“Chameleomorphs?” I speculated. The last time cats had gone missing around town, it had been due to the nightly snacking of a little shape-shifting creature posing as a house pet.
“I don’t think so.” Jackaby smiled. “This is where it gets interesting. The boys have seen lights in the forest—nothing constant like a campfire or a torch—strange lights, blue and flickering. I’ve never encountered one in person, but I am prone to suspect we’re dealing with a hinkypunk, or maybe even a will-o’-the-wisp.”
The gloom had lifted and Jackaby was himself again, enamored with the prospect of pursuing another nefarious fairy tale.
“Obviously a wisp isn’t solely responsible for Jenny’s murder, but their presence could explain what happened to Mr. Carson and the other kidnapping victims. Wisps are not physically intimidating, per se, but they are known for confounding their victims and leading them astray.”
“Jackaby,” I said. “I ran into someone on the way home as well.”
“Speaking of victims,” he rambled on, “I’ve also had a notion about Mrs. Beaumont’s killer.”
“It was the pale man, Jackaby. Pavel.”
“Yes, exactly. I believe our pale man may be a creature called a lilu. They’re mentioned in early Akkadian and Sumerian myths. Considered children of Lilith in some Hebrew texts. Gilgamesh was said to be the son of a lilu.”
“He’s a vampire.”
“No, I know that was your first inclination,” Jackaby said, “but it’s much too obvious. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and the obvious answer is never the right one. You see, a lilu, while much more obscure, is actually far more entrenched in—”
“He’s a vampire. He told me.”
“—entrenched in the history of . . .” Jackaby’s gears ground to a halt. “Who told you?”
“Pavel. The pale man. The vampire. We talked. He didn’t murder me horribly, no thanks to you. You were chasing after children at the time.”
Jackaby opened his mouth, but, failing to find anything to say for once, he closed it again.
“He’s not what I expected a vampire to be,” I said. “We used to tell stories when I was younger, and vampires were always, I don’t know, sort of elegant and refined in a dark, mysterious way. Pavel was just a shabby man in a black coat. His skin is even more unsettling up close. More than just pale, it’s sort of blue around his chin and eyes.”
“Suggillation. Not unexpected in the undead. Livor mortis sets in when the heart stops beating. You spoke?”
“Yes. And he’s our man, no mistake. He’s missing a fang on the left side.”
“That accounts for the single puncture wounds on his victims.”
I nodded. “He’s working for someone, and they’re not finished. They’re after another scientist.” I pulled out the sketch of Owen Finstern and handed it to him. The man was as unfamiliar to Jackaby as he was to me. I explained the vampire’s sordid business proposition and his promise to reveal everything that had happened to Jenny and her fiancé if we complied.
Jackaby absorbed the information with a heavy scowl. “Jenny can’t know about this,” he whispered.
“What? Sir, you can’t hide her case from her forever,” I said.
“This is the first solid lead anyone has uncovered in a decade and we cannot follow it. Informing Miss Cavanaugh would be a meaningless torment.”
I sighed. He wasn’t wrong.
This was Jenny’s case, at least it was supposed to be—but each thread seemed to burst into more threads, and it was becoming a challenge to keep them all sorted, let alone follow them to their conclusions. Howard Carson and the missing scientists were mystery enough, but then had come Cordelia Hoole and Miss Wick and her baby—not to mention Hammett’s cat and the sewer rats—and now whomever this Owen Finstern was that Pavel wanted us to find. It didn’t even feel like following threads at all anymore; it felt like tugging at one great tangled knot. “This is not how cases are supposed to go,” I said aloud. I had read enough mysteries by candlelight to have developed a sense of these things. Where were the puzzle pieces, sliding smoothly into place? Where was the hidden narrative gradually becoming clear?
“Oh?” said Jackaby. “How are cases supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. Logically. This feels like madness.”
Jackaby chuckled. “Beautiful madness,” he reminded me with a wink. “We’re still in the middle of our Monet, remember? Just wait. The picture is there around us. We will find our answers for Miss Cavanaugh.” He swallowed.
“I know you care about her,” I said.
“Of course I care about her.”
“You really should tell her that once in a while. Or just once, at least. Before it’s too late.” Jackaby glowered at me, and I let the matter drop. “What’s our next move, sir?”
“Get some rest,” said Jackaby. “Tomorrow evening we follow our own clues and investigate the woods to the west. It will have to be after dark if we hope to see the lights.”
Perfect. The city after dark wasn’t eerie enough. Of course our next step would be directly into the deep, dark woods.
Chapter Twelve
In the morning I awoke to a rhythmic pounding in my skull. The spot behind my temples was throbbing, and it felt like someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer. I sat up and blinked into the light. It wasn’t just in my head. Someone was hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer.
I dressed hastily and, as an afterthought, tucked the strange stone and the sketch of the inventor back into my pocket before I made my way down the spiral staircase. We would not be pursuing the villain’s quarry, but somehow I felt better keeping them on hand. The pounding noise had stopped as I descended to the ground floor, but I could hear the sound of frustrated voices coming from the laboratory.
“You can’t just expect me to stay sealed in my room while you do whatever you like whenever you like. This is still my house!”
“Exactly the point!” Jackaby countered.
I pushed open the door and peeked inside. There was plaster dust in the air and Jackaby was leaning on a long-handled hammer. Jenny hovered between him and a crumbling hole in the plaster about a foot in diameter. The bare bricks that now showed were chipped and fracturing, with daylight beginning to shine through their cracks. Another blow or two and we would be looking at the garden.
“You can go anywhere in this whole wide world, you insufferable man. This house is all I have! Are you actually trying to push me over the edge?” Jenny demanded.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, I am. Please step aside. Well, float aside. Drift.”
“Augh!” Jenny spotted me and threw up her hands. “He’s impossible! Abigail, will you please tell this man to stop demolishing my house! At least when I destroy my things it’s not on purpose!”