Helen drew back. The man was foul even through a reported message. ‘Right now?’
‘Yes. He’s watching. If you talk to anyone else, it’s all over.’ Her hand cut through the air. ‘He’s gone, along with that book you want.’
Helen looked out of the window at the passing carriages, their lamplights flashing across the spiked fence railings that guarded the house. Lowry was out there somewhere, waiting. The thought sent a shiver across her skin. Whatever happened, she would have the journal — the Ligatus — by the end of the night. Nothing else mattered.
‘My boy?’ Kate Holt asked.
‘He’ll get his chance,’ Helen said.
Kate nodded. ‘Thank you.’
They waited in silence until Helen heard Fairwood’s soft tread climb the stairs in response to a summons from the dining room bell.
‘Now,’ she said to Kate Holt.
She led the way out of the library and across the large foyer, holding her breath at the sound of their steps on the marble floor. She collected her hat from the sideboard and gestured to the footman to open the door. He bowed as they passed.
Out on the busy street, Helen looked up at the shuttered dining room window. It would not be long before the Duke discovered her absence, but by then she would be in the Old Town, just another young man heading into the stews for a night of drinking and gambling. She pulled her brim lower over her eyes. She was heading into a night of drinking one man’s blood and gambling for the sanity of another.
Union Street was still bare of company compared to the bustle of nearby Black Lion Street, but a small number of men had returned to the night establishments along the narrow lane. Two of those brave souls grinned up at the first floor of Holt’s Coffee-house.
Helen craned her neck back. Four girls leaned out of the windows, calling enticements and offering flashes of pale breasts and thighs in the bright moonlight. Amongst the lewd winks and false smiles, an earnest freckled face with round blue eyes peered down: Binny. She lifted her hand as if to warn Helen to turn back, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
‘Give us a smile, Freckles,’ one of the grinners called. ‘I can get frowns like that at home.’
‘Are you coming?’ Kate demanded from the doorway, her thick body silhouetted by the lamplight within.
Helen nodded. There could be no turning back. She rolled her shoulders within her jacket, easing the cling of her damp shirt. Kate had set a fast pace across the Steine and into the Lanes, but the sweat was not from exertion. Helen could feel the fear oozing from her skin, gathering in the small of her back and behind her knees.
They passed quickly to the back of the sparsely populated coffee room and through the red curtain. Kate waved back the new bruiser standing on the other side with a curt, ‘It’s me, Tom.’
‘Your man Henry?’ Helen ventured as they made their way along the dingy corridor that smelled this time of cheap lavender perfume and beef tallow.
‘Got no use for a man with a busted hand,’ Kate said.
Helen felt a moment of guilt, then reminded herself that the man was a thug.
Their entrance into the parlour halted the low conversation of the three girls seated around the card table. Helen remembered one of them from her last visit: Jessie the pianoforte player. No sign of Binny. She must be still at the windows.
Jessie and the other two girls watched as Helen placed her hat on the bureau and followed Kate through the room, their silent stares crawling across her back.
The sense of being watched intensified as Kate led the way to the staircase. Helen looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a pinched white face peering around the edge of the bedchamber doorway at the end of the corridor. Sprat.
The girl shook her head, filthy topknot slipping to one side, her eyes squinting with the urgency of her message. Don’t go down there.
‘Sprat, clean that room,’ Kate ordered.
The girl drew back, disappearing from view; no doubt thinking of what Lowry had done to her friend.
Helen shifted her jaw, the click of bone in its socket loud in her ear. The image of Lizzie curled up on that bed, dying, preyed upon her mind too. Once Lowry was her Terrene, she would always have to be on guard. And if she should be incapacitated, vulnerable … She gripped the wooden banister, anchoring herself in the here and now. No use conjuring terrors when she was about to face one.
They descended the wooden steps into the dim cellar. Helen shivered as the cooler air chilled the sweat on her skin. She slid her finger between the cravat and her throat, easing the damp choke of the fine muslin.
‘He’s set up all the doings in the old coal room,’ Kate whispered, ushering her into the stone corridor. ‘He thought it would be funny.’
Helen’s shoulders lifted. A room where he had tortured and killed a girl; very funny, she thought savagely.
Kate regarded her owlishly in the gloom. ‘Remember, he likes to get in your head,’ she tapped her temple, ‘likes to find the weakness.’ She dropped her voice to a bare breath. ‘Don’t let him find it.’
Kate, it seemed, was trying to protect her son’s chance at sanity. Not exactly an ally, but not totally loyal to her brother either.
Helen focused past her own hard heartbeat and Kate’s phlegmy breath. Yes, Lowry was here already, his respiration slow and steady. The breathing of a confident man.
At the end of the corridor, a narrow rectangle of light cut across the stone floor from the coal room. The bright glow cast a halo of light that gave shape to the stack of kegs ahead and the dark doorways of the molly rooms.
‘He’s told me not to let anyone else down here,’ Kate said, leading the way past the wall of barrels. She stopped a few feet from the sharp edge of light. ‘Bartholomew, she’s here.’
‘Well, send her in then.’
The words were nonchalant, but Helen heard the note of anticipation like a coiled snake in his voice. His breathing placed him in the centre of the room, away from the doorway.
Kate waved her forward, her hand lifting to tap her temple — a final warning — before she turned to retrace their steps.
Helen ground her palms together. The door had not been replaced; the stone jamb was pocked with ragged holes where Carlston had ripped out the former hinges. No locked door then. Did he have the journal with him?
‘If you are wondering, the journal is not here,’ he said lazily. He likes to get in your head. ‘Once the ritual is done, I’ll tell you where it is.’
She stretched out her fingers, trying to loosen the tight fear in her body. The healing scabs on her knuckles pulled under the strain. A tiny pain but it focused her mind. She stepped into the coal room.
Candles; a fortune of them arranged around the room in tin holders and glass lamps and one large iron candelabrum set upon the table in the centre of the room. No wonder the light was so bright. Their flames brought an airless waxy heat into the room that seemed to stick to Helen’s skin.
Lowry stood before the table, one hand leaned back upon it, head tilted in sly regard, lank black hair tied back. His florid complexion showed signs of strain: pale blue pouches beneath the narrow eyes, lines cut deeper between nose and mouth, and a bristle of beard across his cleft chin. The smell of him — old sweat and a fusty maleness that she now understood — brought a gagging swallow into her throat.
The bed had been pushed up against the wall. Helen angled her face from it and the memory curled upon its bare straw mattress.
‘I was surprised that you and Carlston tried for the journal the other night,’ he said. ‘You’re not as honourable as I thought.’ He made it sound like a compliment. ‘Carlston’s well on his way to bedlam, ain’t he?’
Carlston; his name pushed Helen further into the room. ‘Let us get this done,’ she said.
Lowry straightened, green eyes narrowing even further into wariness. For a second it startled her; but of course, she was as strong and fast as him. Probably more so.
‘Didn’t think you
’d be so eager.’ He waved her over to the table. He was an inch or so shorter than her, but twice as broad with a bull neck and shoulders. The weight behind one of his fists would be devastatingly heavy. ‘Do you know the words to be said?’
‘Yes.’
She studied the ghastly implements. One blue ceramic bowl full of thick red liquid already beginning to congeal: goat’s blood. One empty blue porcelain bowl: to collect their own blood from the crosses cut into their flesh. Sweet heaven, he would be cutting into her hand. She curled her fingers over her palms, her eyes fixed upon the dagger. So sharp. She forced her eyes to move to the other items. Water in a long, thin glass vial, presumably sanctified; long pieces of cloth; a thin wooden yew switch; and a pitcher of milk with a yellow skin across the top, exuding a faint sourness.
Lowry hooked a finger around the lip of the empty bowl and dragged it closer to the edge of the table. Helen flinched at the scrape of porcelain against wood, the reflex bringing a small smile to his lips.
‘For our blood,’ he said.
‘I know.’
He picked up the knife. Helen tensed, but with a flick of his wrist he turned it, offering her the leather handle.
‘My lady,’ he said, the smile widening into a show of yellow teeth. He held out his left hand, palm up. ‘In the shape of a cross. We only need a few drops.’
She stepped closer. His eyes held a challenge; he did not think she could do it. She shifted her grip, positioning the point over the hollow in his palm. Could she cut into another person’s flesh? Even flesh as repulsive as Lowry’s?
‘If you want the journal,’ he said softly, like a caress, ‘there’s going to be pain. Mine and yours.’
She drew a deep breath through her nose — she would not be cowed by his creeping words — and pressed the knife into his hand. The tip met the slight resistance of skin, then bit into his flesh. She heard him hiss as she drew the blade down, blood welling around the quick vertical slice. She lifted the tip again, swallowing a sour taste of revulsion.
‘Don’t stop,’ he said.
She positioned the tip again. One swift slice finished the bloodied cross. He curled his hand into a fist and held it over the bowl, the trickle of blood hitting the bottom with a soft patter. He snagged one of the cloths and wrapped it around his hand.
‘My turn,’ he said, and held out his right hand for the knife.
Helen picked up the other cloth and wiped the blade. Delaying the inevitable, but she did not want him to see the tremor in her hands.
‘Are you afraid?’ His voice was silky.
He likes to get in your head.
She tossed the cloth back onto the table and met his strangely eager eyes. ‘I am not.’
She passed him the knife and lifted her hand. Only a slight shake. She turned it over, palm out.
He licked his lips — a flash of that foul, pale tongue — then reached over and took her wrist in a tight grip, bracing it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re too squeamish. You’ll pull away.’
‘I will not.’
‘We’ll see.’
He placed the knife tip against her palm and pressed it into her flesh. It slid through skin and flesh, a sting. But it did not stop. He pushed it deeper. His eyes were not on the knife, but on her face. Watching, savouring, as he drew the blade down her palm in a slow, burning line of agony.
She gasped and wrenched her hand from his hold, the knife ripping out of her flesh.
‘See,’ he said. ‘No stomach.’
‘I did not go slowly, like that,’ she said, cradling her hand, blood pooling in her cupped palm.
‘We should finish, or you’ll start healing and we’ll have to start all over again.’
Sweat crawled under her breast-band and down her back. Although every instinct screamed against it, she held out her hand. ‘Make it fast.’
He lifted the blade and brought it down for the crossbar, the slash quicker but just as deep, sending a jag of pain through her again.
Gritting her teeth, Helen snatched back her hand and closed it in a fist over the bowl. Her blood was brighter than his, the quick run of it sliding down the blue porcelain and pooling around his smaller offering. She grabbed the other cloth and wrapped it tight around the searing, wet sting.
He tossed the knife back onto the table. ‘Start saying the words,’ he ordered and picked up the bowl of goat’s blood.
Helen squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, past the pain, and found the Latin.
‘Procude vinculum ex terra ac aere,’ she recited. He poured the viscous fluid into the bowl. ‘Ex tellure ac caelo …’
As she continued to chant the words, Lowry poured in the sanctified water, then the milk, and stirred them with the switch, his heavy brow furrowed with concentration. The obscene amusement was gone, his mouth set into a tight line of determination.
‘Hoc vinculum in amore fideque procudendum est, Nam neque suspicio neque odium umquam approbantur,’ Helen finished. This bond must be forged in love and trust, For suspicion and hate can ne’er be just.
There was no love and trust here; perhaps the ritual would not work.
Dear God, she prayed, let it work or I will never find the journal.
He drew out the switch from the bowl. They both regarded the pale pink liquid, still swirling. The meaty, sour stink of it reminded Helen of the tanneries near Newgate Prison. She swallowed, her throat closing in anticipation.
‘Cross to cross,’ he said.
He unwrapped his hand and held it up, the carved symbol still oozing blood. She had to touch him again.
Helen unwound her own makeshift bandage. The two intersecting wounds sent jabs of agony through her as she held up her hand. He slapped his palm against her own, locking his fingers between hers, grinding the raw cuts together. She drew a startled breath, panting with the new influx of pain. He smiled, although his own breathing was short and shallow.
‘You first,’ he said.
She lifted the bowl, holding her breath. Two large mouthfuls. It was not so much the warm, sour, metallic taste that made her gag, but the thick, almost gelatinous feel of it around her tongue and along her throat. She coughed, caught between the reflex to retch and the determination to swallow. Her hand throbbed under Lowry’s brutal hold; the delight in his eyes bringing its own gag of revulsion. Every part of her wanted to spit out the liquid, wrench her hand free from Lowry. No, she must swallow it. She must have the journal. She must cure Carlston.
It took all her will, but the liquid went down. She felt it hit her stomach, bringing another heaving reflex. Heat flashed through her body, pushing out a fresh ooze of sweat. Was this how it should feel?
‘Give it to me,’ he said.
She held out the bowl. He cupped it in his free hand, lifted it to his lips and took a long draught, the muscles in his throat jumping as he fought the mixture down. He lowered the bowl, his eyes fixed upon hers in triumph.
The heat within her flared, as if a new coal had been thrown upon a fire. An oily weight squirmed across her consciousness: a swollen, crawling presence that left a slick of loathsome urges darkening the edge of her mind. A whispering rattle clicked and clacked in her head like dry bones.
Lowry laughed; head back, mouth open wide with the salacious sound. ‘You are so bright,’ he said, gripping her hand harder, squeezing more pain into their union. ‘So new.’
Helen shook her head. The rattle was in her bones. Her dry bones. A parched death rale clattered through her body, building into a high-pitched screech. Was this the bond?
Behind the screech, a deeper roar of obliterating heat, rushing through her veins and sinew. A deluge in her blood, forging its way through the breach of flesh and skin carved into her palm.
She felt the torrent of energy slam from her hand into Lowry, the shock flinging him back against the edge of the bed, the iron frame lifting and crashing against the stone wall. She staggered to one side, dropping heavily to her knees, th
e impact jarring through her thighs. The roar and dry clatter still surged in her veins, but muted like a storm heard in the distance.
Lowry groaned, his hand reaching for his throat. The large jugulars were swelling, thick and blue. He clawed at his neck, eyes widening beyond their lids, bulging from their sockets. The web of veins across his cheeks expanded into thick blue ridges stretching the skin. She heard an obscene wet pop and one of the swollen ridges burst in a spray of blood, peeling back the layers of flesh. He screamed, the sound suddenly cut off as he gulped wetly for air.
Helen scrabbled backward, her shoulders hitting the firm hold of the wall. She had seen this before. Deceiver energy. It was the way Benchley had died.
Lowry writhed across the stone floor, ripping at his chest, his mouth open in a silent scream. Blood seeped from his nose and eyes. His heels drummed upon the stone floor, a quicker beat beneath the sound of his shoulders and head slamming over and over against the stone. She heard the sound of teeth cracking under the locking spasm of his jaw. His whole body stiffened and lifted into an arched convulsion that snapped bone. He dropped back on the ground, eyes fixed, his final agony frozen into a death snarl upon his ruined face.
Helen gasped into the abrupt silence. The Deceiver energy had killed him. She had killed him. How?
She turned her hand. The cross was gone, her palm smooth as if the blade had never met it. Hammond was right: she stored Deceiver energy like Mr Volta’s stacks. But why had the energy forced its way out? Helen drew a shaking breath: the blood ritual. There was no other explanation.
She curled her knees up to her chest. Dear Mother of Mercy, if she had tried to make the blood bond with Darby instead of Lowry … No, she must not think of it. As it stood, it was bad enough. Lowry was dead and she did not know where he had put the journal. What if she could not find it?
She stared at his twisted body, her gaze sliding away from the peeled flesh. Perhaps he had lied. Perhaps it was hidden upon him somewhere.
She crawled across the floor, keeping her focus upon the opening of his jacket, away from the bulging eyes. The mix of blood and piss and hot split innards rose in a sickeningly acrid stink. Carefully she reached over his clawed hands and flicked back his blood-soaked jacket. There were no pockets in the sodden cloth. She clenched her teeth, trying to stop herself from retching. No journal. No bargain.
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Pact Page 36