Wicked Gentlemen (12 page)

My throat and shoulders spasmed with tearing pain. Blood welled out from the side of my head where my skin had split upon impact with the floor. My vision wavered as a ripple of darkness passed through my consciousness.

Brown lifted my face again, and this time I hung limply in his grip.

"What about it, Albert?" Brown asked. "Shall I split his little skull?"

"We want to know about the girl first." I heard Scott-Beck walk up on my left. "Ask him who she is."

"Well, then?" Brown shifted his weight on my back, rocking his groin against me as if I were a two-penny whore. "Where's the girl you've been working with, Sykes? What's her name?"

"I think it might be something like...Fuck You!" I could hardly think for the pain, but it didn't make me any more cooperative.

"Listen, Sykes. I can make you wish you were back in the Inquisition House." Brown pulled my head back a little more. I could see Scott-Beck out of the corner of my eye. He stroked his thick white beard and studied me. In my beaten state, I suddenly thought that he looked a great deal like a painting I had seen of Father Christmas. He considered me as if it pained him to see that I would be going down on his naughty list. "I don't know how far you're going to get with him—" Scott-Beck's words were cut short by a sharp rap at the door.

Scott-Beck walked back out of my view, but Brown remained on top of me. I heard Scott-Beck open the door.

"What is it, Tim?"

"There's a man from the Inquisition here." The secretary sounded slightly flustered.

"What does he want?"

"He says he's looking for a Prodigal named Belimai Sykes." The secretary's voice dropped to a whisper. "He won't go away."

"How inconvenient." Scott-Beck walked back to where Brown had me pinned. He dropped down beside me and took a firm grasp on my throat with both his hands.

 
"Lewis," he said to Brown, "you and Tim go down and get rid of the Inquisitor. I'm afraid that we're not going to have all the time we would have liked with Mr. Sykes."

As Brown rose off of me, Scott-Beck lifted me by my throat. I scrambled to gain my footing. Brown caught my arms and jerked them back behind me. Pain seared through my broken wrist.

"I was hoping to have a little longer with him," Brown said.

"Next time," Scott-Beck assured him. "Perhaps with the girl."

"Fair enough." Brown retreated back through the door with the secretary.

Scott-Beck sighed and then shoved me back against the desk. His expression was resigned, not even slightly perturbed. I knew from the sheer number of bottles on the shelf above us that he had murdered many Prodigals before me. If it had ever troubled his conscience, he was long past that now. Like the Confessors who had tortured me in the Inquisition, he was utterly at ease with himself and what he did.

I hated Scott-Beck for that.

Rage gave me a burst of strength. I kicked him as hard as I could and shoved against him. Scott-Beck stumbled but caught himself before I could twist free. He slammed his fist into my bleeding head with professional ease.

My vision went entirely black. Blind nausea swelled through me, enveloping all other sensations of my body. I rolled back into a senseless darkness and collapsed onto the desk.

Often in the last six years I had thought of my own death as a comfort. I had thought of it as I slid a needle into my soft flesh and imagined that it would be as easy and restful as the ophorium that poured into my blood. But now I knew I didn't want to die. Too much had been taken from me already. My life was all I had to claim.

A burst of stabbing agony brought me back up. Scott-Beck was leaning over me with one hand planted directly on my throat. My shirt and vest had been torn aside, and a bowl was tucked up next to my bare chest. With his free hand, Scott-Beck continued to slice a scalpel deep into my stomach.

Fury surged through my body. I had never felt anything like this before. A deafening roar ripped up from my throat. The sound of it was like a thunder clap. The window exploded. Scott-Beck took a stunned step back, the scalpel falling from his fingers to the floor. For a moment I thought my scream alone had caused all the blood to drain from his face.

Then I felt the heat of flames bursting up across the floor. I turned my beaten face and saw the Prodigal girl from Saint Christopher's Park hovering just outside the open window. Scott-Beck took another quick step backwards.

The girl moved forward, crouching on the windowsill. Her cracked red eyes followed Scott-Beck's every motion. I didn't think she was even aware of my presence.

"I can smell his blood on you," she said to Scott-Beck. "You murdered Peter."

Scott-Beck started for the door. The girl was faster than him. She sprang into the air and hurled one of her black-bladed knives. Scott-Beck dropped to the floor. The knife whipped over his head and drove into the wall. Flames burst up from the blade and spread across the wallpaper.

Scott-Beck barely paused. He lunged to one of the far shelves and snatched a box off of it. The girl rushed after him.

I rolled off the desk but didn't have enough strength to support myself. I slid down onto the floor. Flames climbed up the desk and consumed the wall behind me. I glanced back at the window, but there was no way I could get through the fire to reach it. I grabbed the back of a chair and pulled myself up. The motion sent bursts of pain through my body, but I forced myself past it. Already the heat of the growing fire distorted the air. Smoke caught in my lungs. If I didn't get out, I was going to be burned alive.

I stood in time to see Scott-Beck grab the girl's leg as she sprang at him. He slammed her into the floor with a brutal, practiced force. Then I saw what he had gotten from the shelf. He had a pistol.

If he killed her, there was no chance I would get out of the burning office. I grabbed the scalpel Scott-Beck had dropped. Its metal body was searing hot, but the burn hardly registered against the waves of pain that ran through the rest of my body.

I hurled the scalpel so hard that I almost fell again. The blade sank deep into Scott-Beck's neck. He stared back at me in utter shock.

All it took was that moment. The Prodigal girl drove one of her knives into Scott-Beck's arm. The pistol fell from his hand and a shot rang out.

Then there was a second and a third. I realized that they had come from the stairs. The door burst open and Harper rushed into the room.

"Belimai!" he called, then he stopped dead still at the sight of the girl. "Joan?"

The girl didn't even look at him. She leapt back out of Scott-Beck's grasp and then hurled another blade into his chest.

"Joan! No!" Harper caught her and pulled her back from Scott-Beck. Even with Harper's holding her, the girl didn't spare him a glance. She kept her eyes on Scott-Beck alone.

The hilt of her knife jutted up from Scott-Beck's ribcage. It glowed as if it were molten. Scott-Beck grasped it, desperate to pull it free of his body. Flames burst up over his hand. For a moment the smoke in the room smelled strongly of roasting meat, and then geysers of white-hot flame exploded up through Scott-Beck's chest. The man's mouth opened as if to scream, but only flames came rushing up into the empty air.

The Prodigal girl smiled as if she were at a carnival.

"You'd better get your friend out of here, Will." She pulled away from Harper. "He's been hurt rather badly."

I thought Harper was going to say something more to her, but then he rushed forward to me.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"A little." I swayed on my feet. The heat of the fire all around us was astounding. The smoke was beginning to bother my eyes. It was good that Harper had only been in the room for seconds. His body wasn't made to withstand this kind of heat and smoke. He coughed and wrapped his arm around me.

"Lean on me," he said.

I did. We got out of the room as fast as we could. The Prodigal girl just watched us and then floated up to the top of the shelves. I heard the sound of bottle after bottle smashing. Harper all but dragged me down the stairs. Halfway down he had to kick Brown's body out of his way. The secretary, Tim, lay with a bullet hole through his head at the foot of the stairs.

"Good shot," I muttered, but Harper didn't seem to hear me over the rising wail of the city fire sirens.

When we reached the street, dozens of Inquisitors were already gathered as well as Sisters from the Order of the Flame. Water pumps clanged and roared while the fire sirens continued to scream. Above us, explosive bursts of fire gushed through the windows and roof of the building. The smoke that poured out reeked of burning meat and rose perfume.

Harper laid me in the arms of one of the Sisters and turned back toward the burning building. I caught his arm, gripping it with the same hard force with which I clung to consciousness.

"You can let go now, Belimai," Harper said softly. "You're safe."

I dug my claws into Harper's coat sleeve, pulling him closer.

"She's gone," I whispered to him.

"You don't understand. I need evidence—" Harper was cut off as one of the Sisters pulled him back from me. I let go before my nails cut his skin.

Another of the Sisters moved in beside me. She hardly glanced at my face. To her I was only an assortment of wounds. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of my slashed stomach.

"He's losing blood." She pressed her hand over the wound. "Get me morphine and needles." Two young girls in white brought what she asked for immediately.

I realized, as the Sister to the left of me began to fill a syringe with morphine, that Harper had gone.

"Harper..." My voice barely carried above the chaos around me.

Inquisitors shouted at people to stay clear. Others barked orders to subordinates. The wheels of the water hoses and pumps chugged like train engines, and above it all the sirens continued to wail.

In their white caps and robes, the Sisters of the Order of the Flame closed around me like a wall. One of them lit a small lime torch. I flinched from the sudden brightness. A novice gently cradled my head back so that I was staring up into the sky.

I felt the familiar sting of a needle piercing my arm. The circle of Sisters closed in over my stomach. I distantly felt their fingers moving across my skin. I could hear one of them giving rapid orders, but the words themselves eluded me.

The pain and chill of my body began to slip away. I stared up into the night. High in the sky I thought I made out a thin black silhouette. A star shimmered behind her, and for a moment she seemed to flicker against the darkness like a single firefly.

I wondered if Harper saw her, or if she was looking down at him. Either way, the sight was not meant for me. I closed my eyes and let it go.

Chapter Twelve

Stitches and Alcohol

The Sisters' threads were so thin and their stitches so tiny that it was hard to imagine how they alone had barred death from my body. The scars that remained after the stitches were removed were white and faint. The one that ran up my stomach was hardly visible. Only a dull ache lingered from my broken wrist. It seemed that my body longed to erase any traces of Scott-Beck's crimes.

The editors of the newspapers had done much the same. Their stories read like a tragedies. A man of deep compassion, Albert Scott-Beck, as well as his associate, Lewis Brown, and his secretary, Timothy Howard, had perished in a terrible fire. Scott-Beck left behind a grieving wife, two children, and many friends from all walks of life. Hundreds of Prodigals held a vigil in his memory, and many attended the services in his honor.

The world, the papers said, was a darker place for his loss.

I clipped out an article, scrawled the word LIES across it, and then added it to my most recent scrapbook. I should have been immune to the sinking feeling of futility by now, and yet I wasn't. I was half-sick thinking of Prodigals weeping for a man who had murdered their children and friends. Scott-Beck was on his way to being remembered as a hero to our kind.

I wondered what Harper thought of all this, then regretted it. I hadn't seen nor heard from Harper in nearly three weeks. He had gotten what he needed of me, though I doubted it had been to his satisfaction, and now he was gone. That was to be expected. I shook my head, disgusted with my own loneliness. I had never expected things to work out with Harper. There could be nothing between us once my job was done. That was simply the way the world was. Somehow, it still cut into me deeply.

 
The night outside was hot and thick with insects. My rooms seemed to resound with emptiness, despite the stacks of book and papers. They were only evidence of my solitude. In any case, I was out of ophorium and had been for a day. I had to go out sooner or later.

I trudged out and wandered the streets. The darkness hung around me, but it was not enough to allow me to forget myself. I wandered farther until I found a familiar staircase. I remembered the dog's head painted on the wall and descended down into the ale house. I knew I was hoping to see Harper there, but I didn't want to admit that, not even to myself.