The Burning (10 page)

The long case clock in the hall downstairs began its sonorous striking. Ann jerked her head up and pricked her finger. Her uncle was supposed to present her to the town hall and Squire Fladgate for questioning at four! Surely she could plead her uncle’s illness as an excuse. But sure as she failed to appear, there would be a mob of them pounding on the door and upsetting her uncle. His heart might not take another shock. There was only one way to prevent that. She had to go herself.

She took a huge breath. The last time she had faced a crowd was at Malmsy’s funeral, eleven years ago. The outside, daylight world was filled with people who could shower her with their sorrows or secret guilts just by brushing up against her. Her mind wasn’t strong enough for that. She put her hand to her forehead. But she had to go. Although at Malmsy’s funeral she had had her uncle and Dr. Denton with her, to protect her. Could she face the squire alone?

She rose and rang for Polsham. Jennings would be back from Wedmore by now. While he ordered the carriage, she went upstairs to the nursery and put on her pelisse. God give her strength. She was going to do it.

Stephan was just preparing to go out when he heard raucous voices outside in the yard. The Hammer and Anvil seemed to be the noisy heart of the village. It was hardly the ideal place to get any sleep in the daytime. He finished tying his cravat in a simple style and twitched the ends in place. Then he thought he heard the word “witch” uttered in the shouting. He ducked over to the window and cracked open the shutters. Squinting against the fading sunlight, he saw the ethereal
girl from last night alight from a carriage and gaze around her with frightened eyes.

“Touch ’er, Jemmy, dare you,” a heavy lout urged a weasel-faced lad.

“Touch ’er yerself, ye coward,” Jemmy returned.

“She knows yer secrets if ye touch ’er,” a wizened old man cackled.

“Bet you a bumper ’o ale ye won’t do it,” the lout declared.

Jemmy got a calculating look in his eyes. “Make it two.” They had crowded round the girl, who crouched back against the carriage. The throng of men was growing.

“Done!”

Jemmy lunged for the girl, who shrieked as he clamped a hand on her arm. They both stood there, a frozen tableau, as the men around them gasped and stepped back. The girl’s eyes were round as saucers and they weren’t seeing anything, at least anything of this world. She began to tremble. Jemmy trembled, too.

The driver leapt down from the box, cutting about himself with the handle of his driving whip. “Back, there,” he shouted. He was a formidable bruiser. He cut his way through toward the girl. The crowd melted back, as much from fear of what was happening before their eyes as from fear of the whip. He grabbed the frozen Jemmy by the shoulder and pulled him away. The girl collapsed in a heap. Jemmy staggered, barely able to keep his feet.

“Miss Van Helsing, are you all right?” the driver asked. His voice was gentle, but he did not reach to pick her up.

Damn it! Would no one help her? Stephan swung the shutters out. There, the landlord of the establishment came out from the taproom. Shielding his eyes, he yelled, “You there, disperse that crowd and assist that woman!”

Five

Ann looked up at the shouting and saw him leaning out, squinting as though at the midday sun. His hair hung about his shoulders, making him look like some kind of a foreign prince, exotic. He seemed very angry. What had he shouted? She could hardly think. She was still suffused with Jemmy. She tried to breathe. Images and feelings doused her. All Jemmy’s short life echoed in her mind, the abuse, the fear, the sly, defensive hatred of the world. His assault on the first girl he coveted, his love of cats, the petty thievery, the dull resentment. The complexity of him made her reel. What did you think about people when you knew everything about them? And everything they knew about everyone else . . . Her gaze stole to the heavy lout. His name was Harris. He supported Jemmy under one arm. Jemmy looked as dazed as she did. His eyes sparked fear, and hatred.

The landlord hurried forward. Ann held up a hand in defense. “No,” she murmured. “I’m fine.” The portly man reached out to help her up, but Jennings held him back.

“Don’t be touchin’ her, Mr. Watkins. You know better than that.”

Ann smiled up at her groom. Jemmy’s life and experience retreated just enough for her to steady herself. She pushed herself up on the steps of the carriage and stood there swaying. Her eyes rose to the window above the doorway, but the stranger was gone.

Squire Fladgate stumped out into the yard. “Well, girl, what’s all this, then? You’re late. Inside, inside.” He motioned to her impatiently. She walked carefully toward the door. The men in her path fell away. No one wanted to touch her now. Squire Fladgate peered at Jemmy. “What ails you, man? Are you drunk?”

“ ’E touched ’er,” Harris growled. “She put some kinda spell on ’im.”

“Nonsense,” the squire sputtered. But he looked uneasy and moved out of Ann’s way.

She straightened. She must answer their questions, else they would persecute her, and through her, her uncle.

Squire Fladgate settled himself in the taproom behind a long trestle table. It had a low ceiling, and a huge rock fireplace. A fire crackled cheerfully there. The settles and chairs were a bit scarred from years of use, but the room was a comfortable one. “Well, sit down, girl.”

Ann eyed the furniture and thought about how many people had sat there. “I . . . I think I’ll stand, sir,” she whispered, “with your permission.” The other men sat down or stood near the fire. The crowd continued to grow.

“Hummmph. Well. As you wish.” The squire spread his hands and touched his fingertips together. His voice was stentorian when he cleared his throat and began. “We are here to look into the matter of Molly Flanagan and her death”—here he raised his brows and stared at Ann— “which was most strange.”

A murmur went around the room, a sort of delicious fear.

“It has been established by Dr. Denton that Miss Flanagan died, uh, exsanguinated.”

“Whot’s that, Squire?” This from Harris.

“Drained of blood.”

A sound of dismay seemed to rise from no one and everyone. A girl with very red eyes serving tankards of ale let out a wail and ran from the room. No doubt a friend of Molly’s.

Ann tried to focus on what the squire was saying. She had to shut Jemmy out if she was to prevent herself being clapped up in gaol. “And you think I did this?” She pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to think. She’d been planning in the carriage what to say but it had all been whirled away by the maelstrom of Jemmy’s touch. Just as she felt she might fade to nothing or get herself mixed up with Jemmy and never be able to distinguish herself from him again.
Please, God, don’t let me look insane
. What defense had she?

“You were found at the scene. You are known to be of strange habits.”

“Molly outweighed me by two or three stone, and she was six inches taller.” That was what she planned to say. She remembered now. “How could I subdue her?”

“Bewitched her,” Harris said. “Put her under your power like you done Jemmy here.”

Actually, there wasn’t much to say to that. Jemmy was sitting on a bench, holding a tankard of ale with both hands and gulping as though he was dying of thirst. Everyone in the room could see he was dazed.

“I did not bewitch her.” She forced her voice out to make herself sound surer than she was. “I saw a man bending over her.” She couldn’t tell them about the red eyes and the wolf teeth or they would think her mad for certain. “He was sucking at her neck.”

“We only have your word for that.” The squire waved her testimony away.

“And mine.” The deep voice behind her made the whole room turn.

“And who
are
you? I did not get your name last night,” the squire said pointedly.

“Stephan Sincai,” the stranger said. He was standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame. He looked utterly relaxed, yet filled to overflowing with latent power, like the fastest horse in the county when he was trotting lazily. The very air was energized with his presence.

“And where would you be from?” No one in the room liked foreigners, least of all the squire, especially when they challenged him. He was used to being in charge.

“Does it matter?” Sincai didn’t seem the type who felt obligated to answer questions.

The squire puffed himself up. “As justice of the peace, I have a right to know who I am speaking to.” He suddenly reminded Ann of a bulldog, all jowls and outraged dignity.

“I come from just east of the Danube River.”

“Danube! What country is that?”

“It has been many countries. Dacia, Wallachia, Hungary, Romany.”

“Well, what is it now?” The squire was growing angry.

“Let us call it Transylvania.”

“Damned gypsy is what he is,” Harris muttered. “Can’t trust ’em. They steal you blind.”

Ann turned on him. “And you would know about that, would you not, Mr. Harris?” She felt as though she was on trial here for being strange and they would end up not believing this Mr. Sincai by making him out to be fearful and strange, as well. “You are such a fine justice of the peace,” she spat at the squire. “What have you done about the robberies in Winscombe? Have you found who knocked that young man on the
head and took his seal ring and . . . and a fine silver watch? Or that old woman’s pearls? Ask Mr. Harris here. He bullied Jemmy into accompanying him on the expeditions. Or better yet, you’ll find the watch under Mr. Harris’s mattress, because it’s engraved, and no one will pay him for it.”

Harris had gone dead white. He rounded on Jemmy. “You’re the only one who knows!”

“Not anymore,” Ann said calmly.

Squire Fladgate looked as though he might burst a vein. He knocked over his chair as he got up. “Watkins, Stanhope, take those men. We’ll see about this.” The landlord and two others seized hold of Harris and Jemmy Minks.

“Jemmy was led astray,” Ann said directly to the squire. She didn’t want Jemmy clapped up. She understood the deep doubt and shame about himself and his bastard lineage that made him so susceptible to Harris’s bullying. “He’s had a hard life. Without Harris, who frightens him, I doubt he’d be in trouble.” The squire licked his lips at this fresh evidence of Ann’s strange powers. “He deserves a second chance,” she said.

Jemmy didn’t know whether to protest or thank her. Instead he glanced fearfully at Harris. Ann could have kissed him for that look, for it confirmed all she had said.

“We’ll see,” the squire harrumphed. “Whether it’s true or not, this doesn’t absolve you, young woman, from the murders.”

In fact, she had just given them even more reason to fear her.

“There have been several other murders like this one,” the dark stranger named Stephan Sincai drawled behind her. “Winscombe, Shepton Mallet. Rather large men killed some distance from your fine village. Miss Van Helsing is an unlikely candidate for such crimes. Perhaps you could check with the authorities in those towns before sending her to gaol?”

One can’t be grateful for murders,
she thought.

“How do you know about these murders?” The squire was suspicious of the man.

Ann turned to see what he would say. His eyes flicked over her in dark disregard. Why did he defend her if he looked at her like that?

“Taverns all around here are full of talk about them.” Sincai flicked at a speck of lint upon the dark perfection of his coat.

“Seems strange that you’d just happen—”

“Do not even think about accusing him,” Ann warned. “He was the one who rescued me from the one you’re really looking for. So just you look into those other murders, Squire, and in the meantime, I am going home.” She turned to the door. “Jennings?”

Stephan Sincai blocked her path. She looked up at the dark, brooding face as she waited for him to move. She felt herself flushing. He stepped aside, bowing slightly.

“Thank you.” But her voice did not hold all the thanks she owed. There was no time for that at this point. She must leave immediately, before the momentum of the situation changed again. She strode out to the carriage, Jennings trailing in her wake. The last of the gloaming had deepened into night. Jennings took the reins from the ostler. Ann climbed into the carriage and shut the door. Slapping reins gave the horses the office to start. The carriage rolled forward.