Chapter Four
Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin (Faiche Stiabhna, Baile Átha Cliath)
Five Days Before Samhain
Sam hurried out of the pub, an unnatural fog swirling around her like watercolors. The setting sun limned the clouds in shades of pink and persimmon. It took her a moment to catch sight of Hel amidst the crowd, the other woman’s long strides putting distance between them.
Van Helsing was still in the snug with Detective Lynch. The detective had made sounds about the three of them not being seen leaving together, but it was a polite fiction, seeing as they’d arrived together. He meant to talk about Sam and Hel.
“You’re wasting your breath,” Hel said when Sam finally caught up with her.
“I’m... trying,” Sam said a little breathlessly, but Hel really was walking very fast, and Sam’s smart white boots were not made for cobblestones, the heels catching in every crack.
Hel turned right, weaving through the evening crowd collecting around the pub and shops.Grafton Street.A frisson of excitement skittered over Sam’s skin. It felt as if she were walking straight into one of her grandfather’s stories. Grafton Street had been the site of countless adventures, a place of rough laughter and indiscretion, where a man might have a great deal of fun, if he wasn’t too much of a gentleman?—and where no woman might pass with her virtue intact.
It appeared Grafton Street had tamed considerably since then. Sam was grateful. For all her grandfather had made it sound like an adventure, Sam was beginning to realize, the way one did with stories held in one’s heart since childhood and left unconsidered, it wouldn’t have been much of an adventure for her.
“I mean Detective Lynch and Van Helsing are already convinced of my degeneracy. Arguing with them will only persuade them I’ve infected you as well.” Hel slid Sam a sideways look. “And aren’t we supposed to be at odds?”
Oh, that. “It will be more natural this way. If we’d started at odds with each other, they’d only investigate what they’d missed,” Sam said, as if she hadn’t been thinking the exact same thing when her words had run off without her. If Hel had only defended herself! But she hadn’t. She never did. Sam hesitated. “Why don’t you ever explain your father’s methods to them, as you did me?”
Hel snorted. “You think I haven’t tried that?”
Sam shook her head. “Do you truly not care what others think of you?”
Hel slowed. “I care what you think.”
“Yes, but?—”
“What purpose would the rest serve?”
It would hurt,Sam realized. That was all it would accomplish. The Mr. Wrights of the world were so certain of the story they told themselves about Hel that they would bend any shred of evidence to it. After all, what wouldn’t a spy do to maintain her cover? Innocence was nearly impossible to prove when the assumption was guilt.
Of course, Hel might twist herself to suit a different story, changing every part of herself to be more acceptable, to fit in, but she chose not to.
Sam’s heart squeezed. “Hel?—”
“Keep up,” Hel said. She’d only paused to let a carriage pass before crossing the street to Saint Stephen’s Green. “We’re going to be late.”
“Late?” Sam blinked. “For what?”
“We have perhaps fifteen minutes before Van Helsing escapes Detective Lynch’s instruction,” Hel said. “Then another fifteen before he realizes we haven’t gone to the hotel. This may be our only chance to examine the crime scene.”
Tochannel, she meant, and whatever she’d been about to ask Hel left her mind entirely as Saint Stephen’s Green unfurled before them.
There was a splash of water and the fanning of wings, and moments later, Sam glimpsed a shimmering lake dotted with mallards between the trees, and a small island besides. They passed a cheerful holly strewn with berries bright as rubies. Couples walked arm in arm along the winding paths, ladies in their fashionable coats, gentlemen in their bowler hats and wool. Young men clad in the black gowns of Trinity College littered the green, sprawling under trees, laughing and arguing, as if the uncanny fog were only weather of a different flavor.
It seemed impossible that this verdant idyll was where the Viscount and the Duke had been disappeared. Though theirs was hardly the first blood spilled on its grounds: Saint Stephen’s Green might be a beloved park?—the playground of students and Dublin’s gilded set, which were oftentimes the same thing?—but once, it was home to lepers, hangings, and witch burnings.
“Hello.”
Sam whirled, her heart hammering in her chest. She knew that voice.Ruari.Hel’s brother and Professor Moriarty’s shadowed left hand.
Hel’s gaze was trained on something behind them. But when Sam turned, there was no one there. Only the wind, rustling through dying leaves. She heard an odd clacking, like bones snapping against one another, and looked up to see a raven eyeing them boldly from the branches of a weeping ash, its chest feathers puffed. It cocked its head at her.
“Hello,” it said again. This time, Sam could hear the inhuman harmonics in its voice. It looked to be an ordinary raven, but the resemblance to Ruari’s voice was... unnatural. “Sam.”
The chill cut straight through her: The raven knew her name. It was so uncanny that for a moment, she wasn’t certain if it was a vision or reality. Hel drew her revolver.
