Page 5 of Kill the Beast
Brandy whined, as if to reassure her, but it didn’t work. Grief and guilt were already closing in, overwhelming her like they always did when she came to this place. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the brass plaque on the gate post.IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOSE TAKEN FROM US BY THEBEAST OFBUXTONFIELDS,JUNE 20, 1876.
The Beast of Buxton Fields. Before that it had been the Terror of Trottingham, and before that, the Monster of Mill Road,names piling up along with the bodies as the creature slaughtered its way across the Ibyrnikan Isle over the past two centuries. Most people called it That Thing—afraid that speaking any of its names would somehow invoke it—but to Lyssa it would always be “the Beast.” The horror that had shaped her life into something she hardly recognized, and still haunted her nightmares almost thirteen years later.
It was getting dark now, and someone would come along to close the gates soon. But it didn’t matter. Lyssa wouldn’t be leaving the same way she had come in, anyway. There were certain places where the border between worlds was thin, and crossing the threshold was easier. Buxton Fields happened to be one of those places.
She entered the park and followed the winding concrete path until she got to Eddie’s grave marker, the lichen-crusted stone kissed by dying light. It had been paid for by some charity or temple, and said only:EDMUNDCADOGANII, GONE TOO SOON.
Edmund. He would have hated that. Their father’s name. The sight of it brought the sting of shame to Lyssa’s eyes; it was evidence of one of her many failures as a sister. She should have been the one to pay for her brother’s headstone. She should have been the one to dress his mangled body for burial, the one to say the rights and cover Eddie’s eyes with the proper fare for the riverman, the one to toss the first fistful of dirt into the grave. Instead, she’d gone running after the monster that had killed him, and accidentally stumbled into the liminal realm that separated her world from Faerie. By the time she had come back again, he had already been in the ground for days.
Lyssa knelt before the headstone and traced the asphodel flowers engraved above his name with her fingers. Brandy sat beside her, pressing his warm body against hers.
“Hey, Eddie,” she murmured. “Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve come to see you.” She never knew what to say to him. Felt sort of stupid for saying anything at all. But it would be weirder to sit here in silence, her thoughts fluttering around uselessly in her head. Maybe hecouldn’t hear her when she spoke to him out loud, but he certainly couldn’t read her mind. “I’ve been busy, you know? Killing faeries. I still haven’t found the Beast, but it can’t hide from me forever.” She rubbed the scar on her palm, an oath made in blood. “I… I saw Dickie today. He said he was sorry about what happened. He’s all grown up now. Handsome. Works at the Kingmaker. Absolutely reeks of pomade. Lady Bright, you would have given him shit for that.” She laughed, but it died in her throat. Seeing Dickie today had thrown her. He was a reminder of all the things Eddie would never have—a grown-up life, a future stretching out before him. Instead, her brother’s body had long since rotted beneath the grass she now knelt on.
How different would things have been, if she hadn’t made him take her to the circus that night? Would he and Dickie still be friends? Would they all be working at that restaurant together, as inseparable as they had always been, complaining about their rich-asshole patrons over pints of stout once their shifts had ended?
She shook her head, angry at herself. She might as well wonder what things would have been like if her mother hadn’t died, if her father had never dumped them at the workhouse before fleeing the country and his debts. Those were things Eddie had forbidden her from ever thinking about. It was pointless to look back when the past would never change. Better to look ahead, to push relentlessly forward.Give yourself five minutes to break,he had always told her when things went bad.Then shove your pain down deep, where no one can see it, and keep going.
But it was hard not to look back, when she had dedicated her life to avenging the past.
She rubbed the scar on her left palm again. “I miss you,” she whispered, and leaned forward to press her forehead against the cold stone.
Oh yeah? What do you miss about me?She imagined him saying.Go on. Let me bask in your adoration.
There were a thousand things, of course. The countless invisible threads that made up the tapestry of a relationship: the languageof siblings, references only they understood, half-remembered jokes only they found funny. She missed his smile—not the grin he used on the people he was charming out of their money, but the one he saved just for her, for those quiet moments when the nights were so cold they had to huddle together for warmth, their breath fogging the air. The smile that saidyou’re a nuisance but I’m glad you’re with me.It was a smile Lyssa imagined all brothers bestowed upon their sisters like a blessing, and she wished now that she had answered each one withI love you, too.
She missed having someone to huddle beside in this cold, unforgiving world, someone who would share his warmth with her simply because they were family, and because he loved her despite her sharp edges.
Their friends would say they missed Eddie because he was funny, and kind. But he was so much more than that.
He was everything.
And the Beast had taken him from her.
“Lyssa?” a voice said behind her, and in an instant she was on her feet, her pistol in her hand, Brandy growling beside her.
Lyssa’s father stepped into the light of the gas lamp at the edge of the cement walkway. He was clutching a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a creased photograph of their family in the other, taken before Lyssa’s mother had died. Before everything went to shit.
“What are you doing here?” Lyssa demanded. She didn’t lower her pistol. “I thought you were in Westgate.” She had gotten immense satisfaction from seeing Warham’s worst debtors’ prison listed as the return address on his last few letters. Had gotten even more satisfaction from burning what were probably pleas to help him, to pay for his release, unopened.
“I got out six months ago,” her father said. “I’ve been visiting Eddie every week since, to make up for lost time.” He looked old and frail now, his hair graying, dark circles beneath his eyes, the blood vessels in his nose broken from a lifetime of drink. He was thin, too, the muscular frame he’d had as a younger man sagging, his shoulders stooped.
But he wasn’t in rags. He was dressed in the clothes of a clerk, as if he had just gotten off work. The realization released claws of cold fury in Lyssa’s stomach, inching their way toward her throat. He should be suffering, as his children had suffered. Sleeping on the street with discarded newspapers for blankets, as they had often done.
“You don’t deserve to mourn him,” Lyssa snapped. “It’s your fault he’s dead.”
That wasn’t entirely true. It was her fault, too. If she hadn’t goaded Eddie into trying to win the prize money for killing some faerie-made monster in a cage, he would still be alive. But their father was the reason they’d been that desperate to begin with.
Lyssa’s father seemed to fold in on himself, the bouquet drooping as his shoulders slumped. “I know.”
The admission surprised her, but she didn’t lower her pistol. Didn’t respond.
“I’ve been trying to find you,” he said, his voice quavering. “Since before they put me in Westgate. Since I realized your name wasn’t listed with Eddie’s on the memorial wall. I had almost given up when I saw an article about the Butcher in the paper. You may have changed your last name, but I knew it was you.” Those words were accompanied by a disapproving frown that only stoked her fury. As if he had any right to be disappointed that she’d wanted to cut all ties to him.
“How?” she demanded.
“Lyssa Carnifex, the most vicious woman in all of Ibyrnika, hunting the kinds of monsters that took Eddie’s life? It wasn’t too difficult to figure out. You always did have a temper, and when it came to protecting your brother…” He shook his head. “I sent letters to the post office box listed in the article, but I never heard back. I—”
“Save your stamps,” she said through clenched teeth. “I burn anything with your name on it unread.”
