Page 34 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

We made a hasty exit through the Theater, the cloud of magic dissipating, low conversations rising above the music being diligently played by the Button Men on stage, who were starting to droop in their chairs. She left me at the alley door.

“Stay here, I’ll get Ramsey to pull the car around. Don’t talk to anyone.” She demanded, her stony exterior repositioned, the friendliness dissipated. As she hurried away, I realized I’d forgotten my coat, but a mission to retrieve it would be ludicrous.

From outside, I heard a scuffling, muffled moans, voices cut off in protest, then the sound of a heavy weight hitting the ground.

These weren’t the salacious noises of attendees to High Tide.

I wanted to mind my own business, let Nightglass handle itself, but the recollection of my earlier run-in with some of the overeager staff compelled me to intervene.

Despite being inappropriately dressed for the weather, I jerked the door open, prepared to do whatever I had to, and found two men crumpled on the alley floor—one unmoving, the other struggling to roll onto his shoulder, finding it impossible.

This man’s face was a pulp of swelling, a river of blood pouring from his nose and the cut above his right eye.

Two of his fingers were broken, resting crooked at their joint.

The snow-dusted stone was dappled with vivid red .

But there was still activity, out of view in the stretch that lead to the lot where Thea’s driver would be waiting.

Less concerned about the fight since it was among Brom rabble, I nearly stepped inside.

However, the crack of knuckles against bone, coupled with a chillingly familiar low laughter, urged me to lean forward and glance around the corner.

Inspector Harrow had a third Brom by his throat, pinned to the ground, delivering ceaseless blows, as the weak hands of his victim raised uselessly to fend off the onslaught.

From my vantage point, the Inspector’s profile was fully visible, hard and expressionless as he grabbed the pitiful creature by his shirt and pull him to his feet.

It was Patrick, the man who’d ventured to spill my entrails on the street outside the train station. If he were here, it seemed he worked for William after all, and was paying for it.

Inspector Harrow’s bulk was significant compared to the Brom, and although Patrick had wanted to stab me to death, the clear imbalance sat wrong in my stomach. The Inspector was the obvious winner of this fight. There was nothing more to do unless death was the purpose.

Why shouldn’t it be ?

This nasty thought sat with me for longer than it should, but Inspector Harrow didn’t raise his fist, didn’t draw his gun. He muttered something indecipherable, and the Brom made a noise, a gurgling as he tried to push the Inspector away with the strength of a lamb.

The bowing of Inspector Harrow’s head came with a pang in my chest, a lurching as magic rolled from Patrick’s bruised throat, emerging as a cloud of crimson steam.

Inspector Harrow inhaled it, deep and complete, like anyone who’d been curse eating for a lifetime, but even as the dark smog of the polluted enchantment faded, the confiscation wasn’t complete.

The wretched undertaking grew grotesque as Brom’s body began to collapse in on itself, the muscles in the Inspectors neck straining as his head tilted back, jaw opening wider than should be possible without tearing his skin.

Yet he remained whole, flesh and bone contorting to accommodate the monstrous feeding, as a wisp of pure magic, bright and white as a falling star, trailed the dark tendrils of the curse.

It was the threads of the Brom’s soul being pulled free.

Annulment.

I should have let him drain the man dry, kept my mouth shut and slunk into the lounge. Ran home. Prayed Harrow never knew I was there. But this atrocity was more than even I could stand.

“Inspector!” I cried, voice hoarse from horror, stumbling forward a step.

The consequence of my intervention was immediate.

The Inspector’s bearing transitioned, the withdrawal of magic tapering as his muscles relaxed, his face rearranging to its natural state.

He released his grip on the Brom, not in startled guilt, but in the deliberate act of discarding something no longer useful.

The man slid down the brick, his legs failing to hold him. When he landed, he toppled into a small bank of snow swept to the wall by the gusts of wind blowing through the alleyway.

“Blackwicket,” Inspector Harrow rumbled, his tone and posture newly relaxed, satiated. “You’re always in the middle of every trouble I come across.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, finally turning his eyes to me.

I didn’t take his languorous posture at face value.

The power he’d imbibed was seething beneath the surface, hungry for more, and I was in his sights, trembling from the cold and writhing adrenaline.

I couldn’t run. The alley was too long. I hoped saving Patrick’s life was worth whatever I’d condemned myself to.

“You know,” he remarked, expression impassive as he took a menacing step in my direction, “I had a feeling you’d be coming out tonight.”

I broke, turning to lunge towards the staff entry, grasping the handle. But he caught me, turning me to face him as he pinned my body to the freezing brick wall with far less power than he was capable of.

Once again, I found myself trapped in the cage of his arms, but this time, it was he who posed the threat, and no one would shield me from the fallout.

Refusing to mewl and cower, I met his power with rage, fighting to free myself.

“You killed him!”

I reached to scratch his face, pulled my knee up to catch him anywhere I could, but I was restrained by the tight dress, whose slit tore with my effort.

Harrow took hold of my arms, binding them to my side.

My body was useless, and so was my magic.

In his current state, anything I gave the Inspector, curse or otherwise, would make it worse.

“No, no, no,” he murmured like a wolf to a rabbit it was about to bite. There was blood on his collar, a fresh bruise on his jaw where one of his victims managed a shot. “Patrick’s going to wish he were dead, but the rat’s breathing. Go on, take a look.”

I turned my head, finding the man shifting, grunting as he tried to sit up.

“Feeling sympathy for him? He was going to murder you, Eleanora.” Harrow’s lips were so near my ear I felt the warmth of his breath on my neck, the heat sending goosebumps rising on my cold skin.

My magic turned molten, pressing at the walls of my defenses, eager to be swallowed by the gravity of Harrow’s power, which I was only just beginning to fathom.

“Does the Authority know you’re a Curse Eater?” I spat, pushing against his chest. He relented, but only gave me enough space to meet his gaze, bright as gold glinting in sun-drenched water.

He smirked, the malice deliberate. “Oh, I’m something much worse.”

The timbre of his voice stole into the cracks of my shield, pressing them further open to expose the magic marrow.

There was a transformation, a physical shadow that emerged absent a shift of light, briefly distorting the planes of this face. Leaning close, he breathed me in, and new unwelcome heat mingled with my temper.

“You broke into my room. I could smell your magic everywhere. Too sweet for its own good.” His voice vibrated at my temple, “You enjoy snooping where you shouldn’t. Is that why you were here on High Tide? Looking for answers? Or for another experience entirely.”

“I’d never use magic that way,” I protested, and although it was true, my delivery was less emphatic, softened by the strange reaction I was experiencing to the Inspector’s feral magic, powered by energy that wasn’t his own.

“Just like you’d never murder a man,” he crooned.

Voices rose from the staff exit as people approached and the door rattled, but instead of drawing away, the Inspector yanked me to him, hand snaking beneath the torn slit of my gown, bruising the soft flesh of my thigh as he crushed his mouth against mine in a fierce, punishing kiss.

My hands were caught between us, leaving me with nothing to do but grasp his coat.

I tried to hold on to my will to resist, but it evaporated in the inferno my magic had created, and my lips parted.

Harrow deepened the embrace. He tasted of the earthy peat of whiskey mingled with sugar.

I no longer noticed the bite of cold; a furnace of something unwanted yet unstoppable roaring to life, fueled by sensations never present when kissing lovers past .

There was a brief silence as whoever stumbled upon us processed the scene, followed by a click of the tongue.

“Wow.” A woman’s voice, tinkling and melodic, slurred from liquor or magic.

“Easy, killer,” a man said, footsteps passing us. “They’ve got laws against that kind of thing in public.”

“Gosh, would you beat up any scum who went after me, Jimmy?” The woman warbled.

“Sure, honey,” her beau replied, as easy as saying he’d wash dishes, the sight of this violence commonplace. Their voices receded. “Tell you what, the bastard’s got some guts. Wouldn’t catch me messin’ with William’s girl.”

The last words prompted an intensification of the Inspector’s tactics, leaving me near senseless. As I prepared to humiliate myself further by easing into him, he loosened his hold and ended the kiss, remaining disrespectfully close.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded, attempting to infuse the words with disdain and deep offense, but they emerged with a trembling vibrato encouraged by the rapid beating of my heart.

“So, you’re William’s girl, are you?” The Inspector replied, and the question was spoken with a note of something I detested, as though he’d discovered an answer he’d been searching for.