Where the Dead Lie

by C. S. Harris

  As Sebastian crashed into the tower, Rowe’s head jerked up, the fire glowing golden on a face slack with shock, his fist tightening around the shaft of an iron bar he had heated in the fire until its tip glowed an ugly red hot. Sebastian saw Tom swing around, his mouth distorted by a tight gag, his eyes going wide.

  Hesitating only long enough to be certain he had a clean shot, Sebastian leveled the pistol on Rowe’s chest and squeezed the first trigger.

  He heard the hammer strike the frizzen and saw a shower of sparks hit the pan. But the barrel’s main powder charge had obviously sucked too much moisture from the damp night. The pistol misfired.

  Bloody hell. Sebastian was shifting his finger to the second trigger when Rowe scooped up a fistful of hot ashes with one gloved hand and threw them in Sebastian’s face.

  Instinctively, Sebastian closed his eyes against the stinging hot embers and threw up a protective crooked elbow. This time the pistol fired, exploding in an ear-ringing roar and flash that filled the air with the bitter smell of burned powder. But that sudden jerk had deflected his aim. The shot went wide by at least a foot.

  Rowe surged to his feet, the iron bar now held in both hands as he swung it like a cricket bat at Sebastian. Sebastian leapt back, but not fast enough. The glowing tip raked a painful arc of fire across his upper arm, and the air filled with the sizzling stench of burning cloth and charred flesh.

  “Hurts, does it?” said Rowe with a smile, his grip shifting on the iron bar.

  Sebastian threw the useless pistol at the man’s head and reached down to yank the knife from his boot when the man ducked. “I’m still between you and the door,” said Sebastian, settling into a practiced street fighter’s stance.

  Rowe took another swipe at him. But the hot metal was already beginning to cool, and this time Sebastian feinted away easily. “You might as well give up, Rowe,” he said. “It’s over.”

  “I think you overestimate your abilities, Devlin.”

  “Perhaps. But it doesn’t really matter. Your life as you know it is finished. You were seen abducting my tiger. The constables are already on their way here.”

  “I think you’re forgetting who I am.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Are you imagining Jarvis will save you? He won’t, you know. You’ve become an embarrassment. He’ll simply have you eliminated as he has so many others high and low. My guess is you’ll be found floating in the Thames one morning. Elegantly dressed fish food.”

  Rowe gave a ringing laugh of disbelief. He had known nothing but a life of rare privilege and great wealth, protected at every turn from any possible consequences of his actions. He had no reason to expect this latest development to be any different. “You want me, Devlin?” he taunted. “Come and get me.”

  With the iron bar still clenched in one hand, he turned to rush up the rickety old wooden staircase that spiraled toward that small, arsenic-encrusted room a hundred and fifty feet above.

  Sebastian leapt to hack with his blade at the rope binding Tom’s wrists. As the last fraying strands gave way, the boy slumped to the floor.

  Sebastian paused to rest a gentle hand on Tom’s thin, bloody shoulder. “Can you walk?”

  Tom looked up and nodded, his eyes watering as he reached back stiffly to fumble with the ties of his gag.

  Sebastian cupped one hand under the boy’s elbow to lift him to his feet. “Then get out of here, Tom. Now. Run if you can but whatever you do, don’t stop.”

  Without waiting to see if the boy complied with his orders, Sebastian whirled to dash up the stairs behind Rowe.

  When he’d climbed these stairs before, he’d gone cautiously, carefully testing each aged, rotting tread. Now he charged up them, ignoring the way the old staircase shuddered and swayed beneath the combination of his weight and Rowe’s heavy tread clattering far above.

  The Baronet went swiftly at first, the glow from the fire below casting his leaping shadow like a long, distorted live thing across the curving brick walls. But as the two men wound round and round, the light from the distant fire dimmed and the steepness of the climb quickly took its toll. Sebastian could hear the other man stumbling, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he labored to climb higher and higher in a growing darkness lit only by intermittent pulses of lightning.

  Sebastian was within five or six feet of closing the gap between them when Rowe whirled, his mouth open in a pained, air-sucking rictus as he came charging back down at Sebastian in a rush, the iron bar held over his head in a two-handed grip.

  “A miscalculation, I think, Devlin,” he hissed, throwing all his weight behind the bar as he brought it smashing down at Sebastian’s head.

  Sebastian jerked sideways and heard the bar whistle through the air a scant six inches from his face and chest as his back slammed against the filthy, rough brick wall beside them.

  Still grinning, Rowe swung again. Sebastian skittered back two steps—and felt one of the old wooden treads crack and give way beneath his weight.

  He pitched forward, crashing down onto his hands and knees and then slipping back as he scrambled to catch his balance. The knife he’d been holding spun away into the yawning void beside him, the clatter of it hitting the ground far below almost drowned out by the wind whistling in through the open windows and the rain thrumming on the roof.

  Lightning flashed. Over the gaping hole that had now opened between them, the two men’s gazes met. Rowe hesitated, sucking air hard. Then he whirled to take off up the stairs again. Sebastian tore off the thick slab of old stair tread that still dangled at an angle and took it with him as he leapt over the broken stretch to race upward again.

  Up and up they spiraled in an ever-tightening coil. Then he heard Rowe’s footsteps halt and knew the Baronet had reached the room at the top of the tower. As he swung around the last curve, Sebastian saw Rowe waiting for him on the wooden platform, the iron bar raised in both hands, his plump face blotchy and flushed, his body shuddering as his breath came in wheezing gasps.

  “You bloody son of a bitch,” swore Sebastian, plowing up the last few steps with the stair tread held before him like a shield.

  “So eager to die?” said Rowe with a grim smile as he brought the iron bar down, hard, aiming at Sebastian’s face.

  Sebastian caught the blow on his makeshift shield, the impact reverberating down his bruised and burned arm in a pulse of raw agony. If Rowe had been able to hit the board face on, the blow might well have shattered the old wood. But Sebastian had been careful to position the tread at an angle so that the iron bar simply bounced off the thick edge.

  The shock of the deflected blow sent Rowe staggering. His smile slipping, the Baronet backed away across the room’s weathered floorboards as Sebastian advanced on him.

  “Who’s your partner?” Sebastian demanded.

  Rowe swung at him again. “Do you seriously think I’ll tell you?”

  Again the blow bounced off the thick old stair tread. Wheezing hard, Rowe gritted his teeth and swung once more, wildly this time, laboring to recover his control of the iron bar as it bounced away. He was already winded from the run up the stairs, and the bar was heavy, the effort required to strike and then recover from each deflected blow considerable. The sound of his ragged breathing filled the dusty round room; the air was heavy with the smell of his sweat and the cold damp roiling in through the open door to the parapet.

  “At least you don’t deny you have a partner,” said Sebastian, pressing forward. He was hoping to maneuver the tiring man back over the edge of the open trapdoor in the center of the room. But then Rowe stumbled against the rusting iron tripod and cauldron and staggered sideways, missing the yawning hole by inches.

  “Why should I?” said Rowe, swinging at him again as a new flicker of lightning lit up the round room. “I do believe you lied, my lord. There are no constables hurrying to your rescue. The truth is that no one in t
his city would dare bring charges against me, and you know it.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Sebastian. He was aware of the footsteps and heavy breathing of someone rushing up the stairs behind him and hoped to God it was Tom disobeying orders to run or maybe one of Lovejoy’s constables. Anyone but Ashworth.

  “Then why persist?” said Rowe, shifting the angle of his swing in an attempt to bring the bar down on Sebastian’s hand.

  Gritting his teeth against the shooting agony that was his upper arm, Sebastian pivoted to catch the blow in the center of the board again, forcing the Baronet ever backward, aiming now toward the open doorway onto the parapet. “What makes you think I play by the rules?”

  “Because you’re a fool, and that’s what fools do,” said Rowe, altering the angle of his swing again.

  Sebastian tilted the stair tread to block the new blow. Only this time as the heavy iron bar bounced off the board’s side, Sebastian took a swift step forward to slam the heavy stair tread into Rowe’s face. He heard the crunch of smashing nose cartilage and bone, felt the hot spurt of the other man’s blood as Rowe grunted and dropped the bar. It hit the old wooden floor with a bouncing clatter and rolled away.

  “Think so?” said Sebastian. Shifting his grip on the board, he swung the stair tread again, this time clipping the side of the man’s head with a blow that spun Rowe around and sent him staggering through the arched doorway to slam his back against the low brick parapet.

  Tossing the board aside, Sebastian lunged after him. Bracing his hands against the brick doorframe, Sebastian slammed the heel of his right boot into Rowe’s face with enough force to send the bastard toppling backward over the parapet wall.

  Arms flailing frantically, uselessly, Rowe gave one long, high-pitched scream that ended far below in a jarring thump.

  Breathing heavily, with one hand coming up to clutch his burned and bruised arm to his side, Sebastian stepped to the edge of the parapet and stared down at the motionless, broken body sprawled far below.

  He was conscious of Tom coming up beside him, the boy’s naked torso glowing a pale bluish white in a fitful flash of lightning. For a long moment they simply stood side by side, their gazes on the Baronet’s pale, upturned face glistening now with rain. Then Tom said hoarsely, “Is he dead?”

  “After falling a hundred and fifty feet?” Sebastian eased his good arm around the boy’s trembling shoulders and drew him close. “He’s dead.”

  Chapter 56

  Without waiting for the arrival of Bow Street, Sebastian gently wrapped Tom in his own greatcoat and drove the boy in Rowe’s phaeton toward Tower Hill.

  Tom sat beside him in silence, shivering slightly as they clattered through the rain-drenched streets with Sebastian’s mare trotting behind them. The rain had slackened again, the fog rolling in wet and heavy and smelling of sodden autumn leaves and smoke.

  “You all right?” Sebastian asked, glancing over at him. It tore at Sebastian, thinking about what the boy had been through and worrying about how Tom was going to come to terms with it in the days ahead.

  Tom nodded, his nostrils flaring on a quickly indrawn breath. “He was gonna do t’ me what he done to that other boy, Benji. He kept talkin’ about it, describing everything he was gonna do and sayin’ how I was gonna enjoy it.” Tom stared straight ahead, his face oddly leached of all color. “I ain’t never been so scared in me life. It’s shameful, how scared I was.”

  “Anyone would have been scared, Tom. Anyone.”

  Tom shook his head. “It ain’t jist that. He made me feel . . . he made me feel like I were nothin’. Ain’t nobody ever made me feel that low before.”

  Sebastian was aware of the night air cold and damp against his face, and the throbbing ache of his burned, bruised arm. How do you convince a boy born to a deadly combination of poverty and the endless scorn of those labeled his “betters” that his real worth is infinitely above that of the savage, twisted spawn of kings? How do you explain a world that gifts evil men with privilege and wealth and looks the other way while they torment and abuse the weakest members of society?

  There must be a way, Sebastian thought, and he vowed that he would try to find it. But for now he contented himself with saying, “He was an evil man. Now he’s dead.”

  Tom kept his gaze fixed on the dapple roan’s mane streaming out pale and flowing in the darkness. A muscle bunched along his set jaw. “I wish I’d ’ave been the one to kill him. I ain’t never wanted to kill nobody before. But I wish I’d killed him.”

  The boy subsided into silence again, and Sebastian felt his heart ache for the turmoil he knew roiled within his young friend. There were questions Sebastian needed to ask him, perhaps things that might help identify Ashworth as the second killer. But now was not the time. The boy needed to find a way to recover from what had been done to him, not revisit it.

  They’d almost reached Gibson’s surgery when Tom said, “Do you believe there’s a hell?”

  Sebastian glanced down at him. “I honestly don’t know. Why?”

  An oil lamp set high on the corner house near the Tower sent golden light flaring across the boy’s pinched features. “I hope there is. ’Cause if there ain’t, then he died too easy.”

  Sebastian reined in before Gibson’s ancient stone house. “If there’s a hell, that man is in it.”

  • • •

  Sebastian left Tom in Gibson’s care and, ignoring the surgeon’s concern for Sebastian’s own wounds, drove next to Berkeley Square.

  “My lord,” exclaimed Jarvis’s butler, eyes widening at the sight of Sebastian’s ripped and burned coat, his muck-smeared breeches and grimy, rain-streaked face.

  “Grisham,” said Sebastian, his gaze going beyond the butler to where Jarvis and a woman Sebastian recognized as Cousin Victoria stood in low-voiced conversation with a plump, middle-aged man exuding the officious air of a Harley Street physician.

  His father-in-law’s gaze met Sebastian’s across the length of the marble-floored entrance hall. Animosity arced between them, potent and dangerous. Then Jarvis said, his voice gruff, “Now is not a good time, Devlin.”

  Sebastian brought up a crooked elbow to swipe the rain from his face. “I thought you’d like to know there’s a body out at the Clerkenwell shot factory that belongs to someone in whom you seem to believe you have an interest. Bow Street has already been notified, which means if you want to control what happens from here on out, you need to hurry.”

  “I don’t know who you are, young man,” said the Harley Street physician, puffing out his chest with self-importance. “Nor do I know what this is about. But you must be made aware of the fact that this is a house in mourning. Lady Jarvis has just died.”

  Sebastian sucked in a quick, startled breath, feeling the shock of the pompous little man’s words slam into him. A faint footfall at the top of the stairs drew his gaze to the landing above, where Hero stood with one hand clutching the banister. Her beautiful, beloved face was ashen with shock and tight with a grief that only those who’ve lost a mother can understand. And Sebastian felt her pain as raw and piercing as if it were his own.

  He glanced again at his stony-faced father-in-law. He wanted to scream at the bastard, How long? How long did you suspect Rowe? How many of those dead children could you have saved? Instead he merely said curtly, “I beg your pardon; I did not know. My sincere condolences.”

  And then he climbed the stairs to draw his wife into his arms, his heart filling with the helpless ache of his love for her. He wanted so badly to do something to ease her pain. And yet in truth there was nothing he could do.

  Nothing except hold her and love her and whisper over and over as she wept with great, soul-shuddering sobs, “Oh, God, Hero; I am so sorry. So sorry.”

  • • •

  “I don’t understand why you felt the need to warn Jarvis,” said Gibson much later when Sebastian retu
rned to Tower Hill at Hero’s insistence. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but he knew she was right: His arm was a mess.

  He sat now on the table in Gibson’s surgery, a single oil lamp casting stark shadows around the room as Gibson finished cleaning the oozing, ugly wound and began to smear an herb-rich salve on a pad of gauze.

  Sebastian held the pad in place as Gibson began to wind a length of bandaging around the arm. “Hero thinks I shouldn’t have told Jarvis. That I should have let Rowe’s name be dragged through the mud for all to know and see.”

  Gibson looked up from his work. “So why didn’t you?”

  “If there were any justice in this world, the bastard would have stood trial and been executed in front of a howling, jeering mob of those he considered his worthless inferiors. But the man is dead, and these are dangerous times in which we live. The poor are already starving in the streets, and winter isn’t even upon us yet. So while on one hand I feel the people should know—that everyone should know where our damned beatification of wealth and power can lead—I can’t help but think, What would be the result if the people discovered one of their King’s cousins had been allowed to prey on their children like some ogre from a fairy tale come to life? It could easily provoke a disturbance on the scale of the Gordon Riots—if not worse. And I don’t want any more innocent deaths.” He paused. “It would be different if Rowe were still alive, but he’s not; he’s dead. So when it comes down to a choice between making a philosophical point or saving people’s lives, I’ll err on the side of life.”

  Gibson tied off his bandage, his lips pursed into a frown. “Maybe. But I must say, if anyone ever deserved to be gibbeted, it’s that monster. Tom’s right: He died too easy.”