even start to believe it.
Boxes and crates crowded the benches, and
Jack muttered under his breath as he limped
through the darkness. "Down the end here! Give us
a lift, will you?"
Ingrid grabbed the box he'd indicated and
carried it toward him.
Jack turned, his breathing mask hanging loose
under his chin. Evidently the air down here didn't
affect his lungs too much, which was a good sign.
It scared her when he suffered one of his attacks,
and they'd been coming far too frequently for her
liking of late.
He took one look at her eyes and started.
"What is it? What's set you off?"
Her eyes were hot, and she knew that the
amber irises were flaring a dramatic bronze with
her mood. There was no point even trying to hide
it, and Ingrid trusted Jack. Ingrid dumped the crate
on the bench, growling under her breath.
"Malloryn's given me a new partner."
"Oh?" Jack crossed his arms over his
flamboyant waistcoat, though he moved slowly.
Once, a long time ago, the man who'd put Ingrid in
a cage had poured acid all over Jack's skin. Ingrid
hadn't expected him to survive, not with all of
those runnels and scarred pits in his flesh, but he
had. Jack was a survivor, just like her. But the
damage made him stiff, and ginger to the touch.
"Anyone I know?"
"Caleb Byrnes."
Watching her in a sidelong fashion, Jack slid
the crate lid open. "Not a name I'm familiar with."
Ingrid hadn't told him. She hadn't told anyone
about what had happened a year ago, though Jack’s
sister Rosa had somehow found out about it. Most
likely through her husband, Lynch, who used to be
the guild master of the Nighthawks. "He's a
Nighthawk."
"One of the new recruits, eh? You don't care
for him?" Jack hefted a microscope, wincing under
the strain.
Ingrid stepped forward quickly and lifted it
easily out of its nest of straw.
"Thanks," Jack told her, red spots heating his
cheeks. "So why does the Nighthawk bother you?"
Ingrid slid onto the bench and let her feet
dangle. "I've met him before. We worked together
last year during the Vampire of Drury Lane case."
"Ah."
"Ah?"
"I remember that case," he replied, wiping his
hands on his pants. "You weren't at all yourself for
nearly two weeks. I wondered what had set you
off. Or more importantly, who."
"It's not the who, so much as the how. He
makes me... so angry." Which wasn't quite the truth.
"Angry, or uncertain?"
Ingrid shot him a dark look. "Curse you. Both.
I don't know what he makes me feel." Too small for
her own skin, irritable, competitive... nervous.
"What does he look like?" Jack moved to
pour her a brandy, which was her poison of choice.
"He's a little taller than I and ridiculously
muscled." Or at least if her memory could be
believed. "Lean, dangerous-looking, the type of
blue eyes that can pin you on the spot and make you
feel naked."
"Handsome?"
Incredibly so. "If one is interested in dark-
haired men, then yes."
"Here's to handsome dark-haired men, then."
Jack smiled, as he clinked his glass against hers.
Ingrid threw the brandy back. "There was... a
bit of a moment between us last year."
"I'd guessed that. Do tell."
"We made a bet," she said, then filled him in
on the details, including the fact that she'd left
Byrnes tied to his bed. Naked.
Jack's eyebrows were both halfway to his
hairline. "Good God. What were you thinking?" A
laugh escaped him, then another. "Or were you?"
"It's not bloody funny," she said, which of
course set him off laughing again. "I was quite
prepared to enjoy what I'd started until he opened
that fat mouth of his and said something along the
lines of 'I knew I'd get you on your knees
eventually,' and then of course I reacted badly."
I... God, stop it, will you!"
Jack leaned against the bench, wiping his
eyes. One last wheeze of laughter escaped him,
then he tried to sober. "So what are you going to
do?"
"I have to work with him, clearly," she said.
"Whilst keeping him at arm's length. And that's if I
don't kill him first. He's already headed off to
follow his own leads."
“How vexing. Are you going to let him get
away with it?”
"Absolutely not." She crossed her arms over
her chest. "I am not going to let that man get under
my skin ever again. I swear."
"You could just go to bed with him and burn
this curiosity out of your blood, you know.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous. And there is no
‘curiosity.’” But her cheeks heated.
“Liar,” Jack replied.
Ingrid lifted her head as noise rasped above
them. "And that sounds like a saw. Ava must be
starting the autopsy. I wanted to be there to see it."
"Just in case you learn some interesting little
tidbit that might give you the head start on
Byrnes?" Jack's smile was pure innocence.
"It's tempting, I agree. Then I remember
there's a dead woman upstairs who will never get
to return home to her family, and it reminds me that
there are more important things to life than
rivalry." Ingrid sighed as a woman's half-
remembered face sprang to mind, a face that
looked like hers. Sometimes she wondered if she
were only imagining those bronze eyes and dark
hair, or whether it truly was a memory. "What if
this poor girl has children at home, Jack? Or a
husband waiting for her?"
"You're thinking of your parents. You'll find
them one day, Ingrid."
She merely shrugged. The telegram burned a
hole in her pocket. Hope couldn't burn bright
forever, but if she couldn't find her own parents,
then at least she could bring the dead girl home to
hers. "I have to find the people who did this so I
can help lay that poor woman to rest. And if that
means working with Byrnes, then I can lay aside
my pride for the moment."
"Just be careful. If that woman was torn apart
by some sort of animal, then you might be dealing
with more than you can handle. You're not
invincible, Ingrid, though you might be damned
hard to kill."
Ingrid paused to brush a kiss across his cheek.
"I love you too. But you can be an old fusspot at
times."
BACK AT THE GUILD, Byrnes finally collapsed
into his sheets after a long fruitless search through
the archives. The only comparison between the
cases was the use of Doeppler orbs to dispel the
gas, and the fact that people had died. Once
again,
if the killer had been a blue blood in a blood
frenzy, then they wouldn't have stopped. There
would have been more bodies, more blood.
Not a trail that vanished.
His lead had shriveled into nothing.
So what else did they have? What did the
Begby Square disappearances have in common
with the Venetian Gardens, besides the missing
people?
No signs of a struggle. That wasn't much use,
and Ava was working on that. An unidentified
body, ravaged by... something. No lead there. Not
yet. His mind threw up an image of the flag that had
been painted in blood.
There'd been a black flag painted on the walls
near Begby Square. The same letter there too, a
“0.”
He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen
that black flag symbol before. The more he
worried at it, like a dog with a bone, the more
convinced he became.
But where, damn it?
He was just falling off to sleep when he
finally realized where he'd seen it.
Byrnes's eyes shot open. "Debney."
FIVE
IT WAS THE early hours of the following morning
before the door to Debney's bedroom opened and
the young viscount staggered in, kicking the door
shut with one boot even as he tried to remove his
striped coat. And failed. Debney staggered,
looking down as though somewhat perplexed by
the way his elbow simply wouldn't bend out of the
way.
Bloody hell. He was soused.
"A good night by the look of it, Debney,"
Byrnes said, stretching in the chair he'd been
napping in. Every Nighthawk knew how to snatch a
few winks of sleep here and there when they were
on a case.
Debney nearly jumped out of his pale skin,
tripping over a pair of boots that had been left on
the floor and knocking a tray of cologne off the top
of his vanity. It bounced, luckily. "Blood and ashes,
Caleb! Give a man a fit next time.... What are you
doing skulking about in my bedchamber?" Sneering
slightly, he used the tip of his boot to lift the
baseboard quilt around the hem of his bed. "No
murderers tucked under 'ere, eh?"
"By the look of it, nothing but cobwebs and
dust." Byrnes took a sniff. "Were you swimming in
a vat of brandy?"
Clearly the viscount had been participating in
a rather dedicated spree of dissipation if he was
coming home this late after the sun had risen, but
Byrnes had smelled gin hovels in Whitechapel
whose scent was less inclined to knock him off his
feet.
Debney sprawled back on the bed, lifting his
heel. "'Ere. Help me get these off."
Byrnes stood and took a slow circuit of the
room, trying to breathe through his mouth. "I'm not
your valet, Francis. Get them off yourself." Picking
up one of the sprawled bottles of cologne, he
ignored the young viscount and took an
experimental sniff, then recoiled. How anybody
could wear so many chemicals astounded him. You
wouldn't be able to smell anything else.
Slight improvement on Debney though.
Debney grunted, and then a boot hit the floor.
With a sigh, he collapsed back on the bed. "So
what do you want?"
Taking the jug of water on the washstand,
Byrnes poured a glass, then crossed to the bed,
considering the state of the viscount. "I need to ask
you some questions about something, and I can't
explain why."
Debney sighed, his eyelids fluttering closed.
Byrnes threw the glass of water in his face.
"Jesus!" Debney came up, wide-eyed and
wet. "You sodding bastard!" He looked down at
himself, hands held wide. "What was that for?"
"To wake you up." Byrnes put the glass aside,
then dragged his chair around and resettled in it.
Tugging a piece of paper from his pocket, he held
up the photograph of the Begby Square black flag.
"Have you seen this symbol before?"
He'd thought that nothing would sober Debney
up at this rate, but the second the viscount saw the
picture, his face paled even further and his Adam's
apple bobbed in his throat. "Put that away. I'm
going to cast up my accounts."
Byrnes complied, watching as his half brother
stumbled to the basin and retched. Hell. He rubbed
at his temples. "I know I saw an invitation with that
symbol embossed upon it on your desk a few
months ago."
Debney spat and rinsed then turned, giving
him a frightened look. "I don't know what you're
working on. I don't care. But if you go digging into
that symbol, then you won't find whatever puzzle
piece you're looking for. You'll simply die, Caleb."
Well, now. Byrnes took his chair again,
resting his elbows on his knees. "You know who's
behind it."
Debney shook his head. "Don't. I beg of you.
If they find out I told you about it—"
"How are they going to find out? Nobody
knows of the connection between us." A connection
he'd be quite pleased to keep quiet forever.
"They'll find out. They always do," Debney
protested.
"Who are they?"
"Caleb—"
"If you think I'm going to leave this alone, then
you don't know me very well," Byrnes replied. "I
can make your life hell, Francis. Besides..." His
eyes narrowed to thin slits. "You owe me."
"I always bloody owe you," Debney snapped,
pacing the room. "When will it end? You cannot
keep calling in this debt! Do you think that if I
could go back and change things, then I wouldn't? I
would. I swear, I would. I'd have sent word to the
Council that his craving virus levels were high. Or
I'd have... stood up to him—"
"If you could go back, you'd cower behind
your mother's skirts the same way you did then."
An abrupt slice of the hand cut the young lord off in
his tracks. "Let's not pretend any different."
"He always—"
"We're not talking about your father," Byrnes
countered, and the crack of his voice startled
Debney into silence. "Not now. Not ever."
Sullen and starting to shake now, Debney
stared at him belligerently. "Unless you want
something," he said, "and use him to browbeat me
into complying. And he's your father too! This is
the last time, Caleb. The last. I do this, and I don't
owe you anything else. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. Tell me what I need to know and
I'll never bother you again."
Something about Debney's eyes caught his
attention. A sudden, stricken expression.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
"It doesn't matter." The viscount collapsed on
the bed. "It's not like you'd care anyway, or as if I
mean anything to you."
Byrnes stared at him.
Debney saw his perple
xed look and laughed.
"Look at you. Not even a hint of consternation. You
just want to know about your precious black flag. It
wouldn't bother you to walk away and never look
back, would it?"
For the first time, Byrnes felt some stir of
emotion, hot and bloody. He'd been trying not to
think about it, but this house—and all the memories
it contained—disconcerted him. "No. It wouldn't."
Debney looked away. "They're called the
Sons of Gilead. Don't ask me why. I'm hardly in
favor at the moment."
S.O. G. Everything inside him lit on fire.
"Who are they?"
"A group of disgruntled Echelon lords who
don't like the new world order the queen has
presented us with."
"Names?"
Debney's nostrils flared. "Caleb—"
"Who are you protecting? Yourself? Your
friends? Are they involved?"
"I don't have any friends, curse you. Look
around. I'm certain it hasn't escaped your notice
that I'm distinctly short of a valet at the moment. I
had to let my thrall go earlier this year too—I
couldn't afford to pay her the pin money the queen
insists every thrall must receive, thanks to her new
laws, so Elsie had to return to her father. In the
eyes of the Echelon I'm in dun territory. Creditors
keep hounding me, and my so-called friends seem
to have vanished off the face of the earth. My
mother's dead, my brother wants nothing to do with
me, and even though old Henslow and his wife are
still here, I'm fairly certain I'm going to have to let
them go by the end of the year too.
"You know what?" Debney seemed to find
some strength from somewhere. "Who am I
protecting? Myself? What a joke. There's nothing
to protect. Maybe if they killed me it'd be a bloody
relief. I'll even do you a favor—consider it one for
the road before we part. There's an invitation
around here somewhere for a house party this
weekend at Lord Ulbricht's country home. The
bloody SOG are throwing some kind of party for
young disaffected lordlings like me. I dismissed it,
for I'm not an idiot—it's a recruiting drive if ever
I've seen one, and I'd really rather not be caught
between the ruling Council of Dukes and the SOG
—but I'll give it to you. It's on the secretary there, I
think."
Byrnes examined him for a moment longer.
They'd never truly been brothers and he despised
most of what Debney was, but there was a sense of
hopelessness in his half brother's face. This was