“You would choose death, then?” she asked. Was he truly so unhappy? But she knew the answer. It was written in the very lines around his hard mouth and deep-set eyes.
Talent sighed, a heavy lift and fall of his chest, and then ran a hand through his hair. His hand stayed at the back of his neck, squeezing it. “I merely wanted to know if you were happy.”
Why did he care? She could not ask, for she feared hearing the answer.
“For now, I believe that my life is a gift. The moment Adam raised me up from the pavement, my body was whole and strong in a way it had never been before. I am in possession of more than most women could hope for. Freedom, self-sufficiency, and the ability to protect myself physically. I’ll never grow old, never die, and yes, I realize that particular gift might not be welcome one day.”
She shrugged. “As do I realize that I’m still in my natural youth. I’ve not lived through the death of all that is recognizable and true about my human life. But I am well enough at the moment. I’ve friends, a position that makes me proud, and a home that is solely my own.”
Oddly, Talent appeared less and less pleased as she spoke. Did he want her to be miserable? Or was it that he found her views unbelievable?
Mary straightened and faced him head on. “Satisfaction, Mr. Talent. That is the prevailing emotion I feel when I consider the choices I’ve made.” She was satisfied with her life. Save for one thing. Jack Talent. The ever-present burr in her side.
He looked at her for a long moment, his expression giving no hint of his thoughts. And then turned away. When he spoke, his dark, smooth voice was thoughtful. “And the freedom you had to exchange for your life? Your arrangement with Lucien?”
Talent’s attention did not move from the window, yet she knew he was aware of her every move by the way his side tensed, as if waiting for a blow. He despised touch as well. Perhaps more than she, but he did not shy away from contact with her either. Before she could reconsider, she found herself speaking.
“It was an act between Lucien and me. From the very start.”
A change rippled over Talent, hardening his features into something resembling marble. Still he did not turn his head to look at her. “I have no interest in what lies between you and Stone, Chase.”
“Yes you do.”
His head whipped about then, his glare ferocious. She did not flinch. “Lie to yourself, if you like, Talent. But you cannot lie to me. You would not take every opportunity to get in a snide remark about my relationship with Lucien if it did not factor.”
Talent’s nostrils flared on a sharply drawn breath. “You speak of lies.” Suddenly he was closer, his broad chest nearly touching her. “Do not forget, Chase, I’ve seen your little show. Many times.” Mary wanted to wince then but held firm as his harsh words scraped along her skin. “You appeared to enjoy yourself…” His gaze wandered over her breasts. They were well hidden by her bulky cloak, but even so, her nipples tightened.… Quite well.”
“Appearances can be deceiving. You ought to know that firsthand.”
Talent’s head tilted as he continued to watch her. “Oh, I know. And yet I still find it hard to believe, having been witness to your breathy little sighs.”
Her cheeks turned tight and hot, yet she stood her ground. “I felt nothing. Feel nothing when it comes to carnal acts.” The sad truth was that Mary was broken in her own way. She did not yearn for a man, or even a woman for that matter. Lucien had quite despaired for her in that regard.
His gaze narrowed. “Then you are quite an accomplished actress.”
“Why would I lie?” That she kept her voice neutral was a miracle.
“Good question.” His lip curled in a sneer. “Better yet, why would you let Stone fondle you in front of the world if it was all an act? What could possibly be worth that sort of debasement?”
“Call it payment of a debt.”
He snorted at that. “Let it go, Chase. Your story doesn’t hold water. While I personally think the man is a useless ponce, I have eyes in my head. No man blessed with his looks need employ a false mistress. It makes no sense.”
And here is where it grew complicated. “That is Lucien’s secret to keep.”
“Ah, of course.” He stepped away, leaving her in the cold. “How wonderfully convenient.” His hand grasped the ledge of the roof. “And how very loyal of you to keep it.”
“He deserves my loyalty,” she snapped. “He saved me, after all.”
Talent went quietly still. His grip on the wall was bone-white. “Did he?” He didn’t sound surprised, or particularly interested.
“Yes.” It was she who came closer. “Do you know how I died?”
He swallowed hard but did not answer, his face going pale as if he didn’t want to know. How unfortunate for him, because he was going to know. She’d had enough.
“My mother was a courtesan. A poor Irish beauty who made the world believe she was an exotic French opera singer. Only she forgot that money fades along with beauty.” Mary glared up at his blank expression. “And when that happened, she offered me up for a neat sale to the highest bidder.”
Talent seemed to step back, but he hadn’t moved, barely breathing as she let her past out. “I ran from that room and into a pack of thugs who raped me in a back alley.” Even now, all these years later, the memory turned her stomach, made her blood ice-cold. “After the third one had me, I got away. I ran. Straight into a bloody gin wagon that crushed me into the pavement and left me where I lay.” Mary took a deep, cleansing breath. It wasn’t as simple as that. A world of regret lay between one action and its inevitable conclusion. She still remembered the pain of that regret with sharp clarity.
Sweat bloomed over Talent’s brow. Did her tale disgust him? Upset his narrow view of her world? She didn’t care. Not anymore.
“Despite… well, despite what they’d done to me, I found myself wanting to live.” She laughed shortly and without humor. “Devil of a thing to realize once one is already dead.” Mary held Talent’s gaze. “Lucien Stone offered me life anew. A home. A way to live as few women are allowed to do, with autonomy. Do you think I’d find the small act of being his mistress for show so much of a sacrifice?” It hadn’t been. Not in the beginning. Not even now did she regret it. Only in regards to the way this man thought of her. A man who hated her, and who, for some reason, she could not let go of. “So, yes, I am loyal.”
His eyes searched her face. “What do you want from me? Why do you tell me this?” It was a harsh plea, as if he’d like nothing more than to leave her, but stayed out of pride.
“I do not like working in strife! I go about, walking on pins and needles for fear of upsetting your tender feelings, but I’m rather tired of it all now. If you do not approve of my choices, that is your misfortune. But I suggest you buck up or get your arse off this case, because I am not going away.”
His expression was murderous, his teeth bared, his eyes flaring bright green. Then he looked away, his shoulders so tense that they visibly bunched beneath his coat.
Mary sighed, her anger deflating as she glanced back at Darby’s window. “I liked you. When we first met,” she clarified when he turned sharply. “You seemed a good sort. Until you began to look at me as though I were something found under your boot.”
Talent cursed beneath his breath. “I liked you too, when we met. Enough to believe that you did not deserve such treatment. But you let it happen. You say it was an act? Fine. Then either you liked the attention or you have no understanding of your own worth. Loyalty ought not come at the price of your reputation, Chase.”
A shiver started at the base of her spine and worked its way violently upward. Her throat hurt, and her head pounded. He didn’t understand. And yet he’d just voiced the very reasons why she had left the GIM and found her own way. She was prepared to sweep by him in a grand gesture, but he ruined it by brushing past her instead, his expression fierce and on the street below. Mary stopped. “What is it?”
“There.” H
e pointed to a shadowy figure slinking across Darby’s back lawn. And then Jack Talent leapt off the roof.
“Damn it!” Mary shouted. She was his partner, which meant she had to follow him.
Jack hit the ground running, his booted feet flying across the pavement and his coattails flapping. Ahead, the bastard in a similar coat raced off. He was a fast fucker. As if he knew it, the fiend threw a taunting glance over his shoulder at Jack.
With a growl of annoyance, Jack increased his speed. At the periphery of his vision, he saw Chase launch from the rooftop, her graceful arms windmilling as she arced through the air, suspended for a flicker of time. His heart stilled, his pace faltering just enough for him to take note of her landing safely and racing after them, her hair loose and streaming like a bronze banner.
Then he let himself go. The man had pulled ahead, weaving through the light pedestrian traffic as if it weren’t even there. Jack cursed as a strolling couple got in his way; a shoulder bump and spin around a rotund matron slowed him down further. Jack leapt over an apple cart and almost missed the man darting across Grosvenor Place. Jack kicked an overturned basket to the side, lest Chase run into it, and the peddler shouted at him.
Jack focused on the man running away. Whoever he was, he carried the scent of something acrid like ozone or burning chemicals and the sickly taint of rot, not a recognizable scent for a supernatural, but he was certainly not human. Not with that speed or agility. He was a black blur as he headed for Victoria Station. Jack dug in and, with a burst of will, drew nearly close enough to reach the man’s coattails. But the fiend jerked right, crossing into the rail yard.
Both men leapt over one set of tracks and then another. Devil take it if a foot got stuck between the ties. The man glanced back again and grinned. “Come on, then,” he shouted.
The strange friendliness of it, as if they were playing a game, had Jack seeing red. And when the little bastard vaulted a parked strand of freight cars, Jack did too. And then skidded to a halt when he came face-to-face with his quarry. For a moment they simply faced off, each lightly panting from the chase. Tendrils of smoky fog snaked over the gravelly ground, coiling as if searching for prey. The cold air permeated Jack’s clothes and snapped him to attention.
The man before him was of a similar height and build. A long, fitted black topcoat covered his body, and was a bit too similar to Jack’s regulator coat for comfort. His features were indistinct, plain and forgettable. The strands of hair that peeked from beneath a black bowler were a watery color between brown and blond, his eyes an even brown. Whether it was his true appearance or not, Jack could not tell.
“Who are you?” Jack asked.
The man’s smile was a slow curl. “A friend.”
A cold, ill feeling crept down Jack’s spine. The man was unbalanced. Surely. “Friends don’t usually run away,” he said, as if any of this behavior were normal.
“You were the one chasing me,” the man pointed out idly.
“True. What is your name? What were you doing at Lord Darby’s home?”
“Looking for you.”
In the distance a set of light footsteps grew closer. Chase. With all his being, Jack didn’t want her anywhere near this man. “What do you want?”
The man’s eyes darted toward the sound of Chase coming close. “A bit of privacy is in order.”
As if doing his bidding, the fog about them grew. Colder, thicker, smelling of gravestones, the preternatural mist swarmed in, obscuring the yard. A low growl rumbled in the back of Jack’s throat, and a set of razor-sharp claws tore from the tips of his fingers. The man before him drifted in and out of view—a pair of glittering dark eyes and a smiling mouth.
“I want to help.” It appeared as if his irises flickered silver like a shaft of sunlight hitting a mirror just before the curtains are drawn. Or perhaps it was an effect of the fog, for he moved his head slightly and the irises were simply brown. “Vengeance.”
Jack’s heart gave a leap as he slowly circled the man, keeping him in his sight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Yes you do.” The man glanced toward the car, barely visible in the consuming grey, and his grin grew off-center. “Discuss it with Miss Chase as well, shall we?”
No. “I don’t need your help,” Jack snapped. His heart raced now. Who the hell was this devil?
“Oh, I think you do. When you let yourself relax, it all comes back, doesn’t it? Hanging helpless as the blood is sucked from your body—”
“Shut up,” Jack snarled, his skin crawling with revulsion and shame.
But the man paid no heed. “You feel their touch every night, don’t you?”
“Shut your fucking mouth!”
“I have the list. You want vengeance.”
Jack balked. He had the names? Temptation, cold and clammy, coiled around his heart, “Why would you want to help me?” His words bounced around in the air, brittle and thin.
“We live by the blood. We die by the blood.” It was the Nex motto. But it also was one of the things they’d said when they had stolen Jack’s blood.
A shiver of disgust lit through him. “You’re Nex?” Shit and piss but he hated their fucking round-robin ways. None of them ever followed a straight thought.
“Didn’t say that.” The man’s eyes grew cold and opaque.
“And if I did want this list?” The Nex had strung him along far enough. If this was the only way, then so be it. He would finish this, and perhaps, just perhaps, he’d feel some sense of peace.
The man chuckled slowly. “Blood for information.”
“No.”
The man shrugged. “Then you don’t get your revenge.”
A cold wind blew down the tracks, swirling the thick fog and lifting the ends of the man’s hair.
Impotent rage held Jack in place, but he knew it could also send him over the line into true damnation. “You’re copying the Bishop’s kills. Why?”
“Your kills, you mean.”
It took all Jack had not to flinch. This man knew far too much about him.
“Needed to get your attention,” the man said when Jack remained silent and waiting.
Jack let out a harsh sound of annoyance. “A knock on my door would have done the trick, mate.”
“Yes,” the man agreed with a laugh. “But it also got the attention of the SOS. And one cannot forget the nice supply of delicious shifter blood.”
Jack could smell it on him now, the shifter blood running through the fiend’s veins.
“If you have shifter blood, then you don’t need mine.”
“But yours isn’t quite like theirs. Is it, Jack Talent?”
Jack growled low. One leap and he could tear out the bastard’s throat, rip his heart free. But if he missed, he’d be no closer to the end of this. Did the man really have the list?
Another hot wash of shame coated his skin at that desperate thought. “Are you the one responsible for making those crawlers?”
“You killed my pets.” The accusation was petulant. “They were merely trying to bring you to me.”
Jack snorted. “Then they ought to have been more polite about it. Instead of trying to burn me and my partner to a bloody crisp.”
A cold sigh escaped the man. “It was a failure. The shifter blood I have is unfortunately weak. Didn’t control the change properly. But yours? ‘Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.’ ”
More Bible verses. Lovely.
Fangs showed when the man smiled. “And I want a taste.”
Jack laughed without humor. “You think I’ll give you mine after a statement like that?”
A calculating gleam filled the man’s eyes. “I think you want revenge so badly, your teeth ache.”
Piss and shit. Jack should not listen. He strained against the words. But that dark, haunted place that lived and breathed within his shattered soul soaked it in and cried out for more. To feel peace. Could it ever happen? The man had the list.
/> Swallowing against temptation, Jack took a step back. “Not interested.”
“Liar.”
Again came the nearly vibrating need to hunt. “I won’t give you my blood.”
“Oh, I think you will.” So very assured. A slow smile spread over the man’s face, and a glimmer of fangs appeared behind his lips. “It would be a pity if your secrets came out in the open, would it not?”
Hell. Bloody, bloody hell.
“I suggest you think hard on that before you refuse me. I’m quite comfortable continuing on, exposing your underbelly as I go. I’ll have that blood. One vial. In return, you can have the list of names.”
“That’s all you want?” Jack did not believe that for a moment.
“One hour,” was the answer. “Paddington Station. Look behind the Pears baby, and you’ll have your names.” He stared at Jack with something akin to mad pride. A strange look that had Jack turning cold.
Jack gritted his teeth. “If you think—”
“Talent?” Chase’s worried voice rang out from the other side of the freight car.
Shit. Jack glanced between the man and the direction of Chase’s voice. A mistake.
The crunch of gravel echoed. Everything in him screamed to go to her and draw her close. It was too late. An evil gleam lit the man’s eyes.
“The lovely Miss Chase,” said the man. “Shall we say hello?”
Before Jack could move, the man gave a great push to the side of the freight car. It rocked toward Chase and then started to fall.
It all happened too quickly. Mary had been standing beside the train, walking toward the sound of Talent’s voice, when the whole car came hurtling toward her. Then he was there. She made a grab for Talent, and he for her. Their hands collided, a messy tangle, then he was throwing her down, with the massive freight car following him. Her head cracked into the rough gravel, and his face smashed into hers. An instant later another blow came, so hard and swift that it knocked the air from her lungs. Talent grunted, his breath whooshing too, but then his body, flat against hers, arched and braced, as if forming a human cage around her.
Shadowdance: The Darkest London Series: Book 4 Page 13