Michael narrowed his blue eyes at his old friend. “No,” he said cautiously. “Why?”
Devlin grinned. “Because you’re going to get your chance tonight.”
Chapter 10
To my chagrin I ended up paired with Bel for the house search. I pulled Justine aside before we started out and asked her why she’d brought Bel into this at all.
“She was coming up the stairs when Drake and I were headed to your room and she somehow managed to invite herself along,” she replied.
“And you couldn’t have just said no?”
Justine’s eyes narrowed. “Trust me, I tried.”
“Well, why do I get her?”
“Drake declined to be paired with her, and she is not going with Devlin.”
“Or Michael,” I agreed.
“And if she comes with me there will be another murder within an hour. So it is up to you, my friend, to take her.”
“Thank you ever so much,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
I looked around the drawing room until my eyes found Drake lounging in a chair by the fireplace. He rose as I approached.
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to take Bel for the search?” I asked.
“I would gladly take you,” he replied seductively, and I knew he was not talking about the search.
“Ah, but you cannot have me,” I assured him.
“Then I shall just have to be content to worship you from afar.”
I shook my head. “You are an outrageous flirt.”
Drake smiled. “My dear, you have no idea just how outrageous I can be.”
Before I could reply, Drake’s gaze moved from my face to somewhere over my left shoulder. I turned to find Michael standing behind me. I smiled up at him.
“I was just trying to convince Drake to partner with Bel,” I said.
My smile faltered when Michael neither looked at me nor made a reply. His eyes never left Drake’s. “It’s time,” he finally said.
Drake inclined his head. “I will meet you upstairs.”
There was malice in Michael’s eyes as he watched Drake leave the room. When the other man was out of earshot Michael turned to me. “Must you encourage him?” he demanded.
“I have done nothing of the sort!”
Michael snorted and looked at me in disbelief.
I narrowed my eyes. “I have absolutely no interest in that man and I have never, by word or deed, led him to believe otherwise. He flirts with all the ladies, Michael. If he pays particular attention to me it’s just to get a rise out of you. And you, by your own admission, brought that on yourself.”
“Oh, so this is my fault,” Michael snapped and turned to walk away.
I stared after him for a moment, dumbfounded. I’d never heard him speak to me in such a tone, never seen that cold look leveled in my direction. I rushed after him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him to a stop.
“Michael!” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with you?”
He gritted his teeth and said nothing.
“Oh, for the love of Danu … you’re jealous!”
I was the one with the jealous streak, not Michael. Certainly many men had flirted with me over the years and I had seen Michael’s jealousy piqued on occasion, but never anything like this. I didn’t know what made Drake different in his eyes, but the thought I might stray to another man was simply so ridiculous that I laughed.
With a growl Michael pushed past me and strode from the room.
“Michael, wait!” I called out.
I started after him again but Bel suddenly sailed through the door, blocking my exit.
“Are you ready to begin?” she asked brightly.
I sighed and glanced past her, frowning. After we were finished with the search, I would find Michael and sort this out. For now, perhaps it was wise to leave him be and let his temper cool.
Bel and I were assigned to the second floor, which mostly consisted of the Presence Chamber and smaller receiving rooms and offices. The bedrooms were on the third floor where Drake and Michael were searching, and Devlin and Justine had taken the ground floor and the basement. Bel followed along behind me, her constant chattering intruding on my thoughts of what I would say to Michael later. I tried ignoring her, but she didn’t seem to understand that I was doing so. Apparently she was one of those people who couldn’t abide silence, because she didn’t give me a moment of it. We were nearly finished with our search, finding absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, when something in her incessant babbling caught my attention.
“What did you say?” I turned and asked her.
She looked a bit startled for a moment, as if she wasn’t expecting me to be listening, and indeed I hadn’t been for over an hour.
“The queen,” she said. “She’s been crazy for weeks. She was mad as a box of squirrels even before I arrived in Edinburgh. The second night I was here I found her wandering around the halls, talking to the pastries.”
I just looked at her, waiting for an explanation, but she simply stared back at me with that pleasantly vacuous look on her face. “What,” I said very slowly, “pastries?”
“You know,” she said, waving one hand toward the wall, “the pastries.”
I looked at the wall she was pointing to and said through clenched teeth, “You mean the tapestries?”
“Yes, that’s it,” she replied brightly as she continued down the hall. “Talking to the walls.” She shook her head and glanced around to make sure I was following, which I was. “I don’t know why MacLeod doesn’t just let Drake take her off to Castle Tara and be done with it before she kills someone else.”
“So you think she’s the murderer?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Who else would it be? She was caught delivering the bodies, from what I hear. That’s why MacLeod sent the court away, you know. They were already gone by the time I got here, but I heard it from Old Bear down in the Vaults that the reason MacLeod sent the court away is because Marrakesh does his dirty work for him and they’d lose all respect for her if they saw her like she is. Then he’d have to take care of all the unpleasantries himself. That’s only the beginning of his problems, if you ask me. I mean, how can you be King of the Western Lands if you can’t even keep your own wife from running around as wild as a pack of greased weasels? I’m telling you, he needs to get rid of her and find a new enforcer or he’s going to lose everything.”
I blinked at her. That was the most intelligent, rational thing I’d heard her say yet. “The Vaults?” I asked. “You mean the underground portions of the city?”
“Yes, do you know it?” she inquired as she opened the double doors at the end of the hall that led to MacLeod’s formal study.
“I’ve heard of Edinburgh’s underground, but I’ve never seen it.”
“Oh, you should go. There are lots of people. When I first got here Khalid took me into the city and left me to hunt with Old Bear. I don’t know why they call him Old Bear. He doesn’t look old. Maybe he’s been a vampire for a very long time? And he’s not big and hairy like a bear. He’s kind of short and wiry and smells of peppermint. No, not like a bear at all, in fact, unless it was a very little bear. One who liked peppermint candies. But then he would be called Little Bear instead of Old Bear, don’t you think? All I know is that he knows simply everything about everything. He’s the one who showed me the Vaults and all the best places to hunt. It’s very easy to drink in the Vaults. There are only poor people down there, and they seem willing to do anything for a coin. The smell is horrible, though. I mean really, how hard is it to bathe? I just don’t know why people would choose to live like that …”
And that was the point I stopped listening again. It looked like I would be heading into town with Michael and Devlin tonight. I needed blood, and if Bel was right and this Bear knew simply everything about everything, then he was someone we needed to talk to.
Chapter 11
Nothing unusual was uncovered by any of us during the search of th
e house. That was frustrating in itself, but what truly had me on edge was the fact that all afternoon Michael had successfully resisted my subtle efforts to get him alone. At full dark he and Devlin had left for the Medical College without so much as a good-bye. Justine and I followed shortly thereafter, walking down Hanover and Princes streets to North Bridge, then crossing the High Street to South Bridge and the Cowgate. It would have been quicker to take a carriage, but I think Justine sensed that I needed the time and the fresh air to clear my head.
Drake had stayed behind in the shadows, watching the house and anyone who might come or go from it. My instincts told me that MacLeod had nothing to do with the attempt on Marrakesh’s life, and I was having serious doubts as to whether or not Marrakesh herself was guilty of murder. Drake could believe all he wanted to in the lex parsimoniae, but we had murders, magic being performed in the royal residence, and a queen who was talking to people who weren’t there and doing Goddess only knew what else. I didn’t for a minute believe that these things were not related. But I had been wrong before, which is why Drake was staying behind to keep an eye on the house.
I fervently hoped that Michael would uncover some valuable information about the murders, or at least about the workings of the anatomy classes and the bodies that were being dissected there. This duty had fallen to him because he was the most suited to pass for a medical student. Drake looked like an aristocratic libertine and Devlin, well, Devlin was nearly six and a half feet tall and weighed over twenty stone. He looked like what he was, a warrior. He and Drake looked like men you would not want to meet in a dark alley. Michael, being five foot ten with a solid but lithe build, would blend in better and wouldn’t attract any undue attention. The irony of that was that, of the three of them, Michael was the most dangerous. If it came down to a confrontation, you were better off facing Devlin. He would be reasonable and not offer you violence unless it was clear that you deserved it. With Michael, you sort of took your chances on his mood.
Devlin and I had been born into the aristocracy. He had been raised to command armies of men, and I to command armies of servants. We had both learned from an early age how to manage estates and tenants. Responsibility for other people’s lives and well-being had been bred into us. Michael and Justine had both come from more meager beginnings. Their only responsibility had been the care and feeding of their families, and they had accomplished that by any means necessary. They’d both had to fight and scrape for everything they’d ever gotten. If backed into a corner, Devlin and I were more likely to talk and reason our way around it. It was our nature to see a problem, investigate all sides of the issue, and then hand down a fair and rational ultimatum on how said problem would best be resolved. Michael and Justine would just kick your ass and worry about the right or wrong of it later. It made them infinitely more dangerous. The two of them were rash and impetuous and passionate. It was one of the reasons Devlin and I loved them. They were wild and free in a way that we longed to be, but never would be. We were just too bloody English.
Justine walked beside me now, softly humming under her breath, but I could see her eyes watching the street in both directions as we made our way down South Bridge. She was itching for a fight tonight. I had obliged her by wearing the Craven Cross around my neck. Justine had plenty of fine jewelry, but the Craven Cross was quite a large, gaudy piece and would attract the attention she wanted. It was a Celtic cross wrought in gold and set with twenty-four large blood-red rubies and countless small diamonds; wearing the necklace in this part of town pretty much guaranteed that people would be standing in line to slit my throat for it. At least that was the reaction I was hoping for. Justine wanted a fight, so I’d worn the necklace. Never let it be said I’m not a good friend.
We were relatively safe north of Princes Street, where, in these modern times with the threat of invasion gone, those who could afford it had moved out of the cramped confines of the city walls. MacLeod’s townhouse was in the fashionable New Town, an architectural marvel that was one of the reasons Edinburgh had earned the epithet Athens of the North. Down here in the Old Town, however, no human woman would be safe walking the streets with thousands of pounds’ worth of jewelry around her neck. Here the poorer classes were crammed cheek-by-jowl into high-rise tenements and a rabbit warren of underground streets and chambers. Given the steady rise in population and the limited amount of space within the city walls, the residents had built up to the dizzying height of six to twelve stories. There were many places in Edinburgh’s Old Town where you could walk down the street in broad daylight and never feel the sun on your skin. Combine that with a population of well over a hundred thousand people, and you had a vampire’s paradise. And not only did they build up, but they also built down, creating whole underground cities in some places. It was in the underground vaults below South Bridge that Bel had said we would find Old Bear.
We were nearly to the Cowgate when a man stepped out of the shadowy entrance to one of the many narrow alleyways, dragging a scruffy young boy by the collar of his shirt. Justine and I paused as the man looked up and saw us. He gave us an assessing glare and then whispered to the child and shoved the boy in our direction. The child stumbled, then got his feet under him and made his way toward us. He was skinny and dirty, his ragged clothes hanging on his small frame. He looked to be about twelve, but was probably older than that. There was a touch of fear in his eyes but mostly he had that aged, weary look that so many poor children in the big cities have, like they have seen more horror than anyone should and are now completely desensitized. It’s a look of hopelessness, a look that says that they aren’t afraid of death because whatever it brings, it has to be better than this. I hated seeing that look on anyone’s face, but to see it on a child’s always broke my heart.
“Pardon, ladies,” he said, snatching his cap off, “would ye be lookin’ for a hot meal, then?”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, not understanding what it was he wanted to know, or why.
The boy glanced back at the man, who I assumed was his father. The man scowled and motioned at the boy with his hands, as if to say Get on with it.
The boy looked back at us, wringing his cap between his hands. “I ken what ye are and I was wonderin’ if ye’d be lookin’ for a hot meal.” He tapped his finger on the side of his neck. “Only cost tuppence a drink.”
I jerked my head back and looked at Justine. “Is this what happens in MacLeod’s city? Children selling their blood?”
“It is MacLeod’s rule that if you drink from the poor, you must pay them,” Justine said. “It is a good law, but every law is susceptible to exploitation, non?”
The boy seemed to get nervous at our exchange and the outrage in my voice.
“Och, miss, if ye’d like something a bit older then …” He turned to his father again, and the man barked out an order. Soon there was a shuffling sound from the shadowy recesses of the alley and a woman who could only be the boy’s mother appeared, five children like stairsteps in tow. The mother looked no older than thirty, her carrot-red hair in disarray and a large purple bruise marring her right cheekbone. Her eyes were dead, vacant, but her hands clutched her oldest child, a girl of about fourteen, and her youngest, a little boy of maybe seven, in a death grip.
The father finally stepped forward, looking at me with a leering smile that made my skin crawl. “Any one ye want, ladies, tuppence a drink.”
I clenched my fists until my nails had left deep furrows in my palms.
“Justine, do you have your purse with you?” I asked and glanced over at her with a wink.
“Oui,” she said. “I will take care of it.”
Justine took the boy gently by the arm and led him over to his mother. I watched as she pried the woman’s hand off her oldest child and placed what looked like a ten-pound note in it. It was probably close to what a housemaid would earn in a year.
“Take your children and go,” she said. “Get away from this man who hurts you and sells your children l
ike whores on the street. Go back to wherever you were the last time you were happy.”
The mother stared at Justine for a long time, then looked dumbly at the money in her hand. She turned her head slowly to look at her husband. The man’s face showed momentary shock, but as his wife’s fist closed tightly over the note his countenance mottled with rage.
“That’ll be mine. I’m the man of the house!” he said and started toward her.
She shrank back, instinctively moving her children behind her. Justine stepped in front of her just as I grabbed the man by the neck and jerked him back.
“You,” I hissed in his ear, “are less than a man. Nothing they have belongs to you anymore. You won’t hurt them, not ever again.”
He struggled against me but he was only a human, and a pathetic one at that. I held him as effortlessly as one would hold a puppy as he cursed me, Justine, his wife, and his children in succession.
The mother turned back to Justine with wide eyes and whispered, “Who are you?”
“I am the Devil’s Justice,” she replied. “Now go.”
The mother tucked the money into her bodice and looked once more at her husband. She shot him a glare that was angry, defiant, and triumphant, and it infuriated him even further. He lashed out at me, and I cuffed him on the side of the head hard enough to bring him to his knees. His wife smiled.
“Thank you,” she said. She turned back to Justine and reached out, taking her hand. “Thank you. May God’s grace forever shine on you.”
Justine squeezed her hand. “Go. We’ll take care of him.”
The woman scooted her children off down the street, herding them like a mother hen. The boy who had approached us stopped and looked back at us in bewilderment, but his sister quickly snagged him by the shirt and pulled him along down the street.
The bastard at my feet groaned, and I pulled him to his feet. I was hungry and he was frightened, his blood pounding in his veins, calling to me.
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