Boneseeker (23 page)

Stygian steps forward, black eyes narrowed. “When was the last time you
saw her, Mr. Watson?”

I swallow. “Last night. We both turned in early.”

Stygian’s smile is icy; his black eyes like a reptile.

“What time, last night?” Stygian’s voice isn’t threatening, it’s almost cordial.

Which somehow makes him more frightening. He’s truly unhinged, relishing the cat and mouse.

I don’t answer, but don’t drop my gaze.

“It seems a hand saw you enter Miss Holmes’ room at a most inappropriate hour.” He smiles.

My mind whirls. Lie? Truth? Lie?

I was only there for a moment, to check on her.

“I was concerned for her safety. I went to her room and found it foolishly unlocked.”

“Is that so?”

Every eye in the room is adhered to my face. I think of father, and Holmes. I’ve seen them interrogated many times. I smooth my expression to what I hope is unreadable calm.

I nod. “Yes. I left her room around 3 a.m.”

A vein pops in Stygian’s forehead; the anger finally cracking through his carefully crafted façade.

“Then
you
are a suspect, Mr. Watson. I suggest you remain at the farm till Miss Holmes whereabouts are confirmed.”

I open my mouth to swear, but father shakes his head. I snap it shut and grind my teeth together.

Stygian motions to the men and six follow at a wave of his hand. He turns back before heading out into the morning air.

Stygian’s voice lowers. “I do hope for your sake, Mr. Watson, you are telling the truth, and your visit was not merely to slake your own lust.”

He steps outside. I lunge for the back of his jacket.

Father grabs my hands, pinning them at my sides. I struggle, but am astounded at his strength. He wrestles me into the parlor.

“Henry! Compose yourself. We must find Arabella.” His face is corpselike.

My mind is running again, along with my feet. I pace before him. I fight the buzz of panic, but it grows louder.

Father jabs his cane in front of my chest, halting my pacing.

“Henry. Stop. Think. Where would she go?”

I close my eyes, block my feelings, summon the facts.

I bound up the stairs toward her room, hearing father’s hurried, cane-step-step, behind me.

I wrench open her armoire as he arrives in the doorway.

For a moment, we’re completely quiet, both our eyes darting in assessment. Déjà vu flashes. It’s as if he’s present.

Holmes in pursuit
. I can almost see the amber of his pipe, the smell as he tugs on it. And for once, I fervently wish him here.

I picture him in his study. I wonder if he senses it, like some intuitive bloodhound…knows she’s in danger?

I speak first, breaking the trance. “Her boots are gone.”

I know Arabella would never leave volitionally without the armed boots and the parasol.

“Yes, but she still could’ve been taken. They could’ve unknowingly forced her to put them on,” father suggests.

I duck my head inside the armoire, and bury my hands in Arabella’s clothes; the smell of her wafts through the air, distracting me.

“She dressed. She wore her black riding pants.” I sigh in almost relief.

“Here’s her nightdress.” Father lifts it with his cane. “If someone snatched her, they wouldn’t have given her time to dress.”

My eyes dart so quickly I’m dizzy; my hands rifling through the bottom of her closet.

“Her parasol is gone. That settles it. She left on her own accord.”

“Pardon?” Father feigns ignorance.

“You know precisely the parasol.”

He ignores my statement. “Where would she go, Henry?”

I fly past him, grasping his forearm as I pass.

“I think I know. Hurry, Father.”

We fly out the back door, in the opposite direction of Stygian’s search party.

###

We enter the wood’s mouth. Father is bent over, scrutinizing, doing his best to follow Arabella’s boot prints which occur every few feet in the mud.

Thunder rumbles overhead, and the tap, tap, tap of rain hits my hat. “Blast. We’ll lose the trail.”

“Hurry, Henry.”

I jog ahead, keeping well off her footprints, and slip on the new mud. I stumble and my hand shoots out and I right myself into a half-crouch.

I stare down at my hand, half-hidden in the grass.

My heart trips, halting like a gasp. Then surging quickly, catching its breath, its beat pounding fiercely in my ears.

My foot is dwarfed by a massive footprint. The same as the day Arabella and I saw the giant in the woods.

“Father!”

He hurries to my side, our eyes snaking along Arabella’s trail.

Father swallows. I squint my eyes, and see it too.

Her footprints becoming further apart. At the same time as the giant’s appear.

“She’s running.”

Father’s eyes leap over her prints and he nods.

I bolt along the trail, ruining half of it in my haste.

“Henry! Slow down.” I know he means more than my pace. He means my mind. Think.

I cannot. My legs and panicking heart are in control.

I fly, my long legs quickly leaving father behind. I automatically sweep the area, searching for danger and draw the pistol. Will it stop such a mountain of flesh?

At least I sincerely hope he’s flesh.

If a bullet doesn’t halt him, hand to hand will be a quick death for me.

My boots slide to a halt, skidding into the trail, ruining the prints. Holmes would mortally cane me
.

I suck in a breath.

They are gone
. No Arabella prints.

I run ahead.
Nothing.
No giant prints, either. Vanished.

###

Henry

I close my eyes, trying to think, to reason.

I stare back at the trail in the muddy ground.

Veering to the right, I encircle the spot where Arabella’s footprints disappear.

Further away, the giant’s singular trail reappears, heading toward the woods.

“He must be carrying her. Father!”

He arrives, only slightly out of breath. “What is it?”

I point with the pistol, and don’t need a word. He understands in a blink.

“I will head into the woods, after the giant’s trail. I’ll fire twice in the air if there’s trouble.”

Father hurries into the tree-line and disappears.

I begin to circle again, searching for anything that will prove me wrong.

I see it.
A blot of red, halfway across the field.

My legs pump, but the world has slowed, spinning awkwardly on its axis, making my dash feel a crawl.

Panic-induced images flood my brain. Arabella spread-eagle on the ground, blood trickling from the side of her mouth.

I groan and grit my teeth and dash faster.

I arrive at the red splotch.

It’s her handkerchief. I bend and snatch it, turning it over in my hands.

No blood.

“Henry?”

My name on the wind congeals with a shriek.

A high pitched keen, like a woman in pain, sounds to my right. From the tree line.

I spin, my eyes squinting, trying to see into the woods. My legs tense to sprint as the otherworldly cry sounds again.

I cock my head and I see it.

It’s a fox; my head whips back toward the trail. It sniffs the air and our eyes meet for a brief second before it disappears in a red-brown streak.

But a fox cannot speak my name. Was it my desperate imagination?

My lungs fill as I hold my breath, listening.

Foxes sound like women.

Like a woman being murdered when they’re in distress
.

The hair rises on my arms, lifting each hair like a wildfire, spreading to the back of my neck.

“Help.”

It’s muffled. The fox cries again from the woods and hair prickles up my neck.

I bolt back to the trail, turning in useless circles.

“Arabella?” I speak in a normal tone, not wanting to bring the giant or Stygian.

“Henry.”

“Where are you?”

“Henry, look down.”

The sound issues below me, seemingly under my feet?

I drop to my knees, placing my ear against the wet earth.

“Henry.” It’s louder now, directly under me.

My hands trace the grass, feeling and probing.

My fingertips feel the end of a large board, covered completely with grass and dirt. If not for the rain, I might’ve noticed it, but the mud slick hides it most effectively.

Tunnels. I think of the mine-shaft. Many tunnels and rooms like catacombs, all leading to the underground river.

My fingers slide beneath the edges and I heave back the board as my breath shudders out.

Bella’s face stares up, meeting mine. The underground room is large, an old mine. Similar to the one which housed the hand.

My eyes trip over every inch of her, searching for injury. I exhale.

She’s fine, just filthy. Her chest rapidly rising and falling.

“Are you alright?”

She closes her eyes and takes deep breaths, staring pointedly into the column of light illuminating her face. “Better. I can see the sky now.”

She’s surrounded by skeletons. Giant. Skeletons.

And mounds of ash?

Her voice shakes, “It
is
a burial ground. But these skeletons have been moved Henry. Someone is hiding them here. This mine was not their original resting place.”

I smile. Her pick and brush and tape measure and her sifter are lit by her lantern. She has actually been examining the skeletons, while trapped. I shake my head.

“How did you get down here?”

“I fell in, actually. The board was not in place, and I was running.”

“From the giant?”

“Yes. Actually in pursuit of the giant. He did the most curious thing. His huge head appeared in the hole, and he put his fingers to his lips to quiet me. And then replaced the board—effectively incapacitating me.”

I catalogue the info, but shove it aside. “We have to get you out of there.”

Arabella’s tiny hand points toward the dark. “They’re more tunnels, connected. There’s a huge rock, half-blocking the exit. I’ll bet one leads to the cavern where we found the hand.”

“Then there might be gases. You need to get out.” I whip open my pack and scrabble around inside, searching for a rope.

“Listen to me, Henry.” The urgency of her voice makes me drop the rope and I meet her gaze.

“What do you remember about Dr. Klink?”

My mind searches for details about the first set of antiquarians…the ones who disappeared. The lost four.

“He was a smallish sort of man.”

Arabella stamps impatiently. “His defining characteristic.”

“A gold tooth.”

Arabella opens her hand. In the center of her soot-stained palm, a golden incisor shines.

“What?”

My eyes dart around the mine in horror.

Two smaller skeletons lie alongside the giants. I assumed they were children.

I see now it’s a trick of perspective. They are normal sized men, but appear childlike next to the giant skeletons. They are also in an earlier state of decay than their larger counterparts.

Arabella’s open palm is shaking, the gold tooth reflecting little sparks of light into the dark.

“T-they burned his body. This ash pit broke my fall.” She drops her eyes and shudders. “The dead broke my fall. I’ve been sifting through their remains for a quarter hour. They must’ve been interrupted, and just stashed it all here, till they could finish the job properly.”

She paces, counting, “Marston and Sully in the river, Klink, burned and buried…and perhaps Archival left to dissolve in the vat.”

A new fear dawns in my chest. We are in grave danger here. Completely exposed.

My head jerks up towards the tree line.

Dog barks ring through the wood. The search party is drawing near.

“I know Stygian is in on it.” She swallows reflexively. Like she does when she’s hiding something.

How?”

“His ring, Henry. I got a good look when he took it off at the phrenology lecture. It had an
R-
on it. I couldn’t remember why it looked familiar. And then I dreamt about it. Last night.”

“What? I don’t understand?”

“The scar on the giant’s face. It was half of Stygian’s ring. Like he heated it and branded the poor fellow. But he must’ve fought back, resulting in only a half of the crest on his cheek.

My mind flashes to the giant’s cheek. “Yes. You’re bloody brilliant, Arabella.”

“And what Jimmy told me.”

“What? When did you see Jimmy?”

“Never mind. Listen. He said Stygian was an assumed name, and he was trying to get his father to join this ‘Brotherhood of the Revolution’. I think Stygian’s just moved L’uomo Deliquente here, and is recruiting under another name. He has been at the sausage factory. I think we have him. I would’ve told you yesterday, but since the river my mind isn’t functioning properly. And it’s even worse now.”

“Arabella, you need to get out of that ruddy hole. And what do you mean it’s worse now?”

“I believe all the first team had the ring Henry; they were part of the society. But they must’ve changed their minds. Perhaps they found something that would alter their belief.”

A trickle of red snakes down her shoulder. “Bella, you’re bleeding.”

“I.” She hesitates, swallowing, then pulls her hand from behind her back like a guilty child. “I am injured, Henry.”

So much blood. Her hand is covered in crimson. My eyes race over every inch of her. “Where is that coming from?”

She reluctantly turns and the fear
explodes
, pounding my heart like a war-drum.

The back of her head. Her hair is
matted
in blood.

“I struck my head. My pictures,” she points to her temple, “inside my head. They’ve slowed and are blurry. I am not reasoning as I normally do. It’s as if someone sawed open my cranium and poured in molasses.”

“Arabella. Now, the rope.”

She waves the comment away. “Listen! There’s more.”

I feel the cold sweat erupt. “Grab that rope!”

Her voice cracks. “Oh, Henry, too much more.” She pockets the tooth and snatches up a long bone in her hand.