Kiss of Steel (19 page)

Foolery to come here in such a bloody treasure when people were starving. That kind of idiocy caused riots.

Which explained the four metaljackets trotting alongside the carriage in perfect unison, their iron boots ringing on the cobbles. He saw the flamethrowers where their left hands ought to be and paused for a moment. Spitfires were the most dangerous models.

Blade leaned against the doorway. A liveried footman jumped down from the back, hurrying to produce a stool and open the door. He knelt beside the stool, head bowed, as an elegant, gloved hand rested on the door.

Well, well, well…a woman. Which meant they were either hoping to lull him into complacency, or perhaps sought to tempt him. Hell, it could mean anything.

There was only one woman this could be.

Blade stalked forward, tugging his gold cheroot case out of his pocket and fingering a slim cheroot. “Me Lady Aramina,” he drawled, lighting it. “What an unexpected pleasure. I’d bow, but me knees ain’t quite what they used to be.”

Lady Aramina swept from the carriage, her full skirts held in one delicate hand. She glanced around with cool disinterest, the pale mounds of her breasts threatening to tumble from the olive green bodice of her dress. Black lace provided a fringe of modesty, and a scrap of exquisite lace covered her eyes. An intricate arrangement of black ostrich feathers and metal beads swept her auburn hair up into an elegant pile of curls, which she hadn’t bothered to powder for the visit. The effect was erotic and mysterious, and he couldn’t help enjoying the sight for a moment. He was only a man, after all, and this was, reputedly, the most beautiful woman in England.

He’d never seen her. The blue bloods of the Echelon were strictly male, except for this one shocking exception. They forbade the infecting of females in order to prevent the weaker species from the bloodlust and hysteria, but Lady Aramina had been the House of Casavian’s only heir. When her father lay dying from some mysterious illness, he had done the unforgivable rather than see his House fade into obscurity. Some said he laughed as he lay on his deathbed. Others said the joke was on him, for Aramina had little real power. Somehow she’d survived the numerous assassination attempts following her father’s death, but Casavian House was now the lowest of the seven Great Houses.

She started tugging off her gloves. Strangely enough, the action reminded him of Honoria, a troubling thought. He shouldn’t be thinking of her so often, yet the damned woman never left his mind, it seemed.

And so it was that Lady Aramina’s bountiful charms suddenly lost their effect. Her coppery hair wasn’t dark enough, and her brown eyes were lighter, almost the same color as brandy. The eyes in his memory, Honoria’s eyes, were dark and flashing with suppressed anger. They were the eyes he wanted to stare into as he buried himself deep within her body. Not these calculating ones that watched him now.

Troubling. He puffed in the sweet-scented smoke.

“You got my message?” she asked, handing her gloves to the footman without taking her eyes off Blade.

“I’d rather ’ear it from you. Come in. I’ll send for tea and scones, and we’ll ’ave a nice little tête-à-tête, ain’t it called?”

Her brandy-brown eyes flattened, but she wasn’t certain whether he was mocking her. “I have company.”

Blade could smell the reek of bay rum in the carriage. “Aye.” He glanced past, at the stockinged calf and muscled thigh within. “I seen ’im.”

“We mean you no harm,” Aramina said, sweeping toward him as though he would get out of the way.

Blade flicked the cheroot on the cobbles and ground it out. Aramina stopped in front of him, a little frown of displeasure on her pale, coldly beautiful face. He took a step forward, looking down at her. She didn’t quite stiffen, but it was there in the firming of her lips.

Hands in his pockets, he walked a small circle around her as though examining her. “You’re a swish dove,” he said. “The prince consort sent you to sweeten me up?”

A little clenching in her fingers. Good.

She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder at him. The look in her eyes could have flayed the skin off his back, and he suspected she was envisioning that very act. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me,” she said.

Pretty little viper. He moved. And caught her wrists from behind as she drew in a breath.

“Get your hands off me,” she hissed.

“Listen ’ere, lovey,” he said, his voice cold. “You’re already the enemy. I ain’t ever goin’ to forget it. So let’s cut all this mincin’ ’round. I don’t much like your little games.”

He could hear the other blue blood stepping from the carriage, but the sound of clapping still shocked him.

A quick glimpse made his eyebrows shoot up. Leo Barrons, the last man he’d expected to see with her ladyship. The Houses of Caine and Casavian had been at each other’s throats for years, just waiting for the other to take a misstep. Caine House had nearly destroyed Aramina.

Just what game was the prince consort playing? It was enough to give him a headache.

He let her go and danced out of the way as she spun on him, a little bejeweled dagger in her grip.

“Easy, now, princess. You don’t wanna ’urt yourself with that little pig-sticker.”

Aramina’s lips peeled back from her teeth.

“That’s enough,” Barrons commanded. “I told you he doesn’t like games.”

“An interestin’ assessment from a man who don’t know me from Adam,” Blade countered, sizing up the other man.

Barrons moved with an eerie grace he wasn’t used to seeing on a blue blood of the Echelon. A swordsman, then. The man who knew who Honoria was.

Blade jerked his head in the kind of acknowledgment one duelist gave to the other.

Barrons’s gaze swept the roofline. “Snipers again?” he asked, taking a pinch of snuff.

“One never can be too careful,” Blade replied, gesturing his visitors into the dark entrance of the warren. The metaljackets made as though to follow. “The drones can wait out ’ere.”

“They’re housetrained,” Aramina said.

He held his arm out, barring her way. “Aye. But they ain’t comin’ into
my
’ouse.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“Leave it,” Barrons muttered. “We’ve more important things to discuss.”

Blade lowered his arm. “Aye.”

Aramina looked as though she might protest at having him at their backs, but Barrons stalked past, looking dangerous in his velvets and lace. The darkness of the warren swallowed him up.

“After you,” Blade said silkily.

Aramina swept ahead of him in a swirl of jasmine-scented skirts. Blade gave the street and rooftops a swift glance and then followed.

O’Shay was waiting in what Blade liked to think of as his audience chamber. The room was dark and musty, the floorboards threatening to give way beneath their feet. Rotting curtains hung from the windows, and the fireplace was cold. The only hint that this was something more than a rookery slum was the trio of elegant Louis XVI chairs in the center of the room.

Even Barrons seemed taken aback as he prowled the empty chamber. Aramina screwed up her nose delicately. But Blade had long since learned that you didn’t take a viper to your breast. This was for appearances only. Very few people ever saw his real chambers or the homey sprawl where his “family” lived. Honoria had been the only person in recent memory whom he had allowed within his inner sanctum.

“Wait outside,” Blade muttered to O’Shay, then turned his attention to the two blue bloods. “’Ave a seat.” Slinging out of his red coat, he tossed it over the back of his chair then sat. Lark darted out of the shadows with a footstool. After a moment’s hesitation and a dark glare at her—he weren’t no bleedin’ lord—he cocked his boots up on it.

Barrons held Aramina’s chair for her. Blade didn’t miss the look she gave her companion. They might be playing at an alliance, but if one of them smelled poison in the other’s cup, he was certain they wouldn’t mention it until it was too late.

“You claim there’s a vampire in the Whitechapel rookery,” Aramina said, cutting straight to the point. Somehow, despite the circumstances, she made it seem as though he had come as supplicant to
her
. That took real talent, it did.

“Aye. Ugly brute too.”

“You’ve seen it?” Barrons sat forward. “You said you’d only found the bodies.”

“’Ad a little run-in with it last night. Seen it with me own eyes.” He gave an incredulous shake of his head. “Never seen one before. ’Eard the stories, of course, but…to see it’s somethin’ else.”

“You survived,” Aramina said.
Unfortunately
, her eyes added.

“Barely,” Blade replied. He gestured to Lark. “The blud-wein, please.”

Lark nodded and darted out of the room.

“It’s faster than I ever seen. Stronger.” Blade leaned forward too. “I stabbed it right inna ’eart and it barely even blinked.”

None of them were old enough to have been there during the Year of Blood. This was a new kind of horror for them, a myth come to nightmarish life.

“You’re certain it was the heart?” Aramina asked.

Blade put a finger just under his sternum. “Right here. Didn’t much like it, but it didn’t cause it any undue concern.”

“Have you located it?” Barrons asked. The man was deceptively at ease, yet there was an intensity in his dark eyes that belied his relaxed frame.

Blade shook his head. “It run off after I stabbed it, and I ain’t had a chance to ’unt it down.”

“You didn’t follow?” Aramina asked.

“One o’ me men were injured. And I ain’t stupid enough to ’unt a vampire by meself. What I want to know is where it come from.”

“We’re still uncertain,” Aramina replied. “The prince consort has requested an inquiry. This isn’t the sort of thing we can allow to stand. Someone knew this was occurring. And someone allowed it to happen.”

Barrons nodded, his gaze locked on a spot beside Blade’s boot. Perhaps it was because he wanted to find the other man at fault for something, but Blade couldn’t help feeling as though there was something the man was hiding.

Lark slipped in through the door, carefully balancing the tray with the blud-wein on it. She offered it to Blade first.

“We’re willing to offer military support,” Aramina continued. “The prince consort has—”

“Aye. A legion o’ metaljackets sent in to cull the creature, and then what? They’re just goin’ to trot back out again and leave me the rookeries?” Blade laughed. “Ain’t bloody likely. And what’ll me people think, seein’ the enemy comin’ in? They’ll riot.”

“Perhaps you underestimate the strength of the people’s intolerance for us,” Aramina countered. “They’ve shown no sign of rioting in other quarters. Unless there’s some other reason you don’t want the legion coming in. Hmm?”

His eyes narrowed. “This ain’t Kensington, milady. And maybe you ought take a look ’round. People is starvin’ and the taxes just keep gettin’ ’igher. Your prince consort ain’t a popular name to say ’round ’ere. They see a horde o’ metaljackets descendin’ on the rookery, and they’re goin’ to think somethin’s up.” He leaned forward. “And if you’re callin’ me a coward, then just say it to me face.”

Aramina actually colored. One thing he’d learned about the Echelon—they would smile ever so sweetly at you while they plotted to kill you, but calling them on it sent them into a dithering mess.

Barrons smothered a laugh with a cough. “Then what
will
you accept? The prince consort wants this mess cleaned up as swiftly as possible.”

Blade pretended to consider it, but he’d already decided on the limits last night when he lay on Honoria’s kitchen floor and listened to her breathing in the next room. “A score of Nighthawks.”

Some of the Nighthawks were blue bloods like him, infected with the craving virus and then discarded once they had the hunger under control. With their enhanced senses, tracking down criminals was a perfect avenue for these people. And they worked similar streets to what they would work in the rookery.

“And you,” Blade added, looking Barrons directly in the eye. “I’ll work with you.” Keep the man close, where he could keep an eye on him. And maybe, just maybe, find out what Honoria meant to him. Or more importantly what Barrons meant to her.

Aramina blinked. “Barrons? But why? He’s a duelist, but he’s no match for a vampire.”

“Because ’e talks straight,” Blade replied. “I like that. And if ’e’s tryin’ to play me, I can’t see ’ow.”

“Besides our mutual, shared acquaintance,” Barrons murmured.

Their eyes met. Barrons knew precisely what Blade wanted of him. The hair on the back of his neck rose, but he managed a curt nod. “Aye. There’s that.”

“Acquaintance?” Aramina didn’t like being in the shadows.

“An old friend.” Barrons gave her a swift smile, then stood. “We accept the bargain. I’ll work with you to coordinate the hunt. The prince consort will supply a score of Nighthawks. And I would urge you to accept a squad of metaljackets, despite your caution. They can be useful at clearing tunnels when we don’t want to risk lives.”

A sensible thought. Blade chewed it over. “A squadron I’ll accept. Some of ’em Spitfires and a couple o’ Earthshakers. We can either burn ’im out or dig ’im out.”