Chapter Twenty-Two
Dublin (Baile átha Cliath)
Samhain
Women in sumptuous coats and men in their sleek winter wool fought the wind as they made their way down the streets of Merrion Square.
Cold froze their breath as it bloomed from their mouths, and the wind snatched it away almost as fast. Even the crows struggled, no longer following Sam as she hurried after Hel and Jakob but everywhere, as they tumbled in gusts of wind that bowed trees, buffeted about like fallen leaves.
Sam worried her lip.
“We’re wasting our time. Bishop doesn’t know anything,” Jakob argued. “We ought to go directly to Ashdown Manor. Explain things to them, tell the Vespertine that whatever they have done, they must undo it.”
“Right,” Hel said dryly. “While we’re at it, we can have them carve the sigils from their heads and cast them in the fire too.”
“Yes,” Jakob said, completely missing the fact that Hel was being sarcastic.
“As if the Vespertine will listen to reason,” Hel scoffed. She was right, Sam thought, recalling what Mr. Ashdown had said about necessary sacrifices. “They know what they’re doing. They simply don’t care.”
“Then we’ll tear that manor apart,” Jakob growled.
“We can’t just charge in and expect to figure it out,” Sam said.
Ashdown Manor had as many secrets as a hive did bees—Sam had barely scratched the surface—and it wouldn’t be long before the sun began to set.
If they were to stop them in time, they needed to know precisely what the Vespertine had done, and how best to undo it.
“Besides, it’s not just the Vespertine at stake. It’s everyone with a haunting.”
Jakob made a frustrated sound in his throat. “Fine. Let’s get this over with, then.”
Mr. Bishop lived in a Georgian townhouse that looked exactly as might be expected of a man who bragged of dancing with the Devil. The rays of a golden sun stood over a door hewn from some dark purple wood.
Hel frowned at the blackthorn that had shoved the paving aside, growing up alongside the townhouse as if it would strangle it.
“That’s new.” From when Hel and Jakob had stalked Mr. Bishop that first night, Sam presumed.
Sam never thought she’d be grateful for Jakob’s habit of assuming everyone a villain, but without it, they wouldn’t have known where Mr. Bishop lived, so here they were.
The knocker was a brass rendition of an imp, a heavy ring clutched between its bared teeth. Jakob’s mouth twisted in distaste.
“What is the point of trumpeting one’s depravity?” Sam wondered as Jakob pounded on the door so hard the window glass rattled in its frames. “It seems counterproductive.”
If Sam were dealing with the Devil, she wouldn’t advertise it. Better to be the picture of innocence, so that everyone would underestimate you and let you into their confidences. From there, you could do as you liked.
“At least it’s honest,” Hel said, with an edge to her words. Sam gave her a sharp look.
“Just because you’re not spilling all your secrets doesn’t mean you’re dishonest,” Sam retorted tartly. “Trust can’t exist if nothing’s left to it.”
“It’s called lying by omission,” Hel said.
“Bishop!” Jakob pounded on the door again, as much, Sam suspected, to stop them bickering as to summon the man in question.
At last there was a clatter of books, and the sound of glass shattering. This was followed by what sounded like cursing in several languages—Sam thought she recognized Aramaic, Phoenician, and . . . Italian?—and the unlatching of a prodigious number of locks.
Until at last, the door cracked open. Crows burst from the door in a shadowy torrent. Sam cried out as their wings battered against her, claws scrabbling, but even as she raised her arms, they were gone, as if they’d never been.
In their place, éamonn Bishop lounged in the doorway—there was no other word for what he was doing—in an exquisite crimson dressing gown patterned with black leaves. It had a gold silk lining, which Sam knew because it wasn’t closed. It hung there like a dare, along with the rest of him.
Sam averted her eyes, horribly embarrassed for him. Hel stared right at him, flat challenge in her gaze.
“What can I do for”—Mr. Bishop raised an eyebrow—“all three of you? Well, how unexpectedly adventurous of you. Perhaps you’re worth more of my time than I thought.”
Jakob made a sound of disgust. “Cover up, man, there are ladies present.”
“Oh. I see. How disappointing.” Mr. Bishop held Jakob’s gaze as he looped the belt of his robe loosely around him.
Despite his posturing, Mr. Bishop had seen better days.
He flinched from the light, the skin beneath his eyes bruised, and his nails looked ragged.
“What are you here for, then, if not for me?”
Hel put a hand on the doorframe. “You’ll want to invite us in for this.”
“Will I?” Bishop said, looking bemused. “How vampiric of you. Well then, if you say so.” He backed away from the door, before turning and picking up a delicate glass of absinthe from a crumbling grotesque that looked as if it might have been stolen from a cathedral somewhere, leaving them to follow him inside.
He led them to what in any other house would be the parlor.
Sam dizzied as they stepped over the threshold, the song going dead silent.
She caught herself against the wall and saw arcane sigils between her fingers.
Craning her head back, she followed their scrawl over the walls—words written over and over again, in a dozen different tongues, until their tangled letters bristled like thorns.
An attempt to trap something inside? Or keep something out.
Sam trembled, brushing her hands over her arms. She couldn’t channel.
Something about the sigils had stripped it from her, leaving her feeling oddly naked.
The scent of ashes rose from a cold grey hearth that had been shaped like a green man’s head, giving the appearance of a devilish creature swallowing the flames.
Black crepe hung over the brass mirrors, and the corners burned with candelabras.
An oil painting dominated the room, depicting a man in agony as he was torn to shreds by reveling women.
Mr. Bishop sprawled unceremoniously on a red brocade sofa with rather less stuffing and more tears than Sam had thought were strictly usual amidst the uncomfortably wealthy.
It was the feathers, she realized with slow creeping horror.
He’d removed all the feathers. The walls seemed to have great rents in them, too, as if something monstrous had gotten loose, as if it had torn apart the walls in its attempt to escape.
Mr. Bishop gestured to the deflated sofa across from him. None of them sat. He didn’t appear to notice.
“So.” Mr. Bishop yawned, hooking his arms behind the dark wood frame of the sofa.
“What brings you to my doorstep on this obscenely gorgeous autumn afternoon, if not for entertainment? Let me guess, you decided to sell your soul, and you’re looking for instruction?
No, worse—you were tricked into a deal with the Devil, and now you must find your way out of it? Am I close?”
Jakob frowned. “What in God’s name happened to your walls?”
“Oh, he has critiques,” Mr. Bishop said, examining his nails. “How wonderful. So glad you woke me up for this. A round of applause for—who are you again?”
“It’s the middle of the day,” Jakob said, offended on principal. “And it’s a valid critique. This is not—it’s not . . . normal.”
“Said like a man who believes normal is something to aspire to,” Mr. Bishop said. “Instead of an embarrassing deficiency of imagination.”
“This—it’s not a design choice!” Jakob said, words failing him as he struggled to keep up with Mr. Bishop’s nimble parries. “It’s damage to your house. It’s—”
“Van Helsing,” Hel cut him off. “Stop biting every baited hook.”
Mr. Bishop smiled lazily.
“I just want to know what happened to his walls,” Jakob said, sounding exasperated. “It’s a good question. A normal question. A question anyone coming in here would ask.”
“He happened to them,” Hel said.
Sam knew Hel was right before Mr. Bishop could even answer.
The edges, they were too regular for gashes torn by a wild beast, splintered at the bottom as if something heavy and broad, like the head of an axe, had been wrenched out of them.
It might have been an attack by a human, but given his energetic obfuscation .
. . Well, let’s just say that Sam knew what it was to pretend to be normal even as you felt it slipping through your fingers.
“Didn’t you?” Hel said, turning her gaze to Mr. Bishop.
“Do you always ask questions you know the answers to?” Mr. Bishop said.
“Only when the man I’m asking is trying to deceive me,” Hel said dryly.
“Would you tell the truth to you?” Mr. Bishop said. He took a sip of his absinthe, making a moue of distaste. “The mountain of a man behind you has the look of a fellow who wants to lock up everything he doesn’t understand. Tell me he doesn’t, and I’ll believe you.”
“Me?” Jakob said, as if that weren’t exactly what he was. Well, until recently. “I’m on your side.”
“You didn’t nearly beat down my door like a man on my side,” Mr. Bishop said, examining his glass with studied insouciance. “Now. We can continue with this foreplay all night, or you can tell me what you really came for.”
“Well enough,” Hel said. “Your quarrel with the Vespertine—”
He groaned, lolling his head back over the couch. “Not this again. I wouldn’t have let you in if I’d thought you were going to be boring.”
“Oh, enough,” Jakob said, exasperation threading his voice. “Listen. Your man Detective Lynch is dead, so—”
“Detective who?” Mr. Bishop said as Hel speared Jakob with a sharp look. “If I had a man, do you really think I’d be opening the door like this?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, drop the act,” Jakob exploded. He turned to Sam and Hel. “He didn’t do it. He’s a Unionist spy. Sent by the Special Branch to infiltrate the separatists.”