The Mesmerist(50)

“Stop,” she says weakly.

I loosen my grip. “What is it?” I ask, searching her face for injury. “What’s wrong?”

“Bloody crushing me, that’s what.”

I smile, relieved, and wipe the sweat from her face. Gabriel and I help her rise on unsteady feet. Her lips are dry and cracked. She still needs water.

Gabriel is breathing hard. I think about what I have just seen and heard. What I think I have just seen.

Wings.

It must have been just a shadow.

“I am an angel,” he says.

I do not speak, only stare.

“There are many of us,” he continues. “But we remain hidden, and show ourselves only in times of great need.”

“The singing—” I start, without even thinking on what he has just said. “What is it? How do you do it?”

Gabriel pulls out his little book and hands it to me.

I take it, but remain transfixed by his face. I can’t believe it. An angel? It’s impossible.

I shake my head and open the book.

Marks and glyphs seem to writhe on the pages. They are symbols I have never seen before, some of them glowing with a faint golden light, as if they are burned onto the parchment.

“It is Angelica,” he says, “the language of angels.”

“You can read this?”

“And sing it too. The forces of evil cannot stand the sound of pure love.”

Pure love. “That is what gave me strength,” I say. “I felt it. In my body.”

“Me too,” Emily says.

I turn to her. “You knew this? About Gabriel?”

Emily shrugs. “Sorry. He made me promise not to tell.”

“Why?” I ask both of them.

“If people knew,” Gabriel answers, “I would be sought out and praised. The Church would use me as a symbol. That is not my fate.”

This makes sense, I realize. People would flock to him, a living miracle here on earth.

I hear a moan, and I turn, on my guard. Another ghoul?

But it is only Darby. She is herself again, lying naked and bruised. I look to Gabriel, who takes off his coat and hands it to me.

I go to Darby and wrap it around her. Livid welts color her neck. She peers up at me, and I see the crooked teeth, the cold white scars.

“Where are we, miss? Did it happen again?”

“You’re safe,” I tell her. “You saved us.”

She sits up. Her eyes are distant, nervously taking in our surroundings. “Saved you? Where am I? I remember a man. He had terrible eyes. Oh! He was ’orrible, Jess. Just ’orrible!”

Jess. She finally called me Jess.

“Shhh,” I whisper, and caress her face. “It’s all better now.”

She wraps her arms around me and begins to cry.

“Oi, wolf girl,” Emily calls weakly. “I think it’s time you joined our little club.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR





An Afternoon in the Parlor


Small fires burn in empty trash bins on the High Street, although it is now daybreak.

There is no one in sight but for a few bobbies strolling the alleys. Shiny buttons run the length of their coats, and official badges gleam atop their tall hats. One or two of them look our way, but considering the state we’re in—?with our dirty, bloody faces and torn clothes—?they must take us for a band of guttersnipes.

“Out of here!” they shout, waving their batons and blowing whistles. “The lot of you! Off!”

Several shops are completely destroyed, and broken glass litters the street. Vendors’ carts are overturned, their goods scattered and spoiled.

I am supporting most of Emily’s weight as we walk, and Gabriel leads Darby, who is still quite dazed and confused. My cheeks burn from the cold, and my fingers are stiff and numb. None of us are dressed properly, seeing as how we rushed out of the house toward a fate we did not know.

But we survived.

And we prevailed. We stopped the evil that was Malachai Grimstead.



Balthazar returns the next day, looking none the worse for wear. We are all sprawled in the parlor and have barely stirred since our return. Darby is curled up by the fire, which I find quite canine-like.

“It’s done,” I tell him before he has a chance to ask. “Malachai Grimstead. He’s dead.”

“Again,” Emily says.

“Malachai?” Balthazar questions.

“He was behind all of it,” I tell him. “From the very beginning. The letter M, the sickness, Mother—”

My heart aches.

We tell Balthazar everything: Malachai’s rats, his explanation of the word “darkling,” my visions of his past, and—?strangest of all—?the lash I created from my own thoughts.

“Now there is no doubt,” he mutters, looking at me curiously.

“No doubt?” I repeat. “Of what?”

But he steers the conversation elsewhere. “Two moons,” he says, looking to Darby. “Two moons in one month.”

I reach up to touch my scar. Darby had transformed once already. How could it have happened again?

“It is the blue moon,” Gabriel says. “A full moon that rises twice in one month, written of in the ecclesiastical calendar.”