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.“Did he see them?”“They showed up in the photographs,” she snarled.“And every time, someone died.”“You were meant to blame yourself.” He shook her, making her teeth rattle.“Stop pursuing such an unnatural profession for a female—especially when you don’t need the money.”“I love my work,” she told him.“It feels perfectly natural to me.Why would I want to give it up? Clearly, you don’t know me at all.What is it you want from me?”“To marry me, you stupid bitch.” He kissed her then, forcing his tongue inside her mouth, and she didn’t have enough control over even her jaw muscles to stop him.He tasted vile—of uncleaned teeth and cheap tobacco and stale beer.The combination made her stomach, already queasy, lurch, and she began to gag.He pulled away and pushed her head down just in time for her to vomit over the edge of the cab instead of on the two of them.Then she felt something like fangs sinking into the base of her spine and her stomach settled—in fact, she couldn’t feel a thing from the waist down.“Are you going to kill me?” A strange, floating sensation filled her head.“Is that what this has come down to? Poisoning me with one of your phantom snakes?”“Poisoning you? Oh, no, no, my dear.This serpent is an entirely different sort.He doesn’t slay.He controls.I’m not going to kill you, Amy.I’m going to marry you and have all that lovely money to call my own.”She wanted to laugh but couldn’t.Even speech was beyond her now.“I earned this power, you know.One of the other stones is fire.My arm wasn’t cut off, but burned off, inch, by inch until I talked.Then they threw me out in the cold, expecting me to die.But I lived and snuck back in at night, slitting every single throat.Once I put the ring on, I knew it was meant to be mine.”So torture and the ring’s evil power had corrupted his mind.That would have been nice to know earlier.She was conscious of the cab stopping and of walking beside him toward a room, but it was all hazy, like a dream.Somewhere beyond the dream, she thought longingly of Kendall.Sitting in the police house, Kendall, Tom and Everett, the local inspector, had nothing so far.There was no trace of Peterson at any transportation depot, including the livery stables, not even the residual oily feel of his magick.Restless and angry at feeling helpless, Kendall leaped to his feet when a young boy ran in the door.“Jamie, what is it?” Tom was on his feet right beside Kendall, catching hold of his foster brother’s arm.“The blighter took Miss Amy,” he panted.“I caught hold of the back of the cab and followed.”“Where is she?” Kendall was already grabbing his hat and stick.His pistol was primed and in a holster at his belt.Everett and two uniformed constables were right behind him.“The Parthenon Hotel.” Jamie rattled off the street name and number.“Couldn’t see what room, but she was walking kind of funny—sort of like one of Wink’s animals.”The men, including Jamie, piled into the police coach.Kendall knew the Hadrian children too well to bother arguing.Merrick had found them as a group of street children successfully fighting vampyres some four years earlier.Any one of them, even the girls, could handle themselves in a fight.When they reached the faux-classical, middle-class hotel, Jamie scrambled to the top of the coach, ready to call out if he spotted Peterson trying to leave the building.Kendall, meanwhile, strode to the front desk with Everett beside him.“We need to see your guest registry from this morning.”The clerk blustered, but after Everett prodded a bit, he handed Kendall the register.Unfortunately, no Peterson was listed.Kendall threw the list down in disgust.“Look, I need to know about a patron with red hair, military bearing and a mechanical left arm.”“Oh,” said the clerk with a smile.“You mean Lieutenant Michaels.He and his wife checked in this morning.”“Wife my arse,” Kendall muttered.“What room?”“And we’ll need the key.” Everett’s tone left no room for argument.The clerk nodded and handed over a key with the number 209 on it.“Is there a balcony for that room?” Kendall didn’t like the idea of leaving Peterson an alternate way out.The clerk shook his head.“He asked for one, but there were no private balconies available.Just a public one at the end of the hall.” He produced a map of the hotel and showed Kendall and Everett where the potential escape routes were located.“There’s a roofline for the porch running right under that window,” Tom pointed out from over Kendall’s shoulder.“I’ll go that way.”Kendall ignored the raised eyebrows of the policemen and nodded.“I assume you have a pistol.If it becomes a hostage situation, only shoot if you’re sure you won’t miss.”“These two gentlemen are agents of the Crown,” Everett assured the clerk, who was gasping like a landed fish.“They know what they’re about.Thornton, you climb like a monkey.You’re with Sir Thomas.”The younger constable nodded and followed Tom, while Kendall and Everett climbed the steam-powered main staircase at a run, skipping over the revolving steps two or three at a time
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