The Seduction of Phaeton Black (5 page)

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Authors: Jillian Stone

BOOK: The Seduction of Phaeton Black
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“The fire brigade captain has informed me that your place of residence will be gone by the end of the evening.” His gaze darted toward the flickering light of the blaze. “Will you be needing a place to stay, miss?” He reached out a hand.
Tears didn’t come until a Sister of Mercy tucked her into a soft cot at the shelter and covered her with a scratchy, thin blanket. A copy of the New Testament rested on a small night table between two beds. At first she hiccupped and choked, her eyes unable to manufacture enough tears. Eventually, the soft rain of grief streamed down her cheeks and dampened the pillow.
America slept fitfully and awoke with a thumping pulse and a startling idea. Nothing much more than a notion, but the thought kindled something akin to hope, deep inside her. There might be one person in London willing to help. In fact, the man was at least partially responsible for her delay. If she had returned to the warehouse earlier, there might have been a chance to prevent the fire.
She bolted upright and dried her tears. From their first encounter, she sensed a powerful enchantment, something magnetic about him.
Le visage d’un grand espirit
. The face of a great spirit. Her mother’s people were a mélange of French and slave and lived for part of each day immersed in the practice of great mysteries. They had taught her to recognize another of their kind when she encountered one.
But would Mr. Black have her?
Well, he would just have to. That’s all there was to it.
Chapter Five
T
HE DOOR TO LIZZIE’S ROOM OPENED
with a freezing cold blast. A swarm of ice crystals stormed past Phaeton and swooped down the stairs. Pressed back against the balustrade, he hesitated, torn between chasing after the frost wraith’s tail and checking on Lizzie.
Squeaking bed springs and low moans, the hot-blooded cries of fornication filled the hallway. And a whimper of pain, straight ahead. He reached for an umbrella lodged against the entry molding and gingerly pushed the door open. In the center of the room, an iron bed spun in slow circles, inches above the ground. A cloud of frost swirled in the air. Lizzie lay like death atop a crimson splattered mattress, her shoulder and dressing gown soaked in red. The dear girl struggled to inhale a shallow breath of air.
The nebulous apparition floating above the bed frame slowly shifted into the form of a woman. Disturbing. Deadly. Flowing black hair and rounded breasts like alabaster globes were visible through gossamer robes. A chimera of pale, luminous beauty turned to stare at him. Her eyes glowed wide and golden, before turning into sparkling rubies. The vamp’s gaze traveled down his body and then up again. She licked her lips.
Bone-hard and ready to please, there was no doubt about it—the seductress aroused him. And there was something else. What was it Miss Jones had said? A weakness of spirit and great sadness. He moved cautiously, as he quite plainly understood not to underestimate the powerful little succubus.
“I would like to help you.” Nonsensical words, given the situation.
Instantly the she-devil dissolved into shimmering dust and reconfigured herself as a large, pale spider. The apparition braced legs to each side of poor Lizzie’s dying body and swayed back and forth, unsteady. A fuzzy grey face with claws for a mouth and several sets of menacing yellow eyes swiveled to fix on him.
She meant to frighten him off.
He circled the bed, and moved closer, forcing her to withdraw. Several spindly limbs faltered under the bulk of a pendulous, misshapen body. Her retreat ended at the foot of the cast-iron bed rails. There it was again; he had noted a similar injury to the harpy in Savoy Row. This time the wretched shape-shifter dragged a leg, perhaps more than one.
The doors to the wardrobe burst open. Once again, the she-creature dissolved into a frenzied whirl of frost and ice. He lunged after nothing more than a specter, which disappeared through the large hole in the back of the armoire. Leaning into the darkness, through the ragged opening and broken window, his gaze swept every corner of Shaftsbury Court. Nothing out of the ordinary. The usual number of carriages parked along the street. Most of them awaited Mrs. Parker’s clientele or customers of Blades, the gambling hell down the lane.
Phaeton retraced his steps, noting a spray of red drops over the floor and bed sheets. He had interrupted the end of her feeding. If he had not arrived when he did, Lizzie would certainly be drained. As it was, she teetered on the edge of consciousness. The labored wheeze of her breath caused him to doubt whether she would live through the night.
He moved to the door, stepping over the hulking man who lay groaning on the floor. Out in the corridor, he leaned over the second floor railing and called for assistance.
Esmeralda peeked her head out the door of her apartment. He was quite sure her shoulders were bare. Her nudity irritated him. Was she working tonight? He wondered who the man was. In fact, he was stung with jealousy over it.
“Lizzie has been abused again. I’m afraid she’s in a bad way. We’ll need to call for a doctor, straight away.”
Esmeralda nodded. “Give me a moment. We have a doctor in the house.”
Phaeton returned to the room and pulled the hired man up into a sitting position. No discernible puncture wounds. Poking around through a tuft of hair, he found a large knot at the back of the poor bloke’s head. Having pieced together most of what had transpired, he nevertheless asked the question. “Mr. Skimpole, can you tell me what happened here?”
“He will not remember anything.”
Phaeton turned toward an eerily familiar voice. Stunned, he gritted his teeth to keep his jaw from dropping open. It was him. All six feet of the mysterious, imposing gentleman. Phaeton’s gaze narrowed as it slid from unbuttoned vest to untied cravat. Mrs. Parker stood beside him in a silk wrapper.
So.
Esmeralda tightened the belt of her dressing gown. “Phaeton, this is Doctor—”
“Jason Exeter. We meet again, Mr. Black of Scotland Yard.”
 
The director’s office stifled, as usual. Phaeton squirmed under Elliot Chilcott’s scrutiny, whose untamable eyebrows and muttonchop sideburns underscored the irascible nature of Scotland Yard’s head man.
“He examined Lizzie briefly, and left. Returning not ten minutes later with a leather satchel filled with apparatus—medical equipage. He gave her a transfusion of blood.”
“His own blood?” Chilcott appeared to be making a concerted effort to control disbelieving mannerisms like his usual roll or bulge of eyes.
“Mine, actually.” He hated debriefings. They always made him feel like he was some kind of oddity, and certainly not to be taken seriously. “The doctor claimed his own blood was tainted in some way.”
Steepling his fingers together, Chilcott’s gaze slid from Phaeton to Zander and back again. “How exactly do they extract blood during these ... transfusions?”
Phaeton unscrewed a cufflink and rolled up a sleeve. The incision was red, held together with a stitch, and there was a good bit of bruising around the wound. “My blood is drained into a receptacle. And in turn, this man, Exeter, posing as a physician—”
Zander flipped pages in a dossier. “His full name is Asa Alexander Exeter. Father British, Mother Persian. He has Anglicized his given name—now calls himself Jason Exeter. He took a science degree, a DSc, from Cambridge. I can find no address for a surgeon under the name Exeter. More likely he’s in research.” Zander closed the file. “All I could dig up at a moment’s notice.”
The director sank back into the comfortable, worn cracks of his leather chair. “And do you believe this Doctor Jason Exeter to be—frankly, I don’t know any other way to put it—human?”
Phaeton stared. “I believe so. At least partially.”
“You believe or you know?”
“Sir, he’s quite agile for an average man.”
“In what way?” Chilcott pulled on the long hairs of a sideburn and scowled.
Phaeton hesitated, his patience edging along the thin side.
Zander shuffled files and opened his report. “In your own words, Phaeton, you report the man was able to”—Zander double-checked the notes—“jump from the top of a six-foot wall to a second-floor window ledge to a rooftop in just so many effortless leaps. And rather quickly—‘blink of an eye’ it says here.”
The chill sobriety of the room was interrupted by a quiet knock as Mr. Oliver opened the door. “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, gentlemen, but a young man from the mortician’s office was just here with a rather unusual tale to report. Since Mr. Black is here, I thought—”
“Yes. Yes, Mr. Oliver, bring him in.”
Chilcott’s secretary shut the door behind him and inched forward. “I’m afraid the young man has run off. He requested that an agent follow along as soon as possible.”
“What seems to be the problem at the morgue?”
“A dead police officer, sir, found near the Strand last night.”
Zander leaned forward, “Mr. Oliver, we are aware of the murder. The very reason we called Phaeton in—”
“According to the mortician’s assistant”—the pitch of Mr. Oliver’s voice rose and he shuffled a bit on his feet—“the dead body sat straight up on the examination table this morning and attacked Doctor Meloni.”
Oliver nodded a bow to Zander. “Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Farrell.” The ordinarily polite and unflappable secretary turned to his boss. “I believe what remains of the police officer is still moving about, sir.”
The only sound in the room was the squeak of Chilcott’s chair as he leaned forward. “Well, what are we waiting for gentlemen?”
 
It took all six men to restrain the dead man.
Gripping a leg with one hand, Phaeton pulled a copy of
The Feast of Blood
out of his coat pocket. “We’ll need a stake to drive through his heart.”
Zander frowned. “I thought they were never able to kill Varney.”
“Poor distressed old vampire threw himself into the crater of Mount Vesuvius.” Phaeton pressed a bit more muscle into service to quell a jerking knee joint. “However, I have here a long list of talismans, cures, and elimination methods we might try.”
The body began another fit of violent shakes. Chilcott slammed a writhing forearm back onto the slab. “Someone find a stake, damn it.”
After an exasperating bit of shuffling about, the coroner’s assistant held a metal rod over the zombie’s chest, and Dr. Meloni swung the hammer. A swath of blood erupted from the poor devil’s chest, spewing over agents and mortuary workers. To make matters worse, the wretched corpse continued to twitch.
Phaeton saw no way around it. “Perhaps for good measure we should separate the head from the body.”
A slightly wild-eyed Meloni got out his autopsy hacksaw and removed the head. “Let’s hope this ends it.” The mortician wiped stained hands on a lab coat smeared in red.
Droplets of sweat and blood dripped off Phaeton’s brow. “Anyone for a bit of fresh air?”
Chilcott called a meeting in the small yard outside the morgue. Lowering his voice he eyeballed each and every man. “Not one word gentlemen. Neither to friends or family. If the press gets so much as a hint of this episode, Scotland Yard will be written about for years to come in the penny dreadfuls.”
The director continued to scan the crimson-splattered men in front of him. His gaze came to rest on Phaeton. “I expect you’re used to this kind of thing.”
He hardly knew what to say to the man. “Gone on for years, sir. Since I was a wee lad. All manner of ghouls and grotesques.”
“Yes. I suppose that explains you, Mr. Black. Chilcott exhaled. “I’m put off supper this evening. Anyone care to join for a pint or two?”
Phaeton staggered into Mrs. Parker’s drunk and beat.
Esmeralda called down the corridor. “You have a guest, Phaeton, waiting in your flat. And please run upstairs and visit Lizzie, she’s been asking after you.”
He turned toward the sound of her voice. He had not forgotten that she bedded Dr. Jason Exeter. The room swayed slightly. “I might suggest you and Doctor Exeter sit by her bedside. He to hold her hand and you to hold the hard, manly parts.” He braced the wall, which was badly listing. “A ghoulish little
ménage à trois.
”
“You’re drunk.”
“Very.” He stopped himself halfway into a turn. “Whooze, waiting below stairs?”
Esmeralda shot him a look and a smirk. “That pretty little thing you had tied to a chair the other morning.”
Phaeton squinted in an attempt to bring her bustled rear into better focus.
A pivot toward the stairwell proved challenging as he considered the uninvited female in his flat. “Pretty little—?” He groaned.
Descending one step at a time, the tantalizing aroma of exotic curry spices wafted up to greet him. He dipped down to take a peek and nearly fell head first down the last section of stairs.
“Mr. Black, I’ve been expecting you for some time. Come, have your supper.”
The room smelled delightful.
She had the audacity to smile. “Esmeralda was kind enough to donate the spices, and I purchased a bit of sausage and lentils to make a potage.”
“I’m not hungry.” His stomach growled.
“Have a seat, Mr. Black, and a bit of stew. It will do you good. Quash the stout in your system.”
“Why?” He plopped down on a chair and she ladled out a healthy portion. The blasted little tart bit her lip. To keep from laughing at him, he supposed, but it was alluring all the same.

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