Not missing a beat, she curtsied, and quite nicely. “Miss Mary Chase.”
Mary Chase. She was a small bit of skirt. He’d be surprised if she weighed more than seven stone. But he had no doubt she’d give any man who wished to pursue her a merry chase. And Jack knew he’d try to catch her. She smiled up at him as though she just might let him. Again came the disconcerting feeling of knowing her, a baffling mix of lust and dread.
Before he could say a thing, ask her for a stroll in the park or simply tell her how utterly lovely he found her, Lucien sauntered in, his queer celadon eyes taking in how close they stood to each other and no doubt the way Jack gazed down on Mary as if thunderstruck, for he was. A lazy smile tilted Stone’s mouth as he glided up and, without preamble, wrapped an arm about Mary.
Mary froze, her expression going blank. Then resignation reigned in the golden depths of her eyes, as if she’d been caught out and knew it.
“I see you’ve met my Mary.” Stone’s hand slid up and down her narrow waist.
Jack struggled to speak. He did not miss the possessive quality in Lucien’s tone, nor the way the man’s fingers were creeping up to stroke the underside of Mary’s pert breast. The very sight had Jack’s hands fisting.
“Yes, I had the pleasure,” he said through his teeth.
Lucien gave a short laugh. “Believe me, lad, the pleasure is all mine.” And then his blunt-tipped finger ran right over Mary Chase’s nipple.
He might as well have pulled the rug out from under Jack’s feet. She simply stood there, letting Stone debase her in front of a stranger—a shocking act that only a doxy would allow. Saliva filled Jack’s mouth as heat washed over his face.
“I’m certain it is.” Disappointment, the sense of wrongness about the whole thing, nearly made his knees buckle. Jack couldn’t see her standing there, being fondled as if it were nothing more than a handshake, and keep his sanity.
He reached for his hat and clamped it on his head as Mary Chase stared up at him with wide brown eyes that held what might have been a plea. And then it hit him with the force of a steamer running full throttle, the familiar feel of her, why he thought he knew her. Because he did. Those eyes, that same pleading look. He’d faced those eyes before, just before he’d… Bile surged up his throat on a gag, the ground beneath him swaying. A cold sweat bloomed along his skin. Holy hell. She certainly didn’t remember their first meeting or she would be at his throat.
He needed to leave. Now. And he needed to drive a wedge in deep, because he could never look upon Mary Chase again with any sense of honor.
He found his voice, though it was cold and dead, like his heart. Which was perhaps just as well, for if she ever knew how much she affected him, he’d never regain his pride. And it was the one thing he had left in this world. “It was an entertaining show, at any rate.” He forced himself to look down at her br**sts. Those lovely br**sts that would never be within his reach. Again came the coldness, washing out the pain. “Though not quite to my taste.”
Mary Chase’s distant expression turned to stone. Her eyes flashed gold before she turned a practiced smile upon Lucien. “I’m afraid we’ve offended Mr. Talent’s delicate sensibilities.” That golden gaze flicked back to him, searing his skin, and her smile turned acid. “We rarely have vestal innocents come to visit, you see.”
Vestal, was he? The remark hit a bit too close to home, and thus it was easy to give a curt “Good day” and leave.
When he was well clear of Lucien’s barge, however, Jack found a dank alleyway and vomited. But it did not purge the guilt and regret that burnt within him, or the sense that he’d lost something precious. But whatever he might do to remedy them ended when a shadow fell over him.
Lucien Stone leaned against the mouth of the alley, his eyes cold and dead as marble. “We have something to discuss, Mr. Talent.”
Chapter One
Four Years Later—London, November 1885
Pulling the hood of her billowing black cloak farther over her head, Mary Chase wove through the mass of humanity that made up London. The November eve was crisp and clear, and her breath left in soft puffs of white. A vermilion-and-gold sky hovered above, a rarity here where fog usually held dominance over everything and everyone. Against the brilliant canopy of dusk, the dome of St. Paul’s was bleak and grey, flanked in silhouette by the cathedral’s smaller spires.
Traffic became a crush as she made her way along Ludgate Hill, reaching the circus. Omnibuses, carriages, pigs, cattle, and drays fought for space on the road, while hawkers, clerks, newsboys, homemakers, and pickpockets fought for space on the walkways. A perfect place to become lost. At least Mary hoped so. It was essential that she not be followed. Her position within the SOS depended upon stealth and secrecy.
A stew of excitement and anxiety thickened within her. She had a feeling that tonight she would finally get her chance to prove herself. For nearly two years she’d worked as assistant to Poppy Lane, otherwise known as Mother, leader of the Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals, or the SOS. But Mary wanted more. A chance to work on an actual case, to be out in the field with other regulators, agents of the SOS. For, as a certain obnoxious and arrogant regulator had been quick to point out, the ones in the field were at the forefront of danger. And although Mary was trained, she’d yet to be tested.
Mary sidestepped a group of boys hanging on the railing at the base of the Waithman obelisk and then passed a boardman advertising Collingworth’s Cigarillos for the Improvement of Asthmatical Ailments. A hollow whistle lowed, and the ground beneath her feet trembled as a great steamer rumbled over the causeway and into the station beyond. Right on time. For once.
Thick black smoke rolled down to the masses, and Mary’s mouth filled with the bitter taste of burnt coal. Using the cover of smoke, she rushed toward the overpass, and in the confusion of pedestrians hurrying along, she pulled her cloak off, quickly bunching it up. She emerged on the other side, no longer a young woman wearing a long cloak, but an old grandmother, white-haired and hunched, leaning on a cane for support. Traffic flowed around her as she hobbled along, her massive dress swaying about her small frame. Slowly now.
Just before the looming cathedral, Mary joined a cluster of vendors, the scents of meat pies, hot buns, and coffee making her mouth water. She slipped a bob into the hand of one crone selling muffins, then, quick as a cat, ducked behind the wide cart. In a flash she was a lean and spry youth, her step light, her hair out of sight beneath her cap.
Mary chuffed as she skipped along, losing herself in the crowd once again before slipping into a tavern on the heels of a man doing the same. The odor of sweat, spirits, and tallow mingled. Few spoke here, and if so it was to mutter for more drink. Keeping her gaze roving, she headed for the back room. The door opened easily.
“ ’Bout time you showed,” snapped a male voice as she sat down at the small table obscured in shadows.
Mary didn’t bother with a reply. An annoyed huff followed, and the man leaned forward, moving out of the darkness. He was handsome, well formed, and well dressed. Quite lovely really. Mary scowled.
“You are foolish, Mercer, to choose that identity.” Mary didn’t know whose it was, but based on the cut of the suit Mercer wore, she gathered that the poor fellow had been wealthy. It was a tricky business for a demon to take over the life of another. Harder still when the person lived in the public sphere.
Mercer sneered. “I’ll have you know that this form gets me into more places than you’ll ever creep.” An ugly gleam lit his blue eyes. “And more beds.”
She swallowed down a shiver of disgust. How many women were lured by this false front, having no notion of what they truly bedded? “And they’ll all remember you too. Hard to miss, wearing such a fancy skin. Your vanity will see you dead one day. Which is no concern of mine.” She shrugged. “Save when you are dealing with me. You get caught, and it will be my pleasure to strip you of that skin.” The demon had been an excellent informant to her over the years, but she didn’t have to like him.
Mercer’s handsome lips twisted, and for a small moment his irises flickered mustard yellow. “Mayhaps others will be wanting the information I have. I’m thinking I might sell to the highest—” He yelped as her knife slammed into the table with a thud.
Mercer’s gaze drifted down to the sharp point lodged between his pale fingers. Mary looked only at him. “Do you know how a GIM ties a cravat, Mercer?”
He pressed his lips together.
She leaned in a bit, picking up the noxious scent of sulfur and smoke. Bloody foul raptor demons. Mary’s voice was a blade in the thick air. “We make a nice, deep cut here”—she pointed toward his throat—“so that we might pull your tongue out as far as it will go before we wrap it about your neck.”
Sweat pebbled along his noble brow but his yellow eyes glared. “You gonna flap your chaps all night? Or do you want to hear what I have to say?”
Mary sat back with a pleasant smile. “Talk.”
His large hand lifted from the table. He made a show of adjusting the lapels of his stolen coat. “I gather you know the Bishop’s been busy of late.”
The so-called Bishop of Charing Cross was making quite the reputation for himself. First appearing in London in January of 1884, he’d started a sensation by leaving victims with their hearts ripped out, spines severed, and chests branded with a small cross. Their bodies were always found on the plinth of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square where it faced Charing Cross. A few eyewitnesses—of dubious credibility—claimed to have seen a man wearing long black robes fleeing the scene.
The newsboys, being the inventive sort, had dubbed the killer the Bishop of Charing Cross on account of the cross brand and the fact that the robes were similar to the cassocks worn by clergy.
So far he’d claimed five victims. Wealthy men, some titled, some not, all of them most thoroughly slaughtered. Only the SOS knew that the victims were, in truth, an assortment of raptor and sanguis demons. It was the duty of the SOS to both protect humans from supernatural harm and hide proof of supernatural involvement in the human world.