Her Majesty's Necromancer (The Ministry of Curiosities #2)(24)

Gordon grabbed the finger and wrenched it backward. Bone snapped. Pete cried out and cradled his finger close to his chest.

"Bloody hell!" he screamed. "You're mad!"

"Dead, not mad." Gordon picked up a knife from the table and grinned. The two men backed away. "Since that wasn't enough proof, here's something more definitive." He placed the blade between his teeth and rolled up his left sleeve. He turned his arm over for them to see. "Nothing hidden up there. My arm is real." He splayed his fingers on the table and drove the knife through the back of his hand. I heard the sickening crunch of bone from where I stood outside.

Jimmy and Pete jumped, their huge eyes on Gordon's bloodless hand as he pulled the knife from the flesh. Jimmy crossed himself and blubbered through a prayer again.

"It ain't no trick," Pete said, more to himself than his friend who wasn't listening anyway. He suddenly took off, running out the door and down the lane.

Lincoln could have stopped him, but he let him go. "He's told us all he knows," he said.

"What if he runs to tell the captain?" I asked.

"He claims not to know where to find him. I doubt he'd be believed anyway."

"Come back!" Jimmy screamed. "Don't leave me with this demon!"

"I'm not a demon," Gordon told him mildly. "I'm a resurrected dead man."

"Jesus," Jimmy spluttered.

"Not Jesus. Gordon Thackery." He strolled out of the room and wiggled his fingers in a wave at the blubbering Jimmy. "Be sure to remember my name if you tattle any tales."

Jimmy slammed the door shut.

None of us spoke as we left the lane behind and headed back to the butcher's shop. We spotted Lincoln's horse being led away by a stooped man in a cloak. Lincoln intercepted him before the man even realized he'd crept close. A few words were all it took for the thief to scamper off.

"What happens now?" Gordon asked me.

"I'll release you so you can return to your afterlife."

Lincoln rejoined us, leading the horse. The jittery animal balked and tried to push Lincoln to the side, but he calmed it with a hand to its neck and some quietly spoken words. Its ears flicked back and forth and the nostrils flared, but it didn't shy away again.

"He smells death on me," Gordon said. "I know horses well, and I know when they're afraid. He's afraid of me." He sighed. "It's too bad. I would have enjoyed one last ride while I was here."

"Perhaps I should release you now," I said. "It would be for the best."

When he didn't answer, I grew worried that he was going to protest and demand we let him stay. But finally he nodded. "It has been rather fun, but it must end. Pity."

"Not yet." Lincoln indicated the gate to the butcher's yard and Gordon swung it open.

"You have another task for him?" I was about to warn him of the perils of allowing a dead man to walk the streets for any length of time, when he shook his head.

"A final journey. Including yours, Thackery, we have four bodies to transport back to the cemetery. The cart won't take them all."

"Of course," Gordon said. "But you're not going to notify the police? Those two blighters should be put in prison."

"I'll take care of it in the morning."

Gordon seemed satisfied with that answer, but I knew Lincoln better and suspected he wasn't going to notify the police but try to learn more about the captain and the reason behind the thefts.

"It's good of you return them," Gordon said, as he pushed open the door to the butcher's shop.

Lincoln found equipment to hitch up the horse in a storeroom, while Gordon brought up the bodies. They piled them onto the cart and I sat alongside Lincoln as he drove. Our pace was slow enough that Gordon was able to walk. We must have looked an odd sight, with limbs hanging out of the cart, but the streets were entirely empty now.

It had begun to rain again. I hunched into my cloak, drawing the hood close to my face. Neither Lincoln nor Gordon seemed to mind the chill and rain. Indeed, Gordon lifted his face to the sky and opened his mouth like a child catching rain drops. I smiled. It was the first time I'd felt comfortable in the presence of a body I'd resurrected. I didn't fear Gordon at all.

"You must have been a good man when you were alive," I told him. "I think I would like to have known you."

He snapped his mouth shut and stared at me. Despite the hollowness of the sockets and the emptiness of his eyes, I didn't feel as if I were conversing with a dead man. "Thank you, Miss Charlie. I appreciate the sentiment, but I doubt you would have liked my company. Perhaps before my injury, but not after."

"The opium changed you," I said quietly.

"The cure for the pain was no cure at all. I wish someone had warned me before I tried it. It's like a beautiful lover. Beguiling and tempting at first, then it gets greedy, always wanting more. By the time you realize it's ultimately bad for you, it's too late. It already has its claws in too deep."

I knew little about opium addiction. There were houses where you could smoke it, but I'd never been inside one. The people who came and went from them were sometimes respectable members of society, many of them injured soldiers searching for relief from painful injuries. I'd never met an addict. From what I'd been told, opium rendered the addicts useless for hours after smoking it. They lost their lives to it, figuratively as well as literally.