Chapelwood by Priest Cherie

Author:Priest, Cherie [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Leonard Kincaid, American Institute of Accountants (Former Member)

OCTOBER 1, 1921

It was only a small delay, only a small problem with the numbers. The woman’s face, if I squint at the slate board sideways, is long gone—replaced with the usual digits I’ve come to expect, upon awaking from sleep or from a daze (whichever is most convenient).

I used to work the math myself, and it was a laborious undertaking, if not unpleasant. Now the math does its own work while I’m not paying attention, and I wait for it to announce its results. It’s faster this way. It’s cleaner this way, though I wake up with chalk dust on my hands—or ink smudges, if I’ve run out of slate and resorted to paper notations. I wake up with an ache in my skull, and a sense of confusion that I can’t seem to shake—almost a motion sickness, except that it seems prompted by my very dreams.

Coffee helps, except when it doesn’t. Cigarettes help, too, though I’ve never cared for the taste of those. Whiskey doesn’t help at all, which is fine; it’s no longer as easy to acquire as it once was, and since it’s technically illegal, there’s no sense in drawing attention to myself by breaking the law—however minor and common the infraction.

So I stick to coffee and the occasional puff of tobacco, even if it’s not my favorite combination of stimulants. It looks ordinary enough, anyway. No one watches me sip or smoke and thinks it’s cause to alert the police.

I worry about that a great deal, these days; I worry about what will happen when the numbers outpace my ability to intercept them. What will happen if I am caught or captured? There’s no one standing by to take up this mantle of mine, and no one I’m likely to convince of its virtue. Any friends I once had have been gently ushered out of my life. What family I have left has scarcely noticed the irregularity of my contact—but then, I’ve never stayed close with any of the cousins or uncles who remained loosely in touch after the death of my parents, over a decade ago.

I could use a protégé. An assistant. I’d settle for a confidant, but my wishes amount to nothing.

I am a sentinel, standing between the fiends of Chapelwood and the world at large. Or does that lend me too much credit?

More likely I’m a minor inconvenience to them. Nuisance and vermin, idly tolerated (instead of exterminated) because their plans and methods are slow, and I do little to interfere with the long-term goal of their proceedings.

I hope that’s not the case. I hope these men and women I’ve killed have served some larger purpose in the baffling scheme . . . but in the end, do any of us? I’m sure I cannot say, and it’s a thought that keeps me awake more consistently than the coffee ever does.

• • •

And so the numbers come, and the numbers go. They don’t always send me out on the town with my axe, but that failing might be my own.

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