Chapter 36 Lord Kilworth
Until the break of dawn, Leena kept vigil.
She had awoken with a gasp after Lady Hargreaves’s revelation, only to find the ghost still at the edge of her bed. Her eyes were harrowing. She gave Leena a nod as if to say: That is all. Release me. Release the boy.
Then she disappeared.
Leena bit back a sob, but tears still streamed down her cheeks as she thought of St. Silas as a boy.
No one looked for him.
Leena’s chest heaved.
What had changed between Percy and Hargreaves that the latter had killed the former? What was this power that Percy had amassed?
Snow fell outside her bedroom window, wet clumps collecting on the glass.
Leena had just managed to gain a hold on herself when her door opened, allowing Mrs. Van to enter.
She stood staring down at Leena, the angles of her face made sharper in the daylight.
Leena rose rapidly, her eyes red-rimmed.
If Mrs. Van noticed, she did not comment.
“Any news?” Leena clenched her hands.
The frown deepened. “None yet. It’s still early.”
“You look worried.”
Mrs. Van didn’t respond. She busied herself by relighting the smoldering embers in the fireplace. Leena was just about to open her mouth again when the bedroom door swung open with a slam.
Leena jerked to her feet, a tide of hope rising that she might see Rami or St. Silas on the other side.
In shock, she stared at Lord Kilworth swaying on the threshold. He stumbled forward, the tip of his nose as cherry red as his hair, a rifle hanging loosely in his hands. Leena’s eyes jolted to meet those of Mrs. Van, who gave only a single shake of her head in warning.
“Keep watch, Kilworth. Nothing more.” His Lordship’s voice was dangerous, his speech slurring. “Damn Hargreaves—that halfling—and damn the secrets he keeps. Eh, I’ll keep watch.”
He staggered backward, then pounded a fist on the doorframe to steady himself, the vibrations shaking dust from the ceiling. The astringent smell of alcohol reached Leena’s nose as she stood frozen in place.
His Lordship’s body, normally sleek and fit, seemed larger within the frame of the doorway, blocking their only exit, the rifle swinging back and forth in an arc.
He leered toward Leena, his face splitting into a sickening, lopsided smile. “I’ll have the truth out of you, pet. Everyone here knows that this business of you being the Saint’s ward is a sham. Have you been fuc—”
“My lord!” Mrs. Van interjected angrily. “That is enough. You will not speak to my charge—”
“Nasty demon. How dare you address me?” He pounded the rifle on the floor. Once, twice, to the inflections of his voice. “I. Know. What. You. Are.”
Mrs. Van’s mouth flattened.
Kilworth continued to slam his rifle closer and closer to Mrs. Van’s feet.
An overwhelming thought flashed through Leena’s mind. He desires to hunt her like prey.
“Did you know, m’dear, that the Saint deals with demons?” Lord Kilworth turned to Leena with a short, humorless laugh. “Do you have any idea what you’ve set foot into?” He shook his head. “Ask the Saint why he collects secrets.”
Leena felt the pistol St. Silas had given her nestled in her pocket, but she could not reach it while Kilworth kept a grip on his rifle.
He leaned closer, lifting one sweaty palm toward her. “But perhaps you do not know who the Saint truly is and require some assistance to escape his clutches. Consider my hand a helping one.”
Leena slapped that helping hand away.
“Touch me and—” she warned viciously, but the harsh slam of the rifle against the floor silenced her. Both she and Mrs. Van jumped backward, startled by the dull echo of metal on wood.
Then, almost tenderly, Kilworth turned to Mrs. Van and lifted her chin with the butt of his gun. Leena imagined the shiver of cool steel on her own skin and seethed in fury.
“You’ve fed on humans before,” Kilworth said softly to Mrs. Van, disgust curdling his face.
“I know that look. You see our despair and make a feast out of it. What is it that your kind says—joy tastes bitter? You ought to be executed for your crimes.” He glanced briefly at Leena.
“You may go, chit. The demon stays with me. I have the notion that she may hold the answers to a few of my most pressing questions.”
Leena could not say at what point she had stopped viewing Mrs. Van as something other.
Nor could she forget how tirelessly Mrs. Van had aided her in nursing Rami back to health, or all those mornings when Mrs. Van had taken particular care with her curls.
All the meals she’d cooked for them back in Golborne. The broths. The pots of tea.
“Make it fair,” Leena said quietly. Her pulse bounded. “Give us a head start. You’ve always wanted to hunt one of her kind before, haven’t you? Now is your chance.”
Kilworth’s bloodshot eyes didn’t fall from Mrs. Van’s face. “I’ve always wondered if they bleed like us.” The allure of the hunt had given him a wild look, as if he was already in the forest, smelling his prey.
He lowered the rifle and slammed it again on the floorboards. Thud. Thud. Thud. “I will grant her five minutes.”
Neither Mrs. Van nor Leena moved.
“Now.” Kilworth’s eyes were on the clock above their heads. The rifle continued to slam its rhythmic beats.
“Go,” Leena shouted.
When Mrs. Van didn’t move, she grabbed the other woman’s arm and forced them both through the door. Lord Kilworth’s attention was still fixed on the clock, his lips moving imperceptibly as he counted down the seconds.
Leena stood at the threshold of the room. Her mind focused. Her blood slowed. She grabbed hold of the pistol in her pocket, drew it out, and unlocked it.
Then, holding the weapon in a death grip, she aimed the muzzle at Kilworth and fired.
It jarred her shoulders and she fell back against the bedroom door. But St. Silas had warned her about this, so she was prepared for the pain.
The shot echoed across the winding halls of Weavingshaw like a scream.
Then Leena’s heart dropped.
The kick of the pistol had been too much. She had only managed to clip Kilworth in the ear, blood dripping from the cut in a trickle, the bullet implanting itself instead in the wooden post of the bed.
Kilworth’s face twisted with sudden fury.
In one practiced motion, his rifle swung toward her, his finger hovering over the trigger.
Leena lurched out of the way as the bullet whizzed by, missing her by mere millimeters.
She and Mrs. Van bolted.
Leena’s bare feet pounded against the floorboards, with Mrs. Van only seconds in front of her.
As they slipped down the stairs, Leena turned back to find that Kilworth hadn’t yet followed them.
A sinking sensation descended in her chest when she realized that he was waiting for them to leave tracks. That he was still hunting them.
“Outside?” Leena whispered, but Mrs. Van shook her head.
“He’s planning on that. He’ll shoot at us from the window.”
The ceiling above them creaked—the hollow thud of the rifle striking wood.
Terror built behind Leena’s eyes. She looked for a phantom to lead them out, a servant to offer help, but for the first time in a long time the house was completely bereft of any living or dead creatures. She didn’t have time to question this stark emptiness, her mind intent entirely on survival.
Scrambling, she tore through the drawers of one of the long mahogany tables lining the hallway until she found a lamp and a box of matches.
She motioned for Mrs. Van to follow her, retracing the same steps St. Silas had taken when he’d led them toward the crypts.
They moved fast and silently, ears pricked for any approaching footsteps.
They climbed down another flight of stairs to the wine cellar.
Leena fell to her knees and scrambled across the room, frantically patting for the latch hidden within the floor.
There—the trapdoor.
Leena paused before lifting it open, her heart hammering in her chest as she recalled the demon lurking in the dark. But she had triumphed over it. She reminded herself of that.
“What are you waiting for, girl?” Mrs. Van urged from behind her.
Still, Leena could not move. Was she creeping toward a new danger? A worse danger?
Somewhere above them the sound of footsteps—slow and sure, the march of an executioner.
She swung open the latch.
A voice in her head screamed at her to turn back.
Mrs. Van held the lamp, the light reflecting halos on the ceiling as they made their descent.
Finally the ground leveled out. A long hall loomed ahead of them, black and beckoning.
Mrs. Van gripped Leena’s arm painfully, her eyes almost wild with animal fright. “Where have you taken us?”
Leena hesitated. “Do you feel the presence of the demon as well?”
“In all the years I worked here previously, I never set foot in the crypts.” Mrs. Van let go, leaving welts on Leena’s skin. “It’s not right, what they’ve done to this place. It’s not right.”
Above them, the trapdoor slammed open.
Lord Kilworth had found them.
Not caring to keep quiet anymore, they bolted down the length of the crypts’ maze. The uneven floor was rough on Leena’s feet, and she felt the sting of cuts forming.
Neither Leena nor Mrs. Van needed a map to traverse the sudden twists and turns. They were both attuned to the dark presence that saturated these walls and urged them forward, toward the heart of the crypts.
Finally, the stone walls gave way to a great marble chamber, desolate and empty, the light from their lamp reflecting off the black waters. All around them pale statues watched, almost hungrily.
The Hall of the Lake.
They stopped, gasping for breath.
They had nowhere else to run, and the sound of Lord Kilworth’s relentless footsteps followed them.
Leena stood in front of the lake, eyes blazing at the black waters, the demon’s energy coiling against her skin.
“Help us,” she demanded. “Help us and I vow to protect the last living Avon.”
There was no response from the demon, but she sensed its anger toward her, furious that she had refused to submit to it.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Kilworth was close.
Leena turned quickly to Mrs. Van, who stood with her gaze trained on the dark expanse of the lake. “Do you trust me?” Leena asked.
Mrs. Van jerked as if breaking from a trance, then gave Leena a firm nod.
“Pretend you are prey,” Leena whispered furiously to her. Before waiting for the other woman’s response, Leena ran to hide behind one of the statues near the entrance, both the cloying darkness and the sculpture’s stone body concealing her from view.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The strike of a rifle on marbled floors, the echo magnifying the sound until it was an assault.
Lord Kilworth stood by the entrance.
His walk was slow, predatory, stopping steps before the water. Kilworth didn’t look at the lake, nor at the magnificence of this room carved from marble. The blood continued to trickle from his ear, marking his collar red.
He lifted the rifle, the barrel pointed toward Mrs. Van.
“Where is the Saint’s whore?”
Leena’s fingers tightened around her pistol. She had one bullet left. She could not miss this time.
Mrs. Van didn’t lift her hands to plead. She merely stood there, posture unwavering, cheeks sunken and hollow. “I told her to leave me.”
Kilworth laughed. “It will be my pleasure to find her next, then. After I rid this world of one more demon.”
At his words, Leena stepped out from behind the statue, still unseen. Sweat slid down her back as she lifted her arm.
“You were once Percy Avon’s servant, weren’t you?” Kilworth spat, covering the click of the pistol unlocking. “Any inkling of where he has hidden it?”
Leena paused, gun held aloft.
“Hidden what?” came Mrs. Van’s stoic reply.
Kilworth’s laugh was sharp and acidic. “You may have lied to your master, but you will not lie to me, demon. The Limitless Vessel. Where did Percy hide it?”
Mrs. Van stared at him, chin lifted—unanswering, unmoving.
The Limitless Vessel? Leena didn’t have a chance to dwell on Kilworth’s odd ramblings. The gun was heavy in her hands—
St. Silas’s words came back to her with force—aim two inches above your target…toward the heart.
This time, Leena pointed the barrel toward Kilworth’s scapula.
His Lordship’s entire attention was fastened on his prey as Leena again fired the gun.
When the bullet implanted itself in Kilworth’s chest, forever severing the connection between heart and arteries, His Lordship’s gaze was still fastened on Mrs. Van.
He didn’t scream.
By the time his body fell into the black waters, Lord Kilworth was already dead.