"I understand. I've been trying to keep myself busy too." Edward filled a basin and rinsed his hands. "Will you be going out to the Foster Estate again this year?"
"I was on my way when I came across this woman."
Edward nodded.
"Do you think you might have a few days free after that?" he asked.
"I wasn't thinking of staying there the entire month," Harper said. "Just a week or so. After that I'll be free. Why don't we plan on getting together next week?"
"I'd really like that." Edward smiled brightly for a moment, then his attention returned to the old woman.
"Older ladies shouldn't be hauled around through storms, you know? You should have sent for me. It would have been just as fast for me to come to you as it was for you to get her here to me."
"I'll remember that next time," Harper replied.
"No, you won't." Edward smiled. "You couldn't stand to just wait around for me to get to you."
As he spoke, Edward sponged the mud and water off her and then covered her with a thick cotton blanket. He left only her wounded, right leg exposed.
Harper watched as Edward laid out the tools he would need: the long curving needles, silk thread, gauze, a hypodermic needle and syringe. Harper stared at the syringe for a moment as a feeling of dread welled up through him.
"Belimai," Harper whispered, and Edward glanced up to him.
"What?" Edward asked.
"Edward, I have to go." Harper started for the door.
"What about this woman?" Edward demanded.
"I'll be back for her. Just don't let anyone know she's here with you, all right? Especially not anyone from the Inquisition." Harper knew he was asking more of Edward than he had a right to, but he had no other choice. "I have to go. They may kill him if I don't get to him first."
"Wait! Will, who are you talking about?"
"I'll explain later."
Harper bolted out, leaving his coat behind. All he could think of was that time was not with him tonight. No matter how fast he ran, no matter how brutally he forced strength into his exhausted body, the moments between life and death slipped past him.
Chapter Three
Black Nails
The rain worsened, and the packed dirt of the streets softened into a citywide bog. Harper ran hard, keeping to the raised walkways. In the street beside him, cart horses struggled to pull themselves and their burdens through the thick mud. Harper crossed the road at Butcher Street. He sank almost to his knees. The mud clung to Harper's legs and pulled at him as he fought his way forward.
Frigid rain slapped down against him. His wet clothes clung to his body, spreading the chill of wind and rain across his skin. Mud oozed through the crack in his boot heel. If he had thought about it, Harper might have noticed that he could hardly feel his fingers or toes anymore.
But he didn't think about it. Just as he didn't think of what the Inquisition men could have done if they had already found Belimai. Vivid, bleeding images flickered through Harper's mind, but he did not acknowledge them.
He counted silently to mute the fear surging through him. It was easier to count the moments that passed than to think of what could occur during them. After sixty he began again at one, turning time back on itself in a sixty second circle. As he had once named devils so that they could have no power over him, he now named the seconds. Another man might have prayed, but Harper had abandoned prayer long ago.
Harper's darkest fears, those that hunted him even in his dreams, were bred from this constant, hopeless race. In his nightmares, he always arrived too late. No matter how hard he ran, moments slipped past him. He reached his mother only an instant after her death. He burst into his stepfather's study to find his pipe still burning but the man gone, never to return. He never even came close to reaching his sister before her tears turned to streams of furious blood.
Harper rounded the corner of Butcher Street and sprinted toward the slumping, three-story tenement where Belimai lived. Harper took the stairs up to Belimai's rented rooms in quick leaps. At the top of the staircase, all of his driving energy slammed to a halt. Belimai's door hung crookedly off its hinges. The doorjamb had been reduced to a shattered mass of splinters.
Past the broken door, Harper glimpsed the wreckage of Belimai's home. The walls were stripped bare. All of the books lay in heaps among pieces of smashed furniture and slashed upholstery. A wide spill of ink bled out from the cracked body of Belimai's desk. Sheaves of Belimai's drawings were strewn everywhere. A delicate sketch of a grasshopper lay on the floor near Harper. The paper was crumpled and marked with the muddy impression of a boot heel.
Suddenly Harper was aware of the rawness of his throat. Sharp, biting pain lanced through his chest. His legs trembled, and for a moment he didn't know if he could remain standing. He closed his eyes and leaned against the hard support of the doorframe.
Then, from inside the room, he heard a softly whispered obscenity.
Harper shoved the door open in time to catch Belimai climbing back in through one of the shattered windows. For an instant Harper felt the overwhelming urge to rush forward and pull Belimai to him. Belimai's expression stopped him. Belimai's pale yellow eyes were slitted with fury, his thin lips drawn back in a hiss of rage. Harper froze, giving Belimai a moment to recognize him. Belimai didn't quite smile, but the fear and anger drained from his expression.
The kinky branches of Belimai's black hair hung dripping around his bare shoulders. He wore only a pair of wet, black pants and a single sock. He folded his thin arms over his chest, surveying the ruins of his home.
"You just missed your friends." Belimai went to his desk and began searching through its broken hull.
"They're likely to come back." Harper wanted to offer some comfort, but he knew that Belimai wouldn't accept it. There was some deep perversity about Belimai that made him despise kindness. He avoided compliments as if they were collection notices. Sympathy simply made him furious.
"I thought you were supposed to be at some country estate this week." Belimai jerked at the crumpled desk drawers. The jammed pieces of wood resisted him.
"I missed my carriage," Harper replied.
"I guess it's been a bad day all around then." Belimai continued prying at the drawer. He finally clawed off the drawer face with his long black nails.
"Those fucking bastards." Belimai lifted out the cracked bodies of several glass syringes as if they had been cherished pets.
"Bastards." Belimai glared at the shattered needles before he hurled them aside.
"We need to go," Harper reminded Belimai. "They probably only left to ask your neighbors if they know where you are. They'll be back. It's standard procedure."
"Standard procedure for what?" Belimai looked up at Harper. "Did I break some arcane law by putting pictures on the walls? Why the hell did they do this?" Belimai swept his pale arms out over the wreckage littering his floor.
"A lord's niece was murdered this evening. You're one of the suspects." At first Harper wasn't sure if Belimai understood him. Belimai said nothing. He simply sat staring at the huge spill of ink in front of him. Then Belimai stood and walked to the bed-room. Harper heard him rifling through his broken belongings and cursing very softly.
Harper watched the stairs. Now that he wasn't running, he felt the cold sinking through his wet uniform. He wondered if Belimai was ever going to come out of the bedroom.