She knew the reason Seecombe was so fascinated with her was due to her being a woman with the vampire sensory ability. Even though Max wasn’t a jackass obsessed with class didn't mean others from his station weren’t. Ada was unmarried and could sense vampires in a city where people with that ability were dying out. Men like Samuel Seecombe viewed women like her as broodmares.
All Samuel Seecombe had done was write down everything they had seen so far in Paris and London. Ada told him about tracking down vampires through Germany, Switzerland, and France, about following Lisette Babineaux and Max, about slaying that particular vampire and Max taking her in. She left out their bedroom activities, but she didn’t think Seecombe didn’t at least suspect something might be going on between them. It wasn’t his concern, anyway. Ada never apologized for her personal affairs, and she wasn't going to start now.
“There’s no need to apologize.” Max’s voice was calm, reassuring. “Ada, what I've seen of you so far—you know what you're doing. You can sort this out and I'll help you any way I can. You have my word.”
“Thank you.” Ada sighed, appreciating his help but unable to smother her irritation at the rest of the situation. “Let's go track down Cerys Hughes’s last known employer.”
****
According to James Sterling’s notes, Cerys Hughes worked for the Halsall family, who, it turned out, owned Great Britain’s largest manufacturer of dirigible engines. The Halsalls’ home was a new, massive, sprawling affair in Knightsbridge, a modern monstrosity that looked garish and tastelessly overdone compared to its dignified, stately neighbors.
They had already decided that there wasn't much need for a cover story. Max would tell Mr. Halsall that his former employee was a friend of his late uncle and he was searching for more information about her. There had been no mention of Cerys Hughes’s death in any of the broadsheets, let alone the canal worker she tried to eat after turning, but that didn’t mean the Halsalls or their staff didn’t know what she was. It was important to proceed with caution.
A sour-faced woman of indeterminate age answered the door. “No solicitors,” she snapped by way of greeting. She motioned to close the door, but Max held it open. She turned outraged eyes to him. “What is the meaning of this?”
“It's of utmost importance that I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Halsall,” he said. “It's concerning one of their former employees.”
“If it's about a former employee you may as well speak to me,” the woman said. “Seeing as I'm the housekeeper and hire them all. Let me spell things out for you, real simple-like. They're all terrible, the lot of them.” She tried to close the door again, but this time Max stuck his foot in the doorway. She looked angry enough to pinch off his fingers in the door if he tried that again.
“We're looking for information about Cerys Hughes in particular.”
If looks could kill… “Useless thing. She ran off in the middle of the night, didn't even have the decency to stick around and let me sack her properly.”
“What for?” Ada asked.
The woman paused and narrowed her eyes at them. “Step into the foyer,” she said. “There's no use carrying on here where the neighbors can see us and judge the Halsalls common more than they already do. You'll get five minutes out of me,” she warned them, “and only in the foyer, on the rug.”
Such a pleasant creature. They stepped inside, and the housekeeper closed the door behind them. “I'm Maximilian Sterling, and this is my companion, Adaline Burgess.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ada said, although she sounded anything but.
“Canadian?” the housekeeper said haughtily.
“No, ma’am, American.”
“Both thoroughly uncivilized either way. My son ran off to Montreal last year and I haven't heard from him since. Are you familiar with Montreal?”
“I can't say I am.”
She sighed in irritation. “Of course you aren't.” She turned away from Ada, dismissing her. “I'm Mrs. Poole.” She offered Max a brittle smile, and he suspected the action didn't come to her easily. “I made the mistake of hiring Cerys Hughes last year. She started off all right, but a few months ago she started behaving in a way unfit for the Halsall home.”
“How so?” Max pressed.
“Why do you care?” Mrs. Poole asked, an edge to her voice.
It was Max’s turn to sigh. He removed two pounds from his coat pocket and slipped it into the housekeeper’s hand.
The coins disappeared into a pocket of her starched apron. “You're not with the constables, are you?”
“No,” said Ada, her accent highlighting that fact.
“Cerys took up with that ne’er-do-well duke’s nephew, whatever his name is. Quinn, that's it. Edward Quinn.” Mrs. Poole’s lips tightened as she recalled the details. “There was always something wrong with that boy, but now he's just … strange, I suppose. More than that.” For the first time, the housekeeper finally showed signs of something other than anger or irritation. “I’d swear that boy turned evil, if I didn't know any better.”
Mrs. Poole was afraid of Edward Quinn.
“Cerys lived here, of course. She shared a room with one of the maids who I had to sack later on for something else. Edward Quinn started coming round, late at night, and Cerys let him on one evening. I found them…” She looked pained, and embarrassment flitted across her weathered face. “Well, we all know what … relations … occur between men and women. They were still mostly dressed, but he was biting her neck.”
She looked mortified, and beneath that, afraid.
She didn’t want to believe what she really saw that night.
“That must have been awkward.” Ada’s voice uncharacteristically lacked a teasing note to the words.
“I sacked her immediately,” Mrs. Poole said. “What choice did I have? She cried. They all do. Just took off in the night, and I never saw her again. She left all her belongings behind, too.”
It was chilling to think about what really happened that night, but Max knew that Mrs. Poole wouldn’t believe any stories he told her about vampires or their thralls. “Do you know more about this Edward Quinn?” Max asked.
She waved a bony hand. “His uncle is the Duke of Something or Other and rarely here. Greenwood, perhaps. Spends his time in the country, I believe. I don’t know exactly, I’m not a bloody walking Debrett’s. The nephew lives near here, in the duke’s home. Only comes out at night.” With those words, Mrs. Poole actually shuddered.
“Thank you,” Max said. “You’ve been very helpful and we apologize for bothering you.” He reached for the doorknob.
“You haven’t told me why you’re looking for Cerys,” Mrs. Poole said.
Max paused, exchanging a glance with Ada. “She was a dear friend of my uncle’s,” he finally said. “They both passed away recently.”
“You’re telling me Cerys is dead?”
“I am.”
Her lips pursed in distaste. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Good Lord!
Ada merely gawped at her, speechless.
He and Ada left the house without another word to the housekeeper. “What the hell is wrong with your country?” Ada demanded.
“Where shall I start?”
“With the housekeepers. Between Mrs. Poole and the bitch who owns your flat, they’re real pieces of work.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about Mrs. Boggs. Although I should remind you that she’s actually my landlady.”
“I can be nice when the need arises. Max, let’s find this duke’s nephew and see why he’s changing maids into vampires.”
Chapter Seven
It was necessary to take a steam cab back to Max’s house in Mayfair, and consult with his uncle’s battered copy of Debrett’s Peerage to gain an idea of who the vampire might be. Ada hadn’t heard of the book until that day.
“Are you listed in it?” she asked Max. They were in his uncle’s study, surrounded by shelves and shelves of books.
>
He shook his head. “My father and James were cousins of an earl whom I’ve never met. I’m so far down the line of succession that I wouldn’t be listed. Besides, this copy is at least twenty years old.”
“Hopefully there’ll still be something to tell us who Lord Greenwood’s nephew is.” Ada leafed through the pages, fascinated at the sheer number of names, the people who were important enough to be listed in such a book by the sheer dumb luck of the circumstances of their births. People who hadn’t done anything to deserve such privilege.
She handed it to Max, who flipped through the pages. “There isn't a Greenwood who would fit the criteria,” he said. “There’s a Lord Greenstone. The current title belongs to Oliver Quinn, or it did at the time this was printed.”
“Edward Quinn’s uncle,” Ada said automatically.
“It’s probable.” Max set the book aside. “Ada, what do we do now?”
“I send a cable to New York telling them the London branch is utterly worthless and I’ll have to stake the bastard myself.” She sighed, knowing the panic and outrage such a cable would provoke. “I may have to ask for Samuel Seecombe’s help, even though I don’t want to.”
“I’ll help any way I can.” Max’s voice was serious.
“I know you will, and I know you understand how dangerous this is.” Ada had been thinking about how she was going to handle this situation since they left the London headquarters. As inefficient as they appeared to be, they were aware of the growing vampire population in the city and were taking steps to eradicate the problem. Now that she knew who the likeliest culprit behind the recent turnings was, she could handle the execution. Ideally, she would be doing it alone, but she knew Max would never tolerate that.
She had a feeling he would be sticking around her even after she left London. After his promised trip to Dresden, even. She didn’t know exactly how to quantify her growing feelings for him, only that she wanted to keep him in her life as long as she could. Ada had long preferred to keep her relationships with men uncomplicated. In the space of a few days Maximilian Sterling had her reconsidering that notion.
“We’ll need more stakes,” she said. “I have mine, but you’ll need to defend yourself, too.”
“Will ordinary wood do, or does it need to be blessed?” Max was probably thinking of how crucifixes were most effective.
“Ordinary wood is fine, as long as it’s sturdy. I think my stakes were originally made from table legs, but they’ve been in the family so long I’m not very certain.”
“I have furniture that will suffice. It’s ugly anyway.”
“It also wouldn’t hurt to eat some garlic before we go out. I think we still have enough holy water. Damn it!” she said harshly.
“Are we missing something?”
“No.” She rubbed her temples, feeling an ache there that had nothing to do with vampires nearby. “I really hate putting you in this position, Max. Even if we only run across Edward Quinn and he’s a newly-turned vampire as I suspect, this is still dangerous. I wish we could go during the day to his hiding place and stake him in his sleep.” That would be ideal for all vampire executions, except the bastards were incredibly clever at concealing their daytime sleeping spots. They wouldn’t live for centuries without doing so. So Ada and the rest of the Searchers were forced to work at night.
As if he could read her mind, Max asked, “How often do you find them during the day?”
She shrugged. “Not often. Cemetery crypts are popular places for them to sleep, but we can’t very well barge into them with stakes and terrify innocent people who are just trying to bury their grandmothers in peace. Sometimes they take up in a private home or shop cellar or attic, and we can’t exactly break in there, either. You’ve also seen the mess a dead vampire can make.” She remembered the messes left in the Langham Hotel. As far as she and Max knew there hadn’t been a public outcry over the oily remains of Madame Babineaux, and if the incident had made the papers, Seecombe certainly would have informed her, if Silas Weston hadn’t first. She was lucky that night, in more ways than one.
“This is what we’re going to do,” she said. “We’ll have to tell the London branch what we’re doing, because it’s the polite thing to do.”
“Did you tell the local branches when you were staking vampires in Germany and Switzerland?”
“There wasn’t enough time. I sent cables back to New York so they could get in touch with those offices, but I didn’t deal with anyone else. This is different,” she said. “I’m not passing by an alley at night, sensing a vampire, and doing the right thing. I’m making a plan to execute a vampire—maybe someone who comes from a well-known family—in another branch’s territory. A branch that knows I’m here. We find Edward Quinn, stake him, get justice for your uncle and Cerys Hughes, then I can finally take that trip to Dresden.”
“We take that trip to Dresden,” Max said.
She smiled, delighted that he intended to keep his promise. “We go.”
Max paused, at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “Ada, when this is over and you’re ready to go home…”
Her heart clenched, painfully. She didn’t want to think about what would happen after she finally made that trip to Dresden. “What?” Her voice sounded breathless and strained, even to her own ears.
“May I accompany you back to New York? I’ve never been to America.”
Ada let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Excitement over the notion of his visiting America made a smile spread across her face. “Captain Reed needs to take his dirigible over the ocean,” she said, thinking of the character she loved so much.
“It’s high time he did so. He needs to see New York, Chicago, Niagara Falls. He’s been all over Europe and Asia, a few times. He needs to set down roots somewhere new.”
That feeling Ada couldn’t put a name to rose again, that deep lust she’d felt the first time she saw him, followed by something deeper. Affection, she realized. She was very fond of him, could see that growing into something more. And that idea didn’t terrify her.
From his words and the look on his face now, Ada suspected he felt the same.
She wanted to show him where she came from, introduce him to her own raucous family. She knew now he wouldn’t be appalled at their table manners or simple home.
“I know it’s impolite to invite oneself to another’s home,” Max said.
“We did a lot of impolite things to each other last night and this morning.”
Max laughed. “I wouldn’t be a bother?”
“Hell, no! Will Captain Reed start hunting vampires, too?”
“Perhaps it’s time he takes up a monster-hunting hobby.”
Ada’s hands slid over his shoulders, bringing his head down to hers for a kiss. He responded immediately, pressing his body against hers so she could feel the full evidence of his arousal. In that instant, there were no Searchers to worry about, no vampire lunatic running through London…
“Oh! I beg your pardon, sir.” The study door slammed shut, and Weston’s shuffling footsteps sounded across the carpet runner in the corridor.
Max released her, but kept one arm around her waist. “We should find him and apologize,” he said. “He’s a professional, but can still be scandalized.”
“We should also eat some garlic before we go back out,” Ada said.
“An excellent excuse for kissing you one last time,” Max said. “Although I doubt your smelling and tasting of garlic would put me off.” The promising look in his eyes left Ada’s knees weak, and she didn’t doubt that was true.
Arm still around her waist, he led her to the door. “Besides,” he said, “Weston will be scandalized enough once I break off a couple of legs from that ugly table in the library.”
****
They stopped at a telegraph office on the way to Edward Quinn’s likeliest hideout, where Ada sent another cable to the New York branch. Max hired a steam cab to take them to the Searcher office, but no one answ
ered the door when Ada knocked.
“They could be ignoring us or out hunting,” she said. She removed a sheet of foolscap and a pencil from her satchel and scribbled a short note, telling them about Edward Quinn and the Knightsbridge address. Before she could fold it and slide it under the front door, Max took it from her and added something.
“What is it?” she asked. His handwriting was impeccable.
“I’m telling them where I live and about my uncle’s belongings,” Max said. “When we depart England I’ll leave instructions with Weston to turn over anything from Uncle James’s notes that they may find useful. I know you aren’t happy with the London branch,” he said, noting the way Ada’s lip curled in distaste at the mention of Seecombe’s outfit. “But they wouldn’t be Searchers if they didn’t know how to eradicate vampires, would they?”
It was sensible, but didn’t irritate Ada any less. “You’re right.” Ada hated that. The London Searchers were too few in number and there was their backward notion of keeping the group men-only to consider, but they wouldn’t have thrived as long as they had without being somewhat competent. Given that she and Max were leaving the country and there was still the matter of vampires roaming London, it was best to turn over Dr. Sterling’s notes and journals to the Searchers.
Max hired another steam cab to take them to Lord Greenstone’s home. It was fully dark outside when they arrived, and the drapes hanging from the grand house’s windows were pulled tightly closed. The garden was still maintained, but aside from that, the house appeared deserted. The gas lamps flanking either side of the door were unlit and no smoke issued from the stone chimney. For all intents and purposes, the home appeared totally unoccupied.
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