Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter 2)

She rested a hand on her forehead as though she might be faint.

“You’ve done incredibly well,” I said.

“You have no idea what it’s been like living in that house, knowing what Papa is doing. Thank god he’s gone for the week. I wouldn’t be able to face him without my stomach turning. Whatever you all are planning, I hope it resolves this. I suppose it will be prison for him, or banishment just like your father. Mother will be crushed.”

Balthazar leaned over and patted her hand reassuringly. The color rose to her cheeks at this kind gesture. She adjusted the cuffs of her dress and was silent for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at the professor’s around noon, and I knew something was wrong the moment we crossed the threshold. Elizabeth sat at the dining room table, polishing an ancient musket that must have been from the sixteenth century. A bottle of gin sat beside her along with a half-empty glass.

I paused in the doorway. “Why do you have that musket, Elizabeth?” I asked.

She looked at us with half-wild eyes, then glanced toward the kitchen, where from this angle I could just make out the cellar door, closed now, with the buffet table pushed against it.

“Did something happen while we were away?” I asked hesitantly.

A second after I spoke a crashing came from downstairs strong enough to shake the house. Lucy shrieked, and I grabbed the table to steady myself.

“He’s been making a din like that that all morning,” Elizabeth said, throwing back the rest of her gin. “Raising the dead with his prowling about. I went down there earlier to check. . . .” Her face drained of color, and she returned to cleaning the old musket with renewed vigor. “Well, see for yourself, but I’d advise you to take a pistol just in case. And you needn’t worry about Inspector Newcastle or the police. I gave them quite a story, and they’ll be halfway to Dublin by now looking for you. It’ll be at least a few days before they figure out the truth.”

I set down the satchel. “I hope that will be enough time. We found a way to solve a code that Father used in his journals, and it might help us cure Edward.”

Another loud crash sounded from downstairs, and Elizabeth started to refill her glass.

I glanced at Montgomery. “We’d better check on him.”

He gave a single nod, and told Balthazar to help Elizabeth. Balthazar took a seat across from her happily, pulling a rag from his vest pocket with a flourish.

“Stay here too, Lucy,” I said.

She shook her head violently. “I want to see him.”

Montgomery turned to her before I could speak. “Miss Radcliffe, I’ve spent the better part of a year tracking the Beast. It isn’t Edward down there now, I can assure you. His alternate personality won’t care that you had him over for a lovely tea at your home. To him you’ll be blood ready to be spilled. Nothing more.”

Lucy’s face paled, but she still stood tall. “I said I’m coming with you. I’m not afraid.”

Montgomery stared her down, until at last he sighed. “I did warn you, Miss Radcliffe.”

With straining muscles, he pulled the buffet away from the cellar door. Old townhouses like the professor’s had been built before gas lighting, so a system of makeshift pipes ran down the length of stairs, ending in a single gas bulb at the bottom. Its flame reflected on the heavy metal chains on the cellar door.

Footsteps sounded from within the cellar. Tap-tap-tap. A familiar sound that took me back to the island: claws on a stone floor.

“I’ll go first,” I said, though my voice came out thin. “He might go wild with rage again if he sees you, Montgomery. And Lucy, you stay back too.”

Hesitantly, I took a step onto the creaking stairs. Montgomery and Lucy followed a few steps behind, treading as quietly as they dared. Halfway down Lucy stumbled and landed on a creaky stair that squealed like a wounded animal.

The footsteps behind the cellar door froze. I was only one step away and could peer within the barred window if I stood on my tiptoes. I leaned closer, breath half frozen in the abnormal silence.

“Edward?” I whispered. “Are you still there?”

There was nothing but silence, and then the scraping sound of claws on the stone floor. I stood higher on tiptoe.

Suddenly a jerk of the rug at my feet hurled me to the floor with a painful crack. I cried out as gnarled fingers reached from the inch-wide gap under the door to grasp my feet, pulling me closer. Montgomery slammed his boot into the Beast’s hand, and I scrambled away.

A great howl came from within as the Beast hurled himself against the door, again and again, beating himself to a bloody mess.

Was Edward still in there somewhere, fighting against him?

“Lucy, fetch a candle,” I gasped.

Lucy raced up the stairs as Montgomery helped me to my feet. The Beast’s writhing made a terrible sound. I wanted to cover my ears. Lucy returned with one of the grand silver candlesticks from the dining room, but her fingers were shaking too much to light the match. I fumbled to do it while Montgomery rechecked the lock on the chains. I held the candle to the window, peering within.

A gasp came from my lips.

The Beast writhed on the floor, caught somewhere between man and creature in the midst of a transformation. He was doubled over in pain as claws slid into his bloody joints and then out again. His back buckled and strained as the two sides of him fought for control. In one instant he was the Beast, snarling and furious; in the next he was Edward, reaching out a hand toward me and trying to form words, and then back again.

“Montgomery, get a sedative!” I said. “And as much valerian as we have. He’s going to rip himself apart unless we stop him.”

Montgomery took the stairs two at a time, and I turned to Lucy, who was breathing so rapidly I thought she might burst.

“It’ll be all right,” I said.

“It won’t be!” she screamed. She threw her hands over her head and ran upstairs, tripping on her skirt, tears streaking down her cheeks.

I’d been a fool to let her down here. Hearing about it was one thing, but watching the transformation happen was another. Lucy had a crush on a different boy every week—why had I thought her love for Edward would stand up to seeing the truth of what he was?

Montgomery soon returned with a glass jar of chloroform and syringe of valerian. “We’ll have to be quick,” he said.

The growls from within the cellar came louder. Montgomery removed the chains from the door and handed me the syringe. “I’ll hold him. You go for the neck.”