The Devil's Breath (30 page)

T
he clouds above were dark and heavy and the first drops of storm rain began to fall. In no time at all the hillside leading up to the church and the golden ball became slippery underfoot. Thomas clung on to clumps of grass to steady himself as he climbed. All the while he kept Lightfoot and his young captive in his sights until they skirted the Dashwood mausoleum and disappeared from view.

Toward the top the ground began to flatten out and Thomas quickened his pace, until the path became level and he could weave in and out of the gravestones that stood in neat rows around the church. He arrived at the great doors of the nave just in time to hear the bolt clatter across, blocking his entry. He was right. Lightfoot intended to take Richard up to the top of the tower. He skirted the nave. The only other possible entry point would be one of the windows. Looking around, he spotted a large slab of stone that had broken off a memorial. Summoning his strength he picked it up and hurled it through the stained glass, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Hauling himself up over the stone ledge he jumped down. He was inside.

Glancing to his left he could see, through open doors, the narrow stairway that led up to the tower. He headed toward it, but not before he had unbolted the main doors to let Lydia in when she finally reached the church.

Climbing the first flight of stairs he reached the ringing chamber, where the bell ropes hung from the ceiling. There was no sign of Lightfoot. He crossed the floor to another stairway that led up past the belfry.

Pausing to regain his breath, he heard Richard shout, though he could not make out what he said. With every step he was edging closer and with renewed vigor he tackled the stairs that led to the open gallery. He arrived just in time to see the vicar doubled over the thin iron railings that barred the open edges of the landing, gasping with exhaustion. It was an eighty-foot drop to the ground below.

“Lightfoot!” Thomas shouted above the wind that buffeted the platform.

The storm was gathering and the surrounding trees were being whipped by strong squalls. He drew closer to the vicar, who, despite gasping for breath, still clung on to Richard’s arm.

“Leave the boy!” called Thomas. “He has done you no harm.”

The vicar righted himself and looked directly at Thomas. There was a strangeness in his facial features that was new. The stiff lips were slacker, yet the jaw was more prominent. But it was the eyes that revealed the most about the vicar’s mental state, Thomas thought. The lids were fully retracted, making them appear bigger, and the pupils were massively dilated. Reason was no remedy in this case, the doctor told himself.

Richard was sobbing at the vicar’s side, but he pulled him closer.

“The boy stays with me,” he hissed, waving his cane in the other hand. Thomas told himself there had to be some logical explanation for this behavior. Why should a man of the cloth suddenly turn into this terrible monster, pursuing a helpless mother and child? Perhaps, he told himself, the strain of bereavement and the ceaseless work with the sick and dying had taken their toll on the Reverend Lightfoot. He had seen it in many a patient before. The gaunt face, the pallor, the occasional flashes of ill temper and the pent-up emotion that spilled over until the mind seethed and lost control of reason. Perhaps this was what ailed the clergyman. He decided a soft approach would be best.

Advancing slowly toward him, he stretched out his arm. “I mean you no harm, sir. Just let the boy go. Think of your wife. Surely this is not what she would have wanted?”

The vicar glared at Thomas for a moment and then his features began to soften. “Margaret,” he said meekly.

Thomas willed his heart to stop drumming in his chest and the wind to be still so that he could hear what the vicar had to say. At the mention of his late wife’s name, his mood seemed to alter. The vicar was looking directly at him, but with unseeing eyes.

“I will tell you something, Dr. Silkstone,” he said, reason suddenly shaping his voice. “I am ashamed to say that my faith died along with Margaret.” Suddenly he began stroking Richard’s dark curls thoughtfully. “But this child, this innocent, will restore it. Of that I am sure.”

Thomas frowned. He had made a breakthrough, but he was uncertain about what to do next. All he knew was that the vicar’s mind was finely balanced and on the brink of madness. The slightest disturbance could tip him over the edge. “All will be well,” he assured him. He began to move slowly toward him.

The rain started to fall heavily. It masked Lydia’s footsteps as she dragged herself, exhausted, up the narrow stairs that brought her out onto the landing. Soaked to the skin and barely able to breathe, she clapped eyes on her assailant in the daylight for the first time. Her beloved son was trembling in his grip. All control and all reason deserted her. Instead, a surge of electricity shot through her body like a lightning bolt and, with an unearthly cry, she lunged at Lightfoot.

“Get away from him!” she screamed, rushing forward with outstretched arms.

“No!” shouted Thomas, diving at her and pulling her back. But the vicar’s moment of reflection had passed and Lydia’s outburst had broken his mood. Tugging at the child once more, he turned and began dragging him up yet another flight of stairs that led to a small enclosed room just below the roof of the tower.

“Stop him!” screamed Lydia, tears streaming down her face. She ran after them. Thomas bounded after her and jerked her back. “ ’Tis too dangerous. Let me go.” Leaving her aside, he scrambled up to the final room. It was deserted. There was only one more flight of steps to the roof. A narrow ladder brought him up into the open air. The first rumble of thunder growled low in the distance and he turned to his left to see the magnificent golden ball. Anchored by three metal chains, it loomed resplendent against the brooding purple sky.

Lightfoot stood breathless before him. His wiry frame heaved up and down, but still he held the child in a vise-like grip.

“Do not come any closer, Silkstone,” he warned. He raised his cane.

“Sir, I am interested only in the boy’s safety. I beg you,” Thomas pleaded as he took a step toward them from the top of the stairway.

“Stay back, Silkstone. Stay back!” he roared, but Thomas saw his chance and made a dash toward the child. Lightfoot swiped at him with his cane and Thomas darted to one side. The stick struck one of the chains, unhinging its silver top. Suddenly strange particles whirled and flew in the air. They fluttered for a moment, caught by the wind, before swirling to the ground. Thomas watched them fall, small flakes on the lead roof. Soaked by the rain, they remained stuck to the tiles. Thomas peered at them. Lavender and mint. Sage and rosemary. Wormwood and rue. This was the pomade used for the Vinegar of the Four Thieves. These were the leaves that he had found in all the victims’ bloody wounds. These were the leaves that had fallen from a silver-topped physician’s cane.

He shot a look of horror at Lightfoot. The vicar tensed and his mouth began to tremble. “Oh God, forgive me!” he cried. His face crumpled into a grotesque grimace. Tears welled up in his eyes. “I could not see how He could take my Margaret and leave so many wicked people on this earth.”

Thomas edged closer. “People like Lady Thorndike?”

Another clap of thunder sounded, only this time closer. Lightfoot nodded his head. “She killed my Margaret.”

“And what of Gabriel Lawson?”

“He saw me by the lake afterward.”

“So you killed him, too?”

Another nod, only this time it was accompanied by a sneer. “He cuckolded Sir Henry. He deserved to die, too.”

“But what of the children? Why did you have to kill them?”

The vicar shook his head.

“The children?” he asked, appearing bemused.

“The innocents you bludgeoned to death?” Thomas lunged forward, making a grab for the cane. Perhaps he had been mistaken. Perhaps this was the murder weapon and not the shovel. But the vicar sidestepped and, dragging Richard by the hair, turned and headed toward the ladder that led up to the door in the ball.

Thomas ran after them, but slipped on the wet tiles. Scrambling to his feet again, he saw Lydia emerge from the narrow stairway. She started running toward him just as the sky was torn apart by the first fork of lightning. Looking up she saw Lightfoot at the foot of the ladder leading to the golden orb. Richard was standing on its first rung.

“The ball!” she screamed, pointing to the pair of them as they began the steep ascent.

Thomas dashed toward them and tugged at Lightfoot’s cloak, but the vicar turned and hit him back with his cane. A blow glanced against Thomas’s head and he fell to the floor, momentarily stunned. Richard, meanwhile, had reached the drop-down door in the ball and opened it.

“Get in! Get in!” called the vicar from below as he began to climb the ladder.

Thomas wondered at Lightfoot’s stupidity. A churchman, of all people, should recognize the risk of a lightning strike, so often did they occur in storms, toppling towers and spires across the country. He recalled that Mr. Franklin had urged Sir Francis to fit a conductor to the great orb, but had not been taken seriously.

“You fool!” shouted the doctor, steadying himself against the railings. “You’ll get both of you killed in this storm.”

Lightfoot ignored his pleas. There was another crack of thunder, this time directly overhead. Richard was inside the great ball now, his head and shoulders sticking out from the door, calling to Lydia below. The black figure of the vicar, his cloak billowing about him in the wind, was halfway up the ladder when the lightning struck. A massive fork pitched itself across the sky and hurled itself at one of the chains that secured the great orb. The shock sent the clergyman off balance. He let out a scream and his body juddered, causing him to lose his footing on the rungs. He fell backward and his body crashed onto the platform below.

Thomas rushed to his side, while Lydia ran to the bottom of the ladder toward Richard. He knew he must act quickly. He felt for the vicar’s pulse as he lay facedown on the floor. Nothing. He checked again, but this time he detected a slight ripple under his fingers as he pressed against the carotid artery. Sliding his hand under his upper torso, Thomas rolled him over. His eyes were shut and there was the smell of singed flesh. Glancing down he saw that the cloth beneath the vicar’s large gold crucifix was burned.

Meanwhile Lydia had hurried to the base of the ladder. “Come down. ’Tis safe, now,” she called up to her terrified son. The child was hanging out of the door like a rag poppet. His convulsive sobs had given way to dry fear as he had watched events unfold below. Gingerly he turned his body and began climbing down the ladder. His mother was standing at the bottom and hugged him as he jumped into her arms. “You’re safe now,” she told him, kissing his head. “That man can do you no more harm,” she said, looking at the prostrate vicar.

Thomas was still kneeling beside him, wondering at the sheer power of the lightning strike that had surged from the ladder to the cross and chain on Lightfoot’s chest. That the vicar still lived was a miracle in itself. Somehow he would need to carry him down the tower. He was contemplating how to maneuver him toward the steps when suddenly he heard a noise coming from the stairwell. He turned to see Ned Perkins emerge.

“Dr. Silkstone!” he called.

“Perkins. Thank God!” replied Thomas.

The foreman approached, a troubled expression on his weathered face. “I were driving here with supplies when I saw Eliza,” he explained. “I heard—” He broke off when he saw the vicar splayed out beneath him and looked at Thomas for an explanation.

“He is not dead, but stunned,” said the young doctor. “Here, help me lift him.”

Perkins bent low and put his hands under the vicar’s arms, then, throwing his head back, began to heave. It was then that Thomas saw them: four deep nail marks on the foreman’s neck. They were identical to the scratches he had sustained on his own face when he had tried to calm Joseph Makepeace’s daughter. Both men’s eyes locked. The instantaneous look of horror on Thomas’s face betrayed his realization.

In a split second Ned Perkins knew that his wickedness was uncovered. He dropped the vicar like a sack of corn and shuffled backward.

“You!” cried Thomas, glowering over the foreman as he retreated toward the stairs.

“She asked for it,” bleated the foreman. “The way she looked at me. A witch, she were. She put a spell on me!”

Thomas shook his head. “She refused you, didn’t she? And when her brother tried to protect her, you killed him, too.”

Backing toward the stairs, Perkins nodded his head. “The devil was still in them both!” he protested as he reached the top of the flight. Just as he was about to turn tail, he lost his footing and slipped. Dropping down half a dozen steps, he smacked his face against the treads. The momentum catapulted him head over heels down the remainder of the stairs until he hit the landing.

Thomas rushed to see. Looking down he witnessed the foreman desperately struggling to raise himself, but it was obvious to the doctor from the acute angle of one of his lower legs that it was broken. Ned Perkins could go nowhere for the time being.

Just as he was about to join the suspect below, Thomas heard Lydia’s sudden scream. Jerking his head up, he could see that the vicar was regaining consciousness. He ran over to where he lay. Lightfoot’s eyes were now opened wide. Without warning he sat bolt upright, sending the doctor off balance. Richard called out and in one swift move the vicar was on his feet again. Towering over Thomas, his expression was one of unbridled glee. “I am alive, Silkstone. And the child was spared.” His face was glistening with rain and his hair was whipping around in the wind and yet he was wearing a broad smile. “Do you not see what this means?”

Thomas dragged himself up from the floor. “Why do you not tell me?”