Chapter 8
Mercury had experienced every imaginable emotion while living at Moor Cross Home for Orphans: dejection, loneliness, sorrow, frustration, fleeting moments of hope early on.
But it wasn’t until anger became the prominent one that he’d finally decided to take the admittedly enormous risk of attempting to escape.
The Vanns had made the mistake of making him angry again.
As he made his way belowstairs in his London house, he kept his hand in his coat pocket, holding firm to the key to his one-time room at the orphanage.
He’d kept himself alive and safe on the unforgiving streets of London.
He’d changed his identity. Protected himself.
He’d grown more refined, had built a life of significant ease.
But underneath it all, he was still the scrappy boy who’d learned to fight.
They had Tacey, and he was done with the patient approach.
Mercury made his way to the cold-storage pantry. Wallaby, his ghost who occupied the dungeons when at Aventine Manor, had chosen that spot in this home.
He stopped at the closed door and spoke. Not everyone was careful to afford their ghosts privacy, but he thought it important to show them that respect. “May I come in and speak with you?”
“Come in.”
Mercury opened the door and stepped inside. He left it a bit ajar, needing the light in the windowless room.
“I need your particular help with tonight’s endeavor.”
“What is it you need?” Wallaby’s ability to speak without moving his mouth had been disconcerting when he’d first joined Mercury’s household years earlier. He was accustomed to it now.
“I have a hunch that the Vanns will bring Tacey to the Forever Flame tonight and hide her somewhere. I don’t want to tip my hand just yet—though that will change if we don’t get her back tonight—so I don’t dare send my known ghosts around looking for her.”
“You wish me to search the building for her?”
Mercury nodded. “And I know you well enough to know you can manage it very clandestinely.”
“I never met her,” Wallaby said, “so I do not know what she looks like.”
“She has dark hair with a bit of a wave to it. Her eyes are a very deep and rich shade of brown, and it can be difficult to know if there is more laughter in her eyes or more contemplation.” How easily he could picture her.
He could almost imagine she was standing right there with him.
“She isn’t overly tall for a woman, but she also isn’t particularly short.
And when she’s pondering something, she has the tendency to tip her head to one side.
The right side. Almost always to the right.
” He smiled a little. “She is also clever and intelligent. I suspect she is actively seeking out a means of rescuing herself.”
“You aren’t going to tell me she has a beguiling smile or an enchanting laugh?” The amusement in Wallaby’s voice pulled Mercury back to himself once more.
“You are not the first of the ghosts to tell me how obvious my growing attachment to Tacey is. And, as I’m not ashamed of those feelings, I don’t mind that you have seen through me just as quickly as the others.
” Though he did need to regain his focus.
“Will you help me search for her? It will mean being around people, and I know you don’t care for that. ”
“You’ve shown me more consideration than any person I’ve been attached to. I owe you far more than this small favor.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Wallaby. None of my ghosts owe me anything.”
Wallaby dipped his ghostly head. “I will make a thorough search of the Forever Flame. If she is there, I will find her.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, Mercury Raine.”
Perhaps it was too many cold and neglected years spent at Moor Cross, but Mercury was decidedly uncomfortable with gratitude.
He didn’t mind compliments, provided they were warranted.
And he could handle criticism. But gratitude, especially for simply doing the right thing, never sat easy on his mind.
“I’m leaving in about a quarter hour,” he said.
Wallaby nodded, then floated into a shadowy corner of the small room. That was where he would be happiest while awaiting their departure. Mercury stepped out and closed the door.
He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. Twice in that conversation, he’d lost his focus on finding and rescuing Tacey. He couldn’t afford to do that once he was out of this house.
Mercury climbed the stairs up to the ground floor, holding his iron key in his fist. Step by step, his thoughts sharpened and his resolve steeled once more. By the time he reached the entryway, he felt himself equal to the task ahead.
Gary the Green was in the adjacent drawing room, watching him through the open door. Something appeared to be upending him. Mercury stepped inside.
“I suspect you aren’t overly keen to be leaving the house again tonight,” Mercury acknowledged. “If all goes well, this will be the last time we’ll need to do so.”
But the phantom’s tight expression didn’t ease. In a quiet, tense voice he said, “Sidney Beckett.”
The name struck ice to Mercury’s core. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t respond. Couldn’t look away.
“How do I know—” Gary the Green blinked in quick succession. “How is it I remember that’s your name?”
Blast it.
“It’s not anymore,” Mercury said firmly. “That name and all it was attached to is in the past.” He took a slow breath, trying to calm his anxious pulse. “Sidney Beckett doesn’t exist any longer.”
“He does, though.” Gary the Green pointed at a newspaper, open on an end table.
Mercury crossed to it, eyes skimming the page tensely, before settling on an advertisement. He read with trepidation.
Reward: An interested party is searching for one Sidney Beckett, a man of at least thirty years old, with more than five ghostly attachments, and undoubtedly using a false name.
The reward for bringing him to the interested party has been raised yet again and now exceeds ￡200. Inquire of the Forever Flame.
“Who would be looking for you?” Gary the Green asked.
“A few people,” Mercury said, his mind spinning.
Sidney Beckett was the name he was given at the orphanage. Which meant the bounty placed on him had to be connected to Moor Cross. Could it be the governor of the orphanage? Someone searching on the orphanage’s behalf? Perhaps it was an agent of the law looking for a fugitive.
“Will you be safe at the Forever Flame?” Gary the Green asked. “Whoever the person is”—he motioned to the paper—“they will be at that pub.”
“All the more reason to go there.” Every muscle in his body tightened, preparing for the danger ahead. “Unless we discover who this person is, none of us will be safe.”