Chapter Five
The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin (Baile átha Cliath)
Five Days Before Samhain
The hotel had been built in the Victorian style, all red brick and Portland stone, crossbanded with reliefs in cream and dripping with ivy.
Four bronze torchères of Egyptian and Nubian princesses stood before it, holding flames aloft as if in offering to the gods, and a glass canopy overhung the entrance, crowned with iron scrollwork picking out the name: Shelbourne Hotel.
Looking out from the hotel steps, Sam could just make out the glitter of lights in the reflected waters of Saint Stephen’s Green, like fallen stars.
“Are you coming?” Hel said as she and Van Helsing pushed past horse-drawn carriages jostling for position and strode into the hotel, dripping water and smelling of the lake.
Sam hurried after, ducking the incredulous stares of Dublin’s gilded set, wishing that just once, she might visit a nice hotel looking less than an utter mess.
Her feelings were not helped once she made it inside.
They squelched between columns of mossy Connemara marble crowned with gold flourishes, leaving tiny puddles on the floor that gleamed with the light of a crystal chandelier.
At the far end stood an exquisite teak desk, from which the concierge watched them, a pained smile stretched across his face.
“A curfew,” Hel scoffed, as Van Helsing went about securing their rooms. Heathcliff’s pink nose poked out of Hel’s coat pocket, and Sam apologetically nudged him back down. The hotel was unlikely to be as delighted with the rat’s presence as he deserved.
“It’s not the worst idea,” Sam offered. “It might keep people from being taken. So long as they stay away from windows.”
“Tell that to the men enforcing the curfew,” Hel said dryly, looking into the night. “We should be out there.”
As far as Sam was concerned, no one should be out there.
Whatever titles they bore, the Viscount and the Duke were experienced field agents.
They had gone into the night hunting monsters, had defended themselves with salt and iron, and still, they had been taken.
What hope did the rest of them have against that?
They needed to develop those photographs.
Before Sam could say so, however, Hel’s posture sharpened, and she put a hand to Sam’s shoulder. Sam looked up at her, but the other woman shook her head minutely. “Pretend to be engaging me in conversation.”
“We are convers—” Sam started, turning to look at whatever had caught Hel’s attention.
“Don’t turn around,” Hel cut her off. “Talk about anything, so long as your lips are moving.”
“Have you seen the latest fashions out of Paris?” Sam said, continuing a light patter as she glanced in the reflections of the window glass.
In it, she could just make out the watery reflection of a man with unruly blonde hair in a bronze tailcoat.
A man she was surprised to find she recognized from the papers: Lord Lusk.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, harried by a man in a black wool cloak.
“. . . have me do?” Lord Lusk was saying. Sam studied his reflection. He had the look of a disheveled academic trussed up for high society, which might not be far from the mark, if the rumors about him were true. “They’ve made their decision.”
“You could intervene on my behalf.” The second man’s voice had a haunting intensity to it. He had the sort of face that looked as if it had more bones than it ought, his dark brown hair swept back and his eyes a fathomless black. “You have no idea what I’m dealing with—what she’s capable of.”
“Listen, I am not unsympathetic,” Lord Lusk said, his voice firm. His accent was unmistakably Irish, as was not always the case with the Irish peerage. “But—”
Sam nearly yelped as Van Helsing brushed past her, the leather scent of him washing over her. This spending time together was dangerous; Sam was starting to ignore the sound of his spurs.
“What is he doing here?” Van Helsing scowled at the dark-haired man, not bothering to lower his voice. The least subtle man in the Society, and they’d sent him to be a spy.
The two men stiffened, whatever they’d been about to say lost.
“Do you know him?” Sam asked as the men turned to regard Van Helsing, and Sam gave up all pretense of not listening in. She hadn’t thought Van Helsing paid attention to things like people, had thought he had no room in him for anything but monsters. “The man with Lord Lusk?”
“Everyone knows him,” Hel said.
“Do you now,” the second man drawled. “And just what do you think you know?”
“Your name is éamonn Bishop,” Van Helsing said, not bothering to keep the disdain from his voice. “I fear your reputation isn’t fit for a lady’s ears.”
Hel leaned against a Connemara column. “He was banned from Rome.”
She was right. Sam had heard of éamonn Bishop. A hundred years ago, women had burned at the stake for the things of which he’d been accused.
Born Edward Bishop, the disgraced heir to a shipping fortune had branded himself with the Irish version of his name because, Sam was given to understand, it sounded more mystical.
That he wasn’t Irish was, apparently, beside the point.
The, Sam hesitated to say, gentleman was known primarily for three things: writing the sort of poetry even Lord Byron wouldn’t have dared, playing three people at once in chess, and a fortune-ruining obsession with the occult.
She felt a burning ache in her chest, not because she yearned to do the things he was rumored to have done, but because he could.
Because he could be wicked, indulge in the occult, and yes, get banned from Rome, but otherwise live his life freely, while Sam had to tiptoe on eggshells to avoid being sent to the asylum or worse, simply for being who she was.
“Oh, be honest,” Mr. Bishop said, his eyes dark cutouts in the pale mask of his face.
For a moment, Sam could have sworn she saw something move underneath the skin of his throat, bulging and sinuous.
Her breath caught—but it was already gone, his flesh unburdened with whatever dreamed beneath it.
“I was kicked out of Rome because they’re afraid of any power that does not come from them.
They have such ungraceful minds when it comes to the Otherworld. ”
“I apologize for my companion,” Lord Lusk said, resting both hands on his cane—a dark length of wood topped with a brass fox. “He was just leaving.”
“Was I?” Mr. Bishop laughed, and he gave a mocking bow. “Well. As my lord says. If you realize the folly of your pursuits . . . I’ll find you.” And he left, his cane punctuating his departure.
Mr. Bishop, Sam noticed, had no fear of the curfew. Van Helsing seemed to have noticed the same thing, as he moved to follow. “Come on.”
“What are you doing?” Sam hissed, grabbing his arm. “We can’t just follow him.”
“It’s him. It must be,” Van Helsing said.
“A moment ago, you were convinced it was Miss Shinagh,” Sam pointed out. “Is this how you solve cases? By accusing everyone who crosses your path of being the villain?”
“No.” Van Helsing’s eyes were locked on Mr. Bishop’s back. “Typically, there’s a monster, and I kill it. But in a case that’s less straightforward, I have to gather evidence first. Which I won’t be able to do if he slips away.”
Was that what Van Helsing had thought he’d been doing in France, when he’d stalked Sam through the streets of Paris? Gathering evidence? The gall of the man—that was prejudice, not just cause, even if she had been channeling when he wasn’t looking.
“I thought you said there was a curfew,” Sam pressed.
Van Helsing broke his gaze at last, turning it on Sam. “Some things are worth breaking the rules for, Miss Harker. I already know he’s a villain. I only need to uncover whether he’s the villain in this case.”
“He’s right,” Hel said.
“Of course you’d agree,” Sam began heatedly.
Hel hadn’t met a rule she didn’t want to break.
Even if it meant she got herself disappeared.
“But we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet—nor how to safeguard against it.
If Mr. Bishop is truly to blame, stalking him might ensure we are the next to disappear. ”
“It’s safe enough,” Hel said dismissively.
“Assuming someone is selecting the targets, and that the Duke and the Viscount were taken on account of getting too close—which seems highly probable—it’s unlikely the perpetrator would be able to target us on our first night in Ireland.
Such things require preparation. But it’s beside the point: Miss Harker should stay behind. ”
Van Helsing raised an eyebrow, suspicion written between his brows. “Oh?”
“She’s dressed in white, for one thing. For another, she’s wearing heels, in which she can neither run nor move silently, and she’s a hazard with a firearm besides,” Hel said, and despite knowing it was part of their plan, a part of Sam’s plan, it was hard not to take Hel’s criticism to heart.
It was only that it sounded so unflinchingly logical.
“If he doesn’t see her coming, he’ll certainly hear her, and then she’ll be useless once he does.
She’s a competent enough researcher. Give her the file, see what she can make of it. ”
“I’m sorry?” Sam’s voice climbed. Sam was noisy when she walked? Van Helsing jingled with every step, and Hel’s tan coat was hardly better than white.
But even as she thought to shape the words, Hel was shrugging off her coat and Van Helsing was picking the bells off his spurs, leaving Sam to wonder what it meant that he’d left them on while stalking Sam .
. . or whether those were only the times she’d known he was watching and this, too, was a tactic.
“Fine.” Van Helsing drew the file Detective Lynch had given them out of his jacket and pressed it into Sam’s hands. “Miss Harker, see what you can make of this. Miss Moriarty, with me.”