I gave her a suspicious glance, but the question seemed innocent.
“Not quite as expected,” Griffin said. “You read about the gas explosion in the papers yesterday?”
“Good gad, you don’t mean to say you were involved?”
“I’m afraid we were.” Our meals came. I had gotten the fish sandwich again, and proceeded to cut it up into neat squares, a practice of which Christine heartily disapproved.
For once, she didn’t accuse me of misunderstanding the entire purpose of a sandwich, being too engrossed in Griffin’s recounting of our evening. Or a heavily-censored version of the evening, anyway, which did not involve anything more improper than blowing up a house full of Guardians.
Once Griffin was finished, I told them what I’d gleaned from Bradley this morning, leaving out the unpleasant details. Christine could probably imagine them easily enough, and I didn’t want Griffin to realize Bradley had inadvertently inspired our time locked in the storeroom together.
Griffin’s expression grew more and more somber as I spoke. When I was done, he let out a long breath, as if he’d been bracing himself against more bad news. “It seems Blackbyrne planned for this.”
“But why didn’t they bring him back to life right away?” Christine asked. “Why wait two hundred years? Surely he would have wished to return sooner.”
“Maybe,” Griffin allowed. “But possibly the person most interested in Blackbyrne’s return was Blackbyrne himself. If you were his second-in-command, say, would you be eager to hand power back over to him? Or would you keep it for yourself?”
“Which doesn’t answer the question: why now?”
“Perhaps he has something the modern-day Brotherhood needs or wants? Sorcerous expertise, maybe?”
“No reason we come up with will be more than speculation,” I pointed out. “We don’t have enough facts to guess what their motive might be.”
“Well, one thing isn’t speculation,” Christine said. “The gala is tomorrow night. We must all be there and on the lookout.”
Griffin nodded. “Indeed. The snow yesterday disrupted my plans, but this afternoon I’ll track down the caterer and pretend to be looking for work. Barring that, most of the guards recently hired probably don’t know one another. If I can put together a convincing uniform—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Christine settled back in her chair, smirking in a way I didn’t like. “As a mere woman, I am expected to have an escort with me. Normally Whyborne accompanies me, but you need an invitation and he doesn’t.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I didn’t have any objections to the idea…well, none I could speak aloud. After all, it would be pure foolishness to be jealous because Griffin could appear on Christine’s arm, but not my own. Still, my jaw ached from clenching my teeth together.
For his part, Griffin seemed pleased. “An excellent suggestion. This way, I won’t have to hide my identity. Most people don’t look beyond a uniform, but posing as a caterer would still have meant some risk.”
The waiter came to clear away our plates. We paid, then departed to stand awkwardly on the sidewalk. “I will see you both later,” Griffin said, with a little bow, as if he and I had made no plans involving his bed.
Perhaps I was getting better at deception, because I managed not to flush too badly as I said my good-byes, and kept from watching his trim form stride away for more than a moment. When I turned back, Christine wore a smirk on her face.
“Well, Whyborne,” she said slyly, “planning on what to wear tomorrow?”
“Don’t be absurd.” I only owned one formal suit, after all.
“I don’t know. I rather think you and I shall have to duel over my escort.”
“Christine!”
She only laughed at me. “Oh, come along, Whyborne, there’s work to do. Like as not we’ll both be stuck at the Ladysmith until dawn, finishing up for the gala.”
~ * ~
Griffin’s scream woke me from a deep sleep.
The sheets tangled around my flailing arms, and my heart raced in my chest. We were under attack, but from where?
The moonlight streaming through the window silhouetted Griffin’s form beside me. He sat upright, arms wrapped around his torso, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched forward. Nothing else stirred in the room, and my heart began to settle again.
“A nightmare?” I asked. It must have been a terrible one, to cause him to cry out.
Griffin didn’t acknowledge me. A low, soft moan stole from his lips: the sound of a wounded animal.
Was he still asleep? “Griffin?” I said, loudly enough to wake him. When he didn’t respond, I lit the night candle with a word.
The soft light bloomed, throwing a golden glow across the rumpled covers and gently highlighting the muscles of Griffin’s torso and back. He shivered in the frigid air, every muscle stiff and tense.
“Griffin?” I hesitantly touched his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”
He whimpered at the brush of my fingertips. “What is it?” His voice was harsh and cracked with horror. “God in heaven, what is it?”
My hands trembled and my stomach clenched. I leaned over, trying to get a glimpse of his expression.
He stared straight ahead, his eyes like glassy orbs, seeing nothing. “His face is gone,” Griffin whispered. “God. Oh God. It’s gone, it’s gone, he doesn’t have a face, I can’t; I can’t; I can’t…”
“Griffin!” I knelt on the bed in front of him, clasping both his arms in an attempt to force him to look at me. “It’s not real! It’s just a dream.”
He blinked slowly, but still didn’t seem to actually see me. “It isn’t real?”
“No. You’re here, old fellow, in your own bed, safe and sound.”
Griffin swallowed convulsively. “Please don’t make me go back to the madhouse.”
Chapter 18
Griffin had been in a madhouse?
Goosebumps pricked my skin, and not just because of the icy air. What was it he’d said the night we’d found the Guardian in the warehouse and he’d told me of his last case with the Pinkertons? “…They said I’d broken under the strain. I was mad.”
Had they sent him to the asylum? Told him the things he’d seen in that accursed place were the result of a fractured mind? Dear God, I’d heard the stories of what went on behind the walls of such places. Had they locked him in? Restrained him in a straightjacket? Used injections or ice-water baths to “cure” him?
My gorge rose, and my muscles tensed with the need to do something, anything, to protect him. But of course it was far too late.
Nor would anger help the situation now. Leaning forward, I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Of course not, darling,” I said, as tenderly as I could form the words. “No one will make you go anywhere you don’t want, ever again.”
“I’ll be good; I promise.” He closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Please. Just let me go home.”
I slid my arms around him; all resistance was gone, and he let me pull him back down and cover us both in the blankets. His skin was like ice; I wrapped my legs around him as well, trying to warm him. “You are home,” I whispered into his ear. “The monsters are real, but they aren’t here now. You’re safe.”
He buried his face against my neck, dampening my skin with hot tears. I closed my eyes, stroking his brown curls rhythmically. Seeing him in pain was like swallowing broken glass.
I wanted to do more than just hold him. I wanted to take away every hurt he’d ever suffered. I wanted to find whoever had sent him to the asylum and pummel them senseless. I wanted to hide him away from every cruelty in the world, somewhere safe and warm and happy.
I couldn’t do any of those things. So I did the only thing I could and held him close, murmuring words of comfort into his ear. Eventually, the small tremors and occasional whimper subsided, and he fell into an exhausted sleep. But I lay awake until dawn, on guard in case the terrors of the night returned to claim him a
gain.
~ * ~
When I next awoke, I found myself alone. The early sunlight streamed through the window, and frost traced fanciful patterns on the panes. I slid a hand over to Griffin’s side of the bed and found the sheets had gone cold.
Had he awoken disoriented again, trapped in the past? He’d dressed at least, and the washbasin had been used, so hopefully he had recovered from his fit.
I slid out from under the sheets and dressed hastily. The water of the basin had a thin crust of ice on it; I decided to heat some water in a kettle to shave, as I had no desire to freeze my neck and face.
I went out into the hall and made for the warmth of Griffin’s study. He sat in his wing-backed chair, staring out the window, with Saul curled up on his lap. There was a snifter in his hand and a bottle of whiskey on the floor beside him.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay,” he said without turning to look at me. The words were hurried and sounded rehearsed. “I hope you’ll agree to continue our association in a professional capacity until the case is done, but I understand if you don’t wish to.”
Had he been sitting out here alone for hours, convinced I would leave at the first opportunity? I’d done nothing to give him that impression, I was sure of it. Perhaps he simply couldn’t imagine anyone would stay with a man who wasn’t entirely whole. Who had been broken, and hadn’t managed to put all the pieces back together.
I cleared my throat. “I certainly hope your detective skills are normally sharper than this,” I said briskly. “Otherwise you will soon be out of business.”
I crossed the room and took the snifter from his unresisting hand. “Although this is surely not helping anything,” I added. I opened the window, tossed the whiskey out, and shut it again hastily as a wave of cold air poured in.
I turned to find Griffin sitting forward, his eyes wide. Saul meowed grumpily and hopped down off his lap. “You’re staying?” The words were spoken softly, as if saying them too loudly would somehow make them untrue.
I put down the snifter and crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you truly think me so inconstant?”
Griffin’s lips tightened and he slumped back in his chair. “I was in an asylum. I have fits, as you saw last night. I should have mentioned it before we became involved, but I chose the coward’s path. If you left, it would not in any way reflect on you.”
I knelt beside him and laid my head in his lap. “I hope you realize you have my highest regard and-and affection,” I said. Strange, how much harder it was to expose my heart than it had been my body. “You can confide in me without fear.”
“But I am afraid.” I could feel his fingers trembling as he rested them against my hair. “What if you change your mind, once you hear?”
“At least give me the chance to prove I won’t.”
“Yes. And…you deserve to know. It was the last case, as I said. We split up.” Griffin’s voice was low, tremors cracking the words. “Glenn and I. They called us G&G at the agency.”
“Was he…were the two of you…?”
“He was married. Four children, and another on the way.”
At least they hadn’t been lovers. “Still, I’m sorry.”
His fingers stroked my hair, smoothing the stubborn locks. “I did a quick search of the upper floors of the house, while he went into the basement. There was nothing upstairs, so I followed him into those damnable depths.” A shudder went through him. No wonder he had been alarmed at the prospect of going through the trapdoor in the abandoned house.
“It was dark,” he went on. “And it stank. God, the smell! I couldn’t stand the thought an innocent girl might be down there. I held my breath and pressed on. There were rooms burrowed down into the earth itself, and I swear some of them were far older than anything built by human hands.
“I don’t know what I might have found, had I gone all the way to the bottom of that rotting pile of ancient, hollowed stone. There was a hall—and a room—and Glenn—and a thing.”
His fingers curled in my hair, his entire body shivering now. “I don’t know what it was. It was slime and eyes and ropy tentacles, and it had Glenn. No. It was digesting Glenn. It had him, and his face…it was gone. Melted off, down to the skull. But he was still alive. Still screaming.”
Dear heavens. My mind shied away from picturing it. How had Griffin endured the sight? Even worse, what must it have been like for poor Glenn? Of all the horrible ways to die.
Griffin let out a long shuddering breath. Was he weeping? I kept my cheek pressed against his leg, not wishing to embarrass him by seeing his tears.
“I shot him,” he said, his voice raw with grief. “There was nothing else to be done. I killed him, and then I emptied my revolver into the thing, and it didn’t even seem to notice. One of its tentacles whipped out and wrapped around my leg. You’ve seen the scar. It was cold, beyond cold, like the darkest night ever known, and yet it burned at the same time. I think I screamed. How I pulled loose from it, I don’t know. Perhaps it was still busy absorbing Glenn. Or maybe it was nothing but blind, stupid luck. A sort of cosmic joke, where one of us lived and one died, with nothing but random chance to say which was which.
“I don’t recall fleeing the house, although I must have. The next thing I knew, I was strapped to a gurney in the hospital. I told my boss everything. But he said I was wrong. The police had come, and there was nothing left of Glenn but a pile of bones. He said the culprits had tried to dissolve him in acid. They’d thrown acid on my leg, and the pain had unhinged me. And when I screamed he was wrong, everyone said I was mad.”
Griffin let out a bitter laugh utterly devoid of humor. “I was mad. For a little while at least. Screaming, clawing-at-the-walls mad. But I wasn’t wrong.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You weren’t.”
“I ended up in the asylum. It was…bad. I don’t…I can’t talk about it. I thought I would die there. But my father came and insisted they turn me over to him.”
“Your father?” I asked. “Weren’t you an orphan?”
“Yes. Sent to Kansas on the orphan train after my parents died. Adopted on the platform by a couple who couldn’t have children of their own. They didn’t even try to give me a new name, which happened to most of the orphans. They were good to me, and I never felt like anything less than their son. At least, not until I was caught with the son of the neighboring farmer.”
“Oh,” I said. Had the boy been Griffin’s first love? “What happened?”
“I left town, and he stayed behind and married the girl he’d already been engaged to, and everyone agreed I was a devil who’d tempted him off the Christian path.” Griffin’s voice grew rough with old anger and hurt. Then he sighed. “But Father came for me, when I had no one else. He removed me from the asylum and took me home. I don’t know what he thought of me; I didn’t dare ask, and he didn’t offer. But he and Mother gave me a safe place to come back to myself, and for that I am eternally grateful.”
“And you moved here?”
“Eventually, yes. I wanted somewhere different, somewhere I could forget. And yet the past refuses to go away.”
I opened my eyes to avoid the visions of a stormy night on a lake, which threatened to play out against my lids. “It has a way of doing that.”
“Yes.” He sighed and stroked my hair again. “I won’t pretend I wasn’t unhinged by what I saw. I still suffer from fits, as you now know. If…if you decide to leave, I understand, and will not think you faithless.”
My neck was developing a crick, but I didn’t want to move. “I am where I wish to be,” I said at last, not sure how else to make him understand.
His body hitched slightly, as if against tears, and his fingers coiled in my hair, tenderly.
I had dedicated my life to words. But sometimes, words are not needed. We sat together quietly in the warmth of the fire, and watched snow drift past the window, for as long as we were able.
~ * ~
That night, I put on my tux
edo suit and removed my silk top hat from its box. I gave more care to my appearance than usual as I dressed. When I was done, I added the gold pocket watch and diamond cufflinks which had been my eighteenth birthday present from my father, before he realized I meant to defy him. Normally I considered them too fancy, but perhaps Griffin would like them. I even managed to induce my hair to lay flat, through the judicious application of oil.
I was as well put together as possible for me. Now all I had to do was go down to the street and wait.
Fortunately, the evening was comparatively mild for December, the clouds rolling away, the stars shining in their multitudes against the velvet sky. A few people walked about in the early evening, moving through the streets on their own business. None of us made eye contact or greeted one another. Would Griffin think it strange, or did the people of Chicago or Boston mind their own business just as assiduously?
The clop of hooves heralded the approach of a cab. I caught a glimpse of Christine’s face at the window as it pulled up, and she flung open the door for me. It was always odd to see her in an evening dress; this one had the usual froth of skirts and sleeves so wide she might have concealed an arsenal of handguns in them. Knowing Christine, she probably had. “Hello, Whyborne. Ready for an exciting evening?”
“As ready as one can be,” I said, climbing into the cab. Then I saw Griffin, and couldn’t catch my breath to speak further.
He was always handsome, but in his tailcoat and top hat, he looked resplendent. His brown curls were neatly brushed, and his elegantly tailored clothing showed off his lean form to best advantage. He sat beside Christine, leaving the rear-facing seat for me. I was glad for it, because I hadn’t appreciated just how difficult it would be to keep my hands from him. I wanted to kiss him hello, to strip off his gloves and press my lips against his fingertips, to—
The cab started with a lurch, and I nearly fell on Christine. “For God’s sake, Whyborne, sit down,” she said irritably.
Griffin gave me a smile, his eyes warm. “The tuxedo becomes you,” he said.
My face grew hot. “I, er, thank you.”
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 16