Maelstrom (18 page)

Her golden jewelry sparkled in the electric
light. “Two more bodies have been found in the water. Like the
first.”

“Damn it,” Griffin said, sinking into his
chair. He’d not taken the time to comb his hair, and his curls were
wildly disordered from both the pillow and our earlier
activities.

“There is more.” She glanced up at me, then
back to Griffin. “The corpses were found near a pair of small
reefs. And now the water around both is...humming.”

“Humming?” I asked in surprise.

“Vibrating.” She rubbed her hands against
her legs. “I touched it and felt it tingling, heard the water
trembling.”

An ugly thought developed at her words.
“These reefs—do the ketoi practice any sort of rituals around
them?”

“You think they’re the underwater equivalent
of the standing stones?” Griffin guessed.

I nodded. Persephone did as well. “At times,
yes. When we wish to speak with the god.”

None of this boded any good. Before I said
as much, there came a sudden, frantic pounding on the front
door.

“Dr. Whyborne?” shouted a voice that sounded
like Miss Parkhurst’s. “Dr. Whyborne, if you’re there, please
answer!”

Griffin and I exchanged shocked looks. Why
Miss Parkhurst, of all people, should be banging on our door this
hour was beyond me. Was she in some sort of trouble? “I’ll get the
door,” I said. “Persephone, stay here.”

The only thing more surprising than Miss
Parkhurst’s presence was her appearance when I opened the door.
Ordinarily, her dress was impeccable—hair styled neatly according
to what I assumed to be the latest fashion, the lines of her
shirtwaists and skirts crisp.

Not tonight. Her hair looked to have been
pinned with the utmost haste. Strands fell loose into her face and
across her shoulders. Her clothing was rumpled, and she wore a
different style of shoe on each foot.

“Miss Parkhurst?” I asked. “What are you
doing here?”

To my horror, she burst into tears and flung
herself at me. I caught her awkwardly. “It’s after me, Dr.
Whyborne,” she sobbed into my shoulder. “That thing in your
office—I heard a noise in my walls earlier—I thought it was just a
rat—and then I woke up and it was there, on my bed, staring at
me.”

“Good lord!” I pulled her inside hastily and
shut the door. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “N-no. I screamed and
hit it. Dr. Putnam taught some of us a bit of self-defense, after
she first came to the museum, and I guess I still remembered what
to do.” She sniffled. “I knocked it across the room, but it came
back at me. I grabbed my umbrella and struck it a few times. It
darted into a hole, so I just snatched up whatever clothes came to
hand and ran.” She drew back, wiping at her face. “I didn’t know
where else to go.”

“You did the right thing,” Griffin said from
the stairs.

“I’m sorry to have waked you, Mr. Flaherty,”
Miss Parkhurst said with a sniffle. “Please, don’t be angry with
Dr. Whyborne on my account.”

“Not at all.” He took her elbow and started
to guide her into the parlor. At the last moment, he caught himself
and steered her to the kitchen instead. “Let me put the kettle on,
and—”

The lights flickered and died.

We stood in a darkness that seemed all the
deeper for its suddenness. Miss Parkhurst let out a frightened
gasp.

“Is it windy outside?” Griffin asked.

“N-no,” she replied.

“There are other reasons the electricity
might go out,” I said, although I felt my pulse quicken at the base
of my throat.

“Including something chewing through the
wires,” Griffin agreed.

The stairs creaked beneath batrachian feet.
Although I would have preferred to keep Persephone hidden, I feared
we’d need her assistance. “Miss Parkhurst, do you recall my sister
from the night of the Hallowe’en tours?” I asked.

“I...she cut off the head of...and the two
of you left together...” Her words trailed off awkwardly. “I didn’t
think we were supposed to talk about it.”

“Well, she’s here now, visiting with us, so
I don’t want you to be frightened by her,” I said. “Isn’t that
right, Persephone?”

“Something is hunting the land woman?”
Persephone asked.

“The same ones who performed some ritual
above your reef tonight,” Griffin said grimly. “Whyborne,
Persephone, can one of you conjure a light?”

“Er, where is the lantern
now?” Since getting electric lights, I hadn’t bothered to keep
track of such things. “If I try to set fire to a wick without
knowing where it is, precisely, whatever is
actually
there will end up aflame.
Like your case notes. Or the curtains.”

“Burning the house down seems a bit of an
extreme solution,” Griffin agreed. “The two of you stay here with
Miss Parkhurst. I’ll find a lantern and matches in the parlor.”

“Did the rat creature follow me?” Miss
Parkhurst squeaked.

“Hopefully not,” I said. Griffin bumped into
something in the dark, the sound followed by a curse and the chime
of metal as he tripped over the discarded handcuffs. Heat suffused
my face and made me momentarily grateful for the shadows.

There came a furtive, rustling sound from
near the baseboards. As if something moved inside the wall.

“Griffin,” I called, “please hurry with the
lantern.”

Miss Parkhurst latched onto my arm. I drew
her back, away from the wall. My ears strained, striving to track
its movements as it climbed higher.

It was above us.

I shoved Miss Parkhurst in Persephone’s
direction, even as the plaster ceiling crumbled. Choking dust
filled my lungs, and a heavy weight landed on my shoulders. A
rancid, rotting smell of sewer gas and grave dirt swept over me,
and sharp claws tore at my neck.

“Persephone!” I shouted. “Take her upstairs
and keep her safe! There are candles on the mantle—light them!”

I scrabbled wildly, trying to rip the
rat-thing from my back, but I couldn’t quite reach it between my
shoulders. “Griffin!” It tried to bite, but the collar of my suit
coat foiled its teeth. Even so, I felt the scrape of ivory along my
skin.

Griffin ran out into the hall, still without
a light. His shadowsight must have revealed the creature, because
he seized it unerringly by the tail in an attempt to pull it off
me.

It snapped at his hand, and he flinched
away. But its grip on me had been loosened, ever so slightly.

I hurled myself back, seeking to crush the
thing between my body and the wall. It let out a squeal that left
my ears ringing and fell to the floor with a thump. There was a
scrabble of claws on tile as it darted into the kitchen.

Griffin chased after it. There came a crash
as he blundered into a chair in the dark. “It went behind the
stove,” he called. “Damn it—there must be a hole! I hear it in the
wall.”

I held my breath, listening for its
movements. There came the rustling, but not furtive anymore. It
drew nearer and nearer to me...then faded.

It was going up again. To the second
story.

Miss Parkhurst screamed.

Whyborne

There was no time for finesse. I ran up the
stairs, tripping over the risers in my haste. Above me, Persephone
called out the true name of fire.

The candles on the mantel blazed to life.
Miss Parkhurst huddled on the floor against the couch. The
rat-thing perched on the back of a chair, its scabrous tail
lashing. Its human-like face twisted into a leer, revealing the
awful, deadly teeth.

Persephone snarled at it, putting herself
between it and Miss Parkhurst. A mouth full of shark’s teeth,
surrounded by stinging tentacles, should have given anything pause.
But the rat creature only let out a chittering cry that sounded
horribly like a laugh, before it leapt at her.

Something large and orange intercepted
it.

They crashed to the floor, the rat-thing
screaming horribly. But Saul’s teeth had sunk deep into the back of
its neck, and his grip remained strong. He shook the thing hard,
his powerful hind legs kicking it at the same time. There came a
loud crack as something vital broke in its spine, and it went
limp.

I ran to Saul and scooped him up, before he
decided to eat the wretched thing. It lay still at my feet,
glassy-eyed and bloody. “Good Saul,” I crooned, stroking his head.
His purr rumbled loud enough to rattle my bones.

Persephone straightened, looking slightly
disappointed, as though she’d wanted to be the one to kill it. Then
she turned to Miss Parkhurst, as Griffin clattered up the stairs.
“Are you hurt?”

Miss Parkhurst gazed up at her, lips parted
and a slightly stunned expression on her face. “No. I-I’m fine.”
She glanced at me, then back to Persephone. “Are you really Dr.
Whyborne’s sister?”

“We’re twins,” Persephone said.

“Can’t you see the resemblance?” Griffin
asked. Despite his light words, the expression he turned on Miss
Parkhurst was one of concern.

She laughed, a bit hysterically. “Oh, of
course. I can barely tell them apart.”

Persephone held out her hand. I expected
Miss Parkhurst to flinch back from the claws, but she took it
without hesitation, and let Persephone haul her to her feet.

“Come,” Griffin said, and put a hand to Miss
Parkhurst’s shoulder. “You’ve had a dreadful shock. Let’s go down
to the kitchen, and I’ll make us some tea.”

“And waffles?” Persephone asked
hopefully.

“No waffles,” I said, putting Saul down well
away from his erst-while prey. Someone needed to remove the thing
from the house, and it seemed that duty fell to me. “It’s the
middle of the night, for heaven’s sake.”

“Fine,” Persephone said, a bit sullenly. “I
like waffles, though. Do you?” she asked Miss Parkhurst.

“Oh, yes.” Miss Parkhurst gave her a shaky
smile. “They’re one of my favorite foods, actually.”

I used my handkerchief to pick up the dead
rat creature by its tail. Its jaw gaped open, displaying its chisel
teeth. While everyone else went into the kitchen, I carried the
thing into the backyard, holding it arm’s length the entire time.
Saul paced along behind me, apparently disgruntled that I’d made
off with his kill.

I meant to put it in the small shed beside
the garden. But I’d gotten only a few steps from the house when
greenish slime began to drip from it, and the tail between my
fingers turned horribly spongy. I released it and took a wary step
back, just in case.

The whole process took only seconds. Hair
and flesh dissolved into ooze, shucking off the bones. Then the
bones followed suit. Within moments, nothing was left but a dark
stain on the ground, and even that seemed to evaporate as I
watched.

Surely that confirmed the thing was indeed
from the Outside. I’d keep the information to myself for the
moment, to avoid distressing Miss Parkhurst any further.

Although she’d held up remarkably well so
far. She’d seen Persephone at the Hallowe’en gathering nearly two
years ago, but at a distance. The ketoi were far more disconcerting
close up, with their writhing hair and serrated smiles. Not to
mention their rather immodest manner of dress. Even without the
hideous rat-creature, she might reasonably have been expected to
flee screaming, rather than sit down to tea with us.

I needed to put her in for a raise.

“So Dr. Whyborne and Miss Whyborne,” she was
saying as I returned to the kitchen, “are both part human and
part...”

“Ketoi,” Griffin supplied. He removed the
tea kettle from the stove and poured the water into four cups.

“I’m afraid so,” I said. Persephone and Miss
Parkhurst sat across from one another, so I took a chair beside
Persephone.

“I see.” Miss Parkhurst took a deep breath,
then straightened her shoulders. “Thank you—all of you—for saving
my life.”

“I’m only sorry it was in danger in the
first place,” I said. “If I’d thought for a moment the creature
would come after you for having seen it, I would have warned you
earlier.” Instead, I’d assumed Mr. Durfree to be the one it would
attack. And perhaps it would have, had he not left town.

Instead, it had sought her out. If she’d
hadn’t waked in time, would it have chewed its way through her
chest, as it had done Mr. Lambert? God, what an awful thought. At
least the thing was dead now.

“I know, Dr. Whyborne,” Miss Parkhurst said.
“You’ve always been very kind to me.” She paused. “Do I want to
know what that thing was?”

“Probably not,” I said, taking a sip of my
tea. It was still too hot, and burned my tongue.

“That’s up to you,” Griffin replied, giving
me a stern look. “But four in the morning may not be the best time
to discuss it.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry.” Miss Parkhurst pinked.
“With all the excitement, I quite forgot the hour.”

“I must leave soon,” Persephone said. “I
have to return to the ocean before too many humans are abroad.”

“Of course.” The blush deepened over Miss
Parkhurst’s skin. “Your hair is so pretty. May I touch it?”

Persephone looked unaccountably pleased.
“Yes. Your hair is pretty, too,” she added.

I didn’t know what had brought about this
sudden attack of manners in my sister, but I didn’t wish to
question it. After we finished our tea, Griffin said, “We’ll walk
you home, Miss Parkhurst.”

“I will,” Persephone said unexpectedly. “I
must leave as it is. So long as we stay to the shadows, no one will
see me.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Miss Parkhurst replied.

“Are you certain?” I asked, rising to my
feet.

“Oh yes—I’m sure no one would dare attack me
with such a fierce guardian.” As soon as the words were out of her
mouth, she blushed again, although why I couldn’t possibly
imagine.

We made our way to the door to see them out.
“Do you come on land often?” Miss Parkhurst asked as they started
down the walk.