Phantoms In Philadelphia (13 page)

The doors creaked open, and I glanced at them, and
at that moment everything within me lurched.

My emotions were in a spiral. Disbelief had my mind
shouting doubts, then alarm had me clenching my fists. Another bout
of disbelief had me telling myself it was not so, a surge of fear
caused a shiver to race up my spine. Rage coated the fear, and then
I was back to disbelief.

This cannot be. This cannot be.

Richard.

Richard’s black cape made his look like a bat as he
walked toward the platform. A gold ring with a ruby stone glittered
on his finger.

Rage pumped my blood, and I could hear it swishing
in my ears. I felt Jack shift beside me. Jack was reaching for his
pistol. I grabbed his wrist, and his eyes shot to mine. I was
momentarily taken aback. I had never seen such fury in his eyes,
and I had seen Jack angry many, many times. As I shook my head, his
face became a sneer as he pulled his arm from my grasp, but
released the handle of his pistol.

Richard stepped on the platform then spun with his
cape twirling behind him. “Be seated.”

Everyone but Richard sat. “Brothers
and Sisters, let us welcome the gods of thunder and lightning.”
Richard raised his head and looked toward the dome, and his eyes
rolled back as he spouted off a Greek incantation. Lightning
flashed across the sky above the glass dome, and I jerked, bumping
my arm against the wall. I had not known it was storming until that
moment.

Richard smiled and lowered his head. “I have given
my oath to serve you, and my first order as your new lord is to
unmask a traitor within our midst.”

I could not help but look at Hannah. She was, after
all, the only one wearing a mask.

“Bring forth the traitor,” Richard’s voice
boomed.

Dimitri ducked to get through the
door pulling with him a bound man with a black cloth, like a sack,
covering the man’s head. Richard sat upon his center throne and
flicked his finger upward, gesturing
for
Dimitri to
remove the bag. My insides had
recoiled before I was reaching for my own pistol.

Pierre.

If hearts could stop, even for a moment, then mine
surely did. I had my suspicions that Pierre was taken by Levitas
but not this. Never this.

Jack grabbed my wrist, and when I met his gaze he
shook his head, but I could tell that it was with reluctance.

Pierre rose to the middle of Dimitri’s large chest,
showing no fear as he stared at Richard.

“Pierre Travoy, you are charged with selling secrets
to the enemy, betraying our trust, and associating with Phantoms.”
At the sound of our name, I tensed as my heartbeat skittered, and
my palms began to sweat. “Kneel,” Richard said to Pierre, but he
did not comply, so Richard snapped his fingers, and Dimitri shoved
Pierre to his knees.

Richard moved to stand before Pierre. “Let it be
known that all traitors of the order will be dealt with the same
way. As the leader of Levitas, I will not allow any to come against
us, and with the power that has been given me through the gods of
thunder and lightning I shall strike.” Richard’s hands came down
hard on Pierre’s shoulders. There was a look of something inhuman
on Richard’s face, like it was someone else there, someone
bloodthirsty, instead of the kind man that I had met in my
brother’s library.

Pierre screamed a sound that caused icy shards to
freeze my blood, and a flash of lightning illuminated the dome
overhead. Pierre’s body started convulsing, and Richard released
his shoulders but kept his hand extended above Pierre as Pierre
dropped on his back, writhing in certain pain. I could not move,
could not take my eyes away from Pierre and the terrible thing
happening to him. I felt Jack take my hand, realizing how badly it
was shaking. We could not do anything to help him. I did not even
know what was wrong with him. I watched and listened in horrified
silence to the muffled shrieks that came from Pierre. Then it was
all over. Pierre’s eyes stared up, but there was no life there, no
movement, nothing but terror and death. My shaking hand covered my
mouth, but I did not fully understand what had happened. Movement
all around the room made my gaze snap to each member that I could
see. Every one of them was squirming in their seats, fear on all of
their faces, save one.

Hannah was not looking at Pierre’s dead body but at
Richard, with a look of complete unconcern on the part of her face
that I could see. I knew she was a cold-hearted wretch, but I never
knew how heartless she was until that moment.

Richard snapped his fingers again, and Dimitri
dragged Pierre’s lifeless body from the room. Richard was speaking
to the members, but I could not hear it.

“How many guns have you?” Jack asked against my ear,
and I held up two fingers. He cursed softly.

Why did I not bring the
others?
There were only four pistols
between us and no way to charge out to capture Richard, not without
one of us being harmed—or worse. Who knew what Richard would have
done to us if he caught us watching his ceremony. We would not
escape; I knew that much.

When the ceremony ended and all the members were
gone from the throne room, Jack and I climbed from the alcove. The
hallway outside the throne room was completely dark as we made our
way toward the stairs in silence. I was about to go down, when Jack
caught my arm and pulled me back. The white-haired woman stepped
into the house through the open front door as the rain poured
outside the house.

“Do not walk away from me!” said an
angry voice from the room across from the dining parlor. The older
woman moved, so she could see into that room.

“You have tried to make me look the
fool.” It was Nicholas’s voice; I recognized the English
lilt.

“You do not need my help for that,” a woman’s sultry
voice replied, and I stiffened. It was her voice.

Nicholas spoke again though softer. “When you
approached us for a place in the society, it was I who gained you
entry into this sacred court, but do you treat it as you should? Do
you respect the key that I have offered? No.”

“If you believe that because you spoke for me I
should feel indebted to become your wife, you are far from the
mark. I owe no man.”

A shadow stepped up behind the white-haired woman
and gripped her arm. She screeched, shrinking away until she saw it
was only Richard. “Listening at the door, Mrs. Lewis? Surely you
have better uses for your time than to listen to a lover’s spat.”
Richard held out his arm and the woman laid her hand on it. They
walked into the room together.

“Why you must quarrel so much I declare I know not,”
the older woman scolded.

“When Nicholas accepts that I shall never marry him,
our quarrels will cease. My life may not be my own, but it shall
never belong to Nicholas.” The woman in white walked into the
foyer, slamming the door behind her. She was still hooded and
cloaked, but I could tell that she was taking a deep breath.

She walked past the stairs disappearing from our
view. Jack touched my shoulder, and we moved down the stairs. I
thought we were going toward the dining parlor, but Jack turned us
right at the stairs.

Beyond the stairs was a hall, dimly lit, with
portraits hanging on both walls and three doors. Jack stopped at
the first door on the right that had not been fully closed. It led
to a staircase that went down below the house. Jack pulled out his
pistol, and I had followed suit before we descended. At the bottom
of the stairs was a cold, damp room that had jars and marked crates
of food stacked. There was a door directly before the stairs that
had not been closed all the way. Leaning against the stone wall, we
looked into the room. She was standing with her back to us looking
down at something on the floor. She shifted, and I saw Pierre’s
face. I sucked in a silent breath as despair and sadness washed
over me. We lost a great ally this day. Hannah knelt beside Pierre.
There was a small vial in her hand that she uncorked. She placed a
hand beneath Pierre’s head and tilting it up; she slipped the rim
of the vial into his mouth and poured the contents in.

“Arise, Pierre. Death is not yours this day.”

Confusion and disbelief coursed through me. The
woman was mad. Pierre’s eyes fluttered, and his back arched.

My shaking hand came up to cover my mouth as
Pierre’s eyes opened, and his head turned toward the door. Jack and
I both jerked our heads back. Jack motioned for the stairs. I was
near to bursting with questions, but I remained silent as we made
our ascent. We pushed open the door and walked through, right into
a man as wide as the door.

“Intruders,” he spat, trying to grab Jack. Jack
threw his fist into the man’s gut, shoved him back, and we ran into
the throne room, Jack slamming the door behind us.

The man’s shouts made us run toward a room to the
right of the platform. There was a single candle burning in the
room illuminating a long table and a spiral staircase that rose to
the second floor. Jack grabbed the table, and we shoved it against
the door. There was one other door, on the back wall that I moved
to, pulling with all my strength. Pounding echoed through the room
followed by splinters of wood as a large fist made a hole in the
barricaded door behind us. Jack shoved me away from the door I was
pulling on, unbolted the top and threw it open. We jumped through
and dropped onto hard ground.

“Run, Raven, lead them away. I am going for Pierre.”
Jack ran toward the side of the house, and I ran across the lawn to
the woods. I pulled my special triple barrel pistol from my pocket
as I ran through the dark trees, rain droplets, and tree limbs
hitting me in the face. I needed a diversion to give Jack time to
rescue Pierre. I heard shouts and curses behind me as the guards
were entering the woods. I stumbled over a fallen log and fell to
my knees, pain shooting through my legs. Laying flat on my stomach
leaning into the log, I heard the men coming closer. I was wearing
all black except for the red on my mask, but I kept my face and
body pressed against the log. My heart was beating like a war cry
as I heard leaves rustle and twigs snap around me.

“Spread out and find them!”

I stayed against the log for what felt like an hour
but was closer to five minutes. When I could no longer hear leaves
or twigs, I pushed to my knees with my back hunched over and looked
around. My eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, but I could only
see a few feet before my face. As branches swayed and leaves
rustled, no larger figures moved. I jumped up and ran to my right,
cutting to the eastern trees opposite to where the guards were
heading. I kept looking over at the house to see if Jack had come
out. The shadows were many as the moon broke through the clouds. I
thought I saw a small man darting across the lawn. I ran along the
edge of the trees so that he would know where I was.

A large shadow jumped out from
behind a tree, and I shrieked as I slammed into his chest. He
grabbed my arm. I threw the barrel of my pistol against his head;
my fist struck his nose, and I shoved him off, running deeper into
the woods. He did not follow me that I could tell, but I was
feeling skittish, and my heart felt like it would explode within my
chest if I stopped. Our horses were not at all contented
at being left in the rain with lightning flashing
and thunder rumbling the earth. I pulled some sugar from my saddle
bag and held out both my hands. Pegasus nipped it immediately, but
Brutus was angry and stomping. A rustling came from behind me, and
dread pulsed through my blood, danced along my arms, darted up and
down my spine. I turned, raising my pistol at the dark
trees.

Jack broke through the trees. I
leaned against Pegasus in profound
relief.
I quickly untied the reins and mounted Pegasus. Jack grabbed
Brutus’s reins and climbed swiftly
into the
saddle.

When we were a safe distance away from Stark Manor,
I asked Jack about Pierre. His face was grim in the moonlight. “He
and the white phantom were not there.”

That was the strangest night of my life. Richard was
a leader of a deadly secret society; Pierre was killed and then
brought back to life, and Hannah Lamont was a black magic wielding
white phantom. Life had taken a turn into lunacy.

Bess

1 June 1816

T
hree days
had passed since the Levitas meeting, and though I had sent my team
to search around Stark Manor, we had not found Pierre. I briefly
entertained the notion that Hannah was a witch, and Richard used
black magic, but Levi, who owned an apothecary shop, was sure that
if Richard poisoned Pierre, Hannah could have had an antidote that
would have counteracted the poison.

Mariah and Levi were worried about
the disappearances and what they meant. Mariah told us that people
were scared, and the weather was only adding to their fears. We had
record lows, and there had been ice upon the ground last
week.
Ice in May!
There were whisperings throughout the city that a supernatural
deity had been made unhappy by the war and was determined to purge
our great country and that the people taken were being offered as
sacrifices.

I had assigned Levi to watching Hannah’s house and
reporting anything he found suspicious.

As my mother nearly always took a tray in her
chamber, and Jack had not come down yet, I ate alone in the dining
parlor. When I was near to finished, Arnaud brought a letter to me.
When I broke the seal and spread open the single sheet, the food I
had consumed threatened to come up.