Playing With Fire (3 page)

I dared not peer over the edge. I didn't want to see. Those screams…

A hand clutched the top rung of the ladder. Clean hands with reddened fingers.

I raced to the trench and lay down on my stomach. I didn't care about dirtying my clothes. I grasped Jack's hands, then his forearms and finally his face as he emerged.

I kissed him hard on the lips. All of my relief at seeing him alive and unharmed poured out of me through that kiss. I held his face, caressed his hair, and cried pathetically.

Until the heat inside became too much. Jack pulled away first with a groan. His face was flushed and sweat dotted his hairline. I'd forgotten that he must already have been hot from using his fire. Heat also swirled within me and raced along my veins. It wasn't unbearable, but it was decidedly uncomfortable.

Samuel's boots appeared beside me. He helped me to stand and offered his hand to Jack. Jack took it and emerged fully from the trench. He glanced around while Samuel looked down.

"Poor man," Samuel muttered. "No, Hannah," he said when I went to peek. He steered me away from the trench. "Don't look."

My stomach rolled anyway. My imagination was vivid enough to visualize all the horrible things that could have happened to the remaining workman.

Jack looked past us toward the woods. "Take her into the house and lock the doors."

"Why?" I asked. "Jack, what…what was in the dungeon?"

He fixed his gaze on me, and I shivered. The horror of what he'd just witnessed was reflected in his eyes. It chilled me to the bone, and I did not usually feel cold. "It wasn't like anything I've ever seen before."

"Describe it."

He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at the trench. "Take her, Gladstone. Don't let anyone out."

I would have pressed him for details, but he did not look in a mood to give any. "What about you?" I asked. "Aren't you coming?"

"It needs to be stopped."

"You can't do it! Not on your own. Go for the police. Tell them—"

"What? That a creature that no one but me could see killed a man after it escaped from our hidden dungeon? They won't believe me." He glanced at the woods again. "They're not equipped to catch that thing anyway."

"Neither are you!" I was crying and shaking. All I wanted to do was hold him in my arms and breathe in his scent, but I couldn't. Our bodies forbade such touches. I couldn't even talk some sense into him. He had such a look of determination that I knew nothing I could say would convince him to come with me.

"Hannah," he murmured, caressing my hair near my face. It was the closest we could be at such moments without feeling like we'd combust. "Hannah, go inside. I'll be fine. You know I will."

I bit my cheek to hold back the tears. They welled anyway. "I know nothing of the sort."

He almost smiled at that. "Don't make me order Samuel to drag you into the house. It would be very unbecoming. The servants will talk."

I clicked my tongue. "You are so stubborn, Jack Langley."

"Said the queen of stubbornness."

"I won't be dragging her anywhere," Samuel cut in. "I'm coming with you."

"No," Jack said.

"Hannah's right. You can't do this alone."

"I have to.
You
can't see it. I can."

"And why is that?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't know. All I know is you'll be more of a liability than an asset. My fire protected me and scared it away, but next time it may not be frightened off so easily. If it catches you…" He swallowed hard and glanced at the trench. "When it came out, it went straight for the worker. I tried a small fire in the hope he wouldn't be too harmed, but it wasn't enough to stop the creature…devouring him."

I pressed my hand over my mouth as bile rose to my throat. Devouring?

"When it finished, it came at me. I threw the most powerful fireball I could, and it fled. So you see, I can't protect both myself and you. Stay in the house, Gladstone. Keep everyone calm. I'll be back soon."

Samuel offered me his arm and I took it. My heart thumped against my ribs. This was madness. Our pleasant morning had been shattered, a man was dead, and Jack was about to chase the murdering creature into the woods. I felt like Alice walking through the looking glass into another, stranger world.

"Be careful," I said, rather pathetically.

"Aren't I always?"

I watched him go. He turned back when he reached the edge of the woods and pointed at the house. Samuel made me walk off with him.

"I don't know how I'll keep calm while we wait," I said.

"I do. You can tell me how Langley made fire dance across his fingers, and why you felt hot just now. I think my hand got singed as I assisted you to stand."

All the workmen had disappeared from the scaffolding, no doubt leaving when they saw their colleagues running away. Once inside, we locked the door, and I went straight to the service area and asked Mrs. Moore the housekeeper and Tommy the footman to join me in the small room she used as her office.

"Is this to do with the shouting?" Mrs. Moore asked. "Maud came to me and said she heard the builders when she was down that end of the house."

I closed my eyes. The screams still rang in my ears and sent fresh shivers through me. The phrase blood-curdling came to mind, but it didn't capture the sheer terror threaded through that scream, or my visceral reaction to it.

"There's been a wild dog attack on one of the builders," I said. "Mr. Jack Langley is looking for the animal to…ensure it doesn't happen again."

"A wild dog?" Tommy said, frowning. "What sort of dog?"

I gave my head a slight shake to curb his questions. Tommy was an old friend of Jack's. He knew all about our fire starting and as such would probably accept that sometimes inexplicable things happened. Mrs. Moore and the other servants were simple villagers. I didn't want to send them into hysterics by telling them an invisible creature ate a man.

Both orphans, Jack and Tommy had grown up on the streets of London together, until August Langley had found his nephew and brought him to Frakingham House. Then aged fourteen, they would not be separated, so Tommy was given a position as footman.

He'd helped us in our fight against Reuben Tate two weeks earlier, and because of that, the barrier of social class had slipped a little, but only at rare moments. Most of the time, Tommy performed his duty with a footman's blank stare and perfect manners. This was not one of those times. His eyes widened slightly and he acknowledged my reticence with a small nod.

Mrs. Moore's wrinkles scooped together into a frown. "Is the builder all right? Does he need medical assistance?"

I lowered my head and heard her gasp of horrified understanding. "Don't frighten the other servants," I told her. "But don't let them out either. Not until Mr. Jack Langley says it's safe. Tommy, fetch Olsen from the stables. Take a weapon with you for protection. On second thoughts, take a burning piece of wood from one of the fireplaces. It doesn't seem to like fire."

He gave me another nod of understanding.

"When you return, bring tea to the parlor."

Tommy and Mrs. Moore left. I went straight to the parlor where I found Sylvia arguing with Samuel near the fireplace. Her face was pink and flushed, her fists closed at her sides as if she were holding back from pummeling the answers out of poor Samuel. He eyed her with a rather alarmed look on his face. He'd never seen Sylvia in a temper. Ordinarily she was serene and meek, perfectly content to embroider or read in the parlor by the fire, but that composure could crack under pressure. Sometimes I wondered if her dainty politeness was just a mask she'd spent years perfecting and a formidable persona lurked beneath.

"Tell me!" she ordered Samuel.

"Sylvia," I said. "Come and sit down until the others arrive. Where is your uncle?"

"He's on his way. I know something is terribly wrong, Hannah. You locked all the doors and Samuel keeps looking out the window." She glanced past me to the door. "Where's Jack?"

"I'll explain in a moment. Let's wait for your uncle and Tommy."

"Tommy?" The fight left her, and she plopped down on the sofa beside me as if her legs had given way. "Where is he?"

"Fetching Olsen from the stables."

"You're terrifying me now, Hannah. Why does Olsen need to be inside the house? Was it wise for Tommy to go out at all?"

I wanted to assure her everything would be all right, that Jack, Tommy, Olsen, everybody would waltz into the parlor soon and all would be well. But I couldn't form the words. I held her hand and said nothing. It didn't help. She was a tightly coiled rope, trembling with tension.

The strained silence was broken by August Langley's arrival, wheeled in by Bollard. He took over the interrogation that Sylvia had let slide.

I held up my hand to stop him. "Wait for Tommy."

August Langley wasn't used to taking orders from others, and it showed in his pursed lips and flared nostrils. I didn't know why Langley was wheelchair-bound. I suspected it was due to an accident that had occurred when he worked with Tate in their laboratory. Both men were microbiologists, and eight years ago they sold a highly sought-after remedy for a great deal of money. Langley had bought Frakingham House with the proceeds, while Tate had squandered his portion. Langley continued to work on new drugs, assisted by Bollard, his valet. His research had been curbed of late after the fire destroyed his rooms and much of his equipment.

Bollard stood behind Langley just inside the doorway. The mute servant stared ahead as if he were oblivious to the tension in the room. But I knew he was listening and wondering. He might not talk, but he could hear perfectly well. I suspected he wasn't as indifferent as he appeared.

Fortunately Tommy arrived, putting an end to Sylvia and Langley's frustration. All eyes turned to Samuel and me. Together we told them what we'd seen and heard, and how Jack was now looking for the…thing.

Tommy was the first to speak when we finished. "So what is it?"

Langley frowned, clearly annoyed that the footman had forgotten his place. Tommy seemed not to notice.

I shook my head. "I don't know. For now, I think we should tell the servants it's a wild dog. We shouldn't alarm them."

"A wise decision," Langley said, giving a nod of approval.

"So why was Jack the only one who could see it?" Sylvia asked.

I shrugged. The question had been bothering me too, but there was simply no reasonable explanation.

Samuel cleared his throat. "Perhaps it has something to do with being able to start fires with nothing but his fingers." His eyebrows lifted pointedly at me. "Would someone like to explain that?"

We'd managed to hide our fire starting ability from him so far. It wasn't that I was ashamed of it or worried that he'd label us as freaks, but there had simply never been a good time to tell him.
'By the way, Jack and I can start fires with our minds'
didn't seem like a suitable start to dinnertime conversation.

"It's something he was born with," I said. "At least, we think he was born with it. He can't recall a time when he couldn't set things alight with a point of his fingers. I'm able to do it too, just not at will. Mine is linked to my temper. It makes life…interesting."

Samuel snorted and began to laugh. When he saw that none of us laughed too, it died on his lips. "You're serious," he said flatly.

I nodded.

"I'll try not to anger you then."

"A wise decision."

"Who else knows? The servants?"

"Nobody else," Langley said. "Tell a soul, and you won't be living here any longer, Mr. Gladstone. We don't need the extra attention."

"We have quite enough of it already," Sylvia agreed. "Some people call this place Freak House, you know."

"So I've heard. That's not because of the fire starting?"

"No. There are other freakish things to keep them satisfied." She didn't have to look at Bollard and Langley for everyone to know whom she meant. Everyone except Bollard and Langley, that is. Having a mute and a wheelchair-bound recluse living at Frakingham had been quite enough for the Harborough villagers to perpetuate the Freak House moniker.

"The stories," Langley muttered to himself. "The stories about the Frakingham children."

"Uncle?" Sylvia prompted.

I knew what he meant. Oh God, I knew. "One of the Lords Frakingham kept his children locked away," I reminded her. "You told me about him yourself."

"Good lord," Samuel murmured.

Sylvia stared at me. "Oh my! You're right. Could it be…?"

"What?" Samuel asked. "What is it?"

"One of the Lords Frakingham from centuries past is rumored to have kept his deformed children locked away," I said. "In the
dungeon
."

His lips formed a full O.

"A dungeon we didn't know existed until today."

Langley wheeled himself into our tight circle, leaving Bollard behind near the door. "The creature Jack saw…it may be the ghost of one of those children. Spirits that can't or won't cross over to the Otherworld remain in this realm."

"Now you're telling me spirits are real too?" Samuel scoffed. "Fire starting I can believe, almost, but ghosts are purely in the realm of fantasy."

"You think that because you can't see them," Langley said.

"Can you?"

"No, but others can."

Samuel snorted. "I thought you were a man of science and reason, Mr. Langley."

"And I thought
you
were a natural hypnotist born with that ability, Samuel," I said. "Can you explain
that
?" It wasn't often I felt compelled to defend August Langley. Indeed, make that
never
. But Samuel was being particularly obstinate in this case, and it wasn't fair to accuse Langley of setting aside his scientific reasoning. It was because he was a scientist that he believed in the paranormal. He'd seen evidence of it enough through Jack's fire starting.

"It would seem I'm out-witted," Samuel said with a slight bow to me. "I'll concede that ghosts may indeed exist, but I don't understand why Jack could see it and we couldn't."