Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (30 page)

"You know...
I were starting to wonder how deep you buried it.
You're more in control than most of your kind, but it's still there, isn't it?"
Kincaid stepped closer, eye-to-eye.
"You're still ruled by it, itching to smear my blood all across this roof, ain't you?"

Itching to tear your throat out, at least
.
The pulse in his throat hammered.
Kill him
, whispered his inner darkness, his inner predator—the part of him that belonged in the shadows.

"No matter how deeply you think you've got that monster buried, it's still there, and one day it will hold the leash, not you."

Byrnes took a deep breath and swallowed it all.
It was like flicking off a switch, like facing his father again and burying all of that rage, that fierce hissing need to kill deep within him.

"You have no idea," he told Kincaid, "how much I want to kill you right now.
But the problem is, you're wrong.
I am not and never have been ruled by the
craving
.
I am also not very much of a gentleman, but in this instance, you crossed a line in mentioning her name."

Drawing his arm back, he punched Kincaid hard in the face before the man could even see it coming.

"Fuckin' hell!"
Kincaid bellowed, clapping a hand to his nose and staggering.

Byrnes tugged his handkerchief from within his pocket.
"No, I might have the hunger inside me, and the urge to make you little more than a smear on these tiles, but you're the one who can't handle your hate.
Handkerchief?"

Kincaid pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back.
"Shove that up your a—"

"Stop your whining.
I didn't break it.
No matter how tempting it was.
And you shouldn't bleed so enticingly in front of me."
Byrnes smiled a nasty smile.
"Who knows?
I might lose control.
I might let all of that
big, dark hunger
inside me overwhelm me, and then leap at you."

Kincaid wiped his sleeve across his face.
"Anyone ever told you that you're a prick?"

"Frequently.
Can you not see the tears of remorse in my eyes?"

Kincaid muttered something under his breath.

"See, if you were a blue blood, you would have seen that coming," Byrnes pointed out brightly, and stalked off backwards into the fog, watching his adversary just in case Kincaid decided to do something rash.

Kincaid muttered curses, wiping at the blood trickling from his nose.

"So," Byrnes continued, "what happened to you?"

"I'm fairly certain you punched me in the face," Kincaid growled.

"No, not that."
Byrnes looked at the burly mech.
"People don't just suddenly decide to hate an entire species.
Something happened, something to do with a blue blood in your past.
What was it?
Did one of them kill your mother?
Or a sister?
Or a father?
Drain all of the residents in your neighborhood?"
He paused.
"Steal your woman?"

"Go to hell."

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that...?"
He cupped a hand to his ear.

Kincaid glared at him.
"You son of a bitch.
It was my sister.”

They both stared at each other.

"They took her," Kincaid continued, in a slower, quieter voice.
"The Echelon lords.
Took Agatha right off the streets and used her at one of their parties as some kind of bloodwhore for the night.
Three days later she killed herself, because of those men.
I was the one who found her hanging.

"And every time I look at you," Kincaid said, staring into Byrnes's eyes.
"I see those men.
Those monsters.
And I see Aggie, staring sightlessly at the sky.
Forever."
He wiped at his bloodied nose.
"That's what you are to me.
But that's also why I'll work with Malloryn, because I remember what it was like before the revolution.
I don't ever want to see my people, my friends, go back to that."

Silence fell.
Byrnes actually felt a worm of guilt twist deep inside him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
He spread his arms wide.
"Occasionally I can be an asshole.
You get one free hit."

"What?"

"You mentioned my woman," he replied, "and I didn't like your tone.
Now I've brought up your sister, and I was less than respectful too."

Kincaid mulled it over for all of a second, then swung.
The full metal crunch of his mech fist slammed into Byrnes’s nose.
Byrnes fell onto the roof clutching at his face as pain speared through him.

"Bastard," he breathed, trying to blink through the ringing in his head.
"Little bleeding pissant.
You could have used your human hand."

"Leech," Kincaid replied, giving him an evil grin—and offering his hand for Byrnes to help himself to his feet.
"What are you whining about?
You're not even bleeding.
And I'm only a poor weak human.
I'm not as strong as you.
Or as fast.
Or as adept at healing.
I can't even jump off a twelve-foot roof without risking a broken leg."

Byrnes tested his teeth as he grabbed Kincaid's hand and hauled himself to his feet.
"Okay.
Maybe I deserved that."

"
Maybe
?"

"That's as humble as I can be," Byrnes replied.
He itched to touch his swollen nose, but wasn't about to give Kincaid the satisfaction.

Kincaid grunted under his breath.
"Look, I'll deny this to my dying breath, and I still don't like you very much, but..."
He looked pained.
"You aren't entirely as bad as the rest of your breed."

"Did that hurt?"

Kincaid merely shook his head and walked on.
"Smug bastard."

Byrnes laughed, but as he breathed in he got a trace amount of scent that slid through his chest like a stiletto.
Instantly he turned, staring into the night, trying to smell the air.
That scent came again, like sweet rot fresh out of a graveyard.

Byrnes shoved his hand out, slamming it into Kincaid's sternum.
Kincaid grabbed his wrist, as if thinking it an attack, but Byrnes hushed him.

"What?"
the mech murmured.

"Can't you smell that?"
Then he realized.
"No, of course you can't.
I barely can, thanks to you."

"What is it?"
Kincaid's nostrils flared.

Byrnes turned in a slow circle, examining the foggy rooftops.
They'd been using them to hunt for the vampire's scent trail that Charlie and Kincaid had lost earlier.
"You remember that thing we were hunting?
Well, I think...
we're not the hunters anymore."

A pistol clicked in Kincaid's hand.
"Shit."
Sweat sprang up along the man's temples.
"Are you sure it's not the trail?"

"Not unless it's a fresh one."

A pale shape skittered out of the corner of his eye.
Byrnes unholstered his own pistol and tracked the darkness, the sensation of a trickle of icy-cold fingers trailing down his spine.
Kincaid's back met his.
Both of them barely breathed.

Another sound whispered through the night, like claws scrambling on a roof.
To the left.
Byrnes swung that way, pistol raised, his eyes tracking the darkness.
Kincaid was a wall of warmth at his back.
A ghost whispered through the night to the right.
Dashing close enough to be seen, then darting out of reach.

"They're playing with us," Byrnes breathed.
Sweet Jesus
.

"They?"

"Two of them, I think."
Something else was moving out there, something that wasn't as albino pale as the vampires.
"Why the hell aren't they attacking?"

"I don't like any of this," Kincaid muttered.
"Vampires not going on a killing spree is unnatural."

"For once we're in agreement."
He'd never thought he'd see the day where he wished for something uncomplicated like a vampire slaughtering its way through the population.
But this made his skin itch.
It wasn't right.
It went against all of the natural laws.
What if they'd...
evolved somehow to start thinking like predators, rather than indiscriminate killing machines?

They'd be unstoppable.

A vampire's only weakness was its lack of rational thinking.
The only way to get close enough to one to kill it was by waiting until it was so glutted on blood that it didn't see you coming.

A flute sounded.

And that's when the first vampire slunk out of the fog to pant at him, it's filmy eyes blank with blindness and its monstrously long claws skittering on the tiles.
It hissed as it heard his sharp intake of breath and paced back and forth, looking hungrily at him, even if it couldn't see him.
Byrnes lined it up in his sights, swallowing hard, but movement to his right made him hesitate and glance that way.

To where a tall, pale-haired woman stepped out of the shadows, outlined by moonlight.

"You," Byrnes said, lowering the pistol but not easing his guard one inch.

"Me," said Ulbricht's mistress, with a smile as sweet as a knife’s edge.

"
W
ELL
, IF YOU
were
a blue blood," Byrnes said to Kincaid, taking a stealthy step backward.
"You might be able to survive the ensuing encounter.
Me?
I don't like my odds.
Not against two vampires.
You however, have no odds.
Unless I take pity on you and decide to protect you."

"Do you ever bloody shut up?
And nobody asked you for protection."
Kincaid punched his mech fist against his thigh and a knife slammed through the gauntlet of steel that he wore as his hand.
"I can watch my own back."

Ulbricht's mistress glided toward them, one hand patting the vampire's head at her side whilst its thin leash trailed up to a gold band around her wrist.
Long silvery-white hair draped over one bare shoulder.
It wasn't the coarse whiteness of age, but a spill of moonlight silk.
A tight black corset spanned a narrow waist, with chains and a holster hanging stylishly from it.
Everything about her was sleek.
Even her black velvet skirts, which were embroidered in gold with a kraken by the look of it.

"How the hell do you move in that?"
Byrnes asked.
Their only chance of survival lay in getting her to start talking and keeping those vampires on their leashes.
Kincaid's shoulder pressed against his own.
Despite his words, the fellow's heart rate pounded like a train's engine fresh into the station.

The woman's leg thrust out through a well-designed slit in her skirts, revealing trim stockinged calves and heeled boots.
The side lunge held traces of the martial art, batitsu, in it.
He'd barely seen the movement, it had been so swift.

This was going to hurt.

"Christ," Kincaid said under his breath, his gaze locking on that leg.

Byrnes's smile held no humor.
"Some vipers are pretty.
Doesn't mean you take them to your breast."

As if he'd just graced her with the most delicious compliment, the woman's smile curved higher as she slowly undid the leash around her wrist and dropped it.
"Oh, I do like you."
Then she turned to the nearest vampire, and hissed, "
Stay
."

Just smashing.
There was a hint of insanity in those pretty blue eyes.

"May I have a name?"
Byrnes asked, settling into a defensive stance as his gaze flickered between her and the now untethered vampires.
"Or do I just refer to you as Madame Viper?"

"You may call me Zero, although once upon a time I was Annabelle Underwood."
Her smile was dreamy.
"I like this better.
Much better.
Nobody rips Zero's heart out of her chest—not like Annabelle's.
Care for a dance, Caleb Byrnes?"

She knew who he was.
His eyes narrowed to thin slits.
"Is that why you're here?"

"No.
I'm here to discover if you're worthy or not.
You killed one of my vampires.
Nobody's ever managed that before."

Worthy of what?
But he thought it through.
"You were watching.
At the grotto."

Her smile sent tremors down her spine.
"I could have killed you then and there but you caught my eye.
I decided to spare your life so that I could learn more about you."

"Like what?"

"This—"

He barely saw her coming.
The first kick took him in the shoulder as he twisted out of the way, and Byrnes stepped under her guard, slamming both hands flat against her chest.
Zero staggered a step, then a knee drove directly for his balls.

Byrnes twisted, taking her knee to his thigh, barely managing to disengage
.
Hell
.
He winced as he put all his weight on that leg and felt that hard knot in his upper thigh.

Kincaid's fists were raised, but he hovered there, a constipated look on his face.

"What the hell are you hesitating for?"
Byrnes yelled, ducking beneath a swinging kick.

Kincaid danced out of the way, his jaw tightening.
"I don't hit girls."

Zero laughed, then spun and kicked Kincaid in the face.
The second the kick landed, she jerked her knee back, and kicked him again in the throat.
Bang, bang.
The work of a second.

Kincaid went down.
And stayed there.

Zero sneered.
"Pathetic humans."

This was why he liked working with Ingrid.
She
wouldn't have hesitated.
And now it was two vampires and one whatever-she-was against him.
Smashing odds.

Launching forward, she lashed out with her other foot, and he caught it, locking her boot against his upper arm and clapping his other hand on her thigh.
Zero's eyes widened as he spun, using a twist of her ankle to take her to the roof.
They both went down, and he used his weight and his elbow to slam her back into the tiles before he disengaged and danced to his feet.
The second she rolled onto her fingertips and knees, she launched toward him.
Byrnes leapt lightly in the air, hammering a punch into her solar plexus the moment she came after him.

"Well, you're no gentleman."
Zero pouted.
Then tried to kick his feet out from under him.

"Take it as a compliment.
Gentlemen get their throats ripped out in my world."
If he let her get close enough to him, she'd take him down and make it hurt.
That fall hadn't even winded her.

Another feint.
Punches landed in a flurry of pain along his arms as he deflected them, and Byrnes used her momentum to head butt her.
Zero staggered back, and for the first time in his life, Byrnes hesitated instead of going after her.
She was dangerously faster than he was, and if that last punch was anything to go by, stronger.
He might have years of training on his side—that was the only reason he suspected he was still on his feet—but something about the way she moved told him that she'd outlast him.

"What are you?"
His breath came hard, and he lowered his hands a fraction, inviting her to talk.

Zero wiped her nose, sneering at him.
"Haven't you worked it out yet?
I'm the butterfly, you're just a caterpillar."

"I've been called worse."
Bastard
sprang to mind.
Or
weak
.
He'd hated that as a child, especially considering it came from his father's lips.

"You lack that one crucial element to your transformation.
I could give you that element, the elixir.
If you prove worthy to join my pets."

Elixir
?
Was this what that document in Ulbricht's cabinet had meant?
He flicked a glance toward the patient vampires.
"I've seen your pets.
Thank you for the consideration, but I'm not really interested in being leashed like a dog."

"They're not my pets.
They're the failures, the ones who didn't survive the transformation.
They must earn back the cost of the elixir that was wasted on them."

"Lady, they're vampires."

"Precisely.
How do you think a vampire is created?"

Byrnes paused.
It wasn't something he'd ever thought of before.
Most blue bloods lost control of their bloodlust once their craving virus levels reached 80 percent or so and the effects of the Fade set in.
Then they began to devolve, their skin paling and their spines curving like a cat's until they loped along on all fours, stinking of rot.
That was how a vampire came to be.

Or so he'd always thought.

Slowly, as if explaining herself to a child, Zero said, "You so-called blue bloods have never been what you were meant to be.
A blue blood is the first stage of metamorphosis, and when your craving virus levels reach a certain percentage, you begin to transform."

"The Fade," he said.

"The Blooming," she chided.
"Perhaps one in a thousand blue bloods survive the transformation without the elixir’s help.
Most don’t.
Most become a vampire, an abomination that was never meant to be.
They're created when the creature dies during the end stages of metamorphosis.
That's why they're weakened and crippled, with the personality of a vicious dog.
Their brains suffer irreparable loss during the death stages, until all that remains when the virus reanimates them is the hunger."

Despite himself, Byrnes was fascinated.
This was the ultimate mystery.
He straightened, his fists lowering completely.
"How the hell do you know that?"

"I know a lot of things."
Zero stepped back, dragging her skirts with her.
Fog swept around her legs and those brilliant blue eyes watched him from the shadows.
"Such as the fact that Sir Nicodemus Banks brought the craving virus home from the Orient nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, but not the elixir guaranteed to evolve a blue blood as they were meant to evolve.
He had stolen the virus from the immortal Imperial family of the White Court, and believed that by spreading the virus through Europe he took away some of their mythos, their power.
He never asked himself why they allowed such a thing to happen: they knew that without the knowledge of the
elixir vitae
, they would never be threatened.
Blue bloods, after all, are barely children in my world."

"Then what are you?"

Zero's smile grew as she swept up the vampires' leashes.
They moved instantly, straining at her side.
"Why don't you ask your good friend, Malloryn?
After all, he knows more than what he's told you, doesn't he?
You can tell him this from me: we are vengeance, pure and simple, and he will pay our price.
We're here to watch the city burn, and to make Malloryn, the Duchess of Casavian, and all those who fought during the revolution bitterly regret their roles in it."
Pressing her fingers to her lips, she blew him a kiss.
"If you want to know more about what I am—what you could be—then you must prove yourself to me.
Find me.
Be worthy, Caleb Byrnes.
And I might just grant you immortality."

With that, she took a step back and vanished off the rooftop, taking the vampires with her.
Byrnes scrambled to the edge, but only fog greeted him.
Nothing moved.

Zero was gone.
The vampires had vanished.

And somehow she knew his name.