The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (43 page)

“That fool du Bourge told me where to find Lord Henry,” said Rapson. “And I was to meet Victoire tonight, to give her a report, as her paid servant. I merely had to bribe du Bourge to pass her location on to Lord Henry, as if du Bourge were bright enough to have learned it himself. No doubt Lord Henry paid him a second reward for the information. And when du Bourge returned to me, I . . . well, I took steps to ensure he would never give me away.”

“You killed him.” Her stomach curdled, but she kept her expression placid, admiring. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“That’s their vulnerable point, you see. All these great spymasters—none of them can work alone. The must rely on a whole series of weak idiots who inevitably betray their secrets.”

“But you don’t make that mistake. You’ve kept your secrets to yourself.”

He nodded. “This is the endgame, and I have them all in checkmate.”

“Yes, John. You’ve beaten them all, haven’t you?”

“They’re fools, all of them. Fickle and short-sighted and petty as children.” He laughed again. “Do you know what’s in that notebook Victoire’s been so rabid to get her hands on? The notebook Sarah had in her possession? Do you know why Victoire wants it so badly?”

Rachel’s head felt suddenly a little light. “No.”

“It contains all Victoire’s secrets. The secrets of the French. Because she was too confident, let Ehlert learn too much. So Ehlert tricked her, too, in the end. Wrote it all down, using the code I designed for them, and left it for Lord Henry to find. A sort of revenge, I suppose, for the fool she’d made of him. Just one last nasty thumbing of his nose. That’s how they think. That’s how they work.”

Rachel no longer cared about the book—time was running out for Sebastian. She had to try to appeal to whatever decency might still exist within Mr. Rapson’s heart. “You value loyalty, John,” she told him. “And you’ve been the most loyal friend imaginable to me. I’m more grateful for that than you can possibly know. Well, Lord Hawksbridge was Sarah’s loyal friend. And he saved my life more than once—”

Rapson leaned forward, grasping her shoulders and shaking her hard. “Saved your life? He
endangered
your life, Rachel. And you were nothing to him but a tool, a weapon.”

His chest and arms now crowded her against the wall. The orange lamplight lit his face with a hellish glow.

“John, please—”

“Don’t you dare plead for him,” he snarled. “He’s a spy. A liar by profession. The whole lot of them are rabid dogs, and it’s only right to set them on one another. Let them rip one another to shreds, and end the corruption.”

He was staring with a horrifying intensity into her eyes. The look on his face she might not have fully understood just a few weeks ago, but she recognized it now. It was desire—desire mixed with an ugly streak of jealousy. He wanted her. For himself. And he would be more than happy if Sebastian died.

She had to get the pistol from him, and she had to get it now.

What had Sebastian taught her about fighting an opponent larger than herself? Fear clouded her mind—she could remember only vague things about eyes and feet and fingernails.

“You’re right, John,” she said, placing a tentative hand on his breastbone. “About how corrupt they all are. I’m just a little overwhelmed right now, trying to take it all in. The—the scale of what you’ve done, it’s astonishing.”

“Rachel,” Rapson murmured, his voice gruff. Despite the restraint he’d always shown in years past, he ground himself against her now, crushing his mouth to hers. He clutched at her, his fingers digging roughly into her ribcage, pulling her so close she felt his arousal, hard against her belly.

And that gave her the opening she needed.

She wound her arms around his neck, sensuously, as a true Salomé Mirabeau might have done. She slid her tongue against his.

His body jolted, and he sucked in a shaky breath against her lips.

Her hands slid down his chest, as if trying to entice him further. Where was the damned pistol?

At that moment, he seemed to realize her intentions. He pulled himself back from her, his expression suddenly dark and angry. “What are you doing?”

There was no time left.

His arm blocked her access to the poker, so she flung her left hand at the oil lamp, knocking it hard to the oaken floor.

Rapson turned to look as it shattered, and at that moment, she kicked out with all the strength she had, striking him in the shin. Ah, yes—
stamp on his foot, the instep
. She remembered Sebastian’s lesson all at once, and brought down her heel with all the force she could muster. And then a knee to his groin.

He doubled over, grunting in pain.

Where the lamp had shattered, a rippling circle of orange flame was spreading as far as the oil had splashed—including the thick rag rug near their feet. Some had spattered the toe of Rapson’s shoe and the hem of his trousers, and fire licked there, too. His focus shifted—he still clutched himself between his legs with one hand, but the other flailed at his legs, trying to smother the flames.

By the low and eerie light, she reached to her right, feeling for the chill of metal—the fireplace poker.
There
.

She could afford no mercy—she gripped the poker, swung it hard, angling it upward, and it struck with a satisfying smack against Rapson’s shoulder.

He staggered, and looked at her, enraged. He’d snuffed the flames on his clothing, but the fire around him was growing—a stack of books on the floor caught fire, and the rag rug, soaked with oil, was lighting up like a wick, smoking and sizzling and giving off an awful stench of burning wool.

She swung the poker again, this time connecting with his elbow, which he’d raised to defend himself. As his jacket swung up along with his arm, she saw a flash of filigree silver and wood—the pistol.

Rapson lunged at her, seizing the poker, but she didn’t care about that weapon now. She slipped her free hand beneath his jacket, found the gun, and pulled it free.

Quickly cocking it with her thumb, just as Sebastian had made her practice back in London, she pointed the barrel directly at Rapson’s chest.

“Hold still!” she ordered. “I don’t want to kill you!”

They were both frozen for a moment, but they could not stay that way for long. The blaze was now licking at the legs of the desk, and the rug was a low ring of flame. The armchair would go up next.

“Tell me where you sent Sebastian,” she said. “Tell me precisely where, and we both leave here alive.”

For the space of two breaths, Rapson stared at her with glowing eyes, unmoving. Which would he do—comply with her request, or attack again?

Then his face contorted in rage. “You still want to protect him?” he cried. “You want to be with
him
again?” He raised the poker with both hands, up over his right shoulder.

He was going to
strike
her with it.

There could be no choice. She pulled the trigger. The pistol sparked and roared.

Time slowed, and she swung her head left to dodge the poker. The pronged end gouged itself into the wood above the mantel, not far from where her skull had just been.

Rapson tripped backwards, staring at her in disbelieving shock. He twisted, then seemed to simply collapse in on himself.

The strange angles of his body once he struck the floor told her he was no longer conscious, though his chest still rose and fell with his breathing. The flames of the rug were already leaping onto the cloth of his jacket.

Her mind swimming with shock, she reached for him, worked to pull the jacket free from his shoulders; whatever he had done, whatever he had become, he’d once been her friend, and she couldn’t bring herself to watch him burn alive. Unconscious, he seemed twice his normal weight. Wedging her hands beneath him, she rolled him away from the licking flames, but his clothing brought the fire with it.

She could see the front of him now. His waistcoat, formerly cream-colored, was one dark, spreading blotch. His life’s-blood poured from him. His head lolled limply, his eyes open, but blank. His chest no longer rose.

Horrified, she slid her fingers beneath his neckcloth, pressed them to his throat. No pulse.

Mr. Rapson was dead, dead at her hands.

But she couldn’t stop to think. The spreading flames had reached the little table by the hearth, whooshing up its spindly legs like it was kindling. The smoke was becoming a thick haze, a choking miasma. And the little heap of firewood stood close by, ready to serve as further fuel.

She needed to get out of here. Needed to raise a cry to get the other families out of the building before the fire spread into their homes. Needed to find Sebastian.

Before she was even on her feet, though, a thump sounded beyond the front door of the apartment, and voices. Male voices, two of them, speaking in French.

“I’m telling you,” said one. “He has to be in here.”

A metal pick clicked and rasped in the lock.

Fighting down the sick panic in her gut, she reached through Rapson’s pockets until she found a small packet of bullets. She found a small packet of them. There was no time to load the weapon now, so she slid the bullets and the pistol into the pocket that had been sewn into her gown for exactly such a purpose.

The tumbler of the lock on the door clunked.

Yanking the poker free of the mantel, and dodging flames, she slipped as quietly as she could behind the curtain that cordoned off the bedroom. There must be a window there she could leave through, probably a balcony beyond it. At the very least, she could try to load the pistol again before they found her.

She slipped past the curtain just as the front door crashed open, and heavy footfalls pounded inside.

A loud oath in gutter French, and then, “What in hell? The place is on fire!”

“Christ, look! It’s Le Merveil. The bastard’s
dead
.”

A dark laugh, and a cough. “No wonder he didn’t show tonight.”

“This is that whore’s doing, the red-haired witch who can’t be killed.” The man coughed as well—the smoke was nearly unbreathable by now. “We need to get out of here.”

She had the window eased open; there was indeed a landing outside of it—apparently a long outer gallery that wrapped around the house. She willed the men to go back out through the door they’d entered through.

“No,” said the other voice. “You heard the pistol. She didn’t kill with magic. And I doubt she can fly on a broomstick, either. She’s still here.”

One set of footfalls moved toward the curtain.

No time to load the pistol. She slipped through the window, praying the gallery led to a back stairway. Fresh night air filled her lungs, and she ran for the corner of the building, keeping the poker in her hand.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

One of the Frenchman was through the window as quickly as if he’d practiced magic himself. He grabbed at her trailing skirts.

She stumbled, but twisted around, striking at him with the poker. He yelped, but didn’t release his hold. Sebastian’s advice came to her again:
cause pain
. As much as possible, and keep hitting until you have a chance to run.

She struck again with the poker, and again, making him yell, connecting at one point with what felt like the hardness of his head.

His hand released her skirts. She wheeled, began to run down the gallery.
Damn it
, no rear staircase at the corner, just an angle around to the front of the building. She had no choice, she kept running—and slammed straight into the arms of the other Frenchman, who must have gone back out the front door and come running in the direction of his comrade’s cries.

His arms came around her too fast for her to react, and hard as iron bands. The poker dropped from her numbed hand, and she was lifted from the ground.

“Armand,” said the one who held her. “I’ve got her.”

“Hold tight,” answered the other in a groaning voice. So she hadn’t even knocked him out. “She’s got talons.”

The iron bands tightened.

“Move fast now—Victoire’s eager to have her. And don’t damage her; Victoire wants her alive.”

Rachel drew breath to scream, but choked on the smoke that now billowed from the apartment next to John’s. The old dry wood of the building was easy work for the flames.

She could hear screams from the neighbors.

“Get your families out quickly!” cried one of the Frenchman. His Spanish was heavily accented, but effective enough. “There’s a fire!”

If anyone was concerned about a struggling, well-dressed girl in the grip of a rough-looking man, they gave no sign of it. They were all busy yelling for their families and shooing them out of the building, as heat burst open the front window of the apartment where Rapson’s body lay, and orange flames belched out and began to race up the beams of the gallery.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sebastian had been waiting well more than an hour, hidden inside a confessional. Considering he’d pried open a chancel window and knocked over a crucifix on his way in, it could hardly be more of an offense to take the priest’s half of what seemed to him an ornate cupboard. A carved screen meant to let in air and a bit of light allowed him to watch most of the nave without being seen.