Chapter 1
Chrisanne Brandon stood with her back against the wall as a man walked up the spiral staircase. His thick boots echoed as he got closer to the top. 'First, paralyze vocal cords. Hit ear causing partial deafness, fist to the patella and jaw,' she thought. Before he could fully enter the hall where she was standing, Ann put her plan into action. The man grunted and groaned as she hit him, causing him to fall back into the rail. Grabbing his hat and lantern, Ann ran down the steps to another hall that over looked the courtyard of the old church. A hooded man stood over a young woman (who was laid out on a sacrificial alter) with his hands stretched out and chanting something in a foreign tongue. A hot breath of air ran down Ann's neck making her turn around and seeing a man holding a long dagger above her. A black can stopped the dagger from reaching Ann and thrown across the hall, before the man was hit in the head.
"Perfect timing as always Tiana," Ann said as her best friend, Tiana Darcy walked out the shadows and stood next to her.
"But of course," Tia said smiling. "What do we have?"
"A black arts ritual of some sort?" Ann said looking at the woman grabbing for the knife that laid next to her.
"Suspect?" Tia said as they headed for the stairs that lead to the courtyard.
"Possibly Blackwood," Ann said taking the hat off her long red hair and placing in the face of one of the guards. Tia hit the back of his head and the others began running for them.
"Where are the boys when you need them?" Ann said kicking one of them in the face and then looked at Blackwood.
"With the police," Tia said dodging another's fist and then head butted him in the face.
"They better..." Ann was about to say when a dart struck a guard in the throat.
"Sorry girls," Thomas Palmer said. "Didn't mean to be tardy."
"Go save the girl," Ethan Ferrars, Ann's cousin, said. "We got these brutes."
Tia nodded as she ran for Blackwood, forcing him to break his concentration on the ritual and turning around with his hands folded.
"Tia wait!" Ann said grabbing hold of her friend. "Look." The tip of sheer glass blade sat inches away from Tia's face.
"How did you see?" she asked as Ann broke the blade.
"Saw right through it," she said as the Scottish Yards came in.
"Get that girl to a hospital," the head Yard John Kingston said as he turned to the girls. "Thank you ladies."
"A little late the party aren't we Mr. Kingston?" Tia said as the Yards took the girl off the alter and placed Blackwood into chains.
"Tia I thought we agreed on working on your attitude," her cousin, M.J Bingly.
"I don't believe I have one," she said shrugging her shoulders before placing her father's cane on it. "At least someone was here to stop Blackwood. If not they'll be taking that girl to the morgue than to the hospital."
"That means 'You're Welcome.' in Tia's words Mr. Kingston," Ann said smiling nervously.
"No I mean just what I said," Tia said placing a hand on her hip.
"Get over Tiana," Ethan said as a photographer came up to them.
"Smile everyone," he said.
Ethan and M.J both smiled as Tia and Ann hid their faces behind Thomas and Thomas covered his face with his hand. The last thing they wanted was their parents coming to London for them. Especially the girls.
Chapter 2
"Miss Brandon and Darcy!" Mrs. Jamison, the landlady said knocking on the door. It has been three months since Blackwood was taken to prison and the friends had been bored to tears with nothing to do. Ann sat in the darken corner toying with a gun and letting off occasional bullets. While Tia sat with her chemistry set, mixing up new medical drugs.
"I swear if I hear one more..." the landlady was about to say, when Ann let off another round just to annoy her.
"Give me the gun," Tia said getting up. "I will never get my work done if you keep letting off rounds and Mrs. Jamison keeps banging on the door."
"Sorry Mrs. Jamison," they both said. They heard her huff and storm away from the door.
"Tia," Ann said getting up. "Do you ever wonder about what Blackwood said to us that night?"
"No," she said throwing the gun on the table. "I wasn't paying him any attention. Why what'd he say?"
"Before the Yards hauled him out, he said the most interesting thing," she said pacing around the room. "He said, 'This is only the beginning. That we haven't seen the last of him."
"You're right," Tia said scribbling in her journal. "Interesting last words for a man on death row."
Ann scoffed and turned away tripping over... "Oh my god Tia! What did you do Bradford?" Her aunts bulldog laid out on the floor utterly motionless.
"I just gave him a new anesthetic I made up last week," she said pushing her thick dark brown almost black hair over her pale shoulder. "He'll be fine in a few moments."
"Tia? Ann?" Thomas said from the other side of the door before coming in. He was an awkward and lanky boy with brown hair and eyes and a sharp nose like his father. "Really girls, must you always be in the dark?" He opened up the curtains letting in sunlight that only made the girls scream and cover their eyes.
"If we wanted the window open Thomas, we would have opened it," Tia said sitting down.
"Look I know we haven't had a case in a while and that you are bored, but staying cooped up in your study isn't the best answer," he said.
"What else can we do?' Ann asked going to the closet and pulling out an outfit. "Solving cases is all we do. It's what we live for."
"Well maybe attending Blackwoods hanging will be something," he said.
"But once he is dead the fun will be over," Ann said holding up a short black peasant dress with puffy sleeves and matching pants.
"It's something," Thomas said.
"Thomas!" Ethan said walking into the room holding a letter. "You have entered the cave of the beasts and survived!"
"Shut up Ethan," Tia said. "What is that you have?"
"A letter from our parents," he said. "They said that they will be coming to London for William Hardlys and Joan Ferrars are engaged to be wed."
"Oh dear," Ann said. "Someone actually has feelings and intentions for Joan?"
"Awful isn't it?" Ethan said laughing.
"Marrying off the shrew?" Thomas said. "He must be as vain and heartless as she."
"But of course!" Ethan said. "He is a Hardly and everyone knows the Hardlys are the vainest family in England."
"A match made in Heaven," Ann said.
"A little lower Ann," Tia said making them go in a laughing fit.
"We will leave you girls to ready yourselves," Thomas said. "The carriage will be here shortly."
The girls quickly got ready. As Tia pulled her hair into a ponytail, M.J called, "The carriage is here."
"Well," Tia said looping her arm through Ann's. "This is the last we'll see of Lord Blackwood."
"I hope you are right Tia," Ann said as they headed down the stairs. "I hope you are right."
Chapter 3
When the carriage pulled up to Sutton's Prison, a guard opened the door and said to them, "Lord Blackwood has requested your presence."
"Us?" M.J said. "Why would he want to see us?"
"Really the ladies," he corrected himself. "He wishes to see Miss Brandon and Miss Darcy."
Ann and Tia looked at each other before stepping out into the hot and sunny air.
"We'll see you at the hanging!" Tia said before following the guard into the prison.
Ann braved the stench of sweaty bodies and waste as she and Tia walked down flights of stairs to the lowest floor of cells. Three guards surrounded a fourth who was contorting in impossible positions.
"Miss Chrisanne Brandon and Miss Tiana Darcy," Blackwood said sitting on the bench. "You came in time to see my finest work."
"What did you do to him?" Tia asked tensing up.
"Just a little spell." he said looking at his drawings on the walls.
"Magic," Ann scoffed. "One of the many reasons you are being hanged today."
"I told you once before Chrisanne," he said swiftly appearing at the door and grasping her hand behind her back. "There are things beyond your control Miss Brandon as I said before; this, is only the beginning. There are forces out there, forces that even your brilliant minds can not comprehend. I will rise again and you will be powerless to stop me."
Ann snatched her hand away from him and turned to face his aging pale face. His black eyes burned into hers. "You do not intimidate or scare us."
"Oh but you will be afraid," he said as Tia began to pull Ann away. "Very soon!"
"The quicker they put him to death," Tia said. "The better."
Deep down Ann wasn't thinking the same. She wanted to know what Blackwood meant. The forces and his rising. What was Henry Blackwood really up to?
"Lord Henry Blackwood!" the judge said. "You have charged with the murder of four young women, the attempt of a fifth and the practice of black magic. You are here by sentence to death. Are there any last words you wish to say?"
Blackwood looked at Ann and her friends, a cold wicked grin spread across his face. "Let the games begin."