Renegade (19 page)

Easter passed, and April and spring arrived in full force. But my memories of William lingered upon me. Unbidden, but beautiful and sharp all at the same time.

Then, one Sunday in church, as I found myself trying to stay awake while the priest droned on and on with the prayer liturgies, I felt someone slip into the pew and kneel beside me. I opened my right eye enough to see that it was Simon. Unlike me, he appeared to be lost in prayer, or at least in meditation. I would have given anything to read his thoughts, for I knew that he believed in humanity more than he believed in God. Also, I was surprised to see him beside me because he usually attended church in the deceased Reverend Perkins’s old parish in Whitechapel. There must be a reason for his appearance now.

The liturgies faded in my ears as I studied his profile. Colored prisms of light from the stained glass windows shone on his face. His lashes remained light, almost as ash-blond as his hair. Particularly in this meditative pose, he looked, even more than usual, like a figure in a William Blake painting.

Saintly.

Inspiring.

I blushed and tried to turn my attention back to the liturgy.

Immediately after the service, Simon offered to escort me home. Grandmother lingered near Lady Catherine and Lady Violet to chat with our new priest. “Young. Not yet twenty-eight,” she had said about him at breakfast.

As we walked, Simon and I discussed Grandmother’s behavior lightheartedly for a few blocks until we reached our neighborhood. The afternoon seemed almost normal—ladies walked small dogs, young children in their Sunday clothes walked primly beside their tight-lipped governesses.

Then Simon’s face turned grave. We were very near his house, only a few blocks from my own.

“What is it, Simon?” I asked, alarmed.

“Can you step inside to talk with me in my study for a few moments?” he asked, looking not at me but ahead, at his front door.

“Certainly.” I followed him inside. Although I heard his servants preparing Sunday dinner in the dining room, although I smell roasted pork and potatoes, I felt enveloped in Simon’s intensity and I wanted, desperately, to hear what he had to say. As we ascended his family’s ornate staircase, he told me that his mother had been home this past week but that she’d recently left, once again, for their seaside house, where she seemed to be spending most of her time.

Simon’s upstairs study was exactly how I would have imagined it. The room was so unlike the rest of the house. It was simple. Functional. No gilded portraits. It was furnished with unadorned yet expensive sconces, all displaying beeswax candles. As I seated myself in a chair in front of his enormous oak desk, I surveyed Simon’s many books. On the shelf nearest to me, a very small carved-ivory elephant, only the size of my hand, was the lone art piece.

I gingerly picked up the sculpture, feeling its cuts and angles with my fingertips; it was beautiful. Cool to the touch. Lovely.

“Where did you get this?” I asked as Simon shut the study door. “It’s exquisite.”

His eyes veiled, and I picked up on a brief pause before he spoke. “Africa.”

“You were in Africa?”

As I stared up at him, it seemed as if his mind was soaring to another place.

“Were you there for travel or work?” I asked.

Simon was still far away from me. But after two seconds, he snapped out of his reverie and swiftly removed the small sculpture from my hands, returning it to its place upon the shelf.

“I was in the Congo, once. And to answer your question, I was there for work and study purposes.”

“Extraordinary. You never told me about that.”

“That is because”—Simon’s voice was tinged acidic—“I do not wish to talk about it.”

I felt startled. Although withdrawn and unreadable on many occasions, Simon had never spoken so sharply to me. I felt hurt. But then his gentle demeanor instantly resumed, and he sat at a chair behind his desk. He sighed, seemingly aware of the impatience he had just demonstrated.

“I think someone might be following me,” he said quietly. “That is the reason I brought you here.”

“Max?” I whispered.

“No. That is the odd part. My follower is blond, older. Just beyond forty years old, perhaps. His face looks reddish, almost sunburned.”

The man I saw in Highgate Cemetery, the morning after the murders!

I told him about the man I’d seen. Of course, it might not have been the same one, but there weren’t many sunburned individuals in London.

Simon paused. “Your description certainly does sound like the same man.”

“For how long have you seen him?” I asked, my heart pounding. Each day, everything seemed to become more confusing.

“I’m not precisely certain. I’ve only noticed him twice. Last week, when coming home from Whitechapel at a late hour, I heard footsteps behind me; I turned and saw him in the distance. But I was not certain that he was following me so I thought little of it. Then, last night, after working here at my desk until midnight, I turned to draw the curtains in the window.” Simon gestured to the large window behind his desk. “And I saw him, standing in the shadows across the street. He tried to appear casual, as if just waiting for someone, but it seemed too much of a coincidence that I would see him twice in two different sections of London.”

“It is odd,” I said, perplexed.

“Have you seen him since that day in Highgate?”

“No, but I’m usually walking about during the day, when the streets are particularly crowded. I wouldn’t know if anyone was following me. What about William? Has he been followed, too?”

Simon sighed loudly, and I saw exasperation in his face. He paused, looking hard at me, and I felt my heartbeat quicken. “I have not seen William since the night of the attack upon Abberline three weeks ago. William needed to know about Max, that the situation was serious, so I returned to his house immediately after taking you home to warn him and to require him to take some time off.” Simon sighed. He hated William, but he knew that this was all difficult for me to hear. “He didn’t seem to care when I warned him that Max has returned, when I told him of what Max had just done to Abberline. William seems to have entered a breakdown, a collapse of some sort. He hasn’t even entered into the hospital since that night. As I said, that was three weeks ago.”

I felt bewilderment. Grief. I hardly knew what else to say, particularly to my friend, to someone who had once rivaled William for my heart. So I said nothing.

I drummed my fingers on the chair beside me a bit, deep in thought—confused by these occurrences, saddened by all that had happened between William and myself.

A clock on one of the bookcases chimed. I knew Grandmother would be returning to our house soon.

I still heard the clank of silverware downstairs, and thought that, most likely, one of Simon’s sisters was coming to visit. But, selfishly, I wanted him to myself that afternoon. Blinking back tears and controlling my voice, I said,“Take dinner with us. Please. Grandmother would like it.”

There was no argument. “Of course.”

Sixteen

A
s she surveyed the food supplies for the menagerie, Seraphina saw that her bags and frozen meats were running low. She suppressed feelings of panic, knowing that she could hunt for food for the animals; nevertheless, attaining grains and birdseed would be more difficult. Yet she had enough for now, and that was all she could think about. After feeding the animals, she ascended the cold wet steps of her home and dived off of a rock, slicing out into the waters to hunt for herself.

The sun, just breaking out, cast its light wild and pearlish through the seawater around her, and as she swam, alternating between higher and deeper depths, she felt her anxieties subside. In fact, once she had swum far out into the sea, she felt almost calm. The rest of the world might have forgotten her, but she still had her mind, her brains, her beastly nature, and her body, which made her a predator of all. Even the rare large sharks passing through these waters never threatened her. Humans might eschew her, think her disgusting and monstrous, but they would inevitably become her prey.

The huge shadow of a sperm whale passed over her, far above. Its shadow lingered brilliant in the bright light of that day’s sun. She considered who she was, in that moment in the depths of the water. Even the humans from her old life, before the experiment, had faded from her memories—her fiancé, her father. Her heart seized upon itself as she wondered if what she had experienced with either of them could be considered love. But her thoughts about this were scattered, foggy, caught in those recesses of her mind that belonged to another being entirely. Now a pang pierced her insides, and she knew she would give anything to be part of that world again, that human world. But as a cold current whipped at her body, she knew she would never think or be as she was before—anxious to marry, curious but uneducated and ignorant. Now, she knew that immortality existed; she wanted to latch on to the strengths and accomplishments of the Conclave. She wanted to contribute to the group—her best dream was to live and travel with them, to be their scholar.

But in the watery depths, as she considered her scales, her talons, she knew that unless Robert Buck finally found the cure, this could never happen. She considered her keeper. She remembered how he had nearly strangled her on his last visit, and once again wondered if his long absence was a means of disciplining her.

From her depths, she watched a jellyfish pulse by her, translucent and graceful. A sadness washed over her. Besides Petey and her other animals, Max had always been her single constant. He had always been hers. But why had she expected their relationship to remain the same? He followed no rules except the Conclave’s rules; he was their perfect assassin and enforcer because he had no moral boundaries, no limits. She shivered as she thought of this. But if he had not thought her worthwhile, he would never have convinced the Conclave to let her live. He had always tolerated her over the years, even become fond of her … at least she had thought that he had been fond of her. Seraphina, with her beastly intemperate love, always hoped that one day—if she was ever cured—she might cut out into the world with Max.

But now, she believed in her heart that a cure was further away than ever. Once again she thought of how being part beast gave her an exclusive connection to Max, that they had been bonded as he could not be bonded to anyone else. She remembered the first time she saw him—she had been in such an awful state. She had done the unforgivable, and yet Max had not judged her.

Now he had someone else, someone who shared his psychic abilities—a bond with this girl, Caroline’s daughter, Arabella. She would be the Conclave’s immortal companion, and Seraphina would be forever banished to her island.

What would they do with her?

She swam upwards, her scaly arms slicing through the waters as she propelled herself toward the sunlight.

Would they destroy her?

No.

They couldn’t afford to. The Conclave needed her to guard their treasury and their animals.

She spent the entire day in the waters, swimming, eating fish; she had not fed on human blood since attacking the two boys. If she killed too many humans, it would become risky for her. She had seen the search boats early that morning, near the shore. She had heard the baying of the hounds along the beach as they followed her scent. The search parties had been on land mostly, looking for wild wolves or bears. But since she had killed those boys on the waters, they now feared the presence of some sort of water beast, something exotic, perhaps a large crocodile—a beast not native to these parts, but nonetheless released or lost in the sea. She couldn’t have them searching too close to her island home.

She swam to new depths, at a fast and furious pace. Her gills pulsating, she explored deep underwater caves, saw fish species that Robert Buck might only hope to see. She swam through long-forsaken wrecks of Viking ships, finding treasure that Orkney islanders would sell their souls for. She smiled, in the sparkly currents, as she poked a gold goblet with her talon—no human could reach or survive at these depths. These things were hers alone.

Sometime later, evening set in and she swam in the waters near the shore of Bromwell. The search parties
were gone, and the moonlight was just beginning to show in the still-light sky. She liked the way it cut through the forest trees and rocky cliff places. As she broke the water’s surface, she saw, surrounding her beneath the setting sun, the sea, inky as violet, shimmering, dimensioned and resplendent. Calm and momentarily feeling more at peace, she let herself transform into her human form.

She floated nude in the cool waters of an isolated bay, in the shadows of a nearby cliff wall. She let her belly rise to the surface and felt her breasts—now soft, pale, and smooth, quivering in the waters. She floated like this for at least an hour. Then a boldness swept through her and she glided toward the sheltering cliff walls. Her urges, her appetite, made her monstrous again, and she began to climb. Her long hair hung heavy upon her head and back, swaying and dripping as she made the long ascension. When she finally reached the top, she was not even winded. She stood tall for a moment, feeling a high wind whip at her hair. When she saw a Pictish Stone, approximately four feet tall and illuminated by the moonlight, she stepped toward it, let her taloned finger scrape across the beautiful carvings upon the rock. The Picts, early medieval Scots, had made these symbolic stones as memorials—this one had a cross, with blossoms and ivy grooves about the base.