The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil Read online

  “Wait!” Charles cried, holding his hands up in surrender. “Wait—”

  The Catalian didn’t wait, and Charles watched stars explode before his eyes as his head slammed against the wall again.

  Charles groaned and fell forward against the Catalian’s chest. Strong, angry hands gripped Charles’s shoulders before pushing him back, pinning him to the wall; a hard, insistent knee prodded uncomfortably into his thigh. The Catalian’s face was inches before Charles’s own.

  “What have you done?” His fingers tightened dangerously against Charles’s collarbone, pinching the tendons there until Charles opened his mouth on a silent scream. The Catalian didn’t relent, only pinched harder until Charles’s eyes glazed with the pain. “What have you done to him?”

  Charles tried to shake his head, but the effort only increased his agony. “N-n-n—” He gasped and tried to sink to the floor, away from those hands. His eyes rolled upward, tears streaming involuntarily from their corners. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t move, he could barely breathe…

  The pressure lessened, but only slightly. “Speak,” the Catalian demanded.

  “Nothing!” Charles was panting now. He tried to push away, but he was still dizzy from hitting the wall so many times, and he ended up doing little more than curling his fingers in the buttons of the other man’s shirt in some sort of unintended bedroom parody.

  The Catalian leaned in close, his hands threatening to tighten again. “You were in that vision. The ghost ran to you. How did you get here? Where did you come from? What did you do?”

  Charles blinked at him, watching twin images of the Catalian swim before him. “Ghost?” He cried out and tried to lean forward when the Catalian glared, clearly ready to bash his head again. “Stop! Stop! You stupid git—I didn’t do anything!”

  “I saw you!” the Catalian shouted. “You made everything stop! You made the skull dance! I saw you! You tricked me!”

  “I would never make a skull dance!” Charles shot back, shivering at the very thought.

  He gagged as the Catalian caught him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him up from the floor so that his feet dangled in midair. “It was you,” he hissed. “I saw you, smirking, winking, dressed in white—”

  “Ah!” Charles flailed, his realization giving him new strength. “Not me! That one! That’s not me. It’s…” He deflated, not knowing how to explain it. “Well, he says he’s me, but he’s not! He’s a bastard! He gives bastards a bad name! He hauled me in here, I don’t know how, shoved me back in that dream, but it wasn’t her, it was you—”

  An explosion on the other side of the room cut him off. Charles closed his eyes against it, bracing for the force of the blast, but he softened when the Catalian fell against him. Acrid smoke was billowing across the room toward them, but all Charles could smell was the spicy scent of dark hair. His nose burrowed into it before he could stop himself, and his fingers, still pressed against the Catalian’s chest, slid upward until they hit skin.

  He’s going to kill you, a voice of reason warned him. He never put that knife away. If he catches you groping him, he’ll slit your throat.

  A good way to die, then, Charles decided, taking in a deep draught of the man’s scent.

  But the Catalian didn’t kill him. He didn’t move at all. If anything, he leaned closer into Charles’s hands. Charles remembered what Smith had said in the inn yard. Pleasure slave.

  He’d just assumed—He hadn’t thought—

  For men? The Catalian was a pleasure slave for men?

  The man in question brushed his nose against Charles’s cheek. Charles shivered and lightly nuzzled back.

  “Your name,” Charles whispered, trying not to break whatever spell had passed between them. “Please—I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Timothy.” A hand on Charles’s hip; there was a knife in it, but the blade only rested against Charles’s thigh. It was oddly erotic. “Call me Timothy.”

  Another explosion rocked the room; this one had heat, and though it knocked Timothy even closer to Charles, it knocked sense into Charles as well. “I swear to you, I don’t know how I got here or what’s happening,” he said, “but we can’t stay here. Magic is ugly when it starts to explode. Trust me on this one.”

  The Catalian was tense again, and he looked back over his shoulder at the wall of magic that separated them from the bed. “Jonathan,” he whispered.

  The agony in his tone made Charles want to sigh. It wasn’t fair that Johnny should get the girls and the boys. “We can’t do anything from this side,” he said, keeping his jealousy to himself. “It’s not going to let us in. It may very well kill us if we stay. Look—you’re upset. I am too. You want to know what’s going on? I can’t help you much, but I know a little. I’ll tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you know, and maybe, between the two of us, we can make this make sense.” He gestured to the door. “We can go down to the study. Make a fire. I know where my father hid the brandy. It can’t be any worse now than it was ten years ago.”

  “There is no coal,” Timothy said. He was still looking at the magic wall.

  “There is if you know where to look.” Charles resisted the urge to tug at the Catalian’s arm. “Please—we can’t do anything here. Madeline’s in there, yes? There’s no one better. We’ll only be in her way. You should have seen her on the moor. She was like the Goddess herself, she was so powerful. She’ll help him. You wait and see.”

  Charles didn’t know what he’d said to make the Catalian’s head swing around so hard to him, but he didn’t care. He held his breath as the dark eyes narrowed on him, and he watched carefully for that knife out of the corner of his eye. “Please,” Charles whispered. “Please—please, just come. I’ll tell you everything I know. I swear.”

  Timothy blinked, then smiled. It was a dangerous sort of smile, but it made Charles shiver all the same. The Catalian sheathed his knife and turned away, then walked back across the room to a satchel, which he picked up and hauled over his shoulder. He was still smiling as he came back to Charles.

  “Yes,” he said, “we will talk.” He slid his arm around Charles’s shoulders and aimed him for the door. “We will discuss many, many things.”

  Charles felt those long, strong fingers brush the top of his arm. Pleasure slave, for men. “Yes,” he croaked, and let the Catalian lead him into the hall.

  But they both jumped when, once they left, the door slammed shut behind them. Charles watched as Timothy turned back and tried the knob, but he knew even before the handle refused to turn that it would be locked.

  * * *

  Back at the cottage, Emily Elliott stood in doorway of her kitchen, staring at the empty pallet before the hearth, the notebook she had gone to fetch hanging loosely at the tips of her fingers.

  Emily had served as an assistant and servant to her sister and the Morgan for almost eight years now, and as a consequence she had seen many strange and unsettling things. It did not upset her when the ghostly forms of the four elements bore an unconscious man into her kitchen as if he were nothing but a feather. It unsettled her, but it did not upset her. When her sister channeled the power of the heavens and made lightning crackle from the tips of her fingers, when roses bloomed on her command, when wounds knit themselves back together, Emily did not so much as blink. But never in all that time had she walked four paces out of a room, then come back to see that, without so much as a stirring of the air, a patient had vanished completely.

  Emily came forward slowly, glancing about the room to see if he might pop out from behind a table or from the pantry. He did not. She noted the window was still closed and the latch in place. She saw the bolt on the back door was firmly thrown. When she reached the pallet, she nudged the blanket back with her toe, bracing herself to see some horrid, shrunken form of him, but there was not so much as a speck of dust. No rat, bat, or even cockroach scurried past her, either. In fact, until she had lifted them, the blankets had looked entirely undisturbed, a
s if the man beneath them had somehow simply melted into nothingness.

  The notebook fell from Emily’s hand, but she paid it no attention as she backed into a chair and sank, her arms moving protectively around her middle.

  What was she supposed to do with this? Where could he have gone? How could he have gone? She’d watched Madeline lay down the enchantment herself. He should have had a difficult time leaving the house to use the privy. And yet he hadn’t just left, he’d disappeared.

  Emily hugged herself tighter. She’d have to go out to the workshop and tell Madeline, which would mean interrupting her meditation. And as testy as Madeline had been lately, Emily would probably be blamed for losing him. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her stomach knotted. She hadn’t needed this tonight. It had been a long, wearying day, full of strange news and gossip she didn’t want to think about—that was before Madeline had told her the Perrys were back in the parish—and all Emily wanted to do was huddle beneath her blanket in her room with a mug of tea and wish the world away. She had been waiting impatiently for her sister to come back into the cottage so she could escape, but now, now she would not only be yelled at but would also have to help search for the missing patient.

  Movement out of the corner of her eye broke her gloomy reverie; she turned, almost relieved, waiting to see Charles Perry standing there. But it was not, in fact, Charles Perry. Something stood beside the pantry door, but it was not Madeline’s patient and not a man or even a woman at all.

  It was a ghost. Then it moved, and she saw that it was, in fact, four ghosts.

  Emily rose. “You,” she said, astonished but not alarmed. “What are you doing here?”

  They were tall, so tall their heads almost scraped the ceiling, all but one who came only halfway to the others’ shoulders. They were thin and pale, a sort of luminescent gray-blue, and they had no eyes, only black sockets where their eyes should be. Their thin, fleshless lips smiled, however, and the smallest one waved. The ghosts themselves were not a shock; Emily had seen them countless times before. It was just that she had never, not once in all her life, seen them appear outside of the abbey grounds.

  The ghosts continued to hover, smiling, waiting for something, it seemed, but with a patience that undid Emily as much as their unorthodox appearance.

  “Has…something happened?” She glanced down at the pallet. “Do you know about this? About him? Where he has gone? How he has gone?”

  The ghost in the center, who seemed slightly larger than the others, drifted forward, still smiling. This was the closest Emily had ever been to them, and she found that close inspection in fact made them look a little grisly. Normally she sat on the mossy rock in the courtyard ruins of the abbey and watched them, feeling warm and comforted when they chanced to wave at her as they drifted down the long stone corridors. It was different to see them up close. What had looked like soft, normal skin appeared leathery and alarmingly decayed from only a few feet away. Emily was not frightened, but she did stiffen as a ghostly hand reached out and touched her cheek. Where the misty finger stroked, her skin felt cold. The ghost looked sad, and Emily reached up and put her hand over the ghostly one, ignoring the chill as she looked up into those wide, sightless eyes.

  A hard rap on the front door startled her, and she turned her head away, lowering her hand again. She felt the cold touch retreat, and when she turned back to the ghost, it was gone. So were the others.

  The knock on the door came again, insistent.

  Emily glanced down at the pallet and then at the back door. Then she grabbed her sturdiest pan from the wall and headed down the hallway as a third knock began to sound.

  “Open up! Open up at once!”

  Emily stopped with her hand on the cover of the peephole; she kept it in place and rested her forehead against the door instead because she recognized the voice. Her heart began to beat faster, and she shut her eyes, sending up a fleeting, silent thanks to the Goddess. He’d come. Emily ran a trembling hand through her hair and smiled, blushing, as she opened the door to Alan Lennox.

  She forgot both the ghosts and the missing Mr. Perry in his presence. It made her dizzy, how clean and pressed and handsome he managed to look even at this hour. But she faltered as he did not return her smile. In fact, he looked down at her with no trace of emotion at all. He glanced briefly at the pan in her hand, raised an eyebrow, then lowered it again before pushing past her into the foyer. Taking off his hat and cloak, he handed them to her.

  “I must see your sister, Emily,” he said. “At once.”

  Emily held the cloak and hat close to her chest, letting his scent fill her senses, comforting her. “Madeline? Why—”

  “Where is she?” Alan had already ducked into the parlor, found it empty, and appeared in the foyer again to glare at Emily. “She isn’t in bed, I hope.”

  Emily glanced at the clock on the wall, which read almost midnight. “She is in her workshop,” she said, dazed. “But she doesn’t—”

  “Thank you,” Alan said, reclaimed his hat and cloak, and ducked back out the door.

  Emily set the pan down on the table by the door and followed him. He had already cleared the bushes and was heading to the garden gate, the heels of his riding boots clipping smartly on the stone path as he moved.

  He had barely looked at her. He had stood there, proud and cool, every inch the magistrate’s son, which was only fair because that was what he was. It was just that little more than a week ago he had stood in that same place in the parlor, that aristocratic mouth turned up in a charming smile as he slid the smooth pads of his fingers over her wrist, the wrist he held as he led her gently up the stairs.

  Emily gathered her skirts and hurried after him. “Wait,” she cried. “Alan, wait, you can’t rush in there; she’s in a trance—”

  “She’s in trouble, is what.” Alan didn’t slow his pace. “There was an alchemist at the inn, and he caused a great deal of damage. He conjured some sort of beast that breathed fire, and he spawned a riot that prompted the host to complain to Father, who sent me out to see what the devil is going on. People are upset. I am upset. I am being quite rude to Lady Balastor and her daughter in my absence, and all because your sister, the Apprentice, cannot keep this parish’s magic in check!”

  They were halfway across the garden now. Alan kept going, heading for the gate that led to Madeline’s workshop and the moor, but Emily stopped. “Lady Balastor?”

  Her daughter?

  Alan was fumbling with the gate; when it would not give way immediately, he kicked it and swore. He turned back to Emily and threw up his hands as if this too was her fault. “What good is the tithe we pay to the pair of you if you cannot keep the peace?”

  “It isn’t Madeline who brought the alchemist here,” Emily said, though with less heat than she would have liked. She had seen Lady Balastor’s daughter; she was pretty and elegant. And rich. She was very, very rich. Emily thought again of the rumors she had heard, and the knot in her stomach tightened.

  “It was her charm that failed to keep a magician from nearly burning down the inn!” Alan jiggled the gate again and turned to glare at her. “It’s no wonder the Council is delaying Sealing your sister! She is clearly too incompetent to be a full witch!”

  That broke Emily’s stupor. “Madeline is entirely competent.” She finished crossing the yard, lifted the gate a quarter of an inch before she pulled the latch, and swung it easily outward. She turned her face to Alan’s and regarded him as haughtily as she could. You are being very rude, she told him silently because she was not brave enough to do it aloud. She tried to tell herself that this was just his way, that he was overset because his father had interrupted his evening, and she tried to tell herself it was no consequence that said evening had involved the lovely, wealthy, unmarried daughter from a neighboring parish.

  She tried, but it wasn’t working.

  She followed him out onto the moor, but she stopped as she saw the soft flicker of blue-gray appear again, this time
in the shadows behind her sister’s workshop. The ghosts were there, the same ones she’d seen inside the cottage. The tallest ghost beckoned to her. It was not smiling.

  Alan was already banging on the door. “She isn’t answering,” he shot back at Emily. “And there is no light inside.”

  Sometimes she works in darkness, Emily thought, but she did not say so because the ghosts were all beckoning now. The smallest had drifted out into the moonlight and was reaching for her. It looked terrified.

  Clicks and whines were echoing against the fog, coming up from the lake. Emily took a step back toward the house. “Alan, the lake—the fog is too high. We must go back.”

  “I’m not leaving without giving your sister a piece of my mind!” He banged again.

  The chittering from the lake became louder. The ghosts became even more frantic, all of them coming toward her now.

  “She is not here,” Alan said angrily, and then Emily saw a shadow move across the fog, heading for him.

  “Alan!” she cried out or tried to. She managed to open her mouth and form the A, which turned into a gasp as a hand closed over her mouth.

  An arm wrapped around her waist soon after, dragging her back toward the hedge.

  The shadow reached Alan; Emily tensed, helpless to do anything but watch it raise its arms and bring something down heavily on Alan’s head as Emily’s captor dragged her farther into the cover of the bushes.

  The ghosts saw her, glanced at one another, and then they winked out again.

  The sounds from the lake became sharper and louder, and the fog reached out like hands over the top of the ridge, closing Madeline’s workshop in mist.

  Emily felt warm breath against her ear.

  “That’s the alchemist from the inn.” It was a male who held her, which she had surmised, but his accent was formal and strange, more proper even than Alan’s. The hand that had held her waist extended out before them, gesturing to the workshop. “He followed that one out here. I followed him.” He reasserted his hold on her waist and lowered his voice to an even quieter whisper. “I saw him stun three men at the inn yard. He isn’t someone to mess with.”