Midnight Labyrinth

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Tenzin walked through the french doors. “Have you found her apartment yet?”

  “Not yet.” His fingers flew over the keys. “Working on it. I should have had Gavin quiz her before he put her to sleep.”

  “Try the name Angelique.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Why?”

  “René called her his angel.” Without another word, she was back out the door and had flown away.

  He’d landed on a car because that’s where she dropped him. He was broken, but by the time Tenzin flew back to 47th Street, René had put himself together again, leaving a few gaping and horrified humans on the sidewalk and one tourist wearing a T-shirt that said I love NYC—with a bright red apple on it—who fainted dead away.

  An apple? The Big Apple. Oh, that’s what the jokes had been about.

  René was far too impressed with his own cleverness.

  Tenzin followed from a distance. She’d seen his eyes before she dropped him. René believed her when she said she knew where the painting was.

  She didn’t.

  She did, but she didn’t.

  He’d left the painting with his human. The one who’d played Ben. Tenzin was guessing her name was Angelique, but even with that information, it could be ages before Ben found her through the computer. There were likely hundreds of Angeliques in New York, and they didn’t have ages. René was a professional. He’d cut his losses and get the painting back to France to assuage his buyer. He already had a carrier. He’d already taken care of the details. So the only hope Tenzin had of finding it before it left the city was to follow René and beat him to Emilie’s apartment. Tenzin just hoped he hadn’t set the girl up in a condo building with hundreds of residents. She could search, but it would still take time.

  Her hopes lifted when the vampire headed downtown.

  René limped toward Grand Central Station, losing the few gawkers he’d accumulated amid the rush of Saturday-night traffic headed toward the last commuter trains out of Manhattan. A line of cabbies waited outside the station. Tenzin hovered in the shadows, watching as René waved a handful of cash at a driver. The vampire was stumbling a bit—luckily, so were the drunks—and Tenzin suspected the cabbie was being hired for far more than his wheels. René would need blood, but he’d wait until he arrived at his destination safely.

  If she was lucky and he didn’t lose control.

  The driver was no slouch, and soon Tenzin was playing a game of three-card monte from the sky, trying to keep her eye on the single cab she needed to follow in the madness of Midtown streets.

  The taxi went south, and Tenzin almost lost it in the bustle of Park Avenue, but the traffic thinned near Gramercy Park and she kept her eyes locked on the bright blue sign decorating the top. The car turned left on East 14th Street, then right again on 2nd, heading toward the East Village. The cab slowed, took another left onto 12th, and slowed to a crawl. After a few minutes, it double-parked in front of a redbrick building, and René got out on the driver’s side. He walked to the window, reached in, and grabbed the driver’s hand.

  Tenzin didn’t stop to watch. Wherever the painting was, it was on that block. She would start with the building on the north side of the street, right where René’s cab had parked. The south was occupied by a large school under renovation, but the north side was an apartment building. Tenzin flew to the back of the building first. One by one, she checked the windows. Each apartment had two windows, one blocked by the fire escape. She started at the top, moving quickly.

  One was occupied by a couple having sex.

  Another by a family who were all asleep.

  A terrier waited on the third floor, staring at her accusingly. She bared her fangs and the small canine began barking.

  She flew down to the second story. The corner apartment on the left side was lit by a single light that appeared to be from an interior bathroom or kitchen. At the window, Tenzin caught a familiar scent trail.

  Hello, Emilie.

  Tenzin took out her glass cutter and removed a section large enough to fit the painting. She didn’t want any stray shards damaging the canvas on the way out. Then she softly pushed the glass into the apartment where it fell on a threadbare sofa. She flew in, listened for a moment, then rushed down the hall to the bedroom where Emilie—or whoever she was—was trying to climb out the fire escape.

  Tenzin grabbed Emilie and threw her to the ground, driving the wind out of the human’s lungs.

  “You’re a fool,” Tenzin said. “Did you think you could escape me?”

  Gavin showed up at the loft an hour after midnight, breezing by Chloe with a kiss on her temple and zeroing in on Ben.

  “Does she have it?”

  Ben was following a rabbit trail of immigration entries and credit card receipts narrowing in on a neighborhood in the East Village and didn’t immediately respond.

  “Chloe?” Gavin turned. “Has Tenzin been here?”

  “Did the paintings get back to Rothman House?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’re fine. Tenzin?”

  Ben heard them, but they were like a buzzing in the background.

  Almost have you… I almost have you.

  “She flew in a few minutes ago, then flew out again. Told Ben to look for the name Angelique. Does that sound familiar?”

  Angelique was her name, or at least the name on the French passport she was using. But one of Angelique’s hotel reservations in Gramercy Park had been paid by a traveler’s check issued to an Emily—Emily Brandon—so Ben had tracked that name through credit records and come up with several hits, but only one that regularly made purchases in Lower Manhattan.

  Gavin said, “There was a report of a man in a black overcoat that fell out of the sky on 47th Street. I doona suppose Tenzin mentioned anything about that?”

  That caught Ben’s attention. “He fell out of the sky?”

  “And landed on a car,” Gavin said through gritted teeth. “Ambulances were dispatched, but by the time they arrived, the body was gone. Witnesses claim the man lay in the wreck for a few minutes, then suddenly crawled out and headed east.”

  Chloe’s eyes were wide. “Nope. She didn’t mention anything about that.”

  Ben said, “He landed on a car?”

  Gavin nodded. “She threw a thief off a bloody roof, Ben. Now, you know I have an odd affection for the woman, but—”

  “She didn’t throw him off a roof,” Ben said, looking back to his computer. “She threw him on a car.”

  Gavin scowled. “And?”

  “He’s a vampire. He’ll survive falling from the sky if he lands on a car.”

  “That’s not the point! She tried to kill him because he stole something that was not even hers. René DuPont wasna violent. He dinna threaten her or anyone under her aegis. But she still tried to kill him.”

  “If she was trying to kill him, he’d be dead,” Chloe said quietly. She looked at Ben. “Right?”

  Ben nodded. “She needed him alive. But he needed to think she wanted him dead.”

  “Bloody why, Benjamin?” Gavin was fuming. “That mad—”

  “She didn’t want him looking for a tail,” Ben said. “René knows where the painting is. She needed to follow him, and she didn’t want him watching for a tail.”

  Emilie was starting to lose color, so Tenzin eased up and the woman gasped.

  “I’m just doing my job.” The British accent was back. “You know—”

  “You lied to him,” she said. “You made him fall a little in love with you. Not all the way, but it was beginning.”

  To her credit, the human didn’t hide her eyes.

  “You’ll probably lie to him if he ever asks you,” Tenzin said, “but I know you have feelings for him.”

  “Is it possible not to?” Emilie asked.

  “I don’t know.” Her grip tightened again. “You’re the one who betrayed him. Give me a reason to let you live.”

  “I’ll take you to the painting,” she choked out.

 
; “I’m taking the painting anyway. I know it’s here.”

  The woman started to cry. “Please.”

  “Please what?”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Tenzin leaned down. “You play games with monsters,” she whispered, “then you ask for mercy when you are caught?”

  “You’re not… not a monster,” Emilie choked out.

  “Oh, little girl, I very much am.” She eased up on Emilie’s windpipe.

  “You’re not.” Emilie gasped. “You l-love him. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

  Tenzin sat up, a smile lingering on her lips. “If you believe that, then you should know that makes me the most dangerous kind of monster.” She squeezed hard, then released Emilie’s throat, leaving bruises so the young woman wouldn’t forget. “A monster with something to protect.”

  Tenzin heard the front door crash open, and she grabbed Emilie’s throat again. But it wasn’t René. Ben rushed into the room, his hair as wild as his eyes.

  She blinked. “That was fast.”

  “You always underestimate what can be done on the computer.” Ben glanced down at Emilie struggling in Tenzin’s hold. “Don’t.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  When Ben looked at Emilie, his beautiful face was shuttered. His eyes shone a little less. Her shining boy wasn’t as shining as he had been. The girl had marred a little of his light. Tenzin’s hold on the human’s throat tightened. She was so slender. Like a bird. Snap! She’d be gone. And she’d never mar any of his light again.

  Ben snapped his fingers until Tenzin looked at him. “She’s not worth it.”

  Tenzin glanced down. Emilie was crying, and her face was getting pale as Tenzin cut off her circulation. In a moment, she would pass out. If Tenzin didn’t let go of her hold, she would be dead.

  “Please, Tiny.” He sighed. “I don’t need that on my conscience.”

  Tenzin released Emilie and floated away, leaning against the far wall while the human sat up and scooted to the corner, gasping and rubbing her throat.

  “Where’s René?” Tenzin asked.

  “Gavin interrupted his dinner with the cabbie. He’s keeping him outside.”

  Tenzin glanced down. There was a closet beside her. She slid the door open.

  How unimaginative.

  “Is that…?” Ben walked over and opened the large black portfolio case sitting in the closet. “This is Midnight Labyrinth. They took the frame off, but this is it.”

  The painting had been sitting in the girl’s bedroom closet.

  Tenzin looked at the girl. “You didn’t even try to disguise it?”

  Emilie was sniffing back tears. “He said no one would find me here.”

  “Well, he was wrong,” Tenzin said. “He’s smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is.”

  Ben picked up the portfolio case and walked over to Tenzin. “Let’s go.”

  He glanced at Emilie.

  She watched him with tears in her eyes. “Ben, I’m so—”

  “Not interested,” he said, taking Tenzin’s hand. “Stay out of my city, and stay away from me.”

  Ben felt like he could breathe again when they walked out the grey door on 12th Street. Gavin and Chloe were leaning against a red sedan. René DuPont was nowhere in sight.

  “Where did he go?” Tenzin asked.

  “I let him run away, you madwoman,” Gavin said. “He’s just a thief. I dinna want you throwing him off any more buildings.”

  Tenzin shrugged. “I threw him on a car. I knew he’d be fine.”

  “Yes, but the cab driver could have died, couldn’t he?” Gavin said.

  Ben’s eyes went wide. “Did someone—?”

  “I called an ambulance,” Chloe said. “Gavin hid the wounds with some of his blood—that’s a handy trick, by the way—and then I called an ambulance. They’ll probably be confused by the blood loss when he gets to the hospital, but the EMTs said his heartbeat was steady. I got his card.” Chloe held it up. “So Tenzin can make sure to pay for his hospital bill.”

  “See?” Tenzin hovered a foot over the sidewalk. “No harm done then. Chloe, you are an excellent assistant.”

  “Please don’t make me call ambulances for people again.”

  “No guarantees.”

  Ben held out the portfolio case. “Here. The last thing I need is a third person stealing this. Take it home, and we’ll figure out what to do with it tomorrow night.”

  “As you like.” Tenzin grabbed the portfolio case, then melted into the darkness and flew away.

  Gavin said, “I might have a… judicious way to return the painting to its rightful owner.”

  “I thought you might,” Ben said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Please.”

  Gavin turned his attention to Chloe. “As for you, time to go home?”

  She stepped toward him and smoothed her hands over his lapels. “I think… I’m going home with Ben.”

  Gavin was silent for a long time. “For now.”

  “For now.”

  He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm. Then he leaned over and whispered something in Chloe’s ear.

  “I know,” she said.

  Gavin said, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow, dove.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be there.”

  Gavin took a step back, then another. He released Chloe’s hand. Then he turned, walked down the street, and disappeared into the night.

  Chloe walked over to Ben and put her arm through his. “Home?”

  “Home.” They started walking north to 14th Street, where Ben knew there would be more cabs. “So are you going to tell me what he said?”

  “Nope.”

  “Mean.”

  “Like you don’t have secrets,” Chloe said. “I hope it doesn’t take forever to get a car.”

  “It’s Saturday night and the bars just closed,” Ben said. “We’ll probably be walking awhile.”

  “So the vampires get to make their dramatic exits, and the humans get stuck walking home?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “That’s generally the way these things go.”

  29

  The second official time Ben went to Rothman House, he was greeted at the front door by the very same butler whom he’d offended a few days before. The man gave no indication of knowing who he was. Ignorance or a good poker face? Sometimes it was hard to tell with experienced day people.

  “Mr. Benjamin Vecchio and Ms. Chloe Reardon.” The butler announced their names at the entrance to the drawing room where Cormac O’Brien, Gavin Wallace, and Adele Samson, the Lady of Normandy, sat waiting for them. Cormac and Gavin rose. Adele didn’t.

  Her face was unveiled, and the Labyrinth Trilogy hung behind her.

  Ben stared at them, finally seeing the story in its entirety. The pale woman entering the labyrinth at dusk, her hair tied back neatly and her dress unmarred. The creature with the bloodstained lips fighting off the demons at midnight. The exhausted woman at dawn, stumbling out of the labyrinth with bloody feet and tangled hair, a monster of her own creation. Every shadow and twisted vine told a story. Every demon had blood on their claws.

  “They’re perfect.” Ben tore his gaze away from the macabre and beautiful artwork and turned it toward Adele, who was very clearly the woman modeled in the painting. “Your brother was very talented, Ms. Samson.”

  “Thank you.” Adele’s voice was entrancing. “It’s been so long since anyone called me by that name, it sounds foreign.”

  “But I hope not unpleasant.”

  “No.” Her face was utterly placid. “Not unpleasant at all.”

  He examined Midnight Labyrinth. Emil Samson had perfectly rendered Adele’s luminous skin, her pointed fangs, and the craving in her eyes. “Your brother knew about you, didn’t he?”

  She smiled, and it was beautiful and frightening at once. “Not everything, but enough. Unfortunately, my transformation wasn’t enough to save
my family.”

  Her eyes were golden brown with an edge of blood-red burgundy that made them completely otherworldly. Ben had never seen eyes quite the same color and wondered if that was part of the reason she wore a veil. Her nose was too prominent to be called beautiful, but she was striking—a dramatic model for any artist. Ben had little trouble understanding why some called her a muse.

  “I understand that you and your partner specialize in retrieval,” Adele said. “Mr. Wallace was kind enough to explain the situation to me, but he declined to tell me why I should not reward you. I did not hire you, yet you have returned Midnight Labyrinth to me, no doubt at some expense and trouble to yourself. I do not like to be beholden to another, Mr. Vecchio.”

  “There is no debt,” Ben said. “And there never will be. Since the moment I first saw the paintings, I only wanted them together and with their rightful owner.” It had been a carefully constructed response. Not a lie, but not the whole truth either. “Now they are, and it is an honor to see them. That is all the payment I need.”

  From the look in Adele’s eyes, she knew there was more going on, but she nodded, content to let the details remain ambiguous. “You understand, of course, why Midnight Labyrinth cannot be displayed.”

  “The resemblance is… unmistakable. If you have any kind of public life in France—”

  “I do. I’m sure I won’t always, but for now I do. If that was taken away, my business would suffer and my competitors would be emboldened at a very… delicate time.”

  “Then we have the privilege and honor of enjoying your brother’s genius privately,” Ben said.

  Adele examined him carefully, came to some conclusion, then nodded. “You will pass along my thanks to your partner.”

  “I will.”

  “I was hoping to meet her tonight.”

  “She’s horribly bad at being social.” Ben gave her his most charming smile. “So I brought our assistant, Chloe.”

  Chloe nodded, having been instructed not to shake hands. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve loved Emil Samson as an artist for a long time. I’m incredibly honored to meet you.”