. Wycliff retrieved the shoe and held it up to a lantern, turning it this way and that. Something about it itched at his mind. When he glanced at Hannah, the thought coalesced. She had pulled her skirts close to keep them clear of the soot. Doing so exposed her booted feet. The soft leather laced up past her ankles and overall, her shoes were much smaller than the one Wycliff held.
“I think this is a man’s shoe,” he said.
Sir Hugh let out a puff of breath. “More likely it is a large woman with big feet. There is only one male Afflicted we know of who resides within the confines of London and not…elsewhere.”
Wycliff didn’t need the reminder of the rotting beasts who prowled their iron cages deep under the Repository of Forgotten Things. Those sad creatures could not control their appetites and were prone to dashing open people’s heads to scoop out their brains. If there was only one man who had the self-control to walk among the living, and this was indeed one of the Afflicted, he wouldn’t have to look too far to identify his victim.
While Hannah worked, he took notes of the scene and gathered the names of those who had arrived there first from Taylor. Unfortunately, they had little information to aid his investigation. The fire had consumed most of its victim by the time people arrived in the courtyard, and they had only witnessed the flames extinguishing themselves. Nor could they offer any more detail about the large dog they had seen running away. Two men argued about every aspect of it, from size and shape to colour.
“It was a hellhound, I swear, with death in its eyes,” one man said.
“Rubbish. It was a mangy mastiff,” another contradicted his friend.
Wycliff scribbled down the differing accounts. If a three-headed flaming beast had sauntered past them with a soul in its jaws, surely it would have stuck in their minds despite the alcohol they had consumed?
Before they left, Wycliff approached Taylor. “Good work. My thanks for summoning me quickly. Haver you had any success in finding the missing William Peters?”
The larger man rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and stifled a yawn. “None yet, milord, but I have eyes on the street. If he’s still in London, we’ll find him.”
Once they had retrieved all that remained from the fire, they returned to Westbourne Green. Back inside the house, they placed the box on the kitchen table. Sir Hugh prised off the lid and reached in to pull out a chunk of bone. Seraphina held it in her hands and then let out a heavy sigh. “Yes. It is one of the Afflicted.”
“There is no point returning to bed—it will be light soon. Why don’t I put the kettle on and we can discuss what to do next?” Hannah set about stoking the range and filling the kettle.
In contrast to the way they gathered at Mireworth, no one seemed comfortable sitting in the kitchen. Close to London, Wycliff felt the pull of society’s conventions and constrictions. It simply wasn’t the done thing to sit at the servants’ table.
“Why don’t I take our victim here to the library?” Sir Hugh picked up the box and set it on Seraphina’s lap, then pushed the bathchair through the doorway.
Hannah set out a tray with a teapot, cups, and biscuits, and Wycliff carried it through to the library. Outside, dawn roused itself and the faintest blush of colour, like the work of a hesitant artist, crept over the horizon.
Wycliff took a quick sip of tea as he gathered his thoughts. “I agree with Lady Miles. What we have is more than an angry husband disposing of an inconvenient former wife. Unless there is a club of nobles intent on ridding themselves of Afflicted relat
ives, I cannot see it as a coincidence that a reporter is exposing the work of Unwin and Alder. We also have the mystery of their employee, Peters, who worked on both people featured in the paper and who has now disappeared.”
“Someone wishes to expose all our secrets to the harsh light of day,” Seraphina said.
Sir Hugh sat next to his wife and held a delicate teacup in one enormous hand. “The upper levels of society have always been divided. But enough lords have one of the Afflicted in their families to extend their protection to all of you. Soon, I fear, a title alone will not be enough protection. There are a growing number of young men at our lectures with many impertinent questions. They goad each other and laugh at our answers.”
“What sort of impertinent questions?” A small marble of an idea rattled around the hollow inside Wycliff.
Sir Hugh pulled his bushy eyebrows together. “What stops the undead from rotting? How do they heal their wounds? What farm produces all the cauliflower—particularly out of season? What would happen if the Afflicted attacked an innocent person?”
“Such questions skate too close to many secrets we keep about the Afflicted.” Hannah paused in sipping her hot drink. “Does Sir Manly know anything that might assist in finding the root cause of this agitation?”
Wycliff shook his head. If anyone secretly wanted action against the Afflicted, surely they would ask the Ministry of Unnaturals’ sole investigator to round them up? Unless they knew his conflict of interest and didn’t want to alert the most powerful mage in all of England to their plan.
“I smell a conspiracy. We see the marionettes moving upon the stage, but must follow the strings to reveal the hand that controls them,” Seraphina said.
Blast. Wycliff preferred Albright as the disgruntled murderer of his former wife. Now he needed to cast a wider net. Although Albright might still provide crucial information. Someone had targeted his former wife and knew to watch her movements. They also knew her husband was the last person to raise a fuss about her being scorched from the earth.
Hessians and Hellhounds Page 12
