Steadfast (35 page)

“Well, whatever it is, this is happening for no particular reason other than that
Katie was gulled into a marriage with a bad man, and not for any sins of yours.” Lionel
took a pull of his beer and glared at his friend over his bangers and mash. “And if
I hear another word on the subject from you, I will pull off your leg and beat you
with it.”

He managed to surprise a laugh out of Jack, which cheered him immensely.

They ate in silence for a moment. Both of them were preoccupied with their own thoughts.
Lionel kept trying to think of a way that his own skills could help Katie, and so
far, he had come a-cropper. “Do you think Almsley has any notion of something we can
do?” Jack asked tentatively into the silence.

“Honestly?” Lionel cut a bite of sausage. “I think he’s just throwing things out,
trying to get us to think creatively. I mean, how could we make Katie vanish, and
not end up with Dick Langford coming after me, as he threatened to? Or even after
you and me together? The only way would be for all three of us to vanish, and we can’t
do that to Charlie.”

“I don’t think Katie would let us vanish her, even if we weren’t in danger the moment
she went missing,” Jack observed, pushing his food around on the plate. “And for the
same reason. She won’t leave Charlie in the lurch in the middle of the season. Where
could he get a replacement for her at this stage?”

“So . . . what can we do, you and I?” Lionel finished his meal and set the tray aside.
“If we can’t make Katie vanish, is there any way we can protect her?”

“Hrrrmmmm. I wonder . . .” Jack pondered a moment, as Mrs. Buckthorn came in to putter
around a bit, cleaning up after them, and left again, taking the tray with her. And
leaving each of them with a bottle of beer. It might not be very genteel, but Mrs.
Buckthorn knew what men liked on a hot evening. “The first thing that springs to mind
is to keep him too busy—or too satisfied—to hurt her.”

“He likes women. He likes money. He likes being a bully and hurting people.” Lionel
shook his head dismally. “Not a great deal there to work with, Jack.”

“It’s what we have. Maybe we should sleep on it and something will come to us.” Jack
shrugged. “That’s all I can think.”

“That’s probably the best we can do for now,” Lionel admitted.

“At least she’s not giving up,” Jack replied, after a long silence between them. “We
have that much, at least. As long as she’s fighting, we have a chance.”

16

T
HE cottage was quiet, and far too warm. It felt as if a storm was about to break,
and yet there was no sign of so much as a cloud. It was even too warm for her nightdress;
the most comfortable clothing she had in this weather were her cambric chemise and
knickers, so that was all she was wearing now, what she had done all the cleaning
in, and what she would wear to sleep. Probably a “proper lady” would have been scandalized
by such a thing.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe some of them were stifling enough in this heat that they
were doing the same.

As the very last thing, Katie laid out the food and gin for Dick, just as she had
for the past three nights, and scampered up the ladder to hide in the loft. She wished
there was a window up here. You could put a hand to the ceiling and feel warmth coming
off of it.

Then she settled into the bed, well out of sight, and started into the mental and
magical exercises that Jack had taught her to accept the heat and let it become something
that comforted. She expected that Dick would come back long before she was able to
get to sleep. But tonight was different.

Tonight was very different.

Dick came back much later than usual, so late that Katie had actually fallen dead
asleep. The sounds of him rattling the door broke her out of dreams. She startled
awake, and listened, and what she heard did not bode well. It took him three tries
to get the key in the lock, and he alarmed her by staggering inside and blundering
around, knocking into things, clearly too drunk to properly walk.

Her heart immediately went into a panicked gallop, her mouth dried in an instant,
and she began panting with fear. He blundered back to the door and slammed it shut,
locking it, then knocked over the paraffin lamp by the front door and smashed it;
she heard the glass breaking and smelled the paraffin up in the loft. It was very
clear by this point that he not just intoxicated, he was blind drunk.

It was also very clear that he was in a blind rage. Bestial sounds were coming out
of him. She had never seen him like this and it terrified her. He was so drunk that
he couldn’t even properly roar out her name, bellowing only an inarticulate
“Kaaeee!”
as she shrank into the back of the loft, and hid behind the frame of the bed. She
had never been trapped with him in this state, and she had no idea how to react to
his bellows. She only knew there would be no appeasing him. She would be an idiot
to go down out of the loft now. No matter what happened, it would be her fault—and
when he beat her, it would be without any sort of restraint. He wouldn’t remember
that she was the source of the money he was enjoying; he wouldn’t remember that if
he hurt her seriously, she wouldn’t be able to earn that money. He probably wouldn’t
even remember that if he murdered her, he’d hang.

Tonight, he might well kill her.

The best she could do was to try to stay out of his hands.

“Kaaaeeee!”
The bellowing came from right below her. He shook the ladder, then beat the edge
of the loft with it.
“Kaaaeeee!”
She shook like a terrified rabbit, watching the wood of the ladder splintering with
each blow.

He started to climb the ladder, but the first, second, and third rungs broke beneath
his weight. She heard them “go,” and he cursed violently and went back to beating
the edge of the loft with the remains of the ladder.

Then, with a final, titanic crash, he actually broke the ladder against the edge of
the loft. Bits of wood flew everywhere, and she ducked behind the bed to avoid being
hit by them.

He roared with frustration, and threw the bits remaining in his hands across the room.
At least, that is what she thought he’d done, all she heard were two tremendous crashes
as something flew into the wall and the rear window.

She didn’t want to think about how much the damage he was causing was going to cost.
Clearly he did not care.

As he raged around the room, smashing glass and crockery against the walls, she somehow
managed to muster the courage to creep to the battered edge of the loft and peek down
into the rest of the cottage.

At this point, he was reducing part of the ladder to kindling, bellowing like a beast.
She had left the gaslights turned up, and the little cottage looked as if a terrible
pub-fight had broken out in it.

As if he had sensed her eyes on him, he suddenly looked up. The bright light pitilessly
revealed the damage that had been done to him. Not only had she never seen him this
drunk before—she had never seen him look as if he was a victim, not the victor.

He must have, for the first time since
she
had known him, and possibly in his life, found himself up against someone who could,
and would, beat him as badly as he had beaten others.

His face was bright red, and somewhat battered. His hair, usually carefully oiled
and arranged, looked as if someone had been pulling at it, violently. There were bruises
around his neck. One ear was twice the size of the other, as if someone had repeatedly
hit him on that side of his head. His eyes looked sunken, and piggishly small, as
if the flesh around them was slightly swollen.

They were also black with rage.

“Gerrown!”
he screamed, stamping his feet and pointing at the ground.
“Gerrown!”

“I can’t, Dick,” she said, shaking in every limb. “I can’t. You’ve broken the ladder.”

He bellowed again, and flung the piece he was holding at her. She ducked out of the
way. He made a clumsy run and a jump for the edge of the loft; she bleated and scuttled
back, knowing if he could catch the wood in his hands he had all the strength he needed,
even completely drunk, to pull himself up. She expected at any moment to see his hands
clutched on the edge, to see his face coming up over it like the sunrise of the damned.

But instead, she heard the crash of him dropping back to the floor, startling an involuntary
yelp out of her.

Again and again, he tried and failed to reach the edge of the loft with his outstretched
hands. Again and again, he fell back to the floor, howling with pain and anger. Either
the loft was just high enough he simply couldn’t reach it, or he was too drunk to
coordinate his leaps and his catch.

Finally he gave up, and went back to wrecking the cottage. She huddled in the back
of the loft, and listened to him breaking things. She wondered if anything was going
to be left intact when he was done. He howled words she was certain were curses, but
it was impossible to tell what it was he was actually saying.

Her heart pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it down there. How was this going
to end? What had set him off in the first place? It looked as if he had been fighting.
Had he gone looking for a prizefight and found only defeat and humiliation instead
of the victory he had expected? Had he made the mistake of going after a woman who
had a stronger man than he was to defend her? Had he run afoul of an entire gang?
Even he, with his tremendous strength, could not have held out for long against a
gang determined to teach him a lesson.

Whatever had happened, he’d gotten himself in trouble—whether it was before he’d gotten
so drunk, or afterward. If only he’d—

Then she heard it; the crash of glass. A strange
whoosh.

And the inside of the cottage flared with light.

And flame shot up for a moment, visible over the edge of the loft, reaching almost
to the ceiling!

The bellows turned to screams of agony, and she scrambled to the edge of the loft
to see to her horror that Dick was still blundering around the cottage—but now he
was engulfed in fire! He screamed at the top of his lungs beating at his flaming shirt
and hair to no effect. There was fire creeping up the wall where one of the gaslights
had been, and shattered glass underneath it. A tiny, sane part of her recognized it
for the remains of one of the gin bottles. He must have flung it at the gaslight,
with predictable results.

He staggered everywhere, flailing, howling in agony—and setting fires everywhere he
blundered.

•   •   •

Jack didn’t remember falling into bed; he’d been so very exhausted that he’d dropped
into it fully clothed. But it couldn’t have been long before he was catapulted out
of an uneasy sleep by sharp pain and the sense of complete panic. His eyes flew open
to find that one of his salamanders had deliberately scorched the back of his hand,
while another was biting his nose. Before he could react properly, images exploded
into his mind. Katie’s cottage, fire
everywhere
, a body on fire sprawled across the back door, Katie trapped in the loft, screaming
for help—

He had no memory of plunging across the hall to Lionel’s room, but the door opened
in his face, and Lionel shoved him out of the way, running for the front door.

He hadn’t gotten far down the hall before Lionel was back, grabbing his arm and hauling
him outside, where he found himself being flung into a cab. Lionel shoved a fistful
of money at the startled driver and shouted Katie’s address. The cabbie reacted by
putting the whip to his horse, and the cab lurched forward as the horse leapt into
a canter.

“We’ll never—” Lionel began, helplessly.

“Send your Elementals,”
Jack shouted at his friend, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “I’ll
send mine!”

He could feel the doubt in Lionel; he was nothing but a magician—and his little sylphs
were nothing like strong enough to stop what they both must have seen! Why, not even
the firebirds that had protected him and Katie from the runaway rocket were strong
enough to damp that conflagration! Lionel shouted back, despairing. “They can’t stop
the fire, they’re—”

“They can hold it back!” he countered. “They can hold it back! And so can she if she’ll
just think! If she can see ours, she’ll know what to do!” Lionel’s Elementals were
air; they could steal the air from the fire and keep it from exploding out in all
directions. His salamanders could shelter Katie for a little while at least. “Concentrate,
Lionel!
Concentrate!”

He squeezed his own eyes shut, and concentrated on calling his Elementals and showing
them what they needed to do in his mind. Keep the fire away from Katie. Absorb it
as much as possible. Keep it contained. Don’t let it get away and take over the cottage.

He felt his little friends responding; felt still more gathering and following their
lead as the cab raced headlong toward Katie’s lane. He saw glimpses of the fire through
their eyes; saw that they were fighting the battle to the best of their ability, but
saw, too, that the battle they were fighting was one they were going to lose, eventually.
They were creatures of magic, and weak in the real world. There was only so much they
could do—

He heard the cabby shout out a curse, and felt the cab slew sideways as he pulled
the horse to a halt. Were they there?

He flung the door open, into the smoke, the heat, the smell of the burning cottage,
which had flames coming from every window. The cabby shouted something he didn’t even
try to understand. He ran as fast has he ever had, even when he’d had two good legs,
utterly indifferent to the pain. He didn’t even pause at the door; he ducked his head
and hit the smoldering wood with his shoulder, breaking it down, and tumbling headlong
into hell, into the one spot in the cottage that was still clear of fire, the middle
of the floor. He rolled to his feet, heard his name, and looked up into Katie’s terrified
eyes.

“Jump!” he cried to her, holding out his arms.
“Jump!”

Without hesitation she grasped the edge of the loft, somersaulted over it, and dropped
into his arms, white fabric of her knickers and chemise fluttering around her like
wings. They both fell to the floor in a heap.

But in that moment, the flames had gotten out of control of the salamanders; fire
sprang up between them and the door, feeding greedily on the wood and the fresh air
gushing inside. The back door was already fully engulfed in flame.

With a feeling of despair—and yet, a sort of peace—he tried to hold her closely, to
pull her head into his chest so she wouldn’t see what was coming.

But she was pulling away from him, crawling a few feet and scrabbling with both hands
at something in the floor.

He followed her and saw what she was trying to pull up.

A metal ring? A hatch! There was a cellar down there! Was there a way out to safety?

He joined her, the two of them wrenching the hatch in the floor up with hysterical
strength. She fell down into the darkness; he followed, letting the hatch drop down
behind him, tumbling down the crude steps to land beside her on a floor that felt
like ice after the heat of the fire above.

“Where’s the cellar door?” he gasped, thinking there was a way out of here, or why
else would she have come down this way. Overhead he heard the flames roaring. He could
see the floorboards outlined in yellow glare.