Alma Katsu - The Taker

“I know I shan’t. And yet…,” I murmured, still stroking his face, trying to gauge his wakefulness. It didn’t seem that a body could ingest so much poison and remain conscious.

“And yet, it’s Jonathan I choose,” I said, finally.

At those words, Adair’s glazed eyes lit up with only the faintest spark of recognition deep within them, recognition of what I’d just said. Recognition that something terrible was happening to him, that he was unable to move. His body was shutting down, even though he fought it, struggling in his chair like a stroke victim, spastic and tremulous, drool starting to drip from the corners of his mouth in bubbled threads. I leaped to my feet and stood back, avoiding his hands as they jabbed the air for me-and failed, then froze, then went limp. He grew still suddenly, still as death and gray as clouded water, and tumbled out of the chair onto the floor.

It was time for the final step. Everything had been laid in place earlier, but I couldn’t do this part alone. I needed Jonathan. I sprang out of the room and ran down the hall to Jonathan’s chamber, bursting in without knocking. He was pacing, but seemed prepared to go out, cloak over his arm and hat in hand.

“Jonathan,” I gasped, pressing the door closed, blocking his way.

“Where have you been?” he asked, an angry edge to his voice. “I looked for you but couldn’t find you… I waited, hoping you would come to me, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I am going to tell him I have no intention of traveling with him. I’m going to tell him that I am breaking with him and then I’m going to leave.”

“Wait-I need you, Jonathan. To help me.” As angry as Jonathan was, he saw that I was upset and put his things aside to listen to me. I poured out the story, sure that I sounded like a madwoman because I hadn’t the time to think of a way to tell him without seeming delusional or paranoid. And inwardly I cringed, because now he would see me for what I was; capable of cunning evil, able to condemn someone to terrible suffering-still the same girl who had sent Sophia to kill herself, cruel and unyielding as steel, even after everything I myself had been through. Surely, Jonathan would denounce me. I expected him to walk out on me, that I would lose him forever.

When I’d told him the entire tale, of how Adair had planned to extinguish his soul and usurp his body, I held my breath, waiting for Jonathan to dismiss me or lash out, for him to call me a madwoman, waiting for the swing of the cape and the slam of the door. But he didn’t.

He took my hand and I felt a bond between us that I hadn’t known in a while. “You saved me, Lanny. Again,” he said, his voice cracking.

Upon seeing Adair on the floor, still as the dead, Jonathan recoiled momentarily, but then he joined me in binding Adair as securely as we could. We tied the monster’s hands behind his back, bound his ankles together, and gagged him with a soft cloth. However, when Jonathan went to lash the knots at Adair’s wrists to his feet, bowing our prisoner backward in a position of utter vulnerability, I recalled the inhuman harness. The feeling of helplessness came crushing down upon me and I could not do the same to Adair, even though he was my tormentor. Who knew how long he might remain bound like that, before he was found and freed? It seemed too cruel a punishment, even for him.

We then wrapped Adair in his favorite sable blanket, a solitary comfort. I slipped out first so Jonathan, if he ran into one of the others and was questioned, could pass off the bundle in his arms as me. And we planned to meet in the cellar to see my plan to its end.

I rushed ahead, taking the servants’ staircase to the cellar. As I waited at the foot of the stairs, resting against the cold stone wall, I worried for Jonathan. I’d let him take all the risk of spiriting Adair out of the room. Though the others had withdrawn, shell-shocked by Uzra’s death and the confusion of Adair’s departure, it was by no means assured that Jonathan would not cross paths with one of them. He could easily be spied by a servant as well, and one glimpse could undo our plan. I waited tensely until Jonathan appeared with the limp form in his arms. “Did anyone see you?” I asked, to which he shook his head.

I led him through the twisting labyrinth to the very lowest level of the cellar, to the cavelike room where the wine was stored. Here, the cellar was most like a castle’s dungeon, sequestered from the rest of the basement rooms, thickly lined with earth and stone to keep the temperature constant for the wine. I’d found a niche in the very back, a tiny windowless cell cut into the mansion’s massive stone foundation. It appeared to be an unfinished extension of the wine room, with bricks and wood lying about. Yesterday’s deliveries of bricks and stone were piled on the floor along with a bucket of mortar draped with a moistened cloth, nearly dry now. Jonathan looked at the supplies and then at me, surmising instantly the intent of the materials, and then dumped Adair’s body on the damp dirt floor. Without a word, he stripped off his frock coat and rolled up his sleeves.

I kept Jonathan company as he closed up the small gap that served as the opening to the cell. First brick, then row upon row of stone to make the opening disappear into the deep-set wall. Jonathan set about his task silently, settling the stones into place with taps of the trowel’s handle, drawing on work he had done in childhood, while I kept watch on Adair’s dark form, a mere lump of shadow on the cell’s floor.

At the hour when Adair had been scheduled to leave, I crept upstairs and sent the livery on its way, telling the driver that the travelers had changed their minds, but wanted the baggage sent ahead to their lodgings as planned. Then I mentioned casually to Edgar that the master had departed on his trip a little ahead of schedule in order to avoid fanfare, wanting to slip away. Adair’s and Jonathan’s empty rooms seemingly verified what I’d said, and Edgar merely shrugged and went about his duties and would, I suspected, tell the others if asked.

Jonathan continued to work, pausing whenever we heard any movement that sounded like it was coming our way. For the most part, it was exceedingly quiet this deep underground and we heard few stirrings from the occupied floors, but it was unlikely that we would, with storage rooms situated between the first floor and the wine cellar. Still, I was nervous, sure that the others might come looking for me. And I wanted this horrible act behind me. The man in the cell is a monster , I kept telling myself to ease my mounting guilt. He is not the man I knew .

“Hurry, please,” I murmured from my perch on an old cask.

“There’s nothing to be done for it, Lanny,” Jonathan said over his shoulder, never breaking his rhythm. “Your poisons-”

“Not mine , surely! Not mine alone,” I cried, jumping off the cask in agitation.

“ The poison will wear off, eventually. The knots may loosen and the gag come undone, but this wall must not fail. It must be as strong as we can make it.”

“Very well,” I said, wringing my hands as I paced. I knew that the potion couldn’t kill him, even if it had been poison, but hoped that it might make him sleep forever or have caused damage to his brain, so he’d never be aware of what had happened to him. Because he was not a magical being, not a demon or an angel; he could not make the knots untie themselves or fly through walls like a ghost any more than I could. Which meant that eventually he would wake in the dark and not be able to take the gag from his mouth, not be able to scream for help, and who knew how long he might remain there, buried alive.

I waited a moment on our side of the fresh stone wall to see if I felt the familiar electric arc of Adair’s presence, but I did not. It was gone. Perhaps it was gone only because Adair was so deeply sedated. Maybe I’d feel him again when he regained consciousness-and what torture that might be, to feel his agony alive in me day after day and not be able to do anything about it. I cannot tell you how many nights I’ve thought about what I did to Adair, and there have been times when I almost think I would undo what I did to him, if it were possible. But at that time, I could not let myself think about it. It was too late for pity or remorse.