“I’ll go first, m’lady.” Raven drew a short cudgel from inside his jacket.
“No, stay behind me.” Charlotte slipped past him into the chill gloom. The air was damp and heavy with a cloying odor.The smell of old bones and moldering sadness.For those who lived outside the glittering opulence of Mayfair, life in London could grind even the brightest dreams into dust.
Shaking off such mordant thoughts, she waited to hear the door shut, then struck a flint to the lantern’s wick and eased back the shutter.
The oily beam flickered over the thick granite columns, the age-blackened oak pews, the mortared stone tiles....
“Holy hell,” hissed Raven through his teeth.
“Don’t come any closer,” Charlotte rasped as a spurt of bile, sharp and sour, shot up to burn the back of her throat. Swallowing hard, she crept closer to the body sprawled on the floor by the ornately carved lectern.
Dear God—so much blood.
Up close, the sight was more hideous than any demon-demented nightmare. The Right Reverend Josiah Holworthy—yes, she recognized him despite the disfigured face—was lying on his back, his arms outstretched as if in supplication to God for mercy.
If so, the plea had fallen on deaf ears.
His head . . .
Charlotte choked back a gag.
The slash of a blade had nearly severed the man’s neck, and his head, attached to his body by only a few bits of tendon, bone, and flesh, had fallen awkwardly to one side. A dark, viscous pool was spreading out from beneath the crumpled coat collar, and rivulets of rusty red were snaking a serpentine trail over the grey stone.
Careful to avoid leaving any telltale scuff, Charlotte edged around for a different angle of view.Steady, steady.Her hand was trembling as she pulled a small notebook and pencil from her pocket.
“Cor, someone must have hated him awful bad,” murmured Raven, who had snuck up behind her despite the order to the contrary.
“Hold this,” she said, passing him the lantern to keep him occupied. It seemed pointless to argue with him. Having grown up in one of London’s roughest slums, he was no stranger to violence.
But this . . .
Dark spots discolored the reverend’s sightless eyes and his cheeks were badly burned by some sort of chemical. Faint streaks of a greenish-yellow substance had dribbled down to his chin and a white powder flecked the pitted flesh where the liquid had started to dry. Forcing her mind to concentrate on the tiny details helped control the violent churning in her stomach. She opened the book to a fresh page and hurriedly made some notes.
The powder, she noted, was also caked at the corners of his mouth and the protruding tongue had turned a mottled black. A strange smell . . .
She crouched down and sniffed, then jotted down a few more lines.
A low sound gurgled in Raven’s throat.
“If you are going to cast up your accounts, kindly step outside,” said Charlotte coolly, hoping the challenge would make him forget his nausea. “We mustn’t leave any sign that someone has been in here.”
“I ain’t—I’m not—gonna shoot the cat,” he vowed.
“Then move the light a little to your left.”
“We gotta be going now.” Raven shot a nervous look down the main aisle towards the front entrance.
“In a moment.” Charlotte rose and slowly circled the corpse, making a few quick sketches. Stepping back, she noted a faint partial footprint in the dust of the side transept. Curious, she went to take a look. A boot—an oddly small one, with a distinctive mark cut into the heel.
Another quick crouch, another quick sketch.
“M’lady.”
“Yes, yes.” Charlotte stepped into the shadows to see where the footprints led, then changed her mind. The crime wasn’t her concern, just the gristly details. She returned to the body and crouched down for a last look.
Raven let out another impatient hiss. As she turned slightly to chide him, she caught sight of something caught in the dead man’s right-hand shirt cuff.A scrap of paper?After hesitating just a fraction, Charlotte reached out—
A sharp whistle, followed by another, shattered the silence.
