“I suppose if the odd bit of information comes to your lovely ears…”
Meg found this funny as well. At least, she shook with jollity, bits of her heaving and slopping, flashing dead-white flesh and pinging creaks as the building itself shuddered. Material split, shredding; the tortured souls in the chapel’s shadows shrank back from Emma, Mikal, and the stew of flesh and tawdry finery bubbling before them.
Mikal’s shoulders were rigid under black velvet; Emma’s throat ached to cut the din with a sharp Word, but she did not.
Finally, the heaving ended. Meg’s bulk receded, the sucking and shifting quieting as she eased back.
“It suits me to send you a starveling, should I have news.” Her mouth was still plainly visible, that stark, sharp smile causing candleflames to shudder and gutter en masse. A breath of rank foulness now slid between the columns, disturbing the fluttering smoke-hangings, which had quieted as they pressed back against the door, half-seen faces writhing with dismay. “You shall pay me by stopping him.”
“Him.” Emma nodded. “The faceless one.”
“He has no need of a face,” the creature crooned. “He’s a sharp canny jack, that one.”
Mikal stamped sharply, and there was a wet splattering. Thin Meg hissed, a long indrawn sound of pain, and Emma found herself pushed back further, blinking and shaking her head.
Her Shield shook the green, sticky sludge from his boot, and the pale, wriggling tendril retreated into the cauldron. “Prima?” Soft, but the edge of leashed deadliness under the word made each flame straighten and dance.
“Can’t fault me for trying.” The creature bubble-hissed, chuckling thickly. “But sparrow-slight she is. Now you, you are a finer morsel.”
“Not for your dining, madam,” he returned, equably enough.
Emma found her tongue. “Very well.” She turned, despite the fact that her skin was alive with revulsion–imagine feeling one of Meg’s grasping little fingers curling around one’s ankle, nudging upward, and the lassitude that would follow…
Her footsteps tapped with their usual authority as she set off down the central aisle. “Thank you, Maharimat of the Third Host. We shall be on our way.”
“He knows your name, sparrow-witch.” There was no laughter now, and the foul breath of a fallen creature that had once sung of and to holiness in other spheres was darker than sewage. It was difficult not to gag, and Emma took her air in tiny sips as she made for the doors. “You have more enemies than you know.”
“Pray you do not find yourself among them, bonny Meg,” she returned over her shoulder, finding she had enough breath for a parting sting. “For I might decide to let him finish his work, and weaken you as well.”
The doors creaked open, and she might have tumbled into the ranks of starvelings if Mikal had not caught her again.
Their clutching, brushing fingers were feeble, easily pushed aside, but she did not halt until they were a good distance from both the Chapelease and the creeping, cringing, venomous green tendrils of Scab.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Beyond Your Ken
“I am no donkey, sir.” Philip Pico bridled, as Alice took his gloves and hat with a sniff.
The other maid, Bridget of the slightly lame left leg and the engaging gapped-tooth smile, took Clare’s, and he held his peace until they had both vanished into the depths of 34½ Brooke Street. “You bear a suspicious resemblance to a stubborn ass. And yet it is me saddled with you.”
“Keep him in one piece, she said. Welladay, I will, sir.”
“Oh? And what else did she say?”
“Naught that would interest you.”
“Oh, I think it would. Did she mention your predecessor?”
“The one you were in love with, sir? No. She said nothing to me about him.”
Clare halted, and the heat in his cheeks was new and unwelcome. “His name was Ludovico, and I was not in love with him. Mentaths do not—”
“Good evening, gentlemen.” A rustle of black silk, a breath of smoky sorcery laced with spiced-pear perfume, and Emma Bannon halted on the stairs, eyeing them both with arch amusement. “A drink before dinner?”
“Rid me of this encumbrance, madam,” Clare managed, stiffly. “This is insupportable!”
“Oh?” One eyebrow, elegantly arched. “Philip?”
“About to go slumming with the detective inspector, he was.” The bratling straightened his sleeves much as a gentleman would, and matched Clare glare for glare. “And on such short acquaintance. I thought it best we come home for dinner.”
“It is not slumming, it is searching for clews! And, had you not rudely objected, Philip, we would have had Aberline here for questioning during dinner, and added his considerable talents to our—”
“Inspector Aberline is not welcome at my table, Clare.” Very softly. “Philip, you did well. Go and dress for dinner, if you please. Mr Clare and I have a few matters to settle.”
“Oh, I shall say we do.” Clare straightened as the youth made that same abortive gesture–as if to tug his forelock–and made for the safety of the stairs. He passed Miss Bannon, giving her as wide a berth as possible, and Clare almost did not note that she did not bother to twitch her skirts back as if he suffered something contagious.
As she always had with Ludovico. Did this young annoyance have Valentinelli’s room as well?
Why, Clare asked himself, should he care?
Miss Bannon rested one hand on the banister, the curve of her wrist just delicate enough to make a man think of snapping it.
The idea was a dash of icy water, and Clare inhaled, tensing fruitlessly. He had spent the entire afternoon sifting through papers holding bloodless information about singularly bloody acts, and they had not nettled him one whit. Now, just a few moments in Miss Bannon’s company, and he was boiling.
This is Feeling. It is illogical. It did not help that the murders Aberline had so painstakingly gathered were clearly not the work of the current madman–except for two, and those two offered frustratingly little in the way of fresh insight.
“Do go on.” She was maddeningly calm, but her fingers were tense. A girl who could snap a word that immobilised a grown man, and yet she appeared so fragile.
Clare had seen this woman perform illogical miracles, and they had left no mark on her youthful face. Was this what the churches of the world, both Popish and Englene, meant when they raved of Woman’s diabolical nature?
He gathered what he could of his dignity. It was a thin cloak indeed. “I am not a pet, nor am I your ward.”
“I agree.” She nodded once, her dark curls swinging. “Were you one, I would cosset you, and were you the other I would not allow you to step forth into the dangers outside for a good long while. You are not well, Clare, and this affair, I am beginning to think, is beyond your ken.”
For a moment he could not quite believe his ears. “I am perfectly well.” He was aware of the lie even as he spoke it. “I have endured a succession of shocks to my faculties, true. And I had some… difficulty… with the notion of… but dash it all, Emma, this case is fascinating, and work is the best cure for a completely natural… loss.”
“Except you do not consider your loss natural at all, sir, on either account. This is a matter best left to sorcery. I have discovered much today, and it quite disturbs me.”
He could have fastened on that little tidbit, but the tide of Anger had him now. “So, I am to be set upon a shelf? I think not. Aberline and I do get on very well, and he is the best man to investigate—”