Burning Lamp (18 page)

An unfamiliar emotion swept over her. She had been on her own for so long, taking care of herself, relying on no one. It was difficult to believe that this man was willing to murder any number of gentlemen whom he did not even know in order to avenge her.

“Thank you, sir. Griffin.” She brushed the moisture from her eyes with the edge of her hand and managed a shaky smile. “That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. Fortunately, no such violent action will be needed. I never actually went to work in the brothel, you see.”

He watched her steadily. “Go on with your story.”

“On the second night after my arrival I was informed that a man named Mr. Smith had purchased me for the evening. I knew that I would have only one chance to escape. I hid in the wardrobe. When Smith arrived he was carrying a satchel. I sensed the energy pouring out of the bag but I had no notion of what was inside.”

“He had the lamp with him?” Griffin sounded incredulous.

“Yes.”

“Damn it to hell,” Griffin said softly. “That means that Smith bought you because he wanted a dreamlight reader. Somehow he knew you had the talent. He planned to work the lamp.”

“Yes, I think so. But he was not absolutely certain that I could manipulate the energy of the thing. He seemed to think that he had to bed me first. Something about a test.”

“Bastard. He believed that part of the legend.”

She glanced at the crumpled blanket on the floor behind him and raised her brows. “There does appear to be something to the theory that a sexual bond is necessary, after all. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. Passion generates a vast amount of psychical energy. Perhaps it is the key.”

But he was no longer listening. He clamped a hand across her mouth.

“Quiet,” he whispered.

It was a command, delivered in a voice as cold as the grave. She nodded once, signaling that she understood.

He took his palm away from her lips. He was not looking at her. His full attention was on the door. The battle-ready tension in him shivered in the atmosphere.

She wanted to ask him what had alarmed him. The dogs had not barked and none of the bells attached to the windows and doors had sounded. But the hair on the back of her neck was stirring and her senses were abuzz.

Griffin was already moving through the shadows, crossing the room toward his desk. His bare feet made no noise on the carpet.

A few seconds later she heard a faint squeak and knew that he had opened a drawer. She did not see the revolver in his hand until he came back to where she stood in front of the hearth. He put his mouth close to her ear.

“Lock the door behind me and do not come out until I return,” he said.

He did not wait for her to acknowledge the order. He was already on his way to the door. She felt energy pulse in the atmosphere and suddenly she could no longer see Griffin clearly. He had pulled his cloak of shadows around himself, almost but not quite, vanishing.

She heard rather than saw him turn the key in the lock of the door. The sound seemed as loud as a gunshot but she knew that in reality it was no more than a soft metallic rasp.

The shadowy figure that was Griffin flattened himself against the side of the wall and eased the door open.

“Jed?” Griffin sounded relieved and a little irritated. “Bloody hell, man, you gave me a jolt. What in blazes is this about? I told you that we were not to be interrupted. Is something wrong?”

Adelaide looked into the hall and saw Jed. There was just enough light from the single wall sconce to make out his slight, wiry form and scarred features. Hot prints seared the floor at his feet.

Jed reached into his coat.

“It’s not Jed,” she shouted.

 

 

 

“DOWN,”
GRIFFIN SHOUTED AT ADELAIDE.

Expecting gunshots, he fired twice through the doorway to give himself some cover while he got the door closed.

There was no answering fire from the man who looked like Jed. Instead, he yelped in alarm and dove to the floor. The object he had removed from his coat pocket glowed blood red in his fist.

“He’s got a gun,” the fake Jed screamed at an unseen companion.

Another man, moving with the telltale speed and lethal grace of a hunter-talent, appeared in the hall. He, too, gripped a fist-sized object that flared with a hellish crimson glare. In his other hand he held what appeared to be a cannon ball.

He rolled the ball across the floor through the rapidly narrowing doorway before the door finally slammed shut and Griffin turned the key in the lock.

The muffled voices of the two intruders reverberated through the heavy wooden door panels.

“He’s trapped in there now,” the hunter said. “This won’t take long. The fog will get him soon enough. He’ll be unconscious in a few minutes.”

“The woman is in there with him,” the first intruder responded.

“That will make it easy then. What the hell went wrong? You looked just like that bastard upstairs.”

The first man was an illusion- talent, Griffin thought. That explained a few things.

“It was the woman,” the illusion-talent muttered. “Somehow she knew.”

The ball on the carpet was making a hissing sound. Griffin glanced at it as he went toward Adelaide. A faint plume of what looked like white smoke drifted upward from the dark metal canister. His heightened senses tingled in warning. He caught a whiff of the foglike vapor. It had a peculiar spicy-sweet scent. The room began to spin slowly around him.

Ignoring the gnawing ache in his left shoulder, he grabbed the artifact off the table and crossed to where Adelaide waited. She glanced questioningly at him. He gestured toward the section of the stone wall where the portrait of Nicholas Winters hung.

Adelaide sniffed faintly and then abruptly whipped a handkerchief out of a pocket in her gown.

“Cover your face,” she whispered. “Don’t breathe any of that vapor.”

He handed the Burning Lamp to her and shoved the revolver into the waistband of his trousers. Plastering the front edge of his shirt across the lower half of his face, he used his free hand to push the portrait aside.

The room was ebbing and flowing around him but he managed to locate the chink in the stone by touch. He pressed the concealed lever. There was a soft sigh of hidden gears. A section of stone swung inward. Cool currents of air wafted into the library from the concealed passage, pushing back the noxious vapor.

“Oh, dear,” Adelaide muttered. For the first time, she sounded anxious. “A tunnel. I should have guessed. I don’t do well in enclosed spaces, Griffin.”

“I’m afraid you have no choice tonight.”

“No,” she said. “I can see that.”

“Don’t worry, we are not going far.”

Mercifully she did not argue. She ducked into the dark entrance. He followed her, pulling the stone wall closed behind them.

The concealed door sighed shut, engulfing them in profound night. He took a cautious breath. The air in the stone corridor was stale but there was no trace of the gas.

“Don’t move,” he said.

“Believe me, I won’t,” Adelaide said. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face. But I must tell you, I’m not sure how long I can wait here in the darkness like this without suffering an attack of nerves, Griffin.”

He struck a light. The flame flared on the walls of the tunnel.

“Better?” he asked.

She looked around, her dread vivid in her eyes. “Not really,” she said. “But I think I can manage for a while if I stay in my other senses. I understand now what you meant when you said that this house holds many secrets.”

“The monks constructed the hidden passages in the walls. The concealed corridors are the chief reason I bought the place a few years ago. It is impossible to make any fortress one hundred percent impregnable. The tunnels were intended to be the last line of defense and an emergency escape route if ever one was needed. Come, we must hurry.”

She followed him along the passageway. “Are we escaping?”

“Not yet. My objective is to take that pair by surprise.”

“How?”

“These passageways run through every old wall of the house. There are several openings. One of them is in the kitchen. That’s the one I’ll use.”

“Those men came here to kill you.”

“Probably.”

“Luttrell?”

“It would not come as a great surprise to discover that he has concluded that the Cemetery Truce is no longer useful to him. I’ve been certain that time would arrive sooner or later. Always knew that one day I would have to kill him. But there is another possibility.”

“Arcane?” she asked, sounding wary.

“Both of the intruders are strong talents. They came armed with some kind of poisoned vapor and they are employing some odd red crystals. That doesn’t sound like Luttrell. His methods are more traditional. Sounds more like a bunch of would-be psychical alchemists.”

“What did you say about red crystals?”

“Each of those intruders has one. Have to assume they are some kind of weapon like the gas.”

“Listen to me, Griffin. I believe that the red crystals may be tools that somehow focus a person’s natural energy and make it stronger, at least temporarily.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Smith, the man with the Burning Lamp, had one. Believe me when I tell you that they are dangerous.”

“After what happened in the library, I’ll take your word for it.”

The light flickered on the stone that marked the section that opened into the kitchen.

Adelaide moved to stand beside him. In the flaring light her eyes were haunted.

“Griffin, there is something else you must know before you deal with those two men,” she whispered.

“What?” He reached out to press the triangle engraved on the marker stone.

“I think you still possess your second talent. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

He went cold. “You worked the lamp. I felt the effects.”

“I worked it but not in a way that reverses the process. I . . . I think I just did a bit of tuning, if you see what I mean. Then I believe that we may have turned the key in the lock when we—” She broke off.

“Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.

This was not the time to deal with the fact that he was still doomed. He would think about it later, assuming he stayed sane long enough to contemplate his future. The first priority was keeping Adelaide safe.

“I know that is not what you wanted to hear,” she said earnestly. “But I am convinced that what I did is for the best.”

“Any notion of how long I’ve got before I go mad?” he asked, amazed at how astonishingly calm he felt, almost as if the matter was merely academic.

“You are not going mad.”

“We will discuss this later, assuming I’m still capable of carrying on a rational conversation. I will allow that tonight my second talent may come in handy.”

“Griffin, wait—”

“Stay here. After I leave, press that stone with the mark on it. The wall will close again. That pair will never discover the interior passages in this house. You’ll be safe in here until they are gone. When you emerge, see to Mrs. Trevelyan and my men.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And then send word to Jones and Jones.”

“Make it clear to Caleb Jones that you want to surrender the lamp. I do not trust Arcane when it comes to my own safety but the Joneses adhere to their own code of honor. They have no reason to harm you so long as they get their hands on the relic.”

“All right.” She touched his good shoulder. “But, please, promise me that you will be very careful.”

He did not respond. There was no point making a promise that he could not keep. Instead, he leaned forward and brushed his mouth lightly across hers.

“I will never forget you, Adelaide Pyne,” he said. “Even if I am fated to spend the rest of my days in an asylum.”

“Damnation, Griffin, you are not going mad,” she snapped. “I do not want to hear another word on the subject.”

Her outrage was invigorating. He smiled a little and reached into a pocket. “Here. Take these.”

“What are they?”

“A couple of spare lights just in case you end up spending a long time in this wall tonight.”

“Oh.” She seemed oddly disappointed but she rebounded immediately. “Thank you. Very thoughtful.”

He got the feeling that she had been expecting something else in the way of a parting gesture. A touching keepsake, perhaps. It was a romantic notion. But if he did not return she would find the lights far more useful than a ring or an embroidered handkerchief.

He pushed hard on the marked stone. Deep inside the wall, gears and levers murmured in hushed tones. A crack of semidarkness appeared and widened steadily, revealing a long trestle table and the moonlit window.

He left Adelaide standing just inside the passage and went out into the kitchen. The odd thing was that he felt better psychically than he had in a very long time, more centered and in control of his talents. That was no doubt how all madmen felt as they sank deeper into the darkness.

He gathered a cloak of shadows around himself and proceeded bare-footed across the kitchen and out into the hall. Exhilaration slammed through him when he opened his talent to the fullest extent. He could not escape the sensation that he was
meant
to use this energy. Nature intended for him to employ it the same way that it intended for him to use his other senses.

The hunter-talent, with his preternatural hearing, sensed him first.

“Well, now, what have we got here?” the man asked softly from the shadows near the door of the library. “There were supposed to be only three guards in the house.”

The hunter came out of the dimly lit front hall, moving with the speed and agility of a wolf taking down prey. The light from the lowered wall sconce revealed his savage grin and glinted on the knife in his hand. A crimson glare emanated from between the fingers of his other hand. Energy pulsed violently in the atmosphere.