Mirror, page 13
“Well? What did you see?”
“Leroux wasn’t there.”
Victor was contemplating breaking in by more conventional means when Tommy derailed the thought.
“But someone was. Or something.”
Victor glanced back anxiously at the building. “What do you mean, something?”
“It was like a man, sort of, but bigger, kind of unfinished looking.”
“Did he see you?”
“Just looked straight ahead, unseein’ like.”
Victor wasn’t sure what to make of that. What sort of creature was it? “Did you see anything else?”
“Some drawings on the wall. Shapes and things, I don’t know. You could see where ’e made the mirrors. It’s kind of more like a workshop than a ‘ome.”
“Could you tell if he was working on anything else? Materials laying about?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t much ‘elp, was I?”
Victor clapped him on the shoulder. “You did well. You did very well.”
If whatever Leroux was up to was guarded by some sort of creature, they couldn’t risk breaking in. Without knowing what it was, he didn’t dare tell Artemis either. He’d ask Slade to keep an eye on things until he had more information.
“We’ll just have to find another way to learn about our Monsieur Leroux.”
Chapter Thirteen
Artemis took a bite from the hunk of cheese she’d sneaked out of the larder and was walking back toward her father’s study when there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it!” she called out, mouth half-full, to let Mrs. Perry know she’d answer it.
She reached for the door but stopped, looking at the slab of cheese in her hand. Looking for somewhere to put it, she grimaced and stuffed it into the pocket of her coat hanging on the rack.
Hastily wiping her hand on the skirt of her dress she answered the door to find a young delivery man. He tipped his cap in greeting and read the label on the small package in his hand.
“Miss Artemis Schäfer?” he asked as he held out the bundle. She took it and then, with a tip of his cap, he was gone.
Artemis wasn’t expecting anything, but mail, and especially packages were always exciting. Had someone sent her a gift?
The parcel was barely larger than her hand. She didn’t recognize the elegant script, but she couldn’t delay gratification any longer and tugged at the string. Unfolding the brown paper, she found a folded note and a small envelope.
Curious.
She opened the card. It gave an address she wasn’t familiar with in Clapham and the words, Come Alone.
What on earth is this about?
Perhaps someone had sent the package to the wrong address. Her heart dropped as the pulled the small item out of the envelope—a lock of blonde hair.
Phoebe.
* * *
It had taken Artemis nearly two hours, two endless hours, to get to Clapham. She’d been in such a rush when she left, she’d only remembered to take her coat, her sword, and little else. She barely had enough money for the train across the river and no money for a cab. She’d run the last mile, ignoring the looks of the people she passed.
How does he know? How does Leroux know about Phoebe?
Those questions and so many others tormented her as she made her way toward the address on the slip of paper. She’d been in such a state when Phoebe’s hair had tumbled out of the envelope and into her hand that she’d barely managed to cobble together a coherent thought. She’d simply left and run as fast as she could to the train.
Now that she was almost there, her heart raced in her chest, and not from the effort, but the pain in it.
This was what she’d feared all along. That she would somehow hurt her friends and family, that being the Blaze would put them all in danger.
She’d done enough of that on her own. And then she realized that he must have been watching the Quills’. He must have seen what happened and seen Phoebe there.
Oh, God.
She ran faster. If anything happened to Phoebe because of her she’d never forgive herself.
Finally, she arrived at the address. She was halfway out in the country; there wasn’t another house for a quarter mile. It was some sort of mansion. She reached out to push the heavy gate open, but her hand began to burn and she snatched it back. Iron.
Careful not to touch it with her hand again, she used her elbow and shoulder to push it open. It groaned and creaked in protest but swung open to give her entry.
The house was a beautiful old Georgian manse complete with columns out front, but the grounds were in a shabby state. It looked almost abandoned. Grass hadn’t been cut and flowerbeds were taken over by tall weeds.
A large fountain at the center of the round drive lay still and dry, filled with brittle leaves and caked with dirt.
Taking a calming breath, she walked up the drive toward the front door. Paint had begun to peel on the sides of the house and the curtains inside hung at an ungainly angle. Dusk was approaching and the light was beginning to dim.
Slowing her heart and steeling herself, she tried the door. It, like the gate, was unlocked, and gave way under her touch. Very slowly, she opened it and stepped inside.
It was dark and dusty, but there was still enough light to see by. She drew her sword but didn’t summon the Hellfire. As quietly as she could she walked into the house. An old chandelier in the entryway dangled precariously above her.
She crept silently across the floor on tiptoe and peered into the drawing room. Most of the furniture was gone, and what was left was either dusty or overturned. A broken lamp lay where it had it fallen.
She made her way slowly through the rooms and toward the back of the house. There wasn’t a soul there. She paused and listened to see if she could hear someone moving upstairs, but it all was quiet. She was just about to recheck the address when she heard something. It was so quiet she had to strain to hear it. Once she had, the sound was unmistakable—crying.
Phoebe.
Swallowing down her fear, Artemis cautiously started toward the back of the house. As she moved closer the sound grew louder. It was only a quiet sobbing, but it sounded like screaming to Artemis's ears.
She took a slow, calming breath that did little to quell the dread rising up inside her. Reaching the rear of the house, she suddenly realized the sound was coming from out back, outside.
Artemis opened the back door and walked down the back steps. The backyard had a broad lawn, or what had been one. Now it was little more than weeds and patches of dirt. Off to the side was something like a large Roman bath, perhaps forty feet long and thirty feet wide. It was open on one end and enclosed on the other three with a tall colonnade. Rising from the center of the pool was a pillar where a statue of what looked like Joan of Arc stood. No, she realized as she drew closer, it wasn’t a statue at all.
Her heart leapt into her throat and she hurried toward the edge of the pool. A young girl with blonde hair stood, head hanging down, in the place where a statue must have once stood. She was tied to a stake, a pile of wood surrounding her feet.
“Phoebe!”
The girl lifted her head at the sound of Artemis's voice, eyes wild with fear.
It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Phoebe. Relief flooded through her. The girl had the same blonde hair and was about the same age, but now that she saw her face, they weren’t similar at all. Her clothing was much coarser, too.
Artemis's thought—Thank God, Phoebe is safe!—was followed quickly by guilt.
The girl looked at her, hysterical, struggling to cry out against the cloth that gagged her mouth.
Artemis's relief faded and a new fear took its place. Phoebe was safe, but this girl wasn’t. And it was her fault.
This is a trap, Artemis realized as she spun around, trying to see if Leroux was here, watching from the shadows, but there was nothing. She should have known it was a trap, and maybe part of her had, but what else could she do? She’d do anything to keep her friends and family safe.
The girl sobbed piteously.
And she would do anything to keep anyone who needed her safe. The thought gave her a moment of clarity and calm.
This was clearly a trap and she’d fallen for it. The only thing left to do was to spring it.
She felt that odd sensation of knowing she was being watched and walked the perimeter of the pool, checking behind the columns as she went. The girl struggled vainly against her bonds and craned her neck to silently plead with Artemis not to leave her.
No one was there, at least no one Artemis could see. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was there, somewhere.
She moved back to the open end of the pool.
“It’s all right,” she told the girl. “It will be all right.”
It was a strange trap. All she had to do was swim out and untie her. Had some part of his plan failed?
Then she noticed something odd about the water. It was a clear and crisp sky blue, which would have been fine except there wasn’t a leaf or twig or speck of dirt anywhere in the water. Yet not five feet away a small pile of leaves fluttered and swirled on the ground as a small breeze picked them up and spun them in a tight little circle before dropping them again.
How was this pool so clean? And why did the surface not move with the wind as it should?
Very cautiously she moved her sword over the water’s edge and then barely dipped the tip into it. The surface seemed to rend oddly under the blade. It cut through it not like water, but like smooth jam. The blade pierced the surface, but she could see the small indentation the pressure made before the blade slipped through it.
Kneeling down, she reached out a hand to touch it. She lay her palm flat on the surface. It undulated but was mostly firm beneath her palm.
Definitely not water.
She pulled her hand back and considered it. A few years ago, her father had taken her to a lecture by a renowned scientist. Most of it was far beyond her comprehension, but she did remember that he discussed the principles of fluid dynamics. In particular, how some fluids, like syrup or butter or oil, didn’t act the same as water. They were non-Newtonian fluids, and the more pressure applied to the surface, the more stable the surface became. It was possible under the right circumstances, the man had said, to “walk on water,” as long as the water wasn’t actually water.
And this definitely wasn’t.
Carefully, she reached out again to test her hypothesis. She laid her hand flat on the surface. The liquid beneath it gave like the top of a mattress, and her hand did not break through. Then she tried again, but this time with one finger only, pointing down.
After only minor resistance, it slid into the viscous liquid and immediately two things became apparent. Anything breaking the surface caused a change in color of the substance, the area immediately around her submerged finger becoming an inky, swirling black. And the other, far more important realization, was that breaking the surface released a wave of fear so great, she thought her heart would burst in her chest. Fear seized her in a vise grip of panic.
Every dark thought, every possible nightmare, flooded her consciousness at once. It took all she had left within her to pull her hand away. The terror finally began to subside, but it had left her breathless and shaking.
As she withdrew her hand the inky black faded and the water was clear and blue again. From the middle of the pool, the girl sobbed.
Liquid fear.
I could try to go get help, Artemis thought. Maybe there was someone nearby who could—
The rest of that thought died as a small foomp sound came from the pillar beneath the girl. A rash of sparks quickly followed, crackling between the crisscrossed stacks of wood. Slowly but persistently a fire began to grow.
The girl cried out as best as her gag would allow. Her eyes were even wider with fear now.
How did that happen?
Artemis looked around to see if someone had somehow set the fire from afar, but still didn’t see anyone. He must have timed it or charmed it somehow to start a few minutes after she arrived.
The poor girl was sobbing uncontrollably, and Artemis recognized that it didn’t matter how he’d done it, it was enough that he had. If she didn’t do something and now, the girl was going to be burned alive.
She stared back down at the clear blue water again, the taste of her fear still fresh in her mouth. She swallowed to try to wipe it away as the flames grew higher.
Sheathing her sword, Artemis took a few breaths to try to ease the panic that was welling up inside her. There wasn’t time to get help and if she tried to reach the girl, the fear would take her.
The flames caught on a dry piece of wood and licked up toward the girl.
“I’m coming!” Artemis said, before realizing she had made the decision.
She took a step back and looked at the water.
Just keep moving, she told herself. Just keep moving.
Bracing herself for the worst, Artemis took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Don’t stop. Keep moving.
And then another step. It was working. She was walking across the surface of the water. Her chest heaved with the heady realization as she took step after step. I can do it. I am doing it!
In the midst of her next step there was a loud pop from one of the logs as it broke apart and crumbled. Sparks flew upwards and a burst of flame licked higher toward the girl. She cried out and Artemis's concentration briefly faltered.
Her smooth and steady steps ceased as she hesitated. It was only for a moment, but a moment was all it took. Her foot began to sink. The instant it broke the surface, the fear came again.
But this time there was so much more of it. A suffocating terror overwhelmed her. She struggled against it, but the more she struggled the deeper she sank and the blacker the water became.
Worse than the darkness around her was the darkness inside her. Her most agonizing and deeply held fear began to emerge, crawling out from within her like a beast onto the shore. Her demon blood began to boil and call to her.
Give in, it whispered. Give in to us.
Artemis felt the prickle of evil inside her every time she used the Hellfire. She knew it was always there inside her, lying in wait, watching her, wanting her. She’d experienced its pull before but nothing like this. Before it had been a single string around her waist tugging on her, insistent, but she could resist it. Now it suffused every fiber of her being. It was wrapped around her, woven inside her skin, inescapable. It was who she was.
She knew deep down that this was who she was. She was darkness.
Give in.
Her father—Jack the Ripper—a murdering psychopath with the soul of demon, had seen to that. How could she be anything else? The goodness in her quivered and cowered, curling up inside her until it grew smaller and smaller. The light that had guided her became no more than a pinprick, fading in the growing darkness.
God, please, no.
What would she be without the light? What horror would she become?
Only her head remained above the surface now. Her body fought vainly against the thick glutinous liquid as it pulled her down, deeper and deeper.
She tilted her head back and took a last gasp of air. The flames of the pyre lit the darkening night and the girl’s plaintive cries drifted into nothingness.
Her head dipped beneath the surface as fear swallowed her whole.
Surrounded by blackness without and within, Artemis stopped struggling. She hung suspended in the dark, the crippling fear stilling her body and her mind.
She would become the darkness, and she would destroy everything she loved.
In that moment, she saw them—she saw all of them—Phoebe, Tommy, Mrs. Perry and, finally, her father. She would destroy them. Utterly destroy them.
Suddenly, something stronger than the fear took root in her chest.
Like the flames of the fire just beyond her reach, her love for them grew, stoked with memory and fueled with devotion. She loved them. She would protect them.
I will not give in. Not now, not ever.
And with that thought, her fingers began to move again, and then her hands and arms and legs. With a strength she did not know she had, she reached up toward the surface, feeling herself become lighter with every thought of the people she loved. The fear tried to call to her, to use them against her, but they were her strength.
Her hand broke through. She slapped it down on the surface of the water and pulled herself up and out of the darkness. The light from the fire danced along the top of the water as the girl continued to cry.
Just keep moving, Artemis told herself. The fear can’t hold you if you just keep moving.
And she did. Step after step, she closed in on the fire. Drawing her sword as she neared the pillar where the flames had almost reached the girl, she hacked away at the burning embers. They flew through the air, hissing as they fell into the pool.
She carved a clear path at the front of the pillar and leapt up onto it. The heat from the flames pushed against her, but she ignored it. She kicked and shoved the burning logs off the pillar and into the water.
The girl whimpered and Artemis realized that flames had already lit the edges of the girl’s dress. Quickly, she knelt down to swat at them with her bare hands. The heat seared her skin, but she hadn’t come so far to lose the girl now.
Sparks danced along the seared edges of the girl’s skirt and Artemis smothered them with her hands. Her palms burned but she ignored the pain and doused the last bits of fire.
Then, with a single stroke she cut the girl’s bonds, catching her sagging body before it fell. Artemis kicked the rest of the nearby wood off the platform, then lifted the girl’s head and forced her to look at her. The dying flames were reflected in her panicked eyes.
“Trust me,” she said.
The girl hesitated only for a moment.
“We have to jump down,” Artemis told her, seeing the girl’s panic rise again. “It’ll be all right. Once we land, just keep moving. Keep walking no matter what.”
