The Scarlet Deep

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “She wouldn’t want it, and you know that.”

  “I want it,” he snarled. “Stay with Anne. Do not leave her side until I return. Carwyn can go with me. He saw the ledger and the humans on the ship. No one will doubt his word against Jean’s.”

  Murphy walked out of the cottage without another word, then dived into the river from the secluded dock where Tywyll had dropped them off the night before. He felt the river move around him, muddy and alive. Stretching his senses, he swam upriver, dodging boats and fishes with equal speed until he was swimming in the murkier water of the city. He passed under the glowing lights of Blackfriars Bridge and searched the north shore of the river, looking for Temple Pier. Ignoring the surprised looks from humans boarding a dinner cruise, the shirtless man in dripping wool trousers cut through the Middle Temple Gardens, shaking off the river water as he walked barefoot through the park and into the narrow streets of the Temple.

  The front of Terry’s offices looked like one of the many barrister’s offices in the neighborhood. Only a few knew they sank far beneath the street, providing river access for the vampire lord of London along with being the setting for many of his more infamous exploits. At one point, Terrance Ramsay had held the entire vampire population of London captive under the embankment for night after night as he questioned and executed anyone involved in the death of his beloved sire.

  Now the old offices were mainly used for storage, construction…

  And very quiet interrogations.

  Roger stood just inside the door, but there were no other guards or security.

  “Mr. Murphy—”

  “It was the Frenchman,” he interrupted. “Where is he?”

  Roger froze. “Are you sure?”

  “As I’m standing.”

  “Bloody hell of a mess, Murphy.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs, but Terry—”

  “Carwyn and Ozzie will be here within an hour. Send them down. They have the ledger.”

  Murphy had no intention of waiting for the ledger. He followed his nose down a set of stone stairs, the air growing damp against his skin.

  Terry was pacing when Murphy entered the room at the foot of the stairs. Two figures were chained to the wall, both with hoods over their heads. Gemma sat opposite her mate, watching him and the prisoners in turn.

  Ah, manacles. They never really went out of style.

  “Murphy.” Gemma spotted him. “What are you doing h—”

  “It was Jean.” Murphy walked to the chained vampire, picked up a Taser from the edge of a table, and placed it under the vampire’s neck, taking pleasure in watching Jean’s body jolt and shudder when he pressed the button. The Taser shorted out, and the water in the air rushed to him as his amnis went haywire, but Murphy drew it to his body, greedy for its elemental power.

  He leaned in, not knowing if Jean could hear him or not. “I found your ledger, you greedy bastard.”

  Terry was fuming. He pulled Murphy from Jean. “You come to my dungeon and—”

  “He was keeping drugged humans on his boat, Terry. Anne bit one.”

  Gemma gasped. “She’s infected?”

  The rage fell from Terry’s face. “Murphy, will she—”

  “She’s with her father now.” He turned and kneed Jean in the balls just to take the edge off some of his anger. “I have questions for this one. But you can let Leonor go, unless she’d like to participate.”

  Terry walked grim faced to the other prisoner and pulled the hood off Leonor’s head.

  “Reparations,” Terry said immediately. “I did not lay a hand on you. You know I had no choice. But reparations are yours. What do you want, Leonor?”

  A furious stream of Spanish met his ears, but Murphy ignored Leonor’s enraged shouting. That was for Terry and Gemma to resolve.

  He pulled the hood from Jean’s head and dropped it to the ground. The vampire was just regaining consciousness. Murphy reached up, grabbed Jean’s pinky finger, and yanked, pulling the digit from the screaming vampire’s hand without warning.

  “You crazy bastard!” Jean yelled.

  “Cormac isn’t here, but you took his left arm at the elbow,” Murphy said calmly. “That leaves four more fingers, a hand, and two bones in your forearm before I start dealing anything you haven’t served yourself.”

  The vampire’s pale face grew paler as his blood rushed to the wound to begin healing it. “You’re insane.”

  “No, I’m livid,” Murphy said. “It’s quite different, Jean. Shall we list your other kills? Let’s name them, starting with Rens and working backward.”

  Jean’s eyes were glassy, but he said, “Murphy, I don’t know what you think you know, but—”

  “Rens Anker, vampire. Andrew Garvey, human. Victoria Mansfield, vampire. Sarah Leeds, human. Jason Stanton, human.”

  Murphy continued, naming off every human and vampire name he could remember who had lost their lives to Elixir.

  “Paul Mason, human. Dory Mason, human. Alexander Mason, vampire.” He took out the knife he’d strapped to his ankle and began to cut Jean’s shirt from his body, carefully slicing the crisp cotton away, leaving the vampire’s chest bare. The water was drawn to him, but Murphy pulled it back, fierce with rage.

  “Anabeth Vargas, human. Destiny Renner, human.” The names tumbled from his mouth. Murphy hadn’t even realized he remembered so many victims. It was as if they whispered to him as he stood over their murderer.

  Dillon McCaffrey.

  Cristina Leon.

  Otto Smith.

  “Emily Neely,” he said, naming the first known victim of Elixir poisoning. Brigid’s friend. A girl raised under his protection.

  The first child who had wasted away.

  The first parents who had lost their trust in him.

  The first funeral, but not the last.

  “Murphy, I have not done this to your people,” Jean said. “I swear it. Whoever killed Rens—”

  “We found your ship, Jean. Found the humans. You should know better than to think you could hide anything from the old man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jean said. “My boat is moored—”

  “We know you’re working with Zara. Arranging her shipments for her.”

  “Murphy, this is madness! The assassin was Spanish! The housekeeper, Portuguese. Clearly, Leonor is behind this. Even her own people—”

  “Shut your bloody mouth!” Murphy took a deep breath and said quietly, “I found your ledger.”

  Jean fell silent.

  “I recognize your writing, Jean. I watched you take notes in meetings. Signed contracts written with your own hand. A hundred letters of correspondence…” He stepped closer and leaned to Jean’s ear. “You condemned yourself, old friend. As you condemned a thousand others. Including. My. Mate.”

  Defeat flickered behind Jean’s eyes.

  “Murphy,” Terry said, “it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I need to see that ledger.”

  “Carwyn is bringing it in.”

  For the first time, Murphy saw something other than pompous rage cross Jean’s face.

  “How does it feel?” he asked. “Betraying a friend like that? Turning your back on those of your race with honor?”

  Jean’s lip curled, and he looked at Terry. “You speak of honor? Was it honor when he stole my human from me? That the Spanish bitch did, as well?”

  “If you treated your people better than cattle, they wouldn’t have been tempted,” Terry said. “And nothing I did can excuse poisoning humans and vampires as you have.”

  “Admit it,” Murphy said, dragging the tip of his knife across Jean’s abdomen. “We both know you’re not going to live much longer.”

  Jean’s face went slack. “The Elixir was Zara. I never produced it.”

  “But you shipped it, didn’t you?” Murphy said, gripping Jean’s chin. “Zara knows how to run a port, but she doesn’t know how to smuggle, does she? She doesn’t know w
hat ports to use. What people to contact. That was all you, Jean.”

  “I never meant to hurt Anne.”

  “You pathetic bastard.” Murphy spat the words at him, hating that his mate’s name even crossed the traitor’s lips. “What did Zara promise you?”

  Jean said nothing, so Murphy reached up and twisted off another finger as the vampire started screaming again.

  Murphy turned to Terry. “Soundproof?”

  “Very.”

  “Good.”

  Leonor was watching Murphy’s interrogation intently.

  “I have no quarrel with you,” he said.

  She nodded regally. “Nor I you, Patrick Murphy. I am in your debt for revealing the truth of this deception.” The Spanish leader looked down her nose at both Gemma and Terry. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  Gemma said, “You’d have done the same thing to us if the situation were reversed.”

  “No,” Leonor said, “I would have done worse.”

  Murphy turned back to Jean, who was limp in his shackles. “What did she promise you, Jean?”

  “Spain.”

  “Madre de dios,” Leonor swore. “This Zara promised you my territory?”

  “The whole point was to frame you,” Jean said, clearly understanding that survival was no longer an option. “I would step in and take over the Iberian Peninsula, giving Zara control over Gibraltar and a direct route to North Africa.”

  “Between the Bosphorus and Gibraltar, she would control the entire Mediterranean,” Terry said. “Everything except the Suez.”

  Jean laughed bitterly. “Oh, she has plans for that too. Why do you think Rens is dead?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? She likes power. Laskaris wants to take control of Athens from his brothers and sisters, and she wants to help him. Elixir was their opportunity. If she can screw her sire in the process, all the better.”

  “All this”—Gemma stepped forward, nudging Murphy to the side—“because we bested you in business?”

  “You cheated me out of billions, Gemma!”

  “It’s money,” she said. “We’re immortal. We can always make more money. We lose fortunes and find them in the space of a single human lifetime. Money is a game, Jean. But I treated you as an ally. A friend. I welcomed you into my home. I celebrated with your children.” Gemma bared her teeth and yelled, “What have you done, you fool?”

  Gemma drew a dagger from her pocket and stabbed him in the heart. “That is for poisoning Anne.”

  She turned and walked back to Terry, who enfolded her in a hard embrace.

  “Tell me more about Zara,” Murphy said. “Who else is she working with?”

  Jean shook his head, and Murphy reached up, tearing off another finger.

  “What do you want?” the Frenchman screamed. “I don’t know, damn you! There’s someone in Germany, but I don’t know who. She supplied the Russians in California. She has plans for North Africa. She hates Oleg and thinks she has some way of toppling him.”

  “And what does she plan to do with Russia?” Leonor asked from the corner.

  “Nothing!” Jean let out a sobbing laugh. “Don’t you understand? Zara loves chaos. She would topple Russia, sit back, watch Oleg’s lieutenants fight for it, and laugh.”

  Terry said, “And this is who you align yourself with?”

  “I thought I was dealing with Athens.”

  “But you weren’t?”

  “They told me…” He grew quiet until Murphy reached up and ripped off another finger. “They told me they had fixed it,” he screamed. “They told me it was safe.”

  “But even after it became obvious it wasn’t,” Murphy hissed, “you still kept shipping it.”

  “She would have killed me if I stopped.”

  Murphy bent down and looked into the dead man’s eyes. “Who is in charge? Is it Laskaris and the Athenians? Or is it this Zara?”

  “I don’t know anymore.” Jean’s head rolled to the side. “Please, Gemma,” he begged her, “will you speak for my children?”

  “Jean,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t—”

  “How many years did I shelter Rene?” he asked. “When your man threw him out of England, I welcomed him. Me. I am a friend to your brothers. I do not ask for myself. I ask you to intervene for my children. They had no part in this.”

  Gemma glanced at Murphy.

  “Jean, I… I’ll see what I can do.”

  He smiled through bloody lips. “Merci, ma chérie.”

  The vampire begging for his children undid Murphy, and the taste of blood grew sour in his mouth.

  She wouldn’t want this.

  Anne would have been disgusted by this. Murphy’s rage seeped out with his enemy’s blood, falling to the stone floor and trickling toward the river.

  “I will find everything,” he said, stepping close to Jean. “And if any of your children are involved, I will kill them myself.”

  “She’s making it in Bulgaria. Laskaris knows; he doesn’t care. He thinks they can control the spread of Elixir. He thinks that this will subdue humanity. The humans will exist to serve us or die painful deaths.”

  “Dear God,” Gemma breathed out.

  “Exactly,” Jean said. “Laskaris thinks he is a god. And like any god, he wants to rule.”

  “And Zara?” Murphy asked.

  “She controls him? He controls her? I thought I knew, but I don’t know anything anymore.” He met Murphy’s eyes. “Kill me. Take revenge for your people and your mate. I would do the same. But kill me before the priest comes. Tell him… je suis désolé.”

  Murphy stared into the eyes of Jean Desmarais and realized the vampire was already dead.

  And he had someone to return to.

  He reached up and twisted Jean’s neck to the side, sickened by the quick snap and slump of the vampire’s body. Then he grabbed Gemma’s dagger from Jean’s heart and finished him with a quick slice across the back of his neck, severing his spine and leaving his corpse shackled to the wall.

  Without a word, Murphy left Gemma, Terry, and Leonor, tracking the sound of the water as it lapped against the sides of the underground tunnel nearby. He followed the gentle noise and the scent farther into the black passage, knowing instinctively that even though the darkness became deeper the water would lead him back to her. And when Murphy found the river, he dove in and let it wash him clean.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  SHE WATCHED HIM WAKE. And for the first time in her memory, her mate did not wake with a gasp, but with a whisper.

  “Áine?”

  “I’m here.”

  He released the breath he must have been holding. “Thank you for not kicking me out.”

  “I would have if I’d been conscious. I’m not hungry at all, but I’m sleeping so much earlier.”

  It had been six nights since Murphy had returned to the cottage by the river. Six nights since Jean’s blood had been spilled. The word had gone out to both of the Frenchman’s victims that justice had been meted out, though the Dutch were making noises about seizing Desmarais property in Marseilles, much to the consternation of Paris, which was already claiming territorial rights. Murphy, having killed Jean Desmarais, had the right to claim his territory, but Anne knew her mate had no interest in splitting his interests by claiming part of France.

  Gemma was doing what she could to protect Jean’s children, but none were old enough or strong enough to hold their sire’s city. They would have to seek protection elsewhere.

  More importantly, word was spreading aggressively about any ships coming from Greek-controlled ports on the Black Sea. Inspections were increased. Elixir was seized.

  Sadly, so were more human carriers.

  But among the infected humans, there had been found a few anomalies whose health had not been infected. Humans who showed no sign of sickness and were eating regularly. Among the victims, the vampires fighting Elixir had found a thin thread of hope.

  Murphy rolled over an
d put an arm around Anne’s waist, nuzzling his face into her neck. “If I promise not to bite you, will you let me stay?”

  Anne tried not to tense, but she was terrified of infecting him.

  “Murphy, your sire is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “If I infected you—”

  “I have three living children,” he murmured. “It’s not as quick, but treatment from offspring’s blood has also proven effective. And it’s about time that lot proved their usefulness. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to bite you while you’re infected. You’re going to the doctor Gemma found. He’s going to perform the procedure, your father will give you new blood, and you will be fine.”

  Anne knew nothing was guaranteed, but she didn’t protest. She needed to believe she would live as much as he did.

  “Do I smell wrong?” she asked.

  “You smell good,” he groaned, licking her neck.

  “Don’t!”

  “I won’t.” He kissed her neck and pressed his body against hers. “I understand the lure of it though.”

  “I hate that it works,” she said softly. “For the past few nights, I’ve woken feeling wonderful. No burn in my throat. No hunger. The relief, Patrick… I can’t describe it. If it wouldn’t make me go mad—”

  “Hunger I can handle. Your losing your mind, I cannot.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wish I’d been stronger.”

  His arm tensed. “I will not have you blaming yourself.”

  “You wouldn’t have bitten them.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done, and neither do you. I wasn’t there. I have not struggled with bloodlust my entire life. I wasn’t faced with the prospect of two addicted humans begging for my bite while I was locked with them in a small room.”

  “You would have been stronger.”

  “Perhaps I should blame myself,” Murphy said, turning her to face him. He held her chin between his fingers, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Perhaps if I’d paid better attention to you, I would have known you were struggling. I would have looked past my own bloody ego, and I would have fed my mate. Should I blame myself for denying you my vein?”

  “Of course not!”

  “This was Jean’s fault,” he said. “Not yours. Not mine. Jean’s.”