Peak of the Devil (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “Something that was meant to trap a live or dead person,” Gemma said. “You didn’t have to be dead to get banished into it yourself.”

  “But you haven’t got a canteen.”

  “No, but your friend Phineas made the canteen. He can make me something else.”

  If he lives.

  “This is my offer,” said Gemma. “You give me the spell and a vessel, and I’ll banish him for you. You’ll never get close enough to him on your own. He’s got sanctuary while I’m in Bristol.”

  “And in exchange for this you would want what?”

  “Phineas can have him, if that’s what you’re worried about. As long as he promises Amias will never come back here, and you both promise to leave me alone. No trying to banish me or punish me. Just let me have my family in peace.”

  “It is not your family!”

  “Well, I can’t give it back to its original owner. Might as well let this baby have a mother, no?” She went on before I could express my outrage at this blitheness. “I’ve become as fascinated with TV as with pretzels. Think of this as one of those deals, like they make on the crime shows. I give you the one who’s even worse than I am, and you give me…” She frowned over the word.

  “Immunity?”

  “Yes! Immunity.”

  I had no interest in letting her get away with everything she’d done. But Phineas might, if it meant getting Amias. And how many lives would that save? Did it really matter if they weren’t human lives? I didn’t like her offer, but I couldn’t just dismiss it out of hand, either.

  Finally I said, “And even if I was interested in this deal, what, I’m just supposed to trust you?”

  “It’s for our mutual good. Why wouldn’t you trust me, when I’m looking out for myself?”

  “How do I know that’s true? Why don’t you explain why you want him gone?”

  Gemma smiled at a passing toddler being chased by his mother, then looked back at me and sighed. “That would be a long story.”

  “Then I’ll get you another pretzel.”

  She scowled at me, but I waited her out. Finally she said, “It was my mother, who made the bargain for Bristol. Amias was her father.”

  I’d suspected as much. But how awful for Phineas. It was already hard enough for him, thinking Mercy betrayed him for some kind of payment. Knowing she betrayed him because she was actually into that gross psycho, had in fact had that gross psycho’s baby, was going to be way, way worse. I wondered if I could just keep it from him.

  Sure you can. If he dies. He might even be dead already.

  I didn’t know if that was Helen Turner’s voice in my head or my own, but either way it needed to shut the hell up.

  “Mother always wanted to be somebody important,” Gemma went on. “A grand lady. But we were nothing in Boston. When we came to Bristol, it wasn’t just to start fresh. It was to start right. It was her chance to make us one of the great families of a grand place.”

  “So she made a deal with Amias to make Bristol a grand place.”

  “Yes, with the approval of my father and my uncle George, of course. All of the founding families agreed. As long as Amias took care of the town, he would be protected there. People like your Phineas could walk right up to him and say how-do-you-do without recognizing him. But Mother didn’t trust Amias. Her own mother had disappeared when she was a teenager. There was a lot of ugliness between her parents. She was convinced that Amias murdered Mercy. So she added an insurance clause, as it were, to the bargain. It was only good as long as there was a living Tanner in Bristol.”

  “To make him protect your family? Doesn’t seem to have worked.”

  She laughed, Gemma’s musical laugh coming from Suzanne Warner’s face. It was so natural, so familiar, that I almost fell into our old friendship, and laughed with her. Almost.

  “Fate can be cruel, even to Amias,” she said. “It seems making women fertile is not one of his considerable powers. Mother only had me and my brother Charles, and I died young, as you know. Before I could continue the Tanner line.”

  “And Hugh Pierce was the last of your brother’s line.”

  She flashed the dimples. “You’ve been studying. Yes, he was.”

  “Then why was he killed?” I asked. “Amias needed him.”

  “Coincidence, mainly,” said Gemma. “And a bad mistake on Silas Underwood’s part. But he paid for it. The dwindling number of Tanners had bothered Amias for quite some time. Through the early twenties, he had his witches—Silas Underwood’s wife among them—trying various ways to raise me from the dead.”

  “What does that have to do with Hugh?”

  “Hugh was friends with the little girl living in Kerr House. I broke that little girl’s arm.” She said this with no emotion, but I thought I saw something in her eyes that wasn’t so indifferent. “So Hugh decided I needed to be banished from that house.”

  Then I understood. “The canteen stayed in your family.”

  Gemma nodded. “I don’t know when they started using it for ghost hunting, or exactly when it left Bristol. But Hugh knew who had it, and what they were doing with it. He wrote to her. A woman named Lucy Andrews.”

  “And she came,” I said. “And checked into the Mount Phearson hotel.”

  Another nod. “She wasn’t a secretive woman. She gossiped with the staff, other guests. Word got back to Silas about what she was doing there. And you see, Amias is secretive. He never tells anyone more than they need to know to carry out his orders. Usually that works in his favor. In this case it didn’t. Silas didn’t know the details of the bargain, or of Hugh’s family. He only knew that I was important to Amias, and that Hugh Pierce was trying to get rid of me. It’s possible Silas killed Hugh before I was banished, to try to stop it, or scare off Lucy. But he was a spiteful man. More likely he killed him after, for revenge. Thinking Amias would be pleased.” Gemma shrugged. “I hear Amias flew into a rage and snapped Silas Underwood over his knee like a piece of kindling.”

  I tried not to linger on that image. So Silas Underwood had lured Hugh out to the hotel, looking for his dog, then tossed Hugh in the well. Simple enough. Except what happened to the poor dog?

  “So that was that,” I said. “There’ve been no living Tanners in Bristol since 1923. The sanctuary bargain was null and void.”

  “It was. If your friend had known where to look, he may have been able to catch Amias during those years. But he didn’t, and here we are.”

  “But why would Amias bother keeping Bristol under his protection, then?”

  “It offers him other advantages. Lots of people who practically worship him, for one thing. And he kept hoping to find a Tanner, somehow.”

  “And now he’s got one.”

  “So he does.” Gemma sounded genuinely sad. She turned her face away. “Mother was trying to protect us. Make sure he needed us, that he couldn’t hurt us the way he had hurt her mother. But all she did was tie us to him. And he is a beast.” She rubbed her belly. “I will not have that for my children.”

  “What children?” I asked. “That’s Suzanne Warner’s baby. Surely that does not count as a living Tanner.”

  “We don’t know,” Gemma said. “We didn’t even know for sure if I would count, if my spirit in someone else’s body would be enough. But it was. This baby may be Suzanne’s, but there will be more, and they will be mine. And Amias will want to claim them.”

  I hated the way she said claim. It almost made me want to take her deal.

  Gemma sat very still, looking into the fountain. “I knew I was part devil. My mother told us everything from the first. But that part of me was rarely awake. Until…”

  When she didn’t finish, I did. “Until Jeffrey. He woke it up for good.”

  And that was when Gemma snapped.

  She got up too quickly, almost losing her balance. “You left me there!”

  “You told us to.”

  She ignored this. I didn’t blame her. She’d been in no condition to make de
cisions, and Tom and I both knew it. But we let her anyway, because we didn’t know what else to do. And because we, selfishly, wanted to leave.

  “You let that monster get me, trying to save you, and then you abandoned me to the consequences without ever looking back!” She was almost shouting.

  What could I say? She was right. We’d done exactly that, and it was, when it came down to it, exactly as shitty a thing to do as she was making it out to be. If I didn’t know it then, I certainly knew it since. It had cost me more than one night’s sleep.

  But that didn’t excuse anything Gemma had done. When I finally answered her, I said as much. I repeated the word murderer more than once.

  She didn’t care for it. The last time I said it—this time accusing her of murdering Hugh, too, and throwing his dog in for good measure—she slapped me hard across the face. People were staring by then.

  I wasn’t about to hit a pregnant lady back, obviously. I only reached out to take her elbow, to ask her to calm down. But she reeled away from me, moving back and sideways too fast. She stumbled. Fell against the bench.

  Screamed.

  And screamed, and screamed some more, clutching her belly all the while.

  “What was she doing here? Why would she come all the way out here when it’s so uncomfortable for her to be in a car right now?”

  It was the fourth time Zack Warner had shouted these questions in my face since he arrived at the hospital, where I’d waited for him even though nobody would tell me anything about Gemma’s condition. Not that I was any kind of expert, but it seemed like there was something going on with her that went beyond normal labor pain. I couldn’t just leave her there alone.

  But now I almost wished I had. Zack Warner was, not to put too fine a point on it, a dick. And a familiar one, at that: he was the man from The Witch’s Brew, with the snotty daughters. Figured.

  “She came to see me,” I said, also for the fourth time. “We’re old friends.”

  “And you upset her! You must have!”

  Well, I couldn’t exactly deny that.

  “WHAT WAS SHE DOING HERE?” he bellowed. He’d been bellowing a lot, first at the hospital people, then when he ran out of those, at me. He had a very big voice, for such a little ruddy man. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but honestly, if that was my wife in there, I’d be glued to her side, not standing around yelling at everyone.

  But there was something more to it, more than either concern for his wife or him just being himself. There was suspicion in Zack Warner’s eyes. Asking what Suzanne was doing in Charlotte wasn’t just about flailing around for blame. He really wanted to know.

  Because he knew something was seriously, fundamentally wrong? He must. Even a jerk like that must notice when his wife’s eyes aren’t the same color they used to be.

  “Answer me!”

  “Mr. Warner!” A woman in pink scrubs put her hand on his shoulder. She had a solemn look on her face, but no trace of disapproval, even though this was clearly not the sort of place where you were allowed to shout. “May I speak with you please?”

  She led him away. I sat down and waited. Surely when Zack came back again he’d yell at me some more, and maybe I’d find out what was happening with Gemma.

  We were going to have to do something with her, one way or the other. Either strike the bargain she wanted, or try to banish her from Suzanne Warner’s body and force her to move on at last. (Which would, I couldn’t help but note, leave the poor baby motherless in what looked to be a not very nurturing family.) We’d put off even considering what to do about her until the baby came, but now it seemed we were out of time on that score.

  Helen Turner wasn’t there to lecture me with her dead voice and cold fish eyes, but that was hardly necessary. I already had a pretty good idea that I’d failed. Gemma. Maybe her baby. Penny Dreadful. Hugh Pierce.

  Phineas.

  You won’t be able to save any of them.

  “Fuck you Helen,” I muttered, and pulled out my phone. Gemma had filled in a lot of blanks for me during our conversation, and organizing it all would be a welcome distraction. I decided to forgo my usual numbered list in favor of a timeline. I didn’t know or remember every specific date, but the main thing was getting everything laid out, in the proper order.

  1764 through 17 something else: because no accounting for taste, Mercy Tanner betrays Phineas to run off w/Amias. They have baby Letitia. Mercy disappears. Letitia suspects foul play, develops trust issues with dad.

  18 something: Letitia marries someone named Pierce, moves to Bristol, makes bargain w/ Amias. Has 2 kids. 1 of them (Gemma) dies young. (Why didn’t bargain protect her from being murdered? Ask later if get chance.)

  18 something through 1923: canteen gets handed down around family. Eventually leaves Bristol, ends up with someone named Lucy.

  1923: Hugh Pierce needs ghost hunter. Gets in touch w/Lucy. She comes, banishes Gemma, someone burns down Kerr House, bunch of ppl die. Silas kills Hugh. No living Tanners left in Bristol or, presumably, anywhere.

  1923 through present: Phineas fails to catch Amias even though he doesn’t have sanctuary anymore. (Possible grounds for teasing if we come through ok.) Canteen keeps going through family, ends up w/Cyrus. He hates asshole cousins so gives to me & Nat instead.

  Present day: Phineas breaks canteen like asshole. Gemma freed. Goes to Bristol, makes deal w/Amias for new body. Madeline & friends force Penny to kill ppl w/Phearson blood, because tied to Gemma via cousins. Hearts used for ritual. Gemma takes Suzanne Warner’s body.

  As I type: Gemma having Suzanne’s baby and something is wrong. Phineas fucked up. Penny dead. Max sad. Hugh’s dog still lost. Charlie pissed @me AS USUAL. Me=bigger jerk than Zack Warner.

  I thought that about sized it up. I was on my second read-through, seeing if there was anything I forgot, when I was interrupted by an angry voice. This time it wasn’t Zack’s.

  “What the hell, Lydia?”

  I turned to see Phineas standing behind me, gray-skinned and wan. His face was still bruised, and his eyes had a strange glassy cast to them that I did not like.

  “Right back at you,” I said. “You clearly should not be out of bed.”

  But he was out of bed, conscious and on his feet, even if he did look like shit. I was seriously about to jump up and hug him, until I saw how pissed off he was.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “But I wasn’t about to just sit around while you ran off with Gemma by yourself.”

  “I left a message for Martha.”

  “Yes.” He had the slow voice you use when you’re patronizing a child. “That’s how I knew you were here.” He flopped down in the seat beside me. “What the hell were you doing in Bristol last night?”

  “Last night? You must mean your time, because you’ve been unconscious for a week here.”

  He blinked at that, but then waved it away. “I told you not to go back by yourself.”

  “Hey! I saved your life, you know.”

  “Yeah, thanks, but…” He sighed and leaned his head against the back of the chair, eyes closed. “Thanks,” he repeated. But he didn’t sound sufficiently grateful, as far as I was concerned.

  “You can thank Penny,” I snapped. “She died for you.”

  Phineas swallowed audibly. “I heard. Martha says her brother hasn’t said a word.”

  “Just crying and wailing. Martha only just got him to eat something a couple days ago.”

  “It’ll take a while,” Phineas said. “But he’ll learn to live with it.”

  I felt bad suddenly. “It wasn’t just for you. That she did it.”

  “I know. But you’re pretty good at that guilt thing. You’d make a great mom.”

  I was glad his eyes were still closed, so he couldn’t see me flinch.

  “So, I met your friend Amias,” I said.

  That got his eyes open. “Yeah? How’d you like him?”

  “He wasn’t my favorite.” I showed him my hands. The
blisters had all popped, and the skin was raw and red and a general mess.

  “What happened?”

  “I pointed a gun at him. He somehow made it red hot.”

  Phineas shook his head, like this was an obviously amateur move. “You can’t use things he can heat up. Amias has always been good with fire.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any superpowers?” I hoped my voice didn’t sound too accusing.

  “I don’t have any superpowers. Well, I’m actually a really good healer. But why can’t you sing like Billie Holliday? Or hit a home run like…” He gestured vaguely. “One of those baseball guys? We’re not all the same any more than you are. I don’t have very much magical talent, and Amias happens to have an extraordinary amount.”

  I almost mocked his lack of skills, but stopped myself just in time. Honestly, sometimes how mean my thoughts are surprises even me. Phineas asked about Gemma. I told him everything that had happened since I found her in Charlie’s kitchen.

  I tried to gloss over the part where Gemma was actually Amias’s granddaughter, but when I got to the bargain, and it only being good as long as there was a living Tanner in Bristol, he asked a lot of questions. My answers were vague at first, but when it became clear he wouldn’t drop it, I just laid it all out, that Mercy had had Amias’s baby, and that said baby, once grown, was so convinced that her father had murdered her mother, she put that clause in the bargain to protect herself from him.

  It was hard to gauge his reaction, since he already looked so awful. His face got hard, an unusual expression for him, but he didn’t look especially surprised. Maybe he’d known all along that Mercy and Amias were an item, and just told me she’d been paid off to save his pride. Or maybe he’d known it all along and just told himself she’d been paid off to save his pride.

  When he spoke again, his voice was almost as light as usual. “So, where does that leave things now?”

  “Now I’m just waiting,” I said. “But you don’t have to wait with me. You should go back to Martha’s and rest.”