Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) Read Online Free PDF Page A

candles on the mantel of a burning house. Even seasoned warlocks had been known to go mad from time to time. Will remembered the servants’ tales of his own father.
    Tonight’s negotiation hadn’t been any different. Phantom scents, mysterious noises, alien sensations. Effects without causes. There had been a thump, as though something heavy had landed on the floorboards. And then Will’s own voice, crying out in abject terror and mindless panic. More strident even than the scream that escaped him when Marsh severed his fingertip. The relentless pain made rational thought impossible. Was there another William Beauclerk somewhere, one who had experienced something worse than a severed finger? Witnessed something more dreadful than a Third Reich with superhuman soldiers?
    Surely that was impossible.
    12 May 1940
    Walworth, London, England
    Agnes’s wrinkled red face traced drool on Marsh’s shirt as he held her to his chest. He pressed his nose to her soft scalp and inhaled her scent, tickling himself with wisps of silken baby hair. She smelled so clean. So fresh, so wonderful. Like family.
    “Our poor daughter will never know proper sleep,” Liv whispered, “if you keep taking her from the bassinet.”
    She came up behind him, slid an arm around his waist. A swollen breast brushed against his elbow. She winced.
    “I’m making up for lost time,” he said. “I’m so sorry I missed this.”
    He’d been in France when Liv had gone into labor. Based on the time listed on Agnes’s birth certificate, he’d been crossing the Channel with the Frankensteined gypsy girl when Agnes was born. He’d been doing his job. So why did serving the country feel like infidelity? The guilt clung to him tighter than a second skin.
    Congratulations. It’s a girl.
    He’d rushed to the hospital as soon as he found Liv’s note. But not before indulging in a fair bit of panic after finding the front door open, Liv gone, and the bedroom in disarray. The prisoner had found her way under his skin.
    What was she? What were those hideous wires for? And how on God’s earth did she know about Liv and the baby?
    Liv said, “Agnes might forgive you. Someday.”
    “Someday?”
    “Depends on how stubborn she is. Whether she takes after her father.”
    “I’m not stubborn.”
    Liv laughed into his shoulder. Long auburn hair draped across her face, tickling his arm. She hadn’t put her hair up since returning from the hospital. “Mulish, then.”
    “That’s better. And you? Am I forgiven?”
    “There’s nothing to forgive, love. You’re here now.”
    He said, “I’ll do everything I can not to leave again. I promise.”
    “I know.”
    Marsh brushed his lips across Agnes’s scalp. He leaned over, gently cradling his daughter’s head as he set her down. Her arm twitched, and her face scrunched into a new pattern of wrinkles while he covered her with the baby blanket. It was pink and embroidered with jolly elephants.
    Liv laid her head against his shoulder. They stood together, quietly watching their daughter sleep.
    “You should be resting,” he said. He took her hand, led her to the den.
    “I’m not infirm, Raybould.” She clicked her tongue. “You men. I had to tell Will the very same thing.”
    Will’s scream kept echoing in his ears. He couldn’t forget the feel of the shears, the sensation of the handles in his fists as the blades crunched through flesh and bone.
    But the Eidolon had been so much worse: the way it studied him like an insect under a magnifying glass, the intangible pressure of its presence, the titanic sense of malevolence, the skin-crawling dread. Marsh wondered if he’d ever sleep again. He drew a long, shuddery breath.
    Christ. What a bloody wretched evening.
    “Just because Will is Agnes’s father,” said Liv, “doesn’t entitle you to be so jealous of him. You should be bigger than that.”
    “Yes, you’re right,” Marsh murmured. Then something she’d said snapped him back to the present.