The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) (19 page)

“You have a fortnight to find the mask, Irene Lovell.”

No threats, no promises. Only silence followed the words. Irene let herself out into the driving snow.

Her steps were slower on the way back. Her shoes packed the snow into smudged silhouettes. The wind swirled dirty snowflakes in her path.

She thought, once, of what she had bargained away. Once more, she remembered the snow cave, and Papa. She started to cry, but it was too cold, and crying hurt, and so she forced herself to stop. Her eyes stung for another block. She stopped at the next street corner. Beyond the edge of the gas lamp, the snow flung itself into a void. The air tasted of horse droppings and cold.

She let the wind carry away one more childhood memory, like a soiled snowflake.

And then she focused on finding her way back to Harry Witte’s apartment.

The snow was falling thicker. Irene paused at the next street and looked back. Already the drifts were swallowing her steps. Scraps of rotted newspaper peered out from the slush. Irene could pick out a fragment of a headline.
A Debutante’s Delight—
The rest of the phrase had vanished in the snow, but it didn’t matter. She’d spent enough nights at debuts, enough nights with champagne tickling the back of her throat and hands tickling the backs of her knees, and one more didn’t interest her.

Behind her came the muffled crunch of footsteps in the snow. The snow hid any sign of another person, and Irene’s heart beat faster. She picked up her pace, crossing the ice that hatched the street. The snow fell heavier, rich ermine swells, thick enough that it was almost warm. On a night like this, everything looked the same. The stores, blanketed in white, were nothing more than polished dentures, waiting to snap open and shut. Frost lace spread across windows, hiding whatever lurked inside. The streets were untouched by any passage, even Irene’s, as though the world had conspired to erase any evidence of her.

The snow came down hard. Irene blinked to clear the snow from her lashes and shaded her eyes with one hand. The storm was becoming ridiculous. Cian needed her. She didn’t have time to waste wandering the city until her feet froze off. No sign of a cab. The streets were choked with snow, and Irene doubted that an automobile could go more than a few yards.

She stopped at the next street and looked back. Already the drifts were swallowing her steps.

Irene felt a moment of vertigo. She wiped snowflakes from her face, rubbed her eyes. She was tired, and the cold was only making it worse. What she needed was a fire, and a nice drink, and a good night’s sleep.

As she stepped forward, ready to break the perfect crust of snow on the street, Irene hesitated.

At her feet, trapped in a pile of snow, was a scrap of newspaper.

A Debutante’s D—

Irene reached down and plucked the paper free, but the wind stole it from her hand. The paper vanished into the night.

A chill settled into Irene. Behind her, the sound of footsteps came again. A quiet crunch of snow. Irene threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but again, nothing. She plunged off the curb, stumbled through snow that came up to her ankles, and turned left. This street was darker—the gas lamps had not been lit, or had gone out—and the snowy bulks of buildings waited like ancient cairns.

The footsteps had grown louder.

Irene picked up her pace, but her shoes slipped in the heavy snow, and her feet were numb from the cold. Twice she caught herself on the railings of the darkened houses. On the third time, she went down, landing on hands and knees and with snow brushing her chin. The footsteps were almost on her. To her left, Irene saw a staircase that led down to a recessed doorway. She lowered herself down the steps and crouched in the doorway. She shook from the cold and fright. The ring, clasped in one fist, felt warm in comparison.

The sound of footsteps slowed. Stopped. Irene waited. Her mouth was dry. Her eyes were fixed on the snow-crusted steps, on her tracks, which led to her hiding spot. From the street came a grunt, and then a shriek that could not have been the wind. Irene pulled the revolver from her pocket. Her hand trembled. The shriek faded to a hiss, like a kettle set to boil, and then silence.

A single crunching footstep, and a dark shape took form at the top of the stairs.

Irene raised the revolver.

“Irene?”

She hesitated.

“Patrick?”

Patrick helped her out of the stairwell. He brushed snow from her coat, looked her in the eyes, and did not let go of her hand. His grip was surprisingly warm. Surprisingly strong. He smelled like wood-smoke and, very slightly, of whiskey.

He was close enough to kiss.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Patrick, what is going on? Were you following me?”

He shook his head and turned to point at the street. Dirty brick stared up from a rough circle that had been melted in the snow. Irene could feel the heat pouring off the bricks even from a distance, and as snow dusted the exposed street, it melted and boiled away.

“What happened?”

“Let’s get you home,” Patrick said. He turned and started guiding her down the street, the way she had been going.

Irene pulled her hand free of his and came to a stop. “I won’t go another step until you tell me what’s going on.”

He paused, ran a hand through dark hair—wavy dark hair, Irene realized, hair that looked quite nice against his fair skin. “Walk with me,” he said. “Please. I’ll explain on the way.”

“Very well. But I’m not going home. I need to find someone.” She gave him the address.

“Fine. Fine. Let’s go.”

He took her hand again, and they started off into the night. The snow had begun to ease, so that the thick curtains dwindled to the occasional eddy. Stars poked their way through the darkness, eager to see what they had missed. For several minutes, Irene and Patrick walked in silence, with Patrick throwing nervous glances over his shoulder. After a handful of blocks, though, Patrick let out a long breath, and some of the tension left his shoulders.

“Well?” Irene asked.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Patrick said. “What are you doing out tonight?”

“I had an errand to run,” Irene said. “And I had no idea there would be such a storm. Trust me, I might have thought twice if I’d known.”

Patrick snorted. “Storm.”

“What do you mean?”

“This wasn’t a storm, Irene.”

“Explain yourself.”

He gave her another quick look and whistled. “You didn’t know?”

“I’m getting very tired of people saying that.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—when I saw you with the golems, and then the trouble with Seamus’s men, and then again tonight, I assumed . . .”

“You assumed what?”

“That you were part of all this madness.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

Patrick paused at the next intersection. He was still standing close to her. Close enough that Irene could smell the whiskey and wood-smoke. Close enough that her mouth was dry again.

“Would you care for a drink? It’ll take time to explain, and this is no place to do it.”

Irene nodded, but the ring felt hot against her skin.

“A quick drink,” she said.

In a surprisingly short amount of time, Patrick took her to Kerry Patch. He let them into his bar, locked the door behind them, and stirred the furnace to life. The cold retreated by inches, ceding its hold on Irene’s fingers and toes and nose, but she remained bundled in her coat. Patrick poured himself a whiskey and mixed a drink for her. Irene sipped at it. Strong. She blinked tears from her eyes, worked the fire out of her throat, and sipped again.

Strong. But rather lovely. She flexed her toes and studied Patrick again. The drink reminded her of him in that way.

“Tonight, that snow, it wasn’t a storm,” Patrick said. He took a drink, and then another. “It was a barrier, a kind of trap, designed to keep you moving in a circle. Something was following you. Hunting you, I believe, but possibly just waiting for the cold to claim you.”

“How is that even possible? A trap that makes me go in circles? Something hunting me? I’ve lived in St. Louis most of my life, Patrick. I don’t get lost easily.”

“You’ve seen golems, Irene. You know that there are explanations that aren’t easy.”

Suddenly the drink no longer tasted so good. “You mean to tell me that it was something supernatural.”

Patrick nodded.

“There was something—the other night, when Cian was hurt, it was a clear night. But when we came out of the apartment building, I could see a wall of fog surrounding us for several blocks. It didn’t look . . . natural, either.”

Another nod. “That sounds like a barrier, albeit a bit less subtle than the one you faced tonight.”

“Something attacked us that night. It wasn’t human.”

“Most likely not.”

“What was it? It had scales, I think. And it was big. Bigger even than Cian.”

“I won’t know without seeing it, but it sounds like a sauria. They’re big and nasty and have scales.” He paused, swirled his drink, and took another sip. “Let me ask you a different question.”

“All right.”

“What is Cian to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the first time I saw you with him, you had a gun to his back, and then the two of you ran out of here like old friends, and then I helped you track him to that hospital.”

“Why does it matter?”

The barest hint of a blush rose in Patrick’s cheeks, but his gaze was steady. “It matters because I don’t want to poach on Cian’s grounds.”

“I am no man’s grounds, Patrick.” Irene tried to soften her voice. “I owe Cian my life, and I need his help, but nothing more.”

Patrick watched her for a moment longer, and Irene felt her cheeks heat, but she refused to say anything more. After another minute, Patrick nodded and drained his glass. “What else do you want to know?”

“What was hunting me tonight?”

“I don’t know. I could only see it at halves, as though I were catching a glimpse of something through a bad piece of glass, but when I put a knife through the back of its head, it came apart like a bad seam. It was hot, hot enough to melt that snow and bake those bricks, so I would guess it was something elemental.” He paused. “That fits with the barrier and the snow, too. Whoever was tracking you is skilled with the elements.”

“Was it the same one who trapped Cian and me the night before?”

“Perhaps. It seems unlikely though. What you described sounds fairly blunt, not like the more sophisticated show tonight. And a sauria is far less trustworthy than an elemental servant.”

Irene finished her drink, wiped her mouth, and laughed. “You make it sound so ordinary. As though all of this weren’t perfectly mad.”

“It isn’t ordinary. But I have to think about it this way. If I don’t—if I let myself dwell on it . . . Anyway, that doesn’t mean it’s not mad. If you see enough of these things . . .” Patrick shrugged. “It doesn’t end well

“How do you know all this?”

Patrick smiled, that boyish smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes and made Irene’s heart beat faster. “Let me have a few secrets at least.”

Irene laughed at that. The warmth of the drink settled into every nook and cranny. Outside, the wind had slowed and the snow had stopped.

“I need to go,” she said. Then, “Wait. Why were you out there tonight? Were you looking for me?”

“No. I was out for my own reasons, and I happened to see you. When I tried speaking to you, though, you walked right past me, and I realized something was wrong.”

Irene laughed again. “Not every woman is swayed by your charms, Patrick.”

When he spoke, he was smiling, but his voice was serious. “I don’t care about every woman.”

Irene laughed. It did nothing for the sudden coil of energy inside her.

They hardly spoke again that night. Patrick accompanied her to Harry’s apartment. He left her at the door with a simple, “Good night.” Irene stood there a moment longer, watching him disappear into the city.

Then she thought of Cian, and she knocked on the door, and waited.