Devil's Pawn, page 11
I don’t realize I’ve grown quiet until she speaks. “What happened then?”
“Draca took her back. He loved her. And he was the one to discover her hanging in that cellar not one week later.”
She gasps, covers her mouth with her hand.
“Is she what I felt? The ghost?”
I study her but don’t tell her there is more than one. We have a history with rope, my family. An obsession with it.
“She couldn’t stand the thought of bringing another Bishop into the world,” I say instead, ignoring her question altogether. “She felt shame. Shame at what he’d done to her. Shame at being raped.”
“What did Draca do?”
“He initiated The Rite.” I watch her as I say it. Her face blanches and she hugs her arms tightly around herself. “He took Nellie Bishop, Reginald’s daughter. And he married her. They never had children, thank goodness. He wouldn’t pollute our bloodline.”
“But The Rite safeguards against an abuse of power. And marriage is an abuse of power in a case like that,” she says, and I get the feeling she’s arguing her own case.
“IVI supported it. Just like they supported my initiation of The Rite.”
“But—”
“See, Bishop did make a mistake. It’s always an error to think yourself above the law. He was an arrogant man. And not well-liked within The Society. He’d made enemies. Like your brother has,” I add. “And when it came to The Rite, The Tribunal sided with St. James. It was to punish Reginald Bishop as much as anything else. And at that point, our family’s fortunes far exceeded those of the Bishops. Similar to today, actually.”
She shakes her head. “Did he hurt Nellie?”
I remain wordless, studying her.
She shudders. “I want to go back.”
“When your history lesson is over.” I turn back to the grave. “Nellie died two years after the marriage. Threw herself into the well and drowned. Or so it’s said. Draca married again but only to continue the family line. His one true love was Mary.” I pause, look at Isabelle who is studying the inscription on Nellie’s grave. “There’s space for one more beside hers,” I tell her. She looks at me, confused. “Another Bishop to keep Nellie company.”
Any remaining color drains from her face.
I take her arm and walk her to the Mausoleum to point out the names of my ancestors, uncles, aunts, and cousins. I see Zoë’s marker. I take a moment to read the dates. Sixteen. Even younger than Mary St. James. I see Isabelle’s eyes on that marker. It’s the only one with a bunch of rotting roses that were probably laid here a week or so ago. I turn her away before she can comment.
“And we come to why you’re here. Why I initiated The Rite.”
I hear her swallow and, as if on cue, the rain picks up suddenly and gloriously. It soaks us both through, but I walk at the same pace to Kimberly’s grave marker. I’m not in a rush. She’s not in the mausoleum. We weren’t married. Only those who carry the St. James name can be laid to rest in the mausoleum.
I stand before the stone, see the roses about the same age as those on Zoë’s laid in front of it. But thinking of Zeke out there picking roses and walking them to the cemetery is too lonely an image so I shove it aside.
“This is Angelique’s mother,” I say flatly. “Kimberly Anders.”
I watch her take in the dates and when she looks up at me it’s with something strange in her eyes. Something like pity. I want to wipe that pity off her face.
“How did she die?”
“She was murdered.”
She winces and I’m not sure she’s aware that her hand has just moved up to that scar on her collarbone. Her parents and brother were killed. Parents in a car accident. Brother in a break-in. Does that count as murder? I guess so. Even if it’s not the intent of the robbery. I realize that’s when she must have gotten her scars. They’re not from a fall. But they could be from a push.
A gust of wind blows so cold that it breaks into my thoughts. I blink, look at Kimberly’s name on the stone. Too young to be dead. Too young to be bones in the earth. And I harden myself. Because my mother is wrong. Kimberly would want this. She’d want revenge.
“Carlton?” she asks, then shakes her head. “He’s not capable of something that like. It’s not in his DNA.”
My eyebrows rise to the top of my forehead. “No? I think you may be surprised what your brother is capable of. What’s in your DNA.”
She stares up at me and when she doesn’t argue, I wonder what she truly believes.
“But that doesn’t matter for you. It makes no difference. We have other business tonight.”
“What business?”
“Come, Isabelle. It’s time to spill the first drops of Bishop blood.”
16
Isabelle
Another cold gust accompanies his words. I’m not sure if it’s that or his words that turn my blood to ice. When he faces me, the look in his eyes sends a shiver down my spine.
It’s time to spill the first drops of Bishop blood.
I take a step backward. My feet hurt. These shoes weren’t made for a stroll in the woods much less what we’re doing tonight.
“We’re going to play a game, Isabelle Bishop.”
“I don’t want to play any game, Jericho St. James.”
He grins at that. “You’re going to run. And I’m going to chase you.”
“I said I don’t want to.”
“You need to find the well where Nellie’s body was found.”
“What?” God. I feel sick.
“If you get to it before I catch up with you, you’ll be safe from me tonight. But if I catch you or get to the well before you,” he continues, stepping toward me. “I will bleed you.”
He shifts his gaze to his watch, turns the knob on it casually like we aren’t standing in the middle of a cemetery while rain pours down on us in the middle of the night talking about an idiotic game. About bleeding me.
“I don’t want to play this game! I want to go home.”
“Home?”
I shake my head. “My house. Away from you!”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’m even going to give you a five-minute head start,” he says, turning his wrist so I see the face of his watch. See the timer counting down.
“That’s not… I won’t play.”
He shrugs his shoulders and moves to pick up the dead roses on Kimberly’s grave making a show of consulting his watch. “Four minutes and thirty seconds.”
I look at his broad back, his muscular shoulders. The rain makes his sweater stick to him soaking his dark hair, turning it black. I take a step back, look around this haunted place with its grave markers, its eerie chapel. To Nellie Bishop’s grave separated from the others by a rusted, rotting fence and grass so high you almost don’t see the stone. She’s all but forgotten. Although I don’t think forgetting is the point. I think remembering is.
Nellie threw herself into a well and drowned? Or was she thrown in? Maybe killed before that. I take a step away from him as he straightens, wipes off his hands. He glances at me, then at his watch. And I don’t need another reminder of the time I have left. Because this game is going on whether I want to play or not.
I turn and run out of the cemetery gates. I’m tempted to backtrack to the path we came from and go to the house to burrow in my bed. But I know he’d easily follow me. And going to the house? His house. To my bedroom to which he has the key? No, I can’t go back there. I have to find the well.
So, I run away from the cemetery into the dense woods, the sound of rain all around me, the light that of the moon through the cloud cover. I can only see a few feet ahead of me. I stumble over fallen branches and thorn bushes scratching my bare legs. I run deeper into the woods, my only thought to put some distance between us.
I think back to when I’d surveyed the property from my window. I hadn’t seen the cemetery or the roof of the church from there. The path we took curved, so I guess they were around the corner and not behind it. But I did see a stone structure. A circle within a circle. It looked crumbled from my vantage point, but the trees weren’t as dense, and it was to the east of the house. I don’t know if it’s the well he’s talking about but it’s all I have to go on, so I slow my step and try to get my bearings. I don’t have a horrible sense of direction but it’s not great either. And I need to find the house in order to know which way to go.
I stop and listen for a few moments. I listen for him. But the rain muffles all other sounds. A part of me wonders if this is some sort of trick on his part. He could easily have gone back into the house, to his warm bed and left me out here to search for a non-existent well all night. But I don’t think he’d do that. I think he truly wants to play his little game of chase.
I think, looking back at the path I came from. Walk back and head in the direction I think is the house. If I can just get a glimpse of it, that’s all I’ll need. But it’s the middle of the night and it was so dark when he came for me. The gray stone will only stand out if the clouds clear the moon.
A branch breaks nearby. I gasp and sprint away making too much noise. I glance behind me relieved when all I see is darkness. By the time I turn to watch where I’m going, I’m too late. Although I’m not sure I’d have seen it anyway on this forest floor. I catch my foot on a root and pitch forward, the shoe slipping off my foot as I land heavily, the ground knocking the wind from me. I cry out, I can’t help it and it takes me a moment to sit up, to register the throbbing pain on my right shin.
I touch the spot, feel the wet warmth of blood.
I push myself up to stand and am grateful that I can put weight on it. It’s a cut, just a cut. I haven’t sprained my ankle. But I have lost one shoe and when I can’t locate it after a quick search, I keep moving, my eyes on the ground scanning as best as I can in the darkness.
I don’t know how long this goes on. How long I run. At one point I find I’ve circled back to the cemetery and am briefly horrified, but I force myself to breathe. To calm down and just breathe.
From here I can find the path to the house. From here I can get my bearings. Keeping to the cover of trees, I locate that path and walk alongside it. Then, it’s not long until I see it. A light. A light going on in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the house.
Relief floods me, filling me with a new energy. I know where the house is. And from the location of the cemetery, I think I can find that clearing. The collapsed wall.
I pick up my pace and run. Aware now that the rain has slowed to a mist. I don’t know when that happened but suddenly, I feel like things are working in my favor. My leg hurts, as do my feet, but I see that light and I can find that well. I know it.
I’m feeling a little more confident. A little stronger. But then, in the sudden and utter stillness of the night, I step on another branch that breaks underfoot. I swear the sound echoes for miles and miles throughout the forest, giving away my location. I think I hear him stalking at a steady pace. Unrushed. Confident. Because he knows he’ll win.
I turn to where the sound is coming from and that light that had gone on is suddenly out. And at the same moment, a thick layer of clouds closes over the moon pitching me into complete darkness.
Another branch breaks and I spin to look for it, for him, sure he’s going to be right there. Right behind me. But he’s not. Just more darkness. Never-ending darkness. More trees. More night. And I’m disoriented again. I’ve lost the path. The house. All I know is I need to move, and I walk and walk and run and run. I swear I hear him behind me. I’m not even sure if I’m moving in circles anymore. I am exhausted and freezing cold and scared. So scared.
And then somehow, some way, the trees become less dense and the moon shines again. I stop. Because I see it. The crumbling stones I glimpsed from my room in the house. But they’re not crumbling. They’re laid in a pattern. A circle surrounding another, smaller circle.
The ground feels colder here, I look down to find I have lost my second shoe somewhere during our chase. But it doesn’t matter because I’m here. I made it. It’s the well. And I’m safe.
Except that the instant I think I’m safe, there’s movement from the shadow of the ancient structure. I gasp because there, emerging, is Jericho St. James, hands in his pockets, a grim look on his face. But not satisfaction. I don’t know what it is.
“Boo!”
I scream, back away. I hear the words he spoke at the cemetery.
It’s time to spill the first drops of Bishop blood.
“I made it. I found it,” I say as he stalks toward me. I should run again. I should. But I can’t I’m so cold and my feet hurt and my shin throbs. “I’m safe. You said—”
“You’re not safe, Isabelle. You’ll never be safe again,” he says. I don’t know if it’s his words or their warning or the fact that I know they’re true, but I shake my head. A sound begins in my ears, like a drumming. The drumming of my heart, the pumping of blood. The thud thud thud of chaos inside me.
“Careful,” he calls out.
I’m backing away from him because I don’t want him to bleed me. I don’t want to be the next Bishop they bury in their cemetery.
“Isabelle, stop!”
He picks up his pace and then he’s running. There’s something else in his eyes, an urgency in his stride. I keep going, because he’s too close. I’m ready to sprint away, only I’ve run out of ground. There’s no earth to meet my step and I scream as I fall backward. The last thing I see is Jericho St. James’s face as he reaches out to catch me, fingertips brushing fingertips as my arms flail, long black hair in wisps floating through air, and the sensation of falling. Falling. Falling. And then…nothing.
17
Jericho
“Fuck.”
I drop down into the small embankment where Isabelle lies still, eyes closed.
“Isabelle?”
No answer. I crouch down bedside her and watch her chest move up and down. I look her over before touching her. It’s only a three-foot drop but still. Arms and legs are at normal angles. I feel them, nothing seems to be broken. Hardly any blood but for a couple of scratches and the gash on her shin which looks like it’s already closing up. She must have gotten that one earlier.
“Isabelle? Can you hear me?” I gently lift her head to feel the back of it. Mutter a curse as I look at the smear of blood on my palm. Although it’s not bleeding heavily. I lift her and am relieved she landed like she did. The rock just inches away would have caused more damage.
I run my hand over her spine as she flops forward into me. When she groans, I exhale with relief.
“I’m going to lift you up,” I tell her. She doesn’t respond and doesn’t move as I set one arm at her back and the other under her knees. Her head drops against my chest and her arms hang limp as I carry her back to the house.
This wasn’t the kind of bloodletting I was talking about.
I walk in through the same door we exited and carry her upstairs. It’s still dark, everyone will still be sleeping. I’m grateful for that. The last thing Angelique needs to see is me carrying a bloody, dirt-covered Isabelle upstairs. She’s already become attached to her. Something I hadn’t counted on. And definitely not for it to happen as quickly as it has.
I bypass Isabelle’s door and carry her into my room, drawing the blankets back and laying her in my bed. I look down at her. She looks so small. So fragile. More breakable than I thought.
With a sigh I walk into the bathroom stripping off my soaked sweater as I go and tossing it on top of the hamper. I grab a few towels, the first-aid kit and walk back into the bedroom. She hasn’t stirred. I set the towels down and sit her up to pull the T-shirt she’s wearing over her head. I drop it to the floor and peel off her panties.
I take a moment to look at her, then get to work. She’s cold. Her skin icy. I dry her off, wiping away dirt as best as I can before dropping the soiled towels on the floor and choosing a warm sweater from my dresser for her. I slip it over her head and cover her with the blanket. Then cradling the back of her head, I feel the bump there. My fingers come away dry. Again, I’m relieved.
She stirs then, a sound of protest. The bump is tender, I’m sure.
“Shh, relax,” I tell her as she blinks her eyes open. They’re heavy and I imagine she’ll fall asleep again but then she looks at me. For a moment, it’s as though she doesn’t recognize me. Just for a moment. Then her eyes go wide and she tries to sit up, but can’t. I watch her, see the effort it takes her to keep her eyes open.
“Just close your eyes, Isabelle,” I tell her.
“You…” She’s drifting but fighting it. She manages to put a hand to my chest. I think she means to push me away but her arm flops back onto the bed.
“I’m going to take care of you. You’re safe,” I say without thinking.
“I’m not,” she mutters but her eyes don’t open again. I look at her face, her pretty face. There’s a cut across her cheek. It’s superficial. I’ll tend to that too but first the one on the back of her head.
I turn her head slightly and clean the dried blood as best I can without irritating the cut. It’s matted into her hair, but it could have been worse. Once it’s as clean as I can get it, I leave her in the bedroom and go downstairs for ice. When I return, she still hasn’t moved, and her breathing is even. I set the ice at the back of her head, she winces, tries to pull away.
“Shh,” I tell her, cupping her cheek. “Sleep.”
She does and I get to work on the other injuries, cleaning cuts and bandaging what needs to be bandaged. By the time it’s done I’m tired. Fucking exhausted. I walk around to the other side of the bed—I’d put her on my side without thinking—and climb in. She still doesn’t stir so I turn out the light and listen to her steady, even breathing, feel the warmth of her body beside mine. I let myself drift off knowing it will be a fitful sleep.
18
