Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(74)

He sipped his ale. “Must ’ave been a shock when Carlowe bought th’ place.”

“Yes, especially since I own it.”

“Ahhh, th’ absent landlord. Or ’is daughter. Guess Melaphont got a little overanxious.”

“He is a greedy man, this Melaphont.” She frowned. “And he has been very bad to Mr. Carlowe.” She was going to take care of Melaphont for Drew, after Drew was well again. She’d start by making him give Drew’s money back for the house. After that . . .

“He’s about to get his due, I expect.”

She couldn’t spend any more time here. “Please, please tell me how to get to this Maples.”

“I doubt th’ quack’ll come. Melaphont’s an important man around ’ere.” She glared at him. He sighed. “Th’ road turns up into the ’ills three miles past Ashland. It’s marked.”

“Thank you, thank you, sir.” She rose. “What is your name, if I may ask?”

“ ’Enley.”

“Mr. Enley, I hope you do not catch this influenza. I would not wish you to die.”

He looked surprised. “Thankee, young lady. I would not wish it, either.”

She curtsied in the English fashion and rushed from the room, pulling up her hood, then hurried behind the tavern, drew her power. She must get to The Maples.

The dusk was settling in as she materialized in the wood at the edge of the road to The Maples. She threw back her hood, freed of the itching pain of the sun at last. The doctor had to come, though it was growing dark, even though he thought Ashland was haunted. She could not compel him because she needed his medical judgment and under compulsion there could be no judgment or creativity. She would just tell him it was she who haunted it, as she had told Henley. He had to come. She stepped out onto the road.

The Maples turned out to be even larger than Ashland, with twenty chimneys poking up from a late-sixteenth-century fa?ade of stark gray stone. It stood across a man-made lake, lights blazing from every window, a solid vision of wealth and power. On one side, a new wing rose, half complete. Its style did not match the rest of the house. Melaphont had no taste. She hurried over a bridge that crossed a stream that fed the lake and crunched up a wide gravel drive to the portico. Up shallow steps, she took the great knocker and banged on the door.

A very severe man with a mouth that turned down opened the door. He said nothing, but stared at her in disapproval.

A woman alone could not be either wealthy or of good character in England. “I must see the doctor,” she panted.

“He is engaged with Sir Melaphont.” The man began to shut the door.

“But there is someone who needs his help!” she pleaded, stopping the door with one delicate hand. She did not wait for another refusal, but pushed past him.

“See here!” he protested.

Twin staircases wound up from the far end of the immense foyer. She couldn’t search this entire pile looking for the doctor. She drew her power even as she whirled on the majordomo. The world went red. “Take me to the doctor. Now.”

His gaze became vague. He nodded and moved off toward the stairs. She followed. In the broad hallway of the first floor a young man paced. He affected a curl of dark hair that he let hang across a pale brow, but there the likeness to a portrait of Lord Byron she had seen in books stopped. His face was pudgy and petulant.

“Grimshaw!” The boy started forward. “The damned doctor won’t let me see my father.”

Grimshaw said nothing of course, because he was under Freya’s compulsion. He just opened the door and ushered her inside.

“Grimshaw! I say—”

The door shut in the young man’s face. The bedroom was huge. A portly man stood with his back toward her, his hand on the wrist of an immense figure only dwarfed by the great, curtained bed in which it lay. The figure emitted wet, gasping sounds and the room smelled of blood. A basin of it sat on the table by the bed. What was this? The doctor turned at her entrance.

“I said no visitors, Grimshaw.” The doctor glowered.

Freya willed Grimshaw out of the room. He closed the door behind himself. The younger Melaphont could be heard protesting in the hall.

“Who are you?” the doctor said. He was an austere older man with luxuriant mustachios and iron-gray hair swept back from an intelligent forehead.

“Never mind that. Mr. Drew Carlowe needs your help. He is at Ashland.”

“The new owner? It’s influenza, I assume.”

She nodded. Her glance darted to the figure in the bed. This was Drew’s nemesis. He was immensely fat, his jowls dripping down over the collar of his nightshirt. His face looked like it was melting. Still, there were cruel lines about his mouth. She could believe he had lied about Drew and punished him unjustly. Now he was like pale yellow dough, still, his eyes closed. The doctor laid his patient’s hand back on the coverlet.

“And I would come if I thought it would do any good, young lady,” the doctor was saying. “But there’s really no use. Oh, I bleed them, because one must do something. But there is really nothing to be done but make them as comfortable as you can and let the disease run its course.”

Freya was stunned. “You . . . you cannot help him?”

The doctor looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. He shook his head.

Freya felt tears of frustration well up. Her throat closed. These humans were at the mercy of some silly disease that wasted one away with fever? And the doctor only bled them. This would weaken them for their fight with the illness. She if anyone knew that the blood was the essence of life. One did not drain it lightly. This whole effort had been useless, and she had left Drew alone. The doctor turned back to his patient. A dreadful gurgling sounded then silence.