“Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and lady bells all in a row.” Sir Harry ran his nails through Johnathan’s blond curls as he sang in a low, breathy baritone. “See all the lady bells, Johnny, up and down the row. Which one shall we pluck tonight?”
Johnathan shivered, the result of Sir Harry’s cool, stale breath and chilled touch. The vampire rose above him, an icy shadow that eclipsed his world in a tomb-like embrace. Sir Harry clasped Johnathan to him, the possessive gesture not lost on the boy he was once, or the man he was now.
“How about that one, Johnny? I bet she tastes like candied fruit.” Sir Harry chuckled when the young lady caught sight of him. She hid her blush behind a parasol, her pace quickening even though her eyes lingered. Their gazes often lingered on Sir Harry until they truly saw him. He was a beautiful monster. But once they saw the predator staring back at them, they scurried away.
They never saw a predator when they looked at Johnathan.
He shifted in Sir Harry’s hold, a feeble attempt to ward off the chill, but the grip only tightened.
“Or that one, Johnny my sweet?” said Sir Harry, pointing. “She must taste like a fine claret.”
An older, handsome woman crossed the street alone, lifting her skirts out of the mud, high enough to reveal her threadbare stockings. It was a detail Johnathan focused on, a sense of kinship for a woman who exuded a facade of wealth to hide the poverty of her underclothes. He understood a mask like that, the necessity of it. The longer he lived in Sir Harry’s shadow, the more cracked his mask became.
“Oooh, Johnny, sweet Johnny, how does my garden grow?” A feminine voice breathed in his ear.
That wasn’t Sir Harry.
Images flickered before him. The dream shifted from memory to something fresh and far more sinister. The arm that curled around him was no longer a man’s arm but a lady’s, pale and delicate, her skin near translucent in the light so it seemed to glow. Small breasts pressed against his back as she draped herself over him, until her glossy curls tumbled in a dark wave over his shoulder.
“With fine powder ash, and dead man’s blood under the new moon,” she purred into his ear.
Johnathan quaked, unable to move. His eyes focused on the face half-revealed beneath the curtain of dark hair. Mary Elizabeth curled her fingers over his chest, her fingernails impossibly sharp, like talons. He jumped as they pricked his skin. She tilted her head to look at him, her eyes matte, without a glimmer of life while her free hand stroked the side of his face.
“Why are you so scared of me, sweet boy? I’m not the monster here.” She nodded her chin across the street. He didn’t want to look away from her, terrified what he would see.
He couldn’t stop himself. The muscles in his neck creaked from his resistance. He sucked in a breath. A creature waited for his gaze in the shadows, watched him with eyes like blistering coals, big as plums. He knew then, proportionally, something was off with this one, the creature of his nightmare far, far larger than what he’d encountered outside the morgue.
Fear closed in a fist around his heart. Those glowing eyes rose, higher, so much higher than the one he’d fought, taller than Sir Harry. A misshapen clawed foot emerged from the shadows. Johnathan’s breath came in short pants. The foot slid forward, dragging the shadows with it, so that it remained half obscured. The passing pedestrians took no notice of the monstrosity, their paths curving around it, mindless of its presence.
The longer he stared, the more details Johnathan saw, but they winked in and out of his mind because he had yet to process the whole. The creature was distorted, unreal, but distinctly lupine, the echo of a misshapen wolf.
“Oh no, sweet one, a wolf answers to its pack. It needs no master,” said Mary Elizabeth in his ear, plucking the thoughts from his mind. Her fingers stroked down his neck. She left a set of burning lines in the wake of her fingers. Warm blood trickled down his neck.
A sound rolled forth from the darkness, like thunder cracking over the roar of a forest fire. Mary Elizabeth made a tutting sound.
“What—what is it?” he asked her.
She laughed, a bell-toned cackle tinged with madness. “It has your scent now.”
Her hand snapped down and grabbed his wrist in a punishing grip. Johnathan yelped. The bones of his wrist ground together as she forced his arm up. In the center of his palm, a symbol blazed, a half circle crossed by a line, so that it resembled horns. The same one he saw within Mary Elizabeth’s ruined ribcage. Fire licked the underside of his skin.
“Are you strong enough, sweet Johnny?” Her lips brushed his cheek.
The creature opened its maw and lunged.
Johnathan floundered in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets until his body slid off the edge of the bed and crashed in a heap on the floor. His palms stung where they slapped the wooden boards. He lay there, gulping air, while his sweat cooled to a clammy film on his skin. Johnathan rolled onto his back. He concentrated on funneling his breath through his nose, lifting his closed fist. Clenching his jaw, he forced his fingers to unfurl.
There was no symbol on his palm. The skin was still blackened, except there was something about the discoloration that made him frown. He tentatively rubbed a forefinger over his palm. The heat was gone. The blackness came away in a fine powdery smudge.
“Soot,” he murmured.
The bedroom door opened. Johnathan glanced at Vic’s polished boots through the underside of the bed.
“John?”
He debated if he should bother saying anything.
“I can hear you breathing,” said Vic.
Johnathan let his head fall back on the wooden floorboard with a soft thud. “Right here, fiend.” If Vic wasn’t going to pretend anymore, why bother at civility?
“As suitable as that term is, please refrain from using it outside of this house.” Vic’s boots moved around the bed with a dancer’s footing, a criss-crossed pattern that made for poor balance but silent steps.
Johnathan squinted. If he ever needed to take Vic down, he’d go for the legs first.
The vampire’s beautiful face leered at him from the foot of the bed. “What are you doing on the floor, John?” He made a show of perusing Johnathan’s prone form. “You look like hell warmed over.”
“Flatterer,” Johnathan mumbled. Vic was the picture of a perfect gentleman, having exchanged his more relaxed look for a tight-fitting gray vest and dark overcoat that leant his slim frame some width and accented the brilliance of his hair.
The vampire extended a hand. “Come on, up you get.”
Johnathan hesitated only a moment before accepting the offer. Vic started to haul him up. Johnathan couldn’t help himself. His leg snapped out in a practiced movement while he twisted Vic’s wrist. The vampire’s eyes widened a fraction before he went down. The surprised whoosh of air leaving his lungs was quite satisfying.
Vic rolled to his side. Strands of auburn hair framed his expression, torn between peeved and amused. He blew the hair out of his face. “Was there a point to that exercise?”
Johnathan shrugged. “Made me feel better.” He sat up, dragging the vampire with him so that they faced each other.
For a moment they paused, staring at one another, only inches apart. Vic’s lips parted. This close, Johnathan could see the vampire’s pupils dilate, his pulse ticking up several notches in response. He was still holding onto Vic’s forearms, the muscles tense beneath his touch.
Abruptly letting go, he shook himself. “You are quiet on those tippy toes, but completely unbalanced. A toddler could flip you if they caught you off guard.” His voice was too light, as if he just barely held back something that strained for release.
Vic laughed but caught himself, his expression turning somber. “We have serious business to attend to, John. Remember, murders, mystery beasts, and such. Are you done tossing me to the floor?”
“You done prancing around like a stage fencer?”
“My, you are surly in the morning.” Vic titled his face upward. A vee creased his brow as his nostrils flared. “It smells like fire in here.”
Johnathan’s skin pricked.
He flexed his injured hand, debating whether to draw Vic’s attention to the oddity. Ah, yes, he remembered. He needed to tell Vic about the change in the wound and about the dream. Except…
He blinked, once, twice, his thoughts dissipating like vapor.
That need curled like a wisp of smoke in the back of his mind. What had he been thinking again? Whatever it was seemed like such an insignificant thing now. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less concerned he grew, especially when there were more pressing matters at hand.
“Is Lydia Fairchild’s residence within walking distance?” With the brilliant sunlight streaming through the nearby window, he craved a nice brisk walk.
Vic sniffed again and shrugged, brushing an errant smudge of soot off his sleeve. “No, it’s on the opposite side of the town, out past Pastor Shaw’s home. Their property borders the forest.” Vic rolled to his feet with ridiculous ease. This time he didn’t offer a hand, but his gaze did rove over Johnathan’s bare chest. He cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to get dressed.”
The vampire’s gaze lingered long enough to make Johnathan blush to the roots of his hair.
He waited to rise until the vampire sauntered out of the room. Unsure how he felt about Vic ogling him, he winced through the usual crack and creak of his morning routine. Johnathan had a fighter’s body, and that came with all the collective damage of one.
After a quick stretch, he went to wash, pausing at the sight of smeared soot on his palm. The ash came off with a quick scrub, revealing smooth, unmarred skin. Johnathan froze. The memory surged, ricocheted through his skull. Urgency flared to life even as a strange sense of malaise attempted to bog it down. Where was the wound? If he closed his eyes, he could still see the symbol glowing there, hear Mary Elizabeth’s imagined sing-song voice and her manic laughter.
“That was a dream, just a dream,” he whispered. Who did he think he was kidding? The wound was there, and now it was not. Part of him recognized he was on a collision course with the monster he’d glimpsed in his nightmares. Or didn’t quite see. It was frustrating enough to make one tear their hair out, but every impulse he had to tell the vampire made his muscles lock in place. Johnathan braced his arms on either side of the wash basin, staring down at his rippling reflection, a muddied mirror of his thoughts. The internal tugging grew more insistent, a low, humming, barely heard whisper he couldn’t help but focus on, desperate to hear what it said. Already he could feel the importance plucked away, until the water went still with his thoughts…
Johnathan had a job to do. He snagged the letter he’d written last night and tucked it into his vest, then made his way out of the house, pausing to add one item to his arsenal. Vic waited for him at the carriage. His ruffled hair was smoothed back and tied at the nape of his neck, clothes pressed to impress their country gentry audience, which made Johnathan’s roughly spun clothing all the more obvious.
Still, Johnathan’s face was washed, and his shirt was tucked in. He could have presented a worse picture. Vic handed Johnathan a cold sausage in a bun.
“Keep your strength up,” said Vic. He clucked his tongue against the back of his teeth, and the placid horse pulled them into motion.
“What an absurd thing to say.” Johnathan bit into the bun, a medley of soft yeasted bread and cooked pork with melty bits of fat. Dear god, it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He finished it in three bites.
“Absurd? I don’t follow?”
Johnathan swallowed his mouthful before answering. No need for Vic to find him more uncouth than he already did. “What’s the point? Between you, the mystery beast, and the Society, I doubt I’ll live long enough for my ‘strength’ to matter one way or another.” Oh dear, he sounded resentful. His fitful nights were eating at him more than he could even admit to himself.
Vic was quiet for a moment. “I thought I made it clear last night. Death won’t come from my corner. And I won’t betray your cooperation with one of my ilk to your precious Society.” His eyes were steely slits as he glanced at Johnathan. “So you only need to worry your pretty, thick head about one out of three.”
Johnathan visibly flinched. The sausage bun soured in his gut. “Don’t call me that.”
Vic snorted. “I apologize. You aren’t an idiot, but you’re far too stubborn for your health.”
Johnathan left it at that, unwilling to clarify which word bothered him. Vic’s presence had to be the reason his memories of Sir Harry seemed to be stirring in earnest. Exhaustion and frustration were uneven scales on his shoulders, teetering and tottering for dominance. He needed to change the subject. “What do we know about the Fairchilds?”
Vic hissed softly through his teeth but answered in an even tone. “Do you remember the location of our lovely showdown last night?”
How could he forget? He’d swiped the log hook off the table, determined not to be caught out unarmed again. It now sat heavy inside his coat. Perhaps he should make a harness for it or something. It was rather cumbersome and dug into his ribs.
“Well, you might be interested to know Mr. Fairchild owned the mill until recently,” Vic continued. “He sold it off shortly before his daughter went missing.”
Johnathan looked at him. “Before? Not after?”
Vic nodded. “I double-checked to be sure.”
Johnathan tapped the log hook through the top layer of coarse wool. To sell such a lucrative business after the disappearance of their child would make more sense. He wondered what drove Mr. Fairchild to part with his business, particularly in a town where a livelihood was so integral to survival and home comforts.
“Were there any notes in the sale transference papers to indicate the reason?”
Vic shook his head. “You can add it to the questions we shall ask Mr. Fairchild.”