by Molly Tanzer
She hadn’t asked Freddie why he’d strung her along, but she wanted answers from George.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I felt it was safest. As you just said, Dorina is your sister. You are very close, both in terms of proximity and your familial relationship. The risk that you might let something slip, however inadvertently, and tip her off—tip them off—was simply too great. And there is the fact that this meeting has been planned for weeks. You never mentioned it, and I thought that meant perhaps you knew, but had had second thoughts about telling me. I had to be careful, Gray. This is bigger than any of us.”
So much was vying for her attention, but one thing was first and foremost in her mind.
“Does this mean they are really . . . that they are . . .”
“I’ve long suspected that Lady Henry’s organization was no honest society, but rather a den of demon-worshipers who have colluded to summon and serve something unspeakable.” He favored her with a smile. “What you told me the other day cleared away any lingering doubts. Something must be done about them. And quickly.”
Despair claimed Evadne. She had so longed to be proven wrong. Dorina had been her responsibility, and in a fit of pique over feeling excluded she’d allowed the girl to run wild—or rather run straight into the arms of someone who might well be planning to use her to perform some unholy act of unspeakable horror.
“I see,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “When exactly were you planning on telling me?”
“Tonight, of course,” he said, a bit of his old warmth creeping into his voice. “We’re planning to interrupt their meeting after it is underway—not before.”
“Once it is underway?” Evadne was shocked. “So we can witness another scene like we saw on that rooftop? I cannot allow that!”
“Calm yourself,” said George, steel returning to his voice. “There will be no ‘scene’ like last time. I’ve been able to infiltrate their organization. I shall be inside, monitoring the proceedings and waiting to give the signal for the rest of you to come to my aid.”
Evadne frowned as something struck her. She had not given a second thought to how Dorina had believed she knew George from somewhere, when they met in front of their uncle’s . . . but now . . . she had to know.
“How long ago did you infiltrate their group?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. That, rather than his words, told her all she needed to know.
She had trusted him, had been so honest with him—had opened herself to him, shown him more of herself than she had ever shown anyone. She didn’t blame herself for that. How could she have resisted? He had made her feel like she was worthy of his attention, of his affection. Of perhaps even his love. And all the while he had been playing her, using her. Lying to her about who he was in order to get what he wanted from her.
He had seduced her. Unconventionally, and to unconventional ends, but that was what it amounted to.
“Gray. The important thing is that we’re poised to catch Lady Henry and her colleagues. We’re in a position to stop them from doing more harm!”
There it was. The important thing. Lying to her, isolating her . . . that was inconsequential to him. It hurt to hear, but it also liberated her.
“Of course,” she said, burying her fury deep. Dorina was in very real danger—and to help her, Evadne needed more information. “I’m sorry, I’m just so worried. I want to get my sister away from these people. If we can do that, I’ll be grateful forever, no matter how it was done. It’s time for us both to go home and have our lives go back to normal.”
“I sincerely hope that happens. But of course you understand . . . if it turns out that your sister has already become one of them, we shall have to deal with her as we deal with the rest.”
Evadne broke out in a cold sweat. “What do you mean by deal with her? Surely she is the victim here?”
George shrugged. “Who can say? I do not especially care; it is irrelevant if she has been tainted by that demon. Once I described us as a knife that cuts away at a cancer . . . It is not the duty of the knife to discriminate, or even regret. Only to carve away what is rotten.”
“Carve!” Was his ‘plan’ to simply murder them all? Up until this point, she’d assumed they would get Dorina away from Lady Henry and her cabal, and maybe alert Scotland Yard as to what was really happening in Curzon Street. “You can’t mean . . . George! We don’t know for sure if they’re really evil, like that man on the rooftop!”
“This isn’t about good and evil.” George’s laugh was a dry bark. “Rather, it is about something far more complex.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that good and evil are abstracts, of course.”
“Is that an ‘of course’?” asked Evadne cautiously.
“Think of it like fencing. We—you and I, Trawless, everybody, really—when we fence, we aren’t men and women holding swords. We are the swords. We must be, to excel.”
“All right,” allowed Evadne. This was nothing new; it was something Perkins often said. And yet, the same words took on new meaning as George spoke them.
“Well, a sword is neither good nor bad, by itself. Only when it is wielded with strength and conviction is it capable of great things. Whether or not those things fit into what arbitrary individuals might classify as good or evil . . .” He shrugged.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.” Evadne tried to keep her tone casual, unaffected, in the hopes that he would not sense the mounting disquiet within her, but in truth Evadne’s heart was pounding as if the fencing she was currently engaged in involved an epee, not words. “When you first introduced me to your mission, you spoke of serving the greater good.”
George stood and limped over to the fireplace, warming his hands before the blaze. That was when she saw it on the mantelpiece, set out among other items: the dagger from the rooftop.
He had kept it! But why? After what it had shown her, that he had brought it into his home . . . put it out on display like it was a conversation piece.
Or a trophy?
“I spoke of what I consider to be the greater good, of course,” he said softly. “Each man’s is different.”
“And what sort of good might yours be?” she asked, still hoping for confirmation that George didn’t intend to beat down Lady Henry’s front door and kill them all.
“What all people think of as good is that which helps them achieve their goals.”
“Excellent. Our mutual goal is to protect the innocent, isn’t it? So . . . shall we go?”
George glanced at the clock. “I shall depart in just a few minutes. As for you . . .” He shook his head. “I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere.”
Evadne had been concentrating so intently on George that she had almost forgotten Trawless was in the room, but when George’s evening scarf caught her around the chest and she found her arms pinned to her sides, she remembered him quickly enough.
“Let me go!” she cried, thrashing. But he had trussed her too neatly, too quickly, too perfectly, and all she managed to do was tip her chair. Trawless managed to catch her before she hit the ground, lowering her to the floor as easily as a child might a doll.
Though she had a lot on her mind, between George’s betrayal and struggling to get free, Evadne still managed to be astonished by Trawless’s reflexes and sheer strength. As he bound her wrists with the ends of the scarf, and her ankles to the legs of her chair with his necktie and belt, she reflected that of all the students within George’s little group, she would not have assumed Burton Trawless would be the one who would overpower and manhandle her so effectively. But he had her knotted up tight, and by the time he had righted her, and she had recovered enough to speak again, she was quite effectively immobilized.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “I want to come with you!”
“You put on a good show,” said George, watching her struggle with detached amusement, “b
ut you must think me a simpleton if you believe I could be fooled so easily.”
Evadne squirmed, but found no give in her restraints. “Who’s trying to fool you?” she demanded. “Didn’t I come here? Didn’t I tell you what you wanted to know?”
“Yes, and I was most pleasantly surprised and gratified when you did. But while you proved yourself loyal in one way, I saw your face when I mentioned the possibility of your sister meeting the same end as Lady Henry inevitably will tonight. You would do anything to see her spared—even betray me.”
He was going to kill them. Kill them, and burn them, and leave everyone who knew or loved them to draw their own conclusions . . .
“You’re wrong! I would never betray you!” She lied, desperate to convince him to let her go. She could not help Dorina, bound, here in his rooms! She tried one last appeal, speaking words she had lately hoped to say to him under very different circumstances. “I love you!”
He chuckled, and it turned into a cough. When he recovered, he croaked, “Even if that is true, Gray, I cannot risk this mission. Perhaps, if Dorina remains innocent and uncorrupted, you and I may yet have a fruitful liaison . . . but until I ascertain her heart, I cannot trust yours.”
The clock chimed—it was seven. He glanced up at it, surprised.
“Time flies,” he remarked. “I am expected . . . I must hurry if I’m to get there on time. Trawless, you’ll have to stay with Gray here, I’m afraid. Don’t worry—I’m certain the rest of us should be able to handle these fops.”
“But—”
“If the girl gets loose, it could ruin everything we’ve worked for. I wouldn’t ask you to stay behind unless I thought it was of the utmost importance. You know that, don’t you?”
Trawless looked annoyed, but nodded.
“A shame I shall be forced to go scarfless,” said George. He had the nerve to wink at Evadne, and she blushed, furious and humiliated. “Ah well. When one serves the greater good, one must make sacrifices I suppose . . .”
He winced as he shrugged into his evening jacket, and shuffling to the door, he collected his top hat and walking stick.
“It’s a shame you proved weak at the crucial moment, Gray. I cannot abide weakness,” he said over his shoulder. He touched the brim of his hat as a final mocking gesture, and was gone.
Evadne didn’t have time to mourn, or even spend a moment mulling over George’s treachery. Trawless was furious.
“Bloody hell,” he swore, after the sound of George’s footsteps had faded away. “Leave me here, will he? The utmost importance indeed.” He whirled, turning on Evadne, stalking toward her, his face a rictus of frustrated rage. She trembled as he loomed over her. Not only were they alone, but no one knew where she was. She was completely helpless, and he was acting totally unlike himself. Gone was the pleasant, affable man she had come to like very much. “You! This is all your fault.”
“How?” she asked, before she could stop herself. It hardly seemed wise to antagonize him.
“By . . . by . . . it doesn’t matter!” He picked up a cushion from the settee and hurled it across the room, like a child having a tantrum. “You’re just a silly girl, and you have no idea what you’re doing, you know that? No clue of what you’re meddling in, or what your meddling has done.”
“I’ve rather begun to suspect that,” she replied. “But if you cared to enlighten me at all . . .”
“As George didn’t think you a fit custodian of our secrets, I shan’t tell you anything,” he said, beginning to pace like a caged tiger.
“Secrets . . .” Evadne desperately tried keep him talking. She couldn’t think of any way to get him to untie her, so learning what she could seemed like her best option, for now. “You mean secrets beyond being demon-fighting vigilantes? Or rather diabolist-fighting vigilantes?”
“You really are a stupid girl,” sneered Trawless, stopping in his tracks. He was so totally unlike his usual self.
She shook her head as realization dawned.
“Yes, I am stupid—stupid not to think of it earlier,” she said.
She’d thought it was nervous energy, back on that terrible rooftop, but now she realized that she ought not to have been able to do all she had done, ought not have been able to drive her sword through the eye socket of that creature and out the back of its skull.
“You ate one of those wafers a few moments ago, didn’t you? There’s no way you could have overpowered me so easily just now without it.” Trawless didn’t look pleased by this, but said nothing. “What’s in those?” she asked. “George said they were for protection, but as I’m not a demon . . .”
“Never you mind what’s in them,” he said, beginning to pace again.
“Is it drugs?” Evadne thought back to how she’d felt after eating one. “Some sort of stimulant that increases strength?”
“It’s not drugs,” said Trawless with what Evadne felt sure he meant to be an air of superiority.
“It must be drugs,” she mused. “The reaction I had, the day after . . . I could scarcely move—my body didn’t feel like it belonged to me.”
“Really?” Trawless looked at her curiously. “That’s never happened to me. Well, George did say you were particularly sensitive . . .”
There it was. That phrase. The puzzle piece she’d been missing.
George had said she was particularly sensitive to demonic presence or influence . . . and what else had he said?
Demons give their followers gifts. Rewards for their service. Every demon’s is different . . . sometimes it is unnatural beauty; sometimes it is something more advantageous in a fight . . .
Extraordinary strength and increased agility certainly were useful in a fight, as was rage, if channeled against one’s enemies . . . Could it be that for all his seeming hatred of demons and diabolists, George could have succumbed to the same sort of influence he claimed to want to stamp out?
“What?” asked Trawless, peering at her. He must have realized he’d let on something he shouldn’t have. She decided to act the innocent—he thought her a stupid girl, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, she assumed, to convince him she really was one. The less she pretended to know, the more he might tell her.
“Nothing.” She squirmed, began to fidget. “I’m sorry, I just . . .”
“Sorry?” Trawless looked at her curiously. “For what?”
“I . . .” She looked down, to hide her lack of blush. “I need . . .”
“You need what?”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.” This time, her blush was real. Even as a deception, it felt too personal a thing to say.
Trawless looked appalled; he clearly hadn’t considered this unpleasant aspect of having to mind her while George was gone. “Forgive me,” he said, his former politeness returning momentarily, “but I cannot unbind you.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ll make me . . .”
“I’m sorry, but George said I had to keep you restrained.”
“He doesn’t have to know,” she said, putting urgency into her voice. “Please, Trawless, don’t do this to me. It’s too much. I promise I’ll be good if you just let me use the—”
“Oh, all right,” said Trawless, annoyed now rather than embarrassed.
He unlaced her legs from the chair, but once he’d loosened her wrists he bound them together behind her back. Hauling her to her feet, he marched her to the WC.
“You’ll just have to manage like this,” he said shortly, and shut the door behind her.
Evadne’s need for the facilities wasn’t as bad as she’d made it out to be, but for verisimilitude’s sake she stepped through her bound wrists, an awkward proposition in skirts in the little room, and then sat down on the convenience. She heard Trawless shift from leg to leg beyond the door, and it was awful knowing he was listening to everything . . . but at the same time, the sound of her water at least provided some noise to cover the rustling of her tearing at George’s evening scarf with her teeth. Trawless
had tightened the knot cruelly, and when at last she felt it give, her lips were torn and her teeth ached.
“About done in there?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Just one more moment. It’s a bit difficult with my hands . . .”
“Just finish up.”
Finally free, she got into position just behind the door. As far as Trawless knew, her hands were bound behind her; he would have to open it for her. As soon as he did, she would give it a push, hopefully knocking him one of the best on the forehead or nose. Some manner of deceit was needed, given that she knew he was either high on drugs or something more arcane, and would be more powerful than usual.
“All right,” she called. “I’m sorry, I can’t manage to flush it . . .”
He made a disgusted noise and opened the door. As it swung inward, trapping her against the wall, she gave it a hearty shove with her shoulder. It worked. He was hurled off balance and staggered into the wall opposite.
Evadne leaped out after him. She had never thrown a punch in her life, but she managed the basics well enough, aiming for and catching him on the jaw. Her knuckles slid slightly, weakening the blow, but her furious fist grazed his eye and the bridge of his nose.
As he staggered back, shouting and clutching his face, she lurched past him and then sprinted down the hall to grab one of the rapiers from above the fireplace. In his current state, she knew too well her only chance of besting him was with a sword in her hand.
The rapier’s pommel was of a decent size; it was a longer weapon than she was used to, and not recently sharpened, but it would do. She silently thanked Lady Henry for her gift of Lord Oliver’s swords; having practiced with a real weapon all summer meant she had the strength to wield this blade, now that it really mattered.
Trawless came around the corner, one eye looking a little twitchy. He frowned when he saw Evadne standing there, rapier in hand, the sofa between them.
