by Rich Horton
“Well.” The handsome Spaniard rubbed his hands together, leaning toward the fire. “There were whisperings—nothing proven, you understand, or even openly charged—that he was less than honorable to a maidservant who left their employment last year.”
“English girl?” Even a servant should have been able to go to the Colonial Police if her master’s son laid hands on her.
“Irish,” Don Sebastien answered, his frown raising him an inch or two in Garrett’s estimation. Her own history gave her a certain sympathy to pariahs of any stripe—Irish, Negro, even the Romany and Indian halfbloods who were welcome nowhere—but few aristocrats harbored fellow-feeling for their ‘inferiors.’ “No family I’ve been able to locate. Not even a last name.”
“What became of her?” What is your agenda, Don Sebastien? What is it you want of me? Of New Amsterdam?
He shrugged expressively, smoothing his damp hair behind his ear. “I do not know. I understand she may have been—embarazada, although such things are not openly spoken of.”
“So we have a motive for the killing. A potential motive, at least. Sorcerous blood runs strong in those old Irish families.”
Don Sebastien nodded. “There may be other motives as well. The father is a member of Colonial Parliament. House of Commons.”
Garrett stirred wax with a glass rod, the hot scent filling her head. “They must be better off even than the house shows.”
“Not necessarily. The father—Robert Carlson—has familial links to Mayor Eliot. And the Mayor’s patronage.”
“Ah.” The wax was clearing. Garrett fished the wicks out of the bottom of the crucible and trapped them against the rim, scorching her fingers slightly as she pinched them out. She blew on the scalds. “Would he not have been the target, then?”
“Perhaps. We cannot be certain he was not—he is, after all, gone. And we also cannot rule out other, unknown, enemies.”
Garrett lifted the first of the watch glasses and held it over the seething pot. “What troubles me is the consents,” she said. “The boy was killed outside the door of his house. Outside its protection. But the family—although that upstairs window was open, there is no trace of forced entry.”
“Continue, Crown Investigator.” She thought she saw respect in his eyes. Perhaps his open-mindedness about the worth of things extends to Irish and women both. Will wonders never cease?
“Human agencies can come and go as they please. Magical ones— the forms must be observed. One of the forms is consent, expressed or implied.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I am familiar with the theory. And of the difference between implied and informed consent, and that one will serve as well as the other.” He smiled as if something amused him. “So, in adherence to the principal tenets of magic, if no human agency entered the house—excepting the officers of the Colonial Police—”
She stirred the contents of the watch glass into the wax. “—then a consent must have been issued to whatever did. Did you note the damage to the door?”
“Sì.” He watched her intently now, eyebrows rising as she frowned at the contents of her crucible.
“That’s odd.”
“Crown Investigator?” He stood from the wing chair and would have come to her, but she raised one hand to forestall him before he crossed into the circle.
“A moment,” Garrett said, selecting another glass. “As I was saying, whatever killed the boy—and I too become more convinced it was a whatever and not a whomever—made an attempt at the door and was barred from entrance. However, it—or something else— apparently managed to enter the house almost immediately and remove the residents tracelessly.”
“Except.…” His long fingers indicated the shallow dish in her right hand.
“Candlewax. Yes.” She nodded and upended it.
Don Sebastien leaned forward, curiously, his boots firmly on the outside of the tiled circle. “What are you looking for?”
“Antipathy,” she answered, and looked up long enough to shoot him a brief, real smile.
“What every woman wants.”
Garrett laughed and set the dish aside, rather more casually also capsizing the third one into the vessel. She did not lift the one containing the splintered bits of door. “I’ve learned something interesting, Don Sebastien. You may enter the circle now, I’m finished. Come and see.”
* * * *
Mary served them dinner on a card table in the book-paneled library, where Garrett normally took her solitary meals. Silver candelabra decorated the table, and when Garrett commented on the extravagance, Mary remarked that she’d gotten a bargain on candles. Don Sebastien lifted his Windsor-backed chair and placed it adjoining Garrett’s, rather than across. Amused or contemplative, she permitted the familiarity. He tasted his wine and picked up the heavy, long-tined silver fork gingerly, investigating the salmon on his plate.
As he teased the flaking fish apart, he glanced up and met her eyes, smiling. “You did not find what you expected,” he said.
Garrett ate carefully but with good appetite. “One tries not have expectations, precisely,” she answered. “But yes, I would have to say that I did not expect the splashed wax to exhibit similarity with the candles remaining in the house. You saw how the wax in the crucible accepted what I introduced to it?”
Don Sebastien nodded. “I could see no difference.”
“The principle of antipathy states that two substances which do not share an identity will not normally commingle. This tells me that the splashes of wax which we retrieved from the Carlsons’ house are magically identified with the candles they were using.”
“Those candles were from several sources, however. Beeswax and paraffin, you had.” Don Sebastien laid his fork down by his plate. Rain drummed on the windows.
“But what is important in this case is that they were bought by the same person, with the same sense of purpose—that of lighting her home. The will of the individual who uses a thing is very important. A bullet and a gun, for example, are manufactured separately—but a bullet may be traced back to the gun from which it was fired, using the principle of sympathy—which is the converse of that of antipathy. Do you understand?” She peeled buttered bread apart with her fingers and offered a tidbit to the terrier, her expression challenging Don Sebastien to say anything as the little dog nipped her fingers with sharp white teeth.
He smiled, amused, swirling wine in his glass. “Very well, I think. So the splashed wax came from candles inside the home.”
“Precisely. Which means.…”
Sebastien effortlessly picked up her thread. Annoying or not, it was a pleasure to talk to a man with a wit. “…our lad must have gone out to the stoop to investigate something—some noise, some cry—and been carrying a candle in his hand.”
“Then we are left with another question, Don Sebastien.”
“Sì, DCI. What became of the candle?”
“At dinner, Don Sebastien, you may call me Abigail Irene if you so desire.” She lifted her glass and drank deeply. “From the evidence of the wax, there was nothing special about it. I wonder if it was picked up by a bystander, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Don Sebastien, you’ve barely touched your dinner.”
He shook his head slightly, smiling. “This is not what I am hungry for.” And then he sighed and glanced toward the windows. Mike, curled watchful near the door, whined. “I wonder what this night will bring.”
“Rain,” Garrett said, and—weary to the bone—kissed him on the mouth.
* * * *
Later, in the darkness of her bedroom, he paused with his cool face pillowed on her belly. “This is what I hunger for, Abigail Irene.”
“A request for consent, Sebastien?”
He nodded against her skin.
“What harm will come to me of it?”
“A day’s weakness. Or two. No more, I promise; I would not take from you the sun.”
With some slight idea of what she offered, she
smiled into the darkness and whispered, “Yes.”
And screamed against her muffling fists as he turned his head and sank fangs like spikes of ice and flame into the inside of her thigh.
* * * *
Sometime in the night, the rain stopped, and Sebastien slipped from beneath the covers to dress. Garrett stirred sleepily, the stiffness in a blackening bruise tightening her leg. “Stay until morning?”
“I cannot, my lady. The clouds are breaking.… and I cannot risk the sunrise.” Shirtsleeved, a pale ghost in the darkness, he bent over the bed to kiss her. She tasted the harsh metal of her own blood on his tongue. “I will return, if you will have me.” He ducked his head and kissed the tattoo of a sorcerer, nestled just between her breasts.
“Ah,” she said, one hand still on his arm. “I…cannot promise fidelity, Sebastien. Or any acknowledgment of this.”
“Secrets,” he answered, “are a stock in trade.” He straightened away from her. Outside the door, Mike—silent for hours—scratched and yipped.
Garrett’s hand rose to her throat. “I feel it.” She fumbled for her wand and kindled a light. The stub of candle flared.
Don Sebastien moved toward the door, listening with an ear pressed to the wood. “Nothing,” he said, and cracked the door open so that Mike could scramble in. The dog lunged across the floor, scattering throw rugs, and hurled himself into his mistress’ arms to bathe her face with his little clean tongue.
Gathering him close, Garrett rose to her feet, her pistol ready in her other hand. Her dressing gown lay forgotten on the foot of the bed. “This is just like last night,” she whispered.
Sebastien came to stand beside her. “Our quarry,” he said. “I’d warrant it.”
For a long moment, they stood side by side, listening to the nightfall. Nothing disturbed the spring chill of the bedroom. Garrett shivered and set her dog down. He whined, cuddling close.
“Don Sebastien,” she said, suddenly formal in her nakedness. “Have you a way to track the source of that unnatural chill? A poltergeist, would you say?”
He shook his head. “Yes, and I do not.”
She frowned. “Learn what you can of Robert Carlson. I will call on you before lunchtime. Unless you will be sleeping.”
He smiled, and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “A woman both brave and fair,” he said. “I never sleep.” He raised an eyebrow at her, bowed, and was gone through the door and down the stairs.
* * * *
Morning did indeed dawn bright and clear: Sebastien’s instincts proved correct. Garrett, exhausted by a second sleepless night, did not trouble herself with the Mayor’s office hours. Instead she presented herself at his home on Manhattan, fronting the park, before breakfast. Her groom offered her a conspiratorial wink as she disembarked. He knew very well how long Don Sebastien’s carriage had waited.
And what would you say if you knew the Spaniard was an immortal drinker of human blood? It explained many things.
There were always a contingent of Colonial Police by the Mayor’s door, and Garrett nodded to one of them as she passed, recognizing the redhaired youth. He blanched when she met his eye, and she fought a grin. Wait until the rumors of your wampyr lover get around. Ah, to be a stranger to scandal…but what fun would there be in that?
The mayor greeted her in the echoing marble-pillared entryway, flanked by servants and the dark-haired young Master of Thaumaturgical Sciences. Now she saw him clad in a dressing gown, and clearly made out the sigil inked black under the notch of his collarbone. Private sorcerer, not personal secretary. And the Mayor keeps him at his side at all times. Interesting. Can he truly be so frightened of Richard?
“Sir, you did not tell me,” Garrett said, ignoring the pleasantries, “that one of the missing was your political ally.”
“It did not seem significant,” Peter Eliot answered. “And I would never use my office to the advantage of my friends, of course. Detective, will you join us for coffee?”
Garrett bit her tongue, contenting herself with a shake of the head. A moment later, when she’d brought herself back under control, she continued: “Are you taking precautions, sir, to prevent an attack upon your person?”
“I am,” he answered, and she noticed the significant glance that passed between sorcerer and Mayor. “I will send messengers to the Duke, as well. Perhaps it is some plot of the French or Iroquois. I would not put raising demons past them.”
“Raising demons?” Garrett snorted, smoothing her hair back. “Would that were all, your Lordship. Would that were all.”
* * * *
Halfway along the long route from the Mayor’s house to the Duke’s, the clamor of hooves racing too fast for a city street drew alongside her carriage. “DCI!” A city Guard, one of the Duke’s men, resplendent in red on a lathered dark bay. “There’s been another murder, Ma’am. The Duke is there.”
“Tell my coachman to bring the horse around then,” she said, leaning through the curtains. “Lead on, good man. Lead on!”
Thirty minutes later, the carriage clattered into an exclusive neighborhood not far from the Mayor’s house. Her heart sank as she recognized the address—the townhome of William, Earl of New Haven, another Member of the Colonial Parliament. House of Lords, and one of Richard’s closest allies.
Richard handed her down from the carriage, to all appearances formal and distant—but she felt the squeeze of his hand and caught the comforting smile in his eyes, even if his lips showed nothing. She felt obscurely guilty, and forced herself to return the smile. You owe him nothing: remembering the hard, slick texture of Sebastien’s hair.
“The same as last time?”
Richard shook his head. Garrett wanted to smooth the tight creases from the corners of his eyes. Frustration curled her fingers. She forced herself to listen. “They’re just—gone. The entire family. Seven staff. The groom and stableboy are present and unharmed, but everyone who slept in the house has vanished.”
“More wax?”
“Spattered on the floor. Otherwise clean as a whip.”
Garrett, dizzy with exhaustion, followed the Duke inside, thoughtful as he led her from room to room. “The groom called the Guard, which is why we are here and not the Colonial Police.”
“Politics,” Garrett said, too much a lady to spit. “But whoever is behind this doesn’t seem to be choosing sides.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of yours, one of the Mayor’s. Were the windows open when you arrived?”
“Two in the bedrooms only. And what you just said—not precisely true.” Alone in the servants’ stair, he laid a hand upon her shoulder. She turned to him, and they kissed furtively, a moment’s embrace.
“Oh?” she asked, breathless. Her heart pressed, enormous, in her throat.
The Duke’s eyes crinkled at the corners, but it wasn’t exactly a smile. “Robert Carlson, the house of Commons fellow—he passed information to us, Abby Irene.”
“Us?”
He nodded. “The Patriots. He was opposed to home rule. Not that Peter Eliot ever knew it.”
“Ah.” Garrett leaned against the wall for a moment, considering. “Or maybe he did.”
Richard laid the palm of his hand against her cheek, breaking her train of thought. “Abby Irene.…”
His tone rang alarms. She stiffened, did not answer. He continued. “A man was seen leaving your house late last night.”
Garrett stepped back. “Don Sebastien de Ulloa,” she replied. “What of it? I am not a married woman, and I am old enough to make my own decisions, Richard.”
His lips twitched, his eyes dark with concealed pain. “You are beholden to no man,” he said, very quietly.
Garrett laughed low in her throat, tired and giddy. “That’s right, Richard. Not you. And not him either. Do you understand?”
He took a breath, let his hand fall to his side, and leaned forward slowly, touching his lips to the center of her forehead. “Perfectly,” he said, and turned away.
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* * * *
“I have the maidservant’s name,” Sebastien said from the darkness of the parlor doorway. “Where were you this afternoon?”
Garrett dropped her velvet carpetbag inside the front door and leaned against the frame. Mary would not thank her for the clutter, but she was too exhausted to care. “I was with the Duke, and then at University. There have been more disappearances. Why are you here?” She was too exhausted for politeness, either. She stripped off gloves and cast them on a side table.
“You did not keep our date. I was concerned.”
Mary bustled down the hallway to take Garrett’s coat, clucking over the mess.
The bruise on Garrett’s thigh ached, and more than anything she wanted to be left alone. She wove unsteadily on her feet. “So you came to check on me when darkness fell. Thoughtful.”
Sebastien ignored the dig. “We need to talk in private.”
Garrett bit her lip and nodded acquiescence, leading him up the stairs. “I’d bet a guinea the Mayor’s somehow behind this,” she said. “He’s got a sorcerer dancing attendance—black mark, not red, so he could have graduated from any little backwater college of magics and I have no way of knowing what his ethics are. Furthermore, I’ve learned that the man who vanished yesterday was working for the Duke on the sly.”
“Interesting. Was there another dismemberment, or merely the disappearance?”
Mike ran at their heels, determined not to be left behind. Abruptly, Garrett stopped and crouched, offering her hand to the patchwork dog. “I’m sorry, boy. I should have said hello when I came in.” He wriggled adoringly, and she tousled his head before she straightened. Don Sebastien caught her arm to keep her afoot. “Disappearances. A whole household again, which sent me to the library for the balance of the day. I can think of only one reason for attacking entire households.”
“And what is that?” They attained the landing; Sebastien opened her chamber door. Mike gamboled past him, having decided that wampyr made acceptable houseguests after all.
“Fear,” she said. “To engender fear.”
“I keep asking myself,” Sebastien commented, “what was different about the boy? Why did he need to die so terribly, when the others just…softly and silently, vanished away.”