The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) (42 page)

The woman could have given the Kaiser lessons in self-control.

“Is he—”

Cian checked Harry’s pulse. It was fast. Too fast. Harry’s skin was hot and moist, and his breath sounded like an ailing electric fan.

And then, Harry’s eyes opened. He looked at Cian. He licked his lips, like a man trapped in the desert. And his hand crept up to take Cian’s. His grip was slick with fever-sweat.

“It’s ok, Ollie,” he said, the words slurred. “It’s ok. I won’t let them take you again.”

Cian froze. Part of him wanted to pull back. Part of him feared what might happen if he did.

“Ollie,” Harry said. His grip tightened, and he tried to pull himself upright.

Cian forced him back down.

“Ollie?” Harry asked.

“It’s ok,” Cian said, and his voice was tight. “It’s me. It’s ok.”

Harry nodded, and his eyes drifted shut.

After Cian had cleared his throat, he said, “Pearl, drive faster.”

As Cian disappeared down the steps, carrying Harry over his shoulder, Irene felt a pang of guilt. This was exactly what he had feared: leaving her behind again. What was worse, she had been caught out in her lie.

But who in the seven hells would have thought they’d be at a whorehouse tonight?

Irene tried to suppress a sigh. All things considered, she should have expected something like this. She stepped into Anna’s room. Anna was sitting on the bed, a wadded-up cloth held to the side of her head, her eyes shut. Kate, in a dress that showed more cleavage than taste, stood with her back to the shuttered window. A scraping sound came from outside.

“What’s going on?” Kate asked. Her voice had climbed higher, but she didn’t look panicked. A bit wild about the eyes, but still in control. “Who are you? Who are those men?”

“You need to step away from that window,” Irene said. “And we need to leave. Now.”

“Those—those things.”

“One of them is about to break through those shutters, I’d imagine. You don’t want to be here when it does.” Irene bent over Anna and shook the girl’s arm. “Anna, get up. We’re leaving.”

“What do you mean?” Kate said. “She can’t—”

The sound of snapping wood came from outside. Kate threw herself to the side. A heartbeat later, a dark body threw itself against the glass. The window shattered.

Irene fired the revolver. It caught the spider, by luck more than skill, and the creature tumbled to the floor. Through the broken glass, Irene could see more of the dark shapes on the building opposite them.

“Now,” Irene said. Her ears rang from the shot. She grabbed Anna and hauled the girl to her feet. “Come on.”

The three women staggered into the hallway, with Kate and Irene helping Anna to keep her feet. At the end of the hall, another spider crept out of one of the abandoned rooms, its abdomen close to the floor as though it were ready to leap. Irene motioned the other women ahead of her and took the stairs backwards, the revolver ready.

Instead of moving towards her, though, the spider seemed completely oblivious. It picked its way across the body of the dead girl, who still lay under the quilt that Irene had fetched. It moved another few paces down the hallway, its hairy legs trembling and twitching. As though searching for something.

And then she saw it.

The box.

The damned box that had started it all. It lay a few paces beyond the dead girl, where Cian must have dropped it when he had gone to rescue Harry. The spider stopped in front of the box. It traced the wood with one leg.

Irene took two steps back up towards the hall. She couldn’t leave without the box. There were ancient, evil gods and terrifying cultists who wanted the box. Harry and Cian had risked their lives to retrieve it. But at the bottom of it all, Irene wanted that damn box because of her father. Because she wanted to see his face when she broke it into a thousand pieces.

A second spider slunk into the hall, and then a third. The creatures moved straight towards the box, crawling over each other in their efforts to reach the box. Irene ground her teeth. She had enough rounds to shoot them.

But did she have enough time?

A fourth spider emerged from farther down the hall. And then a fifth.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Irene took a step down the stairs. And then another.

The box was hidden under the writhing mass of spiders. Between their tangled legs and bodies, Irene saw the dull gray filaments of a spiderweb being woven.

Irene shoved the revolver in her pocket and ran down the rest of the steps. At the bottom, the smoke was so dense that only luck and good reflexes kept her from pitching into the hole that had been burned through the building. Irene gripped the banister, felt her shoes skid across the remaining stretch of wood floor, and her heart flopped into her mouth. She stared down at the drop before her and eased back onto firmer footing.

Anna and Kate had vanished into the smoke. Irene turned, feeling her way along the hall until she reached a swinging door. On the other side, the air was much clearer, and she made out a large room dominated by chairs and sofas and a bar. The front door stood open, and fresh air cut through the dwindling smoke. Irene poked her head outside.

Anna and Kate held each other up as they slid and slipped down the icy walk.

“Wait,” Irene said. She hurried out after them. Her shoes had no grip on the ice, but she ran as best she could. “Wait!” Neither woman turned back.

When Irene reached them, she grabbed Anna’s arm. The girl flinched and went rigid.

“Here now,” Kate said, slapping Irene’s hand. “I don’t know you and I don’t know what you want, but get lost. You and your friends—” She stopped and swallowed. Her eyes were red. She slapped Irene’s hand again. “Go!”

“Stop hitting me,” Irene said. She pulled at Anna, dragging the girl towards her. “Let her go. She doesn’t belong to you.”

“Damn me if she doesn’t!” Kate grabbed Anna’s other arm and hauled the girl in the other direction. “If you have a problem with my business, you can speak to the Dane. He’ll set you straight.”

“The Dane’s men are soot stains,” Irene snapped. “Charcoal scraps in that ruin of a whorehouse. You cross me again and I’ll burn you to ash too!”

The words came out in a ragged shout.

Kate’s eyes widened. She let go of Anna, stumbled back, and fell on her bottom.

Then she started to cry. She turned onto hands and knees and dragged herself towards the frozen walk.

Anna might as well have been an ice sculpture. She didn’t blink. She didn’t shiver.

Irene wanted to empty her stomach. She pulled Anna after her, down the street, towards a cab. She glanced back once.

Kate was nowhere in sight.

When they were in the cab, headed towards the Patch, Irene leaned her head against the door. The chill metal and glass felt like the first substantial thing in years. From the weak reflection in the window, Kate’s terrified gaze stared back at Irene.

Irene breathed on the glass, and for a few moments, the fog covered her own fear.

“In here,” Pearl said. She turned up the gaslights in Harry’s bedroom and pulled back the bedding.

Cian grunted and lowered Harry to the bed. Harry’s eyes flashed open for a heartbeat and then began to drift shut again. Harry’s wound looked worse. The blistered, corroded patch of skin had spread, covering half of his back, and although the inky venom had attenuated, it spread long, lacy whorls under Harry’s skin. Harry burned like a furnace.

Pearl returned with a bowl of snow and a rag. She sat on the side of the bed, rubbing the slush across Harry’s forehead, dabbing drops of the snow onto the wound.

“He needs a doctor,” Cian said.

Pearl didn’t answer.

“Pearl—”

She nodded. She was crying. Silent, but crying nonetheless.

“I’ll call for one,” Cian said.

“No.” It was a weak sound, barely audible, but then Harry repeated himself. “No. No doctor.”

“Harry,” Pearl said. She cupped his cheek. “Harry, you’re ok. It’s going to be ok.”

He blinked, tried to wet his lips, and sighed. “Ollie?”

Pearl looked at Cian. He shrugged.

“Is Ollie here?”

“Harry, I don’t know who Ollie is,” Pearl said.

“Tell him I’m sorry,” Harry said. He blinked again, so slowly that for a moment, Cian thought Harry had lost consciousness again. When his eyes opened, though, they were fogged. “I won’t let them take you, Ollie.”

Pearl’s hands were shaking as she wet the rag in the snowmelt.

Cian moved into the hall, shutting the door behind him. He walked to the back of the apartment, as far from Harry’s bedroom as he could get, and he made a circle. Then he paused, leaned his head against the wall. He felt hot and sick.

He slammed his fist into the wall. Once. Twice. On the third blow, the plaster shattered, and his hand drove through the laths. The splintered wood cut at his hand. The pain was sharp and nauseating. Cian pulled his hand from the wall.

He shouldn’t have done that, but it felt damn good.

In the kitchen, Cian washed the broken plaster and blood from his hand. He tied a kitchen towel over the lacerations. He pulled the knot tight, still riding the bright line of pain from the fresh cuts.

It was his fault Harry had been bitten.

If Cian had done what Harry asked—distracted the men at the bottom of the stairs—he would have been standing at Harry’s side when the spider emerged from the hall. He could have shot the damn thing before it got close to Harry.

And where would that have left Irene? That massive spider had gone straight for her.

The pain made it easier to think. Cian’s head was clear. It had been an impossible choice. The kind of choice that made anyone feel like shit.

When he left the kitchen, Pearl came out of Harry’s room.

“What happened?” she asked.

He told her in as few words as possible. She nodded. Her face was pale. She looked at his bandaged hand and said nothing.

“I’ll get a doctor,” Cian said.

“No, Cian. Harry was right. A doctor won’t be able to help him. Those spiders were controlled by the Children. They’re not natural.”

“Pearl, he’s—” Cian bit back the last word. He wanted to punch the wall again. He figured Harry wouldn’t appreciate that.

“He’s dying.”

“I’m sorry, Pearl, but he needs help.”

“There isn’t anyone to help him. The only person who might have been able to help him is Freddy, and we can’t trust him. For all we know, he was the one who sent those spiders.”

“Maybe,” Cian said. “Stay here.”

He pushed past Pearl and went for the room at the back of the apartment. The door was shut but not locked. He threw it open and turned up the lights. The room was a spare bedroom, but the bed had been pushed into the corner. A latrine reek filled the air. In the center sat a straight-backed chair. Sam was bound to the chair, his sandy head drooping forward. Cian crossed the room, grabbed Sam by the hair, and tilted his head up. The boy stared up at him, his eyes wide, struggling to breathe through a thick gag.

“I want some answers,” Cian said.

The boy started to cry.

Cian stood for a moment. Speechless. He stared at Sam, still bound and gagged in the chair, and his mouth tasted like he’d been chewing cotton all day. Sam didn’t struggle. He didn’t pull back. He stared up at Cian, his eyes terrified and helpless, and cried like a baby.