Chapter 5 |
Evie was pouring over their tattered maps of London, her fingers tracing its many nooks and crannies as she pushed articles and notes and strings here and there – making notes, leaving tacks. Finally, her fingers came to brush over one building in particularly before she gave it a confident tap and grinned.
"I've got to tell Mr. Green," she murmured under her breath just as the sound of someone crossing train cars into her lodgings met her ears. She turned and smiled even brighter when she realized that the man in question was before her. What perfect timing.
"Mr. Green, I was just about to come get you – you won't believe what I've just found…," Evie trailed off as she finally took in the image of her friend – harried and pale. "Are you feeling well? You appear as though you've seen a ghost."
"Not a ghost, but it will certainly haunt me all the same. You better come quick, Miss Frye."
"What's wrong, Henry?" She asked, stepping forward, ready.
"It's your brother. Something's very wrong."
Evie jerked back minutely, shock passing over her face only to be very quickly overwhelmed with a sneer. "Of course, my brother. What has he done now?"
She shot forward, roughly pushing past Henry to hop between the cars. In her haste, she missed the anxiety on Henry's face that had not subsided. She missed the fear, the concern, the warning. Instead, she leapt through the wind between the train cars and slipped into Jacob's car - and immediately gagged.
"What is that smell?" She asked, shocked as she looked for the source. If not for the smoky, burnt tang to it, she'd almost suspect Jacob of reaching a new level of disorder in his housekeeping. But it smelled like a fire and it was hazy enough for her to almost believe it. She coughed and waved her hand – both to dispel the smell and the smoke – and watched as a figure staggered across the other side of the car and harshly closed one blind, then another and another. And soon, half the car was cast in darkness.
"Jacob, what the bloody hell is going on?" She snarled, pushed to crudity once again by her darling baby brother.
"Evie," Jacob wheezed, and she felt ice slide down her back. No sly reprimand for her unlady-like language. No wild grin. No warmth. Just pain and fear – she didn't even have to know Jacob to hear it; he didn't even bother to hide it. And that terrified her. He was usually so loathe to express anything but aloof cockiness. What could have driven him to this state?
"Jacob?" She rushed forward.
"Don't!"
And she stopped, caught half in the light, half in the dark - midway to the shady form of her brother as he reached for a nearby desk to first steady himself, then lower himself to the ground. He was naked, she realized. Naked and smouldering.Literally. He… Jacob was the source of the smell. Even now, smoke was rising from raw, red patches of skin at his shoulders, along his forearms and back, across the bridge of his nose; like particularly bad sunburn on its way to being something worse.
"Don't be silly, Jacob, you're hurt!" She snapped and began again, only stopping at the utterly broken way Jacob whispered, "Please."
And so she knelt, to at least be on his level, and obeyed his wishes. For a long moment, she merely listened to him. The way his breathing came in a thin, reedy whistle. The panicked pace of it. And as she listened, she wormed a little closer, squinting as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness of the train car.
Jacob was curled into the corner at the far end of his desk, and she could scarcely believe a man as large as her brother – both in stature and in personality – could become so small. He had his arms wrapped around his knees and his nose tucked into his arms, but his eyes he kept on her as though afraid she might disappear. Eyes wide and frightened and shining oddly over his forearms. She was suddenly struck with a memory of him from their childhood, standing at her bedside with pleading eyes and a racing heart as thunder cracked across the sky.
She reached out to him, but he did not move. If anything, he trembled harder. Her hands fell slowly to her lap, and despite their recent fighting and venomous words, she felt a fire build in her chest. She'd burn the man that did this to him, she decided. She'd burn his house and cripple his legs and leave him to stew in the consequences.
"Jacob," she whispered. "What happened?"
He merely stared at her for a long while, his eyes occasionally darting to Henry still lingering in the remaining open doorway, only to cringe from its brightness and return back to her. He licked his lips as though parched – and he certainly looked parched – before croaking, "Shut out the light."
She looked at him, concerned as much as she was confused, before looking back to Henry from over her shoulder and nodding to him. At her sign, he did as Jacob asked and closed the door leading back to Evie's car. Evie stayed where she was as one by one, Henry closed the remaining blinds until finally, no light was left. A moment later, she heard the telltale snick of a candle flame's birth just as Henry lowered it to rest beside her on the floor.
"Is that better, Jacob?" Evie asked.
"Yes," he said, sounding as though a thorn had finally been removed from his side. "Thank you."
Evie searched for him in the darkness and once her eyes became accustomed, she could just make out the familiar planes of her twin's face. She waited for him to speak, but when he didn't she gently prodded.
"Jacob, what's going on?"
Her brother let out a stuttered sigh, as though his throat were constricted by some awful memory, and said, "I… I've made a terrible mistake, Evie."
A small, knowing part of her sneered, 'of course you did, why did I expect anything different?', but she held her tongue as she watched her brother muster the energy to continue. It wasn't the first time Jacob had made a royal mess of something – but it was the first time he had ever owned up to it. Or come to her about it, for that matter. She usually only learned of it after, like when Jacob had nearly singlehandedly taken down the Bank of England and the entire country's economy.
"Who did you kill?" She pressed, trying to restrain the "I told you so" from her tone. Evidently, her words struck a cord all the same. She saw the painful grimace that crossed her twin's face – the way he avoided her gaze again and hid more of his face. Shame; never had he shown it from something shesaid though. Something else was at play here, not simply their years old arguments about the Creed and how to best honor it. It was not her words he was avoiding or their arguments. It was something else. Something worse.
"He made me do it, Evie."
"Who made you do it? Do what? What's going on, Jacob?"
"Do you remember that dinner invitation?" Jacob whispered so softly into his arms she almost missed it, his eyes on the floor.
"Dinner invitation… From the leader of the Blighters? You mean Maxwell Roth? I thought we agreed you wouldn't go?" Evie said, stern chastisement slowly building despite herself.
"Yes, well… I did go. He wanted to take down Starrick. He had… He had really good information, Evie. I mean reallygood. Time tables, plans, maps, schematics, shipments routes, guard shifts – an intimate knowledge of Starrick's operations. Intel that would take us ages to discover on our own. It was like he could offer Starrick on a silver platter."
"And yet Starrick lives?" Evie asked.
"We were… we were trying to dismantle his infrastructure first. To inflict the max amount of suffering upon him while simultaneously disarming his reign so that when he fell, it wouldn't leave a giant power hole in England for his passing. I was trying to be mindful, for once - like you're always going on about." Jacob said, defensiveness slowly leaking into his voice. She hated that they brought each other to this point every time they spoke, but if there was one thing she was grateful for, it was that Jacob's defensiveness was also bringing back some of the familiar fight and energy she was used to from her brother. Seeing him wake up helped relieve some of the gibbering panic screaming in the back of her mind at the sight of him so terrified.
"With a Blighter, Jacob?! The leader of the Blighters at that?"
"I checked his intel, of course!" Jacob snarled, sitting a little straighter. "I'm not stupid!"
"And yet here we are."
That seemed to bring Jacob back down, suddenly aware of his own nakedness again. He clutched his arms about his body a little tighter. Henry found Jacob's blanket on the couch that more often than not served as her brother's bed and gently lowered it around Jacob's shoulders. Evie watched as her twin said a soft 'thank you' and clutched the blanket closed around him.
"Yes... Here we are," Jacob repeated softly, bitterly, and Evie realized with a soft pang of shame that her brother was waiting for her to rub her victory in his face. She looked away. Her reprimands had never been to shame him, but to keep him safe, to help him grow as father would've wanted him to. He could be so, so great if he would just listen. Think before he act… but perhaps she had driven him to this point, too. He was her brother, not her son – and Jacob was no child. She grimaced.
"It sounds like you two must've hit it off, if you've only run into trouble now. That letter came weeks ago," she said, trying to acknowledge that whatever due diligence Jacob had done, obviously something extreme must have happened that he couldn't have predicted – even if he shouldhave predicted it.
Jacob appeared to appreciate the bone he had been given, no matter how small it may have been. It was enough to keep their conversation civil, and that in itself was a victory.
"Yes, well… Let's just say we found out that there was a line he was willing to cross that I was not and leave it at that… I managed to stop him, but once that happened, I ended our partnership and things went decidedly downhill from there. I went to the Alhambra to make sure that the lines he had almost crossed could never be crossed again, but… he…"
Jacob let the sentence hang, silenced by a tremor.
"He what, Jacob? What did he do?" She urged.
Jacob lifted his gaze to look at her, and Evie couldn't help but notice the odd way that the small candlelight had lit his eyes – turning his normally dark browns into a hazy, dark red wine.
"You're going to think I'm crazy," he spat.
"No, I won't."
"No, you will. You won't listen, you never do. You'll just quote father at me and leave, so let's just cut to the chase, shall we?" She felt a familiar anger rise in her, only to simmer down as she realized - he was pushing her away. She pursed her lips and forced herself not to fall for the bait. Jacob hadn't bothered to come back to the train for days now. If he'd finally return, it wasn't for nothing. He was wounded, he was in trouble and he was afraid. He needed help. He was looking for help. And once upon a time, they would've helped one another without question or argument. What had happened to them?
It ended here, tonight. In some small way, her brother's current condition was a blessing. He couldn't run as he normally would, and wounded as he was, she didn't want to stir up a useless argument that would only lead to stubborn silence. She couldn't leave him like this. And they can't work together if they're constantly at one another's throat, so that just left one thing - trying to bridge that cavernous gap that had someone grown between them. Jacob had done his part in coming to her. Now it was her turn.
She forced her body language down into something more approachable, strangled down the concern that kept threatening to leak into a worried rage and said, "I'll listen. I know… I know we've been at odds since father's death. We both have a part to play in that – but I acknowledge that it means that I'm part of the reason we're at each other's throat. But you actually came to me for once instead of letting me find out from Constable Abberline or the papers so I'll do you the same kindness by listening. And whatever you say, Jacob, I promise – I'll take your word on it." She paused. "We may not agree on many things, but you've never lied to me, brother. I have no reason to doubt your word, only your actions."
It was a backhanded apology, but it was the closest she could get to "I admit I'm not an innocent little sunflower" without getting defensive and falling back into pointing fingers. She only hoped that it was enough, and not too late.
Jacob stared at her for a long time, then finally raised his chin free of his arms and said, "Maxwell Roth is a vampire, and I think he forced his curse on me as well."
Evie stared at him.
A vampire... A vampire. No matter how many times she rolled his words over in her head, she couldn't quite wrap her mind around them. Jacob may be a liar by omission, but he had never lied directly to her. If he was saying that vampires were walking the world as they knew it, at the very least he had been given reason to believe such a thing were possible, even if it wasn't. But after their countless missions with Charles Dickens... yes, some of them had been hoaxes - well, most of them - but there had been anomalies too. Things that even her brother couldn't explain away and he was the skeptic between the two of them. The world was a large, vast thing. Who was she to say it wasn't possible.
But in her thinking, her silence had stretched too long. She came back to herself just as a muscle in Jacob's jaw clenched – obviously stung by her lengthy pause and the shocked expression she no doubt was wearing. He turned away with a sneer and hid his face again, dismissing her.
"Forget it, I'll figure it out on my own."
"No," she said, finally regaining her voice. "No, Jacob, I'm sorry. It was… that's just a lot to digest. Just... Just give me a moment."
He glanced at her, like a kicked dog wondering if the hand being offered to him were friendly, but too anxious to find out. Thankfully, hope won out.
"Okay," he whispered finally.
"Okay," she whispered back. "Okay."