Forged by Desire (5 page)

“Whores?”

Garrett shrugged. “They don’t have anyone to protect them. Circumstances force them to do what they must, and most of them die cold, lonely deaths. Do you know why that bothers me so much?” he asked. “It’s because I see my mother. I see her body.” A flash of it swept through his vision. Mary Reed, lying naked and broken in an alley after her night’s shift. Robbed of everything—her clothes, her meager coin purse, her dignity.

He’d been all of nine and left to fend for himself. Oh yes, he knew how those children and whores died. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen to step away from the gutters and better himself, one of the reasons he’d joined the Nighthawks when it became apparent he had the craving virus. He hadn’t been able to protect his mother, but there were always others.

He forced the memories away. “Do you see yourself in those young girls?”

She shook her head abruptly. But the stillness was there in her shoulders.

“Or is it something else?” He watched the way she took a quick breath and looked away again. “It is. Something else is bothering you.”

“Garrett, leave it alone.”

Like
hell
. But he’d long since learned that if he kept questioning her, she’d obstinately dig her claws in and say nothing more. Perry was possibly the only person he couldn’t eventually wear down.

“As you wish,” he replied softly.

Stillness fell between them, broken only by the steady hiss of the steam engine. Garrett stretched his arms out along the back of the seat and watched her stare out the window stubbornly, pretending that she didn’t feel his gaze.

The silky, black strands of her hair, cut longer in front and shorter at the nape, fell over her forehead. A boyish, careless cut, but one that drew his gaze to the smoothness of her throat and the long line of her nape. He’d pressed a kiss there at the opera. Felt the kick of her pulse against his tongue as he fought the urge to bite her, to mark her as his. It was the first time his demons had ever come close to overruling him.

“Do you think the verwulfen ambassador will be home?” he asked, mainly to break the thick silence in the carriage. He hated the way silence seemed to settle over them now. As though both of them were far too aware of what had changed, yet neither wished to mention it. Sometimes he felt like he was truly losing her. If the opera had never happened, he could have confided in her about his CV levels and found some sense of solace, at least.

Now he could not. Because she was the greatest torment he faced, and how the devil could a man admit that to a woman? To a friend? Every moment she was with him, he couldn’t stop thinking about her—the sound of the soft, little moans she would make as he pinned her beneath him, the taste of her skin, and the wetness of her blood splashing over his lips… He shifted and forced his thoughts to other things. To two poor girls with their hearts cut out of their chests.

“I hope not,” Perry murmured.

Garrett shared her sentiments. Verwulfen were another species indeed. Dangerous, ridiculously strong, and impervious to pain when in the grip of
berserkergang
, the strange fury that drove them while they were in a rage. The Echelon had ruled them too volatile to live freely ever since they’d exterminated the Scottish verwulfen clans at Culloden, locking them in cages and considering them slaves. Dozens of them had been thrown into the Manchester Pits to fight to the death for the joy of the crowd, or even the rough Pits in the East End of London, but times were changing. Several months ago, a treaty had been forged between the Scandinavian verwulfen clans and the Echelon, with a law decreeing all verwulfen in the Isles free of their shackles.

The man responsible for that was Will Carver. Once second-in-command of a dangerous rookery gang. And now Garrett and Perry had to question Carver’s wife.

Garrett knew how well that interview would proceed.

***

Luck wasn’t with them. The ambassador was home.

The ancient butler ushered Garrett and Perry into a study where a pretty young woman sat behind a desk, patiently showing a hulking brute a letter. The man’s coat was strewn carelessly over the back of a chair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Despite the cut of the clothing, he seemed ill at ease in it. As if he still wasn’t used to finery.

At Garrett and Perry’s entrance, the pair looked up, their almost identical bronze-colored eyes locking on the two Nighthawks. While a smile dawned on Mrs. Carver’s lips, her husband merely examined them with a dark glare.

“Good morning, Mr. Carver.” Garrett bowed his head. “Mrs. Carver.”

“Is it a good mornin’, then?” Carver replied, straightening to his full, almost intimidating height. “Nighthawks in me study don’t usually herald good news.”

“Not good news, no,” Garrett replied. “I would like to have a word with your wife, if I might.”

“I don’t think so,” Carver growled.

“Will.” Mrs. Carver shot him a demure look from beneath her lashes. Though Carver’s lips thinned, he stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, letting her have her way.

“What may I do for you?” she asked, leaning back in the chair and eyeing the pair of them. Her dark hair was gathered into a neat chignon, yet delicate brown ringlets framed her pretty heart-shaped face. She was the sort of woman that might have drawn Garrett’s eye a while ago. Perhaps a month or more ago.

Perry stepped forward. “A pair of bodies was found at one of the draining factories this morning—”

“What are you tryin’ to say?” Carver snapped.

“One of the girls wore the same ring your wife does,” Perry replied. “We’re trying to ascertain the girl’s identity. Nothing else. Barrons sent us here to inquire about the ring.”

Garrett let her lead. Perhaps Carver would find it less antagonizing to deal with a woman. And it gave him time to study the pair of them.

Mrs. Carver looked genuinely distressed at the news. She touched the ring on her right hand, her brow furrowing. “That’s terrible news. But I don’t know if I can help you. There are dozens of these in circulation. They—” She broke off.

“We know their purpose,” Garrett added, “and it is none of our concern. We merely wish to identify the bodies. The other girl looks to have had a similar ring on her finger, but the ring was removed.”

Perry swiftly reeled off the details of the girls’ appearances, impressing even Garrett. When it came to conversation, he could recall almost every word spoken, but Perry’s skills of observation were unparalleled. It was one of the reasons they worked so well together.

Mrs. Carver slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry. That could describe almost two dozen debutantes.”

“Would it be possible for you to view the bodies?” Perry asked. “To help identify them?”

Carver shifted but his wife laid a hand on his wrist, stilling him instantly. “I can try. I find it difficult to deal with such things now that my senses are so enhanced. The smell—” She grimaced. “I shall try.”

Garrett’s estimation of Mrs. Carver rose. She might look like a bit of muslin, but she had a core of inner steel, it seemed. “I shall send word ahead to headquarters. Would you care to take our carriage?”

“Now?” Mrs. Carver asked, her pretty, almond-shaped eyes widening.

“No time like the present,” Garrett replied smoothly. If they were correct in the assumption that the two victims were of the Echelon, they needed to track this killer before word hit the news sheets.

Or worse, the Echelon gossip mill.

***

Perry watched as Dr. Gibson gently peeled the sheet away from the face of the first body. The girls had been brought back to the cold, sterile room in headquarters that Dr. Gibson used for his autopsies. Thankfully, the doctor hadn’t yet started.

Gaslight painted a distinct, icy-blue glow across the dead girl’s face. Garrett moved into view, escorting Mrs. Carver and her hulking husband.

Carver looked bothered by the smell, standing over his wife and scrubbing at his nose. His broad shoulders strained at his coat, and his long, tawny hair brushed against his lapels. He was not the type of man who would normally catch the eye of a young debutante—as Mrs. Carver had once been—but every married woman or widow in the district would recognize the underlying virility and touch of carnality that rested uneasily beneath his skin. Even Perry did. Verwulfen were dangerous men, and Carver more so than most.

However, he was particularly careful with his wife, his hand sliding over the small of her back. Almost gentle. As if he took some comfort in the touch too.

Mrs. Carver tugged off her gloves, then glanced at the girl. Instantly the color bleached from her face. “Oh.”

“You recognize her?” Garrett asked intently, his blue eyes even brighter in the gaslight.

Shadows sculpted the high arch of his cheekbones and brows. A devilishly handsome man, and intimidated by nothing. Comfortable in his own skin to the point that eyes automatically turned when he entered a room. This was what Lynch had seen in him when he reluctantly named him as his successor. This was what Perry saw. There had been other options for guild master, but Garrett was the best of them.

Perry folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall. She felt comfortable in the shadows, letting Garrett handle the matter. And she too found the cold, chemical scent of death unnerving.

“It’s Miss Amelia Keller,” Mrs. Carver said. Her expression softened and she reached out, as if to touch the girl. Carver might be all brute, but his wife suffered the finer emotions. “She was on the cusp of making a thrall contract with the Earl of Brumley.”

“Was there a reason she sought you out for the poison ring?” Garrett asked.

“The same reason they all do. It’s becoming quite the sport for blue blood lords to ambush young ladies the moment they step outside a ballroom or when their chaperone’s back is turned.”

“So nobody wished her harm? Specifically?”

“Not that I’m aware of. However, I knew her only peripherally.” She exchanged a glance with Carver.

“Verwulfen have been given the pardon now,” he muttered, “but not all o’ them pasty-faced vultures like dealin’ with us.”

Mrs. Carver had fallen far from her former rank within the Echelon by not only marrying a verwulfen, but becoming one.

“They come to me when they’re desperate,” Mrs. Carver added.

“What about her fiancé, the Earl of Brumley?” Perry asked.

“He doted on her. He was nearly twice her age, and I believe he considered himself quite fortunate to have landed her,” Mrs. Carver replied.

Garrett nodded at Dr. Gibson, who whipped the sheet back over the girl’s form. “And the other,” he murmured, moving around the steel examination table.

This time Mrs. Carver was prepared. Her nostrils flared minutely when Gibson lowered the sheet. “She smells like…some sort of chemical. Something like ether and perhaps laudanum. Fresh blood too.”

“You can distinguish that?” Perry asked, for she herself could barely make out the individual chemicals.

“My sister, Honoria, has scientific tendencies,” Mrs. Carver replied, screwing up her nose. “After visits with her, I’m more than aware of what certain chemicals smell like.”

“And the girl?” Garrett pressed.

Mrs. Carver examined her for a long time. “Miss Fortescue, I believe, though I could be mistaken. I’ve seen her but once, and from a distance. She did not come to me for the ring. She must have received it through an associate of mine.”

Garrett thanked her for her help and quietly escorted the Carvers to the door. When they were gone, Perry could no longer stand it. She dragged the sheet up over Miss Fortescue’s face and let out a sigh.

“This one’s going to be a right pickle,” Dr. Gibson muttered, wiping his hands on a cloth. The ex-army surgeon was fastidious.

“Daughters of the Echelon,” Perry agreed. “They’ll be screaming for heads to roll.” She circled the table. The sheet clung to each girl, a dimple revealing where the chest cavity had been spread. For a moment her gorge rose, and she swallowed. Her own nightmares were ten years old. This couldn’t be happening again. What were the odds?

But
he’s back in town
, an insidious little voice whispered.
And
if
the
Moncrieff
is
back…

A vision flashed into her mind of the monster who’d once strapped her to a steel examination table like this and…done things to her. Horrible things that were best not thought of again. A clammy coldness circled her brow, and her nostrils pinched together.
I
killed
Hague. I know I did.

The whirling arc of the sword as she cleaved Hague’s face in two, blood spraying across the Duke of Moncrieff’s bedroom… When she ran, he’d been screaming—or trying to anyway, through what was left of his face—but what man could live through such a thing?

“Your initial observations of the bodies—what were your findings?” she asked.

“It’s a mystery, to be sure. I would suspect Miss Keller died almost ten hours ago. However, the coldness of the factory might mean time of death was actually earlier. The removal of her heart was done more precisely than even I could attempt. Evidently he had time to perform the procedure—and that’s what this was. A procedure.

“I don’t know what he hoped to achieve, but he’s performed the process many times before. There is some organic substance on her skin that I can’t quite identify, and the aorta and pulmonary artery leading from where her heart once lay are…in a state of postmortem healing. I cannot even describe it.”

Healing
. A sense of cold lashed down Perry’s spine. “Have you tested her for any sign of the craving virus?”

Gibson looked up from the sheet-covered body, his bushy brows beetling over his eyes. “It’s not standard procedure on females.”

“But her body is healing,” Perry argued, flexing and unflexing her fingers. “And I’m proof enough that accidents occur.” She wanted to be out of here now. As far away from the bodies as she could get. As far away from… Was it time to run again? She’d thought she’d found some sense of safety here. The guild had become her home in a way that the Echelon had never been.