by Helen Harper
They reached the first floor. The smell of blood was getting stronger. Devereau spoke faster. ‘So I walked into where the master bedroom should have been but there wasn’t a bed in there. There were two large coffins, lying on the floor side by side, and inside each coffin was a body.’
‘Corpses?’ Scarlett recoiled.
‘That’s what I thought at first, but it was the middle of the night and the lord and lady of the house weren’t away on their yacht.’
‘They were inside the coffins?’
‘Oh yes. And they were both alive. Just fast asleep. In their matching coffins.’
Scarlett reached the second-floor landing and turned to him. ‘So what did you do?’
‘Ran out of there as fast as my terrified thieving legs could carry me.’
She grinned. ‘You know I’m a vampire.’
‘Do you sleep in a coffin? Because I’m afraid that might be a deal breaker.’
‘I don’t. I have a very large, very comfortable bed. And one day,’ she winked, ‘you might even get to see it.’
He smiled at her.
‘Do you feel better now after sharing that little story?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, not really.’ He paused. ‘But thanks for letting me babble on.’ He pointed down the corridor. ‘The room where I found Martina is this way.’
They walked into it together. The horrifying blood spatter had dried, and of course there were no longer any corpses, but the scent of death remained. The desolate atmosphere made Devereau shudder. Patches of fur broke out across his skin and he rubbed at his arms to force them down.
In contrast, Scarlett was completely business-like. She swivelled round, her eyes taking in all the details, then she walked to the corner where Devereau had found Martina.
‘Martina was here.’ She pointed to a bare patch lower down the wall. ‘There’s no blood at this spot.’ She turned and examined the other marks. ‘There was someone there, and there, and there.’ She frowned at the far wall. ‘And two people there.’
‘That was where David Bernard and his accomplice died.’
‘Hmm.’ She didn’t look at him. ‘Let’s try not forget that our little warrior killed two people with her bare claws.’
‘They didn’t give her any choice.’
‘Hmm.’
Devereau gritted his teeth but held his tongue. There was no point in going over old ground.
Scarlett gazed down at the floor. ‘Three people escaped through the door.’
‘How can you tell?’
She pointed at a few small rust-coloured droplets. ‘I’m a vampire,’ she said lightly. ‘The blood speaks to me.’
He stared at her.
‘I’m kidding,’ she said. ‘I took an online course in blood spatter once upon a time.’
‘Why would you do that?’
Scarlett shrugged absently. ‘Call it professional interest – and a mistrust of the police. I’m a highly-placed vampire. I want to walk into a crime scene and understand what has happened without having to rely on prejudiced humans to make up a story that fits their own narrative.’
He continued to watch her. ‘You don’t trust anyone, do you?’
She gave a mild snort. ‘Who do you trust, Devereau?’
Until recently, there had been hundreds of people that he’d trusted. He put his hands in his pockets and chose not to answer. Instead, he focused on the reason they were there. ‘So Dominic Phillips, another man who was probably the gunman from my street and Marsha Kennard run out of the room when Martina transforms and attacks.’
He walked back into the corridor. Now that Scarlett had pointed them out, he could see tiny spots of old blood leading to the staircase. He almost smiled. He enjoyed the thought of Phillips fleeing for his life.
‘Two headed for the stairs,’ Scarlett said from behind him, ‘while one ran into that room to the right.’
Devereau glanced over to where she was pointing. ‘I came in that way. I climbed up and came in through the window.’
‘Did you leave that way too?’
He nodded.
Scarlett pursed her lips. ‘I reckon you weren’t the only one. Kennard obviously didn’t want to leave with Dominic Phillips. She was panicking but not stupid. If she’d tried exiting with him through the front door, he’d have grabbed her and forced her to go with him so he could kill her as soon as he got to a safe place. He wasn’t alone, after all. He could have taken her easily.’
‘So you think she escaped from the same open window that I did?’ He grimaced. ‘We have no reason to believe Marsha Kennard is anything other than human. I managed the climb, and I’d have managed it before I become a wolf, but I have a history of breaking into houses and clambering up walls. Marsha Kennard is a secretary who sits behind a desk all day.’ He went into the room, strolled to the window and gazed down. ‘It’s quite a drop. For a human woman to fall that far without injury has to be nigh on impossible.’
‘Perhaps,’ Scarlett answered. ‘But she didn’t have much choice. It was either get nabbed by Phillips, be killed by Martina, or jump out of the window.’
‘There was no sign of Kennard by the time I got here. And I don’t see how she could have reached the ground without breaking her leg at least. Not unless she scales mountains in her free time.’
Scarlett tapped her mouth. ‘So let’s imagine then that she’s not Spiderwoman and that she flung herself out of the window in a panic and was injured when she landed. She managed to scrabble away but she would be too scared to go to any hospital. The police would have found her if she’d been admitted as a patient.’
‘She’d also be too afraid to contact family or friends for help. Anyone she got in touch with would automatically be at risk from Dominic Phillips and the dark arm of Matelot. If I were Marsha Kennard, I wouldn’t want to put anyone else in danger.’
‘If you were Marsha Kennard,’ Scarlett said, ‘I wouldn’t want to wrap my thighs round your hips and slide down onto your thick, hard—’
He looked at her and she smirked, not bothering to finish her sentence. Devereau swallowed then cleared his throat. ‘Marsha Kennard lives here,’ he said. ‘She knows the area. She probably feels safer here than anywhere else. Plus, it’s very likely that she’s both traumatised and injured. I bet she’s somewhere nearby and hiding out until she recovers enough to escape properly. She won’t contact the police because Dominic Phillips has already warned her that innocent lives are at stake if she does.’
They stared out of the window into the violent darkness.
‘It’s a plausible theory,’ Scarlett said. ‘But it doesn’t help us track her down. Not unless your wolf senses are strong enough that you can smell days’ old Chanel perfume lingering in the air and track her down that way.’
‘Not outside, unfortunately, and certainly not in this weather.’ Frustrated, he scanned the rows of barely visible houses. The pub he’d sneaked through was directly opposite. Then there was a house with plastic kids’ toys in the garden, none of which looked as if they’d survive the blustery night, and next to that four flats stacked on top of each other. In the other direction, there were more flats, at the rear of which he knew was an ironmonger’s shop, followed by a few more family homes. This was a high-density area of London. Marsha Kennard could have gone just about anywhere. He sighed deeply. And then a flash of lightning lit up the sky and the buildings beyond. His eye caught something and he stiffened.
‘What is it?’
A slow smile spread across Devereau’s face. ‘I know where she is.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Devereau and Scarlett wove in and out of muddy puddles in several gardens and backyards until they were standing at the foot of a tall house. Devereau counted twelve windows, all with darkened rooms beyond them.
‘Here?’ Scarlett whispered, her scepticism obvious.
Devereau nodded and pointed up to one of the windows. In the corner of the glass, just visible in the smoky conden
sation which coated the surface, someone had drawn a sad face.
Scarlett wrinkled her nose and blinked through the rain. ‘I don’t see—’ Then her face cleared. ‘Oh.’
‘Marsha Kennard is a compulsive doodler. We didn’t find much in her office but what we did find was a note pad with smiley faces drawn on it. She won’t be feeling so smiley now.’
‘It might not have been her who drew them.’
‘It was.’ Devereau exuded confidence. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Scarlett didn’t appear convinced. All the same, she stepped back and gestured to the back door. ‘Go on then,’ she murmured. ‘Prove it.’
He grinned at her then shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it round his hand. He smashed a pane of glass in the door and reached in to unlock it. Scarlett winced at the noise. ‘If she’s in there and awake, she probably heard that even with the storm blowing out here.’
‘I hope she did. I want her to know that we’re coming.’ He stepped through the door.
‘You want her to attack us?’
‘She’s had enough heart-stopping surprises. Sometimes a little advance warning goes a long way.’ He tipped his head back and called, ‘Marsha!’
Scarlett rolled her eyes. ‘If she tries to jump out of a window again, she might break her neck. And she’ll end up very muddy and very wet.’ Scarlett gestured down at her own bedraggled clothes. ‘Like me.’
Devereau paid her no attention. ‘Marsha! My name is Devereau Webb. I know who you’re hiding from and why. I know what sort of man he is and what he tried to do to you.’ His words echoed round the empty kitchen. Water dripped from his body and pooled on the tiled floor. ‘I don’t work for Dominic Phillips. If you’ve seen the news at all in the last few weeks you’ll already know that. I’ve scarcely been off the front pages.’
Scarlett folded her arms and watched him.
‘I’m a werewolf,’ Devereau called. ‘Just like the girl who was ordered to kill you at your house – but I’m in control of what I am. I’m trying to help the girl and I’m trying to find Dominic Phillips so I can stop him from the fucking evil shit he’s pulling. I think you can help me. I know I can help you.’ His voice rebounded. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of an answer.
‘If Marsha Kennard really is in here and we’d taken her by surprise, we’d have had a chance,’ Scarlett said. ‘Now we’ve no hope.’
Devereau glanced at her. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he said calmly.
She tapped her foot. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’ve learned a little something about loneliness over the last few weeks,’ he said softly. ‘I know what it’s like to feel like nobody’s got your back and nobody cares. If you’re not used to that sort of feeling, you’ll do almost anything to get rid of it. You might even stroll into a vampire nightclub to find solace.’
Scarlett gazed at him without saying anything.
‘Marsha is alone,’ Devereau continued. ‘Her life is in danger. She’s probably wondered several times over the last couple of days whether it would be easier just to turn herself in so she can stop living in fear. That’s probably why she drew the face on the window – part of her wants to be found. She knows she needs help to get out of this situation, but she’s no idea where to get that help. I’ve seen plenty of people at rock bottom and the desperation they feel overtakes almost every other sensation. If we’d crept up on her, she’d have fought us like a cornered animal and she could have done herself and us some very real damage. Plus we’d never find Dominic Phillips, or help all those poor souls he’s fucked over. We already know Marsha wants to do the right thing because that’s how she got into this situation in the first place. If we can get her to trust us, we’ve got a chance.’
‘You’re pretty insightful for a werewolf,’ Scarlett said.
He winked. ‘And sinfully sexy too, right? It’s almost unfair.’
She gave a small smile. ‘I won’t disagree there.’ She touched his arm. ‘And while I’m not sorry you walked into Heart, I am sorry you’ve felt lonely.’
There was a voice from the kitchen doorway. ‘So am I.’
Scarlett and Devereau snapped round. In front of them was a petite woman with a lined face and tired eyes. Outside there was yet another groan of thunder.
‘Hi,’ the woman said weakly. ‘I’m Marsha.’
***
‘This place belongs to my neighbours,’ Marsha said. ‘They’re away on holiday and asked me to keep an eye on it. Houses around here often get burgled when their owners are away.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Scarlett said smoothly, patting her face with the towel which Marsha had given her.
Devereau coughed. Truth be told, it was a very nice house and there was a plenty he could have taken from it. Once upon a time. ‘What happened, Marsha?’ he asked. ‘How did you end up hiding here?’
She sighed and rubbed her ankle. ‘I think you’ve worked out most of it already. My boss, David Bernard, did a lot of work for a lot of unsavoury customers.’ She shrugged. ‘But everyone’s entitled to a lawyer and most of the stuff involved finding ways to avoid going to prison for tax evasion. When he got involved with Matelot, things became very different. Dominic Phillips wined and dined him. He spoke of a better world where supes worked for us instead of against us – and he flashed a great deal of cash. David isn’t a bad guy,’ she said. Her face clouded. ‘Wasn’t a bad guy. Not really. But he was greedy. It didn’t help that when he was younger he’d applied to be turned into a werewolf and had been declined.’
Devereau held the opinion that anyone who got into a business that made money from forcing vulnerable people to become supernatural beings and then selling them as slaves was a very bad person indeed. Wisely, he avoiding saying so to Marsha. ‘He held a grudge?’
‘Yeah.’ Marsha looked down. ‘It’s not right, though. My cousin is a vampire and he’s not evil. And he’s not an animal. He’s just a person.’ She shook her head. ‘David could never see that.’
‘So he got involved with Dominic Phillips and Matelot? Forcing people to become supes against their will and then enslaving them?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘I told him it was wrong but he wouldn’t listen. All he could see were pound signs. I said I’d go to the police if he didn’t drop Matelot as a client, and a day later he showed up at my house unannounced.’
‘And he wasn’t alone?’
‘No. Dominic Phillips was there, and a girl. And three other guys. I think one of them was the girl’s father. He didn’t look very … well.’
That was one way to describe someone who’d been beaten within an inch of his life.
‘Phillips told the girl she had to turn into a wolf and kill me, so she turned,’ Marsha continued. ‘But she didn’t go after me. First she tried to bite Phillips. He grabbed David and used him as a shield, so the girl ripped out David’s throat. Phillips and another guy ran, and the girl lunged for the third man. I ran too and jumped out of the window.’ She rubbed her ankle again. ‘I think I broke something when I landed.’ Judging by the swelling and the colour, she was right.
‘Why didn’t you go to the police straight away?’ Scarlett asked. ‘It could have solved a lot of problems.’
Marsha took a moment before answering. ‘It took everything I had to get myself here. When I got inside, I passed out. My leg hurt so much and I was terrified. By the time I’d decided to get in touch with the police, I had a message on my phone.’ She swallowed. ‘Well, two photos anyway. One was of my office. The other was…’ She couldn’t finish.
‘Jonathan Lee,’ Devereau said grimly. ‘The night security guard.’
Marsha bit her lip. ‘Yes.’ She wrung her hands. ‘After that I didn’t know what to do.’
‘It’s okay,’ Devereau told her. ‘We’re here now. We’ll help.’
There was no mistaking the relief on Marsha’s face. ‘Dominic Phillips is terrified of the clans or the vampires finding out what he’s
done. He knows he’s no match for that many powerful supes. Now there’s an army after him, he’ll get what’s coming for him.’
‘The clans aren’t involved,’ Devereau said. ‘It’s only me and Scarlett.’
Marsha blinked. ‘What?’
He shifted his weight. ‘There are other considerations.’
She stared at him. ‘Like what?’
‘He means the girl,’ Scarlett said cheerfully.
Marsha’s mouth dropped open. ‘The one who’s a wolf? Who tried to murder me?’
‘Technically she didn’t try to murder you,’ Devereau said. ‘She saved you.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘And whatever she did wasn’t her fault. If the clans find out about her, they will kill her because of what she is. She doesn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.’
‘But – but – but—’
‘I wholly agree,’ Scarlett said. ‘Unfortunately, it is what it is. Devereau is intractable about the girl.’
He gave her an irritated glance then turned back to Marsha. ‘Dominic Phillips will get what he deserves, don’t you worry about that. First, we need to know where we can find him and his clients who bought their own vampire or werewolf.’
Marsha stared at him, pale-faced. ‘If I give you that information, I won’t last the week. It’s not just Dominic Phillips I have to worry about, it’s every single person who bought from him.’
Devereau’s expression remained unchanged. ‘If you don’t give us that information, you won’t last the day.’
‘Is that a threat?’ she sounded shaky.
He sighed. ‘You’re not in danger from us – quite the opposite, in fact. We can protect you, Marsha.’
Scarlett agreed. ‘I can arrange for you to be taken to Soho. You’ll be surrounded by hundreds of vampires who will ensure nothing happens to you.’
‘I thought it was only the two of you and the other supes weren’t involved.’
Scarlett smiled faintly, flashing her single white fang. ‘They’ll look after you if I tell them to.’