“I need to see Tiger and Lucy,” says Edgar.
“That is not advisable.”
Allen Brim is trying to keep up to Edgar as he rushes along Drury Lane bumping into gentlemen and brushing past ladies’ billowing dresses and sending goods flying from mongers’ hands, drawing shouts and curses. He does not so much as even look back.
“This is the devil, Father. I cannot do this alone. I have to try to trust them. I have to trust someone.”
“You have me.”
Edgar stops and regards his father. He reaches out and touches Allen Brim, caressing his face. “Yes, I do,” he says. A man in a tall black top hat and his purple-bonneted wife stare at them. A string of schoolchildren hand-in-hand with their teachers, notice too, and giggle.
“We must pursue Satan and this devil-man before he or they pursue us,” says Allen.
“But we really know nothing about him. Even his appearance!”
“You must face him, no matter what.”
“So, all the better to be with my friends and with the rifle and the cannon too. We have more chance of survival in greater numbers.”
“Those are merely earthly weapons and your foe is supernatural. This is not just a mere revenant or a creature made by the hand of man. And how can you survive if your allies are your enemies?”
“I do not know that for certain.”
They argue all the way to Kentish Town, the elder Brim beginning to fall behind as they near. When they finally reach the house, Allen stays out on the street. Edgar approaches the door, and then turns back to his father.
“I won’t remain with them for long if I suspect anything,” he shouts. “You know where to find me.”
The door opens. Tiger is standing there, rifle in hand.
“Who are you shouting at?”
Edgar watches his father move backward down the street and out of sight. He hears Dr. Berenice’s voice saying: Do you have close friends whose loyalty you have recently begun to doubt? You must stay away from these friends until you are sure about them.
“No one.”
Lucy appears at Tiger’s shoulder and her face glows when she sees him.
“Edgar! We were worried sick. Where did you go?”
It is time for supper, almost past it. The sun will soon set. Edgar has been gone since just after the noon hour.
“I…I went to the hospital to speak with Lawrence, to tell him we are ready to team with him and make use of his assets,” Edgar lies, “and he wasn’t there.”
“That wouldn’t have taken five or six hours,” says Tiger, who is almost pointing the gun at him now.
“I…I went to see Shakespeare too.”
“I thought we were going to do that together,” says Lucy. She looks at him with a longing expression.
“It turned out not to matter,” says Edgar quickly. “Shakespeare does not know anything. The devil-man visits were imaginary. He is a lunatic.”
Lucy looks down, as if she knows he is lying.
“Shakespeare is mad? Thanks for the news,” says Tiger, and she sounds just like Jonathan when she says it.
Edgar decides not to tell them about the woman and child at the door, not yet.
“May I come in?”
“Why did you do all of this on your own?” asks Tiger. “We know something awfully powerful is pursuing us. Why risk being out on the streets alone?”
“I don’t know, I just went, perhaps it wasn’t rational, perhaps I thought that if our enemy got to me then that would be just one of us, better one than all three.”
“How noble of you,” says Tiger.
“Thanks, Jon.”
Tiger glares at him.
“May I come in?” he repeats.
“Of course,” says Lucy, who takes him by the hand and pulls him indoors.
They eat in near silence, only asking each other to pass the salt or pepper or the boiled pork and bread and butter that Lucy cooked for them. They sit on the settee afterward, Tiger at one end and Lucy beside Edgar but her hand cold where it touches his thigh.
“We should go to that room on Thomas Street again,” says Tiger, getting to her feet and taking up the rifle, which she has kept cradled on her knee.
“I thought you were against that, Tiger. Besides, we’ve already been there,” says Edgar. “What else could we learn from—”
“You claim Shakespeare knows nothing. What other option do we have? I am not staying here like a sitting duck waiting for this thing to descend upon us. We have to DO something; seek this devil! Maybe take it by surprise!”
Tiger looks to Lucy and Edgar thinks she gives her a slight nod.
“I cannot face it, not after dark,” says Lucy. “Perhaps tomorrow I will be able. I am going to bed.” She squeezes Edgar’s leg, gets up and makes her way to her room.
“It is just you and me,” says Tiger to Edgar, “like the old days. Let’s go to Thomas Street this minute.” Her face is lit up as if she were possessed.
“Uh…no, not now.”
“Why?”
Edgar is wondering what it would be like to be alone with an armed Tiger Tilley if she wanted to harm you, if she were under the influence of Satan: alone in that dark room in Thomas Street.
“I…I think we should have Lucy with us.”
“Lucy? We would be better off without her!” Tiger’s voice is rising.
“I…I don’t want to leave her alone.”
“But—”
“I am going to bed too. We will be more rested in the morning and will be able to function better in that dim room with some daylight getting through its windows.” He turns quickly and makes his way down the hall to his bedroom before she can respond. “Go alone, if you must,” he says over his shoulder.
She doesn’t, which worries Edgar even more.
His room is the middle one in the hallway, between the two girls. Edgar lies awake trying to sleep, worrying that enemies surround him, terrifed that Satan will attack at any second, wondering about the devil-man who visited Shakespeare, and frightened that the hag will come for him again, tonight. The devil can take on her form, he thinks, walk around the streets of London! He tosses and turns, with all his clothes on under the sheets, forcing himself to stay awake. Then he hears Tiger’s door open: there is just a slight creak. It moves slowly, tentatively, as if whoever is pushing it does not want to be heard. Edgar leaps to his feet and rushes to his own door. In an instant, he is in the hallway and sees a dark form standing outside Lucy’s room. It turns.
“What are you doing?” asks Edgar.
“Oh,” whispers Tiger, “just checking on Lu. I won’t be a minute.”
But she is. Edgar goes back into his room, lies on his bed and listens. Tiger seems to stay in Lucy’s room for a long time, making no noise. Finally, Edgar hears her sneaking back past his room and then creaking her door open again. Then there is silence. Edgar shakes his head. He is not sure if he has stayed awake for the last little while: he has no idea whether Tiger was in Lucy’s room for ten seconds or ten minutes. Then he falls into a deep sleep. So many dreams come to him that he cannot keep track of them—shaven-headed, black-eyed devils fly about, and so do vampires, Frankenstein creatures, Mr. Hyde and other monsters—but none are in coherent stories. They merely rush through his mind in a kind of Walpurgis Night, vague and unrealized, like beasts seeking forms, born of his fears. The hag does not come. He wakes to dead silence.
He gets up, takes off his socks and pads out into the little kitchen at the back of the house. Tiger, never much for the culinary arts, is standing over a couple of burnt pieces of toast she is trying to butter. She looks up at him and smiles.
“Edgar. Are you ready for action now?” Both the rifle and the cannon are in the kitchen with her, within her arm’s reach.
“Where is Lucy?”
“Not with the land of the living yet. Haven’t heard a sound from her.”
“That is strange.” Lucy is always the first one to rise in the morning and usually makes breakfast for the others.
“Oh, I don’t know. She is awfully frightened right now and perhaps cannot face this day.”
“I will check on her.”
“No,” says Tiger.
Edgar pays no attention. He pivots and returns down the hall.
“Edgar, let her be!” cries Tiger, rushing after him.
Edgar stops before opening the door and turns so he can see Tiger clearly. She is standing there, unarmed, with a pleading look on her face. Edgar opens Lucy’s door and goes in.
It is neat and tidy, extraordinarily so, filled with beautiful colors and things—two lovely little lamps on either side of her bed, a photograph of her grandfather on her white dresser, and a warm rug where her feet first touch the floor in the mornings. The lights are off and the drapes are drawn shut. Everything is as it should be, except…her bed is empty.
Lucy Lear is nowhere to be found.
Edgar stands there with his mouth open.
“She may have just gone out,” says Tiger.
“And told no one?”
“Perhaps she was up very early.”
“You said you hadn’t heard a sound from her room.”
“Well, I may have slept through her departure.”
There is no sign of Lucy for hours.
“Something is wrong,” says Edgar, breaking another long silence as he and Tiger sit on the settee again. She is cleaning the rifle, seemingly completely unconcerned about their friend’s absence.
“You are jumping to conclusions. Don’t worry about Lucy, for she can take care of herself. We have better things to do. You promised you would come with me to Thomas Street.”
“I didn’t promise.” Why would she say that?
“When I have this gun cleaned, we are going, whether Lu is back or not. If someone has abducted her—”
“Or murdered her.”
“Whatever has happened, then all the more reason to take a weapon to that room and search it from top to bottom.”
Edgar wonders again why she has become so anxious to go there. He thinks for a moment. “All right,” he finally says, “just give me a moment.”
He gets up and heads to his room.
“Who knows why Lucy is gone,” calls out Tiger, “maybe she has cracked and is helping whomever is opposing us, maybe her disappearance is all about survival.”
Edgar wonders if Tiger really said that. He gets to his room, his jaw set and his hands sweaty on the doorknob. Once inside, he opens the window and wedges himself through the tiny opening into the two-foot-wide walkway between the Lears’ house and the neighbor’s. Then he scurries along it and out onto Progress Street and runs as fast as he can, far away from Tiger Tilley. A half hour later, he is in an alleyway in central London, bending over and out of breath. “I am running from my dearest friend!” he exclaims. “What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” says a gasping voice near him, “and she isn’t your dearest friend, not anymore.”
He looks up to see Allen Brim standing near him, bending over too, with one hand on a knee, the other over his heart.
“Father!”
“You were moving very quickly, my son. What is going on back at the Lear house? You appeared to be running from it.”
“Lucy has disappeared.”
Allen straightens up, hands on his hips now.
“Things are coming to a boil, Edgar. You need to—”
“I am almost certain he is inside my head.”
“Who?”
“The devil. Satan!”
“You look perfectly—”
“He may be turning me against Tiger. I cannot believe what I am thinking about her, imagining she is saying. He may have taken Lucy! He may have killed her!”
“Calm, Edgar, calm. You must trust yourself and your thoughts. Now, you spoke of two things you might do in order to oppose your enemy yesterday. The first was speaking to William Shakespeare and that got you nowhere; the second was going back to that room on Thomas Street, was it not?”
“I cannot. I am unarmed. Tiger may be heading there too, bearing the rifle!”
“Not to worry. You shall have me. You must explore that place more thoroughly, Edgar, it may be your only hope. We shall deal with Tiger if we encounter her.”
Edgar believes that no one is a match for Tiger Tilley, and he is terrified about what he might find in that upper room on Thomas Street, so he makes his way to the East End with his father with great reluctance.
They enter through the big door with the black-horned handle and find no one to intercept them when they step inside. Edgar wonders if Tiger could have gotten here already and disposed of the big thug. They walk up the stairs to the fifth floor as quietly as possible, concerned by the creaks they are making on the steps, eyes upward for an attack coming down at them.
They reach the top floor in safety and are surprised to find the big door there unlocked. It is almost as if someone is inviting them back. Inside, everything is as it appeared before, waiting there in the dim light cast by the rows of candles and the few high windows, stained in red and black. They walk slowly forward past the frescoes of pyramids and staring eyes on the walls, up the center aisle between the carved wooden chairs and the jars filled with red liquid, all still arranged there as if waiting for an audience. They approach the stage with its black throne.
“It doesn’t seem as if Tiger has been here,” says Allen.
“But she said she was coming.”
“Perhaps she was lying or perhaps she was only coming if she could draw you here. Did she seem to want to be alone with you in this place?”
“Yes.”
“Let us examine everything in the room. There must be something in here that will give us a clue. Look at the colors, the carved snakes and horns, the eyes. It is a room for devil worship, there is no question; and remember, William Shakespeare came here. Tiger wanted to bring you to this place, the devil speaking inside her head. This is your enemy’s lair!”
They search the whole room, examining the walls, looking for disguised doors, but they find nothing.
“What about this column?” asks Edgar.
He is standing next to the dark marble pole that goes from the floor nearly to the ceiling at the front of the room, topped with that oblong box, decorated with images similar to those on the throne and chairs.
“I wish we could climb up to that thing,” says Allen.
They run their hands around the pole looking for anything that might help them ascend it, but it is smooth like marble, and they cannot find switches of any sort, or levers that might move the column up or down.
“How did they get it up there?” asks Edgar.
“I don’t know, but if we could look inside it, maybe that would answer some questions.”
Lately, when his father speaks, it is as if his voice were right inside Edgar’s head, clearer than a human voice, as though Allen’s mind was speaking directly to him.
They spend another half an hour searching the room, looking for trapdoors, false walls, anything. “There’s nothing here,” sighs Edgar, standing in the center of the room, gazing around, “nothing that tells us anything.” He has not heard the sound of the hooved beast either. He still feels a presence though. He keeps thinking he is missing something.
“Hello?” he shouts. “Hello!” His voice echoes in the room.
They wait a long time for a response, certain one will come, but there is only silence.
“Well, we aren’t coming away empty-handed,” says Allen, picking up one of the jars of red liquid. “Take this,” he says, giving it to Edgar. “Bring it to your Mr. Lawrence at the hospital and get him to have it examined so we know exactly what is inside it. His attitude about it may tell us something too.”
Edgar looks at the jar.
“Blood.”
“We don’t know that for certain, though if it is blood, whose is it?”
An image of Lucy’s smiling face flashes through Edgar’s mind and then an image of someone hurting her. He closes his eyes to shut it out.
“Watch for Lawrence’s reaction. You must be wary of him at all times.”
“Why?”
“You know why. And the worst of my concerns may be his sending you to that alienist woman, the strange one with the dark ways.”
“Dark? Why do you say that?”
“Do not trust her either.”
They leave the building cautiously, descending the stairs slowly with as little noise as possible, Edgar keeping the open jar of red liquid under his black suit coat, moving gently so he does not spill it. They get out onto the street but then see someone coming along the pavement toward the door from their right, head turned in the other direction as if concerned about pursuers.
Tiger Tilley.
They slip into an alcove next door.
Tiger turns back to her destination. She still looks wary and has the rifle tucked under her arm, holding it vertical so it appears to be part of her coat. She moves in that stealthy, Tiger way, quick in her trousers and low hard-soled boots. She comes to the door, looks behind her again and enters.
“Let us remove ourselves,” says Allen Brim. “I shall wait for you outside the hospital.”
Edgar turns back to the door that Tiger has just entered. She is alone in there. Then he has another thought, perhaps worse. Maybe she isn’t.