Master of the Moors (23 page)

"He trusts me."

A sigh. "Well, I suppose
then I'll have to do the same."

The old man handed over the slim
silver object and Neil accepted it with a smile he found difficult
to maintain.

"Don't you go drinking any
of it now," the old man cautioned, "Or that groundskeeper of yours
will have my head on a pike."

"I won't," Neil told him
and willed him away. He listened to the man's boots squelching in
the mud and waited until the sound had faded to nothing before
running his hands over the flask. The initials D.C. were engraved
in the silver, but thankfully the old bugger hadn't seen it in the
poor light.

Campbell
. Kate had told him she'd seen the doctor in their parlor on
several occasions sneaking illicit sips from a silver flask. But
how had it ended up out here, left in the mud for an old man to
find?

Neil had come out for a
breath of fresh air, just in time to hear the old man mumbling
about what he'd discovered.
Blimey, a
flask
, he'd said.
Half full too!
Without knowing why,
Neil had made his way over and staked his claim on the
object.

Now, he intended to drink
whatever it contained, even though he had never partaken of alcohol
before and was a little concerned about the effect it might have on
him.
I'll get blind
drunk
, he thought and chuckled. He stopped
when fresh red pain seared across the bridge of his nose and
brought tears to his eyes. Rage followed at the thought of that
worthless strumpet Tabitha and her equally worthless brother.
They'd played him for a fool and he'd swaggered right into it with
nary a blink of an eye.
Idiot!
But before the rage could swell to dangerous
proportions, the hall door squeaked open behind him, the music
suddenly irritatingly loud, and the familiar scent of Kate's
perfume assailed his wounded nose. He quickly stashed the flask
beneath his Jack the Ripper cape and sat down on the middle step
leading to the main door.

"What do you want?" he
asked coldly.

"You vanished. I didn't
know where you'd gone."

"Well...now you found me,
so you can go back to your dancing or whatever it is you're doing
in there when you're not trying to embarrass me."

"
Embarrass
you? What are you talking
about? When did I embarrass you?" She sat down beside him, her
elbow brushing his. He moved, just enough so they were no longer
touching.

"I don't need you to stand
up for me. I can defend myself, Kate."

She sighed. "I know you
can, I just...he's bigger than you, and it wasn't a fair fight. I
didn't want you getting hurt."

"I can look after
myself."

"I know, but maybe you
shouldn't have to, at least, not all the time. There's no shame in
admitting you need it sometimes."

"I don't need it," he
snapped. "Especially not from you."

"I brought your
cane."

She pressed the thin
wooden shaft into his palm. Immediately, he tossed it aside. "And
damn you, I don't need
this
either." He rose and began to walk.

"Where are you
going?"

"Home, and don't bother
following me."

"You know I
will."

"I'm warning
you."

"But I'll give you a
head-start if you like." Playfulness had entered her tone and he
knew nothing short of a miracle would keep her from trailing him
back to the house. He cursed her, cursed everyone who had ever
raised a hand to help him. He was
not
an invalid,
not
someone to be toyed with, and
sooner or later he'd show them all as much.

Behind him the hall door
squeaked again. "I'll get our coats," Kate called and he heard the
door slam shut.

The rain was coming down
in torrents, chilling his skin and he shivered.
Damn her
, he thought,
miserable.
Damn her stubbornness, why can't
she just do as I say for once?
Arms
outstretched like antennae now that he knew Kate wasn't there to
see it, he felt his way through the darkness.

The mud sucked at his feet.

I'll show them.

The rain needled his face.
He coughed, and felt a tooth move against the probing of his
tongue.

I'll show them all yet.

The thunder roared through the clouds;
lightning seared the sky.

Then they'll be sorry.

Suddenly he stumbled, and
someone was there to catch him, firm hands locking around his
arms.
The old man?

Donald!
he thought then, and tried to yank himself free. His unknown
savior didn't relinquish his hold. Then the smell crept up Neil's
nose. Leaves, earth, fire, and rotten things, and he realized he'd
have preferred to find himself confronting Tabitha's brother again,
because at least Donald could be fought. At least he knew who and
what Donald was.

No.

"It's time," said the
voice. The blow that followed sent Neil plummeting down into the
mud and the darkness beyond.

18

"What do you mean he's
gone?"

They were outside the
hall. Kate was sobbing and gesturing impotently around her. Grady
felt an awful urge come over him to shake her violently to force
her to tell him what had happened and to punish her stupidity in
letting Neil out of her sight, but he knew he would only be using
her as a distraction from his own guilt. None of this would have
happened had he stayed with his charges like he was supposed
to.

Please God, let him be all
right.

Though most of the crowd
had stayed inside, or beneath the shelter of the hall eaves, many
of them had clustered together on the steps, braving the weather
either out of curiosity or a desire to help. Kate, though wearing
her raincoat, was trembling uncontrollably.

"It was Donald," she said,
"They brought him outside because he attacked Neil. He must have
been hiding out there, waiting for him. I should have
known
." Her eyes flitted
over the crowd, as if at any moment she might spot Neil in their
midst. "He's gone. What have I done?"

Grady laid a hand on her
shoulder. "Why did Newman start in on him?"

"Oh, why does that thug
ever bother anyone? Because he enjoys it, that's why. He's a
hateful, wicked bastard. He should be sent away somewhere where
they could knock the evil out of him."

"Mind yer tongue. Where is
he now?"

"He came back to get his
coat. Can you believe that? Neil is probably out there right now
bleeding in a ditch and he saunters back here to get his bloody
coat!"

"Did you talk to
him?"

"I tried, the chaperones
wouldn't let me."

Grady nodded. "Come with
me."

He led her back inside the
hall, where groups of worried parents were conferring and muttering
in the center of the floor, while others walked the room tossing
papers, empty cups and decorations into empty potato bags. The
festive mood so prevalent when they'd arrived had been shattered by
Neil's disappearance, though Grady entertained the hope---because he
had to---that the boy had simply headed home. But if Kate was telling
the truth, and he had no reason to believe she wasn't, then he
should have encountered the boy on his way back from The Fox &
Mare. Though the darkness was thick and the storm violent, the road
from there to the hall was not wide enough for him to have missed
the boy staggering blindly home.

They found Newman and his
sister in the cloakroom. Donald looked typically smug and defiant,
while Tabitha appeared pale and defeated, her witch hat propped on
the low bench beside her. Donald was slipping on his raincoat.
Grady blocked the door.

"Where's Neil?" he
asked.

Donald ignored him.

"I asked you a question,
boy. Answer it." Grady was far from willing to prolong a
conversation with this little blackguard when in all likelihood
Neil was out there somewhere in the night, and possibly
injured.

"How do I know where he
went? I'm not his mother."

Grady took Kate by the
shoulders and forced her to take his place in the doorway, fearing
at any second she might explode and tear the head off the boy. He
stepped close to Donald. Tabitha would not look at them; she simply
stared at the soles of her shoes, tears glistening in her eyes. On
closer inspection, Grady saw the pink ghost of a handprint fading
from her left cheek. With a rueful nod, he reached out, grabbed
Donald by the collars of his newly donned raincoat and shoved him
against the wall. The boy howled in pain as the coat hooks dug into
his back. He tried to wriggle free of Grady's grip, but the
groundskeeper forced him back against the hooks, eliciting another
obscenity laced howl from the boy.

"Watch yer bloody mouth,"
Grady said, his face inches from Donald's. He noticed the smudges
of dirt on the boy's cheeks where, presumably, he had hit the
ground when the chaperones tossed him out. A series of odd, vaguely
metallic fissures were barely visible beneath the grime. A part of
the boy's All Hallow's makeup, Grady assumed, and hoped he was
right. He was briefly reminded of Doctor Campbell's queer vial of
mercurial liquid.

Your father's blood...

"Let me go, you old Mick
bastard," Donald protested, still struggling, dragging Grady from
his thoughts and igniting white fire in his arthritic knuckles. The
pain, the frustration and the fear of what might have happened to
Neil, knowing there was something unnatural prowling out there,
filled Grady with a dangerous anger, and before he knew he was
going to do it, he brought his hand back and slapped the boy across
the face so hard he had to restrain a wince himself.

The boy blanched and
ceased struggling, eyes bulging with shock, and Grady supposed it
was the first time in Donald's life that he'd been on the receiving
end of the kind of violence with which he threatened everyone else.
Secretly, Grady felt guilty for being the one to introduce him to
it, but that guilt would have to wait.

"Why did you pick a fight
with him?" he asked, and watched as a single line of spittle
drooled from the boy's blubbering mouth. "Answer me!"

Donald flinched, as if he
thought the old man was going to strike him again. This time he
answered. "He made me do it."

"Who made you do
it?"

"The man. With the
bandages."

"What man? What are you
talkin' about?"

Donald shook his head and
began to sob, snot running from his nose as he held his hands up to
his chest, palms out as if trying to discourage an
attack.

"A tall man," Tabitha said
then, her head still lowered. "He came to the house today and stood
at the fence. He gave something to Donald. I think it was whiskey.
It was payment. Payment for whatever he was supposed to do to
Neil."

"Do you know this
man?"

Tabitha shook her head.
"No, but it wasn't the first time Donald met him."

Grady returned his
attention to the sniveling boy. "Who is he?"

"I don't know, I swear I
don't. I was hanging around outside The Fox last night and he
walked up to me, asked why I was there. I told him I was hoping to
get someone to buy me some ale. Asked him if he would do it. He
laughed...said for the right price he could do better than that. I
told him I didn't have...have any money. He said he wasn't
interested in money. Said he wanted me to arrange for Neil to be at
the dance, to make sure he'd be here tonight and that I was to put
the fear of God into him. For that he gave me Doctor Campbell's
flask."

Grady frowned. "Campbell's
flask? Do you still have it?"

Donald shook his head.
"Lost it when those buggers threw me out of here
earlier."

"This man you met---did he
say why he wanted you to torment Neil?"

"No...just that if I
didn't do it...if I failed, he'd come into my room at night and
tear me to pieces."

Grady released him. Relief
flooded over Donald's face as he straightened his
collars.

"No one ever threatened me
like he did," Donald added. "No one who looked like they really
meant it, at least."

Grady felt dread twist his
insides. "Did he mention what he was goin' to do with Neil if he
caught him?"

"No."

Grady spun and hurried to
the door. "Come on Kate."

"Where are we
going?"

"Home, and on the way pray
like you never have before that we find him there."

"What if we
don't?"

Grady opened his mouth to answer.
Nothing emerged but a shaky sigh. He shook his head and quickened
the pace.