The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) (9 page)

Irene stayed still.

“Sorry to bother you,” Cian said. “We’re leaving.” Then, in a low voice, “Let’s go, Irene.”

With a clap, the door behind them shut. The wet-mud steps of the men in trench coats faded. The ghost leaned forward, folding firefly hands on the back of a pew and studying Cian and Irene. Mostly, though, Irene.

“Where will you go?” the ghost asked. “The Children surround this cathedral. Their golems already stalk the halls.”

Cian had enough sense to feel the trap closing around his ankle. He gave Irene’s arm a shake. “We need to go now.”

Irene pulled her hand free and stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“Marie-Thérèse. I know you, Irene Lovell. And I know that the Children think you have something very important. And I know that they will rip every strip of skin from your pretty face before they realize you have no idea where it is.”

“The box,” Irene said.

Marie-Thérèse smiled like a cat with a bowl of cream.

“Damn the box,” Cian said. A blow shook the rear door of the nave. He grabbed Irene’s arm. “She wasn’t lying about those golem things. They’re going to be in here any minute. We should run while we can.”

“My feet hurt,” Irene said. “And I’m tired of running. You run. I’m going to—”

“What? You’re going to fight?” Cian laughed. “You’re out of rounds and you weigh less than a wet cat. Those things will snap you like a piece of kindling.”

Irene’s cheeks reddened. Before she could answer, though, Marie-Thérèse said, “There’s another way, of course. I am not entirely without resources. I could provide safe passage.”

“How?”

“How is not the right question, my dear. How much is the right question.”

And again that look, that Mediterranean smile that made Cian feel the snap of metal teeth around his leg. Run, his brain said. Leave the girl.

It was the smart thing to do. Irene was pretty enough, if you liked your girl thin as a sheet of ice and with all the sharp edges, but she didn’t mean a wooden penny to Cian. Without her, he’d be faster, and he could lose himself in the Patch. By morning, he could be on a train and out of this city.

He hadn’t been smart in France. He’d come back for Corinne.

And look how that fucking fairytale had turned out.

For some reason, though, he was still standing there.

“How much?” Irene asked.

A blow split the rear door of the nave. Wooden slats toppled to the floor, and the hulking form of a man in a trench coat—a golem, Marie-Thérèse’s voice said in Cian’s head—forced its way through the opening.

Marie-Thérèse’s smiled had widened.

Cian put himself between the golems and Irene. Run, run, run. He could still run. And then his brain shut down, and the only thing left was the Colt and three shots.

The first golem made its way down the center aisle of the nave. Tremors ran through the ground, snaking up Cian’s boots. His hand, though, as he drew a bead on the golem, was steady.

Maybe he had learned something in France after all.

Irene was screaming something, but Cian couldn’t take his eyes off the golem. He squeezed the trigger. The bullet knocked off the hat, exposing a lumpy knob of flesh where there should have been a face. Chips of something that looked like dirt flaked from the hole in the center of that monstrous face.

No blood though. And the damn thing didn’t stop.

Cian readied himself to fire again, but hesitated when he saw someone sprinting between the pews. It was a man, and he headed straight for the golem. The lumbering creature noticed the newcomer a moment to late. The man slipped behind the golem, stretched up on his toes, and dragged a knife across the back of the creature’s neck. Then the man gave the golem a shove, and the creature toppled over. When the golem hit the granite floor, it shattered. A chunk of mud the size of a man’s head slid free from the trench coat and came to rest against Cian’s boot.

Cian took a step back.

“Don’t take the deal,” the man called to Irene. And then he ran towards the back of the nave, where another of the golems had burst through the ruined door. With a laugh, he feinted at the golem, slashing at its face and pulling back.

Not fast enough. One of the golem’s massive hands caught him in the chest and sent the man sliding across the cathedral floor.

“Harry,” a woman’s voice called.

“I’ll get him,” said another man. A Hun’s voice. Cian turned and saw a short, gray-haired man striding down the aisle. He carried a silver-handled cane and had his hat under one arm, and he passed Cian without a second glance. A dark-haired woman stood at Irene’s side, her body turned so that she could stand between Irene and Marie-Thérèse while still keeping an eye on the cathedral doors.

Irene met Cian’s gaze and shrugged. She had her revolver out.

Good girl.

“They’ll be alright,” the woman said, looking towards the altar. The old man cracked his cane across the back of a golem and danced back, more spry than he looked, and the golem turned away from the man called Harry. Harry was back on his feet in a moment, and another quick slice-and-shove sent the golem to the ground in a hundred pieces. “Between them, Freddy and Harry can handle just about anything,” the woman added.

“Just about,” Marie-Thérèse said.

The woman gave the ghost a pointed look and patted her clutch. This time, the look on Marie-Thérèse’s face had nothing to do with cats and cream. There was murder in those winter-lightning eyes. She didn’t move against the dark-haired woman, though.

“I’m Pearl,” the woman said to Irene, holding out one hand.

“Irene.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Another crash shook the nave as the last golem hit the floor. The Hun—Freddy, Pearl had called him—was brushing dirt from his suit. Harry sheathed a long-bladed hunting knife in his boot and then started poking through the rubble that remained from the golems. Freddy moved to join Pearl. He gave Marie-Thérèse an iron glance, turned to Irene, and kissed her hand with all the grace of an automaton.

“Friedrich von der Ehmke,” he announced. “Professor of comparative anthropology, at your service.”

“Professor?” Cian said.

“Yes, sir. And you are?”

“Cian Shea.”

Cian didn’t offer to shake hands. Neither did Freddy. Up close, Cian had an instant dislike for the man. Beady eyes, his hair in a stiff part, a close-trimmed graying beard, the man looked like a pest, never mind the fact that he was a Hun too. The accent was unmistakable.

“Nice to meet you, Cian,” Pearl offered.

Cian gave her a bare nod. Before he had to say anything, though, Harry had reached them. He held four metal plates, each no longer than Cian’s thumb, hanging from individual wires. Freddy’s eyes brightened, and he took the plates when Harry offered them and moved a few paces away to study them. Cian watched him carefully.

He didn’t like the Hun. Not one bit.

“I see you’ve met Freddy,” Harry said, as though reading the expression on Cian’s face. Harry laughed, clapped Cian on the shoulder, and said, “Don’t worry. He grows on you.” Then Harry turned to Irene, gave a huge smile, and held out his hand. “Henry Witte, although everyone calls me Harry.”

“Irene Lovell.”

It took Cian a moment to realize Irene was smiling. Smiling. And she hadn’t let go of Harry’s hand.

Cian was fairly sure she wouldn’t have objected to having Harry Witte kiss her hand the way the Hun had. He snorted and caught Pearl looking at him. There was something in her face, hidden as soon as he looked at her. Wistfulness? Loss?

Cian didn’t care.

“Thank you for your help,” Cian said.

Harry finally let go of Irene’s hand, although his smile hadn’t faded. “Happy to help. Golems aren’t so bad once you know the trick. Those little plates are hidden in the back of the neck. You have to cut them free. Piece of cake.”

“So he says,” Pearl said. “Did that one break any ribs when it got you? Or will you just be bruised for the next pair of weeks?”

Harry probed his chest and side, winced, and his smile slipped. “My own fault. I was careless.”

“You’re hurt,” Irene exclaimed. She stepped forward, closer to Harry, and held out one hand. “I didn’t—oh, this is all our fault.”

“Of course he’s hurt,” Cian said. “Pearl just pointed it out.”

Harry laughed, closed one hand over Irene’s, and then let go. “I’m fine, honestly. Thank you, though.”

And there it was again, that flicker of something on Pearl’s face. Cian wasn’t sure what it was. But he knew what he was feeling. It was the strong desire to knock some of Harry Witte’s perfectly white teeth loose.

“Marie-Thérèse,” Harry said, moving around Irene to stare at the ghost. “We’ve had words about this before. I heard you offering this woman a deal. You know what I told you the last time I was here.”

“You’ve made a name for yourself, Henry Witte,” Marie-Thérèse said. “Will you test me tonight?”

“I’ll rip you to shreds and send you howling back to hell.”

“You’re hurt, and tired, and you have all these others to protect. And I am not one of those wisps of thought and memory that you pride yourself on putting to rest.”

Harry drew himself up, straightened his coat, and said, “Freddy.”

The Hun glanced up from his examination of the metal plates. When he saw Harry and Marie-Thérèse, he tucked the plates away and walked over to join Harry.

“Against all three of us, Marie-Thérèse?” Harry asked. “Pearl knows enough now.”

Waving one hand, Marie-Thérèse floated into the air. “Enough. We have no quarrel tonight, Henry. I have a claim on the girl and the right to make her an offer.”

Harry studied Irene for a moment.

“What does she mean?” Cian said to Pearl.

Pearl shrugged.

“Very well,” Harry said. “Goodnight, Marie-Thérèse.”

Marie-Thérèse faded like dust caught in sunlight.

Harry motioned them towards the door, and as they reached the threshold, Marie-Thérèse’s voice caught them in a blast of arctic chill.

“The offer still stands, my darling girl.”

Irene was pale as the moon.

When they were outside, Harry forced the door shut, clapped his hands, and said, “Who feels like a bite to eat?”

Irene followed her rescuers along the darkened streets of St. Louis. The cold had settled into her ears and, combined with exhaustion and hunger, made her head feel like drum. In her mind, she reviewed the evening, projecting scenes against the sheets of shadowed houses. The men in the trench coats—golems, her brain said—and then that poor man being ripped apart in the bar, and the spiders, and the church. Marie-Thérèse leaning forward, whispering, the words as flat and still as the church’s air.

Irene pushed away the last bit. If she never saw any of those things—golems, or massive spiders, or Marie-Thérèse—again, she would live and die a happy woman. Especially Marie-Thérèse.

Cian glanced over at her. “Ok?”

She nodded.

Ahead of them, their rescuers walked together. Pearl looked back occasionally, to make sure they were still following, but otherwise the three were engaged in a quiet conversation. Cian tilted his head at them and said, “We should go. While they’re too busy to notice us.”

“What? Why?”

“They’re dangerous. You saw them back there.”

“They saved us.”

“Yes, they did. Why?”

“Because they’re decent people.”

Cian raised an eyebrow. It made him look even more of a dolt. “And how did they know we needed help? We were in a church in the middle of the night?”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’ve been off your rocker all night and you’re not thinking clearly now. I don’t trust them. Especially not Harry.”

Irene smiled. “You’re jealous.”

“No.”

“You are. I can see it in your face.”

“You’ve spent half the night laughing like a girl in a fun house, and the other night frozen so you could barely walk. Your judgment might be in question.”

Irene’s smile dropped. “And why don’t you trust them, besides their timing?”

For almost half a block, Cian said nothing. Then, “He reminds me of someone I knew.”

“You’re worse than a fool,” Irene said. “And I know a jealous man when I see one.”

She picked up her pace and left Cian straggling behind. As she came up beside Harry, the conversation ended up. Irene slipped her arm through Harry’s, smiled up at him, and said, “You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you, darling? I’m dying.”

Harry smiled back at her. It was the kind of smile any woman would have given her right eye for: bright and warm and genuine. The face behind that smile was equally appealing, handsome and dark-eyed, with the fine-boned, effortless good looks of an English aristocrat. He shook his head. “Sorry, not a single one.”

“Drat.”

“Miss,” the awful old Hun said. He took a silver cigarette case out of his pocket and passed it to her. “I am never without them.”

Irene took the case, helped herself to a cigarette, and then paused while the Hun lighted it for her. For a moment, she feared he would try to kiss her hand again—those cold, withered lips against her flesh—but instead he gave a short, stiff bow, and they resumed walking. Irene offered a small smile and took a long, relieved draw on the cigarette. The flare of red at the tip seemed like the last spark of warmth in the world.