“Let’s leave him here,” Cinderhouse said. “He’s of no use to us.”
“You will do as I tell you.” Jack’s voice came from somewhere deep in his chest, rumbled up and out and surrounded the bald man with his anger and his authority. His head swiveled around to Cinderhouse, and his eyes flashed with rage. His lips drew back in a snarl. With an inaudible grunt, Jack pulled himself to his feet so that he towered over Cinderhouse. “You will never question me again. You will do exactly as I say at all times.”
Cinderhouse’s eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. A runner of drool escaped his lower lip and spooled off his chin. He stood still and useless, confused for a moment, then nodded.
“I hate to have to raise my voice to you, Peter,” Jack said. “You know that, right?”
Cinderhouse nodded again.
“Good,” Jack said. “Don’t give me a reason to be displeased with you and we will get along together like the best of friends. Always the very best of friends.”
Cinderhouse handed the lantern and bag to Jack, then bent and hoisted Griffin’s upper body.
“That’s my boy,” Jack said. He was tired. Standing so quickly and raising his voice had exhausted him. His knees were sore and wet from the damp ground. His wrists and ankles were torn open, the bloody imprint of his shackles pressed deep in his flesh. The weight of the lantern pulled at him and he thought he might follow it and sink into the dirt. He didn’t think he had any inner reserves of strength left, but he did not want Cinderhouse to see how frail he really was. For all his stupidity and his weakness of will, Cinderhouse was still a predator and would be sure to take advantage of any shift in their balance of power. Jack gestured toward the tunnel they had come through.
“Carry him.”
“He’s heavy. I don’t think I—”
“Then drag him.”
“But that’s the way we came.”
“Are you arguing with me again, fly?”
“No, not at all.” Cinderhouse cowered.
“Then go. I will follow.”
Cinderhouse put his head down and maneuvered Griffin’s body around, twisting the insensible convict’s legs unnaturally, then shuffled backward across the chamber and into the tunnel. Jack had meant for Cinderhouse to be facing forward; he wanted to use the wall to hold himself up and he didn’t want the bald man to see him doing it.
He closed his eyes and drew himself up to his full height and followed along behind Cinderhouse and Griffin and did not reach out for the wall and did not think about food or water or any of the temptations that would weaken him more than he was already weak. He didn’t see the catacombs as they walked through them a second time, didn’t feel the blind white creatures beneath his feet as they forded the pond again, didn’t hear Cinderhouse gasping and grunting in the dark as he staggered with Griffin’s body over tumbles of rock and dirt and bone.
And then they were on familiar ground. Jack had not seen his cell until this very morning, but he had lived in it for a very long time and knew the quality of the air, the sound of it, the scent of it. Jack’s body odor had seeped into the stone around them and the dirt under them had absorbed his fluids, had drunk them up until he was a part of that place and it of him. He felt as though he could almost reach out and control the walls of the tunnel, bend them to his will as he would any limb of his body.
He motioned for Cinderhouse to take Griffin’s body into the cell, Jack’s own cell, and he finally leaned back against the wall as he watched Cinderhouse fasten the old iron shackles about Griffin’s legs and wrists. Griffin’s shattered leg hung uselessly. Jack smiled to think that Griffin’s skin was being stained by Jack’s blood. When Cinderhouse was done, Jack pushed himself off the wall and put a hand on the bald man’s shoulder.
“You’ve done well, my Peter. Now wait for me out there.” He gestured to the black tunnel outside the cell.
Cinderhouse went quietly out and was swallowed by the dark. Jack listened until he was sure that Cinderhouse was out of earshot. Then he leaned close to Griffin’s hanging head. When he spoke, his voice was the slightest of whispers.
“Can you hear me in there?” He licked Griffin’s earlobe, bit gently on the flesh. “Surely some part of you can hear me. I know you. I didn’t know what you looked like until now, but I know the smell of you, your foul breath. You have been delivered unto me as I knew you would be. You are the first. I will bring the others here. But for now, I will let you rot, hanging from these chains as I did for so long. I will let you stew in your own sour sweat, let you fear every approaching sound lest it be me. And I will return. I will do wonderful things to you. I will transform you as I have transformed so many others and, with your last breath, you will thank me as they thanked me. Wait for me now.”
Jack stepped away, feeling stronger, feeling mighty in his righteousness. He held up the lantern and let its light shine on the black walls that no longer held any power to cage him. He walked away from the cell and found Cinderhouse in the darkness and led him away through the passages, across the rivers and the graveyards and the ancient silent city streets.
Up and back to London.
16
Fiona knocked lightly on Claire’s bedroom door and waited until she heard Claire answer before she turned the knob and entered. The room was dark, only a single candle on the windowsill to dispel the shadows. Or perhaps the tiny flame was there to serve as a beacon for Walter, to bring him back safely. Claire was curled under an old off-white coverlet that was pulled up under her chin. Her blond hair glowed vivid orange in the candlelight, and the pillowy folds of the coverlet were grooved with deep purple bruises.
“Constable Winthrop is settled in now,” Fiona said. “He ate all the biscuits we had in the place. And he drank three cups of tea with milk. It’ll be a wonder if he can stand up from the chair.”
“He ate them all? All the biscuits?”
“I think so.”
“I was saving those.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” Claire said. She laughed. “I wasn’t really saving the biscuits. I suppose I’m just put out that we have a policeman underfoot and it’s the wrong one.”
“Yes,” Fiona said. “Why couldn’t they have sent Mr Hammersmith? We know him already. We would have felt completely safe with him right away.”
“I was talking about my husband. He’s a policeman, too.”
“Of course he is!” Fiona covered her mouth and turned to leave. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t go,” Claire said.
“I have things. I should do them.”
“Would you bring me a glass of water before you leave?”
“Of course.”
Fiona kept her eyes down and let her long hair fall across her face. She was a slender, pale girl with a calm demeanor and an inexpressive face. The youngest Kingsley girl had grown up without a mother. She had spent much of her childhood helping her father at his work in order to be close to him. She had walked around countless crime scenes with him, observing the bodies of murder victims, sketching the placement of their limbs, and making note of their wounds, a junior coroner’s assistant. Until the day Dr Kingsley decided that the morgue might not, after all, be the best environment for his daughter. He had sent her away, asked her to assist Claire until a permanent housekeeper could be found. But it was not the sort of work Fiona enjoyed.