Chapter 19
Whyborne
“Dear lord!” I shoved my chair violently back from the table. Spells sizzled on my tongue, waiting to be unleashed. The blade of Griffin’s sword cane rasped free, and Christine snatched out her pistol.
But the cloaked figure didn’t lunge across the table and attack, as I’d expected. “Repulsive, isn’t it?” he wheezed. “It is my punishment.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I’d seen such punishment before, when the Fideles failed to steal the Wisborg Codex and kill me last July. I held up a hand, and Griffin stilled, the blade of his cane poised to strike.
“The Man in the Woods did this to you?” I asked. “Nyarlathotep?”
“Yes.” The tentacle withdrew, tucked away again beneath the cloak. “My name is Montgomery Downing. I was a friend of Reverend Scarrow.”
Scarrow had been the only sorcerer I’d met who didn’t want to kill me. Naturally, he’d ended up murdered himself. “You’re a member of the Cabal?”
“Yes. I studied sorcery. When I was young, I went to the Man in the Woods to learn.” As Blackbyrne and so many others had before him. “But there is always a price.”
I’d wondered why a being from the Outside such as Nyarlathotep had any interest in communing with human sorcerers. “What price?”
“Obedience.” Downing let out a wet laugh. “I was a fool. Young. Stupid. I made the bargain willingly. But now the time has come. Nyarlathotep demands we act. He visits us in our dreams.”
I exchanged an uneasy look with Christine. “And what exactly is it that he wants?” she prompted.
“Can you not guess?” Something squirmed within the shadows of the hood. I desperately hoped it was only tentacle hair like the ketoi had, and nothing more nauseating. “He is the emissary of the masters. All who learned sorcery from him must obey...must aid their return. Or face his wrath.”
“This happened because you refused?” I asked.
“Yes.” He paused to cough, a racking bout that ended with his shoulders hunched even lower. “I will not...open the door to creatures...who mean to reshape the world to their liking.” He took a deep, gasping breath. “There is no promise of power that will make me betray humankind.”
“Mrs. Creigh believed that cooperation was the only way to save humanity,” Iskander remarked from the doorway.
“Making it easier to conquer us will not persuade them to spare us.” Anger laced the labored words. “Humanity was too insignificant for notice when last the masters walked in this world. Now we are not. They will not care how many die when they remake our reality to better suit them. Our only hope is to resist. And so I have.” The cloak rippled, as if he shuddered. “And this...is my reward. Each night I am visited in dreams. And each morning I find more of my body altered. My organs are not as they were. I can feel things moving in my lungs. But I will not surrender.”
Horror rooted me to the chair. But it was mingled with admiration. “That is incredibly brave of you,” I managed to say.
“Not many have that sort of courage,” Christine agreed grimly. “I suspect most of those the Man in the Woods tutored, whether they originally favored the return of the masters or not, will have fallen into line by now.”
“Yes.” Downing’s hood turned in my direction, though mercifully I couldn’t make out anything within. “That is why I have come to warn you. They know about you and your sister.”
More than the January cold seemed to settle into the unheated room. “Know w-what?” I’d hoped to ask casually, but the words stuck in my throat coming out.
“Nyarlathotep knows the maelstrom as does none other. He has seen you through the dreams of Mrs. Creigh. He knows that you are a fragment of the arcane vortex. Of Widdershins.”
“I knew we should have killed Creigh when we had the chance,” Christine said through gritted teeth. “Devil take the woman. I hope she ends up with a squid head.”
I resisted the urge to rub my eyes in despair. I’d never intended to reveal myself in front of Creigh. But she’d tried to infect me with the rust, as she’d already infected poor Iskander. I’d had no choice but to draw on the power of an arcane line and burn it away.
Unfortunately, such an infusion of magic had affected my mental state, and I’d ended up ranting like some sort of poorly written stage villain. I am the fire that burns in the veins of the world—what on earth had I been thinking?
So she’d known there was something abnormal about me, though not precisely what. Certainly I hadn’t told her. But it had never occurred to me that the beings she served might realize exactly what the maelstrom had done. That, like the ketoi and the umbrae, it had rebelled against its creators in the only way it could.
Well, I already knew Persephone and I were targets of the Fideles. It was difficult to imagine this bit of information could make things any worse.
“I see,” I said at last. “Thank you for the warning, Mr. Downing.” I directed my gaze at the space beneath the hood where I imagined his eyes to be. “Is there anything we can do? Perhaps there is some spell to reverse the effects or...”
“No.” He sounded certain. Probably he’d spent what time he could looking into just that possibility. “I made my devil’s bargain. Now, with my last act, I’ll spit in his face.” He settled back into the chair. “I have one more warning for you. The reason I called you here, in fact. Do you know why Nyarlathotep is called the Man in the Woods?”
“Because that was where cultists met him in medieval times,” I replied. “And later, if any of the accusations leveled during the witch trials were true.”
“Yes...and no.” Downing’s tentacle arm coiled and uncoiled. “It takes a certain amount of arcane power to pierce the veil and move between our world and the Outside. Lesser creatures such as the Hounds can do it easily. There is less...resistance, for want of a better word. But for beings of great power such as Nyarlathotep, it is more difficult. There are only certain places they can pass through.”
The fine hairs stood up on the back of my neck. “The yayhos in West Virginia told me they could only come here at specific sites. Threshold Mountain was one of them.”
“Precisely.” Downing let out a wet, racking cough. When it ended, he said, “And the masters, the most powerful beings of all those to visit our world, require the maelstrom to pass back and forth. Nyarlathotep is but their servant, but much like the yayhos, can only enter our world in specific places. One of these is in the Draakenwood.”
“Of course it is,” Christine muttered. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“This is my warning to you.” Downing reached across the table, and I had to force myself not to jerk back from the slimy touch of his tentacle as it wrapped around my wrist. “Nyarlathotep’s minions plot against you, but you must fight on your ground. Here, you have the advantage. But the Draakenwood belongs to him.” He drew in a deep, whistling breath. “Do not let them lure you beneath its eaves, or you will surely be lost.”
~ * ~
At least my lack of gainful employment at the museum allowed us to sleep in the next morning. As Griffin and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast together, a smart rap came on the front door. Griffin answered it, and a moment later returned to the kitchen with Iskander in tow.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” he said. “I didn’t want to miss you.”
Ordinarily, I would have enjoyed the newspaper alongside my morning coffee. But as it was currently full of speculation concerning me, the murders, and whether or not my family was constitutionally insane, I’d busied myself with a cryptography book instead. I still hoped to translate the Wisborg Codex, though without a key, my prospects were slim indeed.
I set the book aside. “Not at all. Is there something we can do for you?”
“I don’t have any work at the museum today,” he said. “You’d mentioned taking the photographs of the murder scene to Mr. Endicott, and I wondered if I might accompany you.”
“You want to ask Hattie about her claim she knew your mother,” Griffin guessed.
Iskander’s mouth tightened. “Christine says it’s just a lie meant to divide us. And I know she must be right. My mother would never have associated with the likes of the Endicotts.”
“Of course not,” I said staunchly.
Griffin looked less certain. “Surely an outright lie would be easily dismissed. Not to say there is more than a small grain of truth to it, of course. But your mother did keep some rather large secrets from you.”
“About being from a family of monster hunters, you mean.” Iskander’s shoulders slumped fractionally. “Which the Endicotts also style themselves as.”
Griffin winced. “I do agree with Christine in part, though. They mean to divide us.”
At that, Iskander straightened. “If so, they’ll be doomed to disappointment.”
“Indeed,” Griffin agreed, and clapped him on the shoulder.
I remained silent. Theo and Fiona had known exactly what to say, what to do, to divide us. And their cousin Turner had set Griffin’s brother Jack against me, again using just the right words as bait.
Rupert and Hattie wanted an alliance...but so had Theo and Fiona, before they’d learned of my inhuman bloodline. Still, perhaps forewarned was indeed forearmed in this case. So long as we were on guard, surely any ploys to sow dissent in our ranks would be easy to avoid.
As there were now three of us, we opted to take the trolley to the address Rupert had supplied. The neighborhood was a comfortable one, the houses large and well-kept. Children strolled with their nannies, and servants returned from market with full baskets. We passed the house belonging to Dr. Hart, and an ache started in my chest. What if I never got my job back? I didn’t think the police could possibly have enough evidence to convict me, especially as there was no chance of them producing—or even identifying—the murder weapon in court. But what if I was wrong?
I couldn’t flee Widdershins. Not with the masters coming. I had no intention of allowing the police to jail me, no matter what means I had to resort to. I’d have to go into hiding in some fashion.
Which meant no more job at the museum. No more articles in the Journal of Philology.
No more quiet nights at home with Griffin.
“It’s going to be all right, my dear,” Griffin said in a low voice.
I glanced down at him. “You don’t know that.”
He didn’t reply verbally, but allowed the back of his hand to brush against mine. I took it to mean he knew I was correct.
A maid answered the Endicotts’ door. She was neatly dressed, her apron perfectly white and her black hair pulled back into a tight bun. She took my card and left us in an unremarkable parlor to wait.
Hattie joined us almost immediately. “Rupert said you’d be along today.” She glanced at Iskander. “Good to see you, Mr. Barnett. Putnam-Barnett, sorry.”
“Miss Endicott.” Iskander offered her a small bow. “If I might have a moment of your time.”
“Guessed you’d have some questions for me.”
Griffin cleared his throat. “Perhaps Whyborne and I should call upon Mr. Endicott while you speak privately?”
“No.” Iskander stood as if bracing himself against something. “I’d prefer it all out in the open. You said you knew my mother, Miss Endicott. That she, in fact, taught you to fight with the knives.”
“Taught you too, didn’t she?” Hattie dropped into a chair, her pose casual. I wondered what the servants made of her—or had they brought their own servants from England? That seemed far more likely. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. You might’ve guessed I wasn’t raised at the family estate. My old man ran away—one of those who didn’t inherit any inclination toward sorcery and all that. Figured he could do better on his own. He took off to London, met my mum, and cashed in his stack a few months before I was born. Life wasn’t too easy after that, so I learned to brawl early on. Good at it, too. Good enough to impress the family when they finally found me. But punching don’t work so well against sorcerers, so they wanted me to learn something different.” She leaned forward with a grin. “That’s where your mum came in.”
Iskander shook his head. “How would she have even known the Endicotts? No one by that name ever moved in our circles.”
“What, you think the family don’t keep track of others like us?” she asked.
Memory sparked. “Theo said you have records of the bloodlines of other families dedicated to fighting monsters,” I said. “But I thought he only referred to English families.”
“’Course not. What good would that do?” Hattie rolled her eyes at me. “Egypt, Abyssinia, even really foreign places like France. Not that your mum’s folk made it easy, Iskander. Can I call you that?”
He blinked, taken aback. “I-I suppose so.”
“Good, you can call me Hattie.” She offered him a grin that brought forth a dimple in her cheek. “We actually thought your family had died out a couple of times over the years, but then there’d be evidence of a lot of dead ghūls, or somebody would come across a camp in the desert or the like. So of course when Mrs. Barnett came to England, we contacted her. Naturally we did it all quiet—lady like her, married to a landed gentleman and all, has her reputation to think about. Didn’t want to expose her, in case her position became useful.”
I couldn’t imagine what thoughts passed through Iskander’s mind at the moment. “I...see,” he said, his expression rather fixed.
“She helped us out once or twice, when there was a problem local to her. But after the family found me, I spent a summer in your gamekeeper’s cottage.” She tucked a strand of pale hair behind her ear, seeming lost in memories. “Bribed him a hefty sum for the privilege, but it meant less sneaking around for both me and your mum.”
Iskander said nothing. I hesitated, but the question had to be asked, “Forgive me, Hattie, but I have to wonder why Mrs. Barnett would keep such a secret from her own son.”
She grinned impertinently at me. “You think I’m lying, don’t you, abomination?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
“Monster, then. Easier to say.”
“I know why she didn’t,” Iskander said heavily. “Her early life was hard. She never spoke of it in detail, but she always said she wanted something better for me. I think she hoped I’d follow in Father’s footsteps and become a diplomat.”
“Don’t need diplomacy to fight monsters,” Hattie said. “You have to act. Kill them before they can kill you. Nothing good comes of talking to them.”
“And yet here you are, seeking an alliance with us,” Griffin said.
“Strange times and all that.” She shrugged. “Speaking of which, Rupert would like to see those photographs. Shall we take them to him, then?”
“Yes,” I said tightly. I didn’t want to hear any more of her words, and I was quite certain Iskander felt the same. “Let’s.”