Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 13

"How do you know? Did you see it?"

He gave a pained smile. "The look on your face was all I needed to see."

"I'm sorry Josiah....I-I don't know what to say...."

"You don't need to say anything. It was nothing but a fool's dream, I should have known that from the start and....maybe I did know it, maybe deep down I always knew it, but I never wanted to believe it. I always hoped..." he said, his voice cracking. "I hoped I was wrong about her, you know? Stupid, naïve Josiah, eh?" He laughed, which broke down into a deep hacking cough that took a moment from which to recover. "She always said I was stupid. And maybe I was, but I never lost hope. Hope for a better life. Hope for peace, for her. For me. Hope by name, hope by nature. Stupid and hopeful."

"What did you hope you were wrong about?"

"I hoped that she wasn't truly evil. I hoped to blame the madness for everything. I wanted to believe she'd be forgiven – for all the things she'd done. Not guilty on the grounds of insanity! I mean, what sane person hears voices telling them to do these things?"

"Voices?" My chest tightened.

"Did you never notice? The way she used to tilt her head and listen?" He tilted his own head, mirroring an action I had seen Caelan do and I shivered at how uncannily like his sister he looked at that moment. "She said they spoke to her, these voices of hers, encouraging her to commit the most unspeakable acts, always whispering in her ear. But maybe it was all a lie. Just a way for her to justify the evil she did."

Save me. Save me. Save me.

Caelan's pleas filled my head as if she were standing right by my shoulder, whispering in my ear, begging for me to listen. Flashes of her petrified face blinked across my vision. The look in her eyes. The way she had reached for me as they took her.

What could I say to Josiah? I could have told him that I didn't think Caelan was evil. Okay, she'd done terrible things, of course she had, but something told me her madness was the work of something more sinister than her brother could possibly imagine. I'd witnessed her fear and it had been true and genuine and awful to behold. I could have told Josiah that the demons that had tormented her for so long had been real and not just the imaginings of an insane mind. I could have said that she'd been marked, maybe since the day of her birth, that she'd always belonged to them and had been nothing but another soul to twist, pervert and claim as one of their own. That had been the deal. This was just business, as Lucifer had so plainly stated and I think I was starting to understand just what the business of gathering souls was really all about.

What hope could I give him by revealing the truth? How would it help him to know that his sister, his poor mad sister, had been tormented her whole life for one reason only – so that she could belong to them when she died? Especially when it had been Josiah himself who had orchestrated her death.

And so I said nothing. I stood in front of him and said not a word but I felt the guilt of knowing the truth burning as if it was etched upon my skin like a tattoo.

"So what now, seer?" said Harper. "What of your contract with Megan?"

Josiah looked at Harper, narrowing his white eyes, a small dangerous glint appearing across the surface.

"I would like to keep her," he admitted with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "I like having her around and I can't say it wouldn't bring me a small sliver of satisfaction to piss you off, Cain." He sighed and slumped further down onto the pew, his gaze grazing over me. "But she did what I wanted of her and much more besides, in all honesty. The terms of the contract are fulfilled and Megan is free to go."