The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (14 page)

The swaying of Larissa’s hips in the dress
set something off inside Holt the moment she walked away. The thought of her
presenting herself to anyone—even a woman as part of a ruse—made his blood boil.
She was his, heart and soul, and he would happily murder an entire city of
people to defend her if needed. On the other hand, he had agreed to avoid
killing unless completely necessary. It went against his nature and his intent.
After accepting the grim mission for what it was, taking lives—especially those
of pond scum like brothel workers—meant nothing to him. Larissa’s view was
clearly less morbid. He admired and hated her for it in equal measure. He
reminded himself that she was more capable than anyone ever gave her credit
for, even herself. She wasn’t a damsel in distress, awaiting his saving graces
at every turn. It didn’t stop him itching to follow after her down the
corridor. Not least because he wanted to watch her backside swaying in the
dress for a little while longer.

He mentally berated
himself for getting distracted and turned his attention back to the two hairy
thugs glaring daggers at him. He could drop them both in short order if not for
the promise. His hand twitched towards the dagger concealed at his side.

“Out,” the nearest man
barked down at him.

Holt turned and headed
in the opposite direction, intending to pass by the room with the Madame to see
Larissa before making his move. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and
forcibly turned him around, shoving him down the hall.

“What time do you open?”
he asked as casually as he could.

“Three o’clock. You
can’t afford her tonight. She’ll be reserved for one of the richer clients,
pretty thing like that.”

Holt curled his fingers
into a fist. The two men escorting him were no taller than him, but both
together were stocky, a mixture of muscle and fat, immovable mountains who
would take more than a few punches to subdue with fists. He might chance an
attack on one in such close quarters, but he was sure that fighting two at once
would draw too much attention. They turned around two corners, the corridor
narrowing markedly as they neared the rear of the property, until they finally
reached the back door.

“Come back tomorrow. No
earlier than six in the morning. You will be allowed a visit each day, but you
must follow the house rules, or else.” The nearest guard pulled the door open
and shoved Holt through it into the alleyway. The door slammed shut behind him.

Holt took a moment to
still the anger growing in his gut, like sparks of lightening cracking around
his brain, making his head thump with pain. His closed his eyes to the
brickwork of the building. The trickling noise of water in the gutter wafted
smells akin to the worst latrine he’d ever visited. Death, decay, and
disgusting debauchery surrounded him like an encompassing air of all that was
wrong with the world. Another minute passed. His fists uncurled. The anger and
stress of the situation had faded away to insignificance, and he could once
more focus on the task at hand.

He turned on his toes,
the movement silent and catlike. His eyes scaled the wall leading up to the
crooked rooftop. It was shabby, in need of maintenance, and a tricky thing to
traverse stealthily in daylight. Someone passed by the alleyway down the main
road—a pair of women in high heels, their dresses so revealing they may as well
have been naked. They didn’t turn in his direction. Once they’d passed, he
listened closely for more people approaching, and when sure no one was nearby,
he made his move.

Beside the door, a
drainpipe ran from the second floor of the building leading to the gutter. He
placed his fingertips on the door frame, one toe stuck to the drainpipe
bracket. He bounced once, testing the strength of the structure, and though it
didn’t move, he wasn’t certain it could take his weight. With one leap, he
scaled to the top of the doorframe, the toes of his left foot perched on the
edge of the frame. His right foot had found a slight gap in the pointing
between the brickwork, his hands gripping the pipe for stability. With another
push, he reached the top of the pipe as it curled inside the building. Standing
on one foot, fingers gripping the brickwork, he scanned the overhang of the
roof from his position. The majority of the tiles were misaligned and crumbled
around the edges. He aimed for the slope at the back of the building, bent his
knee as much as he dared without risking upsetting the drainpipe, then leapt up
and across. His hands found the edge of the tiles. One broke, cutting into his
palm, the shard of tile smashed into the alley below, but the other remained
firm. He scrambled up onto the rooftop as silently as possible and lay flat
against it.

He pressed his cheek
into the tiles and let the exertion of the effort calm in his breathing. After
listening for a moment to see if anyone had heard the tile smash, he worked
across the rooftop, hand over hand, body pressed into the sharp angle of the
tiles. From his position, he could see the roof of the clothing shop where they
had left Kerrigan, a thin line of smoke rising up from the chimney. A low growl
echoed at the back of his throat. Either Kerrigan was foolish enough to give
away his position by lighting a fire, or someone else had taken up residence
inside and presumably murdered the Colonel. It was more irritating to think
he’d wasted the effort in saving Kerrigan if the man had only gone and gotten
himself killed than it was to think of his demise.

Holt reached the center
of the roof and looked up to the chimney stack above. It too appeared rundown
and in need of repair. It wasn’t exactly the safe route inside, but he was
running out of choices, and as he thought of Larissa and what she might be
currently doing, the concerns of safety fell away from his mind. Slowly and
carefully, he climbed up the roof, his hand aching, palm bleeding from the
shattered tile. He pushed the pain to the back of his thoughts and found the
chimney. Thankfully, no smoke arose from below. He looked down, hoping to see
the light from a room below him, but only blackness filled his vision. He gave
one last look across the city. Scores of grey buildings, abandoned and rundown,
stretched out in all directions, save for the mess of twisted metal that had
once been the Hub. He let out a laboured sigh and swung his legs over the lip
of the chimney. He hoped the descent would be the hardest part of the path
ahead.

. . .

Larissa walked with
Naomi until they turned into the room containing the brothel’s owner. The room
appeared small and utterly disorganized; a large desk occupied the center with pieces
of paper strewn across it and thick leather ledgers balanced on one edge. The
floor was a mess of books, paper. and discarded, dirty plates smudged with
food. Remnants of the building’s prior use had been shoved into boxes in the
corner, cogs and springs poking out from the unclosed lid. Behind the desk,
occupying a large leather chair, was an excessively large, dark-skinned woman.
Her black hair was piled on the top of her head and pinned in place with a
letter opener. The woman wore bright red lipstick, which suited neither her
complexion nor her personality. Rolls of fat spilled out of her body in all
directions, consuming the arms of the chair rather than resting upon them.

“The new girl, Miss,”
Naomi said, shoving Larissa into the room.

“Good. You’ll get your
bonus after tonight,” the Madame, Miss Cosby, said as she waved Naomi away.

The door shut behind
Larissa, trapping her inside. There were no windows in the room, and as far as
Larissa could see, there was nothing obvious hiding a safe. She suppressed a
sigh at her incorrect assumption.

“Name?” Miss Cosby said
as she dipped a quill into an inkpot and opened one of the ledgers.

“Larissa,” she replied.

One perfectly manicured
eyebrow shot upwards on the Madame’s face. “Surname?”

“Markus.”

Miss Cosby paused
before writing the surname down and flicked her eyes up at Larissa. The whites
of her eyes seemed to shimmer with devious intent. “Larissa…Markus,” she
repeated, leaning back in her chair and setting the quill down.

Larissa felt her heart
flutter. She had forgotten that her name held a certain notoriety. It had been
so long since she’d been back, in her home country, her home city. Her old life
seemed further away than the exotic shores of Eptora. The father she’d once
imagined as a mysterious but loving man had been known as Professor Markus, the
eminent archaeologist who’d disappeared under unusual circumstances, his fame
stretched across the world, and with it, her own name held a small light of
recognition to most who paid attention to rumours. Furthermore, the events leading
to the downfall of an entire city, the collapse of the Hub and the
disappearance of Professor Watts, had given her another level of infamy, as she
had been fingered as the culprit of criminal activity. She had forgotten so
much, but most importantly, she had forgotten that her name was now a very
dangerous thing to offer up in her naïvely honest manner. She could almost hear
Holt’s voice admonishing her for the mistake. Worse still, she wasn’t sure
under which capacity Miss Cosby knew of her. She snapped her mouth shut and
resolved to give away no more honest detail than was truly necessary.

“Take your clothes off,
then,” Miss Cosby said after a moment of stunned silence. She waved a fat arm
at Larissa, the underarm flapping about with the movement.

“Is that really
necessary?” Larissa asked. She’d been expecting further questioning and would
have probably preferred it to the thought of getting naked.

“I have certain clients
who like certain things. Some like blondes, so you’ll be good for them once you
clean up that messy nest on your head. Others have more…specific requirements.
I need to know if you meet any of their criteria so I know who will enjoy you
most, and I can’t do that by having a conversation with you, sweetheart. Trust
me, the men who come here don’t pay good money for talking. Now take your
clothes off or I’ll ask one of my boys to come in here and do it for you.”

Larissa swallowed
again, her throat drier than the Eptoran dessert. She thought of Kerrigan’s
simple request to bring back some water to drink and wished now they had done
simply that instead of getting into this messy situation. She lifted the dress
at the hem and pulled it up, glancing down at the ledger in front of Miss Cosby
as the woman flicked over a few pages. The dress fell to the floor at her feet,
leaving her in nothing more than flat shoes and a pair of knickers.

“Everything,” Miss
Cosby said.

Larissa sighed and
complied as she focused on scanning the walls to look for a hidden safe—anything
to distract her mind from the shame of the situation.

“Turn,” Miss Cosby
said, a haughty sneer in her voice as she wiggled her flabby arm around, making
a turning motion. Larissa obeyed, feeling the familiar burn of a blush touching
her face and neck, moving down to her shoulders. “Stop.”

Larissa stopped, facing
the door. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. An awful noise of
squelching leather and creaking chair legs followed, and she almost laughed as
she visualised the woman getting up. Her entire body tingled with nervous
anticipation. She had no idea what was going to happen but willed herself to be
ready to react to
something
as the bigger woman stood close behind.

“There’s a man on my
books who would like to do some very naughty things to you, girl.”

“Oh?”

“Solomon Covelle.”

Larissa ignored the
churning in her stomach.

“He left just recently,
sadly. There is another who would pay a pretty price for your pretty head.”
Something cold and sharp pressed against her neck.

Larissa froze in place,
fearful of making the wrong move. Her latent healing ability wouldn’t help much
if she were stabbed in the throat. Her body tingled from head to toe, nipples standing
to attention in the cool air. Her breath became shallow. “Oh?”

“Your name is at the
top of the list of people wanted dead. The President is offering a lot of money
for your death. So, either you’re very foolish in coming here and telling me
your name, or you have some other purpose. Which is it?”

The point of the blade
pressed in deeper, breaking open her skin as a line of hot blood trickled down
her neck.

“Perhaps both,” she
said finally. Her heart ached for Holt to come flying through the door and save
the day, but her heart sank as she remembered she had asked him not to kill
anyone, and he was probably taking his time working on meeting that demand. Why
had she done that? What possible purpose was there in sparing people like this?
Once again, she was out of her depth and in trouble for no good reason at all.
She could only hope that keeping the woman talking for long enough would give
her time to think up a plan.

Holt’s thighs and calves trembled and
ached as he worked down the chimney. His hands pressed to the sides, edges of
his boots feeling for lumps in the brickwork as he lowered himself slowly. The
cut on his hand didn’t appreciate being dragged down rough bricks coated in
layers of thick soot, and he made a mental note to clean the wound at the first
opportunity. Losing a hand to gangrene was not an appealing prospect. The
chimney space narrowed as he went, and at one point, he worried he wouldn’t fit
any farther. The thought of climbing all the way back up and looking for
another route in had him worried, especially as the clock was ticking.

The back of his neck
pulsated with worry for Larissa, a worry that never surfaced so strongly
before. He’d always managed to school his emotions during a mission, to focus
on the task, but these days, he was riddled with doubt.

The air inside the
chimney was acrid with old smoke; it filled his lungs and tickled his nostrils,
making the descent even harder. He had no perception of how far he’d come, or
how much farther there was to go; the light from the grey cloudy sky above
seemed nothing more than a distant dot. Voices below stopped him in his tracks.
He braced against the walls, one toe stuck into the brickwork, the other foot
turned sideways, pressing against the wall, both hands at awkward angles, an
elbow digging into the corner behind his head. His body trembled from trying to
hold position as the people who had entered the room spoke.

“Let me light a fire. It’s
freezing in here,” a female said. Holt ground his teeth together. She sounded closer
than he would have guessed, and as a gas lamp lit the view below, he could
finally see the bottom, no more than a few feet away, a pile of logs resting in
the iron basket.

“It’ll get warm enough
in here once we get going. Take your clothes off,” a male voice said.

Holt’s head knocked
back against the brickwork. He wasn’t sure what would be worse, having the
woman light a fire or having to infiltrate the room with people engaging in
sexual activity inside.

“I won’t be a minute,”
the female said. A head full of mousey brown curls appeared beneath Holt’s
feet. She placed some kindling and paper between the logs and lit a match,
thankfully not turning to look up the chimney, though she really had no reason
to. A moment later, she disappeared and the flames came to life.

Holt looked back up the chimney. The grey dot of sky
was too far away—by the time he climbed all the way up, the air would be too
thick with smoke to make it all the way out. It seemed he would have to deal
with both bad scenarios.

Heat from below licked the soles of his boots. He
edged slowly down the wall, his limbs screaming silent protest. Smoke tickled
the back of his throat as the fire came to life, spitting and hissing hot
embers up the chimney. He prepared his mind for a fight the moment the people
inside the room saw him. The woman would probably scream, making her his first
target. With any luck, the guards would assume hers was a scream of pleasure.
He hoped the male would be in some form of partial nudity, which would make him
less of a threat to begin with. He would silence the woman, then knock the man
out and leave them both tied up in the corner.

With the plan solidified, he let go of the wall and
fell to the fire, his feet landing either side of the basket with a dull thud. Flames
licked at the inside of his legs, the heat burning through the material of his
trousers. He ducked down and scrambled out of the fireplace, pulling his dagger
out, ready to attack.

No scream greeted him. He placed his back to the wall
and looked over to the bed. The bedsheets appeared as one mass of writhing and
grunting. Neither of the lovers seemed to notice his presence. He edged toward
the door, conscious that a guard might be standing just outside. As he glanced
over at the bed again, the woman turned and noticed him. His grip on the dagger
tightened, but instead of a scream, she simply smiled, held up her hand, and
mouthed
five minutes
at him.

He gave a single nod, then slipped out into the
hallway.

The empty hall echoed with heavy footsteps coming in
his direction. He marched towards a turn in the hallway and waited for the
approaching figure to appear—a male, he presumed from the gait. A guard came
into view, the pupils of his eyes having but a moment to dilate as he processed
the sight of Holt’s fist flying toward him. The first punch landed straight
across his jaw, and the larger man grunted, smacking into the wall as he
twisted to the side. Holt’s fists took over for his mind, releasing a
relentless pounding into the man’s head until the guy collapsed into a heap and
seemed unlikely to rise any time soon.

He set to work, binding the wrists and ankles of his
first downed enemy. Killing him would have been simpler, but whenever his hand
twitched in the direction of his knife, he thought of Larissa. He didn’t want
to disappoint her or cause an argument. They had more than enough to cope with.
With a grunt of frustration, he dragged the prone body by the wrists along the
floor and, lacking another option, settled on leaving it there for now.

More footsteps headed toward him from the same
direction. He sighed and returned to the corner. The second guard was far
leaner than the first and took only one straight punch to the jaw, though
Holt’s fist ached as he bound the guy up and dragged him down the corridor to lay
beside the first.

When a third man approached, Holt found it almost
comical how easy it was to subdue such inept idiots. No wonder these men
weren’t in the military; they wouldn’t last two minutes.

Once his pile of knocked-out bodies reached five men,
the rest of the brothel seemed quiet. He
backtracked
to the room where the two lovers were still involved in their embrace to tie
them up as well.

Finally, he reached the
Madame’s room. He pressed his ear to the door, hoping to hear Larissa inside
speaking softly to the woman, trying to convince her to her cause, as she was in
the habit of doing. Instead, he heard muted muffles and a shuffling noise. He
frowned, then barged through the door, flinging it so hard it smacked into the
wall as it opened. Larissa shrieked and clutched at her chest.

“Gods, Holt, you scared
me. Get in. Close the door,” she said, waving at him. His feet froze in place,
and it took a moment before he could comply, for she stood utterly nude at the
opposite end of the room, one foot balancing a chair onto two legs, leaning it
against the wall, the other foot upon the chest of Madame Cosby, who had been
tied up and gagged. Holt pulled the door shut behind him.

“You’ve done well,” he
said blandly as he tried in vain to keep his eyes off Larissa’s backside.

“Praise can wait. Come
stick your head under here and grab this,” she said as she pointed beneath her.
Holt did as instructed, pushing aside the inconvenient tightening in his
trousers. This didn’t seem an appropriate time to have that sort of reaction,
but he could hardly control it.

Attached to the
underside of the seat was a covered box hidden by a lid. A series of springs
acted to keep the lid closed. Holt leant over the desk and stuck his head
between Larissa’s legs to look inside. A bag of coins sat waiting. He pulled
the bag out, and Larissa let her foot off the chair, which thudded as it fell
to the floor. The hefty lump of a woman underneath Larissa’s other foot
squirmed.

“She is not securely
bound,” Holt said as he discarded the coins and set to fixing the bindings
Larissa had made. She had used the dress she’d borrowed as rope, which—while
innovative, left her without anything to wear.

“Well, excuse me for
not being an expert on tying people up while naked. Are the guards subdued…or
dead?”

“Subdued, and the other
patrons also. We must leave.”

“Why the rush?”

“Because more patrons
will arrive and this mess will be discovered. Our escape may become perilous.”

“What if we just put a
closed
sign on the door?”

Holt finished tying the
knot and stood to face Larissa. “That seems overly simplistic…but I can’t see a
reason why it wouldn’t work. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it.”

“Because you’ve never
worked in retail. I used to fantasize about doing it myself whenever Greyfort
left me to run the shop while he went out obtaining stock, but I never quite
had the guts. I wish I had done it now. I doubt he would have fired such a
lucrative employee for such an indiscretion.”

She headed to the door
and bounced into the corridor with a spring in her step. Holt’s eyes were drawn
once more to her backside, and as mesmerising as it was to watch, it seemed
impractical.

“Larissa?”

“Yes?”

“It might be an idea to
put some clothes on before you go racing across the city.”

“Oh. Good point,” she
said as her cheeks turned pink.