The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance Read online

  The white kitten was still on the loose, but she felt safe enough to take off her jacket in the warmth of the kitchen. The bag of four captured bludkittens had been dispatched to King’s College in the heavily gloved hands of one of Maisie’s lodgers, a college lad who studied the blud mutation and had nearly fainted with joy to see their sharp teeth poking through the burlap. Frannie was still too worried to leave Filbert alone in her room, so the poor moggy had been dropped into an old birdcage on the counter with a deep bowl of mush and a brightly colored cloth mouse she had bought from Reve and filled with catnip from her garden. He seemed happy enough to be trapped, and she was free to focus her attention elsewhere.

  A knock sounded on the back door, his voice calling, “It’s Thom.”

  She opened it for him, and he pulled her into a warm embrace. She smelled smoke and soap in his still-wet hair when he handed over his bowler. It looked nice, hanging on the hook beside her shopping bonnet.

  “Here’s your treat, little love,” he said, placing a pretty blue box in her hands. “Did you miss me?”

  “I did.”

  He’d brought half a dozen cakes, although she’d expected only one at the dear cost. Admiring each confection, she placed them on the family porcelain, smiling prettily at the sugar flowers and butterflies. She nodded at one of the chairs, and after hanging up his jacket, he took it, inhaling the steam rising from the pie with a look of pure bliss.

  “It’s been years since I’ve had proper cooking. Wrappies and fireman’s food can’t beat such a fine spread.”

  Pleased and blushing, Frannie cut him a thick slice of pie. He poked a fork under the buttery crust and smiled as if he’d found a long-lost childhood friend.

  “Eat up, man. I know you’re hungry.”

  “Aye. Fighting fires and kittens is tough work, I’ll have ye know.”

  He dug into the food as she poured the wine. She was overcome with a pleasant sense of comfort, of rightness. For the first time in forever, her shop felt like a home. She’d only managed a few bites of piping-hot pie interspersed with shared smiles when the shop door banged open, sending the birds into a frenzy. Thom had his dinner knife in hand; he turned the blade subtly as he flung aside the curtain and stormed into the shop, blocking Frannie’s view.

  “Ah. Frannie’s plans. She likes ’em big, stupid, and armed, I see.”

  The words were slurred and bitter as Casper all but fell in through the door, a bottle in each hand.

  “God, man,” Thom said. “Ye smell like vinegar. Can ye even make it to the stairs?”

  Casper stumbled into the kitchen and put one bare hand on the table, nearly knocking over a spoon. “Didn’t even know I was gone, did you?”

  “I didn’t,” Frannie said softly.

  “Ran out of my preferred medication. Should be good for the rest of the night. Or however long it takes a man to drink himself to death. Or worse.”

  “Have some self-respect, Maestro,” Thom said. “Man with soft hands like that ought to keep them covered, out on the streets. And drinking so much will rot your mind.”

  Casper chuckled, then snorted, then full-on laughed as he staggered up the stairs. “S’gonna do a lot worse than that.” He turned around and made an exaggerated bow. Wine sloshed out of one bottle to puddle, thick and dark, on the floor as he staggered up the first few steps.

  Frannie and Thom shared a loaded look that reminded her more than a little of her parents’ wordless conversations over Bertram’s head. When Casper yelped and fell down the stairs, Thom shook his head and went to pick up the fallen man, with Frannie on his heels. She couldn’t help thinking that Thom’s arms were getting quite a workout this week, what with carrying people up and down staircases. Then again, that had to be part of his job, saving Londoners from their burning homes. Her heart went warm, thinking about the first time she had seen him, in his uniform in the middle of her shop, right when she needed help the most. He was a good man, to be sure.

  Casper wouldn’t let go of his bottles, and they clanked against the walls as Thom carried him over one shoulder and into Bertram’s room to deposit him on the unmade bed.

  “Casper and I are going to have a wee chat, lass,” Thom said to Frannie with a meaningful look. “Best go downstairs and have a bite, eh?”

  Frannie watched Casper trying to kick off his tall boots without letting go of his bottles. It hurt her heart, how far away this man was from what he should have been. But she knew well enough that nothing she could do or say would help him find his path. She could take in lost things, but she couldn’t always save them.

  “Feel better, Casper,” she said softly, heading downstairs and hoping that Thom could talk some sense into the world’s greatest musician and possibly worst lodger.

  She closed and locked the shop door, the birds still shrieking after Casper’s dramatic entrance. Back at the table, she poked at her pie and sighed. She’d never liked it cold, and she wished the birds would calm down so she could relax. After some more salad and a bit of bread with butter, she took a sip of wine and pulled the plate of cakes closer. Each one was the size of her hand, round and beautifully iced in pastel sugar frosting. With a mischievous glance at the stairs, she selected a lavender cake and nibbled the edge, savoring the way the sugar melted on her tongue. When she was little, her mother had always bought her one cake, just one, on her birthday. She had always shared it with Bertram, but the first bite had been her own.

  “Cheers, brother,” she said, taking an indulgently deep bite.

  She chewed slowly, eyes closed, considering that the only thing sweeter than this cake was the man who had brought it for her.

  The strangest feeling came over her. Frannie’s eyes closed, and she slumped to the table before falling to the ground.

  “Go on. Go back to her. I don’t want your pity.” Casper pulled the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and swigged, a trickle of red slipping past his lips and staining his shirt.

  Thom made a swipe for the bottle. Despite his extreme drunkenness, Casper was faster. “Too bad, lad. You’ve got my pity. That’s about all you’ve got right now, too.”

  Casper’s face twisted up in an ugly sneer that he’d never shown Frannie. “I suppose you think I should buck up and be a good little tame musician?”

  Thom snorted. “I think you should buck up and be a man.”

  “I pay my bills. I do my work. What else is a man supposed to be around here?”

  “Sober, for one.” Thom managed to snag the unopened bottle and put it on the floor. When Casper grabbed for it, a firm hand landed against his open shirt, shoving him back on the bed. “Sober. Helpful. Useful. Sacrificial, if sacrifice is needed. Without a heart, you’re not even human. You’re in that poor girl’s brother’s room, sleeping in his bed. Ye look just like the boy, from what I understand. She took you in when you needed it. Try bein’ a little kinder, aye? Try giving her some good memories instead of just dredgin’ up bad ones.”

  “She wants nothing to do with me.” Casper sat back against the headboard. “And why should she? I’m disgusting. Not even human, as you say.”

  “You can change that. You just have to want to be good. Here.” A thick finger poked hard against Casper’s chest. “You’ve got a hole in your heart. I know how that feels. Just find something to fill it with besides wine, aye?”

  Casper hung his head, wagging it back and forth. “You want to know about loss?” His voice was harsh and ragged. “Let me tell you something about loss.”

  Before Thom could respond, there was a crash downstairs, and he leaped to his feet. “Frannie? Who’s there?”

  There was no answer but the continual din of the birds, their cages rattling and their voices shrill and panicked. Thom rocketed down the stairs to find Frannie fallen on the floor, the white bludkitten inches away and sniffing her, its mouth open in disgust. A lavender cake was broken in pieces on the stones beside her hand, and her eyes were bugged out, their pupils pinpricks that rolled back and forth.
He leaned close to listen for breathing, but all he could hear was the birds. One persisted in screeching, “A cracker, miss! I do say!” while a familiar voice called, “She’s a pretty lass, a pretty lass.”

  Casper slid down the last three steps and leaned bonelessly in the kitchen door. “What’s up, buttercup?” he asked, eyes closed.

  “Lass, what’s happened?” Thom asked urgently, his accent going thick with fear as he tried to sit her up. She had a pulse, but her body was rigid, the muscles hard and quivering, and her eyes unseeing. Of course, she couldn’t answer. Her teeth gnashed together, lavender foam dripping from her lips.

  “She okay?”

  Casper’s voice slurred low, and Thom gritted his teeth. It was fruitless to wish the musician was the one writhing on the stones so that Thom could turn his back and walk away. But it was Frannie, his Frannie, so he took her stiff hand in his and leaned close.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he murmured. All his training in the navy and with the firefighting brigade hadn’t prepared him to help a wee slip of a lass with an unknown ailment, gasping on the ground. He had been helpless and far away when his wife perished, and he’d be damned if he’d watch, dumb and crying, as Frannie died.

  “What’s wrong?”

  With a roar, Thom shouted over his shoulder, “I don’t know, ye drunken fool!”

  Staggering across the room, bottle still clutched in his hand, Casper upset Filbert’s cage before knocking a goblet off the table and falling to his knees at Frannie’s side.

  “Poison,” he muttered, wobbling back and forth. “Best fetch a daimon.”

  He fell over, already snoring, and Thom stood up and kicked him, just a little. “Bloody bastard!”

  With one last look at Frannie and her insensible lodger, Thom ran for the back door. Some soft instinct made him close it quietly so Frannie’s animals wouldn’t have any further reason to panic.

  He’d never knocked at Maisie’s door, and he knew it was the wrong time of night, but he would have woken Saint Ermenegilda herself if there was a chance of saving Frannie. It was dark in the alley, and a bludrat raised a warning hiss as he knocked hard enough to split skin on his already callused knuckles. Every second felt like an hour as he waited for an answer.

  “Who is it?” an old woman croaked. “No vacancies!”

  “I need Reve,” he shouted back. “Frannie’s been poisoned. Send a daimon, I beg you!”

  Before she could open the door or argue, he was gone, slipping around the high brick wall and through Frannie’s door, to kneel by her side as the birds in the pet shop continued to batter against their cages. The noise was maddening, but none of it mattered.

  “Just hold on, lass,” he whispered. “I need you.”

  She was starting to turn blue, her legs kicking feebly and her eyes rolling to focus on Thom, almost pleading. When he couldn’t bear another moment of waiting, the back door opened silently. Reve crept in, a large bag at her side. The daimon’s skin was corpse-white tinged with lavender where it showed beneath her robe, but as soon as she saw Frannie, angry shades of red and black shivered over her like a fire at night.

  “I know zis poison.” She spat into the fire and knelt to dig through her bag. “We do not have much time.”

  “Can you cure her?” Thom asked.

  The daimon didn’t look up from the shadows that seemed to gather around her bag. “That depends, Thomas Maccallan.” She held out a dagger. “What will you give to keep her alive?”

  17

  Thom looked hard at Reve and took Frannie’s hand again.

  “I didn’t know ye were that kind of daimon, Reve.”

  She smiled, or at least pulled back her lips in something like a smile. “I’m not. But ze poison came from a dark daimon, and their spells are best fought with love’s blood.”

  He held out his arm. “Take what’s needed. I’ll no’ miss it.”

  Reve scattered herbs on the stones and laid out a crucible before handing Thom her knife. “A finger will do. Just a few drops.”

  He loosed Frannie’s hand, her arm standing rigid where he left it. With a quick cut, his blood dripped into the stone bowl, and he squeezed it until Reve nodded.

  “That is enough.”

  He was too busy holding Frannie’s hand to see what went into the daimon’s potion, although he did see her crumble a bit of the spilled cake into the blood. He also noticed, as time strung out, that she snatched up the close-creeping white bludkitten and stuffed it into her bag. Its cry was cut off abruptly, and it didn’t appear again. Finally, she took up a tiny silver spoon and carefully dribbled the liquid from the crucible into Frannie’s open mouth.

  “It will take a moment to seep in,” she explained, sitting back on her haunches, her tail wavering over her head. “This is Mr. Sweeting’s work but poorly done. I know ze smell of his magic. I believe someone bought his poison too cheaply and applied it too hastily.” She nudged the spilled cake with the spoon. “Where did the cakes come from?”

  Thom looked up, his eyes red and wet with tears. “I brought them.”

  Her eyes went dark. “When? From where?”

  “Today, from the bakery on High Street, at her request. I stopped on the way here from work.”

  Reve stood, a graceful, fluid movement. Her slender fingers barely touched the plate as she leaned close to sniff the remaining five cakes.

  “Sprinkled on top like sugar,” she said. “Who else has been in ze house?”

  “Since I arrived, only me.” He jerked his chin at Casper’s splayed form. “And him.”

  Reve stalked across the room to where Casper lay in the shadows. He barely twitched as she leaned in close enough to kiss him, one hand on his chest. “Still bad news,” she muttered. “And getting worse. But he is a different kind of poison.” She glanced at Thom. “Stay with her. Don’t let go.”

  The daimon’s skin shivered over with shadows until all Thom could see of her was the glint of candlelight on her eyes. Moving like a stalking cat formed of smoke, she crept toward the door to the pet shop. The creatures within were still calling, fluttering, barking, scratching, and fighting against their cages. Reve disappeared through the door, dissolving into the darkness. Thom turned to Frannie, hoping beyond hope that she would move, or splutter, or blink. Anything.

  But nothing had changed. Her eyes were going dry, and he reached out to close them, hoping to lessen her pain somehow before dragging her into his lap and stroking back her copper-colored hair.

  “I’m still here, lass. I’m not leavin’ ye. Just hold on.”

  In the pet shop, the birds took their chaos up a notch. The cages banged against one another, heavy wings slamming into the bars as the crows and parrots screamed en masse. The corgi pups took up a mournful, otherworldly howl. Thom wondered, for just a moment, if they could feel their mistress dying in his arms.

  From the darkness of the pet shop, barely audible over the clamoring animals, there came a crash. Along with the sound of shattering glass, Thom heard a voice call out in anguish, shrieking in a language he didn’t know.

  “Was that a terrarium?” Frannie whispered, and her shoulders shifted against him. He ignored the shop to pull her closer, tucking her head under his chin.

  Thom sent a silent prayer of thanks to Reve, to Ermenegilda, to the gods he had once cursed, standing before his own charred doorstep with a necklace of gray pearls in his hand.

  “It doesna’ matter, little love,” he crooned. “We’ll get ye a new one.”

  “What’s happened?” She tried to sit up, but her limbs were still weak.

  “Bide a moment, love. Don’t try to stand yet.”

  “But the shop,” she said, struggling harder. Another glass crashed, and a parrot mimicked a lady’s scream. “The birds—there’s something wrong in there. The bludkitten? I have to go calm them. That poor old parrot will have an apoplexy.” Her legs flopped against him like rubber, her fingers twitching.

  Thom chuckled, giving her a squ
eeze. “There’s more important things just now.”

  “Thom. Why can’t I stand? What’s wrong with me?”

  “You were poisoned.”

  “By whom?” Frannie asked, her eyes searching his.

  Reve stepped into the doorway, clutching a dark cloak hiding a limp figure. She tossed it onto the floor, and it rolled, unconscious, to face the fire.

  “By zis miserable excuse for a daimon.”

  18

  It was a while before Frannie could stand on her own and even longer until the slight daimon in the cloak regained consciousness. By that time, the pathetic thing was bound to a chair with ropes from Reve’s bag that shimmered strangely in the firelight. With her hood pulled back, she seemed strangely small and starved, her skin smooth and slightly iridescent, like a fish’s belly.

  “Who is your master?” Reve said, and the smaller daimon shrank back, turning her wasted face away. More softly, she added, “If you tell me, I may be able to free you.”

  “Master Kind.” The daimon’s voice was high and quavering. “Bought me off Sweeting with the song of his heart. Told me he loved me. Promised he’d set me free if I did as I was told.”

  “What were you told?”

  “Kill that.” The daimon gestured to Frannie with her pointed chin, and Thom moved forward menacingly, his hands in fists at his side. Reve gave him a look and shook her head, and Frannie pulled Thom back with two still-weak hands around his wrist.

  “Tell me exactly what you were told, word for word. I will know if you lie.” Reve’s tail curled over her head and was poised, waving like a snake, inches from the other daimon’s eye.

  The daimon didn’t flinch, only narrowed her eyes at Frannie. “That one”—she cocked her head at Frannie—“stood in the street over that one.” They all turned to follow her stare toward Casper, who slumped against the wall behind them, looking half-asleep and mid-nightmare. “Master Kind pointed and said, ‘Kill that man, and I’ll set you free. Don’t be seen or leave behind anything that can be traced to me.’ ” The daimon shrugged narrow shoulders and looked down, pained. “I been trying. I been following everywhere. I been failing. It’s awful hard to kill. I was waiting, this time, to make sure. That spell was hard bought.”