Beyond the Night (8 page)

“That's more than close enough,” Senna murmured, struck by this observation. A lady-in-waiting had access. A lady-in-waiting could maneuver and manipulate, impede, impair, waylay, and engineer an accident, a fall.

She wouldn't let that happen. She'd be there. Somehow she'd compel her way into the palace, and she would derail all their plans.

She borrowed Mirya's clothes against Mirya's protests. “I have to see, I have to find a way to get access before anything happens.”

“You go to kill,” Mirya grumbled. “My blood was not enough for you.”

“
Your
blood?”

“Your breakfast,” Mirya amended. “Dominick will find you.”

“How? Look at me.”

Senna had started to swath herself in the rags she'd found at the foot of the bed. “A hood over my head, my face in shadow, my body bent like an old lady's—how would he recognize me?”

“There are colors,” Mirya whispered. “Auras.” She took Senna's foot and began sliding on one of a pair of thick cotton stockings.

“Bloodred?” Senna asked caustically. “All I'm going to do is find out when foodstuffs are delivered to the Palace and when the Queen might be in residence. If I plan it carefully, I can take the place of one of the ladies and from there keep my eye on Lady Augustine.”

“It's a plan,” Mirya said carefully. “But it's too dangerous. You're too pregnant, and you can't move fast enough if there should be trouble.” She handed Senna a hooded cloak.

“I have the sun stone,” Senna said, ignoring that. “I'll be safe.”

“Dominick will have one too. Perhaps Dnitra. Or she might steal it from him.”

Dnitra. The mention of her name made Senna's skin prickle.

The child moved. She cupped her stomach, now shrouded in rags. It felt larger, she thought, as if it had grown and was stretching to find room after that compressed transformation. Maybe she ought to not transhape into a fly next time.

Today she would be an old, decrepit woman, limping her way around London, picking and pecking at garbage to find a crust of bread. Rags and a hooded cloak should be enough of a disguise to find out what she needed to know.

Though in the meantime, Lady Augustine could be anywhere, even back at the town house, reclaiming her property.

One thing at a time. Lady Augustine hadn't shown herself yet for whatever reason. She might well be entranced by the idea of impersonating the Queen. They were of a height. Their bodies were a similar shape, and the hair, the posture.

If Lady Augustine could get close enough. No easy task. She might be nosing around the Palace right now, looking for an opening.

“They'll scent you out,” Mirya said. “You'll be hungry. You'll want to feed again. What will you do then?”

“Where did you get my breakfast blood?” Senna countered.

“I have my ways,” Mirya answered evasively. “Which are much less dangerous than yours.”

“You understand I have to
do
something.” Senna eased off the bed and straightened the hood so it concealed her face. “I can't just sit here and wait for the worst to happen. My world has to be safe for this child.”

“That's another thing. They want the child.”

Senna bit her lip. “I know.”

“It shows even more now.”

“I'm aware.”

“You will see it sooner than you think,” Mirya added cryptically, handing her a belt.

Senna notched it around her waist. “What do you mean?”

“There is a season in which the child is born.”

“When? Soon?” It wasn't possible. Except her belly felt more like five or six months big suddenly.

“In time,” Mirya said, raising her hand over Senna's head, almost like a benediction.

“I have to go.”

“There may be no deliveries. Remember, the Queen is still at Windsor until later this week.”

“I know.” The Queen had been loath to spend any time at all in London since Albert's death twenty years before. But that had changed; now she periodically returned to the Palace to take care of business, or to attend state functions, and now, it was announced, to plan her upcoming Golden Jubilee.

Senna tucked the chunk of obsidian into her belt. “I'll find out what I can anyway. At the very least, I'll try to get into the Palace and eliminate that obstacle.”

It was hot. The streets felt as if they were giving off steam. The obsidian, absorbing the sun's rays, felt as fiery as lava in her hand.

The streets were crowded, the air humid and cloying, with the mingled scents of garbage, horse, smoke, and perfume.

And blood. Pulsing beneath the skin. She felt a roaring in her ears, her body shaking, her palate shifting.

No feeding. Not now. For her child—not ever again.

This was such a bad idea. She should have thought of a different way to approach it. She should have transported. And she hadn't thought through the difficulty of getting permission to enter the Palace.

Over and above that, she'd underestimated the pull of blood among all those strangers. She bent over and kept limping toward her objective.

The noise of wagons, vendors, footsteps, and random conversation sounded chaotic in her head, in tandem with the waterfall of her hunger.

How many of these strangers might be vampires, given the mission of Charles and the Keepers of the Night; how many bodies had they fed on and turned last night? Any number passing her on the street right now could be newly sired members of Clan Tepes.

She saw now why Mirya was so worried.

There are colors. . . .

She kept her eyes on the ground and her pace as steady as an impaired old lady could manage. She was a lousy actress. Her mouth burned with need.

She needed to concentrate. Charles could be anywhere. He was the most dangerous. He was as bloodthirsty as a pirate. He loved to kill. He lived to feed. There could never be enough blood to satisfy him.

Even in the ebb and flow of these early-afternoon crowds, Charles could be somewhere above her, swooping among the pedestrians, looking for her. He was already too comfortable in his vampire skin.

But Dominick must know this—Charles was his half brother after all. Dominick would stop him.

If Dominick even cared.

Of course he didn't. He had other interests now. He and Dnitra had probably gone off to establish their own intimate little vampire lair.

Stop it!

She bumped into a body. “Excuse me, sorry, forgive an old lady.” She scurried on. Mirya was right, she shouldn't have come out on the street. She wasn't nearly ready to handle being among people, especially with the hunger gnawing at her, and her body shifting to accommodate it.

The lust corroded everything. She had no mastery over it yet.

Charles was right: she
was
a baby vampire. She hadn't even begun to crawl, let alone develop the powers that would help her achieve her mission.

She kept on, swallowing her hunger, pushing back on her body's demand that she prepare to feed. Useless. It took only a moment for her to release her ferocious hold on her thoughts as she waited to cross the street, and she doubled over as the lust took her.

She had no choice: she wheeled and threw herself in front of an oncoming dray.

She was so suffused and plump from feeding, she could barely move. She lay slumped against the wall in a straw-covered stable, her victim lifeless beside her, and the wagon shielding them from the stable door.

An inspired idea, throwing herself under the wagon. Too easy to induce the driver to take her to a for-hire stable, where she could finally feed. The grace note was now she had the wagon and, with it, the wherewithal to approach the Palace.

Not yet though.
Have to think. Have to plan.

It was beyond fortunate his wagon was filled with baskets of vegetables and fruit among other things. He was off to market, he'd said. He couldn't imagine how he'd run her down.

Don't think about that, about him and what he said.

A fluttery movement drew her attention and she cupped her stomach.

Poor child. Your mother is a vampire. She must feed, so she must hunt and kill. How can I raise a child with that demon living in my heart, my mind, and my body?

She was in. At least in the inner courtyard of the royal mews, with the Lord Steward directing her to turn the wagon around, adamant that nothing was wanted with the Queen not in residence at this time, as anyone with half a brain knew.

Somehow, she managed to tumble off the seat this time, at which point the Master of the Household was called to determine whether she'd injured herself.

“Come, come in.” His tone was not hospitable; he was irritated he had to accommodate a random raggedy stranger and rouse the housekeeper and the cook besides.

The coveted invitation; she grabbed the opportunity.

He left her sitting on a stone bench in a small outer room.

Her ill-conceived scheme couldn't have gone better, she thought, but now what? The Queen was not in residence yet. Where was Lady Augustine then? Senna had to make a decision quickly.

Leave or transhape and explore?

She had seconds. She closed her eyes, envisioning the fly's compressed little body. But the child was too big. Maybe . . . she felt raw distaste . . . maybe a bat?

Downward and inward. Contract and pull, the child safely tucked.

The beating of wings, and she was gone.

Impressions of high-ceilinged rooms, glazed in gold, fragile, painted porcelain, cut glass, ivory walls, massive expanses sparsely furnished as she sliced through connecting doors going . . . where, she didn't know.

The Palace interior. Where she needed to be when the Queen returned.

Or, the thought struck her, when Lady Augustine might take her place. In the wake of the Prince's death many years before, the Queen had been absent from the Palace and London altogether for extended periods.

However, even though things had changed and she was due in town this very week, Lady Augustine still had a clear path, an empty Palace, and the wherewithal to take the Queen's place. And no one to stop her.