Page 45 of Blackwicket
Chapter Eighteen
“Why the hell did you shoot at her?” I yelled, unhinged by the adrenaline pumping liquid lightning through me. I pushed off him, making my best effort to strike his ribs with as much force as possible in lieu of landing a punch square in his face. I grabbed at my skirt to prevent it from riding up my thighs any further. In the haze of my animalistic panic, I was aware I would be humiliated later if I wasn’t on my way to an Authority maximum security prison.
“The fact you keep calling itherbegs an explanation, Blackwicket,” Inspector Harrow growled, the fight in him activated. Shoving himself onto his feet, he jogged out into the hallway in pursuit. I followed him, livid with his inability to leave bad enough alone.
Hurrying after, knowing the danger of touching his skin, I took a fistful of the back of Inspector shirt. He was facing me before I could draw in the breath to demand he stop, his sleek hair mussed from the jostling of the confrontation, a new ferocity in his eyes which shone hard and gold. He looked bedeviled, obsessed with a hunt I’d interrupted for the very thing he’d spent his career eradicating with the methodical picking off of magic users. I’d effectively turned his attention from his quarry, but landed on me. As he stepped closer, the house rumbled in response, lights flickering, lengthening the dark.
Steps away in the alcove framing the attic door, a foul stenchof overripe fruit and decay wafted on a phantom breeze, and rising with it where she’d been crouching in the gloom, Auntie. I had no alternatives, no weapon of my own besides what was embedded in me by my heritage. As she lunged toward the Inspector, I ducked around him, catching her against my chest. Air shot from my lungs, freezing in the cold orbit of the Drudge’s body. The impact shoved me into the Inspector, whose attempt to catch hold of me only resulted in a tangle of our feet, sending me sideways. I crashed on top of Auntie, her form so solid it felt as though I were touching something once human, wasted away. She clawed at me, her fingers yanking my hair, her sharp joints jabbing, eager to reach beyond me to the man who’d threatened me, who threatened her and the existence of Blackwicket House.
Despite the clarity of her motives, I couldn’t let an Authority Inspector be torn to shreds for his magic. I dug my fingers into the claylike bone of her face, opening myself to the invasion of her ancient grudges, her decades of grievances. If she didn’t relent, this would be the end of us both.
“I’ll feed you to Dark Hall.” My warning emerged high and gasping as my lungs expanded. Auntie’s curses were magnetic and my magic too eager, the sequence of power required for curse eating already in motion. And like a lounge girl drawing on a cigarette, the curses that made up this monster gorged my throat.
Inspector Harrow attempted to pull me free from the Drudge, who grappled at us both, desperate to keep hold of the curses I was unintentionally stripping away from her.
“Let them go!” The Inspector’s voice roared in my ear, disturbing my thrall enough for the powerful Drudge to break free. The burning sensation retreated as fresh air rushed in to replace it. Whether out of rage or pain, Auntie clambered up the wall with her mouth open, wailing—a long, piercing noise—as she disappeared down the slope of the stairs.
In response, the remaining sconces repeated their dramaticreaction to my arrival at Blackwicket House. A high electric whine vaulted to meet the pitch of the Drudge’s cry, lights brightening. When the inevitable was obvious, the Inspector swore with violent enunciation and propelled me against a door, where he shielded me as the glass globes and their bulbs exploded, the sound eerily similar to the discharge of the Inspector’s revolver. This was retaliation for continuing to hurt what I was meant to help, for siding with the enemy.
Glass shards rained on us, nicking my chin and arms, Harrow absorbing most of the impact with his continuous efforts to stave harm to my body. The man whose threats of Annulment had filled my sleep with vivid, brutal nightmares, who was notorious for shedding the blood of magic users, was continually ensuring my physical wellbeing.
When the hall ceased its chaotic explosions, the last of the electric lights making an angry, gritting sizzle, dying at last, I raised my head to find he was looking down at me, visage inscrutable.
“I’ve dealt with a lot of Drudge, Miss Blackwicket,” he said, arms tensing on either side of me as he leaned closer, voice dipping into a rumble. “The behavior of that one was, if you don’t mind the language, realfucking peculiar.”
We were close, as close as we’d been in the hallway, the car, but something about this time frightened me more than those—my lack of revulsion. From this angle, with his collar unbuttoned, I could see where the livid scar continued, where it stopped below his collarbone in a horrible, jagged arch towards his sternum. His scent remained peppery, underscored with a frosty bite incapable of being replicated by humankind. My magic was a squall, denied the satisfaction of engaging in the purpose it was trained for. It searched for another way to release the pressure generated in the struggle. Without my instruction, it sought the edges of Inspector Harrow’s magic, drawn to itslike, but his protections were in place, the murmuration of his power barely perceptible. Still, he sensed the prodding and, for a white-hot moment, inclined closer, then pressed his palms into the wall and righted himself.
The distance gave me clarity, the befuddled fog lifting. My magic withdrew, but didn’t settle, my jaw and collar burning where I’d suffered small nicks. I concentrated on this discomfort as I replied to his previous observation.
“Just because you’ve been in the field harassing Curse Eaters for the work they’re made to doin secret doesn’t mean you know a damn thing about any of this,” I said, testing my minor injuries, searching for remnants of glass in my skin. I spoke to distract myself from the huge mess I’d made. “That Drudge isold. It’s been here since I was a little girl, before my mother even arrived. It refuses to leave, but it hasn’t done me or anyone else harm. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it do more than lurk! So many things have changed here, but I thought if I gave you some of the truth you’re so desperate for, then you’d be a fucking decent human being and take my concerns seriously.”
My monologue complete, I stood in the fallout, controlling my breathing so my chest wouldn’t heave with the ferocity of this small confession.
“Miss Blackwicket.” The Inspector watched as I pulled a glinting, bloody shard the size of an eyelash from my chin, wincing.
“What,” I snapped, ready to bite if he goaded me.
He looked rumpled and abused, blood seeping through the white cotton of his shirt near his shoulder where he’d taken the brunt of the petty blow the house dealt.
“You said ‘before’ your mother arrived. She wasn’t born in Nightglass?”
He’d been waiting for this, for my carelessness, and the mistake that would reveal more than I wanted.
“She was.” I tried to stumble back on the correct path, the one I’d built with falsehoods.
“It was an interesting choice of words.” He nailed me to the spot with this intense scrutiny, his unfeeling armor in place, as though nothing we’d survived had been any more upsetting than a walk to the post box. “Stories circulated for years among the riffraff that Brom could procure children with magical ability for those willing to pay a pretty price. Authority expected it was drivel, a scam. Magic gave up on this backwater world after the war. All that’s left to the children born here are the festering remnants you happen to be eyeball deep in.”
He gave me no time to rebut, and continued, “Then, by happy accident, I met a Bobbit woman.”
This name drew me up short. The Bobbits had been a family of Curse Eaters out west, well known and much loved, eradicated by the Authority. Their downfall was the opening Grigori Nightglass had needed to corner my mother, to appeal to her fear and offer protection, all the while tightening the noose.
“The Bobbits are gone,” I said, unsure now. “The Authority Annulled them.”
“Oh, there’s still a Bobbit or two around. And this one knew quite a bit about a curious practice Curse Eaters had adopted - stealing children from Dark Hall.”
A new panic bounced in rhythm to my heartbeat, the resigned sort, a kind aware that no amount of fighting or fleeing would prevent the inevitable. Still, I laughed, the sound hollow and ugly.
“That’s a far-fetched story to invest belief in even for you, Inspector Harrow,” I replied, knowing he’d never understand the truth. “Nothing like that could be happening.”
