Kiss of Steel (7 page)

“No.” A slight hesitation. “Everybody speaks of them, though, and they sound like something I’d prefer to avoid.”

For a moment she almost relaxed. Then the mutton stew appeared. Blade spread his arms across the back of the seat and watched her stare at it as though she’d never eaten in her life…and had suddenly found a dead fly in her bowl.

“Try the fork,” he recommended. “It’s much easier than mentally consumin’ the meal.”

A hot little glare made him smile again. But she picked up the fork and started tearing off delicate pieces of bread. Blade looked away, enjoying the clink of silverware and the heady scent of lamb stew and ale. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell her, the faint musk of
woman
lingering beneath the spicier scent of stew like the base notes of an aromatic. There was no scent of his own to add except the touch of oil he used to sharpen his blades and the soap used to launder his clothes.

A blue blood had no personal scent. No warmth. Sometimes he felt as though he were slowly turning to marble, devoid of any of the touches of humanity that surrounded him. Until nothing but the hunger remained.

Something caught his ear—the rustle of waxed paper. He fixed Honoria with a hawkish glare, but she was dipping her fork into the stew again. The bread was gone. Too quickly for the small pieces she’d been breaking off.

He could smell pork now too. “God’s teeth, you’re a stubborn wench.”

She looked up in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“The ’alf-eaten pork pie in your pocket and the bread.” He shook his head. “Aye, give it away, even though you obviously need it more.”

“My brother and sister are at home wondering where I am,” she said. “The least I can do is bring something back. I can’t eat all of this.” She put the fork down. The stew was hardly touched. “I can’t eat a thing more.”

The way she eyed the bowl, with reluctance in her eyes, made him believe her. She’d been starving herself so long that now she had the appetite of a bird.

“Next time it’ll cost you,” he said.

Honoria’s chin tipped up. “There won’t be a next time. I agreed to three lessons a week. No more. No less.”

He leaned closer, breathing in her scent. “We’ll see.”

“No. We wo—”

The door to the White Hart smashed open. Blade was on his feet with his razor tucked in the palm of his hand before he realized it was Will, breathing hard from running.

“Bodies. Two of ’em,” Will said. “Torn up and drained, like a bloody blue blood went crazy down in Pickle Road.”

Honoria’s head jerked up and she went white as a ghost. “That’s my street!”

Chapter 4

“Stay back,” Blade commanded.

Honoria took one look at the crowd and hurried after him. They were three houses down from the small flat she rented. There was no way she was going to stay behind.

Blade pushed through the crowd of people ahead of her, forging a path through the swarm of goggling onlookers with his powerful body. Honoria stumbled along behind. People shot glares at them—until they saw who was pushing through. Then the way miraculously cleared and the master of the rookery found himself in the eye of the storm. It seemed being known as the Devil of Whitechapel was extremely useful in certain situations.

Blood sprayed the cobblestones, gleaming black in the moonlight. One of the spectators had located a flare stick, and the fluorescent glow highlighted the brilliant scarlet splashes near Blade’s booted feet.

Honoria swallowed. She had seen blood before. In vials and tubes in her father’s lab or on the samples she took from Charlie to examine his virus levels. Not like this. Not painted across the flagstones as though someone had wielded an artist’s flamboyant brush, flicking drips of it in every direction. The ghastly sprawl of the two bodies was almost garish in the moonlight. Some quirk of fate had found this part of London free of its almost perpetual ground cover of fog.

Blade turned and found her on his heels. “I tol’ you to stay back.” He looked around at the crowd. “Go on. You seen it. Now get.”

The onlookers dispersed with a handful of whispers. The burly man who’d found them at the White Hart knelt beside Blade and surveyed the scene with his burning amber eyes. Two others hung around, and the tattoos on their wrists proclaimed them Blade’s men. One had a steel cap riveted to his scalp and a wicked hook in place of his left hand. The other winked at her with a devilish smile.

“Cutthroat Nelly cried the alarm,” the man he’d called Will said. “O’Shay sent me after you and came ’ere to clear the street.”

The taller man, the one who’d winked, spat to the side. “Bleedin’ vultures swarmed me before I could keep it quiet.” A thick lilt of Irish filled his voice.

“Who are they?” Blade knelt down, fingertips pressed together and a burning look in his eye as he stared at the bodies. He didn’t go any closer, and she realized that he was wearing that expression again. The one that made his nostrils flare and his pupils consume his irises.

No matter how hideous the scene was, he liked it. Or the smell of it, anyway.

Honoria shivered. She looked down the lane to the little house three houses down with the light blazing in the window.

“Smells like Jem Barrett o’er in Brick Lane and his brother, Tom,” Will said.

“Jaysus,” O’Shay swore. “He did a right number on ’em. Their own mother wouldn’t e’en recognize ’em.”

Blade reached out and touched his finger to a droplet of blood. “Nothing human did this.”

“Aye.” Will agreed. “Tore ’em apart. Throat first, at least. They weren’t aware o’ most o’ it.”

“Only blue blood in these parts is you,” O’Shay muttered. “And you wouldn’t lose control like this.”

Honoria went cold. It started in her stomach, then crept outward, spiraling through her core. There was a bitter taste in her mouth.
Oh
God. Lena!

She broke into a run.

Blade caught her at the door of the flat, dragging her into his arms.

“No! Let me go!” She hammered at his chest. “I have to…” She couldn’t speak. A gurgle of something, a sound of inarticulate pain, crawled up her throat.

“Let me go in first, luv.” His voice and hands were gentle, but he controlled her as easily as if she were a fluttering bird in his hand. “Just let me make sure it’s safe.”

She collapsed against his chest, feeling the slow, inhuman thump of his heart beneath her cheek. His body was hard, firm. Strangely comforting. “No,” she said weakly. “No. You can’t.” Because if he found Charlie, he’d kill him.

“Honor?” Lena called from the other side of the door.

Her knees chose that moment to give out. “Lena?” His arms closed around her, holding her close, with a quiet murmur against her ear.

The door opened. Lena peered out, her fingers trembling. Honoria pushed Blade away and dragged her frightened sister into her arms.

“I thought it might have been…That you were…” Honoria turned her face into Lena’s hair, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent.
Safe
. Lena was safe.

“I could hear them all yelling, but I didn’t dare go out.” Lena swallowed.

“Charlie?”

Lena looked past her at Blade. “He’s still in bed. I didn’t unlock the door.”

“Good. You did good.” Her knees were still shaking. But Charlie was still in bed and Lena was…It dawned on her then. Her brother hadn’t lost control and turned.

Which meant there had been another blue blood in Whitechapel.

A dash of ice water down her spine. But if Vickers had found them, he would have taken Lena and Charlie and tossed the house, searching for the diary with her father’s secrets.

Or would he?

This was exactly the type of game he liked to play. Cat and mouse. Toying with her. Leaving a pair of bodies torn apart in the street just to prove that he could. That nowhere was safe from him.

You
are
nothing
, he’d once whispered in her ear.
I
could
take
you
here
and
now, and you couldn’t do a thing to stop me.

But he hadn’t, because it was far more enjoyable to watch her live in fear. Once he broke her, the game would no longer be as entertaining.

What could she do? Should she run? But where? And how could she take Charlie now when he was so ill? Where would she ever find another respectable job?

“Blade?” A man called, startling her back to the present.

She’d forgotten about him in the horror. And Blade was just as dangerous—if not more so—than Vickers. When she turned, she found him watching her, leaning back against the railing with that nonchalant way he had. With his leather coat over her shoulders, he wore only a white shirt and black velvet waistcoat. Despite herself, despite everything, she couldn’t help remembering how
stroke-able
that waistcoat had felt when he had held her in his arms.

A laugh took her. She was going mad. She had to be to think such a thing at a time like this.

Blade held up a hand, instantly silencing O’Shay. His gaze met hers, and she felt as though she were falling into a bottomless well, her body straining toward him, her eyes unable to drop from his.

“All’s well?” he asked softly.

She nodded, holding Lena’s hand tucked safely in hers. “All’s well.” It was a whisper. Her palms itched as though they hungered for the touch of him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he told her. “Don’t go out till morn. I’ll make sure Will’s on guard, just in case.”

He looked away. The spell was broken and Honoria blinked, sucking in a deep breath. She felt as though something important had happened, something that her mind couldn’t yet make heads nor tails of. Then he turned and strode back toward the bodies.

“Honor,” Lena whispered. “That man just called him Blade. He’s not
the
Blade, is he? Where did you go?”

Honoria held her sister’s hand, watching as Blade sauntered down the steps. “He took me for a meal.” It was starting to rain, a light drizzle that did little but dampen the air. In the distance, Blade knelt down over the pair of bodies, examining them with the trio of men at his side. “I don’t know why.”

“I don’t like him,” Lena said. “You shouldn’t see him again.”

Honoria turned and shut the door behind them. Her eyes were burning with exhaustion. There’d be little mending finished tonight. She desperately needed sleep.

“I don’t have much choice. He’s our new protector.”

***

Blade examined the blood patterns as he knelt in the street like a statue. O’Shay shifted impatiently, but Tin Man and Will just watched, letting him do what needed to be done.

He shut his eyes and let the silence of the street filter through him. Small sounds and smells started jumping out at him. Whispers from nearby houses. A dog several streets over, harassed by a pack of street children. A young boy coughing. The stink of fried sole in the nearest house.

He shut them out, went deeper. Will’s heart was hammering along at a clipping rate. O’Shay had excitement running through his veins, ready to fight or hunt. It lingered on his skin like an acrid scent. Tin Man’s breath whistled through his iron lungs. And underneath it all was the faint, rotten smell of a blue blood gone wrong.

God
’ave mercy
. Blade went cold. He’d never smelled that scent—except for that moment earlier tonight—but he knew what it was. He should have listened to his instincts. The bloody creature had been
watching
him.

“Let’s hunt the limey bastard down,” O’Shay muttered. “We wait any longer and the trail’ll go cold.”

Blade held up a hand. And opened his eyes. “No. No one goes anywhere.”

His heart was starting to beat faster. One word of this, and the rookery would erupt like a stirred anthill as people killed each other trying to get out in a hurry. Right now a blue blood had murdered two men in Blade’s turf. Right now it was just a game between him and the Echelon. Everyone would be waiting around to see who was left standing at the end. They’d be laying coin down at Whitey’s and debating about what would change if the Echelon slit his throat and took over.

“We’re workin’ double shifts.” Until the monster was caught. Or if… “Will, you and O’Shay watch the Todd ’ousehold tonight. Watch your backs.”

“We gettin’ any relief when it starts gettin’ dirty?” O’Shay asked.

Blade stood and brushed the dust off his pants. “We’re only watchin’ the house at night. When the sun rises, you can seek your beds.”

Because there was no need to guard the rookery during the day. The creature—the blue blood gone wrong—couldn’t tolerate direct sunlight. It would go to ground, and that was when he would hunt it.

“Tin Man, you’re with me. Time to rouse the troops, get us ready for a dawn ’unt.”