The Carnelian Crow: A Stoker & Holmes Book (Stoker and Holmes 4)

by Colleen Gleason

  And with no deception, no masquerade, no facial alterations.

  Just him.

  Only once had I seen him without some sort of disguise or clothing meant to cloak him in shadows, and even then it had been only a brief moment in faltering light.

  He was always hiding something.

  Always.

  Just then, I felt a familiar chill prickling over the back of my neck.

  I whipped the wooden stake from my hidden pocket and hurried out into the main part of the chamber where Mina was digging through the desk drawers.

  “UnDead,” I told her when she looked up at my sudden appearance.

  Her eyes widened and she raced over to where she’d left her satchel. As she began to fumble through it, I rolled my eyes. By the time she found her stake, it would be the next century.

  My amusement faded when I realized the vampires were near—and coming from the same direction we had. Had Bilbo told on us? I hadn’t sensed any UnDead when we were in Fenman’s End, so they must have arrived after we left.

  A soft clinking sound drew my attention. It was coming from behind a small panel in the wall, and I recognized it. Why would Bilbo send down an ale from the pub?

  The small, lift-like device made a soft ding when it reached the bottom. “What was that?” Mina demanded, looking around nervously.

  I pointed as the little panel opened. Unlike the time I was here with Pix, when he ordered a pair of “gatters,” there were no glasses inside the compartment. But there was a wooden stake.

  A warning from Bilbo.

  At least I knew he didn’t want me dead.

  I estimated there were three UnDead at the most, but I still wasn’t perfect at measuring the chill at the back of my neck for distance and number of vampires.

  I held a finger to my lips and gestured for Mina to hide behind the dressing screen. I made an emphatic motion for her to stay there. She wouldn’t be any use and would probably just get in my way.

  The chill was growing stronger, and I eased myself flat against the wall behind the open door.

  Then, all at once, I had a terrible thought that made my knees go weak and my body turn to ice. My breath shook.

  What if…oh, gad…what if the vampire was Pix?

  Miss Stoker

  ~ In Which Our Heroines Are Bathed in

  the Delicate Aroma of UnDead Ash ~

  No. No. No.

  I couldn’t allow myself to even consider that possibility.

  My mouth was dry. I gripped the stake with one hand, and the interior doorknob with the other. The back of my neck was pure ice. My heart raced. I could see Mina poking around the edge of the screen.

  And I could smell the vampires: dank, dead, and evil.

  Please. Not Pix.

  I waited until the right moment, watching through the crack between the door hinges and the wall. As soon as the first one stepped through the entrance, I rammed the door at him as hard as I could, then pulled it back. As the first vampire fell back onto his companions, I jumped out, ready for attack.

  It took me only a second to see that, no, none of the three were Pix.

  I didn’t even have an instant to be thankful. I took advantage of their surprise and flew into action, swiping down with a powerful thrust into the heart of the first vampire. He poofed into a cloud of musty, evil ash, and I swirled through it as I swung up and around at the second vampire.

  I grunted with fury as I caught him harmlessly on the arm, then ducked as he lunged at me. I bumped into the third vampire—a female—and punched her in the face as I came upright.

  She grabbed for me with long-nailed fingers. I tried for a deathblow to her heart, but she laughed and tripped me. I fell backward, but somersaulted away and sprang to my feet.

  “Fancy move,” she hissed, her eyes red and glowing. Her fangs were distended and seemed more delicate than most. Still, I had no desire to have myself impaled upon them. I spun around when she rushed toward me, causing the wall hanging to billow behind me. From the corner of my eye, I saw her companion rushing in to join the fray, and I angled to face them both.

  Two against one, hm?

  I yanked the tapestry from its moorings with one vicious pull, and flung it at them in a broad, whipping motion. It snarled the attackers just long enough for me to grab the female by the arm and yank her into my stake.

  Poof! She was gone, but my legs had become tangled in the tapestry, and suddenly a cloud of silk weave tufted over my head. I was blinded long enough for two strong hands to grab and fling me away. Someone shrieked (Mina, of course) as I flew through the air.

  I crashed against the far wall. The impact knocked out my breath—and it hurt. I was shaken, in a big ball of pain, gasping for air in a room filled with vampire dust. For a moment I couldn’t move; then I had to. I tried to pull to my feet as the last attacker lunged at me.

  I dodged too late. He caught me by the front of my bodice and whipped me against the wall again. My head banged backward and I heard a soft snap at the back of my skull. I nearly lost hold of my stake, and now there were black shadows flickering in my vision…and then red lights.

  No. The red lights were the vampire’s eyes: glowing with fury…and hunger. They caught my gaze, grabbing it like a fist, and held. I couldn’t pull away, and his burning eyes tugged and pulled and coaxed. I saw the gleam of his long fangs, curved and malicious, ready to plunge. I pushed against him, trying to hold him off as his hypnotic gaze bored into me…luring me into its hot, red trap.

  Though I fought it, the fight began to drain from my body: my knees weakened and my thoughts became mushy. I felt as if I were walking through a thick soup of gray glop. My heartbeat was trapped by his, and his was stronger. I felt my pulse thudding, hard and dull, as the blood in my veins strained to be freed.

  My fingers loosened, and I was aware of the stake slipping. Terror flooded me, and somehow I managed to hold on to my only weapon. I trained all my efforts, my thoughts, my intentions on that slender piece of ash. Focusing on the sensation of holding the smooth, lethal wood saved me.

  The thrall that held me shivered, straining like a piece of web being pulled too taut. I fought harder, silently and desperately, as his eyes glowed brighter and more captivating.

  Just as I broke free—as the web of his control snapped—he plunged toward my throat.

  I cried out, going rigid as his fangs drove into my skin. The surge of blood being released from my straining veins was both a relief and a horror, and I felt the last bit of my control sap as the UnDead feasted on me.

  But I still held the stake. I was vaguely, softly aware of the slender pike in my hand. I had to hold on, but the world was becoming murky and dark and soft and—

  I heard a shriek in the distance, and suddenly a great jolt caused my attacker to lose his grip on me. His fangs dragged free from my neck. I stumbled backward, somehow managing to remain upright as I bumped into the tapestry-covered wall behind me.

  Though the blood flowed from my wound, I was free. I was glad I was the one bleeding and not anyone else, since I couldn’t actually see the blood on me at the time. The sight of blood and gore can…well, it can paralyze me at times.

  Someone screamed my name, and I shook the last bit of fog from my head and looked over to see that Mina was on the vampire’s back, clutching him from behind, around the neck. She held on for dear life as he spun and tried to peel her hands away from his throat—no, it was a stake she held there across his Adam’s apple, gripped on either end.

  Despite the pain coursing through me, and the black and white lights flashing through my eyes, I grinned at the sight of the awkward, two-headed “beast”—and then I flowed into action.

  Just as the vampire was about to ram backward into the wall, crushing Mina, I whipped the stake through the air.

  He cried out and froze, then exploded into dust. Mina plunked bonelessly to the ground, but I wasn’t paying attention.

  I spun around, pulling out a second stake—this tim
e from my boot—prepared for another attack. I stopped when I realized the back of my neck was no longer frigid with cold. That was all of them, then. Three.

  Mina pulled to her feet, her chest heaving with exertion. “I am not”—she puffed, leaning against the wall as she held a hand to her front—“ashamed to…say…that…that…was particularly…terrifying.”

  I realized I was shaking. Hot, wet blood coursed down the front of my bodice. My belly rolled unpleasantly. My knees were about to give out.

  I sat down, still breathing hard.

  I’d almost died. And Mina Holmes—Mina Holmes!—had sort of saved my life.

  “Thank you,” I managed. “If you hadn’t jumped on him…”

  “Right.”

  That was all she said. She must really be shaken if she was reduced to a single syllable.

  “You didn’t have the chance to interrogate him?” I asked wryly. My breathing was back under control. But my pride—and the rest of my body—ached. “You were, after all, tête-à-tête for several minutes there.” I heard a strange, high giggle. It came from me.

  Mina gave a sharp bark of laughter as well. “I begin to see your point.”

  We’d had an ongoing discussion—an argument, really—about why I’d never taken the time to try and get information from a vampire. She’d criticized me more than once for dusting the creatures too quickly. And Mina had even made comments in the past about how “anyone” could stake a vampire. Maybe she was beginning to see my point of view.

  “But,” she said in a voice that was steadier, “I did have the opportunity to notice something important—and troubling—from my position of attack. That was,” she added too smoothly for me to believe her, “the reason I jumped on him in that manner.”

  “What?”

  “Two small marks at the back of his neck.”

  A chill that had nothing to do with sensing the UnDead rushed through me. “Like the vampires the Ankh was torturing in her underground lair? And the museum guard she killed during the chess queen fiasco?”

  “Precisely. Exactly, in fact. One mark, or insertion point, on either side of the nape of his neck. Unfortunately, I had the opportunity for a close examination while you were—er—pulling yourself together. Thank you,” she added hastily, as if to forestall any response. “You dispatched three of them, after all. I did very little in the grand scheme of things.”

  I nodded. We understood each other: we’d both contributed to what might have been a much more unpleasant situation. Possibly a fatal one.

  “You do realize what those two marks mean,” Mina continued.

  Unfortunately, I did. “The Ankh is still working with Pix’s small devices—what did Dylan call them? Batteries? To try and control the vampires.” A stab of fear caught me in the belly. The Ankh certainly had it in for Pix. She’d killed him by using one of those very same devices. If it hadn’t been for Mina’s friend from the future, Pix would still be dead.

  He could be dead again.

  “Yes. I’m certain our UnDead visitors tonight were minions of our favorite arch-criminal the Ankh.” Mina slung the satchel over her shoulder. “I’ve seen what I need to see here.”

  My body was throbbing from head to toe. I smelled like vampire dust—it had clogged my nose and mouth and frosted my eyelashes and brows—and by the way, I was still bleeding from the bite.

  Mina frowned as she looked at me. “You’re quite a mess, Evaline. And you’re still dripping blood all over and down your bodice. If we aren’t careful, we’ll attract more UnDead from the scent. Here, put my cloak around you or we’ll never get a cab. Don’t you have any salted holy water with you? Honestly, I don’t know how you can call yourself prepared…” She began to rummage in her satchel. “We should leave as expediently as possible, and I don’t believe it would be prudent to make our exit back the way we came, since that was the direction from which the vampires came. Your appearance might cause comment. Here.” She thrust a small vial at me. “Use it.”

  As I poured the salted holy water on my wound, (gritting my teeth at the screaming pain), Mina started toward the other door that I knew led up to the street from a different direction than Fenman’s End. Apparently, she’d discovered the secondary exit during her snooping.

  “And then there’s the consideration that the arrival of the UnDead on the premises so quickly after our arrival has merely confirmed my deductions about Mr. Pix’s fate.”

  My heart sank as I followed her through the opening, which closed and locked behind us with a different mechanism of clicking, clunking cogs. She had cranked up her pocket illuminator and beamed it down the crooked tunnel ahead of us.

  “You think Pix is dead. Or captured.” I dreaded her answer.

  “Evaline. How many times must I tell you that it’s not a matter of mere thinking—at least in the way you and everyone else goes about doing it, nattering on with different scenarios and options and opinions. It’s a matter of observation—”

  “And deduction. I know. Can you skip the blasted lecture and just tell me?” My voice was high and tight, echoing eerily in the damp stone corridor, but I didn’t care. And every time I took a breath, I inhaled more vampire ash. It was disgusting. “I suppose he’s probably dead. Or the Ankh took him.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. I don’t think I succeeded.

  “On the contrary, Miss Stoker,” Mina said, glancing back at me. “It’s my belief that not only did he expect you to come here, looking for him—with my guidance, naturally—but also that Mr. Pix is very much alive.”

  Miss Holmes

  ~ Wherein a Pickpocket’s Devotion is Revealed ~

  “You think Pix is alive?” Miss Stoker’s voice—which sounded far more relaxed and boisterous than it had been a moment earlier—reverberated in the tunnel. Unfortunately, the closed space contributed to the rank smell of dead vampire dust, which wafted from her with every movement. “How do you know that? And why do you think he expected me to come looking for him?”

  With this last, however, her tone changed to affront. Apparently, my companion didn’t like to be anticipated.

  “Evaline.” I sighed. Being a Holmes and blessed with impeccable deductive reasoning was exhausting. “It’s patently obvious he expected you—obvious, at least, to someone who was paying attention. But I shall endeavor to explain, since you are clearly missing the data to inform your own decision. Once we get out into the fresh air,” I added forcefully. “I cannot think clearly when I’m boxed in like this.”

  I gave my Flip-Illuminator another two sharp cranks, as it appeared to be dimming. It would not do for the light to flicker or waver, for I wasn’t fond of dark spaces, especially narrow, close ones underground like this—which was a problem, because it seemed as if every case Evaline and I took on brought me, at one time or another, into dark, deep places. Villains and criminals tended to congregate underground.

  That was why I was walking as quickly as possible through this warren of tunnels to get to the exit. Instead of being fixated on my surroundings in the narrow, dim space, I focused on where my beam illuminated the uneven stone floor—for it enabled me to track which direction to go due to a number of different markings and clues (for expediency, I needn’t list them here).

  To my relief and delight, Evaline not only refrained from continuing to badger me, she pushed ahead to take the lead on our way out.

  It was only another few moments before she warily pushed open a door, poking her head around to ascertain the level of danger or safety, and then—apparently assured of the latter—beckoned me to follow her.

  There would be no chance of getting a hackney at this time of night, especially in this neighborhood. I looked at the moon’s position and figured the time to be two o’clock. An instant later, both Big Ben and the pink-faced cogwork clock on the tallest spire of the Oligary Building bellowed out in tandem: bong…bong…

  The two different tolls reverberated over the sleeping city from different directions, clashing and mingling
in a pleasant discord. I’d taken two steps out into a street that seemed relatively deserted—and relatively clear of refuse—when Evaline grabbed my arm and fairly whipped me back into the shadows.

  “What on ear—”

  She didn’t speak, but, keeping us both in shadows, pointed soundlessly to the sky.

  I looked up. We were in a poor, dangerous, ramshackle part of London that didn’t boast the many street levels of the areas I normally frequented—nor did it contain the tall, swaying buildings connected across the street by fly-walks at various levels. Here, though the roads were narrow and crowded, the buildings were no more than three stories high.

  Which made it easier for the sleek black airship I saw to glide through the night…closer to the ground than it would normally be able to navigate.

  I’d never seen a vessel like it before. Though it wasn’t very large, its shape was long and narrow, with a sharp, finlike tail and wings resembling those of a bat. A cold white beam of light that I knew could not be conducted from gas or oil shot from the bottom of the front part of the ship and scanned slowly over the streets and buildings below.

  For some reason, it gave me the feeling of a malevolent eye searching for something.

  Whatever it was—I didn’t know and wasn’t yet prepared to conjecture—it spooked Evaline enough that she forced me to remain in the shadows and silent (even though it would be impossible for any of the airship’s inhabitants to hear our conversation from that distance) until the vessel had glided off into the night.

  “What was it?” I was finally permitted to ask.

  “I don’t know. I’m not certain. I just know I don’t want it to see me.”

  She spoke as if the airship itself were a sentient being. I had more questions, but contained my curiosity for the time being. Instead I remained silent and contemplative until we located a hackney cab (this required several blocks of ambulation, and I began to regret having put quite so many items into my satchel).