Jane
The night air hung wet and cold above them, but Jane couldn’t feel anything except her heart racing. Mr. Blackwood was running a few steps ahead of her and a few steps behind her was Bertha Rochester. Mr. Rochester brought up the rear, Helen floated among them, calling out words of encouragement.
They were headed toward Westminster.
“Wouldn’t he want to hide?” Jane had asked Mr. Blackwood.
“I know him. His ego won’t let him believe he’s in any sort of danger.”
Jane’s foot caught on a tree root, and she stumbled but righted herself before she hit the ground. Mr. Blackwood turned to make sure she was okay, but then he tripped and fell flat on his back with an oomph.
Jane scurried to his side and held her hand out. He took it, bounced up, and they were off again, Mr. Blackwood with a slight limp.
Mr. Rochester, due to age, was falling farther behind. “Keep going!” he shouted.
“Mr. Blackwood,” Jane said breathlessly. “If the duke knows that you know that he’ll go to Westminster, aren’t we running straight into a trap?” Jane said.
“But I know something he doesn’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“I grew up in this place. I know of a secret tunnel!”
They continued the run through Saint James’s Park, which Mr. Blackwood said was a shortcut to Westminster. When the looming spires appeared in the night sky, Mr. Blackwood took a left toward the river. Jane followed without question, mostly because she was too winded to form more words. Mr. Blackwood turned right at the river and then darted through some trees and finally came to the base of a wall, where there was an iron grate.
“Here it is,” Mr. Blackwood said.
“Wait. That’s not a secret passage. That’s a coal chute.”
“I know.” He panted. “It just always sounded more exciting calling it a secret passage. Don’t worry. It’s an easy slide.” He picked up a large stick on the ground, dug around in the dirt for a moment, and then pulled out a long iron rod. “It’s still here!”
He wedged the end of the rod in between the chute door and the wall, and pulled. The door creaked open.
“We’ll sneak in, and use the element of surprise to our advantage. If we approach him from an unexpected direction, I’m sure we can overtake him.”
Jane furrowed her brows and looked at the dark and totally uninviting coal chute. Helen was next to her, shaking. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“I can’t go in,” she said. “This place feels the way Mrs. Rochester’s room felt.”
Mr. Blackwood nodded. “Of course. The Society knows how to protect places from ghost entry. Helen will have to stay behind.”
“Be safe,” Helen whispered to Jane.
“You too,” Jane said. She glanced at Mrs. Rochester. “Should we let the men go first?” she said.
Mr. Blackwood nodded. “I’ll be there when you all land.”
Considering where they were at that moment, and the mess they were in, Jane took no comfort in those words. By this time, Mr. Rochester had caught up. He held the chute door open as Mr. Blackwood went through it. Jane went next, feet first, into the chute.
It was a short trip, and contrary to what Alexander had promised, she landed hard on her feet, her knees buckling. Pain shot through her legs.
Mrs. Rochester landed next to her with a disgruntled sigh.
“Mr. Blackwood?” Jane asked.
“He is indisposed,” a voice said. It was the duke, the flickering light of a candle illuminating his face.
And there was Mr. Blackwood next to him, with a knife at his throat, held by none other than Grace Poole.
“And you thought your little passageway was a secret,” the duke said.
“Don’t come down, my love!” Mrs. Rochester shouted.
But in the next moment, Mr. Rochester landed next to her, eliminating their last hope that someone on the outside could save them.
The duke, along with Grace Poole and several guards, led the four of them to a large and ornate room.
“Welcome to the Collection Room,” the duke said.
The room was made up of shelves, aisles and aisles of them, and on the shelves were all sorts of objects; pocket watches, urns, necklaces, rings.
“Talismans,” Jane said. She turned to the duke. “Why bother bringing us all the way up here? We know your evil motives. Why not just kill us?”
Mr. Blackwood shot her a harsh glance.
The duke used his pistol to urge the four prisoners against a wall.
“Miss Eyre, you and Mrs. Rochester are Beacons. I still don’t think you understand how exceptional that is. Why do you think I kept Mrs. Rochester alive all those years? With Grace Poole keeping her captive? I would sooner destroy priceless works of art than damage a Beacon. Pliable ghosts like Mitten are rare and take a painfully long time to cultivate. Since you are here, I assume you have de-possessed the king. Frankly, I don’t have the time or the inclination to groom someone new. And I won’t need to, with the power of influence of two Beacons. This is your last chance.”
“Ha!” Jane shook her head. “There is nothing in this world that could induce me to assist you.”
The duke raised his revolver and pointed it at Mr. Blackwood’s head, about an inch away from his nose. “How about now?”
“Wait,” Jane said. “If you kill him, I will never join you.”
“Moi aussi,” Mrs. Rochester said.
“Oh, I won’t kill just him. I will start with Mr. Blackwood, who was like a son to me. And then I will kill Mr. Rochester, who was like a brother to me. And I will not stop there. You see, Miss Eyre, I have come to discover you have quite a few people in your life who mean something to you.”
For just a moment, and much at odds with the tension of the situation, Jane felt a fullness in her heart because the duke was right. She had many people she cared for, more than a penniless orphan would have ever dreamed.
But then the duke cocked the revolver and she remembered the whole kill-everyone-she-loved scenario.
“Wait,” Jane said.
The duke raised an eyebrow. “Agree, or Alexander is dead.”
“Wait,” Jane said again, trying desperately to think of a way out of this mess. One that didn’t involve the deaths of everyone she held dear. The only idea that came to her was to try and stall. “First, give me a glimpse of how the moving on works.”
The duke narrowed his eyes. “Miss Poole,” he said. “Bring her a talisman.”
Grace Poole walked over to the nearest shelf and grabbed a jewelry box with her gloved hand. Then she walked over to Jane and unceremoniously shoved it in her face. Jane flinched and reflexively took a step back.
And she felt something.
A force of some sort.
It wasn’t coming from the box.
It was coming from Bertha Rochester.
When Jane had stepped back, she had stepped closer to Bertha.
The box Grace Poole held began to shake. She looked at it curiously.
“What is it, Miss Poole?” Wellesley said. “Why are you shaking the box?”
“I’m not shaking it,” she said.
Jane stole a glance at Bertha, who was staring at Jane with a subtle smile. Jane raised her eyebrows and Bertha nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Miss Poole, stop shaking the box,” Wellesley demanded.
“I’m not,” she insisted.
With Wellesley’s attention on the box, Jane and Bertha took the opportunity. They scrambled toward each other, and clasped hands.
And that was when the entire room began to convulse with rattling talismans.
“What is happening?” the duke said. The guards glanced nervously at one another. A glass cup flew off a shelf and struck one of them in the head. He crumpled to the floor. The rest of the guards (there were only three left) abandoned their posts and bolted for the door.
They were definitely not getting paid enough for this.
Wellington’s alarmed gaze fell on Jane and Bertha, and then down at their clasped hands. “Stop this!”
He lunged toward them but before he could separate them, a hairbrush flew off a shelf and hit him on the head.
“No possessing!” Bertha shouted to any ghosts who could hear her from inside the talismans.
“Right,” Jane said. Beacons couldn’t control a ghost who was possessing a human. It would be chaos.
Blackwood and Mr. Rochester watched the two women in amazement. “Get down!” Jane commanded them.
Jane could feel the energy swirling between herself and Bertha. At the same time, she could feel it draining as the room continued to shudder. They would not be able to keep it up for long.
The flying hairbrush had stunned the duke enough for him to drop his gun, but only momentarily. He reached down and grabbed it and swung it toward Mr. Rochester, but a shoe hit his hand, flinging the gun across the room.
The women were focused on Wellington, since he was the one with the gun, so they did not notice Grace Poole sneaking up on them.
The servant lunged toward Bertha and tackled her to the ground, breaking the physical connection.
The room went still.
Mr. Blackwood and the duke both turned toward the gun and dove for it. Each of them got a hand on it, and they struggled to gain control. Mr. Rochester flew to Blackwood’s aid, but the guard who had been hit with the glass cup had regained consciousness and he tackled Mr. Rochester before he got very far.
Grace Poole was on top of Bertha, and the sheer girth of her was enough to hold her down. She put her hands around Bertha’s throat.
“I’ve dreamed of doing this,” she said. “I wanted to kill you from the start. But they just couldn’t get rid of a Beacon.”
Jane jumped on Grace Poole’s back and put her arms around her throat but the woman’s neck was as thick and sturdy as a tree trunk. Jane’s slight build wasn’t going to be enough.
Bertha scratched and clawed at the hands around her throat, all the while making terrible choking sounds.
Jane looked frantically around, but the talismans were annoyingly small. She grabbed a perfume bottle and struck Grace Poole’s head as hard as she could.
But the woman was a beast.
Bertha’s eyes fluttered shut.
Mr. Rochester was subdued by the guard.
The duke and Mr. Blackwood continued their struggle, but the duke was gaining the upper hand. Several shots went off in the commotion.
Jane thought fast.
She laid down next to Bertha and grabbed her hand. The force between them was not as strong, as Bertha was near the point of passing out.
Jane closed her eyes and focused all of her strength and energy on the nearest shelves of talismans. She used everything she had inside of her. Every strike of her face at the hand of her abusive aunt Reed. Every gurgling sound her stomach had made through years of starvation. Every friend she’d lost to the Graveyard Disease. Every chill she’d felt in her bones due to years of nearly freezing to death. Every fear she’d felt in the Red Room.
She used it all.
The room began to shake once again.
Jane opened her eyes in time to see a string of talismans striking Grace Poole. They flew with such speed that they appeared only as streaks in the air.
Bertha opened her eyes and used her free hand to shove Grace off her.
The two Beacons stood, luminous and glowing, their clasped hands high in the air.
More talismans flew off shelves and struck the duke and the guard.
The duke was quickly subdued, and within moments, Alexander was standing over him with the gun.
Bertha and Jane finally released their hands, and both women dropped to the ground in complete exhaustion.
“You would not kill me, my boy,” the duke said in a weak whisper.
“I am not your boy,” Mr. Blackwood said.
The smell of smoke reached Jane’s nostrils, and it was followed quickly by the sight of flames licking up the wall on the other side of the room. During the fight, candles must have been knocked over. The group would have to escape the room, and soon.
Mr. Blackwood focused on the duke as the women tried to catch their breath.
A faint voice came from the doorway. “Mr. Blackwood?”
The group turned toward the sound just in time to see Charlotte there, clutching her chest. Then she collapsed.
“Miss Brontë!” Mr. Blackwood shoved the gun into Mr. Rochester’s hand and raced across the room. He crouched down and gathered Charlotte in his arms. Jane’s heart fell at the sight.
“No, no!” Mr. Blackwood said. “She’s been shot!”
The duke used the distraction to lunge for the gun, but Mr. Rochester turned and fired.
The duke crumpled to the floor.
Dead.