“Have a look at this, Jack,” he said.
Sparks joined him. In the distance to the south was a line of bright orange lights, moving in formation toward their position.
“Torches,” said Doyle.
“Coming for something. Us. Maybe that,” said Sparks, gesturing back at the crate. “Keep an eye on them.”
Doyle estimated they were still a good mile away. Sparks moved to the crate and knelt down to examine the dirt on which it rested, rubbing it between his fingers, sniffing it. Sparks dislodged the lid. He made no sound, but when Doyle turned back, he saw a sick, stricken expression on Sparks’s face.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Games,” muttered Sparks darkly. “He’s playing games.”
Doyle moved to Sparks’s side and looked into the crate. There was a corpse inside, little more than bones really, amid rotting burial clothes and matted clumps of scorched hair and flesh. A photograph in a gilded frame had been positioned between its skeletal hands in a travesty of covetous possession: a formal posed portrait of a man and woman, married and upper-class English by the form and style of them.
“What is this?” asked Doyle.
“My parents,” said Sparks, nodding at the photograph. “Those are my parents.”
“Good Christ.”
“And this is my father’s body.”
The outrage that welled inside him rendered Doyle speechless. Any remaining doubts he harbored regarding the monstrousness of Alexander and Jack’s relative innocence were finally and irrevocably removed.
“Soulless monster,” spat Doyle finally.
Sparks took a series of deep breaths and clenched his fists, closing and opening them rhythmically, trying to bring his tumultuous emotions under control. Moving back to the window, Doyle saw that the lights were moving closer, at least six torches, and moving against the snow beneath them he could make out dark shapes. A formidable number of them. A quarter-mile away and closing fast.
As Eileen finished dressing a strip of shirt cloth around Barry’s wounds, Larry joined Doyle at the window.
“What should we do?” asked Doyle.
“The odds don’t favor a fight here, guv. Not against those numbers. No cover or high ground. Too many doors. Too hard to defend.”
“Tell him,” said Doyle, gesturing toward Sparks.
“He knows,” said Larry. “Give him a minute.”
“A minute’s all we’ve got.”
Larry winked at him. “Minute’s all we need.”
Larry picked up the shotgun and gave a short whistle, Barry jumped to his feet, kissed Eileen on the cheek, and the brothers quickly moved out of the cathedral toward the trackers. Doyle could differentiate individuals in the group now; there were at the least two dozen in the pack. Eileen stepped back onto the altar. To prevent her from disturbing Sparks, Doyle gestured for her to join him at the window.
“Are we just going to stand here and wait for them?” asked Eileen.
“No,” said Doyle, steadying his pistol on the window, taking aim on a lead torch-bearer. Before he could squeeze off a shot, he heard the rolling crack of the shotgun from off to the left; there were shouts, and two figures in the group went down. The man with the torch stopped to look in that direction; Doyle fired, the figure fell, and its torch was extinguished in the snow.
“Here! Over here, you rotters!”
More taunting shouts followed. Doyle saw Barry wave their lanterns, trying to draw the party away from the abbey.
“Come on then! Get a wiggle on, we ’aven’t got all night!”
Six attackers ran after Barry; the rest continued toward the ruins. Doyle emptied his pistol at the advancing column, felling another of them. As he reloaded, he heard the shotgun boom again and saw one of the men headed for the brothers fall silently.
The rasp of the cover coming off the coffin pulled his attention back to the room. Sparks emptied the oil from his lantern into the crate, then set it aflame by crashing the lantern on top of it. The crate ignited like dry tinder. Sparks stepped back, intoned something Doyle couldn’t hear, and watched the fire consume the box, committing his father to final rest.
“We really should go, Jack,” said Doyle, waiting a decent interval as he reloaded his pistol.
Sparks turned away from the flames and picked up the lid to the crate by its handles. “This way,” he said, heading toward the end of the nave they’d entered.
“What does he want with that?” asked Eileen, pointing at the lid.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” said Doyle, as they caught up to Sparks and ran into the antechamber where they’d stacked the snowshoes.
“We’ll need those,” snapped Sparks, pointing at the shoes.
As Eileen bent to retrieve them, three gray hoods came in through the front entrance. One raised a spiked cudgel to strike at Sparks.
“Jack!”
Sparks whirled, lowered the lid, and drove it into the chests of the three hoods, his legs pistoning mightily, pushing them back and pinning them against the wall. Doyle stepped forward and methodically fired two shots in each of the hoods as they squirmed behind the wood.
“Behind you!” shouted Eileen.
Two more hoods rushed in at them from the cathedral. Doyle spun around and pulled the trigger, but the pistol was empty. The three dispatched hoods slumped to the ground as Sparks let go of the coffin lid and turned to face this new assault. Eileen swung a snowshoe up by the tail and cracked the trailing one hard across the face, knocking it off its feet. A blow from the onrushing hood’s club clipped Sparks on the arm; he dipped, caught the hood’s momentum with a shoulder, straightened up, and flipped the creature against the wall. Eileen whacked the downed hood a second time as it tried to find its footing; Doyle turned the pistol in his hand and whipped the handle across the back of the hood until it lay still. Sparks drove a boot down into the neck of the second attacker, and it snapped like a hollow branch.
Bright light and the rush of many footsteps entered the cathedral. Sparks picked up the lid and ran out the door.
“Hurry!” he said.
Doyle and Eileen gathered the snowshoes, and they scrambled after Sparks. He dropped the lid so it hung over the lip of the hill that sloped steeply away from the ruins and anchored it with his foot.
“You first, Doyle. Grab the handles and hold on,” said Sparks.
The main band of pursuers burst out of the abbey behind them toward their position, a black-cloaked figure in the lead. Doyle pocketed his gun and jumped aboard. Sparks grabbed Eileen around the waist, pushed her down on the middle of the lid, and followed her onto it, using his weight to tip them over the edge. They slid forward and rapidly accelerated down the incline as the pack reached the lip: Two hoods hurled themselves after the makeshift sled, one raked a hand across Sparks’s back, nearly dislodging him before they pulled away from the tumbling bodies. The sled gained speed as they plummeted down the embankment in the dark; every bump and hillock sent them flying into the air, only to be rocked heavily as they hit the snow again.
“Can you steer?” shouted Sparks.
“I don’t think so!” answered Doyle. It was all he could do to hang on. The sheer cliffs falling to the sea somewhere on the right and their unknown proximity to them hurtled into his mind.
“Can you see?” asked Eileen.
“A little!”
The next thing he saw were two figures standing ahead of them waist-deep in the snow, frantically waving their arms. In the split second before the sled reached them, Doyle thought they might be Barry and Larry, but then he saw the hoods and the weapons in their hands. Doyle leaned all his weight to his right, and the lid veered slightly in that direction, enough to crash into the hoods, bowl them like ninepins, and scatter them down the hill. The collision knocked the wind out of Doyle, changed their direction, and shaved an edge off their velocity. He gasped for breath, trying to figure out where they were when he felt a sensation of skidding, looked to his right, and just ahe
ad saw the white expanse of the snow pack end abruptly in sheer blackness.
“The cliffs!” cried Sparks.
Doyle threw all his weight to the left. Sparks stuck out his right foot as a runner to push them away from the brink, and a moment later that foot was suspended out over thin air. They screamed as the sled rocketed along the edge of the cliff for twenty yards, scraping stone, whipping through saplings that had grown up over the lip, before Doyle’s crude course correction inched them away from the precipice and back onto solid snow. He could see the shape of the new abbey ahead on their left, but Doyle had barely a moment to register relief, idly wondering what those gray shapes coming out of the snow straight in front of them were when he realized they were headed directly into the cemetery.
“Headstones!” Doyle shouted.
Doyle guided them through the first group of markers, then the next, but as they moved to the middle of the yard, the concentration of stones grew denser and the stones themselves larger and more grandiose. There was no way to brake, and a massive mausoleum dead ahead suddenly gave no opportunity to maneuver. Doyle yanked on the handles, turning them sideways; they went into a skid, hit a bump, flew skyward, and the coffin lid splintered beneath them. Doyle hit the snow, clutching the broken handles in his hands. Eileen and Sparks were thrown high into the air, landing out of Doyle’s sight.
Doyle lay still a moment, trying to gather his wits. He was unable to loosen his grip on the handles—his knuckles locked and frozen around them—but he could move everything else, having touched down in a drift without suffering any disabling injury.
“Jack?” he said tentatively. He first thought the sound that came back to him was sobbing. Was it Eileen? “Are you all right?”
He realized Eileen was laughing. She emerged from a nearby snowbank, covered head to toe in white, overcome with infectious laughter. Then he heard Sparks laughing, captivated by the same relieving impulse, before he appeared from behind the mausoleum that had precipitated their crash. The sight and sound of each other’s laughter seemed to redouble their own. Jack bent over, hanging on to the edge of the monument. Eileen fell back into the snow and guffawed. The recent terror had been so completely overwhelming that for the moment there seemed no more sensible a response. Doyle felt the giggles come over him as well, and he gave into them.
“I thought we were dead,” said Doyle.
“I thought we were dead four separate times,” managed Eileen.
Doyle’s entire body began to shake. They staggered toward a meeting point, put their arms across each other’s shoulders, and let the healing laughter run its course. It was all they could do to breathe. As the laughter was cresting, Doyle revealed the handles stuck in his hands, which set off another round of hilarity.
“JONATHAN SPARKS!”
The words rolled down the slopes from the ruins high above. The voice was harshly sibilant, but at the same time lush and orotund; it could cut glass and never leave a splinter. No anger in its tone, only insinuating derision that bespoke no disappointment at their escape but rather suggested satisfaction, that this was its desired outcome.
“Is it him?” asked Doyle.
Sparks nodded, looking toward the hilltop.
“LISTEN!”
Silence thicker than a church bell.
Then a bloodcurdling scream twisted and built to a hideous crescendo before fading away into exhausted, piteous bleating.
“Oh God. The brothers,” said Eileen.
Another scream, more tortured than before. Was it the same voice?
“Bastard!” Doyle raged, surging forward. “BASTARD!”
Sparks put a restraining hand on Doyle’s shoulder. His jaw was tight, but his voice stayed measured and calm. “That’s what he wants from us.”
The scream cut off abruptly. The ensuing quiet was even more unsettling.
“We must go,” said Sparks. “They may still come after us.”
“You can’t leave them—” protested Eileen.
“They’re soldiers,” said Sparks, gathering up his snowshoes.
“He’s killing them—”
“We don’t know that it’s them. Even if it is, what would you have us do? Throw our own lives away? Sentimental lunacy.”
“Still, Jack, they’re so loyal to you—” said Doyle, trying to soften the argument.
“They know the risks.” Sparks wanted no more discussion. He walked away.
“You’ve got your brother’s blood in you, Jack Sparks,” said Eileen to Sparks’s back.
Sparks stopped, tensed, but didn’t turn, then continued on.
Eileen wiped the tears from her eyes.
“He’s right, you know,” said Doyle gently.
“So am I,” she said, watching Sparks go.
They slipped into the snowshoes and trudged out of the graveyard after him. The trip back to the inn was passed in silence.
A note had been pinned to Stoker’s door. Sparks tore it down and briefly scanned it.
“Stoker’s hired a carriage and started back to London,” he said to the others. “He says he has his family to consider.”
“Can’t blame him for that,” said Doyle.
“He’s bequeathed us the use of his room.” Sparks pocketed the note and opened the door. Eileen entered. Doyle looked at his watch: half past two in the morning.
“Excuse us a moment, Miss Temple,” said Sparks, detaining Doyle in the hallway and closing the door. “Stay with her. If I’m not back by dawn, try and make your way to London.”
“Where are you—”
“They’ve probably done their worst for tonight, but keep your pistol loaded and at hand,” said Sparks, walking away down the corridor.
“Jack, what are you going to do?”
Sparks gave a wave without looking back as he moved quickly downstairs. Doyle looked at the door and cracked it open. Eileen lay on top of the bedclothes, her back to him. He was about to close the door.…
“Don’t go,” she said without moving.
“You should rest.”
“Not much chance of that.”
“Rest is what you need—”
“Stop being a doctor, for heaven’s sake.” She turned to face him. “I don’t particularly wish to spend my last night on earth alone, do you?”
“What makes you think this is—”
“Come in here and close the door, would you? How plain do I have to make myself?”
Doyle acquiesced but remained across the room, standing rigidly near the door. She gave him a wry look, shook her head slightly, sat up on the bed, and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the vanity. Her hair was tangled in disarray, fair complexion burned by the wind.
“Frightful,” she said.
“Not so bad as all that,” offered Doyle, instantly regretting it.
Another sardonic look from her consolidated his remorse. She moved to a chair by the mirror and dispassionately surveyed herself.
“I suppose a hairbrush is too providential to hope for,” she said.
“As a matter of fact, it’s one of the few possessions I have remaining to me,” said Doyle. From his bag, which he’d left at the foot of the armoire, he produced his brush-and-comb set.
“You really should smile, Doctor,” she said, her eyes brightening. “‘Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.’”
“I don’t mean to be unkind… Ophelia,” he added, recognizing the passage.
Eileen took off the mannish jacket, unpinned her hair, and let the soft black mass of it cascade down the back of her blouse. She shook it out and ran the brush down its lustrous length in long, sensuous strokes: an effect, to Doyle’s eyes, of breathtaking intimacy, a balm to his battered spirits. It was the first time since they’d heard the screams on the hill that the brothers had been out of his thoughts for even a moment.
“Did you ever see me onstage, Doctor?” she asked.
“I never had the pleasure,” said Doyle. “My name is Arthur.”
 
; She gave the slightest nod, acknowledging the new increment of familiarity. “There were good reasons why our guardians of decency wouldn’t allow women to perform in public for so many hundreds of years.”
“What reasons would those be?”
“Some would tell you it’s dangerous to see a woman on the stage.”
“Dangerous in what way?”
She shrugged slightly. “Perhaps it’s too easy to believe the actress is exactly who she appears to be playing on any particular night.”
“But that is the desired effect, after all. To persuade us of the character’s veracity.”
“It should be, yes.”
“Then how does that represent a danger? And for whom?”
“For someone who encounters the woman off the stage and finds it difficult to distinguish the actress from the role she was playing.” She looked at him in the mirror, out from under the wave of a curl. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you about actresses. Arthur?”
“She must have felt there were more obvious dangers lurking about.” Doyle held her eyes steadily. “I have seen you onstage, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have. After a fashion.”
A long pause followed. “Miss Temple—”
“Eileen.”
“Eileen,” said Doyle. “Are you attempting to seduce me?”
“Am I?” She stopped brushing. Her forehead crinkled. She seemed as unsure of the answer as was he. “Is that your impression, really?”
“Yes. I would have to say that it is.” Doyle felt surprisingly and utterly calm.
A poised thought flew over the plane of her face like the shadow of a flock of doves. She carefully laid the brush down on the table and turned to face him. “What if I were?”
“Well,” said Doyle, “I would have to say that if this does prove to be the last evening of our lives, and I, for whatever reason, remained resistant to your charms, it would surely be the most senseless regret that would soon enough accompany me to the grave.”
They looked at each other without pretense.
“Then perhaps you should lock the door, Arthur,” she said simply, all aspect of performance gone from her voice.