by M. L. Desir
Before exiting the pub, Colin glanced at where the man had been. Nowhere in sight. Apparently, he’d left.
Colin led Carrie outside. The London fog hung thick and glowed a sickly yellow. They walked without speaking, holding hands like lovers. He walked faster toward his destination: the end of the street where a single gas lamp left enough shadows to hide them. It had been one of the places he had returned to when he and his clients didn’t wish to be seen.
The damp night had no drunken disturbances, no brawls, just a dark and narrow, filthy street. Was this how the Whitechapel murderer planned his evening kills?
Colin didn’t want to know.
He slipped one of his hands underneath the weight of Carrie’s long hair, and with the other, he feathered his fingers along her throat. She smelled of some cheap perfume, beneath that her own sweat. “You’re warm, Carrie. So incredibly warm.” He kissed her lightly on the neck, which caused her to laugh.
“You’ve had yer kiss.” She grabbed the collar of his frock coat and pulled until he was face to face with her.
“No. Not done.” He nuzzled his nose into the crevice of her shoulder and neck, trying to inhale the warmth, the very essence of her through his nose. His teeth tingled. He grazed his tongue along the top row and felt the tips of his fangs slipping out of the gums. “Please,” he whispered, trying to catch his breath. “Please, sweet, sweet Carrie. Just a minute longer.”
Then he lost control, and only after he shoved her against the wall did she begin to struggle. He covered her mouth when she opened it to scream. He widened his eyes large with pleading, begging her to be still, but in this darkness, her human eyes couldn’t see him. She breathed hard and with every gasp, her heart beat quickened.
He stared into her eyes, wondering how Gabriel could calm his prey so they felt no terror. Colin released her and told her to leave. She stared into his eyes, a puzzled expression on her shadowed face. She brushed past him and ran away into the night, the heels of her shoes clattering loudly.
He wrapped his arms around himself.
In the darkness, footsteps echoed on the cobblestone street. At first distant, the sound gradually became louder. Had Carrie come back?
“Who’s there?” Colin called out into the dense fog and darkness. A tall, broad-shouldered man approaching him from the shadows, and in his hand, he carried something heavy . . . a bat? “You there! Speak!”
A reply came immediately, but not welcomed or expected. He saw it coming toward him in a blur before it bashed against his head—a swinging club—against his head again and again, until he surpassed pain, beyond unconsciousness.
* * *
Nikolai slipped onto the piano bench next to Mikel.
Gabriel stood behind them and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mikel,” he said, “I need a word alone with Nikolai.”
Mikel cast him a contemptuous look over his shoulder before rising. “As you wish, my Prince.” He strode out of the room and down the hallway.
Gabriel didn’t care where he had stalked off to. So long as it was out of hearing. He sat on the bench beside Nikolai. He placed his fingers on the piano and expected to hear a torrent of music-less sounds, but instead as he continued to play, a tenderly beautiful melody rippled forth. He recognized it for a Chopin etude, one of his favorite pieces. The notes cascaded over one another in a passionate outburst of frustration and rage.
“I didn’t know that you could play,” Nikolai said.
“We’re in agreement then. But it’s no grand surprise. I have a gift, Nikolai, like most Chosen, but mine is more special,” he said. The sad, moving etude ended, and his fingers danced into a Chopin nocturne. “You see, for each Chosen that I Enlighten, I can make their gifts my own.”
“You mean you steal their gifts.” He chuckled. “Then how come Mikel can still play piano?”
Gabriel shook his head. “You’re mistaken. I merely copy their gifts, and your power is one that I’d very much like to acquire.”
“You mean what I did to Seth,” he said bluntly.
“Yes, the way you cast him out physically and . . . the seal. But it has to be your choice. Your decision. I shan’t force you.”
Nikolai rested his hand on one of Gabriel’s hands. “And if I say no.”
“Then I shall have to—” He couldn’t finish speaking. He suddenly felt cold. So cold. He could feel the iciness soak into his bones, delving deeper into his veins, mixing in his blood. It chilled his soul. Gabriel slammed his hands down on the piano keys, and an ugly chord followed. Fear gnawed at him, but not his own. He could taste the bitterness of it in the back of his throat, gagging him. Gabriel swallowed hard, fighting the sudden impulse to vomit.
Colin, his mind screamed. Colin! He reached out in his mind through the invisible threads that connected them to one another, stronger than steel, as delicate as spider webs.
Where are you? Where?
An answer came, faint, but quickly.
Whitechapel, Commercial Street. Please hurry, Master Gabriel. But forgive me when you do.
A trap. Without another word, Gabriel rose from the piano bench and simply vanished. Nikolai’s surprised gasp was the last sound he heard within the house. He materialized outside and ascended into the foggy sky.
* * *
Gabriel landed on the cobblestone in a misty, empty alley. A single gas light feebly illuminated the area so that the deserted street teemed with shadows. Colin stood beneath its glow. Gabriel moved toward him, but stopped several feet away. He had to be cautious. Nikolai never said how long his protective seal would last. He had to make sure of the figure’s identity. Colin or one of Seth’s illusions?
“Master Gabriel.” Colin moved toward him.
Gabriel raised a warning hand, stopping him from moving any closer. “Stay where you are.”
He froze, wringing his hands together. His entire body trembled. His hair, the side of his face, and shirt were matted with drying blood. “I’ve been attacked, Master Gabriel. The bruises, yer wonderin’, why there aren’t any. They’ve healed.” He brought his hands to his face and wept.
Gabriel just looked at him, waiting for him to morph, for Seth to throw off the illusion, and when Colin didn’t change, he closed the space between them and awkwardly wrapped his arms around the boy. As soon as he touched him, he felt a sensation that spoke of familiarity, possession. Absurd. And yet, he knew, just knew that this was Colin. His Colin.
His servant stopped crying. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming even though you knew it was a trap. Thank you.” He stepped back out of Gabriel’s embrace and stared at his shoes as if refusing to look him in the eyes.
“What happened? I need to know,” Gabriel demanded.
Colin’s eyes widened. “You forgive me then?” he asked, voice mixed with happiness and confusion. “Just like that? No questions? No demands! Bloody hell, I’ve betrayed you, Master Gabriel!”
Gabriel sighed. “Was it Seth who did this? Did you see him?”
“No, it was I,” said a male voice.
Gabriel spun around. The man stepped out from the shadows, smiling, an ebony walking stick in his hand. He appraised the man’s face, made of high cheekbones and an angular jaw line, and wanted to take great pleasure in breaking it. His long cloak fanned out around him as he stalked toward him. A red pin glittered in the lamplight, it looked to be made from a well-cut ruby and fashioned into a five-petal rose.
“I’ve been watching you for some time,” the man said.
Gabriel merely stared at him, the gaslight hissing sounded louder.
“Even before the murder at the whorehouse,” the man went on.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Edan,” he said with a little bow of his head.
“Waal,” Gabriel drawled. “That doesn’t tell me much.”
“I was
n’t sure if you wanted the truth or the apparent truth.”
“I want you dead.”
The man chuckled.
Colin stretched forth his hand, and a ring of fire formed around the man, who stopped laughing. “Not so funny anymore, is it?” Colin threw his head back in a burst of laughter, eyes shining in the darkness. “Shall I burn him to a crisp?”
Gabriel felt a jab in his back and glanced over his shoulder. Another man, stocky as he stood tall with piggy eyes, and sporting a brown derby hat, had appeared behind him. On his coat, he wore the same jeweled pin. A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth.
“Tell your lad to stop,” he commanded. He jabbed him again with a bat.
Gabriel smiled despite his annoyance. Why was this man not afraid of Colin’s power? “But this has become so entertaining. My lad could light your fag, if it pleases you.”
“Master Gabriel.” Colin’s voice choked with terror.
Gabriel looked to Colin and saw that a third man had appeared behind him, noiselessly, like mist, as if he had simply materialized from the scattered shadows. No, this one is no mere man. Gabriel sensed that he was like him: above mortals.
The stranger held Colin close to his chest, and brought a knife to his throat. He smiled in a taunting manner. His eyes, like a gazelle’s—large and black—seized his. Gabriel stared back at him, transfixed.
“Come with us,” the first man said.
Gabriel smiled. “I don’t think we have a choice.” He raised his hands in mock surrender.
“No, you don’t.”
He walked deeper into the alley that branched off into a labyrinth of other streets that crisscrossed apparently with no purpose, no logic. Over the past three hundred years, the East End may have had developed rapidly, but it seemed more like a regression. He remembered how it used to be merely villages clustered around the City walls and along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities. Now it had devolved into a cesspool of death, disease, and decay.
The new stranger followed behind him, still holding onto Colin, knife at his throat. As Gabriel stepped into the carriage, his mood lightened by Colin’s curses to his captor.
“You fuckin’ pig! Go to bloody hell.”
Annoyance had replaced Colin’s fear.
Gabriel smiled.
* * *
Mikel kissed the prostitute’s eyelids. She went by the name of Marie Antoinette and considered herself what her lukewarm English people called a “Frenchy” with her style of clothing and her mannerisms.
He found her amusing and hadn’t killed her yet. She had merely fallen asleep. He opened the door to his bedroom and listened.
“He just vanished in thin air,” Nikolai said to Nathaniel for the third time. They were in Nathaniel’s room across the hall worrying over Gabriel’s sudden disappearance.
“With no word as to his whereabouts?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“That day,” Nathaniel said gently. “How is it that Seth was vanquished?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember.” Nathaniel’s voice still sounded sweet, but the tone didn’t match the expression on his face.
He walked out of his room, into Nathaniel’s and stuck his head in the doorway. “May I be of some assistance?”
Nathaniel’s teeth were bared, smiling as predatory as a wolf. “If you’re asking to assist merely for the sake of politeness, don’t bother.”
“What do you mean?”
A momentary flash of anger lit up his eyes. “You know exactly what I mean. Gabriel Enlightened you, and I find it quite interesting that you don’t seem the least bit concerned about his absence.”
Mikel walked into the room and lay on the bed. “Forgive me, but I didn’t know that I had been assigned as his keeper.”
Nathaniel smirked. “It appears that you’d prefer to be his rival.”
“Like Cain and Abel?” Mikel rolled his eyes. “Perish the thought. My only desire is to serve Gabriel.”
Nathaniel blinked at him with his wintry blue eyes. “Serve? Yes, preferably his head on a silver platter. Really, Mikel, you don’t have to lie to me.”
Mikel turned over onto his back and stared at the ceiling before closing his eyes. As much as it angered and disgusted him, he focused on Gabriel and channeled his being through the ever-present invisible cords that tied them together. Every nerve in his body tingled, and an image of Gabriel and Colin flashed into his mind briefly before it disappeared. A cool, soothing sensation washed over him that seemed to whisper, Safe. We’re safe. “I can sense him. He’s with Colin, and they’re both safe.”
“Their location? Location! Can you sense that, man?”
He pushed further, concentrating on his maker, but in reply for his efforts, he received an annoyed ringing followed by a hollow silence in his head. The connection died. Mikel shook his head, relieved. He looked at Nathaniel from the corner of his eye. “Not a clue, and even if I did, I know that Gabriel wouldn’t want us to follow. It would be an insult to his divine majesty.”
Nathaniel tossed the length of his blonde hair over one shoulder. “Now,” he said, tenting his hands in front of him, “that I believe.”
CHAPTER 29
Order of the Rose
GABRIEL GLANCED AROUND the room of the house they had been taken to, a two-story house in an upper middle class neighborhood. On the outside, it had appeared to be deserted, but inside, the owner had lavished the rooms with expensive and rare pieces of furniture. The carpeting, the wall décor, moldings, and fixtures matched perfectly and reflected that the owner most likely had a great deal of both time and money on his hands. Rich burgundy damask curtains covered the windows; lush coral carpets softened the dark wood of the walls.
Within the past fifteen minutes, he and Colin had been held “captive” (he could’ve escaped if he wanted to, but the problematic situation had piqued his curiosity); he had learned that the two human men claimed to be vampire hunters. The third man (well, more than a man), had disappeared and had probably resorted to observing him from the shadows.
He let Edan and Ralph tie him up in a high-back chair. Colin had stopped struggling and played along, too.
And when Mikel tried contacting him, it just made matters worse. Confusion and shock must’ve shown on his usually stoic face, for a few seconds, which allowed enough time to feed the stocky human’s suspicions. Ralph tilted his derby hat and narrowed his beady eyes at Gabriel.
Gabriel could’ve ripped him into pieces, large and stocky or not.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” the stocky man said in a low voice. He signaled Edan to follow outside to the front porch. Gabriel watched them through the parted curtains, whispering. He couldn’t hear a single word, but their body language spoke volumes. Edan kept glancing at his watch while the light outside became brighter, and once Edan looked over his shoulder at Gabriel who stared back, smiling like an angel. Edan didn’t smile, but frowned at him before turning around. He patted his partner on the back, who left in a hurry thereafter.
Edan returned inside and shut the door behind him. He rubbed his hands together as if he were cold.
“Your gorilla,” Gabriel said, “Where did he lumber off to?”
“Ralph,” Edan replied sharply, “has gone to make sure that none of your kind is fool enough to follow.”
Gabriel lifted his eyes to the ceiling in mock contemplation. “I wonder if it was wise of him to have left. Three against two were much better odds than you alone.”
At that moment, the Chosen sauntered into the room and dropped languidly into a large red chair beside the fireplace. He crossed one leg over the other and stared in Gabriel’s direction, his gaze strangely inquisitive, questioning.
Edan jerked a thumb at him. He sat in a chair several feet away from Gabri
el. “Leigh is one of my greatest accomplishments. He’s the first vampire that I spared. In exchange for his life, he promised to serve me. To serve the Order of the Rose. Isn’t that right?”
Leigh, sitting regally in the large red chair, simply smiled with his sensuous mouth. His dark, unruly hair, which had a violet cast, reached his shoulders. The wildness of his hair, the violet tinge to it, and the rich, deep olive of his complexion were reminiscent of Bacchus. Gabriel had no trouble imagining him dressed in a toga, a wreath of olive leaves worn like a crown on his head as he led a group of drunken maidens through the woods to dance, the prelude to ecstasy and madness.
But what he wore suited him as well. The purple cravat around his neck and the bright green handkerchief in his breast pocket set off the black watered-silk coat to perfection. His outrageous fashion sense matched the dandies who strutted around London, fancying themselves as lovers and cultivators of beauty. Aesthetes, they called themselves.
He continued to stare off in Gabriel’s direction, but his large, black eyes didn’t seem to focus or threaten. Strange that. Had he only imagined the power behind them?
“Be careful, my dear Leigh,” Edan said, with mock concern. “Don’t strain yourself to answer.”
“Why can’t he speak?” Colin asked.
Edan smiled. “Because we clipped off his tongue. Would you like proof?”
Without hesitation, Colin shook his head. “No thank you, guv.”
Edan’s smile turned smug. “Your unholy kind never posed much of a threat to the Order. You would glut your thirst with the blood of the unwanted—the poor, the destitute—whomever we deemed not in our best interest, and that was fine with us. Fine, as long as you stayed in one place. We mean to keep you on this island.”
Gabriel took his eyes off of Leigh and set them on Edan. “You’re a liar. Our kind populate all parts of the world. Other cultures as old as Babylon and as new as the Americas testify of our existence.”
Edan took out a cigarette and lit it. He took a puff from it before speaking. “You haven’t heard many of those tales recently, have you? That’s because we’ve managed to wipe them out. The Order,” he added with an arrogant wave of his hand, “is very efficient.”