The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (10 page)

Michael failed to contain a chuckle. Miss Linden appeared confused.

Rebecca stepped forward. “I am truly sorry, Miss Linden. Our ill breeding again rears its ugly head. We can beg only the excuse of weariness and the trying fact that we’ve spent far, far too long with one another. Please forgive us.”

“I think you’re charming,” Miss Linden assured them, as if their particular quirks were nothing out of the ordinary. “Clearly, this Professor Rychman is a friend of yours.”

“Like it or not, he’s stuck with us,” Elijah agreed.

Miss Linden smiled. “Well, forgive my boldness, but I am glad. I hope to see him again. There are few into whose path I would rather again be cast.”

“Indeed?” Rebecca said.

“Indeed.” Miss Linden’s eyes glittered warmly as she took another sip of cabernet.

Elijah turned to Rebecca, clearly surprised, mouthing the words, “Placed in our path?”

Rebecca’s lips became a grim line. The blood in her veins murmured, churning up her instincts at the introduction of this new and beautiful face. Miss Linden had indeed been placed in their path seeking refuge.

Percy’s latest recurrent vision was a hazy one where she was standing in the middle of a circle, surrounded by shafts of light. Music—inhuman, beautiful, incomprehensible—was everywhere, playing inside of her and out. This music, which she had no words to describe, lingered on in faint strains throughout the day.

It was while Professor Rychman was in the midst of a tutorial lecture of particular eloquence that Percy roused from the vision to find him snapping his fingers in front of her face. She started, fumbled an apology, wrung her hands. “Oh, Professor! I’ve no d-doubt that your patience for me is at an end,” she stammered. “But I swear on my life that I listen to your every word and—”

The professor sighed. “Miss Parker, I wish you felt more at ease here. If you did, you might take to things with more surety.”

“I am, sir. At ease, I mean. Well, I…Oh, dear.” Feeling a fool, she looked away.

“At ease. Indeed?”

Percy folded her hands upon the desk. “I suppose not. Forgive my timidity. It undermines any hope I have for collected composure.”

“Your composure, Miss Parker, is nearly regal,” he replied. “That is, it would be if you stopped hiding.”

Percy blinked through her glasses at him. “Hiding?”

“With your shrouds and your shields I cannot tell when you are comprehending what I say. It is common knowledge that the eyes are the window to the soul, but your windows are shuttered. What they have to say has been muted.”

“But sir, the sun, the light—”

“Does the sun shine here, Miss Parker? You told me you were comfortable.”

“Well, I am, sir. Here the room is perfect but, outside, people stare and—”

The professor interrupted without pity or pause. “Do you include me in that number, Miss Parker? I would hope you realize that I have more important things to do than gawk as if you were a museum piece.” He leveled his gaze at her before returning to transcribing notes from a text.

“Of course, sir,” Percy replied. “Of course I realize that.”

“I call it hiding,” the professor repeated.

Percy let out a brief sigh, knowing she had no choice but to muster a bit of courage. She feared his reaction more than she could say, but he left no other option. “Very well, sir,” she remarked with quiet resolution. She rose from her chair, turned her back to him and began to remove her barriers.

She had not realized the entirety of the feeling of security they gave until she was confronted with her protections’ absence. After her careful hands removed glasses, gloves and long scarf, Percy felt naked. Vulnerable.
Indecent.
Yet, she reminded herself, it had not been her idea to lower her defenses. If the professor was to be disgusted—which was her greatest fear—it was through no fault of her own.

The thought brought no comfort.

Tresses of lustrous, snow-white hair tumbled from their clothbound imprisonment, streaming like snowfall down the girl’s back. In an effort to make his student more at ease, Alexi did his best to appear wholly disinterested as she carefully removed her protections with delicate, private ceremony. But then she turned to face him, clutching those items that had held her unusual features in mystery. He forced his eyes to his book.

“As you would have it so, Professor, here is your pupil in all her ghastliness.”

Alexi looked up. Though Miss Parker’s hands clearly trembled, her voice did not.

His furrowed, generally disapproving brow rose slightly, and he leaned back in his chair and took her in. Luminous crystal eyes held streaks of pale blue shooting from tiny black pupils. A face youthful but devoid of colour, smooth and unblemished like porcelain, had graceful lines as well defined and proportioned as a marble statue. Her long, blanched locks shimmered in the candlelight like spider silk. Upon high cheekbones lay hints of rouge—any more would have appeared garish against her blindingly white skin, but she had been artful in her application. Her rosebud lips were tinted in the same manner.

She was attuned to even the most minuscule response. Her merciless, hypnotic gaze found his and she frowned. “You see, Professor, even you, so stern and stoic, cannot hide your shock, surprise, distaste—”

“Distaste?” he interrupted quietly. “Is that what you see?”

If Percy had taken the time to truly consider his response, she would have noticed that his tone was far from distasteful; it was, in fact, flattering. But she plowed on, choosing hurt. “What else can one feel when they behold living flesh that looks dead?”

“You assume ghost and not angel?”

Those words in regard to herself made Percy’s heart convulse. Surely he could not have intended a compliment. “I…I would never presume to liken myself to anything heavenly, Professor.”

“Indeed? Then it would seem that you, Miss Parker, are more modest than I.” If there had been an admiring look in his eye, it was quickly gone. The professor blandly donned his glasses. “Now, come take your seat. No more hiding, not in this office. Never again.”

“That is still your wish?” Percy asked.

“It is.”

Percy put down her things with a sigh. But as the lesson continued, she began to relax, seeing that he looked at her with no other quality but the expectation of fastidious attention. Once his lecture was complete, she was excused with an assignment and a curt nod. Percy donned her scarf, her gloves and her glasses with delicate deliberation, preparing to walk out again into the world. But halfway to the door after bidding the professor a quiet farewell, books in hand, she stopped and turned around.

The professor, busying himself at his desk, could evidently feel the weight of her stare; he looked up after a moment. “Yes, Miss Parker?”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“For what?”

“You are…the only man who has not made me feel as if I were on display.”

The professor blinked, his face expressionless. “You are a student and not an exhibit, Miss Parker. Good day.”

Percy curtseyed in response. Exiting the office, she felt heartened and keenly alive. Her blood murmured strangely in her veins. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been so happy.

As soon as the door closed behind Miss Parker, Alexi opened a drawer, withdrew his notebook and hurled it onto his desk. His pen flew. He did not allow himself to think of the implications of this previously unknown anxiety that was building inside.

“Miss Parker,” he said aloud as he wrote. “A ghost? Not my goddess in colours, but in fact the mirror opposite. Colourless. And yet, uniquely beautiful. Could her ghostly yet angelic appearance actually be a warning? Is she to be trusted or avoided? Why am I not dismissing her entirely, as I ought? She is a
student!
Why dare I even consider her?

“More the goddess is that ineffable Miss Linden, with her own clues, all those familiar words…And yet I sense in Miss Parker a gentleness similar to my goddess of two decades past. Which of them is the true seventh—if indeed either? Neither gentleness nor beauty, no matter how unusual, make Prophecy!”

He slammed the book closed, knowing the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.

“I’ve found them. I’m Lucille Linden now. Isn’t that a lovely name?” the servant of shadow said proudly, having crossed the threshold back home. She spun, appreciating the rustle of her fine, blood-coloured dress, the exotic sculpting of her body beneath her corset, the absurdity of her bustle, the useless but fashionable layers of doubled skirts.

Darkness growled. “Why. Do. They. Live?”

“Come now!” Lucille smiled broadly. “Let me have a bit of fun. One of them in particular I want to toy with. How I’ve missed mortal games.”

“Is she
with
them?”

“No. I’ve not seen her. Or anything like her. Perhaps she’s abandoned them, too—just like she did you.” She couldn’t help pointing this out, and shrugged when Darkness growled. “Oh, stop. I’m sure she’ll be along soon; she can never stay away. She’s so pathetically predictable.”

“Don’t be long,” Darkness commanded.

Lucille waved a languid hand. “Remember my warning. I want to be important. For that reason, I shall take the time I please and make my own choices, thank you very much. I don’t see that you have much alternative.”

Reaching down into one of his office’s myriad hiding places, Alexi withdrew a small wooden container and handed it to Josephine. Opening the lid, she saw how the sealed vials of coloured powder shimmered in the fading light. Her slender fingers closed protectively around the box. Alexi’s alchemical study hadn’t been for naught. He’d found a way to transfer blue fire directly into paint pigment. Useful, for The Guard’s artist to employ upon her ethereal canvases.

“Use it sparingly,” he cautioned. “It’s a powerful mixture this time. I eagerly await your creation, Josie. I expect it to be ravishing.”

There was a knock upon the door.

“Come.”

A slender figure entered the room, shawl draped around her bowed head as if she were votaress for a goddess. Per the professor’s request, she threw back her wrap and removed her dark glasses.

“Ah, Miss Parker!” Alexi boomed.

The figure jumped, smiling nervously at the professor before her eyes riveted to his lovely companion in her impeccable gown. Josephine was similarly taken aback by the sight of this unparalleled girl, and she gasped upon surveying those unearthly, crystalline eyes.

The newcomer shoved her tinted glasses back on her face, tossed her shawl over her head and turned to the professor with a strained expression, as if he had betrayed her. “Forgive me, Professor, I did not mean to interrupt—” She choked, stealing another furtive glance at his ravishing companion before moving toward the door.

“No, no,” Alexi assured her. “I’m completing a matter of business. Miss Parker, this is Mademoiselle Josephine Belledoux, an esteemed colleague of mine. Josephine, this is Miss…” He hesitated, realizing he did not know how to continue. He did not know her first name.

“Percy,” she supplied.

“Thank you. Miss
Percy
Parker, one of my students.”

“
Enchantee,
mademoiselle.” Josephine bowed her head.

“Merci beaucoup,
mademoiselle,
et moi aussi.”

“Ah, Français!”
Josephine beamed, basking in the warmth of her native language.

“Miss Parker is adept at many tongues,” Alexi explained.

Percy gazed ruefully at the floor. “Unfortunately my talent doesn’t apply to mathematics.” Contemplating the presence of this other woman in Professor Rychman’s office, she felt her heart fall in an alarming fashion.

“That’s quite all right, Miss Parker,” Josephine said softly. “Personally, I detest mathematics and all sciences. So I paint.”

“Oh?” Percy looked up at this woman who was surely years older than she, yet showed no sign apart from the contrast of her hair. Dark brown locks were swept up into an elaborate knot, and two white streaks framed her face.

“It would seem, Miss Belledoux, that you two are of like minds. Miss Parker would rather be sketching her dreams than paying attention in class.”

Percy cringed.

“Can you blame the young lady?” the Frenchwoman replied, kindly.

The professor ignored his friend’s smile, gesturing broadly to the south wall and speaking for Percy’s edification. “My paintings are Miss Belledoux’s own, and I am in the process of commissioning a new piece.”

“Your work is
tres belle,
mademoiselle,” Percy breathed, looking around.

“Merci, ma amie.”

“Miss Belledoux, I must now uphold my duty as Prometheus, bearing the torch of education to darkened minds,” the professor declared.

Josephine raised an eyebrow. “Well, aren’t we
se donner de grand airs?
” She bowed and moved to the door, giving Percy a knowing grin. “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he bears any such light,” she whispered. “It’s been nothing but darkness for ages.”

Percy couldn’t help herself, and the two women shared a smile.

“Excuse me!” The professor shook his head and glowered. “There will be no slander in this shrine of knowledge!”

“All right, so he’s brilliant,” Josephine offered, but she winked as she opened the door to the hall. “It’s his social graces that leave something to be desired.”

“Out, I say!”

“Au revoir!”
And with a carefree laugh, the Frenchwoman disappeared.

“Infidels, every one of them,” the professor muttered, gesturing for Percy to sit.

“Who?”

The professor sighed, irritated, searching for his pen. “My colleagues. Social graces? Ha! I hope you’re ready to learn something.”

“Certainly.”

“You’ve forgotten,” the professor remarked, gesturing.

“Oh.” Percy removed her shawl again. Sliding her glasses from her face, she steeled herself a moment for the brief flash of distaste she was so accustomed to seeing. But the professor launched directly into his lesson without a moment’s pause, never once shying away from the sight of her. He hadn’t changed, and the fact filled her with joy.

The professor could condense entire philosophies into a graspable twenty-minute speech. Nonetheless, when he turned again to the processes of mathematics, Percy’s eyes fell on the open book of Shakespeare at the corner of
his desk. She leaned in and saw notes and scribbles in the margins.

The professor, evidently aware she had lost focus, sighed. “Miss Parker, what now…? Oh.
Hamlet?
”

“I promise I was listening, sir. It’s just that this play is my favourite.”

“I acquiesce,” he muttered to himself. “The grip of this mathematical theory is not to be regained. And so, if nothing else, I’ll commend your theatrical taste.” After a moment he inquired, “Have you heard of the recent production in town where Hamlet marries Ophelia at the end?”

Percy’s jaw dropped.
“What!”

“I suppose this day and age cannot be trusted with a good tragedy. So, you do not approve?”

“Of course not, Professor! I hope you’d give me that much credit!”

“As a professed Romantic, I wasn’t entirely sure.”

Percy rallied a meek rebuttal. “I have standards, Professor.”

“Indeed? Well, get out of my office before I raise your standard of attention. I may have even had you for fifteen minutes before you wandered off.”

“Professor, I assure you that I always listen—”

He shrugged. “Never mind, I have work to do. I must go home and gather my wits for a whole night of study. I have a ride ahead of me.” But as the professor shooed her from his desk, his face seized with a flash of discomfort. His hand flew to his temple.

“Professor, I’m s-sorry,” Percy stammered. “Are you all right, sir?”

“As my ‘social graces leave something to be desired,’ will you be so kind as to see yourself out? Good evening, Miss Parker,” he replied, clutching his forehead.

Realizing he wanted her companionship no longer, Percy stumbled out. “Good evening, Professor, do feel better.” But as she tried to shake him from her mind for the rest of the day, it was a matter as difficult as grasping mathematics.

The female calling herself Miss Lucille Linden leaned out the window of the tiny room she’d graciously accepted in the floors above La Belle et La Bête. Her new friends were eating dinner below. Feigning illness, she had declined their generous invitation. Instead, she stared out over London’s sooty, dirty rooftops.

A growl sounded, and she turned to see a cloud of horror awaiting direction. “Go ahead,” she said.

The cloud turned tail and dove through the roof. There came a cry from below, and then the voices of Lord Withersby, Miss Thompson, Mr. Carroll and the Irishwoman introduced as Ms. Connor. The foursome sounded afraid but determined. There were the continued noises of a fracas.

Lucille grinned, her mouth watering. “Listen to them play!” she crowed.

A knock on her door and a strained command interrupted her pleasure. “Miss Linden,” a voice called out, “it’s Josephine here. There’s an intruder down below so you must lock yourself in. The gentlemen are taking care of him, all right?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Lucille replied, ducking back inside the window and feigning innocence.

She appreciated the illusion they were trying to keep up. They assumed, of course, that she had no idea of their true nature. They also assumed that she was a harmless, powerless young woman. It was time to be honest on both sides.

Though…perhaps honesty was not ideal at this exact moment. Especially not if one of them was about to die.

An infernal thing the likes of which The Guard had never seen passed through the structure of La Belle et La Bête and descended upon their table. Snarling horrific, snapping teeth in their faces and shredding tablecloths, the abomination was a huge cloud of black smog that became one dog and
then one hundred, a chimerical, shifting creature that was at first incorporeal and could pass through walls, but which then flickered into something deadly with claws, jaws and horrible red eyes. In the next moment it became a cloud again, impossible to catch.

“What in God’s name is this?” Rebecca shrieked, scooping up her wool skirts as she spun and dashed to the door, her companions following. “Josie, Miss Linden’s upstairs. We’ll not test her with a thing such as this. Have her lock herself in!”

Josephine raced upstairs.

Elijah backed down the alley outside, staring at the demon cloud with horrified fascination as it followed, floating at the level of their heads and taking up nearly the entire width of the alley with its bulky canine body and flickering profusion of heads. It hunched forward, ready to attack.

Michael took Rebecca’s hand on one side, and Jane took the other. A powerful wind whipped around them. Josephine, having bade Miss Linden stay within, swiftly joined their ranks. She took Michael’s left hand.

“Elijah, come,” Rebecca commanded.

The beast lunged, but Withersby ducked out of the way. “Please tell me this is just the Black Dog of Newgate,” he exclaimed, joining his friends in their circle of clasped hands. London’s most gruesome tale of spectral revenge was much less horrifying than entertaining thoughts of a whole new breed.

Rebecca shook her head. “No,” she replied. “We’ve never seen this.”

The dog whipped around to face them, snarling. But as it prepared its next attack, Rebecca shouted a command in the ancient language of The Guard. The hellish thing cocked its head, opened its many maws wide and jumped—only to disperse at the last moment into a grey mist and pass through them.

At the other end of the alley the creature coalesced and
hurtled off in the opposite direction. The Guard gave chase, Elijah trailing after, cleaning up any mess that might give away their battle. They all gave thanks that none of London’s passersby could see ghosts, as their spectral quarry would have caused a riot. They simply had to deal with being considered lunatics.

As they ran, Josephine sought to pinpoint Elijah’s reference. “Wait. The Black Dog…Was that the sorcerer?”

“Yes,” Rebecca answered, panting as they turned a corner. “The scholar imprisoned in Newgate centuries ago for sorcery.”

“The one where the starving inmates ate his body and then a huge, avenging black dog tore them limb from limb?”

“That would be the one. But this is not that dog.”

Michael seemed just as eager to make this beast something they knew. “What about the stench of decay that follows the Newgate dog? You smell it now, don’t you?” There was comfort in the familiar, even one of London’s most macabre spectres. More importantly, the Newgate dog was something they could best. They already had.

“No,” Rebecca replied, breathless. “I smell brimstone. This is not that beast! Do you feel anything in your blood? Any of you? I feel nothing. We can’t track this, we can’t sense it…” Any further commentary was cut off as she stumbled, losing her footing on a cobblestone. Michael was quick to catch her arm. “Damnable heels,” she muttered, righting herself. “Why don’t they make a boot a woman can run in?”

“Hello, friends!” A fierce form on a black steed and trailing black robes appeared at the opposite end of the street. Staring up at the floating, shifting beast, Alexi cried, “What the hell is this?”

A snarl and a swipe knocked his hat off his head. Alexi growled right back, jumping off his horse and shrieking a curse in the ancient language of The Guard. Blue flame leaped from his hands, and it singed the spectral dog’s many
noses. The blue flame streamed a circle around the shifting cur, which hunkered down opposite Alexi and seemed to be tensing its haunches. However, instead of attacking Alexi, when it found a weakness in its fiery containment the beast turned and swarmed back the way it had come, tearing off down the street in a gruesome splintering of canine forms—and through Elijah. Lord Withersby groaned and collapsed in a heap.

“Coward, face me!” Alexi cried, mounting his horse after glancing down worriedly at his unconscious friend. Elijah had been swept up into Jane’s arms, her healing powers at the ready—if she was not already too late.

Rebecca ran toward Alexi’s horse. “Alexi, don’t you dare—” But he was already after it, yelling curses and chasing the monster down the next avenue with bolts of blue fire.

While he knew he couldn’t destroy the hellish thing on his own, Alexi felt the least he could do was reverse the game, be the fox tracking the hound. For that reason he gave chase, spurring his stallion, Prospero, into areas of London he preferred to forget, the city’s dark and dirty underbelly. Urchins, beggars and streetwalkers beckoned, unaware of the terror that had just flashed past. He hissed at their advances, stricken into anger at their desperation.

One particular young woman, barely more than a child, called up to him, asking if he wanted company for the evening. Alexi gritted his teeth and cried, “Find shelter, for God’s sake! Don’t you know something terrible is on the loose?” He flung coins into the street as he passed.

“I know, sir,” the consumptive waif called back, darting to pick up his offerings. “Where lurks the Ripper? But we’ve nowhere to hide. We’ve got no choice. Bless ye for the shilling!”

It was too much. Alexi reined in his horse, suddenly turning back toward the form silhouetted in dim gaslight, locks of hair piled haphazardly beneath a moth-eaten bonnet. She,
thinking perhaps that she had procured a client after all, gave him a practiced, inviting look far more desperate than attractive.