Chapter Nineteen
Montpelier Hill, County Dublin (Cnoc Montpelier, Contae Bhaile átha Cliath)
The Day Before Samhain
Sam thought about how to tell Hel and Van Helsing about the vision her Aunt Lucy had given her the entire walk back to the Shelbourne.
But she kept coming back to the way Hel had turned on her in the wake of the Wild Hunt, after Sam had sent them away—eyes narrowed, demanding to know what she’d done.
What would Hel do if Sam told her she’d fed her blood to a ghost?
It was entirely unfair of Hel to risk herself with alchemy only to object to Sam doing the same with channeling. But she would, Sam was certain of it, and she couldn’t risk Hel stopping her, not when her grandfather was so close, not after so many years of searching for him.
Besides, it ought to be safe enough. Aunt Lucy had said channeling alone hadn’t been sufficient to turn her monstrous. Then again, Aunt Lucy had devoured children. She was, perhaps, not the most trustworthy judge of what did and did not constitute monstrous.
And something was wrong with Sam’s shadow.
“She didn’t do it,” Sam said when she returned to the Shelbourne. Van Helsing and Hel had been outside the dining room, waiting for her, Heathcliff peeking out of Hel’s pocket like a secret. Whatever they had been talking about, they ceased as she approached. It made Sam uneasy.
“What are you talking about?” Van Helsing said. “Nouns, please.”
Sam darted a look at Hel. It was another thing she’d caught from the woman, aside from her penchant for keeping secrets. “Alice Grey. She did kill her husband, but—”
“And you didn’t arrest her?” Van Helsing interrupted.
“No, I didn’t,” Sam said, fury sparking in her as she remembered the scars on Alice’s arms, the oldest ones knotted and gnarled, as if they hadn’t healed properly.
The way he’d threatened to throw her back into the asylum if she didn’t keep quiet and do exactly as he said.
A fate that could have been Sam’s if she hadn’t had such understanding parents—could still be hers, if Van Helsing or Hel found reason to turn on her.
Sam could never let them know about Aunt Lucy. About what she’d done.
“The things he did to her . . .” Sam’s voice flattened out. “He was the monster.”
“You can’t just murder people because you think they’re monstrous,” Van Helsing argued. “She could have gone to the civic guard.”
“You think they would believe her?” Sam asked, her voice heated.
A woman’s credibility rarely survived an asylum, to say nothing of the mere fact of her gender.
Murder had been her only way out. The alternative was unthinkable.
“Besides, I couldn’t arrest her even if I wanted to.
They’re both of them human. It’s not our jurisdiction. ”
“It is if she used ghosts to murder her husband,” Hel said.
“Perhaps he was simply the first, imperfect murder, on which she honed her skills,” Van Helsing mused, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“The first murder is often personal, in that case—and shoddy. They’re still figuring out how to kill.
If we can uncover how she did it, find evidence of the tattooing equipment—”
“I know how she did it,” Sam interrupted. “Datura seeds. They cause hallucinations in small doses, and death at higher doses. So unless you think there’s some way she could poison half of Dublin—”
“The water supply,” Van Helsing said at once.
“Datura-derived honey,” Hel said.
“Tainted grain,” Van Helsing added thoughtfully.
“Gas lamps,” Hel added, then, when Sam and Van Helsing looked at her askance, she shrugged, as if it were obvious.
“All parts of the datura plant are poisonous, whether ingested or inhaled. Add datura flowers inside the glass. Gas lamps require air flow to function, so when they’re lit at night, the flowers would burn, releasing toxic smoke.
Anyone on the streets would be affected, and it would only occur at night. ”
“You’re a little frightening sometimes,” Sam said. “You know that, right?”
“Just a little?” Van Helsing objected under his breath. Sam felt her lips twitch into a smile, despite herself.
“Miss Harker’s right,” Hel said, ignoring them both. “Being poisoned might explain why we saw ghosts, but even if there was some subliminal way to ensure the hallucinations were consistent, they wouldn’t have shown up on the photographs. Nor could they have left marks on Miss Harker’s arms.”
“Fair point,” Van Helsing admitted grudgingly.
Sam hesitated. “There is one more thing.” She uncurled her hand. In it, there was a bee, a curl of paper no bigger than a pencil shaving glued to its back. Her hand shook. She tried to steady it.
Hel’s attention sharpened; she stepped forward, almost involuntarily. Sam dropped it into Hel’s hand.
“Is that a bee?” Van Helsing said, sounding puzzled.
“It’s a message from my father,” Hel said as she uncurled the sliver of paper, staring down at it intently. Written in blue ink, in a looping, angular hand—smeared as if in haste—were the words: I never see thy face.
“A riddle?” Van Helsing frowned. “Why would Professor Moriarty send us a riddle?”
“Why does my father do anything?” Hel drawled.
“But you must know what it means,” Van Helsing said. “You’re his daughter.”
“I keep telling people, we aren’t close,” Hel said.
“Is he saying he misses you?” Van Helsing ventured. Sam could see it, though she didn’t credit Hel’s father capable of the sentiment. A sequel to the prodigal son message Hel’s father had sent her. The implication that if Hel were only to come home, all would be forgiven.
Hel didn’t dignify that with a response.
“It’s a quote,” Sam said as naturally as she could.
She’d thought this part through. Everyone would expect Sam to know a quote from literature.
Which of course, she did, seeing as she was the one who’d written it.
“‘I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.’ It’s from Shakespeare’s Henry IV. ”
Van Helsing stared at her. “You just know that?”
Everyone except Van Helsing, apparently. “Researcher, remember? The real question is what it means.”
And this was the hard part. Sam couldn’t answer; she had to wait for them to put the pieces together or let them fall where they may. To do otherwise would be too suspicious. If they didn’t figure it out . . . But Sam had nothing to worry about.
“The Hell-Fire Club,” Hel said.
“The secret society of demon worshippers?” Van Helsing exclaimed.
“I don’t think they worshipped the demons,” Sam hedged. “It was mostly high society rakes looking for some sacrilegious flavor to their drinking and debauching, with a little demon summoning on the side.”
“Oh, because that’s so much better,” Van Helsing said dryly.
“But weren’t they driven out a century ago?” Sam asked, as if she didn’t know.
“It’s not the people, but the place. It’s on Montpelier Hill, though I’m afraid it’s little more than a haunted ruin at this point.” Hel looked at Sam sidelong. “I suppose we ought to check it out.”
“How do we know it’s not a trap?” Van Helsing said.
“It’s probably best we assume it is,” Hel answered.
Montpelier Hill was the end of the line. Sam stepped out of the train onto the weathered wooden platform, the wind whipping her skirts. Van Helsing and Hel followed close behind. They were the only passengers to ride that far. The whistle blew, the train chugged off, and then they were alone.
Scraggly linden trees and worn grey stones pocked the forlorn hills. In the distance, clouds caught between the teeth of spruce. And there, on top of an odd circular raised mound that Sam knew marked a rath: the ruins of old Hell-Fire Club.
They threaded their way up the hill, avoiding the spiny yellow gorse.
Hel bore a large black case over her shoulder with the ease of a gentleman carrying his suit after dinner, her long tan coat snapping in the wind behind her.
Van Helsing was decked out like a vampire’s nightmare, with a large silver crucifix on his chest, an oversized exorcism book hanging from a chain on his belt, and vials of holy water in bandoliers.
Sam remained in her grey wool walking suit with fur trim—she had hopes it would blend into the cloud-scudded sky—but with a newly purchased pair of brown oxfords.
They were hideously sensible, but Hel’s critique still echoed in the hollows of her mind: She’s dressed in white, for one thing.
For another, she’s wearing heels . . . and she’s a hazard with a firearm besides.
If he doesn’t see her coming, he’ll certainly hear her, and then she’ll be useless once he does.
Well. There was nothing Sam might do about the “hazard with a firearm” part. But as for the rest, she didn’t want to give Hel reason to leave her behind.
“It’s strange,” Hel mused. Her shoulder seemed empty without Heathcliff, but she hadn’t wanted to risk him. Not at the Hell-Fire Club. “My father loathes Shakespeare.”
Sam’s steps hitched. “Oh?” she managed, pretending to untangle her skirts from a bit of shrubbery.
“He says it was written by a lowbrow, Crown-flattering magpie, and all his best work was stolen from others,” Hel said. Sam, offended on behalf of English literature, bit back her first response, then her second. Hel slid her eyes to Sam. “How curious that he used it for one of his apian messages.”
“It must be another clue,” Van Helsing said, oblivious. “Some sign of his displeasure.”
“Perhaps,” Hel allowed.
“Or perhaps it wasn’t sent by him at all,” Sam offered, once she was certain she could control her voice, “but someone working against him from the inside.” Her grandfather, she meant it to appear, because Sam had not, in fact, told them. About the vision. About Aunt Lucy. About any of it.
The Hell-Fire Club remained a shell of its former glory, with tufts of grass growing between blackened stone, the hollows of the windows half drowning in earth. He might not even be there anymore, Sam told herself, even as her heart tangled with all the words she wanted to say to him.