If my arms hadn’t been tied by my side, I might’ve been tearing at my hair as I contemplated the predicament.
Then again, I might’ve saved my energy in order to throttle that insufferable dwarf the next time he appeared. Suffice it to say that at that moment, I developed an appreciation for Koki’s determined search for revenge, for I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d exacted my own against Nameless.
That I could sympathize with Koki on any level was in itself alarming. That my pregnant cousin was in the hands of this fiend was more so.
And Gideon…
“Best not to dwell on that,” I said into the darkness.
That was easier said than done. I kept expecting Gideon to pop his head through the wall, a cheeky grin on his face, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“And that’s not going to happen until we find our way out,” I reminded myself, quite needlessly I might add.
I closed my eyes, urging myself to sleep and return to Lilly’s dreamland. Not surprising, I experienced no success. My mind wiggled and squirmed all over the place, every place in fact except the place labeled “Sleep”.
And what use would it have been anyway? The chances were slim that Lilly had dozed off, and she couldn’t very well contact the others. Neither of us knew how Mrs. Cricket trapped souls in that void, and I hoped we wouldn’t have to resort to that, despite my aversion to the dwarf.
Something shimmered by my side.
“Hello, wolf,” I greeted it.
My energy wolf sat beside me, aloof and regal. As far as I could understand, it was the side effect of the werewolf venom I’d received as a child; my witch mother had given me a cure so I wasn’t prey to the lunar-induced changes. Something however had remained behind, surviving the cure.
That something stalked about the room, lighting up the darkness.
“If you happen to see a little man with a ponytail, bite him,” I ordered.
The wolf lay down beside my metal hand, sniffed at it and stared at me, a reproachful expression in its glowing eyes.
“Yes, I apologize profusely for not summoning you,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t. “I suppose the possibility slipped my mind, and now they have Lilly. It’s terribly complicated.”
The wolf cocked its head at me, as if wondering how stupid I could truly be, and then bit at my metal hand.
“Don’t do that, you foolish beast,” I said sharply, but the wolf ignored me. That’s why I’d always been hesitant to summon it to my side: I wasn’t fully in control of it, and I wasn’t convinced I could ever be. It was an energy from a wilder, darker, uncivilized place where the only law was the law of survival at any cost.
It was the ‘at any cost’ part I wasn’t too comfortable with, despite my desire to rid myself of my Mantis nemesis and now the dwarf.
“That’s what happens when you allow your heart to hold tender feelings,” I said with a sigh.
The wolf had the entire metal hand, the leather cuff and straps in its maw. I couldn’t be bothered to fight it. What use would it be?
As if sensing my dismay, the energy form looked up at me and vanished. The hand fell again to the stones with a clatter.
“That’s helpful,” I muttered and frowned. If the wolf was gone, why was there still a glowing light around the hand?
A metal finger twitched.
“So much for all that engineering,” I told it. “A couple knocks against the floor and you start malfunctioning.”
Another finger twitched and then all the fingers clenched. The palm rose up and the fingers clicked against the stone, looking like a five-legged, metal spider. The thing inched toward me.
“Oh dear,” I sighed. “It’s bad enough I must contend with a possessed horse, a werewolf brother and a fiancé with poor fashion sense. But now this?”
I squinted at the hand; a glowing field popped up around the mechanism. The field shifted in and out of a wolf form.
“That was unexpected,” I said, at a loss for what to say. And that in itself should indicate how discombobulated I was.
The spider hand tiptoed (or tip-fingered, as it were) to my side, climbed up my skirt and crawled around toward my back. I leaned forward slightly when a metal finger prodded me, and the hand continued its journey.
Muffled conversation echoed from outside the room, and distant footsteps punctuated the silence.
“Do hurry,” I whispered.
Another finger poked me, as if to remind me that it was after all just a hand trying to do its best. I could feel it tugging and pulling, and then the rope loosened about me.
“Brilliant,” I breathed out as I wiggled my right arm free. “Do you mind working on my ankles now?”
Another sharp prod and the metal spider-hand skittered around my waist and down my leg to follow my order.
The voices were definitely closer now.
I assisted my hand to untie my ankles, after which the hand wiggled its way to my stump and I strapped it on. The fingers continued to twitch and click together with the restlessness of a wild wolf.
“This could be most convenient,” I admitted to it. “As long as I can actually work out how to control you.”
My mind was inundated with images of my hand independently throttling a poor, unsuspecting passer-by for accidentally bumping against me. That would never do, unless the person happened to be a delusional, conceited dwarf.
Oh, the possibilities.
I tried the door, fully expecting it to be locked. And it was.
“No lucky breaks for me,” I informed my wolf hand.
Nameless was correct about one thing: I was somewhat clever (please excuse the immodesty). While I was deprived of my highly useful and fully loaded walking stick, I did have a few hairpins tucked into my bun.
Never underestimate a woman with hairpins.
In the right hands, an innocent hairpin can be a dangerous weapon, or, in this situation, a makeshift key. With my glowing left hand to provide me light and my right hand to fiddle with a hairpin, I had the lock sorted in under a minute.
I paused before opening the door. The voices and footsteps were fading, which meant they’d taken another corridor leading away from mine.
It seemed Lady Luck was finally gracing me with her presence.
“About bloody time,” I told the vagrant lady as I eased open the door.
There was a dim light in the corridor and an impenetrable silence, and I wondered where we could possibly be. There were only a few buildings in Nairobi I hadn’t had cause to fully explore, and this place must’ve been one of them for I didn’t recognize the bleak, undecorated stone walls.
Holding my wolf hand before me to light the way, I tiptoed toward the end of the corridor, looking for other rooms in which Lilly could be held. There was only one other room, filled with sacks of nails and unmarked crates.
I headed in the other direction. The other rooms were likewise filled with construction materials. Railway material? I didn’t bother to peer too closely, for as long as the crates didn’t hold a pregnant cousin or a bottled husband, I wasn’t particularly interested.
I reached another corridor and heard muted voices coming from one of the rooms further down.
Investigate or run for help?
That was the question.
If I ran for help (assuming I could find the exit), would I ever have a chance at finding Lilly and Gideon? And for all I knew, we could be in Naivasha or Nakuru, in which case I’d have an awfully long way to run.
I inched down the next corridor, glancing behind me with every step, expecting the tattooed man to leap out of the shadows at any moment. As I sidled closer to the voices, I could also just discern the click-click of metal balls.
The dwarf’s pendulum.
I stared at my hand. Could the wolf energy be captured as Gideon was? While I was still coming to grips with the power of the beast, I didn’t want to lose it to that madman.
I focused on the hand, and thought with as much mental force as I could muster, Go away.
The glow faded and I was left in the dark with only a glimmer of light creeping out from under the closed door where the voices were. How I sorely missed my walking stick and its heavy fist, which was a great asset when smacking people’s heads around.
A cessation in the muffled conversation alerted me and I pressed myself against the wall. Not that I could hide myself if anyone exited the room, but it often feels better to do something rather than nothing, even if the result is the same.
Someone giggled. For the briefest of moments, I thought perhaps it was Lilly having a nervous breakdown, until the giggling person spoke in a clear and penetrating voice, “I do believe Mrs. Knight has made her decision.”
The door opened and before I could shrink any further against the stone wall — a futile action in any case — the tattooed man reached out to grab me and yank me into the room.
I blinked against the glow of several storm lanterns. Despite the nature of the occupants, the room had a cozy feel to it, with a carpet flung across the stone floor and lounging cushions scattered around the edges.
Nameless reclined across the biggest cushion, looking far too comfortable and satisfied for my liking. On the floor near his head sat the pendulum, the silver balls clicking softly. Of the jar there was no sign.
“Clever, clever lady,” Nameless said, his tinny voice raking against my nerves as much as his smug smile. He glanced at the hand. “I didn’t notice any tools in that. So how did you escape?”
He held up a hand, as if to stop me from divulging my secrets, which I hadn’t intended to do. “Well, it’s of no consequence really, as it won’t happen again where we’re going. And your timing is impeccable.” He clapped his hands once to emphasize his delight. “Preparations for our departure are well nigh complete. Mrs. Elkhart has been escorted to her new abode, and now all we need from you is your agreement to accompany us to England, where we shall right the wrong and clean up that country from the scourge who invaded it. What say you?”
Indeed, what could I say? A bitterness coated my tongue that prompted an urge to spit at his feet. That would hardly have assisted any of us, but it would’ve made me feel better, even if only temporarily.
“My friends will come after us,” I said. “The moment they realize we’ve disappeared…”
The dwarf laughed at that, a high-pitched noise. “My delightful Mrs. Knight, I don’t think we need concern ourselves with them, now do we? After all, we shan’t be utilizing the usual modes of transportation and England is a very far away place from here.”
I refrained from informing Nameless that Lilly’s husband wouldn’t think so, and for a flying horse, England was hardly farther than West Africa. As for Mr. Timmons – well, I delighted myself in images of what he would do to this beastly little…
“Your answer?” Nameless said, his eyes glittering with the triumph he knew to be his.
“I want Gideon’s jar,” I said.
“That is not on the table for discussion,” he replied and stood up, puffing his chest out.
If the situation had been any different, I’d have laughed at his pretense at grandeur and power, but I found my sense of humor remarkably absent.
“It seems you leave me no option,” I admitted.
“Indeed not,” he gloated. “Shall we be off then?”
He snapped his fingers and rope fell about my arms, trapping them against my sides. This was followed by a gag against my mouth and a sack over my head that obliterated all but the hint of light and air.
A scourge indeed, I thought and that was my last coherent thought before a whiff of chloroform removed me from consciousness.