Alma Katsu - The Taker

Then the sounds ceased.

After a few minutes, the key turned in the lock and Adair emerged, pale as milk. Uzra’s serpentine blade was in his hand and his cuff was stained bright red. He dropped the knife to the floor and pushed by us, retreating to his room. It was only then that we found her body.

“You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” Tilde said to me. “I can see the guilt on your face.” I didn’t answer. Looking down on Uzra’s body, my stomach lurched. He had stabbed her in the chest, and also slit her throat, and that must have been the last thing he did because she’d fallen to the ground with her head thrown back, some hair still twisted where he had held it in his fist. The words “by my hand and intent” echoed in my mind-the same words that had given her eternal life had been uttered again to take it away. Thinking of them now sent a shudder through me, as did spying the tattoo on her arm, thrown carelessly to her side. In the end, his mark upon her body meant nothing. He would retract his troth when it pleased him.

The fight could have been about anything and I would never know for sure, but the timing made it unlikely that it could be about anything other than the secret room. Somehow, Adair must have discovered that things had been taken, and blamed her. And she hadn’t disabused him of his assumption. She had either wanted to protect me or-very likely-welcomed this, her best chance at release through death.

I had taken those things knowing what the penalty might be. I just didn’t think it would lead back to Uzra. Nor did I think he would kill any of us, least of all her. It was far more in his character to deal out a brutal physical punishment and to keep his victim within his grasp, shivering in terror, wondering when Adair might decide to do it all over again. Never in a million years did I dream he would actually kill her, because I thought that, in his way, he loved her.

I dropped to the floor and held her hand, but it had gone cold already, the soul perhaps fleeing the body more quickly in our cases, so eager for release. The terrible thing was that I had been planning my escape, mine and Jonathan’s, but hadn’t given a thought to taking Uzra with us. Even though I knew how desperately she wanted to flee, it hadn’t entered my mind to help this poor girl who had borne Adair’s sick obsession for many years, who had been so kind to me and had tried to help me navigate this house of wolves. I had taken her for granted, and the cold recognition of my selfishness made me wonder if I wasn’t Adair’s soul mate for sure.

Jonathan had followed the commotion upstairs and, on seeing Uzra’s body on the floor, wanted to burst into Adair’s chamber and have it out with him. It took both me and Dona to restrain him. “To what end?” I shouted at Jonathan. “You and Adair could pummel each other from here to the end of time and never settle it. However much you might wish to kill each other, it’s not within the power of either of you.” How I wanted to tell him the truth-that Adair wasn’t who we thought he was, that he was far more powerful and dangerous and remorseless than any of us could know-but I could not risk it. I was afraid as it was that Adair would intuit my fear.

Besides, I could not tell Jonathan my true suspicion. I knew it all, now. Those soft looks Adair gave my Jonathan, it wasn’t because Adair was planning to bed him. The covetousness he had for Jonathan ran much deeper. Adair wanted to touch that body, to fondle and stroke, to know every dip and bulge and crook not because he wanted to swive Jonathan, but because he wanted to possess him. Possess that perfect body and be known by that perfect face. He was ready to inhabit a body that truly could not be resisted.

Adair sent out instructions: we were to clear out the fireplace in the kitchen and set up a bier. The scullery girl and the cook fled as we commandeered the kitchen, and Dona, Alejandro, and I took the cooking things from the hearth of the huge fireplace. We scrubbed its blackened walls and swept out the ash. The bier was made of wooden trestles laid with wide planks and we built a pyre in the space between the trestles, dry twigs and pinecones slathered with beef tallow for kindling, compacted straw and cured firewood for fuel. The body, wrapped in a white linen shroud, was laid on the planks.

A torch was put to the kindling, which lit easily enough. The logs took some time to catch and it was almost an hour before it had built into a great leaping bonfire. The heat in the kitchen was tremendous. Finally, the body caught fire, the shroud consumed rapidly, the fire dancing across it in streaks, the fabric curling like skin, black ash catching on the draft and spiriting up the chimney. The smell, alien and innately frightening, made everyone in the house restless. Only Adair could bear it, and he sank into an armchair pulled before the fireplace and watched the fire devour Uzra in stages: her hair, her clothing, then the skin of her downy arm before biting into the flesh. Finally, the body, heavy with moisture, began to sizzle and roast, and the smell of burning flesh filled the house.

“Imagine the stink rising over the house, out in the street. Does he not think the neighbors will smell it?” Tilde said tartly, eyes watering.

We huddled in the doorway to the kitchen, but eventually Dona and Tilde slinked off to their rooms, muttering darkly, while Alejandro and I remained outside the door to the kitchen, sunk to the floor, watching Adair.

By the time the sky outside started to lighten, the fire had burned itself out. The house now was filled with a thin gray smoke, which hung in the air, its perfume the acrid smell of wood ash. Only when the hearth was cool did Adair rise from his chair, touching Alejandro on the shoulder as he passed. “Have the ashes swept up, and scatter them on the water,” he commanded in a hollow voice.

Alejandro insisted on doing this himself, crouching inside the still warm firebox with a small willow broom and dustpan. “So much ash,” he murmured, oblivious to my presence. “All that wood, I suppose. Uzra herself cannot account for more than a handful.” At that moment, the brush touched something solid and he reached down, searching among the silt. He found a charred nugget, a piece of bone. “Should I save this? For Adair? Someday he may be glad to have it. Such things make powerful talismans,” he mused, turning it over like a rare specimen. But then he dropped it in the pail. “I suppose not.”

Adair withdrew from the rest of us after that. He stayed in his room and the only visitor he would receive was the solicitor, Mr. Pinnerly, who rushed in the following day with a profusion of papers exploding from his overstuffed satchel. He emerged an hour later, his face as red as though he’d run a country mile. I intercepted him by the door, proclaiming concern for his flushed complexion and offering to fetch him something cool to drink.

“Most kind,” he said as he gulped down some lemonade, mopping his forehead. “I’m afraid I cannot stay long. Your master has rather high expectations of what a mere lawyer is capable of accomplishing. It’s not as though I can command time and make it dance to my tune,” he harrumphed, then noticed the papers threatening to fly out of his satchel and attended to tucking them in place.

“Oh, really? He is the demanding sort, but I daresay you seem clever enough to be able to pull off whatever task Adair has set before you,” I said, flattering him shamelessly. “So, tell me, what miracle does he expect of you?”

“A series of complicated transfers of money, involving European banks, some in cities I’ve never heard of before,” he said, then seemed to think better of admitting any shortcoming to a member of his client’s household. “Oh, it’s nothing, pay me no mind. I am merely frazzled, my dear. It shall be done just as requested. Never you worry your pretty head about such matters.” He patted my hand in such a patronizing manner that I wished to slap his hand away. But that would not get me what I wanted to know.