Abhorrent Practices - Book 1

Chapter 6.2 - Life and Death (Scene 2: Fear of Heights)

Perrick stared in disbelief at the room he'd left less than ten minutes before. Slumped face-down on the floor was the body of a man in a frock coat, the colour of a rich plum wine. Beside his head were the pieces of a broken porcelain chamber pot.

"Alyss?" Her name sounded strange, and he realised he'd never said it aloud before. He knelt by the body, placing two fingers on the man's wrist. There was a pulse. He crooked his head sideways and peered under the four-poster bed.

"Alyss?"

No one had passed him on the stairs, so she had to be here. He stood and turned to the wardrobe behind him but, even before he yanked the doors sharply open, he knew he was being ridiculous. No one in their right mind would hide in a wardrobe! He shrugged as the back of the wardrobe stared back at him.

His eyes went to the writing desk. The sheets of paper were still there. The completed sheets covered in the elegant, sweeping strokes of Alyss's handwriting, outnumbered the blank sheets by at least two to one. Clearly, the man on the floor had disturbed her, but where was she?

He returned to the body and turned it over. A pair of round spectacles were stretched crookedly across his nose. One lens was cracked, and there was a large cut on the man's forehead, the surrounding flesh already beginning to bruise. He probed it with the tips of his fingers, and satisfied himself it wasn't deep.

Perrick slipped a hand inside the man's coat, and pulled several papers from the inside pocket. He recognised them instantly as letters of introduction bearing the seal of the Knights of Endurance. He wasn't surprised. The man had been following him all day, what else could he be?

He unfolded the letters and read the man's name from the top of the first page: Maldon Grayne. It sounded familiar but, for the moment, he wasn't sure why. It would come to him. For now, he had more immediate concerns. Where was Alyss?

Grayne had presumably come to this room, intending to question Perrick about Sandrine. Or perhaps he suspected Perrick himself of being a Ferryman. Either way, Alyss would have been understandably nervous. There were only a limited number of reasons why a man might visit a woman alone in her bedchamber at night and, after her experience in Tremayne's jail house, Perrick could easily understand how she might have leapt to the wrong conclusion.

He glanced again at the shattered pieces of the chamber pot, and realised he was smiling at Alyss's resourcefulness. Raising his eyes, he caught sight of the window seat, its cushions in disarray. Was there storage space beneath the lid? He marched to the far end of the room, and seized the edge of the seat with both hands. Nothing shifted. He pursed his lips, puzzled, and sat down on the edge of the seat, pushing the faded cushions to one side. As he did so, he noticed a small wedge of paper lying between two of the cushions; the same wedge, he realised, that he'd jammed into the window frame earlier.

Perrick pressed lightly against the window and it swung open easily, letting in a cool burst of fresh air. He raised one knee and knelt on the window seat, cautiously leaning forwards and craning his neck to see outside. Three feet below the window, a narrow tiled ledge ran along the entire façade of the inn. Below that was a drop of twenty feet to the ground.

At the far end of the ledge, to his left, he just had time to catch a glimpse of Alyss, ghostly in her white dress, before sweat began to prickle across his forehead, chill in the night air. A dizzying sensation swept over him, and he withdrew his head in panic, slumping heavily back down onto the window seat.

He clenched his eyes shut tight, and took a few deep breaths, waiting for the sensation to pass. Looking down had been stupid! He'd never had a head for heights! Wrestling his breathing under control, he leaned back towards the window, casting a cautious, sidelong glance along the ledge.