Enchanter's Embrace

by A R DeClerck

  “Formaldehyde.”

  “Yes, I believe it is.”

  Archie quickly filled him in on the mysterious ninth room, just to the end of this very hallway.

  “We’ll have a look there in a bit. Let’s finish our perusal of this one, first.” He went to the handkerchief with a small box full of blinking lights.

  “What does that do?”

  “It can identify the parts of a compound, thereby telling me what, exactly, and unknown substance may be. All hail the marvels of aether and science when they work together.” Corrigan held the box over the small pile of dirt, dipping its long wick into the pile. “Strange. This is coal dust and ash.” He paused over the leaf. “And this is the leaf of an ash tree.”

  “Ash trees only grow at the far back of the property, if I recall Grayson’s description correctly. Most likely the leaf and the dirt were carried here by the person who took the girls.”

  Archie went back to work carefully checking over every inch of the room. He frowned over a thick thread tangled in the carpet. He picked it up with the tweezers and looked at it. It was too heavy for a woman’s dress, and of no appropriate color for a coat. “What do you make of this?”

  “I believe that’s a leather thong. I’ve seen them used in all manner of things, but nothing a lady of Mrs. Wicket’s means would use.” Corrigan tilted his head and then leaned forward to sniff the thread. “I smell coal smoke.”

  “As a blacksmith might have if he’s worked in his forge.”

  Their eyes met.

  “This is becoming more and more impossible as we say it,” Corrigan said. “Atticus Dooley is dead.”

  “Yet I find coal dust and ash outside the door and a leaf from the very end of the property where Dooley’s forge was located.”

  “Even stranger still, there are only smudges where fingerprints should be; indicating to me that whomever was in this room with Lucia and Elizabeth was wearing thick leather gloves.”

  “Such as those a blacksmith might possess.”

  “He among a hundred others.” Corrigan capped the powder and crossed his arms, leaning against the bed. “It makes no sense. Why take Lucia and Elizabeth? We know he hated Elizabeth for turning him in, but Lucia means nothing to him.”

  “But she is a powerful wizard; one who’s touched darkness before. He may hope to sway her to his purpose, or to use her blood to power a spell.”

  “If her blood was used in dark magic spells before then it will make the spell stronger?”

  “By a thousand times.”

  “I am beginning to see the appeal, then. If Atticus Dooley somehow survived the death he’d been assigned to, why wait for these many years to get revenge?”

  “Because he feared Icarus. Now that Icarus has left London he felt free to go forth with his plan.”

  “I can see the logic of it, but for one thing.” Corrigan began to pick up his gadgets and ‘items of detection’. “Who in the Wicket household has been helping him with his plan? Or has that separate person been out to stop the dark mage all along?”

  “The answers may lie in the ninth room.” Archie explained about finding the dielectric in the house, and the room full of equipment and ghastly experiments, mostly likely meant to separate a wizard from his magic. “It appears that someone has recently opened the room to make use of its contents. Whether or not they are working with, or against, the dark mage is the question we cannot answer.”

  “I need to see this room,” Corrigan said thoughtfully. “My next query was to how the kidnapper managed to abscond with the girls without making a sound. He had to come through a horde of demons to get inside the house without detection.”

  “If he is as powerful as he seems, then he could create a locomotion spell and move them to and from any location he chose.”

  “Ah,” Corrigan said with a frown, “but not without alerting every mage in this house that he was working dark magic. I think he chose to stun them or otherwise subdue them and then he left this house in a much more direct way.”

  “Perhaps a secret way in and out.”

  “Exactly. Show me this hidden ninth room. All our answers may lie there.”

  Corrigan did not shy away from the ghastly items in the jars, but studied them instead with a curious detachment. He looked over all the equipment in the room, dusty but not rusted. Archie felt a dolt standing idly by the door, but he knew that Corrigan was far better at “detecting” than he was.

  “Archie, could you ask the aether to illuminate the areas that have been recently disturbed? In the last three hours?”

  Archie closed his eyes and sent the request out to the aether, surprised when several of the items in the room began to glow with the telltale orange of the magic.

  “Interesting, but odd,” Corrigan mused. “It seems that whomever came into this room after you and Lucia went directly to these specific items.” He touched a tall metal box, bare except for the dull sheen of its casing. “This, in particular, is important.”

  “What is it?”

  “A very good question.” Corrigan shook his head with his eyebrows drawn. “I’m afraid it’s beyond my knowledge. We’d best collect the elder Trimble and ask him.”

  Atraxas came at once, followed by Grayson. The younger brother’s face was drawn and pale, his eyes worried. Archie figured he looked much the same.

  “Tell us what you can of this contraption, Atraxas.”

  The engineer looked it over. He squatted, staring at the bladder attached to the outer edge, and the grated openings that ran the length of the top of the device. “I believe this is an aerosolizer.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Archie flushed when all eyes swung his way. “What, exactly, does that do?”

  “It heats solutions to very high temperatures and turns them into gas. If I am not mistaken the gas then escapes here and can be dispersed through the room. Most likely, tiny particles would be suspended in the gas.”

  “Particles of what?” Corrigan knelt beside the man and looked over the machine. “What were the Wickets building up here?”

  “Nothing good,” Grayson said faintly, his eyes locked on the jars at the back of the room. “I’m suspecting poison of some sort.”

  “Possibly.” Corrigan stood and Atraxas followed. “Can you stay here and investigate the machinery? Tell us everything you know about the items in this room and how they might all work together. What plot are they constructing?”

  “I will.” Atraxas’ face was grim. “What are you going to do?”

  “We have a villain to follow.” Corrigan pointed to the faintly glowing trail of aether that seemed to lead to a dead end at the wall on the other side of the room.

  “Pardon me, but we can’t walk through walls, Captain.” Grayson rubbed his temple as if it hurt, but he straightened his shoulders when he realized all eyes were on him.

  “We don’t need to walk through them,” Corrigan said as he moved to the wall. He leaned close and ran his hands over the brick, grinning when a distinct click rang out through the room. “We don’t need to go through them when can walk behind them.”

  “A secret tunnel?” Archie helped Corrigan pull back the heavy brick of the false wall to reveal a darkened staircase. A howl of cold air roared up to ruffle their hair and Archie knew that the tunnel led outside the estate. “This is how they left the house.”

  “It seems that way.” Corrigan peered down the stairs and shook his head. “We must gather weapons and light. Take up whatever arms you’re comfortable with, gents, and meet me back here in a bit. I have a feeling that what we find on the other end of this tunnel will not be pleasant.”

  Grayson hurried away and Atraxas bent over the aerosolizer, leaving only Archie and Corrigan by the door. Corrigan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Gather what you can, Archie. We will get her back. I promise.”

  There was darkness in Archie’s eyes when he looked at Corrigan. He could feel it in his stomach, crawling through him like the days of old. He h
ad tried to leave it behind in Whitechapel, but some part of him had always known it was still there. “God help anyone who hurts her, Corrigan. God help them all.”

  As he strode away he did not see the nod the Captain gave. He didn’t have to. He knew his friends would follow him into hell if they had to. That is what true friends did.

  THE CLOCK CHIMED EXACTLY twelve times. Lucia could only turn her head a bit, but she saw the delicate hands of the grandfather clock sitting precisely at midnight. The witching hour.

  She looked left and tried to catch Elizabeth’s eye, but the woman had her head down. It had not been a pleasant trip from the house to this dust-filled cabin at the edge of the estate. Their captor had not spared them violence as he used his considerable magic to bind them, leaving only their legs free to walk. Elizabeth’s white night dress bloomed red with drops of blood from her nose, and Lucia felt a cut swelling on her lip. Shivering in nothing but their indoor clothes they had been forced through the dark tunnel and deposited in this room. The chair, at least, was comfortable.

  “I’ve often wondered about my darling.” Their captor returned with an armload of firewood that he dumped by the fire. He fed a few logs to the flames and did not look at them as he spoke. “Was she sad to see me hang? Did she cry for me?”

  He waved his hand and Lucia felt her tongue free of the spell that bound them. “She was only a child back then. You’re sick.”

  “No sicker than any other man beguiled by a beautiful girl.” He poked at the embers with the poker. “She sought me out.”

  “You didn’t say no.”

  He laughed. “Who would? She was lovely even then.” He turned to Elizabeth and stroked a gnarled hand over her still-bent head. “Even lovelier now.”

  “Don’t touch her.” Lucia knew that revulsion colored her words, but this scene was too much like another she’d lived before. A man obsessed with a young woman, willing to do anything to have her. Bile rose in her throat.

  “I would never hurt her. Not the way she has hurt me.”

  “You were sentenced to hang for your crimes.”

  “And I hanged.” He was close to her face now, his bulging eye and the thick knot of scars on his neck just in front of her eyes. “I hanged but I did not die.”

  “Black magic.”

  “Justice.”

  She turned her head away as he backed away, back to Elizabeth’s side to sit at her knee like a puppy. His hand stroked over hers but she never moved or made a sound.

  “You know a lot about blood magic, witch. I smell it in you.”

  She did not answer, staring instead at the flames.

  “I can make you tell me.”

  And he could. He would torture her, perhaps not even physically, with all his considerable magical strength, and she would eventually answer all his questions. “No.”

  “Come, then,” he invited. “Tell me.”

  “At sixteen I was rebellious. My parents were sending me away to a French boarding school and I was angry.”

  “Tell me all of it.” He moved his finger and she felt constriction across her chest, cutting off her air supply. She gasped for breath, and when she nodded he let loose the tourniquet.

  “I had magic and they did not. I resented them for being normal. I went looking for a way to use my anger and my magic.”

  “Use it for what?”

  The words were gritty on her tongue. “To hurt people.”

  He laughed, a croaking trill that only lasted a moment. “Go on.”

  “I found a club in White Chapel. Indulgence. I was enamored with the glamor and the lifestyle of the people there. I was wealthy and no one paid any mind to another high-born girl slumming.”

  “Someone paid attention.” He leered at her and she wanted to vomit at the memories.

  “The owner of the club was a man named Edgar.”

  “You can say his whole name, witch.”

  “Baiandelio. Edgar Baiandelio.”

  “See there? He did not rise from the grave with your spoken word, now did he?” The man cackled. “Edgar liked girls, did he?”

  When she didn’t answer he reached up and grabbed a hank of Elizabeth’s hair, yanking hard. She moaned, and Lucia cursed.

  “Leave her alone!”

  “Answer my questions. You see, I know that I can hurt you and perhaps you will lie. But if I tell you I will hurt her, you will answer true.”

  “I thought you loved her.”

  “I did, and she brought death to me.” He looked away from her. “Endless pain. Forever.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He yanked again on Elizabeth’s hair. “The story, witch.”

  “Edgar...Edgar saw me and he thought I was beautiful.”

  “And powerful.”

  She nodded. “And powerful. He was handsome and he was dangerous; exactly what I had hoped to find. He convinced me to give him my blood for spells.”

  “A high, is it not?” The blacksmith leaned closer. “The euphoria is intoxicating.”

  “It was. I was addicted immediately. Not only to the bloodletting, but the pain. The screams. It lived in me.” Lucia shivered with the memory of the way the blood ceremonies had made her feel. The things she had been willing to do to have that feeling again.

  “But a witch of the white won’t ever go dark. Not completely.” Dooley spit into the fire. “Curse of the good. It never lets the dark snuff it out completely.”

  “I stopped him from killing a girl. Only ten.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I reversed the magic and it rebounded on him. Aether tried to tear him apart.”

  “What reward did you earn for that, witch? Did the girl live?”

  Tears gathered in Lucia’s eyes. Her heart pounded as her stomach heaved. She shook her head. “No. She died anyway.”

  “And you?”

  “He...” She could not put into the words the horrors that she had endured for three long days and nights after that.

  Dooley giggled. “Spit it out, girl.” He tightened the noose around her again and she choked without breath. When he let her loose again she breathed deep, slow breaths.

  “He hurt me. Cut me. Defiled me in ways I cannot ever describe. Then he told his bodyguard to toss me away into the Thames to drown.”

  “But you live.”

  “The bodyguard had a good heart. He hadn’t known what Edgar was doing to me, but he took me away and told my parents what had been done. He sent the High Covens to destroy Indulgence.”

  “Did he now?” The black mage went back to petting Elizabeth’s hand softly. “Did he really?”

  “Yes. He was nearly killed himself, as punishment for saving me.”

  “That’s a lie, girl.” Dooley didn’t try to hurt Elizabeth, he just stared at Lucia. “But I doubt you know it.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear.”

  “The truth as you know it. But the real truth is something different, now isn’t it?”

  “The real truth?”

  “The real truth of your savior. The truth that he knew exactly what Edgar was doing and he never tried to stop it.”

  It did not take a spell to make Lucia’s breath rush out in a whoosh this time. The world whirled around her and she closed her eyes as her stomach heaved. “You lie.”

  “Do I?” Dooley tapped his chin. “Do I, really?” He leaned forward to touch the cameo against her throat. “He gave you this, did he not?”

  She nodded.

  “And I can see his memories through it. A little gift of mine.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against the cameo. He opened them and nodded before returning to his place by Elizabeth. “Oh my dear. How thoroughly you have been lied to.”

  “No. You’re wrong. That is impossible. He had no idea that Edgar was doing...those things to me.”

  “Oh but he did. He knew exactly what kind of man Edgar Baiandelio was, and he could have killed him many times. Long before you came along to be caught in his web. But th
e truth is that your paramour didn’t care.”

  Dooley stood and dusted off his coat. “My conspirator comes.”

  Lucia’s eyes flicked to the door as Elizabeth moaned and blinked, coming out of the spell. She frowned and licked her lips.

  “Lucia? What’s happening?”

  “Be strong, Elizabeth.” Lucia nodded to Dooley by the fire. Elizabeth’s face went pale when she saw him.

  “You!”

  “Yes, my darling. Tis I, another of your witless victims.” He clapped when a man in a black cloak entered, shaking a few flakes of snow from his cape. “And here’s the other.”

  When the man pushed back the hood Elizabeth let out a wail. Lucia stared hard at the thin but handsome face, taking in the glasses on his nose and the high forehead. “Delbert Wicket, I presume?”

  “The same.” The man nodded to Dooley and then knelt next to a now-sobbing Elizabeth. “Hello, dear wife.”

  “You’re dead!”

  “Not nearly as dead as you’d like.” He drew a long piece of paper from his inside pocket and waved it at her. “I did get your last letter. How very touching.”

  “What is your endgame?” Lucia demanded. “Why take us and kill poor Justice and Mrs. Burch? Why kill your father?”

  “My Elizabeth has a penchant for playing men for fools, Ms. Conti. She has left quite a contingent of heart-broken fools in her wake, starting with Mr. Dooley and then me. She has the Trimble brothers eating from her hand and now she has the most powerful wizards in the Covens behind her. We could not let this continue.”

  “So you were cuckolded, but why resort to murder? Why steal the lives of those poor Romani children?”

  “For power, of course. I have none myself, but Dooley can work a diligent spell when he’s able. I do have, however, a keen mind and a talent for strategy. Elizabeth must be stopped.”

  “Stopped? I’m sorry but I don’t understand. Is this about land?”

  “More than land, Ms. Conti. Lives. She cannot destroy any more lives.”

  “Delbert, why must you malign me so terribly?” Elizabeth was sobbing against the bonds, but the men ignored her.

  “What is it you plan to do? Kill her?”

  Dooley shook his head. “Not us. You.”