The Devil & Lillian Holmes (25 page)

Phillip opened the last door in the hallway. “I do believe I’ve found her.”

Lillian winced at the unnatural position of the well-dressed lady on the floor, killed in the same manner as her husband, by gunshot. “Do you think she knew the horrors likely taking place in this house? That her husband hosted a monster? Why did she accept a strange child into her home? What explanation—? Oh!” Sad indeed. Lillian knelt by the woman’s side and lifted the pistol lying by her side. “She has taken her own life, and I assume only after killing her husband. Is there a note of any kind? Any other clue?”

Phillip held up a leaf of paper in his hand and waved it. “She’s good, George.”

“It’s not such a leap, Phillip,” Lillian said. “The gun is next to the body. Perhaps it is only meant to look like a suicide. But I think if you read that note you’ll find that Mrs. Coyle was grievously ashamed that her husband brought another woman’s child into the home and made the only assumption she could. Would that I could have come here first to claim him for my own. I would have saved her the trouble.”

“You think him complicit in the whole plan?” George asked. “Of course, it is his house, and he hosted the men who subverted your life and stole your son. I suppose he waited a bit too long to have Marie turn him. She said mortal men believe themselves in their prime only after they’ve passed it.”

“He is certainly past his prime now,” Lillian remarked. “Phillip?”

George’s brother nodded. “Yes, it is very much as you predicted. Poor thing.”

“Indeed.” Lillian ran her hand over the corpse’s eyes to close the lids and reverently crossed the arms over the chest. “Another of Marie’s victims.”

She was wrong,
she also told herself.
I do not share anything with her.

“So where are Doyle and Moran?” George asked.

“Hopefully they are at my home with my son, awaiting our return. Likely fearing the worst.”

“Jesus!” said a voice. They turned to find a thin young man, ashen white at the sight of the corpse on the floor.

“Who are you?” Lillian asked. “Ah, wait. A German name I can’t quite recall. Arthur told me.”

The man nodded and kept staring at Mrs. Coyle. Finally, when he’d had enough of the gruesome sight, he gulped and took out a small notebook and tiny pencil. “The door was wide open. I called—you didn’t hear me? I’m looking into… Jesus! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Stop swearing, sir.” Lillian stared at him in earnest. “What is your name?”

“Mencken. Miss Holmes I presume? I am a reporter for the
Morning Herald
…well, paid by the story, and only part-time right now— Jesus!”

“Yes, well, you have your story. Phillip, give him the letter. I would suggest you not disturb anything, Mr. Mencken. When you are finished taking notes here, go to the fifth room down the hall and visit Mr. Coyle.”

“He’s dead too? The congressman? Did you kill him?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a good detective, are you?”

“Did I claim to be a good detective?”

“Well, you’re not a good journalist, as I would think you need detective skills in that profession.”

“Hardly. It’s more a literary sleight of hand.” Mencken shook his head, snapped out of his argumentative state and turned to George. “The congressman is truly dead as well?”

“Hmnn, very much so. You’ll get your story if you solve this one, Mr. Mencken.”

“Half the city has a motive for that murder!” The newspaperman looked from George to Phillip and back to Lillian. “May I ask what you three are doing here?”

“I am looking for a boy. I believe the letter will also make that clear.”

“About seven or eight years old?” Mencken held out his hand at chest height to indicate the boy’s size.

“God, yes! You saw him?”

“Running for all he was worth away from Mr. Doyle and a police officer toward the city. He was crying, and I assumed he stole something from Mr. Doyle. Doyle had sent word for me to meet him here and learn something, but he didn’t even give me as much as a hello as they stormed by. I’m fairly used to that treatment but—”

“How long ago was this?” Lillian had to stop herself from grabbing the man by the lapels and shaking him.

“Well, let’s see. It took me about forty-five minutes to walk here, so maybe thirty minutes ago? If they didn’t catch him, he could be all the way downtown by now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mencken,” George said and grabbed Lillian by the arm. “We must fly.”

Lillian called over her shoulder, “Don’t go into the cellar, Mr. Mencken.”

“Good Lord, what is in the cellar?”

“A vicious hungry hound, foaming at the mouth. It would be the death of you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Sullivan.

“I cannot do it.” Chauncey kept reaching for the vial around his neck, hoping it had magically returned. It had burned him for days, but the loss of it felt worse.

He’d rushed back to Lillian’s to remove the temptation of fulfilling Vasil’s orders and to ensure Phoebe’s safety. He’d told her what he could, that he’d destroyed Marie and never loved her; he’d been faithful all the while. Phoebe had wept in his arms, relieved and ashamed of her doubts at his fidelity.

“Now we can leave this horrible place?”

“I…I have to help Lillian find her boy and then all will be well. We will go far away, Phoebe. Anywhere you like.”

He didn’t tell her he’d have to turn the boy over to Vasil or kill him. That he was to kill everyone involved in this disaster: Lillian, the Orleans brothers, anyone who knew they were vampires. The plump blonde woman, what was her name? And the writer, Doyle. Had the man fled the city yet? The policeman…

I cannot.

But Vasil would kill Phoebe, would kill both Phoebe and Chauncey without a thought. Of that Chauncey was certain. Could he justify killing everyone to save her, though? No, he could not.

Perhaps Vasil wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care, now that Marie was out of the way. Would that be enough for him? Vasil seemed to truly care about nothing, Chauncey admitted. Perhaps he’d been right when he said that all men, mortal or not, cared simply for their own skins. But didn’t his love for Phoebe count for anything? Or Lillian’s love for George or her child? Wasn’t there some good, even if it only resided in a few?

What to do?

Run, Chauncey. Run for your life and your sanity.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A terrible accident.

As the three leapt from building to building, at times flying short distances, George kept a wary eye on Lillian. That she’d dipped into her medicinals he was fearful. No matter, that discussion could come later, once they found the boy. But he wondered and worried that, once again, the facts of her heritage hadn’t fully taken hold of her. She would crash, and crumble, and be broken again.

We’re all hungry.
He felt it, saw it in Phillip’s eyes, and knew that Lillian was operating on nervous energy alone. Besides the ordeal they’d all survived, that hunger was making them squabble.

“No, Phillip,
you’re
to look to the left.”

George didn’t care much about who looked which direction. He watched Lillian and held her hand, treasuring the feel of her skin against his, happy also to be in the company of his brother. If their lives could go on like this forever, or for even a mortal lifetime, he would think himself a very lucky man. They had come into the bowels of Hell to rescue him. And he’d known the moment he saw them that they had not come to rescue their maker but to rescue a man they loved.

Or is that merely a fantasy, George? You still hold their bonds. Are you through testing Phillip’s fealty and love?
It was far past time to release his bond, so George would make it right as soon as they were home.

“You’re looking right again, Phillip,” Lillian chastised.

“Dear God, woman, let me concentrate! I’m trying to find your blasted son!”

“Don’t talk to Lil like that.” George settled on a high landing of the First Bank and Loan Association building and motioned for everyone to stop. “The truth is, the boy and those two men could be anywhere. Jacques could have ducked into a building or an alleyway. I cannot imagine they got further downtown on foot than here.”

“True,” Lillian concurred. “Doyle has that terrible cough. I have trouble imagining that he has been able to keep up with even Johnnie.”

“Ah, but he did!” Phillip pointed to the intersection.

George heard Lillian gasp at the first sight of her child. The boy’s hair was as dark as hers, and he was also thin and lanky. She looked like he was the most beautiful sight she’d ever encountered, and she clearly loved him as if they’d never been parted.

George wrapped his arm around her and squeezed. “There you go, love.”

“Oh, my!” She wiped at tears and buried her face in George’s jacket. “It is true. He is real, and mine.”

“We’ll have to look that Mencken chap up and thank him properly somehow. Do you want to let Johnnie and Doyle take care of this, or go to meet him now?”

She peered down. George knew that she must have fantasized about this moment a million times, but the reality of it was a different matter. “I would have your opinion on that. I am not sure what he will think of me, of being chased by strangers…of anything about his life to date.”

“Uh-oh!” George blurted. Jacques had slipped from Doyle’s grasp and was now between the two men, running to and fro like a rabbit, confounding them both. “I think they need our help.”

He pulled Lillian by the hand, and they dropped down to the north side of the street where Johnnie was scampering this way and that trying to grab the youth. The boy darted here and there, seeming to have no problems avoiding the trolley tracks embedded in the cobbles.

“That’s enough, young man!” Doyle called out in choking breaths. “We are not going to hurt you!”

Lillian went to the edge of the street and called out Jacques’s name. The boy stopped and stared at her. She took a step forward and held out her hand. He didn’t move but kept staring as if he recognized her.

“I won’t hurt you. I will never, ever hurt you.”

“I have heard that before.” He wiped his nose on his cuff and chewed the inside of his cheek.

“I will never leave you.”

“Why not? What did I do to you? Please, let me go.”

“We are here to help you.” Lil held out a shaking hand. Like her own mother had only minutes earlier, George thought.

No, this could not be more different.

“Don’t take me back there,” the boy said.

“To the home?” she asked.

“No, I liked the home. I want to go there. I don’t want to see Madam again.”

“I promise you, you will never see her again.”

“Cross your heart?” the boy asked.

Lillian laughed and cried at the same time. “Cross my heart.”

“Do it, make the sign.”

She did.

George had rarely cried in his lifetime but felt that he must turn away lest tears come to him unbidden. Phillip whispered, “He looks just like her, thank God. And somehow, he looks a little like you. That is a lucky stroke.”

“She loves him already. It is not like the maker’s bond. It is different.”

“Of course it’s different. I say, George, you really need to relax.”

“Hmnn.” George let a long moment pass. “Phillip, thank you. For coming.”

“You knew I would, you idiot. Don’t think you won’t hear about running off without us to face Marie for a good long time.”

George took a deep breath and visualized the black string of will that bound Phillip to him, the bond of a vampire’s “child.” He held his end up to a cool night breeze…and let it drift away into the night.

Phillip’s knees buckled, but he caught himself on George’s arm. “Why? After all this time? I didn’t come for this….”

“Let’s not talk about it,” George said, more embarrassed than he thought he would be, less bereft than he thought he would be.

“See, that is your problem! All bottled up, wondering and worrying constantly…”

And with that familiar chastising tone, Phillip told George what he needed to hear. Nothing had changed. His brother still loved him.

Then: “Jacques, get out of the street! Trollies use this street, see the tracks? You must come to me!” Lillian moved another foot to coax her son to come to her, trying not to scare him, treating him like a frightened animal.

“No!” They turned to see Jacques frozen in front of a trolley that whizzed around the blind corner. Doyle leapt forward and pushed the boy out of the way. Relief swept through George until he saw Doyle catch his footing on a track and fall in the middle of the street. The author lay like an upended turtle before struggling gracelessly to his feet.

George reacted swiftly, but it was not fast enough. The car was already on Doyle, knocking him yards to the gutter. When it passed, George and Phillip ran forward, while Johnnie blew his whistle and chased the trolley, yelling for the driver to stop, but his cries were drowned by the clanking of the cars. Lillian hugged her son and looked on from the sidewalk in horror.

George groaned at the carnage the blow had made of Mr. Doyle.

Johnnie ran up and caught his breath. “This is terrible,” he whispered.

George leaned in toward Doyle’s bloody head and listened to his chest. He turned to Lil. “He’s alive. But not for long.” He nodded quickly toward Johnnie.

“Please, Johnnie, go find a doctor,” Lillian said.

“Seems a little late for that, Miss Holmes.”

“No, it’s never too late. Until it is. Now, run, Officer Moran, run!”

Johnnie took off uptown, toward the new Johns Hopkins hospital. George looked at Phillip, who ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

“Really?
I
can’t make this choice for the chap. Let Lillian do it. She knows him best.”

“Soon we won’t have a choice to make. Lil, what do you want to do? He knows too much, far too much. It might be best…”

Lillian hugged Jacques to her, likely so he couldn’t see the gore, and kept a tight grasp on his wrist lest he bolt again. George watched her carefully, wondering if her answer would reflect her feelings about the choice she herself had made. Was becoming a vampire worse than death? How could you make such a choice for a man without the ability to express himself?