phantom knights 04 - deceit in delaware (11 page)

“Five years,” Freddy said, and I halted on the street to stare up at him.

Five years? Since before the war. He had been betraying us for that long. It was no wonder that my father knew our every step with Freddy telling him anything that he would wish to know. I knew that I should have felt more anger, but the truth was that I had always thought there was something off about Frederick Nolan. He and I never agreed, and deep inside I always knew that he was not with us. He did not have the makings of a Phantom.

Freddy unlocked the door to the house with a brass key as Dudley held a lantern for him to see. “Are you certain this place is abandoned, Freddy?”

“Yes, for I hold the only key, and the lock has not been removed,” Freddy said as he swung open the door and then took the lantern from Dudley. “Wait here. I will be but a few moments.”

Freddy left me and Dudley standing guard on the front steps to the house.

Staring at the dark houses that surrounded the street, I balanced my boots on the edge of the top step. My balance was good, but when I balanced on one boot it seemed that I was making Dudley nervous.

“Will you cease? You’ll slip and break your neck, and then your wife will blame me.”

“Why would she place blame upon you?” I asked as I kept balancing on that top ledge.

Dudley’s voice mimicked my wife, though in an exaggerated way. “
Dudley
, she says,
watch over Jack for me
, she says.
Be sure that no harm comes to him
, she says.”

Laughing, I balanced on the toes of one boot. “When did she say this?”

“Just before we left Savannah. Got my wife in on the threats as well. Had Hannah promise to do me a mischief if I allowed any harm to come to you.”

I chuckled as I moved back from the step to lean against the door.

“Think of the injustice, getting my wife in on her threats. It’s not done, I tell you.”

“Are you afraid of your wife, Dud?”

Dudley sputtered. “Wouldn’t you be? The woman’s unpredictable.”

“But you married her,” I reminded him.

“That I did,” he replied, rather dreamily as he gazed up at the night sky.

It took me some time to realize that Hannah and Dudley were not playing a jest upon us, but were indeed married. Though I could guess Hannah’s intentions behind marrying Dudley, I did not at all understand why Dudley would choose to marry Hannah. She was wild, headstrong, and impulsive. In short, she was a whirlwind. Dudley was staid, or so I had thought throughout the years of our acquaintance. Now I had my doubts that I had truly seen the real Dudley.

“
Why
did you marry her?” That came out harsher than I wished, so I corrected my question. “What I mean to say is, how did you meet her?”

Dudley’s smile blossomed as he sighed wistfully and leaned against the wall across from me. “She and I met at a masquerade in Boston. After a night of dancing and a moonlit stroll, I knew she was the woman that I would spend the rest of my life following.”

“Did you know whom she was? Were you not masked?”

“The masks came off quite early in our evening. We have no secrets between us, you understand.”

That must have been a wondrous experience.

“Hannah showed me a passion that I had never before encountered. For life, for love, for me.” His grin was lopsided in the moonlight. “I was not the greatest matrimonial prize, but she saw something in me that she found agreeable. The next day when I called upon her, I asked for her hand. She rocked both heaven and earth for me when she said yes.”

Dudley paused, his brows creasing. “We kept our marriage a secret from everyone for a time.”

“Were you worried that your mother would try to pull Hannah into the Holy Order?”

“Yes. Though it was useless to try to hide her. Hannah was a tool for the Order before ever she met me. For a time I thought my mother set her on my trail, but she did not. It was fate that brought us together, and together we will remain.”

It did seem that Hannah genuinely loved Dudley, and he she. As strange as their relationship was to me, I envied them their infallible love and devotion.

“If Hannah was in Boston, why would you move to Philadelphia? Unless it was your job… ” That was it. “It was your job to befriend me.”

Dudley did not move, did not blink. He stared straight into my eyes and for a moment I saw a different Dudley. He was not the carefree, poetical joke. He appeared as serious as Sam, and twice as dangerous. There was something cunning in this glimpse of Dudley that put me on alert. When he blinked, it disappeared.

“You have been good to me over the years, never thinking me beneath you, never treating me as if I was not intelligent enough to be your friend.”

Dudley paused for a deep breath. “You are the closest to a brother that I will ever have. And I love your sister like she is my own sister. I even like that scamp Levi. I would like to become a Phantom. I would like to join your family.”

“You are family, Dudley.”

“I thank you for saying so, Jack. When I am gone, I hope you shall remember me fondly.”

That took me aback. “You are not abandoning us, Dudley, surely.”

“Things are coming to a head, Jack, and soon it will be time for me and my wife to go. A choice is coming for all of us. It is best that we be prepared.”

“Jack!” Freddy called from inside the house. I rushed in with Dudley on my heels.

The floor had a layer of dust, and there were cobwebs in the doorways, but it was the state of the parlor that gave me pause. I stopped so abruptly that Dudley barreled into my back, sending me stumbling into the parlor.

Freddy was kneeling on the floor with his lantern placed beside. He was staring down at something before him.

“Is that blood?” Dudley whimpered.

“So it appears,” Freddy said without a hint of emotion in his voice.

“Macabre,” Dudley murmured faintly.

“What?” I used my handkerchief to wipe up some of the blood. It was fresh. I’d say no more than an hour. Taking the lantern, I began to search the dust, but there was no dust on this floor. Someone had swept it clean while the entry was left dirty.

“The dance of death,” Dudley whispered.

“I doubt that. If I wagered a guess, I’d say this is animal blood,” I replied as I searched the parlor for any other blood.

“The hell-fire club,” Dudley then said with a moan.

“The what?” Freddy asked sharply.

“It was a club in England for the ups. Hannah’s father spoke of it a few times, but m’mother thought it too vile for my ears. There was also the Friars of Medmenham. Fais ce que tu voudras,” Dudley whispered reverently.

“What does it mean?” I asked as I walked around the small pool of blood.

“Do what thou wilt. It was the motto of the secret society.”

“How do you know all of this?” I asked speculatively.

“Hannah’s grandfather was a member as it were. Pierre told me a bit of their history. Loose screws, her family. The lot of them.”

I would not disagree with him. “Did you find the artifact?” I asked Freddy as I pocketed the soiled handkerchief.

“Hold up the lantern,” Freddy said as he began pulling up a floor board that was nearest to the far wall. Freddy pulled a sack from the hole that the board had been concealing.

Once Freddy had replaced the board, Dudley did a little dance, hopping from one foot to the other while rubbing his hands on his arms. “Can we lope off? This place gives me the fidgets.”

“As you will,” Freddy said. “There’s not much else to be found here.”

“Hand over the holy artifact, moral reprobates,” demanded a voice from the door. Three men stepped into the parlor, between us and the door. They were each wearing a golden snake shaped ring on their forefinger, and if that did not alert me to danger, the knives in their hands did.

“I say, that’s rather harsh,” Dudley spoke up. “We may be second Sunday churchgoers but we’re far from reprobates.”

“Blackguards,” one of them said. “Do not think to trick us with your sorcery. We must cast out the devil before it has a chance to use the holy artifact against us.”

The other two began to chant something low as they moved toward us, and Dudley recoiled into me.

“Uh, Dud, I think it’s time for us to take our leave,” I said, grabbing Dudley’s arm and pressing the handle of the lantern into his hand.

“Huh?”

“Now!” I threw Dudley’s arm forward. Dudley swung the lantern at one of the men’s heads. The men, who I knew were some of Luther’s guards, jumped out of the way, their voices raised in curses. Shoving Dudley forward, he pitched himself into the shoulder of one of the men, knocking him successfully into another and them both to the floor in the entry. Dudley stepped onto the back of one and the stomach of another as he ran for the door. Freddy and I followed Dudley out and we took off at a run.

We ran toward our horses, but a gun firing behind us had us dropping down. The shot went over the horses’ heads and Dudley was on his feet before me, pulling me. With my arm in his grasp, he pulled me with him down the street with Freddy on our heels. Something clattered on the street beside me and I glanced down to see one of their knives.

“Time to pick up the pace, men.” I shoved Dudley’s shoulder to the right so that he would turn. Another knife flew past us as we turned down King Street.

What was before us had us sliding to a halt on the brick road.

Five guards were lined up on the road, with Leo, Sam, and Abe on their knees before them. Their mouths were covered by cloths and their hands were behind their backs. Leo appeared to have a swollen eye, and Sam’s lip was bleeding. Abe was trying to relay something to us, for I could see him motioning with his head toward the guard standing behind Sam, but I could not understand what he was trying to say. And where was William?

“Moral reprobates, we see that you hold one of the holy artifacts. Surrender it to us and we shall let your friends go free. Refuse and they die.”

The three guards from the house caught up to us and were upon us in an instant. One of them grabbed my arm and jerked me around while the second jumped on top of Dudley and the third grabbed Freddy.

The guard who had my arm, pulled back his fist. I raised my hand to catch his fist, but Freddy slammed his shoulder against the guard’s back. The man stumbled forward, releasing my arm. The guard who had tackled Dudley was picking himself off the ground. One of them pulled out a club and raised it to strike Dud. Moving forward, I shoved Dudley to the side as the club came down, catching only air. I threw my arm down against the guard’s, putting my body weight into it, and then I pulled the club from his hand and tossed it away. The guard’s other hand grabbed at my cravat and pulled, my head going with it.

Exclaiming against the rough treatment of my neck cloth, I threw my fist against the side of his nose, and then kneed him in the groin. Dud threw a punishing right into the gut of one of the others and then broke free. A shot fired behind us, and Dudley stumbled forward, landing on the hard street on his stomach.

“Dud!” I dropped down beside him as Freddy ran up beside me. “Where are you hit? Speak to me, man!”

Dudley raised his head and grimaced. “Not hit.”

Freddy and I helped Dudley to his feet. One of the other guards had a smoking gun, which it appeared that he had fired into the air.

“Fighting will only anger us. Give us the sacred artifact,” the man behind Sam said.

He did not have an accent like the others had in the past. Which meant that Luther was hiring men from America to do his bidding. An unsettling prospect.

A blast shattered the quiet of the night, and behind me one of the guards grunted before dropping to the ground. Another shot rang out, and another. Five consecutive shots crackled the air as men shouted. Dudley pulled me to the ground, and I tried to see from where the assault hailed.

Pulling my pistol free from my belt, I pushed myself up, prepared to return fire of my own, but then I saw a large figure step into the slice of moonlight illuminating us. He moved between us and where the final guard was holding his gun steady against Sam’s forehead.

Dudley recoiled into me when he saw the tall man’s face. “Dash it all! What is that thing?”

It had been four years since I last saw the mask covering my father’s face. It was deep brown and looked like tree bark. He could blend into the trees at night, and often did when we were pursuing people in the forest during certain missions.

“There will be no trade,” William said, pointing the barrel of his musket at the remaining guard’s head.

“Loutaire, go,” William said to me without taking his gaze from the guard.

I began to step toward Sam, but the guard pulled back the hammer on his pistol. I could not see his expression from the distance separating us, but I knew he was warning me to halt.

“Now,” William ordered. Freddy turned and began to run while Dudley grabbed my arm and pulled me with him back toward Queen Street.

When we reached the end of the road, I pulled myself free and turned to look back toward my father.

He did not know me, but if he did, he would know that I never stood by and allowed my friends to be shot.

Dudley grabbed my arm. “Why are you standing about like a stone?” Dudley suddenly jerked back, uttering, “Loose bowels?”

Taken aback, I turned toward Dudley. “No!”

Dudley relaxed his revulsion. “Not that it’s anything for which to be ashamed. Many men tend to wet themselves in the face of battle.”

“I fought in the war, Dud,” I reminded him.

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t prone to explosions of another kind.”

“Dud, be silent,” I hissed, and then turned my attention back to the men.

“A good thing too. I was terrified that he would go further into detail,” Freddy said. “Why are we standing about? Your father told us to run, and I find that to be the best suggestion considering what I carry.”

“Freddy, you and Dudley take your horses and ride back to Sam’s house. Make certain that the women are unharmed. I am going to offer my aid to William.”

Keeping to the shadows, I ran down the road to where I could hear what William and the guard were saying.