Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kendrick held out his hand to help Genevieve, his wife, disembark the hackney in front of Carmine House. That was the gentlemanly thing to do. Grabbing your woman by the waist and swinging her down into your embrace was probably not, even on a dark street.
Much as he wanted to.
Married life has things to recommend it, he thought as she placed her hand in his and stepped down.
The door at the top of the steps opened, and Robbie directed a young man in a footman’s uniform to get the trunk from the driver. “Welcome back, sir,” Robbie said when they’d reached him, but the smile was tight on his face.
Kendrick came to alertness. “What’s toward?”
“Joseph will tell you,” Robbie said. “Danny, you take the luggage up.”
“It’s not Fletcher, is it?” Genevieve asked anxiously, unpinning her hat.
“No, no.” Elspeth appeared at her elbow and took the hat from her. “He’s all right. Just cross because I wouldn’t let him get up and roam about. He’ll be glad to see you.”
“Go on,” Kendrick said. He could tell she was barely keeping herself from rushing up to check on the boy. “I’ll find out what Joseph wants.”
Genevieve hurried up the steps—but she turned to cast a glance back at him at the top of the stairs. Kendrick knew because he was looking over his shoulder at her, too.
Yes, he thought, descending to the cellar and the Ossuary entrance, I could get used to this.
Joseph nearly collided with him in the passage. “Ah, good.” Without preamble, he waved Kendrick on. “We’ve got another one.”
“An assassin?”
“No. Mad,” he said bluntly. “Just after dusk today.”
Kendrick reflexively reached for the hilt over his shoulder. “Who’ve they killed?”
“No one. Yet. Marshall Cutter found her.”
Marshall Cutter? He knew that name. Kendrick thought a moment, and the image of the vampire he’d met on the street when he’d been searching for Genevieve flashed before him.
“Found her doing what?”
“He can tell it better than I can. We have her in one of the audience rooms off the main chamber.” Joseph led him around the labyrinth of tunnels in the Ossuary before they emerged into the main room.
At the side of what Rupert had considered a dais, an archway led to a slightly smaller utilitarian chamber. Joseph entered and stepped to the side.
Kendrick ducked beneath the archway and took in the scene. Several guards held a small, plain woman in chains on the floor. Her eyes were red, and she hissed at all assembled. Kendrick could see no reason behind her gaze.
Marshall Cutter, in the attire of a city clerk or office worker, barely took his eyes off the woman. He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Mr. Cutter?” Kendrick held out his hand. “I wish we were meeting again under better circumstances.”
“Aye, sir.” Cutter murmured.
“Tell me what happened,” Kendrick said.
His normally deep-brown complexion paled a few shades. “Sir, I would ask for clemency for her.”
“You know her?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “I know of her. Her name is Lily Pendleton. She was one of Julius’s vassals.
I saw her once or twice after her maker…
well, you know. She didn’t look well, but I thought it had to do with the change, fear from upheaval, that sort of thing.
But tonight, I saw her on the street, and she didn’t know me.
” He hurried to add, “We never spoke much—her maker didn’t like that—but she always would acknowledge me when she saw me, or when I passed her on the street.
Tonight, she looked right past me. Not like she was ignoring me—like she didn’t see me at all.
It worried me, so I followed her. I thought she was just going to feed, but—it wasn’t normal feeding.
She fair fell on her victim, and if I hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve ripped that human girl’s throat out. ”
“She lives, this girl?”
He nodded. “I knocked her out so I could bring Lily below—and that took some doing—but I sent one of the door guards to play human and raise a hue and cry that they found her. I didn’t want her to come to some harm from another human.”
“Good man,” Kendrick said.
“What is going to happen to Lily?” Marshall asked.
“That may depend on Miss Pendleton.” Current Ossuary policy was that any lost to the madness or those who had killed in a rampage were to be put to death, to safeguard vampiric existence.
Lily hadn’t killed, but she still was lost to the madness and the bloodlust. Kendrick could guess what had happened.
No one had taught her control or how to craft her own fetters for the urges.
Her maker had been the one to control her, and now he was dead, and she was unmoored.
Come back out of the dark, lass, he thought.
“Call her,” he told Marshall.
“What?”
“You knew her. Speak to her. Use her name. See if she is too lost in her urges, or if there is a way back for her.”
Marshall swallowed and then stepped forward to where the woman was struggling against her silver fetters. “Lily,” Marshall said. “It’s Marshall. Lily, I’m sorry I didn’t see you were struggling. I didn’t think to—to reach out to you. But I am now. I’m right here, Lily. It’s not too late.”
He took another step forward, trying to catch the woman’s attention. “Can you look at me? This isn’t all you are. You’re a flower in spring, and that’s one of the best scents I can think of. Do you remember that scent? Easter Sunday, and the whole world smelling of lilies?”
Lily blinked red eyes, her frantic movements slowing.
Go on, Kendrick thought. Come back to us, lass.
Marshall kept speaking in a low, soothing voice. “I know you’re hurting. Those early days—I had forgotten how hard it seemed, to do any little thing. To be anything other than desire and a pit of despair. But we’re still people, Lily. You’re still you. Don’t give that up.”
She stilled. She was listening.
Marshall reached out to her. “Will you take my hand, Lily? If you can hear me, take my hand. If you do, I swear I won’t let go.”
His hand waited in space for an eternity.
Then a trembling hand slipped into his, and he clasped it tightly.
The woman’s eyes were still red, and she shook like a human in the throes of the drink, but she held tightly to the hand offered to her.
“My God,” Joseph whispered. Kendrick had forgotten he and the guards were still in the room.
“Marshall, do you know where Lily stays? For that matter, where do you stay?”
Marshall blinked. “H-Here in the Ossuary, I think. I do, too—but with two or three other fellows.”
In a hole or a cave or some such. Like where Genevieve and her friends had lodged.
“Take one of the furnished rooms,” Kendrick said. “Make her comfortable and see if you can bring her back to reason enough to remove her bonds.” He nodded at the guards to make it so. “Joseph—your ear a moment.”
He pulled Joseph aside. “I need to speak to everyone assembled—the whole Ossuary, and as many vampires in London as we can find. I have left it too long. Can we notify enough by the early hours?”
Joseph thought a moment. “If you wish to speak, say, two hours before dawn? Yes. I know where the prominent vampires live and will send others to spread the word.” At Kendrick’s look, Joseph said, “I was the majordomo, remember?”
“Good. I thank you. I need to make a change, and this seems as good an omen as any.”
“I’d never dreamed it possible for someone to come back from the madness,” Joseph said.
It could have been a near thing had Marshall not stopped her from killing. Lily’s case served as a hope and a warning. Things must change—if they were to stop any further cases from progressing so far. “How old is Lily, do you think?”
“Forty, if that,” Joseph said. They shared a long, thoughtful look.
“Really married?” Fletcher pressed. “A ring and everything?” He was sitting up in bed and looking very well.
The puppy, freshly washed and sleepy, hid under the covers at his side.
After one brave growl at Genevieve, it had decided discretion was the better part of valor.
Once she had delivered Fletcher’s improving bill of health, Elspeth had left the room to fetch the boy’s supper.
Genevieve described the scene in the rectory’s parlor for the boy. “Kendrick made the ring,” she added.
“Made it, his own self?” Fletcher said from the bed, his gaze dropping to her gloved hand. “Can I have a gander, mum?”
He couldn’t see the beautiful ring under her lovely glove, just the imprint where it lay.
Her hand trembled a moment, and then Genevieve deliberately unfastened the buttons of her glove.
“Here. Isn’t it lovely?” she said, extending her bare hand to the boy so he could see the beautiful, braided strands of gold.
Fletcher dutifully examined the ring, but his gaze kept returning to her ruined fingernails. “What happened?” he finally asked.
Genevieve considered several responses and finally decided to tell the truth. “I was punished for disobedience. Several times.”
“By who?” the boy demanded furiously, sitting up straighter in bed.
“A bad man. But he is dead now.”
“Any hand raised against a body in my protection will find his cut off,” Fletcher said.
Genevieve gaped at him. It was a poorly paraphrased line from Sigestan of Emberlost: “Any hand raised against one of the souls under my protection will be severed. Protection is my duty and my vocation, to the Lady Eawyn and her vassals most of all.”
“You remembered that, Fletcher?” she asked, voice thick.
“It’s a crackin’ good story, mum. Means the cove will have his guts for garters.”
“It does, indeed.” Did you hear that, Papa? “A cracking good story.” And my husband reads him the book.
Hands settled carefully on her shoulders, but she was proud that she didn’t flinch. She knew their touch and had recognized the near-silent tread of his feet.
“Is all well?” she asked in a low voice.