Eidolon (2 page)

Whyborne hunched over the scraps, using a pair of forceps to
piece them into a coherent whole. His face wore a small frown, as it often did
when he puzzled over some problem. Although he’d combed his hair before leaving
this morning, it had become mussed again, and stood up in the spiky locks I
loved to run my hands through. His eyes narrowed in concentration, the look in
them one of burning intensity, as if he would bring forth the answers he sought
through sheer force of will.

It brought a warm flush to my skin and roused my cock. The
passionate devotion to his work was one of the first things I’d noticed about
him, and when he turned that focus on me in bed, as if he might devour me whole…

My friends in Chicago and I had laughed at the idea of love.
We were men who fucked other men; there was nothing of romance in it, nothing
of permanence. We’d congratulated ourselves on living free of such banalities
as hearth and home. So long as we didn’t come to the attention of the law, we
could do as we liked, with whom we liked, and no one would gainsay us.

Then everything broke. Glenn Palmer, my partner when I
worked as a Pinkerton, died under unusual and terrifying circumstances. My best
friend and lover consigned me to an asylum. Nothing made sense, and no matter
how hard I tried to force the pieces of my life together again, I failed
miserably.

Whyborne changed all that. Like the missing shard of a
shattered mirror, whose presence made the rest of the pieces fit again. Not
perfectly, or without seam, but enough to trick the eye into thinking maybe it
had never been broken in the first place after all.

And when I woke screaming in the night, convinced I was
still trapped beneath the ground or at the mercy of the asylum’s sadistic
attendants, Whyborne held me. Instead of turning away from my madness, he
wrapped me in warmth and whispered softly into my ear, until the sound of his
beloved voice penetrated the nightmarish haze and led me back home.

For that alone, I owed him everything. I didn’t deserve him
and never would. But I’d do anything to make him happy. To make him love me as
I loved him.

He hadn’t noticed my presence yet, too lost in his work. I
cleared my throat, and when that produced no response, I said, “Ah, there you
are, Whyborne!”

He started, sending a few papyrus scraps fluttering off the
desk and onto the floor. For a moment, he blinked owlishly at me, without
recognition, then his expression shifted into a boyish smile, which utterly
transformed his face.

“Griffin!” he exclaimed, and the pleasure in his voice
brought a smile to my own lips. “I wasn’t expecting you. Was I? We weren’t
meant to have lunch?”

I laughed and crossed to the desk, shutting the door behind
me. “No, my dear,” I said, bending to kiss him. “Lunch passed by several hours
ago. I take it you forgot to eat?”

He returned the kiss eagerly, sending another rush of blood
to my cock. He’d sucked me off in a storeroom much like this one, and the idea
of repeating the experience appealed greatly. Perhaps I should put in an
unannounced appearance sometime soon and beg him to bugger me over the desk in
his office. Give him something to think about during our hours apart.

But there wasn’t any time today, at least not right now.
Later tonight, after the theater, I’d show him just how much I wanted him.

“I lost track of time,” he admitted, when our lips parted. “Why
are you here? That is, I don’t mean to imply I’m not always glad to see you,”
he added hastily, as if I might have taken offense. A faint flush of red showed
on his cheeks. “I am. Glad to see you.”

I grinned and resisted the urge to kiss him again. Just his
presence lightened my heart more than I could say. “And I am always pleased to
see you, Ival.” The pet name restored his smile. “However, I fear more than
mere fancy brought me today. I have a new case, which…well, it’s possible there
are occult elements.”

“Oh.” He sobered immediately, his sensitive features taking
on the sharp look of concentration once again. “Perhaps you should tell me
about it.”

III

“Marcus Nivens,” Whyborne mused, as we walked along the
slush-covered sidewalks. The shadows had grown even longer, and I now
calculated less than an hour until sundown. “Not a name I recognize. You said
he’s related to the Lesters?”

The Whybornes had helped found Widdershins—along with
an insane sorcerer, whose cult they’d secretly kept alive for over a century.
Some of them, anyway. My Ival was entirely innocent of such doings, but he did
know everyone in the wealthier families. The old families.

The untrustworthy ones.

“That was the name Miss Lester gave me,” I said.

“I think I know her. Er, Miss Lester, I mean.” He frowned
slightly.

I glanced up at him. At over six feet, he stood a good five
inches taller than me, even with his tendency to stoop. He made up for it by
giving the impression of consisting mainly of knees and elbows, as if he’d
never quite settled in his own skin.

Except for when we were in bed, anyway. Not to suggest he
hadn’t almost given me an accidental black eye last week, when I’d discovered
the ticklish spot on his belly and set him to flailing. But desire seemed to
make him forget to be self-conscious, at least for a little while. And when he
did…mmm. Magnificent.

“Do you?” I asked.

“Oh yes. Father dragged me to some awful holiday party. I
must have been…thirteen? Fourteen? Old enough to be forced to dance with the
poor girl.”

I chuckled. “Not one for the ladies even then, eh?”

He gave me an odd look. “Of course not.”

Ah. Yes. Another thing I loved about him…and envied. Whyborne
knew himself, and it gave him a sort of quiet, unshakeable certainty.

I barely recognized the man in my mirror some mornings. Had
I truly become if not more educated, more refined? Or was I still the farmer’s
son and everything from my accent to my manner of dress just a masquerade? Or back
even further, to find the Irish-born orphan desperate to fit into a little
Kansas town, mimicking their manners and speech until even the memory of my
real parents faded into nothing?

 The arrival at our goal distracted me from my line of
thought. We’d passed from the environs of the museum, past banks and offices,
and into a more residential area. The homes here were only twenty or thirty
years old, most of them in respectable states of upkeep. A woman in a maid’s
outfit hurried past us, carrying a covered basket, from which wafted the aroma
of fresh bread.

“Here we are,” I said, pausing on the sidewalk to take a
look at the place. The snow and ice left on the stoop, the door in need of a
coat of fresh paint, gave it a more slovenly air than its neighbors. All the
shutters were tightly closed, as if the owner expected a nor’easter to blow in
at any moment.

“What is our plan of attack, as it were?” Whyborne asked.

“The lack of attention to the stoop suggests our friend Mr.
Nivens indeed took no servants, or brought any with him. All the footsteps
imprinted in the snow appear to belong to the same set of shoes, coming and
going. The chimneys show no smoke at the moment, although that may mean
nothing. Or it might indicate our quarry is out.”

“And if he is?” Whyborne asked, a bit suspiciously.

“I’ll knock first,” I said. “If someone answers, let me do
the talking.”

“Gladly.”

I rapped on the door. As I’d suspected from my observation
of the house, no one answered.

Blast. I’d hoped to meet this Mr. Nivens and negotiate a
much lower ransom for the piece. If he refused to turn it over for a suitably small
amount, I’d simply reveal my employment by its rightful owners and threaten
police involvement. As long as he didn’t turn out to be some nefarious
sorcerer, my plan would have worked.

I took out my pocket watch and checked the time. We’d miss
our reservations at Le Calmar, for certain. If we waited for the man to return,
we’d miss curtain rise at the theater as well.

Damn the fellow. I wasn’t throwing away this chance just
because some thief lacked the good manners to be at home when I came calling.

I stepped away from the door and took a quick look around to
make certain no one else was about. After beckoning Whyborne to follow, I
slipped into the rather narrow alleyway leading to the back of the house.

“Where are you going?” Whyborne asked. His shoes slipped in
the icy muck of the alley, and I put out a hand to steady him.

“Mr. Nivens isn’t at home, and my client wishes the talisman
returned by sundown.” Which would be quite a trick, considering how low the sun
had already sunk. “There seems but one solution.”

“Are you mad?” he demanded.

I managed not to flinch at the question. He didn’t mean
anything by it, certainly not to remind me of my ordeal at the lunatic asylum
in Illinois. But it still hurt, like an accidental touch on a wound not quite
healed.

“It’s broad daylight,” Whyborne went on; either I’d kept my
reaction under control, or he’d simply not noticed. “If we’re caught—”

“Nothing will happen.” The back of the house contained a
small yard. A pair of inclined wooden doors formed the outer entrance to the
basement. Bending down, I tried them. Locked, of course, and from the other
side.

“Nivens is a thief and proved it with his ransom note,” I
went on, casting about for some sort of lever. The bag containing my usual
tools still sat in the study at home, since I couldn’t imagine handing it off
at the coat check at Le Calmar without causing comment. Let alone toting it
into the theater. “Scrutiny from the police is the last thing he’d wish.”

“Meaning he’ll simply shoot us and dump our bodies in the river?”
Whyborne asked, folding his arms over his chest.

I resisted the urge to kiss the scowl from his face. “You
worry too much, my dear,” I said, striding to the small tool shed I’d spotted
amidst the weedy patch meant to be a back garden.

“And you don’t worry enough,” he shot back, following me.

He was wrong, of course. I worried constantly: about failing
to measure up, about letting him see just how deep the darkness ran inside me.
About driving him away, or standing by helplessly while he left.

“Have I led you astray yet?” I asked with deliberate
lightness, as I inspected the latch on the shed.

“I could point out our acquaintance resulted in us both
almost dying at the hands of an evil necromancer,” he responded. Then the
corners of his mouth turned up, almost reluctantly, into the warm little smile
no one ever saw but me. “But I suppose there have been some compensations.”

I yanked the shed door hard, snapping the cheap lock. The
shed mainly contained dust and cobwebs, but a few tools remained, including a
mattock for breaking up the sod. I took it and returned to the cellar doors.
Using the flat end as a pry bar, I wrenched open the doors with a shriek of
splintering wood.

Whyborne winced, but a few moments of listening betrayed no
cries of alarm. Casting him a reassuring grin, I pulled open the door. “See?
Nothing to worry about.”

Even so, the sight of the dark opening unnerved me. Anything
could be down there, lying in the dark, waiting for us to stumble over it.
“Stay behind me,” I instructed. Touching my revolver to make certain I could draw
it quickly, I descended into the cellar.

IV

A few moments later, I struck a match with shaking hands and
surveyed the root cellar. Like the tool shed, dust covered everything and the
tiny room seemed unused. The jars on the shelves looked practically ancient,
covered in cobwebs, their labels faded. Despite the smallness of the space and
the impossibility of anything hiding in it, my heart sped and my palms sweated.
Thank God the door lay clearly visible at the top of a short flight of stairs.

It proved unlocked. A lantern stood on a convenient table by
the cellar door, and I hastily lit it before my match burned down altogether.
The house smelled old and musty, and virtually no light came through the
shuttered windows. Or perhaps no light remained—it must be very close to
sunset now.

I lifted the lantern and revealed the narrow hall. There was
little to be seen, and certainly nothing to hint at whatever secrets Mr. Nivens
kept hidden behind those closed windows. Moving as quietly as possible, I led
the way down to the hall. Would he keep the talisman in his bedroom? His
parlor? His—

“Griffin,” Whyborne said, low and urgent.

He’d slid back a panel door, revealing the front parlor. One
of the slats on the window shutter had broken off, letting in a narrow beam of
the last sunlight. It illuminated the figure of a man, holding a revolver in
his hand, trained on Whyborne.

My heart all but stopped at the sight. I’d found myself
staring down the black bore of a gun on too many occasions as a Pinkerton, but
this one fixed on Whyborne made my blood thicken to ice in my veins.

Damn it, I should never have brought him here. Why hadn’t I
considered all the possible dangers, not just the occult ones?

As for Whyborne, he’d paled slightly, but his features
lapsed into a cold, even slightly haughty, expression. Knowing him as I did, I
recognized it as a familiar mask over whatever emotions passed through him.

“Come in, come in,” the man said, taking a step back, so the
sunbeam fell onto the wall instead of his face. “You’re my guests, after all.”

We had no choice but to comply. As the lantern I carried
illuminated him more fully, I noted the faint resemblance Nivens bore to Miss
Lester: dark-haired and dark-eyed, although he lacked both her pallor and her
aristocratic bearing. “I thought my cousin might try some trickery such as
this. Conniving bitch.” he said. “Put down the lantern and hold up your hands.”

The beam of light shining through the broken shutter turned
into a mere thread as we obeyed him.