“Nothing,” he said, waving her off. “Richard jumped me at the ship, but I smacked him around a little and he ran.”
“There’s more you’re not telling me, Kane,” she said, pushing, her pitch rising a little as her tone grew harder. Angier. “It’s time. You need to tell me what you’re hiding from me.”
He stepped away from her. Tell her about Daniel? Now? Or did she mean the curse? His nightmares?
Or did she know that he was just adding more and more to the pile?
The moonlight shone down on them, full, bright with blue hues. Kane could see her eyes perfectly, her blues deeper than what the moon could accomplish at its fullest phase. They wavered, began to grow pale as she glared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“You know something about someone.” Her face twitched slightly. “Someone we met. From home. Your secret isn’t about Sarah. It’s…it’s about me?”
He had to tell her. It would be worse if she found out on her own.
“Daniel was your brother.”
All he could hear was the cicadas screaming in the moonlight, their whirring song long and eerie, never changing pitch or rhythm. Tabitha stared at him, the white in her eyes moving away as her blue pupils came back. A tear streamed down her face as her lip trembled.
“No,” she said, her voice a whisper as more tears streamed. “No, it’s not true. My brother…he died in an orphanage.”
“No, he didn’t,” Kane said slowly, trying to be gentle, wishing there was a gentle way to tell her that she’d lost a chance to reunite with her baby brother.
Lost it because of him.
“He…no, Kane,” Tabitha said. “He wasn’t…my brother died. The orphanage told me he died. They had…records. Papers. No, that newsie wasn’t him.” Her voice began to shake.
Kane just stared at her.
“He told me, himself. The day you got locked up. He came to my place. Told me everything.”
She shook her head at him, a sob escaping her lips as her chest heaved. “Please, Kane,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”
“He was the one in your apartment. He was your neighbor. The one spying on you. He wasn’t trying to peep at you, he was watching you. Trying to protect you. He thought I was the killer.”
“No,” she said, her voice breaking. She put her hands to her mouth, closed her eyes as she wept. “No, oh Gods, no…”
“He came to your execution to rescue you,” Kane continued, his voice quiet, even. “I stopped him from barging in, tried to keep him from being reckless. I tried to save him. Sarah got to him before I could stop her.”
Tabitha’s eyes widened with fury as she pulled her hand away.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “Don’t you dare say her name to me. Ever.”
“Tabitha, I’m—”
“No!” She let her hand drop, glared at him, tears dripping from her jaw, her wet eyes glistening in the moonlight, full of fury and disbelief. “She…killed my brother. You don’t get to honor her by calling her by her birth name. You don’t get to remember her like that.”
They stood there in the moonlight, the cicadas drowning out the sound of Malachi munching hay in the stable. Tabitha was breaking in front of his eyes, weeping openly, her body shaking in anger and pain as she stared back at him.
And there was nothing he could do to comfort her.
He should’ve told her immediately. But why? She’d told him to wait. Wait until when? Until they were at dinner? Until things were happier? He realized how little he knew about her, save for the photos he’d seen in her Grimoire. She’d experienced far more death and loss than he could remember living through himself.
“Tabitha,” he said carefully. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. It’s all I’ve got.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this,” she said shaking her head, her voice low, rising in anger and hysteria as she spoke. “You should’ve told me the minute you knew. You should’ve said something!”
“You told me to wait.”
“And you should’ve ignored me. You should’ve insisted on telling me. I was out of my mind! I’d just been through hell!”
“I was trying to protect yo—”
“I am not a child!” she screamed at him. “I don’t need you to protect me from everything!”
“Tabi—”
“No,” she said, turning her back to him, wrapping her arms around herself. “Don’t…just stay away from me, Kane. Just…” she trailed off as she looked at him over her shoulder as she shook her head. Her voice was a whisper as she spoke. “I can’t look at you right now.”
She walked away toward the house, leaving Kane alone in the night with his thoughts and his self-loathing.
Chapter Nine
Kane wasn’t at all surprised when he got to the room at the Calhoun House and found that Tabitha had decided to sleep elsewhere. As upset as he was, he considered himself lucky that she hadn’t frozen one of his fingers off. He heard one of the servants in the house say something about a crying blonde girl in the tub, and that another room needed turning down.
It was probably for the best. With everything going on, he didn’t need to risk something happening to her in their sleep if she shared the bed with him. He didn’t trust himself.
He dropped his satchel on the bed, realizing that he still had her Grimoire.
The book seemed to peer out of the bag, the Viking runes a stark difference from his Latin ones. He fought back the temptation to pull the book out, open it, look through her history of death and loss.
He figured he’d tortured her enough for one evening.
He flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling bathed in blue from the gaslights in the room. He got back to his feet, turned the knob on the wall to turn them down, and fell back down on the bed to try and sleep.
He clenched his fist and cursed under his breath as someone pounded on the door.
“Mr. Shepherd!” Another round of pounding followed Farnsworth’s bellow. “Are you already asleep?”
Kane sighed, grumbled a few more sentence enhancers, and got to his feet. He opened the door and found Farnsworth with his hand in the air ready to knock again. The captain chuckled and lowered his hand.
“What is it?” Kane asked. “No, scratch that. I’m done for the night. Office opens in the morning.”
“Oh, I think you can spare me another moment of your valuable time, Mr. Shepherd,” Farnsworth said with a grin. “After the scene you made with the General earlier, I’d think a few more moments would be the least of your worries.”
Kane rolled his eyes, nodded. He was cursed, and Tabitha hated him. What else could the night bring him?
“Okay. What’ve you got?”
“One of the women from the city is here.”
“Alright.”
“Her husband disappeared earlier tonight.”
Kane’s desire to sleep was gone instantly. He turned to grab his hat when Farnsworth spoke again.
“Stand down, Mr. Shepherd,” he said, holding up a hand. “She’s speaking with the General, now. She’ll be staying here the night, so you should be able to speak to her tomorrow providing General Anderson doesn’t have you drawn and quartered in your sleep.”
“What’s she saying?”
Farnsworth shook his head, sighed.
“Nothing out of the ordinary, I’m afraid. Same thing. Husband left for no reason. No sign of him once he left the house. It’s as if the man vanished into thin air.”
“There’s got to be something more,” Kane said, rubbing his chin in thought. The stubble was thicker than he was used to. He needed to trim up. “Someone had to have seen something. People don’t just disappear into thin air.”
Farnsworth raised an eyebrow.
“Said the Magician.”
Kane rolled his eyes. “I’m going to assume that none of the missing are magic users of any kind.”
“We have one here in Charleston,”
Farnsworth said. “I’ve just now recalled. Easy to forget him. He’s a bit on the quiet side. Practices Voodoo.”
“Voodoo?” Kane crossed his arms. He’d heard of Voodoo, of course, but he didn’t know any more about it than he did Witchcraft. He wondered if Voodoo Priests had to do anything remotely like what Mambo had to do in order to cast a spell. The vision in his head of Wilhelmina drinking the vile concoction she’d made still made his skin crawl.
That was the thing with all magic: it had a price. For Magicians, that price was paid by the amulet. The more magic used, the harder the amulet worked until it cracked. Now Kane and Tabitha’s bodies were paying that price through fatigue.
At least for a time. The last spell hadn’t worn on Kane nearly as bad as the previous spells.
Voodoo couldn’t have been all that different. Kane had grown up hearing mention that Voodoo Priests tended to pay the price with their sanity.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try and talk to the guy.
“Not uncommon this far South,” Farnsworth said. “Though they do like their seclusion.”
Kane nodded.
“Think Anderson will let me talk to the woman tomorrow?”
Farnsworth smiled at him.
“She thinks more highly of you than you think, Mr. Shepherd,” he said. “She may not show it. But, she’s a good judge of character, and she can tell that you, sir, are a man of good character. Still, you may want to prepare yourself for some backlash. Her temper is the stuff of legends in these parts.”
* * *
Kane wandered downstairs to the parlor and sat in front of the window, watching the sun come up outside, the sky orange and bright to his aching, heavy eyes. The smell of smoldering wood from the fireplace was strong, calming and warm. The inside of the house was warmer than he was used to, but still cooler than he’d expected to be considering how much time he’d spent in the South Carolina sun. The air felt heavy, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before it would be more akin to breathing through a wet blanket.
Sleep had been fleeting for Kane. He’d managed maybe three hours. The dreams hadn’t had time to manifest into anything more than a blur of shadow, so he was at least thankful for that. Still, he was exhausted.
He sat back in the large, soft high-backed chair and watch the sky grow slowly brighter as he tried to organize his thoughts, tried to push aside his turmoil over Tabitha and focus on what he wanted to ask the woman in the house whose husband had vanished.
Kane sighed again. He wasn’t being paid to work for Regina Anderson. This case wasn’t his typical fare. The Revolution had helped him escape to the South, leaving New Chicago behind. Not that it mattered; Gentry had found him anyway. Still, Kane felt that he owed Anderson and the others something. They’d fought for him, brought him along even though they didn’t know him from Adam. But Kane wasn’t part of this fight. He knew the outcome. The Special Forces outgunned the Revolution on a massive scale. They would drag out the demise of the Revolution slowly. Painfully. Slow or quick, it was still suicide.
Not that Kane blamed the Revolutionaries for fighting. And he wasn’t surprised that they were concentrated in the South. Building an army to go against the Oligarchy in the North would be harder, more chaotic. The Union military wouldn’t worry about coming South unless there was a reason to.
“I see you enjoy the sunrise as much as I do, Mr. Shepherd.”
Kane started at the sound of Anderson’s voice. He sat up and turned to find her standing in the doorway. She was already dressed in her uniform, her combat boots thumping on the floor as she walked in and sat down in the chair next to him and looked out the window as the sun began to peer over the city.
He didn’t waste any time.
“Look,” he said, gathering himself. “About last night–”
“Can it, Shepherd,” she snapped, not looking at him. “I don’t know what pissed me off more: you embarrassing me in front of my men, or the fact that you were right to do so.” She sighed, shook her head. “I was out of control. The truth is I was so angry I almost blew the boiler on the entire Revolution. The Special Forces, alone, have more firepower than we do. More resources. You’re right: we’ve got to be smart about this.”
Kane nodded. He figured that was her way of apologizing, though he didn’t feel she needed to.
“Tensions are high,” he said. “We need to focus on fixing things on our end before we even consider going after the North. That includes making sure the Special Forces troops don’t come down on us.”
She smiled a little as she raised an eyebrow and looked at him.
“I do believe that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound like a Rebel, Mr. Shepherd.”
Kane looked back out the window, shook his head.
“It’s just common sense. Personally, I think you’re all committing suicide.”
Anderson grunted.
“Sometimes the price you’re willing to pay to take down tyranny is the highest price of all.” She looked at Kane. “Anthony was a good man. Now he’s gone. I’m not saying that we should prioritize getting him back above the others, but it should be clear that no one in Charleston is safe.”
Kane turned at the sound of Wilson clearing his throat from the doorway. The kid was escorting a smaller black woman, hunched and shaking, her face wet from tears and her eyes swollen from crying. Kane wondered if the woman had slept at all last night. Her clothing was hand-made, the patterns slipshod and random, patchwork from head to toe. Her hair peeked out from beneath her bonnet, the laces hanging free on either side of her face.
“General,” Wilson said. He looked at Kane and nodded. “Mr. Shepherd, sir. This is Mrs. Gillette Garner. She came to us last night concerning her missing husband. The Captain said Mr. Shepherd wanted to speak to her.”
“Bring her in, Wilson,” Anderson said, standing. Kane followed suit as Wilson guided the poor woman in and helped her to the sofa. She sat, still trembling. Kane wished instantly that Tabitha was here to comfort her. Tabitha was good at that kind of thing. Kane had never really been one to nurture. As a Private Investigator, he was used to upset clients. His strategy of keeping it all business was typically successful. Stoic, straight to the point, careful with the question you ask.
Don’t be a jerk.
“Mrs. Garner,” Anderson said as she and Kane sat. The General leaned forward as she spoke gently to the wife. “This is Kane Shepherd. He’s a friend. He’s here to help. He wants to ask you a few questions. If you’re able.”
She nodded.
“Whatever you need me to do,” she said, her voice high-pitched and brittle, likely strained from an entire night of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Kane couldn’t blame her. He was feeling slightly lost without Tabitha by his side, and she was just angry with him and holed up in another room.
“Hello, Mrs. Garner,” Kane said, sitting forward, clasping his hands in front of her. “I’m not going to ask you how you’re feeling, I can only imagine. I do plan to ask you a few simple, routine questions. If you feel like you need to stop, we can stop.”
“Yessir,” she said, nodding. She sniffed loudly, her lip trembling. Wilson dutifully handed her a kerchief. She wiped her eyes and nose, her breathing shaken from holding back another round of sobbing.
“Where were you last night when your husband disappeared?’
“I was in the kitchen cleanin’,” she said. “We’d jes’ finished dinna’. I cain’t stand a mess, so I went to clean and Guster went to set down a spell in the bedroom to read the Good Word. We ain’t got no church till Sund’y, but he like to make sure he ready for when we go praise the Lord.”
Kane nodded.
“Okay, so it was a typical evening? Nothing strange or out-of-the-ordinary?”
“Nossir,” she said, shaking her head. “He ain’t say nothin’ or do nothin’ that struck me odd. I’s almost finish washin’ up when he come walkin’ through the house. He look stiff as a board, his eyes all glazed over. I ask if he alright, and h
e jes’ keep on walkin’ to the front door.”
Kane glanced at Anderson. She looked at Kane and shook her head.
“This is a first,” she explained. “No one’s ever actually witnessed anything. I wanted you to hear it from her.”
Kane nodded, looked back to Mrs. Garner.
“Mrs. Garner, did you try to follow him?”
“I did,” she said, nodding. “I follow ‘dat man out the front door. I’s at my wit’s end. He scarin’ me so bad. I holla his name, even pounded on his back, anythin’ I could think of to get him to jes’ look at me.”
“Did he respond to you at all?”
She shook her head.
“Nossir,” she said. “He done worse. He act like I wasn’t even there. I tried to hold him, keep him from goin’. He push me off, knock me down, and kep’ on walkin’.” She sobbed loudly, clenched the kerchief tight and held it to her lips as she spoke, her voice breaking. “Guster done nevah lay his hands on me like ‘dat. Nevah. He a good man. Walk in the Lord’s path, he do. Treat me like I’m his life and joy.” She broke into tears. She’d been pushed far enough.
Kane looked up at Wilson.
“Take her to her room and let her rest. This interview is over.”
The kid nodded, gave Anderson a salute, then helped Mrs. Garner to her feet and guided her gently out of the parlor.
Kane turned to Anderson.
“You said this has never happened before? Someone actually witnessing a disappearance?”
Anderson shook her head.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would a man just get up and walk out of the house with his own wife screaming at him to stop?”
“He might have been spelled,” Kane said, leaning forward. “One of those Hunters is a magic user. A Shadow Wraith. I’ve never seen one until I came down here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”
“Those Hunters are from Harbor Plantation,” Anderson said. “They don’t come here because they know they’re dead men if they set foot into Charleston.”
Gaslit Armageddon (Clockworks of War Book 2) Page 10