Chapter 14 - The Battle on the Slate Roof
The wind howled across the slate roof of the St. Jude Estate, carrying sheets of freezing rain that stung like ice against bare skin. Two hundred feet below, the black, violent waters of the fjord churned against the jagged granite cliffs.
Clara scrambled out of the top of the stone chimney, hauling Julian Vance out onto the flat lead section of the tower roof. She laid the old man down against the stone parapet, pulling her velvet coat over his chest to shield him from the freezing rain.
A second later, Daniel burst through the chimney opening, gasping for fresh air, his black silk suit soaked, his face smeared with black coal dust. He held the black leather journal and the amber vial securely inside his vest pocket.
They stood together on the high roof, two hundred feet above the sea, washed in the howling storm.
"We made it," Clara breathed, her rain-soaked copper hair plastered to her skull, her hand clutching Daniel’s arm.
"Not yet," a voice called out over the roar of the wind.
Standing twenty feet away, near the grand stone staircase that led down from the roof clocktower, was Victoria Vance.
She was no longer wearing her red velvet gown; she wore a heavy black storm coat, her platinum hair wild and undone in the gale, her hands holding the heavy Solingen steel dressmaking shears she had taken from the ballroom the night before.
Her eyes were wild, bloodshot, completely insane.
"You ruin everything, Daniel!" Victoria shrieked, her voice echoing off the stone turrets. "Your mother ruined my youth! Your father ruined my freedom! And now you bring this... this servant girl into my home to steal my fortune!"
She raised the heavy steel shears, their eight-inch blades gleaming in the lightning flashes, and charged toward Clara with terrifying, murderous speed.
"DANIEL!" Clara screamed.
Daniel reacted instantly. He stepped in front of Clara, thrusting his arm out to block the descending steel blades.
SLASH.
The sharp tips of the Solingen shears ripped through Daniel’s black suit sleeve, slicing a deep, three-inch gash across his forearm. Blood squirted out, bright crimson against the wet silk, spraying across the slate floor tiles.
Victoria raised the shears again, her face contorted into a mask of pure demonic rage. "DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!"
Before she could strike a second time, Clara stepped forward. She didn't flinch, she didn't scream. She grabbed the heavy iron pickaxe handle that had been left on the roof by chimney sweeps weeks earlier, swinging it with all the strength in her body directly into Victoria’s ribs.
CRACK.
The blow landed with brutal force. Victoria let out a choked, sickening gasp as her ribs fractured under the impact. The force of the blow knocked her backward across the slick, rain-soaked slate roof.
Victoria’s heels slipped on the wet lead tiles. She stumbled backward, her arms flailing wildly against the wind, her heavy black coat billowing around her like broken wings.
She reached out frantically, trying to grab the low stone parapet wall at the edge of the roof.
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Her fingers brushed the cold granite—and slipped.
With a long, piercing shriek that was swallowed instantly by the roaring storm, Victoria Vance tumbled backward over the edge of the parapet, plunging two hundred feet down into the dark, churning abyss of the fjord below.
