by Eva Chase
The Hounds of Devotion
Book 3 in the Moriarty’s Men series
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Digital Edition, 2019
Copyright © 2019 Eva Chase
Cover design: Deranged Doctor Design
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989096-40-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989096-41-3
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Next in the Moriarty’s Men series
Consort of Secrets excerpt
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Chapter One
Jemma
Throughout my career, from when I’d first struck out on my own at fourteen years old and started carving a space for myself, officers of the law had been people to avoid or overcome. I certainly never expected to find myself sitting at a table with three of the most esteemed crime-fighters in the world, all of them aiming to help me.
Garrett Lestrade took a swig from his beer and motioned to the tablet he’d set on the table, looking perfectly at home even though the apartment belonged to his two colleagues. I’d gathered that Scotland Yard’s youngest detective inspector had joined Sherlock and John for many a dinner over the last few years. Despite being only a smidge taller than me and wiry in frame, the intensity in his pose and boyish face gave him just as much presence as the other two.
“Looking for similar patterns of crimes to what we saw when locating the commune in Croatia, I’d say that cult of yours has some sort of base over here in the Lake District.” He motioned to the map he’d brought up on the tablet’s screen. “Somewhere along the outskirts, I’d assume, away from the popular hiking paths. They do seem to like their mountainous areas, don’t they?”
“They do.” I leaned forward to consider the spot he’d indicated and took another bite from the cinnamon cookie I’d been nibbling on, which was the best dessert I’d been able to scrounge up here. Sherlock and John had a disturbing lack of sweets in their apartment. “The shrouded folk draw on the sun for energy, and the higher the elevation, the more they can absorb.”
The corner of Garrett’s mouth twitched downward at the comment, just for a second. My trio of criminal investigators was only starting to fully wrap their heads around the idea that a sort of demonic faerie creatures existed and spread their malicious influence through our world. It was easy enough for me to believe, having grown up with the monsters.
The thought of those early childhood rituals, swaying in the sun while drawing lines of blood into my skin with a tiny blade, sent a cold shudder through me that I held tightly inside.
Sherlock Holmes, both the most skeptical and the keenest thinker among the trio, tapped his narrow chin with a distant expression as if absorbing that fact for later analysis. He took a puff from his pipe, thickening the earthy smoky smell in the air, and tugged the tablet closer. “Would we assume the cult has only one base of operations in all of England? You gave the impression they were rather more widespread than that, Jemma.”
“There might be others,” Garrett said quickly. “That was only the spot with the clearest pattern. I have other possibilities as well, but we decided we’d start with the most likely, didn’t we?”
Sherlock regarded him evenly, his pale blue eyes sharp beneath the messy fall of his wavy dark brown hair. As well as they worked together, I’d had many opportunities to observe the tension that existed between the two men, Garrett always striving to prove himself just as adept as the brilliant and widely lauded Sherlock.
“I find it best to have all the potential threads at my disposal,” the consulting detective said.
As so often, it was John Watson who eased that tension, with all the warmth he must have brought to his medical practice before his stint in the army had brought that career to an end. He shook his blond head ruefully. “I’m sure Garrett can go over all the patterns he found in the police records later. The location he named does match up with our suspicions from our own investigations. Why don’t we focus on our next steps for now?”
“Yes,” I said, with a drumming of my fingers on the table’s edge. I wasn’t used to collaborating with so many people directly. While our alliance was clearly working to my benefit—the trio had access to resources it’d be much harder for me to get my hands on—I couldn’t say the extended back-and-forth felt exactly comfortable. “We can only tackle one of these communes at a time. And while I’d be surprised if there weren’t at least two or three in the whole of this country, whichever one’s showing the most obvious markers ought to be the largest and the one it’s most important to take down.”
The other man at the table, the one who’d always been on my side, lifted his jaw toward me. He spoke low and firm. “This is Jemma’s operation. We go by what she says.”
Sebastian Moran knew how to cut to the chase. The hitman who’d become my right-hand man—and closest confidant, and recently lover—also exuded power with his presence. Just a few weeks ago, he’d been perfectly ready to shoot all three of our London trio rather than debate with them to save my life. A fact I doubted any of the three would soon forget. His brawny arms flexed as he shifted in his seat as if to provide an additional reminder.
Most of Bash was dark, from the stubble of black hair on his tan scalp to the glower he could turn on in an instant, but a spark of admiration lit in his light green eyes as he fixed his gaze on me.
“How can we best go about taking down these monsters?” he said. “It’s not like Croatia—you were mostly looking to get that knife from the commune there.”
“Although it was a welcome addition that our strategy meant the arrest of most of the cult members as well.” I exhaled slowly. I’d had years to plan for this moment, but I’d planned for going it alone. In the last several days, as the men around me had begun their investigations and I’d recuperated from the ceremony that had freed me from my deal with one of the shrouded folk, I’d had plenty of time to think about other approaches that would better utilize the keenness now at my disposal.
“I actually think that the approach we used before might be adapted quite well to other circumstances,” I went on. “The short of it is, I want the shrouded folk cut off from this world. Let them skulk around in their own realm, wherever that may be, so no person here ever has a reason to offer up the bloody sacrifices they demand. And it’s the people in those communes, making those sacrifices, who open the doorway for the shrouded folk to come here.”
Sherlock nodded, understanding sparking in his eyes. He might still find it hard to believe in my supernatural beasts, but he could follow a chain of logic nonetheless. “If you can el
iminate their avenues of support, you eliminate their access. We need to prevent these people from conducting the rituals that give these… things their power.”
“Exactly.” I shot him a smile as a little thrill tingled through me. Perhaps there was something strange about this man devoted to dealing out justice allying himself with a consummate criminal, but I couldn’t help enjoying the sharpness of his wits. Sherlock was the only man who’d ever gotten the better of me, if merely temporarily. The challenge had been exhilarating, and having him put those skills to work on my behalf might have been even more so.
“And root out their accursed line,” Bash murmured with a dark smile of his own. Even though he often mocked the Shakespearean dramas he liked to watch, they stuck with him well enough to give him quotes at the ready.
“If all goes well,” I said. “I think we need to be clear on one thing. These cultists—the ones who are adults, anyway—are hardly victims. They know full well the horrors the shrouded folk require, and they go along with them in exchange for existing near beings with that much unearthly power. Frankly, if I could simply have them all slaughtered and eliminate the folk’s basis of support that way, I wouldn’t see any problem with that.”
John turned a bit green. “Well, I mean, they are people, even if they’ve been swayed by—”
I waved off his protest. “Don’t worry. I’m not saying we slaughter them all. I just wanted to make the point that we can’t let ourselves be swayed by misguided pity. Every person in those cults has been an accomplice to murder and has carried out torture, often of children. Keep that in mind when we’re tackling this problem.”
The doctor’s mouth tightened. I could tell from the resolve in his expression that it wasn’t my behavior he was objecting to the thought of now. I did enjoy John’s softer side, especially when I got to experience it in intimate fashion, but I appreciated the strength he could summon underneath it just as much.
Bash chuckled. “If slaughter’s off the table—more’s the pity—you’re thinking we sic the cops on them, Mori?”
“They are criminals, all of them,” I said. “There’ll be evidence of those crimes in every commune if we can justify a search like we did in Croatia. The cultists won’t be able to conduct their rituals from a jail cell. But we need to arrange our police raids so they come by surprise, sweeping through swiftly and effectively.”
“Any cult members who escape the sweep could go on with their practices elsewhere,” Garrett filled in. He might not have quite the crystalline brilliance Sherlock possessed, but he was sharp in his own right—and full of a delicious passionate determination as well. “We cracked down on them easily before, and we’ve got better contacts and more clout here. We just need an urgent justification, like that kidnapping story we came up with.”
Sherlock frowned. “As well as that gambit worked, we can’t simply go around conjuring false crimes if we’re going to be tackling several of these communes. Our credibility will take a beating before we’re even a fraction of the way through this mission.”
“I agree.” I might not have any need to worry about my own credibility with the police—we wouldn’t get into how many times I’d pulled the wool over their eyes or misdirected them before—but my trio of detectives wouldn’t be much use to me if they lost their standing. “But the cult commits plenty of real crimes. We’ll need to set them up for an illicit act where we’re pulling the strings, and then we can tip off the local cops.”
“Presumably we’re not going to set up a murder,” John said.
I patted his arm. “Don’t you worry about that either, my dear doctor,” I said teasingly. “They’ve got a perfect weakness for us to exploit that doesn’t involve any blood spilled at all.”
“Their penchant for theft,” Sherlock said.
“There you have it.” A sly grin curled my lips. “In particular, the communes always need medical supplies to offset their bloodletting and other horrific rituals. They can hardly bring a sliced-up child into a hospital without provoking an instant investigation. So we’ll dangle a jackpot they can’t resist: a large shipment of antibiotics and other essentials that’d last them for years. We don’t even need an actual shipment—they just need to believe we have one.”
Bash straightened up. “I assume that’s where I come in.”
My gut pinched with a hint of guilt as I shook my head. Normally, spreading any kind of public information would have been my hitman’s job, while I orchestrated events in the background. But I had to take full advantage of all my allies’ strengths.
“I may want you in there later,” I said. “But Sherlock and John know their way around a disguise and can play off each other well. Better to start spreading the word with conversations simply overhead rather than making any direct inquiries.”
John’s eyes gleamed with the prospect of getting down to work. “I’d imagine we could arrange to be overheard all over the Lake District.”
“What do you need on the official side of things?” Garrett asked, his stance tensed as if he was afraid I wasn’t going to need him at all.
I caressed his hand reassuringly, a flicker of heat racing through me at the desire that simple touch could light in his eyes. Garrett could be passionate about all sorts of things, but I loved it most when he aimed that passion at me.
“You’ll have plenty to keep you busy,” I said. “I think we should start spreading the word about the cult within law enforcement circles. The news isn’t likely to have traveled all the way from Croatia, but you’ve got a perfectly good reason to talk about it, since you were there. If everyone is primed for a cult full of horrors, we’ll be able to push them into action faster.”
He tipped his head to me, looking satisfied.
I turned to Bash. “You and I are going to do some covert scouting out around the Lake District to see if we can’t narrow down the commune’s location.”
Bash gave me his slow smile. “I’m up for that.” He paused. “How careful do you need to be around these things? You broke whatever contract you had with that one, but some of them would recognize you, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe. I don’t know exactly how they move around our world, whether all of them draw on all the communes or whether they stick mainly to certain locations.” I rubbed my mouth. “Most of my association with them happened in the United States. But those ones may have a presence here too—and the one I had the contract with may have spread a general warning.”
The shrouded folk had rules about impinging on the natives of this world. They wanted to keep their presence reasonably secret from those unaware of them. But they already knew I was aware of them. If they caught me in isolation, I wouldn’t put it past them to attempt to kill me. They’d already done that once just after I’d severed the contract.
Sherlock got up from the table. “I might have something that can help with that concern.”
He ducked into his bedroom and emerged holding four gleaming gold pieces etched with mathematical patterns and embedded with tiny gems. A laugh tumbled from my lips.
“You picked it up during that dash for your lives.”
He shrugged with his usual confidence. “It seemed the sort of thing that might come in handy again.”
It certainly was. Those gold pieces could connect together into a cuff that prevented the shrouded folk from detecting a person. It’d kept me hidden from the fiend that wanted to claim my soul for weeks until I’d been able to free myself from that contract.
Bash’s forehead furrowed. “That relic made you sick when you were wearing it before.”
“Only after I’d had it on much longer than it was ever intended to be used for. I’m back to full health now. I can’t imagine it’ll hurt to wear it for a few hours here and there while we get the lay of the land.” I accepted the gold pieces from Sherlock and raised an eyebrow at him. “I trust there won’t be any trouble over the acquiring of the one piece?”
I’d stolen the final piece I needed from und
er the trio’s noses—and with their unwitting help—months ago.
The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirked upward. “I find I can overlook the theft of an item stolen from a long-time thief and miscreant.”
“All right then.” My fingers closed around the smooth metal. My gaze slid over the men assembled around me, and a quiver of excitement raced through my chest. “Let’s destroy those bastards.”
Chapter Two
John
Our fifth pub of the day was the kind of place I’d call “colorful” if I was being generous. In a less optimistic mood, I’d probably have gone with “sleazy.” The lights were dim, the booths shadowy, the tables a hotchpotch of garish reds and oranges. The tang of alcohol hung in the air so thick you could practically get tipsy simply by breathing, and from the raucous laughter that pealed out every few seconds, everyone in here other than Sherlock and me was already at least that drunk.
The laughter mixed with the lively rock song that was playing, which meant our voices weren’t going to carry far. We’d picked a table close to a couple of booths full of the people Sherlock had deemed most likely to be criminal types through his various methods of deduction.
“We’ll get the whole truck,” he said to me in an affected accent, pitching his voice loud enough to rise over the music but not so loud it’d sound as if he meant to be overhead. “The driver’s ready to step back and let us at it without raising a fuss. As long as he can claim robbery and get a small cut for his trouble, it’s all ours.”
