He picked up the knife. Helen tensed, but with a flick of his wrist he turned it, offering her the leather handle.
‘My lady,’ he said, the smile widening into a show of yellow teeth. He held out his left hand, palm up. ‘In the shape of a cross. We only need a few drops.’
She stepped closer. His eyes held a challenge; he did not think she could do it. She shifted her grip, positioning the point over the hollow in his palm. Could she cut into another person’s flesh? Even flesh as repulsive as Lowry’s?
‘If you want the journal,’ he said softly, like a caress, ‘there’s going to be pain. Mine and yours.’
She drew a deep breath through her nose — she would not be cowed by his creeping words — and pressed the knife into his hand. The tip met the slight resistance of skin, then bit into his flesh. She heard him hiss as she drew the blade down, blood welling around the quick vertical slice. She lifted the tip again, swallowing a sour taste of revulsion.
‘Don’t stop,’ he said.
She positioned the tip again. One swift slice finished the bloodied cross. He curled his hand into a fist and held it over the bowl, the trickle of blood hitting the bottom with a soft patter. He snagged one of the cloths and wrapped it around his hand.
‘My turn,’ he said, and held out his right hand for the knife.
Helen picked up the other cloth and wiped the blade. Delaying the inevitable, but she did not want him to see the tremor in her hands.
‘Are you afraid?’ His voice was silky.
He likes to get in your head.
She tossed the cloth back onto the table and met his strangely eager eyes. ‘I am not.’
She passed him the knife and lifted her hand. Only a slight shake. She turned it over, palm out.
He licked his lips — a flash of that foul, pale tongue — then reached over and took her wrist in a tight grip, bracing it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re too squeamish. You’ll pull away.’
‘I will not.’
‘We’ll see.’
He placed the knife tip against her palm and pressed it into her flesh. It slid through skin and flesh, a sting. But it did not stop. He pushed it deeper. His eyes were not on the knife, but on her face. Watching, savouring, as he drew the blade down her palm in a slow, burning line of agony.
She gasped and wrenched her hand from his hold, the knife ripping out of her flesh.
‘See,’ he said. ‘No stomach.’
‘I did not go slowly, like that,’ she said, cradling her hand, blood pooling in her cupped palm.
‘We should finish, or you’ll start healing and we’ll have to start all over again.’
Sweat crawled under her breast-band and down her back. Although every instinct screamed against it, she held out her hand. ‘Make it fast.’
He lifted the blade and brought it down for the crossbar, the slash quicker but just as deep, sending a jag of pain through her again.
Gritting her teeth, Helen snatched back her hand and closed it in a fist over the bowl. Her blood was brighter than his, the quick run of it sliding down the blue porcelain and pooling around his smaller offering. She grabbed the other cloth and wrapped it tight around the searing, wet sting.
He tossed the knife back onto the table. ‘Start saying the words,’ he ordered and picked up the bowl of goat’s blood.
Helen squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, past the pain, and found the Latin.
‘Procude vinculum ex terra ac aere,’ she recited. He poured the viscous fluid into the bowl. ‘Ex tellure ac caelo …’
As she continued to chant the words, Lowry poured in the sanctified water, then the milk, and stirred them with the switch, his heavy brow furrowed with concentration. The obscene amusement was gone, his mouth set into a tight line of determination.
‘Hoc vinculum in amore fideque procudendum est, Nam neque suspicio neque odium umquam approbantur,’ Helen finished. This bond must be forged in love and trust, For suspicion and hate can ne’er be just.
There was no love and trust here; perhaps the ritual would not work.
Dear God, she prayed, let it work or I will never find the journal.
He drew out the switch from the bowl. They both regarded the pale pink liquid, still swirling. The meaty, sour stink of it reminded Helen of the tanneries near Newgate Prison. She swallowed, her throat closing in anticipation.
‘Cross to cross,’ he said.
He unwrapped his hand and held it up, the carved symbol still oozing blood. She had to touch him again.
Helen unwound her own makeshift bandage. The two intersecting wounds sent jabs of agony through her as she held up her hand. He slapped his palm against her own, locking his fingers between hers, grinding the raw cuts together. She drew a startled breath, panting with the new influx of pain. He smiled, although his own breathing was short and shallow.
‘You first,’ he said.
She lifted the bowl, holding her breath. Two large mouthfuls. It was not so much the warm, sour, metallic taste that made her gag, but the thick, almost gelatinous feel of it around her tongue and along her throat. She coughed, caught between the reflex to retch and the determination to swallow. Her hand throbbed under Lowry’s brutal hold; the delight in his eyes bringing its own gag of revulsion. Every part of her wanted to spit out the liquid, wrench her hand free from Lowry. No, she must swallow it. She must have the journal. She must cure Carlston.
It took all her will, but the liquid went down. She felt it hit her stomach, bringing another heaving reflex. Heat flashed through her body, pushing out a fresh ooze of sweat. Was this how it should feel?
‘Give it to me,’ he said.
She held out the bowl. He cupped it in his free hand, lifted it to his lips and took a long draught, the muscles in his throat jumping as he fought the mixture down. He lowered the bowl, his eyes fixed upon hers in triumph.
The heat within her flared, as if a new coal had been thrown upon a fire. An oily weight squirmed across her consciousness: a swollen, crawling presence that left a slick of loathsome urges darkening the edge of her mind. A whispering rattle clicked and clacked in her head like dry bones.
Lowry laughed; head back, mouth open wide with the salacious sound. ‘You are so bright,’ he said, gripping her hand harder, squeezing more pain into their union. ‘So new.’
Helen shook her head. The rattle was in her bones. Her dry bones. A parched death rale clattered through her body, building into a high-pitched screech. Was this the bond?
Behind the screech, a deeper roar of obliterating heat, rushing through her veins and sinew. A deluge in her blood, forging its way through the breach of flesh and skin carved into her palm.