Venomous Secrets

by Anne Renwick

  Briefly, Cait sketched out an overview of their discoveries. “Alcohol jars shattered during the ensuing struggle. Her death was not particularly swift. At the last moment, she bit Jack.” Logan’s gaze drifted to the grimy, makeshift bandage twisted about his pant leg. “Then knocked over a lantern.”

  Logan grimaced, then finished painting the scene himself. “Setting on fire the corpses of her children and, consequently, the theater wherein the lives of everyone attending the play were threatened. Fay O’Fire, with all too realistic elements added.” He gave a sharp nod. “I’ll send an agent to see all humanoid remains are safely stored in the autopsy suite for examination.”

  “Excellent,” Jack bit out, pinching the bridge of his nose. “To return to more pressing matters, why are the Thorntons looking for you?”

  “For the same reason everyone seeks me out,” Logan snapped back. “They want something. In this case, permission to drag information from one Dr. Thrakos by way of veritasium.”

  Fear froze the breath in her lungs. She looked to Jack. There could be only one reason. Not enough detail was contained within the notebook.

  Jack yanked at his collar. “Shit.”

  His vision and any future they might salvage from this mismanaged mess of a marriage were at stake. Heart racing, she leaned forward, prepared to beg. “And you’ll grant it?”

  “No.” Her brother gave her a hard smile. “Drugs are not always the answer. Besides, I foresee no need. You saved the scientist’s life when he would have taken yours. Bargain with him.” He shifted, fixing his flinty gaze upon Jack. “Promise him anything short of freedom.”

  Sooty water dripped from the skirts of his all-but-legal wife as she stormed into the prisoner’s holding cell. Her eyes flashed. “You owe me.”

  Dr. Thrakos sat in his bed, propped against iron bed railings with only a thin pillow to keep them from digging into his back. On his lap was a writing desk, in his hand a fountain pen. A shackle clattered at his wrist as wrote a long sequence of digits—Jack squinted—3.14159265359…

  Pi.

  Bedside, Lady Thornton glowered. “It’s no better than doodling. He refuses to cooperate, to provide us with the algebraical algorithm necessary to operate the pituitary extractor with any precision.”

  Jack caught at the doorframe, steading himself as dread roiled in his stomach. Or was it simple nausea, an effect of blood oozing and seething about inside his skull?

  The situation was exactly as he had suspected. They might have caught a madman with the power to save his life, but Dr. Thrakos knew he faced a grim future. He wouldn’t part with an ounce of useful information unless offered sufficient motivation.

  Dr. Thrakos lifted his eyes and looked squarely at Cait. “I owe you nothing but a name and a location.” His lips stretched into a sour and bitter smile. “She’s in Paris, your sister Gabrielle. Proprietress of an apothecary by the name of Le Serpent Tordu.”

  The Twisted Serpent.

  Cait gaped at this revelation, a calculated move by the mad scientist to rip away any advantage she might possess. But only for a moment. She rallied, countering, “You attempted to drain my lifeblood.”

  The mad scientist lifted a shoulder. “You killed my creations, set my floating laboratory on fire, and chased my collaborators from your shores. ”

  “You knowingly helped a murderess stalk women upon London’s streets.” Her voice rose with each word.

  “For which I am now imprisoned.” He shook the chain that bound him to his bed.

  Not so much as a hint of remorse colored his words. The mad scientist was a void into which strong emotional appeals would fall and disappear. Only one passion drove him: pursuit of scientific knowledge. Specifically, a desire to discover new life forms.

  Jack stepped into the room and lowered the silver case to the floor. Adopting an air of indifference, he crossed his arms and leaned backward against the wall. A chair would have been more welcome, but he refused to reveal any weakness. Not to mention, standing at a distance allowed him to glower without further restricting his narrowed field of vision.

  “We found the lamia’s lair.” He toed the case, scraping metal over tile. “Saw her children. Brought one back.”

  The mad scientist froze, an obvious tell.

  He’d guessed correctly, shooting a verbal arrow directly into the man’s weakness, pinning him in place. Jack let a heartless grin stretch over his lips—Dr. Thrakos had never laid eyes upon any of Helena’s offspring.

  “She’s dead, your lamia,” he continued, careful to keep a note of boredom in his voice as he leaked details. The mad scientist barely breathed. “No more drakonourá conceived or born. Her final act was to set fire to the Opera Comique, a successful effort to destroy her… collection.”

  Air hissed as it scraped inward over Dr. Thrakos’ teeth.

  “Only one specimen survived the conflagration,” Jack added, finally meeting the madman’s intense gaze. “Might you be interested?”

  “You seek to barter?” Dr. Thrakos turned the paper over, sketched out a gear and a pin, made a notation indicating precise sizes, then paused. “You stole an old notebook.” He lifted an eyebrow. “With the proper inducement, I could—”

  Lady Thornton frowned.

  “Not that,” Cait interrupted. “We’ve no need of mechanical specifications.” She opened the sodden carpet bag, dragged forth the pituitary extractor. Broken. Bent. Missing a piece or two. But largely intact. “I’m certain Lady Thornton will be able to make any necessary adjustments by comparing her reconstruction to the murder weapon.”

  Wide-eyed, Lady Thornton took the device, cradled it in her hands examining it from every angle. “Without delay.”

  Dr. Thrakos pursed his lips in a pout.

  “You’ve nothing else to offer?” Jack taunted. “Do the algebraical algorithms escape you? Did too much lamian venom damage the old neurons?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my brain.” Dr. Thrakos threw down the pen and crossed his arms. “Show me. Prove that you have something to bargain with.”

  Jack caught his almost-wife’s gaze. The slightest of twitches flashed over her lips. A quick nod indicated Cait was in full agreement with the approach.

  She dragged a table across the room, and Jack summoned every last ounce of his resolve to bend, to lift the silver case onto the table, all while fighting growing nausea.

  He flipped open the latches and lifted the lid. Slowly, he folded back the damp cloths wrapped about the drakonourá.

  “Real?” Lady Thornton gasped.

  Jack nodded. “We believe so, though an autopsy will confirm.”

  She pressed a hand to her chest.“I would have denied the possibility of such a creature existing.”

  Dr. Thrakos leaned forward, snarling when his shackles clanged. “Bring the creature closer.”

  He countered. “Prove you recall the mathematics necessary to direct the fine, precise movements of the pituitary extractor.”

  With a huff, the mad scientist took up his pen and began to scratch out a complicated formula. Lady Thornton nodded as he wrote.

  “That’s all.” Dr. Thrakos dropped his pen. “No more until I’m permitted to examine the drakonourá.”

  They dragged the table closer.

  “Such perfection.” Awe filled the madman’s voice as he swept a fingertip over the infant’s tail. “A smooth transition from skin to scale. Helena swore the Lamian queens moved at great speeds upon thick, muscular tails. Such a claim suggests that the thoracic vertebrae must repeat—over and over—as they do in every serpent. Ribs are, after all, necessary for the function of caudal musculature.” His head snapped up, eye greedy for more details. “Fangs?”

  How annoying that the same question simultaneously sprang into both their minds. Carefully, Jack parted the drakonourá’s lips. Everyone in the room leaned forward, all held their breaths.

  Two tiny white points protruded from the infant’s pink gums.

  “Amazing,” Dr
. Thrakos exhaled. “You’ll perform a dissection, of course, to study the internal anatomy. To pinpoint the location and morphology of the poison glands. To determine if pelvic structures are present, if the development of lumbar vertebrae is completely suppressed. I must be allowed to observe.”

  “Must?” Jack slid the case across the table, moving it once again beyond the mad scientist’s reach. “Convince me.” He slid open a cabinet drawer, rummaged about, then laid forceps, a blunt-nosed probe and a sharp scalpel in a neat row upon the table. A teasing temptation. “Provide the complete algebraical algorithm necessary to generate the extremely precise and adjustable mechanistic sequences of the extractor’s pincers.”

  Cait lifted the man’s pen, held it out. “And without further delay.”

  “Fine.” Narrow-eyed, Dr. Thrakos glared at them. “But I’ll need considerably more paper.”

  Long, tension-filled minutes coalesced as the mad scientist scribbled, filling page upon page with complicated mathematical formulae that made no sense to Jack but had Lady Thornton snatching up each sheet as the ink dried, nodding and humming and examining the damaged device they’d retrieved from the bowels of the theater as if viewing it in an entirely new light.

  All while Cait leaned against the wall beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

  “Mission all but accomplished.” Her fingers plucked at the holster slung beneath the ruin of her jacket. “The murderess is dead, her scientific accomplice in captivity, and her sisters have presumably fled our borders.”

  “My brother in custody, one of his business partners dead, the other likely so. With their unique services no longer available, the hotel and spa will likely fail. Questions remain, but not every case can be neatly tied up with a bow.” He shrugged, a movement that caused the shoes beneath his feet to squelch. “Is more necessary?”

  “I’ve a final item on my list.” The gray tattered ends of Cait’s shredded petticoats swept—mopped?—the ground beneath her sagging skirts as she turned to face him. The clothing that clung to them like wet dishrags would need to be burned. Her chin lifted. “A successful surgery.”

  His heart gave a great thud. Could their unorthodox marriage be saved?

  Dr. Thrakos set down the pen. Muttering, he held out the stack of papers.

  Lady Thornton paged through them, asking questions and receiving grumbling answers in return.

  “Anything could happen,” Jack said. The slightest miscalculation could cause the shift of a sharp edge, leading to a nicked blood vessel. A sliced nerve. A fragment of bone thrust into neural tissue. “Even with the algorithm, a positive outcome is not a foregone conclusion. We ought not depend upon it.”

  “We,” she repeated. “About that…”

  They made quite the pair. Both of them hesitating to speak of their feelings for each other aloud in the face of Black’s revelation. He hated the man for casting doubt once more upon the wisdom of their marriage. At the same time, he could appreciate the gesture.

  Jack tugged the marriage license from his coat pocket and held it out. “File it the moment the registry opens. Even if the surgery ends my days as a field agent, there’s no need for your fledgling career to stall.”

  She took the damp paper with shaking fingers, folding it carefully into a leather pouch at her belt. “I’ll not deny my aspirations, but our marriage is—always was—more than a business partnership.” A tear ran down her cheek. She brushed it away with an irritated swipe of her hand. “At least to me.”

  His heart jumped and gave a great twist. Was it possible? Had they fallen in love?

  He rather thought they had.

  Painted an institutional green, this dull block of a room in the basement of the Lister Institute was not at all a romantic location suitable for the declarations of deep feelings, but a Queen’s agent often lived on a knife’s edge, and this might well be the calm before another storm.

  “Cait.” He caught her hand in his, lifted it to his lips. “Whatever happens, know that I could not have chosen a better wife for myself. Perhaps it’s why I let your claim on me go unchallenged our first evening together.”

  “And our marriage of convenience?” She lifted her eyes in challenge, though he glimpsed an underlying current of doubt. “Would you deny the attraction that sparked between us?”

  “Never.” He smiled softly. “As it turns out, career advancement was but a convenient excuse, nothing but a superficial narration for the duke and duchess.” He kissed her forehead. “You are a dangerously beautiful woman, Cait. One I’ve come to trust with all my secrets, personal and professional.”

  “A gentleman who ignited an ice sculpture, creating a distraction worthy of newspaper headlines, could not possibly escape my notice or admiration.” Mischief gathered at the corners of her mouth. “Intelligent and handsome and wildly good in—” She grinned. “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

  “Something to rectify,” he agreed with an answering smile. Hope dug in and held tight, no matter the pounding inside his head. “Might we be even more to each other?”

  “I’ll confess.” Her cheeks flushed. “My heart has begun to entertain certain aspirations. Do you think—”

  “How dare you!” Jack’s brother burst into the room clad in nothing but a long, white sleep shirt. Wild-eyed, he snatched the scalpel from the table, pointed it at Dr. Thrakos. “Generous funds were funneled into your research. Not once were you denied the slightest request. But where was your loyalty the moment a pretty woman bared her fangs?”

  “I chose the future of a species over your money-grubbing ways,” Dr. Thrakos countered, waving a hand toward the drakonourá. “Behold the possibilities!”

  “That?” Aubrey’s lip curled. He kicked the table, knocking the case and the dead infant to the floor. The accused madman jerked his head backward at the insult. “An abomination. Such a creature should never be allowed to crawl upon the earth. Had I known what you planned—”

  “Which is why you were not informed.” Dr. Thrakos crossed his arms. “A short-sighted ingrate such as yourself can’t possibly understand.”

  “All my resources went into this project!” his brother yelled, eyes bulging. “All!”

  “Aubrey, drop the blade.” Jack pushed away from the wall, reaching, ready to stop his brother by force. But the room tilted and shifted.

  “Back away!” Aubrey shouted, lashing out, slicing a deep gash into Jack’s forearm. “All of you.”

  He hissed, slapping his palm atop the wound. Hot blood welled between his fingers.

  Cait ran to the door. “Guards!”

  Lady Amanda scrambled out of the way, dropping the papers she held and drawing her TTX weapon. “Set down the scalpel or I’ll fire.”

  Aubrey lunged at the mad scientist, grabbed the man by the tangled mess of his hair, pressed the scalpel to his throat. “You’ll die for what you’ve done.”

  Lady Thornton cursed at the dilemma before her.

  “He’s already in custody.” Jack tried reason. “Dr. Thrakos will never walk free. Don’t hurt him. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.”

  “Worse?” Aubrey shrieked. “He castrated me!”

  “One testicle,” Jack replied, keeping his voice calm even as blood dripped from beneath his hand to the floor. “Children are still a possibility.”

  There were those among the ton with unwed daughters who might ignore other inconvenient facts, though Jack would do his best to warn them away.

  “Wrong!” Insanity crept into his brother’s eyes. “I will never sire an heir. He wrought irreversible damage in that pit of his beneath the zoo. A roaring infection set in. Amputation of my remaining testicle was required to save my life. Not even your precious Lister physicians could reverse the damage.”

  Appalled, Jack opened his mouth. Shut it. All while struggling for a response.

  Two guards skidded into the room with Cait hot on their heels.

  “Sir, drop the knife,” a guard barked.

  The gua
rds edged close, ready to tackle his brother.

  “I wish I’d never laid eyes on your precious snake-woman.” Aubrey snarled, glaring at the mad scientist. “Or your cursed laboratory.”

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The guards lunged.

  Aubrey slashed the mad scientist’s throat.

  Arterial blood sprayed.

  Lady Thornton fired, her dart finding its mark in his brother’s back.

  Jack staggered forward, pressed his hands to the mad scientist’s neck in a hopeless attempt at saving him while the guards dragged his still-screaming brother away.

  Beneath his palms blood pulsed, gushing forth from the carotid arteries midst a horrible, bubbling gurgle sound that told him the man’s trachea had also been cut.

  Hopeless.

  Cait rushed forward, gauze in her hands, but it was already too late.

  Jack shook his head. “He’s gone.”

  “Sit.” She tugged at his shoulders. “Your face, it’s lost all color.”

  Fitting, as the room blazed a blinding white before his eyes.

  “Jack?” Cait’s voice traveled the length of a long hallway to reach him. “Jack!”

  Then the world went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Twisting her poison ring, Cait paced in the waiting room outside the surgical suite throwing anxious looks at its doors as nearby nurses cast both curious and sympathetic glances in her direction. Her hands rose, unbidden, to rub the back of her neck, and her mind spun out worst-case scenarios. She was a wreck, brooding over a future without Jack—how could she carry on without the man she loved?—then agonizing over the numerous repercussions that remaining his wife might generate. Would societal expectations rip them apart?

  No matter her protests, both the Thorntons had refused to let her stay by his side. Total concentration was an absolute necessity for a procedure that had never before been attempted.

  Except by a mythological venomous woman, all with fatal outcomes.

  Dread crawled from her stomach into her throat.