Darling Beast

—From The Minotaur

Trevillion stared up into Kilbourne’s bloodied face and knew he was about to die of hubris.

The first pistol shot had missed Kilbourne completely, the second had bloodied his thick skull but hadn’t seemed to slow the man down at all. Maybe nothing would. Maybe Kilbourne was like some mindless beast, driven into a killing rage, unfeeling of any pain.

It was pure, stubborn hubris for a cripple to come after a fully capable man—especially a man as large and muscled as Kilbourne. Hubris to announce his presence to his quarry instead of disabling him first.

Hubris to think he was the man he’d been before the accident.

Trevillion continued to struggle, even though he’d discharged both pistols, his leg was screaming, and he had no hope of overpowering Kilbourne. He might be a prideful bastard, but he was a stubborn prideful bastard and if this was to be his last hour, then by damn, he’d go down fighting.

Kilbourne’s forearm was across his throat, pressing down, stealing the air from his lungs. In the giant’s other fist was a hideously curved knife. Trevillion expected to feel the hooked blade sinking into his skull at any moment.

Black spots floated in Trevillion’s vision and he wished viciously that he’d drawn both his pistols before he’d called to Kilbourne. He’d’ve at least had the chance to shoot when the big man charged. He’d worried about the woman getting caught by a shot, though…

His leg stopped hurting. That was worrying.

Blackness closed in, narrowing his vision.

Then suddenly light, air, and pain returned.

He rolled, coughing violently as his lungs drew air, his leg spasming torturously. Trevillion threw out his hand, grasping blindly for any sort of weapon. The pistols were already discharged, but if he could at least reach his walking stick, perhaps he could crack it over Kilbourne’s head.

He looked up.

Kilbourne was squatting nearby like some hulking native, his hands hanging between his knees, the hooked knife dangling from one. The left side of his face was painted red with blood and he looked a veritable savage.

Except for his eyes. He was simply watching Trevillion struggle—warily, to be sure, but in no way threateningly.

Trevillion narrowed his own eyes, glancing around. “You’re expecting someone to come to your aid.”

Kilbourne blinked and at last an expression showed in his blank face—sardonic humor. He shook his head.

“What then?” Trevillion had managed to prop himself on his elbows, but with his leg in such pain he wouldn’t be standing anytime in the next half hour. “What are you waiting for?”

Was the man a sadist to draw out death so?

Kilbourne shrugged and pushed his knife into his belt, then reached to the side for something, making Trevillion tense.

The other man handed him his stick.

Trevillion glanced incredulously between his walking stick and the murderer before snatching it out of the other’s hand. “Why don’t you answer me? Can’t you talk?”

Again the sardonic half-smile and Kilbourne simply shook his head.

Trevillion stared. He was on his back, unarmed except for a walking stick, and pathetically helpless, and Kilbourne had made no move against him.

Worse, he’d helped him.

Trevillion cocked his head, the thought arising, simple, organic, and patently true. “You never killed those men, did you?”

APOLLO STARED AT the man on the ground, ignoring the stinging of his scalp. He’d recognized him at once. Captain James Trevillion. He knew the soldier’s name now—he’d learned it years ago in Bedlam—but on the morning he’d been arrested, the other man had just been a dragoon in a red coat. The herald to his coming downfall.

Now Trevillion wore unrelieved black, wide belts crisscrossing his chest, the holsters empty. The other man’s pistols lay in the dirt. A pity. They were rather fine, decorated with silver repoussé caps on the grips.

This man had wanted to arrest him. To take him back to the hell that was Bedlam. He ought to kill the dragoon—or at the very least render him unable to ever come after him again. He’d known men who would do the same and never think on the matter after.

But Apollo was, for better or for worse, not one of those men. He’d had more than enough violence crammed down his throat in Bedlam. On the whole he preferred more civilized methods of solving dilemmas.

He opened his satchel, took out his notebook, and wrote, I didn’t kill them.

Trevillion, from his position prone on the ground, craned his neck to read and huffed out a breath. “You certainly looked like you’d killed them that morning—you were covered in blood, clutching the knife, and not in your right mind.”

His words were accusatory, but his tone was curious.

Apollo began to feel a small, curling shoot of hope. He shrugged cautiously and wrote, Drunk.

Trevillion’s right leg seemed to be bothering him, for he was kneading the calf muscle. “I’ve seen plenty of men after a night of drinking. Most have some kind of method to their madness. You didn’t make any sense at all.”

Apollo sighed. His scalp stung from the bullet crease, his head hurt, and the blood from the wound was beginning to soak into his shirt. But worse, he could still feel Miss Stump’s cool, slim fingers on his cheek. So close, so intimate. The other man had ruined that fragile moment. She’d looked absolutely terrified when Apollo had warned her away with the boy. He wanted to find her and assure himself that she was safe and unafraid.

That her look of terror had been caused by the situation, not him.

Apollo almost rose and left Trevillion lying there in the mud. But the soldier knew him and had discovered him—somehow that must be dealt with.

And, too, Trevillion was the first in a very long time to actually listen to his side of events about that morning.

So instead of stomping off he picked up his notebook again and wrote carefully, I remember sitting down with my friends, remember drinking the first bottle of wine… and nothing after.

While Trevillion read that, Apollo removed both waistcoat and shirt and wrapped his shirt around his bleeding head like a Turk.

The soldier looked up. “Drugged?”

Apollo tilted his head and shrugged, hopefully conveying, Probably. He’d had time to think the matter over in Bedlam—long, long years of regret and speculation. The idea that the wine had been drugged seemed more than obvious after the fact.

He stood and held out his hand to the other man.

Trevillion looked at his hand so long, Apollo nearly withdrew it.

The other man grimaced at last. “I suppose you could’ve killed me by now anyway.”

Apollo cocked an eyebrow at that, but heaved Trevillion up when he took his hand. The soldier’s body was stiff. He didn’t utter a sound, but it was quite apparent he was in pain.

Trevillion leaned on his cane, but Apollo kept his arm around the other’s shoulder—and since the soldier didn’t complain, it was evident his help was needed. Apollo guided him the few steps to the fallen tree Miss Stump had used as a writing desk. The soldier gingerly lowered himself, wincing as he did so, his right leg held rigid and straight before him.

Trevillion eyed him as Apollo squatted before him. “Why can’t you speak?”

He wrote one word in the notebook. Bedlam.

The soldier frowned over that, his fingers tight on the notebook’s edges. He looked up, his eyes sharp. “If you didn’t kill those men, then someone else did—someone who never paid for his murders. I arrested the wrong man. I condemned the wrong man.”

Apollo simply looked at him, fighting to keep his lip from curling. Four years. Four years of starvation, beatings, and boredom, because some other man had killed his friends. Any regret seemed long past due.

All at once he opened the door and let them in from that black room at the back of his mind:

Hugh Maubry.

Joseph Tate.

William Smithers.

Maubry, with his intestines spilling on the tavern’s sawdust floor. Tate entirely intact, save for a wound high on his chest and three missing fingers. Smithers, his boyish face surprised, eyes open, throat cut.

He hadn’t known them particularly well. Maubry and Tate had been at school with him, Smithers had been some distant relation of Tate’s. They’d been jolly fellows, good for a night of drinking—before he’d woken to a nightmare.

Apollo blinked, pushing back the images, the terrible memories, and looked at Trevillion.

The soldier stared back, his spine straight, his expression grim and resolute. “This is an injustice that must be righted—that I must right. I’m going to help you find the real murderer.”

Apollo grinned—though not in mirth. He took up his pencil and wrote, his words so angry that the point gouged the paper in places: How? I was in Bedlam four years and in that time no one doubted my guilt. You yourself thought me guilty when you attacked me just now. Where will you find the man or men who actually did the crime?

Trevillion read that and said drily, “In point of fact, you attacked me.”

Apollo snorted and waved aside the other’s reply. Besides, won’t your superiors resent your time spent away from the dragoons?

The other man’s face went blank. “I am no longer a dragoon.”

Apollo stared at that. Even in his unrelieved black, Trevillion looked every inch the dragoon captain. He glanced at the leg and wondered when the injury had happened. In his hazy memory of that awful morning, he didn’t recollect the other man’s being so badly lamed. He had a feeling, though, that any questions would not be welcome.

Instead he wrote, My point remains: how do you expect to find the murderer after so long?

The former soldier looked at him. “You must have some idea, some suspicion, about who could’ve killed your friends?”

Apollo’s eyes narrowed. He had, in fact, spent hours—days—meditating on this very subject. He wrote cautiously, Our purses were taken.

“A large amount?”

Apollo twisted his mouth. Not on my part—I’d already paid for the room and wine. I doubt the others had more than a guinea or two between them. Tate had a rather fine gold watch, though—his late father’s. That was stolen.

“Not a large haul for three men dead,” Trevillion said softly.

Men have been killed for less.

“True,” the soldier replied, “but not usually so methodically.” He stared for a moment at nothing, absently rubbing his calf. Then his gaze sharpened. “Who were they, the men who were killed? I was told at the time, but I’ve forgotten since.”

Apollo listed the names.

Trevillion pursed his lips over the notebook. “How well did you know them?”

They were men I liked, men I drank with, but I was not especially close to any of them. Smithers I had only met that night.

And yet his boyish face was now imprinted on Apollo’s mind forever.

“Were they rich? Had they enemies?”

Apollo shrugged. Maubry was the third son of a baron and doomed to the church. Tate was his uncle’s heir, I believe, and would’ve come into a comfortable sum—or so the rumors went at school. Whether they were correct or not, I cannot say. Smithers seemed to have no blunt at all, but he was dressed well enough, certainly. As to enemies, I do not know.

Trevillion read carefully before looking up, his eyes intent. “Had you enemies?”

He wrote with a wry twist to his mouth, Until that night I would have said no.

Trevillion glanced at his words and nodded sharply. “Very well, then. I shall investigate the matter and return when I can to consult with you.”

The man got laboriously to his feet. Apollo moved to help him once and was met with a furious scowl.

He didn’t again.

When Trevillion was at last upright, his face was reddened and shone with sweat.

“Be careful, my lord,” the former soldier said, for the first time giving him the courtesy of his title. “If I could find you, others might do so as well.”