The DPS had first become aware of her plight months earlier. She was being forced to work for the Mastiff, held by threat of violence against herself and her two children. The Dreadfuls had not yet been able to rescue her from the grasp of the criminal mastermind, though they’d tried.

They followed her down the alley. She was quick, likely because she was afraid. But if they could just talk to her, they might be able to help her escape the Mastiff’s clutches.

Serena disappeared behind the ruins of what had once been the back wall of the building. Stone and Fletcher followed her path. Barnabus cut through a gap in the wall. It was a risk, as the slightest bump could send scorched walls crumbling down. But he’d spent all his childhood slipping in and through dilapidated buildings—still did sometimes—and he felt certain this one would hold.

The shortcut set him beside Serena.

“Please,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

She stopped and turned to look at him. Barnabus had seen terror and despair in the eyes of many in this city, but seeing it heartrendingly bleak and bare in her gaunt face shook him. He’d grown too accustomed to the suffering that hung in the air of London; the reality of it seldom struck him with the force it did just then.

“No one can help,” she whispered. “He’s always watching. He’ll know.”

“I have safe places you could go,” he said. “Away from his grasp.”

She shook her head, walking away from him. “No one escapes him. Not anyone.” Fear filled every word.

“We can help.”

Her movements made jerky by panic, she backed herself into a wall. “I can’t. He’ll hurt my children.” She felt her way to the next haphazard gap, not looking away from Barnabus, her expression both fearful and pleading.

Then she ducked into the darkness between barely standing walls and disappeared.

“Ah, fly me,” Fletcher growled from behind Barnabus. “I thought for a moment you’d convinced her.”

“The Mastiff has her too terrified to even try escaping,” Barnabus said.

“I’d guess he’s behind the fire too,” Stone said. His gaze swept over the area, searching and studying.

Barnabus followed suit, but his eyes settled almost immediately on something that sent a chill down his spine.

With his cane, he pointed to the dilapidated wall. “I’d say the Mastiff is definitely involved.”

Scrawled on the wall in what appeared to be ash was a horrifyingly familiar warning: The Tempest is coming.

Bodies of Light

Bodies of Light

being a Fictionalization of Reported and Corroborated Mysterious Phenomena

by Dr. Barnabus Milligan, physician

Chapter Two