Bloodfeud (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 3) (46 page)

Another clack of the beak. Lurker bared his teeth.

‘Know what this means, Jake?’

There was an almost silent croak in his ear as he wrenched himself away, creeping back up the street.

‘We got a lot of work to do.’

“KNOCK KNOCK”

11th August, 1867

A
splash of red and orange light played on the desktop, rolling back and forth over the leather. Back and forth, back and forth; over and over, until the glass was glazed red with its liquor.

Dizali’s fingers ran around the rim, tapping here, and tapping there. Aside from the brandy’s effects, the liquid itself was a welcome diversion. It wallowed at the bottom of the glass, ruby-red and glistening in the gaslight, holding his gaze, as hypnotic as flickering flames.

Rubbing the frown from his face, he slid the crystal stopper out of the decanter and poured himself a few more glugs. The level was disconcertingly low. It was a large decanter, and had been full at the start of the week. Dizali scowled again and went back to his desk.

The drizzle sparkled against the windowpanes; he could make out the swirling haze of it against the glow of the city in the distance. Another delightful night for London. And yet it perfectly summarised his mood. Murky. Inconsiderate. Unpredictable.

Dizali began his ritual again, moving the glass in ever-shifting circles. He took a sip to even the balance, and once more let his eyes lose themselves in the swirl of colour.

‘It is not a curse,’ he remarked to himself, in a whisper. ‘There is no such nonsense.’

Saying it aloud made his thoughts bark louder; random and chaotic. Dizali took another gulp of brandy and tried again to reorder them, one by one. He felt as though his guts were unravelling. It was time to scoop them all up and knit them back together.

Avalin was clearly traumatised by Calidae’s snooping. Imagine waking up to find that face gawking at you from above, after three years of silence.

And yet she had seemed lucid enough to scream abuse; spitting words that had cut him to shreds. It was as though a tidal wave had washed Clovenhall from beneath him, and dashed him on the estate’s foundations. All he had built for her—all he had strived for—was because of her whispers in his ear. She must still be suffering from her malady if she saw him as a monster.

Another gulp.

He had not imprisoned her, as she had so vocally proclaimed this morning when he had gone to visit her again. The disgust in her face had been appalling, as had her terror when he had tried to touch her. He had shouted his reasons: he’d been protecting her, keeping her alive and cared for until a doctor could produce a cure. Or until she awoke on her own. But she had screamed something incomprehensible—something about blood—and he had left hurriedly. The maids had come later to say she had tried to escape the tower. He’d posted a guard or two at the door.

Clearly, Lady Dizali’s behaviour could not be expected to improve in just one day. He would have the doctors see her after tomorrow, once Victorious was dead and buried. ‘She will come around,’ he told himself, as if speaking the words could seal them in stone.

And there it was: a cheerful thought amongst all the angst. The Queen herself, doomed to hang on the morrow. Midday was already far too long a wait. Dizali clung to that minuscule shiver of excitement.
If there was a curse punishing him, it would surely die with her
.

All else was going to plan. He counted the elements like bullets in a chamber: the Order was putting up no fight he couldn’t win; Calidae Serped had been proven a traitor and would be dangling from her own rope soon enough; the Emerald Benches where finally learning to hold their tongues; the Royalist riots had been coerced or pummelled into submission; and the faeries would soon be delivering the boy and his companions. Even Pontis had been found; or what was left of him. Calidae hadn’t batted an eyelid when she had confessed the details.
Stuffed in a cupboard in the depths of Clovenhall, rotting and bloodied
. She almost seemed proud.

Dizali chuckled to himself and took a victory sip. ‘It is all in your mind, Bremar,’ he reassured himself. ‘All in your mind. Just the next step looking longer than it is.’

Another gulp of the brandy sealed the deal and once again he found himself lingering near the bottom of his glass. He licked his lips, savouring the tingle of the blood in the liquor, and slapped his hand on the table.

After topping up the glass one more time, Dizali strode out of his study and out into the hallway. The two lordsguards stationed outside the door instantly came to heel, following him down to the grand doors of his grander wine cellars.

‘Stay here.’ Dizali motioned with the glass. A door was already ajar. The toe of his boot thrust it wider. He wound his way through oak canyons crammed with bottles. Necks and labels jutted out into the cool air. Scrapes of rubber and disturbed motes patterned the stone floor. If he hadn’t been present at the time of their making, they would have told him a struggle took place here; perhaps a young girl being dragged, kicking and screaming, into a cell.

The cellar was a simple construction, curling in spirals down three levels. At the bottom he found his most stubborn enemy—the Orange Seed—sitting quietly in a lone shaft of gaslight, glittering smugly as usual. Behind it, deeper into the shadows, was his newest adversary, Calidae Serped. The Brothers Eighth stood around her cell. She had been given nothing more than a square hole chiselled into the brick and bedrock. It had once stored wine, now it hosted traitors.

‘Gentlemen, have you learnt anything useful?’

‘Nothing, my Lord,’ said Hanister.

Heck was in the midst of adjusting his bow-tie. ‘She’s barely turned around except to spit at us.’

‘Quiet as a clam,’ added Honorford.

Dizali scowled. ‘Get her out and tie her to a chair! Gag her as well.’

All wild creatures have a bite.
You either tame them or get used to the pain
. Dizali subscribed to the former ideology.

Calidae was vocal now. ‘Get your filthy hands off me!’ The Brothers yanked back the bars and hauled her out into the open.

Dizali had already found a chair of his own. He sat with a leg crossed, nurturing his crimson, while the girl was manhandled into place. Honorford had to keep hold of the gag like a pair of reins to stop her from thrashing.

When Calidae was still, Dizali rose from his seat and stood over her. He stared into those furious blue eyes, the right one wrapped in scarred tissue. ‘Thirsty?’ He swilled the glass under her nose. ‘Missing the perks of fine living?’

Dizali motioned for the gag to be slipped. She was breathing deeply, almost snarling.
Wild, indeed
. Traitors often are, when they have been wrenched from their holes. A ferocity of two parents: part failure, part desperation.

‘Here,’ he chuckled, ‘take a sip. You may be my prisoner, but you’re still a lamprey after all. Still one of the Order, until they renounce you.’

Calidae bared her teeth but let Dizali move the glass closer. It pressed against her bottom lip and as it tilted, she sucked at it. She took back a gulp or two before he swung the glass to the side, and promptly threw the rest in her face. The alcohol must have burnt her eyes, needling her bruises and cuts, still raw in places. She hissed through her teeth like a gale through slats in a fence.

‘You are no lamprey! You are a disgrace!’ Dizali roared, an inch from her nose. ‘Lampreys are true to their kind. True to their history! True to their Order! Not whoring traitors who scheme and plot with bastard orphan leeches!’ He began to circle her. ‘Do you know what they used to do to lamprey traitors during the Age of Enlightenment, Calidae?’

Calidae sneered at him.

‘I know this story,’ Hanister chimed in, arms crossed, face a mask of pleasure.

Dizali waved his glass as though he were conveying a speech. ‘It is a fascinating one, and though I am not usually one for digressing with stories, I shall tell it to you now.’

Calidae looked positively thrilled.

*

The dark night was full of drizzle and wind. The trees sighed and moaned as the weather tugged at them, snatching leaves from their branches and throwing them to the sky.

The long gravel road to Clovenhall was empty and cast in shadow, but the glow of the mighty mansion lit a path of puddles and gravel.

A hunched figure walked that path alone, cloak glistening with rain. Its hood was up and its pace determined. It walked in the centre of the road, caring not for any carriage that may have wanted past. Its course was set.

*

Dizali licked a fire-gold drip from the edge of the glass before launching into his story.

‘When the Orders first came into being, Europe was in the grip of war and reinvention. While the borders of empires and kingdoms ebbed and flowed, redefining the maps as we know them today, the cities flaunted their debauchery. Science and libertarianism became the fashions of the day. Magick and charm-work grew almost commonplace, thrust into the public eye. For the first time since the Bastard King took this island for himself, leeches and rushers began to thrive. They flaunted their talents, infecting the populations of the world. The superstitions we had worked so hard to maintain after the fall of the First Empire were ignored, cast aside. Bloodrushing became a sport once more. Something to be applauded and envied. The royalty of Europe could not stand for it.

‘Turned the Church against them, they did,’ interrupted Honorford, receiving the iciest of glares from Dizali.

‘Indeed. At their behest, the Church of Roma redoubled its efforts to brand magick as evil. Witch-hunts ensued. We burnt countless dozens at the stake as heretics and pagans. We turned their friends to human blood and had them betray one another. Country by country, bloodrushers were cast aside and obliterated. A war ensued, of course, raging quietly beneath society for years. We won, in the end, but along the way some of the lesser Orders became weak. Some of them pitied the rushers. Called them brothers under Cain. Some went as far as to join them, or helped them to escape. Unforgivable. Disgusting!’

Dizali paused to grab a handful of Calidae’s brandy-soaked hair and pulled her head sharply to the side. The Brothers sniggered quietly.

‘If you were caught, they would put your head in a vice, and clamp it just so. Then they would melt a pound of lead in a steel pot and slowly, ever so slowly, pour it into your ears, to blot out all the lies and drivelling yarns the rushers had fed you.’ He released his grip. ‘It would take a long time to die as the hot metal worked its way in.’

Calidae sat straight and silent, wondering whether the story had been an introduction to the next hour or just a simple anecdote to break the awkward ice. Her face had paled, and yet her eyes were still sharp and narrow.

‘Fear not, Lady Serped, I will spare you such a barbaric method. For now, I need you in one piece.’

‘What for?’ she spat.

Dizali grinned wolfishly.

‘And when you’re done with me?’ said Calidae.

Dizali entwined his fingers. ‘I know a man who is always looking to practice his art on willing subjects.’ He held out a hand, hovering it about four feet from the dusty floor. ‘He stands about this high.’

‘Merion will come for me, you know,’ said Calidae, holding her head high.

‘Oh, I expect he shall try,’ said Dizali. ‘And if for some reason he has decided against such bravery, then he shall soon be delivered to me against his will.

Calidae stared at him.

‘Now, Lady Serped, you will tell me of your little plot? To see me in tatters, was it? See me in a pool of blood on my own carpets? Clovenhall razed to the ground?’ Dizali mused, twirling his goatee.

She sneered. ‘You have no idea.’

*