by Kelley York
“Is it locked?” he asks.
“Of course.”
He scowls. “Open it.”
I incline my chin. “Or what?”
“What? Or I’ll shoot you!”
“As opposed to me opening it and then you shoot me?” Flippant though my words might be, there is a tremor to my voice and my blood is ice in my veins. Why, oh why, did I tell Sid and Crane to leave their weapons behind? It’s my own fault they’ve caught us unarmed.
Hugo takes several steps forward, snags me by my arm, and hauls me toward the box. “I said open it.”
From the corner of my gaze, I see Preston’s expression screw up into a snarl and it’s only with a stern look from me that he doesn’t throw himself at Hugo. There are three people with guns. It would take only one to kill him.
I stumble when Hugo releases me and straighten my spine, looking up at him, unmoving, unblinking. “No.”
“Are you fucking stupid?” he growls, shoving the barrel of the shotgun mere inches in front of my face. I do not flinch. I do not take my eyes off of him.
“I have spent my life with men like you thinking they could push me around,” I say, calmer than I feel. “Kill me if you must. I will die knowing I never did compromise myself. Too bad you won’t be able to do the same.”
It comes as no surprise when Hugo brings the back of his hand across my face, so hard it makes my ears ring and nearly knocks me to the ground. I expected it. Those few seconds of him off-guard was all we needed.
Preston lurches forward, throwing his full weight into Hugo, grabbing the gun to try to wrench it away from him. Sid whirls and slams a fist into Louisa’s face; Louisa lets out a howl of pain, hands flying up, blood pooling between her fingers from a broken nose.
Crane, down to one arm, need only grab Philip’s wrist.
Then the shadows come.
I gasp as the chill overtakes me, the forest darkening as though the dead of night has descended upon us. Hugo and Preston are wrestling for control of the shotgun, Sid has retrieved the revolver from Louisa, and Crane—
Crane’s eyes have gone that corpse-white colour once again, and Philip’s face is pale in terror. He gets out only a choked word—“No”—before his mouth drops open and his eyes roll back into his head.
I cannot bring myself to stop him as I did for Carlton. Were I to grab him, were he and I both to be rendered unconscious again, Preston and Sid would be left all on their own and with us to look after.
I do not want to sit here and watch a man die.
But that is exactly what I do.
Watching the life leave him happens slowly at first and then all at once. He convulses and shakes and then drops to the ground. I am not fully grasping what I’m seeing—but Crane’s head tips back, his lips parted, and he gasps, breathing in that shadow and smoke. Breathing in whatever remains of Philip.
He did not just strip the soul from a man’s body. He took it for himself.
Christ Almighty. What is he?
“Benji!”
I whip my head back around. Preston has Hugo on his back in the dirt, still fighting for control of the gun. I plant my hands against the ground and heave myself up, scrambling over to help. But rather than try to grapple for the weapon, I get my fingers on the trigger and squeeze.
The shot is aimed off at nothing. But it means the gun is useless until it’s reloaded, and the sudden sound and kickback leaves Preston and Hugo both fumbling their grip.
Crane has doubled over on all fours, disoriented after…whatever it is he did. I can still hear Louisa and Sid fighting. I grab Preston’s shirt and pull, shouting that we need to go, we need to run. He rolls off Hugo, scrambling for purchase on the forest floor of pine needles and leaves. He halts for half a second, doubles back, snatches the box, and hurries after me as I dart off the trail and into the woods.
I have not had a chance to tell him the box is empty. Both notebooks are safely tucked away inside the rucksack about my shoulders.
I haven’t a clue which direction to go. I cannot see where the sun is in the sky through all the trees to determine north from south. So long as I can put some distance between them and us, that’s all that matters. We can figure out the rest from there.
But I can hear Hugo crashing through the trees behind us. I have half a mind to tell Preston to throw the box aside, but I can’t catch my breath enough to do so.
We run until I’m positive I cannot run much further. A stitch has developed in my side and my lungs are ready to burst. Preston catches my hand and half-drags me along, winded himself but still marching onward. There is no telling if Hugo has reloaded his gun, if he has another, if he’s armed with anything else, or even if he was unarmed that Preston and I would be able to take him.
Ellie was right. The wolf is still coming.
I see light up ahead. There is finally a break in the trees, a ridge coasting upward. And then…
A drop-off.
We skid to a halt, peering over the ledge. The cliffs are a straight shot down and although the fog obscures everything, the sound of waves crashing against the rocks far below can be heard.
I cannot help it. I crumple to all fours, gasping to catch my breath. Preston turns around, bracing himself, because Hugo is not far behind us. I pray to God he’s as exhausted as we are.
Hugo bursts through the trees like a rampaging bull. In his hand he now has a revolver instead of the shotgun. Is that better or worse for us?
Preston stands poised in front of me, braced for a fight that I’m not convinced he can win. “You want it that bad? Take it,” he calls, tossing the chest to the ground between us. “Good luck getting it open.”
“I got me some friends who can saw it open, no problem,” Hugo growls. “You two have been a thorn in my side from the day I started out on this God-forsaken job. You gone and made it personal. So, I’ll get them books, and I’ll get to see your dead faces and I’ll consider it a job well done.”
Preston doesn’t try to argue further. He charges at Hugo, taking a swing at his face. It nearly lands, but Hugo side-steps, brings an elbow up, and drives it between Preston’s shoulders with enough force that he staggers and falls to his knees. Hugo lifts the gun. He presses it to the back of Preston’s skull.
No no no no no.
“The box is empty!” I shout, yanking the rucksack from around my shoulders. “I have the books!”
Hugo looks about ready to ignore my very existence…until I’ve opened the bag, fished out the notebooks, and thrust my arm out and over the edge of the cliffs in a silent threat to drop them. Only then does he still, lips curling furiously, eyes darting from me to the box and back again.
“Give them here.”
“Get rid of the gun,” I demand. “Or you can explain to your employer that your need for petty revenge lost him some of his research.”
He hesitates. Preston is panting for breath, too worn out to take advantage of the situation, though I know he’ll try again. I need that gun out of Hugo’s hands first.
Hugo drags in a ragged breath and then plants one foot forward to approach. I tense, uncertain what I will do if he rushes at me or decides to forfeit the books in favour of shooting me instead. But he finally flings the gun aside, over the ledge of the cliffs, and it vanishes into the fog. He extends his hand for the notebooks.
He kept his end of the bargain. It is only proper and fair that I keep mine.
Slowly, I withdraw my arm from over the cliff and hold the books out to him.
It feels a bit like giving up. We’ve fought so hard to keep these; Esher and Spencer will need them. Crane will be furious—if he’s not dead. But none of that would matter if Preston were to be hurt, if one of us doesn’t walk away from this alive.
Hugo reaches for the books.
Then he clamps his massive hand around my wrist and drags me to him.
I hear Preston scream my name, but it is not in time. There’s a glint of steel, and then white-hot pain embedded into my sid
e.
It’s a peculiar sort of pain; excruciating and yet my nerves seem to immediately black it out. I look down at where the knife is buried inside of me, the red blossoming and staining my shirt. I choke on a sound, too shocked to do anything.
Time slows to a crawl.
Hugo twists the blade, retracts it.
I realise in dim, stupefied horror that he’s going to stab me again. I cannot do anything about it.
Preston comes out of nowhere, arms about Hugo’s middle, tackling him away from me. I fall to my knees, pressing a hand to my injured side. They’re so perilously close to the edge, with Preston holding onto Hugo’s knife-wielding hand, trying to shove him back. He succeeds too. One of Hugo’s feet slips, right off the cliffside, and gravity does the rest.
But he grabs hold of Preston in an iron grip.
They go over the edge together.
Oh, God.
I choke on a sound. I crawl for the ledge, looking over, peering into the fog.
I scream for Preston.
I scream for help.
For someone, anyone.
How far of a drop was it? How many rocks were waiting for him at the bottom?
This isn’t happening. It’s not. Preston would not, could not be…
I shout until my throat has gone raw, and the world has blurred through my tears. My hands are sticky with blood. When I attempt to stand, the ground tilts beneath me and sends me back to my knees.
A hand presses to my back. Someone’s voice, speaking to me. I’m not sure who it is, but it is not Preston. I plead for someone to help him, to bring him back.
I do not know whether I’m begging them, or God himself.
CHAPTER 23 – PRESTON
Weightlessness is a funny thing. From the very moment I recognise that I am falling, it seems to both take forever and pass by in a split second. Hugo loses his hold on me and I see him disappear into the fog well before I do. Helpless, I reach out, grasping for the cliffside passing me by.
And I hear Benji, screaming. I’ve never heard him shout, have I? Always so soft-spoken, never one to raise his voice. I hate hearing it now, knowing I’m the cause of it.
I hear the water before I see it. Angry, dark waves, foaming at the base of the cliffside. Only barely do I have time to suck in a breath before I hit the surface. For all the good that it does; the impact, the cold, knocks the air right out of me as the surf drags me under.
Dimly, I recall Liverpool. Standing on the docks and observing the boats. Joking with Benji that I don’t know how to swim. That was not a lie, not a jest. Now, I find myself groping blindly, breaking the surface of the water and screaming as loud as I can manage before I’m pulled down again.
The current yanks me around like a rag doll until I can’t even tell which direction is up to try to swim to. I’m slammed against the side of a rock. I try to wrap my arms around it, to hang on, which works for only a few seconds before I’m torn back away.
Lord, I’m going to drown in this place, thousands of miles from home. Benji is hurt. He could be dying too. We will die together and yet alone, away from everything we know and love, and it’s all my bloody fault. I never should have dragged him along.
When fighting against the waves becomes too much, I just…stop.
Boneless, I force my eyes open beneath the water, staring into the murky depths. Oddly enough, doing so seems to orient me, carries me up, at least long enough for me to choke in a waterlogged breath.
A wave crashes over my head and I brace for it, to be swallowed up once more—except something grabs the front of my shirt. Cold air strikes my face and I gasp, disoriented, uncertain just what or who I’m seeing.
“Kick your bloody legs!” Nathaniel Crane shouts.
He holds onto me. I kick, clumsily, holding onto his outstretched arm—his injured one, I think.
Somehow, some way, Nathaniel Crane navigates our way through the sea, keeping me afloat every time I would otherwise go under.
Hours or minutes pass. I’m not sure which.
Then there’s solid purchase beneath my feet and I could cry in relief.
We wade forward, clambering out of the water, onto an outcropping of rocks being battered by the ocean but just safe enough for us to sit on.
Exhausted, I collapse onto my side, coughing up all the water I’ve swallowed. Oh, everything hurts. Muscles I didn’t even know I had in my legs and arms and back ache.
Crane has collapsed beside me, panting, nursing his injured arm to his side. I’m almost in awe. I don’t know how he got us here, or what in the world happened that put him in the water with me, but I’m so grateful I could hug him.
I push myself up onto an elbow. I have to raise my voice to be heard over the sea beating itself against the cliffs. “Benji… Is he—?”
“Sid’s got him,” Crane replies, his voice just as hoarse as my own.
That was the only question I needed an immediate answer to. For the time being, I fall silent, too sore and tired to care about much else—like how the hell we’re supposed to get off this rock.
The sky has grown darker. It must be getting into late afternoon now. I drag myself up into a sitting position, pressing my back to the limestone cliffside. Crane doesn’t budge, save to sling his good arm across his eyes.
“You saved me,” I finally say, when enough time has passed that my head has begun to clear. “Why?”
Crane sighs. He scrubs his arm over his face, sweeps his wet mop of curls back. “Your friend saved my life. It seemed that I owed him.”
“You could have saved him, then, rather than fling yourself off a cliff. What if there’d been rocks at the bottom?”
“I heard you shouting. Figured it was a safe bet.”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you going to talk me out of thinking it was a good idea to rescue you? I’ll throw you back into the ocean if that’s the case.”
“No, I…” A pause. “Thank you.”
He grunts. Sits up slowly, wincing, and moves to sit beside me, reclining against the rock face.
“Is Benji going to be all right?” I ask, quietly.
“Don’t know. I suppose that depends on if he makes it long enough for Sid to get him to someone who can help.”
“On foot, she—”
He interjects, “We found two of the horses. So long as she can get back to the main road and find her way to town…”
“There were farms along the way. If any of them know how to treat him, or if—”
“Christ, calm down, would you? There’s no helping him so long as we’re stuck here.”
He has a point, even if I sort of want to punch him for it. I clench my jaw. “Right, then. How do we get off this rock? Do you suppose when the tide goes out, we can wade further up shore?”
“That’s the hope, but it might be a bit of a wait. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t any idea when low tide is.”
Neither do I. Not that I know what time it is, anyway.
Yet again, we lapse into silence. It begins to rain. Cold, fat droplets bear down on us, making us shrink back against the cliff trying to seek shelter. Unconsciously, we seem to shift closer together, seeking out warmth. Not something I am able to find, what with my clothing soaked through.
Despite that there really is nothing I can do and dwelling on it does nothing but upset me, I can’t help but think about Benji. Sid had a horse. That’s good. She’s a tough thing. She could have hauled him onto it and ridden back for Sir Francis Drake, followed the road back. Would Paige at the shop be able to help? Surely there’s a doctor in the town somewhere. No matter how small it might be, every group of people needs a physician or a surgeon.
Every time I close my eyes, the scene replays in my head. Benji offering out the books. Hugo reaching for them, in the same moment that he slid the knife from its sheath on the back of his belt. Benji’s eyes growing wide. The blood instantly flowing through his fingers as he clutched at his side, stared down at it as though h
e could not figure out what had happened.
I shiver, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. My chest aches.
Despite it all, despite the rain, the uncomfortable position, the fear and concern, exhaustion gets the best of me and I drift off into a peculiar state between asleep and awake.
I dream of home. I dream of Whisperwood too. I dream of digging up a grave in a cemetery while Nicholas Mordaunt’s ghost roared through the tombstones towards us. Benji shrank back into my side, and Virgil—he’d yanked the torch from Benji’s grasp, climbed from the hole, and fended off the spirit who seemed too frightened to get too close to the firelight.
I recall that bone-deep ache in my arms and back from digging. It was nothing compared to this. I could almost laugh at that. Oh, how dramatic I’d been over it then. Little did I know what awaited me.
This will be a fine story to recount to James.
If I see him again.
CHAPTER 24 – BENJAMIN
I do not remember getting onto the horse.
Sid must have helped me.
She hands me a balled-up piece of cloth, tells me to press it to my side as hard as I can. I try to follow her instructions, but my hands quake with the effort. I keep staring down at it.
There is so much blood.
And Preston is…
A sound not unlike a sob catches in my throat. My vision blurs.
Sid is behind me on the saddle. She must hear me, because she catches my face, leans forward, peers at me.
“Hey, hey, boy. What’s your name? Benji?”
I blink at her slowly, not grasping the question at first. My name?
“Benjamin…”
“Sidney Rhodes. Now we officially know each other, so don’t bleed out on my horse. Got it?”
She’s trying to…what, make me feel better? Calm me? I do not know. I haven’t the strength to converse beyond that anyway. I slump back against her, the steady plodding of hooves against the dirt road like a heartbeat in my ears. Or maybe that’s my own pulse, struggling to keep up with all the blood I’m losing.