A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) (19 page)

Royston stared at her. Rage burned hot, and then cold, separating him from the power of speech.

“If you don’t care about your own position,” she continued, “I’d have thought you would at least care about those poor girls. We both know Browne couldn’t catch a loose puppy with a steak as bait, let alone a clever killer. I know you’ll come to this on your own—you’re not the sort of man to stay down long, but with the next full moon coming, there isn’t much time.”

 
Ah. This was her version of a pep talk.
 

He took a deep breath. Let it out. “Look, I appreciate your interest. But someone of your background can’t possibly understand the limitations faced by a man of my status and upbringing.”

She set her tea down. “Limitations? Shall we talk about limitations? Try being born a woman with a brain in this world. The only choices open to you is in which manner you prefer to be bored to death. A lady of good birth and upbringing cannot work, especially not at something as dangerous and challenging as alchemy. Yet I have found a way.”

He looked away, not wanting to concede the point but unable to deny it. She was getting to him.
 

“Richard’s parents could have given up on him when he got bitten. They could have had him quietly sent away where no one would ever hear about him again. You know what happens to most children that get bitten.”

The luckiest were taken in by roving gypsy packs to live a hardscrabble existence. Most ended up in the streets begging for scraps or in asylums and workhouses with mortality rates almost as high as the baby farms.

“They decided that their son would have a normal life, no matter how hard it was to hide his condition,” she continued. “I know how hard you’ve fought to make the life you want,
Inspector
Jones. I’ll be disappointed if you let this defeat you.”

“What business is it of yours?”

“I’m not fond of injustice, and I hate to see talent go to waste. London needs you tracking down killers, not collaring pickpockets and separating drunken sailors in dockside brawls. If you need a more personal reason, do not forget that I nearly died at the hands of a madman like the one that now stalks the streets. I have not forgotten.”

Her faced had paled, and he could tell it took something out of her to talk about that night. He had seen her, crying and shaken. Had seen her vulnerable.
 

“It’s your choice,” she said. “But I have ways of keeping abreast of cases at the Yard. If you come by, I will make certain you are as informed as you were when you were actually working the case. We can decide what to do about your career, as well. You are wasted as a constable.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of me.”

“What? Oh, because of our little conversation before? I only wanted to make sure you were not a threat to Mr. Bandon. I protect the people I care about. I like you, but I love him.”

Bandon.
“You will tell Mr. Bandon to stay away from Browne?” Royston asked. “He’s been pressuring me for my source in the warehouse case, but I put him off. And will continue to do so indefinitely. The things the man has said about werewolves don’t bear repeating.”
 

Catherine gave him a withering look. “Do you think I’d marry an idiot?”

Royston smiled. “No, I don’t suppose you would. And if you did, the poor man wouldn’t last a week.”

Their eyes met, and he saw the moment when she realized that she had just as much as admitted the identity of the werewolf he was working with. He took a deep breath, scrambling for words of reassurance she might believe. And then she visibly relaxed, and gave him a conspiratorial smile.

It was enough to make him believe her sincerity. Which didn’t mean it was a good idea to let someone else get dragged into this mess.

She refilled both their teacups. “I feel like some of this might be my fault.” She didn’t quite meet his gaze as she said it.

His eyes narrowed, and he bit off a single word. “How?”

“I went to see the Commissioner. I told him how grateful I was to you for your kindness and conscientiousness in the aftermath of the incident with Blackpoole. I thought he’d be impressed enough with my name to banish any thoughts he might have had of disciplining you for ruffling a few feathers.”

Was that all?
He smiled wryly. “He might have been, had you been a man. I’m sure he was unctuously courteous and maddeningly insulting without realizing it.”

“Indeed. And despite my insistence otherwise, he took the impression that you had used the trauma of the situation to ingratiate yourself on a vulnerable and therefore easily influenced girl in order to further your goal of rising above your station. As if you would ever willingly have anything to do with the landed class. Does the man even know you?”

He shook his head. “Clearly he can’t know anything of you, if he can imagine you vulnerable or easily influenced. I doubt you did any damage. He was making that accusation long before the demotion.”

“I know things seem dire,” she. “But Winchell is not the only one with influence. You are not without friends among Society, whether you want them or not.”

He gave her a genuine, if reluctant smile, feeling the first bit of hope he found all day.

Twelve

By the time he was back in uniform and joined the other constables crowding in the assembly room for the night’s assignment, Royston’s temporary rise in spirits had abated. The others all turned to look when he entered the room. Conversation fell silent, then resumed with an insistent buzz that carried his name. Mostly, it was excitement and prurient curiosity, but here and there derision and even muted laughter rose from those who had resented Royston’s quick rise through the ranks and now thoroughly enjoyed his demotion.

Affecting not to notice, Royston kept eyes front throughout the briefing of the evening shift and the assigning of the duty roster. He and Parker were given the docks, a war zone full of drunken day laborers with little left to lose. Strong sons-of-bitches, too, most of them. Royston hadn’t been sad to bid farewell to dock patrol when he was promoted. Here he was, back again.

He shouldn’t feel so sorry for himself. Men all over London worked jobs harder and more menial for even less pay. And at least, night shift gave him an excuse to avoid seeing Godwin. He wasn’t ready to face his mentor’s disappointment just yet.

Parker fell in beside him as he stalked out of the Yard. Royston acknowledged him with a curt nod, not quite looking at him. It wasn’t Parker’s fault that Royston had been his superior the last time they’d worked together, but that didn’t make the situation any more comfortable.
 

The docks stank as much as he remembered, stank of the sewage and industrial chemicals that darkened the Thames and the unsold fish discarded and left to rot on the wharf. The thick fog seemed to clog his lungs. Parker opened his mouth to speak and then fell silent a time or two, until Royston stopped and turned to face him. “You’ve the attitude of a man with something to say,” he said. “Best come out with it.”

“It’s about your demotion, sir.”

“No need to ‘sir’ me anymore, Parker,” Royston said. “I’m a constable just like you.”

“With respect sir, you ain’t.”

Aren’t
, Royston wanted to correct, and did not. He hadn’t the right, anymore, and the appalling education levels of his fellow constables were none of his business. He stiffened and waited for Parker to continue.

“You ain’t like us. You think like an inspector. You should be an inspector.”

The unexpected support melted some of the steel in his spine. “Thank you, Parker.”

“It ain’t right, them demoting you. Even the greenest bobbie would be neglecting his duty if he saw what you saw and didn't act straightaway. And what was going on was wrong. Even if she was already dead, it was wrong. Messing about with a corpse, there’s a law against that. Shouldn’t matter that the man calls himself a scientist.”

“Unfortunately, it does matter. Provided others call him a scientist as well and a gentleman.”

“No one would blame you if you quit the force over this. Expected it, kind of. Anyway, a bunch of the lads have been talking. If you walk out, we will, too.”

“We?”

Parker rattled off names. Enough names to leave the London police force severely short-handed if they followed through with their promise.

From the time that Norman conquerors had enslaved Saxon freeholders, the gentry of this land tended to overlook the nobility of its commoners. He, despite his name, was hardly gentry, and yet he had made the same mistake. Parker, son of a butcher and a seamstress, officer of the law by grace of London’s desperate need, was as loyal to his chosen leader as ever a knight was to his king.

He could pay back the Commissioner in kind. Show him that the Winchells of the world weren’t the only ones with power, that working people had power of their own. Only, many of the men that Parker had mentioned, like Parker himself, had young families to feed. They needed their jobs. And while a strike would embarrass and inconvenience the Yard and the Commissioner, in the end they would just hire more men, perhaps less qualified, definitely less seasoned, but they would go forward. Parker and other good, solid men would be left with no jobs and a black mark on their employment history. London would be left without her best men while a killer stalked her streets.

“No,” Royston said. “I appreciate the sentiment, but no. You need your jobs, and London needs
you
.”

“You’re a good man, sir,” Parker said. “You just let us know if you change your mind.”

Royston was trying to reply around the lump in his throat when a woman’s shrill scream rent the quiet. Without a word he and Parker ran toward the sound.
 

They turned the corner into a dark alley, their whistles shrieking. An unshaven man in dockworker’s clothes and a tightly corseted woman wearing more makeup than any true lady would struggled over a lace-trimmed purse. Seeing the constables, the man gave up the struggle and fled. He was fast, but Royston was faster and spoiling for a fight. He brought his quarry down with a leap that would have made an African hunting cat proud.

He caught the thief’s hands behind his back while the man was still trying to catch his wind. The thief struggled violently. Royston drove his knee into the man’s back, perversely glad for the excuse.

Parker caught up then, and with the odds turned two to one in their favor, they soon subdued the suspect.

“Promotion ain’t made you soft, that’s for sure.” Parker was still panting. “I don’t think any constable we have could keep up with you.”

Royston had done more running in his last month as an Inspector than he ever had as a constable. Trying to keep up with a werewolf would do that. They walked their prize back to lock-up, stopping on the way to give the victim back her purse. The chase had given her time to concoct a convoluted and contradictory story about visiting a sick and elderly aunt. Royston even pretended to believe it. There was only one reason why a woman would be out alone at that time of night in that part of London. Her clothing confirmed his conclusion. Satin and ruffles, but several years out of fashion and acquired second-hand. The alterations were quick and crude and plunged the neckline far lower than any true lady would wear. Her perfume was copious if cheap, her makeup far beyond the touch of powder and hint of blush acceptable in a ballroom.

Royston didn’t care. No woman fell into that lifestyle out of a surfeit of choices. If her life was so miserable that this seemed the best option, Royston wasn’t about to make that life any more miserable if he could help it.

Royston finished his shift just as the sun came up, weary and footsore. The brief surge of satisfaction he’d felt running down the thief had faded. After dedicating his whole life to working for the Yard, to protecting his London, maybe he needed to think about what else he could be doing with his life.

Nothing came to mind.
 

There was a message waiting for him in his slot by the door, a message from Godwin. He opened it with trepidation.

Heard what happened, lad. You did nothing wrong. Keep up your spirits. I was demoted a time or two myself, only it was my fault. More or less.

Royston smiled and carefully refolded the note. He went upstairs, fell into bed, and slept the sleep of the overworked.

***

Richard read the morning paper with a mixture of horror and excitement. The killer was getting bolder. He had snatched the police chief’s daughter right off the streets after knocking her fiancé unconscious, a detective in charge of the Doctor Death case.

Not Jones, at least. Cat had told him of Jones' demotion. She had ranted about its unfairness, a point on which he agreed, if at slightly lower volume. So it was the man who had taken Jones' place who had been clubbed over the head. Absolutely wrong of him to feel it was just desserts— quite probably this Browne had nothing directly to do with Jones’ dismissal.

In any case, the lady was entirely blameless and in mortal peril. But the killer had made a mistake. In taking a young woman who would be reported missing immediately—and in a manner further guaranteed to be noticed, he had made the trail that much fresher.

And tonight was the full moon.