Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge

by Zoë Archer

  “I wouldn’t.” Eva spoke over her shoulder. “Simon’s a crack shot. He’s got a shelf of trophies from Eton.”

  “Harrow,” said Simon.

  She waved a slim hand. “Those distinctions only matter to you. Either way, Dalton, you better not risk it.”

  “Don’t like being threatened,” he growled.

  She turned and faced him so abruptly, he nearly collided with her. “Don’t give us a reason to threaten you.” A man in a wrinkled tweed suit gave them a curious look, so she pasted a bright smile on her face. “Come, Cousin Henry, Mama has made up a room for you and I’d wager she’s keeping herself awake for your arrival.”

  The man in the tweed suit moved on.

  “She better have a drink waiting for me,” Jack said. He surely needed one.

  “One of her famous cordials, no doubt.” She tipped her head toward the arches that led to the booking office and the exit. “Do hurry along, cousin. We don’t want to be discourteous to Mama.”

  He thought of a dozen rude things to say, but didn’t want to attract any more attention. It seemed the smarter course of action to just follow along with these Nemesis lunatics and consider a plan of escape as he went.

  The four of them walked quickly through the station, passing the ticket office, and then out onto the street. Several cabs lined up on St. Pancras Road, the heads of both drivers and horses drooping as they dozed. Only one driver looked awake, and he waved at them as they emerged from the station. Another one of their “friends,” Jack assumed. The others hastened toward the waiting cab.

  “Come on, Dalton,” Eva said when Jack remained on the curb.

  “Give me a bloody minute.” He drew in a deep lungful of air. It was heavy with the scents of coal smoke, horse dung, mud. Not a trace of rock dust or bitter Yorkshire wind. Thank God.

  He was back. Back in London. He never thought to be here again.

  “Now, Dalton,” Eva said, yet her voice was far gentler than her words.

  He didn’t want to stand out here, waiting for some copper to stroll by on patrol, so he got into the cab with the others. As soon as the door closed, they were off, clattering away from King’s Cross Station.

  London. London. The name beat through him like another pulse as he stared out the cab window and the passing streets. He’d been born here, and his earliest memories involved him running barefoot and filthy through the city’s knotted streets. A wretched, glittering trollop of a city. Christ, how he loved it. Missed it. As the cab drove into the night, he kept his starved gaze on the city, past churches and squares and grimy streets. Though most of London’s citizens were tucked in their beds, the lanes quiet and still, there were still others out on their particular nighttime business, scuttling like roaches beneath the street lamps.

  Eva and the two men spoke to one another in low voices, but Jack barely heard them. Somewhere out there was Rockley. Somewhere in London that son of a bitch drank and fucked, little knowing that his miserable life was soon to end.

  The cab turned into a narrow lane lined with darkened shops. The lane itself looked empty, and the lodgings above the shops had their shutters and curtains drawn. Once the hired carriage stopped, Marco hopped out, with Simon following. Eva remained in the carriage as Jack peered curiously through the cab’s open door.

  Of all the places he thought Nemesis would take him, he wasn’t figuring on Clerkenwell, a place more suited to shabby paper shufflers and Italian immigrants than secret organizations bent on vengeance.

  “Expecting a fortified palace, perhaps?” Eva’s voice was arch in the dark confines of the carriage.

  “Some gun towers, at the least.”

  “Not very discreet, gun towers.” She waved toward the carriage door. “Let’s not stand on custom, Mr. Dalton. After you.”

  He clambered from the cab, frowning when he saw Marco standing at the door to a chemist’s shop. “Got a case of clap, gov?”

  Marco scowled, but Jack heard Eva’s soft snort of laughter behind him as she got out of the carriage. Marco unlocked the door to the chemist’s.

  Following everyone inside, Jack decided not to voice his questions. He’d just wait to see how everything played out. Keep his eyes and ears sharp. That was always the best way to learn something. Talk too much, ask too many questions, and people start to get suspicious. The Nemesis crew was already chary enough. No need to give them further fuel.

  The shop itself was silent and still. Bottles lined up like informants along built-in shelves, with premade tonics keeping company beside faded advertisements touting a return to health and vigor. A brass scale sat ready to dole out judgment from atop a glass-topped counter. The faint acrid smell of chemicals hung in the air.

  Stepping behind the counter, Eva ran her fingers beneath its overhang. She appeared to grasp something, and pulled. There was a quiet unlatching sound. One of the built-in cabinets swung open, revealing a steep wooden staircase heading upward.

  Jack raised his brows. Nemesis liked to keep its tracks hidden.

  He had little option other than to follow Eva as she headed up the stairs. She didn’t bother turning on the gas lamp, but walked up through the darkness in perfect comfort—as though she spent every night skulking about in the shadows. Not an unreasonable assumption.

  She kept glancing behind her, as if making sure he was still there.

  The narrow stairwell pressed in on all sides, the stairs creaking beneath him. Compared to her light tread, he felt huge and ungainly. Even Marco and Simon trailing after him seemed to have cats’ feet as they all ascended the stairs.

  It had been decades since he’d been a housebreaker. He’d lost his touch for subtlety and surprise. That wasn’t how he’d earned his bread. As a brawler and then a bodyguard, his job had been to make sure everyone had seen and heard him coming. Maybe that’s why his attempt to kill Rockley had gone so spectacularly badly. He should have fallen back on old habits, gone for a carefully planned and secret attack. Instead, he’d just barged right into Rockley’s place and wrapped his hands around the bastard’s neck. One of the other bodyguards on duty had come up behind Jack and knocked him out. By the time Jack had woken up, he’d been lying on the floor of a Black Maria, his hands in manacles, on his way to the station.

  That’s what lack of finesse had gotten him—imprisonment, without even the benefit of getting revenge.

  Another door stood at the top of the stairwell. Eva knocked—three short taps, a pause, and then another tap. Locks clicked as they were unbolted. The door opened.

  A dark-haired woman stood on the other side of the door. Gas lamps burned behind her, throwing her into shadow.

  “Everything went as planned?” the woman asked Eva. “No difficulties?”

  Eva said, “You sound almost sorry, Harriet.”

  “Always looking for an excuse to practice my surgical skills.” She gazed past Eva to Jack. “That him, then?”

  “Silly us,” said Simon, “we brought back the wrong convict.”

  Harriet clicked her tongue, then stepped back, allowing them inside.

  As Jack crossed the threshold, he took in the details of the room. Maybe he had been expecting something a little … grander. Not this ordinary parlor, with a plain round table in the middle, surrounded by battered bentwood chairs. Two upholstered chairs were shoved against the walls, which were covered with striped wallpaper that peeled up along the seams. A framed print of the Lincoln’s Inn Gate House hung on the wall.

  Beyond the parlor, Jack could just make out a kitchen with a closed range stove and another set of stairs that presumably led to more rooms.

  “The hell is this place?” Jack demanded.

  “Nemesis’s headquarters.” Eva set her reticule down on the table. As she did, Simon and Marco set their gear down, as well. They all seemed to exhale, their faces looking tight and drawn in the artificial light.

  “Looks like a clerk’s lodgings. A badly paid clerk.”

  “We save our funds for things of im
portance,” Simon said, curt. He shut the door and did up the numerous locks, including sliding a thick bolt into place. “Explosives. Train tickets for escaped convicts.”

  “Tea for returning operatives.” This was spoken by a man with a salt-and-pepper beard, coming into the parlor with a tray holding several chipped china cups and a teapot covered in painted flowers. He glanced at Jack inquisitively, but only put the tray on the table. He poured out four cups, added cubes of sugar and milk from a small pitcher, then handed them around, even giving one to Jack.

  “Cheers,” Jack said, guarded. The cup was tiny in his hand, but he held it up and sniffed at the tea.

  Eva, holding his gaze, sipped at her tea. “There’s a disappointing lack of opium in it.”

  He waited until she and everyone else looked away, then took a drink, his first real cup of tea in half a decade. Maybe gentry folk drank better brews than this, but he wouldn’t know the difference. As it was, the tea was strong and wonderful. Barely, he resisted the impulse to close his eyes and groan in delight. Jaysus, but he missed this.

  “I’m Lazarus,” the older man said. He might have been on the far side of fifty, and not especially tall, but he looked fit and he carried himself like a man who once had earned his coin through Her Majesty’s Army. Which confirmed what the others had told Jack on the train. Lazarus tilted his head toward the woman who’d opened the door. “You already met Harridan Badly.”

  “It’s Harriet, you ass,” she snapped. “Harriet Bradley.” Now that Jack could see her better, he realized that Harriet wasn’t young, either, somewhere in her middle forties, but still slim and handsome. Her skin was the color of tea with cream, her features were slightly African, her hair thickly textured. A woman of mixed blood.

  Dislike and something else crackled between her and Lazarus as they glared at each other across the parlor.

  “Desmond and Riza are out in the field right now,” Eva said. “And now you’ve met everyone in Nemesis.”

  “Good to sodding meet you.” Jack threw back the last of his tea, not caring that it burned his mouth, and slammed his cup down on the table. It broke apart, bits of cheap porcelain scattering over the wood. “I’m leaving. Got a murderer to kill.” He swung back toward the door.

  Marco and Simon were on him in an instant, gripping his arms, struggling to restrain him.

  He snarled out a laugh. “You think you can hold me?”

  “Either you stay here and do what we say,” Marco said through gritted teeth, “or we hand you to the authorities.”

  Anger boiled through Jack. “I broke out of Dunmoor but wound up in another prison.” He shook Marco off. The dark man stumbled against one of the upholstered chairs, then righted himself quickly, agile as a liar.

  Before Jack could shove Simon, Eva stepped in front of him. “By now, Rockley’s been informed that you’ve escaped,” she said. “Security around him is going to be impenetrable. You wouldn’t be able to get to him, even if we let you go.” She took a step closer. “All you would be doing is running straight toward your own death. Without even the satisfaction of vengeance. If that’s what you want”—she moved aside and undid all the locks on the door, even the bolt—“then go.”

  His gaze moved back and forth between her and the door. Was she speaking the truth? Jack had escaped from prison that very day, and the prison wouldn’t want to make public the fact that one of their convicts had gotten free. And Dunmoor was hundreds of miles from London. At most, there might be a notice in the York papers. No one in London would know.

  But … Rockley had always kept his claws out for any bit of information relevant to himself. He lined the pockets of bureaucrats and informants all over the country. Official word wouldn’t get out about Jack’s escape, but doubtless one of the warders—if not the prison governor himself—had been kept on retainer. Jack had tried to kill Rockley and survived. Without question Rockley would have kept an eye on him. A telegraph had surely been sent, informing that piece of garbage that Jack was at large. Rockley’s edginess had probably gotten even worse since Jack had tried to murder him. Which meant he would have doubled or even tripled his usual number of bodyguards. Jack had once been one of those bodyguards. They were rough, mean men, just like him. And just like him, they’d stop at nothing to keep anyone and everyone from getting to Rockley.

  Eva was right. If Jack so much as belched in Rockley’s direction, he’d be taken down. There’d be no justice for Edith. Only her brother’s cold, rotting body lying in the street.

  He swore, using the filthiest words he knew.

  “Curb your language,” Simon hissed.

  “I’ll say whatever I bloody want. Get off me.” Jack rammed his elbow into Simon’s flat stomach. The toff only grunted softly, but didn’t let go.

  She peered at Jack. “Mr. Dalton appears to have grasped some logic. He won’t be leaving us. Will you, Mr. Dalton?”

  He glowered at her. “I’ll stay. For now.”

  “How gracious.” She nodded when Simon finally let go of Jack’s arm, though the blond gent looked sour to do so. Quickly, she fastened all the locks. The bolt made a solid thunk as it slid into place. They didn’t mess about, these Nemesis folks, not when it came to watching their arses. “Consider this place your refuge from a hostile world.”

  Jack paced around the parlor, noting with a dark satisfaction that everything in the room rattled when he walked, the crockery and bits of bric-a-brac clattering like bones. “’Cept you lot are just as hostile as a gang of cutthroats.”

  “There are certain throats that need to be cut,” she answered, turning back to him. “Metaphorically. And you are going to be the blade that cuts Rockley’s.”

  “Metaphorically,” he said snidely, “on account that you don’t work that way.”

  “Nemesis doesn’t murder,” Lazarus said. “Not in cold blood.”

  “That’s so damn pretty I should tattoo it on my chest,” Jack fired back.

  Lazarus paced over to him. The older man shoved up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a burly tanned forearm dusted with silvery hair. But there was ink there, too, faded and smoky. Hard to tell what the pictures had been when they were fresh decades ago, but they looked like they once had been knives. Seven of them in neat succession running up Lazarus’s forearm.

  “These are for the men who died at Lucknow,” Lazarus snarled. “My friends. And I killed God knows how many rebels during those sieges. Got me a Victoria Cross for my efforts, but it didn’t matter. There’s too much blood that gets spilled, oceans of it, and I’ve been the one spilling it. But we’ve all left that behind.” He looked pointedly at each of the Nemesis crew in turn, including Harriet and Eva.

  “No one’s got my respect more than soldiers,” Jack said. “They go to war knowing they’re going to kill. They know they could die, too. But Edith never thought she’d take a knife to the belly. Rockley’s knife. You’ve seen how long it takes to die from a hole in your gut, Lazarus. She had plenty of time to feel pain and be afraid.”

  His words burned like acid as he spoke, and his mind choked with pictures of Edith as she lay in a growing pool of her blood on the floor of the brothel, and him unable to do a damn thing to help.

  “So don’t tell me what you did and what I have to do are the same thing,” he rumbled. “’Cause they ain’t.”

  Silence fell, heavy as a corpse.

  “Once a man dies, his suffering is over,” Eva said quietly from the other side of the parlor. “But ruination can last a lifetime.”

  He stared at her, barely aware of the others in the shabby little room. “Just picture it: the only family you got in the whole world, stretched out at your feet, dying too slow to be merciful but too fast to get a doctor. Picture that”—he pointed a finger at her—“and then tell me you’d be satisfied with ruination.”

  Her cheeks whitened, and she pressed her lips into a thin line. Finally, she spoke. “We aren’t murderers. And as long as we need you, you aren’t a murderer, either.�
� Before he could shoot back a response, she held up her hand. “One thing we all are is exhausted. Time for us to get some rest, and then we resume our discussion in the morning.”

  “I want Rockley dead, and you lot say I can’t kill him,” Jack said. “Soon as I get my chance, I’m going to end his goddamn life. End of discussion.” He stepped close to her, deliberately trying to intimidate her. Yet drawing near her, he found himself oddly intrigued by the soft strands of golden hair that had come loose from their pins and teased over the back of her neck. What would those little wisps feel like against his fingers? And why did he have the need to know?

  She crossed her arms over her chest, but the movement was more combative than self-protecting. He almost admired her refusal to back down. Except she wasn’t backing down from him; that, he didn’t like one bit.

  “The conversation’s far from over,” she said. “And I’m not going to say another damn word about it until I get some sleep.”

  But her words had a strange kind of power to them, for as soon as she said that word sleep, he felt as though his bones were made of lead. The snooze he’d caught on the train had fueled him for a small while. He’d burned through that fuel, however, and his whole body ached with weariness. Pain crept behind his eyes. His jaw throbbed with the force it took to keep from yawning wide as a crocodile.

  Even if he headed outside, he wouldn’t make it far before keeling over. Damn prison life getting him used to regular sleep. When he’d been on the streets, he could go days with nothing more than a quick doze leaning up against a wall.

  “Going to put me up at Claridge’s?”

  Marco grunted. “Delusional. Come on, then.” He walked through the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Seeing that he was supposed to follow, and given that he’d tip over from exhaustion at any moment, Jack decided to go along. He climbed the stairs, hearing Eva’s lighter step behind him. At the top of the stairs was a cramped hallway, a threadbare hooked carpet partially covering the scuffed floorboards. Two doors faced each other. Marco opened the door on the right.