Burning Lamp

by Amanda Quick

  They had entered the ancient tunnel from a concealed trapdoor in the basement of the Abbey. It was another convenient architectural legacy of the medieval monks. It was also, Griffin told her, yet another reason why he had purchased the tumbledown pile of stone.

  With her senses flung wide she could see layer upon layer of murky dreamlight on the floor. Some of the prints were centuries old. Most were quite faint. But many still burned with fear and outright panic. A number of people who had been forced to make their way through the passage long ago had fought the same unnerving dread that plagued her. They would have been desperate if they felt obliged to use this passage.

  Griffin’s tracks, however, were hot and luminous with the unique energy of his talent. She could see that he had come this way many times over the years. It was also clear that the prints he was leaving today were more powerful than those that he had left in the past.

  “You are most certainly stronger now,” she said. “I can see it in your prints.”

  “But still no sign of madness?”

  “None whatsoever,” she assured him. “The slight disturbance that I detected when we first met, which led me to conclude that you suffered from chronic nightmares, is gone.”

  He did not respond but she sensed that he was willing to believe her, at least for the moment.

  Water dripped. The air was dank. From time to time she could hear the skittering of rat feet in the darkness behind her.

  At least she was appropriately dressed for the venture. The jacket and trousers she wore had been tailored to suit her slender frame. Her hair was tightly pinned beneath a masculine style wig. She was quite certain that when she and Griffin eventually emerged from the tunnel anyone who saw her would take her for a man.

  “How did you discover this tunnel and the passages in the Abbey?” she asked.

  “I found them years ago when I was living on the streets,” Griffin said.

  She thought about how hard life must have been for him back in the days when he was struggling to survive in the brutal realm of the city’s underworld.

  “It is no doubt the perfect hideout for a street gang,” she observed, trying not to sound judgmental. “I can understand that it must hold a great deal of sentimental value.”

  “Crime lords don’t put much stock in sentiment.” He sounded amused. “But I find the tunnel convenient from time to time.”

  “Who else knows about it?”

  “Only Delbert, Jed and Leggett.”

  “You have spent your entire life living in the shadows, haven’t you, Griffin?”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way but, yes, one could say that. It suits my talent, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He was silent for a moment or two.

  “I got into the habit at the age of sixteen,” he said.

  “The year your parents died.”

  “The year they were murdered.”

  Shocked, she came to a sudden stop.

  “Murdered?” she gasped. “You never said anything about murder.”

  “The press and the police concluded that my father shot my mother and then took his own life because he was despondent over his financial affairs. But I have never believed it.”

  He rounded a bend in the tunnel and disappeared from view. Losing sight of him even for a few seconds iced her nerves. She hurried forward. When she turned the corner she saw that he had halted in front of an iron gate.

  “Mind you don’t step on that stone,” he said, pointing to the floor of the tunnel. “It’s a nasty trap. Involves a knife. Leggett designed it. He is very good with knives.”

  “I see. Thank you for mentioning it.”

  She edged cautiously around the stone and stopped beside Griffin. On the other side of the gate she could just make out a flight of stone steps.

  Griffin reached up, pushed a loose stone aside and removed a key from a concealed space. He fitted the key into the lock of the gate. The heavy iron grill swung open with surprising ease.

  “New hinges,” Griffin explained. “I keep them well oiled.”

  He led the way through the opening and up the steps. At the top he put out the light and pushed open a thick wooden door. The air that wafted into the tunnel was only somewhat fresher. She saw a thin edge of foggy daylight beneath another door and realized that they had emerged into a stone-walled chamber. The walls and floor glowed with decades of very dark prints.

  “It’s a crypt,” she whispered.

  “It hasn’t been used in years,” Griffin assured her.

  She decided that there was no point telling him that while the sad energy associated with generations of burials and mourning faded over time, it never entirely evaporated. To those like her who were sensitive to dreamlight, this place of entombment would always whisper of death and loss.

  Griffin went past her and opened the door of the stone vault. Damp air flowed into the chamber. Adelaide closed down her senses and studied the gray scene outside.

  Like the crypt, the entire graveyard had evidently been abandoned for years. It was choked with weeds, vines and overgrown grasses. The branches of the trees drooped like phantoms over the old monuments to the dead. A short distance away the remnants of the small church and a stone wall loomed in the mist. In the fog- shrouded light the crumbling stones and statuary resembled the ruins of an ancient dead city.

  “Is this the cemetery where you and Luttrell agreed to the Truce?” she asked.

  “No. I would never bring an enemy to this place. It is my secret. Craygate Cemetery is in a different part of town.”

  But he had brought her here, she thought. Griffin trusted her. For some reason she found that knowledge deeply gratifying.

  “Our destination is not far from here,” Griffin said.

  They moved through the maze of tumbledown gravestones and climbed over a broken portion of the wall. A short time later they emerged into an old, dilapidated neighborhood of narrow streets and lanes. Here and there a light burned in a window but for the most part the buildings were dark. They kept walking, weaving a path through a maze of alleys and lanes.

  It was not long before the surroundings altered, becoming noticeably more affluent. Streetlamps appeared at the entrances of houses. Carriages and hansoms rattled and clattered in the mist.

  Griffin guided her through a small, neat park, around a corner and down a service lane. He stopped at the back of one of the walled gardens, took out another key and opened the gate.

  She walked ahead of him into a garden that, like the graveyard, had gone unattended for years. There were no lights in the windows of the house.

  “What is this place?” she asked softly.

  “The house where I was born and raised.” Griffin closed the gate very quietly. “The place where my parents were murdered. Immediately after their deaths it was sold to pay off my father’s creditors. I was able to buy it back several years ago. No one lives here now.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” she asked quietly.

  “I want you to see the room where my parents died.”

  At last she understood the reason for the strange journey. Astonished by his logic, she glanced at him.

  “You hope that I will be able to tell you if the man who killed your mother and father is the same man who had me abducted and sent to the brothel, don’t you,” she said. “You believe there is a connection.”

  “You told me that you would recognize Smith’s energy patterns if you ever saw them again.”

  “Yes, but why on earth would you expect me to see his prints here in your parent’s house?”

  “Because before he found you, he got his hands on the lamp. It was stolen from my father’s safe on the night of the murders.”

  She calculated quickly. “But the two events, the theft and my abduction, took place several years apart.”

  “I’m aware of that.” He unlocked the kitchen door. “At the very least, you may be able to tell me whether or not my conviction t
hat my parents were murdered is the truth or some dark conspiracy theory that I have harbored all these years.”

  She stepped into the heavily shadowed room.

  “I keep the curtains drawn at all times,” Griffin said. “As far as the neighbors are concerned this house belongs to a family in the far North that rarely comes to the city. I am merely the caretaker who occasionally comes around to make sure that all is well.”

  “I understand.”

  “This way.”

  They dropped the packs on the kitchen floor and went up the back stairs to the floor above. When they reached the landing she opened her senses again.

  And caught her breath at the sight of the dreamlight prints that burned in the bedroom hallway.

  “Oh, Griffin,” she whispered.

  Even after two decades the energy of murderous violence shimmered and fluoresced ominously in the shadows.

  He searched her face, his eyes as darkly brilliant as those of an alchemist gazing into his fires.

  “You perceive the killer’s prints?” he asked softly.

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “There is no doubt but that murder was done here. But the tracks I see were not left by the man I know as Smith.”

  “Damn,” he said, his voice very low. “I was so sure.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said gently.

  “It does not mean that there is no link,” he insisted. “There may well have been more than one man involved in this affair.”

  She did not argue with him. There was no point; he was obsessed with his theory.

  “Well, at least I can assure you that you are right about the crime,” she said. “I am certain that your parents were murdered.” She shivered as she studied the luminous tracks. “As the old adage says, ‘Murder leaves a stain.’ ”

  “Did he come up the front staircase?” Griffin asked. There was an oddly flat quality in his voice. It was as if he had assumed a new role, that of disinterested observer.

  “Yes. And left the same way as well. He did not go down the back stairs.”

  “Can you tell if my parents opened the front door for him?”

  She glanced at him. “What would that say to you?”

  “If they let him into the house it would indicate that they knew the killer.”

  She nodded. “Let me see if I can detect that much information.”

  She went to the top of the stairs and looked down into the front hall. Dark energy shimmered in the shadows but not on the threshold of the front door.

  “He came from a room at the back of the house. But I did not see his prints in the kitchen.”

  Griffin moved to stand beside her. He gripped the railing and looked down. “The bastard let himself into the house through a window. He must have known that it was the servant’s day off.”

  She examined the path of seething energy on the staircase. What she saw made her catch her breath.

  “Griffin, something happened at the foot of the staircase. Your father collapsed, I think.”

  “But he was shot.”

  She shook her head. “Before that he fainted. Whatever occurred put him into a sleep state of some kind. He was unconscious.”

  “But that makes no sense. A blow to the head?”

  “That might explain it.” She turned to look back down the hall. “Something similar happened to your mother there at the door of the bedroom. She fell unconscious.”

  Griffin walked along the hall and opened the bedroom door.

  She went slowly to stand beside him and looked into the room. When she studied the space with her normal senses she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The bed frame stood empty of mattress and linens. There was a large wardrobe in one corner. A dressing table mirror, clouded with years of dust, stood near the draped window.

  On the surface there was no sign of the violence that had taken place in the chamber. But when she switched to her other senses the distinctive dreamlight prints left by the killer stained everything in sight.

  “This is where they died,” she whispered.

  There was another set of tracks, as well. The disturbing energy radiating from them was so intense, even after so many years, that she had to drop back into her regular senses before she could talk about it.

  “You found them, didn’t you?” she asked. “I can see your prints mixed with the others.”

  “I was off with friends that day. I returned in the late afternoon. The servants were still out. When I walked through the door I knew at once that something terrible had happened. There was a strange stillness about the house. I can still feel it.”

  “You came upstairs and opened the bedroom door.”

  “Yes.”

  She touched his arm. “I cannot begin to imagine how dreadful it must have been for you,” she said.

  “Tell me what you see,” he said in that same too-even voice.

  He did not want her sympathy, she thought. He wanted answers. She took her fingers from his sleeve, composed herself and slipped back into her senses. She contemplated the psychical fluorescence that illuminated the room in eerie shades of ultralight.

  “There are no signs of a struggle,” she said. “I think that somehow the killer rendered them both unconscious, dragged them into this room and shot them here.”

  “Then he set the stage to make it appear that my father killed my mother and took his own life.”

  “Yes. I think that is exactly what happened.” She hesitated, studying the floorboards near the bed. “There is something about the traces of energy left by your parents before they died. I do not think they were struck on the head. I cannot be absolutely positive, but I believe that the killer may have used some kind of talent to render your parents unconscious. It is as if they were in a trance just before their deaths.”

  “The killer was a talent.” Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “Only a powerful sensitive of some kind would be interested in the lamp in the first place.”

  “You said that the lamp was stored inside a safe?”

  “Yes, in my father’s study downstairs. The artifact was the only thing missing.”

  “Did anyone else know that the lamp was kept in the safe?”

  “No, just my parents and me,” Griffin said. “My father treated the artifact like the family secret that it is.”

  “What of Nicholas Winters’s journal?”

  “It was not in the safe at the time,” Griffin said. “I kept it in my room in those days.”

  “Why?”

  “My father had told me about the family curse. I was sixteen. Naturally, I was fascinated by the possibility that I might develop additional talents. I was determined to decipher the journal. I worked on it every evening. It was one of the few things I took with me when I disappeared into the streets.”

  “Why would anyone commit murder for the lamp? According to the old legends only a man of the Winters bloodline can handle the energy it generates.”

  “Why did Smith want it badly enough to kidnap you?” Griffin asked. “He obviously believed he could access the power of the artifact.”

  “You are right, of course. The prospect of acquiring enhanced psychical talents is evidently enough to make some people overlook the details of the legend.”

  “The trouble with Arcane legends,” Griffin said, “is that one never knows which bits are true and which are false.”

  28

  “I DO BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE CHEATED ME, MR. HARPER.” Luttrell contemplated the small statue of the Egyptian queen that stood on his desk. “I’m somewhat astonished, to be perfectly frank. Not many men would have the nerve to take such a risk.”

  When he had been ushered into the office a short while ago, Norwood Harper had been impressed with the elegance of the surroundings. The Aubusson carpet, the fine desk, the gilt mirror on the wall and the collection of antiquities were not at all what one expected from a master criminal. Initially Norwood had been thrilled with the notion that his Egyptian queen would be displayed in such exquisite surrou
ndings.

  But pleasure had transmuted into terror when he discovered why Luttrell had sent for him. He had never been so frightened in his life. His heart was pounding. His palms were ice cold. His intuition—the invariably infallible Harper intuition—had warned him against doing more business with Luttrell. So had his wife, for that matter. But, alas, the artist in him had been unable to resist the challenge. Luttrell demanded the best and Norwood prided himself on creating only the finest antiquities.

  “I assure you, s-sir, the statue is an original,” he stammered. “Egyptian. Eighteenth dynasty. I obtained it from a most reliable source.”

  “I’m sure you did.” Luttrell cocked a brow. “Your own workshop, I believe.”

  “Just look at the hieroglyphs on the base, sir. Marvelous.”

  “A nice touch,” Luttrell said.

  “And you will note the elegant form of the piece,” Norwood added.

  “The queen is a very attractive figure but that does not change the fact that it is a modern piece. I ordered a genuine Egyptian antiquity. That is what Harper Antiquities agreed to provide.”

  Professional pride inspired a momentary flash of righteous indignation in Norwood. “See here, sir, given your occupation I doubt very much that you can claim to be an expert on antiquities. What makes you so certain that the statue is a fake?”

  Luttrell smiled. “I may be a lowly, uneducated crime lord in your estimation, Mr. Harper. But you engage in the business of fraudulent antiquities. I’m not at all certain that you are in any position to cast aspersions on my profession.”

  Horrified, Norwood flapped his hands. “I meant no offense, sir. I merely wondered how you acquired your, uh, expertise in antiquities.”

  “Do you know anything about the physics of the paranormal?”

  Norwood froze. The Harper family was a large one and virtually every member had a psychical talent for forgery. Indeed, some of Norwood’s own creations were currently on display in the British Museum, having been accepted as authentic antiquities by the foremost experts of the land. The fact that Luttrell had brought up the subject of the paranormal was more than a little ominous.

  “I don’t understand,” Norwood said weakly.