A Grave Inheritance (37 page)

The breath stuck in my throat. Surely this wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be. A child of seven or eight years would never willingly choose such a final course. Besides, she had already asked for help when we first came into the room. Why would she change her mind in so short a time? Holding onto this thought, I renewed my efforts. But no sooner had the power reached my fingers than it left me yet again.

My father’s words sounded clear as day in my head.
There is no use fighting against my wishes.

For the briefest moment, Jenny’s eyes cracked open. Meeting my gaze, she moved her head ever so slightly back and forth. Her eyes closed again, and she went still as death.

“No!” I cried. “You can’t do this!”

Henry’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Selah? Don’t you have enough power?”

I shook his hand off. “She...she won’t let me help her.”

Desperate to get through, I released a deluge of fire sufficient to heal a dozen men. It faded to nothing, leaving me shaking as I stared helplessly down at her. The girl wanted to die, and I could do nothing to stop her.

The last glimmer of life clung to her small, bruised features. “Please listen, Jenny. If you let me, I can make you better and then we’ll take you away from here. That man will never touch you again. But you have to let me in. I can’t do anything unless you allow it.”

She didn’t move, not even the smallest twitch of her eyelids.

“Help her, miss,” Ellen pleaded, tugging on my sleeve again. “Don’t let her die.”

I felt helpless as a human as the light ebbed further from her face. “Jenny!” I yelled, my voice filling the small room. “Please, sweetheart, please just let me in. It will only take a minute.”

Henry knelt beside me. He lifted the girl’s hand for a moment, then gently laid it on the blanket. “She’s gone, Selah.”

I turned to him in disbelief. “No,” I whispered. “You have to make her listen to me. Please, make her listen—”

His arms went around me. I pushed back, but he refused to let go. “There’s nothing either of us can do now.”

A sob sounded right behind me. I twisted in Henry’s arms to find Ellen cradling Jenny in her lap. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. “There ye go, Jenny,” she said, brushing a lock of hair from the child’s mutilated face. “He can’t hurt ye anymore.”

The scene wrenched my heart another notch. “Ellen, I’m so sorry.”

Ellen kept her gaze on Jenny. “It weren’t no fault of yer own, miss. Jenny were done being beat by that man so she went to the only place where he couldn’t get her.”

I watched in silence as Ellen continued to rock the girl. Amidst my failure, she possessed the strength to carry on.

“Help me...”

The hoarse whisper floated from the shadows. I flinched as though hit.

“Ignore it,” Henry said. “I’ll send a guard to carry him to Tyburn Square. He can spend his last breath swinging from the gallows.”

“Please, help me...”

I buried my head into Henry’s chest, a hand pressed hard over each ear. Even then, the whispered pleas circled in my head.
Help me...Help me...
Each circle bound me tighter, until I cried out in agony. It was too much. Lifting my head, I attempted to stand.

“Let him be,” Henry said, refusing to let go.

“You know I don’t have a choice.” My voice sounded hollow, almost inhuman.

Henry didn’t move at first. Then he gave a curt nod and helped me up.

Walking toward the man, I stumbled over a murderous thought.
It is as easy to stop a heart as it is to heal one.
Surely, no one in this world would be the wiser, and Brigid could not argue that the man deserved to live after what he had done to Jenny.

Lantern light spilled over his pathetic form. “What do you intend to do?” Henry asked.

To be honest, I didn’t know. Power seethed in my fingers, and I curled them into a ball, unsure if they contained life or death.

His glassy eyes continued to stare into the darkness. The reddish brown smudges around his mouth filled me with revulsion. His heinous acts cried for vengeance. Yet here I stood before him, an angel of mercy.

Or an angel of death.

What do you want from me?

“Selah,” Henry said, his gentle voice breaking into my thoughts. “I know you don’t want to do this. Rest assured, the man will hang on the morrow even if you are bound by law to heal him tonight.”

I glanced at him, thankful for the comforting words, and equally thankful that he could not read the murderous thoughts running through my mind. A drop of cold sweat rolled down my back. Henry waited, watching me. Ellen cried softly on the other side of the room. Jenny lay dead in her arms. My fingers uncurled, seemingly of their own accord as the need for retribution grew stronger...
It doesn’t matter who tightens the noose and pulls the lever. Why not let it happen tonight? Why must I defile myself to help evil?

The man whimpered. His eyes focused on mine, dark pools filled with desperation and pain. “Help me...” He tried to lift a hand, but it fell limp to the floor.

I took a step forward when Brigid’s past counsel yanked me back from the edge.
“It is a hard thing to measure a man’s heart. Your power is to sustain life, not to judge it. Some of my children have fallen who sought to do more than was intended.”

The warning had come months ago, at a time when I had wanted Nathan Crowley dead more than anything else in the world. Now his sins paled in comparison to the monster before me, yet the truth remained the same. No matter how much I wanted this man dead, no matter how much he deserved it, judgment would not come from me tonight.

Wishing to be done and away from this place, I squared my shoulders and stepped past his legs to place a hand on top of his matted head. Grudgingly, I let go of just enough power to warm his skin, and to see what ailment had elicited his pleas for help. The next instant turned my blood to ice. Animal fear poured into me, then without warning, tormented screams sounded in the very center of my brain.

Kill me...make it stop.

War raged inside of him. On one side stood humanity and repulsion for what he had done to the child. On the other, madness so vile, a violent shudder tore through me. Much higher screams filled my ears. The floor shook, throwing me forward, deeper into hell.

“Selah!” Henry yelled from far away.

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even breathe. Strong hands grabbed my shoulders, pulled me back.

“Selah! Look at me!”

The images and screams disappeared. Warmth surrounded me, thawed my blood. The room returned and air flowed into my lungs. Blinking several times, Henry’s face came into view. His arms circled me, one hand supporting my head.

“Dear Lord,” he exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” My throat felt scratchy, and I swallowed to relieve the strain.

A child’s wails passed through the paper-thin walls and someone pounded on the floor above us with what sounded like an iron skillet.

“Your screams seem to have woken the other tenants.”

I gave him a confused look. “That wasn’t me.” Those tortured screams had come from the man, low at first, then moving higher...much like a woman. “Good Heavens! His emotions must have passed straight through me.” I swallowed again over the tender skin in my throat.

Henry studied my face. “What happened after you touched him?”

It took a moment for the words to form. “His mind,” I said, struggling to explain. “It’s as though someone split it in two. And the worst part, Henry, is that he knows it, and he knows the bad side is winning. He...he asked me to kill him.”

Henry’s gaze fell to the man. “Is that what you want?” he asked me. “I’d prefer the gallows, but we can end it tonight if you wish.”

A minute ago, I would have answered an unequivocal yes. And that was before the action could be justified by mercy. A simple nod would suffice for Henry to draw the sword at his side and end the man’s suffering. All I had to do was nod.

Unease skittered through me. The man was fighting tooth and nail against an evil that far exceeded anything I had ever felt before. Perhaps it could be blamed on simple madness. Or perhaps there was something more to his torments. “Cate should have a look at him while he’s still alive.”

“I’ll have to tie him up then. Once the stupor wears off there’s no telling what damage he may cause.”

As though in protest, the man groaned and kicked out a leg, catching a toe on the bottle. It rolled the short distance into the shadows. This time I did nod, and fetched a ratty linen shirt from the chest to be cut into strips for bindings.

Only a few hours remained before dawn when we stepped from the room into the muddy lane. Ellen sniffled at my side, running a sleeve under her nose. “I best return to the bakehouse if ye don’t mind, miss. The others is probably up by now and Mr. and Mrs. Larken don’t have no peace of mind whenever one of us has gone unaccounted for.”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“Just tell her ladyship about Jenny is all. She’ll want to know.”

I shivered from a sudden chill.

Henry’s arm tightened around me. “Let’s get you home—”

A man’s angry voice erupted in the stillness a short distance ahead. Henry tensed, one hand dropping to his sword hilt. More voices joined in, tense and loud until it sounded like a full-scale argument.

Henry passed the lantern to me. “It’s the footmen. They’re under attack.” Metal scraped against leather as he pulled the sword from its scabbard. “Go back inside. I’ll return directly.”

Another chill shook me, more intense than the first. “But Henry—”

His expression turned thunderous. “Do it!”

I flinched in surprise. Without another word, Henry turned and started only to come to an abrupt halt. Raising the sword to shoulder height, he slowly turned in a half-circle from left to right. A low growl drifted through the damp night air, turning my skin to gooseflesh. Experience told me what lurked in the dark a split second before an enormous hound stepped from the deepest shadows, its pale white form just discernible at the very edge of the lantern light.

Three more hounds followed closely behind. Fear ripped through me, and for a moment I stood as though frozen. Then a hound lunged at Henry, turning my fear to violent hatred. The sword glided in a gleaming arc. The beast yelped at the same time a small red blossom appeared in the white fur of its upper foreleg. Another lunged, but Henry moved too quickly with a slice the beast barely escaped.

Snarling, the hounds slunk out of reach. Henry tracked their steps, striking out whenever one attempted to creep around his flank to where Ellen and I stood. Power burned in my fingers, and I almost wished one around so I could put an end to it the same way Cate had done so many times before. Her brief instruction came back with clarity...
Keep low and strike fast.

A pistol discharged somewhere in the direction of the carriage. A man’s scream was followed by another shot. Henry jerked his head toward the sound of his men, his sword hand slipping slightly. One of the hounds took advantage and lunged. In a flash, the blade whipped through the air, catching the animal’s side and knocking it into the wooden wall near us.

Ellen cried out and pressed her back against the door. The hound remained motionless, though still alive or its body would have burst into blue flames. Just then, movement caught my eye. Whipping my head to the side, I glimpsed a young girl standing a dozen paces behind Henry in the middle of the lane. Loathing filled me, and I would have recognized the white-blond hair and beggar’s rags even without the benefit of the lantern.

Deri watched Henry and the hounds, her face rapturous. Thinking myself undetected, I studied the disturbingly pale features when her neck slowly swiveled, and our gazes locked.

“So far from home, Biddie girl,” she chirruped in a childish voice. “Did ye like little Deri’s present? Biddie lady got sent away so ye could have it tonight.”

My eyes narrowed. “What present do you mean?”

The girl gave a squeal of laughter that scraped against my spine. “Madness in the head, beat her till she’s dead.”

Her words erupted like thunderclaps in my ears. “Holy mother!” I whispered. “You split that man’s mind apart.”
You killed Jenny.

Her pink lips parted in maddening glee, revealing two perfectly formed rows of small white teeth. “Aye, Biddie girl, I muddled his head.” She swept her ragged skirts in a clumsy curtsey.

I made a sudden move toward her, driven by a similar impulse as when a spider comes too near for comfort. Emitting another squeal of laughter, she spun on her heel and skipped into the darkness, snippets of singsong trailing behind her.

“Madness in the head...”

Henry grunted, and I turned just in time to see his sword bite deep into the neck of a hound. Farther down, two men entered the lane, each carrying a lantern and dressed in the Fitzalan livery. They yelled out to Henry, who looked up once the hound hit the ground, its white fur heavily mottled with mud and blood. The other wounded hound had yet to move from where he’d been thrown against the building. The two remaining creatures took no notice of the approaching men as they continued to prowl just out of sword reach.

“Beat her till she’s dead...”

The footmen were now close enough to provide ample light and support for the fight. “Stay here,” I told Ellen.

Gripping the lantern, I lifted my skirts and went after the wretch. The lane twisted and turned like a corkscrew, and I would have soon lost my way if not for her little verse, which she repeated every few seconds.

The lane narrowed even more, and I nearly tripped over a drunken man, who sat propped against a barrel with a bottle resting in the crook of one arm. Regaining my footing, I caught sight of the girl as she disappeared down an alleyway. Her words drifted back to me, the resonance somewhat altered from before.

“Beat her till she’s dead...”

I rounded the corner to discover the cause for the different sound. Two lodgings sat on opposite sides of the alley, their second floors jutting out to create a tunnel of sorts. I darted in without a second thought, determined to stop Deri. My light found the ghostly faces of several ragged young men huddled together in a doorway. They looked like a gang of pickpockets and cutthroats, and any other time I would have been terrified to be so close in the dead of night. The men hardly gave notice as they stared after young Deri, cold fear shining in their eyes.