The Third Circle

by Amanda Quick

  Victoria nodded at once, understanding. “The murders were carried out by someone who could sneak in and out of the victims’ bedrooms undetected. A hunter talent.”

  “The same hunter talent who is killing the prostitutes,” Thaddeus said.

  “But last night there was another murder and a rumor that another prostitute has gone missing,” Leona pointed out. “Why would the hunter resume killing prostitutes if he is now in the employ of Lord Delbridge?”

  Thaddeus looked at her. “Anyone who murders women in such a savage, senseless manner is clearly mad. Delbridge got himself a hired killer, all right, but he has employed a crazed fiend who is unable to resist returning occasionally to his favorite prey.”

  Leona shuddered. “I see what you mean.”

  Victoria made a face. “If I were Delbridge, I would be very worried about such an unstable employee. This hunter may have his uses, but judging by the rouge pots, he cannot help leaving clues behind at the scene of his crimes.”

  “Speaking of the rouge pots,” Thaddeus said, “did you have any luck locating the shop that sells them?”

  Victoria assumed a smug expression. “I certainly did. They are French, as I suspected. The two pots were sold in a small, very exclusive establishment in Wilton Lane. Quite expensive, by the way.”

  Leona turned toward her, excitement flaring. “Did you get a description of the person who bought them?”

  “It was a man,” Victoria said. “But I regret to say that I do not think it is the one you are looking for. The shopkeeper told me he had gray whiskers and longish gray hair.”

  “A disguise, perhaps,” Leona said quickly.

  Victoria raised her brows. “Yes, I suppose that might be the case.”

  “Did the shopkeeper offer any other details?” Thaddeus asked.

  “The man carried a very fine walking stick,” Victoria said. “The shopkeeper admired the silver handle. It was fashioned in the shape of a hawk’s head.”

  Satisfaction and anticipation flashed through Thaddeus. “The Midnight Monster, shopping for his next victim.”

  34

  THE TOWNHOUSE THAT Molly Stubton had rented echoed with the silent, hollow sensations that characterized an uninhabited residence. Thaddeus was well aware that there were some endowed with a specific talent for detecting the psychical residue left behind by those who had inhabited a room. People with that ability could distinguish the type and strength of the various emotions embedded in the walls. But even those with other sensitivities could sense the unique resonance of emptiness.

  He stood quietly for a moment in the back hall, listening with all of his senses. There was no trace of fresh energy in the atmosphere. Molly had no doubt employed a housekeeper, at least, and possibly a maid or a cook. But those who had once worked here had evidently concluded that their employer was not going to return. They had packed their things and left.

  Perhaps they had heard rumors of just how Molly Stubton had died, he reflected. Servants talked, just as their employers did. Although Delbridge’s mansion was miles away, the staffs of the two households would have been aware of the liaison. Gossip flowed freely in all levels of society, and, as Victoria had reminded him, murder will out.

  Satisfied that he had the premises to himself, he began a methodical search. A short time earlier he had engaged in a brisk argument with Leona concerning his intentions here tonight.

  “You’ll be taking a great risk,” she said.

  “Not as great as the one you took the night you entered Delbridge’s mansion,” he countered.

  “I do wish you would cease throwing that in my face every time we quarrel.”

  “I can’t seem to help myself. Finding you there was a very unnerving experience.”

  “That incident only goes to show that I am very good at that sort of thing. I’ll come with you.”

  “No, you will not,” he said. “Two people would mean twice the risk.”

  “What will you look for in Molly Stubton’s house?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  That last remark had only served to heighten her anxiety, but it was the truth. He did not know what he hoped to find here or if there would, indeed, be anything to discover. But he had learned over the course of his career as an investigator that he usually recognized a clue when he saw it. It did not always follow, unfortunately, that he knew how to make sense of said clue, but that was another matter. When one applied the turning-over-rocks approach to solving a crime, one had to turn over a lot of rocks.

  The curtains were all drawn tightly closed. He struck a light and made quick work of the kitchen and the housekeeper’s tiny room. Both were bare of anything remotely resembling a clue. The same was true of the small parlor.

  He went out into the front hall and took the stairs two at a time to the upper floor. There were two bedrooms. One appeared to have been used as a dressing room. Two large wardrobes were stuffed with a number of expensive gowns, shoes, hats and petticoats. The jewelry box, which sat in a position of honor on top of a high chest of drawers, was empty. He wondered if the staff had helped themselves to the contents on their way out the door or if Delbridge had sent someone to collect the jewels he had bestowed on his mistress.

  He checked the wardrobes for concealed drawers and pulled up the carpet to see if there was a floor safe. Satisfied that he had done what he could, he made his way through the connecting door into the bedroom.

  Ten minutes later he found the unfinished letter under the mattress. He struck a fresh light and started to read.

  My Dear J.

  I have thrilling news . . .

  There was no sound but something shifted in the brooding atmosphere of the house. A whisper of disturbed air wafted through the bedroom door.

  He put out the light and opened his senses to the fullest, probing for the telltale pulse of energy that would tell him he was no longer alone in the house.

  The hot flash of murky, chaotic, paranormal currents slammed across his senses. The soundless manner in which the intruder had managed to get into the house was evidence enough that he was a hunter.

  The Midnight Monster had arrived.

  ... The power of the aurora stone is a double-edged sword. It must be used with the greatest discretion and only in the most extreme cases. The crystal worker who would command the psychical currentsof the stone risks being overwhelmed by them. Only the strongest should attempt to manipulate this energy.

  The greatest hazard of all is that any crystal worker who is powerful enough to control the stone will also be strong enough to transform it from a healing device into a weapon.

  In the hands of one who possesses such power the stone can be used to cast the victim into a waking nightmare . . .

  A shock of dread as unnerving as a jolt of electricity snapped across Leona’s senses. The realization that Thaddeus was in deadly danger trapped the breath in her lungs. Her mother’s journal fell from her hand and tumbled onto the floor beside the bed.

  Fog rose from the rug and padded across the room to the bed. He whined softly.

  “I’m all right,” she said.

  The immediate sensation of alarm eased somewhat. At least she could breathe again. Nevertheless her hand trembled when she reached out for Fog. Instead of giving him the reassuring pat she had intended, she clutched him with both hands and buried her face in his fur.

  The ominous feeling hovered, an invisible vapor in the small room.

  “It’s just my nerves,” she told Fog, trying to reassure herself. “Things have been somewhat stressful of late.”

  Fog licked her hand and pushed his head against her, offering silent comfort.

  “Who am I fooling?” She shoved aside the covers and swung her feet to the floor. “I’m terrified. He’s in danger, and there is nothing I can do. I should never have let him go to that house alone tonight.”

  As if she could have stopped him.

  Dread cascaded through her again.

  Thad
deus had given her Molly Stubton’s address.

  “Number 21 Broadribb Lane. A quiet, respectable neighborhood. Do not worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

  She was on her feet without thinking about it, hurrying across the room to the wardrobe. She yanked open a drawer and took out the shirt and trousers that she had worn the night she had gone to Delbridge’s mansion.

  35

  THE MIDNIGHT MONSTER WAS, as Thaddeus had guessed, not entirely sane. The madness was there in his erratic, unstable aura, which was flaring high and hot now because the Monster was hunting.

  It was extremely difficult to hypnotize those who were truly mad because such individuals generated such wildly fluctuating, unpredictable currents of power. The very nature of their disordered minds made it difficult for them to sustain any sort of trance, even one that was psychically induced.

  The question tonight was just how crazed the Midnight Monster really was.

  Thaddeus dropped the letter he had found into his pocket and circled the bed, putting it between himself and the open door. Not that a mattress and quilt would be much protection against a man who could see clearly in the dark and who was as fast and lethal as any beast of prey.

  He eased the pistol out of his pocket and pointed it toward the gray rectangle that marked the open door.

  The shadows shifted in the hall, but no one appeared in the opening. So much for finishing this with one quick, lucky shot.

  The man out in the hall laughed. The sound was a little too loud, a little too excited, almost a giggle. The air seemed to crackle, as though some strange form of electricity had ignited it.

  “You’re armed, I’m sure, Ware,” the Monster said. “But you are a member of the Arcane Society so you must know that a pistol is of little use against a man with my talents.” There was another unwholesome giggle. “I’m a hunter, you see. Tell me, what kind of talent are you? I know you’re no hunter. I met another hunter once. We recognized each other’s true natures immediately. He is dead now, by the way. I was the stronger.”

  The Monster wanted to boast; more than that, he needed his prey to comprehend his powers and fear him. It was important to him that his intended victim experience as much terror as possible. Who better to understand and respect just how dangerous he truly was than a member of the Arcane Society?

  The Monster’s compulsion to chat was a very good thing, Thaddeus thought. Indeed, it might be his only hope. With luck the bizarre conversation would point to the nature of the compulsive obsession that drove the beast to kill. A good mesmerist could work with that sort of knowledge.

  “You’re the one the newspapers call the Midnight Monster, aren’t you,” Thaddeus said. He did not take his attention off the doorway.

  “An amusing title, is it not? A correspondent for The Flying Intelligencer bestowed it on me. You must admit it has a certain ring to it. You should see the looks on the girls’ faces when they finally realize who I am. They’ve all read about me in the penny dreadfuls. They are so beautiful in their fear.”

  The Monster’s voice altered slightly on the last sentence, becoming almost a caress. For a moment, the erratic currents of power emanating from him steadied. The thought of the women’s terror was linked to the compulsion that drove him. He fed on fear.

  “If they are beautiful why do you put rouge on them after they are dead?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Because they are cheap whores and such women paint their faces. Everyone knows that. Only prostitutes use cosmetics.”

  The waves of furious energy leaped higher, but they steadied briefly again. The rouge was linked to the compulsion and whenever the Monster came close to thinking about his kills, he was able to focus. It was a strange irony that the only time the Monster’s energy was close to stable was when he was sunk deepest into the pool of his insanity.

  Just a few seconds of such mad clarity might be enough, however. Thaddeus kept the pistol pointed at the doorway. If conversation failed, he would only get one shot, and that one shot had to count. Merely wounding the bastard would not be enough to stop him, not in his crazed mental state.

  “You haven’t told me the nature of your talent,” the Monster said, his voice suddenly conversational in tone, as though they were sitting side by side in their club.

  “You haven’t told me your real name,” Thaddeus said gently. He paused. “Or do your associates just call you Monster?”

  “Very good, Ware. I’m impressed that you can summon up a sense of humor at this moment. My name is Lancing. But I do not expect you to recognize it. We are not acquainted.”

  “I’m surprised to learn that. You move in Delbridge’s circles, and he belongs to all the right clubs. Surely we’ve brushed up against one another on some occasion?”

  “I don’t move in your circles.” Rage caused Lancing’s aura to flare wildly. “Nor in Delbridge’s either.”

  “He invited you to his party the other night.”

  “Bah. He tolerates me on the fringes of his exclusive set,” Lancing said, bitterness like acid in his voice. “It sticks in his craw, but it is the price he pays for my services.” He paused. “You were the one who found her that night, weren’t you?”

  “Molly Stubton? Yes. I recognized your signature at the kill. The rouge pot.”

  Energy flared. “Why the devil do you keep harping on the rouge?”

  “It interests me. What happened to the body? I’ve been curious. Such a murder should have made a great sensation in the press, just as your other kills did.”

  “After the rain stopped I dumped her body into an unmarked grave in the woods. No one will ever find her. No one will even look for her.”

  “But you left the rouge pot by her body there in the gallery.”

  “She was just a cheap harlot like the others.”

  “Not so cheap from what I heard. She was Delbridge’s mistress.”

  “I don’t care how many jewels and gowns he gave her. She was a whore, no better than any other whore. So I killed her like the whore she was.”

  “Delbridge did not object?”

  Lancing giggled. “He instructed me to get rid of her. She had served her purpose.”

  “Seems a little odd that he would want you to kill her in his house on a night when the mansion was filled with guests.”

  “He ordered me to bring her back here after the party and take care of the business then. But I realized that she had become suspicious of me so I had no choice but to make the kill there in the gallery.”

  “That must have annoyed Delbridge.”

  Lancing laughed. “He was enraged, but he knew better than to lose his temper with me. It was a pleasure to watch him fume. It made him realize that he is not my master, after all.”

  “Do you worry that some day he will decide that you, too, are no longer useful?”

  “Unlike Molly, I cannot be replaced. Delbridge knows that.”

  “In other words, you are merely a tool for him to use.”

  “That is not true,” Lancing roared. “I am far more powerful than Delbridge. I am a superior form of man.”

  “Yet you do Delbridge’s bidding. Sounds like you’re just a tool to me.”

  “I am my own master, you son of a bitch.” Lancing’s voice rose shrilly. “It suits me to let Delbridge think I take his orders, but in the end I will have it all, everything, do you understand? Including the seat at the table of the Third Circle that he covets so highly.”

  “What is the Third Circle?”

  “He doesn’t know that I am aware of what he is about,” Lancing continued, as though he had not heard the question. Energy pulsed fiercely now, growing darker and steadier. “He thinks that because my mother was a drunken whore I am less than nothing.”

  “Your mother was a prostitute?” Thaddeus kept his tone coolly thoughtful, as though the subject were only of academic interest. “That would certainly explain Delbridge’s reluctance to allow you into his inner circles.”

  “My mother was a respectabl
e woman who was driven into the streets by a man just like Delbridge, a man of status and power,” Lancing shrieked. “The bastard got her pregnant and then abandoned her. She had no choice but to become a whore in order to survive.”

  “And you hated her for what she became, for what it cost you.”

  “I am the son of a gentleman, damn you.”

  “But you will never be able to claim your birthright because your father never married your mother. Instead, she became a drunken whore and she dragged you into the gutter with her. Every time you kill a prostitute, you punish your mother for what she did to you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I kill because it enhances my power and because it proves that I am a highly evolved man who is naturally superior to you and Delbridge and every other so-called gentleman in England.”

  “You’re a wild beast pretending to be human.”

  “Stop it,” Lancing shrieked.

  Energy pulsed hotly in the darkness.

  “A truly superior man, a hunter who believed that he should have the rights and privileges of a gentleman, would choose prey that was his equal,” Thaddeus said softly. “He wouldn’t kill helpless prostitutes like his mother.”

  “Shut your damned mouth.”

  “Where’s the challenge in your sort of hunting? It doesn’t require any special ability to slit the throat of an unarmed woman. That kind of killing only proves that you are a far lower form of life than your victims.”

  “Stop saying those things.”

  “Delbridge knows what you really are. When he is through with you, he’ll send you back to the gutter. That is obviously your natural habitat.”

  Lancing howled. There was no other word for the strange, inhuman sound that came from his throat. Simultaneously his aura flared.

  Although Thaddeus was braced for it, had the pistol pointed toward the doorway, he was not fast enough. The Monster leaped through the opening with the speed of a leopard taking down prey.