Supernatural Devices (14 page)

Scarlett fought for control, pulling back from Tavian’s thoughts as best she could even as she wondered how she could possibly learn them like that. Yet she knew that to have any chance of making the connection between them work once more, she could not afford to hold back like that. She had to give herself up to the moment completely.

Scarlett did her best. She kissed Tavian like he was the only man in the world. She kissed him until the establishment around them faded into the background, lost among the intensity of their lips on one another’s. Scarlett kissed Tavian deeply, taking everything she could from the kiss, and Tavian kissed her back with every bit as much passion.

At that point, like water from a dam that had finally burst, visions washed over Scarlett. She saw a place that could not be England, with a landscape that was impossible in its beauty. She saw figures roving over it, clashing against one another in waves of flesh and violence. Some were pale, and fast, and as they struck, Scarlett could see their fangs. Others were ethereal and lovely, armed with weapons that held no iron and fighting with every bit as much hate as their vampire foes.

The vision rolled on, and Scarlett saw battle after battle, in a war that seemed to have no end. She saw vampires falling on the homes of the fey with such violence that she would have looked away if she could have done. She saw fey striking back, killing vampires in numbers too great to count. And then she
did
see England. She saw London, and the battles waged in secret around it. She saw that the war was not done, but that it had merely taken a different form in this modern time and place.

More than that, Scarlett saw what she had to do next.

S
carlett pulled back from Tavian then. Breathless. He was barely breathing, too, just staring at her with his intense green eyes. She understood more about the war between the vampires and the fey than she had known before. More than that, she had seen places she recognized in that vision, places that were part of the fabric of London.

“I think I can find Cecilia and the ring,” Scarlett said. “But we should go now.”

“Now?” Tavian repeated. “But why is there such a hurry? As much as I would like to say otherwise, Darthmoor and the boy with the sword might be useful to have around if there is going to be trouble.”

Scarlett shook her head. “What I know… it’s barely there. It feels like a cobweb. If I leave it too long, everything might fade, and we’ll be back to the beginning again.”

“So what exactly did you see?” Tavian asked.

Scarlett tried to put it lightly. “Just a few places that Rothschild might be hiding.”

“Rothschild? You want to go after Rothschild?”

Scarlett shook her head, standing. “I don’t
want
to go after him. I know how dangerous someone like him will be…”

“You don’t,” Tavian said. “You cannot, or you would not be suggesting this.”

Scarlett gripped Tavian by the arm then, a small flash of anger coming out. “Are you suggesting that I should ignore this? The evidence points to Rothschild’s involvement, from his augmentation of the Order’s mark on me to his standing in less pleasant segments of the vampire community. We have to speak with him.”

“So why not just go back to his jewelry shop and speak with him there?” Tavian asked.

“I could be wrong, but… go outside and look for it, would you?” Scarlett waited, and after a second or two just staring at her, he went and did as she asked. It was more than ten minutes before he returned.

“It’s gone,” the young gypsy man said. “I don’t understand…”

“He and those who work for him must have occupied an empty store front,” Scarlett explained. “We did not meet by accident. Rothschild went to a lot of trouble to mark me, and to give me his necklace.”

Tavian stared down at the sapphire of the pendant Scarlett wore. “You did not say that he had given you that.”

“You did not think to comment that I was wearing it after meeting him, but not before?” Scarlett asked.

“I… I did not see it,” Tavian said, staring at it again, then lifting the stone lightly in his hand. “There is magic to this. I can feel it now.”

“Something to make sure no one noticed it, perhaps?” Scarlett said, and then shook her head. “No, that cannot be all of it. There must be more to the piece, or why insist that I wear it?”

“I do not know,” Tavian said, “but I think that you should remove it.”

Do not remove it
. The words sounded in Scarlett’s head clearly.
Come to me, Scarlett. You are doing well.

“I think…” Scarlett struggled to work out the right thing to do. “I think that I should leave it in place for now. And we should go. It will take time to find Rothschild.”

Tavian still looked apprehensive at the thought. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “No one else but you and my sister know what I am. I did not show you that lightly, Scarlett. I… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I intend to be careful,” Scarlett said. “And I intend to find Cecilia. I have no doubt that she will be with Rothschild. It is simply a question of where he is keeping her.”

“She might not be his prisoner,” Tavian pointed out. “She wanted the ring, and with Lord Darthmoor rejecting her, she might have gone to him willingly. Seeking out one of Darthmoor’s rivals would be like Cecilia.”

“There is still what happened at the camp to think about,” Scarlett pointed out.

“That could have been for your benefit,” Tavian pointed out. “It might not have been real. I love my sister, but she can be devious when she wants.”

“Then again,” Scarlett said, “I will simply have to be careful. Now, we must go.”

Tavian, obviously sensing that he was not going to change Scarlett’s mind, nodded. “Where are we going? What did you see in that vision that told you where to look?”

“Whitechapel.”

“You want to go to
Whitechapel
. That would be dangerous enough even without Rothschild there. Scarlett…”

“Are we going to argue again?” Scarlett asked. If necessary, she would walk out of the public house without Tavian. “I saw vampires collected in Whitechapel. Logic tells us that Rothschild is involved. My talent tells us where he is. We have to go.”

“I was merely going to say that I will need to stay close to you in a place such as that,” Tavian said. He sighed. “So much for dinner.”

They left the establishment and made their way east, first along the river, and then drifting slightly away from it, deeper into the city. They did not take a cab. It was likely that no cab would take them there. Instead, as soon as they were away from the crowds enough not to be spotted, Tavian was able to call up a mist, and they rode it together with the young gypsy man’s arms around Scarlett tightly. 

The further east they got in the city, the poorer the streets below them became. The stench of the city was noticeable there, and the noise from the streets was clear. Scarlett could see people below in clothes that did not quite fit them, looking thin, ill-fed, and in some cases ill. All that was before they had even reached the limits of Whitechapel Road.

When they did, Tavian landed, and Scarlett forced herself to look around. She was not going to shy away from what she saw, even though what she saw there was squalor on a scale that made her almost ashamed to have the wealth she had. Children sat on the streets, begging openly when they should have been in school. Rough looking men kept wary eyes on the pair of them. Whitechapel was somewhere Scarlett did not think she would have visited by night, but even in daylight, it held a lingering mixture of threat and despair.

“So,” Tavian asked. “What now? How do we find Rothschild in this? We cannot just ask around. People in places like this don’t tell tales.”

Scarlett considered pointing out some of the less than pleasant things people sometimes thought about gypsies, and that Tavian should know better than to label a whole neighborhood like that. At that moment, however, the back of Scarlett’s neck began to burn so painfully that she cried out.

“Scarlett, what is it?” Tavian hurried to help her, looking down at her neck. “Your mark, it’s glowing.”

Come to me, Scarlett
. As before, the words sounded in Scarlett’s head.
Come to me, and come alone. The necklace will show you the way. Bring anyone, and the hostage I have will die. Fail to come, and they die. Hurry.

“Scarlett?” Tavian asked, putting an arm around Scarlett to support her.

“It’s Rothschild,” Scarlett said, “and it seems Cecilia definitely is his hostage. He wants me to come to find him. He says that if I do not go alone, he will kill your sister.”

Tavian’s eyes widened at that threat, but he shook his head. “No, he is lying. It is far too dangerous for you to go alone. I should go with you, out of sight, and…”

“Do you think anything is out of sight in a place like this?” Scarlett demanded, looking around. There were so many spots where watchers could be hidden. We cannot risk Cecilia like that. Your role in this is to fetch reinforcements. Now that we know where Rothschild is, you must fetch Holmes, Cruces, Gordon, and anyone else who can help.”

“But I do not know exactly where Rothschild is,” Tavian argued, “which means that I will not know where you are.”

“You know where to start looking,” Scarlett replied. “Please, Tavian, this is the only way it can work.”

Tavian stood very still for a few seconds, then he kissed Scarlett briefly but furiously. “Be careful," he whispered into her ear. Before Scarlett could even respond, he pulled back and ran off down one of the adjoining roads. Scarlett watched him go, but not for long, because the pendant around her neck started to move. It swung up, tugging at Scarlett, obviously trying to pull her along behind it like a dog with a scent straining to pull its owner along on the end of a leash.

Scarlett went along with that pull, letting it guide her. Letting it lead her, in fact, much of the way along Whitechapel Road before it pulled to the side quite sharply, directing Scarlett down a small side street. There, on that street, she saw what she knew had to be Rothschild’s home.

It was a curiosity shop set into a larger block of homes that arced crazily over the street, looking like it might fall down at any moment. There were items of jewelry in the window, just as there had been before, though here they were joined by other things apparently taken from a hundred different places. Clocks and cabinets, stuffed dead animals and small pieces of art all stacked haphazardly, under the apparently not very watchful eye of a middle aged man. Scarlett ignored him.

She did that mostly because the pendant was pulling her past the clutter of the shop to a door at the back. Scarlett opened it without any complaints from the proprietor, to see a set of stairs leading upwards. At another tug from the pendant, she began to climb. At the top of the stairs…

Scarlett would never have imagined such a pleasantly furnished set of lodgings anywhere in Whitechapel. They put Holmes’ rooms on Baker Street to shame, being filled with furniture that seemed to span the centuries in an eclectic mix that took in works in the French and Italian styles along with other, more exotic things. There was a fireplace of solid marble at one side, while comfortable looking chairs marked out a semi-circle around a table that seemed almost Roman in its design. Doors leading off from the room suggested more rooms beyond, but even this one was large enough that Scarlett knew that Rothschild had to have converted the whole block to create this place.

Scarlett took a step into the room, staring at it, and in the space of the second it took to look around once more, she was no longer alone there. Rothschild was beside her, too close to her, tucking a loose strand of Scarlett’s hair back behind her ear.

“Ah, you did what I asked. Scarlett, perfect Scarlett. You are exquisite. Your scent, your beauty. But most of all… most of all, your gift.”

“
M
y gift?” Scarlett tried not to shudder at the thought of Rothschild so close to her. “How do you know about my gift?”

“I know a great deal about your gifts,” Rothschild said, moving in front of her. “So many talents. For seeing the supernatural, obviously, and for other things. Will you come and sit down?”

He led the way to the armchairs, and Scarlett took one of them. She did not know what else to do.

“Are my gifts why you marked me?” she asked.

“Partly,” Rothschild admitted, taking the seat across from her. “Of course, it helps that you are exquisite, and that you are able to bridge the gap between the human and the supernatural.” He steepled his fingers. “Strange, is it not, that we beyond the human world prize a place in it so highly? Perhaps it is because we are treated as outsiders there so much, when all we do is what nature intended for us. Tea, Miss Seely?”

Without waiting for an answer, Rothschild rose and poured tea from a pot sitting off to one side. He handed the cup to Scarlett. The tea was as excellent as Cruces’ had been. Did all vampires make it so well?

“Thank you,” Scarlett said.