The Taker (53 page)

“What’s this about?” I demanded, whirling on Alejandro.

“Adair went looking for Uzra, that’s all I know.”

I thought of Adair’s story—the physic’s fury over things stolen from his table. “We must go up there! He’s hurting her.” I reached for the doorknob, but it refused to budge. He’d locked the door. “Get
an ax, a sledgehammer, anything. We must break this door down!” I shouted but they only looked at me as though I’d lost my senses. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of—”

Then the sounds ceased.

After a few minutes, the key turned in the lock and Adair emerged, pale as milk. Uzra’s serpentine blade was in his hand and his cuff was stained bright red. He dropped the knife to the floor and pushed by us, retreating to his room. It was only then that we found her body.

“You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” Tilde said to me. “I can see the guilt on your face.” I didn’t answer. Looking down on Uzra’s body, my stomach lurched. He had stabbed her in the chest, and also slit her throat, and that must have been the last thing he did because she’d fallen to the ground with her head thrown back, some hair still twisted where he had held it in his fist. The words “by my hand and intent” echoed in my mind—the same words that had given her eternal life had been uttered again to take it away. Thinking of them now sent a shudder through me, as did spying the tattoo on her arm, thrown carelessly to her side. In the end, his mark upon her body meant nothing. He would retract his troth when it pleased him.

The fight could have been about anything and I would never know for sure, but the timing made it unlikely that it could be about anything other than the secret room. Somehow, Adair must have discovered that things had been taken, and blamed her. And she hadn’t disabused him of his assumption. She had either wanted to protect me or—very likely—welcomed this, her best chance at release through death.

I had taken those things knowing what the penalty might be. I just didn’t think it would lead back to Uzra. Nor did I think he would kill any of us, least of all her. It was far more in his character to deal out a brutal physical punishment and to keep his victim within his grasp, shivering in terror, wondering when Adair might decide to do it all over again. Never in a million years did I dream he would actually kill her, because I thought that, in his way, he loved her.

I dropped to the floor and held her hand, but it had gone cold already,
the soul perhaps fleeing the body more quickly in our cases, so eager for release. The terrible thing was that I had been planning my escape, mine and Jonathan’s, but hadn’t given a thought to taking Uzra with us. Even though I knew how desperately she wanted to flee, it hadn’t entered my mind to help this poor girl who had borne Adair’s sick obsession for many years, who had been so kind to me and had tried to help me navigate this house of wolves. I had taken her for granted, and the cold recognition of my selfishness made me wonder if I wasn’t Adair’s soul mate for sure.

Jonathan had followed the commotion upstairs and, on seeing Uzra’s body on the floor, wanted to burst into Adair’s chamber and have it out with him. It took both me and Dona to restrain him. “To what end?” I shouted at Jonathan. “You and Adair could pummel each other from here to the end of time and never settle it. However much you might wish to kill each other, it’s not within the power of either of you.” How I wanted to tell him the truth—that Adair wasn’t who we thought he was, that he was far more powerful and dangerous and remorseless than any of us could know—but I could not risk it. I was afraid as it was that Adair would intuit my fear.

Besides, I could not tell Jonathan my true suspicion. I knew it all, now. Those soft looks Adair gave my Jonathan, it wasn’t because Adair was planning to bed him. The covetousness he had for Jonathan ran much deeper. Adair wanted to touch that body, to fondle and stroke, to know every dip and bulge and crook not because he wanted to swive Jonathan, but because he wanted to possess him. Possess that perfect body and be known by that perfect face. He was ready to inhabit a body that truly could not be resisted.

Adair sent out instructions: we were to clear out the fireplace in the kitchen and set up a bier. The scullery girl and the cook fled as we commandeered the kitchen, and Dona, Alejandro, and I took the cooking things from the hearth of the huge fireplace. We scrubbed its blackened walls and swept out the ash. The bier was made of wooden
trestles laid with wide planks and we built a pyre in the space between the trestles, dry twigs and pinecones slathered with beef tallow for kindling, compacted straw and cured firewood for fuel. The body, wrapped in a white linen shroud, was laid on the planks.

A torch was put to the kindling, which lit easily enough. The logs took some time to catch and it was almost an hour before it had built into a great leaping bonfire. The heat in the kitchen was tremendous. Finally, the body caught fire, the shroud consumed rapidly, the fire dancing across it in streaks, the fabric curling like skin, black ash catching on the draft and spiriting up the chimney. The smell, alien and innately frightening, made everyone in the house restless. Only Adair could bear it, and he sank into an armchair pulled before the fireplace and watched the fire devour Uzra in stages: her hair, her clothing, then the skin of her downy arm before biting into the flesh. Finally, the body, heavy with moisture, began to sizzle and roast, and the smell of burning flesh filled the house.

“Imagine the stink rising over the house, out in the street. Does he not think the neighbors will smell it?” Tilde said tartly, eyes watering.

We huddled in the doorway to the kitchen, but eventually Dona and Tilde slinked off to their rooms, muttering darkly, while Alejandro and I remained outside the door to the kitchen, sunk to the floor, watching Adair.

By the time the sky outside started to lighten, the fire had burned itself out. The house now was filled with a thin gray smoke, which hung in the air, its perfume the acrid smell of wood ash. Only when the hearth was cool did Adair rise from his chair, touching Alejandro on the shoulder as he passed. “Have the ashes swept up, and scatter them on the water,” he commanded in a hollow voice.

Alejandro insisted on doing this himself, crouching inside the still warm firebox with a small willow broom and dustpan. “So much ash,” he murmured, oblivious to my presence. “All that wood, I suppose. Uzra herself cannot account for more than a handful.” At that moment, the brush touched something solid and he reached down,
searching among the silt. He found a charred nugget, a piece of bone. “Should I save this? For Adair? Someday he may be glad to have it. Such things make powerful talismans,” he mused, turning it over like a rare specimen. But then he dropped it in the pail. “I suppose not.”

Adair withdrew from the rest of us after that. He stayed in his room and the only visitor he would receive was the solicitor, Mr. Pinnerly, who rushed in the following day with a profusion of papers exploding from his overstuffed satchel. He emerged an hour later, his face as red as though he’d run a country mile. I intercepted him by the door, proclaiming concern for his flushed complexion and offering to fetch him something cool to drink.

“Most kind,” he said as he gulped down some lemonade, mopping his forehead. “I’m afraid I cannot stay long. Your master has rather high expectations of what a mere lawyer is capable of accomplishing. It’s not as though I can command time and make it dance to my tune,” he harrumphed, then noticed the papers threatening to fly out of his satchel and attended to tucking them in place.

“Oh, really? He
is
the demanding sort, but I daresay you seem clever enough to be able to pull off whatever task Adair has set before you,” I said, flattering him shamelessly. “So, tell me, what miracle does he expect of you?”

“A series of complicated transfers of money, involving European banks, some in cities I’ve never heard of before,” he said, then seemed to think better of admitting any shortcoming to a member of his client’s household. “Oh, it’s nothing, pay me no mind. I am merely frazzled, my dear. It shall be done just as requested. Never you worry your pretty head about such matters.” He patted my hand in such a patronizing manner that I wished to slap his hand away. But that would not get me what I wanted to know.

“Is that all? Moving money around? I would think a clever man like you would be able to do such a thing with just your little finger.” I punctuated my words with an obscene little gesture that involved my
own pinkie finger and an insinuation of the mouth, a gesture I had seen made by rent boys that sent an unmistakable message to most men and was certain to capture his attention. Which it did. Discretion seemed to run out of his ears like sawdust from a ruptured child’s toy and he gazed at me with his jaw dropped open. If he didn’t already suspect this was a household of bum-licking harlots, he knew for sure at that moment.

“My dear, did you just—”

“What else did Adair ask of you? Nothing, I’m sure, that will keep you busy far into the night. Nothing that would keep you from, say, entertaining a visitor …”

“Tickets on tomorrow’s coach for Philadelphia,” he said, hastily, “which I told him was quite impossible. And so I am to rent him a private livery …”

“For tomorrow!” I exclaimed. “He is leaving so soon.”

“And not taking you with him, my dear. No. Have you ever been to Philadelphia? It is an extraordinary city, much more lively in its way than Boston and not the sort of place that, say,
Mrs. Pinnerly
would be apt to visit. Perhaps I could show it to you—”

“Wait! How do you know I’m not to travel with him? Did he tell you?”

The solicitor grinned at me most salubriously. “Now, don’t fret. It’s not as though he’s running off with another woman. He’s going with a man, the happy beneficiary of all these damned money transfers. If your master were to consult me, I would advise him to simply adopt this fellow, for it would be easier in the long run—”

“Jonathan?” I asked, wanting to shake the lawyer by the shoulders to get him to stop his prattling, to pull the name from his mouth like a reticent snail from its shell. “Jacob, I mean. Jacob Moore?”

“Yes, that’s the name. Do you know him? He’s going to be a very wealthy man, I can tell you that. If you don’t mind my saying this to you, perhaps you should consider setting your sights on this Mr. Moore before word gets around … umm …” With his assumptions
of my intentions, Pinnerly had painted himself into a corner and I enjoyed watching him try to extricate himself. He cleared his throat. “That is not to say that I imagine for one second that you … and the count’s benefactor … I apologize. I believe I’ve overstepped the bounds of my position.”

I clasped my hands demurely. “I think you have.”

He handed me his glass and picked up his satchel. “Please believe me when I say I spoke in jest, miss. I trust you shan’t be going back to the count with any mention of … um …”

“Your indiscretion? No, Mr. Pinnerly. I am nothing if not discreet.”

He hesitated. “And I suppose the question of a midnight visit …?”

I shook my head. “Is out of the question.”

He gave me a strangled look, torn between regret and longing, and then sped out of the peculiar house of his most bizarre client, happy (I’m sure) to leave us behind.

It seemed that staggering sums of money were being transferred to accounts in Jonathan’s name and the fateful trip to Philadelphia would begin tomorrow. Adair was ready to make his move, which meant that time had run out for me—and Jonathan. I had to act now or spend the rest of eternity in regret.

I went to Edgar, the head butler, the one entrusted with overseeing the other servants and running affairs for the house. Edgar had a suspicious and larcenous heart, like everyone else who found a place in this household, from master through the servants, which is to say he could be depended on not to do his job very well, but only to the minimum degree necessary. It is a terrible trait in a servant if you wish to have a well-run household, but the perfect attitude for one in a house where convention and scruples have been flung out the door.

“Edgar,” I said, folding my hands primly before me like the proper lady of the house. “There is a repair needed in the wine cellar that Adair would like attended to in his absence. Please send someone to the mason’s and have a wheelbarrow of stones and a wheelbarrow of brick delivered to the basement this afternoon. I’ve already hired a
man to do the job once the count has left on his trip.” When Edgar looked at me slyly—the wine cellar had been a crumbling mess the entire time we’d been in the mansion, why the rush now?—I added, “And you needn’t trouble Adair about it; he’s getting ready for his trip. He’s entrusted me with this matter in his absence, and I expect to see it done.” I could be high-handed with the servants; Edgar knew better than to cross me. With that, I turned and strode away, to put the next step of my plan in play.

FORTY-FIVE