Wicked Ever After (A Blud Novel Book 7) (9 page)

“Frannie, lass! We’ve visitors,” Thom called, but she was already hurrying through a curtained door and into his arms.

Thom was covered in the sort of grime a man collects during a day of hard work, and as soon as I saw Frannie nestling against him despite the muck—and covered in her own coating of tweed and feathers—I knew I would like her.

“This is Criminy and Letitia Stain. Friends of Demi and Vale. Fine folks.”

Frannie stepped back to smile at us, small and brown and quick as a London sparrow. “Nice to meet you, then. Are you looking for something in particular? You’ve the look of a conjurer about you, sir, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I don’t mind, love, and you’re correct. I’ve never had a familiar before. But my lady could use some proper companionship. Keeps breaking her clockworks.”

“I did ask you for a rhinoceros,” I said primly. “Instead of all those dainty things.”

Frannie chuckled and rustled around in a box, then pulled out a wiggling burrito of a puppy and dropped it into my arms. Unlike the corgis in the bin, this creature was mostly black fur and excitement, of no discernible breed. And it was approximately half tongue. And I never wanted to put it down.

“He’s the last of a litter of mutts. No idea what’s in ’im. But you seem like the softhearted type who cares more about fun than family trees.”

“Are you a glancer?” I asked, noting her chapped, bare hands.

She shook her head. “Spend enough time around animals, and you can read what any creature needs on its face. And your man there wants something more than a crow to match his fine hair, don’t he?”

Thom smothered a laugh, and Criminy nodded in confirmation and gave the girl a small bow. “Right again, lass. We’re looking for a dark conjurer, a witch named Hepzibah, very old but with a Bludman’s smooth skin. She a customer of yours?”

“Not mine, no. But I won’t sell a creature to anyone who seems to wish it ill. The birds can tell, you know. Even the lizards scramble away from hungry hands. Those as want animals for the crueler uses, they go to Mr. Sweeting.”

“That’s the second time his name has come up,” I said.

“And it won’t be the last if you’re up to your elbows in evil. But I might have a wee something to help you wring what you need out of the bastard.”

“Fran!” Thom said, shocked in a most polite and Scottish manner.

She just nudged him in his huge rib cage and went to poke around among a beautiful arrangement of cylindrical glass terrariums and bell jars that reminded me of a candy shop, if a candy shop held lizards and frogs and bits of moss instead of actual candy. Which I already missed, considering I couldn’t eat it anymore unless it was sugared liver or candied kidneys. After plucking a smaller jar from the back, she carried it to us at arm’s length, and I placed the wriggling puppy back in his box so that I could concentrate on the bone-white creature staring at us intelligently through the glass, claws upraised.

“A scorpion?” Crim asked, taking the jar from her.

Frannie nodded and stepped back. “Yes, but a particular kind. Their venom is rather similar to a daimon’s, and a sting from this little fellow will make anyone, even a fully grown daimon, terribly ill.” She dimpled evilly. “Daimons can’t vomit, since they don’t eat, but they can turn some very amusing colors.” When Crim raised an eyebrow at her, she just shrugged. “I like to be paid, which means there must be consequences to not paying. More than one dark daimon has found that wee fellow or one of his friends waiting on the ledger.”

“And what will he do to a Bludman?” I asked carefully, as I was making a mental catalog of all the new things that could or could not harm my lovely new body.

Frannie opened a drawer and brought out a sturdy wooden box about the size of a hamburger, a lovely thing carved and polished in dark mahogany. Taking the jar back from Criminy, she tidily dumped the angry scorpion into the box and slammed down the lid.

Easy as pie, she said, “He’ll kill you dead. Me, too.”

Crim picked up the box, turning it this way and that and flicking the clasp with one finger while holding the top tightly shut. “So you’ve a death wish, lass?” he asked.

“Maybe a little,” Thom said fondly, leaning in the doorway.

Frannie replaced the glass jar among the other terrariums and laughed. “Not a death wish. Merely the drive to keep what’s my own. This is London, my lad, and there are plenty of creatures as would take what I have. I fight for what’s mine. I might not look like much, but you’d be surprised what I have up my sleeve.”

Criminy smiled and shook his head. “How is it that every woman I know is a deadly, cunning, beautiful virago?”

“You’re just lucky, I guess,” I said.

11

You can’t take
a puppy to a scorpion fight, so I had to leave the sweet little thing behind with a promise to return once I’d found my grandmother and kicked the witch’s ass for good. Criminy did take the scorpion, though, and also spent quite a while stroking a certain crow’s chest and whispering with the clever thing and, yes, laughing along with it. When Frannie whistled, the crow immediately leaped off Crim’s sleeve and flew to her hat, where it sang a few bars of a bawdy street song.

“You wouldn’t want to join a traveling caravan as an animal act, would you?” Crim asked Frannie, and she just laughed and shook her feather duster at him.

“I’ve fought for my place here. It’s where I belong. But perhaps you could send tickets next time you’re outside the gates?”

“You’ll never pay at my turnstile, lass,” he said with a kind smile. “And I’d like to put down a deposit on that bird.”

The man never failed to surprise me. Perhaps it was the bookshelf he had found in the kitchen, stuffed with penny dreadfuls, that had melted his heart. My dark and dangerous husband would always have a fondness for women who loved books.

Our next stop was just next door to visit Reve, a talented daimon costumer much loved by all our London friends and, surprisingly, also by Tsarina Ahnastasia. Her skin shimmering over in glad pinks and purples to meet us, Reve led us through her glittering showroom and up to the workroom, where she dressed me in the sort of outfit the upper crust of London’s Bludwomen favored.

“How is it that every adventure requires a new costume?” I said, turning this way and that in the three-way mirror and admiring my corset-enhanced curves in the low-cut black dress. So refreshing to see true style, after suffering Emerlie’s ministrations.

Reve grinned through a mouthful of pins, reminding me so much of Crim’s old friend Antonin that my heart hurt. “Costumes make the adventure possible,” she said. “And if you went to Mr. Sweeting wearing old rags, he would treat you like offal. Always be the best-dressed person at a battle. Or a ball.”

“Same thing, really,” Crim muttered, tugging again at the high cravat Reve had tied on him with a tighter knot than he preferred. City styles had changed again while we roved the countryside following our own rules, and now my poor, wild husband was sewn into a tight jacket and breeches and a hat so tall he had to duck through doors. He looked razor-fine, and whenever his hands weren’t occupied tugging at his clothes, he held the scorpion’s box, turning it over and over as if flipping a giant coin over his knuckles.

He’d already tried to lure Reve to join the caravan, and she’d just laughed at him, as Frannie had.

“That’s two rejections today. I’m not scary anymore, am I?” he asked me.

“You’re never scary when you like someone,” I told him with a smile. “You’re just not accustomed to liking so many people all at once.”

Reve finished hemming my dress and fluffed the skirt over my petticoats. She’d already provided me with a boot knife and had tried to strap one to my thigh, but there was no way I could get under all my skirts in time to do any damage. I’d probably just carve up my own legs if I tried.

“Why is everyone so certain that we’re going to end up in a fight?” I asked.

Crim helped me down off the hemming box and twirled me around, ending with our hands clasped. “Because people who assume they’re going into a fight tend to live through the fight. This Mr. Sweeting is a dangerous character, and the witch might be more dangerous still. Are you sure this is the proper course, love?”

“I didn’t bring my grandmother here just to let her die alone with the person I hate most in the world. We’ll all be able to relax once the witch is gone. And I’m harder to kill now.” But the way he was looking at me, face open and eyes gleaming with worry . . . he’d never looked at me like that before. I put my hand to his cheek, and he leaned into me for a moment before kissing my palm. “What’s wrong, Crim?”

Reve swiftly disappeared down the stairs. It was still strange to me, dealing with daimons. They were, at their core, people who needed emotions as sustenance and were therefore attuned to every minor change in feeling. Perhaps our worry and anxiety tasted as repellent to her as tuna and capers to me; Reve was, after all, a daimon who dined on delight.

Once she was gone, Crim laced his fingers through mine and pulled me close. “Thing is, love, I’ve already played my hand. When you were still human, I always had an ace in my pocket. If something hurt you, it was in my power to turn you into a Bludman. But now that you’re a Bludman, I’ve nothing up my sleeve. If Sweeting shoots you with seawater, you’ll burn and scar. If the witch stabs you in the heart, which is the sort of thing a witch would do, you’ll die. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. And that makes me worried. And furious.”

“Then let’s go now and get it over with. I’m not scared. I feel . . . amazing. Impossibly strong. Confident. Like I could fight anything, destroy anyone who got in my way.” To make my point, I flexed my biceps—or tried to. The current bodice style in Sang had tight sleeves and a deep V-neck with slightly exposed shoulders. I felt a little bit like an evil Ariel in
The Little Mermaid
.

“Bravado is fine and well, but it’s no way to go into a fight with a dangerous foe, darling. Courage is silly and will fool you into making all sorts of mistakes. The trick is to feel the fear and do it anyway. As you are now, you’re likely to make a foolish mistake, to bank your decisions on the fact that you’ve never experienced this new body damaged to the point of death or hindered in any way. You can’t feel the stakes, so to speak. You feel invincible, but you’re not.”

“So what, then? We just sit around waiting for me to understand the full potential and weakness of my new body and then, when I’m full of doubt, rush in and throw a scorpion at him?”

“Something like that. I wouldn’t race a horse I’d just caught, savvy?”

And he was right. I did feel different, although mostly in a good way. But I kept catching my trimmed claws in the cloth of my skirt and rasping sharp fangs over my tongue, cutting my own lips. There was a clumsiness to my ferocity that wouldn’t serve me in a fight. My muscles worked faster, but my brain hadn’t caught up; I tripped going up stairs too quickly. When I looked in the mirror again, I didn’t see a young, beautiful, smooth version of Tish. I saw an inept monster decked out in ruffles and ribbons, better suited for wild places where bloodstains didn’t matter. I felt the loss of my humanity keenly just then. I was a new creature, and although my body and heart were finely tuned, my mind hadn’t quite made the leap.

“I feel silly,” I muttered, fluffing my skirts like a child in a too-fancy dress.

“You’re never silly, love. You’re different. Change is inevitable. And this change is much better than the slow alternative. It ate at you, daily. I saw it in your eyes, caught you rubbing the veins on your hands and frowning. Be glad of it.”

“So we can’t go now because I’m fragile?”

“We can’t go now because it’s Sunday. Sweeting’s shop will be closed.”

“Goddammit.”

Crim stifled a laugh and pulled me in to peck my lips gently but with promise. “I have a better idea, anyway,” he said. “To help you get the hang of this fine new body of yours.”

And the wolfish, hungry look he gave me was enough to make me shiver with anticipation for what he had in mind.

He wouldn’t tell me where
we were going, but I followed him willingly through the twisting streets of the daimon district and onto the wider streets of London Proper, as they called everything that didn’t belong to nonhumans. The cobblestones were actually dirtier here, thanks to the Pinkies’ food wrappers and detritus. It was my first time personally experiencing the sneers and whispers that dogged a Bludman’s every step, but the high quality of our clothes and the costly earbobs I wore kept anyone from throwing an old cabbage.

“You’re not shagging me against Big Ben, if that’s what you were thinking,” I said as the giant clock came into view.

“No Big Ben, no Tower, no ravens, no Thames,” he all but sang. “Not even a quick rogering on the carousel.”

I was panting as we walked ever upward, but he didn’t slow down. Then I saw what he had in mind and stopped in my tracks, hard enough to nearly yank him backward.

“No.”

“Letitia, my love. Live a little. You’re practically indestructible. You said so yourself.”

I dug in my heels. “No.”

He swung me up into his arms, my petticoats foaming and rustling, and carried me onward. I looked up and up and up and shivered, but was it truly in fear, or was it perhaps in excitement, too?

“I’ve never been up in a hot-air balloon before,” I murmured, and he kissed me quickly and kept walking.

“Has that ‘no’ become a ‘yes, please,’ then?”

“It’s a ‘maybe.’ ” But we could both hear my sped-up breathing, and history had taught me that he could smell my response to his touch. And couldn’t I smell something myself, the heady breath of musk and desire that rolled off him like a fine cologne? I pulled down his cravat and dragged my nose along his neck, breathing in deep. And then licked him.

“Almost there, darling,” he said, voice all husky with promise. “They actually frown on public displays of devourment among civilized people.”

“Screw civilized people,” I growled, and he laughed.

“That’s what I had in mind, love.”

We’d reached our destination, and he swung me down gently to the ground. My knees wobbled, and my thighs clenched together. I’d had no idea that being a Bludman would heighten my sensations, responses, and hunger for sex. It was a wonder Crim and I ever left the damn bed, if he felt like this all the time. He was more of a gentleman than I’d ever assumed. The past six years must have been maddening for him.

I smoothed out my skirts while he went to talk to the fellow at the ticket window. Up above, dozens of balloons and dirigibles in all shapes and sizes bobbed merrily on the evening breeze, tethered to the wooden docks by ropes and winches. Some were large, with enclosed gondolas to carry passengers safely over the wild moors toward other grand cities. Some were rough and fierce-looking, ready to deliver expensive cargo at great speed and height. Some were smaller pleasure balloons, gaily draped in colorful pennants to attract the eyes of rich children. And attention-seeking hedonists like us, I supposed.

My husband was having more trouble than usual getting what he wanted out of the balloon man, who mainly just shook his head. Their whispered argument carried on the air, ended by the
clink
of coins spilling on wood. Soon Crim returned to me clutching two rectangular tickets edged in gilt.

“Which one is ours?” I asked.

He grinned and pointed. I followed his finger up and up to a light-blue hot-air balloon so trimmed out in ribbons, pennants, and paint that it looked like a wedding cake.

“Such a romantic,” I muttered sweetly.

As I watched, the balloon descended to the dock, pulled by a long rope on a huge winch turned by draft-sized bludmares in rusted muzzle caps. We walked to meet it hand in hand. I hadn’t been sure, until he pointed, that he meant to simply rent one of the high fliers. I’d been worried that we would be on a metal-cladder or dirigible, possibly
the world-famous
Maybuck
, an airship bordello
shining bright gold among the clouds. For all that my Bludman’s body made me more daring, that didn’t change the fact that my tastes didn’t run to kinky. Luckily, Crim’s didn’t, either, unless you counted sometimes tying me to our brass bed with silk cravats. Or hiring a by-the-hour hot-air balloon that was even now being wiped down for our use.

The operator tossed his rag onto the ground and stood in front of the basket, brandishing a wrench at us. “Don’t touch the mechanisms. Don’t pull the levers. Don’t untie the rope. No hanging from or standing on the edges of the basket. And don’t be leavin’ no blood on my balloon,” he growled. “Blood stains.”

Criminy swung me over the edge and into the creaking wicker and jumped in beside me. “No blood,” he agreed, handing over our tickets. As the operator shouted at the drovers and the winch began to release us into the sky, Crim added, “But that leaves quite a few other fluids, doesn’t it?”

The look on the poor man’s face was priceless, and Crim and I burst into the loud, carefree laugh of Bludmen who don’t give a damn.

It was my first time in a hot-air balloon in my world or in Sang, and it was exhilarating. The basket swung and creaked below us, the fabric above flapping a little and burping heated air. It was an unusually lovely day to be in the air, especially once we’d floated above the London smog and burst out of the brownish fug into a twilight shimmering with purple and gold. We caught glimpses of other balloons and airships here and there, but the airfield was large and the vessels well spread out among feathery white clouds. The
Maybuck
flashed her giant wooden tits at us, but the only sound was the
whoosh
of air and the cries of birds hurrying past the city, high above the squalor. The wicker was slightly cold through my black velvet gloves, the brisk wind whipping my cheeks as the balloon jerked suddenly, at the end of its tether.