Playing With Fire (4 page)

"Perhaps he's a spirit medium," Sylvia said. "Like that Mrs. Beaufort."

"Perhaps," I said, although I thought it unlikely since he'd never seen a ghost until now.

"Once again," Samuel said with barely contained patience, "I am in the dark. Who is Mrs. Beaufort?"

"A spirit medium of course," Sylvia said with a roll of her eyes. "One of the few legitimate ones. Uncle August met her years ago, didn't you, Uncle?"

Langley nodded. "She is also the patroness of a school for orphans in London."

"
And
married to a viscount's heir," Sylvia added with a sigh. "What a thrilling life."

"I don't think I'd want to be able to see ghosts," Tommy said. He'd been standing so quietly off to the side that I'd almost forgotten he was there. I felt a little guilty. I'd not thought the servants would ever become invisible to me, but it seemed I was little better than Langley and Sylvia in that regard. Samuel and Jack always seemed aware when a servant was in the room and spoke to them like they were real people, but Sylvia and her uncle treated the servants as if they were a piece of furniture, functional but not worthy of much attention. I didn't want to become like them.

"Nor I," I said. "It's quite enough to be able to start fires, thank you. I'm sure Jack would agree if he were here."

Samuel went to stand by the window. There was still no sign of Jack. I didn't want to think about him out there. Didn't want to think about how he was going to find that…thing, and if he did, what he'd do. Nor did I want to think about the dead body in the trench. We still had to notify the police, the man's family...oh God.

"You need a name for it," Sylvia declared suddenly.

"Pardon?" I asked.

"A name. For the fire starting. Someone who sees ghosts is called a medium, someone who sees the future is known as a seer, so what should we call you and Jack? We need a word that rolls off the tongue."

"What's wrong with fire starter?" I asked.

"It sounds awkward and consists of two words. One would be better." Her hands twisted in her lap, over and over. I knew her well enough to know that she was worried about Jack but determined not to show it. If there was one thing she would never admit, it was that she cared for her cousin. They may disagree often and tease each other mercilessly, but they were family.

"Sylvia, you're being ridiculous," Langley scolded. "This is not the time to think of such frivolities."

I certainly didn't agree with him about that. Now was exactly the time. We all needed a distraction from the painful wait for Jack to return. "Does anyone know the Latin word for fire?"

"Ignis," Samuel said. "Or there's flamma meaning flame and inflammo is torch."

"Torch isn't quite right, but I like flamma," said Sylvia. "What about autoflamma? Self-flaming."

I screwed up my nose. "It doesn't have the right ring to it."

"And you're mixing Greek and Latin," Samuel said.

There was a knock on the front door of the house. "Jack!" Sylvia cried, leaping off the settee, our exercise in linguistics forgotten.

We followed her out to the entrance hall, and Tommy opened the door. He was the first to slap Jack on the back, Samuel the second. Sylvia hugged him, and Langley gripped his forearm.

I hung back. My heart had swelled to twice its size and tears blurred my vision. I was so grateful to see him again, but I couldn't touch him like the others. The way I felt at that moment, seeing him with windswept hair and flushed skin but completely unharmed, I would have combusted immediately. As it was, I felt hot enough just looking at him. Hot and suddenly exhausted. The wait had been excruciating on my nerves.

Jack must have known why I kept my distance. He offered a small but troubled smile and said, "Hello, Hannah. Are you all right?"

I laughed. "You're asking
me
if I'm all right?"

"Are you?"

"No!" I said still smiling stupidly through tears of relief. "I've been absolutely terrified waiting for you. We all have."

"Well?" Langley said, gruff. "Has it gone?"

Jack shook his head.

"You mean it's still out there?" Sylvia cried.

Jack put his arm around her shoulders. "You'll be safe here."

"But we'll be prisoners in the house."

"Uncle never goes out and you hardly do either in winter," Jack said. "The rest of the household…" He looked at me. "The rest of us will have to find something to occupy ourselves until it's caught."

"Tell us about it," Langley said. "What was it?"

"Not out here," I said. Mrs. Moore or one of the servants could come at any moment, and we couldn't risk them overhearing. "Come into the parlor. Tommy, a fresh pot of tea please."

"I need something stronger than tea," Jack said.

Tommy disappeared down the corridor that led to the service area. We made our way back to the parlor.

"Well?" Langley blurted out before we were completely settled once more.

Jack shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it."

"Describe it."

Jack looked at Sylvia and me sitting side by side on the settee. "Not in front of the ladies."

"We're not so delicate that we can't hear the details," I said.

Sylvia pressed a hand to her stomach. "Speak for yourself." She did not leave, however. Perhaps, like me, she felt compelled to hear more despite feeling sick.

Tommy arrived with glasses and two bottles on a silver tray. He set the tray down and filled two of the glasses. He handed one to Jack and the other to Samuel. Langley declined.

"Sherry?" he asked Sylvia and me. We both nodded and accepted a glass.

"It was human," Jack said, holding his tumbler between the fingertips of both hands. "Yet not."

"That doesn't make sense," Sylvia said.

"In what way was it human?" Samuel asked. "It had arms, legs and a head?"

"You could be describing an animal," I said.

"Animal is a more fitting description than human." Jack sipped thoughtfully. "It stood upright, however. It was large. Larger than me, but hunched over. It had claws and jagged teeth, and fur all over its body."

"So we weren't too wrong when we told the servants it was a wild dog," I muttered.

Sylvia swallowed her entire glass of sherry and held it out for a refill. Tommy obliged.

"Did it have a canine face?" Samuel asked.

Jack shook his head. "Not particularly. Its ears were pointed but small, its nose longer and wider than anything I've ever seen, but I wouldn't call it a muzzle. The eyes were yellow. When it looked at me..." He drained the glass. "When it looked at me, I thought I saw fear in those eyes. Fear and desperation. Very human emotions. But then something changed. It was like something else took over entirely, and any humanity it displayed vanished. The only emotion I recognized was hunger. It wanted to kill."

"If it hadn't been for your fire," I said, quietly, "it may have killed you."

"Instead, it went for the builder." He shook his head and looked down at his glass. "Why didn't he leave when the others did?"

"Why didn't you?"

Samuel, Sylvia and I finished our drinks in unison. The sherry burned my throat as it went down. It didn't calm my frayed nerves like I'd hoped.

"Hannah told us it spoke to you," Langley said.

Jack nodded. "I don't know if it spoke to me specifically, but I seemed to be the only one who could hear the screams and understand it."

"It spoke English?"

"Yes."

"How strange," Samuel muttered.

"Did you recognize the voice?" Langley asked.

We all turned to stare at him. "Why would he recognize the voice?" I said cautiously. The conversation had taken an even more disturbing turn.

"Uncle?" Sylvia said when he didn't answer me.

"Did you recognize it?" Langley asked again.

Jack stretched out his long legs and sat back in the chair. "Not as such, but it was high-pitched and childish."

"Oh my God," Sylvia whispered. "What
was
it?"

We all looked to Langley. "I believe that you encountered a demon," he said. "One that has taken on the souls of the long-dead Frakingham children."

CHAPTER 3

I stared at Langley, my mouth ajar. The brief but charged silence was punctured by Samuel's snort of derision.

"There's no such thing as demons," he said. "I don't think you ought to frighten the ladies like that, Langley."

Sylvia did indeed look frightened. Her entire body trembled, and her eyes were so wide that I thought she might strain a nerve.

"Didn't we already establish the existence of the supernatural?" I asked. "I thought you'd come to terms with it, Samuel."

"Ghosts I can accept." He wiggled his fingers. "Even your fire I will acknowledge is not out of the realms of possibility, as are my hypnotic abilities. But you're asking me to believe in an entity that is neither human nor animal, but something else entirely. If demons exist, why aren't we overrun by them? That thing and its ilk would be quite capable of obliterating entire villages."

The thought of several of those things going on a rampage sickened me even more. I tended to agree with his logic. "I see your point. Surely we'd be aware of them if they existed."

"Have you never wondered about unexplained phenomena?" Jack asked. "The disappearance of people without a trace, the occasional sightings of strange creatures in the woods?" He nodded at the window. "The horrible death of a man by wild dogs when there are no wild dogs in the area."

Sylvia folded her arms and hugged herself. "I must say, I like to think Hannah and Samuel are right."

"That would involve denying what I saw today," Jack said. "Hannah and Samuel didn't see it."

"In that case, I shall remain in denial," Sylvia said.

I rubbed my forehead. It ached, and I still felt sick to my stomach. That poor man's screams would never leave me.

"Perhaps it's wise to keep an open mind," Samuel said. "I'll concede that I don't have an answer for everything."

Jack gave a grudging laugh.

"What should we do now?" Samuel went on. "If it is demonic, how do we capture it?"

"The first thing we must do is alert the authorities," Langley said. "Jack, ride into the village and tell the police about the death. We'll keep to the wild dog story. Claiming otherwise would be counter-productive. In my experience any suggestion of the supernatural is met with ridicule, denial and occasionally admission to an asylum."

"Oh, thank goodness," Sylvia said. "I was worried you would try to convince the police of the existence of demons. We're quite ostracized enough as it is and with the dinner party at such a crucial stage of planning, the mere whiff of something freakish here would be social suicide."

"A man has just died, Syl," Jack said tightly. "The dinner party is the least of our concerns."

Sylvia seemed to deflate, as if his sharp glare had pricked her.

"What happens after the authorities have been told?" I asked. "They won't catch it, so what should we do?"

"We must find someone who knows more than we do about demons," Langley said.

"Who?"

"I'm not sure, but I can ask Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort."

"Isn't she a spirit medium?" Jack said. "What do they know about demons?"

"They have first-hand knowledge." He lifted his hand to stem our questions. "I'm retiring to my rooms to continue with my work. Hannah, you look somewhat pale. Perhaps you ought to rest until dinner."

I was taken aback by his observation. Unless he was asking me something specific about my training with Jack, he usually ignored me. I wasn't used to him noticing my health. "I'm quite all right. Thank you."

"He's right," Jack said, crouching at my feet. "The events of today seem to have taken their toll on you. Or is it something else? Are you worried about the trial?"

The pending trial of Reuben Tate was certainly on my mind, but it didn't keep me awake at night. Whenever I thought about him in prison, the overwhelming emotion was one of relief. The madman had tried to kill my friends and abduct me in order to use me in his experiments. I was glad he was locked away.

"It's not that," I assured him.  

"There'll be no training for a few days," he said. "We don't seem to be making progress anyway."

"That's precisely why she should continue," Langley said. "She needs to take control of her ability. The sooner the better." His vehemence alarmed me. Why was he so adamant?

"She's tired, August," Jack said. "Let her rest."

"I am," Langley growled. "Did I not just order her to her room?"

Order me? I thought it was a suggestion, a kindness even. I should have known August Langley was quite without that commodity.

"Let me escort you," Jack said quietly. He offered a smile, but not his hand. That would have been foolish.

"No." Langley rolled himself a few paces forward until he'd wedged himself between us. "Samuel will do it."

Samuel frowned. "Why?" He caught sight of Langley's narrowed glare and muttered, "Of course. Hannah, would you care to take my arm?"

Jack scowled first at Samuel then at Langley. He stormed out of the parlor ahead of us. Samuel and I found him waiting in the corridor near my bedroom door. I went to him and put my hand on the doorknob. He leaned against the wall, very close.

"Get some rest, Hannah." He folded his arms and tucked his hands away as if he were smothering them. Was he hot just being near me? I certainly felt warmer from head to toe. His presence had a profound effect.

"Are you going to Harborough now?" I asked, pulling away from Samuel, but not venturing any closer to Jack.

"I'll be back in an hour."

"Be careful."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Always."

He didn't leave until I was inside. I heard him and Samuel walking back along the corridor together. "I didn't have a choice," Samuel said.

"There is always a choice," Jack said. "Even with him."

***

By the time I woke up an hour later, Jack had returned with the police, a doctor and undertaker. The doctor and undertaker took the remains of the body away in their cart while the police searched the woods. They were gone until dusk, but of course found no traces of a wild dog. Jack itched to join them, but they forbade it. He did encourage them to take burning torches to ward off the animal. Some listened. Others armed themselves with guns. All returned unharmed, thank God.