Chapter 18
GAbrIEL
“I could hardly believe my ears to hear you announced, but here you are.”
Golden blonde hair arranged in an elaborate coiffure. Luminous skin without flaw. Features designed to evoke worship. I said nothing as the devil walked through the door.
Possessive eyes took me in from tip to stern. “You look as delicious as the last time I saw you, Gabriel. What has it been, a year now?”
“About.”
“Still as vocal as ever.” She laughed lightly as she stroked a delicate hand along the brocade of a chair.
She hadn’t aged a day—proof, if any were needed, of what she’d been draining from her victims. There had always been an odd sort of echo to the Vein Ripper’s crimes.
“It was always the challenge, making you groan.”
I leaned lazily against the cream and gold wall—my indolent posture at odds with my awareness.
I actively monitored the buzzing household spells, even though they could not be used on me, not anymore.
But she had done more with less in the past. “I see no reason to be loquacious with you. It was always the challenge, keeping down my lunch.”
“Oh, Gabriel.” She walked to me. “Is that any way to speak to an old friend?”
“You are hardly a friend, Melissande.”
“Come, have a seat.”
I waited for her to move toward the desk before I pushed away from the wall. A few steps from her desk she pivoted, smoothly turning into me, close enough to touch.
“Have you grown, Gabriel, since we last met?”
I could clap at her strategy. “Met? Is that your way of saying the last time you crawled into my town house, begging for attention?”
A laugh bubbled past her lips, her eyes glittering and focused. “You were always my favorite.”
Smarmy bitch.
“The only one to give me a marvelous chase.”
“I don’t recall there being much of a chase.”
“Chasing doesn’t always mean in the physical sense.” She tapped a long perfect finger against a button on my shirt. “Much too plebeian. No, the emotional element has always been more satisfying. The true test of character—who breaks last.”
She moved to circle me. I walked forward and sat behind her desk, in her chair. I idly picked up a handful of documents, then put my feet on the edge.
I could see her lips pucker. She strode to the desk and sat in the guest chair on the other side. “I’ve taught you well, Gabriel.”
“How to be a conniving bitch? Well, I can’t let you take full credit. But have at it, please.” I airily waved my hand holding the papers.
“Though your manners have fallen.”
“What are a few emotional acts of violence among friends, really?”
Her smile was tight. “Our little avenging angel.”
Tightened muscles betrayed me. Her smile turned to satisfaction.
“You really did live up to the name. Ruined Celeste, Estelle, and Octavia. Drove Tasia to drink. Ran Iris out of the city. I’ll bet it has always grated that you have been unable to ruin me.”
She settled back in her guest chair, as if the hard back and seat were made of velvet instead of the purposely austere designs she favored—anything to keep her guests uncomfortable.
“The coup de grace. The devil. The demoness. I was always flattered by the names you chose to call me. Drove Celeste crazy. She always tried to think up new tortures to make you love her more.” She smiled fondly. “She was always a bit mad.”
“She wasn’t the only one, was she?” I smiled coldly and flipped through the papers clutched in my hand. Bills, correspondence. Ah, a half-finished note to someone named Tom. I would have to investigate to see who Tom was—and how old he was.
Damn my missing investigator. Too long for his silence to be a coincidence.
Her smile continued its sunny path. “No, she wasn’t the only one. Estelle is always a half step from Shatterfield.”
“Estelle is six feet in the dirt.”
Her face froze, then recovered. “Gabriel, dear, have you been naughty?” Her eyes quickly scanned the desk, lingering on the corners where something might rest, then flicking to the letter tray.
“Looking for something, Melissande?” I raised a brow. “Something sharp and devastating to the magic of little boys perhaps?”
She smoothed a hand along the stomach of her dress, her figure impeccable, as it had always been. “Not at all,” she finally said.
“You haven’t been my match for a long time. Do you think your viper tongue will save you?”
At one time I would have fiercely celebrated her unease, watching her squirm. Now I was tired. And angry.
“I’ll bet you haven’t heard from Celeste in a while? Or Iris. Or dear, dear Octavia.”
She swallowed hard, but still managed a light laugh. “What have you been up to, Gabriel? Truly living up to your name, are you? And here I thought you had always found it distasteful, despite your proclivities to help wretched souls too poor and desperate to deserve a second thought otherwise.”
I crossed my ankles on the desk. “Quite out of the gossip here, aren’t you, high lady?
Anastasia even made the headlines this morning.
” I dragged my heels across the documents on her desk, skewing them as I halfheartedly searched.
“Not even a recent paper? Has the high lord finally caught on to you?”
“You wish it were so, Gabriel.” She smoothed her hair, and I saw her surreptitiously glance around the room for something to aid her.
She was far from stupid, and far, far from helpless despite her delicate looks and wide eyes.
“My husband cares more for his political intrigues than his wife. He wouldn’t notice if I chose to sleep my way through the ranks of the gilded. ”
“You mean you haven’t?” I feigned shock. “I’m disappointed.”
“Only the young ones, Gabriel. Though I will always make an exception for you.” She leaned in, cocking her head just so, showing her best side. “I hate to admit it, but you are unparalleled.”
Nausea rose. I recognized that move. I had done it myself, just as I’d learned how to circle and counter being circled. Something soul-deep sickened at the realization. Gestures that were hers first.
“You are next on the list, Lady Steelcrest.”
Her fingers gripped the arm of her chair, though she was trying to project ease. “I assume that is why you are here, Gabriel. You always did have such a flair for the dramatic.”
“I need the names of all the men—pardon me, boys—who have suffered your ‘favor’ and perhaps been unhappy about it.”
“Dear Gabriel.” Her fingers uncurled. She laughed, relief flowing in her breezy voice. “You are here to save me. Oh how wonderful. The irony, the pain. Magnificent. Poor Octavia. Dead, you say? Pity. She would have reveled. And Celeste would have been so marvelously jealous.”
It took everything I had to stay in the chair. To let the emotions pass. I could leave her to it. Leave her to her much deserved death.
“A list, high lady.”
She leaned back, the relief strengthening her, her innate confidence returning like a well-worn cloak. “Oh, but now that you are here and staying with me, Gabriel, we must renew our acquaintance. We have all the time in the world.”
I tossed the papers on the desk. “You have ten minutes. Then I walk out the door. I couldn’t care less if you live or if you die.”
She raised a brow. “Then you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m not here for you.”
She smiled. “Do you know that out of all the young men we took under our wings, you were one of the few who didn’t return.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Some returned for more, slaves to our plans, two returned just so they could take their lives on the premises. As some sort of statement. A deterrent to us? To me?” She waved a hand. “So messy, really. And the high lord was not pleased.”
“He knew?”
“Only that they stretched their necks, nothing more. And correspondence?” She motioned to the letter tray. “I receive it by the handful.”
I noticed an unopened stack in the corner and looked for the opener she always had at hand. A blade as damned as its wielder. I’d take the opportunity to destroy it when I was through.
She waved. “It’s been missing since last summer. I make Tom come in and open my mail.” Her mouth curved. “You should see what he can do with his tongue. Oh, Gabriel, even your disgust is beautiful, but Tom is twenty-two, plenty old enough to satisfy your absurd rules.”
I split the top missive with the back of a quill, mind racing.
“Your brother is nearing that age, is he not? Lucian was always so promising.”
“You are nothing if not clever, Melissande,” I said calmly. “Say another word about Lucian, and I will complete the Vein Ripper’s final task for him without even needing his weapon at hand.”
I read the first line of the note from some fawning admirer, expecting her to retort. When she didn’t, I looked up. Her face had gone white. A discordant note pulsed through the wards.
Her fingers shook as she ran a hand along the side of her hair, smoothing the imaginary escaped tendrils. “What type of list did you say you needed?”
I twirled the quill and leaned back, unsettled. “So compliant, all of a sudden? You’ll make me think you cowed. Melissande Nightshade, cowed.”
“Mind your manners, Gabriel,” she said, her voice almost steady.
“Melissande, you don’t hold the power here. How inconvenient for you.”
“I can tell the world about what a little whore you were. How you begged for it, beneath my blade. The great Gabriel Noble, defender of puppies and waifs, just another prostitute clawing and sleeping his way up the ranks of the elite.”
“Desperation is such an ugly look. I rebuffed your blackmail attempt when you first found me again. It will hardly work now. I can simply play your game. That I took what you so kindly ‘offered.’ A sixteen-year-old boy? Who would believe otherwise?” I smiled around the ash-filled words—a stock smile I had learned from the master, one full of innuendo and guile.
“Easy enough to make you the deviant in this story. Especially since all of your co-conspirators are dead with their journals left behind.”
“Their journals—”