Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The scent of blood and pain turned her stomach and roused old ghosts, but Elspeth steeled her resolve and followed Laurent’s underling into the hideout north of New Oxford Street.
The new thoroughfare had pushed much of the poverty and the Rookery south towards Seven Dials, providing much convenient hunting ground for Laurent and his ilk, but Laurent was too lofty to lodge among them.
“Elspeth,” Laurent said, wiping his lips free of blood in the sparse interior. “I was not expecting you.” He advanced on her with the gait of a predator.
“You commanded me to report on Genevieve’s doings, master,” Elspeth said, heart in her mouth.
He seized her jaw and squeezed. “Mmm, I did. So why did I hear about her marriage and elevation to queen from Oxley?” Laurent smiled. It was not a happy expression.
“I th-thought it would be more suspicious were I to try to leave at a time she wanted me close,” Elspeth mumbled through his hold. “But I’ve come now to warn you now, master!”
Laurent paused. “Warn me?”
Elspeth kept her gaze away from the prone figure behind him, the blonde hair so like her own strewn across the dirty, bare floor.
She could hear the woman breathe—for now.
“They are searching for the missing woman. Kendrick caught your scent in the surrounding streets. They are hunting you—all the volunteers Kendrick could muster.”
“Hunting me? With no proof?” Laurent raged. He threw a chair across the room and swore.
Elspeth stared at the floor. You did do it, though.
“What do they care for some human woman? I have pressed her for her connection to Genevieve for hours upon hours—she says nothing! What is she to Genevieve that she would set a witch hunt on me?” Laurent gnashed his teeth.
A mother, Elspeth thought. One who knows she stands between you and her children.
Oxley said anxiously, “Laurent, my place ain’t all that secret; soon they’ll find someone who knows you frequent it, y’know. And the new master—he’s a dab hand at that pig sticker.”
“He is not the master,” Laurent snarled.
He turned his gaze on the crumpled form in the corner.
“So, Genevieve cares so much about one measly human woman she’d have her new attack dog hurt me?
She’s taking to power quite well.” He drummed his fingers on his thigh.
“Well, I suppose I should leave her a present. A gift, to celebrate her queenship, as it were.” He smiled. “Elspeth, come here.”
Elspeth’s throat closed.
Laurent clamped his fingers in her hair and dragged her eyes up to meet his. He looked from her to the woman crumpled on the ground. “I command you to kill her.”
The command fell on Elspeth like the sword of Damocles, cleaving through her marrow.
“Oxley and I will go to Chelsea. You will follow when the deed is done and the body is found.” He smiled. “I would like to hear what they think of my gift. Come, Oxley.”
“Chelsea?” Oxley complained. “Can’t get a decent meal in Chelsea.”
“Offer one more opinion on my plans, Oxley,” Laurent said, his voice fading as they felt the room, “and I’ll rip out your tongue, so you’ll moo just like your namesake.”
Then they were gone. Silence fell.
Elspeth dropped to her knees like a cut marionette. The compulsion sank its teeth into her, beginning its insistent staccato that would only build until she had completed her master’s bidding.
If only it were dawn, she thought frantically. But it was only half past two. There was no way she could hold out until dawn.
“Please,” the woman whispered. Evangeline. “I have—children.” She had heard all.
Elspeth pressed her hands to her mouth to stifle her sobs. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.” Hot, red tears ran down her cheeks. “I c-c-can’t defy him.”
Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.
The repetitive command built until it was a hammer in her brain.
She crawled to Evangeline and turned her over. She was in a bad way. Cut and bruised and bitten on her neck and face and arms. Maybe some broken bones. But not on her last breath. Not yet.
Elspeth closed her eyes against the flashbacks of memory.
“I wanted to die when they were hurting me…but my children. They’re alone,” Evangeline whispered.
“No,” Elspeth gulped. “No, Genevieve found them. They’re safe. She’ll keep them safe.”
Evangeline let out a sudden breath and relaxed against the floor.
Kill her. Kill her.
Elspeth pressed her hands to her temples, trying to keep out the drumming. Thunder growled overhead, adding to the insistent clamor.
The past she had pushed away for twenty years was melding with the present.
In that maelstrom of horror, a thought struck her like lightning.
“I c-can’t gainsay this. I c-can’t, but—d-did he make you drink his blood?
” She shook Evangeline so that the woman would look at her.
“Did you feel close to death and then get better?”
Bottle-green eyes blinked slowly. “Yes.”
Not again. Not again. “D-Drink mine.” Elspeth ripped into her wrist and let the blood flow. “D-Drink mine or you’ll be his slave past even death. You’ll never be free of him. Hurry.”
She pressed her wrist on Evangeline and held it to her lips as long as she could, until Elspeth’s whole body shook and blood dripped from her ears and nose from holding off Laurent’s order.
The bites on Evangeline’s face and neck were closing.
“I’m sorry,” Elspeth whispered. “Please forgive me.”
Then she snapped Evangeline’s neck.
Raindrops had begun to spatter the cobblestones on New Oxford Street when Dominic called, “Here! His trail leads here!”
They had traced Laurent’s scent out of the East End and through London to St. Giles. The skies were opening. If they lost the trail…
Kendrick ran after him, but by the time he had made it to the vacant house, Dominic had already forced open the door. They rushed inside.
The house was empty, its inhabitants fled—except for the body of a woman lying on the floor. Kendrick swore once, bitterly. He could hear no heartbeat, no breath.
Scanning the room, he could identify Laurent’s scent, as well as that of Oxley, the lackey he had encountered in the Ossuary—and one more presence.
Elspeth Gibbins.
“Laurent is Elspeth’s master,” Kendrick muttered. Damn. He hadn’t seen it.
Dominic crouched over the body. “Elspeth’s scent is here,” he said.
Kendrick stared around the room. The patter of raindrops would increase into a downpour in another minute. “Leave the body. Let’s follow their scents as far as we can—”
“No!” Dominic burst out, his eyes flashing red.
His objection startled them both.
“She is not dead,” Dominic continued in a rough voice.
“Dominic,” Kendrick began, not sure if this had reopened his friend’s wound of grief.
“There is blood here,” he said harshly. “Elspeth’s blood. And the woman’s neck is broken. If I had to guess—Laurent has been manipulating Elspeth through the blood bond.”
“And ordered Evangeline’s death?” Kendrick crouched to examine the scene and mulled that over. “And in a fit of defiance—”
“We won’t know until Evangeline wakes,” Dominic said, turning back to the woman and carefully gathering her in his arms. He made sure to tuck her head into the curve of his neck.
“Are you sure she will?”
“What was it you said?” Dominic said, raising a sardonic eyebrow. “‘We hope until we find evidence to the contrary’?”
The rain drummed on the roof and found its way between loose and missing shingles to drip down into the house. The trickle had become a deluge, and the trail likely diluted or washed away altogether now.
Kendrick nodded. “Let us go, then. I shall pass the word to the searchers to be on the lookout for Elspeth, if they cannot find Laurent’s trail.” This would hurt Genevieve—badly. His face set in grim lines, he pushed himself to his full height.
“We’ll go to my house,” Dominic said, standing with his limp burden in his arms. He held her close, a protective stance.
Kendrick watched him closely but said nothing as they stepped out into the freezing rain that washed away the muck of London and any hope of finding Laurent that night.
Genevieve dragged herself up the stairs of Fernside, her cloak waterlogged and freezing rivulets of water sliding down her collar as the rain continued to fall.
She felt like a drowned rat. If the temperature dropped any lower, the downpour would turn to icy sleet, and she’d be a frozen rat.
Genevieve had hunted over much of the East End that night with Joseph as her searching partner, searching for Laurent’s scent trails, going to any locations she recalled him frequenting.
But they had found neither hide nor hair of Laurent or any of his cronies, and now, just before dawn, she felt bedraggled and discouraged.
What was she to tell August and June? Dominic’s butler opened the door and ushered Joseph and her inside, taking their miserably soaked outer garments.
“Madam, your husband requested I alert him when you arrived,” the butler said quietly.
“He’s back already?” Genevieve asked, surprise pulling her from her blue-deviled humors. “Where is he?”
“He is below in the cellars with Mr. Penrose. May the staff and I offer a hot brick or a change of clothes—”
“No, no, that can wait,” Genevieve said. “I’ll go down, if you’ll point me towards the door? Oh—how are the children?”
“Asleep upstairs, all three. Kate is with them.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a change of clothes,” Joseph said, pulling at his soaked woolens.
“If you’ll follow me, sir,” the butler said, after indicating the way to Genevieve.
She hurried through the far green door and in the servants’ portion of the house, locating the door to the cellars. “Kendrick?” she called at the top of the stairs.
“Genevieve?” Her husband came into view at the foot of the stairs. “You’re soaked!”
“You’re not,” she said, puzzled.
“Yes.” His face turned grave. “We have news.”
She stopped halfway down the stairs. “Oh, please don’t tell me…”
Kendrick met her there and wrapped his strong arms around her, pulling her tight against him.
“I’ll get your clothes all wet,” she said in a thick voice.
“What’s a little rain?” he murmured. “Here it is—we found Evangeline. Her neck was broken. But Dominic believes there is a chance she may rise. We have brought her body back, and he is keeping vigil.”
Genevieve fisted her hand in his coat. “Dead?” she whispered. “No…”
“We must wait and see.”
She pressed her face into his neck to try to stem the tears that wanted to flow.
“Laurent—Laurent and Bacchus both liked tormenting their victims. Hurting and then bringing them back from the brink so they didn’t lose their playthings before they were ready.
Does Dominic think…” She trailed off, couldn’t say it.
“Here.” With no effort at all, Kendrick lifted her and carried her down the stairs into the glow of lamplight.
Where one might have expected racks of wine and other choice vintages like in other fine homes, Dominic’s cellar was partitioned off into small rooms, protected from the light for their kind.
Kendrick brought her to a small room with a table and an overstuffed armchair next to a bed.
He sat in the armchair and held her in his lap, much as he had when she had broken down about her father’s books.
“The other thing we discovered,” he said, continuing, “was that we could scent Elspeth in the room…and on the body.”
Genevieve blinked, shook her head. “But…that’s… No, no I left Elspeth at Carmine House. How would she…?” The truth sank in. “Oh, no.”
“It’s possible that she might have—”
“Been used. Ordered. I never thought—I’m so stupid,” she whispered. “I didn’t see it. Elspeth—I’ll have to break the news to Robbie.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Where is she? Do you know?”
Kendrick’s hands stroked over her back. “She wasn’t present in the house where we found the body, and the rain started right after.”
Her eyes stung, her stomach cramping from shame. “She was suffering, and I didn’t see it. Who knows how long he’s been ordering her about. He must’ve ordered her to keep silent…” Grief, worry, and fury warred for dominance within her. “Can we revisit you killing him?”
“Absolutely,” Kendrick growled. “I’d like to get within skewering distance of him.”
“And you really think there’s a chance for Evangeline?”
“Dominic is very insistent,” Kendrick said wryly. “We won’t say anything to any of the others until tomorrow eve. That’s probably when we’ll know for sure.”
But what would happen when she woke and found herself tied to Laurent even in death? Genevieve sighed, her shoulders slumping.
“Let’s get you out of these wet things,” Kendrick said, lifting her up and beginning to undo her buttons. “Dawn comes soon.”
Genevieve was too tired and heartsick to protest. And in all honestly, she didn’t want to.