doing here?” he’d asked as Talent plopped his carcass on the seat bench opposite him.
The young man who served as Ian Ranulf’s valet looked back at him, unabashed even though Winston was certainly glaring a hole through his skull. “Ian sent me. I’m here to guard you.”
As if the boy were a bloody nanny. Winston had wanted to be outraged. Except, after the attack, Ian and his other nosey brother-in-law Archer had given Winston the one thing he’d desperately needed, a sense of control after he’d been ripped apart and pieced back together. Not quite good as new. But alive.
Since the day he could move without biting pain, Ian and Archer had cajoled, hassled, and finally harassed him into coming to Ranulf House to train his body. They’d taught him how to fight, both with hand and sword, thrown medicine balls at him, and made him lift sacks of grain until his scarred and battered body screamed in protest. It had been a systematic torture of the flesh that had put nearly twenty pounds of muscle on his weakened frame and had made him capable of taking down a man twice his size with one punch. Unfortunately, that didn’t help when the nightmares that haunted Winston were not of men, but of monsters.
So, having been unable to get rid of the pest, Winston was stuck with a pseudo-valet on a holiday that had made him more out of sorts than before. At the moment, Talent looked no less thrilled. His eyes scanned the sky, and a frown grew. “Something is off. Have you not noticed the sky?”
Indeed, for days now, the sky had been a boiling red sea shot through with streaks of black and vermilion. An ominous tapestry that sent a queer feeling through Winston’s gut. “The color is a result of Krakatoa.”
News reports had already come in that the far-away Pacific island volcano had erupted with cataclysmic devastation; half the island was gone in an instant. So great was the fallout that, even in Europe, volcanic ash filled the skies.
“See, now there is your first mistake, being a human and all.” Talent’s expression turned grim. “A volcano eruption is always cause for worry. For something always gets out.”
Winston pushed the brim of his hat farther down on his forehead as a wind flew over the docks and sent bits of rubbish airborne. Around them, fellow travelers clutched their own hats and hurried toward the grand gangplank that led them up into the Ignitus. “Gets out?”
“As in gets out of hell. A volcano blows, and all sorts of nasty beings use that crack in the earth’s crust to get to freedom.”
Yet one more thing Winston would rather not know. He pulled in a lungful of briny air and then grabbed his valise. “Not to worry, Talent. Should a messenger from hell come calling, I will do my best to protect you.”
Talent snorted. “And they say you don’t have a sense of humor, Inspector.”
Chapter Two
Like all the other passengers, Winston and Talent stood on upper decks to see the Ignitus get underway. The ship’s horn blew, long, low, and resonating with such strength that his flesh vibrated. As if awoken by the horn, the ship shuddered to life like a great beast coming out of hibernation. Far below, blue-green water began to froth and foam as the heavy paddle on their side of the boat started to spin. Most travelers were on the port side of the ship, wanting to see Calais fade away. Not Winston. He faced the sea, and where it would take him. Home.
He almost missed the subtle change in the air. At first, he thought the cold wind a sudden sea breeze, but the air had gone oddly still. The strangeness had him pausing. He glanced at Talent. The man’s eyes narrowed as he peered out over the sea. He felt it too, then. In the next moment, distinct cold surrounded Winston. Colder and colder, until his breath came out in a puff.
Talent backed up a step. “What the bloody hell?”
Winston opened his mouth to answer when a faint crackling sounded. Before their rather shocked eyes, a lacy ribbon of frost began to race over the rail. Winston snatched his hand back as white fingers of ice spread out in rapid fire, covering everything in its path. Around them came the sound of confused murmurs.
The crackling sound grew as the temperature dropped to frigid. And then the great ship groaned and shuddered. Winston and Talent both