Her grandfather had given it to her ten years ago, just before he’d left, promising it would keep her safe. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. All these years, she’d taken it as evidence of his love, when he’d used it to spy on her!
Sam unfastened the saint medal, her fingers twisting around the tarnished silver chain. There was a postbox outside the library. She would send it to herself back in London, and when all this was over, the Wild Hunt and all, she could ask her Aunt Lucy what she wished. She deserved that much, after so many of her decisions had been taken from her.
“Do you mean to tell me your grandfather works for her father, and Mr. Wright just let the two of you become partners?” Van Helsing demanded.
“As I recall, he was the one who suggested it,” Hel said mildly.
“He doesn’t know about it, does he?” Van Helsing sounded thoroughly exasperated. Hel and Sam exchanged a guilty look. He worked his knuckles in his eyes. “Damn it. Right. I need to check in with Mr. Wright and Detective Lynch.”
Sam felt a flutter of panic in her chest. Mr. Wright had to know she hadn’t made the ferry by now. If Van Helsing talked to him, he’d make her go home. “You can’t mean totellthem.” Not after Sam had convinced Hel to trust him.
Van Helsing gave them a hard look. “You shouldn’t have been keeping such secrets to begin with. It only makes you look guiltier than you already are.”
“Please, Mr. Van Helsing?—Jakob. You know him. You grew up listening to his stories,” Sam said. “You can’t believe it’s of his own free will.”
“It’s not about what I believe. We have to tell them,” Van Helsing maintained stubbornly. “If he’s innocent, you have nothing to fear.”
Hel raised an eyebrow at Sam, a look that her brain stubbornly interpreted as asking whether she’d like Hel todo somethingabout Van Helsing. But surely the woman wasn’t offering to murder a man to keep Sam’s secrets... was she? No. No, certainly not.
“And you’re sure about that, are you?” Sam pressed, willing him to recall more from their conversation the night before than just Hel’s title. To think, for one moment in his life, about what it was like to be someone who wasn’t him. About what might matter more thanthe rules.
Van Helsing made an irritated sound in his throat, and for a moment, Sam was certain he was going to tell her in no uncertain terms what he thought of her asking him to deceive his superiors, about how she was succumbing to the influence of evil to ask. Then: “Fine. I won’t tell them,” Van Helsing said. Sam felt a rush of gratitude. “Not until we have more information. But I do owe Detective Lynch an update. Especially if what you say about Professor Moriarty is true.”
“What aboutyourresearch?” Hel asked. “Turn up anything useful?”
“Research?” Sam whirled to look at Van Helsing.
“I’ve been looking into Alice Grey,” Van Helsing said, not meeting Sam’s eyes.
“Why?” Sam demanded.
“I asked him to,” Hel said, and Sam’s cheeks heated. “I knew I’d heard her name before.”
“You were right to be concerned,” Van Helsing said. “She was in an asylum for ten years.”
“That does not signify,” Sam said sharply. She had been in an asylum, too, in case they’d forgotten?—which, they had better not have, seeing as they were the ones who’d had her committed. “Men throw women in asylums for the crime of having too inconvenient an emotion, for being born a channel, or even just because they tire of them and want another. It doesn’t mean they’ve gone mad or monstrous.”
“And just because someone’s kind to you doesn’t mean theyhaven’t,” Hel said.
“Alice Grey was released to a man who shortly after became her husband,” Van Helsing said. “A husband who died a month ago, after seeing ghosts.”
“Because he was murdered by the Wild Hunt!” Sam said.
“Was he?” Hel said. “Because unlike Mr. Enfield, Mr. Grey broke a great deal in his fall.”
“Something must have gone wrong,” Sam said. “It would have been the first of the deaths, whoever is behind them, they must not have worked it all out yet.”
“Which doesn’t mean she’s not the one who did it,” Hel pointed out. It was, in fact, common amongst serial killers for their first murder to be different from the rest, as they perfected their technique.
If Hel and Van Helsing were right, the tattoos might not be Sam’s grandfather. Alice Grey might be a medium, might be behind everything. It made a certain amount of sense. After all, the only haunting they knew for certain was Sam’s grandfather was her own, and that wasn’t through a tattoo, selenic or otherwise. This Alice might have worked with Hel’s father, perhaps even unwittingly, might have been the one to tattoo Hel and the others. Her grandfather might still be innocent.
It should have made her feel better, but for some reason, it didn’t.
“Was she charged?” Sam demanded.
“No,” Van Helsing said. “There were rumors, but no evidence was brought against her. But in light of recent events?—”
“How many years were they married?” Sam cut him off.
