Johnathan frowned at their exchange, uncertain what “others” Vic referred to or why he would send Miss Shaw on such a task.
“Of course, I will,” Alyse retorted, stomping to the book-strewn table in the center of the room. She sat with a huff, tossing books about as she searched for a particular volume.
“There certainly are a lot of tomes on pagan lore here for a pastor’s daughter,” said Johnathan, glancing over the numerous piles scattered across the table.
Alyse ran the back of her hand across her brow. “My mother’s people were from Ireland and Scotland. She might’ve married a godly man, but the old ways never left her. She held onto the family library, thankfully.” Alyse threw open the first book a little too vigorously, still seething at being left behind.
She calmed as Vic placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’ll find something useful,” said Vic.
Her expression softened. “Please, be careful,” she said.
Johnathan didn’t imagine the brief slide of her gaze in his direction.
“I will walk on eggshells,” said Vic with a slow smile that sent a flush through Alyse Shaw’s face. Johnathan once again felt the voyeur. “Come along, John, daylight’s waning.”
He followed the other man out, and the weight of Alyse Shaw’s gaze settled between his shoulder blades.
The tension didn’t loosen its grip as they clambered into the open coach. Johnathan sat straight and stiff, a direct contrast to Vic’s carefully relaxed posture. He waited for the hammer to fall, but Vic said nothing. Only the occasional considering glance gave a hint of the man’s thoughts. Johnathan rubbed his bandaged palm, dug in hard enough to feel the twinge of protesting flesh. He couldn’t let this tension reign between them. It would undermine his purpose here. He needed Vic to trust him, to an extent. He already owed the enigmatic man for the previous night.
Johnathan swallowed. “Thank you for your care. I don’t know what came over me, and I confess, I don’t remember much of what transpired last night, but I am grateful for the shelter. That I had someone there…” He frowned down at his hands. His words wandered off a cliff again. He sighed, and a self-deprecating chuckle slipped free. “I’m not very good at this.”
“Good at what?” Vic’s tone was carefully neutral.
Johnathan’s shoulders fell. “Good with people.” He glanced away, a sudden knot in his throat. Dr. Evans once said this was Johnathan’s greatest weakness in the field. He was a skilled fighter and keen at picking up details others missed, but his ability to adapt and ingratiate himself into a strange environment, with unfamiliar people fell short compared to the rest of the Prospectives. Not that he blended in with his Society peers either.
There was a lengthy pause in which he didn’t dare look at his host, but at last Vic spoke.
“There are many reasons one finds themselves unable to connect. Cress Haven is quiet, secluded, and generally populated by such individuals.” There was a note of understanding in Vic’s voice. The tension dispersed like morning fog.
“You seem to connect with everyone,” said Johnathan, surprised by the wistful tone in his own words.
“You can thank Alyse for that. I had a devil of a time integrating before her friendship. It was her acceptance that helped me forge a place here.”
“She’s a bit terrifying, to be honest,” said Johnathan.
Vic snorted and clutched the reins before he erupted into a rich laugh. “Aye, she is at that. One couldn’t ask for a fiercer friend.”
Johnathan was curious over Vic’s description of Alyse as a friend. Human connection was an issue, but he was observant. He wondered why Vic hadn’t offered for the headstrong woman. He bit back the question, certain that prying into their relationship would be a foul.
The town was heavily shadowed in twilight, the rough-cut buildings bathed in shades of gray, raw wood beaten on by the elements. There was the occasional slap-dash splash of color and chipped, faded paint where the residents put care into appearance, but the majority reflected the rough edge of the wilderness at their backs as if the woods chewed up and spat out Cress Haven.
Vic stopped the coach outside a rather trim building close to the end of the street, far from Cress Haven’s main hub. The building’s color had long bleached away under the sun and bore a carved sign that read Stebbins’s Apothecary.
“Apothecary?” Johnathan raised a brow.
“I reckon he thought it sounded better than ‘morgue,’” said Vic. “Speaking of individuals unable to connect, try not to be too unsettled by Stebbins. He’s a bit odd but harmless.”
Come to think of it, Johnathan recalled their first interaction, how the strange fellow tumbled about the crime scene with all the grace and regard of a curious child. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” Vic shoved the door open, a grimace fixed on his face.
A bell slapped against the back of the door, a thud and clang to announce their arrival. Shelves lined the walls, filled with boxes of packets labeled in neat script. The room reeked of various chemicals and spoiled milk. There was an aftertaste of Epsom salt and bitter almonds on the tongue if Johnathan breathed through his mouth. The building was unnaturally cool; he could feel a chill rising up from the floorboards and knew with utter certainty, the morgue was downstairs.
The pound of footsteps announced Stebbins’ arrival from below. Johnathan’s first encounter in the dark didn’t properly prepare him for the full picture of the man. The mortician was a rumpled figure, his coat covered in all manner of stains Johnathan didn’t study too closely. There were crumbs on his lapels, and without a cap on his head, tufts of greasy gray hair stuck up every which way. Deep circles under his dark brown eyes made Stebbins look like an enormous raccoon. He approached them with a disarmingly cheerful grin, though his gaze skidded away from theirs, his attention visibly wandering before he reached them.
“Good evening, Vic, pleasure to see you here,” said Stebbins. He reeled himself back in to vigorously shook Vic’s hand and rounded on Johnathan. “Hello again. You’re the lad I met in the alley, right? Vic said he hired the new arrival. First murder, or have you seen a few sliced up dollies in the city?”
Johnathan didn’t feel this was the time or place to reveal this was far from his first body, though Stebbins wasn’t fazed by his silence.
He seized Johnathan’s hand with icy fingers and pumped his arm up and down. The greeting seemed to stretch on and on until he feared the limb might fall off from the man’s enthusiastic greeting. Johnathan shot his companion a look of panic.
“Stebbins,” Vic said, his tone a command.
Stebbins made a face akin to a surprised turtle. “Sorry, guv, I forget my manners, down in the dungeon all day.”
Johnathan attempted to shake some feeling back into the limb, grateful for Vic’s interference.
Stebbins clapped his hands. “You be wanting to see the body first or would you care for a spot of tea?”
“The body, if you please, Stebbins,” said Vic with only a slightly aggrieved air.
“Righto, come come, and watch your head there lad, small giant that you are. Did they raise you on raw meat?”
The warning came just in time. Johnathan narrowly avoided braining himself on a low beam his companions cleared with ease. “Was always tall,” he murmured. Certainly not a matter of diet. At over six feet, he was the tallest Prospective in his class.
The temperature dropped as they descended, the morgue like an icy tomb. Apt description, except for the lighting. Gas lamps hung from the ceiling and provided more than ample illumination for the handful of shrouded figures on long, narrow slabs.
“High intake this month,” remarked Stebbins, gesturing toward two covered corpses.
Johnathan made a mistake and met the man’s eyes, wide and shadow stained. An off-key grin stretched Stebbins’ lips in an unsettling manner. Johnathan froze. The mortician suddenly leaned in, far too close, his breath fanning over Johnathan’s face with the reek of
spoiled milk.
“You want to see them, don’t you boy?” Stebbins giggled. Johnathan took a step back, straight into Vic, who reached around him and snapped his fingers in the mortician’s face.
“Focus, Stebbins,” said Vic.
“Couple drunks who lost their way in the dark,” Stebbins continued, as if nothing odd had transpired, leaving Johnathan more than a little unnerved. “Any number of elements could have done those poor sods in. We didn’t find them for a few days, after the animals got to them. But they got nothing on our girl.”
“Stebbins, the body, please,” said Vic, his patience for the odd fellow seemingly unending. Vic shifted and pressed a small hand to the center of Johnathan’s back. The touch grounded him, settling his nerves.
“Ah yeah, gave me quite the shock when I saw Miss Shaw making rounds this morning. A dead ringer for the victim. Course that was before.”
Vic stilled. “Before?”
“Before this,” said Stebbins. He whipped the sheet off from the figure on the far end with a flourish, a man who enjoyed his line of work.
“What the devil?” Vic’s words were a sharp oath. They reflected Johnathan’s own shock at the sight. Vic staggered forward and planted his hands on the edge of the table, careful to avoid any contact with the blackened, wilted corpse that lay there. “She—she looks—”
“Charred,” said Stebbins. “As if I stored her in the stove overnight, eh?” He tsked and shook his head. “Just like the first one, though she lasted a bit longer.”
Vic’s patience snapped. He rounded on the undertaker, seeming to loom over the man despite their similar statures. “You never told me this happened to the other body. Any other details you care to reveal, Stebbins?”
Stebbins caught the menace in Vic’s tone and flinched. He rubbed a hand along his jaw and left a smear of mystery fluid that made Johnathan shudder. “Now that you mention it, I might have made a few notes here and there.”
“Do share,” sneered Vic.
“Right here, guv.” Stebbins spun around to a cluttered desk in the corner of the room and shuffled through various piles of chaos while Vic hovered beside him with patient irritation.
Johnathan ignored them. He approached the body, his gaze locked on the remains.
Charred, burned, the skin blackened and withered to the point it flaked from the crackled bones. Somehow, her hair was untouched, an appalling detail, her dark curls stained and matted with dried blood. Her hair clung to her blackened scalp with dogged tenacity, now the only recognizable detail of a once-vibrant young woman. Johnathan reached for a lock, the texture like feather down to the touch. He sifted it through his fingers.
What could produce such an appearance after death?
His gaze darted along her disfigured body. The ravaged stomach cavity was a puckered ruin, but he could see the shape of it now, the ragged flaps of skin where claws had raked her. Her abdomen was sunken, organs missing. But it wasn’t the only entry. In the darkened alley with so much gore lying about, he’d failed to notice her cracked-open ribs.
A chill shivered through his veins. She’d been alive for that part.
The hole was a maw of black, snapped bone, like jagged rotten teeth. He peered into the space. Something flared back at him. Johnathan drew closer until the flare took shape.
“Vic?” His voice was whisper soft, but the man heard him.
“What is it?”
“Do you see that?”
Vic's eyes widened as he peered into the broken chest cavity. “The devil is that?”
“It…it almost looks like a brand,” said Johnathan. The symbol, etched into the hollow flesh where her heart had once beaten, glowed like an ember in a dying fire. “Have you ever seen the like?”
“No.” Vic looked thoughtful. “Stebbins! Paper, charcoal, now.”
The symbol flared, a brilliant burning red. Johnathan’s bandaged hand itched.
Abruptly, the corpse creaked, the internal flare glowing through cracks in the burnt husk. The blackened color lightened, the reek of burning hair clogging the air as unseen flame consumed the previously untouched curls. The process accelerated until the body went from charred to ash and the inner light snuffed itself out. The two men staggered back as the skin began to flutter away. The husk collapsed under its own weight, the bones disintegrating to dust, leaving nothing behind but a smoldering heap of fine gray ash.
Johnathan swallowed hard, a tremor rocking through him at the sight. He clutched Vic’s wrist. “What could possibly cause this?” he asked, incapable of taking his eyes off the girl’s…ashes.
Vic looked at him, nostrils flaring. “Nothing natural.”
Stebbins whistled at the ruined remains. “That will be a tough one to explain to the family.” He heaved a put-upon sigh. “I’ll probably lose my commission for this.”
Johnathan stared at the mortician. The man was absolutely cracked. He shook his head and rubbed his bandaged hand. This situation was quickly proving itself far beyond his capability as a Prospective, far beyond any Novice Hunter. There was a dark work at large in Cress Haven, not a simple fiend. He couldn’t handle this on his own; he had to inform the Society. Dr. Evans wouldn’t have sent someone with so little experience if he knew what was truly happening. Johnathan had never seen or heard of anything like this happening in the city.
Vic scribbled furiously on a scrap of paper while Stebbins muttered to himself over the pile of ash. They now had more questions than answers.
Johnathan’s bandaged palm gave another twinge. Over the scents of preservation chemicals and faint chilled decay, he caught another scent, a pungent earthy rot that coated his mouth to the back of his throat. “I need some air,” he said.
Vic flicked his fingers at him. “Go. I’ll finish up here.”
Johnathan couldn’t get out of there fast enough. A rime of icy sweat clung to his skin. He burst from the building, gasping as if he’d run for miles, and gulped deep breaths of open air. Night had fallen while they were inside, the thick, claustrophobic press of country darkness. There were no streetlamps in this part of town where only the dead gathered.
His hand gave yet another twinge. He stared at the bandage. A streak of ash marred the pristine cloth. A dark suspicion bloomed. He had to see the wound.
His fingers fumbled with the tightly wrapped cloth. It gave way at last, in tufts of burst fibers.
Johnathan’s lungs clenched at the sight. The puncture wound was now a ring of charred flesh, a disturbing echo of the girl he just watched turn to ash.
What was happening to him?
He grazed his trembling fingertips over the wound, almost too scared to touch the blackened gash. Was he damned to the same fate? To be consumed by this horrid poison, infection—whatever it was—until he crumbled to a pile of ash?
The ill tide of his thoughts had little time to linger as his training took hold. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Johnathan went still.
He was being watched.
His gaze slid up. A figure hovered at the edge of his peripheral vision. He couldn’t see who—or what—it was unless he turned around, though he had a good feeling his ogler was not human. If he looked, it would know he looked. He weighed his options and lifted his head.
A long low growl split the silence, and molten eyes peered at him from the darkness. Johnathan couldn’t see the full form, only the impression of a crouched body.
Ready to spring.
Chapter Nine
Johnathan’s muscles went lax. He settled on the balls of his feet and slowly turned his head. His hands were deceptively loose at his sides. These were not the expected motions of prey.
The crouched figure went still. Its brilliant, fiery gaze tipped sideways as it considered him. A bitter smile curled Johnathan’s mouth.
Never run from me, boy. Sir Harry’s voice whispered through his thoughts. Food runs.
Johnathan had no weapon on his person, a factor he planned to rectify if
he survived this encounter. He hunched his shoulders up and sneered, prepared to take a step forward. Blatant aggression might scare a predator off. The mark on his palm throbbed.
The figure snarled and scuttled forward, just enough for the light from Stebbins’ Apothecary to catch on the shape of its maw.
“My god,” Johnathan whispered. He knew by the glint of those wicked teeth that he stared at the creature who murdered those girls. There was an unmistakable lupine cast to its skull, but the shape was wrong, like a hound disassembled and haphazardly mashed back together by some vindictive, blind god. The full scope of the creature was unclear in the feeble lighting, other than a clear sense of something vicious and monstrous.
Vic slid in front of Johnathan, seeming to materialize straight from the shadows. Johnathan hadn’t even heard the door open.
“When I say go, you run the other way,” said Vic. The man attempted a cool and collected tone, but there was a strain to his words. Johnathan saw Vic’s hands shake before he balled them into fists over his thighs.
It dawned on Johnathan that Vic hadn’t cowered on the step when he saw the creature. He hadn’t screamed or hidden, or any myriad of things humans do when they come face to face with the underbelly of the supernatural world.
A part of his brain wanted to analyze the actions of the man before him, but the wiser part tipped into survival mode.
“If we run, it will chase us down,” said Johnathan
“Rather take your chances here?” Vic’s voice rose an octave.
Johnathan cursed. He had to get both of them out of there alive. “Fine, on three we run.”
“I told you to run,” said Vic. “I’ll distract it.”
“You plan to play fetch with it?” Johnathan spoke far too loudly. The creature shuddered forward with a snap of teeth, a movement that revealed more of its wedge-shaped head and how ill-formed it was. It gouged the ground with massive paws tipped with familiar, stiletto-like claws.
“Blazes!” Vic gasped.
“Go, go!” Johnathan grabbed Vic by the arm and hauled him away, shocked by the non-existent weight of the shorter man. Built like a bird, but that made it easier for Johnathan to throw him forward. Vic needed no further encouragement. He flew forward, in an elegant lope that quickly outpaced Johnathan’s long-legged stride.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 6