by Bec McMaster
Page 11
“It smells like…a bakery,” she murmured, swallowing hard against the flood of bile in the back of her throat. She couldn’t look at them again. How could anyone slaughter their own children? What manner of monster could do that?
A blue blood, a voice whispered in her mind.
Lynch stared at the scene as though absorbing it. “So it does. As did Falcone. ” He turned to her to speak, then paused. “Rosa?”
She looked up and saw something that almost looked like concern on his face. “I’m—” The words dried up and she clapped a gloved hand to her lips. She wasn’t all right. All she could see were those tiny, twisted shapes beneath the bloodied linen.
Movement blurred. A hand wrapped around her elbow, Lynch’s large body stepping between her and the bodies. Then he was pushing her through the door, into the blinding light of well-lit corridor. The walls staggered by, a door opening in front of her. She moved like a puppet in his grasp, acid burning her throat.
Lynch pushed a window up and shoved her toward it. Fresh air swept that sickly sweet scent out of her nostrils and she clutched the window ledge, sucking in a choked breath. His hand settled in the small of her back tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure how welcome his touch would be.
“I shouldn’t have taken you in there. ” Soft words. “My apologies. ”
Rosalind shook her head, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry. ” No matter how much she tried to shove the image away—into that small dark recess of her mind where lurked unimaginable memories—she couldn’t. It was tattooed on the back of her eyelids, burning its way into her stomach and throat.
A cool hand rubbed small circles against the curve of her spine. Rosalind gripped the sill and leaned out, drawing the coal-laden air of London into her lungs. Anything to rid herself of that bakery scent.
As if to distract herself, she focused on his touch. Her breath caught.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, his cool exhale stirring the curls at the nape of her neck.
For the first time Rosalind realized how closely he stood, his legs pressing against her bustle and skirts. Nervousness etched its way down her spine. She hadn’t forgotten the look in his eyes when he killed Falcone—he’d enjoyed it, licking the taste of blood from his lips. It should have sickened her further, yet she found she couldn’t quite equate that monster with the man who stood behind her, his hand rubbing soothing circles against her skin.
Rosalind’s body responded to his nearness, but not with lust, not with the way the previous scene still haunted her. Instead, she relaxed back into his touch, her head bowing low as she took some small, guilty comfort from his closeness. She didn’t want to think about why his presence made her feel…safe?
She’d stood alone for so long, walling herself off from others after her husband’s death. She didn’t need the softening of a man’s touch or his presence to comfort her. She was strong enough without it.
Rosalind stiffened. He had to stop touching her. She didn’t like it. “I’m fine, sir. ”
His touch hesitated, his fingertips skating over the smooth taffeta of her gown. “Very well. ”
The sudden screaming absence of his touch made her feel almost cold. But no, that was nothing more than the chill breeze through the window. A shiver worked its way across her skin and she looked for anything to take her mind off the frozen melee of emotion that stirred her.
“What shall you tell the crowd?” she asked, examining the assembled blue bloods below.
“That we are investigating. ” His voice was hard again. “They don’t need to be made aware of the full facts of the case. ”
Rosalind’s fingers tightened on the windowsill. “If you don’t tell them, they’ll suspect worse. They’re already crying ‘vampire. ’” She shook her head. “There’ve been too many people through the house: the Coldrush Guards, Lord Barrons, the physicians… You cannot keep all of them quiet. I would imagine it would be better to give the press some details, enough to still the fear. ”
“You’re right,” he murmured. “Very wise of you, Rosa. ”
“People fear what they don’t understand,” she said with a glance over her shoulder, then abruptly regretted the words.
Lynch stared back at her, his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was hauntingly intense in the chill afternoon light. “So they do. ” Slowly he bowed his head. “Take your time. I shall wait for you in the foyer when I’m done speaking to the journalists. ”
She waited until she heard the door click behind her before letting out the breath she’d been holding. A glance outside showed the crowd baying at the iron-scrolled fence, fury and fear etched in stark emotion across their faces. For a moment they looked almost human, then she pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing.
There was nothing human about a blue blood, nothing at all. No matter what she thought of Lynch, she could never forget that.
As she turned away, her eye caught on a solitary figure leaning against the corner across the street, his arms crossed over his chest.
With his cap pulled low over his face and a heavy coat obscuring his throat and jaw, she shouldn’t have recognized him but she did. Mordecai. The leader of the mechs who’d tried to bomb the tower.
The satisfaction curling over his lips was unmistakably his—the smug grin that had always made her hackles rise. What was he doing here? Surveying his handiwork? Or simply enjoying the sight of the blue blood’s distress?
Her iron fingers jerked inside her glove unconsciously. He’d done something, she was certain of it. Somehow he’d been the cause of this, the reason those two small bodies lay still and silent beneath the white table cloth.
The reason she couldn’t find her brother Jeremy.
Rosalind was moving before she thought about it, the house a blur around her as she darted down the stairs to the foyer, her boot heels ringing on the polished tiles as she shoved the front door open.
Stopping on the edge of the portico, Rosalind caught her skirts in her hand in frustration. He was gone. The corner was empty, the crowd swallowing up any sign of him and trapping her here. There was no way she could push through them and the thought of being surrounded by so many of the enemy made her throat tighten.
I’ll find you. Her eyes narrowed. Then she’d make him regret ever sending her brother in to deliver the bomb.
Five
Fog lingered in the alleyways, seeming to lurk in the still corners and doorways where no breeze stirred. Rosalind dragged her shawl tight around her shoulders and moved swiftly through the evening crowd. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. It was the silence, she decided, the way everybody’s voices were muted and nobody would meet each other’s gaze. Martial law had choked the city since the bombing, with metaljackets on every corner and rumors of humanists in every whisper. The unease was universal. Even she felt it, despite nerves that should have turned to steel long ago.
A quick glance at her pocket watch told her she’d best hurry. It was almost half eight and she had to be home before nine. If she were caught out, she’d be arrested.
Fifteen minutes later, she took out her key in front of the door that led to her leased apartment. The door jerked open.
Rosalind slapped a hand to her chest as Ingrid glared at her over the threshold. “Damn it, Ingrid. Are you trying to give me a fit of the nerves?”
“Nerves?” Ingrid asked in a smoky voice. “You?”
Rosalind pushed past. The door slammed and then the lock clicked behind her as she tugged at her gloves, each finger at a time. She hated wearing them; they made her right hand sweat and it was difficult to grip a pistol with them. But if anyone caught a glimpse of her bio-mech hand, they’d alert the authorities. It was clearly not enclave work.
Mech limbs never came cheaply and it sometimes took as many as fifteen years in the enclaves for a mech to pay off his debt. After they had worked off their bond, they often returned to the enclave
s as free men—or women. The streets of London weren’t the same for a person with a mech enhancement. The Echelon saw them as less than human and, therefore, without even the punitive rights most humans lived by.
Sometimes Rosalind wondered if it would be better if she’d not had the replacement, not that she’d had the choice. It made her stand out and that was dangerous in her world. But it also gave her two working limbs and that was invaluable for an assassin.
Rosalind tossed the gloves aside, flexing her steel fingers. You’re not an assassin anymore. But sometimes it still felt like it. Sometimes in the night she woke sweating, seeing a victim’s face flash through her mind. It was the only time she couldn’t protect herself from the memories.
There’d been five of them in total. Balfour’s enemies. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing they’d been blue bloods. Still…
Shoving them aside, into that little mental compartment in her mind that she kept locked, she turned toward the sitting room and the decanter there. The fire was stoked, casting a merry light over the stuffed armchairs, with their wilted lace doilies clinging to the backs and a mahogany table between them. Sparse accommodations, but then she didn’t truly live here. This was just a facade for her little game.
Silence lingered and she cast a distracted glance over her shoulder. Ingrid leaned against the doorjamb, a frown drawing her dark brows together. “You are nervous. I can smell it. ”
The problem with living with a verwulfen—their enhanced senses could smell anything. Rosalind shrugged out of her cape and feathered hat, discarding them on an armchair. “I’m tired. I’ve been dragged to Kensington and back, upstairs, downstairs, and then home again, with no luncheon or refreshment to speak of. The man’s a machine—a well-oiled machine that runs on fumes. ”
She sank into the remaining armchair and slumped in an unladylike manner. Lynch had been an unstoppable force today, his mind making leaps of logic that even she struggled to follow. He questioned everything, checking over every inch of the house. The only aberrance they’d found had been a pair of small metal balls in the dining room that looked somewhat like the clockwork tumbler balls children played with in the streets. The sickly sweet smell lingered around them, though undoubtedly the children had been behind their presence.
Ingrid stepped closer, dragging a footstool forward and tugging Rosalind’s boots up before straddling the edge of the footstool herself. “Got something for you. ”
Slipping a slim, rectangular box out of her waistcoat, she handed it to Rosalind. From the weightlessness, the box might have been empty.
Rosalind opened it. A thin, pale glove of almost translucent material lay on crumpled tissue paper. The artistry was exquisite, with fine blue veins of cotton barely showing through the outer layer of synthetic skin and slick scars that looked like ancient burn marks marring the back of the hand. Small oval scales were embedded into the fingertips with painted half-moons and a rosy hue.
“Synthetic skin,” she murmured. “Where did you get this?”
“There’s a man in Clerkenwell who knows someone who does this sort of thing. I asked him for it. ”
“This must have cost a fortune. ” Rosalind looked up. “Ingrid, how did you pay for this?”
Their eyes locked, the burnished gold of Ingrid’s irises flaring. “Made some money in the Pits,” she admitted.
“Ingrid!” The Pits were notorious dens in the East End where men pitted themselves against other men—or even beasts. Sometimes the fights stopped when a contestant was unconscious. Sometimes not.
Forbidding it wouldn’t stop the other woman. Indeed, quite the opposite. Still, she had to say something. “You’re not invulnerable. ”
“The fighting helps to keep me temper under control. And I don’t like you being unprepared. If the Nighthawk asks to see your hands,” Ingrid said, “then what shall you do?”
Rosalind slowly closed the lid over the glove. “It won’t hold up under scrutiny. ”
“No. But all you got to do is let him catch a glimpse so he don’t start getting suspicious. ”
“Thank you,” Rosalind murmured.
Ingrid nodded gruffly. She’d never say how worried she was, but she was fretting and that would put her on edge. They’d first met when Ingrid had been just a little girl, trapped in a cage in Balfour’s menagerie. Rosalind had been well fed and cared for, but she had been a pawn-in-training, just as alone in some ways as Ingrid. The pair of them had struck up a friendship and eventually Balfour had let Ingrid out of the cage at times to duel with her. Of course, pitting her against an opponent who was stronger and faster than her, but untrained, had been nothing more than a test of her skills.
He’d underestimated the bond the two girls had struck however.