A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1)

by Shawna Reppert

  He came back to the waiting group, met Jones’ gaze and shook his head.

  The second on the list was a bit trickier. The rooms had a shared entrance, and Richard slunk around to the back to test the air from a partially open window. A man and a woman lived here, no children, a beef stew that evening for dinner. No scent of the killer. At the third house, the woman’s scent was faint. She had not been living there for some time, and Richard’s curiosity piqued. But the man’s scent was not the killer’s, though Richard circled and tested the air to be sure before he trotted back to his companions and shook his head.

  “Right,” Jones said. “It must be the next man, then.” His eyes turned hard and eager, as if he were the wolf on this hunt.

  Two blocks to the next address, and Richard felt the hot blood of the hunt pounding through his heart. They would find the man at last, the one who held the women of London hostage to terror, who had turned an innocent girl into a prize in a twisted scavenger hunt. The one who caused the pain-scent, the fear-scent, the death-scent.

  Jones knew how to find the address and he did not, which was the only thing that kept him from charging past him. His wolf-muscles ached to run, and he remembered the power of making the kill while the sick horror of it seemed a distant consideration. His human mind warned that he was losing himself to the beast, but at the moment, he didn’t care.

  When they got to the two-up-two-down where the fourth man lived, they quickly realized that his address was on the second floor. The stairs to the second floor had a door with a lock.

  “Can you get enough of a scent from the door to the building?” Jones asked. “He had to have passed through.”

  Richard surged forward with confidence, snuffling eagerly the tales written in scent on the ground. Dairy man, delivering his wares. Skulking stray cat. One of the women who lived here was clearly a laundress. Confusion of men, boys, a girl. Wait— blood! No, animal blood, and faint. Butcher’s boy must have dropped a parcel. He sniffed harder, back and forth across the doorstep, up and down the door, rearing up on his hind legs to reach nearly to the lintel.

  Layer upon layer of scent, mingled and confused. He couldn’t find it anywhere. But it had to be here, nothing else mad sense. Maybe he just needed a clearer trail. He dropped to all fours, put a paw to the door and whined.

  “What is it? Have you found him?” Jones asked.

  Maddening, that he could either have the power of the wolf’s senses or the power of human speech, but not both at the same time. He reached a paw to the doorknob, trying to make the request clearer.

  “You want me to get you in? You’re mad. If you’re seen, if you’re caught, where will you be?”

  Richard gave a growl-whine of frustration. Jones was the one that dragged him into this, had torn him from his frivolous, pleasant existence and forced him by weight of guilt to follow a trail to scent-memories that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life. Now Jones worried about what would happen if he were caught?

  “I haven’t my lockpicks with me,” Jones said.

  Tom stepped up. “I have. But are you sure, friend? If you know the man’s scent, I think you’d pick it up if he'd passed through that door.”

  Possibly. Probably. But he had to be certain. He’d spent too many years hating what he was and ignoring his abilities to be certain of their extent. Perhaps a more practiced tracker could make more sense of the muddle, but the only other ’wolf present was in human form, with only slightly-better-than human senses.

  He pawed resolutely at the doorknob.

  Tom sighed. “Well, I’ve broken into Scotland Yard already tonight. Breaking into a constable’s house pales in comparison.”

  With his picks Tom made short work of the door and swung it open, sending Richard in with a mocking bow.

  The hallway was narrow, the stairs narrower. Richard’s wolf instincts screamed against entering the confined space, but his human mind overruled them. He stalked forward, his toenails clicking too loudly on the wooden floor. Surely the residents of the building must be asleep, surely the sound wasn’t loud enough to wake them. He focused on the scents— wood polish, tobacco, fading scents of four dinners cooked in four flats, men, women, children. . . He reached the top of the stairs, the door of the fourth constable, when it was flung open and a man in a constable’s trousers and nothing else roared his anger.

  Twenty

  Catherine’s blood froze when she heard the shout. She started forward to defend her love, but then came the sound of shattering glass, the shriek of a wolf’s claws sliding on metal, the sound of a large animal landing hard on the ground below, followed by the sound of a large man charging down the stairs.

  She started toward the narrow passage between buildings, intent on going to Richard, but Tom grabbed her.

  “He has the best chance of any of us getting away,” he called back as he pulled her along. “The only chance you have is to clear the scene before we’re noticed.”

  She would argue, but Royston took her other arm. “Pardon, but he’s right. He knows more than either of us about not getting caught. Let’s go.”

  There was no time to argue or even consider, and while Catherine was used to forming her own opinions, still she knew when to bow to the greater knowledge. She ran with them, chest aching with fear for herself and her love and with the unexpected level of exertion. In her guise as Foster, Catherine bicycled a good distance several times a week, and she thought herself quite fit for a lady of her station, but now she was rethinking her assessment.

  “All right,” Tom came to a halt when they had turned a corner several blocks away from the constable’s flat. She and Jones copied him, even as they both looked to him for explanation.

  “If he was chasing us, we’d know it by now,” he said. “At this point, running will only bring us attention we don’t want.”

  Jones knew this area the best of any of them, and so it fell to him to find the shortest route back to where she had left the carriage. She followed numbly, sorting out her thoughts. Despite the stakes, the whole night had felt like something of a lark. The spike of sheer terror she’d felt when she and Tom had almost gotten caught at the Yard had only enhanced the exhilaration when they slipped away free. But now, when she thought Richard would be caught, the adventure had ceased to be amusing. With him separated from her, maybe injured, maybe dead, this plan that had seemed so brilliant when she and Jones formulated it could prove to be the worst mistake of her life.

  They reached the car. There was no wolf in sight.

  “You know him the best of any of us,” Royston said to her. “Do you think he might have made for home instead of coming to meet us here?”

  “I don’t know.” She paced back and forth in front of the car. “I just don’t know!”

  “All right, then,” Jones said in what was surely meant to be a soothing tone. “All right. We wait.”

  Clearly, he had had practice in calming people whose loved ones had been somehow involved in a life-threatening situation. Though he probably hadn’t been the one responsible for getting them involved in the first place. “This is all your fault!” she snapped at Jones. “If you hadn’t dragged him in to be your tracker-dog…”

  “Wait a minute,” Tom said. “I thought this was all Doctor Foster’s idea!”

  “No.” The weight of failed responsibility weighed Jones’ voice like lead. “Not entirely. I dragged the ’wolf into it. The ’wolf was acquainted with Dr. Foster, who was kind enough to get involved when I ran afoul of my superiors while pursuing the case. Doctor Foster, um, brought Miss Fairchild into it, and also suggested yourself when it appeared we needed a burglary beyond my basic skills at picking locks. But it was my case, and my quest, and my fault that the ’wolf is in danger and Miss Fairchild is out here in man’s clothes for anyone to see, and your prints are all over Scotland Yard when you had no plans for anything other than an innocent night at home.”

  Catherine had been looking for a fight. Anger was
always easier to deal with than worry—or guilt, since she had taken an equal part in planning the evening’s escapades. But Jones’ willingness to accept the full responsibility she had unfairly foisted upon him disarmed her.

  She struggled for the right words, but it was Tom who spoke first.

  “If the Doctor came in on your side, you must have been deserving of it. No one held a gun to my head, nor to Miss Fairchild’s, neither. And as for the ’wolf, I’ve never seen one of us more keen on a trail. You might have brought him into it, but the hunt was his.”

  Jones shook his head in mute denial, making her feel even worse about her accusation.

  In silence, the three of them waited until true dawn.

  “I hate to say it, Miss,” Tom said hesitantly. “I’m guessing he’s something more to you than a fellow conspirator in tonight’s adventure. But if he’s capable, he’ll have found a safe place to go to ground and change by now. You’d best not be seen in that get-up in full light of day.”

  Nothing to do but nod, restart the fire, and let the engine build up its steam.

  They dropped Tom off first. London had begun to stir. Draft horses clopped patiently through the streets, pulling dairy wagons. Soon the newsies would be about, crying the headlines. Would they be shouting about a werewolf captured, a werewolf killed?

  Jones turned to her in the seat after Tom disappeared into his building. “You can drop me off at my flat, if you want.”

  “What?”

  “Or let me out here, and I’ll get a cab.” He put a hand in his pockets, which were probably empty at the moment. “Or walk. I can walk.”

  Catherine was too tired to make sense of men at the moment. It would take him half a day to walk home. Even if he weren’t beyond exhaustion already. Even if it were safe, with all the ignorant Londoners just bright enough to read a newspaper but too dull to realize they shouldn’t believe half of what it said.

  “I thought we agreed that you would be staying with me? It’s not like I don’t have rooms to spare.”

  “I don’t think I should impose. Given, well, tonight.”

  It seemed that Jones had taken her little outburst to heart. Richard was always telling her to take a little more care with how she spoke to others. Usually she didn’t listen. Some people needed the sharp edge of a tongue. But Jones hadn’t.

  If—when Richard made it back, he’d be disappointed in her if Jones had put himself in danger as a result. Not to mention how she’d feel if something happened to him.

  “For better or worse, we’re all in this together now,” she said to him. “Besides, the servants have already made up your room.”

  Perhaps realizing he wasn’t going to win, or perhaps too tired and worried to argue, Jones just nodded.

  Twenty-one

  Jones woke, content and well-rested, in the most comfortable bed he’d been in his life. A rose-scented breeze drifted in through the open windows. Even when he opened his eyes to unfamiliar surroundings, it did not immediately ruin his sense of well-being. The room was bright and airy. A painting of a well-ordered rose garden echoed the garden that he glimpsed through the drifting curtains.

  Then he remembered the reason for the unfamiliar surroundings— the accusation and the arrest. Rescued by Miss Fairchild’s solicitor and brought here. The horseless carriage, a man he’d once arrested, a night of break-ins and tracking and chases.

  A missing ’wolf. Damn. How could he have slept so soundly with his—he wouldn’t call the toff a friend, not when he wasn’t supposed to let on he knew his identity—with the ’wolf missing, maybe captured and ruined, maybe injured and naked and alone somewhere in London. Maybe dead.

  He heard the sounds of life elsewhere in the house. Time to rise and deal with the day. Miss Fairchild had been gracious enough to shelter him last night. Well, this morning— the sun had nearly cleared the horizon by the time they reached the house and a politely incurious maid in a nightgown and cap had seen him to this room. But surely her patience had reached its limits. She had made no secret, last night, of who she felt bore the blame for last night’s fiasco. He had been the one to involve the ’wolf, a civilian for all his abilities, in trying to track down a killer.

  He’d slept in his uniform trousers and shirt. His thick blue jacket hung over the back of a chair. Honestly, he didn’t remember undressing even that far.

  The maid last night had said something about an attached bathing facility. He still didn’t have a change of clothes—yesterday had been too hectic to figure out how to safely get his hands on one, and he could scarcely borrow from Miss Fairchild. But if they’d left him a washbasin and cloth, he could at least wash his face and hands. After days in the same clothes, he felt nearly as grimy as he’d been after rolling around in street filth and grappling with a cutpurse.

  The room boasted two doors, and he knew which one led into the hall. He tried the second one, found it unlocked, and cautiously opened it, hoping it didn’t lead into someone else’s chambers.

  Oh, my. The maid hadn’t left a wash basin. She hadn’t needed to. A clawfoot tub dominated the room, a tub big enough for a man much taller than Royston to recline comfortably. A series of elegant brass pipes ran down the walls to marble-handled faucets. Four faucets? Why on Earth were there four faucets?

  It looked much too elegant for use by someone like him. But the maid had mentioned it, and there were towels, clean and folded, waiting on top of the short cabinet by the mirror. A robe, also folded, waited neatly beside them. Stripping, he regarded his clothes as he took them off. They were as much in need of washing as he was, but he had no others.

  Warily, he regarded the faucet handles, then experimentally turned one. The water gushed out hot and grew hotter, steaming, likely scalding. He turned the faucet off. He’d heard of hot running water, of course, though he’d never personally encountered it. The small sink with a cold pipe in his own flat was more luxury than he could have imagined in his youth. But hot water seemed less useful than he thought, if it came out too hot to touch. What did the wealthy do, have a servant draw a bath and then sit around and wait for it to cool?

  He studied the knobs. The one he had turned had an inlay of red stone in the center of the handle. The one beside it had an inlay of blue. He turned that one. The water came out as cold as it did from his poor little faucet at home.

  Ah, of course. He fiddled with the red knob and the blue until the water poured into the tub at a comfortable temperature. While the tub filled, he looked around for soap, and found none. If he had to, he’d do without, but. . . He contemplated the remaining knobs. Turned one experimentally— and then shut it off immediately, but not before a thin drizzle of lilac-scented oil hit the water. Hopefully not enough for the scent to linger too strongly. He preferred even his own unwashed smell to smelling like a lady at a garden party.

  He attempted the final knob with even more caution than he’d shown to this point, and a white, foamy substance streamed out, neutrally scented with rosemary and mint. It bubbled slightly where it met the water. Soap.

  He climbed into the tub and closed his eyes blissfully as the hot water worked magic on muscles knotted with tension and a night spent in a jail cell. Even in this bliss, he fought to keep his mind from the missing werewolf. To the field of suspects narrowing rapidly and—no! He would not betray Willie by even entertaining the possibility of his guilt. Surely, the final house they visited had been that of the killer. He only needed Bandon to confirm it.

  And if he did not?

  Royston shut that impossibility away and focused on his bath. He soaked for a while, then lathered and rinsed twice before pulling the plug and letting the water drain.

  Just getting clean made life seem less dismal, so long as he didn’t let himself think about the missing werewolf. Or the reality that he had no job and no home he dared go to at the moment. He toweled off (wonderful, thick towels and he still wasn’t thinking about werewolves) and contemplated the uniform he’d worn for three days and
slept in for two of those nights. The clothes, frankly, stank. But what other choice was there? Shuddering at the thought of old, dried sweat against his clean skin, he picked up the shirt. A knock on the door made him grab the robe instead. He remembered last night through a haze of exhaustion, and wasn’t certain whether the outer door to the room was locked. “Yes?” he called through the door as he pulled on the silky garment.

  “Pardon the intrusion, sir.” It was Miss Fairchild’s manservant. Wilcox— no, Winston. “I heard the water running and thought sir must be awake.”

  Not being used to servants, Royston was also not used to being spied on by servants. It was the only way they could do their job of unobtrusively anticipating their masters’ every wish, and so he couldn’t blame them. It still made his skin crawl. Royston pulled the belt to the robe tighter and went to open the door.

  “Begging sir’s pardon,” Winston said. “But it came to my attention that sir arrived without a change of clothes. My son is about the same size—he’s off to school now by Miss Fairchild’s generosity, but he left some of his things behind. Miss Fairchild, she’s a brilliant woman, too brilliant to notice the practical little things.”

  Royston accepted the clothes—good quality cloth, practically unworn, clearly the son’s Sunday best. Quite possibly outgrown rather than merely forgotten, but if so, the manservant was too diplomatic to call attention to Royston’s size by saying so.

  Winston had also ‘found’ a ‘spare’ unused shaving kit. Royston thanked the man for his generosity.

  “ ’Tis nothing, sir. Just some things lying about.” Winston hesitated. “Forgive my boldness. But, while I don’t know exactly what’s going on—you can’t work here too long without learning that sometimes it’s best not to enquire too closely—I will say that clearly Miss Fairchild has put her faith and trust in you, and Miss Fairchild is a smart woman. Which means you couldn’t be guilty of what they’re saying. And we—the staff—we’ll do whatever it takes to help in whatever way we can.”