The Smoke Thief

by Shana Abe

  The hidden door opened. The red-haired woman of before emerged, her skirts filling the confines of the doorway.

  “Dearest Rue. I was wondering when you'd appear.”

  Rue stood. “I was delayed.”

  “Indeed.” The woman sent an amused glance to Kit. “And a fine delay it is. Lord Langford, how lovely to see you—and I do mean it.” She perched upon the edge of the bed, baring trim ankles and an ivory mass of petticoats. “Will you forgive me? I've been on my feet all night.”

  “Mim runs the House,” Rue said, without looking at Kit. “Among other things.”

  “Oh, I'm little more than an accountant these days,” responded the woman congenially. “But thank you, darling.”

  “You know why we're here.”

  “I suppose I do. Although, I must say, I am surprised at the company you're keeping. You were as cool as Scottish snow that afternoon in the museum. I never guessed you knew the marquess himself.”

  Now Rue's gaze flicked to his. “I was unacquainted with the marquess until a few days ago.”

  “Really? And you're bosom friends already? How delightful.”

  “I need to know about the diamond, Mim. Did he bring it to you?”

  The woman's eyes shifted from Kit to Rue and back, her smile pasted in place. “I have no idea whom you could mean.”

  Rue reached into her waistcoat. “Yes, you do. The same man who took Cumberland's black pearl and Vishney's intaglio ring. He's about Langford's height, with reddish-blond hair and an occasional limp.” She produced a small leather pouch, tossing it to the other woman. Mim caught it; the metallic jangle of coins echoed in the chamber.

  “There's no one else in the city he could turn to,” Rue said quietly. “You're the best swagsman in the business, and everyone knows it. Unless he's already moved it abroad, he'd have to come to you.”

  “You know my privacy rule.”

  “It's important, Mim. I swear it is.”

  “Since when did you swim over to the right and proper side of the law?”

  “Since me,” murmured Kit, earning a look from Rue that very clearly said, Stay out of it.

  “I'm not on any side of the law, and you know it. I just need that diamond.”

  “Well . . .” Mim rolled the bag back and forth between her palms, thoughtful. “I have heard that Empress Elizaveta adores those wonderfully sparkly stones, especially the big ones. Perhaps your diamond is on its way to Russia.”

  The chill in the room seemed to take on an abruptly sharper edge.

  Christoff said lazily, “Somehow I rather doubt that. Don't you, madame? The Langford Diamond was here, in this chamber, I imagine about . . . three hours ago. Isn't that right?”

  Mim stared at him, her expression closed, her eyes very bright.

  He smiled. “Just a feeling. They come to me betimes.”

  It was more than a feeling. It was comprehension. It was awareness, a pulsing heartbeat through the air and the furniture and just here, at the little backgammon table, where the energy was strongest. He'd spent more time alone with Herte than anyone else in the tribe; it was his right as the Alpha, and Kit had full used it. He'd spent days studying the stone, memorizing it, perhaps because in the back of his mind he'd always anticipated its loss. He knew the diamond's strength and its cold brilliance, its distinctive pattern of energy that whispered like a phantom in his ear where he stood: I was here.

  “Please,” said Rue, with more emotion in her voice than he'd heard her use before. “Please, Mim.”

  The red-haired woman slid from the bed. “I did receive an inquiry. I declined to pursue it.” She lifted a shoulder, nonchalant. “I told you before, luv, the stone's far too extraordinary. I'd have a hell of a time getting it off my hands. Much like that poor chap who took it.”

  “Who was it?” demanded Kit.

  Her sweet smile returned. “I really couldn't say. He wasn't inclined to offer his name.” She looked pointedly at Rue. “They seldom do.”

  He looked at her as well, finding her watching him back, her countenance stoic beneath the layers of paint, exquisite features masked with powder and rouge and kohl. But behind her dark eyes Kit thought he caught a glimpse of something raw, something bleak; it might have been nothing more than a trick of the light. He took a step toward her anyway, his hand reaching for hers.

  “Thirty-one King's Court,” said the courtesan, brusque. She was frowning at them both, her arms crossed over her waist. “In Chelsea. It's where he said I could reach him if I changed my mind. But that's truly all I know.” She shook her head, her mouth hardening. “And the devil take both of you if you tell anyone I spilled it.”

  Rue said, “This cannot be right.”

  They peered together out the carriage window, not even opening the door.

  GRAHAM'S MENAGERIE OF REMARKABLE BEASTS read the hanging wood sign that swayed over the entrance to 31 King's Court. It appeared to be little more than a skinny patch of park squeezed between thoroughfares and buildings.

  “Driver,” the marquess called. “Is this the only King's Court in Chelsea?”

  “Aye,” answered the man, muffled through wood. “This be it, guv.”

  There were people drifting in and out of the entrance, men and women and a few shiny-cheeked children, pulling eagerly at the hands holding theirs. A simple whitewashed stall was situated just past the sign, where a balding man in a beige greatcoat took money and handed out tickets. Beyond that, all Rue could see of the menagerie were bushes and trees swallowing up a narrow gravel path.

  Something—some creature—let loose an unearthly howl that climbed and climbed into goosebumps over her skin. From the bowels of the trees a host of sparrows surged up into the sky.

  Christoff rapped his knuckles against the roof. “Drive on.”

  Rue turned to him, grabbing the strap by her head as the carriage hit a pothole. “What are you doing? We have to go in!”

  “Breakfast was a long while ago. I don't know about you, but I am accustomed to lunch.” He leaned back in the seat, his pale eyes gleaming. “And I don't think it's a good idea to go in there hungry, do you?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The howling had come from the bedraggled hyena. At least, Rue assumed that it had. As soon as they approached its cage it made a similar sound, albeit smothered now, as it had leapt into a wooden crate at the first sight of them and not come out since. Still it screamed and yipped, eyeing them through the slats.

  DIRECT FROM THE DARKEST HEART OF AFRIKA. ONE OF NATURE'S MOST MALEVOLENT BRUTES.

  “This is unbearable,” Rue muttered. The hyena had the same reaction to them as every other animal in this place: noisy, unmitigated fear. It was even worse than the stench.

  She spoke around the lace kerchief she held to her nose. “No runner in his right mind would even come here, much less hide a diamond somewhere in this mess.”

  “But that's what makes it so perfect,” said Christoff, not even lowering his voice. “It was a brilliant move on his part. Think on it. You'd never visit a menagerie, even by accident.”

  “Not willingly.”

  The pair of charwomen standing beside Rue had screwed up their faces and stuck their fingers in their ears. The little boy between them mimicked their pose, elbows akimbo. He broke into laughter as the women hauled him away.

  “It's useless.” Rue put her hand on Christoff's arm, drawing him into a shelter of trees farther down the path. “We've lost any element of surprise at this point, if he was ever even here.”

  Christoff gave her a sidelong look. “Don't you feel it?”

  “What?” she snapped. “The sun? The wind? The desperate terror?”

  “The diamond.”

  She paused, looking up at him. Punctuating the hyena's howls was now a rhythmic pounding; the bald man from the gate had taken up a poker and was using it to smash the wood box while the hyena, trapped inside, screamed higher.

  “Shut—yer—mug—you—miserable—bastard—”

&nb
sp; “Excuse me,” Christoff said to her, and walked back to the cage.

  He caught the gatekeeper's wrist on a downswing, stopping it precisely in midair, then gave it a hard shake. The poker fell from the man's fingers. It clanged like a bell against the iron bars, wedging lopsided between them. The hyena cringed and whined.

  In the sudden near silence Rue could hear the marquess speaking, darkly soft.

  “You don't want to do that.”

  “Eh—what the bleedin'—”

  “Listen to me, friend. You don't want to do that again.”

  “I . . .”

  She began to move toward them. The hyena threw her a rolling, white-eyed look and took up its howl once more, echoed by what sounded like monkeys somewhere nearby. By the time she was close enough to hear them again, the gatekeeper was slowly nodding his head.

  “I don't want to do that.”

  “You want to clean its cage, and offer it fresh water.”

  “Aye.”

  Straw, mouthed Rue.

  “New straw,” said the marquess. “And an extra beefsteak tonight. In fact, give him yours.”

  “Aye.”

  “Very good. Don't forget.”

  “No.”

  Christoff bent down and picked up the poker, handing it back to the man. “Put this away.”

  The gatekeeper turned and left, not even glancing around him at the frenzied caged animals. Rue and Christoff returned to the nook of trees, and the hyena subsided into deep-throated whines.

  “Impressive,” she said. “Have you always been able to do that?”

  “Almost always. It only works on humans, of course, and the effects tend to be temporary. What of you? You have all the other Gifts. Can't you do it?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, and he smiled—warm and breathtaking, not a smile she hoped anyone else could see.

  “All it takes is practice, Rue-flower.”

  “Comte!”

  “Comte,” he agreed, inclining his head. “And speaking of practice . . .”

  “I do feel it,” she said, and to her surprise, it was true. She closed her eyes, reaching for that sliver of awareness, distant, elusive, dancing like a flame on the horizon behind her lids. “It's faint. But . . . Herte was here.”

  “I think it still is. Do you feel the runner?”

  She tried a moment longer. “No.”

  “Still, one for two, not bad for our first day. Shall we venture this way, monsieur?”

  They headed down the path, toward a pen that held a moon-eyed panther, arched back into a corner with its hair on end, hissing at them over and over. A cluster of schoolgirls pressed too close to the bars, gasping and waving their fingers at it.

  “That was kind of you,” said Rue under her breath. “What you did back there for that creature.”

  “Well, who knows?” The marquess angled a glance through his lashes at the bristling cat. “Had the world turned on a different axis, it might have been us in that cage.”

  The menagerie wasn't large, not by London standards, but it still took them half the afternoon to wind through it front to back. Christoff insisted they pause by each cage, absorbing the instant ruckus that would ensue, while they tried to feel the beat of Herte once more. And so they followed their senses like an old childhood game of Catch What You Can, meandering through the trees. Cold here, warmer there, warm, warm. Hot.

  It wasn't long before Rue understood that he was leading her, that when she paused or faltered he waited for her. Twice when no one else was about he held out his left hand and showed her how to align the tips of her fingers to his, thumb to thumb, index to index and so on, the barest brushing touch that sent waves of sensation through her.

  “Now,” he whispered, beneath the deafening shrieks of a pair of red parrots. “Try it now.”

  And with his added energy something in her would flare. Rue no longer closed her eyes to feel the power of the stone they sought. She looked at Christoff instead, into a gaze as clear as an emerald held up to the sun, green that was lucent light and crystal combined.

  It even made her headache from the parrots seem less piercing.

  But the diamond was not with the parrots.

  With the sun sloping low in the sky they stood together before the last of the enclosures. Most of the animals seemed to have finally exhausted themselves into a stupor, but by now the menagerie was nearly deserted of visitors. The sparrows from this morning had not returned; there were long, eerie minutes of quiet but for the bustle of the city beyond the trees. Daylight was beginning to taper into evening gold, laying leaf-dapple shadows across a cramped pit filled with rocks and murky water, and yellow scum floating in long, serpentine lines.

  CROCODILES said the sign before the pit. TREACHEROUS MAN-EATERS FROM CLEOPATRA'S GREAT RIVER NILE.

  One of the rocks bobbed up to become a massive head, shattering the mottled black surface of the water, opening its mouth in a huge toothsome yawn. It hissed at them, swishing its tail.

  “At least it doesn't scream,” observed the marquess.

  “It can't be in there,” Rue said, dismayed. “How could he put it in there?”

  “Perhaps he threw it in.”

  “But why?”

  “As a joke. As a dare. Because he didn't want anyone else to have it—I've no idea. All that truly matters is that the diamond is down there, little mouse.”

  It was. She felt it too. Another crocodile joined the first, angling up out of the water to snap at them, its throat vibrating with a heavy, outraged groan.

  Sweet mercy. What was she going to do?

  “Nothing, at the moment,” said Christoff, and Rue realized then she had spoken aloud. He nodded toward the pair of workmen heading for them. “It appears the menagerie is closing. We'll have to come back tonight.”

  “He might have fetched it by then.”

  “Frankly, better him than us. If he cares to spare me the trouble of wading into a crocodile pond, I'd be grateful. But I don't think he will. I have a feeling that somewhere out there,” he added grimly, “our runaway thief is laughing up his sleeve.”

  True to his word, in the dark hours of the nightfall the gatekeeper tossed an extra steak to the hyena. It landed with a wet slap against the straw and metal floor. The animal leapt toward it instantly, snatching the meat back to its crate while never taking its eyes from the gnarled old yew that grew near its cage, where Rue and Christoff crouched amid the highest branches that would support them.

  The night hung cold and deep above. A small, crisp breeze swept flashing colors into the stars.

  There were no large trees by the crocodiles, only bushes and open space.

  The gatekeeper stumped off. From the yew they followed his progress back to a dilapidated cottage at the edge of the grounds. His door slammed closed.

  The hyena was growling at them between bites, pinning the meat between its paws, ripping it frantically into pieces. Rue thought of the crocodiles and shivered. Kit noticed; she felt his hand on her hair, a faint stroke down her back. When she looked at him the corners of his lips lifted to a smile, devilish. Then he Turned to smoke, sending a sigh through the leaves around them.

  She followed him across the treetops to the pit, taking her shape beside his, well back from the edge. The monkeys down the path began to chatter and then to howl.

  Instinctively she scanned the brush and shadows, but there was no one else near, no Others, no runner. The monkeys woke the solitary lioness, who let loose an ear-shattering roar.

  Rue brought a hand to her forehead, feeling her headache creeping back.

  The pit itself was little more than a muddy ditch, but deep. The crocodiles swam about seven feet below them, held back by the steep pitch of the sides and a railing of battered wood. At one end of the pit was a small, sandy beach where one of the creatures watched them edgily, breathing through its mouth. The other had to still be in the water, but with the lack of light, Rue couldn't find it.

  Christoff was standing wi
th both hands braced against the railing, looking down. Almost, almost, she was becoming accustomed to the sight of him undressed.

  “I don't like your plan,” she said for perhaps the tenth time.

  “Sorry.” He was surveying the pit, focused, frowning. “It's the best we've got. You said you can't swim. That leaves me in the water, and you guarding the shore.”

  Getting down to the bottom would present no difficulties, but finding the diamond in the muck would. They could not grasp it as smoke. They would have to be either in their human shape or as dragons. And the confines of the pit made it impossible for both of them to be dragons.

  Rue joined him at the rail. “What if they've eaten it?”

  “Let's hope not. Their lives here are wretched enough. I've no desire to injure them, even for Herte. We'd just have to wait it out.”

  “Wait it out . . .”

  “Aye. And I believe I'd actually prefer this to that.” He straightened. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, his gaze traveling the length of her body, deliberately, slowly, as if to memorize her as she stood.

  “Then may I have a kiss?” he asked, unmoving. “For luck?”

  She felt her heart pick up. She felt her face grow hot.

  “You see? I'm asking, not demanding.” He lifted his hands to her, palms up. “Even the most beastly of us can learn.”

  Rue dropped her gaze to the ground, discomfited. “I don't think you're beastly.”

  “Thank goodness. I was about to point out that that fellow down there has far worse breath than I do.”

  She laughed softly, shaking her head, but by then his fingers were curling around hers.

  “Is that a yes, mouse?”

  She inhaled: heat, and animal. Him.

  Rue lifted her chin. “Yes.”

  Everything happened so gently at first, so languidly, as his hands drew hers behind his back so that she had to step toward him, so that their fronts had to touch. As soon as they did his fingers released; he smoothed his palms up her back, one hand at her waist and the other rising to cradle her head. She felt her hair bunch and slide with the passage of his fingers. She felt the cool air on her skin, and the welcome warmth of his chest and stomach and hips. His eyes roamed her face with that half-lidded intensity; she brought up a hand to the slope of his shoulder, resting it there. They stood there together in the open dark, soft and hard, while her stomach tied in knots and her hair stirred with the breeze.