A Cold Legacy

“Give the order for your men to cease fire, Miss Moreau.” He jerked his chin toward the upper windows. “Or I’ll shoot him in the head right now.”

 

 

“Stop!” I called without hesitation. “McKenna, Carlyle, hold your fire!”

 

One more errant bullet went off, and then there was silence. Smoke cleared as gunpowder settled, the night air thick with the smell of blood and sulfur and the moans of a few dying men.

 

“You two,” Radcliffe said, nodding to a few of his mercenaries. “Keep your pistols trained on this man. If he moves, shoot him.”

 

Blood pooled from a nick on Montgomery’s arm. His blue eyes met mine.

 

I couldn’t let it end like this.

 

Radcliffe wiped away a line of blood running down his nose, breathing hard. “Tell your staff to throw their weapons down here and come outside.”

 

I clenched my jaw. I might as well be ordering McKenna and the others to commit suicide. “Go to hell,” I spat.

 

“Wait!” McKenna leaned out the upstairs window. “We’ll do as you say. I’m sorry, mistress, but it’s our duty to protect you as much as this home.” She threw down her rifle and I winced. With Edward immobile, she and the others had been our greatest asset. Moira and Lily threw theirs down as well, followed by Carlyle’s heavy old Weston. The pistols clattered to the ground, where one of Radcliffe’s heavyset mercenaries picked them up.

 

“You can kill all of us and scour the house,” I seethed. “You’ll never find those journals.”

 

Radcliffe didn’t seem troubled by my threat. The front door groaned open and the servants filed out, defenseless. They lined up under the eave of the door.

 

Radcliffe’s jaw shifted as he looked among them. “Tell Lucy to come out as well. I want to see that she hasn’t been harmed.”

 

My stomach twisted. My own father had never shown such concern over me, not even when my life had been in danger. He’d only studied my fear like another one of his twisted experiments.

 

“She isn’t in the house. She’s hiding out because she doesn’t want to see you. You might as well leave, because you’ll never get her or the journals.”

 

“Leave?” His cold countenance was falling, and there was rage beneath it. “Perhaps, after you are dead.”

 

“I’m the only one who’s memorized the information. Shoot me, and the knowledge will be lost forever.”

 

Something about my words caught his attention. A strange look gleamed in his pale blue eyes. “You’ve memorized the science, have you? Suppose I were to kill Montgomery, then. Journals or not, you would have to use Frankenstein’s science to bring him back. All I’d have to do was watch over your shoulder. It’s your choice how we get there, Miss Moreau, but I assure you we’ll reach the same conclusion.”

 

I balled my fist, furious. “It’s Mrs. James now. Not Moreau.”

 

Radcliffe cocked his gun. “A difference I care nothing about.”

 

Time slowed, my vision becoming a series of flashes as panic took hold of my body. I couldn’t let it end like this, and yet I was helpless. There was the pistol in Radcliffe’s hand. His finger on the trigger. Montgomery’s eyes sinking closed, waiting for the bullet that would take his life.

 

Out of the fog lurched a figure. It seemed like a ghost at first, a shadow. I saw a flash of tweed cloak, pale white skin, as the figure threw itself in front of Montgomery’s kneeling body.

 

“Wait!” the figure cried. Only then did I recognize the voice.

 

Lucy.

 

The sound of a bullet ripped through the night. It was too late. Radcliffe had already pulled the trigger.

 

I stumbled back, stunned. Montgomery’s eyes flew open at the gunshot. Lucy rolled over, her hood falling back. Dark brown hair not so different from my own spilled out. My throat closed tight.

 

“Lucy!” I collapsed beside her.

 

“Papa,” she choked as a line of blood appeared at the edge of her lips. I pressed a hand against my mouth, attempting to seal in a scream, but it didn’t help. My desperate wail rang out over the moors as I scrambled close to her, touching her face, her hair, her cloak.

 

“Lucy. God, no!”

 

But her eyes weren’t on me. They were fixed on Radcliffe. His pistol clattered to the ground. His icy facade was gone now, and there was only horror at what he’d done.

 

“Lucy? No . . .”

 

“Papa.” She had to force words out as more blood trickled from her mouth, “I didn’t think you would shoot me.”

 

My eyes trailed down her body in horror. Her cloak and dress were already soaked through. The bullet must have hit an artery. Blood was everywhere.

 

“I didn’t know,” Radcliffe pleaded. He wasn’t the cold leader of the King’s Club now; he was merely a father watching his daughter die. “I didn’t see you. Lucy . . .”

 

Her eyes rolled back in her head. I felt frozen. Another part of me took over, taking in the scene with the objective eyes of a scientist. The line of blood at her mouth. The paleness of her skin. The way her chest had stopped rising and falling.

 

It was too late.

 

 

 

 

 

THIRTY-EIGHT

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