Only one of the security guards returned inside with Carson. “Matilda Rufus,” she introduced herself. Evidently, she was one of the family, since the security firm was the famous fox-were security firm owned and run by the Rufus family. It said so on Matthew’s security guard uniform. “I’m leaving two men for the rest of the night. Leave your keys, Matthew, and Yan will drive your car home end of shift.”
Matthew fished out his keys, placed them on the table, and with a nod for goodnight, departed with his boss.
Her voice came from the front door. “Dilys is going to kill you for getting conked on the head. Then she’ll cry.”
“Sorry, Matilda.”
Carson closed the door behind them and returned to the kitchen.
“Explanations,” Liz said instantly.
Albert appeared at the kitchen window and tapped on the glass pane although they’d all already seen him.
“Who?” Carson began.
“My mage.” Grandfather gestured for Albert to enter. “Albert set the wards. The outer one that broke.” Albert stomped in. “And the inner one that bounced the intruder.”
“And I hope the bleeder has a headache.” Albert’s voice was thin and vicious. He had one of those skinny, taut faces that could have been any age between thirty and seventy. His faded, fair eyebrows gave no clue, and he always wore a limp flat cap, peering mistrustfully at the world from beneath it.
Occasionally his accent betrayed him, and Liz wondered if he was English at all. Perhaps American or even Australian.
He occupied an uncomfortable place in the magical world. Not simply a mage-for-hire, but one who worked for both legitimate employers and criminals. He got along by building his own reputation. When Albert set a ward, it worked.
Just now, he was quietly raving that someone had broken the look-away ward.
“It tells us something important,” Carson said. “A were would simply have passed through the ward unaffected. I did so all the time. So the intruder who was stunned had to have been magical or mundane, and given that one of the intruders broke the outer ward, he was probably a mage.”
“Of course he was a f—”
John held up one finger. There’d be no swearing in front of his granddaughter. It was a good thing he was never in A&E at midnight to hear the language thrown at staff. He’d have gone ballistic. “I’ll introduce you to the two security guards. I’m not sure how you slipped past them?” John paused, but by Albert’s pinched mouth, he wasn’t saying. “But if you’re working on the wards, they need to know.”
“All right. I wanna see where…’night, Liz.”
Everyone froze, just for an instant. Albert seemed to realize he’d let the cat out of the bag that they’d already met. He dived out the kitchen door, dirty coat-tails flaring behind him.
John gave her a long, frowning look of consideration, before following.
“How do you know Albert?” Carson asked. “I hadn’t met him.”
“But I’ve lived here all my life.”
“As a wolf-were.” Carson wasn’t buying the story. “You don’t mix with magic users.”
“You’d be surprised what I do.”
“That, I don’t doubt.” They stared at one another while metaphorical tumbleweeds rolled through the kitchen and a metaphorical wind whistled high and lonesome.
John’s return ended the stare down. “I want to get to bed, so I’ll keep this short. Liz, if you have questions, Carson will answer them. He’s younger than me. He can catch up on his beauty sleep later.”
Her grandfather gulped some tea. “A year ago, Carson went waltzing through the Carpathian Mountains searching for the Elixir Gentian. According to some obscure medieval herbalists, the plant can extend life by a hundred years.”
“Impossible,” she blurted.
“Unlikely,” John conceded.
Carson merely frowned. But he’d been frowning since he got home.
“Carson found the plant. He’s now growing an experimental crop in the greenhouse here. Dr. Victoria Pye is analyzing the gentian’s constituents and planning lab work. The signs are very promising.” He finished his tea and sighed heavily. “I don’t want to live forever. Live the life you have, live it well, and move on.”
Liz understood. Her grandfather’s faith was an unspoken of, private matter, but a powerful one. For him, death wasn’t an ending.
“However, the Elixir Gentian has the potential to improve the quality of an individual’s life. As weres, we take our health and fitness for granted. We’re remarkably robust. However, I have mundane friends and I see how they struggle as we age. If this plant can reinvigorate people, restore their health and freedom of movement, then it returns their independence and dignity.”
She nodded. “If it could…”
“The potential is there.” Carson sat at the table. Finally. “That’s what makes this so dangerous. John mightn’t be tempted by an additional hundred years of life, but there are plenty of people who are. People who have bought everything else, would love to buy a chance at immortality.”
John rinsed his mug. “If all your treasures are in this life, you are terrified of losing it. That is what we are up against. Desperation. It is why this project is a secret.”
“You’re safer out of it, Liz,” Carson said.
She looked at him across the table.
Resolve showed in his eyes and in the set of his jaw. He would keep her and everyone he could out of this. That was probably why he was so far from his family in Alabama. He wanted to take all the danger on himself and keep others safe.
John put a hand on her shoulder. “Walk me to the door.”
With Carson’s were hearing, there was no privacy to talk inside. She walked with her grandfather to his classic Aston Martin parked nearby.
John looked back at the house. Its solid Victorian lines completely hid the greenhouse behind. “Carson is a good man. Now you know why he’s fighting getting involved with you.”
“Grandfather, I’m not…I don’t want to be in a relationship right now, either.”
“You’ll have your reasons.” A piercing look that reminded her that Albert had given away his and her previous acquaintance. “But sometimes we fight the hardest against the person we most need.”
“I don’t need Carson.”
“You chose to run with him, and he agreed.”
And they had played. It was something friends did. Something prospective mates flirted with. She hugged her elbows. “No.”
John kissed her forehead. “Don’t close a door before you’re sure you won’t regret it.” He got into his car and drove away.
She glanced around the empty street. It was the wee hours of the morning. The city was quiet. The windows of the surrounding houses and apartments were dark. Yet she felt watched. Remembering the attack on Matthew, she hurried indoors and bolted the door behind her.
“I’m in here,” Carson called from the front room.
Two armchairs were angled companionably at the fireplace. A lamp to one side was the sole illumination. It was more than enough to show his grim expression.
Grandfather was wrong. There was no open door, here. No welcome. Carson meant to keep her out.
She sat in the other armchair, and kicked off her shoes, curling her legs under her.
“What I tell you is in confidence,” he began.
“Of course.”
His fingers curled lightly around the arms of his chair. He stared into the cold hearth. “The idea was to keep the project secret.”
“Hence your visiting scholar-in-residence position at Kew Gardens,” she said.
“Yes. The house, here, was convenient. The greenhouse is substantial. It’s a Victorian construction, solid iron. There is surveillance equipment and the yard fence is secure. I don’t want to move the plants, if possible. I’m growing them from seeds I collected. None of the plants flowered this first summer, so I suspect it’ll be two, perhaps three years before they do. Gentian roots are ge
nerally harvested just before flowering. I need to know their life cycle.”
“Did anyone know the plants in the region where you found them?”
“It was the Tatra Mountains in Poland, the highest range in the Carpathian Mountains. The plants straddled the alpine and sub-alpine border. Part of the region is tourist-friendly. Poles ski there. Some hike. I went further into the wilderness. Real bears and wolves. Deer.” He paused. “If the local people knew of the plant, they didn’t mention its use to me. But I was a stranger.”
Liz grimaced sympathetically. “Did any of them look extraordinarily old?”
“Yes.” A small smile. “But none claimed to have been born in the nineteenth century. It is possible that knowledge of the herb faded. I couldn’t detect any use of other gentian species. Centuries ago, gentian was used to flavor beer, for instance. So many uses. It’s a bitter tonic. I tracked the Elixir Gentian through medieval herbals and old legends that got written down. However, even if local knowledge of the plant has been lost, they ought to profit from it. If we can commercialize a gentian extract, funds will be channeled to hospitals, scholarships and schools.”
Liz lived in the medical world. She grasped what he didn’t say. There’d be years before the gentian extract was a proven and permitted drug—if it made it that far at all. At any stage, testing could prove it a dud or possessed of unacceptable side effects.
On the other hand, people who wanted an immortality potion generally didn’t worry about proving the drug first. The Elixir Gentian would be a security risk for years, desired and potentially fought over.
“I hope you have additional gentian seeds secured off-site,” she said.
Her practical response—an obvious one, she thought—seemed to disconcert him.
“Yes. John insisted.” He rose, as if too restless to sit any longer, and paced to the window. The lamp cast his shadow against the far wall. It twisted, agitated. “You need to leave. Go home. Forget all about this.”
He was absolutely right—for reasons he’d never know. However, Grandfather’s words by the car haunted her. If she closed this door…if she let Carson close it…would it be a forever regret?
She pushed her feet back into her high heels. She was tired, finally. Exhausted to the bone. When she stood, she wobbled a moment.
Carson moved, as if he’d cross the room and steady her. He stopped by his armchair, and kept it between them. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Absolutely. I’ve been far tireder than this.” She smiled faintly. “A medical student’s life isn’t an easy one, and life as a junior doctor isn’t much better. I played Cinderella at the party tonight, and now forget midnight. Three a.m. has clobbered me. I’ll see you around.” Play it light, she told herself. Don’t let regret creep in.
Mouth grim, he escorted her to the front door, passing her her handbag from where he’d stashed it in a drawer of the narrow hall table.
She slung the bag over her shoulder. “Don’t bother walking me to my car. It’s just around the corner…”
He pulled the door closed and walked with her.
Damp air was rising from the Thames and creeping into the suburb. Liz controlled the urge to shiver. Her dress was too thin for an English summer night.
Carson walked with shoulders hunched, hands deep in his pockets. “In other circumstances…”
Her smile felt forced. “Don’t go there.”
“No.” He inhaled deeply. “Thank you for inviting me to run with you.”
She got into her car, aware that he watched her fold her legs in and her skirt creep up her thighs. “Don’t thank me. I think it was one of my bigger mistakes.” She slammed the car door shut. Good-bye, Carson.
Chapter 4
“Was it a good party?”
“Kylie! You should be asleep.”
Liz’s houseguest pulled a comical face of disagreement. “I heard you get in.” Kylie slept light.
Liz knew she’d do the same if she’d been through what the other woman had, and what she still faced. But that was a problem that couldn’t be solved, now. “Can I tell you in the morning? I’m beat.”
“Sleep. I’ll make myself a hot milk.”
“Ugh. Rather you than me.” Liz climbed the stairs while Kylie ran down to the kitchen.
Barely twenty three, Kylie should have been the one partying. Instead, she stayed hidden, fighting her nightmares, determined to move beyond them.
If Liz could help, even in this small way of offering a refuge, then she would.
But no one could know Kylie was here.
The quiet of the Eaton Square home closed around Liz as she sunk into sleep. The narrow townhouse was a bit of a rarity among its exclusive neighbors. Where those houses had been opened up to one another, losing their independence to create expansive apartments across one or two levels and through original walls, Liz’s home was self-contained. It meant a lot of stairs, but it also meant privacy.
Albert, the mage it seemed her grandfather also knew, had warded the small home from rooftop to cellar and extended a look-away spell to any approach to the house. It meant that although the security services that protected Liz’s famous neighbors knew her house existed, they tended to forget about it and were, in any case, unable to monitor its comings and goings. Of course, the spell didn’t affect weres, which was why Liz had to keep those away by other means. Family included.
Her regular security was solid, both high-tech and security screens. No one got into the house without permission. Liz had hired a security firm to install it two years ago, following the complete renovation of the townhouse prior to her moving in. Great-Aunt Georgie, from whom she’d inherited the house, had kept things simple and stuck in a time warp from a 1970s revamp. Liz had the orange and brown tiles cleared out and a simple, light and modern style installed, one that respected the house’s age, but didn’t make a fetish of it. Her home was for living in, not a museum piece.
She was thinking of her home’s security as she showered the next morning. To some extent she had a bonus, her neighbors’ security efforts overlapped and supported her own. On the other hand, she’d just learned that someone was at large in London who could break Albert’s wards. At least his look-away spell. If he didn’t contact her today, she’d find him. Her expensive wards needed re-enforcing.
She dressed with calculated understatement in jeans and a shimmery silk shirt inset with lace, and debated ballet flats or heels. From downstairs came voices. She slipped her feet into the flats and ran downstairs.
Kylie and Urwin were in the living room with Kylie repeating phrases after him, and being corrected. Urwin Jones, speech coach and retired actor, was a patient teacher. Kylie would be a convincing Essex girl before she moved on to the new life being constructed for her in Liverpool. She already had the blonde hair and fake tan of the stereotype, but her new identity had to be second nature. It was a stretch for a woman who’d entered Liz’s life as Daria Gretsky, Belarusian witness testifying against the human trafficker who’d kept her in sexual slavery in London, but Kylie was determined to build a new life.
“Coffee?” Kylie asked immediately on sighting Liz.
“Please. Good morning, Urwin.”
“Good morning, my love.” The elderly man mimed an extravagant air kiss, but didn’t rise from the sofa. A bad car accident five years ago had left him in constant pain. Movement was something to be considered before indulging in. That he regularly visited Liz’s home in Eaton Square to coach Kylie was a testament to his own experience of crime and hatred. It hadn’t been easy being gay when Urwin had first come out. It still wasn’t easy. He helped others when he could.
It was Ooma Razavi QC who’d introduced them all.
Liz had met Ooma while dating Ooma’s son, Harry. They’d gotten along. “Boudicca’s, both of you,” Harry had said, and grinned, undaunted. When the two of them split, Ooma had quietly called Liz to meet her at the Ritz for high tea. That meeting had changed Liz’s life.
Ov
er warm scones with jam and clotted cream, the high-profile barrister had been blunt. “I’m involved in a network that hides those failed by the justice system. Not the guilty, but the victims who remain scared long after their cases are closed. We give them new lives. To do that, we need safe places for them to stay temporarily while they learn their new identities. It wouldn’t be a frequent event, but if you were interested…”
Liz had gotten the security system installed the next day.
Kylie was only the third person Liz had hidden, but she was by far the highest profile, most-sought-after individual. Andrew Thirkell, who’d been sent to jail primarily on her testimony, had sworn to “get her”. By which he meant, have her tortured and killed.
Liz sat in a modern Scandinavian chair near the high-framed sofa that Urwin found comfortable. The living room was furnished eclectically, but the varied styles worked together, blended by the muted color palette of sand browns and stormy blues with a dash of blue-undertoned reds. “How is she?” Liz asked Urwin quietly. Sometimes, living with someone day to day, you noticed less than a visitor.
He glanced towards the kitchen doorway. “Brave. She’s determined and she’s learning. Unhappy but hiding it. Life will get better for her. She believes that. You’ve given her a sense of safety and that’s vital.”
Liz nodded. Everything she did, hiding this aspect of her life from her family and pack, was worth it for Kylie to have another chance at life. Everyone deserved a second chance, but Kylie’s courage had more than earned it. Mentally, Liz renewed her vow that Thirkell or his thugs wouldn’t get Kylie.
The human trafficker was a ruthless man, owed many favors by the criminal underworld and rich enough to buy those whose favors he didn’t own. His particular arm of the slave trade might have been dismantled by the international police investigation, but his personal influence remained. The prize for proof of Kylie’s painful death was a high one.
Despite the death sentence pursuing her, Kylie looked healthier these days. She could hardly look worse than when Liz had met her.
Doctor Wolf (The Collegium Book 4) Page 4
