Molly didn’t care about that, nor did she worry that she descended on the plate like a pig. “I think this is the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” she said. The cold potatoes and slices of boiled beef were absolutely heavenly, and gone in a few minutes.
Beth cleared the plate and brought Molly upstairs, taking her aside in the bedroom she shared with her husband. Her green eyes were serious, her voice quiet.
“I know you’ve been fed upon,” she said. “But I need to know if anything else happened.”
Molly knew what “anything else” referred to, and she blushed. “No,” she said. Catching Beth’s dubious look, she continued. “Nothing … untoward happened to me, if that’s what you’re asking. Agate and the others used mind tricks on me and, um, ate from my neck quite a lot, but that was it.”
Agate was still out there, somewhere. Molly could never forget that.
Beth’s expression was still full of concern. “Are you certain?”
Molly appreciated the other woman’s caution. “Yes. They always seemed to prefer their own kind to humans, anyway.”
“That’s rarely the case, unfortunately.” Beth relaxed a little. “So I’m relieved to hear that.” She crossed the room and opened a battered wooden wardrobe, removing a simple blue dress similar to the one she already wore. “I have a traveling corset that should fit you,” she said. “We don’t have much here, but we can certainly outfit you with some new clothes.”
Molly’s heart sank at the confirmation that all her things were really gone. “Miss Stapleton must have tossed everything into the street.”
“Not quite, but they’re mostly gone,” Beth said, regret in her voice. “Edgar saved some of your things. When he gets back from the butcher’s, he can get them for you.”
Edgar held on to her belongings? Irrational hope flared in Molly, bright as a flame, that he might have known what to save. He’d known to look in that burned-out tenement to find vampires, hadn’t he?
Beth continued. “The Searchers won’t let you go hungry or without a roof over your head, Molly. You’re one of the few people who’ve been kidnapped and turned up alive weeks later. That’s very rare.” She draped a dress and the traveling corset over her arm and some underthings that looked new. “I won’t have much use for them soon,” Beth said, catching Molly’s wide-eyed look at her generosity. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “We’ve only recently found out that I’m expecting. Sometime in the fall, we think.”
“Congratulations.”
Beth beamed. “Thank you. We’re very excited, and we’re looking forward to telling Ada when she gets back from Europe.”
Molly remembered Edgar’s younger sister. Adaline Burgess was just as forthright as her brothers, just as strong as they were. “Is she a vampire hunter, too?”
Beth nodded and led Molly out of the room. “All of the Burgesses have the sense. So does my family. We’re all Searchers.”
“The sense?”
Beth sucked in a small breath, as if she just realized she’d revealed something she shouldn’t. She paused at the foot of the stairs, thinking for a few seconds. “It’s going to come out sooner or later,” she said. “We’re all descended from dhampirs.” Catching Molly’s quizzical look, she continued, “Half-vampire, half-human hybrids.”
Edgar and Ada were descended from those things that had fed from her? Disgust curled low in Molly’s belly, and Beth must have noticed, because she immediately tried to clarify what she meant. “They aren’t monsters themselves,” she said. “Their ancestors were. They can sense nearby vampires. So can I, though not as well as Frank or Edgar or Ada.” She offered Molly a small smile. “It’s a useful talent to have.”
“Of course.” Still, Molly couldn’t keep herself from shuddering a little in revulsion, nor could she keep herself from asking another question. “Are there many dhampirs running around now?”
She followed Beth out of the room and down the stairs. “Doubtful,” Beth said over her shoulder. “It’s not impossible, but we’re much more connected than we used to be. Telegraphs and so on. It would be much harder for a dhampir to hide without someone knowing. The Searchers have branches all over the world.”
“What about vampires?” Molly asked. “How many of them are there?”
They walked into the kitchen, where Francis was still heaving buckets of water into a dented tub. “I think this is as hot as it’s going to get,” he said, his voice apologetic. “I have a fire going and there are a couple pails of hot water in there, but…”
“It’s fine,” Molly said. “I appreciate this, I really do.”
“Let me get some more,” Francis said, but Molly stopped him.
“There’s enough in there for me to get clean,” she said. Catching Francis’s dubious expression, she added, “This is plenty. Thank you.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
“Frank, the lady wants to take a bath for the first time in weeks,” Beth said. “She’s being polite. Get out.” But despite her harsh words, there was a smile on her face as she looked at her husband, and there was a nearly-tangible spark in the air when their eyes met. They clearly shared a passion that Molly never had with anyone in her life, including her late husband, and it made her a little sad.
No one had missed her while she was gone.
Beth left her with towels and a bar of soap, and Molly stripped off her ruined clothes and sank into the tub. The water was barely warm, but she didn’t care. By the time she realized that she hadn’t hallucinated seeing Edgar Burgess back in that cellar, that she was really in a steam cab and on her way home, she would have gladly taken a bath in the East River. In full view of the public, if necessary. Anything to wash off the stink and shame that accompanied one when she was held hostage in a steamer trunk by a gang of vampires.
She scrubbed at her skin until it was raw and pink, welcoming the soap’s sting over the cuts and scrapes she’d picked up being passed around from monster to monster. Sometimes she was held under their spell. Other times, she’d been wide awake and aware of what was happening to her. She gingerly touched her neck, feeling the poorly-healed bites there. Maybe now the bruises there could finally heal, but she would never be able to wear anything but a high-collared gown or shawl again. She hadn’t seen her reflection in a looking glass since the night she was abducted, but she could feel the raised puncture marks on her neck and throat, and could see her body in the water, how much weight she’d lost. Her ribs were showing for the first time in her life.
She touched her wet hair and cringed. Lord knew how she was going to get all the tangles out of it.
“Ahoy, Beth,” said a familiar voice from the corridor. “I got the blood like you asked.”
Oh, dear. This could get awkward. “Wait,” said Molly. “Give me a minute. Don’t come in!” She looked around the kitchen frantically, knowing she didn’t have enough time to hop out of the tub, dry off, and get dressed before Edgar opened the door. So she pressed herself against the side of the tub, hooking an arm around the edge, hoping that only her face would be visible should Edgar not hear her.
He cracked it open a hair, but didn’t enter the kitchen. “Beth? You in there?”
Molly relaxed a little. Edgar had enough manners not to barge into a closed room. “No, it’s me,” she said. “I’m, uh, not ready to receive visitors.”
“Ah,” he said, understanding in his voice. “Beth takes her baths in there, too. But um, I have some cow’s blood, and it should go in the icebox as soon as possible.”
Molly shuddered at the thought of drinking cow’s blood, but supposed it had to be done. “I’ll be out shortly,” she said.
“I don’t want it to spoil,” said Edgar from the corridor. “It’s worse going down if it’s even close to being warm. Believe me, I know.”
Curiosity got the better of Molly. “You’ve been bitten?”
“A few times. It goes with being a Searcher. But I usually have holy water on me, and that keep
s the bites from scarring.”
“All right,” said Molly.
“All right, what?”
Her stomach turned over, nervousness at the idea of being naked in a man’s presence for the first time since her husband’s death. “All right, you can come in and put the blood in the icebox.” She paused. “Just please cover your eyes first.”
It occurred to Molly that she wouldn’t ordinarily mind Edgar seeing her naked in the bath if happened under better circumstances. If she wasn’t sickly thin, scarred, bruised, and pale, if she didn’t feel and look utterly wretched, she might have welcomed it.
Why hadn’t she welcomed it before she was kidnapped?
He was quiet for a moment, so long that she thought he might have crept away. “Edgar?” she said.
“I’m right here,” he said. His voice sounded odd. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll drink it as soon as I get out of the bath. I just want to get it over with.”
The kitchen door opened, and Edgar cautiously stepped in, one hand holding a glass jar of reddish-black blood and the other over his eyes. He kept his body against the wall, sliding along until he reached the icebox. He looked so ridiculous that Molly couldn’t keep herself from giggling.
“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he said gruffly.
“And I appreciate that.”
“I’ll have to open my eyes to put away the blood without knocking anything over,” he said. “I promise I won’t peek.”
“It’s fine. If I didn’t look like I’d been a vampire snack for weeks then I wouldn’t even mind.” Molly sucked in a harsh breath. Had she really just said those words?
Edgar froze in front of the icebox, and she guessed that he was as shocked as she was. “I see.” His voice sounded strained. “Ah, I’ll just put this away then.”
Molly’s eyes never left him as he stuck the jar in the icebox. His clothes, worn and faded as they were, still fitted him well and hinted at a physique honed by years of hard work and heavy lifting. Constructing dirigible airfields and staking vampires would have that effect on a man, she mused. Her mind flashed back to his lifting her out of that steamer trunk, when she felt the power and strength radiating from him.
Hand over his eyes, he shuffled out of the kitchen. “When you’re done,” he said from the other side of the door, “I’ll need to take your statement for the Searchers.”
“I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
The bathwater had already gone cold, anyway. Colder, she corrected herself, but it was still better than being filthy and bloody. Molly squeezed it out of her hair and stood up, taking care not to splash it over the tub’s sides. She dressed in Beth’s borrowed clothes, then on a whim, peeked into the icebox.
Ugh. Just the sight of the jar made her want to vomit. Was it really necessary to drink it?
If a family of vampire hunters said so, then she supposed she must. She sighed, and walked out of the kitchen to find Edgar.
Chapter Two
Edgar paced the length of the parlor, his steps treading over the room’s nearly-threadbare carpet. He needed to tell Molly what he’d sensed the night she was kidnapped. He’d felt that familiar twinge of pain at his temples that usually signaled a vampire’s presence. He’d ignored it, convinced it was just another symptom of the influenza he was fighting.
He’d been dead wrong, and even though Molly turned up alive, he would never forgive himself. He was certain she wouldn’t forgive him, either, once she found out. He would have to go back to adoring her from afar as he always had since she moved into Miss Stapleton’s house next door.
He glanced at the basket resting on the scarred table pushed against the wall. If nothing else, he hoped she would be pleased to see it.
Light, feminine footsteps walking along the corridor from the kitchen told him that she was out of the tub, sending a whole new wave of embarrassment washing over him. He’d nearly walked in on her naked and wet, a sight he would have been glad to see months ago but now just made him feel terrible. At least he’d been a gentleman about it, covering his eyes and not peeking. Even though the sounds of her splashing in the water sent images through his head that even he found inappropriate.
Might as well get this over with. “Molly?” he said.
She stepped into the doorway, wearing one of Beth’s dresses, hair still damp and unbound. “Yes?”
“I have something for you,” he said, nervousness making his mouth dry. What if his timing was wrong for his surprise, or he saved the wrong things? Still, he picked up the basket and held it out to her.
She looked at it curiously before taking it from his hands, and the smell of soap wafted from her hair, possibly one of the best scents Edgar had ever encountered.
She gave a little cry at what was in the basket and sat down in a battered couch. “Oh, my goodness!” she said. She looked up at Edgar, tears in her eyes. “You saved all of this?”
“Miss Stapleton left all of your things in the road a few days after you disappeared,” Edgar said, sitting down next to her. “She’s evicted people for not paying rent after just a couple of days before. It was mid-morning before I found out, and I saved what I could. Your clothes were taken rather quickly, but there were some other things left lying there that I brought back in case…” He corrected himself. “When you returned.”
It wasn’t much. A comb, a packet of tortoiseshell hairpins, a couple bundles of letters tied together with ribbons. A small velvet pouch containing a tarnished wedding band and locket, the latter holding a tiny painted miniature of a man Edgar presumed to be her late husband. A couple of embroidered handkerchiefs. A knitted shawl that had been mud-stained when Edgar found it, although Beth helped him clean it.
A sniffle escaped her as she dug through the basket, and Edgar’s chest constricted. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just—these are all that’s left of my old life now. I’m glad you saved this out of everything, Ed. I mean it.” She wiped away tears with one of the handkerchiefs. “It’s an odd question, but I don’t suppose anyone came around to look for me?”
Edgar hated to tell her the truth, but he did. “No.” Well, aside from Miss Stapleton, who was angry about the lack of rent. Her showing up on the Burgesses’ doorstep the day after Molly went missing, ranting about what an irresponsible and disrespectful widow she was to have to taken off with a strange man during the night, was what tipped him off to start looking for her.
“I assumed as much.” She opened the velvet bag and took out the locket. “I suppose you looked at this?”
“Not really,” he said hastily.
“It’s fine, Edgar,” she said. She opened the locket, glanced at the picture inside, and snapped it closed. “I’ve moved on since Kenneth passed, but I’d still prefer to keep reminders of my old life. It shaped who I am now.”
Edgar nodded, understanding. “What happened to him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He’d never asked her about her husband, not wanting to intrude, in the years he’d known her. She rarely discussed her old life, only mentioning that she used to live in Manhattan and had worked as a telegraph clerk since her move to Brooklyn.
“He wasn’t vampire food, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. She sighed. “Pneumonia. A perfectly common and very uncomfortable way to die.”
Edgar didn’t know how to respond to that. “I’m sorry.”
“We were married less than two years,” she said. “He picked up a cough shortly after Christmas and was gone a month later.” She tucked the bag back in the basket. “We were just starting out so of course we didn’t have much money, and I couldn’t afford to stay in our flat. I came to Brooklyn and found work at the telegraph office.” She sighed again. “I suppose my job has been filled now.”
Edgar had been thinking about that during his trip to the butcher’s. “The Searchers may be able to help y
ou,” he said. “The New York branch needs clerks for its own telegraph office.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he had to tell her next. “Helping you find work is the least I can do for you.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, a hint of alarm in her voice.
He swallowed, dreading having to say his next words. “Because it’s my fault you were kidnapped in the first place.”
****
Molly’s grip on the basket handle loosened and it tumbled to the carpet. She didn’t move to pick it up, but stared at Edgar in shock instead.
“What do you mean?” Her words tumbled out of her in a furious whisper. “How is this your fault, Edgar? You could have stopped it?” Her voice rose, and she forced herself to keep from shouting. “How could you have prevented this?”
The look on his face was distraught, so miserable and apologetic she almost felt sorry for him. “I thought I had a headache the night you were abducted,” he said. “I’d been ill for a couple of days before and I’d had headaches on and off.” He ran a hand through his dark russet hair, unable to meet her eyes. “My vampire sense isn’t as strong as Ada’s or Frank’s. I don’t always trust it as much as they do; I can’t. I just sort of … barge into vampire nests and start staking.” He turned beseeching eyes to Molly. “You asked if anyone came looking for you. I was. I’ve been looking for you since the day after you disappeared. I’ve killed more vampires over these last weeks than any other Searcher in the state.”
He’d been looking for her every night? A little bit of the anger that bubbled in cooled. “What about Francis and Beth?” she asked. “They’re Searchers too, aren’t they? Why didn’t they sense the vampire who tricked me into letting him in?”
“They were out the night I was sick,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d been kidnapped until the next morning, when Miss Stapleton said you’d taken off with a man the night before.” His voice cracked. “As soon as she said that, I knew. I failed you, Molly, and I’m sorry.”
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