A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(73)
Sarah gave Nan a look, as if to say And what did I tell you? Nan thought about objecting that they could take care of themselves, given that she and Neville could invoke the Celtic Warrior and her Protector . . . then remembered the horrid creature in the long-abandoned house in Berkeley Square. If it hadn’t been for the fact that everyone, John and Mary, Memsa’b and Sahib, Karamjit and Agansing and Selim as well as she, Sarah, Neville, and Grey, had all been working together, they would never have trapped it. What’s more, they hadn’t actually defeated it, they had only trapped it, and sent the trap to the Water Elementals to be buried in the deepest part of the ocean.
The five of us have about as much chance of defeating this thing without the help of magicians as we have of flying to the moon and back. We’d better concentrate on making sure that if this thing decides to look for us, it can’t find us.
“You’re right, Durwin,” she sighed as the birds came flying into the room to take their places on their stands. She gestured helplessly. “I hate this, but you’re right. It’s maddening to know something horrible is going to happen to some poor girl tonight and not be able to do anything about it.”
Durwin sheathed his sword and took off his soft, pointed hat, scrunching it in his hands. “I know what you mean, milady. But this’s Londinium. There’s terrible things happening to girls all over this city tonight, there were terrible things happening last night, and there will be terrible things happening on the morrow. And to men, and little chillern, too. And ye can’t do anything about those, either. We can only do what’s in our strenth, don’t ye see? We just have to make sure we do what’s in our strenth.”
“He’s got you there,” Sarah pointed out. “Come and eat, you’re not going to do anyone any good if you’re weak and irritable from hunger.”
Her friend went over to the table and took the lid off the largest dish—a bowl, really—and the heavenly scent of Mrs. Horace’s Irish stew filled the room. Nan’s stomach growled involuntarily.
And Durwin licked his lips, and looked longingly in the direction of the table. He was too small to see what was on the table, but he could certainly smell it as well as either of them.
“Would it be against the rules for you to eat with us, Durwin?” Nan asked on impulse. “Just this once. Seeing as we have a sort of emergency and you might need to carry messages again, or help us in some other way.”
Durwin’s face screwed up with concern for a moment, but then he relaxed. “Seeing as ye might need me. And seeing as ye’re special to the Great One. Why, ye’re honorary Folk, ye are! Haven’t ye been given leave to come and go and look and know?”
“Yes we have,” Nan assured him. “Let me get some books for you to sit on.”
She piled those huge, dull tomes that had proven so useless onto the seat of the chair Suki usually used when she was home, making a second seat for him so he could reach the table. At least now they’re of some use, she thought. Mrs. Horace had, of course, only brought plates for two, but with a bit of juggling and some creative use of what they had, everyone had something to eat out of. And even though moments before Nan had been certain she couldn’t eat a bite, by the time supper was over, everything was gone, and Durwin was contentedly sopping up the last of the gravy with the last of Mrs. Horace’s good fresh bread.
Sarah went to the window while Nan gathered everything up on the tray and set it on the stand outside their door for the girl that helped Mrs. Horace to fetch in the morning. “The snow isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s going to be no treat to be out in it tonight,” she observed.
“Maybe the snow will keep that thing from finding a victim,” she said, but without much hope. The first girl had been taken at around dusk, but the second had been taken in broad daylight. . . .
“. . . and was last seen with a man,” she said aloud, wanting to slap herself for being so stupid.
“What?” Sarah asked, as Durwin stared at her in bewilderment.
“The second victim was last seen with a man, a completely ordinary man,” Nan groaned. “What if this thing has a human partner? It would make sense. The thing picks out its victim, the human lures her away. Or the two overpower her in some way. I was hunting for a . . . a monster, when what I should have been looking for was the human that was working with it! I’m an idiot!”
“Granny, don’t yew stay up all night watchin’ at th’ winder agin,” the querulous voice of Granny Toscin’s granddaughter Jilly followed her to the room she shared with the “baby,” who was now old enough to sleep through the night, as well as the baby’s three-year-old sister. “I won’t hev yew fallin’ asleep whin yer s’pposed t’be watchin’ baby. What if she goes off and pulls somethin’ down on herself?”
Granny didn’t answer. Ungrateful chit. Didn’ I raise yew when my Caro died? Yew oughter be raisin’ yer own babbies, that’s what, an’ let me henjoy me old age. An’ if thet means I be lookin’ out winders at night, then thet’s none o’yer business.
She wrapped herself up in three shawls and a blanket and sat herself right down beside the window that overlooked the street. She’d never liked that feller across the way. Him with his airs and his hoors. Oh, she’d seen the hoors goin’ in and outa that house, she had! And hadn’t he tossed one of ’em on Christmas Eve, no less, comin’ in, and gettin’ tossed out inter the snow! And he’d let her back in again! At least, she thought he’d let her back in; she’d gone to beat on the door, and gone through it instead. A hoor! He was fornicatin’! On Christmas Eve!