C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

Afterward, she curled up on the rug beside his chair while he sat before the fire, a glass of brandy in his hand, and told her what had happened.

“What do you think those men were looking for?” she asked when he had finished. “The blue diamond Collot told you about?”

He took a long, slow sip of his brandy. “I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt it. I think whatever is going on here is far more serious than some diamond-however big it might be.”

“Are you certain the rifleman in that carriage was shooting at the young housebreaker and not you?”

“If he was aiming at me, he’s an appalling shot.”

“Most people are.”

“Not this one. He hit the lad square in the chest, killing him almost instantly.”

She kept her gaze on the cat, who was giving himself a long, fastidious bath beside the hearth. “You think he was killed to keep him from revealing who hired him?”

“I think it likely, yes.”

“But. . why? Why not simply haul the lad into the carriage and whisk him safely away?”

“He said the man I killed in the house was his brother. I suppose that once we learned the identity of the dead man, it wouldn’t have been hard to track down the lad and find whoever was behind the attempted burglary.”

“But the man in the carriage had no way of knowing the older man was dead.”

“They could have heard the shot. And they knew that only one of their men came out of that house, chased by me.”

“True,” she conceded. “You didn’t see anyone around before you went inside?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”

“Do you think they recognized you?”

“Well enough to know that I wasn’t their hireling, obviously. But probably not so well as to know who I was. Most people don’t see well in the dark.”

“Some do.”

He met her gaze, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. He said, “The lad was no more than twenty feet away from the rifleman when he was hit. It wasn’t a difficult shot.”

“True.” She watched the cat curl itself into a ball, sigh, and close its eyes. The milk bowl and plate of minced beef beside it-provided by Calhoun-were now empty. She said, “Did you go to the authorities?”

“I did not. I took to my heels and fled.”

“With the cat.”

“He was insistent.”

“Is it a he?”

“It is. I checked.” Bending forward, he picked up the manuscript from beside her. “If you were looking at this, no wonder you couldn’t sleep.”

“It is. . bizarre. I’m anxious to hear what Abigail McBean can tell me about it in the morning.” She leaned back against his chair, felt his fingers brush her flesh as he played with the curls at the nape of her neck.

He said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Her gaze met his, her expression solemn. “So do I.”

Tuesday, 22 September

In the fashionable world, where balls lasted until nearly dawn and breakfasts were held at midday, morning calls began at three in the afternoon. Fortunately, Hero knew that Miss Abigail McBean had long ago resigned herself to being hopelessly outre and did not keep fashionable hours.

A confirmed spinster well into her thirties, Miss McBean now shared her small but comfortable Camden Town house with a young niece and nephew orphaned some six months before by the sudden, tragic death of their parents. Hero could hear the children’s laughter coming from the rear garden when, carrying the battered old manuscript, she arrived at her friend’s house the next morning.

She was met at the door by a young, flaxen-haired housemaid who was so flustered to find a real viscountess ringing the bell that she escorted Hero immediately to her mistress, who was, as the girl cryptically announced, “Upstairs.”

Upstairs proved to be in the attic. As they neared the top of the narrow attic steps, Hero could hear her friend’s voice coming from behind a half-open door at the end of the corridor, chanting, “Angeli supradicti.”

The housemaid, a slim slip of a girl who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, hesitated on the last stair, her eyes growing wide as she swallowed, hard. “Miss McBean is in there, m’lady,” she whispered, her chest jerking with her suddenly agitated breathing as she pointed one shaky hand toward the far door. “I kin knock for you if you want, but. .” She sucked in an audible gasp of air, her voice trailing off into nothing.

“I’ll announce myself,” Hero told the girl, who dropped a quick, relieved curtsy and bolted back down the stairs.

“Agla, On, Tetragrammaton,” exclaimed the voice at the end of the hall.

Biting her lip to keep from laughing, Hero pushed the door open wider.

A short, plump figure shrouded in a white linen robe, her face hidden by a deep, monklike cowl, circled the room in slow, measured steps. She held an open book in one hand, in the other a flask of holy water such as a Catholic priest might use. “Per sedem Adonay, per Hagius, o Theos,” she intoned, punctuating each phrase with a flick of the holy water. On the room’s scrubbed wooden floor was drawn a circle upon which were positioned a strange assortment of objects: an earthenware vessel filled with glowing coals; a naked sword blade; flasks of perfume. The pungent scents of myrtle and musk permeated the room. The robed figure was so focused on reading the incantations from her book and stepping precisely around the circle that she didn’t notice Hero until she was nearly upon her. Then she looked up, her step faltering, her jaw sagging, before she clamped it shut and went off into a peal of laughter.

“Losh!” she exclaimed in a pronounced Scottish brogue. “Frightened the sense out of me, you did. For one hen-witted moment, I actually feared all the laws of the universe had reversed themselves and the silly spell worked.”

“What? You were trying to conjure me, were you?”

Miss Abigail McBean pushed back her cowl and set aside her holy water. “Not you, exactly.” She pointed to a woodcut illustration in her book. “The angel Anael, who rules the tenth hour of Tuesday-or at least, he does according to Peter de Abano, who wrote this thing back in 1496.”

Hero studied the illustration. “You think I look like that, do you?”

In mock seriousness, the Scotswoman held up the open book with its illustration beside Hero, as if comparing the two. “Hmm. Well, you’re female, of course. And you don’t have black hair or six-foot gray wings. Not to mention a wand tipped with a pine cone and decorated with ribbons.”

Hero tweaked the book from her friend’s grasp and studied the title. “Heptameron,” she read aloud. “I take it this is one of your grimoires?”

“It is.” Miss McBean pulled the linen robe off over her head, transforming herself from an exotic, vaguely menacing figure into a plump woman in a simple sprigged muslin gown. She had a pretty round face with a small nose, full, rosy cheeks, and a head of riotously curling rust-colored hair that she’d tried rather unsuccessfully to contain in a bun. “Its English title is Magical Elements . I’ve been wanting to try this incantation for weeks, only I just got the hyssop.”

Hero studied her friend’s unlined, pleasant face. “If you don’t believe in these spells, why do them?”

“Because I know of no better way to understand what these men were trying to do and how they felt when they did it.” She nodded to the calfskin-bound manuscript Hero had tucked beneath her arm. “What’s that?”

Hero held it out to her. “I’m told it’s called The Key of Solomon. Ever hear of it?

Miss McBean took the manuscript with a hand that was suddenly not quite steady. “I’ve heard of it.”