Beasts of london, p.19
Beasts of London, page 19
“There’s none left. Witherbones will have to make more—”
“I don’t have time.” He tried to walk but stumbled, falling on one knee on the stairs, his vision blurring and his head spinning. “I’ve suffered a mortal wound, and if I do not get that potion, I won’t be able to hold the beast back.”
“Then let it take over,” Witherbones said, reaching for him. “Master, the beast’s magic will heal you. If you resist it, there could be permanent—”
“I don’t care!” His teeth were sharp and elongated against his tongue. The transformation was already starting.”
“What if the girl sees you half dead and suffering in such a state?” the creature asked.
He grabbed the Brownie’s knobby shoulder, and the creature squeaked as the tips of the beast’s sharp, black claws bit his skin. “I’d rather her see me sick than see me… like that.”
There was a gasp from upstairs, and Vera came racing down the stairs, her fiddle under her arm, with Miss Lucy following close behind. Before they could get any closer and see him in his current state, Cecil barked, “Take Vera to her room and keep her there until I say so.”
“Mr. Morris—?” She froze on the stairs, alarmed at his tone.
He rose unsteadily to his feet. “Now, Miss Lucy.”
He heard Vera’s heartbroken cry of protest and her frantic pleas not to be locked away as Miss Lucy took her hand and pulled her to her room. Then all he could hear was the strangled, labored pulsing of his blood. He reached his bed and collapsed onto it, his vision darkening, and he fell unconscious as the venom reached his heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Jinn worked through dreams, Menes Tadros had warned him.
As Cecil succumbed to the venom and fell into a fevered sleep, a shadowy shape weaved through his dreams. It was an iridescent cobra the size of an anaconda with black scales that glinted blue with every undulation of its massive body. It moved with intention.
“Why does the venom not kill him?” A curious yet mildly irritated, velvety voice whispered through his mind. “An ordinary human would be dead by now. Let us get to the heart of the matter, then.”
The dream shifted, and a familiar gambling house materialized in his mind as crisp and clear as if he was standing in it now. The cobra slithered across the old wood floors and under tables full of drunken, shouting men. It slithered straight toward a willowy, rosy-cheeked young man dressed in borrowed clothes who was standing at the table and throwing dice. Harold Blake was winning.
After working in the gambling house for over a year, Harold Blake hardly felt guilty about swindling men anymore. During his first few months, his deception had been half-hearted, shaky, and disingenuous. He hadn’t wanted to drag down any man to the same filthy depths he had fallen to by convincing them to gamble their lives away. But Mr. Cane could detect when he was slacking in his work, and he refused to put any money he earned toward Harold’s debts unless he gave it his all.
“You had better start doing anything you can to get me my money, boy,” Mr. Cane had warned him. “I don’t care if you have to lie, cheat, or charm it out of them. You will do whatever you must to keep those men coming back here or answer to me and my crop.”
With the threat of another beating and Emily’s demand that he harden his heart blaring in his head, he had finally committed to his work. Perhaps Cecil Morris blanched at his shameful acts inside, but there was nothing Harold Blake would not do to pay off his debts. Harold Blake had no shame.
In the time he worked at the establishment, he had seen every ugly shade of humanity, witnessed every vice. With each new horror he was exposed to, his feelings of guilt faded a little more. A man might appear a gentleman on the outside, but his true animal nature always showed itself. Why should he feel guilty for taking from a beast?
He had become quite skilled at the game when the three officers in scarlet uniforms showed up one evening. The militiamen were already intoxicated when they arrived, so getting them to loosen their grip on their coin was easy. Harold played the role of a wealthy, charming idiot spending his father’s abundant money.
They had become so caught up in his charade that they hardly realized he had won everything they bet. He played it off well like it was a lucky accident. Inside, he was giddy thinking about how much closer he was to paying off his debt to Mr. Cane and being rid of this house of horrors.
“If you join me again tomorrow, no doubt you’ll win it all back from me,” Harold had assured the men on his way out. “Tell me you’ll come back tomorrow, gentlemen? I will pay for the drinks, naturally.”
The cobra slithered onward, and the old lodging house where Cecil had stayed with his sister materialized into view in the cold, foggy London night.
When he told his sister about his successful night, she paled. “Soldiers? What were their names?”
“What do I care about their names? I have their money.” He stretched out on his back on the cot, fingering a gold pocket watch he’d won. “If you must know, two of the soldiers were brothers, I think. Fletcher and Marcus Taylor. The other was a sly dog called Jack Farley.”
Emily went as rigid as a statue in her chair beside him. “I’ve heard… terrible stories about those men from workers in the factory. They have deceived and preyed upon many women there.”
“Then I shall relish taking their money.” He chuckled wryly. “They believe I am some rich idiot whom they can prey upon for my coin, and I will keep letting them think that until I take everything from them.”
The dream shifted to the next night when he won even more from the soldiers. Though they were inebriated as before, the alcohol seemed to stoke their anger instead of dampening the pain of their loss. They had caught onto him and threatened him, and only Mr. Cane’s interference prevented them from starting a row in the gambling house.
He headed home for the night. The knowledge that his debt was almost paid put a spring in his step. Unbeknownst to him, the soldiers had followed him.
When he reached the apartment, a gaunt but smiling Emily rushed out to meet him with their freshly-bought supper of two baked potatoes. The fog was thick and obscuring, but she noticed the men first, her smile instantly fading. “Cecil—” She broke off with a scream, dropping their food.
Fletcher caught up to him first. He grabbed Cecil’s arm and wrenched him around, shouting in a slurred voice for him to return the money he’d lost.
Cecil pulled free for a moment, straightened the wrinkles in his cape, and shot Emily a look that told her to flee. “You will simply have to return to the hall tomorrow evening. Perhaps you can earn your winnings back. Until then, shall I buy you another drink?”
“We’re not leaving without the money owed to us.” Jack stepped into the light. He was the oldest of the group, with dark hair and broad shoulders. “One way or another, we’ll have payment.”
When Marcus rushed up, Cecil’s cool demeanor shifted, and his eyes widened in panic. “Wait—”
“Leave him alone,” Emily demanded, rushing forward. “He works for the establishment. All the money you lost belongs to the owner. Harold doesn’t keep a pence of it, and he won it fairly from you!”
“If you do not get a share of it, how did you afford that ridiculous hat of yours?” Fletcher knocked it from his head, and before Cecil could protest, the man grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed his skull against the wall behind him.
Cecil’s shout was stifled by Marcus, who rushed up and winded him with a blow to the gut. He crumpled, held aloft by the men. When Emily screamed and threw herself at them, a backhanded blow knocked her to the filthy street.
The first soldier grabbed the front of Cecil’s cloak and jerked it open. “I see gold buttons, a pocket watch chain—” He turned to the two others. “Check the little tramp on the ground. She may be hiding finery under all that dirt.”
“No, no—please leave her be,” Cecil choked out, voice cracking. “I’ll give you anything you want. Just leave her be.”
With trembling fingers, he removed the watch and chain from his waistcoat and held it out for the men to take.
One of the men pinning to the wall drew his sword, pressing it to Cecil’s chest. He was unsteady, drunker than the rest. “We’ll take the buttons as well.” He began to try to cut the gold fastenings from the waistcoat, but the blade slipped, and Cecil screamed as it pierced his arm at the bicep.
“Stop! Please, please don’t—” He struggled but was held in place. “I’ll give you the waistcoat. I’ll give you—everything. Everything that I have. I swear it. I’ll lose tomorrow, and you’ll get all your money back. Just leave us alone.”
The men released him but did not stand back. Shivering, Cecil slowly worked his cape, jacket, and waistcoat free, handing each item to them until he stood in only his underclothes, which were becoming quickly soaked in blood at the sleeve from the wound.
Emily rose from the ground shakily, blood snaking down her chin from her split lip. Staring down at her like a cat spotting an injured bird, Jack grinned. “Look who it is, gents,” he said, grabbing her around the waist. She screamed and struggled against him. “It’s our favorite little doll.”
“Emily!” Cecil cried. “Let her go!”
“Now it’s the girl’s turn to undress,” Jack said darkly. “Go on, sweetheart.”
Emily held her head high, the blood standing out starkly against her pale face. She met her brother’s terrified gaze. “We promised we wouldn’t use it,” she said, blinking back tears. “It has a price.”
“I know.” Cecil could already feel the magic he’d tamped down all this time swelling in his chest, filling his veins. “But I won’t let anyone hurt us again—that’s a promise.”
The instant he whispered a spell under his breath, the blood seeping from his wound seemingly vanished. His blue eyes blazed red, and the blood materialized in the air, turning into a silvery dark blade dripping with black smoke, and sank into the throat of Jack Farley, severing it in a flash.
The other men ran down the street, hollering like wild dogs. When her brother fell to his knees, exhausted, Emily rushed over. The two siblings huddled together, sobbing, as blood flowed across the dirt London streets.
“They could have—” He broke off, choking on a sob. “They were going to—”
She hugged him tighter, shushing him. “It’s all right now. You saved us.”
They quickly retreated to the apartment. Cecil peered out the window at the city below. His eyes played tricks on him in the dark, and for a moment the shadows looked like the soldiers’ blood was spreading across the whole street. He shuddered.
“Do you see anyone?” Emily asked, wringing her hands. “Surely someone heard our screams. Do you think they sent for the police?”
“If anyone did hear us, no one is coming.”
“That is likely for the best. They would probably arrest us.”
“Arrest us? We were the victims.” He sat down on the bed, clutching his wounded arm. “Where will we go now? If I return to the gambling house like this, Mr. Cane will throttle me. And if the soldiers show up again—”
Emily’s eyes were full of tears, but she blinked them away resolutely. “Then we have no choice but to return to Heatherfield.”
Only months ago, the idea of facing his mother and her coven had been unthinkable. The icy fear that settled in his stomach at the prospect of going home was somehow less immobilizing than the fear of staying in London. At least Heatherfield was isolated and protected from the outside world.
“What will she do to us?” Cecil asked hoarsely.
“It cannot be worse than what we’ve already survived.”
The scene darkened, and the smooth, deep voice of the Ifrit came again. “What happened after, I wonder? Show me how you possess the power to resist my bite.”
The trotting of horses, the din of voices, and the racket of carriage wheels on London’s streets were replaced by the howling of the wind and the cry of birds on the wild moors. An ancient stone estate materialized in the darkness.
They had returned to Heatherfield as failures. Mother had been, in her words, merciful toward Emily, as she was her only daughter and chief heir to the coven. She had cut her long, lustrous locks of dark hair short and had assigned her to a rigorous training routine.
Mother had yet to punish Cecil, and that was what initially worried the siblings the most. Emily thought she had to be planning her cruel retribution for when they least expected it. Whenever the coven came to visit, Emily kept a watchful eye, expecting them to take her brother as their thrall.
But Cecil doubted Mother was planning anything at all. When he arrived home a starved, beaten, filthy mess, broken of his sensitivity and ripped of his appreciation for beauty, Mother tended to his wound with unusual gentleness. “Do you understand now why we depend on magic for survival? Without magic, anyone can take advantage of a weakling like you,” she said, tightening the bandage around his arm. “Magic is the only thing you can rely on.”
“But I thought…” He trailed off, swallowing hard.
“You thought what?” She stroked his hair softly, something she had never done before. He stiffened. “You thought London would be welcoming, that men would be kind and generous toward two helpless waifs like you?”
He nodded numbly. “Y-yes, Mother.”
“Now you see what the world is like, don’t you? Men are animals, and they will always target the weaker prey. It is their nature.” She shook her head, sighing. “If only you hadn’t forced your poor sister to suffer with you in order to learn that lesson.”
An image flashed in his mind of Jack Farley with cruel animal teeth and wild animal eyes. The thought rattled through his mind, dark and consuming. For months, he hardly said a word, struck mute and locked in silent contemplation. He walked about the manor like a ghost, haunting the libraries and dusty storerooms.
Cecil hadn’t seen the sun, walked the moors in months—hardly ate or left the library. The arm that the soldier’s sword pierced stung. Though magic healed the damage, phantom pains wracked it like he was still wounded. One night, while Cecil sat in the library with his sister, studying by candlelight, he spoke. His voice was hoarse and faint from lack of use as he said, “Emily?”
“Yes?”
“That night, with the soldiers—” He shuddered. “Do you ever think what might’ve happened to us if we hadn’t used magic?”
“No, because I don’t want to think about it anymore.” Emily slammed her book shut and rose stiffly, heading toward the dining room. “I’d like to forget it happened.”
“But you haven’t forgotten. I hear you screaming in your sleep, and—I keep seeing their faces when I dream. I can see them now. How they looked at you—”
“Enough, Cecil.”
He hung his head. Though he shook all over as if wracked with sobs, he could not produce tears. He felt only numbness beyond the cold fear or searing anger. Walking over with a sigh, Emily placed her hand on his trembling shoulder.
When she turned to leave, he snatched her hand.
“I can’t stop thinking—if I hadn’t killed the one holding you, I don’t think they would have stopped after taking our valuables. So, I think I had to do it—or they would have done something much worse.”
Emily dropped her gaze to the floor. “If you’re feeling guilty about using magic, don’t. You saved our lives.”
“I’m not feeling guilty anymore, Em.”
“Well, that’s good. We were defending ourselves, and—”
“Magic is the only thing that can protect us.” He stopped shaking. “Emily, two of those animals are still out there. What if they hurt someone else? Or what if they come after us?”
She pulled her hand away. “They’re not coming after us. Those men were brutes and pigs, but they were no more than that. The other two are still in London, gambling their wages away and getting drunk, no doubt thinking twice now before they try to harm two helpless waifs again.”
“I should have killed them too,” he whispered.
A chill swept through the manor, and Emily went over and shut the library window. “You haven’t slept, you’ve barely eaten, and you haven’t been outside in months. You’re not thinking clearly, that’s all this is.”
“But I am.” He slammed his hand on the table. “For the first time since we came home, it’s like all the fog has cleared away, and I finally see a path forward and possess a light to follow it.”
“Where does that path lead?”
He hunkered down over his books, tenderly smoothing out the parchment. Though he lowered his head, he couldn’t hide the sly smile that stretched his lips. He had not smiled in a long time, but there was no joy in it. “I like the window open,” he said suddenly, snapping his head up. “The scent of the moorland helps me focus.”
“If you want to catch your death…” With a scoff, she cracked the window. When she returned, she caught a glimpse of the parchments he was poring over. The pages were yellowed with age, handwritten in faded ink that wrapped around the symbol of their mother’s witch coven at the center.
“What are you doing with those boring old tomes?” she asked. “Mother making us reading them through cover-to-cover was torture enough. I thought I would never be able to pass her examination.”
“How well do you recall the text?”
“Better than you. You failed. Remember?”
“Yes, yes.” He rolled his eyes, feeling a little like the arrogant boy he used to be. “If you remember, I bested you in summoning, transmutation, herb identification—”
She ruffled his hair and plopped down beside him. While he groused and smoothed it back in place, she pointed to the book. “What subject interests you in the histories? Tell me what year and date you wish to know, and we’ll find out how much I recall.”
“The Moorland Beast.”
“That’s an easy one. The Moorland Beast, or a Cait Sidhe as the faeries call it, was a legendary faery cat, larger than a saber-toothed tiger, that prowled these very moors. It was bound to the High Priestess’s coven in the sixth century, where it served from then on as a protector of witches.”
