by Bec McMaster
gave an impressive impression of Kincaid. "You
coming?"
"Of course," he replied, pressing something
that made the chestpiece open on the steel suit.
Charlie looked strangely vulnerable as he stepped
down out of it.
A vampire couldn't gut a Cyclops, but it might
do so to him.
"Kincaid's going to enter the asylum from the
north with Malloryn and Gemma," he said,
touching his earpiece again. "Ava's coordinating
the Nighthawks and will have them slip into place
surrounding the asylum so that nothing escapes. It's
up to us to get Byrnes out."
In one piece. Ingrid swallowed. "Let's go
then."
The two Nighthawks that Garrett had brought
scrambled over the planks, running low with their
weapons raised. Flanders, the one in the lead,
pressed his spine to a crumbling brick wall and
cocked his head to listen before flicking two
fingers. The other Nighthawk, Nicholson, vanished
into the shadows in response.
"It's clear," Garrett said, and urged her and
Charlie forward into the darkness.
She quite enjoyed working with people who
knew what they were doing.
"Anyone think that this seems a little easy?"
Charlie whispered, swallowing hard as they
hurried through the abandoned tunnels.
"What do you mean?" Ingrid asked.
"Not a single guard, or a vampire sighting,"
he pointed out.
Which was troubling.
Nicholson returned from ahead, appearing out
of nowhere. "We've reached the bottom level of
cells," he murmured. "It's quiet."
"Too quiet," Garrett added grimly, then
gestured them on ahead. "Expect anything. This is
starting to feel like a trap."
"How would she know we were coming?"
Charlie whispered.
"Maybe she saw us?" Ingrid replied.
"Flanders, take point. Nicholson, cover the rear.
Everyone, weapons out." She tipped her head
toward Garrett, gesturing him to slip in behind
Flanders. "I've got your back."
"Thanks," he murmured, unholstering his
enhanced pistol.
They all carried firebolt bullets, which could
take off a vampire's head if necessary.
The phosphorus glow from the glimmer light
in the headset around Flanders's head provided just
enough light to see by as they wound down, through
half-used tunnels filled with rot and mud and the
filth of this part of London. All of them were
preternatural: they could see with the faintest of
lights, and light made them a target in these tunnels.
The vampire tracks they were following led
to a half-rotted door set into stone. Up, then. The
scent through here was stronger, and bones lay
scattered around. Ingrid's eyes watered, as her
sense of smell was the strongest, and she took a
moment to wipe them as the men fanned through the
room and down the two tunnels spearing out from
it.
"There are people in here," Charlie
whispered, slinking back along the corridor from a
small excursion. "I can hear them."
People? Ingrid went to the first cell and
peered in. A pair of children scrambled away from
her, curling into their mother's arms. An old man
lifted a piece of chair and waved it threateningly.
"Stay away from us," he rasped.
Jesus. The stench hit her again: unwashed
bodies, blood and old death, mixed with a strong
presence of eau de vampire.
"Sir," Garrett called under his breath. "Sir,
I'm with the Nighthawks. I'm not here to hurt you."
Relief dawned on the man's face and the
woman started sobbing. The man grabbed the bars,
desperation plain on his face. "Please! Please let
us out!"
"Who are you?" Garrett asked, looking around
for a key. "What happened?"
"I don't know," the man gasped, gripping the
iron bars on the cell doors as if afraid that they
would leave him here. "Something rolled into the
room of my house and started hissing gas. The next
thing I knew, I woke up here with Verna and the
children." The man swallowed. "There's vampires
here. You can hear the screams at night, when they
come and drag some of us away. They don't come
back." He started sobbing. "They took my son three
days ago, and they didn't bring him back."
Garrett came back out of the shadows. "No
keys."
Ingrid slid her hand inside one of the pouches
on her belt and withdrew her lock pick set. As
much as she was frightened for Byrnes, she
couldn't leave these people here in the dark.
She knew all too well what it felt like to be
locked in a cage.
"A woman after my own heart," Charlie said
as she set to work.
"Stop flirting, and keep an eye out." The lock
was old, but it gave an appreciable click. Ingrid
listened intently, but it seemed there were no
guards on duty who'd heard the small noise.
The door was another matter. It groaned on its
hinges, and she cursed under her breath as the old
man yanked on it.
"Quiet," she hissed, holding the door firm.
"You'll have to slip through the gap. And don't
make any noise."
"Hullo?" someone called from further up the
passage. "Hullo, is anybody there?"
She exchanged a look with Garrett. More
prisoners. "Keep them quiet."
Garrett nodded and slipped into the darkness
with the two Nighthawks following him.
The cell door opened and Ingrid helped the
old man out. His wrist was shockingly thin, and the
children were crying silently as their mother
carried them out. Ingrid took the small water flask
from her hip, wishing she had more as she shared it
between them.
"Where did you live?" Ingrid asked, stroking
the dirty hair out of one child's face.
"Begby Square," the man replied. "This is my
neighbor, Anne, and her children."
"My husband?" Anne pleaded, grabbing hold
of Ingrid's hand. "Please, my husband! They took
him three weeks ago. Are there other cells? Other
people?" She looked frantically back down the
hallway where Garrett and the Nighthawks were
freeing other hostages.
Three weeks ago. Ingrid swallowed, for the
only answer she suspected she had was not one the
woman would want to hear. "It's a warren down
here. We'll make sure they all get out," Ingrid said
soothingly, "but we need to get you and your
children to safety first. I'm sure if your husband is
down here, we'll find him.”
The old man exchanged a look with her as he
tried to help Anne to her feet. "I'll make sure she
gets out," he said, and Ingrid saw in his eyes the
same thoughts that lurked within her. Anne's
husband wasn't going to be found. Not alive,
anyway.
This then, was what had happened to all the
people who went missing. Someone had taken
them, both in order to cause chaos and for far more
practical reasons. After all, what could you feed to
vampires?
It made her furious, and all of the hairs along
her arms rose as the berserkergang fired within
her. People weren't objects, and they weren't food.
They didn't deserve to be locked in cages. Like she
had been.
Zero had done everything possible to make
this personal. Ingrid ached to smash her face in.
"Easy," Charlie muttered. "Save your anger
for the one who deserves it."
"Oh, I will," she snarled, standing and glaring
up the passage. "I'm going to make that bitch rue
the day she ever set eyes on Begby Square."
"But first, we need to get the prisoners out,"
Charlie said.
Garrett came out of the darkness, a little girl
wrapped in his arms and a trail of sobbing people
hobbling behind him. His expression looked as
haunted as her heart, and she realized that the little
girl in his arms was only a year or so older than
his twin daughters. "I'll get them out," he promised.
"I've sent Nicholson back for more Nighthawks.
You two go on ahead and rendezvous with Kincaid
and Malloryn. We can't risk this bitch taking her
anger out on Byrnes."
"It will be my pleasure," Ingrid growled, as
she let the fury spill within her. She'd never let the
berserker part of her nature have free rein before,
but now wasn't the time to play nice.
THIRTY-TWO
"FANCY A LITTLE music?"
Zero moved to the cylinder phonograph in the
corner and set it to playing. A faint waltz echoed
through the brass horn. Instantly the two vampires’
eyelids began to lower as firelight flickered over
the gaunt bones of their spines. Two hounds at rest
by the hearth.
Somewhat sickening.
"Did you know," Zero murmured, watching
them with a faint smile, "that they can be trained? It
interests me. That one can be taught to react to
something in association with... the same kind of
stimulus. For example, they hear this music and
they know that I am pleased with them, and that it
is time to sleep."
Byrnes
wriggled
against
his
chains.
"Fascinating." The daft woman was scratching one
of the vampire's heads as though it were a hound.
And he could swear that one of them was making
some sort of purring sound deep in its throat.
"Do you wish to know how I discovered
this?" Zero asked.
Why not? Anything that made vampires
sleepy was possibly a good thing to know. "How?"
"I was once interred in an asylum by my
husband." Her smile remained just as bright. "And
I use the term 'interred' deliberately. He meant for
me to die there. One of the things I learned is that
sounds bring certain associations to mind. Even
now the mere scrape of a key turning in a lock
makes me feel ill."
He didn't want to sympathize with her, but it
was all too easy to imagine what had happened to
her. "How did you escape the asylum?"
"Oh, I didn't escape. I seduced one of the
other inmates’ visitors—a baron—and became
infected with the craving virus. After I tore out my
handler's throat, the governor of the asylum took
note. It's not the sort of thing one wants to have
whispered about their facility, you see. Blue blood
lords taking advantage of the patients. Tut, tut.
What would the papers say?" She swirled in a
slow circle as the phonograph played a couple of
piquant notes, holding on to her skirts as if it were
a waltz. "The next day a pair of red-liveried
servants arrived to take me away. At first I thought
it was Nigel—my baron—but I soon learned he'd
forgotten me. Fickle man. No, these servants
belonged to the Duke of Lannister. And they took
me to Falkirk Asylum, which was masquerading as
another treatment facility."
Falkirk, which had been owned by the Dukes
of Lannister, Caine, and Casavian. He sensed
where this was going.
"That was where I was reborn." Zero swirled
to a halt near the table and opened a small case. He
craned his neck to see what was inside it, but the
curve of her body hid it. Zero held something up
and flicked her nail against it. "I went into Falkirk
as Annabelle, victim of a half dozen men and their
whims, and I exited it as Zero, who can be judge,
jury, and executioner."
"I won't argue that you've been poorly done
by, but the people from Begby Square did no
wrong by you. The guests at the Venetian Gardens
had nothing to do with your incarceration. So why
hurt them?"
Zero laughed. "Oh, Byrnes, I thought you were
an investigator. That party belonged to the Earl of
Carrington. Do you know who was on the guest
list?"
"Nigel? Your baron?"
Her smile softened. "I almost began to doubt
you, but you are just as clever as I had hoped. Poor
Nigel's still alive, by the way, but I bet he wishes
he wasn't. Did you know that blue bloods can
survive almost anything? And they might be able to
heal, but they can't actually regrow limbs or
organs... or eyes."
"And what about Begby Square?"
"My husband lived there. Unfortunately,
Thomas didn't last long enough to see my justice."
Her face flattened as she strode toward him,
holding something low against her skirts. "But his
cow-faced mother did. And his two sisters. And
all of their families, and the neighbors who
sneered at me. Who is sneering now?"
A chill ran down his spine. What the hell was
in her hand? "Possibly no one. You don't have to
do this. I'm no threat to you—"
"Relax," she said, holding up a syringe. "I
don't mean you harm. You're going to be one of my
allies, Byrnes. This will hurt a little—the first time
is always the worst—" She suddenly giggled.
"That's what men always say, isn't it? But once it's
done, you'll be on the first step toward your new
transformation. I do hope you'll be strong enough to
survive it."
A bubble of fluid wept from the top of the
syringe. Byrnes’s gaze tracked it warily. "I think I'd
like to know a little bit more about this... ah,
transformation before we go ahead with it. Is it
reversible?"
"Oh, no." Zero tore his sleeve clear up the
middle, revealing the muscle in his upper arm.
"Once it begins you must continue it, or else you'll
end up like my failures."
Byrnes's gaze shot toward the vampires
reclining on the floor. "How many treatment
s?"
Hell, where was Ingrid? She should be here by
now, and if she didn't come quickly, it was going to
be too late. His gaze narrowed on the syringe
needle.
"Seven treatments, provided all goes well.
They shall proceed a week apart. Any closer
together and your brain might trickle out of your
ears." Zero rubbed a spot on his upper biceps,
crooning a little under her breath. "You need to
stay nice and relaxed, otherwise you'll hurt
yourself. Don't worry. We've refined the formula
since Dr. Cremorne used it upon us. The failure
rate has gone down significantly. Only three in ten
die now."
"Us?" He seized on the word, trying to crawl
through the chair as she inched closer. "Who's us?
Am I joining some sort of... elite brotherhood,
hmm?"
Zero paused, glancing up from beneath her
silvery lashes. "They're of no concern to you or I,"
she finally said. "You're mine. I'm tired of being
told what to do and kept on a leash. I want my own
fun, my own allies."
"Who's holding the leash?"
"You wouldn't be trying to get information out
of me, would you?" Zero went very still.
He'd taken a slight misstep there. Byrnes
summoned every ounce of arrogance that he could
muster. "Of course I am. If there's someone running
this entire coup, then I want to know who. I'm
about to become what you are. Do you think I want
to walk into a trap where there's a leash around my
throat too, without at least knowing who it bloody
well is? What if I take this leap and end up as
slave for some despot? That's not me, princess."
"That's not me either." She seemed delighted.
"I hate playing by the rules."
"You and me both." He made himself smile.
Bloody hell. "Do you know what I like? I like
puzzling out the answer to mysteries. And this is
the greatest mystery of all. I won. I found you, so
that we could be together. Don't I at least get my
prize?"
Zero nibbled on her lip. "You could help me
remove the leash," she whispered, as though
thinking about it.
"Who do we have to kill?"
A slither of darkness slid through her pale
blue eyes. "My brothers. We were born in a trial
by fire, and since then we've only been able to rely
on each other. Ghost is the problem. Without him,
the others would leave us alone to do as we
wished."
"Who's Ghost?"
"The first," she whispered. "The first one who
survived the transformation. He thinks that gives
him the right to lead us."