The Seven Whistlers (15 page)

Once again, Rose did not stand with her family at the
graveside. Her mother had forbidden her to do so, but she would have refused in
any case. Instead, she stood four rows back on the frozen, snow-covered ground,
accompanied by her closest friends. Mike had his arm around her, and she
huddled against him for protection against the wind, and against the winter
that sometimes encroached upon the human heart.

Rose did not pray for her grandmother. She only stood and
scanned the February shadows cast by crypts and headstones, and the trees that
encircled the cemetery, searching for dark, silent figures that did not belong,
and listening for their telltale whistle.

— END —

AMBER BENSON is a writer, director, and actor. Currently,
she is writing book five in her Calliope Reaper-Jones urban fantasy series for
Penguin, while
Among The Ghosts
, her middle grade book from Simon and Schuster
came out in paperback this past fall. She co-directed the Slamdance feature,
Drones
— which was picked up for distribution by Phase Four Films — and
directed (and co-wrote) the BBC animated series,
The Ghosts of Albion
. As
an actor, she spent three years as Tara Maclay on the hit television series
Buffy
The Vampire Slayer
.

CONNECT WITH AMBER BENSON ONLINE

Twitter

https://twitter.com/amber_benson

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/amberbensonwrotethis

Official Blog

http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com

YouTube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/aloanhere

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, New York Times
bestselling author of such novels as
Of Saints and Shadows
,
The Myth
Hunters
,
The Boys Are Back in Town
, and
Strangewood
. He has
also written books for teens and young adults, including
Soulless
,
Poison
Ink
, and
The Secret Journeys of Jack London
, co-authored with Tim
Lebbon. His current work-in-progress is
Cemetery Girl
, a graphic novel
trilogy collaboration with Charlaine Harris.

A lifelong fan of the “team-up,” Golden frequently
collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. He has
co-written three illustrated novels with Mike Mignola, the first of which,
Baltimore,
or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire
, was the launching pad for
the Eisner Award-nominated comic book series,
Baltimore
. With Thomas E.
Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the book series
Magic Zero
and
The
Menagerie
, as well as comic book miniseries such as Talent, currently in
development as a feature film. With Amber Benson, he co-created the online
animated series
Ghosts of Albion
for the BBC.

As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies
The
New Dead
,
The Monster’s Corner
, and
British Invasion
, among
others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games,
screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden was born and raised in
Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have
been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world.
Please visit him at
http://www.ChristopherGolden.com
.

Official Website

http://www.ChristopherGolden.com

Twitter

http://twitter.com/ChristophGolden

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/christophergoldenauthor

No Rest for the Wicked Blog

http://christophergolden.blogspot.com/

Join the Wicked Street Team

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wickedstreetteam/

On a late summer afternoon, long fingers of sunlight reached
deep inside Ludlow House as though it might at last dispel the darkness that
seemed to linger in every corner. But this place, the ancestral home of the
Swift family, had been touched by shadow, and no matter how much laughter and
light might be spread about its rooms, it would never completely escape that
taint until every stone had been pulled down and exposed to the sun.

Even so, in spite of all the darkness that encroached upon
their lives, the young Swifts — siblings Tamara and William — had
attained a modicum of happiness. It was a constant struggle, and yet they
continued to engage in that effort because the only alternative was surrender,
and brother and sister were both too stubborn and too courageous to even
consider such a thing.

The estate in Highgate, North London, had been built early
in the Eighteenth century at the order of Sir Edward Ludlow. His only child,
his daughter Helen, married Cheswick Swift, the son of the city’s most
prominent moneylender. The combination of the two families created the most
respectable bank in London, with investments all over the burgeoning Empire. Helen
and Cheswick had three sons. The oldest, Ludlow, was the reluctant inheritor of
the family business, and was much relieved when his own son, Henry Swift, took
to it with a passion.

And now Ludlow Swift was dead. Henry’s wife had passed away
at a young age and the man himself was incapacitated, leaving the control of
the estate, the family fortune, and the bank itself, in the hands of Henry’s
children. Both Tamara and William appreciated the legacy they had inherited,
and yet they felt burdened by the responsibility. So much had changed in their
lives since their grandfather’s passing. Life . . . the world itself . . . had
turned out to be not at all what they had imagined. Their lives now were full
of newly-discovered dangers that lurked in the shadows and so often landed upon
the very doorstep of Ludlow House.

Yet on that late summer day, the sun did seem just a little
brighter, the shadows not quite so deep. It had rained softly that morning and
a mist had covered the city, but it had burned off not long after breakfast and
it was a rare gem of a day, the sort that seems to stretch on forever and
required leisurely walks upon the grounds and a lingering afternoon tea.

Tamara Swift had not indulged in any of those things.

William had taken over their father’s study to conduct the business
of the bank. A new chairman of the Board had been chosen to replace their
father for the duration of what the siblings had reported as his “illness,” but
William had taken his seat at that table. Despite his youth he was still
deferred to in nearly everything. After all, he held the purse strings that
were the very foundation of the bank. But somehow he still hoped to balance out
his obligations to the bank and his aspirations toward architecture. Even with
all of the obstacles that had recently presented themselves, William was
determined to find the time.

His sister would have mocked him, but she was equally
resolute about her own ambitions. William had taken over Henry’s study, so
Tamara had ensconced herself within their grandfather’s chambers. So much had
happened in those rooms since the start of the year, things both tragic and
remarkable. Yet she felt safe here, close to him, surrounded by the trappings
of his forays into stage magic and his travels to exotic locales. It was as if
Ludlow could watch over her here, though she knew that his spirit had moved on.

So, perhaps, wherever his spirit had gone to its rest, it
wasn’t so very far away after all.

Tamara’s pen paused upon the paper before her and a dollop
of dark ink beaded upon its tip, then dropped upon the page. She chided herself
and set the pen into the inkwell while she picked up the blotter and absorbed
much of the ink. A spot like a black tear remained in the midst of the sentence
she had been writing, but it was hardly the first, nor would it be the last. The
first drafts of her novels were always a mess.

She sat back in the chair and took a moment to enjoy the
warm summer air that breezed through the open window above the desk. The sun
was warm upon her hands, but its light did not stretch far enough into the room
to reach her face. Still she enjoyed the view out that window, with the grounds
and the trees of the estate visible, the peak of the carriage house just at the
edge of her vision, and then London unfolding in the distance.

For a long moment, Tamara allowed herself to drift. Then,
with much reluctance, she turned her attention back to the fresh manuscript
pages she had produced that day. The tale was called Stained Scarlet, and it
concerned a bride who discovered on her wedding night that her new husband was
not completely human. She was quite fond of the title, thinking it clever
enough. And it had better be, she knew, for it had been many months since she
had written anything new for Lane & Jones, the publishers of her previous
novels. Tamara had written the gruesome, occult tales before she had discovered
that the horrors in them were not as fictional as she might have wished. It had
taken her some time to find the will to write again afterward.

Once she had begun, however, she found herself relishing the
escape Stained Scarlet gave her. And if such works were more and more being
dismissed by those who called them “penny dreadfuls,” why, Tamara did not mind
the mockery so much. The sales spoke for themselves. The people wanted these
stories, and the publisher wanted to fulfill that desire. Tamara was happy to
oblige.

With a small sigh of satisfaction she tucked a stray lock of
her reddish-blond hair behind her ear — she wore it up but strands were
always getting loose — and reached for her pen once more. Even as she did
so there came a knock at the door. Tamara frowned. It was too early for William
to have returned as yet. It could not be good news.

“Yes?” she called.

The door opened to reveal Martha Ivers, a thin, gray-haired
woman who had been the first servant to accept an offer of employment from the
Swifts after their previous staff had all either run off in terror or been
horribly killed. Tamara did not blame them for their trepidation and she
admired Martha’s willingness to ignore previous circumstance. If not for this
woman’s willingness to ignore the whispers about the Swift family, Tamara had
no doubt she and William would have had to fend for themselves with no domestic
help at all. As it was they were still under-staffed for an estate of this
size, but everyone was doing their best.

“Pardon me, Miss,” Martha said with a curt inclination of
her head. “I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news.”

Tamara’s eyelids fluttered with pique. “Yes. I’d thought you
might. Well, spare me the suspense, Martha.”

The aging maid was often brusque, and she seemed to
appreciate Tamara’s willingness to dispense with the niceties and forge ahead
to the business at hand. A flicker of amusement went across her features.

“It’s Sally. The new girl. I’m afraid she’s run off.”

“Run off?” Tamara asked, taken aback. But then logic
reinterpreted the words and she shook her head. “Let me guess. She went into
the library?”

Martha nodded. “I instructed her, as I do all the new staff
members, that only I am to clean the library. Still, it does seem that her
curiosity got the better of her.”

“And she saw Byron?”

Martha raised her chin and stood a bit straighter, as though
unwilling to concede there was anything odd about the conversation. “Indeed,”
she replied. “The girl muttered something about a ghost and poetry, and added
that no living man ever spoke to her in a manner so boldly lascivious.”