Jack and Noah had looked so happy atop The Naked, and all I could think of was how Jack had spent thousands of years trying to correct the mistakes of their first lives together and win Noah back. Why should he give up now?
My mother returned the next day. She appeared radiant. It was not just the smile on her face, but myriad small things: humming a tune as she sorted through clothes that needed to be dry-cleaned; staring out a window for long minutes at a time at nothing in particular with a smile on her face; falling into lengthy silences at mealtimes, also with a small smile on her face, when normally she would chatter on about anything.
My father did a very bad impression of not noticing.
Then came the little surprise she dropped at Faerie Hill Manor. That hit me on two levels. I was shocked, appalled and, most of all, intensely jealous, that she intruded so blithely into something that until now only Jack and I had shared. And I was shocked, appalled and desperately frightened that she, too, thought that Catling’s trap was, in fact, a Catling weakness. Instantly, so it seemed, Jack’s hitherto open mind (if open only a sliver on this matter, but it had been open) slammed shut. Yes, he agreed happily, it was a weakness. Noah had confirmed it.
Noah was his lover and the love of his life; she had shared thousands of years with him, and she was a goddess and a Darkwitch and a Mistress of the Labyrinth, and never, never, never could I compete on all those levels.
Of course he was going to believe her before me.
No wonder she had intruded so blithely.
Noah tried to smooth it over with me, in the kitchen. Considering the humiliating little scene I had put on, she was actually very nice. She promised to keep an open mind, but I knew that there was nothing I could do. Jack and Noah were so intimate (I don’t mean that only in the sexual sense, but intimate because of all they had shared and on so many levels), and I so much the outsider…well, once they had jointly made up their minds on the issue, then I had no hope.
It didn’t help that I had no proof, either. Sure, I was a Mistress of the Labyrinth, but I had nowhere near the experience in the labyrinth that Jack and Noah had. I had nowhere near the experience in life that they had. All I had was that deep misgiving that the shadow hanging over London was connected with Catling, and was somehow a vile trap that would ensnare us all, but I had no proof.
I was scared that Jack would ask me to stop helping him. After all, he had my mother on his team now. While I continued my work, walking about London, discovering what I could, I tended to avoid Jack.
I didn’t want to know how well he and my mother did.
I didn’t want him to suggest, gently, that maybe he and my mother could manage by themselves now, thank you for all your trouble.
On the last Friday in May I was out later than usual. I had been wandering through Southwark, walking almost to Rotherhithe, and had lost track of the time.
I had also lost myself. I didn’t have any maps with me, and I’d managed to stray into the wharf area—a warren of alleys and laneways, each indistinguishable from the other. It was dusk, gloom had enveloped the entire area, and I had no idea where I was. I couldn’t even work out the location of the river. I knew it was close, because I could hear the water and the occasional faint sound of barges and tugs, but no matter what turning I took, I could not catch sight of it.
I thought I would ask someone directions, but although half an hour ago the area had been bustling with lorries and handcarts and sailors and overalled women hurrying about, now the entire area was strangely deserted.
Rotherhithe shouldn’t have been deserted. Not during wartime. It should have been bustling, even though it was coming on to full night.
There were no streetlamps.
No people.
No means to find my way home.
Power seeped about me.
Increasingly wary, I drew back against a wall, hiding in the darkness of the overhang of a warehouse.
I looked up. It was a clear night, and I could see the barrage balloons that hung over wharves and river.
I could also sense the shadow, more powerfully than ever before.
Suddenly, although I saw nothing, I sensed the shadow gathering its strength, as if for a leap, then felt it rushing towards me.
I gave a soft cry, hating myself for it, and scrambled desperately along the wall, hoping to find a doorway, an entrance, anything to get out of the way of the—
“Hello, pretty lady.”
Fear jolted through me. A man had come up behind me, grabbing me by the right elbow and pulling me against his body.
“What’s a lovely thing like you doing out and about, hmmm, when a murderer is wandering the streets?”
There was something about the way he said “murderer”, something in the vicious, cold jesting tone of voice, that made me realise…oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…
All my brave words to Jack were for nothing. I had never felt more terrified in my entire life than I did right then. Maybe he could not murder me—after all, Catling needed me alive—but what he could do…I had heard what those girls had suffered, what had been done to them, what—
Another man loomed before me, his hat pulled so low I could make out nothing of his face save a well of darkness and some bright, gleaming teeth. He grabbed at my left arm, and then, no matter how I struggled, began slowly, lasciviously, unbuttoning my coat.
There were two of them! No wonder the women hadn’t stood a chance!
The next moment his hand ran over my dress, over my breasts, over my abdomen, down to my groin.
I tried to kick him, but he responded by kicking my legs out from under me, so that the only thing keeping me upright was their grip on my arms.
The first man, still holding onto my elbow with one hand, produced a knife in his other.
I screamed. Then again, and yet once again. Someone must hear me, surely!
The second man laughed, low, soft, sibilant, and tore my skirt away.
My gods, they were going to rape me first.
At that point I wished I could die. Surely it would be easier to just hold my breath, or suffocate myself against the coat of the man to my right.
The other man ripped away my petticoat, then I felt his cold fingers slide under the waistband of my drawers.
I wanted to scream again, but I was beyond it now.
His fingers slid low, rasping against my inner thigh.
“We were thinking,” he whispered, now so close his mouth was almost against mine, “that we could whip a thing or two out, eh?—and who would miss it? It’s not as if Jack needs it, right?”
I couldn’t believe it. What did they know about Jack?
“After all,” whispered the other—Oh Christ, I could feel his cold tongue in my ear!—“he has Noah now, right?”
Now the second man’s hand rose up under my blouse and gripped one of my breasts, so painfully I whimpered.
“We’re so happy we found you wandering about the streets, little girl,” he said.
“We’d like to know what you’re doing,” said the other man.
Not man—imp! Suddenly I knew who they were! I remembered that moment, so many years ago, when they’d stood over me in my parents’ bed, and wrapped Catling’s hex about my wrists.
“What is sweet little Grace doing, wandering the streets, eh?” said the other imp, and squeezed my breast with such renewed spite that I cried out in pain.
“Tell us, little Grace.”
“Tell us, Grace, or you’ll feel this cold blade sliding into regions that until now only Harry has enjoyed.”
I could barely force the words out. “I came down here to see a friend…I got lost…I—”
They wouldn’t let me finish. I felt the flat, icy blade of the knife against my bare belly, then felt it turn, slowly, slowly, so that its edge bit into my skin.
I tore myself away. I don’t know how I did it, but I tore myself away and stumbled up the street, hearing the soft, sarcastic laughter of the two men behind me.
Ten minutes later, clutching my coat about the ruins of my clothes, I hailed a cab back to the Savoy.
In Rotherhithe the imps pulled their clothes straight, and Jim slipped the knife back into the sheath he had hung at his belt.