Blaze, p.20
Blaze, page 20
Antimacassars and doilies were so last year.
Artemis would have loved to be sitting with those selling table linens, or perhaps at Mrs. Pennyworth’s Poodle Emporium, with its little jumpers and booties for dogs. Anything was better than the sheer boredom of their table.
Rosalind Deighton, of course, had the plum spot—men’s handkerchiefs, which offered an endless stream of buyers and more than a few admirers.
“Can you imagine having a ball just for you?” Phoebe said.
“Hmm?”
“The Autumnal Ball. It’s to celebrate the season,” Phoebe said with an eye-roll, “but it’s really just to put Rosalind on the block to the highest bidder.”
“That’s unkind.”
Phoebe shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true. And despite that, I envy her. Can you imagine how beautiful the Northumberland will be? And all those gowns! I wish we were going. Not that I’m not looking forward to dinner with you and your father for your birthday. I suppose if I can’t dance with a dragoon, your father’s not a bad substitute.”
“Phoebe …”
Her smile broadened. “I wonder what he’d look like in uniform.”
Phoebe absently took another bite of biscuit and nearly choked on it when she saw a young man approaching. Quickly, she tossed the half-eaten biscuit, swallowed, and brushed the crumbs from her mouth.
Sitting up straight and putting on her most charming smile, Phoebe held up one of the colorful crocheted flowers. The young man smiled before waving to someone and veering off.
Phoebe made a sour face and tossed the flower back into its sad little bunch.
“We’re never going to get to talk to anyone our own age. Or even from the same century,” she said, forcing a smile as another old woman came by to inspect their wares. That woman, too, passed on by. Phoebe reached for another biscuit.
Artemis was bored senseless. When she’d agreed to help Phoebe with this all those weeks ago, she thought it might be fun. But this was anything but fun. She’d tried to back out, but her father insisted she keep her word, as it would hopefully keep her occupied and out of trouble while he continued to research Grey.
Grey. Knowing she shouldn’t tell Phoebe what she’d learned about him only made matters worse. The more Phoebe knew, the more she’d want to get involved. Her father had been right; it was far too dangerous to let her in.
“Everything all right?” Phoebe asked as she swallowed. “I mean other than this being the seventh circle of Hell.”
Artemis’s eyes flashed in surprise at Phoebe’s language.
Phoebe shrugged and chewed her biscuit. “Now that I know it’s a real place, all the magic’s gone from it. It might as well be Slough.” She paused in thought. “Although ‘May he rot in Slough’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?”
Artemis laughed.
Phoebe grinned and held up the biscuit tin. Artemis reached in but her fingers found nothing but crumbs.
“It’s empty,” she said.
“I think I saw some in the pantry,” Phoebe said, absently.
“I’ll get them,” Artemis told her.
She’d be happy to move around a bit. Sitting in that chair was starting to numb her backside.
“Gingerbread, if they have them!” Phoebe called out a little too loudly, garnering a few stares.
Artemis made her way through the hall, heading for the pantry. When she rounded a corner she ran headlong into a human-shaped obstacle.
“Pardon me,” she said, then froze as she realized who it was.
Edwin Grey smiled back at her.
“We meet again, Miss Schäfer,” he said, his voice as smooth as silk.
Artemis swallowed. Don’t let him manipulate you, she thought. Don’t let his voice control you. Focus.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, hoping her fear didn’t show.
Grey arched an eyebrow. “I came to see you, actually.”
Why does he want me? she thought, fearing she knew the answer all too well.
“Me?”
He smiled again and she inched backwards, bumping up against the wall.
He drew closer. Despite what her father had said—that she wasn’t what he wanted—her heartbeat quickened anyway. Why could she feel him, why did her pulse race merely from being near him?
Focus, Artemis, focus!
“Yes,” he said in a voice like velvet. “You.”
He lifted a hand to push a tendril of hair from her cheek, but she squirmed out of his reach. Unfortunately, she squirmed the wrong way, and now the path back to the main hall was blocked.
“I wish I could have you,” he said, his eyes filled with hunger. “The power of a Blaze.”
Please stay away, she thought, feeling herself falling under his thrall.
Despite not being tall or particularly broad, he radiated an energy and a power that took her breath away. “Don’t run,” he said, stepping closer.
I won’t, Artemis thought, her mind in a haze. She tried to shake out of it, taking a stumbling step back, but Grey deftly maneuvered her up against the wall again. He hadn’t even touched her, yet he seemed to be controlling her movements.
As her chest rose and fell, faster than before, he closed the distance between them. She could feel tendrils of attraction wrapping themselves around her; only by sheer will did she push them away.
Don’t give in.
“What do you want?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice.
“Just to say goodbye.”
Good, she thought, which would have to do, because the only sound she could make was a soft whimpering. Goodbye and good riddance.
Grey leaned in, his lips brushing her ear, and whispered, “Goodbye.”
A blade plunged into Artemis’s side, nicking one of her ribs. Her eyes bulged, her neck pulled taut. Her thoughts were a jumble of terror and disbelief. A strange sort of numbness came over her.
Grey stepped back, a small knife with a crystalline blade in his hand. Blood dripped from its pale, short edge. With an eerie calm, he wrapped his handkerchief around the crystal shard and slipped it back into his pocket.
“Viszontlátásra, Artemis Blaze,” he stated, and left her behind, walking casually back toward the main hall.
Artemis pressed a shaky hand to her side, and the pain raged anew. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She looked down at her hand; it was covered with blood, but not enough for her to be feeling so dizzy. Was she in shock? Or was it something else?
I’m going to die.
The pain seized her. Her entire body convulsed with a searing wave of agony, so unendurable that it stole the very breath from her body, but it passed as quickly as it had come. She gasped for air as though she’d been plunged into freezing water.
She had to get home. She had to find her father.
Placing her hand back over the wound to slow the bleeding, she staggered down the hallway and toward the exit. The world around her shifted and melted, blurred by a gauzy light. Somehow, her legs carried her forward and she walked haltingly to the door.
Someone in the crowd might have said something to her when she stumbled back into the bazaar, but she couldn’t hear them. She couldn’t think, couldn’t see. Faces stretched out as though a painter had dragged his hand across his canvas, smearing the paint into warped swaths of color.
She staggered out of the building, the late afternoon light dull and grey. Somehow, she managed to walk down the front steps without falling, then limped her way toward her carriage.
Her vision cleared for a moment. Tommy was there, his focus on a small book in his hands, but he tossed it aside as he saw her, his eyes widening with alarm.
“Miss!” he shouted as he jumped off the carriage.
Artemis opened her mouth to speak but her words were only a wheezing breath, “My father.” The last thing she remembered was Tommy’s face and then the ground rushing up to meet her.
Chapter Twenty
Victor closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d been reading for the last few hours, and his vision had gone blurry. Blinking a few times, he refocused on the book, a journal of a 16th century Benedictine monk. So far, this tome had curiously been his best source of information about the particular type of incubus he believed Grey to be. Despite the elaborate marginalia, however, the book was far from illuminating.
He reached for his tea, but it had gone cold. Out of reflex he nearly called for Mrs. Perry, but she’d gone out to visit with friends and wouldn’t be back for hours.
Returning to his book, he hadn’t read more than a few words when he heard a loud banging on the front door.
“What the bloody …” he grumbled, putting the book aside. The loud thumping came again, and he stormed down the hall. Jerking the door open, he was ready to dress down whoever had the temerity to knock so disrespectfully, but his anger faded into nothingness when he saw Tommy cradling Artemis in his arms.
“What happened?” he asked, fear chilling his gut.
That’s when he saw the blood staining his daughter’s left side. He stepped aside and let Tommy carry her in instead of helping; without knowing the extent or cause of her injuries, the less she was jostled, the better. Artemis’s head dangled backwards, and her arms swung loosely as the boy carried her across the threshold.
“My surgery,” Victor said and quickly opened the door to his office.
He led the boy to the long examination table in the back room. “Put her here.”
Tommy placed her body on the table.
“Gently!” Victor admonished. “What happened?”
“Don’t know,” Tommy said, clutching his cap.
Victor leaned over his daughter. Artemis’s face was ghostly pale, and the coldness of her flesh when he touched her cheek sent a spark of fear into his heart. His fingers pressed along her neck in search of a pulse. After torturous seconds, he found it. There, but weak.
He quickly found the slit in her dress in the middle of the blossoming stain of blood on her side. Gently, he cut the slit wider, instantly recognizing the wound for what it was.
“She’s been stabbed,” he whispered, then turned to glare at the boy who could only look on numbly.
There wasn’t very much blood, but Victor couldn’t be sure what sort of internal damage had been done. He tried to calm his mind, to remember his anatomy, but his thoughts were frantic and jumbled.
“I thought I told you to watch over her,” he said, glaring at Tommy for again before turning back to his daughter. He grasped her hand, cold and lifeless. Not lifeless, he told himself. Not yet. The occasional beat of her pulse reassured him that she was still alive.
“She was inside,” Tommy said, “and I was practicing my letters when she ….”
Her pulse was so faint.
“Get out,” Victor said.
“Sir, I—”
“Get out!” he roared with an aimless fury. Tommy bobbed his head and did as he was told.
Victor tried to slow his thoughts. The wound doesn’t appear deep and the blood loss isn’t significant, he told himself as he cut away her clothing and removed her corset.
He then gave his hands a quick chlorine wash before pouring carbolic acid on the wound to cleanse it. It wasn’t more than an inch or two deep at the most, and the bleeding was nearly under control. He’d calmed himself enough to remember basic anatomy and realized she had, blessedly, been spared any damage to her vital organs.
Yet, somehow, she still seemed near death.
With trembling hands, he quickly sutured the wound and dressed it, then touched her cheek again. Still cold. He covered her with a thick blanket and felt her head for injury, but found none. Finally, he pulled back her eyelids and gasped.
Her eyes had gone black. The beautiful pale grey was gone, replaced with all-encompassing darkness. The irises, the white sclera—all of it, black as pitch.
Fear rose in Victor’s throat. Magic. Artemis had obviously been poisoned or cursed. His mind, usually so fluid, faltered under the weight of that realization. With a force of will, he controlled his emotions and compelled himself to focus.
Black eyes. He’d read about that in one of his books, but which one? Damn it, which book? The memory came to him then, and he started toward the door, but looked back at his daughter, dying on his surgery table, before he made it out of the room.
He couldn’t leave her alone, but he had to if there was any chance of helping her. With Mrs. Perry being out, he only had one choice. He left the surgery, strode down the hall, and yelled “Tommy!” as loudly as he could as he opened the front door.
“Yes, sir,” a small voice said from behind him.
Victor spun around to see Tommy sitting anxiously on a bench on the other side of the surgery entrance. Victor approached him, and Tommy cringed. He owed the poor boy an apology for how he’d treated him, but that would have to wait.
“I need your help,” he said instead.
Tommy sprang to his feet. “What can I do, sir?”
The doctor took him by the arm and led him back into the surgery.
“I need you to watch over Artemis for me. Here,” he said, drawing the boy closer. “Take her hand like this.”
He showed the boy how to hold her wrist. Tommy’s eyes darted from the pile of torn and bloody clothes to her nearly naked body hidden beneath the blanket, but he did as he was instructed.
“Can you feel it? Her pulse?”
The boy narrowed his eyes and then nodded.
“Good. I won’t be gone long, but if you notice a change, any change, call for me immediately. I’m just down the hall.”
Tommy gave him a worried look. “Will she be all right, sir?”
Victor’s chest tightened. He wished he knew.
Artemis drifted for a moment in that fluid space between sleep and wakefulness. Slowly, she floated to the edge of consciousness and opened her eyes as she surfaced in the waking world. The green brocade of her canopy lit by the morning sun met her eyes.
Blinking against the brightness, she came fully awake. She was in her bed, but she didn’t remember going to bed. She started to sit up, but her head ached. She touched her forehead, her fingers cool and soothing against her skin.
Stifling a yawn, she managed to push herself up onto one elbow and turned toward the bedroom door as it opened. Mrs. Perry poked her head in.
“Awake at last, I see.”
“What time is it?”
Mrs. Perry just smiled and brought a tray into the room. Artemis could smell the toast and jam. She propped pillows behind her back and sat up, the prospect of breakfast making her forget her headache for a moment.
“I had the strangest dream,” she said as Mrs. Perry put the breakfast tray over her lap. “Is that gooseberry?”
They never had gooseberry jam. Her father loathed the stuff.
“It is.”
Her odd dream momentarily forgotten, she spread a liberal amount of the jam on a slice of toast and took a bite.
“Heaven,” she said, mouth half-full.
Mrs. Perry smiled in return. “How are you feeling, dear?”
Artemis swallowed and washed the toast down with a sip of juice. “I feel fine.”
She did, she realized. Her headache was completely gone and she felt better than she had in ages. Lighter somehow.
“Good.” Mrs. Perry continued to smile kindly.
“Is something wrong?” Artemis asked self-consciously.
“Oh, no, my dear. Everything is just as it should be.”
Mrs. Perry looked at her oddly before going about her usual business tidying up Artemis’s room. She picked up her discarded stockings and collected her shoes, placing the latter by the wardrobe in the corner.
“Remember, you have French lessons with Monsieur Bernard at eleven.”
Artemis nodded absently and took another bite of toast.
“Then you’re lunching with the Wright-Cooks at one.”
The Wright-Cooks? Artemis didn’t remember them. She was about to ask who they were when there was another knock on her door. An attractive woman, perhaps in her late thirties, smiled as she stepped into the room.
Artemis’s breath caught in her throat. She’d never seen this woman before, but she knew her instantly. In the depths of her heart, she knew her.
“We were wondering if you were going to join us,” the woman said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Artemis’s mouth went dry and she could barely find her voice. When she did, it was little more than a whisper.
“Mother?”
Victor’s hands shook as he pulled the book he’d been searching for from the shelf. He placed the thick volume on his desk and flipped it open, casting a quick glance toward the doorway. It had only been moments since he’d left Artemis in Tommy’s care, but each second felt like an eternity.
He rifled through the pages, searching for the chapter that tickled at the edges of his memory. Finally, he found it.
Noche Obscura Del Alma. The Dark Night of the Soul.
He quickly skimmed the text: Yeux Noir, or Black Eyes, was an extremely rare and fatal condition caused by poisoning. Small flakes of a substance known as Dante’s Glass entered the blood stream, usually through an open wound, and repressed both respiratory and autonomic systems, making death inevitable.
Victor quelled his dread and read on. There has to be something more.
In the Roman Catholic religion, the Dark Night of the Soul signified the journey of the soul from the entanglements of the physical world to a spiritual peace with the Divinity. However, death by Yeux Noir was supernatural, making for a much less certain outcome.
Some believed that the Yeux Noir was a sort of living death where the body remained but the soul did not. Victor clenched his jaw and read on. Attempted treatments included bleeding, infusions of arsenic, and a host of other remedies that varied from foolish to fatal. He quickly turned the page, and that was where the information stopped.
