by Bec McMaster
“I’m going to find Jeremy,” she said hollowly. “Then I’m going to finish the Cyclops project and destroy the Echelon. I will never, ever forget how much they’ve taken from me.”
“And Lynch?”
Rosalind clasped her hands behind her back and stared unseeing at the wall. This time a new image overtook Nathaniel’s. One of carved features with the sharp aquiline nose and piercing gaze.
“I’ll deal with him,” she said quietly. “One way or another.”
* * *
Lynch eased open the door and slipped inside the room. The surgery was small with only the most basic of operating facilities. The craving virus healed almost anything short of decapitation, hence there was no need for more, and the Council funds barely covered the men’s wages and upkeep.
The sound of rasped breathing filled the air. It wasn’t loud, and yet in the midnight silence of the room, it seemed as if every man in the place should hear it.
A phosphorescent glimmer ball turned the room a sickly green. Tucked in the narrow bed, the stark sheets pulled up underneath his chin, Garrett slept restlessly. There was no sweat on his forehead—a blue blood couldn’t perspire—but the sickly pallor of his skin spoke of fever.
Perry slumped in the chair beside the bed, her head resting in her hand as she dozed. Lynch let the door click shut behind him and her eyes blinked open, her hand straying to the knife at her side.
“Sir.”
Lynch gestured for her to relax, then crossed to the bed, staring down at the wounded man. He’d had frequent reports from Doctor Gibson all evening, but he still had to ask. “How is he?”
“He asked for you,” she said, a touch of reproof in her voice.
Lynch nodded. He came because he had to—and because the not coming would haunt him all night—but he didn’t want to be here. Any blue blood that was so injured as to be bedridden was unlikely to get up again. And Garrett… Damn him, Garrett was one of his.
“I should have…” His words trailed off. He didn’t know what to say. I should have taken one of the others. I should have stopped Falcone. I should have been faster…
The truth was hard to admit. “I failed.”
“No more than I did. I was right there, sir. I saw Falcone coming and—I didn’t expect it. I froze. Garrett didn’t. If I’d been one second faster he wouldn’t—”
“You’d be lying there instead,” Lynch said. “Has his breathing changed?”
Perry shook her head, her dark hair curling around her face. She’d clipped it short enough that no one could get a handful of it, and he’d seen hints of blond at the roots over the years to know she dyed it.
“No, sir.” The words were soft. Broken.
Lynch looked at her sharply and saw her dark gray eyes were gleaming. He went still, his stomach clenching. Bloody hell. He rarely thought of her as a woman. He’d never needed to. Perry always did her job, rarely voicing a word of dissent. Rarely voicing anything, as a matter of fact.
She’d come to him nine years ago, a trembling waif in the rain, her dyed hair tumbling around her shoulders and the hunger burning in her eyes. The clip of an aristocratic accent had flavored her words and though he knew some of her secrets, he never mentioned it. Perry wasn’t the only Nighthawk hiding from her past.
Perry was an accident, he guessed. Women were never offered the Blood Rites for fear that the hunger would overwhelm their delicate sensibilities. The only other exception was the Duchess of Casavian, and she had the power of a great house behind her.
She’d shorn her hair that first night and swathed herself in the uniform he’d presented to her—having a shortage of any other garments—and that was how she’d stayed.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Perry took a deep, shuddering breath. “Garrett’s my partner. I just feel…so helpless.”
“I know.” He squeezed Perry’s shoulder. “If anyone could survive, it’d be him, the stubborn bastard.” Then he winced as he heard what he’d said.
“I know,” she said, with a weak smile. “I just hate seeing him like this.”
“I hate seeing any of them like this.”
Forty years since he’d formed the Nighthawks. A lot of good men had died in that time. The Council didn’t care. They were only rogues. But they were his, each and every one of them. Lynch frowned, feeling the steady muscle of Perry’s shoulder beneath his palm. It grounded him and he realized he rarely touched anyone anymore.
He had once. He’d shared his meals with his men, even laughed with them, but that had died over the years, as they had. And slowly he’d stopped taking his meals with them. He’d buried himself in the job, until the names of the dead meant another strike, another failure on his behalf—but nothing more.
So why did Garrett lying here like this effect him so much?
He knew the answer immediately. Garrett refused to keep his distance, his humor wearing away at even Lynch’s determination to keep his distance.
Cor, sir, don’t you look dapper this evening. Why, put a smile on your face and half the gentry morts from here to the city would be lining up.
Perry leaned her head against his hand, as if she took some solace from his touch. “I can’t believe he did it. Garrett always said heroics are for fools.”
“Perhaps he was trying to impress someone.”
“Mrs. Marberry,” Perry said with a frown.
The thought of Garrett and Mrs. Marberry together darkened Lynch’s mood. To hide it, he said, “Well, the only other option is you or I—and I don’t think he wants to get either of us into bed.”
Perry stilled. “No, sir. I believe not.” She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. The motion jerked her shoulder out of his grasp.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, sir. You’re right, after all.” A smile edged her lips, as if she were trying to make him feel better, but her gray eyes were still lost. “You’re not his type in the least.”
Lynch almost choked. “Hell, I should hope not.”
She patted his hand. “You should go and get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
It was the opening he needed. Lynch pushed himself to his feet, though sleep was the last thing on his mind. He desperately needed it, but there was too much to do. And guilt was ever a harsh mistress. He snuck a glance at Garrett. No. No sleep tonight.
“Send word,” he said quietly. “If the situation changes.”
“I will.” Perry knew precisely what he spoke of. Her hand slid over Garrett’s, as if she unconsciously sought to keep him from death’s door, through pure persistence if nothing else.
Lynch took his leave with quiet efficiency. Through the door he could still hear the faint rasp as Garrett’s abused lungs sucked in another tortured breath.
His chest constricted and Lynch shoved away from the door. Sickrooms. Bloody sickrooms. He hated them.
Six
Lynch wrenched his head out of his hands as the door to his study burst open, pain flaring behind his eyes. His vision slowly adjusted and he blinked, looking at the scattered paper strewn across his desk. Messy handwritten notes covered half of them—scrawled ramblings he’d made last night as he let his mind sort through the previous day’s events. The tumbler balls. A sticky residue on the sill. Some sort of sweet smell that lingered on Falcone’s body. And underlined three times. Mrs. Marberry: Why does she have a pistol?
Doyle went straight to the fire and stoked it, sending a gush of smoke through the room. “You look like you’ve been three solid nights in a gin ’ouse. Smell like it too.”
“Hardly,” Lynch replied, scraping his hair back out of his face. He must have dozed off. “I know what a gin house smells like.”
Pushing to his feet, he staggered toward the liquor cabinet in the corner. Thick, viscous blood pooled in one of the decanters. For a moment his vision sharpened, the color leeching out of his sight. His hand shook as he unstoppered the decanter and poured himself a short glass.
Staring out th
rough the windows at the gray morning, he drained the blood. The taste of it burned through him, igniting desire in his belly like the hot stroke of a woman’s touch. Lynch forced himself to put the glass aside and stoppered the decanter again. He rationed himself strictly—a necessary evil. No matter how much he thirsted for more, he never allowed it. It was one of the few methods he used to control his unnatural hungers. Meditation was another.
“How’s Garrett?” he asked quietly.
“Still breathin’,” Doyle replied, wiping his hands on his trousers as he turned. His own expression was inscrutable. They never spoke of it amongst themselves, but every Nighthawk knew the risks of the job.
Every hour Garrett survived meant increased hope that the craving virus was healing him. He might survive. Might.
“Here,” Doyle muttered, tugging a letter out of his pocket. “It’s got the gold seal on it.”
The Council then. Lynch snatched it and broke the seal with his thumbnail. His gaze raked over the words, any warmth draining from his face.
“What is it?” Doyle asked bluntly.
“A summons,” he replied, striding toward the set of rooms he kept off his study. “At eleven at the tower.”
Doyle followed him into the bedroom. “Aye, its not good news then?”
“I’m not sure.” The last time he’d received a summons, it had come with a threat. This reeked of the prince consort’s touch. A reminder of his absolute power? Or something far more sinister? He was growing bloody tired of being jerked around like a puppet.
“Send for my horse to be saddled.”
“Done,” Doyle replied.
“Then I’ll need a pair of lads to escort me—”
“They’ll be waitin’ at the stables.” Doyle restrained himself from giving Lynch a telling look. He knew his job. “A pair of the latest recruits. Still so new they piss their pants at the sound o’ your name.”
“Preferably not in the Council chambers.”
Lynch poured a pitcher of warm water into his shaving bowl and made short work of the task. Doyle wasn’t far wrong. With his bloodshot eyes and the thick, dark stubble along his jaw, he looked rather more like a miscreant than the respectable Guild Master.
Doyle yanked open his closet and fetched the black velvet coat Lynch wore to court and a crisp, white shirt that had been starched to within an inch of its life. “We’d best get you ready then. The gray waistcoat? Or the black checked one?”
“Black.” Lynch dragged the heavy leather carapace of the breastplate off over his head, then shrugged out of his undershirt. He stripped completely and gave himself a brisk wash.
“I want last night’s reports on my desk by the time I return,” he instructed. “And Doctor Gibson’s final autopsy results on Lord Falcone. If you can, have his blood run through the brass spectrometer again. I know his CV count came in normal, but I want to see if it’s changed at all. The craving virus tends to survive in the tissues after death for several days. Let’s see if it’s still within its normal ranges. And send Byrnes to question the Haversham heir again.”
Doyle threw the shirt at him. Lynch toweled himself off, then dressed quickly. The stark white of the shirt was the only sign of color. Doyle tossed him a black silk cravat and Lynch tied it swiftly.
“Oh,” Lynch said, on his way out the door. “Mrs. Marberry is due at nine. Show her to my study and instruct her to begin transcribing my notes into the formal case file.” He paused. “See that somebody sends her some tea or…something.”
He’d realized last evening that he’d barely fed her the previous day.
Doyle nodded. “Will do.”
Lynch opened his mouth. Then shut it again. Doyle was giving him a long-suffering look. The man had been with him for forty years, as evidenced by the gray in his hair. He might be only human, but he knew his job.
“Very well then,” he replied. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
* * *
Lynch entered the atrium of the Ivory Tower, bowing his head to the seated Council members.
Two chairs remained empty. Barrons was most likely still indisposed from Falcone’s attack and the chair of the Duke of Lannister had been shrouded in black since his murder.
The sign of mourning was a mockery. Lynch had proved that the duke had known of the bombing before it occurred and still said nothing. If the duke hadn’t died in the assault, then the prince consort would have had him executed regardless. Even now the Council seat stood empty, the prince consort obliterating the House of Lannister in his rage.
Lynch’s fingers dipped into his pocket, automatically fingering the scrap of leather there. Hers. There’d been three other people in the same room as the duke when he died, and Mercury had been one of them.
Ignoring the man in the center of the brass circle that was cut into the tiles—Sir Richard Maitland, that lickspittle—Lynch strode to his side and turned to face the Council. The enmity between the Nighthawks and the Coldrush Guards had always boiled under the surface and Lynch would have liked nothing better than to drop the Master of the Guards off the top of the tower.
The prince consort’s face was expressionless, the queen’s hand resting on his shoulder as she stood beside him and stared distantly over Lynch’s shoulder. None of the other councilors showed so much as a glimmer of their intentions.
“Sir Jasper, Sir Richard.” It was the young Duke of Malloryn who stepped forward. Despite his youth, Malloryn had been duke for ten years, since the moment he’d reached his majority. The House had been nearly annihilated with his father’s assassination, but Malloryn had hauled it back from obscurity with an almost-aggressive determination. “The Council has decided that this situation with the humanists in the city must be given priority, most particularly the capture of the revolutionary leader, Mercury. Since little headway seems to be made and you don’t have a single humanist in your grasp, we have decided to set the pair of you on the case.”
Lynch’s jaw tightened. That was not precisely true, but they didn’t need to know that. Not yet. Not until he had all the pieces of the puzzle.
Having more men on the street did not guarantee success. Indeed, it only made the task more difficult. No doubt it looked appealing from their precious Ivory Tower, so far removed from the streets Lynch walked.
“Do you have anything to say, Sir Jasper?” The prince consort’s colorless eyes locked on him.
“No, Your Grace.” He gave a curt nod. “Why would I argue with your infinite wisdom?” Make of that what you will.
The prince consort’s eyes narrowed minutely.
“It has also been recommended that we provide some incentive for this capture,” Malloryn continued. “As such, whoever brings us Mercury shall be rewarded most suitably. Your rogue status shall be revoked and you will be granted the privileges of one of the Echelon.”
Sir Richard sucked in a sharp hiss of air beside him. Lynch’s gaze jerked to the dais. He knew who to thank for this piece of news—Barrons’s hand, working behind the scenes.
His mind raced. Enticement indeed. Maitland was almost quivering in anticipation beside him. He’d have every single available man he had on the streets, flooding them with guards. The populace would be in an uproar, men and woman too afraid to venture out.
And Mercury… Lynch stopped breathing. If Maitland got his hands on her, Lynch would kill him. His vision darkened, bleeding into shadows at the thought.
“Don’t think my former command has been rescinded, Lynch,” the prince consort said coldly. “It stands.”
“Of course,” he said, battling to control himself. He knew his eyes had darkened as the hunger sank its claws through him. They’d notice his state—and wonder. “I still have almost two weeks.” His voice sounded as though it came from miles away, a rushing sound filling his ears.
“Is there a time limit I’m not aware of?” Maitland’s voice sounded like an echo as he took a smooth step forward.
A foolish move to present his back to his ene
my. Lynch eyed him. It would be ridiculously easy to snap his neck. Not even a blue blood could recover from such an injury.
He was letting the hunger rule his thoughts, his emotions. He ached to rip Sir Richard’s smirking head from his shoulders—to stop him before he ever got a chance to look for Mercury.
Making a supreme effort, Lynch reined in his impulses, forcing his mind to empty of all thought, most particularly the revolutionary he had a score to settle with. Three shallow, controlled breaths and the shadows dropped from his vision, though they lingered at the edges as though he’d not quite banished them. That had never happened before.
Sound snapped back in upon him, the world suddenly gleaming with too much light. The Duke of Bleight watched him closely. He wore barely any fripperies and disdained to powder his hair the way most of the court did. It was white enough as it was and heavy creases lined his predator eyes.
They’d never been allies. When Lynch had pleaded his case before the council forty years ago, Bleight had been the only duke to vote no to his proposal to form the Nighthawks. “Let the rogue die,” he’d said bluntly. “I see no use in him.”
Of course he hadn’t. Lynch had been a threat and Bleight didn’t like to leave an enemy alive, despite the fact he’d been all of fifteen.
“Shall we make it fair?” Bleight intoned with a malicious little smile. No doubt he was hoping Lynch would fail. “Two weeks for both of them?”
“Sporting odds,” the Duke of Goethe replied seriously. He was one of the few dukes that Lynch admired; indeed, they’d once been contemporaries, before the death of his cousin catapulted Goethe to power. Now his close-cropped black beard was salted with silver and his eyes, once as dark as obsidian, had begun to lighten—faint signs of the Fade. Goethe had only ten years or so left in him before the color drained out of him completely.
“Two weeks.” An oily smile spread over Maitland’s face. “I’ll have Mercury in half that time.” He saluted briskly. “By your leave, Your Grace?”
