Witchery: A Ghosts of Albion Novel Read online

Chapter Twelve

  You’re certain we need to make this journey after dark?” William asked, disliking the idea immensely.

  “No other way, chčr,” she replied, a grim cast to her eyes. “The house you want— the Mandeville place— you’d never find it when the sun is shining. ”

  “Some kind of spell?” Horatio asked.

  She smiled at the ghost. “Powerful spell, that’d be, hmm? But it ain’t invisible, that house. During the day, it isn’t even there. Not there at all. ”

  William grimaced and a small shiver ran through him. He liked this less with each passing minute. But he kept the purpose of this endeavor foremost in his mind. If they succeeded, at last his father would be free. For that, he would face the darkest of evils.

  There was a cluster of ramshackle buildings on the edge of the bayou that might have been a town, and there Antoinette found a young man named James Leroi, who agreed to rent them a boat so they could get out to the small island in the bayou where Mandeville had his home.

  The carriage driver had been paid handsomely to await their return up on the levee. Leroi watched uneasily as Antoinette showed William how to use the pole to propel the small boat through the water. A lantern hung from a post at the prow and cast a dim yellow glow ahead. Slowly, they made their way out of the inlet where Leroi and his family lived.

  Once out of sight, William gave a sigh of relief.

  There were oars, but he had no intention of using them.

  “That’s enough of that,” he said, and he raised his hands. A kind of silver mist began to form around them, his magic combining with the humidity of the Louisiana night.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, William?” Horatio asked.

  Out here on the bayou, there was no reason for the ghost not to manifest completely. Most people could not see him, even when he seemed so nearly solid to William. And those who might— children and madmen and artists, and of course sensitives like Antoinette— well, who would believe their claims?

  Nelson “sat” at the front of the boat.

  “What is he saying?” Antoinette asked.

  “You can’t hear him?”

  Horatio frowned. “I’m a bit surprised she can’t, actually. She saw me easily enough this afternoon. ”

  The woman perched at the rear of the boat, just a couple of feet from William. Even in the midst of the bayou, he could smell the cinnamon scent of her. Something from her incense, or a perfume in her clothes, or just the aroma of her magic. He did not know, but he fancied it.

  She shrugged. “The loa are always speaking to me. It’s difficult sometimes to hear other spirits. ”

  “He doesn’t think it’s a good idea for me to use magic to get out to your father’s house. ”

  “He may be right,” Antoinette said, almond eyes shining with lamplight. “If old Philippe senses it, he might think you’re an enemy. He collects things. You know that. All kinds of things that other magicians might want. And he guards them jealously. If the loa hadn’t whispered to me about you, told me about your father even before you told me yourself, I might not have believed you. Sure wouldn’t have helped you. ”

  William smiled. “You have no idea how grateful I am. ”

  Antoinette reached out and laid her hand over his. Her touch was warm and soft and William’s breath caught in his throat. He wanted desperately to think of Sophia, but in that moment could not summon the image of her face to his mind. Later, he was certain, he would remember that failure and be ashamed.

  “You are a good man, Mr. Swift. I feel it. The spirits know it, as well. Knowing it’s in my power to help you, I could not turn you away. That is not the way I live. ”

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Miss Morton,” William said. Reluctantly, he drew his hand away, glad that it was dark so that she would not see the way his face flushed.

  “William, I don’t mean to intrude,” Horatio said, his single, spectral hand reaching out through the night as though to pluck William away. “But might I suggest that we concentrate on the purpose of this journey?”

  With a glance back at the ghost, William nodded, feeling more than a bit foolish. He moved away from Antoinette and picked up the oars.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Might be dangerous for you to use magic out there, but the Teche is part of my world. The loa of my ancestors will carry us to my father’s house, and Yemanja, spirit of the waters, will lend her strength as well. ”

  Antoinette laid her hands across her chest and closed her eyes, a sublime smile touching the corners of her mouth. She laughed softly, as if someone had just whispered a joke to her.

  “That’s right, my friends, that’s right,” she said.

  The boat rocked once, and the water rippled around them, and then they were in motion. The wind swept across the bayou, but it wasn’t only wind that propelled them. The water itself carried them.

  For nearly half an hour the three traveled in relative silence. The foreboding darkness of the bayou at night had laid a shroud of uneasiness over the scene, and there was a sense of the power and majesty of the Teche. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds of small islands and promontories that jutted into the water. Things moved in the trees and along the shore, fish jumped in the water, and night birds called in the sky.

  The breeze across the water was cool, but the air still held much of the day’s heat, and the humidity made even the most open spaces feel closed and dank.

  In time they came in sight of a small island upon which there stood a house that seemed entirely out of place. It stood three stories high, a fine old plantation-style structure with lights burning in two of the second-story windows.

  “It’s lovely,” William said, not bothering to mask his surprise.

  “Isn’t it?” Antoinette responded happily. “But the crazy old man lives out here all alone. Had a wife once, or so my mother said. This house was built for her when they lived in New Orleans. She died before it was completed, but he settled out here anyway, with the ghosts of a family he was never going to have. I’m his only child, at least that I know of, and he barely even speaks to me. ”

  William could not tear his gaze from the incongruous dwelling.

  “Well,” he said, “let’s just hope he’s pleased to see you. ”

  Something splashed in the water not far from the boat. William glanced down, expecting to see nothing but ripples on the water where a fish had broken the surface for a moment.

  Instead, in the lamplight, he saw the desiccated face of a corpse staring back at him.

  Its hands reached up and grabbed the side of the boat, and as it began to pull, it opened its mouth and released a burbling, watery hiss that carried the stench of the grave and the swamp.

  The wind had picked up as the sun began its graceful descent. It was not a harsh wind, though its breath was as cool as the icy waters of a mountain stream. Each gust toyed with the loose strands of Millie’s hair like the playful fingers of a small child, gently lifting them.

  Millie’s sister, Constance, had pulled Millie’s long hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, letting the shorter pieces fall forward, giving a soft frame to her thin, angular face. The wreath of tiny dried roses and baby’s breath still clung to her head, though it had threatened to come loose more than once during the afternoon. She brushed the errant hairs away from her eyes, still marveling at the day.

  She, Millicent Turner, was now Mrs. Stuart Wilkie. She could hardly believe it, even as she turned her head and saw her husband sitting in the open carriage beside her. Their tasteful, but not extravagant, wedding was just the beginning of their new life together. Stuart had an income of two thousand
pounds a year, and a family estate only two miles from the town of Camelford, where her father was the magistrate.

  In the cool of the late afternoon, the long ivory satin dress she’d put on that morning, for only the third time since the initial fitting, felt delicious against her cool skin, the heavy fabric whispering against itself as she moved. As Constance had helped Millie dress, she marveled at how elegant and mature the high-necked lace collar made Millie look, and at how the satin fabric, cinched so tightly around her waist, gave her thin body the shape of an hourglass.

  As the carriage hit a bump in the dirt road, Millie reached out and took Stuart’s hand in her own. He turned and smiled at her. She returned the gesture, giving her husband a subtle looking-over in the process.

  He was a handsome enough man, she thought to herself, even if he was twenty-two years her senior. He still had a full head of hair and the majority of his teeth, for which she counted her blessings. She only hoped that she’d be able to bear him the heir he so wished for, unlike his first wife, who’d died in childbirth ten years before.

  She hadn’t given much thought to what that really meant until her mother had taken her aside at the reception, and, through clenched teeth, explained what her wifely duties would entail. If she hadn’t known her mother to be without a sense of humor, Millie would’ve thought she was joking. She could hardly believe the things that had come out of her mother’s mouth. Millie was positive that she was not going to enjoy her first night at Wilkie Manor.

  Not one little bit.

  A queer, high-pitched scream came from somewhere in the sky above them, jarring her from her thoughts. Millie looked up, but saw nothing.

  “Possibly an injured hawk,” Stuart reassured his young wife, though there was a slight edge to his smooth baritone.

  Just as she began to relax, that horrid scream came again and she shivered, hugging herself tightly. Millie craned her neck to peer up into the night sky and her mouth opened in silent astonishment. Black wraiths darted across the night, moving in a strange, circular pattern until they nearly blotted out the moonlight above the carriage.

  Stuart stood up in the open carriage, first staring up in horror and then— holding on to the seat ahead— shouting to the driver.

  “Get us to the trees!” he yelled, but his voice was almost lost amid the shrieking of the fluttering wraiths above.

  The driver cracked the reins and the horse began to gallop. Its eyes gleamed white in the darkness, wide and mad. Flecks of froth came from its lips and it neighed loudly, as though it also was terrified of those dreadful figures swirling in the sky.

  As they trundled toward the cover of the trees, one of the wraiths shot down from the sky. Stuart shouted in alarm, a curse and a prayer to God, and he reached for her.

  Too late.

  The wraith grabbed her beneath her arms with long talons that gripped painfully, and lifted her from the carriage as though she weighed no more than a rag doll. Millie screamed her throat ragged as the thing looked down at her from beneath its black hood and she saw its hideously twisted features. The chill wind whipped around her as they darted skyward.

  A hand clutched her ankle, solid and heavy. Another twisted in the fabric of her dress.

  Millie looked down to see Stuart staring up at her, eyes desperate with fear and love and dread. The thing tugged her upward, talons digging into her flesh, drawing blood that would stain her wedding dress.

  Stuart climbed onto the seat of the carriage and grabbed her around the waist. With a huge effort, he wrapped his arms around her, using himself as anchor, and then pulled.

  She screamed again as the talons sliced her shoulders and the soft flesh under her arms, but the thing lost its grip. Millie and Stuart fell back down into the open carriage together. He threw Millie to the floor of the carriage and stood above her, valiantly shielding her from the wraith with his own body. The carriage came to a bumping halt, and the horse neighed pitifully before ceasing its cries altogether.

  Millie heard the passage of one of the wraiths in the night wind, then a strange tearing sound. As she lay on her stomach with Stuart above her, she felt something hot spatter the back of her neck and arms, and then that same liquid poured down on her. She began to shake, almost rigid with shock.

  Stuart’s weight slumped full upon her for a moment, and she was pinned to the carriage floor. She stayed where she was, even as the warm stickiness covered the back of her bodice and stuck to her hair. Her gorge rose.

  The air was rent with another chorus of shrieks from the wraiths, and then Millie felt Stuart’s weight lifted from her. The sticky liquid that soaked through her clothes caught the chill of the wind, making Millie shiver. She sat up on her hands and knees to find she was alone in the carriage. As she crawled onto the seat, she froze in horror, all the air rushing from her lungs.

  Stuart lay across the driver’s seat of the carriage, his head simply gone. Weak spurts of blood pumped from the ragged stump. Bits of vertebrae and sinew jutted out.

  Millie turned and vomited over the side of the carriage. She retched for only a moment before she felt something flutter above her, and then a sharp pain radiated from her back. With the taste of her own bile still strong in her throat, she felt her body lifted up into the air.

  Below her, she saw the remains of the driver lying in the scrub grass on the side of the road, his torso flayed open from groin to gullet, viscera spilling out. His bowels lay like giant worms, steaming and hissing in the cool air.

  Millie could not breathe. Her heart thundered in her chest and then she began to hyperventilate. Black pools of darkness spread across her vision and fresh pain radiated along her right arm and in her breasts.

  She had always been a sickly child, unable to do more than sit and watch her peers through the parlor window as they played outside. Even as a young lady, she could do nothing more taxing than embroider.

  When she let her head loll back and looked up into the twisted, hideous features of the wraith that carried her into the night sky, a terror rushed through her veins like nothing she had ever conceived of. Something inside of her heart burst. The pain was sharp and blinding, and then done.

  The creature that was carrying Millie heard her final, shuddering breath, and then felt the life depart from the girl’s flesh. It held on to its prize for a few moments longer, as though unwilling to believe the girl was dead, and now useless.

  The wraith relaxed its grip, letting Millie’s corpse drop. The dead girl plummeted like a lead weight into the rushing waters of the Camel River.

  Swept away.

  SWIFT’S OF LONDON HAD BEEN EMPTY for nearly six hours when a man strode across Threadneedle Street under cover of darkness and turned down a side alley. He walked briskly, keeping an even pace, his hands thrust far down into his coat pockets. He kept watch, but the alley was empty this time of night. Only the wind blew through these byways after the city had gone to sleep.

  He glanced around surreptitiously before using a large iron key he pulled from his inside coat pocket to open the side door, and then he slipped through.

  The lights were off, but the man had no difficulty navigating the bank in the darkness. He moved with feline grace through the grid of small wooden tellers’ desks, his body never brushing anything but air.

  At the metal half-gate that separated the tellers from the entrance to the vaults, he paused and reached for the lock. Opening it was simple. At the vaults he used another key to open the solid metal door that was the first line of defense in protecting the valuables Swift’s of London housed for its clientele.

  He slid the key into the lock, and waited for the click. When he heard it, he pushed the door open. Once inside the long dark hallway that housed the three largest vaults, the man lit a wall sconce and the flame flickered up, illuminating the corridor and filling it with dancing shadows.

 
At the first vault he ran his hands along the smooth door. He let his gloved fingers find their way to the combination dial, caressing the indentations before closing his hand over it. The dial spun quickly, making a small whirring noise as it turned. He waited until he heard an answering click and then stopped and spun the dial in the opposite direction. Once again, he waited for the click before spinning it again.

  In but a few moments, he had the vault open.

  He stepped inside and walked to the first cabinet, immediately locating the drawer that was his target. Within the drawer, he found two objects, each wrapped in its own silk bag. Removing them from their nests, he weighed them both with his hands, then slipped one of the objects back into its bag and returned it to the drawer. The other he placed in his coat pocket, the weight of the thing pulling his jacket down on one side.

  He slid the drawer closed and departed.

  In the foyer, a beam of moonlight fell through the open door, a path of light through the darkness of the empty bank. The man glanced back the way he’d come, feeling triumph at a job well done. He had breached the security of the bank almost seven times since his work had begun. Each time he had become more adept at his job, taking less time to complete his theft.

  Back out in the alley, he strode quickly along the cobblestones as the door closed behind him. When he reached Threadneedle Street he turned right, disappearing into the night.

  Unseen.

  CHRISTINE LINDSAY LIVED WITH her grandfather, Bertram, above the tobacconist’s shop he owned, two blocks from the Mason’s Arms along the main street of Camelford. The smell of tobacco was in everything, the curtains and bedspread, the sheets, even her clothes. Her grandfather had lost the ability to detect the smell before she was born, but Christine was not so fortunate. It seemed to her that she would never get it out of her nose.

  She had never known her mother, and her father had been trampled by horses when she was twelve years old. Her grandmother had passed only a month later, her poor heart unable to take the strain of losing her only son. It was just Christine and Grandad Bert, now, and though he was a wizened, crotchety old sod, she loved him to distraction.

  They slept only a little in the Lindsay home. The pains of age kept Grandad awake. More often than not he dozed in a chair half the night and woke in the wee hours of the morning, long before the sun would rise. He was always careful to be as quiet as an old man could be, though invariably the smoke from his pipe would fill the house with its pungent, acrid smell, and Christine would come half awake and lie there for a time until exhaustion overtook her again.

  She had been up late last night. Frankie Turner, the farrier’s son, had taken a fancy to her from the moment she began working as a barmaid at the inn, and the boy had been pressing his attentions upon her ever since. At first she had been put off by his ardor, but in the ensuing months he had matured nicely and developed a self-deprecating humor that she found charming. If he had also grown more handsome and his body more manly in that time, well, all the better.

  So last night, behind the stables, she had at last allowed him to reach beneath her skirts and touch her in the most intimate of ways. The mere memory of it had made sleep difficult, and she had woken from delicious dreams more than once to find her own hand pressed between her legs.

  Christine buried her face in her pillow, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, only vaguely aware of the darkened bedroom around her and the sheet that had become tangled about her. A night breeze cooled her skin, a sweet respite from the summer heat that the morning would soon bring. All told, she had managed only a couple of hours’ sleep thus far, but she didn’t have to work until nearly noontime, and her grandfather would indulge her if she decided to sleep in.

  Exhaustion embraced her again and she began to drift off, there in the darkness on the soft bed that had once been her father’s.

  Her eyelids fluttered, and then her forehead creased in a frown.

  The rich, earthy smell of the smoke from Grandad Bert’s pipe filled the air. Either he was up even earlier than usual, or it was later than Christine thought. Could it be after four already?

  Reluctantly, she forced herself to turn and look out the window. The trees behind the house were silhouettes against the night. The sky had indeed begun to lighten, just slightly. It was still dark, but tinged with an indigo blue that hinted at the coming of morning. Another night she would have been reassured, but with so little sleep, Christine groaned at the sight.

  The branches of the trees were blacker than black, just shadows against the indigo sky. A cascade of stars gleamed far, far above, but some of their brilliance was muted now that sunrise was only a short time away.

  Christine took a deep breath, relished the coolness of the breeze, and resettled herself upon the mattress, her cheek against her pillow as though it were her lover’s chest. Again she thought of young Frankie Turner and the dexterity of his fingers.

  A smile stole across her lips and she sighed to herself with satisfaction, and anticipation as to what the coming days would bring. With the smoke from her grandfather’s pipe swirling through the house on the night breeze, she began to drift off once again.

  The tiniest of noises disturbed her.

  Christine frowned but did not open her eyes. Not yet. It was too early for the songs of morning birds, and this was no sound so sweet as that, in any case. Rather, it had been a kind of rasp.

  It came again, and this time she lifted her head and turned once more toward the window. Nothing had changed. The wind must have caused the window to slip in its frame somehow. That had been it— a squeak, not a rasp. Outside, the tree branches moved in the breeze, some of them full and green, but several others bare, shaking like spindly, skeletal fingers.

  One of them swayed and touched the glass, scraping against it as if it were some haunt, trying to get in.

  In her bed, Christine shivered in spite of herself. The coolness of the night was no longer delicious. She reached down for her bedspread and pulled it up to cover her, turning away from the window. Foolish, she knew. It was only the wind, and the branches, and she wasn’t a child, to be frightened of such things.

  But it had been far too long since anyone had been there to comfort her in the night, and sometimes it was frightening— the dark, and the unknown things that lurked out there in the gloom. She shuddered, and then laughed softly into her pillow.

  “Silly cow,” she whispered. “Now you’re only scaring yourself. ”

  Again there came the scrape of the branch against the glass, and this time she started, twitching beneath the spread. Her eyes were wide open and her heart pounded. There would be no more sleep this night. As ridiculous as she felt, she was pleased that morning was not far off. She tried to lose herself in the familiar, safe aroma of her grandfather’s pipe.

  A thump against the wall, and she turned.

  Nothing had changed. Still those spindly branches wavered in the wind.

  Christine frowned. She had been half asleep before, but it was midsummer. None of the branches should have been so bare.

  Even as the thought struck her, the skeletal fingers reached out and rapped the glass again, and cracks spiderwebbed through it. Another branch— a dark, spindly hand, black as night— grabbed hold of the windowsill, and then the wraithlike figure rose up as though flying, and began to slip inside.

  The branches rustled again, and a second wraith appeared, then a third.

  Christine went rigid, muscles taut with fear, eyes wide as she tried to see the faces of the things, to see beyond the veil of night that seemed to shroud them. She thought she would vomit, but when she opened her mouth what came out was a scream of utter terror, a shriek that scraped her throat raw and resounded throughout the house.

  Then they were upon her, cold fingers wrapping around her arms and legs, covering her mouth, muffling her wail but not her terro
r. They dragged her from the bed and her head struck the floor with a crack and she slid toward the window. The chill from their fingers went to the bone. She had never felt so cold.

  She tried to scream again but no sound escaped her. The breath she drew was ragged and painful, and a tear slid down her cheek as she struggled to give voice to the frantic horror within her, the knowledge that the darkness had taken form and that death seemed only seconds away.

  They lifted her and swept her out the window, and in the final moment before they shot across the sky with her in their clutches, sliding across treetops and into the indigo hour before dawn, Christine looked back at her bedroom window and saw her grandfather standing just within, staring after her. Summoned by her scream, he could only watch as the spindly darkness carried her off. He gripped his pipe in one hand and laid the other across his heart, his mouth open in silent anguish.

  Her last glimpse allowed her to see him stagger against the cracked glass and begin to slide toward the floor, still clutching his chest, his old man’s heart.

  Then the air seemed stolen from her lips and she was swept up and up and up into the darkness, and unconsciousness stole over her and dragged her down into perfect, starless night.

  TAMARA CAME AWAKE ABRUPTLY, without the pleasant preamble of feline stretching and growing awareness that normally accompanied her each morning. Her eyes simply opened and she found that her senses were alert, as though awaiting some stimulus that her conscious mind had yet to recognize.

  It took her a moment to recall that she was in Camelford, that this room was at the Mason’s Arms, and the familiarity of Ludlow House was far, far off in distant London.

  A heavy knock sounded upon the door, three solid thumps. She frowned and sat up. Clearly this had been what had roused her. Whoever had disturbed her, this was not their first attempt.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Farris, Miss Tamara,” came the answer.

  From the slant of light through the window, it was still quite early. She rose and pulled her robe around her and went to the door, where she drew back the bolt and opened the door so that Farris could enter.

  His expression was troubled.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Farris glanced at the door, but did not speak until she had closed it and thrown the bolt again.

  “News, miss, and of the unpleasant variety, I’m sorry to say. There’s two gents downstairs I gather are what amounts to the local constabulary. Peelers they ain’t, that’s plain from the look of ’em. Don’t suppose Sir Robert’s influence has reached this far as yet. But there’s a jail in town, and that means there’s them what decides what crimes earn a man time within its walls. ”

  Tamara stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “Farris, please, I’ve just woken and all I hear are riddles. If trouble has brought the police to the inn, I presume you’ve discovered the purpose of their visit. ”

  The grim-faced man nodded. “That I have. I’m afraid another girl’s been taken, miss. Only hours ago. And it appears there’ve been others murdered as well, a couple on the night of their own wedding. The magistrate’s daughter, she was. Her and her new groom and their driver. ”

  The words were a dagger to Tamara’s heart. The days were passing too quickly. The clock was ticking toward the solstice— only five days remaining now— and she was no closer to discovering who had abducted the missing girls. All she had were rumors and legends, nothing more. Yet here another girl was gone, and three people dead, and what had she to show for her efforts? Nothing at all. She could only hope that Richard Kirk’s mystic rapport with his sister was real, and not something that only existed in the young man’s head. That the missing girls truly were still alive, and would be kept alive until the solstice.

  Even so, she was the Protector of Albion. The idea that another girl had been stolen away by night in Camelford and three people murdered under her very nose did not sit well with her at all.

  “The missing girl,” she said, already turning toward the dressing table in her room. “Did you overhear her name?”

  “I’m afraid so. ”

  Farris’s tone gave her pause. She turned to him again.

  “What is it?”

  “We know her, miss. It was the barmaid, Christine, the one you told me you spoke to at tea yesterday afternoon. ”

  Tamara’s stomach tightened and she thought she might be sick. She had a clear picture of the girl’s face in her mind, the red hair, the spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Christine had been kind to her, and now she was in the hands of some dark power that meant to take her life.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “I won’t allow it.

  “Go back downstairs,” she continued. “See what else you can learn from the constables. I shall dress and be down momentarily. ”

  After Farris had departed, Tamara attended to her toilette as quickly as she could manage. Though she disliked relying upon magic for such simple things— believing that the power of the Protector of Albion was best reserved for more weighty tasks— she sped herself along by using an enchantment on her hair. It would have taken forever to pin it up so that it would be presentable, and she had no time to spare.

  Less than twenty minutes after Farris had left her room, Tamara smoothed her skirt and descended the front steps of the Mason’s Arms. There was no sign of Farris, the innkeeper, or the constables. Several guests were clustered together near the entrance to the bar, but that room was dark at this time of the morning. They whispered together, and Tamara was certain they were gossiping about the arrival of the policemen, and the troubles afflicting Camelford.

  With these new murders, she wondered how many of the inn’s guests would still be in town come evening, and wagered with herself that the number would be few. There seemed half as many travelers at the Mason’s Arms yesterday as there had been the day before that, and it seemed likely others would now hasten their departure.

  Tamara saw one of the whispering guests glance past her, toward a narrow corridor. She went that direction and came upon a door that hung open several inches. Male voices issued from within. She paused to listen, and then heard instead a low, sharp hiss from her left.

  Farris had made the noise to get her attention. He beckoned to her from just inside a small room across the hall. She joined him quickly and stepped inside, glancing toward the other room only once before secreting herself with Farris in what seemed to be a small library.

  “I presume the voices in that room must be those of the two constables and our innkeeper,” she said in a hushed voice.

  Farris nodded. “The very gentlemen, miss. I’m afraid I haven’t learned much I hadn’t already heard, save an additional bit of tragedy. A local boy’s just brought word that Miss Lindsay— the barmaid, that is— her grandfather’s passed on, and it seems he was her only kin. ”

  Her heart sank. Even if she was able to save Christine now, the girl would be coming back to a different life, one without any family at all. When her own grandfather had been killed, and her father had been afflicted by the demon Oblis, Tamara at least had William to comfort her.

  Suddenly she missed her brother terribly. But she could not let the ache of her own desire distract her from the horrors at hand here in Camelford, and in the forest around the town.

  “Nothing more?”