Chapter 15 The Burial
The cottage stood on the edge of the woods, its boards rotted from years of neglect, the steps broken, the rail missing, paint peeling from the beams. It had taken less than an hour to reach the fringes of Bromley Forest. During the carriage ride, St. Silas had turned to Leena. “No burials for lambs?”
Leena was so preoccupied with thoughts of Rami, she hadn’t realized that she’d been muttering that phrase beneath her breath mindlessly over and over again. “It was written on Orley’s parchment—the one in the gilded frame.”
She didn’t miss the furrowing of St. Silas’s brows. “There was nothing written on that parchment.”
Leena stared at him. “There was. I saw it.”
He looked oddly at her. “I’ve been in that room many times. I have never marked it before.”
“Perhaps it is new?”
“Perhaps…” Although his tone was veiled, he did not comment further.
“How does your confession act as payment for Orley?”
Unsurprisingly, his response was unforthcoming.
Before she could question him any more, they had arrived at their destination.
Leena and St. Silas now stood at the edge of the clearing in front of the cottage, eyes alert to any movement within. Nothing stirred. All was quiet.
“A loaded peace,” St. Silas murmured, retrieving his pistol. It was one of those new broad barrels—a recent invention that gave the shooter two bullets before the weapon needed to be reloaded.
“Where are the Black Coats?” Leena whispered.
He shook his head and began making his way through the clearing. “Let’s find out.”
They reached the cottage unchallenged, and the horror of what might be waiting was almost too much to bear. She peered through a muddy window into what looked to be a sparse reception room, and gasped when she saw a lone figure tied to a chair.
Rami.
He barely moved.
“Ah, so we’ve located Al-Sayer—alive, fortunately—but where are the others?” St. Silas drawled, looking over her shoulder.
No footsteps approached them. No cries of warning. A crow cawed. A few raindrops scattered across the roof. But they were otherwise alone.
That notion was oddly terrifying.
Leena wet her dry lips. “Perhaps they’ve already gone. Let’s finish quickly.”
The front door was left slightly ajar. The cottage consisted of only one large room, empty save for a few chairs left askew.
Leena wanted to rush in, but St. Silas stopped her with one hand. With his revolver outstretched, he made long strides around the room. Finally, when he was sure they were alone, he waved her through.
She knelt by her brother and shook his shoulder. “Rami? Wake up. It’s me.”
He stirred.
“L-Leena?” His eyes were bloodshot and bruises peppered his jaw.
She slumped in relief.
“Rami…” she repeated, tugging the rope that bound him to the chair.
Sudden alertness passed over Rami’s face. He jerked in his restraints. “Leena? Get the hell out of here! My captors have only gone temporarily, but they’ll be back soon.”
St. Silas stayed near the door, unconcerned with Rami’s welfare. “How many men are there?”
“Of all the people I expected to rescue me, you were last on the list.” Rami threw St. Silas a broken grin, his teeth bloodied. “Can’t say I’m not pleased to see you, though.”
“Can’t say the feeling is mutual. How many men are there?”
“Two,” Rami said, and he winced when Leena pressed on his chest. “Mackenzie Crane and his new favorite, a boy named Burr.”
St. Silas seemed to recognize both names.
Leena clawed at the ropes, but they would not give. “Your sword, Rami. Where is it?”
Silence. A heaviness in his voice. “They’ve taken it.”
Baba had traded his wedding band for that sword, which had become an extension of Rami, like a limb that existed outside of his body. By taking it, they had effectively amputated him again.
“I want to kill them.” Leena’s angry breaths came out in white swirls of frost.
A small dagger was thrust into her hands. She turned to see St. Silas. “Direct that anger and make it useful.”
She grasped the knife and slashed through the ropes. Rami stumbled forward, collapsing onto his knees. She took his arm and attempted to drag him up, but he was too heavy for her.
Watching them struggle for a minute, St. Silas sighed and put his arms around Rami, supporting him through the door and onto the overgrown lawn outside the cottage.
They halted at the sound of approaching footsteps on the path leading from the woods.
“Our hosts have rejoined the party.” St. Silas dropped Rami unceremoniously on the ground before steadying his revolver. “Stay behind me.”
Not daring to breathe, Leena held the dagger tightly in shaky hands.
St. Silas reached into his pocket and threw Rami his spare pistol, and her brother took it in a firm hand.
Stepping into the clearing were two figures.
One was a large man whose rough skin told of years of fast living, his fingers sparkling with jeweled rings.
The other was a reedy boy whose growth looked to have been stunted by hunger.
They both wore coats of the darkest fabric.
Mackenzie and Burr, presumably. The boy was already holding a revolver pointed directly at St. Silas, and Rami’s sword was buckled about his waist.
“Ah, what a welcome,” the older one, Mackenzie, said.
When he smiled, his mouth was crammed with gold teeth, terribly done, the canines crooked, the central incisors slightly too long.
Leena suddenly remembered what Rami had once told her about Mackenzie, that he pried the gold fillings from the people he’d been hired to intimidate.
“ ’Pon my soul, has the Saint of Silence come to visit us? ”
“What soul?” Leena snapped from behind St. Silas.
Burr unlocked the pistol, the noise deafening in the still forest.
“Put it down,” St. Silas ordered, his lazy command spearing through the frosty night air.
Burr didn’t respond, but his pointed face had paled.
“Keep steady,” Mackenzie warned Burr, his tone somehow managing to be both oily and inflamed. “No honor among thieves, eh, Saint?”
St. Silas cocked his own pistol. “Oh, there is certainly honor among thieves. I, however, am not one, so I do not need to trouble myself with such trivial things.”
Rami spat blood on the grass. His own weapon shook. “Shoot ’em and let’s end this, Saint.”
Burr jerked his head at Rami, his pointed face twisting into a bitter snarl in the moonlight. “If we don’t deliver him beaten and bloody to the tradesman, we don’t get paid, and neither does Mr. Orley.”
“And a growing boy needs to eat,” Mackenzie added, placing a hand on Burr’s shoulder.
“This has all begun to bore me,” St. Silas said, his posture unwavering. “Tell us who the tradesman is, and perhaps I’ll consider avoiding all necessary organs when I shoot.”
“How generous,” Mackenzie drawled. Then his eyes fell on Leena and his smile widened once more to reveal his stolen teeth.
She didn’t understand the reason behind that smile, didn’t hear the silent figure creeping up behind her until she felt the hands wrap around her throat.
A gasping scream tore from her.
Leena clawed at the hands holding her in a stone-cold vise. Distantly, she heard her brother shouting. Black dots clouded her vision. Her lungs ached.
She couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe—
She was going to die.
Tortured animal panic took hold of her, and she jammed the dagger into the soft flesh of the intruder’s abdomen. She heard a grunt, but her captor’s fingers didn’t loosen. She was sinking…deeper…until a voice cut through the waves threatening to drown her.
“Tilt your head to the left,” St. Silas’s voice ordered calmly. “There’s a girl.”
As she obeyed, a shot whizzed by her ear. If she’d turned her cheek a fraction of an inch at the wrong moment, the bullet would have sliced her flesh into ribbons. The clasping hands released her, then the dull thud of a body hitting the floor could be heard across the clearing.
She gasped for oxygen. Yet again, blood was everywhere. On her hands. In her hair. On her shoes.
“Very close shot, Saint,” Rami yelled furiously, gun still pointing toward his captors. “You could’ve easily killed her!”
“Yet I didn’t,” St. Silas responded curtly. “Do not lose your focus, Al-Sayer.” The barrel of his own revolver instantly returned to the two Black Coats. “Are you hurt, Leena?” he called back, keeping his eyes locked on the two bruisers.
Her voice came out raspy from her raw throat. “No.”
There was a split-second silence, as if St. Silas wanted to turn around and check for himself, but he refrained. “Did you not know of a third?”
Leena wasn’t sure whom he was speaking to until Rami responded. “I didn’t see him.”
St. Silas continued, now addressing Mackenzie. “The only reason you aren’t shot within an inch of your life, Mackenzie, is because I want you to reveal the identity of the tradesman who hired you. I would be willing to let you live when I am content that I have received no lies.”
Mackenzie’s smile had vanished. Anger flashed in his eyes.
“You killed Adam,” Burr said with bewilderment. A muffled sob broke Burr’s voice, his large eyes wild in his young face. “They killed Adam, Mackenzie.”
“Shoot, boy,” Mackenzie yelled savagely.
At his order, another shot rang out, and Leena ducked her head.
A choked scream.
When Leena dared to look, it was Mackenzie on his knees, his right hand held before his face as if to block the shot.
It had not. The bullet had torn through the tendons and fascia of his palm, a gaping bloodied hole now in the center of it.
More gruesome still, the bullet had sliced his ear, only a torn lobe hanging by a thin thread of skin.
Mackenzie’s agonized screams filled the night air.
St. Silas looked at Mackenzie as if assessing his own aim. “I would have preferred to see your full ear on the ground, but my angle was slightly off-center. Apologies.” The Saint sounded almost contrite.