Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (36 page)

Virgil smiled, blood on his teeth. “I released the Sisters,” he said. “I suggest you run.”

This time, Cormac’s punch knocked him out cold.

Penelope wasn’t certain how she came to be inside a carriage.

It was difficult to think clearly. All she could smell were hawthorn flowers. Lucius sat across from her, smiling his charming smile but a new kind of anticipation vibrated through him. She could see it in the glint in his eyes; she just didn’t know what it meant. Or why he’d insisted they leave the ball.

They didn’t go far. Penelope tried to memorize the movement of the carriage, one right turn, one left, and then a stop. Hyde Park crouched on one side, full of flowers and secrets and kelpies.

On the other side, Greymalkin House.

A part of her recognized that it was a gray and dismal house, one that had nearly killed Emma, but she still felt drawn to it. It might have been a palatial mansion with grand columns and manicured gardens instead of warped wood, chipped stone, and peeling paint. A gust of wind caught the shutters, banging them against the wall as if to prove her point.

Frost crept over the inside of the carriage window, tendrils of
ice unfurling like pale fingers clutching at everything in their path. Penelope’s breath misted. Snow pelted them as the carriage shuddered and they rattled like coins in a cup. Lucius kicked the door open, fighting his way free. There was ice on his collar and in the nooks of his cravat.

The petals of her hawthorn crown frosted and froze until they shattered into silvery dust.

She was no longer bewildered and befuddled.

“Penelope, come with me,” Lucius ordered, holding his hand out to her through the open door.

“No,” she said, slowly.

“I beg your pardon?”

She removed one of her gloves and he watched her carefully.

“Come with me now,” he repeated imperiously. He gripped her wrist tightly, ready to haul her outside. Instead of fighting him, she curled her bare fingers over his knuckles, holding on tightly, the gold ring on his finger digging into her skin as she willed her powers to show her what he was really thinking.

Her eyes rolled back in her head.

The shards of the broken witch bottle lay on the ground, leaking magic. The substance was somehow smoke, liquid, and light all at once, coalescing slowly into the shape of three women. They were hazy at first, barely a wisp of an outline, growing stronger and stronger as Emma and Cormac watched, helpless and horrified.

The eldest, Magdalena, was full of glowing beetles, wasps, and moths, blending together to finally form the spirit of the Greymalkin warlock in her medieval gown and unbound hair. Lark was next, with her bloodstained plaid and tragic smile. Rosmerta was scarred by the poisonous plants draped over her, the same berries and flowers Cormac’s sister Colette had turned against her. Even her sickle looked rusted, and it was still simple ectoplasm.

“You,” she hissed at Emma. Magdalena and Lark paused, turning their heads.

“I guess they remember me,” she said. Fear and anxiety had her swallowing an inappropriate and slightly hysterical giggle.

“You need to run!” Cormac pushed her up the ladder.

“What about you?” Emma asked, clinging to the rung but not climbing any farther.

“Someone needs to stop them,” he said.

The Sisters had enough power between them, even after having been trapped, to rattle all of the other witch bottles in their cages. They pulled energy from the atmosphere so quickly and greedily that frost clung to Emma’s eyelashes. Ice sheeted the floor and stole her breath. Her teeth chattered under the frigid blast of unnatural winter.

Witch bottles shattered, sending glass and clay shards throughout the hold. A familiar in the shape of a fat rabbit bounded away. A cat with a scar across its eye snarled, hackles raising as it slunk away.

“They’re releasing the others,” Cormac said, grabbing a
sword from the wall beside the ladder. It had knotwork etched onto the hilt and was inlaid with jet. A crystal sphere filled with salt and rowan berries sat in the center of the pommel. “Get out of here, Emma!”

The jagged pieces of the bottles and jugs hovered, glittering with malevolent magic. The Sisters flung them at Emma and Cormac. Cormac swung the sword, using the blade like a shield. When the shards struck the metal, they exploded and crumbled to sand. “Magic sword,” he explained tersely.

Emma gathered the magic in her, and it only prickled slightly. Wind whipped and howled through the hold, dragging at the Sisters, tearing at their hair and their clothes until it took all their concentration not to dissipate like mist. Cormac fumbled for a red pouch inside his jacket and tossed the banishing powder inside onto the snow-stung floor between them and the Sisters. A white horse coalesced, hooves striking sparks as it reared. The Sisters backed away, howling curses.

“It won’t be enough to hold them,” he said with grim certainty. “Not one horse.”

“Come with me,” Emma demanded.

“I can’t leave the ship to them. Don’t argue with me, Emma. Go!”

“That wasn’t an argument, it was a statement. You’re coming with me,” she said, as her hair whipped into her eyes. “Because
they’re
coming with me. Isn’t that right?” she yelled over the wind and the curses. They turned toward her as one, necks unnaturally long, heads swiveling too far around.

“Shite.”

It was all Cormac had time to say.

Strawberry led Gretchen and Moira to the May Ball.

“Why’s it always at a ball?” Gretchen muttered, racing up the steps to the front door. The windows of the lower portion of the house glowed with lamplight. The smell of roses and lilies was strong. Everything seemed normal.

“I don’t think she’s here,” she said, even as snow assaulted her and she stumbled over the stoop into the front hall. The marble floors gleamed, slippery with ice. Moira followed gingerly, her shoulder hunched protectively.

“A bleeding Society dance with Greybeards.” She pulled an iron dagger from her belt. Her fat little gargoyle circled over her head, snapping its jaws. “I’d rather be in the stews of the Seven Dials.”

Gretchen snorted. “I don’t blame you.”

The butler stood at his post, staring straight ahead. Moira raised an eyebrow in his direction. “What’s with him?”

“He’s being a butler,” she explained, frowning slightly. “Sort of.” Apprehension tickled her spine.

They followed the hungry gargoyle down the hall to the ballroom. The perfume of flowers and melted beeswax hung in the air. Hawthorn petals and snow blew in behind them. The guests danced the waltz even though there was no music. Others stood by the walls, mechanically drinking champagne. Footmen continued to circulate though their trays were empty.

“They’re bewitched,” Moira said softly. “Bollocks.”

Gretchen wandered between the guests, feeling ill. They smiled frozen smiles, their eyes wild. Even the Keepers stationed by the garden doors stood at attention, unable to move. She shook one of them, slapped another across the face. There was no reaction. Gretchen screamed, hoping to startle them out of their stupor. It wasn’t the dainty yelp of a lady startled by a spider, but a full-on war-bellow.

No one noticed.

She screamed so loudly the dog next door barked in reply, and Moira’s gargoyle hid in the chandelier until she stopped.

Moira rubbed her ears. “Are you done with that?”

“It was worth a try.” And yet no one so much as glanced her way. The guests waltzed in circles like music-box figurines. The scuff of their shoes on the parquet floor was the only sound. It send shivers skittering over her even as part of her wished she could join them. She could stay here, frozen, and pretend that Godric was still alive.

She forced herself to stay in the moment, to blink away the image of his blood on her hands, and pushed through the guests.

“Why won’t they stop?” She saw Daphne whispering in her father’s ear. And a few feet away, Tobias stood by a sugar sculpture of two entwined lovers, as equally chained as the others. He looked as cold and controlled as ever, but it wasn’t discipline pinning him in place this time; it was dark magic. She knew him now, knew him well enough to read the despair in the taut lines of his body. She grabbed his arm. “Tobias!” She shook him, even though she knew it wouldn’t help. “Can you hear me?”

He couldn’t reply of course. There was a burning lump in the back of her throat. There was too much inside her—grief, fury, worry. She might explode. Her fingers dug into his coat. “Wake up, damn it!”

“We need to find the spell,” Moira said, patting down the gentlemen’s coat pockets. She didn’t find any amulets or witch bundles, but she did come away with a handful of coins and three gold cravat pins.

Gretchen stepped away from Tobias to dig through the potted plants. She tore the flowers and leaves off the garlands. She didn’t find anything, couldn’t even find her own cousins, never mind a hidden spell bundle. Fear soured her belly like it hadn’t at the sight of the silent ball. They could be anywhere. Anything could have happened to them. She doubled her search efforts frantically.

Moira’s gargoyle began to attack the chandelier, sending a shower of crystal shards over the whirling guests. Moira watched him for a moment before dragging a chair across the floor and setting it under the chandelier. “I think Pip’s found something,” she said, climbing onto the chair. She stretched, wobbling. “Can’t quite reach it.” She cursed.

Gretchen followed the silk-wrapped chain from the chandelier to where it was looped on a hook behind one of the brocade curtains. “Watch out,” she called, waiting for Moira to step out of the way before unwrapping the chain and lowering the entire chandelier to the ground. It rattled as it dropped, breaking more crystal beads. A candle rolled away and nearly lit a lady’s hem on fire before extinguishing. Pip darted at the chandelier like a viper.
Moira nudged him aside, digging through the broken glass until she came away with bloody fingertips but nothing else.

Gretchen closed her eyes, her fists clenched even she tried to relax. “How do I wake them?” She listened hard for the whispered answer, but she could hear only the heavy, sick thud of her pulse.

“Ask Strawberry,” Moira suggested. “She’s clearly been keeping an eye on Sophie.”

“Strawberry,” Gretchen murmured. “Help us again. How do we break this spell?”

“Alas no witch’s spell.”

“Not that one,” she snapped. “Concentrate. How do we break this hypnosis?”

“Cross running water.”

She shook her head. “Not possible. What else?”

By the time Gretchen had a reply she could work with, she was trembling and pale, her hair damp with sweat. Her ears burned. “We need malachite stones,” she said. “And wormwood for the magical infection, and salt. All of it needs to be mixed with thunderwater.” She shrugged bleakly. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to gather thunderwater; it’s not even raining.”

Moira grinned cheekily. “I can find you all of those things. It’s what I do. And we’re in a witch’s house, after all. Folks this rich, they’d have everything on hand.”

She left to prowl the house, leaving Gretchen alone with hundreds of silent guests. She tried to ignore the soft sounds of their forced mechanical dancing. “We’re going to break the spell,” she told them out loud, wondering if they could even hear her. “I promise you.”

She was just starting to believe it when Tobias grabbed her from behind, pinning her back against his chest. The betrayal made her freeze for a moment, unable to process what was happening. She felt his breath on her cheek. He still couldn’t speak, but he could prevent her from breaking the spell.

“
Oi
,” Moira yelled, thundering down the stairs. She skidded into the ballroom, holding two round bottles filled with water and herbs. “We have bigger problems.”

Gretchen, trapped in Tobias’s iron-hard, dead-eyed hold, wasn’t entirely sure how that could be possible.

Emma twisted to the side to avoid colliding with the frantic Keeper hurtling toward the ladder down to the hold. Cormac emerged behind her, magic sword glowing.

“Call the white horses,” he ordered, thundering past the stunned Keepers following the first. “And hide!”

The malice emanating from the hold convinced them, even before the Sisters began to float up through the deck. Glowing beetles and wasps filled the air, lending an eerie pale blue glow to the Keepers as they ran for cover, fumbling for banishing powder. Emma and Cormac were already sliding down the ladder into the rowboat. The Sisters had the advantage; they could float over the water.

But so could the white horses.

They rode the waves like it was a field of grass. One of them clamped strong teeth over the edge of Lark’s plaid shawl, tearing it. She went from moon white to a sickly shade of gray.

Cormac rowed as fast as he could, muscles straining. Emma stood at the stern of the small boat and faced their pursuers, calling the wind to attack them and the waves to confound them. She wore the lightning like a crown. The boat bobbed dangerously and she nearly fell over the edge. Rain fell in sheets, turning to snow and ice the nearer it came to the Sisters.

They reached the shore, and Emma pulled the fog back down. She sent it clinging to the shadows, the houses, and the carriages, hiding everyone from the Greymalkin Sisters. They would see no warehouses, no dockside taverns, no clogged London street, only her.

Cormac cut the traces of the first horse he found, freeing it from the carriage it was meant to pull. The coachman was asleep and didn’t wake in time to stop him. Cormac leaped onto the back of the horse and pulled Emma behind him. The sword was dimpled with rainwater, still gleaming unnaturally.

Lightning struck the ground behind them like spears. She could just make out the Sisters racing to catch up, light trailing off them like shooting stars. Frost formed and melted, closing its fingers around lampposts, street signs, and unwary pedestrians. Windows shattered under the violent and sudden pressure.

Behind the Sisters, a herd of white horses galloped madly. No one else saw them, but they knew enough to get out of the way when ice formed on the first of May and the sound of ghostly hooves spooked even the rats nibbling at the garbage in the gutters.