Willing (21 page)

The blonde lunged toward her husband, and he took her arm, glaring into the masked crowd. “How does she know our names?”

“Yes. Please, how do I know this?”

Constance began to move around the altar, still naked and feeling the huddled crowd quake at her approach. She had no knowledge of what she was doing or how she could do it, but it frightened these important people, made them quiver before her like frightened children, and she relished it. Constance stepped down onto the ballroom floor, walking with a confident gait, despite the strangeness she felt.

“I asked you all a question.”

Someone in the crowd shoved a man forward, and his robes flapped about his arms as he fought to keep his distance from her.

“I don’t know!” He offered, and Constance could see the youth still fresh on his smooth face. “Ask Alisdair. It’s his rite, isn’t it?”

“Ah, but it almost wasn’t, was it - Roman?”

The young man met her gaze, forcing a glare as his thoughts screamed for mercy. She took another step toward him, and Roman cried out a name in his mind – a name that startled her in recognition.

She scanned the faces, listening to the whispers for a familiar voice.

Then she spotted him. The man with the familiar mustache. “Kevin Jenkins?”

Even she couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice as she said his name. The crowd bustled slightly, someone pushing amongst them. He finally stepped from the crowd and came to stand beside Roman. Detective Kevin Jenkins stood a good foot shorter than Roman, but he made up for it in rage. Constance met his eyes, remembered the panic she felt when this man showed her the sketch of Alisdair, making her lie to his face. He’d known well what she knew, and was carting the picture of an innocent man about London, stirring up suspicion of foul deeds. Constance moved closer to him.

“Is it you I should hold accountable?”

They began to chitter in defense as Kevin Jenkins and Roman Fairmont stood silent at the fore, their eyes trained on her face.

“I am.”

Constance turned to meet the familiar face, his smile as mad as ever as Gregory stepped down onto the ball room floor. He held the knife toward Alisdair now, but his eyes focused entirely on Constance. She met his gaze, waiting for the strange flood of silent words shared from his mind to hers. Nothing came.

“Yes, that won’t work with me, love. Though I applaud you for trying.”

Gregory sauntered across the room, meeting her at its center with a confident air. She stared at him, searching in her peripheral for a sign of Alisdair. He was still standing behind the altar, now wrapped in his robe.

“I’ll admit to you plain, sweet Constance, I’m not all that surprised by this turn of events.”

Constance glanced up the stairs, meeting Alisdair’s gaze. He was moving closer, as though he intended to do Gregory harm. Constance glared, urging him to keep his distance. Though she could not hear his thoughts, she knew well that this man was truly dangerous.

“Which of them is your Master?”

Gregory stopped, raising his thick brows at her. “I told you before, girl. I have no master.”

Constance shook her head. “You spoke of him many times. You said your Master had plans for Alisdair.”

“That he did. Plans you’ve thwarted rather dramatically, I might add -”

“Where is he?”

Gregory smiled. “Everywhere.”

Constance felt her shoulders tense. She was growing furious with this man, unable to frighten, force, or coerce him. She set her jaw. She knew herself to be his match, whoever he was.

No. She was his better.

“Fine, if you will not name him.”

Constance turned to the crowd, tensing the muscles in her right hand until her fingers curled into themselves. The first to respond was Jane, shrieking as she shook her head, frantically, scratching at the mask on her face as it began to burn. Immediately, each member of the circle clawed at their own masks, prying them away from their skin, pulling it away with the molten substance, leaving the flesh beneath raw and red. The masks skittered across the tiled floor, their black surfaces melted from the heat.

Constance smiled at Jane’s marred face. “There, now isn’t that better?”

She turned back to Gregory, her resolve anew. “Now, tell me who among them is your Master!”

“An employer is not the same as a Master, dear girl. You of all people should know that.”

“Name him!”

Gregory laughed. “You think I’d call one of these worthless cunts my Master?”

Roman stepped forward, his youthful face marred by burns on his cheeks. Constance held up a hand, stopping him where he stood. She stared at Gregory, her lip curling. “Name him or I -”

“He has many names -”

“Constance.”

She turned to the familiar voice. Alisdair was moving around the altar toward her, shaking his head.

Gregory snickered, madly. “But I believe you know him as The Devil.”

Constance felt a strange heaviness, as though the world began to spin with Gregory at its center. Gregory spoke calmly, but the room reverberated around him as though he were screaming.

“You feel it, don’t you? You think you’ve inherited some great gift, but I know better. I’ll let you in, now child. Go ahead. Go on and listen to my mind, little girl. Tell me what you hear?”

The sounds flooded in, blasting from inside - dozens of voices, all of them screaming. They were in such pain, pleading and crying for their lives, gasping in pain, sighing in the moments just before their death – she could hear them all. Every single woman Gregory had killed. He replayed their deaths in his mind, over and over, reliving them like some joyous childhood memory, making his way through life with their cries in his thoughts, like trinkets. Now, she was drowning in those memories with him, lost. She fought to shut it off, turning her eyes to the floor as the sound grew to a deafening and agonizing pitch. Unlike the others, she couldn’t shut this man out. She slumped to the floor, clutching her head in her hands.

“Make it stop!”

“You weak thing!” Gregory bellowed. “I was the one meant for this! Not your precious Alisdair. Not some trumped up whore! You are not worthy of it! Make it stop? Stop it yourself!”

She shook her head, as though she might shake the voices free, but they would not cease. She heard their voices, heard their names, calling to her in the dark like a lover, and then calling out for mercy.

“Constance.”

This voice she knew – not of a woman, but of a man, speaking in that same gentle tone of a lover. “I’m here.”

She reached out, but a figure moved past her toward Gregory, knocking her hand aside. She caught view of him just as Alisdair took a step forward and was thrown back with such force, he smashed into a nearby pillar, knocking him unconscious. The room was shaking, thrumming with such ferocity that the chandeliers began to rattle, dripping hot wax and candles all over the floor.

Gregory took two steps toward her and grabbed her by the throat. He moved close to her face again, sneering as his breath overwhelmed her. “If you were half the creature I am, you could shut them off. You could destroy me. But no. Your empathy rules you. Your compassion rules you. You can’t drown them out, can you? Because they
are
you. They are what you could have become – some sad, forgotten whore, cut to pieces by a man like me. What sad little God did you summon, child?”

Constance felt her toes lifting from the floor, her air being cut off as his hand squeezed her throat. He had unspeakable strength, watching her face with strange, black eyes, and for the first time Constance felt her nakedness. She kicked at him, fighting with the little breath she had left.

“Imagine, dear Constance, the power I would gain from bleeding you right now.”

The voices began to soften as did the colors of the room. She was losing consciousness.

“Fight back, girl,” a voice called. She gasped, recognizing it instantly, calling from somewhere deep inside this monster. She listened for it again, and from beneath all the other cries of pain, Sally Hart’s brash goading carried beneath all the other voices. “Fight back!”

Constance opened her eyes wide, boring into him with every last ounce of life she had. She met his black eyes, clutching onto his arm as her feet lifted off the ground. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching her light fade. She would burn with everything she had left.

Gregory’s sneer faltered and Constance tightened her hold on his wrist. She felt the searing heat beneath her skin, felt the desperation of dozens of women who’d once died by these hands, and his skin began to smoke beneath her fingers. He grimaced, shaking his arm as though to pull free, but she held him. He faltered for an instant, then grabbed her throat with both hands, growling into her face as he took her to the floor, squeezing harder. The room began to fog around her as she fought to keep his gaze.

His eyes went still, and his mouth fell open. Constance felt the cold of the floor beneath her as he loosed his hold on her throat. A moment later, she felt warmth splash across her skin, spraying from above over her chest and her throat. She rolled to her side, her cheek pressed to the cold floor just as Gregory’s face fell into view before her, his eyes staring lifeless, his throat gushing blood so dark, it shone black. The flood began to pool on the marble tiles, creeping across the floor toward her. She wanted to move away, but she was weak, paralyzed by the trauma of those screaming voices, of having almost joined them herself.

“Are you alright, mum?”

Her body moved without her effort, rolling onto her back as she felt a sensation like silk graze over her skin, covering her bare breasts. Her vision began to clear, allowing the details of the room to filter in. She could see the few glowing candles still left overhead, see the gold filigree of the ceiling, then through the shadows cast on his face, she could see Alisdair, a concerned frown on his face. He collected her in his arms, pulling her against his now bare chest, having wrapped her in his own robe.

“Say my name, sweetheart. Let me hear you.”

Constance opened her mouth to speak, but winced, clutching at her throat. She shook her head, seeing shadows about the room, dark shapes that quickly collected to form figures. Alisdair lifted her head to his shoulder, settling her onto him as a shadow dropped to the floor before her, drawing close to Gregory’s corpse. She blinked twice to be sure of what she saw.

Thomas knelt there beside the dead man, inspecting him, the athame clutched tight in his right hand. He was covered in blood. Thomas stared off into space a moment, as though inspecting the marble tiles of the floor. Shock was setting in.

“Tommy,” Alisdair said, gently. He reached a hand to his friend, calling to him again. Thomas seemed as distant as she felt, unable to hear Alisdair calling.

“Brother.”

Thomas finally looked up, meeting his friend’s eyes, then hers.

Alisdair took Thomas’ hand and squeezed. “You’re alright, man. You’re alright.”

He nodded as though preparing to take Alisdair’s dinner order, but didn’t speak. Thomas’ face contorted just so, then he let Alisdair take his hand and pry the hilt of the blade from his clenched fist. Thomas sat there a moment, staring. Then without warning, he surged to his feet and turned, walking with the same stoic resolve he always carried himself with. “I will get the wash basin.”

Alisdair called his name, but Thomas was gone.

The sound of voices began to filter into her hearing. These were not the agonized screams of Gregory’s memories, nor the panicked thoughts of the circle; these were actual voices, hesitant and soft, slowly gaining confidence. Their might was spent, and it was clear whatever threat they offered earlier in the night had died with the bloody carriage driver on the floor.

“M’Lord. Please, we didn’t have a choice.”

Alisdair shook his head as though trying to deter a fly. The face that appeared before her was Roman Fairmont, and behind him another similarly aged man of sandy blond hair. He met her eyes, his face burned in crescent moons at his temples. She recognized him from her first visits with the circle. He was one of the four to know her intimately. She opened her mind to him for but an instant – Charles was his name, and he bore her no malice.

“He threatened us, Ali. He made us do it. You know I’d never -”

“Enough.”

Alisdair’s voice sounded strange. Constance looked up at him, watching his expression change. He reached up to his head, touching the sore spot where he slammed into the pillar, and shut his eyes. Then he looked up at the figures in the room, his expression changing from a distant apathy to stern resolve. He swallowed, then wrapped his arms around her middle and rose from the floor, lifting her to her feet as he did. He was bare from head to toe, his robe now draped around her. She quickly moved to return it to him, but he refused. Then he walked across the ballroom suddenly, as though idly pacing in thought. The now unmasked faces watched him, some uttering soft reprisals of the blond fellow’s apology, but Alisdair ignored them, and not out of spite, it seemed. He was behaving as though he couldn’t hear them. He stopped by the altar and collected Constance’s robe from the table, shrugging it onto his shoulders before turning back to the figures about the room.