So Still The Night

by Kim Lenox

  Chapter Eight

  The strike of Mark’s boots against the cobblestones echoed against the storefronts and warehouses and up into the night. His coat snapped in the wind. The streets were abandoned, a result of the extreme atmospheric display above. Light flashed, brilliant and surreal, illuminating the avenue.

  Crash.

  He passed alongside a great heap of pavement, torn up from the street. A cast-iron pipe jutted out of the resultant hole. A long plume of flame rippled and hissed from the open end, a startling banner in the night. On the adjacent pavement a lantern wavered, evidence of an interrupted repair to the gas main below.

  The voice attempted to turn him predator without his consent. He’d been forced to leave Mina for fear he would suddenly transform into a hulking fiend with glowing eyes and ethereal skin, and all the terrifying attributes that had made him a ruthless, vicious hunter. Removed from her, he surrendered to the beast within.

  Mark sensed a peculiar pattern of movement in the darkness on either side of the street—one distinguished not by the moral deterioration of a Transcending soul—but by vacant emptiness.

  Stellar, his conscience growled. He wasn’t particularly in the mood for new discoveries. He was, however, in the mood to slay, and as this particular soul was neither Transcending nor brotoi, its life was fair game for a banished Shadow Guard with an overwhelming need to hunt. Shoulders forward and chin down, he passed the next alley. Tilting his head, he glimpsed a figure leaping into darker shadows. The mental echo he cast out filled in the picture, revealing the wiry figure of the one who stalked him. Two more beings scurried like rats along the high roofs above. The dark power of his hunger sluiced like fire through his veins.

  Let them come. He bit into his lower lip, craving the kill.

  They circled closer. . . .

  Mark transformed into shadow and veered up the side of the warehouse. They clung like spindly legged cockroaches, high against the alley wall. Skimming close against the bricks, as with the vicious swipe of a chain, he sent each one spiraling down from its perch.

  The strike of his boots as he landed amongst them echoed off the walls. On filthy cobblestones littered with rubbish, the three men lay groaning and wheezing. Peculiarly, their eyes rolled in their sockets in a constant whirl of agitation. They scrambled to crouch and lower their heads into a perplexing pose of subservience.

  “Get up,” he hissed. “Face me as you die.”

  One whispered, “Your lordship.”

  “Our lordship,” echoed another.

  Dismay, dark and vicious, cut through his chest. “What did you say?”

  The nearest fiend dared to lift his face to Mark. A bestial smile pulled his lips. “We’re not here to issue a challenge. We’ve been sent to serve you.”

  Mark planted his boot against the fiend’s shoulder and sent him toppling. Serve him? The words, the very idea, disturbed him.

  The sound of wheels on cobblestones repeated off the walls. From the far end of the alley an enormous town coach appeared, led by a team of four. Wisps of white vapor curled off the wheels and surfaces of the cab, and even the backs of the horses. The vehicle was like something he would have seen on these streets a century before. The large side lamps were shattered. Orange flames licked through the jagged shards of glass, high and uncontained.

  The driver, a twig-thin fellow with the same peculiar eye affliction, dug his heels into the footboard and pulled the reins.

  The three fiends leapt up. Mark tensed, prepared to end their lives, but they only skittered midway up the brick walls, and gestured for him to follow.

  Whoever they were, they certainly knew how to make an impression.

  The driver dropped to the cobblestones. He wore a livery, one fashioned of black cloth. The same vapor curled from his shoulders. His suit appeared crushed and mottled and damp, as if snatched off a moldering corpse. A wide, black sash crossed him from shoulder to hip. Upon it, embroidered in red stitching, appeared the monogram “DB.”

  “Me mistress begs the pleasure of yer company.” He lifted his stovepipe top hat and swept low.

  “Your mistress . . . ,” Mark repeated. “Who is your mistress?”

  The fiends leapt closer, like frogs, and crouched low about his knees. Thunder crashed, and in an instant, they appeared as skeletons, bathed in orange light. When the lightning faded, so did the effect.

  Their whispers sounded in chorus.

  “She’s waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Waits to join with you.”

  Mark growled, “How flattering.”

  The driver, who had remained in his courtly bow all this time, now swung his arms and his hat in the direction of the coach. “Get in, if you please. We’ll take you to ’er.”

  The door flew open, crashing back against the side of the cab. The stairs unfurled, only to promptly dislodge from the vehicle. They fell with a metallic crash to the cobblestones below. A handful of moths fluttered out from the dark interior and bobbed off into the night.

  He narrowed his gaze on the driver. “Call me prudish, but I like to know more about a woman before I commit to a liaison. Why . . . I don’t even know her name.”

  The driver’s eyes widened, their pupils whirling faster. “She’s the Dark Bride.”

  The fiends echoed, “The Dark Bride.”

  “You know her.”

  “You do.”

  In that moment, Mark realized he did. A frisson of dark anticipation scored through his chest.

  He strode forward to grip the handle and climbed in. The driver followed. With a grunt he hurled the stairs inside. They skidded across the floorboard to strike against the far wall. The door slammed shut. The vehicle bounced as the driver returned to his perch, and the three fiends clambered onto the back.

  The carriage left the alley. Beneath him, the seat bounced on creaking, rusted springs. The thick scent of must and decay filled his nostrils. A moth flapped against his cheek. Mark shoved out the shutter, every muscle within him rigid with tension. The vehicle traveled south, past Buckingham Palace and Belgrave Square. The district of Chelsea flew past in a blur. Darkness closed over the carriage as the city became villages, and villages became countryside. Eventually, Mark lost all sense of the passing of time. Finally, wheels rattled, jerking him aware with the distinctive sound of a bridge crossing. Another few miles more, and the vehicle slowed.

  He leapt down to the road, even before the carriage had fully rolled to a stop.

  A large brickwork gate rose from the earth. The sign read THE CHELSEA WATERWORKS COMPANY. His consciousness spanned out, searching the silent buildings and trees and darkness for any trace of the one who had summoned him. The air carried only the sound of rushing water and the hiss of steam engines.

  The location alone—waterworks—gave Mark cause for concern. The works provided tens of thousands of London citizens with water. But he also experienced an electrifying sense of expectancy. His fingers curled into his palms. Tonight he would share an audience with the one who sought to wrest control of his deteriorating mind for whatever dark purpose.

  The Dark Bride.

  The three fiends leapt down from a perch at the back of the carriage and ran like excited children toward the gate. Mark saw no evidence of a night crew or watchman. A heavy chain and padlock hung to the ground, smoothly cut. Side by side, they shoved the iron portal inward. The metal groaned discordantly. With flapping arms, they eagerly ushered him through.

  Two enormous reservoirs spread before him, side by side, and separated by a concrete divider. From either side jutted a pair of arches, which he surmised served to filter the incoming flow from the Thames.

  Suddenly, the surface of the reservoirs flashed with the appearance of what had to be at least a hundred scarlet paper lanterns. They eddied about on the current, casting their glow against the water—creating the surreal appearance of blood. Swept almost immediately against the filters, some upended and were extinguished am
idst a tumble of crushed and sodden paper, while others twirled off to the side to sputter out a more eventual death.

  Only then did he realize a shadowed figure stood at the distant end of the reservoirs, on the narrow division of concrete between. He perceived the outline of a head, and shoulders, and the long fall of a cloak. The fiends urged him forward.

  “Be introduced,” one urged.

  “Hurry, she waits,” the other hissed.

  Mark followed them along the narrow path. As he grew closer, he perceived a foul scent on the air, like a carcass left too long in the sun—evidence that the Dark Bride was, without a doubt, a Transcending soul.

  “You’ve come,” she whispered.

  The voice was not one he recognized. But then, she spoke so softly. . . .

  Turned away from him, he could not see her face. The hood of her cloak covered the back of her head. “I’ve waited so long.”

  “Touching sentiments. Which are difficult to return when I’ve no idea who you are.”

  He scrutinized the Dark Bride’s height and shape. Unfortunately, nothing distinguished her from the masses or identified her as anyone he knew.

  “You know who I am,” she responded teasingly.

  “Tell me.” He stepped closer.

  The fiends blocked his path, but crouched low, with bent heads. They protected their mistress, but clearly did not wish to incur his wrath.

  “I have told you many things . . . almost constantly . . . but you’ve chosen . . .” Her voice dipped low, taking on a vicious edge. “To ignore me.”

  That voice matched the one in his head.

  “Turn and face me,” he commanded.

  Her shoulders went soft. She liked being ordered about.

  She whirled, her cloak flying out in a dark circle. From the depths of the hood peered a white face, a porcelain mask, the sort one might see at a Venetian ball. The two eyeholes revealed only blackness . . . no glimpse of anything human. No whites, no pupils, no blinking flaps of skin.

  “Did you like my presents?” she asked in her prior flirtatious tone, her breath hissing against the porcelain.

  “You sent me . . . presents?”

  “Yes, darling,” she chided, sounding like any other normal, exasperated girl. “I had them delivered all up and down the river so there would be no way you could miss them.”

  “You killed a woman and cut her up.”

  “No, silly man. I didn’t cut her up. That would be so . . . messy. I’ve got toadies for that.”

  “Toadies?”

  She waved her hands in the direction of the crouching fiends. They grinned and nodded, happy hounds at the foot of their master.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “You know why. Think, darling, think. It’s all right there in your handsome, immortal head.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I did it for you,” she crooned softly. “For us.”

  The words in his head, spoken with such vicious, sensual fervor . . .

  The dramatic presentation of the carriage and attendant toadies . . .

  The lanterns on the water.

  The Dark Bride had set the stage for a seduction. The dismembered arms and legs, and all the rest, hadn’t been dropped into the river to taunt him or to lure him into battle.

  The bitch was trying to woo him.

  Mina awoke with a start. Something had awakened her. A sound.

  She lay taut and aware, listening. Hearing nothing, she squinted across the room at her clock. Though she could barely make out the hands, it appeared to be nearly three o’clock. She’d been in bed for only an hour. It had taken that long for the house to settle down in the aftermath of the party, which had continued inside for the duration of the storm. After Mark had left—stumbling into the street—she’d retired to her room, pensive and concerned. Even now, she wondered: Where was he?

  She’d been so suspicious of him, and of his interest in the scrolls. Now she ached for him. Ached to trust him. Everything within her shouted that he could be her safe place. Weariness dragged her back toward slumber, a relief because without him here, she didn’t want to stay awake in the dark.

  The sound came again—a scratching or sliding against her door, as if someone walked past and dragged their fingertips along the wood.

  She lay very still, her stomach slowly turning into knots.

  Brrr-usssh.

  She sat up, pushing away the covers. Before she’d drifted off to sleep, there had been several rounds of voices and footsteps in the hallway. All the rooms were occupied by overnight guests. Perhaps someone was ill and needed assistance. She’d rather look and settle her mind than wait and imagine what the sound could be. She arose and drew on her dressing robe.

  At the door she looked out. Midhallway, a small lamp on the table had been left on and provided a bit of light. She saw no one. A peculiar white haze curled up from the direction of the stairs. Her heart jumped. Smoke? Could there be a fire downstairs?

  She rushed from her doorway. Nearer the stairs, the stuff was thicker . . . but didn’t smell at all like smoke. It seemed more like . . . fog.

  She didn’t care for fog.

  There’d been a similar fog on the mountain that last night with her father. Of course there, at such a high altitude, the mountains pushed straight up into the clouds. But why was there fog inside the house? Panic tightened her chest.

  Slowly, she descended the stairs, into the thick of it. A door shut behind her.

  Her door?

  She turned, thinking to go back . . . but a dense wall of white had closed in behind her. Her mind raced. This couldn’t be happening. None of this made sense. She turned in a careful circle on the stairs, surrounded so thickly she couldn’t see beyond her outstretched arm.

  It was just a dream, she told herself, a surreal, nonsensical dream. Any minute she’d wake up.

  Disoriented by the consuming whiteness, she felt her way up the stairs. She skimmed her hands over the wall and worked her way back to her room. All the while she expected skeletal, clawed hands to reach out and grab her.

  She raked her hair and bit into her bottom lip. Something had indeed shut her door. Carefully, she turned the handle. Inside—there was only darkness. Slivers of moonlight streamed through the curtains. No fog. She glanced over her shoulder.

  The fog in the hallway had vanished.

  Veering inside, she shut the door behind her and turned the key in the lock. She lit a lamp. Trembling, she wrapped her arms around herself and turned back to the room.

  Her father’s satchel lay in the center of her bed. All around—on the bed, on the floor, on her desk—were the shredded remains of his papers and notebooks. Her hand flew to her throat but found only bare skin. She found the key amidst the destruction on her bed.

  “Take off your mask, and let me see your face,” Mark commanded.

  The black holes stared at him, fathomless and unblinking. “Not yet.”

  “If you don’t trust me, why am I here? What makes you think I am of any use to you?”

  “You are to be the most powerful brotoi of all. The Messenger.”

  “The Messenger,” crooned the toadies, bobbing between them, low to the ground.

  Disgust rippled through him. The Messenger? He wasn’t the Messenger. Jack the Ripper had been the Messenger, and when Archer had slain him, that had been the end of things—or apparently, it hadn’t been.

  He subdued the rage in his voice. “Was there another Messenger before me?”

  Under the cloak, shoulders shrugged. “We never got on very well. I sent him several presents that he never acknowledged. I even buried one deep in the heart of his enemy—a sacrifice to thwart their efforts against him. Do you think he appreciated it? No. I think I’ll like you so much better.”

  In the midst of the hunt for Jack, Selene’s torso killer had deposited a dismembered and headless female corpse, bundled up in the material of a dress, beneath the grounds of New Scotland Yard.

  “You serve
. . . Tantalus.”

  Just speaking the name put a sour taste in his mouth.

  Beneath the cloak her shoulders straightened. “You and I together shall serve him. Every sacrifice prepares the river for his arrival.”

  Mark’s blood went cold. Tantalus’s arrival.

  “But there must be more sacrifices. So many more. I need you, darling. Our toadies and I can’t do it all on our own.” Her voice cooled. “Yet I can sense your reluctance to join me. Really, love, you force my hand.”

  Mark hated to ask. “In what way?”

  From the depths of her cloak, she produced a white balloon, about the size of a skull, filled with brown-yellow liquid.

  She whirled and proceeded away from him, along the center concrete divider. The toadies fell back. Mark followed her between the next two reservoirs of water.

  “Dark Bride.” Really, what else was he supposed to call her? “What is that in your hand?”

  “Do you know how these reservoirs work?”

  He didn’t answer her; he just followed. Listening. Watching. She moved quickly. Turning, she walked backward, perfectly balanced on the narrow path. “The Thames water comes into the reservoirs and runs through a series of filters.” She lifted a hand and spoke in the pleasant, conversational tone of a museum docent. “In the first reservoir, there’s gravel. Water sinks down through the gravel, and is carried by perforated pipes into this second pool to be filtered by smaller gravel and more pipes.”

  They crossed into the third and final undulating reservoir. “And then finally, in the third pool, there’s a sand filter.”

  “Fascinating.” Mark stared at the balloon.

  “Once the river muck is filtered through those three processes, the clean and tasty water is carried through aqueducts to the city, and to all the lovely citizens of London.”

  Mark didn’t know what was in her damn balloon, but he felt certain it didn’t need to go in the water. He’d been divested of the ability to Reclaim her soul, but he tensed, prepared to—