Master of the Moors (4 page)

"God save us!" Grady
yelled and swept his arms around him in the fog, as if they were
swords that would excise the killer, cutting through the curtains
of gray like Hamlet skewering his lurking traitor.

The stuttered hiss came
again, as if the moors had suddenly become infested with
snakes.

"Royle, we have to get out
of here."

"I know, I know. Dear God,
what
is
that?"

"Just get on your mare.
We'll be sharing the ride home."

"You're covered in
blood!"

"Get on the feckin'
horse!"

Royle obeyed, though it
took a considerable amount of effort to get Lightning to stay still
long enough to mount her. Once astride, he lowered his arm to
assist Grady. Grady took it and seated himself behind the saddle,
so he was riding bareback. He looped his arms around Royle's
voluminous belly. "Turn around. Whatever's out there, we don't need
to chance ridin' past it."

Royle tugged on the reins.
The horse, still shaking its head and whinnying, turned away from
the gruesome remains of Grady's mare.

They took off as fast as
the fog would allow, which wasn't very fast at all---a realization
that made Grady nervous. Whatever had killed Alice was bound to be
moving quicker than they were. Assuming it was
following---
hunting
---them, they'd need to increase the pace. And yet to do so was
to risk flying blind into territory made unfamiliar by the fog.
They chanced crippling the horse among boulders or riding straight
into a mire if they took it too fast.

"Is it following?" Royle
called over his shoulder.

Grady looked back. He
thought he might have seen a shadow running---no, not running,
bounding
---in the swirling
wake of their flight, but then it was gone. "I don't know, but
let's not stop to find out."

"What about
Laws?"

Grady shook his head.
"Forget about him fer now."

"Do you have any idea
which direction we're heading?"

"I think so. Just
keep
goin
'."

They rode on, jolted by
every rise and slope that slipped from the fog.

Royle lashed his crop
against the lathered horse's hide. Lightning responded, the speed
increased, and then a blanket of darkness flashed before Grady's
face, so sudden and brief he feared he was about to be knocked off
the horse. His hands slipped free of their grip around Royle's
belly and he quickly grabbed the sides of the saddle to keep from
falling. He heard a deafening hiss, felt a slight pressure against
his chest and then the hazy light returned. Shocked, he looked to
his right just in time to catch a glimpse of black dissolving into
gray.

"Jesus," he whispered.
Then louder: "Royle, did you see that?"

Grady looked down at his
hands, at their furious trembling, and noticed the long thin
scratch marks in the rear of the saddle where the thing had clawed
its way over the horse. Its nails had missed his crotch by less
than an inch.

"Royle?"

He looked up and, to his
horror, realized two things at once. First, Royle was dead. The fat
man's hat was gone, as was most of his head and what remained
brought to Grady's mind the image of a boiled egg cracked open and
ready for salting. Only the momentum and the man's weight were
keeping him in the saddle. Secondly, the horse would soon react to
the blood again, and when that happened, Grady was as good as dead.
Even if he survived the fall, whatever was out there wouldn't be
long finishing him off.

God in Heaven, what's
happenin'?

He reached around Royle
and grabbed the reins, then, with both fists pressed against the
man's left arm, heaved him off the horse. The body hit the earth
with a sickening thump but Grady did not look, nor did he glance
over his shoulder to see if Royle had suddenly grown a ravenous
shadow.

***

"What have you done?"
Mansfield said as he dismounted. "What have you done to
her?"

Callow's smile faded.
"What any man would have done in my place."

"You're
insane!"

"Oh please, I did you a
favor. I did everyone in this godforsaken village a favor. You, my
poor misguided friend, have no idea what it is you've been meddling
with."

Dumbstruck, Mansfield
turned and ran into the fog.

"You'll do her no good!"
Callow roared after him, but he wasn't listening. All that mattered
now was finding Sylvia. Finding her
alive
. Anything less and he would
tear Callow apart with his bare hands and to hell with the
consequences. The man was a raving Bedlamite. He cursed himself for
not realizing it sooner, for not taking Sylvia's words at face
value. And now he'd harmed her.

I'll kill
him
.

He tore at the fog as if
it had gained substance, cursing under his breath as his feet
almost slid from under him. Somewhere up ahead, he heard a voice,
Fowler's perhaps, offering low words of comfort, and that gave him
hope. He thrashed at the gloom, tears leaking from his eyes,
desperate to see her, to know she was---

A moment later, he found
them.

"Oh God," he sobbed, as
Fowler looked up at him from where he knelt beside her, holding her
arms at the wrist as he might have held her hands, had they not
been missing.

Sylvia was lying on her
back, breathing short hitching breaths, eyes wide open and staring.
Beneath her, the grass was dark. Too dark. He couldn't tell if the
blood on her bodice had come from her wrists or from other wounds
on her chest.

"She's dying," Fowler said
helplessly. "I don't know what to do."

Mansfield went to Sylvia's
side and brushed his fingers against her cheek. Her eyes found him,
the pupils almost completely dominating them. "You didn't come,"
she whispered in her clipped accent.

He shook his head. "I
didn't
know
."

"Save the
child."

She looked away, her
breathing so irregular he feared each breath would be her last.
Then he kissed the corner of her mouth. Her lips were like strips
of cold leather. He rose, one trembling hand held out over her
body. "Fowler. I need your gun."

"What? Why?"

"Just give me the bloody
thing!"

Fowler obeyed, flinching
when Mansfield snatched it from his hand. "Stay with her,"
Mansfield commanded. He stalked off, back the way he'd come, teeth
clenched so hard his jaw muscles hurt, tears streaming down his
cheeks. He expected to find that Callow had fled with all the
horses to make pursuit impossible, but to his surprise, the
huntmaster was still there. He'd come down off his horse and was
standing with his back to Mansfield, peering into the fog,
muttering to himself.

Mansfield, trembling with
rage, stopped a few feet away from him. "Turn around."

Callow didn't
move.

"I said turn around and
face me, coward."

"There's no time for such
melodrama I'm afraid," said Callow and nodded at the wall of white
in front of him. At first Mansfield saw nothing, and was about to
say as much, or pull the trigger, whichever suggested itself to him
first, but then he noticed twin orbs of white fire rising from the
fog like will o' the wisps. He took an involuntary step back as a
dark mass materialized from the gloom.
It's
the devil himself
, he thought.

"Goodbye, Mansfield," said
the huntmaster as the shadow drew back and, with an awful hissing
sound, lunged forth from the fog, eyes blazing.

3

Brent Prior,

1904

Grady sat by the kitchen
hearth, the occasional puff of smoke from his pipe threading
through his view of the moors and the low-lying mist that had risen
as he'd watched. The heat from the flames was reassuring; it
soothed the feeling of age and uselessness that sometimes
threatened to overwhelm him whenever he sat for too
long.

On this particular
morning, he felt nervous, so much so that, rather than eschewing
breakfast completely---a steadfast ritual---he'd opted for a glass of
hot whiskey, ostensibly to chase away the chill of dawn. His true
motive had been to settle the almost suffocating ache in the pit of
his belly that told him things were coming to an end, that soon
Brent Prior and Mansfield House would be little more than a
scattering of memories culled from his countless years of service
here. It was a depressing thought and one he had to struggle to
subdue.

The back door opened and
Mrs. Fletcher bundled into the room, her cheeks scorched by the
cold wind, silver hair knotted into a severe bun that lent her eyes
an Oriental cast. She stomped the mud from her shoes and hurried to
the fire. "My word," she said, rubbing her hands together, then
offering her palms to the flames. "It's bitter out there this
mornin', Mr. Grady. The sheets I left on the line are stiff as a
board."

"It's a harsh one, all
right. Perfect mornin' for one of yer fine cups of tea, I'd
say."

"Is that so? And you
couldn't have made one yourself?"

"I'm afraid I don't have
the necessary skills with which you've been blessed."

"I see."

He smiled and countered
her scowl with a roguish wink. He would miss their banter if
Mansfield House died. He had always liked Mrs. Fletcher. Despite
losing her husband and youngest son to consumption years before,
her spirit remained indomitable, the agony that must have been
worrying away at her soul kept hidden from her employer and
charges. Grady could not recollect ever having seen her upset, and,
on more than one occasion, she alone had kept the household
together when outside forces had tried to tear it apart.
Nevertheless, he knew there was a vulnerability to her. It lurked
in the corners of her eyes and in the deep lines around her
smile.

"You seem a bit under the
weather today, Mr. Grady. Is anythin' the matter?"

Inwardly cursing himself
for letting the melancholy penetrate his mask of good humor, he
smiled and waved away her concern. "Just the thought of fixin'
those fences. 'Tis too cold a day to be gettin' bit by wire on one
side and the chill on the other."

"If I were you I'd leave
it," she said quietly, her eyes glassy and full of reflected fire.
"It's not like anyone's goin' to inspect it. Besides, what do we
have to keep penned in anymore? All the animals are sold
off."

"You're right." He leaned
forward with a groan and tossed a log onto the flames from the
stack by his feet. Sparks blossomed and danced their way up the
chimney; heat flared, prompting Mrs. Fletcher to move back a step.
"But I'd much rather get it done," he continued. "Just because the
master isn't well is no excuse to be lax in our duties." The truth
of the matter was that he
needed
to keep working. If he didn't, he was afraid he
would only be contributing to the ruin of Mansfield House, to his
own ruin.

The charwoman scowled.
"Oh, now, I didn't mean that we should! Only that there's little
use in mendin' things that haven't got no use anymore. You'd only
be wearin' yourself out for nothin'. Then what have I got? You
stuck in bed recoverin' from a broken back and none of the work
that
needs
doin'
gettin' done!"

Grady grinned. "You make a
fair argument, Mrs. Fletcher."

"I make an even better
cottage pie," she replied, shrugging off her coat. "The perfect
thing to smite the chill on a day like this, I think." As she
spoke, she looked up and over Grady's shoulder. The hall door
creaked open. "And speakin' of things to chase away the chill, I
dare say you'll find nothin' warmer in this house than our little
missus," said the charwoman, with obvious affection. Grady turned
in his seat, wincing as his roasted pant leg scorched the skin
beneath.

"Well good mornin' young
Katherine," he said, and beamed at the auburn-haired girl who
plodded into the kitchen, her eyes at half-mast, a hand raised to
stifle a yawn. She gave them a lazy salute, then slumped into a
chair. Mrs. Fletcher raised an eyebrow and grinned at Grady, who
said: "Long night, was it Kate?"

"Mice in the walls," she
murmured. "I thought they'd eat their way through and nest in my
hair. Where's Neil?" She rubbed sleep from her eyes.

"At work since six," Grady
remarked.

Another yawn and Kate sat
up, blinking. "Wonderful. I couldn't stand to listen to his griping
at this hour of the morning. Could I have a cup of your famous tea,
Mrs. Fletcher? If not, you may have to scrape me off the
table."

The charwoman spoke as she
filled the kettle. "You'd be better off gettin' a few more hours of
sleep. You need every bit of rest if you intend to go to the dance
tonight."

Grady caught her wink and
shrugged to indicate that this was news to him. "What dance would
this be?"