Page 56 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle
‘Should we be worried?’ he murmured, sending a pointed glance towards the kitsune.
‘Of that runt?’ Pitch shook his head. ‘Not in the mood I’m in.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘I will be when this is over.’ He touched Silas’s arm. ‘And we are back to ruining each other. Perhaps it’s your turn for the saddle this time?’
He strolled ahead, leaving a flustered ankou in his wake.
‘Good god, let this be a short visit indeed,’ Silas muttered.
He gathered himself and followed after the prince.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WEATHERBY LEDthem down the hall, and Pitch followed along, trying his best not to betray how utterly uncomfortable he was with the incessant scratch and pull at his back. Since they had walked through the door of the Fulbourn, it had stepped up a notch. Like salt water hitting open skin.
Edward was here, somewhere, and each step Pitch took towards him felt leaden. Unwanted.
They walked past Miss Grindel, who was busy on the telephone and trying hard to appear that she was not interested in the passing trio at all, on to a doorway which Mr Weatherby set about unlocking with a set of jangling silver keys.
‘Now once we are through to the ward, keep close to me and don’t wander off. It’s not safe.’
The kitsune smiled his disingenuous smile.
‘Very well,’ Pitch said. ‘Though I’m sure we will be quite fine.’
He thought he caught the edge of a smirk on Weatherby’s face as he fumbled with his keys.
The kitsune were a branch of the djinn family that Pitch had never had much time for. They tended to have little interest in the pursuit of carnal pleasures, which meant they were very dull company for an incubus. The yako were a type of kitsune known for their deceitfulness. Most took pride in being tricksters. Mr Weatherby had likely snaked his way into his position with tall tales and false credentials, seeking to see just how well he could fool the purebreds into believing he had the slightest experience in matters of the human mind. The yako enjoyed the sport of such falsities. It was not a huge surprise to find one playing his games here. But that was not to say it did not worry Pitch some.
If the elixir had waned, there was a slim chance the creature had fooled them into thinking he’d not noticed a daemon and an ankou in his office. But it was slim indeed; more likely they were still shielded by Satty’s brew. For now.
In the light of day, with his veins clear of champagne and cocaine and lust, Pitch was much keener to be cautious. The sooner they were in and out of this place, the better.
Weatherby finally had the lock turned, and he pushed the door open. The weight of it seemed substantial, with the slight fellow having to put his shoulder into the job. Another charade, for the kitsune were not without decent strength.
‘Come through quickly, if you wouldn’t mind.’
It did not take much guesswork to understand why Weatherby had them hurrying. The reek of the Fulbourn struck hard and fast: the cloying scent of unpleasant circumstance, the faint waft of shit and piss beneath the bite of sweat. And it was not difficult to see the cause.
The ward was horrendously overcrowded with all manner of unfortunates. It was nearly as crowded as the platform for the train to Cambridge, though here most of the people milling about were not so adequately clothed. The white cloth gowns that many of patients wore were in varying states of disrepair. There was a chap with terrible pockmarking on his face, whose gown only stayed on because it was hooked about his elbows. He stared up at them as they passed by, crouched like a farmhand trying to shit in the fields, scratching so hard at his bared chest that some of the welts he inflicted were bleeding.
Pitch eyed him with some empathy. The peculiar prickling at his own back grew more intense with every step. Even though the pendant watch was tucked away beneath lead, he might as well have been wearing it for all the good Silas’s box was doing here. Pitch longed to tear at his skin as this wretch did. What he wouldn’t do to just tear off his clothes and have someone scrub at him with the hardest bristles they could find. Maybe then the infernal combination of itch and crawling skin would cease.
A nurse hurried to the crouching man’s side, her face a mask of restrained fury.
‘Enough of that I said.’ She swatted at the chap with what looked to be a rolled-up newspaper. ‘Leave yourself be now, or we’ll have to get the cuffs out again.’
Pitch glanced back at Silas, knowing the dismay he’d find there. The ankou’s brow was furrowed beneath strands of his unnatural grey, his eyes narrowed. Only a daemon’s hand stayed him from marching over and demanding the exhausted-looking nurse leave the vacant-eyed man be.
‘Let it go, Mr Knight,’ Pitch murmured.
Silas, ever to the rescue. There had been no coincidence in the name Pitch had chosen for him.
He managed to get Silas moving on, but Pitch held back. The nurse had moved on to her next reprimand, and the crouching fellow was alone and back to tearing at his skin. Pitch slipped the earring from his pocket. The curve and weight of the stone was oddly soothing to hold and run a thumb over. And it wouldn’t get beneath the nails as flesh did.
‘Here. Distract yourself with this.’ He dropped Tilly’s ugly offering into the folds of the man’s drooping gown and hurried on, before the glistening he spied in the fellow’s eyes turned into a flood of godsforsaken tears.