A Darker Shade of Grey

by S E Holmes

Trembling, Jace faced the hateful ghoul. “Follow my lead.” He held it together to bow with a flourish. “Good evening, Lady Grey.” At his rear, Jace caught the splash of Reagan releasing his bladder. “Bow!” he muttered.

  It loitered in front, floating mid-air. He noticed the bones of her left foot missing altogether, ending in a grisly stump. One nebulous ossified hand held aloft an old-fashioned lantern in ring-encrusted, emaciated fingers. Her cadaverous frame barely supported clinging shreds of mummified skin. Around its neck draped a finely wrought set of pearls, embedded amongst the fetid remains of a ragged silk camisole and peach twin set, the lingering stench of rotting flesh noticeable before, now overpowering. He hastily swallowed a gag. Its skull was plastered with yellowing tendrils, mouth fixed in a skull’s grin of sharp, craggy teeth. He was of the eerie impression it stared at him through vacant orbs.

  After an eternity, it gave a grim reaper sigh and beckoned he follow. As it turned, the protruding feather-and-bead handle of a tomahawk wedged in the crumbling bones of its neck spoke of Sienna’s revenge. Jace took a tremulous step, but before he could take another, a blaze of white and a child’s drawn-out scream announced Laini. Her spectre hovered, back to Jace, arms out-stretched in a protective ‘v’, less substantial even than the Manor ghost herself. Curls wafted about her like a halo, her white dress phosphorescent in the gloom.

  “Shit! There are two of them!” Reagan howled and took off for the stairwell.

  “No!”Jace said. “Don’t move!”

  Sure enough, Lady Grey’s temper bloomed like one of her poisonous buds. She drew herself up, far more inflated somehow, the bones of her spine grinding as she swivelled from Jace to Reagan’s retreating figure and finally, the little girl between her and her victim. And just as that stellar conjunction of misfortune so many years ago doomed Laini and her sister, Reagan’s noisy tumble down the stairs disrupted the trance.

  Lady Grey swished from them with astonishing speed. He had no delusions regarding her return and then, no feign of courtly behaviour would save his skin. Jace took the other option: saving his brother’s skin instead.

  “Thank you!”

  Laini’s ghost dissolved. Or was she a ghost? No time to ponder that conundrum, he pursued Reagan. Jace arrived at the top to catch a double flash of silver over a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Always, he came too late. He flew to the foyer not caring if the horrid phantom lingered to watch her handy-work. A flick-blade? She was a travelling munitions cache, as dilapidated and deadly as her home.

  “Ahh, Reagan.” Even before he knelt, Jace could see the geyser pumped from his slashed jugulars. He looked anywhere except exposed tissue and ligament. “I told you it would be for nothing,” Jace choked a sob, embarrassed by the baby display.

  Reagan winced, pressing one hand to the gash, his other petals opening on his chest. He smiled weakly. Sitting on his palm, a spectacular cameo rimmed with sparkling diamonds. “You had it all along! You wanted me out of the house to burn it yourself.” The thought struck like lightening. “To protect me.”

  Did Reece know? Of course he did, they were two halves of a singular intent. But Jace realised with a stab, Reagan was no longer a twin. And Jace was soon, no longer anyone’s brother. Despair rose up and he let the tears flow. “Please, don’t leave me.”

  Reagan gripped his hand, pressing the broach there. “You are better than we were --”

  Its imprint left a florid a welt and his skin stung on the transfer. “Shut up!” he yelled, then realised these could not be his last words to Reagan.

  His brother was drenched red, a pool spreading the floor to matt his sandy hair. Even cyanotic he resembled a Michelangelo sculpture. “Get out. Let others deal. Save yourself and live your life. Break the Bateman curse, for me.”

  Reagan’s chest fluttered and his eyes drooped. Jace recognised another fleeing spirit. “I promise,” he murmured. His expertise with lies finally eclipsed his brother’s.

  He sat with another dead twin for what seemed a very long time. In his mind, he dared Lady Grey to show her necrotic visage, bereft and wrathful enough to match her malice. Yet Jace knew now, there was a job outstanding. It was his jinx star, leaving a wreckage of ill-made promises, guilt and regret. But maybe there was one person he could save. Swiping moisture from his cheeks, he rallied and heaved upright, grabbing the torch.

  The weight of the lighter in his pocket reassured and he reflexively rubbed the scratched silver surface between thumb and forefinger, its warmth a residue of Reece’s presence. He reserved his other pocket for Reagan’s last offering. Keeping the cameo was like dropping bread crumbs: its owner would follow. He just had to find the Major’s study first.

  Jace went to the porch and ignited the fuel there. It leapt and crackled cooperatively, a pleasing mix of dry kindling and accelerant. But there was far too much house to leave to luck. He needed an inferno. Smoke curled, filling the foyer to compete with the wraith’s mist.

  Trotting hallways, he opened and shut doors embedded in wood-panel wainscoting that didn’t seem ‘Majorly’ or ‘studyish’, hyper-alert for a tallow smear. After completing a loop that brought him back to the foyer he headed for the other wing. A choking dense cloud hung on the air, the veranda well alight, heat radiating and flames licking higher. Jace experienced savage satisfaction, not so thrilled about diminishing visibility. He coughed spastically and ran at a crouch, met with success when he pushed a door ajar at the furthest reaches.

  A solid blackness fought his entry. If the level above resembled ink, the Major’s study was oily with spite. Without equivocation, here was Lady Grey’s lair. Typical of the vindictive hag to nest where her second husband sealed his fate. How had she dispensed with the first? He had no alternative but to skim the wall, unprepared to risk the torch too early, fingertips instantly blistered. Jace tripped and fell flat at a curtain draped void. He lit the fabric and they went up with a whoosh, the study bathed in a rosy glow.

  He could see her coming now. Sliding the corridor, taking her leisurely time. For who had ever escaped Lady Grey’s clutches? Jace scuttled on all fours, setting fire to anything within reach. The room was jammed with all manner of weapons: guns, maces, whips, knives and the pinnacle, an ornate sabre in a glass rectangle stretching the width of the desk. Where was the gunpowder?

  Two corner walls were filled with a library of combustible books and he hurried to stoke the bonfire, ripping them from the shelves and tearing pages. It was hot now, and getting hotter, much of the paper curled to embers lacking a lighter’s spark. He reached the utmost sill and tugged volumes that refused to budge. Instead, three tilted on the axis of their bindings with a chink. He clung as the entire bookshelf swung wide, not surprised in the least a house full of secrets contained a secret chamber. He’d almost been expecting it.

  Clambering down, Jace fought toxic smoke, lungs roasting and giddy with oxygen deprivation. He knew what the cavity held. Sienna. There was no point concealing his presence, the enemy stalked his rear. He triggered the torch, panning until he found her.

  She rested with her back to the wall, hands crossed in her lap, head tilted heavenward. Jace went to her, identity confirmed by the accursed opal pendant resting on her sternum and scraps of black that once were clothes. Sienna’s ribcage was shattered, a bullet lodged in her spine probably rendering her paralysed. It would have been a slow way to die.

  He undid the necklace, reefing it from her neck. And opposite, another skeleton observed with blank eyes from between rowed vials of liquid and tablets. They were entombed together in Lady Grey’s hidden chamber of poisons, and never found. An inexorable bond forged by murderous intent. And Laini stuck in the middle. He still wasn’t quite sure how. Given his current situation, he was unlikely ever to find out.

  Beyond, the fire raged. He heard the crash of glass and pivoted as the shade of Lady Grey swooped, sabre raised. Jace leaped to the fray, unwilling to let the old bag win too easily. The blade glanced off his arm in a spray o
f blood, the slice an acid streak of poison. He lunged for the haft on her upswing, yanking hard, rewarded when the sword came free. He returned the favour, but chopped air.

  Then Lady Grey was upon him, her bony digits scratching at his eyes and shoving him to the floor. It didn’t seem fair. She could damage him, yet her vaporous form deprived him the same gift. He couldn’t get a hold, the sword clattering. Staccato explosions like bungers on cracker night went off in the study. Hopefully, the gunpowder followed the pellets. Jace’s strength waned as carbon dioxide smothered each breath.

  He slumped to the ground next to Sienna. Lady Grey hung in suspense. Letting the fire take him down and seemingly oblivious it proved her same fate. Millimetre by feeble millimetre, he placed the accursed cameo by the necklace on the ground. He hefted the sabre to cleave both in two. Too late, Lady Grey grasped his purpose. She fell on him with redoubled fierceness.

  And as he readied to succumb, no way to atone for unfulfilled promises, a comet of white bathed Lady Grey’s chamber in brilliance. The Major’s stash detonated, peeling the Manor apart in a starburst of noise and colour.

  ***

  Chapter Thirteen