Malcolm studied her plain face and her darting eyes. She gave off a sense of almost breathless desperation. He could see fear in her face, but not just fear. Near panic. However, there was something else in her too. It was shame, a terror of having some secret exposed.
He rose to his feet and helped Jane to hers. He moved across the kitchen, stepping over the smoldering corpse, and retrieved his pistol from the floor. He then went with Jane out into the dark dining room, where the stink of death mixed with the acrid tang of electricity was a bit softer. He pulled a chair for her to sit. She perched on the edge of the seat with her hands clenched in her lap. Her head was down and her shoulders slumped under some unspoken burden.
Malcolm knelt in front of her, keeping several feet between them to prevent her from feeling improperly crowded by a man. “Miss Somerset, whatever that lightning was, it’s clearly nothing you need fear.”
“I’m not afraid, Mr. MacFarlane.” She didn’t raise her head. “The Lord will guide me. Please, sir, I asked you not to speak of it further.”
He began to reload his pistols out of habit. “I don’t pretend to speak to your faith or beliefs, lass, but I spent many a long hour inside a good Presbyterian meeting house in my youth. I have a healthy fear of our Lord. And I can say without hesitation that your ability saved our lives.”
Jane looked at him with a hint of gratitude and penitence shining in her eyes. “I would like to think so.”
“I’d say it was a miracle.” He snapped the Lancaster’s breech shut.
“Most would think otherwise.”
“Then they are damned idiots.”
Her eyes widened with scandalous shock, but then she smiled ever so slightly as if bemused by his vulgar ways.
He slipped the pistol back into his holster. “There are names for such that wield lightning. They’re called elementalists.”
Jane stiffened. “Elementa …?”
“Elementalists. Those who conjure fire, air, water, earth, or lightning.”
“Only the Lord may command nature.” She shuddered as if expecting a bolt of lightning to strike her from above. “Sorcery is an abomination before God.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Miss Somerset, but I’ll grant you it can be a great pain in the ass.”
Jane edged farther away from him. “Are you an … elementalist?”
“Jesus no.”
“Don’t blaspheme. Why were you here tonight?” Jane coughed to clear her throat against the disturbing odors in the room.
“I came to see you, I suppose.” Malcolm stood and reached out to Jane. “Although I am surprised to see you here at this hour.”
“I often can’t sleep and come here to work.” She stared at his hand. “Why did you want to see me?”
“Because last time I was here, you were generous to me for no reason other than you are a good person.” He touched the woolen scarf around his neck. “You gave me this, and I credit it a great kindness.”
Jane took his hand and rose, shaking her head. “I’ve had many say they feel a sense of spiritual warmth coming from my little tokens. I’m grateful to be able to do that for others.”
He gathered her bundles of blankets and flour. “Let’s go outside where the air is cleaner.”
She obediently walked with him out into the street, where she breathed deep of the relatively fresh London breeze, clearing her senses of the filth of the dead. The glow of the rising sun lightened the horizon. She started walking down the brick lane with the man quietly at her side.
After a moment, Jane regarded him. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if you had not been there.”
“I imagine everything would have happened exactly as it did. My guns did little.”
Jane was quiet again, but then asked, “Why was she here?”
“Seeking someplace familiar most likely.”
“No, I mean how.” Her face held fear again. “The dead only rise at the end of time.”
“Regardless of what the Bible says, the dead do rise, but they don’t rise by themselves. It’s black magic.”
“Do you mean the Devil?”
“I mean a devil, sure. But likely not Ole Scratch. There’s plenty bad to worry about before we get to Lucifer himself. Where is she buried? Where was she buried?”
“St. George’s Bloomsbury. She lived on the edge of that parish.” Jane paled until she looked like a wraith herself under the stringent streetlamp’s glow. She put a hand to her mouth in alarm. “That’s where that murder was a few nights ago. The same night you came.”
“Aye. I went there but couldn’t prevent it.”
Jane stopped walking, her face slack, her head filled with thoughts she obviously hadn’t expected to contend with this night. She stood at an unimposing door on a street that was once fine but was now in decline.
“Is this home?” Malcolm asked.
“I live here with my father.” Jane suddenly gave a dispirited groan and put a hand to her forehead. “What am I thinking? I have to go back. I must clean the place before the reverend comes in at noon. He mustn’t see that.”
She started to trudge back the way they had come, but Malcolm put a hand lightly on her arm. “Miss Somerset, I will go back and clean the kitchen.”