Demon's Fire (20 page)

Beth and Charles didn’t have any trouble locating the Midarris. In some ways, the city of Bhamjran was nothing but a big, gossipy village. The first market vendor they queried knew exactly where the “Prince of Silks” had his home.

“His firm makes beautiful fabrics,” the stallkeeper assured them, probably assuming they were prospective customers. “As good as local stuff—and some of his products magically shed stains!”

The thought of magical, stain-shedding fabric had made Beth smile…until they were admitted into the Midarris’ house. She’d been congratulating herself on being pretty Mrs. Hemsley’s equal in looks. During their interminable shopping trip, she’d received as many surreptitious male smiles as the wife of the minister. Sitting across a parlor from Xishi Midarri set that smugness decisively to rest.

All Yama were attractive, and the woman Pahndir had impulsively confessed to regarding as his only friend was no exception. Her pale skin was perfect, her long black hair glossy enough to put her husband’s silks to shame. The flawless symmetry of her features had a sigh of helpless appreciation rising in Beth’s breast.

But there was more than this to her beauty. Xishi Midarri possessed an extra spark of humor, of life, that Beth had never seen in a Yamish face. She was a
merry
demon. Beth could see it twinkling in her slanted silver eyes.

At the moment, those eyes looked concerned by the news Beth and Charles had brought about her friend. Her husband stood behind her chair, his hands laid lightly on her shoulders. He was also quite good looking, if a trifle stiff. It made Beth realize just how atypical of his people Pahndir was.

With a tiny furrow between her otherwise smooth, dark brows, Xishi twisted around and turned her face up to her husband. “Perhaps we should contact my grandmother.”

“Fortune forbid,” he said with a fervency that surprised Beth. “I’m not putting us any more in Xasha Huon’s debt than I have to. She’s already hinting that we should send the twins to visit her this winter. We may never see our offspring again.”

“But if Pahndir truly is in trouble…If Muto has moved against him again…”

Cor cupped her worried face, his eyes so nakedly tender both Beth and Charles momentarily looked away. “I promise, love, I’m not ignoring that possibility. Just let me make some inquiries on my own before we take emergency measures.”

He turned his gaze back to Beth and Charles, his face now as smooth as if emotion had never ruffled it. “In the meantime, uncomfortable though it may be, you two might consider turning to your employer. Welland Herrington has more contacts in this city than anyone.”

Charles and Beth exchanged a wordless glance, after which Charles rose and bowed politely.

“Thank you for your help,” he said, as carefully expressionless as the Yama. “We’ll take your suggestion under advisement.”

The beautiful Xishi showed them out with a promise to contact them the moment she heard anything.

“Hell,” Charles said, when they were alone again in the street. “That didn’t get us anywhere.”

It was dusk, with a few brave stars beginning to appear above the city’s minarets. Beth had a sudden and uncomfortable sense of time passing too quickly.

“We can’t wait for them,” she said, utterly sure of it. “The Midarris don’t understand how urgent this could be. We have to do something now.”

Charles stared at her—
into
her, it felt like. She hoped he wasn’t going to try to soothe her or claim she was hysterical. Then he nodded curtly. “I agree. Right now, we…care about the prince more than anyone.”

His words filled her with a thankfulness too deep for words. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. “We could go back to Pahndir’s house. Question more of the staff.”

“Yes,” Charles said, covering her hand with his. “I, for one, would like to find out how ‘sick’ Pahndir’s valet is.”

Charles parked his motorcar in front of The Prince’s Flame. The brothel was lit up like a party in full swing, music and laughter drifting out in bursts from the bright windows.

“The cat’s away,” Beth said, echoing his thoughts.

Charles stepped out of the car and frowned. “From the sound of it, the mice are drinking the cat’s champagne.” He looked at Beth across the top of the car, wondering if she was prepared for what he meant to do. He braced his arms on the warm metal. “Look, Beth, if we’re going to get information, I can’t ask for it politely. I have to play this as hard as I can.”

“I understand,” she said. “We have to go in there like conquerors. We have to treat them like they’re subjects and we’re the queen.”

“Exactly,” he said, though her analogy pushed his brows together. “So if you don’t want to watch what I—”

“One moment,” she said, lifting her hand to cut him off. Her attention had been caught by an electric hansom that was parked across the street. The driver sat on the outside rearward seat, perusing a paper in the circle of the nearest lamppost’s light. Possibly he was unaware that his usual source of nighttime fares was closed for business. He looked up from his reading as Beth approached.

“Pardon me,” she said, “I’ll give you two gold crescents if you’ll loan me your whip.”

The driver looked down to where the item stuck out of the ceremonial holder on the side of his cab. He had no horse to use it on, but many hansoms displayed whips as a reminder of the tradition from which they’d sprung.

“
Two
gold crescents?”

“Yes,” Beth confirmed, holding them up. “And I’ll give the whip back if you’re still waiting when we return.”

He handed it over without protest, though his expression conveyed very plainly his belief that she was mad.

Charles eyed the weapon warily. The lash end had to be six feet long. “What do you intend to do with that?”

“Anything I have to,” was her answer.

All right,
he thought and led the way up the brothel steps. He didn’t bother with the knocker, but simply pounded on the wood with his fist. Half a minute later, his favorite butler in all the world opened it.

“You,”
the man snarled in annoyance.

Charles punched him in the nose and sent him stumbling back onto his arse. It was a good, clean hit, and the butler started bleeding almost at once. Charles glanced into the nearby reception room, where it looked like Pahndir’s employees were making serious inroads in his liquor supply. One of the women was dancing naked—and not very well—on top of an ottoman. None had yet noticed what was going on.

“Where is Mr. Biban?” he asked the butler.

The man drew breath as if to yell for help.

“I wouldn’t,” Charles said, pulling a handy little pocketknife from his trousers. “Just speak softly and answer my question.”

“Mr. Biban is sick,” the butler babbled, trying to scramble farther back on the slippery marble tiles of the entryway. “He’s not even here anymore. He’s gone home to be nursed by his family.”

The butler was a ready liar but a bad one. Charles jerked him up by the collar and let the knife spring open just beneath the man’s double chin. “Where is Mr. Biban?”

“We locked him in his room,” the butler gasped, so frightened he couldn’t get out more than a whisper. “He wouldn’t promise to be quiet. We had no choice.”

Charles didn’t have to force the growl from his chest; he was that outraged on Pahndir’s behalf. “Take me to him,” he ordered, shoving the butler toward the stairs, “and I might let you keep your fingers.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Beth said, pulling his gaze back to her. She nodded at the still-oblivious party crowd. “We wouldn’t want anyone calling the Watch.”

Charles observed the businesslike way she was tapping the whip against her palm, and decided he felt perfectly comfortable letting her stand guard.

After a few more shoves and growls, the butler led him to the servants’ wing.

The valet hadn’t just been locked in his room; he’d also been beaten and tied to a chair. He was a small man, but as soon as Charles freed him, he sprang up and struck such a ringing slap across the butler’s face that the man fell dazed to the floor. He also dropped the handkerchief he’d been holding to his bloodied nose.

“Bastard,” the butler’s former prisoner spat, plus a few things worse in his own language.

Charles had some difficulty pulling the valet away to the narrow bed. “Hush,” he said. “I need you to calm down and tell me where Pahndir is.”

“I don’t know!” Biban cried, clearly still incensed with his colleague. His scars stood out pale against his angry face. “They sold him up the river like Judas goats. The finest, most generous employer in all of Bhamjran!”

Charles pushed his shoulders down until he sat. “Who did they sell him to?”

“To that fat demon prince, Muto. He said he’d give them a bonus if no one reported His Highness missing for a week. That’s why they tied me up!” He struggled against Charles’s hold to get at the butler, who was now weeping with guilt and fear.

“He promised us the brothel,” the miserable man pleaded. “He said we could run it.”

“He’d just as soon kill you, you idiot! Prince Pahndir was the only Yama we could trust.” The valet began to weep himself then, his tears affecting Charles rather differently than the butler’s had. “He saved us all, and now he’s probably dead.”

“He’s
not
dead,” Charles said firmly, despite being far from sure. “Yamish royals don’t like to kill each other. They think it’s uncivilized. We simply have to find out where he’s been taken and get him back.”

Biban stopped crying as if an angel had stepped into the room and promised him his heart’s desire. The hope in his eyes made Charles want to wince.

“I don’t know where he’s been taken,” the valet said. “But I think I can guess who was hired to capture him.”

Beth had been cogitating during the ride from the Midarris’ house. She didn’t know how to help Pahndir, and she desperately wanted to.
What would Tou do?
she’d asked herself.
What would Tou do?

She’d scarcely been aware of what Charles was saying when the cabman’s whip called to her.

I know how to use this,
she thought as she watched Pahndir’s ingrate employees carouse around his best parlor. The knowledge came not from her mind but from her muscles—muscles that remembered training extensively with this and other tools of the soldiers’ trade. She itched to put those skills to use tonight, her fingers caressing the familiar leather-encased handle.

It wasn’t right that a man like Pahndir couldn’t expect basic loyalty from his staff. These servants had no honor. Worse, they were incompetent. A perfect stranger had been standing in their entryway for at least ten minutes and they hadn’t noticed yet.

A pretty male in a blue silk robe lifted his champagne into the brilliant light of the electrified chandelier.

“I’m empty!” he cried, laughing. “Someone fill me up!”

Beth didn’t hesitate for anger or thought. She let the whip flick out as precisely as a cobra’s strike. The tip wrapped the stem of the crystal flute and yanked it from the young man’s grasp. The glass shattered against the wall where she flung it, leaving the courtesan to yelp and shake his fingers.

All the lovely young people stared at her.

“Turn off the music,” she said, finding its happy, tinkling racket offensive. “Now!”

She brought the whip down, hitting nothing this time but creating a
crack
that sent the crowd scurrying back. One of the girls—not the naked one—had her head about her. She ran to the gramophone to shut it off.

“Backs to the walls,” Beth demanded. “Hands on your heads where I can see them.”

She felt inordinately satisfied when they obeyed.

“Wh-what do you want?” stammered a boy with a thick accent.

Beth narrowed her eyes so effectively he shuddered. “What I want is for every one of you to be ashamed of yourselves. Barring that, you’re going to tell me everything you know about your employer’s unexplained absence.”

Charles had been so engrossed in talking to Biban that he hadn’t noticed when silence fell downstairs. He returned to find Beth scowling fiercely at the nervous servants, all of whom had their fingers laced atop their heads.

Beth knew he was there without turning around.

“He was taken by desert mercenaries,” she said. “Their leader is a woman with a blue tattoo of a hawk beside her left eye. One of the girls saw her scale the wall next to her window. She says the group rode in and out on camels.”

This was consistent with Biban’s hypothesis.

“Good,” he said, trying to hide his shock at her behavior. Beth’s sisters liked to call her fearless, but this seemed another order above that. The servants were literally shaking in their shoes. “I believe we’ve found out as much as we can here.”

Beth nodded, but before she accompanied him to the door, she pointed the whip at Pahndir’s cowering staff. At least half of them flinched back.

“Remember,” she said in a hard, cool tone. “You call the Watch on us, and we call it back on you.”

She left with him then, her posture tall and assured. The cabbie from whom she’d borrowed the whip was gone when they reached Charles’s Model P, but Charles had the impression she wasn’t sorry to be hanging on to her new toy. He opened the passenger door for her, then walked around to the driver’s side.

He noticed she sagged a little when she sat back, rubbing her forehead as if it hurt.

“I can identify the head mercenary,” he said, knowing he couldn’t delay telling her no matter how he dreaded it. “Her name is Sahel. She’s a famous chieftain hereabouts, and she’s the person Herrington has been visiting at night. I’ve seen them together, and I know they’re lovers, though I can’t be certain he was involved in Prince Muto’s plot.”

“I think we have to assume he is,” Beth said, which seemed to depress her as much as it did him. “Damnation. I really didn’t want to believe this of him.”

Charles turned to her on the narrow seat, his arm stretched along its back, his knees bumping over and between hers. It was dark in the car, and their positions were intimate. It felt good to be this close to her, even in the midst of a mess.