Lord of Darkness

The two drunkards seemed a clownish duo, but Godric’s blood froze in his veins as he considered what might have happened if Megs had encountered them. Very few in St. Giles—drunk or not—were benign when faced with the temptation of a rich, beautiful woman.

His jaw clenched at the thought. Any other woman would’ve stayed far away from this area of London after that first trip. Not Megs, though, and he hardly thought the events of last night would keep her away either. No, she’d declared that she would go back to St. Giles—and continue to do so until she found Fraser-Burnsby’s killer. It might possibly be bravado, but he didn’t think so. His wife was setting a course of suicide.

Damnation. He wouldn’t let her own stubbornness lead to her hurt—or worse. Somehow he needed to find a way to send her back to the country, and the sooner the better.

St. Giles in the Fields church loomed up ahead, the tall steeple bisecting the full moon. Godric crossed to the brick wall surrounding the little graveyard. There was a lock on the gate, but it hung open.

Carefully, he pushed open the gate.

The hinges had been oiled and he slipped inside the churchyard without sound. The wind picked up, bending the branches of a single, pathetic tree and moaning around the headstones. Some might find it eerie, but Godric knew there was far more to fear in St. Giles than where the dead slept.

A very human grunt came from near the opposite wall, and Godric smiled grimly: He hadn’t come in vain tonight. He slid from shadow to shadow around the perimeter of the graveyard, not speaking until he was within feet of his quarry.

“Good evening, Digger.”

Digger Jack, a small, hunched man who happened to be one of the most notorious resurrectionists in London, straightened with a gasp.

His companion, a brawny, lumbering lad, was less sanguine. “It’s the Devil!”

The lad threw down his shovel and sprinted for the cemetery gate with impressive agility, given his size.

Digger Jack made one abortive move, but Godric laid a heavy hand on the other man’s shoulder before he could run. “I need a word with you.”

“Awww!” Digger moaned. “Now, why’d ye ’ave to go an’ do that? Ye’ve scared off Jed. ’Ave ye any idea ’ow ’ard ’tis to find a lad wif a strong back in St. Giles? I’m gettin’ on in years, I am, an’ the lumbago’s been botherin’ me somethin’ fierce. ’Ow’m I to do me work wifout ’is ’elp?”

Godric raised an eyebrow behind his mask. “Sad as your tale of woe is, Digger, I can’t find it in myself to pity you when you’re in the very act of exhuming some poor corpse.”

Digger pulled himself up to his full height of something under five foot two. “Man’s got to make a livin’, Ghost. ’Sides,” he continued, narrowing his eyes spitefully, “leastwise I’m not a murderer.”

“Oh, let’s not start a game of name-calling.”

The other man made a rude noise.

“Digger,” Godric said low, his patience at an end, “I’m not here for your opinion of me.”

The grave robber licked his lips nervously, his eyes sliding away from Godric’s. “What yer want, then?”

“What do you know about the lassie snatchers?”

Digger’s bony shoulders lifted. “Just talk ’ere and there.”

“Tell me.”

Digger’s hard little face contorted as the man thought. “Word is, they’re back.”

Godric sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Uh …” Digger toed absently at the edge of his half-excavated grave. Clods of earth tumbled down, making no sound. “Some say as ’ow they’ve taken near on two dozen girls.”

Four and twenty girls missing? In any other corner of London, there would’ve been a public outcry. News sheets would’ve printed outraged articles, lords would’ve thundered their ire in Parliament. Here, no one had bothered to even notice, it seemed.

“Where are they taken to?”

“I dunno.” Digger shook his head. “But it’s not a regular bawdy house, like. Don’t no one ’ear from ’em again.”

Godric’s eyes narrowed. Digger didn’t appear to know that the girls were used in a workshop. The place must be well hidden. A secret kept very close.

“There’s a wench, though,” Digger said as if remembering, “’oo ’elps to catch the lassies.”

“Do you know what she looks like?”

“I knows better’n that,” Digger said with a hint of pride. “I knows ’er name.”

Godric cocked his head, waiting.

“Mistress Cook is what she goes by—or so I’ve ’eard.”

It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Godric produced a silver coin and pressed it into Digger’s grimy palm. “Thank you.”

Digger perked up at the sight of money, although his tone was still a bit surly when he answered, “Anytime.”

Godric turned to go, but hesitated as a thought struck him. “One more thing.”

The grave robber heaved a heavy sigh. “What?”

“Two years ago, an aristo was murdered in St. Giles. His name was Roger Fraser-Burnsby. Do you know anything about the matter?”

If Godric hadn’t spent years questioning informants of dubious reputation, he’d have missed the slight stiffening of Digger’s body.

“Never ’eard of ’im,” Digger said carelessly. “Now, if’n ye don’t mind, I ’as me work to finish afore sunup.”

Godric leaned into the smaller man until the crooked nose of his black leather mask nearly touched Digger’s face. “But I do mind.”

Digger gulped, his eyes flaring wide in alarm. “I … I don’t know nothin’, ’onest!”

“Jack,” Godric rasped quietly. “You’re a liar.”

“All right, all right.” Digger held up his hands as if warding off a physical attack. “There was rumors about when it ’appened. Talk that it ’adn’t been the Ghost at all ’oo killed that aristo.”

Godric raised his brows. “Did you hear who the real murderer was?”

Digger glanced over his shoulder as if searching for eavesdroppers. “Word was, it were another toff.”

“Anything else?”

The grave robber threw up his hands. “Ain’t that enough? You could get me killed, if’n this is toff business and they ’ear I been flappin’ me mouth.”

“No one will hear,” Godric said softly. “You won’t tell and I certainly don’t plan to.”

Digger’s only reply was a derisive snort.

Godric tipped his hat ironically to his informant and made his escape from the graveyard, loping on foot toward the river and Saint House. The thought of Megs seeking bloody revenge troubled him. She was a woman of light and laughter. She wasn’t made for grim retribution and death.

That was his job.

He couldn’t let her do it. Even if it were safe for a lady to seek a murderer in St. Giles, he couldn’t let her risk dimming her light, tarnishing her laughter. That kind of revenge would scar her forever.

There was only one way he could think of to distract her from her mission immediately and get her out of London.

Twenty minutes later, Godric neared Saint House, and as he always did, he slowed and ducked into the shadows of a doorway to watch and make sure he was unobserved. In all his years of acting the role of the Ghost of St. Giles, he could count on one hand the times when someone had been outside his house in the middle of the night. The times when his caution paid off.

This was one of those times.

It took him less than a minute to find the dark figure lurking by the corner of his house. A shadow so immobile, so silent, that had Godric not long ago memorized the monotone lines of his home by moonlight, he would have never seen him.

Godric stilled. He could flush the watcher, challenge him, and run him off. Or he could wait and see who had such interest in Saint House. His left shoulder throbbed, but he made himself breathe, deep and even, for he had a feeling this might be a long vigil.

As it turned out, it was three hours. Three hours of standing still, leaning against the doorway. Three hours of wishing he were asleep in his own bed. But at the end of those three hours he knew who was keeping watch over his house.

As the first gray-pink light began to dawn in the east, Captain James Trevillion stepped from the shadows. Without a backward glance to the house he’d guarded all night, he walked calmly away.

Godric waited until he could no longer hear the dragoon officer’s footfalls—and then he waited five minutes more.

Only then did he creep to the back of his house and into his study. Godric doffed his costume slowly, weariness and pain making him clumsy. His sword belt slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He stood staring at it. His hasty subterfuge the night Megs had stabbed him must not have fooled the dragoon captain entirely. Trevillion suspected he was in truth the Ghost. Why else keep vigil all night but to catch him as he returned from his wanderings? Godric had the feeling the man wouldn’t care overmuch for rank should he obtain clear proof that a member of the aristocracy were the Ghost. The captain was dogged, a man who appeared to have no life outside of the chase. A corner of Godric’s mouth kicked up in sardonic amusement. Perhaps his nemesis was only truly alive when he was hunting.

If so, they had more in common than the dragoon would ever suspect. Godric had long ago made peace with the knowledge that what small part of himself had survived Clara’s passing dwelt behind the mask.

He heaved a sigh. The captain must be dealt with, the lassie snatchers and Mistress Cook found, and Megs kept safe even against her will.

All this he must do, but right now he needed sleep.

Godric put away the accouterments of the Ghost and donned his nightshirt and banyan before leaving his study. As he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, he remembered once again Megs’s question: Why was he still the Ghost of St. Giles? and the answer he’d not spoken:

It was the only way he had left to know he yet breathed.

Chapter Nine

Despair grinned, showing needle-sharp yellow teeth against his deep red skin. “The souls of those caught between Heaven and Hell drown endlessly in the waters below, waiting for time to run out and their release. Rejoice that your beloved’s soul is not condemned to these waters, for those who are trapped here are suicides.” Faith shivered at the imp’s words and watched as a soul in the black water opened its mouth wide as if to scream. No sound issued forth from the void. …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

Megs stood late the next morning in the garden of Saint House, staring hard at the gnarled old fruit tree. It looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen it a couple of days ago.

Dead.

Higgins wanted permission to cut it down, but Megs couldn’t find it in her heart to do so. Ugly and gnarled as the tree was, it seemed a lonely thing out here in the garden by itself. Silly, of course, to give human feelings to a tree, but there it was. Megs pitied the old, twisted tree.

“That tree is dead,” came a dark voice from behind her.

She turned, trying to still the fluttering in her breast. Godric stood on the garden path, clad in his habitual somber suit—gray this morning. He regarded her with clear, crystal eyes, searching it seemed for something in her face.

Megs smiled. “That’s what my gardener, Higgins, said as well.”

“I can have it cut down for you.”

“He also offered.”

He looked at her oddly. “You won’t have it cut down, though, will you?”

She wrinkled her nose and placed a hand protectively on the rough bark. “No.”

“Naturally not,” he murmured to himself.