The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

by Trisha Telep

  Perhaps she had simply grown faint. She could think of no other explanation for the sensation of heat, weight and darkness that had passed over her so quickly, and then disappeared. Certainly that was it – a simple change of temperature, the shock of going from a warm hospital out into the brisk cold. Only she’d never been one to grow light-headed over such minor things, nor did she lace her corset too tightly, as some of the other nurses certainly did.

  Water sluiced off the umbrella. Ah, Mr St Vinet.

  She peered down the long drive. He was nowhere to be seen. She scanned the grounds, her heart slowly sinking into the pit of her stomach. Clearly he’d been reluctant to come inside and see Mr Rathburn, but to have simply departed without explanation? She prayed her gentle patient would not be terribly disappointed. She understood disappointment. The soul-deep, life changing sort. She wished the feeling on no one.

  Inside, she climbed the stairs and made her way back to the uppermost floor. Weighted by regret, she turned the knob and reentered Mr Rathburn’s rooms. Voices touched her ears.

  “Oh—” The exclamation escaped her mouth before she could stop it.

  Mr Rathburn sat in his wheelchair in the small sitting area. His visitor, Mr St Vinet, sat in the chair opposite him, his hat on his lap. He had dark brown hair, worn just long enough to curl behind his ears. Raindrops glistened on his shoulders and dripped off the edge of his coat on to the carpet. Even seated, he towered over Mr Rathburn. She read agitation, even anger, in the rigid line of his shoulders, and the sharp downward turn of his lips. He glanced at her with the irritated expression of one confronting an unwanted intruder.

  Mr Rathburn did not appear the least bit troubled by his guest’s demeanour. “Nurse Bristol, please be introduced to Mr St Vinet.”

  She was staff. Truly just a servant. Not even a real nurse with formal medical training. A simple companion. As such, she had not anticipated a formal introduction. She half-curtseyed. “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Nurse Bristol,” St Vinet murmured, barely offering her a glance. But then his chin halted, and his eyes narrowed and he did look at her, and piercingly so, as if reading her every feature.

  Heat crept up her neck and flooded her face.

  He looked sharply away.

  She returned the umbrella to its stand, and subdued the impulse to back out of the room and only return when she was sure Mr St Vinet had departed. It was his direct stare. Something in his eyes. It was almost as if he had reached out and touched her. For someone who had not been touched in a very long time, her physical and emotional reaction was unexpectedly profound.

  She reminded herself of her position and her purpose in the room. “Sir, ought I to prepare tea?”

  She did not return her glance to Mr St Vinet but felt the pinpoint heat of his gaze on her.

  Mr Rathburn answered, “Thank you, Nurse Bristol, tea would be most welcome.”

  A copper kettle warmed on the narrow metal shelf of the wall stove. The men spoke, but they kept their voices low, so their words remained unintelligible to her ears. Within minutes, she’d prepared the tea tray and returned to serve them.

  “How could I not come?” St Vinet hissed, his jaw and mouth tensing even more than before. “You summoned me. I have never been one to deny my duty.”

  Malise kept her expression bland as she lowered the tray to the marbled-topped table between them. A leather case sat on the carpet next to Mr St Vinet’s booted foot. It was the sort a doctor might carry on a house visit.

  “Duty?” Rathburn steepled his fingertips and peered, half-lidded, at his younger companion. “You warm my soul with such heartfelt sentiments. You could have come before, you know, without my summoning you. Why did you not?”

  A dry laugh rattled from St Vinet’s throat. “To see you like this? You know how I feel about this.” He pointed at Rathburn, zig-zagging his finger in agitation. “You, being pushed around in that damn chair, by a damn nursemaid, for God’s sake. And this place,” he spat. “It’s like a coffin. Your coffin. And you expect me to come and watch as you die before my very eyes, all because of her—”

  Malise’s temper flared protectively, and she glared at St Vinet, not caring that he was a gentleman and she only the hired help.

  Leaning forward to give him his cup of tea, she whispered, “Mind your manners, sir.”

  His gaze, as grey as gunmetal, lifted to hers, and locked. Simmered. His cheeks were ruddy with emotion.

  “What was that, Miss Bristol?” asked Mr Rathburn of her back.

  A long moment of silence passed.

  “No, Nurse Bristol,” murmured St Vinet, his nostrils flared, and his pupils dilated. “I require no sugar or cream. Thank you.”

  Mr Rathburn interjected, “Miss Bristol, I’ve only just now realized the clock on the mantle says four-thirty, which I know very well is usually the time you leave for your day off. I have no wish to intrude upon your personal time. Please go on and do enjoy yourself.”

  She poured his cup of tea and made sure he had a firm hold on the saucer before releasing it to him. “Are you certain, sir? I don’t mind staying.”

  “As always, you have done more than your job requires and this old man is grateful for that. I’ve left coins for a hansom cab in the dish by the door.”

  “Mr Rathburn, you oughtn’t—”

  He raised his hand and shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of you walking in the rain.”

  St Vinet listened to them silently, his hands curled into fists on his thighs.

  Though she was curious to see what else would pass between the two men, she realized she had no good excuse to remain.

  “Thank you, sir.” She took up her coat and bag, and the coins from the dish, and let herself out. “I shall see you Monday morning then.”

  In the hallway, she buttoned her coat. She removed her nurse’s cap and replaced it with the small taffeta and straw bonnet she kept in her reticule. A narrow door led to the service stairs, and she descended to the ground floor, emerging into another narrow hall. The staff physicians kept their offices here, as well as the administrators of the facility.

  “Nurse Bristol.”

  It was Head Nurse Henry.

  “Yes, Nurse Henry.”

  “Please step inside my office.”

  Malise did so, holding her reticule tight against her ribs. “Would you prefer that I sit?”

  Nurse Henry’s eyebrows had been drawn on her forehead in brown grease pencil. The twin arcs crept up her forehead. She shrugged, and stated briskly, “Sit or stand, your choice makes no difference to me. What I have to say will not take long, so I will not dally with empty words. Plain and simple: your employment has been terminated.”

  The word echoed in Malise’s head.

  “Terminated?” she whispered.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself. You know what that word means.”

  Her chest felt as if a boulder had been dropped upon it. Barely able to breathe, she blinked through tears. “Yes, of course I do, but why?”

  “Mr Rathburn has insisted upon it.”

  Mr Rathburn had insisted on her termination? She had come to trust her elderly patient. This place had become her haven.

  “Are there no other positions available here in the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “I would even consider a housekeeping position.”

  Nurse Henry’s eyes narrowed to slits. “To keep you here after a valued patient has requested you be released would be awkward, to say the least. Do you have all your belongings with you?”

  Malise looked down at herself. A dress, shoes, coat and a reticule. “Yes.”

  Nurse Henry slid an envelope across the desk. “You’ll find a week’s severance pay inside. That is all. You may go.”

  Numbly, Malise left by the service door at the back of the hospital. She’d followed the rules. Done everything she was supposed to do. She’d stayed invisible. How could this have happened? Where
would she go? She had only enough saved earnings to stay in the boarding house for three, perhaps four days. Crossing her arms over her chest, she shivered and walked beneath the metal gate, into the street. A hansom sped past, but she did not hail it. She would not squander the coins given to her by Mr Rathburn, not now when every shilling meant survival. Why would he have done something so thoughtful, such as give her coins for a hansom, when he knew she would never return? Guilt, perhaps? In her mind, that explanation made no sense. None of this made sense. She looked back upon the stone façade of the hospital, to his bay window. No face peered down at her, only the faint glow of lamplight.

  A horse pulling a large open wagon rattled into view. Crowded with occupants, the vehicle radiated with laughter and song.

  “Stop! Driver, stop!” shouted a woman’s voice. The horse and wagon veered toward the curb, nearly barrelling over Malise. “Nurse Bristol!”

  A score of boisterous male and female voices mimicked the original caller by shouting her name. Another time, she would have smiled at their good humour but tonight their attentions left her feeling exposed. She perceived the dark glimmer of more than one bottle being passed to and fro inside. A familiar face emerged from all the others – Nurse Alice. She grasped the side rail of the wagon, and hoisted herself half-over, pink-cheeked and smiling. The scarlet roses on her straw hat had come unfastened and dangled near her left ear. Her eyes were bright. Drunkenly bright.

  “I worried when I did not see you at the station. You’re only just now getting away?”

  Malise now saw that several of the newly hired nurses were passengers in the wagon as well. With such an audience, she couldn’t bring herself to share her unfortunate news. Not just yet. Instead, she forced a smile. “I had to stay a bit late.”

  Alice tsked. “They’ll work us to death if we let them. Come on. Get in. There will be no train t’night. Something about the tracks and emergency repairs. Everyone pitched in a few coins for the wagon.”

  Malise hesitated. Though she was in no mood to climb into a wagon full of raucous strangers, the distance to Chelsea was too far for her to undertake on foot. Returning to the hospital was out of the question. Coldness seeped through her coat and into her bones. Fog hovered above the surface of the roadway.

  Nurse Alice held up a dark brown bottle, and grinned. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

  “The woman says ta’ get in!” one of the young men shouted. “We’re freezin’ our arses off,” hollered another. Numbly, Malise nodded and allowed herself to be pulled inside.

  Nightfall

  “He’s here, St Vinet.”

  Dominic did not pretend for even a moment not to know of whom Anson, the man who had once been his mentor and closest friend, spoke. Everything inside him tensed.

  “How do you know?”

  “The same as before. When night comes, I hear his laughter. He taunts me. Soon, he will come for me, just like he did for her.”

  It no longer mattered what differences had come between them four decades before. The Seether had come out of hiding, as they had always suspected he would. A myriad of visions from the past filled his mind. Terror. Violence. Blood.

  He responded with vehemence. “I will stop him.”

  “I have become an old man—”

  “Truly? I hadn’t noticed,” he responded snappishly.

  Rathburn’s fists curled. “I can’t help but believe he’s been out there waiting and watching all along, until I grew so old and infirm that I could no longer defend myself.” He whispered, “Back then, it was my greatest wish to Reclaim the Seether, to be the one to dispatch him to Tartarus where he belongs.”

  Inside Dominic’s chest, the old anger surged anew. “You should have thought of that before you so foolishly relinquished your immortality for the love of a mortal woman – a woman the Seether promptly murdered, just to show you he could.”

  “Speak no more of it!” shouted Rathburn, clasping his hands to his face. More softly, he repeated. “Speak no more of it, please.”

  “How long has he been here? How close is he?”

  Rathburn shook his head resignedly. “I no longer have the instincts or the powers to know. That is why you must go into the city and find him. He will be there, you know. Amidst the people of the streets and alleyways. Growing stronger from the misery and wickedness of others, as all Transcending souls do.”

  St Vinet nodded. “Tonight.”

  “Did you bring all that I requested from the Inner Realm?”

  Once Rathburn became a mortal, he could no longer return into the protected Inner Realm of the Amaranthine immortals. Dominic touched the case. “I did.”

  “Even the vial of Demeter’s tears?”

  “She nearly scalped me for taking them, but yes, everything is here.”

  “Good.” Rathburn slid a folded slip of paper across the table, past their now-tepid cups of tea. “Here are the formulas. You must mix everything precisely. My hands, they shake . . .”

  St Vinet read carefully. “This one, with mud from the deepest crevice of the river Styx—”

  “Is to Reclaim the Seether. The other, made with Demeter’s tears, is to reverse the effect on any innocents he has claimed.”

  An hour later, and the numerous vials had been emptied, measured and mixed and resealed into slender glass ampoules. Dominic tucked most of them into the breast pocket of his overcoat but one remained on the table beside Anson. Just in case . . . just in case the Seether came to Winterview. Dominic lowered his hat on to his head. Shadow slashed across his eyes.

  He pondered the door, but decided on the window. Standing there, he unlatched the lock, and turned to Anson. “Until tomorrow.”

  “Dominic . . . we were the best of friends once.”

  “Once.” St Vinet clenched his teeth. But his anger faltered. “Still.”

  “I must elicit one additional promise from you.”

  “Tell me then.”

  “The girl . . . my nurse. I fear that because of my fondness for her, she may become a target, much as my darling Lavinia did.”

  St Vinet shrugged, attempting nonchalance. Nurse Bristol. There was something about her that, in the moment he had looked into her eyes, had stolen his breath. A rare occurrence, that. Clearly she attempted to hide her beauty, but unfortunately, he saw beyond the staid nurse’s uniform and cap, to the jewel which lay beneath. Intriguing. Alluring. He’d instantly wanted more of her, mind, body and soul. But she was a mortal woman, and no good thing could come from falling into a delirium of passion with one such as her.

  Rathburn clasped his eyes shut. “I don’t wish for Nurse Bristol to die the same death. I do not know where she goes on these nights, but grasp hold of her trace. Follow her. Find her. Watch over her this night and the next, until this thing is finished. Until I can be certain of her safety, how can I ever pass from this life in peace?”

  Dominic did not answer, but he nodded. With his next breath, he changed. Transformed.

  In shadow, he descended the outer stone wall of the hospital. Almost instantly, he discovered Nurse Bristol’s trace threaded upon the cool air, as rich, sweet and seductive as currant wine.

  She ought not to have drunk of the wine. She’d taken only a few sips, but the sweet stuff already affected her. The night spun about Malise, disorienting her. Disjointed visions flashed through the dark, of yellow-orange gaslight, pale faces and tall buildings. The young man beside her had already tried to kiss her three times but she’d planted her hand against his chest and shoved him away. He had laughed good-naturedly and turned his attentions to Alice, and had been much more successful there. She knew not how long the wagon bounced and creaked and jerked along.

  At last the wheels jerked to a stop.

  “Come on,” said Alice. “The driver says we get off here.”

  They climbed down into the midst of a crowd. Unsteady on her feet, Malise closed her eyes until the spinning stopped. Opening them again, she walked alongside Alice. The three other nurses
followed along behind. In the wagon Malise had learned they had all taken rooms at the same boarding house as she and Alice. People danced in the street – young, bright-eyed women with their hair streaming free, and smiling men with their shirts half unbuttoned. There were musicians and magicians. Tom-tom drums thudded and tambourines jangled. The aromas of fresh cakes and roasted nuts scented the air.

  “Oh, it’s a street festival,” gushed Alice, clapping her hands. “Let’s see what’s about.”

  Malise wanted to be free. To dance like those other young women, and laugh and flirt. Not so long ago, she had been like that. Happy and carefree. She’d married young, a clever young doctor in her small fishing village in Scotland. He’d been handsome and charming, but soon after they were wed, she’d learned of his penchant for violence and sexual terror. Her widowed father, the local schoolmaster, had refused her pleas to return home. He was proud to have a doctor in the family – his status had been elevated in the community. One night, bloodied and humiliated, she’d escaped as her husband slept. She’d begged rides on farmers’ wagons, and stowed away on a train, eventually arriving in London. Her limited knowledge of medicine, gained in the short time living with the monster she called her husband, had been enough to get her the job at Winterview, the first place at which she’d enquired after getting off the train at the outskirts of London. Now, with no references, she had no idea where she would find another position, and quickly enough to save herself from destitution. In this moment she was in no mood for revelry.

  She touched her friend’s shoulder. “Alice, you enjoy the entertainments with the others. I think I’ll go on to the room.”

  “Go to the room?” Alice’s eyes widened. “It’s early still. Oh, Malise, please,” she begged. “Please stay. I don’t know the other girls as well as I know you.”

  Malise relented, allowing Alice to weave her arm into the crook of her own, and lead her into the thick of the crowd.