The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) (32 page)

“Your imagination is not your strongest quality,” Irene said.

Patrick stared at both of them and tried not to make it obvious.

At the stairs that led up to Harry’s apartment, Irene relented. Patrick was gentle when he picked her up. He still smelled of sweat and smoke. The feel of his arms and chest was nice. Very nice.

But even nicer was the flicker of rage on Cian’s face.

Her satisfaction vanished when they reached Harry’s apartment. The door stood open. The living room was in disarray—one chair turned over, a book on the ground with its pages torn free, a broken glass and the smell of spilled scotch. Cian waved Irene and Patrick back and moved into the apartment with his gun drawn. After a pair of minutes he returned, ushered them inside, and locked the door.

“Golems?” Patrick asked.

Cian shook his head and started towards the sitting room. “Freddy’s here. Out cold and with an Easter egg growing on the back of his head, but alive. The door and the locks are fine, which mean that either Freddy opened the door or—”

“Or what?” Irene asked, shuffling along as fast as she could.

“Sam’s gone.”

“You don’t think—”

Cian’s face said that he did think. Very much. And his expression made Irene hope Sam was running very hard and very fast.

Freddy lay on the floor of the sitting room. His hair and beard were mussed, and he looked frail, instead of his normal vigorous self. The chair in which Sam had been bound was on its side, the ropes in a tangled coil at its base. The rest of the room seemed undisturbed. Irene turned her attention back to the wounded man. Freddy’s face had good color, and his breathing was strong, and Irene felt the tightness in her chest ease. Cian knelt next to the old man, probing his skull and checking for any other wounds. Then he went through Freddy’s pockets.

“This isn’t Kerry Patch,” she said.

Cian ignored her. He placed Freddy’s silver cigarette case and lighter on the floor, a billfold, a crumpled handkerchief, a set of keys. Then he paused, studying something in his hands before holding it out towards Irene.

It was a small carving done in turquoise. Irene took it from Cian and brought it closer. The piece was no larger than her thumb, but the detail was exquisite: it was a man’s face, his eyes closed in sleep, cheeks hollow with sickness or hunger. It felt heavier than it should have been. Cold too. She set it on the rug and wiped her hands.

“That’s everything?” she asked.

“I thought this wasn’t Kerry Patch.”

“Don’t be a child.”

“Patrick,” Cian said, “I appreciate your help tonight, but you’d be smart to leave now. Before you get dragged into this any further.”

Irene stiffened. “Don’t listen to him, Patrick. You saved my life tonight. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

Cian’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.

“Are you all right here?” Patrick asked. “I could help you get somewhere else. Somewhere safer.”

“I’m staying here,” Cian said. “I don’t know about Irene.”

“I’m going to stay as well,” Irene said. “For a bit longer, at least.”

“I should go then. I need to get back to the bar. You won’t forget, Irene? What we talked about?”

“No, of course not.”

He gave her his best smile, and Irene tried to smile back. If Patrick noticed the effort, though, he didn’t show it. He said goodnight, and Cian let him out the front door.

While they were gone, Irene lowered herself into one of the chairs. She looked at Freddy, who was so peaceful he might have only been sleeping, and she tried to ignore the sick wobble in her stomach.

Her father.

“What was that about?” Cian asked when he returned.

“What?”

Cian got to his knees, lifted Freddy, and moved him to the sofa. Then he dragged a blanket over the old man. When he turned to Irene, Cian’s eyes were sea-green glass.

“Why do you look like you’ve just bitten into a lemon?”

“I do not—”

Cian sighed. His shoulders slumped, and Irene suddenly realized that he held himself strangely, as though his chest hurt him. “Forget it,” he said. “Do you want help getting to Harry’s bed? I’m going to stay up with Freddy in case he takes a turn for the worse.”

There were a hundred things she should have said. She should have asked if he was hurt. She should have said thank you, or sorry, or something clever that would have made him laugh and forget her awful behavior from that night. Instead, she said, “I can walk on my own, thank you.”

She got out of the chair, trying to mask her winces, and managed to stay straight on her feet until she left the sitting room. Then she slumped against the wall as she made her way to Harry’s room. She crawled into bed, too tired and hurting even to pull off her coat.

She lay awake a long time, crying into the pillow.

In the silence of the apartment, Cian thought, for a moment, that he heard Irene crying from the other room. It was just a moment, though, and then silence. He stood up, ribs aching, to go check on her. At the door to the living room, he stopped.

She’d only bite his head off again.

Not that he didn’t deserve some of it.

So he took one of the chairs and watched the old Hun. Freddy seemed like he would be all right, although it was hard to tell with head wounds. If he hadn’t woken by morning, they’d have to take him to the hospital.

But his mind wouldn’t stay focused on Freddy. It drifted down the hall, through the doors, towards Irene. Irene laughing with him over breakfast. Irene curled up next to him on her bed. Irene, brave and beautiful and stronger than anyone Cian had met, even after that vicious beating.

And then the other memories: the look in Irene’s eyes at dinner; the way Patrick had held her; the fact that, every time Cian took a step forward, she found some reason to snap at him.

Some of it, of course, was his fault. He’d be the first to admit that.

Cian made his way to the sideboard and poured himself a whiskey. For his ribs. He carried the glass back to the chair and sipped at the drink. Some of it was his fault. At dinner, for example. He shouldn’t have let the waiter bother him. He shouldn’t have gotten so worked up about a damn fork. And, at the bottom of it, he shouldn’t have been so afraid.

That’s what it was, in the end. Fear. Fear of those dark, beautiful eyes. Fear that Irene would be Corinne all over again.

He poured himself another whiskey. And then another.

By midnight, he was drunk.

It helped, a little. Like digging a hole in the back of his head, a place to throw all those memories. Corinne, lithe and laughing. Lying with him in one of those impossibly green French fields, with nothing to cover her but starlight. And then—

And then Harley Dunn.

Irene in Patrick’s arms, staring up at him with a smile.

There wasn’t enough drink in the world to bury all those memories, but at least the booze helped.

Some time past two, Cian heard a key in the lock. He got up from the chair—it took two tries—and pulled out the Colt. He made his way to the hall just as the door opened.

Harry came into the house stomping mud from a pair of heavy boots. He wore work clothes and he was covered in clay. He shut the door, locked it, and when he turned around, he saw Cian.

Cian still had the Colt out. His hand shook.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Harry asked with a smile. He pulled off his hat and coat.

Cian blinked. “Sam’s gone,” he said.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Put that away,” he said and pushed past Cian.

Cian fumbled with the Colt, trying to slide it back behind his trousers, and settled for putting the gun on the coffee table. Then he joined Harry in the sitting room. Harry stood over Freddy, examining the old man, and in his hand Harry held the turquoise carving.

“Is he all right?” Harry asked.

“I think so.”

“Where did this come from?” Harry asked, holding up the carving.

“Freddy had it on him.”

“What do you mean—” Harry stopped himself. His face was white. “Stay here.”

He disappeared into the back rooms. After a few minutes, he came back. Some of his color had returned. “Did you find anything else?”

Cian gestured to Freddy’s possessions spread out on the rug.

Harry shook his head. “I mean did you search the apartment. We know Sam’s a thief. Did you notice anything missing?”

“No. Did you?”

“A pair of shoes, plus the clothes I’d loaned him.”

“What is that thing?” Cian asked. “That carving.”

“Something cultic, obviously,” Harry said. “And something Freddy should not have.” He looked tired, and he rubbed his face. Flakes of drying clay fell to the floor. “God, things don’t get any better, do they?”

“What do you mean?”

Harry hesitated. He poured himself a whiskey and then motioned for Cian to follow him out to the front room. Then he shut the door, and they sat down. Harry downed the whiskey in one movement. He wiped his mouth. His eyes were dark and hollow.

Cian had seen eyes like that before. A French soldier who had come back from the front lines without his legs. The man had screamed about the gas, about the dead, about the rats. His eyes had looked like Harry’s did now. Eyes that had seen too much.

“That’s twice now that Freddy’s had something cultic. Something that he shouldn’t have. Sam told us that the Children know everything about us. Add the two together and . . .”

“Is he a traitor?” Cian asked. “You know him better than I do.”

“I’m afraid that might be blinding my judgment.”

“If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat.”

Harry let out a breath. Then he looked at Cian. “You’re drunk.”

“A little.”

“A lot.”

Cian shrugged.

“Why?”

Cian grinned. It felt wobbly, like a plate on its edge, ready to fall and crack.

“Women?” Harry asked with a soft laugh.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Cian said. The words popped out before he could stop them.

For a moment, Harry said nothing. Then, “Good night, Cian.”

He stood up and walked towards the back of the apartment.

“Where were you tonight?” Cian asked. “Rolling around Cheltenham?”

Harry didn’t stop walking and didn’t look back. “An old cultic shrine in one of the abandoned clay mines.”

And then he was gone.

Cian loosened his tie, shrugged out of his coat and jacket, and rolled them up to improvise a pillow. He gave the sofa a dirty look and then stretched out.

As usual, the sofa was too short.

Irene found bacon in the icebox the next morning. And milk. And eggs. And a thick wedge of good cheddar. And bread. And cream.

In other words, she found breakfast.

She felt like a million bucks. She still ached and was stiff as a board, but she felt better. So much better. She hung up her coat, cleaned her face and hair, and wondered if she would spend the rest of her life with no more than one dress at a time in her possession.

Then she started frying bacon. She scrambled eggs. She made toast.

She cut herself a piece of cheese as she cooked. To keep her strength up.

All the aches and twinges stuck with her, but they felt good. A reminder that she was alive. Her head was clear, and her heart was dry as a piece of slate. She’d cried everything out last night. She was ready to make things right.

When she had a plate of food made up, she carried it into the living room with a mug of black coffee. Cian lay on his side on the sofa. His shirt had inched up during the night, revealing the muscles in his lower back. He shifted and looked over his shoulder at Irene through one eye. Then he groaned and dropped his head onto the sofa.

“Can’t I just die in peace?” he said.

The shape of his shoulders under his shirt sent butterflies up Irene’s throat.

She made her voice firm, though, as she said, “I see you found a way to stay busy last night. You were, as I believe you told me, watching Freddy. To make sure he was all right.”

Cian’s answer was a long groan.

“Coffee?”

He groaned again, but it was a bit less theatrical this time.