Old Habits Die Hard.

Chapter Seven.

Several hours after Gabriel woke up in his bed sprawled and entangled in Kathryn’s limbs, who wasn’t a very peaceful sleeper, they both had gotten washed and dressed and walked through London town.

He had lay in bed that morning and tried to collect the memories of the night before. He had remembered what they had done to Lord Rhodes and so that he could pay for the acts he had committed on his wife.

They say he would surly do jail time and was being stripped of his title. He would get his comeuppance whilst his wife got everything else, including peace.

They had then abandoned the party to join what they call ‘the slums of London’ and entered many of the many darker and smaller bars. Those bars always held much more entertainment than any other party they had been invited to. They had then brought several people they had known; back to Gabriel’s where they continued to drink alcohol until the darkness outside was sliced open in a clean line by a pink haze of the coming sun.

And Kathryn was finally using the umbrella to block out the sun which was hurting her eyes from her hangover.

Gabriel held her up with her arm hooked in his feebly, both trying to walk with a respectable air around them but failing miserably.

”Is this what it feels like to die?” Kathryn muttered to him, as she cursed the sun. She continued to force Gabriel to continue walking through the streets without stopping to let people past, and forcing them to part like Moses and the red sea. “Today is the day that I will die.”

”From our consumption last night, we surely died a thousand deaths.” Gabriel winced at his pounding head. “And yet we continue to do it to ourselves.”

”Alcohol makes everything very fun at night, and very sad in the morning.” Kathryn stopped and frowned. “Like many of the men I’ve been with.”

Gabriel offered her a smirk. “Where is it we are actually going?”

”I left my shoes at ‘The shoe of the horse’ the night before, and I was just wondering if they would still be there if we called in.”

”What are the chances that they are? They would be worth a nice fee.”

They crossed a block of houses and continued to walk through the tidal wave of people, until they came across a large gathering of people at the bottom of the street where the ‘Shoe of the horse’ was.

”Their must be a fight or a bidding for those shoes.” Gabriel replied as their eyes widened to the large gathering at the bottom of the street looking up at the building.

”No, Gabriel. Look, there are police down there too!”

They heard the screams of people from ahead of them piercing through the warm day that chilled them, screaming out at whatever gathered their attention.

Their feet picked up haste until they were walking the average speed, as their curiosity pulled them to the building. 

“I wonder…” Gabriel asked, as they began to filter through the crowd in front of them to get a better view. “What are they staring at?”

Gabriel gripped Kathryn’s wrist and pulled her through the crowd smothering them and forced them apart until they reached the front of the large gathering.

Gabriel’s eyes groggily moved their way up the building slowly until his eyes rested on what had brought everyone’s attention. His heart skipped a beat, and slowed down as it stuck in his throat. This has to be a joke.

Kathryn gasped beside him and recoiled backwards against somebody’s body with her hand to her mouth. It wasn’t fake dramatics; it was pure horror on her face.

The police were trying to usher the crowd backwards, and Gabriel stepped over the splatters of sick on the cobbled streets under his feet where viewers had thrown up.

He stepped forward and kept his eyes on the naked body and feared he would also throw up.

”How could someone even do that?” Someone asked behind him, their voice so near yet so far away.

Gabriel looked at the webs of bard wire roped across the top of the building that was “The shoe of the horse”. The body was strung up in the thick wire and was half naked with his chest bare. The bard wire was pierced through his body in all directions and ripped out the other side to hold him in place, as if waiting for the spider to creep down from the corner of it towards him. Blood dripped down the top of the building like the cream on top of a cake. The wire was traced red from where it was pulled through the body to string the man up, as if it were decorations.

He felt Kathryn grip his hand and stare up at the face. “Do you know who that is?” She asked.

”Yes, it’s a servant from my house.” He answered her and his voice shook a little. She nodded her head, as she already knew.

It wasn’t just how horrific the body was displayed in public for all passer-bys, or how the bard wires pierced right through the man and held him up to the wall like the legs of a spider. It wasn’t the pierce in his neck that blood tricked down in two strings from where he seemed to have been bitten.

It was the words carved into the chest of the man with something sharp, until it was embedded into his skin as a scar that would never heal.

 What’s your poison, Dear Gabriel and Sweet Kathryn? The night is coming for you