Chapter 11 #2
These men were more dangerous than Bianca had been. They had killed her haughty, foolish sister, despite the fact that Bianca had also been taking the Blood Nectar.
Zephyra had not her sister’s allure, nor the physical strength given to her by the potion. Instead, she had the meticulous intelligence that Bianca had lacked. Zephyra had to trust that she would be able to fool Maxham.
And if the older man she had seen enter the house earlier had been part of the Citadel, perhaps she would not need to fool Maxham at all. He would restrain himself in order to preserve his secret.
Should she change out of her disguise and look more presentable? No, it would be far better for her to conceal her identity as a young lady of the ton as long as she could. Especially from men such as this.
She stealthily made her way across the lane and toward the house. But instead of going to the front door, she climbed down the narrow steps to the sunken front area of the house and knocked on the servants’ entrance. After a few minutes with no answer, she rapped again, harder.
This time, after a minute, she saw the dim glow of a light through the window next to the door, and then it opened to reveal the Oriental man’s face, round and white like the moon, his eyes strangely small.
He waved his hand at her as if shooing away a fly, then said something she didn’t understand in his strange, liquid tongue. “Go away,” he finally said in broken English.
When she had been observing the house yesterday and had seen the servant, she knew she would not be able to speak to him, nor would he be able to convey the precise message she wished. So she had prepared a note which she handed to him.
She expected him to take the note and close the door. He would deliver the note to Maxham, who would come down to see her if only to determine if she was truly who she claimed to be.
However, the servant refused to take the message, instead waving his hand again. “Go away,” he repeated.
“No! Deliver this to your master!” Zephyra tried to thrust the message into the man’s hands.
He evaded her attempts and instead stepped back, moving to close the door.
No. She would not allow this. She had worked too hard to reach this point. She would have her audience with Maxham now, while another member of the Citadel was here in the house with him. She may never get another chance such as this.
While watching the house and waiting, she had considered what to do with the Oriental.
Maxham might not take too kindly to her murdering his servant, so she had decided against that action.
Since his man could not speak much English, he was unlikely to read her note to his master or tell anyone else about who she was.
But that did not mean she had not prepared for what she could do if she needed to fight him.
Zephyra wore threadbare mittens on her hands, but she had chosen these because the right hand mitten had only a few small holes near the thumb and at the tip of the fingers, concealing most of her digits.
She had worn heavy silver rings, just as Bianca had taught her, which the mitten hid from sight.
Dropping the letter, she leaped forward and thrust her full weight into the door before it could close. She was not very heavy and did not expect to do more than cause the servant to pause.
She stabbed upward with the fingers of her left hand, aiming for the man’s eyes. He jerked away before she could harm him, which frustrated her. It meant he had better reactions than she expected.
But it did cause him to flinch, and she threw herself against the door again. As he stepped back, the door slammed open, and she entered the narrow passage.
She aimed her fingers at his eyes again, but more slowly. He was taken in by her feint and reached up to grab her wrist.
She quickly balled up her right fist and jabbed it at the man’s jaw.
He turned his head away just before she hit, so it was merely a glancing blow. But he still closed his eyes, and she ripped her other hand out of his slackened grip.
Screeching, she attacked him again, this time punching at him with both fists, even though her left hand did not have rings on her fingers.
Her blows were not wild or weak—Bianca had teased Lord Wynwood into teaching her fisticuffs, which she had then taught to Zephyra so that she could protect herself.
Her knuckles finally drove into the Oriental man’s tiny nose.
She had been yelling as she attacked him, but now he yelled also as he reached his hands up to his face and blood dripped down his chin.
Zephyra was not so merciful as to stop punching him once he was injured. She punched at his unprotected solar plexus, although her aim was off.
He put a hand out to try to push her away, but she darted around his grip and landed a solid box to his ear. This time, he yelled and jerked his body to the side far enough for her to squeeze past him. She ran down the passage, then up the stairs.
The servant hesitated before running after her, yelling at her in his language. She didn’t need to understand Chinese to know he was telling her to stop.
She exploded through the door and into the entrance hall, which was strangely dark. The doors to other rooms on this floor were closed, even the rooms at the back of the house.
She didn’t hesitate, but hurried up the narrow flight of stairs, her feet sounding like thunder on the wooden steps.
Pausing at the landing on the first floor, she was confused. Like the ground floor, all the doors were closed and apparently unoccupied.
Where had Maxham and his visitor gone? The only light she had seen was in the attic, but why would they go to the servants’ room or the storage area at the top of the house?
She continued up to the second floor, and then the third. Here, the stairs narrowed before winding upward to the attic. But at the landing, she jerked to a halt.
Maxham stood a few steps above her, looking down at her.
She ground her teeth in anger at this physical representation of his feelings of superiority over others—the same as all of the Citadel members.
But after seeing the change in Bianca after she took the Blood Nectar, Zephyra wondered if perhaps it was that potion that caused them to look down upon the world that way.
At this reminder of the Blood Nectar, she tried to back away from him—he was far more dangerous than an ordinary man. But he walked down, drawing closer to her than she would have liked.
He smelled like Bianca.
Oh, there were differences. He seemed to favor lemons, for the sharp scent of citrus oil seemed to gather around him like a cloud. Otherwise, he was scrupulously neat and clean.
But he also smelled of the Blood Nectar—that mix of sweet countryside flowers, the warm bitterness of a recently mown field, and the rotting stench like a half-eaten animal in the woods.
Zephyra had smelled this scent on Phoebe the last time they had been together. She had caught traces of it as they sat and talked, Zephyra poking at what Phoebe might have discovered about the Goldensuit hybrids and Phoebe attempting to keep her secrets.
But throughout the conversation, Zephyra became certain she smelled threads of the Blood Nectar. And so before Phoebe had left, she had hugged her.
It had been like hugging her sister. It transported Zephyra back ten years, and her strange mix of love and hatred for Bianca had risen up inside her like a cold pot that had suddenly been brought to boil.
Maxham looked down at her with recognition and no small amount of surprise. She had expected more annoyance—or perhaps that would have been Ward’s reaction.
Then she saw behind Maxham the man who had entered the house ahead of him, and cowering behind him was Ward.
The doctor still had that way of lifting his chin so that his nose pointed upward at just the right angle to give a clear view up his nostrils, but she saw the tension in his shoulders to indicate his alarm and perhaps even fear.
He didn’t look to have aged a day since the last time Zephyra had seen him, which was many years ago—longer than the last time she’d seen Maxham.
But Ward’s alarm melted away when he saw the small, dirty urchin on the landing.
“What?!” Ward exclaimed. “How did that get in here? Maxham, what is your servant about?”
“I shall get rid of the child,” said the older man as he stepped forward.
But Maxham held his arm out, causing the man to step back into place on the step above him. Maxham’s eyes bore into Zephyra’s as if he could read her mind even from that distance.
With alarm, she wondered if he had changed over the years, if that was something he could now do.
Then Maxham’s face transformed in a truly horrible, terrifying way. The pale eyes lightened even more, and the corners of his mouth curled up slowly like a caterpillar chrysalis revealing its contents.
Maxham smiled down at her, and in a soft, almost gentle voice, he said, “Why, hello, Zephyra.”