These Vengeful Souls

by Tarun Shanker

  “I am sorry I keep wanting him dead.”

  “I am not. We will find a way around it.” She nodded firmly and squeezed my hand.

  “How did you decide this?” I asked.

  She glanced back at the carriage. Catherine had stepped out and was listening to Laura and Emily’s tale of our night.

  I did smile then.

  “She’s quite certain there’s a solution. Which somehow makes me quite certain, too.”

  “She is a wonder,” I agreed.

  “She is. It’s terrible.” Rose’s smile slipped a little, and I nudged her with my shoulder.

  “I know you think she only likes you because of your power. But you must realize how well you get on, in a way that has nothing to do with her being charmed. You share jokes and interests and even a similar practical turn of mind.”

  She turned to lead me around the carriage. “I do see it. But I could never know for sure.”

  “We’ll find a way,” I said and squeezed into the carriage with my sister and my friends.

  When we arrived back at the house, Sebastian was waiting alone outside, and a flutter ran through my chest, like I’d opened a gift. He took my hand, led me into the sitting room, and didn’t let go.

  “You aren’t to blame,” he said. “And if I could tell you that a million times and chip away at it, I would. But I think we both know from experience that it isn’t that simple.”

  He fixed me with a stare. “You once found the kindness to forgive me for your sister. If you could do that, then you must allow yourself a fraction of that unfathomable kindness. Promise me you’ll try. And I’ll do the same.”

  “I will,” I managed.

  Sebastian’s power hummed through me, and though it was supposed to be weakening me, I couldn’t help but feel stronger. There was so much sadness, and we weren’t out of the woods yet. But maybe not everything needed to be forgiven and forgotten completely. Maybe it wouldn’t all heal. Maybe it was enough to share the pain, the guilt, the burden. Maybe that’s how we keep going.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “MR. KENT, if you are quite done—”

  “Honestly, I’ve not even started yet.”

  My message for the members of the Society had made the evening headlines. It was embellished, slightly.

  Largely, it referred to me as Sebastian Braddock’s mistress. This was apparently extremely humorous to Mr. Kent, and I was resisting kicking at him across the carriage as we made our way to Paddington Station, heavily disguised.

  “If you continue, I’m not going to heal your metal hand,” I threatened.

  “I’ve actually grown quite fond of this fellow, so your threat means nothing,” Mr. Kent said, clapping his hands together. “Now, I have so many questions for the two of you.”

  “And you shall ask none of them,” Sebastian snapped. He was wearing a pair of extremely thick muttonchops and a large floppy hat that belonged on a farmer, not a young gentleman. This seemed to amuse Mr. Kent almost as much as the newspaper’s little misprint, and he reached over to stroke Sebastian’s furry jaw.

  “Don’t worry, Braddock, I am a gentleman. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “There is nothing to tell!”

  “Sure, sure.” Mr. Kent nodded knowingly and winked. “Nothing at all. And to think, Miss Wyndham, you could have had a scandal-free life with me, but you chose the indecent path with the roguish Mr. Braddock.”

  “Yes, it’s all very amusing,” I said bitterly.

  Mr. Adeoti was watching everything between us with a polite smile. “But on the bright side, everyone will be talking about your message now.”

  That much was true. And for that, I was happy enough to take Mr. Kent’s teasing. As long as the message encouraged Oliver’s friends and any other unhappy Society of Aberrations members to seek our help and planted a seed of doubt about Captain Goode to the public, it was worth it.

  The carriage came to a sharp stop. “All right, Tuffins?” Mr. Kent called.

  “I am not sure, sir. I … I think not.” The reply was muffled but understandable. I strained to see through the grit-covered window, but all I could see was another stopped carriage in front of us. We shared worried glances and Sebastian tentatively opened the door, looking around. We were on the bridge, not far from Paddington Station now. In fact, we could see it.

  For it was smoking.

  “It was Braddock! He derailed the trains!” The shouts came from all around us. We could see two trains lying on their sides, the metal cars buckled—twisted and broken in jagged angles. We watched, helpless from the bridge, as the bodies of passengers were pulled from the smoking wreckage. Alarm bells pealed out as the fires were doused. Frantic footsteps fell down the bridge as people rushed to find their loved ones. Madness swirled around us, and there was absolutely nothing we could do.

  “I … I should follow them to the hospitals,” I said numbly, moving without realizing how or where.

  “I don’t know, Miss Wyndham,” Mr. Kent said, giving me a worried glance. “Captain Goode may retaliate there, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice small. “I keep underestimating how far he is willing to go.”

  Sebastian clenched my hand, sending a rush of shivers up my arm. “It’s not your fault. It’s Captain Goode’s,” he insisted, our endless refrain.

  “Hope that Braddock fella hangs!” a passerby shouted.

  “Aye, my train’s been canceled. I’ve got half a mind to go do it myself,” his companion remarked, unaware he was brushing past the man himself.

  “Ignore them,” I whispered, clutching Sebastian’s hand back. “They don’t know a thing.” A few deep breaths gave me a moment to think, to find a way to salvage this failure somehow. “Mr. Adeoti, do you see any messages here?” I asked.

  Mr. Adeoti gave a cursory look around the bridge. “Nothing.”

  “Then let’s make a round.”

  My arm remained locked to Sebastian’s as we navigated through the packed crowd to find our way off the bridge. With the station shut down, we circled the area in the hopes that some Society members had left messages on nearby walls. As we wove our way back and forth down each of the surrounding streets, newspaper boys shouted speculation about where Sebastian might strike next. Hastily drawn handbills offering rewards for Sebastian were being hung up on walls. One man wearing a sandwich board advertised that Sebastian had enjoyed a pie and a beer at a corner public house before committing his horrible crime.

  I could feel it wearing Sebastian down. I could see it wearing all of us down. There was a growing heaviness to our trudging and a reluctance to hope for anything. It seemed Captain Goode had an answer for everything we did.

  “Wait,” Mr. Adeoti said, a rush of excitement in his voice. “I believe I see something.”

  We crossed the street to the brick wall of a rather mundane building, searching for signs of anything suspicious. Deeming it safe, Mr. Adeoti made his way to the message and leaned his back against the wall, his hands touching the bricks. He closed his eyes for only a few seconds before he snapped out of the trance.

  “That was quick,” I said. “What did it say?”

  “It’s … short,” Mr. Adeoti said. “It’s from Captain Goode. All he said was ‘Your turn.’”

  We decided it best to leave then.

  Our route was unnecessarily long to escape from anyone following us. We wound through a few alleys, down into an underground station, and out another gate before emerging back up on the street. Mr. Kent made sure to ask loudly if anyone was following us before we found Tuffins and took the carriage straight home.

  The boarding house fell into a somber, helpless silence when we returned. The crash was reported in the evening papers, ten dead and eighteen injured, and the blame was, again, placed entirely on Sebastian, who had been seen running from the trains. We tried to regain the hope we all had the other day. Mr. Adeoti, Catherine, and Rose continued their research; I came up with plans and Miss Chen explained w
hy they were ridiculous; and Sebastian went back to gardening moodily, while Mr. Kent tried to explain that he could brood just as easily at a brothel. But even by the end of the long day, no one had a single idea. The problem was dreadfully simple now. We didn’t know how to find Captain Goode, and anything we could think of would result in more and more retaliatory deaths.

  The problem kept me awake long into the night. The ceiling provided little in the way of answers and the walls proved equally unhelpful. The blankets, my night rail, my skin were all too hot and I tossed and turned, fighting the urge to visit another hospital, to wait outside the Society of Aberrations, to do anything.

  Finally, I rolled out of bed, settling on a secret trip to the best place I could think of: the kitchen.

  Rose’s voice stopped me at the door. “You’re not sneaking away again, are you?”

  “No, even I have run out of reasons to sneak away in the middle of the night,” I reassured her. “I just need some thinking cake.”

  “Mmm, thinking cake,” she said sleepily. “Save me one with … brilliant-idea … jam.”

  “If we haven’t run out already,” I said, creeping out the door.

  The stairs brought me down with quiet creaks, shafts of moonlight guiding the way. Downstairs was darker, but I knew the path well enough by now. My steps were slow and careful, and my eyes were on the ground watching for Soot, not at all expecting the body that rounded the corner and collided with me.

  My scream would have shaken the house had the shock of his power not taken my breath away. The tiniest gasp came out instead, muffled into Sebastian’s chest. “Oof.”

  His arms steadied me, and my legs valiantly resisted the urge to turn to water.

  “Um, Evelyn” was all he managed. I looked up into eyes of guilt.

  Not just the usual Sebastian guilt he carried around, but something far more immediate. I stepped back, taking in more of him. Fully dressed, a quick tick of a pulse at his throat, and now avoiding my eye.

  I settled my hands onto my hips. “And where exactly were you planning on going, Sebastian Braddock?”

  “Uh, for a smoke—”

  “You do not smoke.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “Sebastian. You would not know which end of a cigar to light.”

  “I—” He stopped as he thought about it. “I suppose I don’t.” He admitted it quietly, like it was shameful that he was not, in fact, a worldly smoking gentleman.

  “I’m sure Mr. Kent can tell you. But now, tell me where you are going.”

  He looked so much like a dog who felt guilty about tearing up a beloved pillow that I began to worry myself until all at once, I realized what he was about.

  And I was furious.

  “You were going to give yourself in to Captain Goode.”

  He looked up. Nothing like a guilty animal anymore. His chin was set, his shoulders were broad, and he looked every inch formidable. “I am still going.”

  I shoved at his absolutely nonformidable chest. He could not deceive me any longer. “You are not. What happened to your insistence on talking to each other instead of acting like brooding fools?”

  He leaned down the scant inches between us. “We have talked. Just now.” And then he had the gall to continue past me.

  “Don’t you dare!” I grabbed at his coat, swinging him around and me into his chest yet again.

  “Oof.” He repeated my earlier exhale.

  “You are not going to turn yourself into Captain Goode because that will do nothing except get you killed and then he will continue killing innocent people!” My words came out in such harsh whispers, I would have been surprised if he heard more than the vowels. But he seemed to have gotten the gist as his brow knit together.

  “He cannot keep killing innocent people once his supposed killer is in custody.” He sounded so assured of such a naïve statement. No one would have blamed me if I had simply died of embarrassment for him thinking such a ridiculous possibility.

  “He will just blame someone else!” I said. “The only way he gets to keep playing hero is by finding villains.”

  His lips were thinned enough that I could practically see the outline of his teeth beneath. “He won’t be able to keep that up. Not if I turn myself in and tell the truth.” He was so willfully, horribly stubborn.

  Thankfully, so was I, as people liked to remind me. Constantly. “I forbid it.”

  He blinked a little. “You … no, you can’t for—”

  “I just did. I forbid you.”

  He frowned. “Well, I … no.” And pushed past me again. I scurried in front of him and ran to the door, throwing myself in front of it.

  “Evelyn, you’re being childish.”

  “It’s the right reaction to your juvenile determination to get yourself killed.” I stuck my tongue out for good measure. If he was going to be ridiculous and dramatic, so would I.

  He did not seem to know what to do with this. Awkwardly, Sebastian reached around me for the doorknob. I batted his arm aside. He reached again, giving me a quelling look. I shoved his arm and stretched my body across the doorway. There.

  He sighed and grumbled. “I hate when you force me into being ungentlemanly.” That was the only warning I received before he snagged me by the waist and spun me behind him. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled it open. He was so fast when he wished to be.

  But I was willing to make a fool of myself, so I dove at his legs. The door shut as he knocked into it. I crawled up his legs until I had his torso in my arms, where I clung like a burr. He sputtered and tried to detach me, but I latched on as he sank down to the floor against the door.

  I caught words like “impossible” and “ridiculous woman,” but I countered them with my own, like “noble ass” and “absurd.”

  Finally, he stopped attempting to remove me from his person, panting a little. I crawled farther up his body and planted my full weight on his torso to keep him there.

  “Evelyn, please, I have to go.” He looked at me full-on, confidence shining in his eyes, the words determined and steady. He had convinced himself thoroughly that this was his best plan.

  And he thought I was Byronic.

  “I’m sorry, Sebastian,” I said finally. “I know you want to leave. And you know I can’t let you.”

  He scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “Please, you don’t understand. I have to do this.”

  My heart felt like a great block had been placed on it. I thought about all the things between us we could not say, even with our new policy of talking about things. All the crimes for which he thought he needed to atone.

  “It won’t bring them back.” I barely whispered the words, but he heard them and blanched.

  He did not look at me, but his jaw worked a little and he swallowed. “I … I know that. But I still owe them something more than inaction.”

  “You owe me, too,” I said, surprised at how fiercely the words came out. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave me and get yourself killed. It helps no one at all.”

  He did not seem to pay me any mind. I pushed at his chest lightly. He still didn’t look at me.

  “Evelyn, you don’t understand—”

  I reached down to grab his face and turn it to me. He couldn’t keep avoiding my eyes forever. “But I do. I know what you are trying to do, and this is not the way. It helps no one, and especially not the child who will get your power next.”

  Finally, his eyes landed on mine, that deep green that always seemed a little too dark. Like maybe they would be lighter if things had gone differently in his life. If fewer people had died.

  “Sebastian. I know every terrible thing you think you have done.” My voice was steady, even if I wasn’t. “I know that Captain Goode and Dr. Beck and some horrible people have twisted your powers into something monstrous. I know how much you loved your parents. How much you loved the Lodges. How much you love helping people. I have seen you when you have hope that your powers can do good, and it is a
beautiful thing. The best part is that it’s not impossible. I have seen what you are capable of, and it’s so much more than you realize. You help Rose every day by showing her how you work around your powers. And I know, years from now, when your power goes to the next person, your words, your guide, your life will save theirs.”

  “Evelyn, that is, you … I am not…” He seemed so frustrated with me, with the world, but this was not the way to solve anything.

  “You can’t turn yourself in. I told you on the bridge.” I felt him stiffen at the word. “I told you I wouldn’t let you go. And you didn’t leave me. You didn’t leave then. You can’t do it now.”

  “But, I—”

  “I clearly do not have all the answers. But this is not it. I know that. I know it as surely and deeply as I know your power.”

  He was brimming with something, and I tried to look ready to hear it, whatever it was he needed to unburden. He tried a few times and finally stopped, his head bowed. He had been about to say something else, but all that came out was a frustrated, “I don’t know how to say it.”

  I frowned at him. “It’s very simple. You open your mouth, think of what you wish to say, and—”

  He kissed me.

  One moment I was ready to bring down the house if it meant keeping him here, the next I was pulled down against him in a rather expert embrace. His lips were so warm beneath mine, and only when a series of shudders ran through me did I realize how cold I had been. Or maybe I had been lacking him for too long—I couldn’t really think, too consumed with this kiss that filled my head with stars. Frissons of Sebastian rippled through me in every place our bodies met as he pulled me tighter. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest, and I wanted to take it and heal it and hide it away with mine.

  Both his hands gently settled on my cheeks as we broke apart for a breath. In the dim moonlight, I could see his eyes darting across my face, trying to take it all in at once. “Thank you … for everything.”

  I blinked a few times, my lips positively tingling, as though doused in peppermint oil. I tried to force my mind back to order, but his sentence still did not make sense and I was so aware of every part of him, of every part of me, that I really was not able to come up with anything beyond, “Including dragging you to the floor? And sitting on you?” My voice managed to be too scratchy and too breathy together and I cleared it a few times.