A Shaper's Promise

by Karen MacRae

  The investigator chewed on a slightly stale meat pie as he hid outside the Goldsmith’s home. He shoved the last of the pastry into his mouth and chewed without pleasure, promising himself a mug of ale and a nice juicy steak when he got home then put his mind firmly back on the case.

  He’d got it out of a maid that Geraint had arrived just before dinner and he’d seen him from an upstairs window a few minutes ago, naked apart from the towel wrapped around his waist. It was no wonder the Lord Healer had had his head turned. The man looked chiselled from stone. It didn’t look like he would be going out any time soon either: the curtains had been pulled just after he’d seen Lady Goldsmith’s arms snake around the semi-naked man’s chest. No doubt her fool of a husband was right beneath the squeaking springs, thinking a mouse had got in the house or something equally naive.

  He decided to give it another two hours before heading home. He’d be back before six, plenty early enough to follow the toff.

  “Is he definitely down there?” Lord Goldsmith asked his wife.

  “Definitely, Larry. I can see his heat glow. It hasn’t moved,” she replied, sitting cross-legged on the edge of Finn’s bed so she could keep one eye on Thornson’s lackey with her gift. “How did it go at the King’s Arms, Finn?”

  Finn pulled on a robe over his towel and took a seat opposite his hostess. “Perfect. I hope the boy can be trusted though. I’d rather not have rumours spreading about Master Geraint. Not while I’m playing at him at least.”

  “Thornson and his stooge investigator won’t say a word and the family is absolutely trustworthy. Couldn’t believe my luck when they agreed to run the place. I get at least ten percent of my intelligence just from them.”

  “I hear you had some luck at the tables,” Lord Goldsmith said.

  “Not so much luck as sleight of hand and favourably-weighted dice,” Finn laughed. “It’s not one of your places, is it, Larry?”

  “Light no, much too expensive to run. I sold it a couple of months ago, as soon as I’d doubled my money. Just as well, if you’re going to make a habit of using your dodgy dice there,” the far-from-stupid Lord Goldsmith replied with a smile.

  “Let’s go over next steps while we wait for tonight’s finale,” Lady Goldsmith suggested.

  “Right you are, Marissa,” agreed her husband. “The lads are picking Finn and me up at six thirty. Finn, you sure you’re up to your bit?”

  “I’ll be fine, Larry. I’m not looking forward to it, but I’ll do the job.”

  “All right, so we’ll head off hunting at six thirty and be back by ten. A quick change and we’ll head to Christie’s. Marissa, you’ve arranged for the Kenna girls to be there? Malik too?”

  “I’ve dropped hints in the right ears that our gorgeous, extremely eligible bachelor will be lunching at Christie’s, so they’ll be there. They’re still hunting for the man who’ll save the family fortunes. Larry, you need to introduce them to Finn. Finn, you need to invite them to join us. I’ll look suitably affronted and ask Malik to join us too. He’s been thoroughly briefed. He knows his role.”

  Lady Goldsmith walked over to the window and peered out carefully. “Thought I caught movement. Yes, he’s heading around the corner. Finn, you better get dressed.”

  Hutton stretched his legs. Keeping to the darkest shadows, he made his way around the side of the property and over the fence which separated the Goldsmith’s garden from parkland. The investigator was gratified to see the bedroom curtains hadn’t been closed on that side of the house and that candles still burned. There was no need for privacy, the room not being overlooked, and he knew from experience that many of these perverts enjoyed a heightened risk of discovery.

  He didn’t have too long to wait. Lady Goldsmith appeared before the glass doors dressed only in the skimpiest of undergarments. Hutton gaped. Well, this was a bonus. A man appeared behind her and turned her roughly, forcing her arms and legs apart to spreadeagle her against the doors. There was no mistaking that physique.

  He watched as Geraint ripped off her clothing and ran a cat o’ nine tails along her limbs and between her legs. Her body responded as if hypnotised by the weapon. His arm raised and lowered again and again, the tails flailing across her back and buttocks. She arched each time the tails hit, her breasts pressing against the window. He spun her around and slapped her repeatedly, her head swinging from side to side with each impact. She crumpled to her knees and the sadist pulled her up only to fling her away from the glass.

  Hutton watched breathlessly as Geraint took a step towards the window, menace exuding from every pore. He was dressed from head to toe in tight leather, his face lit with a wicked grin promising yet more violence to come.

  The investigator was surprised to feel genuine concern that Lady Goldsmith was all right. He supposed he’d just have to wait until morning to find out.

  “That was fun,” grinned Lady Goldsmith. “I wonder if the poor man has had a heart attack. Do you think we should check?”

  “You are incorrigible, my dear,” chuckled Lord Goldsmith. “I commend you both for your playacting. It looked real from here never mind from down there.”

  “Marissa, you never cease to amaze me. If anyone ever says your commitment to the King is less than total, I will take the greatest pleasure in garrotting him or her!”

  “No need, Finn darling. Larry will beat you to it,” the King’s spy mistress in Alscombe laughed.

  CHAPTER 28

  Alsham Castle

  L uciado recognised the footsteps of the girl who brought Anna’s breakfast. He wondered why she was there so early: apart from the snores coming from Sy’s room, the castle was deathly silent, the time clearly well before morning bell. Curious, the boy slipped out of bed and crept across the room so he didn’t wake his mother. He eased the door open and stepped out as the girl placed Anna’s tray on the floor. Why didn’t she didn’t say good morning to him? She should have seen him come out of his room. Perhaps the corridor was dark?

  He could hear her muttering to herself. He couldn’t make out all the words, but he could feel her fear. He stepped forward to tell her that Anna was really nice, not to be so scared, but she moved through the doorway before he could get the words out. She hadn’t picked up the tray. What the light was going on?

  He walked forward quickly, abandoning any attempt at silence. The muttering had grown louder. His ear could pick out the words. She was right by the bed. There was no time for reason. He bent to the tray, grabbed the first thing his hand touched and let it fly straight at the girl. Her breath left her in a short, pained shriek and fell to the floor with a thud.

  Anna woke at the sound and jumped out of bed. Lantern light spilled through the open door. The boy was a silhouette, his backlit shadow stretching across the room. Between its spindly legs, a pool of light revealed the serving girl lying crumpled next to the bed. A silver handle protruded from her back.

  “Sweet light, Luciado, what have you done?” she whispered. “Help!” she screamed at the top of her voice. “Help me!”

  Luciado didn’t move. He stood stock still, uncertain whether or not he’d done the right thing. His mother arrived and bundled him into her arms. “What? What’s happened? Luciado, are you all right?” she cried, panicking.

  Sy and Spider pushed past to get to Anna. They found her bent over a buckled body. The girl was still alive, but her seeping blood was beginning to move only sluggishly.

  Anna had acted without question. She’d grabbed the nearest crystal, sent the knife flying across the room with one fierce pull on the handle and placed her hands on the wound. As she visualised the injury leaving the girl’s body, she knew the blade had pierced the heart; the patch of black aura seemed insignificant, but it ran deep and fought like fury to stay.

  The first tiny multi-coloured stone on the necklace turned milky in seconds, but still she channelled blackness. The pain hit her head like a sledgehammer after the fourth stone was used up, but she knew she couldn’t spare a momen
t of time or any of her necklace’s crystal for herself. One by one, every stone but the last turned milky until, finally, the girl breathed unaided.

  Anna slumped unconscious over her sleeping body. Sy gently picked her up and laid her on her bed then lifted the serving girl to move her somewhere more comfortable. Spider’s sharp exhalation alerted him that all was not right. He looked to see his friend’s eyes fixed on the floor. There, in a pool of congealing blood, was a kitchen knife, its blade glinting in the spilled lantern light. A simple paring knife lay beyond the pool, a splatter of blood marking its path from the girl’s back to the floor.

  “Luciado, how did you know?” Spider asked the boy gently.

  “I heard,” was all he said.

  His mother’s face reflected her confusion. “What’s going on?” she asked angrily.

  “Luciado saved Anna’s life. The girl was moments away from stabbing her. I don’t know how he did it, but he did.”

  “Is she going to be all right? She was saying some terrible things. I think she must be sick, but Anna Healed her, yes? I can hear her breathing now.”

  “What was she saying, Luciado?” asked Sy.

  “She’ll kill us all. I have to kill her first. Over and over. She’ll kill us all. I have to kill her first. Then she was right by Anna’s bed so I just grabbed what I could and threw it at her. I didn’t have time for anything else.”

  Spider and Sy shared a grimace. It was pure luck that Luciado had grabbed the paring knife with its narrow blade and a downright miracle that the blade had passed through the girl’s ribs and pierced her heart.

  “I’m good at throwing,” Luciado added proudly. “Davy and I were practising yesterday after school and I hit the target every single time, even when Davy cheated and moved it when he thought I couldn’t tell.”

  “I thought you were fishing after school?” Chiara asked sternly.

  “Oh, hello, Natalie. Good morning,” said Luciado with a smile, his mother’s question avoided. “Are you feeling better now?”

  Spider and Sy turned quickly to the armchair to see the girl coming round. Her eyes were pinned on Anna’s chest, seemingly mesmerised by its rise and fall. Suddenly, she rushed across the room, flinging herself on the bed. Her hands fastened like leeches around Anna’s neck and began to squeeze before the two men could reach her.

  Natalie screamed, “She’ll kill us all!” at the top of her voice. “I have to kill her first!”

  Sy’s fist connected with the girl’s head and she fell unconscious on top of her saviour. “No, Luciado, I don’t think Natalie is feeling better,” he told the boy as he eased Natalie off the Shaper. “I think maybe she needs to have a long rest. Perhaps Anna can help her later on. For now, I think it’s time you were getting back to bed. There’s still an hour until you need to get up. I’m sure Mistress Oclare won’t be happy if you fall asleep in lessons.”

  “We definitely can’t have that, can we Luciado? Come on, back to bed. You did a good thing here, but we can leave Spider and Sy to deal with Natalie and Anna.” Chiara steered Luciado out of Anna’s room, gesturing to the men that she’d be back soon to help Anna.

  Spider and Sy waited until the door was closed and the incredible listening devices that were Luciado’s ears were back in his bedroom.

  “What the hell?” Spider swore, looking at the two sleeping girls.

  “It’s like she’s obsessed,” Sy said, thinking hard. “We’ll have to get her somewhere secure before she wakes up and we’re going to need Lady Braxton.”

  Chiara went straight to Anna on her return. She laid her hands on the girl’s head and shuddered at the pain. “I don’t know how she does it. It’s excruciating. Thankfully, it’s straightforward-to-fix excruciating. There, that should do it. The bruises on her neck too. She’ll probably sleep for a few hours.”

  “Is Luciado all right?”

  “He seems fine. I don’t think he understands the significance of what he did. It was an accident though, wasn’t it? I mean, he didn’t mean to kill the girl.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t, Chiara, but Sy and I are wondering whether there’s more to it than that. We’d like to explore this seeing with sounds thing a bit more, if that’s all right?”

  “Of course. Now, I better get back to him. I don’t want him waking alone.”

  Sy lifted the serving girl from the bed and followed Spider down three flights of stairs and along two long corridors until they reached Davy’s old bedroom on the second floor. The light from the corridor wasn’t strong enough to make it properly inside the small, windowless room and its little privy but, other than being a little stuffy from lack of use, it was a perfect temporary, private prison.

  Spider grabbed a lantern from the corridor and hung it on the hook inside the door to reveal furniture covered with dust sheets. “Damn handy, having a Braxton with a tendency to want to climb out of windows.”

  “I don’t think Vixen had this in mind for it, though.”

  Spider snorted. “That’d be a first: she thinks of everything.”

  “Light a candle in the privy before you get her, will you? I don’t want to knock Natalie’s head against the wall.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Spider returned without Finn’s mother. “She said that, if you clobbered Natalie, there isn’t a chance she’s waking up for at least another hour and to come and get her when it happens. She also requested that the pair of us put on some clothes before she arrived.”

  Spider looked at his friend’s face as it dawned on him that they’d had been wandering around the castle in pyjama bottoms and bare feet. Humour won over embarrassment.

  “I wish I could have seen her face when she opened the door!” Sy guffawed.

  “It was absolutely priceless, but I felt like a right idiot. Must have turned beetroot! I doubt she’ll ever let me forget it.”

  “Never mind her, what about Finn?”

  The two looked at each other as a lifetime of pyjama jokes flashed between their eyes. Suddenly, they didn’t feel much like laughing.

  Lady Braxton arrived with Anna and Seleste two hours later. “She’s still out?” she asked.

  “Afraid so, Lady Braxton, sorry,” Sy apologised. “I guess I hit her a bit harder than I meant to.”

  “Anna, can you Heal her from here?”

  “No, milady. I’ll have to touch her aura.”

  “Can you bring her to the verge of consciousness? So you have enough time to get out of the privy before she wakes?”

  “I can do something that’ll have the same effect, I think, but she’ll wake for a fraction of a moment.”

  “Spider, Sy, by the girl’s side, please. Seleste, you stay on Anna.”

  Lady Braxton waited by the door as Anna knelt by the bathtub, her friends ready to pin the girl should things go wrong. Anna clutched her crystal dagger and visualised the grey patch lifting from Natalie’s head. As soon as she felt the last of the grey enter the dagger and saw the girl’s eyelids flutter, she pushed her aura just enough to keep the girl asleep.

  “Nicely done,” approved Lady Braxton. “Anna, please wait in the bedroom out of sight and be ready to act as necessary. Seleste, with Anna. Sy, by the door. Spider, by my side.”

  Three sets of eyes stared at the girl sleeping in the dusty bathtub. She woke quite abruptly, confused to find herself in a tub.

  “Lady Braxton! Oh my! What am I doing… Oh my!” Natalie struggled to get her feet under her so she could stand.

  “Be still, Natalie. Master Peyton will bring us both a chair and we will have a chat.”

  “Yes, milady,” the serving girl replied automatically.

  Sy gave the girl a hand to get out of the bath to the chair furthest from the door. If she made a run for it, she’d have to get through one highly trained spy mistress, two armed men, an assassin and an Aura Shaper. It didn’t seem likely she’d try, though. She seemed baffled about the events that had led to her being in this bizarre situation, but quite content to follow instruction
.

  “Natalie, please talk us through everything you did yesterday and today.”

  “Yes, milady. I work early shift so I do the same most days. Yesterday, I prepared and served breakfasts on the fifth floor then I helped clean the Great Hall before I went back to service the bedrooms. I got off at fourteen o’clock, went home, helped mama with dinner, read for a while and went to bed. I woke really early this morning for some reason so I got in early… I… I… I think I started the breakfast trays… I… Oh! I can’t remember. Oh milady, I can’t remember!”

  “That’s all right, Natalie. You’re doing fine,” Lady Braxton reassured the frightened girl. “Now, tell me who you spoke with yesterday, please.”

  “Yes ma’am. I get up before the rest of the family so the first people I speak to are the guards on the gate. I said hello to Chef and the other servers, I spoke a few words to one or two of the guests on the fifth floor then I had a chat with my friend Susie who was also doing the Great Hall. After that, I had a bite to eat in the kitchen. Susie and I sat with Ahmed and Nico, the footmen. Then, I guess, the next person I spoke to must have been Mistress Manson when I was signing out. Then mama, my brother and papa.”

  “And today? Did you talk to anyone today, Natalie?”

  “Em… I must have spoken to the guards, milady, but… no, I’m sorry, I can’t remember.” The girl looked frantically between the three sharing the privy with her. “Have I done something wrong? Please milady, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

  “That’s all right, Natalie. You’re doing just fine. You mustn’t be concerned. Everything’s going to be fine.” Lady Braxton waited until the girl had calmed before asking her next question. “Natalie, what do you think about Miss Northcott? About the Shaper?”

  “She’ll kill us all. I have to kill her first. She’ll kill us all. I have to kill her first. She’ll kill us all. I have to kill her first.”