Under Your Spell Page 8

  She belonged to the night, to the quiet, to the deeds that were not spoken of in the light of day. Deeds such as the one she was planning even now, for she could not give up her darkling ways, not completely. Not until the world was safe from Grey. The world and her only sister.

  It did not take long to leave Bloomsbury’s beige respectability behind. Darkness had fallen in earnest by the time she reached East End, but she knew the landscape well, had studied it often, for one never knew when such knowledge might save one’s life. Neither did one know when she might need all her balance and savvy. Having left the gas-lit boulevards far behind, Ella unhooked her leg from the pommel and rode astride.

  The city darkened further, both in light and in tone. Beyond the glittering grandeur of London proper, East End stretched grim and dangerous, seething with secrets and well-kept misery.

  Here was where Sarah had died. Here, amid the squalor and hopelessness. The alleys became narrow, the streets rutted and muddy.

  Silk tossed her heavy mane and snorted. Fear shifted in a stealthy inch, and Ella let it swell over her. For fear was only a hard-edged element of wisdom. Fear was caution, and she had long ago learned to use it. To control it, to let it sharpen her senses, guide her movements.

  It was nearly full dark when she cued her mare onto Gallows Road. Memories reared their belligerent heads. Ella had been here before. Had come, in fact, to take Sarah to Lavender House, against Jasper’s wishes, against his advisement.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. Dampness clung like dank spiderwebs, wetting her hair, wilting her clothes.

  The hovel where she stopped was little more than a shell, burned from the inside. Even in the darkness, Ella could see the sooty stains that marred the tilted bricks. The door stood ajar.

  Six weeks before, Sarah had opened it herself. Memories came again, sharp enough to cut. It had been dark, little different than now. But it had been chill then, the kind of cold that sliced clean to the bone. Ella had debated waiting until morning, informing the others, but fear or something like it had warned her that there was little time to spare. And when the door had opened, she had known she was right, for Sarah had changed. Her face, usually so bright with intellect, was devoid of expression, her eyes flat and shallow. As if her spirit were otherwise occupied. As if her body were empty.

  Ella had planned to be conversational, to be casual, as though she wasn’t certain Sarah’s very life was somehow at risk, but the sight of the girl’s soulless eyes changed everything. There was no time for frivolity. She had insisted that they leave together, had been adamant, had used every bit of mental persuasion she could conjure, and finally Sarah had nodded distractedly and turned away.

  Ella remembered her burgeoning feelings of relief. She had won. There was hope, but suddenly, as if possessed by some wild demon, the girl had snatched a poker from the fireplace and flung herself across the distance, swinging wildly.

  The weapon had struck Ella in the chest, slamming her backward, scattering her wits. Sarah swung again, slicing the heavy tip across Ella’s arm. Pain and fear had brought her to her senses. She had fought then with primeval inelegance, trying nothing more than to stay alive, until finally she had seen an opportunity. A kick to the other’s midsection, had slammed the girl backward.

  She’d flown like a doll of rags, striking the stone hearth behind her.

  Sarah’s heather-green eyes had gone wide for an instant, as if just then, in that one startling instant, she had found herself. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then she fell, dropping with liquid grace to the floor.

  Ella remembered staggering forward, remembered bending down to touch the girl’s hollow cheek.

  Then came the roar of anger. She had lifted her head like one in a dream. A figure was flying toward her, arm drawn back, knife gleaming in the candlelight. She’d had no strength, mental or physical, to control her spell. Indeed, she had cast it in desperation though she knew better, had been taught better.

  Flame had struck the figure like a wall, but he had kept coming, his face already blistered.

  He’d slammed into her, catapulting her backward. She remembered pain, ripping, slicing agony. She remembered fear and regret, and then nothing. Blackness.

  Sometime later she had awakened in Lavender House. Her lungs felt raw. Her head ached where it had been sliced open on something she could no longer recall. Her feet were bandaged where the fire had scorched them, but it was the news of Sarah’s death that hurt the most. The fact that she herself had been the cause. Not the man who had taken her. Not the girl’s own foolishness. But herself.

  Chasing the thoughts impatiently from her mind, Ella glanced about. The street was silent. No one was near, no sinister shadows hovered beside the blackened remains, no evil shapes hid in the lee of the building. Hence she spoke a quiet word and urged her mare closer. Silk hesitated only a moment before mincing carefully up the stone steps. The doorway was narrow, but they squeezed inside where the elegant mount could not be easily seen.

  Dismounting quickly, Ella removed her skirt and hung it over the saddle. It was little more than a single piece of fabric, after all, nothing but a shill that covered the breeches she wore beneath, the breeches that would aid in her manly disguise if need be.

  For an instant Ella considered changing her image immediately, but she quickly discarded the idea. For now she would remain as she was, for the change oft threatened to overcome her natural psyche, muddling her sense of self, her own awareness. Just now she needed her woman’s gifts…her intuition, her empathy, and maybe even her fear.

  Silk, unimpressed by her internal debate, nudged her impatiently, and Ella acquiesced, pulling a dried piece of apple from her pocket. She had no magic over the beasts of the field, only a primal understanding of their honest, earthy ways. Lipping the treat from her hand, the mare bobbed her head, silent agreement to remain where she was, at least so long as the mood suited her.

  Unbuttoning her shoes, Ella set them beside the door with her stockings inside. The earthen floor felt solid beneath her feet, but there was far more to it than that, for she had forever been intrinsically connected to touch, to the earth. Through the soles of her feet, she sensed anger and fear and confusion. The feelings were almost infinitesimal, so subtle and shifting, they might be disregarded as insignificant by another. And though discerning these latent emotions was not her greatest gift, Rosamond had helped her sharpen her skills. Indeed, the witches of Lavender House had taught her much: when to harvest each herb, how to control her thoughts and so control her body. How to survive…to keep breathing, when the world weighed in on you like a thousand sun-baked bricks.

  Pulling a candle from her pocket, Ella wedged it into a brass holder, breathed on a flame, and prayed she would need no disguise this night, that she would find what she needed without interference. Then she went to work, silently sifting through the rubble.

  Sarah had lived here. Had died here. There would be a clue to why. Some fragment of the past to tell the story of why she had left her home where she had been safe, if not content.

  They had first met while riding the daily promenade around Mayfair. The girl had been shyly flirting with a penniless count. Flirting and smiling, but her hands had shown her abilities. They held the reins firmly but gently and reached often to stroke the arched crest of her handsome gray.

  And in those first moments, Ella had felt the girl’s inexplicable power. They’d introduced themselves and soon realized they had much in common.

  But in eight months the situation had already begun to change. Sarah sold her beloved gelding, saying she planned to go abroad, to travel. And something in Ella’s gut had clenched.

  Wandering down a hallway, Ella moved quietly, absorbing every nuance. The house here was mostly intact. The ceiling was complete, casting her in darkness but for the wavering flame that melded shadows and stains on the too-close walls.

  A door stood open to the left. A mattress lay on the floor. Flames had devoured the
center, eating a black hole in the striped ticking. The charred horsehair stuffing lay exposed like painful memories, stifling and stagnant.

  Had Sarah shared this room with the man named Grey? Had they lain together on that mattress?

  There had been a feverish light in the girl’s eyes the day she’d first mentioned him, an avid excitement in her tone as she spoke of his kindness, his wit. She’d known him for some months, she’d said, and the fearful niggling in Ella’s gut grew worse, escalating to a quiver in her soul, a tingling in the palms of her hands.

  But she’d reprimanded herself.

  Jealousy, after all, felt much the same. She was accustomed to its pangs…the gnawing grind of envy as milkmaids and fishwives wandered past, fat babies propped with unfussy pride upon their outslung hips. The aching emptiness as fine ladies displayed their frilly daughters. And the dull, undeniable resentment at young brides’ blushing admissions that they would soon be lying in. She had missed it all. Had mourned it in silence, so there was no reason to assume her feelings had been aught but the growling pangs of jealousy. A fretfulness for the maternal happiness that had eluded her.

  After all, she had not been unlike Sarah once upon a time. Indeed, she had been just as awed by her own inexplicable gifts. Gifts she could share. That she could boast about…just as Sarah had.

  But time and Verrill’s duplicity had taught her better. Had taught her to warn those in similar situations, but the cautionary words had sounded cheap and spiteful to her own ears.

  Lifting the candle, Ella scanned the floor around the mattress, then bent to examine a splash of red among the ashes. Digging through the satiny soot, she came away with nothing but a scrap of cloth. The garment it had once been had burned beyond recognition. She closed her eyes, letting the feelings take her, but there was little to be gained, only a melancholy weariness.

  Opening her eyes, Ella glanced about again, realizing for the first time that there were no clothes left intact. No trunks, no personal items. Nothing.

  Why? Had the house been vandalized since its destruction, or had Grey never brought his personal belongings here?

  Scowling, Ella wandered into the only remaining room, but still there was nothing. Only ashes, loss, the clinging stench of smoke that choked her lungs and her spirit, that whispered of guilt and shame and mistakes realized too late.

  She should have come sooner, before others had picked the place as clean as old bones. But perhaps that wasn’t the case at all. Perhaps there had been nothing at the outset. Perhaps Sarah had not brought the consecrated little bottle with her. Perhaps Grey had somehow realized its purpose and demanded that she leave it behind. That would explain its lack of effectiveness, of course, but perhaps it had arrived here in this little hovel. If so, however, where was it now? The fire would not have destroyed it, but neither would others have easily noticed it, for it had been imbued with unique powers made for Sarah alone. Powers that had failed her.

  Guilt washed in on a raw wave, but guilt was as worthless as weakness and just as unacceptable. Indeed, she thought, but just then a feeling whispered through the soles of her feet.

  Ella straightened, heart thumping. Was someone near? Had he seen her light?

  Hooves scraped erratically against the dirt floor near the door. Someone hissed an inaudible warning, then: “Catch ’er ’ead, you daft blighter.”

  Silk had been found!

  Setting the candleholder on the floor, Ella turned, creeping through the darkened hall, mind churning. She reached the corner, flattened herself against the charred wall, and glanced past.

  Three men had entered the house. One carried a lantern. One held Silk’s reins. The smallest of the three gripped a knife in his grubby right hand. Its rusty blade shone dully in the flickering light, but he was not the only one who was armed. A bone handle protruded from the waistband of the bearded fellow who carried the lantern; a thick cudgel dangled from the wrist of the other.

  Dammit! The odds were against her. Even if she could convince them she was a constable, she doubted she could hold the image. Maybe for one, but not all three, and certainly not if she were close to the light. The illusion would be too much of a stretch from her natural self.

  Easing back, she considered her options and inadvertently scraped her foot against a half-burned timber. It bumped against the wall, loud as a cannon shot.

  “I ’eard something,” a voice hissed.

  She swore in silence, heart beating heavy.

  There was a hushed listening, then, “Find ’im.”

  Perhaps she could steal away, could sneak from one of the broken windows, she thought, but the truth was obvious; she would not leave Silk. Thus she closed her eyes, thinking, concentrating hard, cloaking herself in an image she had seen only days before in Merry May’s garden. An image with a tattered brown coat, a bent hat, a swaggering Cockney accent. An image of Leonard Shay.

  The change came gradually. She felt herself shift, her self-awareness swell with masculine virility, her sense of danger diminish. Why the hell was she hiding in this hovel like a cornered rat? There were only three of them. Haughty and belligerent, she swaggered into the flickering lantern light.

  “And what the ’ell might you be doin’ then?” she asked.

  The trio started in unison, jerking toward her, faces grim with dirt and suspicion.

  “Who are you?”

  She strode forward, careful to keep Shay’s aggressive nature at bay. She must not get too close. The shadows were deep and friendly, but her voice was forever more certain than her shape. Though that was good too, strong tonight. Leonard Shay was a force to be reckoned with. Her black riding jacket would resemble his tattered, dark coat. Her bonnet would appear as a battered hat. She had tipped her hat low, hiding her face, though that too would appear different, thin-lipped and deadly.

  For one tilting moment, she considered introducing herself as Shay, but the risks were great. “They calls me York,” she said, and sauntered a couple of steps closer. “’Ow ’bout you?”

  The shortest of the three tilted up his chin as if testing the breeze, eyes narrowed like a ferret’s. “Them what survive the meeting calls me Roth.” He fingered his blade affectionately. “And the leader of this ’ere band of murderous free traders.”

  She nodded. “And what might you be doin’ with me mare, Rot?”

  “That’s Roth!” spouted the bearded fellow, but their commander held up a hand and swaggered forward, cocky as a bantam.

  “You a girl then?” he asked.

  She nearly jerked at his words. Could he see through her disguise, past her barriers? But no. She calmed herself, found Shay’s rapidly crafted psyche. The stunted brigand meant the words as an insult, nothing more. “You’ve a nerve, laddie,” she crooned.

  “Yeah? And you’ve a fookin’ lady’s saddle on yonder mount.” He jerked his head toward Silk. “Ridin’ askew ’cuz you ain’t got no balls, aye, laddie?”

  She smiled, knowing exactly how the expression would look in the slanting moonlight. “Or because me stones be so big there ain’t no room against the leather.”

  Roth snorted, and Ella shrugged.

  “Then again, could be the mare ain’t been mine for so very long.”

  “Yeah?” The self-proclaimed leader’s mouth twitched into the semblance of a flickering grin. “Body still warm, is it?” he asked, and fidgeted restlessly. The two behind him grinned. Evil shone in their expressions. But Ella kept her thoughts steady. For tonight she was one of them, a member of the countless leagues of cutthroats and rogues. Class made her hungry. Hunger made her dangerous. “Cold,” she said. “Icy cold. And sinkin’ fast. Just like you blokes is gonna do if y’ don’t leave ’old of the mare.”

  Roth grinned, eyes narrowed. “I see you got you some balls after all.”

  “Big as summer melons,” she said.

  “That’s unfortunate for you, ’cuz this ’ere’s our turf,” he countered, and turned the knife slowly in his hand. It gleamed na
stily in the erratic light of the lantern. “And we don’t care much for interlopers, do we, lads?”

  “Not much,” said Beard. His eyes were wide, popping, bright with excitement. He licked his lips, nervous, anticipating. She’d found their weak link.

  “You must be ’ard up,” Ella said, nodding toward her surroundings. “Looks like you took everything but the ashes.” She glanced casually about, as if there was no reason to keep her attention glued to him. As if she feared nothing from her own kind.

  “Weren’t nothin’ ’ere at the outset,” Beard said.

  The tallest of the three still held Silk’s bridle. He was missing a pair of teeth. One upper right, one lower left, making his face appear oddly lopsided in the uncertain light.

  “Shut yer trap,” said the leader, then to her: “What might you be wantin’ ’ere?”

  She shrugged. “Answers.”

  Roth tilted his head, mind racing behind his narrow eyes. He was small, smart, and dangerous as the devil. “You a Redbreast, then?”

  She laughed, but not too hard. She would not overplay her hand, for he was close enough to the truth. She was not one of the mounted patrol who watched the city, of course, but she worked for the government just the same. Or at least, she had. “Do I look like a damned horse’s arse to you, Rot?”

  “A bit.”

  She grinned. “The lady I just met…” She nodded toward Silk. “She was more polite than you. But she died bloody just the same.”

  “You stick ’er?” Beard asked. A dollop of spittle oozed from his lips.

  Ella’s stomach coiled. She snarled a smile, canted her head. Attitude. It was all that stood between her and death. “What’d you know ’bout the gent what lived ’ere?” she asked.

  “Which one?” Beard asked.

  Ella’s mind snagged on his words. There was more than one?

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut your hole?” Roth snapped.

  Silk champed her snaffle and shuffled iron-shod hooves.