by Kat Ross
Balthazar prepared to decline yet another offer when his eyes narrowed in recognition.
An immensely fat man gazed up at him with a sardonic expression.
“Balthazar,” he said, small eyes glittering within folds of pink flesh. “Still with us, I see.”
The necromancer went by the name Sebastian Ainsley when he was in England, though he had others. One arm was hooked around a flaxen-haired girl, a mere child who couldn’t have been more than twelve, and Balthazar felt a wave of disgust and pity.
“So it would seem,” he agreed mildly.
He studied Ainsley’s face for any sign he knew Alec Lawrence had been Balthazar’s guest at the Picatrix Club, but it was impossible to tell. The man always looked like he was savoring some secret.
“Leave us for a bit, sweetling,” Balthazar told the girl gently.
Ainsley frowned in annoyance, but the force of Balthazar’s gaze sent her scurrying into the recesses of the house.
“I was just getting started with the little tart,” Ainsley complained. He had thick ginger side whiskers that quivered when he spoke.
“You’ll have your chance,” Balthazar replied lazily. “It’s not often I run into old friends these days.” He paused. “I didn’t see you leave the Picatrix.”
Ainsley laughed. “Nor I you. But we were all a bit distracted at the time.”
His breath gusted into Balthazar’s face, a dry, pungent smell.
Absinthe.
Swift calculations unfolded in Balthazar’s mind. If this, then that. And if this….
“Where can we speak in private?” he asked.
Ainsley shrugged, his eyes glassy. Balthazar took his arm and proceeded down the hall, opening doors on varied scenes of debauchery until he found a billiards room that was currently unoccupied. It had a well-stocked sideboard. Balthazar poured them both brandies and leaned back against the table, watching as Ainsley sank into a leather chair.
“What have you heard?” Balthazar asked, idly sending one of the ivory balls spinning across the red cloth surface.
Ainsley gave a wintry smile. “And why should I tell you?”
“In the spirit of mutual benevolence?”
That drew a bark of laughter.
The ball rolled back to Balthazar’s hand and he sent it spinning outward again.
“As a tribute to our long acquaintance?”
“I have many acquaintances.” Ainsley took a sip of brandy, his lips wet and glistening.
“I thought we shared and shared alike,” Balthazar said with mock severity. “I’ve aided you in the past.”
Or so you believed.
Ainsley was unmoved. “That was then, this is now.”
“All right, I’ll go first. I saw D’Ange die.”
His thin brows lifted.
“It took longer than expected, but Gabriel finally kicked his heels up.” Balthazar gave a small shudder. “The sounds he made…. Well, suffice to say, sanctus arma are a nasty business.”
“I rather suspected that—” Ainsley blustered.
“And now I’ve confirmed it.” Balthazar caught the ball again and let it rest against the rail. “Your turn.”
Ainsley sighed and dragged a sleeve across his forehead, which was damp with perspiration.
“The Duzakh will move forward, of course. Periodic thinning of the ranks does no harm. Bekker says it keeps our numbers manageable.”
Balthazar kept his face smooth. “Have you communicated with him?”
“Not directly, but I’ve heard he’s in Brussels. Now that D’Ange is dead….” Ainsley trailed off.
Jorin Bekker believed the threat to be eliminated. Of course. He would crawl out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in for the last century.
“I’ve always been a firm believer in purges,” Balthazar said. “Separates the wheat from the chaff.” He tossed the ball into the air and watched it arc down. It slid through his grasping fingers and rolled across the floor, straight between Ainsley’s legs. “Damn,” Balthazar muttered.
Ainsley made to lift his bulk from the chair. “No more gossip,” he wheezed with a petulant set to his mouth. “I came here to enjoy myself. If I don’t catch that little tart soon, someone else will claim her….”
Balthazar strode past him, following the path of the ball. The instant he passed Ainsley’s chair, his hand delved into an inside coat pocket. As Ainsley laboriously gained his feet, Balthazar looped the wire garrote around his neck, yanking the wooden handles in opposite directions. Ainsley’s hands flew up as the wire bit into his flesh, but the force of Balthazar’s powerful shoulders severed his windpipe. Arterial blood jetted across the carpet, yet Balthazar knew it wasn’t enough, not to finish a necromancer. He braced a knee on the back of the chair and closed the loop, severing Ainsley’s head from his body. The torso slid to the floor with a soft thud.
Balthazar stepped back, examining his own garments for any sign of blood. That was the lovely thing about a garrote. Used properly from behind, it left one clean as a whistle.
He wiped the wire with a handkerchief and coiled it around the handles, returning it to his pocket. Then he bent to heft the ball in his palm. Balthazar tossed it onto the billiards table and watched it roll unerringly into the left corner pocket.
If this, then that.
A thud shook the table. Balthazar sighed. The bloody thing had come up underneath.
He stepped back as the table rocked again. Balthazar grabbed a cue stick. A grey hand clawed at the carpet where his shoe had just been. The revenant began hauling itself out, withered flesh giving off a wave of icy, foul air. Once the torso emerged, he gave it a smart whack across the knuckles, public school style, and yanked its sword away.
“Time for you to go back to the Dominion,” Balthazar said softly.
The revenant snarled, silver eyes luminous in the shadows. Then his blade flashed and it fell silent. Balthazar did his best to push the headless corpse into the hole beneath the billiards table.
He closed the door behind himself, leaving Ainsley where he’d fallen. The body would be found eventually, but he doubted any of the partygoers would be able to summon a clear description of him and they wouldn’t know his name if they did.
What the other necromancers would make of it when word got around…. Well, Sebastian Ainsley had no shortage of enemies.
A rear door led to an overgrown garden and thence to a narrow alleyway running behind the row of houses. As he stepped outside, the threatened rain finally arrived. It ran in a steady stream from the brim of his hat as he walked north toward Mayfair, his thoughts focused on Jorin Bekker.
Lucas wore a scar on his jaw from Bekker’s men, who’d left him for dead after killing his parents and three sisters. Balthazar had found the boy cowering in an upstairs closet. He had no use for a child and considered leaving him there for the police, but the Devereaux family had served him for generations and Balthazar found himself unable to walk away.
He was loath to admit it, but he’d been reminded of himself, left an orphan when his own parents died of plague. That had been another age – one even more merciless towards the weak – yet Balthazar knew all too well what might become of the boy. So he’d lifted him in his arms and carried him out to the waiting carriage, bringing him home and raising him as his own. Hoping he would grow into the sort of man Balthazar might have been if he hadn’t taken up the necromantic chains and sold his soul to Neblis.
Lucas had surpassed every expectation. He was kind when it was appropriate, ruthless when it wasn’t. He’d excelled in his studies at the finest Swiss boarding schools, showing a keen aptitude for numbers and languages. He had a dry sense of humor but also quiet, brute discipline, mastering weapons of every pedigree. Balthazar could find no fault with Lucas and in fact, couldn’t imagine life without him.
His adopted protégé was one of the few things Balthazar felt pride in. Yet he still owed Lucas a debt. The deaths had been Balthazar’s fault – indirectly, but nonetheless.
He’d given Lucas’s father a talisman to hold until he could move it to a secure location, and Bekker must have gotten wind of the transaction. This particular talisman was a ring with a dark stone in a silver setting. It’s only purpose seemed to be that it glowed and grew warm when another talisman was used nearby.
If, for example, a rival necromancer tried to open a gateway into one’s bedroom while one slept.
Balthazar had never encountered a talisman like it; in retrospect, he should have taken greater precautions. The Duzakh stole from each other as a matter of course and Jorin Bekker was the most covetous of them all. So he’d sent men to the Devereaux house in the middle of the night. Balthazar knew it never even occurred to Bekker that he cared far more about the people murdered for it than the object itself.
That was more than two decades ago. Bekker had no doubt forgotten about the whole thing.
But Lucas Devereaux hadn’t, nor had Balthazar.
Again and again, Balthazar had promised Lucas revenge. It was the only thing that seemed to reach him in those early days. He’d barely spoken for weeks, his eyes haunted by what he’d witnessed — and worse, the guilt of surviving when all those he loved were dead. But the idea of retribution, however far in the future it might be, kept him going. Balthazar understood this perfectly. Sometimes hatred was all one had left.
The Picatrix Club was the closest they’d gotten to Bekker since that night twenty-three years ago. Balthazar had been content to cede the actual assassination to Gabriel D’Ange, who could usually be relied on in such matters. But Constantin Andreae had turned traitor and Bekker escaped unscathed.
Balthazar climbed the front steps of his townhouse and entered the foyer, tossing his sodden coat and hat over a marble bust of some ancient philosopher. Lucas looked up as he entered the library.
“You’re back early,” he remarked.
Balthazar loosened his cravat and sank into an armchair, stretching his legs out. “My evening took an unexpected turn.”
Lucas set his fountain pen down.
“I had a chat with Sebastian Ainsley. Bekker is in Brussels, doing business as usual. Openly.”
Lucas grew still, his brown eyes intent. “That’s interesting.”
“I thought so, too. He clearly thinks the danger is past.”
“That D’Ange is dead, you mean.”
Balthazar nodded. He barked a humorless laugh. “I thought he was too, at first. Gabriel certainly looked dead. But then he revived. Bekker was long gone at that point. So was everyone else, if you don’t count the revenants. No one saw. Except me.”
Lucas looked doubtful. He made a noncommittal noise, a faint clearing of the throat, that Balthazar knew indicated dissent.
“Look, when I told Ainsley I’d witnessed Gabriel’s demise, he didn’t bat an eyelash. If there were any credible rumors to the contrary, I guarantee Ainsley would have heard them by now.”
Lucas was silent for a long moment. He’d arrived at the Picatrix with Vivienne Cumberland moments after Gabriel and Alec disappeared into the gateway. “I didn’t see anyone else alive,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t. Someone could have been playing dead.”
“With those revenants stomping around? I think not.”
Lucas arranged the pen so it lined up perfectly with the edge of the paper. “What about D’Ange? Any idea where he is?”
“Not the faintest.” Balthazar still found it curious the way Gabriel had disappeared without a trace. “Well? Are you up for a trip to Brussels? They have very good chocolate biscuits there.”
Lucas didn’t smile. “How would you do it? We’ve never managed to get near him.”
“Don’t know yet.”
“But hasn’t Bekker realized you were the one who brought Alec Lawrence to the Picatrix?”
“Ainsley didn’t. He never would have let me near him otherwise. I’ve thought about it, Lucas. Everyone wore masks and nearly identical black tie. By the time Alec confronted Constantin, he’d taken his mask off. I don’t think anyone knew which one he’d been wearing when he arrived — or if he’d even been wearing one at all.” Balthazar shrugged. “It’s a risk, but I’m willing to take it.”
In fact, it was a rather large risk — more than Balthazar usually hazarded. He was not a gambling man. He’d only survived for so long because he made sure the odds were well stacked in his favor before taking any action. He preferred the knife in the dark, the poisoned letter. Or better yet, convincing his enemies to kill each other and save him the trouble.
But the Picatrix had changed him. Not his mercenary instincts but his willingness to take the road of no return. If anyone could salvage the Duzakh from the fiasco at the Picatrix Club, it was Bekker, and Balthazar didn’t relish the idea of facing them again as a united front.
He didn’t mention that killing Bekker might also be the only thing on earth that would stop Gabriel from coming for him.
“It all seems a bit dicey,” Lucas said. “Maybe we should tell Lady Cumberland. She’s fearsome. She might offer to help.”
Lady Cumberland. Balthazar smiled wistfully. “She is indeed fearsome, Lucas. But she’s joined at the hip to Alec Lawrence and I still haven’t forgiven his appalling behavior at the Picatrix. He was the opposite of discreet. It’s a miracle no one caught on. No, we’ll handle this alone. They can’t be trusted.”
Lucas gave a doleful nod. He picked up the pen and a fresh sheet of paper and started making a list. Lucas loved lists the way cats loved cream. “I’ll look into Bekker’s assets, his movements—”
“You can do it from Brussels. Time is running out. Bekker could learn the truth about Gabriel at any time.”
“Which does beg the question, what if Gabriel turns up in Brussels?”
“That’s a possibility,” Balthazar conceded.
“Dicey,” Lucas muttered again, though this time he sounded resigned. “I’ll make the arrangements.” He showed no reaction to the prospect of revenge on Jorin Bekker, but Balthazar knew he wouldn’t until he was dancing a polka on Bekker’s grave. Even then Lucas would probably look solemn. Despite his slight French accent, he had the soul of an Englishman.
Balthazar rose. He suddenly wanted that second brandy.
“My lord?”
Balthazar turned back at the door.
“Did Ainsley say anything else?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “Nothing of interest.”
Chapter 7
Balthazar gazed at the man sitting across from him in the stuffy parlor on the Rue Marie-Thérèse. His name was Garlen Janssens. He had an open, honest face with large, equine teeth and a receding blonde hairline, the sort of man who would return your lost wallet with all the cash intact and quietly refuse a reward, seeming embarrassed that it was even offered. His suit was sober and neatly pressed, his shoes polished if a bit worn at the heel. He looked like a schoolteacher, or perhaps an accountant.
Garlen Janssens was neither of those things. In fact, he was Belgium’s premier dealer in stolen Renaissance art, the sort that required an almost phobic level of discretion, and had contacts throughout Europe’s criminal underworld. Balthazar had purchased several paintings from him and Garlen was as close to a friend as Balthazar had — which, in all honesty, wasn’t saying much — but he was the logical starting point.
“What brings you to our fair city?” Garlen asked, flashing a set of boyish dimples. “Looking to buy? Or perhaps to sell this time? You won’t find a better price for that Caravaggio.”
He coveted Balthazar’s collection, but Janssens would never deign to thievery. He was merely a middleman.
“Not this time. I’m looking for information.”
“Ah.” The dimples faded. “What sort?”
“Jorin Bekker.”
Garlen’s smile vanished like a door slamming shut. “I won’t ask why. In fact, I’ll have to insist you don’t tell me.”
“I only need to contact him. That’s all.”
&n
bsp; “It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Galen swallowed. “It would be most awkward if Mr. Bekker discovered the information came from me.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Garlen laughed uneasily. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in a new acquisition? I have one just in by Andrea Mantegna. The Triumphs of Caesar. It’s the fourth of a series of nine. A true masterpiece. The light is extraordinary—”
Balthazar smiled. “Don’t tempt me. Of course, I’ll pay handsomely for whatever you can tell me. Anything at all.”
“Money is beside the point,” Garlan replied. “I have my reputation to consider, not to mention my life and that of my family. Bekker enjoys the protection of King Leopold himself. He’s untouchable. I, on the other hand, am a very small fish.” He held his fingers an inch apart. “A minnow, swimming among barracudas. So I try very hard to keep them from noticing me. You understand?”
Balthazar did. But in his experience, money was always the point. He named a sum that made Garlen blink rapidly several times.
“Of course, principles can be bent. However, you should be aware that I can hardly arrange a meeting myself.”
Balthazar’s eyes narrowed. “But you know someone who can.”
Garlen beamed. “That’s why I’ve always respected you, Lord Koháry. You grasp the nuances immediately. I think the wisest course would be to contact Mr. Bekker’s solicitors. I’ll give you a name.”
They concluded the transaction on amiable terms, sharing a glass of jenever and viewing Mantegna’s fourth canvas, which was indeed extraordinary. Balthazar promised to call again before he returned to England. He left Garlen with a valise full of banknotes and a contented smile.
The solicitors’ office wasn’t far. Van Acker & Neefs occupied a commercial building near the Synagogue de Bruxelles on the rue de la Régence. It resembled any other busy firm, junior clerks laboring away at a row of desks heaped with paper and weighty books that made Balthazar drowsy just looking at them. In their identical black coats, they reminded him of crows hunched on a telegraph wire. Balthazar presented his card to the nearest scribe and was told to wait.