by Bec McMaster
Charlie cleared his throat.
Kincaid jerked his hand away from her bottom as though burned. "What is it?" he murmured, crossing to Charlie's side.
Moonlight gilded the sharp lines of Charlie's face. "I can smell blood. And the door's not locked."
As if to prove his point, he turned the handle and the door opened with what seemed a terribly loud creak.
Kincaid drew his pistol and pressed his back against the side of the door. "Keep an eye on Ava."
Then he was gone, edging inside with the pistol held low in front of him.
Ava swallowed. The faintest hint of copper hit her nose, making her nostrils flare and her mouth flood with saliva. That was definitely blood. "What's happening? What's going on?"
She could barely see Kincaid.
"He'll be all right," Charlie replied, correctly interpreting her nerves.
And when she looked at him, she realized he'd noticed the way Kincaid had been touching her in the shadows. Heat burned up her cheeks. "It's not like that. He's just— We're just—"
"It's none of my business." Charlie winked at her.
Ava relaxed at his side. The young man was barely in his twenties, and yet the look in his eyes could be so mature at times. "I wish everybody thought the same way. They treat me like a child."
"Maybe it's because there's a darkness in all of those who work for Malloryn, and yet none of it stains your soul. We can all see it," Charlie said quietly. "It makes you something to treasure, Ava. It makes you someone to protect. The light within you brings hope to a dark world, and reminds people like me, Gemma, and Byrnes—even Kincaid—there is something worth fighting for."
"You're far too young to think yourself full of darkness."
Charlie smiled, but there was little warmth in it. "Age is a relative thing. I've seen children who grew up on the streets who have the eyes of old men or women." He paused. "And we all have ghosts riding our shoulders, whispering in our dreams."
For the first time since she'd joined the Company, she actually felt like she belonged. "Thank you, Charlie."
The shadows lifted from his expression. "For what?"
"For not making judgment upon what's happening between Kincaid and me. For treating me like someone who has a right to her own choices."
This time the smile was real. "Well, I've had time to get used to the idea. I'm fairly certain something happened between the two of you that night we all went out drinking at the Garden of Eden."
A very perceptive man. One who knew how to keep secrets.
She smiled.
And then Kincaid appeared out of the shadows within, looking large and menacing in black. "It's clear."
Charlie followed her inside, and she was aware she had two dangerous men guarding her—one in front, and one behind—and for the first time in over a month she didn't feel the lesser for it. The truth was, she wasn't a capable fighter, nor was she prone to a clear head in frightening situations. She was just Ava, laboratory expert, repository of utterly useless and esoteric facts, and someone who could trip over her own feet if she were distracted enough.
"What do you think happened?" Ava whispered as they entered the back of the shop and found themselves in the same room they'd been in earlier that day.
There was no blood. No sign of anything untoward.
But she could smell it.
And other things.
Ava wrinkled her nose up, but Charlie beat her to it. "Smells like someone shit themselves."
"Someone died," she said, suddenly certain. "And the body voided itself."
"I can't smell a bloody thing," Kincaid muttered.
"Be grateful you're human," she replied, running a finger along the counter and then rubbing forefinger and thumb together. Just as she suspected. "Can we shine a small light over here? The counter's been cleaned since this afternoon."
Which meant someone was trying to hide something.
And if someone had died, then someone had cleaned up afterwards. She'd been to enough crime scenes to know that.
Charlie shook something, and a luminescent green glow filled the room. A phosphorescent glimmer ball. He held it over the counter.
"This place was messy today," she said. "Winthrop had books and maps shoved everywhere, and there was dust upon the counter, and baskets of herbs beneath it."
All of them still there. Her senses started tingling. Poor Major Winthrop. She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Do you think it was Winthrop who died?" Charlie asked.
"Want to check upstairs?" Kincaid suggested. "I'm fairly certain he kept rooms up there."
Charlie gave her the glimmer ball and then vanished.
"What are you thinking?" Kincaid murmured, leaning on the counter. She could feel his eyes upon her.
"Don't you think it's odd we came looking for a rare mushroom, and several hours later, someone kills the major?" A horrible thought struck her. "What if both events are connected? What if we lured a killer here?"
"I haven't seen anyone tracking us."
"Doesn't mean they're not there. I think this is our murder weapon. I think this caterpillar mushroom can kill a blue blood, and it's the reason behind David Thomas's death, and all the others. I also think—" She swallowed a little. "—it's the same thing someone injected into Zero." She turned, and stared in the direction of the guild. "I want to look at David Thomas's body again."
* * *
An hour after Ava pulled David Thomas's cold body out of storage at the guild, she found the injection site.
"It was in his hair," she said, pulling off her gloves and throwing them in the rubbish bin as Dr. Gibson slid the gurney containing Mr. Thomas back inside the chiller. Kincaid was waiting outside, quite content to leave this part of the investigation to her. If she wasn't mistaken he'd looked a little green around the gills when she suggested he could sit in on the second examination.
"I didn't even notice it." Gibson looked distressed.
"We weren't sure what was wrong with him," she pointed out. "When we were doing the initial autopsy we thought Mr. Thomas had been stricken by some disease, so we were looking for signs of that. Instead he was murdered—injected with a mysterious substance that kills blue bloods."
She'd neglected to mention the fact she suspected what had killed him. Caterpillar mushroom. Or Yartsa gunbu. A rare substance that came all the way from Tibet, which meant someone must have paid substantial money for it. Someone who knew the effect it had upon blue bloods.
And dhampir.
What precisely did it do? Did it rupture veins? And turn a blue blood's bluish blood even darker? It must also affect the craving virus, and its ability to heal a blue blood almost instantly. What a horrifying thought.
Gathering her reticule, she bid Gibson goodbye, and found Kincaid in the guild's foyer peering behind a curtain. "Hmm, did I hear a little mouse?"
What on earth was he doing? Ava paused and watched him from the shadows, hearing a small giggle.
"There it is again," he said, as though he couldn't see a pair of little shoes hiding behind the curtain.
Then a little girl darted out from behind the drapes, her coppery curls gleaming in the light as she ran across the foyer.
"Why, it's a big mouse," he said, as one of Garrett's twin daughters turned and rushed back the other way.
"I'm not a mouse!" she cried, her whole face crinkling up in glee.
Ivy, by the look of her curls. Grace's hair was a little straighter, and she was quieter than her sister. The twins were a regular feature in the guild, and often came down to see Ava in the laboratory, as she showed them how her instruments and microscope worked. They'd been born blue bloods, as Perry was infected with the craving, and trying to wrangle a pair of super-fast, very agile toddlers had been a lesson in patience for the Nighthawks.
Kincaid knelt on the carpet, waggling his fingers in front of his cheeks like whiskers. "You've an awfully squeaky voice," he said, "like a mouse. And such l
ittle ears, and a little nose...."
The thought struck her: he was good with children, trying to make himself smaller so he wasn't quite so intimidating. The smile on his face lit him from within, and the little girl waved her fingers like whiskers too, and then shrieked with laughter.
Ava's heart melted.
"There you are, Ivy," Garrett announced, striding down the stairs and catching sight of his daughter. "I've been looking all over for you!"
Kincaid handed her over, his smile softening. "Someone made her escape?"
"I can handle a half dozen miscreants in the London streets," Garrett drawled, kissing his daughter on the cheek, "but the second my back is turned, one of the twins takes it upon herself to flee. You look away for one second...."
"Aye." Kincaid scrubbed at the beginnings of his beard. "I've got many a cousin like that."
The two men locked gazes, and though they knew each other, they'd never officially met. Garrett extended a hand. "Garrett Reed. You're Ava's... companion." The hesitation was so minor it might as well not have been there, but Ava scowled at her guild master. He was no fool, and could probably smell her perfume.
Garrett was also devilishly perceptive. If anyone could spot any telltale signs of a flirtation, it would be him.
"Liam Kincaid. And aye, I'm working with Ava, though she's doing most of the work at the moment."
Garrett's gaze locked on her, and he winked, clearly aware of her presence all along. "Speaking of the devil... Ava, what are you doing hiding back there?"
Very subtle, Garrett. She rolled her eyes at him, and then painted a sweet expression on her face when Kincaid turned to look for her, as though she'd done no such thing. "I've just had another look at Mr. Thomas."
"Any luck?" Kincaid was suddenly all business.
"There's an injection site up under his hair, in that fatty roll of muscle where his scalp meets his neck. We have a murder." And now she knew what had done it. "It's not a disease. I knew it! He was poisoned."
"Mr. Thomas?" Garrett frowned. "Isn't that one of the Black Vein victims?"
"Yes," she enthused.
"Then we have five murder victims," Garrett said grimly, rubbing a hand down his daughter's back as she sleepily rested her head on his shoulder. "Not just one. And they're all blue bloods."
She heard the question in his voice. Garrett was frightfully intelligent, but until Malloryn gave her the go-ahead, she wasn't certain she should be mentioning the caterpillar mushroom to anyone. "We're not entirely certain what the agent is yet."
Kincaid's jaw flexed, but he didn't quite look at her.
If word of something like that got out, then blue bloods would be dropping like flies all over London. Too many people had grievances against the old Echelon, and some of them were blinded enough by hate to see any blue blood as a threat.
"I guess we have some investigating to do," she said brightly. "I'll keep you apprised of anything Mr. Kincaid and I find."
And Kincaid, thank goodness, kept his mouth shut.
* * *
"Thought Garrett was a friend," Kincaid said as they strolled down the street toward Malloryn's secret house.
He'd kept his suspicions to himself on the tram ride back, but he couldn't help voicing them now. Just why was Ava keeping secrets from the Nighthawks?
"He is," she said glumly, her arms wrapped around herself. It wasn't cold, but she often did that when she was lost in thought. Or troubled by those thoughts. "You understand what this means?"
"Someone's killing blue bloods?"
"Someone has found a blue blood's mortal weakness," she all but breathed. "Kincaid, this changes everything. Blue bloods have always been impervious to sickness or grave wounds. The craving virus heals everything, short of decapitation or removal of the heart. Or so we always thought. If the wrong hands get hold of this information...."
"There's a lot of people who'd kill to have that power." The thought of it stirred through him like a breath of fresh air. He'd been ground beneath the Echelon's heel once upon a time, forced to slave away in the enclaves with no hope of anything better in his life. Humans couldn't stand against blue bloods, not and hope to survive.
They were faster, stronger, and, as Ava said, impervious to mortal harm for the most part.
This leveled the playing field.
"You cannot breathe a word of it," she stated.
"Jaysus, Ava. Think what could be done with this information? The Echelon's still hovering over London like vultures! The revolution put power in the queen's hands, but all those blue bloods who looked the other way when the worst of them cut a girl's throat and drained her dry, they're still there. All those blue bloods who paraded their blood whores and thralls around on leashes, or killed people in the streets because they could! The queen might have changed some of the laws, but there's an awful lot of bloody predators still mincin' around in fucking silk with blood on their hands. With this information, they're no longer top of the food chain, Ava." His older sister, Agatha, flashed to mind, her feet so very pale as she dangled from the ceiling. "No one would have to worry when their sister doesn't come home at night, or—"
"So you'd kill them? Murder them?"
He drew back as if slapped. She didn't understand. "Do you know what it feels like to lose someone you love, because the Echelon thought it was a joke to serve her up at a fucking dinner party as the main meal, where they all shared her around as a blood whore? Do you know the shame a woman feels after that? What she's capable of doing—"
"Do you know what it feels like to have someone look at you as though you're a monster," Ava cried, "even though you cannot help your diet? I understand where you're coming from, I do, but I've never—"
"Diet?" His voice rose. "For fuck's sake, Ava, I know you can't help being what you are, but every man and woman in London still sees the draining factories pumping coal in the East End, and they're the ones as bring their children to the blood-letting stations, so they can pay their fucking taxes!"
Her face paled. "Without the blood taxes, you'd have a whole nation of predators forced to feed themselves by whatever means are necessary."
"Predators? Exactly!"
"The queen was right not to close the draining factories, or get rid of the blood taxes entirely," she said firmly. "The taxes are no longer dangerously high—"
"It's not just the blue bloods, it's the whole bloody system they create. People used to kidnap others off the streets and sell their blood!" he yelled, flinging his arms wide. "There were entire slasher gangs in the East End who killed, just for the price of what was in a man's veins."
"Then what about the Nighthawks?" she demanded, her eyes flashing fire. "They're all rogue blue bloods to a man—or woman. Denied the Blood Rites, but infected by chance, and yet they're the reason you're standing here today and weren't guillotined during the revolution. If you put this weapon in the wrong hands, Kincaid, then you cannot tell me innocent people won't die, and that's what I'm afraid of."
"Maybe it's worth it," he said, feeling utterly shaken. "Innocent people died in the revolution. People I considered friends, my cousins, my men. Humans, all of them. So why draw that line now when it's the blue bloods who will suffer?"
She looked taken aback. "You don't believe that."
He didn't know what he believed. Kincaid raked his hands through his hair, letting out an explosive breath. "I'm not going to breathe a word of this, I'm not, but Jaysus, if you only knew...." He laughed then. "Just mentioning a religious name would have earned me fifty lashes four years ago! Is that the world you can defend so vigorously? We could have overthrown them completely. We could have changed the world."
"I am them!" Ava drew back from him, her eyes wide. "We did change the world. And just so you know, I fought for the revolution too. I marched on the Ivory Tower with the Nighthawks and did what I could to help pull down the corrupt prince consort. This was never a human problem. It affected all of us. And you can't just stand there and insist on murdering
an entire race as a solution, because if you do, then you're no better than them!"
"I'm not talking about killing them all."
"But you can't control which ones die," she snarled, and then turned in a whirl of skirts. "I cannot believe you can even stand there and speak of this to me."
"Ava!"
She fled down the narrow alleyway that led to a secret passage into the COR secret house.
"Ava, wait." He followed, but she was already gone, leaving him with an ugly knot in his abdomen.
Damn her. It wasn't an easy matter to say which was right or wrong. Was it? Had he truly lost so much of himself he could consider murder as a solution?
Pressing his mech hand against the bricks she'd vanished behind, he cursed again. Yes. He had lost enough of himself. He'd lost everything, one slow piece of himself at a time. First his sister's suicide, then his brother's death, his friends, his hope.
He wasn't a good man. And he wasn't certain what he was going to do with the information—for a part of him knew what those rioters the other day had felt like.
Angry. There was enough anger in him to burn the world to ashes if he let the leash slip through his fingers. And only the hurt in Ava's eyes stopped him from running out to the nearest sector of humanists who'd slipped back into the population and telling them about it. This needed careful thought. He needed to be able to control the danger of this weapon before he could ever dare use it.
But think of the opportunity! The thought made him breathless. No more Echelon. No more... of the bad blue bloods. If he could control the poison, then he could control who died. Couldn't he?
Kincaid pushed away from the hidden door in the brickwork, cursing under his breath, for there was little chance she'd welcome him tonight. He needed to think and clear his head. He needed a drink.
And so he didn't notice the pale man on the rooftops who watched him.
Fifteen
"COR BLIMEY, IF it isn't Liam Kincaid, back from the dead!" a voice bellowed as Kincaid strode inside the White Hart pub.
Half a dozen heads turned, and Kincaid found himself swamped by big, burly men who clapped him on the back and ruffled his hair.
