Maelstrom (10 page)

“As will I.” Griffin frowned. “But isn’t
Niles worried about the servants seeing her? Surely he doesn’t mean
to cook and serve dinner himself.”

I laughed at the thought. “Dear heavens, no.
Even when he was in the army, he had personal servants to cook his
meals and clean his dishes. I’m certain any servants on hand will
be like Fenton, trusted with the darkest secrets of Whyborne
House.” The way Miss Emily had been. But she’d had secrets of her
own.

Griffin shook his head and pulled his coat
on over his bathing costume. “It seems very odd to me.”

“I suppose.” I’d grown up with servants,
some of whom had been in Widdershins nearly as long as we had. “But
how was your day? Did you get the list of customers from Mr.
Lambert’s employer?”

“Yes.” Griffin chewed at his lower lip
thoughtfully. “Most names I didn’t recognize, although it seems
several of your colleagues get their suits there. Dr. Norris, Dr.
Osborne, and Mr. Quinn were all on the list. Oh, and you’ll be
shopping there as well.”

“I will?”

“I needed a bribe to convince Mr. Dryden,
and the Whyborne name carries weight,” he said.

“Griffin!” I protested.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promised with a
suggestive leer. “Now come along.”

We left Saul to his rodent hunting. Griffin
insisted on driving, of course, although at least the streets
weren’t nearly so crowded this time of day. Griffin pulled the
motor car off the road, and we walked down to the isolated beach.
Once on the shore, Griffin reached into his pocket. “I’m going to
throw the summoning stone,” he warned me.

I nodded and made certain I was mentally
prepared for its strange call. Just in case, I turned my back as
well. There came a soft splash as he threw it out into the
waves.

“There,” he said. “No effects? You don’t
feel the need to dash out into the ocean?”

“No,” I assured him. “Although perhaps it’s
a good thing I don’t swim.”

“Perhaps.” He kissed me and began to strip
off the coat and trousers he’d put on over his swimming costume. I
took it from him, folding it neatly on a rocky outcropping. “Are
you certain you don’t want to come in?” he asked.

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“The ketoi wear nothing but jewelry and
skirts of gold netting,” he pointed out. “No one will be
scandalized by nudity.”

“I’m certainly not going to parade around in
front of my mother and sister with no clothes on!” I exclaimed.

He shrugged. “As you wish.”

I climbed atop the outcropping and lit the
small lantern we’d brought with us. I had brought a book on
cryptography, hoping for more ideas as to how to decipher the
codex, and read while Griffin splashed about in the water.
Moonlight sparkled off the waves, and the heat of the day yielded
to a more pleasant warmth.

I paused in my reading to watch Griffin. I
could make out the white stripes of his bathing costume, and wished
suddenly I might see him better. He cut such a fine figure in it.
Perhaps one day I would quell my fear of water and try swimming
with him. We’d float, buoyed by the waves, and he’d catch me to his
strong body. He’d kiss me, his mouth tasting of brine, and we’d
wash onto the shore, bodies intertwined...

The sight of a fin cutting the water broke
me from my reverie. I straightened sharply. “Griffin!” I called.
“Look—”

His bobbing figure vanished from sight, as
something powerful jerked him beneath the waves.

Whyborne

Griffin reappeared a moment later, choking
and spluttering. The monster that had dragged him under surfaced
beside him. Her mouth split into a grin, revealing row upon row of
shark’s teeth. Stinging tentacles spread out around her shoulders,
and she reached for Griffin with a hand tipped with claws.

“Are you all right?” my sister asked,
laughing.

“Is trying to drown your brother-in-law a
greeting ritual among the ketoi?” But Griffin laughed too, even as
he wiped water from his face.

More figures broke the water, although most
of them remained back from the beach itself. Persephone rode the
next wave in, accompanied by our mother.

I couldn’t help but smile to see them. I
took up towels, passing one to Mother, another to Persephone, and
the last to Griffin. As soon as Mother was dry enough, I hugged
her.

My whole life, she’d been ill, her body
frail from long sickness. Until she took to the sea, that is. Now
she was strong—not just healthy, but honed from a life of swimming
beneath the waves. Her skin felt sleek as a dolphin’s, bleached
white marked with swirls of blue.

“Percival,” she said, when I drew back. A
frown creased her brow, and she looked up at me with eyes that
remained unchanged from her transformation. They were my eyes as
well, and Persephone’s. “Is something wrong? Why did you summon
us?”

“Indeed.” Persephone handed the summoning
stone back to Griffin, and he quickly wrapped it in silk to quiet
its song. “It’s several days early for our monthly visit.”

Griffin and I tried to come every full moon,
to meet them on this beach for a few hours at least. The only other
time I’d summoned them early had been to bring the news of the
death of Griffin’s father.

“Something is wrong,” I said carefully.
“Although it may have nothing to do with the ketoi.”

Mother sank down on the rock and gestured
for me to join her. “Then tell us.”

Griffin and I did so, to the best of our
ability. When we finished, Persephone shook her head. “It isn’t the
god. He sleeps deep in the abyss, and we hear his dreams on certain
nights.”

“That’s what I said.” I leveled a look at
Griffin.

“I said it needed to be investigated, not
that I believed it true,” he replied, unruffled. “No stone
unturned.”

“Quite so.” Mother patted his knee.

“And the system of writing?” I’d copied down
some of the opening lines of the Wisborg Codex, and passed the
paper to Persephone. “Is it familiar to you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s nothing I’ve
ever seen beneath the sea.”

Mother tapped a claw against her chin
thoughtfully. “You said these standing stones looked similar to the
ones you encountered on the Somerby estate. Have you gone to
inspect those as well?”

Griffin shook his head. “No. Who owns the
estate now?”

“Addison died without an heir,” Mother
replied. “Before I left for the sea, no one had taken up residence
there.”

“Father might know.” I hesitated, but I’d
made a promise. “Persephone, I have a request to make.”

“Oh?” Her tentacles suddenly unfurled,
darting for my head. I ducked, but felt them across my scalp. “Is
it to—how do humans say?—style your hair?”

“Stop it!” I batted at the tendrils.
Persephone had a fascination with my hair, particularly when it
came to vexing me about it. She laughed gleefully. Griffin, the
traitor, laughed as well.

“If you’re quite finished,” I said, “when I
went to see Father today, to inquire about the Brotherhood...he
asked me to extend an invitation to you.”

Her laughter died away. “An invitation?”

“To have dinner with us in Whyborne House.
He said you’re a Whyborne, and you ought to know where you came
from.” I shrugged apologetically. “I told him I’d pass it along,
nothing more.”

To my surprise, she didn’t immediately
reject the idea. Her tentacles twitched against her shoulders, but
whether that indicated agitation or some other emotion, I wasn’t
entirely certain.

“I am curious,” she said at length. She
turned to our mother. “Should I go?”

Mother sighed. She took Persephone’s hand in
one of hers, then reached for mine with the other. “He is your
father,” she said carefully. “And he did always try to do well by
his family. He failed at it utterly, at least when it came to our
sons. But he did try.”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t
imagine how she must feel, speaking of the man she’d spent the
better part of her life with.

She hadn’t loved him. But love was often an
afterthought, when fortunes became involved. Even at the time, the
Whybornes had wealth, though not the empire Father had built with
the railroad. Mother and Father had been socially and financially
suitable, and that’s what had mattered.

“If you’re curious, you should go.” Mother
squeezed Persephone’s hand. “It will do no harm to see the place
and to meet him. After all, it isn’t as if he could try to convince
you to marry some wealthy scion of business to consolidate yet
another fortune.”

Griffin chuckled. “I would love to see her
debut. Do you think Maison Worth designs around fins?”

“They say one can find any fashion in
Paris,” Mother replied with a toothy smile. “But I don’t think it
will come to that. Bring one of my old gowns, assuming Niles hasn’t
thrown them out. He’ll find it easier to face her with clothing,
even if we do have to rip holes to make it fit.”

Whyborne

The next morning, I stood in the office of
Dr. Norris, the head of the American History Department. A cabinet
along one wall displayed dishes that once belonged to Thomas
Jefferson, and a gigantic portrait of George Washington loomed
behind Norris’s desk. The office smelled of leather and expensive
cigars. Had the suit Norris wore been fitted by the doomed
Lambert?

“Thank you for looking into my request,” I
said. My skin prickled as he regarded me. The codex—and thus its
attempted theft—seemed linked with the standing stones. And Norris
both worked at the museum and knew Lambert.

Then again, it was rather difficult to
imagine Dr. Norris sneaking into the woods to summon an ancient
chaos god. Mr. Quinn, on the other hand...

“Naturally, Dr. Whyborne,” he said. At least
he remembered my name now. “I met your father not long ago, you
know. I’m sure he mentioned it to you.”

Oh. Of course he only remembered my name
because of Father. Was the man to take over every aspect of my
life?

“Oh yes,” I lied through gritted teeth.
“About my request...”

“Straight to business, eh?” Norris laughed.
“Like father like son, as they say.”

My nails bit into my palms. I forced my
hands to relax. “They do say that, yes. Was the witch hunter’s
dagger a part of our collection?”

“I was under the impression we had only the
sword and diary,” he said, “but one of the curators found the
original letter of donation. There was a dagger and some other
items—shackles, I think. But where the items are stored...we aren’t
entirely certain.”

Damn it. “So it’s possible the dagger was
taken from the museum?”

He shrugged. “The fellow would have had to
hunt through storerooms to find it.”

“I see.” I wasn’t certain which scenario was
worse—that the dagger came from the museum, or that there might be
more such weapons out in the world, likely to turn up at any
inconvenient moment. “Thank you, Dr. Norris.”

He waved a negligent hand. “Give my best to
your father.”

As I stepped out of his office, I found
Bradley Osborne arguing with Norris’s secretary. Bradley’s face
flushed red as he said, “But I requested this two weeks ago!”

“And when Dr. Norris finds the time to
accommodate you, I’m sure he’ll let you know,” the secretary
replied icily.

“I—” Bradley broke off when he saw me. His
flush deepened. “Very well,” he snarled.

I tried to slip quietly past, but of course
it wasn’t to be. Bradley pursued me down the hall, not speaking
until we were well out of earshot of the secretary. “Have a nice
chat with Dr. Norris?” he asked.

I disliked the brittle quality of his voice.
“Quite nice,” I replied, as neutrally as I could.

“I suppose you think it means something,
that you have his ear,” Bradley said. “And the director’s. I
suppose you imagine it makes you special. Well, you aren’t.”

I stopped. We were alone in the corridor,
and I felt a little flicker of fear at the sight of Bradley’s
anger, his clenched fists. I might be taller, but his physique
suggested he belonged to an athletic club.

The maelstrom turned beneath me, as much a
part of my awareness as the rush of my blood through my veins, the
rhythm of my breath. If he raised a hand to me, he’d regret it. “Do
you have something you wish to say to me?” I asked coldly.

“I’m here because of my own merit,” he said.
“My own hard work. You? The director only hired you out of hopes
your father would contribute generously to the museum.”

“Then he was disappointed,” I snapped. At
least for the first few years, although to be fair, that had
changed.

Bradley snorted and shook his head.
“Everything you have—your job, your friends, everything—is because
of an accident of birth. You don’t deserve any of it.”

My scars ached, and wind whispered down the
corridor. “Go to hell.”

He smirked. “A little close to home, eh,
Percy?”

I should never have betrayed my anger.
Swallowing back the words of power I longed to speak, I turned on
my heel and walked away. Bradley’s mocking laughter echoed behind
me.

Whyborne

We went to the old Somerby Estate that
night. I’d suggested going during the day, like a sensible person,
but Griffin in turn pointed out we were technically trespassing,
and there was a reason most criminal undertakings took place under
the cover of darkness.

It wasn’t a trip I was at all eager to make,
but Mother’s suggestion to investigate the standing stones had been
a valid one. A quick note to Father revealed he didn’t know if
anyone had bought the place, so Griffin ended up at city hall once
again. A search through the property deeds revealed only that a
company headquartered in Boston had purchased it less than a year
ago. A Pinkerton Griffin had worked with in the past was stationed
in the Boston office, so he sent a letter requesting the man look
into the company on his behalf.