Boneseeker (17 page)

I’m almost at the end of the hallway, barely noticing the doors flying past on either side in time with my strides.

The fourth door is cracked an inch. I stop short.

Out of my periphery, I swear I see an eye peeping out.

I look again, cocking my head, but…nothing. Just a faint yellow column of light, cutting across the dark hallway.

I lean on her door and rap lightly with one knuckle. “Arabella? Are you awake?”

Silence.

My heart skips then thrums against my ribs.

I sneak a look behind me, then try the door knob.

It’s unlocked. I curse.

I hesitate a moment, thinking of my pistol, useless in my pack in the room, but decide to act. I slide inside, hearing the door click quietly behind me.

I sigh.

She’s in bed, facing toward the window.

I rush to the bedside, bending so my face almost touches her chest, listening for breathing.

Her perfect ivory flesh rises and falls in deep slumber.

I exhale and sit and drink in her face.

She’s so rarely still.

I gently slide the hair from her cheek and over her shoulder. It reaches her bottom like a red-headed Rapunzel. Her fringe of hair brushes her thick eyelashes, which twitch as she dreams.

I take a curl, and loop it around my finger. Decorum says I should go. I cannot.

Her eyes flutter open, and I drop the curl.

Her eyes pop wide and I shoot to stand.

In a flash, she rolls, swipes a parasol from beside the bed, thrusting it at my throat.

“Arabella! Shh!”

Her eyes squint in the gloom. “Henry
?
You daft fool. I could’ve killed you.”

I smile. “Death by parasol?”

Bella jams the handle in. A long, sharp blade pops from the end, inches from my jugular. It glints in the moonlight.

“You were saying?”

“Unbelievable. Another contraption? How many are there?”

“I don’t have to tell you all my secrets.” She pops it back in and shrugs. “Plus I didn’t know if we’d be forced into some society function while here.”

I laugh. “May I?” I gesture to the bed.

“You should go.” But she bites her bottom lip.

My heartbeat surges, heat flying to every inch of me.

Do I imagine the wanting in her stare?

“Fine. Only a moment.”

I sit, feeling her warm stomach against my hip.

“Henry?”

I snap to attention the uncharacteristic, fragile tone of her voice. “Yes?”

Her hand reaches up, pausing above my cheek.

I wait, holding my breath. Wanting to lean into it, but I hold firm.

“You.” She swallows, licking her lips, letting her hand drop.

I may go mad.

Her face contracts as if the admission causes physical pain. “Henry, you make me feel…safe. I never feel safe. I’m always careful, waiting for a loud sound or a painful jibe or…”

“Shh.” I press my finger to her lips. The honesty spills out, “You are safe. I know who you are, Bella. How you hide your other side. Your non-Holmes, vulnerable side. The little girl who brought home and mended every fallen bird.”

Her eyes widen. “How—”

“And splinted cat’s paws.” My smile is wide. “I know your heart. The icy exterior doesn’t fool me.”

My hand slides over her heart. Her breath catches and she sits up, crushing her lips to mine and her tongue darts out, licking and biting my bottom lip.

Our breathing is a synchronous heaving symphony that fills the room.

My scalp tingles as her fingers wind into my hair and ball.

I break the kiss.

“I. Must. Go.”

“No, Henry. Stay. If you meant all you said. Stay.”

Her maddeningly soft lips trail up my neck to my ear.

I growl, “Arabella. I’m a gentleman, but I’m a man. I am not that noble.”

I stand, chest heaving, staring down at her.

Her face falls like I’ve wounded her. “Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I swallow, checking my desire. To be sure I am controlling it, and not the other way ‘round.

I kneel, taking her small hand in mine. I kiss it.

“It is because I want you too much. I told you. I want…
everything
from you.” My face burns with the utter truth of it.

My hateful analytical side whispers, playing devil’s advocate.

Fear waters my mouth.
Do I mean it
? I will crush her soul.

My mind fills with images. Arabella, in her trousers, dig after dig, year after year; with every scene her face more lined, her auburn hair lighter.

Desire and devotion vibrate every inch of me.
Yes. I do mean it.

Profound relief washes over me as weakness floods my knees.

Her eyes are huge and electric, weighing my every word. Watching every emotion cross my face.

“If you cannot give me your hand, I’ll wait. But your heart. May I have it?”

I extend my hand palm up, waiting.

She smiles, and tears threaten, but do not fall.

She nods. “Yes, Henry. You already do.” And slides her other hand into mine. “You always have.”

Don’t treat me like a normal woman

Abner Farmhouse

Bella

I’m shivering. Opening my eyes feels like prying open a nailed coffin. I squint and wait as they adjust to the dim light of my room.

The pink fingers of dawn are just stretching across the horizon.

My mind whirrs awake and I picture a clock’s gears as the data flows before me in a steady, visual stream.

Stygian’s ring. The tattoo. The giant and the skeleton.
How do they all fit?
I flip the images round in my mind like a giant puzzle, trying to organize them.

Henry was supposed to wake me. Perhaps he overslept?

I fight my way out of the coverlets and quickly dress. I turn to pick up my chisel, my pistol and my bravery.

I’m not frightened of the dig or claustrophobia or even Stygian. I’m afraid of Henry. And his capacity to destroy me.

Work is safe. Work is logical. Working out puzzles is calming; matters of the heart…are none of those things.

I shake my head, banishing the thoughts and sneak into the hall. Downstairs there are signs of life. The smell of eggs frying amidst some low murmurs.

I reach Henry’s room and turn the knob.

I step in and freeze. His bed is empty.

Anger and fear battle in my chest.

What if something happened to him?

My mind whispers,
you mean, what if Stygian happened to him.

My eyes flash around the room. His pack is gone. He’s left without me.

Anger wins, incinerating fear. Henry has a bizarre preoccupation with my safety. Father had it too, but he never stopped me from learning, doing. Would he have left me out of the dig, just to protect me?

I grind my teeth together and head down the servant’s staircase which will allow me to sneak past the prying eyes of the kitchen staff.

I pass through the door, undetected, into the weak morning light.

The early morning air is frigid. The sun’s crept higher, and I can walk without fear now as I reach the stables.

In minutes, I’m galloping across the pumpkin patch, orange orbs rushing past like a strange scene plucked from the pages of my beloved Wonderland.

I hear Henry’s voice in my head. Counting off our extraordinary circumstances. Fear flutters my heart, and I look for them.

They are near, my little black sentries; the hair rises on the back of my neck as if I’m being watched.

The butterflies stay with me till the first snowflake falls. Long after their normal counterparts have fled for the southern hemisphere.

A little croak escapes my lips. They are here; an undulating black mass, which hovers from tree to tree like a flock of migrating birds. Following me.

I swallow. How can I deny them? They defy explanation.

Is Henry correct? That some events cannot be explained away?

“Ha!” I kick the horse’s sides and put my head down against the wind till I reach the line of trees.

My mind ruminates. One scientist perished in the Hudson, or at least that is where his body was deposited. One possibly melted away, dissolved in a sausage vat.

I shiver. Two to go.
Where are you gentlemen?

I reach the trees and slow my mare to a trot.

Three packs lie open on the forest floor.

My heart free-falls.

Henry, Montgomery and Stygian’s, alongside a yawning hole in the earth. A mineshaft?

I am stunned. I slide off the horse and quickly flick his reins around a tree and slide the pistol into my pants.

I skulk forward and freeze. Laughter wafts up from the shaft below.

I peer down, over the edge and three faces turn up to meet mine.

Montgomery, oblivious and joyous. Stygian sporting a one-sided smile that screams
you are not needed, woman
.

And Henry with trepidation. “You’re up and about. One of the hands told me you were ill last night. So we let you sleep.”

“What? I’m quite well.”

Stygian interjects, “How perfectly odd. Well, you’re here now. Miss Holmes, we’ve found another way to extract the other hand. Would you be a dear and throw down our packs?”

His smile is sickening.

“Fine.”

I squint and discern the outline of the long skeletal fingers jutting out, half-buried in the dirt. My eyes dart to the hole in the rock wall behind them, large enough for a man to pass.

It must be a series of connected tunnels. How many? How far do they go?

I look up, and the butterflies alight. “You’re a load of help, whatever you are.”

I throw their pack down. “Another skeleton? You’ve found another? This
is
a burial ground, then?”

Henry is digging and carefully tapping around a metacarpal with his chisel. He shrugs. “I expect so?”

Stygian’s black eyes flick to me. “Only time will tell, Miss Holmes.”

Henry continues to shoot me furtive looks till they’re finally out of the hole, hand, in hand.

In another hour, the hand is secured for transport and we’re back at the farmhouse, packing.

Henry tries once again to explain, attempts to distract my foul countenance with the case at hand.

His eyes darken. “I reviewed my London papers. A man with Stygian’s description is wanted…for murder and still at large. A tattoo was mentioned but not its exact description. And his brother…was sent to the gallows by none other than Sherlock Holmes.” He pauses, letting it sink in.

“L’uomo Deliquente was functioning as a vigilante group—performing executions, and it’s rumored they engineered a few rapes for women they deemed to be harlots. It all fell apart when they targeted a barrister’s daughter. He made it his personal mission to bring them down. L’uomo Deliquente headquarters was raided and its members dispersed about two years prior.”

I stand and begin to pace. “Or defected. Around the time Stygian arrived for his post at the Mutter.”

Henry nods. He must see my response as an opening in my mood because he says, “I still don’t understand why you’re so angry. I was merely trying to be a gentleman.”

I whirl on him. “How many times must I tell you? I do not
think
like other women, Henry.” I tap my temple roughly. “Don’t be the gentleman.
Ask me what I want.
Not what convention dictates you do.”

Henry’s face reddens with anger. He nods. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you were disappointed not to be present.”

I pace, throwing clothes haphazardly into a bag. “I don’t understand why
we
must take the hand to the Mutter? Shouldn’t Stygian? We should stay and dig.”

Henry’s hand massages his stubbled cheeks. He’s forgotten to shave; his face looks years older with the growth hiding his boyish features.

“It is odd, I agree. Unless Stygian is just determined he and Montgomery should get all the fame.”

My eyes narrow. “Or unless he has something to hide here. But he has something to hide in Philadelphia as well. Do you remember the paper’s headline, about the tainted sausage sickening patrons? The morning you noticed Stygian’s tattoo.”

Henry’s eyebrows pull together and his face drains to paper-white.

“Oh my word! The ingredient list! You are thinking of the sausage factory. Could a man be such a monster? To grind up a human and fashion him into sausage? One of the lost four? You think there is a connection with the tainted sausages.” I nod. “But without proof, it is all conjecture. We know he has ties to someone at the factory. Tight ties, for the person to take such a risk for him. The proprietor’s name is William Bane.”

“Time will tell. There is never enough of it. Speaking of time,” he snaps his pocket watch closed, “we have to hurry.”

In an hour, Henry, John and I are on a train, speeding toward the Mutter. The mysterious hand is under our seat,
locked safely in a box.

Oddly, the unearthed hand matched our hand. Why was the skeleton in pieces, in different locations?

“Henry, why would the hands be so far apart?”

Henry shrugs. “Could it have been dismembered? Animal degradation?”

John beats me to it. “The skeleton shows no signs of trauma. Just ancient decay.”

I nod in agreement. “Someone moved them. Perhaps they were interrupted, and moved it piece-meal.”

My foot taps. I cannot wait to return; hoping and praying Stygian doesn’t further tamper with the burial ground.

I stare out the window, still irritated at Henry as he and his father exchange endless jibes.

“If you wouldn’t of touched it, Henry, we could of analyzed—”

“The body was
on
me, father. I’m sorry if I panicked. I was bloody fourteen.”

They both laugh, and turn to me when I’m silent.

Watson touches my arm, his tone placating. “Arabella. It’s a few days. You’ll be back in the dirt in no time.”

I don’t answer. As we pull away from the station, I see a black cluster of wings depart, up and over the train. I shiver.

John clears his throat. This means he’s changing subjects; I’m not surprised that his face, which was full of mirth moments ago is suddenly deadly serious.

I roll my eyes. “Yes Dr. Watson?”