by A. W. Exley
"We'll fetch you a cup of tea and a biscuit. You may feel a little faint after this." He pointed to one of his workers and the man nodded and disappeared through another door.
I was relieved that the doctors stuck to their agreement and no one forced Charlotte into a cage to be studied. With her life force swirling in the bottle, they removed the needle and placed a small bandage over the wound.
"You will need to rest for the remainder of today, but you should feel fine tomorrow," Doctor Yule said.
The door opened to reveal our guide. "Ready for the next visit?" the sergeant asked.
"Perfect timing," I said as I helped Charlotte to her feet. She swayed a little and reached for me. "Do you feel up to confronting Louise? Perhaps you should stay here and I'll talk to her alone."
"No." Her body wavered but her tone was firm. "I need to do this for me. It wasn't so much blood, really."
We continued deeper into the labyrinth. We took another spiral staircase down until I wondered if we might emerge in Australia. The next locked door opened to reveal the most unusual boudoir I had ever seen.
Part of the room was decorated in opulent excess. Velvet wallpaper in deep purple with a flock print adorned three walls. Expensive oriental carpets were laid on the floor. An enormous four-poster bed with heavy drapes that matched the wallpaper dominated one wall. A settee covered in a pretty lilac floral was positioned in front of a fireplace. A table and chairs were by the third wall, giving the occupant a place to eat or perhaps write letters.
The fourth wall was stout metal bars, as though we stared at an expensive exhibit in the zoo. A plain table and two chairs sat in the small chamber before the bars. Within, Louise reclined on the settee and filed her nails.
"Don't put anything through the bars. She bites," the sergeant said, then he retreated to the far side of the room.
17
Ella
Poking the bear
* * *
Louise never even looked up or acknowledged our presence. She carried on filing her long, black nails. Charlotte hung back, standing by the door. I decided to make myself as comfortable as possible and pulled out a chair.
I was staring at my short nails, wondering if they would ever be long enough to file, when Louise finally spoke. "Tardy again, Ella. I honestly think you'd be late to your own funeral, and I'm so looking forward to finding out."
"On the contrary, Louise. I'm not late, I simply didn't care if you were waiting. It's not like you had anywhere else to be, is it? Seth and I, he's the duke in case you've forgotten, were in London on personal business so I had a few moments to fill in before we return to Serenity House." I held up my left hand and stared at my fingers as though I were imagining something large and sparkly on my ring finger. A petty thing to say, but there was something about being in Louise's presence that brought the crueller side of me to the surface. And it was imminently satisfying to poke this particular bear.
A low hiss came from Louise and she tossed the nail file to a side table. Her legs dropped to the floor and her head swung toward the bars. She wore black trousers and a red frock coat that looked modelled on something from the Victorian era. Her long hair hung loose but it had been both washed and brushed since her incarceration. She manifested an air of malevolence as she bore down on us.
Charlotte gasped from behind me. I forgot she hadn't seen the transformed version of Louise. It wasn't the odd choice of clothing that unnerved you, but it was the smaller details. The eyes turned red with their black pupils. As though you met the gaze of some creature pulled straight from Hell.
She stopped before the bars and wrapped her long fingers around the cool metal. "It's so boring here. They give me anything I want, you know. I simply issue a demand and they all scurry like ants to ensure I am kept happy."
I rolled my eyes. Was that all she wanted to do, to prove she had only to crook her finger and I would come running? I had fallen for her trap and only confirmed that she could still control me.
I pushed the chair back and stood. "Well, it's been lovely as always, Louise, but unlike some, I have a life to live outside of this facility." I turned toward the door while Charlotte cast a nervous glance from me to her sister. She was unnaturally pale, but that was probably just the loss of blood.
A nail tapped against iron. "If you must leave, I'll save the story of how mother was once wooed by an odd little man called Aleister Crowley for another day then."
My feet froze to the ground. The pattern in my mind spun and resolved itself with a sharper focus. All the strands drew together and made horrible sense.
"Very wealthy family you know, we would have lived in luxury. But mother chose to shackle herself to your father instead. I never understood why… until recently."
Louise may have turned into an unnatural creature, but one aspect of her personality remained intact. She could not keep a secret; she needed you to know that she held knowledge you didn't have.
I schooled my features into disinterest and turned to face her, a slight frown pulling my brows. "Crowley? The name seems vaguely familiar. Does he play cricket?"
She pressed her face closer to the bars and her demonic gaze fixed on me. "You think you're so clever, but your little mind is incapable of understanding the power about to be unleashed."
I shrugged. "There is very little to understand. You're where you belong, in a cage, and the Turned will be sent back to eternal rest."
Louise threw back her head, her pale throat arched as she laughed. "Sent back by whom? The scullery maid and the fat, useless cow? You're pathetic. Both of you."
Crowley once courted Lady Jeffrey, the descendant of Anne Oakley, one of Millicent's coven. They conspired together to send the world to Hell with Millicent at the helm. "We will win. I defeated your mother."
Her head snapped back down and her red eyes narrowed on me. "You may have lopped off mother's head, but you cannot win any more than you could sweep back the ocean. The duchess's power is a tide that will wash you all away. We are as numerous as grains of sand on the beach and you have only a bucket in your hand."
Louise had no loyalty. Her mother was gone and she placed her allegiance with a new leader. Or did she serve Millicent all along? How much had step-mother revealed to her?
Louise rolled along the bars until her back was to us. Her voice reduced to a breathy whisper as she sung a child's lullaby.
"A trio of husbands breathe no more
To allow the coven to open the door
Noble blood must be shed
To awaken those not yet dead."
Charlotte's eyes widened and she stepped forward. "What's that you're muttering? It sounds familiar."
Louise waved a hand. "Something mother used to sing to me at night."
Charlotte shook her head, a deep frown pulling at her forehead. "I remember snatches, and thinking that it was horrid. But she never sung it to me, only you."
A snort of derision shot out of Louise's throat. "Why would she waste her time on you? Mother always knew that you were born wrong."
I despised Louise. There wasn't a single drop of good in her blood. Surely the War Office wouldn't miss her if I took her head off? Perhaps I could say it was an accident.
Charlotte pulled herself upright and a smidge of colour returned to her cheeks. "You may think you are better than me, but you are mistaken. I am sorry to see my sister like this, but you made your choices in life, just as I now make mine."
Louise turned her head a fraction and arched one dark brow, an action that was eerily similar to her mother. Her top lip pulled in a sneer. "You are a little person with a little life. I was always destined for far grander things. It shamed me to ever think we were related."
"Good bye, Louise. I pity you, but I will never think of you again." With that said, Charlotte turned on her heel and walked out.
Charlotte had reached inside herself, found her backbone and slayed a dragon. We would have a private celebration on the trip home. At this moment, the
childish rhyme replayed in my head. Like a key turning in a lock, I opened the door to a horrible realisation. "You were going to kill Seth. Another noble husband who would spill his blood to complete your ritual."
Louise chuckled to herself. "Him choosing you over me is an annoyance, nothing more. He is not the only noble in the world, after all."
She pushed off the bars and strode to a large armoire against one wall. She pulled open the doors and flicked through the gowns hanging inside. "I wonder what I will wear for dinner tonight."
"Goodbye, Louise." I had nothing more to say to her. She had dangled her information and in the process revealed far more than she intended. There was much to pity about her, but as Charlotte pointed out, Louise made her choices. Her chickens were coming home to roost.
She didn't even turn as I left the room, her gaze fixed on the contents of her wardrobe. Never again would I answer Louise's call. Perhaps she would wither and fade into nothing from lack of attention, becoming nothing more than a shade haunting these halls.
In the corridor I pulled Charlotte into a hug. "I know that was hard for you, but well done."
A sad smiled ghosted over Charlotte's lips. "She's still my sister, but I cannot help her now."
Step by step we walked away from the underground world and back toward the surface. Relief washed over me as we emerged from the last door into the heart of the bustling building. We only had a short wait by the main doors before two dashing officers descended the stairs. One was distinctly more handsome than the other, in my opinion.
Lieutenant Bain took Charlotte's hands immediately. "Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?"
"I'll be fine. Ella was rather strict on how much blood they could have, and she made sure they didn't take a drop more than allowed." A shy blush crept up her cheeks.
"And Louise?" Seth asked, a curious glint in his grey eyes.
"Let's discuss our tête-à-tête on the train. This isn't the place." I assumed none of the workers scurrying back and forth were in Millicent's employ. At least vermin were easy to spot. But she did have others following her commands, men who still possessed beating hearts like Crowley.
Outside a soldier jumped to attention and waved to a waiting car across the road. The soldiers around us worked like a well-oiled machine. We were soon ferried back to Charing Cross station and the waiting carriage to make our way home. Unseen hands had even restocked the food cabinet, and I made tea as we pulled out of the station and chugged west.
We gathered around one table and I took a quick sip of tea to ease my parched throat before starting. "Here's what we have pieced together so far. Millicent and her coven performed a spell that resulted in the deaths of their husbands and their subsequent exposure as witches. We still don't know what that ceremony was intended to do, but it seems to have been the genesis of the current Turned pandemic."
I still had trouble believing that bit, that they created something to slaughter so many people. How could the lure of power be so seductive, that the lives of millions become irrelevant?
I pushed my sad thoughts aside to continue with the new information we gained from Louise. "Step-mother, and therefore Louise and Charlotte, are direct maternal descendants of Anne Oakley, one of the witches. Louise called me to London just to mention that Aleister Crowley once courted Lady Jeffrey."
Seth swore under his breath. "That cannot be a co-incidence. Do you think he sought her out, knowing her lineage?"
I picked up a gingernut and dunked it in my drink, watching the liquid soften the hard biscuit. "I think we should assume so, since he has slaughtered so many just to release Millicent from her slumber." Another point bothered me: the killing of noble spouses. "Charlotte, do you remember your natural father?"
She looked up and blinked, as though confused by the question. "A little. I was only five years old when he passed."
I knew Elizabeth harboured murderous abilities when I discovered her trying to suffocate Father, but was that the first husband she tried to kill? How did I ask the indelicate question? "Do you remember how he passed?"
She fell quiet. "You think mother killed him."
"She tried to kill my father. They planned to spill Seth's blood. What if your father was another innocent victim in this larger plot?" It sounded horrible, and I didn't want to heap more unpleasantness on Charlotte, but we needed to understand what we faced.
She shook her head. "I just don't know, I'm sorry. All I remember is that he sickened and died."
Sickened and died. My mind extrapolated that to the poor man suffering the same fatal lack of sleep as three Tudor husbands. I leaned back in the comfortable chair and watched steam curl off my tea. Those loyal to Millicent had plotted their actions in the dark over many years. We knew what happened to Anne Oakley's daughters. Would we likewise find Sarah Wynn's descendants wrapped up in this, pulling strands from America? It wasn't a big jump to imagine Crowley went there specifically to meet with them.
Speaking of daughters, there was an obvious line we had not pursued. "Did Millicent have any daughters?"
Seth shook his head. "Just one son, no other children. Her maternal line ended with her."
That was one less problem. "Louise said step-mother used to sing a particular lullaby to her at night.
A trio of husbands breathe no more
To allow the coven to open the door
Noble blood must be shed
To awaken those not yet dead."
Seth's eyebrows rose. "Rather on point."
I had scored a tiny victory when I ruined Elizabeth's plans to shed Seth's blood.
"I am convinced we do not fight a natural enemy, but one from beyond our realm. Let us hope she has not crossed into this world yet."
Seth watched the landscape outside the window. The metropolis of London gave way to the more sparsely populated countryside. "We destroy more Turned every day. If we have tipped the balance in our favour, then Millicent will never acquire the more she needs to break through."
Except Louise said they were more numerous than grains of sand. She unwittingly targeted my greatest fear, that they assembled below the ground in such numbers that we could never overcome them. I tried to muster a smile. "Let us hope we have ruined her plans for resurrection."
Winter approached, and with it night claimed the land as fast as the train moved. Countryside flashed past in late dusk one moment, and the next time I blinked I saw only vague shapes outside. We lit the lanterns and cocooned ourselves in warm light while we chatted and ate the light meal the army provided.
Seth tugged up his shirtsleeve to reveal his wristwatch. "We're not far off Swindon and half way home. That should be the North Wessex Downs on our left."
As he said the words the carriage rocked violently, throwing me backwards in the chair and Seth forward over the table. Metal screamed and I covered my ears. A long high-pitched yowl pierced the carriage as brakes were applied.
Another jolt and we rocked back into our starting position. We looked at each other, wondering what had happened. The lights inside made it near impossible to see anything outside.
"Wait here," Seth said, rising from his seat. "I'll go ask the driver what's happening."
"No!" I scrambled to my feet. Every instinct in my body shouted for him to come back and not go out there. "It's a trap."
18
Ella
Another explosive night
* * *
The words sounded silly as soon as they escaped my lips. How to explain the irrational fear that gripped me at the thought of Seth stepping outside the carriage?
Seth stopped with his hand on the door.
I tapped my head and tried to muster up a smile. "Ignore me. It's just seeing Louise has unsettled me."
"No, don't apologise. You should always trust your instinct, and yours has proven rather reliable." His gaze roamed over the interior of our passenger carriage. He pointed up to a small flywheel in the middle of the ceiling. "I'll go via the roof, just in case."<
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He stood on a table to turn the wheel that released a hatch to the roof of the carriage. Lieutenant Bain gave him a leg up, as though he hopped on a horse, and his form disappeared through the roof.
"Douse the lights," I said to the others. We circled the interior, cutting the gas to the lamps and plunging us into darkness.
A clip clop came from above as Seth walked to the front to talk to the engine driver. A soft sob escaped Charlotte.
"Your eyes will adjust shortly and it will allow us to see if anything is out there," Lieutenant Bain said, moving closer to her side in the dark.
I peered through the glass, my concentration on the fields that stretched out on either side of the railway line. The North Wessex Downs surrounded us and reached into the distance until the horizon merged with the sky above and disappeared. We were vulnerable and exposed.
"What is out there, do you think?" Charlotte kneeled on a seat and her breath fogged the glass.
"Just sheep or cattle most like. But it pays to be cautious, something brought the train to an emergency stop." Bain looked at me over Charlotte's head and even in the low light, worry lines pulled at the corners of his eyes.
The clip clop sounded again from above and then Seth's face appeared at the hatch. He glanced in before dropping his body back through.
"There's something blocking the track up ahead, it looks like an overturned cart. We have a choice to make. We could investigate on foot in case there are innocent people trapped inside, but we run the risk of it being a trap and we could be isolated away from the train. Or we could stoke up the engine and plough through the obstacle without stopping to check." He glanced at each one of us.
Charlotte put a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and the white irises reassuringly normal after her sister's blood red gaze. "We must investigate. If there are injured people trapped inside, the train would kill them."