Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (40 page)

"
F
ANCY A LITTLE music
?"

Zero moved to the cylinder phonograph in the corner and set it to playing.
A faint waltz echoed through the brass horn.
Instantly the two vampires’ eyelids began to lower as firelight flickered over the gaunt bones of their spines.
Two hounds at rest by the hearth.

Somewhat sickening.

"Did you know," Zero murmured, watching them with a faint smile, "that they can be trained?
It interests me.
That one can be taught to react to something in association with...
the same kind of stimulus.
For example, they hear this music and they know that I am pleased with them, and that it is time to sleep."

Byrnes wriggled against his chains.
"Fascinating."
The daft woman was scratching one of the vampire's heads as though it were a hound.
And he could swear that one of them was making some sort of purring sound deep in its throat.

"Do you wish to know how I discovered this?"
Zero asked.

Why not?
Anything that made vampires sleepy was possibly a good thing to know.
"How?"

"I was once interred in an asylum by my husband."
Her smile remained just as bright.
"And I use the term 'interred' deliberately.
He meant for me to die there.
One of the things I learned is that sounds bring certain associations to mind.
Even now the mere scrape of a key turning in a lock makes me feel ill."

He didn't want to sympathize with her, but it was all too easy to imagine what had happened to her.
"How did you escape the asylum?"

"Oh, I didn't escape.
I seduced one of the other inmates’ visitors—a baron—and became infected with the craving virus.
After I tore out my handler's throat, the governor of the asylum took note.
It's not the sort of thing one wants to have whispered about their facility, you see.
Blue blood lords taking advantage of the patients.
Tut, tut.
What would the papers say?"
She swirled in a slow circle as the phonograph played a couple of piquant notes, holding on to her skirts as if it were a waltz.
"The next day a pair of red-liveried servants arrived to take me away.
At first I thought it was Nigel—my baron—but I soon learned he'd forgotten me.
Fickle man.
No, these servants belonged to the Duke of Lannister.
And they took me to Falkirk Asylum, which was masquerading as another treatment facility."

Falkirk, which had been owned by the Dukes of Lannister, Caine, and Casavian.
He sensed where this was going.

"That was where I was reborn."
Zero swirled to a halt near the table and opened a small case.
He craned his neck to see what was inside it, but the curve of her body hid it.
Zero held something up and flicked her nail against it.
"I went into Falkirk as Annabelle, victim of a half dozen men and their whims, and I exited it as Zero, who can be judge, jury, and executioner."

"I won't argue that you've been poorly done by, but the people from Begby Square did no wrong by you.
The guests at the Venetian Gardens had nothing to do with your incarceration.
So why hurt them?"

Zero laughed.
"Oh, Byrnes, I thought you were an investigator.
That party belonged to the Earl of Carrington.
Do you know who was on the guest list?"

"Nigel?
Your baron?"

Her smile softened.
"I almost began to doubt you, but you
are
just as clever as I had hoped.
Poor Nigel's still alive, by the way, but I bet he wishes he wasn't.
Did you know that blue bloods can survive almost anything?
And they might be able to heal, but they can't actually regrow limbs or organs...
or eyes."

"And what about Begby Square?"

"My husband lived there.
Unfortunately, Thomas didn't last long enough to see my justice."
Her face flattened as she strode toward him, holding something low against her skirts.
"But his cow-faced mother did.
And his two sisters.
And all of their families, and the neighbors who sneered at me.
Who is sneering now?"

A chill ran down his spine.
What the hell was in her hand?
"Possibly no one.
You don't have to do this.
I'm no threat to you—"

"Relax," she said, holding up a syringe.
"I don't mean you harm.
You're going to be one of my allies, Byrnes.
This will hurt a little—the first time is always the worst—" She suddenly giggled.
"That's what men always say, isn't it?
But once it's done, you'll be on the first step toward your new transformation.
I do hope you'll be strong enough to survive it."

A bubble of fluid wept from the top of the syringe.
Byrnes’s gaze tracked it warily.
"I think I'd like to know a little bit more about this...
ah, transformation before we go ahead with it.
Is it reversible?"

"Oh, no."
Zero tore his sleeve clear up the middle, revealing the muscle in his upper arm.
"Once it begins you must continue it, or else you'll end up like my failures."

Byrnes's gaze shot toward the vampires reclining on the floor.
"How many treatments?"
Hell, where was Ingrid?
She should be here by now, and if she didn't come quickly, it was going to be too late.
His gaze narrowed on the syringe needle.

"Seven treatments, provided all goes well.
They shall proceed a week apart.
Any closer together and your brain might trickle out of your ears."
Zero rubbed a spot on his upper biceps, crooning a little under her breath.
"You need to stay nice and relaxed, otherwise you'll hurt yourself.
Don't worry.
We've refined the formula since Dr.
Cremorne used it upon us.
The failure rate has gone down significantly.
Only three in ten die now."

"Us?"
He seized on the word, trying to crawl through the chair as she inched closer.
"Who's us?
Am I joining some sort of...
elite brotherhood, hmm?"

Zero paused, glancing up from beneath her silvery lashes.
"They're of no concern to you or I," she finally said.
"You're mine.
I'm tired of being told what to do and kept on a leash.
I want my own fun, my own allies."

"Who's holding the leash?"

"You wouldn't be trying to get information out of me, would you?"
Zero went very still.

He'd taken a slight misstep there.
Byrnes summoned every ounce of arrogance that he could muster.
"Of course I am.
If there's someone running this entire coup, then I want to know who.
I'm about to become what you are.
Do you think I want to walk into a trap where there's a leash around my throat too, without at least knowing who it bloody well is?
What if I take this leap and end up as slave for some despot?
That's not me, princess."

"That's not me either."
She seemed delighted.
"I hate playing by the rules."

"You and me both."
He made himself smile.
Bloody hell.
"Do you know what I like?
I like puzzling out the answer to mysteries.
And this is the greatest mystery of all.
I won.
I found you, so that we could be together.
Don't I at least get my prize?"

Zero nibbled on her lip.
"You could help me remove the leash," she whispered, as though thinking about it.

"Who do we have to kill?"

A slither of darkness slid through her pale blue eyes.
"My brothers.
We were born in a trial by fire, and since then we've only been able to rely on each other.
Ghost is the problem.
Without him, the others would leave us alone to do as we wished."

"Who's Ghost?"

"The first," she whispered.
"The first one who survived the transformation.
He thinks that gives him the right to lead us."

"And how many others are there?"

"There were six of us altogether: Ghost, me, Omega, Obsidian, Sirius...
and X.
Omega died in the fire.
The rest of us fled when Falkirk went up in flames, and took new names to represent our rebirth.
It took a while to...
come to terms with being free.
Ghost took control because he said that we couldn't simply slaughter our way through the population, or they'd turn on us."
A snarl curled her lips.
"Why should we care?
We're better than them, all of them.
But he said that even we should fear the people, and the way technology has provided them with a means to hunt us with their spitfires and Cyclopses."

"So Ghost is making the rules," he said, watching her face.
"Kill him, and...
we're free?"
Why the hell did this Ghost have something against Malloryn?

Zero seemed to come back to herself.
The distance faded out of her eyes and she turned that direct look upon him.
"Try to kill Ghost," she told him, "and he'll make you eat your tongue for breakfast.
If it were so easy, do you not think that I'd have done it by now?"

"You don't seem to care for your brothers very much."

"There is no blood between us.
Only a shared experience, and they consider me to be the weak one."
Hatred ignited on her face.
"I'll show them weak.
I'm the one with the vampires."

Byrnes eyed the nearest creature.
Its head had jerked up, its nostrils flaring wide.

"What are you—?"
Zero followed his gaze, her cool smile vanishing as she too saw the intensity in the creature's frame.

Please don't be Ingrid.
Or no, please
be
Ingrid
.
Byrnes strained against his ropes, but it was hopeless.
There was no escape.

Footsteps pounded along the hallway, and gunfire suddenly burst out in a sharp staccato.

Both vampires perked up, like hunting hounds sensing prey.
It would be a slaughter if he didn't warn them.

"Vampires!"
Byrnes bellowed, knowing that he'd blown his cover.
"There are two vampires in here—"

A fist slammed into the side of his head.
Byrnes spat blood, trying to blink through the dizziness.

"So...."
The look on Zero's face boded trouble.
"You lied to me," she said, and the way she said it was so eerie that all of the hairs on the back of Byrnes's neck lifted.

"No, I never meant to—"

And Zero slammed the syringe into the muscle of his arm and injected all of its contents into him with a vicious look upon her face.

T
he first scream
tore through the asylum.

Ingrid had never heard anything like it.
She froze.
"Byrnes."
There was no way to guess how she knew it was him, but something about that animalistic sound shivered down to the very core of her.

"Ingrid!
Wait!"
Charlie snatched at her sleeve, but she wasn't listening.

All that she knew was that her man was in danger.
The world vanished as blood rushed through her veins and she tore ahead of Charlie, Malloryn, and Gemma, just as a pair of vampires came out of nowhere.

One of their heads exploded like rotten melon as someone shot from behind her.
The other one launched itself toward her, claws raking the air, and its lean body twisting catlike as she threw herself beneath it, rolling in a ball as it flew over her—

Ingrid came up and hit the door with her shoulder.
It jarred the whole way through her.
She caught a glimpse behind her of Charlie and Gemma parting around the vampire, moving with blue blood grace as they lashed in with knives.
Another scream echoed from within, and Ingrid slammed into the door again.

Malloryn withdrew a hollow-looking rifle from inside his coat.
It looked somewhat similar to a grappling gun.
The second he had an opening he fired, and a silver-tipped net shot out, trapping the vampire inside.