Renegade (11 page)

It was nearly ten thirty as I made my way back toward Kensington. I told Christina that I would take a hansom cab. I knew I had to hurry to reach Kensington; it was so late. I very well might hear a lecture. Grandmother knew that she had very little control over my comings and goings, but nonetheless I tried, out of respect for her, not to stay out very late. As the carriage rolled out of Torrington Square, I stared out the window. The night was chilly and foggy; a damp mist had settled in the air, creating bright halo circles around the streetlamps. Emotionally, I felt almost ill—I still couldn’t find it in my heart to forgive William, to understand what he’d done with Jane Morris; it was too revolting.

When the carriage had traveled a few blocks and was about to turn west onto Marylebone Road, toward Kensington, the persistent cry of a child caught my attention, bringing me away from my reflections. The street was relatively empty, but I saw a woman wearing a dark cloak. As the hood blew aside, I saw her long curly hair falling loose down her back. She was walking northwards, toward the Highgate area, and she carried in her arms a child of about two years of age. At first, I saw nothing particularly remarkable about the two figures. Then the baby’s tear-stained face, wisps of blond hair blowing about, peered at me over the woman’s shoulder.

I froze as I recognized the child—she was one of the children who lived on the first floor of Whitechapel Hospital. Her name was Christabel. The woman, whose face I could still not see, paused in her walk. The moment the cab turned onto Marylebone, she half-turned her face in my direction so that I could see her profile and the small curve of a smile.

The woman’s face made my heart quicken; I remembered my nightmare.

Mariah.

But it couldn’t be. Mariah was dead.

The situation was peculiar. The carriage progressed west, and after a few moments of indecision, which I spent trying to tell myself that the woman might be Christabel’s mother, I called to the driver to stop. I paid him and hurried back, attempting to follow the woman and child. They were no longer in my sight, but I could hear the child’s cries far ahead.

They had been walking swiftly, and it was a while before I reached Swains Lane, just in front of the Highgate Cemetery gates, and saw them again. I stopped, out of breath from my hurried pace, my corset tight around my chest like a vise. I then saw the woman more clearly, and heard myself gasp. Somehow, as she had walked ahead of me in the darkness of the streets, she had shed her cloak and shoes. Now she stood still, holding the child and wearing only a white gauzy dress or nightgown, even outdoors in the chilly air. She turned and met my eyes before disappearing through the open gates, with Christabel. Two thoughts struck me at once:

The gates should not be open at this time of night.

Mariah. She looks like Mariah.

I wondered once again if the woman might be the child’s mother, discharged from the hospital. But Whitechapel Hospital was quite a few miles from Torrington Square, a bit far to walk with a baby on a cold evening. Furthermore, I could not recall Christabel’s mother’s face. Perhaps the child was one of the orphans that Simon was keeping at the hospital, not having the heart to send them to the orphanage. The nightmare of seeing Mariah kept surfacing in my mind, and I tried to push away these darker thoughts.

The white dress. The curly hair.

Once again, I told myself that Mariah was dead. To see her walking here would be an impossibility.

Quickly, following the baby’s cries, I entered the cemetery.

It was all darkness once I walked through the gates—the great canopies of trees that kept the place dark, even on the brightest days, now shrouded the cemetery in blackness. Not even the streetlights could break through the leaves. Only a few strong moonbeams spilt whitish-gray spots on some of the gravestones. Gradually, my eyes adjusted a little to the darkness, and I started to follow one of the maze-like paths in the direction of the child’s cries.

The bushes at my left rustled. I saw a flash of white. But whether it was moonlight or the white of the woman’s dress, I could not tell. The child continued to cry, from far ahead on the path. My blood froze when I heard a giggle from behind some tombs nearby in the darkness.

I heard the mendacious undertone of the giggle, and I sensed that I was being watched—by more than one person.

Max! My heart pounded as I looked around. I half-expected to see some shadow creeping down a tall monument. Of course—he had lured me here to kill me. I could fight him, but I had no weapon, no knife.

Get the child and leave,
I told myself.

As I continued quickly down the path, not familiar with this portion of the cemetery, a tree branch scraped my face. It was painful; my cheek burned.

The child’s cries seemed closer, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I came around a sharp twist to the path.

A moonbeam illuminated Christabel, seated alone on a stone bench near a grave. She was still crying, barefoot and confused.

There was no sign of the woman anywhere.

“Chrissy,” I said, trying to sound calm and unworried as I lifted her into my arms. “Come with me.”

I almost screamed when the bushes beside me rustled.

“Abbie,” I heard whispered from the darkness behind me. The voice was soft, breathy. And if I had not heard my name spoken, I might have thought it was a rush of wind through the leaves. The hair on my neck rose.

Christabel continued crying as I put her face into my neck and began running back toward the entrance of the graveyard.

I stopped, frozen, when I saw a figure blocking the path ahead. It was not Max, but a woman. She was not the dark-haired woman I had seen earlier—this one was older, around forty years of age. She wore a heavy wool black dress. Her blond hair was pulled back into a knot at the back of her head. She looked dignified, attractive, as if she might have been one of Grandmother’s guests at a cribbage game.

But I did not continue forward. I stayed where I was.

The woman walked toward me, sharp leaf shadows cutting across her white face … her mouth smeared with blood.

The giggle from behind me rang out.

They were closing in on me.

I ran down a path to my right, praying that it would take me to the entrance.

It did. I saw the open gates ahead.

A man stood in front of the gates. When he saw me, he began walking toward me. He was tall, older. He wore some kind of uniform, probably a constable’s.

“Help!” I yelled, running toward him. He turned to me. It was then that I saw a thick drop of blood slide down his chin.

I sprinted, panicked now, down yet another path, my heart pounded vigorously. I had no idea what I was going to do. Christabel screamed in my arms. The tombs and monuments offered many hiding places, but they were useless to me if the child continued to cry.

I heard crashing through the branches behind me.

I had to face my pursuers. I had to fight them, even though I knew now that I had at least three pursuers. Yet I had no idea how to defend myself with the child in my arms. So I continued running, deeper into the cemetery. We would be trapped soon.

I felt my elbow grasped in a painful tight grip.

Nearly dropping Christabel, I swung around to kick the person away.

“No!” I yelled loudly.

I felt both relief and shock when I saw it was William. I had found him unexpectedly once before, last year; I knew that he often walked around London, even late at night after work, when he was agitated. The Highgate area was one of his favored routes.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” he said, panting, looking quickly at myself and then at Christabel.

“Did you see them?” I asked rapidly. I heard no noise now. Saw no one.

“Who?” William said, staring at me as if I was crazy. “And why do you have one of the hospital’s children with you?”

“We have to get out of here!” I said, ignoring him and running in the direction of the entrance.

I saw and heard nothing unusual as we left the cemetery. There was no sign of the man or the two women. When we stepped out onto the street, William shut the gates behind us.

My heart still raced. I clutched Christabel closer.

“What is happening here?” he demanded

“Never mind! We need to get away from here. Fast. Now.” I kept imagining a white bloody hand reaching out, through the cemetery bushes, from behind the tombs.

William and I walked several blocks in irritated silence. When I finally faced him, as I fumbled to take off my own coat and wrap it around the child—she was shivering violently in the wet night air—William spoke, incredulous and furious.

“You never answered my question. How did she get here?” He pointed angrily at Christabel. She still heaved with sobs and clutched me as she sucked her thumb.

I told him what happened. I fought to control my breathing—I felt such panic, it came out in sharp clips. “It was Mariah, I am almost certain. I saw blood on the other woman’s mouth and on the man’s mouth. They”—a chill ran through me—“were not like living people.”

William still looked incredulous.

“I don’t know what you saw, Abbie. But what you are describing to me—insane murderers, vampires, walking dead, whatever—seems impossible. However, someone might have tried to kidnap the child. This is serious. I will return her, talk to Josephine, try to determine what precisely occurred. I’ll alert Scotland Yard if necessary. But the rest of your story, Abbie, is simply not possible.”

I stared at him, unbelieving. William seemed cold, detached. He was looking at me as if I were a madwoman. And how could he say this after having seen the horror, the seeming impossibility, of that murderous group of immortals known as the Conclave?

Still, I kept my voice calm. “I’m not sure if you heard me, William. I am not a hysteric; neither do I suffer from an overactive imagination. You should know me better than that. I do not comprehend all that I saw, but I saw it, nonetheless. It was quite bizarre.”

William’s dark eyes flashed indecisively for one instant, but out of surprise, concern, or confusion I could not tell. Then his gaze narrowed. “Abbie, this is not rational thinking.”

“What are you saying?” I hissed. “After all that we have been through! I didn’t see Max, but apart from what happened in there, I know that he is likely still around. Somewhere. It is not as if we have nothing to fear.”

My mind scrambled. I was trying to make sense of what did not make sense. My nightmare of Mariah … what I had seen tonight … the vision of the lamia. None of it appeared to be connected to Max or the Conclave. And yet … somehow it felt centered around me. I seemed to have been lured here, tonight.

Then another thought arose. Perhaps I truly was mad? After all, William had not seen my pursuers. Yet someone had brought Christabel here; she was in my arms. Although why had they seemed to disappear once William showed up? My head pounded.

Christabel had now fallen asleep on my shoulder. I held her against my chest, draping my coat around her.

William said nothing. His look now was sharp, reproachful. I had never before felt such a distance between us.

“Are you saying that you do not believe me?” I asked.

He paused. “Yes, in fact, I am. I do not believe that you are intentionally embellishing or lying. I do believe that you saw whoever took the child enter the graveyard; you became confused in the darkness. Your mind played tricks. It happens, Abbie. There was no one in there. I’ve had a difficult day at the hospital, and … ” He ran his fingers through his hair, then looked away, agitated. “I was out walking. It was when I passed the West cemetery entrance that I heard you cry out. I saw no walking dead, no blood-smeared faces.”

I felt incensed, confused.

“Max has probably gone abroad,” William added. “You know how he is. He has probably forgotten about us by now … ”

Astonished, I sincerely hoped that he was merely trying to annoy me, that he was being cruel because of our falling out. Max was brutal, relentless, and William’s seeming oblivion to this went beyond foolishness. I feared for William. My mind raced. Our history with the Conclave, my lamia vision, what I had just seen in the graveyard—something must connect all of this. I felt as if I was missing something directly in front of me.

William took Christabel from me. “Let me escort you home, and then I’ll take the child back to the hospital and deal with this matter.”

“I can find another carriage myself.”

“It is late.”

“Do not follow me.”

I turned around quickly so that he could not see the hot tears stinging my eyes.

Nine

R
ain poured in great sheets outside my window the next morning. I stood, already dressed, and prepared to start my work at New Hospital. Although it was springtime, I felt a blanket of terror descending upon me. It felt thick and unrelenting. Reason could not persuade me that I had not fallen into a web, into some terrible game.

I jumped as a sharp hand squeezed my shoulder.

“I am sorry, Miss Arabella. I did not mean to scare you.” Ellen’s voice came out raspy, dramatic, her bulbous eyes rapidly searched my own. I had seen that look on Ellen’s face many times. She was greedily searching for a listener for her gossip.