The Master of Heathcrest Hall (82 page)

“Well, we’ve had a fire, food, and drink,” he said. “All we need now is some companionship. Some womanly companionship. Wouldn’t you say so, Preswyn?”

The bigger man had been prodding the fire with a poker, and his face was flushed red from the heat of the fire on the hearth. Or was it from another kind of fire? For he gazed intently at Ivy and Rose upon the sofa.

“But there’s only the two of them,” he said, laying the poker down on the hearth, its tip still in the coals. “And we are three.”

“Well, I don’t think Durbent much cares,” the corporal said. His words were mushy and indistinct; the whiskey had affected him. “He’s got some ague or something after his travails out in the night, and he’s not fit for it. No, the only question is who gets which one.”

Preswyn licked his lips. “They’re both pretty.”

“So they are.” The corporal lurched up from his chair. “But the light-haired one’s the prettiest, so she’ll keep me company. You can have the other one, Preswyn.”

“I can do anything I want with her, you mean?”

“Anything that stupid mind of yours can think of,” the corporal said. He picked up his rifle and started toward the sofa.

New terror came over Ivy. The men had been fed, yet still there was a hunger in their eyes. Their intentions could only lie in one direction, and while Ivy’s own person was surely in danger, it was only Rose whom she could think of. That either of them should lay a hand upon Rose was something that could not be allowed. But Ivy had left the carving knife under the plate; if she tried to dash over to get it, they would stop her.

If only there were some piece of Wyrdwood in the room, even the smallest bit. But there was no Wyrdwood anywhere in the manor house, except for the broken remains of the chair Mr. Samonds had made up in the attic.

No, that wasn’t true. There
was
Wyrdwood in the house.

“I will give you the jewels!” Ivy cried out. “I will tell you where they are if you take them and go!”

Rose turned her head to stare at her, but Ivy tightened her grip on Rose’s hand, squeezing it.

The corporal came to a stop before her, and his small eyes narrowed. “Jewels? What sort of jewels?”

“I am a lady, the wife of a well-to-do baronet. When I fled the city, I brought all my finest jewels with me, of course. They are in the parlor there. Look for a wooden box on the top shelf of the bookcase in the corner. Take the jewels, then go. You will be wealthy enough to buy anything you should ever want.”

“So you’re a lady, you say?” He did not sound entirely convinced, but all the same there was another sort of hunger in his eyes now. “Preswyn, go see if you can find that box. I’ll keep an eye on the ladies here. And if she’s lied, and there’s no box of jewels—well, it will go rough for them.”

He picked up his rifle and stood before the sofa, while Preswyn disappeared through the parlor. Ivy and Rose both sat motionless. The room was sweltering from the fire, but Ivy could not stop shivering. Her eyes kept going back to the rifle; more than once the corporal’s finger caressed the trigger. At last, Preswyn returned to the front hall.

In his hands was the Wyrdwood box.

“I can’t open it,” he said, his single eyebrow drawn down in a glower. “The lid is locked. Or stuck, I mean, as I can’t see no lock on it.” He gave the box a violent shake.

“Stop that, you half-wit!” the corporal snapped. “If there are fine things in there, you’ll break them doing that. Bring it over here.”

Preswyn lumbered over with the box and held it out. The corporal sat, laid his rifle across his knees, and reached out to take the box. For a moment, both Preswyn’s and the corporal’s hands rested on the box.

That was the moment Ivy had been waiting for. She darted out a hand and touched the Wyrdwood box.

Bind them
, she spoke in her mind.

Preswyn let out a bellowing cry and staggered back away from the sofa. As he did, he hauled the corporal up and out of the chair, for their hands were now bound together by bands of wood. Even as the men struggled to pull apart, brown tendrils coiled up their wrists and around their forearms. The rifle had fallen to the floor.

“It’s alive, it’s alive!” Preswyn wailed, flailing back and forth. Such was the big man’s strength that these actions whipped the smaller corporal around like a ball at the end of a tether. Sheafs of paper fluttered around them, having been released as the box lost its shape and form.

“Stop it, you ox!” the corporal shouted, but Preswyn only let out another howl and spun around. As he did, the legs of the two men tangled together, and they toppled to the floor in a heap.

Ivy did not hesitate. She leaped from the sofa, then snatched up the rifle from the floor. It was heavy, but terror lent her strength. While never before in her life had she held a gun of any sort, she had seen it done enough times that she had a sense of what to do. She pointed the barrel at the two men, then put her thumb on the hammer, pulling it back.

At the telltale click of metal, the two men ceased their struggles and looked up at her. The rifle wavered in her hand, but it did not matter. At such close range, her aim hardly needed to be precise. She rested her finger on the trigger.

On the floor, Preswyn’s eyes went wide, then turned to slits. “By God, you’re a witch,” he snarled. “You’re a filthy witch.”

Ivy directed the barrel of the rifle at his chest. “Don’t move.”

Not that they could have. The twigs that had previously made up the Wyrdwood box now bound their wrists and ankles like thin but strong cords. Some of the tendrils began to writhe and probe upward, reaching toward their necks. Preswyn was sobbing now, and the corporal’s face was a grimace of pain. Then, all at once, his grimace became a smile.

“Ivy!” Rose cried out.

Ivy turned around, still gripping the rifle, and her heart ceased
to beat. Durbent no longer stood by the window. Instead, he was striding rapidly across the front hall, coming directly toward her. In the brilliant firelight, she could finally see beneath the brim of his hat. His face was gray and strangely slack; his eyes were as flat and dead as stones.

“Witch,” he hissed in that strange, slurring voice. He reached his hands out before him as he closed the last distance.

There was a flash of light and a loud noise like a clap of thunder. Ivy let out a gasp and staggered backward as the butt of the rifle struck her shoulder. The rifle fell from her numb fingers and clattered to the floor. For a moment she could see nothing for the haze of smoke; then enough of it was drawn up the chimney that she could see again.

Durbent lay sprawled on his back before the fireplace, staring upward with unblinking eyes. In the center of his chest was a wet, gaping hole. Ivy let out a moan, staggering back—

—and strong hands clamped around her.

“It was papers, not jewels,” the corporal’s voice sneered into her ear, and his sour breath washed over. “You lied to us, witch.”

His wiry arms tightened around her, just as the Wyrdwood had previously coiled around him. In her terror at the sight of Durbent, Ivy had ceased calling out to the Wyrdwood, directing it. The bonds must have weakened enough for the corporal and Preswyn to break free.

Now Preswyn lumbered forward to where Durbent lay motionless. “Oh God, she shot him,” Preswyn moaned. “She shot him dead.” He went down on one knee beside Durbent’s body, then reached out to touch the wound in his chest.

Preswyn snatched his hand back. “This isn’t … what is this?” He stared at his hand; it was covered with a grayish ichor.

Before anyone could answer him, Durbent sat up. Then, moving swiftly, almost mechanically, he stood.

“Durbent, you’re all right!” Preswyn cried out, lurching to his own feet.

Durbent did not look at him. Instead, almost casually, as if to
simply push him aside for being in the way, he reached out and struck Preswyn in the center of the chest.

There was an awful crunching noise, like a porcelain cup being ground beneath a boot heel. Preswyn made a gurgling sound, and a flood of red gushed out of his mouth. He crumpled to the floor and did not move.

Durbent stepped over the corpse.

“Bloody Abyss,” the corporal shouted and flung Ivy away from him. He drew his pistol. “Have you gone mad, Durbent? Preswyn was an idiot, but you had no reason to murder him! Or do you want her for yourself, then?”

Durbent said nothing. He kept walking toward them, his face without expression.

“Stop there!” the corporal yelled. “That’s an order!”

Durbent took another step. The corporal fired the pistol, and again. Two more holes opened in Durbent’s chest, but he did not stop. Before the corporal could get off a third shot, Durbent clamped his hands upon either side of the corporal’s skull.

The struggle was violent but brief. The corporal writhed and twitched for only a few moments. Then Durbent’s thumbs drove deep into the sockets of his eyes, and beyond. The corporal went limp, and Durbent let his lifeless remains drop to the floor.

Ivy stumbled back, then fell onto the sofa beside Rose. They held on to each other, beyond any capacity for speech or action. Durbent left the body of the corporal and approached the sofa. Amid the various altercations, some of the dirt had been wiped from his hands, and Ivy could just make out the black, angular symbol drawn upon the left. In that moment, while he continued to move, Ivy knew that Durbent was as dead as Preswyn and the corporal—that he had been ever since he had gotten lost in the night, and had been captured by magicians who served the Ashen. They had formed him into a weapon to serve the cause of their masters.

And now he was going to do just that.

“Witch,” he said again, and reached out bloodstained hands.

Ivy held Rose tightly. She shut her eyes and thought,
Let it be swift!

Only the blow she expected did not come. Instead, there was a hissing and popping sound, like that which the ham had made in the frying pan. Ivy opened her eyes and tried to comprehend what she saw. The glowing red tip of the poker that had been lying on the hearth now protruded from Durbent’s throat, smoking as it did.

Abruptly the poker was withdrawn, and Durbent fell to his knees. A pair of hands manifested from the shadows. They wrapped around Durbent’s head, then twisted it around on his shoulders. Farther his head turned, and farther still, until all at once it came free of his shoulders with a wet noise. Then both head and body fell to the floor, more of the gray fluid seeping from each, while the two sisters looked on in mute horror.

The shadows behind the body undulated, then approached. Only they weren’t shadows at all, but rather folds of stiff black silk. Nor were the two pale hands disembodied entities; instead, they protruded from the sleeves of a black gown. The hands rose up and pushed back a veil, revealing the hard, white oval of a woman’s face.

And Lady Shayde said, “Was either of you harmed?”

A
HALF HOUR LATER found Ivy and Rose in the little parlor.

Ivy lit a candle, even though several already burned around the room. The storm had not relented, and it had grown so dark outside the windows that she wondered if an umbral was falling. The thought of it made her shudder. All her life, Ivy had ever loathed that moment when night fell and light succumbed to dark. Yet it was even more awful now that she knew what it was that dwelled in the empty spaces between the planets.

And knowing that, once night fell, day might never come again.

The flame flared atop the candle, and the gloom reluctantly
retreated a fraction. In the corner of the parlor, Rose sat in a chair, cradling the porcelain doll tightly with both arms. She was rocking softly, and her lips moved as if she was singing a lullaby. Only she made no sound.

“Are you warm, dearest?” Ivy said, adjusting the blanket she had thrown over her sister’s shoulders.

Rose hunched over the doll and continued to rock in the chair. She had not uttered a word since they had departed the front hall. Her brown eyes were open wide, though they seemed to gaze at nothing.

Ivy tried to think of what she might say to encourage a response from her sister, but before she could there came a noise from behind her: a crinkling of stiff fabric. Quickly, she turned around.

“It is done,” Lady Shayde said, standing in the door of the parlor. “The remains have been removed from the house.”

Ivy struggled to swallow. “All … all three of them?”

“Yes.”

Ivy could scarcely comprehend this. Lady Shayde was tall for a woman, but her figure was slender within her gown: a thing of lines and angles rather than full curves. By what unnatural strength had she been able to remove the bodies of three grown men from the house?

It did not matter; Ivy did not want to know. There were already mysteries enough for her to consider—not the least of which was why this pale being had done what she had, or why she should even be here.

Lady Shayde entered the parlor. Her dress was perfectly creased, as if she had not just been hauling corpses about.

“Is your sister well?” she said, her words just as crisp.

“Is she well?” Ivy might have laughed at the absurdity of this statement, were she not so gripped by horror. She crossed the parlor and lowered her voice. “How can Rose possibly be well? What she has witnessed can only have inflicted a profound shock upon her.”

That white face, those black eyes and blue-black lips, were
without expression. “And what of you, Lady Quent? Did you not witness the same scene yourself?”

Ivy shook her head. “My sister has lived a quiet and protected life. She has never seen things such as this before. She has never seen … a death.”

“But you have,” Shayde replied, and in her black eyes was what seemed a knowing look.

A pain pierced Ivy’s heart. Was the other inflicting a deliberate cruelty? Did she know about the magickal gem, and what scene its facets had revealed? She tried to draw a breath, but it was difficult to breathe.

“I must go into … into the hall. There is something I …”

But she could manage no more. She edged past the other woman, then hurried to the front hall. The bodies of the men were indeed gone, as Lady Shayde had said, though several wet stains still marred the floor. Ivy did her best to ignore these, and instead knelt to gather up the papers that had been scattered when the Wyrdwood box came apart.