Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge (35 page)

“Do you envy them?” Eva asked as they passed one house, with its brightly lit front window showing the people inside like actors on a stage.

“There ain’t no thought in it,” he said. “They’re all doing what they think they’re supposed to, but what’s the fun of it? Where are the guts?”

“Perhaps they don’t want fun or guts. Perhaps all they want is security, certitude.”

“Only one thing’s certain,” he said. “We’re all going to wind up in the ground. Way I figure it, that leaves us free to do what we want. Not shut ourselves away in tidy boxes.”

“Radical notion,” she answered. “You might be a revolutionary.”

“Don’t go picking out my crate and setting me up on Speakers’ Corner,” he warned. “I’m just trying to survive, not change the world.” The world could take care of itself. He had his own skin to look after.

But as he, Eva, and Simon walked down a tree-lined street, heading toward Miss Jones’s house, a kick of worry beat beneath his pulse. Worry for the young lady. Eva had said that the girl’s handwriting looked shaky, which meant she’d written her note in a state of distress. Rockley might have threatened her again, or done worse. Jack knew that Eva could take care of herself, but most females hadn’t been given much to defend themselves. They were at the mercy of men and the law, neither of which seemed to care much about the fate of women.

But that’s why Nemesis existed.

Miss Jones’s house was one of the smaller buildings on her block. Unlike most of the other houses, only a few lights burned in the windows. Simon knocked on the door, and after a minute, the girl herself answered the door. Pinched lines showed on either side of her mouth. She looked as if she’d aged ten years in just a few days. Her face was pale, and she twisted a handkerchief in her hands. She definitely didn’t look happy to see any of them on her front step.

“Come in, please,” she said, holding the door open. “I’ve sent our maid out, so we’re alone.”

They all stepped into the entryway as Eva asked, “Where are your parents?”

“Also out.”

“Tell us what this is about,” Jack said.

Miss Jones turned and moved down the hallway. “I’ve got some tea ready in the kitchen.”

Jack, Eva, and Simon all shared a look after she disappeared through a door.

“Don’t like it,” Jack muttered.

Eva frowned. “She’s acting oddly, that’s true.”

“Odd behavior or no,” Simon noted, “she’s our client. If Rockley’s threatening her further, we need to help.”

“Will you come?” Miss Jones asked, reappearing in the doorway.

Feeling restless and ill at ease, Jack followed the others as they filed into a medium-sized kitchen. Racks of pans lined the walls, and an iron stove took up one side of the room. A round table stood in one corner, surrounded by chairs, and beside the table was another door that looked like it led to a pantry.

Miss Jones waved toward the table. “Please sit.”

Jack glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s the tea?”

“I beg your pardon?” the girl asked, looking even more pale despite the heat of the stove.

“You said you’d made tea.” Eva nodded at a kettle, still hung up on its hook. “It’s not even on the fire.”

Miss Jones’s face seemed to crumple. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

Jack heard them before they came into the room—men. He spun to face the door just as three huge bruisers wielding clubs came barreling through. Two more blokes charged from the pantry, one of them holding a lead pipe and the other sporting a pair of brass knuckles.

It was as though someone had rung the bell to start the match—everything became instinct. He grabbed a heavy long-handled pan from its rack and swung it at the three men. From the corner of his eye, he saw Simon tussling with the bloke holding the pipe, ducking to avoid the swinging blows and throwing punches of his own. Eva had a chair in her hands and jabbed its legs at the chap with the brass knuckles, holding him back.

Jack weaved to the side as a club-wielding thug swung at him. He countered by striking with the pan. The thug wasn’t fast enough to dodge the hit, and took the pan hard on the side of his head. He staggered. Jack cracked the pan onto the bloke’s arm. The thug shouted in pain, and his club went flying, smashing into the racks on the walls and sending pots and pans crashing to the floor. The bloke sank to his knees, whimpering as he cradled his broken arm.

Miss Jones shrieked, flinging her handkerchief into the air.

Jack didn’t pay her any mind as he faced the other two near the kitchen entrance. They rushed him at the same time. He picked up an iron spit that lay on the ground, and, armed with the pan in one hand and the spit in the other, parried the bruisers’ strikes. One club caught him across the back, and he grunted with the impact. But he wouldn’t release his makeshift weapons. He kept swinging at the two thugs, holding his ground when they tried to force him back into the corner.

Simon wrestled with the bloke holding the pipe, grabbing hold of it with both hands and using it as leverage to shove his attacker into the wall. Once he had his opponent pinned against the wall, Simon rammed his knee into the bloke’s gut. As the thug doubled over, Simon punched him in the nose. Blood spurted, bright red, and Miss Jones screamed again, louder than the bloke with the smashed nose.

As Jack continued to fight with the two other bruisers, he saw Eva swinging the chair at Brass Knuckles.

“Careful with that, little miss,” the thug sneered. “Might hurt somebody.”

“Like this?” She brought the chair up and raked the points of its legs across Brass Knuckles’s knees. He staggered, then landed on his hands and knees right in front of the stove. She leaped to him and opened the stove’s door, slamming it against his head. Brass Knuckles shouted in pain, but his shouts stopped after Eva gave him a few more good knocks against the iron stove and he collapsed onto the tile floor.

Well, goddamn Jack if the sight of Eva pummeling a thug into unconsciousness wasn’t one of the prettiest things he’d ever seen.

He still had his two club-holding attackers to worry about, though. When one of the blokes lunged for him, Jack slapped the length of the spit against his belly. As the thug crumpled, Jack plunged the spit in and out of his shoulder. The bloke clutched at his wound as blood seeped through his fingers.

That left one remaining thug. He looked at Jack, then at Eva, then at Simon, and finally at his friends writhing in agony on the floor of a suburban kitchen. Dropping his club, he ran from the room.

Jack chased him to the front door. The thug pushed a passing man to the ground as he raced down the street, and Jack shouted at the bruiser’s retreating back, “You tell that fucking bastard that nothing’s stopping me!”

The thug turned a corner and vanished.

As Jack started to shut the door, a bobby marched up the walkway. He tensed, readying himself to fight or run if the copper tried to nab him.

“No need for that language, sir!” the bobby snapped. “This is a respectable neighborhood.”

Before he could say anything, Eva appeared at Jack’s side. “Thank God you’re here, Constable. There was an attempted burglary, and we only just managed to escape unscathed.”

The copper blew on his whistle, and in a few minutes, half a dozen patrolmen milled around inside Miss Jones’s kitchen. Jack kept a good distance between himself and the police, hovering at the edge of the room, keeping his face in the shadows.

“What the hell happened?” one of the bobbies demanded, staring at the groaning, wounded thugs. “Beg your pardon, ladies,” he added, glancing at Eva and Miss Jones.

“We were visiting our friend when these horrible men burst in and demanded our valuables,” Eva said in a shaky voice. “It was simply dreadful!” She ran and threw her arms around Jack, burying her face against him, and he patted her back. It didn’t help that his blood was high after the fight, and feeling her pressed against him made him want another kind of action.

“Looks like you did a number on them,” another copper said, sounding chary.

“I was at Rorke’s Drift,” Simon said flatly.

The constables all looked suitably awed and impressed, and Jack had to admit he was, too. He hadn’t known that about Simon—if it was true. It had to be. That wasn’t the kind of thing a bloke lied about.

“And you?” the first constable asked Jack.

Simon spoke before Jack could. “He was my batman.” With a shrug, Simon added, “It’s impossible to lose a soldier’s instincts. When these men attempted to rob us, we acted according to our training.”

“Thank the heavens for it!” Eva added. “These criminals would have stolen our valuables and murdered us, had it not been for these gentlemen’s quick thinking.”

“Whose house is this?” the constable asked.

“M-mine,” Miss Jones stammered. “It happened j-just like they said. Please—take these men away.”

“We’ll need you to file a report, miss.”

“It will have to wait until tomorrow.” Simon’s tone wouldn’t take a refusal. He sounded exactly like the upper cruster he was. “The women are clearly distraught.”

The coppers all blustered their agreement. After clapping restraints on the thugs, the police carted them off in a Black Maria. Cramped and uncomfortable, those vans were. Jack had slammed around in it like a caged dog when they’d taken him away, as if he could have knocked the metal sides down. But the blokes inside now were too injured to do more than groan as the van drove off.

“I’m sorry,” Miss Jones cried once they were alone again in the wrecked kitchen. Weeping, she covered her face with her hands. “I’m so very sorry. I had no choice.”

As Jack and Simon stood with their arms crossed, Eva held out a fresh handkerchief. “Tell us what happened.”

The girl blew her nose. “I saw in the paper that a criminal’s body was pulled from the Thames, and I recognized Mr. Dutton—that is, Mr. Dalton—from the picture accompanying the story.” She glanced at him. “You were so kind to me, and I believed for certain that Lord Rockley had killed you. I was … horrified. Outraged. I knew I had to do something.”

Eva pinched the bridge of her nose. “God, tell me you didn’t.”

Miss Jones gazed at the broken crockery scattered across the floor. “Clearly, I did.”

“And clearly, I ain’t dead,” Jack said.

“I know that
now
,” the girl answered.

Jack snorted. “Don’t sound so glum about it.”

Clenching his jaw, Simon said, “You should have come to us.”

“I thought it was my involving you that led to Mr. Dalton’s death,” Miss Jones replied. “I was determined to see an end to this. So I summoned my courage and went to Lord Rockley.” She held up a hand before Jack, Eva, or Simon could scold her for such stupidity. “It was dangerous and injudicious, I know, but I believed I could handle the problem on my own. I said that I knew he’d murdered Mr. Dalton, and that he had to turn himself over to the police at once.”

“Which he didn’t do,” Jack said.

“He laughed at me,” the girl confessed. “‘Dalton’s an escaped convict, a menace,’ he said. ‘I’ve done the law a favor by killing him. They’ll give me a commendation for ridding the world of such scum.’”

Fire raced through Jack’s veins to hear Rockley’s words—though they weren’t a surprise. If ever two men had been placed on this blighted earth to hate each other, those men were Jack and Rockley.

“Then he threw me out,” Miss Jones continued. “He said I was to tell no one, or he’d make my life even more miserable than it already was. I was so … ashamed … and frightened, I couldn’t leave my home or speak to anyone. Not even my parents. But then, this morning, Lord Rockley showed up at my door. He said that I had to summon the people I had working for me, and that he would take care of the rest.”

“And if you disobeyed him?” Eva asked.

“He’d hurt my parents.” The girl’s eyes and voice were pleading. “I had to do it. You must understand that.” She broke down into another round of sobs.

“The bastard put it together.” Jack swore under his breath. “The girl goes to him on account of him ‘killing’ me, then I show up at the brothel to take the evidence.”

“So he connects you and the blackmailing to Miss Jones,” Eva said.

“And Miss Jones to us,” Simon finished.

“He might not know Nemesis’s name,” said Eva, “but he realizes that there’s a larger force behind her attempt at retribution. What could be easier than luring us to her home and killing us all in one fell swoop?”

Jack wished there were more of Rockley’s thugs around so he had something—some
one
—to hit.

“We can’t wait another bloody minute,” he snarled. “It’s got to end. Now.”

“It will end.” Eva’s gaze moved to the small windows set high in the wall, where the last shreds of daylight died. “Tonight.”

*   *   *

Eva knew the threat had never been higher. None of them could discount the possibility that Rockley had Miss Jones’s house watched. They’d instructed the girl to take her family and go somewhere safe for a few days. Things with Rockley had escalated, so the Joneses needed to be out of harm’s way.

Eva, Jack, and Simon took a twisting, circuitous route back to headquarters—doubling, sometimes tripling back, changing carriages, riding omnibuses, and going on foot. By the time Eva, Jack, and Simon reached the chemist’s shop, it had been hours since sunset.

When she reported to Marco, Lazarus, and Harriet about the ambush at Miss Jones’s home, the first response was shocked silence. Followed by every voice raised at once. All of Nemesis had an opinion, and they spoke it—loudly.

Eva raised her hands, demanding quiet. “We’re finishing this. Immediately.”

“I’ve got a note here,” Simon added, “that will be delivered to Rockley within the hour. We’re arranging an exchange: ten thousand pounds in return for the evidence.”

“That won’t do any sodding good,” Jack rumbled. “Saying he doesn’t double-cross us—which he will—all we’re getting out of him is money. He’ll continue grinding people into the dirt. Nothing’s going to keep him from hurting more women.”

She pulled out a metal strongbox, smaller than the one taken from the brothel, and removed a packet of documents. Handing the papers to Jack, she said, “Have a look at these.”