That, Mina believed.
Her nails scrabbled against the pipe’s surface. Her hands had more hope than her mind, it seemed.
Looking down, she bit her lip. “I don’t know everything,” she said, very small and very frightened. She didn’t have to fake that. “He didn’t tell me very much.”
“No,” said Ward, “he wouldn’t. Not even MacAlasdair would be that stupid. Start at the beginning. What did you see that made him hire you?”
Mina closed her eyes and speculated. “He—he was in a big room. There was chalk on the floor, and—and blood. I think there was a chicken in the corner. And there was something in the middle of the room.”
“Something?”
Building from what she’d heard of with Stephen and Colin, she filled in the rest with imagination. “It was a bit like a man.” She talked slowly, trying to sound frightened and reluctant. Every second she took was one more second that she was alive, one more second in which the situation could change. “It had arms and legs and,” she swallowed, “a head. Except its hands had claws, and its head was…it looked like a big frog. With teeth. Its eyes glowed. I remember its eyes glowed.”
After a moment of silence, she opened her eyes. Ward was still in front of her, but now he was scratching his head.
“What was it doing?” he asked, finally.
“Talking to Lord MacAlasdair. I, um…” Mina thought swiftly. The beast she’d constructed wasn’t formed for peaceful work, and Ward would have noticed any mysterious deaths in London, just as Stephen would. “I think he was talking about affairs back in Scotland. An uncle, maybe? I didn’t hear very clearly. I was scared.”
“When you served him, did you have the full run of the house?”
“Not his bedroom, of course!” That got her a glare. Propriety was not a consideration here. “And there was a room in the attic.”Thankyou, Florrie. “He always kept it locked, but he went up there every night.”
“Oh? Alone?”
“Mostly,” said Mina, keeping her options open.
“What do you mean—”
THUD.
The sound had come from above. Mina looked up, but the ceiling itself was too high for her to see. Whatever had landed on the roof was heavy; she could tell that much.
So could Ward. He seized her by the shoulders, glaring. “What wasthat?”
“I don’t know!”
Metal squealed above them.
With no place to retreat, Mina endured. Ward’s hands felt like claws; his breath reeked; and the eyes that stared into hers were almost as inhuman in their rage as the half manes’s. Mina shrank back and turned her face away, the best she could manage.
“What are you doing? What areyou?”
“A girl. His secretary. I’ve nothing to do with this!” It was the first truth she’d spoken in five minutes, and ironically, it did nothing to convince Ward.
He hit her again, which she’d more or less been expecting. This time it was in the stomach and with a closed fist. A coldly rational part of Mina supposed that, if shehadbeen casting a spell, that blow might even have been effective—physical pain to disrupt mental concentration. The rest of her knew only pain, breathlessness, and the sudden heat of blood flowing from her nose.
Much as she would have liked to blame Ward, that last wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t come near her face.
“It’s notme!” she cried.
He curled his upper lip at her like an angry dog, released his grip, and stood back. “I don’t feel like taking chances. Kill her,” he said to the half manes.
As one, they surged forward. Terror broke over Mina, flooding her mind beyond rational thought. She shrieked and thrashed, surging against the ropes with the full weight of her body, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
Forty-three
Metal yielded easily to Stephen’s claws. Brick was only a little more of a challenge. Shrouded in fog, he smashed through the factory roof and plummeted inside, roaring. One taste of destruction had merely gotten his blood up, and he was ready for more even before he heard Mina screaming.
