Possession (9 page)

Wonderful. Another
overprotective person in my life. I already had Jacob and Celia, I didn't need more.
Thank goodness George wasn't so restrictive. "You are welcome to stay in
the coach with me."

He shook his
head. "I'll go inside with them. Your friends might need me. Tell
me," he said as we continued walking, "how does the spirit of Jacob
Beaufort interact with live people?"

I told him all I
knew about ghosts, the Waiting Area and the Otherworld. He seemed very
interested and not at all afraid or bored.

We arrived at
George's house in what felt like a very short time. I introduced George to
Theodore as we waited for the coach to be brought around from the stables. I'd
just finished when Jacob popped in, so I had to begin the introductions again,
a difficult task considering Theodore couldn't see Jacob and Jacob scowled back
at him.

"Why's he
here?" he asked. He stood with his feet apart and arms crossed.

"Mr. Hyde
is very concerned about his cousin," I said, keeping the irritation out of
my voice for Theodore's sake. I didn't want him to know that Jacob had already
made up his mind to dislike him.

Jacob grunted in
response. "It's going to be crowded in the coach."

"Is Mr.
Arbuthnot still at The Three Knots?" I asked.

He nodded as he
circled around Theodore, assessing him. They were of a similar height and about
the same size, but there the similarity ended. It was like looking at night and
day, dark and light. The way Jacob sized him up made me uncomfortable and when
I'm uncomfortable, I talk.

"I'll stay
in the coach while you three go inside the pub and bring him out. Actually, now
that we have Mr. Hyde to help George, you might not be needed, Jacob."

He stopped and looked
at me. Just looked. The small muscles on either side of his jaw worked. I felt
a little like a fly trapped in a spider's web, unable to move. My chest
suddenly tightened and I remembered to breathe.

What had I said
wrong? Why was he making me feel this way?

"Please
call me Theo."

I must have
turned a dumb-struck gaze on Theodore because he said, "You all seem to be
on a first name basis with each other, so I want you to call me Theo."

"Certainly,
Theo," George said cheerfully. He had no idea how heavy my heart felt.

"Miss
Chambers, is everything all right?" Theo asked.

"Emily,"
George said, laughing. "First names, remember?"

"Emily?"
Theo asked again.

"I'm
well." I pressed a hand to my forehead. "Just a turn." I glanced
at Jacob, but he no longer looked at me. He sat down on the arm of the sofa and
lowered his head to his hands.

I went to him
and reached out to press my hand to the back of his neck. But I didn't touch
him.

"Ah,
there's the coach," George said. "Shall we?"

I looked up,
straight into the soft gray eyes of Theo. He gave me a crooked smile and held
out his elbow for me to take.

I did. When I
glanced over my shoulder, Jacob was gone.

***

I thought I
wouldn't see Jacob until we reached our destination, but he reappeared in the
coach. Whatever emotions had overcome him in George's drawing room were replaced
with a business-like manner.

"When we
get to the Three Knots, you'll wait in the coach," he said. "The
footmen and driver will remain behind and George is to give them instructions
not to leave you. George, Theo, and I will go inside and bring Arbuthnot out to
you. Now, let's go through the words you need to use to send the spirit
back."

I spent the rest
of the journey memorizing what I had to say. I shivered when I first heard the
incantation. It was so like that other time when we had fought the demon. In
fact, the similarity was too close for my liking—as if the same hand was behind
both.

But we had
killed Finch, the man controlling the shape-shifting demon, and banished his
accomplice, Mr. Blunt. Jacob had terrified Blunt—the master of the North London
School for Domestic Service—so much that he'd left the city in a hurry. We had
been quite certain, however, that Blunt didn't have the capacity to be the architect
of the scheme.

We may have been
wrong.

If Jacob and
George felt the similarity too, they didn't say.

The Victoria
Docks wasn't a dangerous place, or no more so than any other busy London hub in
the middle of the morning. And it was certainly busy! Noise hummed all
around—the whir of cranes stretching into the sky like fingers, the hammering of
builders at the eastern end, the rumble of cart wheels, the shouts from
dock-workers loading and unloading, and the clack of crates being stacked one
on top of the other. Foremen, carters, porters, merchants, and sailors milled
together with passengers of all shapes, sizes and colors. I counted at least
four different languages as people walked past the coach's open window. Over
their heads I saw the rigging of moored ships forming intricate webs between
masts. In the distance, a train whistle blew.

"There's
the Three Knots," Jacob said. He indicated a crooked building of three
levels leaning drunkenly on its neighbor, a warehouse. "Tell the driver to
wait in that street there. It's narrow, but it leads to Prince Regent Lane. So
many of these small streets go nowhere and I don't want you to be caught in one
of them."

His good advice
hung in the air between us. My safety was always at the forefront of his mind. It
had not always been so. Once, he thought my life ending would be a good thing
because it would bring us together. It seemed he no longer thought that.

I touched his hand
resting on the seat between us, and he curled his fingers around mine. Then he
let go and was gone. He reappeared on the outside of the coach.

I gave George
and Theo the instructions from Jacob. George blew out a breath, slow and
measured, and pushed his spectacles up his nose. "Tell Beaufort he owes me
a large brandy after this."

On impulse I
leaned forward and squeezed his hand as I had done to Jacob. George smiled
grimly and squeezed back. I glanced out the window and saw Jacob eyeing our
linked hands, his eyes hooded, his expression masked. I let go and wondered
what he'd have done if it was Theo's hand I touched.

George and Theo
alighted from the carriage and George gave the footmen, two of his biggest and
burliest, instructions not to leave me. Then the two men and one ghost strode
to the Three Knots with purposeful strides. I felt a swell of pride as I
watched them.

I had never been
very patient, but waiting for them to reappear set my nerves on edge. I sat on
one seat then switched to the other side, then back again. To pass the time, I
counted the number of women wearing blue mantles—six—and the number of times a
train whistle blew—eight—and their frequency—every minute. I untied my bonnet. I
retied my bonnet. I would have counted the money in my reticule, but I already
knew it contained only three shillings. I counted twelve men and two women
entering the Three Knots and six men and one girl leave.

The girl!

She had dark springy
hair and was aged about ten. She was looking down, so I couldn't see her face,
but I knew it was the same one who'd summoned the spirit. She walked beside a
figure cloaked in black wearing a wide hat, his face also cast down. They
hurried quickly away.

I put a hand to the
door handle but hesitated. I'd been ordered to remain in the coach. George and
Theo would be angry with me for leaving. Jacob would be furious.

But the girl and
her accomplice were getting away! Soon they would be entirely gone from view,
consumed by the shadows cast by the many tall warehouses.

I looked to The
Three Knots. I could summon Jacob but decided against it. George and Theo may
be confronting the spirit right now and they needed Jacob more than me.

The girl and the
black-cloaked man were almost at the corner of the furthest warehouse. I had to
go. My friends had a job to do and so did I, one that didn't involve
communicating with a ghost. I was more than merely a conduit to the dead.

I opened the
coach door and jumped down. "Miss?" one of the footmen called down
from the rumble seat at the back. "Everything all right?"

Just then, the
door to The Three Knots opened, crashing back on its hinges. Wallace Arbuthnot
barreled out, his red cheeks puffing hard. He paused, looked around and spotted
me. A twisted grin split his fleshy face.

I gasped and
clambered back inside the cabin, snagging my skirt on the corner of the coach step.
I snapped it free.

"Miss?"
the footman said again. I felt the coach rock as he stepped down and I leaned
out of the open door to tell him to stop Wallace Arbuthnot.

It was too late.
Arbuthnot was faster than he looked, and a large man traveling at speed is a
force not to be trifled with. He shouldered the footman out of the way and dove
into the cabin, landing on the seat beside me.

I might have
emitted a small scream—very well, a large one—and slid across the seat into the
far corner. Not far enough. Arbuthnot grinned that horrible grin again. "Good.
Entertainment for the journey." He punched the roof of the cabin. "Drive
on!" he shouted.

Silence.

"Miss?"
The panicky voice of the footman came from near the door. I couldn't see him
past Arbuthnot's massive frame.

I opened my
mouth to warn him, but Wallace moved fast. All of a sudden something cold and
sharp pressed against my throat. A blade. Arbuthnot's breath, reeking of ale
and tobacco, was hot on my cheek.

"Drive
on," he snarled, "or I gut her."

I tried to lean
away from the knife, but Arbuthnot—or rather, the spirit possessing him—grabbed
the back of my hair and held me against his reeking, filthy body. I winced but
remained silent. I dared not make a sound, dared not breathe.

"Move this growler
now, or I rip her apart!" he shouted again.

The coach rolled
forward and the vein in my neck throbbed against the cold metal. An unladylike
drop of moisture trickled down my spine. I closed my eyes to block out Arbuthnot's
wild glare and tried to still my racing heartbeat.
Calm. Be calm. Think.

"Faster!"
he roared over the
clip clop
of hooves and the rumble of wheels. "Get
me to Victoria Station, you dog, or this pretty neck gets sliced!"

The coach sped
up. I wondered if the other footman was still on board, or if he too had jumped
off to alert George. Of course he wouldn't be much use in rescuing me but Jacob
might, or Theo.

Arbuthnot
circled his arm around my shoulders. He hooked the knife under my chin and
pressed his thigh against mine. He stank and his white shirt and silk waistcoat
were stained beyond repair. The real Wallace Arbuthnot would be appalled. The
possessed one pushed the blade harder into the skin beneath my chin and
chuckled when I cried out.

"Very
pretty neck." His voice, while essentially the same as Arbuthnot's,
sounded quite different. More raw somehow, and heavy with drink. He laughed
again. Then he licked me below the earlobe. Everything inside me constricted
into a tight ball, but on the outside I remained passive. At least, I hoped
that's how I appeared.

I dug my fingers
into the leather of the seat. "Mr. Arbuthnot," I whispered. "Wallace,
can you hear me?"

"Shut it!"

I steeled myself
and tried again. "Mr. Arbuthnot, fight him. Please, Mr. Arbuthnot." I
yelped as the knife bit into my flesh.

"My name is
Mortlock. Jim Mortlock."

I shivered at
the cold, dead tone. He must have felt it because he said, "You're afraid
of me, ain't you? You should be. Some of the things I done when I was alive
would make you sick. Things a good little girl like you never hears about. Bad
things. Wicked." His throaty chuckle made my scalp crawl. I didn't want to
hear his story, but I had to. Knowing more about the spirit might reveal
something about the people who'd summoned him and why.

"Tell
me," I whispered. "I want to know."

That horrible
laugh again. "When I died, they said 'good riddance.' Said I got no conscience
to do the things I done. I'm good with a knife, see." He stroked the blade
down my throat to my collar and dipped the point inside the bodice. I tensed
and squeezed my eyes shut. "Decorated my Ma with a blade just like this
one. Drew a pretty pattern from here," he pressed the point against one
ear, "to here." The cool metal traced across my throat to my other
ear, not hard enough to pierce the skin, but it may have left a red mark. I
prayed the coach didn't go over any bumps.

"Why are
you here now?" I asked. "What do you want?"

"I want
some fun." He licked my throat near the knife point. Bile rose and I
gagged. That produced another rasping chuckle from Mortlock. "I'm legend,
see. They remember me after I'm gone as the one with no conscience. That man
and that girl, they called me here and I came. Better than Hell or whatever's
waiting for me beyond."