Rooks and Romanticide (6 page)

“Just start cleaning up out here, all of you,” he grumbled. “I'll go calm the crowd….”

“Yes, my lord,” Weston murmured, dropping low in a bow.

“
Damn
those Ruslaniv
dogs and all their supporters
!” Cain stormed around a lawn chair someone had knocked down in their panic. He left Weston and the other servants to clean, and by the time he slipped back inside to a sobbing Emily and a fuming Aunt Ophelia, he had a splitting headache to go with the subsequent tremble of such a demanding affair.

And quite a few guests to placate.

Damn
those Ruslaniv
dogs
.

 

 

L
EVI
THOUGHT
of everything he'd ever heard about the young Earl Dietrich, and the cool night air felt good on his flushed skin.

Maybe it was the last of the thrill from the gunfight, a rusty exhilaration that he hadn't felt so fresh and hot in a long time. Or maybe it was the liquor he'd snatched before hopping the outer wall of the manor, throwing back one gulp after another like a man on the streets flirting with death. Or maybe it really was just the rush of having been so close to the Dietrich head, close enough to shove his tongue in the Earl's mouth, to wrap his fingers around that pretty little neck and—

Damn!

There were a few things commonly known about the young Earl Dietrich, the first being that of his general peculiarity. It wasn't exactly every other day a powerful and infamous household was run by a lord of nineteen, let alone one as ruthless and methodical as the one in question.

Then there was the matter of the Earl's disappearance a few years back, when his parents had been murdered… and the matter of his random return.

Although Levi knew the circumstances of the Earl's kidnapping, those of his homecoming were still unexplained.

Lastly there was the fact that his eyes were a color somewhere between winter-sky gray and pale blue, a failure of pigmentation from birth that had just never gone away. That had been one of the favorite topics a few years ago, back when the Earl Dietrich had just been
the heir
. Over bonbons and vodka, they'd laughed in Ruslaniv parlors and salons about how weak the Dietrich genetics seemed to be, spitting out an heir with colorless eyes. Probably the result of incest. Or perhaps it was God's curse on them for their sins
—
whatever sins those were. The sins his family loathed the Dietrichs for.

Levi had seen them for himself, those pale colorless eyes, while he'd sat above Lovers' Lane one unfortunate, sludgy afternoon. God damn it all, he should have
known
when he'd seen the “Death of the Ruslanivs” and felt that those haunting eyes beyond all the paint were familiar!

Levi squinted into the empty liquor bottle, wondering if there was even a sip left. Drinking so much so fast had rendered him a little dizzy.

He thought about the Earl and the way the lights had danced in that colorless stare. He'd been so guarded and mysterious in that mocking costume of his, which he himself had admitted was not his style. What a terribly bewitching creature, so dark and beautiful—like a stormy sky—and his kisses had been so hot and inviting—

Damn, damn,
damn
!

Levi doubled over, wondering if he might be sick.

It seemed utterly melodramatic to him, more like vicious butterflies ripping him apart from the inside.

He'd been so close to the Earl Dietrich, this heir of the house his own family hated, this notorious lord he'd only ever seen from a careful distance. He'd been so close he could have killed him with his own two hands.

And he hadn't.

He didn't loathe himself for tangling with the Earl when he'd been unaware, but—under those mossy arcades, when his heart had fallen and he'd realized that the little cloaked figure of Death was the earl it was in his blood to despise,
he could have killed him
, and he hadn't!

In betrayal of some sick sense of loyalty or twisted justice that really didn't move him one way or the other at all, he'd felt a strange, inchoate shiver deep inside, like the first whispers of an inner renaissance. He'd fled as if fleeing would really stop an inner awakening of something numb and deadened.
He'd fled
.

Levi sat with his back against the wall of the Dietrich grounds, glaring into the empty bottle where it reflected light from the windows on the other side of the Lincolnshire wall, and he was in awe. It was a cold, wondrous emptiness like the feeling of rage without any of the resentment.

Odd.

There was a rustle in the foliage outside the wall, a muffled hiss of “There! Found him!” before Eliott tumbled out of the bushes with quite a few leaves stuck in his hair and his suit coat falling off one shoulder, glasses on and mask casually stuck atop his head. His tinted spectacles were in his breast pocket. The Blond One followed, in his purple brocade, and behind him, the One with Glasses, tailed by the Witch and William, all looking a bit disheveled and reckless but satisfied all the same.

Eliott came to a stop in front of Levi, perhaps not as steady on his feet as he should have been, and Levi threw him a proud smirk.

“You know,” he said decidedly, “I have a pretty capable team if the lot of you managed to pull that off
drunk
.”

“I'm not drunk, I'm tipsy,” Eliott insisted, tossing bothersome hair out of his face. He grinned down at Levi with a suspicious gleam in his eye, and Levi's smile faded.

“What's that look for?” he asked, but the Witch interrupted.

“They didn't even search the damn place!” she cried triumphantly. Surely she was freezing with what little she wore below the fur-collared coat so kindly offered by William. “Well, I mean, Will, that one guard almost caught you, but you weren't being careful. Really, it's like they didn't even care!”

“It's because they
don't
care,” the One with Glasses replied, so cold and calculating, per usual. “It was a taunt and nothing more, and they knew that. Why would they search for tricksters when they can just strike back later?”

“Good point,” Levi agreed, jabbing a finger in his direction.

It should have been sickening, how right he was. How these things were so normal, such commonplace events all throughout New London. Gunfights and threats, games of back-and-forth with bullets.
Tag, you're it. What's your move, white?
What a world to live in, where it was just the natural way of things to continually shoot at one's neighbor until finally someone really got hurt, and then everyone was outraged like they had no idea how someone could do such a thing.

Eliott waved his hands, frantic with a sudden thought. Levi suffered a gnawing feeling of dread it had something to do with the dark gleam in his eyes. “Listen, be quiet for a second—Levi, we've got an idea, and I think you're going to like it….”

All at once, the other members of BLACK circled closer, like ravens over the dead on street corners, excitement quickening their faces. And, in their shadows, Levi felt his stomach drop.

“Do you, now?” he whispered.

 

 

“I
T
WAS
the Earl in that disgusting costume—”

“Can you believe his audacity?”

“Ooh, I just wanna make him
bleed
—”

“Levi, you
held a conversation
with the Earl!”

And kissed him too, and surely the Ruslanivs' enemy shouldn't have tasted so sweet and ready for action.

“Disrespectful—atrocious—mocking us like that, so flagrantly—
”

“Did he know it was you, Levi?”

“No, he didn't know it was me. Nobody ever knows it's me. My father's made sure of that much, you know that.”

“But Levi, here's my idea….”

If Levi was getting as close to the Earl as the Blond One said he was, he should get closer to him—or so was Eliott's logic. Yes, Levi should get
really
close. Pretend to be arbitrary, get the Earl to trust him. It would be a connection straight inside the Dietrich house, direct access to all the most pertinent Dietrich secrets. Maybe even a glimpse inside the mad little earl's head too. Imagine
that
advantage.

“It's too dangerous,” Will snapped. “I don't think your father would approve of it at all, Levi.”

Levi shrugged. “I don't either, anyway.”

It was just preposterous. It was asinine. It was laughable. The proposition left a bad taste in Levi's mouth. Or maybe it was the fruity Dietrich liquor. But drunken schemes were the best and the worst. Weren't they…?

With a scatter of rocks and dead leaves, a scuff of his heel against stacked stone, Levi slipped down the inside of the gothic wall that ran around the grounds of the Dietrich estate. Palms raw and knees sore from uneven Lincolnshire stone, his feet hit the grass, and he dropped to a crouch, waiting for any sign of guards nearby. Putting his mask back on compromised his peripheral vision. He didn't like it.

Even from the back, the Dietrich house was altogether the essence of grandeur. The house was monstrous. Parapets and chimneys soared. The windows were tall. Dark gnarled and knotted trees, which had lost most all their leaves already, lined the courtyard. The ornate fountains bore roaring stone lions. A wooden swing swayed idly from the branch of a deadened tree, but it was broken and hung cockeyed, mossy and seemingly untouched for years.

A juvenile little exhilaration pumped through Levi's veins like a current, and as he caught his breath, he shook his head at his companions' words again and thought,
They jest at scars that have yet to feel a real wound
.

Levi followed the wall to the manor, passing the vast courtyard and slinking toward the shadows of the house, barely breathing just to keep a keen ear for the sound of anyone tailing him. He'd heard stories that Dietrich guards were brutal, and while that was a thrilling challenge, he didn't really feel like facing it tonight. He inched along the southern wing of the manor, lingering under the vines and little poplars that grew along the stone.

The house was unlit save for a few upper windows and one room with its balcony doors open, spilling warm light down on the dark lawn. Levi froze in the shadows at the slight rustle of movement. He fell still, wondering if he'd been seen. The night was silent for a breath or two, just the rush of the cool wind through the trees, the sounds of activity inside the big house muffled and faraway, leaking out from the balcony threshold. And God, what had he gotten himself into now, letting BLACK talk him into this? Stop, wait, don't breathe, where had the sound come from in the first place? And then, brisk and unsympathetic from above:

“You're lucky I've kept the hounds in tonight. Haven't you heard? They're beasts. They'll tear you limb from limb.”

Crouched in the shadow of the Dietrich wall, Levi almost choked on his tongue. But he recognized the voice. If anything, the cocky tone gave it away in an instant.

Levi stood with a creak of leather holsters beneath his fine shirt as he noticed a familiar-looking revolver poking out over the edge of the balcony, around the side of a stone gargoyle perched on the corner. Reflected light bounced off the muzzle. How opportune that he had been passing by this balcony of all the ones on the house—

“Show yourself.” It was the same demanding voice, but this time Levi realized that the hidden speaker already knew who it was lurking below his balcony.

The Earl Dietrich's face appeared then, peeking around the balcony gargoyle. When Levi shifted forward into the pale slant of light, the Earl seemed to falter a little, uncertainty darting behind the mask of importance on his face. God, but what a face. He was an eerie little prince, sage-like and cruel, perfect youth and the bleakness of tragedy. There was still some paint left on his throat and face from that gaudy insult of a costume—the “
Death of the Ruslanivs
,” really, now?

The bitter night chill kicked the hair off the Earl's temple and lent Levi a clearer look at the soft white skin of his face, the haunting eyes written through with confusion—and just as he'd seen earlier in the grand hall and the courtyard, just as they all gossiped, his eyes were a pale, washed-out gray.
Weak genetics
. Or fragilely stunning, like ice in the sun.

“
You
—” was what the Earl said next, spitting it out like the word was the worst tasting one he'd ever spoken. Cain was his first name, if Levi remembered correctly.
Cain
, like the Biblical story, or
fair
in Welsh?

Cain scowled, pulling his revolver back but not abandoning it just yet. He leaned forward. “How the hell did you—? Have you been hiding out here all this time? The ball is over, and most everyone's gone. What are you still doing here? I'll have you arrested for trespassing!”

“Many apologies, my lord….” Levi jumped in before the Earl could finish his tirade, and he dipped down into a wide bow. That empty cold was still there, filling him up to the point of breathlessness. Like rage, but no anger. It was the strangest, most restless feeling he'd had in a long while. “‘The Death of the Ruslanivs,' hmm?” he mused aloud, smirking bitterly.