A Dark Heart (12 page)

Aline nodded. “I can’t say I blame you. But moving to China? A bit
drastic, don’t you think?”

 “Paris, then. But I
am
moving, Aline. I can’t bear to stay in
London.”

Aline set aside her tea as well and studied her with a troubled frown. “I
don’t know if you’re making the right decision or not. I can’t advise you on
this. When Sasha pushed me away last year, I almost gave up and moved to Paris
too, and I know I would have regretted it forever.”

Christiana shook her head. “This is not the same, Aline. The Professor
was never suicidal. For that is what Elijah is. He’s truly determined to kill
himself. I love him, but I
must
give up on him. I must, or I feel I
might die.”

Aline’s expression turned grim. “You are right. I just pray you won’t
regret it.”

“What would you have me do? Shall I have the Professor and Fyodor kidnap
him for me and force-feed him my blood?” she asked bitterly.

Aline looked thoughtful. “It’s not a bad idea.”

Christiana’s eyes widened. “It is a
terrible
idea. He’d not thank
me for it.”

“All I know is if that were Sasha, and I were you, I’d do it.”

“Well, I told you I’m not strong like you,” Christiana retorted. “He’d
hate me. And the minute he was free, he’d continue to kill himself.”

“You’d just have to keep him chained to your bed until he came around to
your way of thinking. It wouldn’t take long.”

Christiana, who’d taken up her tea once more, choked mid-sip. “Aline!”
she finally managed to breathe. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. “You
can’t be serious.”

“I am totally serious,” Aline said, popping a biscuit into her mouth and
grinning. “He won’t hate you for long, once you bed him. Trust me. He’s just a
man under all that gloom, and a man who wants you just as much as you want
him.”

She couldn’t believe she was actually considering Aline’s advice, but she
was. She imagined Elijah bound in iron chains to her bed at Llewellyn House,
snarling and naked under her white, swirling sheets, and went hot all over.
He’d be like a feral animal, with his flashing fangs and glowing eyes. But
after a while – after they did things together she couldn’t even stand to
imagine too vividly for fear of spontaneously combusting all over Aline’s study
– he’d gentle against her touch as he had as a child. The hard, cruel
lines of his forehead would smooth, and the self-inflicted wounds of his arms
would disappear. He’d be whole again. And he’d thank her for it. In a thousand
wicked ways.

She shook her head against the forbidden and ultimately pointless
fantasy. That would never happen. If she tried such a thing, it would end in
disaster, as it always did.

“I just don’t think it would make a difference,” she said. “Something is
broken inside him, and I can’t fix it for him.”

“That’s what I thought about Sasha,” Aline said. “And you’re right. You
can’t fix him. But you can persuade him to your way of thinking enough that he
wants to fix himself.”

“I’ve tried. I practically threw myself at him today, Aline, and he’d
rather stick himself with a needle. I am leaving London,” she declared firmly.
She was moving to Paris, forging an independent life, and mending her shattered
heart.

And taking a lover, Elijah Drexler be damned.

Aline looked sad at the note of finality in Christiana’s voice. “I wish
you would stay. For my sake, if nothing else. But moving is probably the right
decision, if you are so unhappy.”

She could tell Aline didn’t mean it. Aline had had her fairy-tale ending,
and she wanted Christiana to have one too. But Christiana knew better than to
hope for such an outcome. It just wasn’t going to happen, and it was long past
time for her to accept that.

She still thought Elijah was wrong for thinking he didn’t deserve her.
She was no princess in an ivory tower, just an ordinary, rather uninteresting
woman with a pretty face. But she knew one thing for certain:
she
deserved better than what he was willing to give her. Which was nothing. Even
though she’d not hold her breath hoping for it, she deserved to be loved
wholeheartedly and unreservedly, no matter how ordinary she might be. And she
was fairly certain that Elijah Drexler would never be capable of that, at least
as far as she was concerned.

Elijah might want her more than she’d once assumed, but he didn’t want
her enough to change the reckless course of his life. She was right back to
where she’d always been: loving a man who could never return her feelings. And
it was time to move on.

THAT evening,
Elijah stepped into his flat just long enough to take another dose of morphine,
even though he didn’t particularly need to. He was still flying high from the colossal
jab he’d given himself at the office, but he didn’t think he ever wanted to
come down to earth again, not after the day he’d had. He found one of his
ruined veins and injected the morphine. Just enough to stop the small tremors
starting up in his muscles. Just enough to dull the pain – the pain he
felt whenever he pictured Ana’s devastated green eyes when he’d chosen the drug
over her.

Warmth and numbness spread over him within seconds, and he allowed
himself to lean his head against a table, close his eyes, and feel … nothing.

Well,
almost
nothing, damn it. No amount of morphine could erase
Christiana from his mind … his heart. He shouldn’t have let his guard down in
front of her as much as he had that morning. The things she’d told him, and the
things she’d made him admit… He’d revealed his darkest, most shameful desire in
the crudest words possible, and she had…

She had
wanted
it. But he’d chop off his own head before he took
what she so naively offered him.

Love him – love
him
? he thought incredulously. What would
possess her to believe such a thing?

He couldn’t see her again. Ever. He’d not be able to stop himself next
time.

He made himself stagger to his feet, tucking the vial of morphine into
his pocket and stuffing the two dueling pistols the old Earl had given him
years ago into his waistcoat and boot as an afterthought. He’d not carried them
since his transformation, but if he somehow found himself in O’Connor’s company
at the end of the night, which he was counting on, he would need all the help
he could get.

He left the flat, that disembodied, floating feeling he had when he was
his highest buoying him all the way up onto the rooftop of his building. He
practically sailed through the skies as he crossed the city from above, jumping
and leaping from building to building without his usual caution.

Matthews was right. He was beyond the pale. He was going to kill himself
this time around, before he’d brought Nick O’Connor down … and he was nearly
beyond caring, for at least when he was dead the pain would stop.

Or would it? Elijah had long ago given up on an after-life, but with his
rotten luck, there would be one after all. He’d be stuck for eternity in hell,
no doubt reliving the worst moments of his life over and over again.

He shook off his bleak thoughts, blaming the glut of morphine buzzing
through his blood, and focused on the night’s purpose. He quickened his
reckless pace in the direction of Mayfair, ghosting over the public houses and
seedy brothels lurking in the gloom of Whitechapel, and skirting around the
throng gathered in the brightly lit center of Covent Garden. He finally arrived
at the quiet, respectable neighborhood near Berkeley Square where Lord Montague
lived, and took up his post from the night before.

He expected a repeat of last night, and settled against the brick
chimney, cursing the chill in the air once more. But he’d not been there long
before awareness pricked his skin, causing his eyes to begin their
transformation, and his gums to itch. He was not alone on the rooftop. Someone
very foolish was approaching him from behind. Whoever it was still had a good
fifty feet to go before reaching Elijah, but it was still too close for
Elijah’s drained nerves. He waited impatiently in the shadows until the
intruder was nearly on top of him, preparing to pounce. Perhaps he’d have a
meal tonight after all.

“Drexler?” came a soft, tentative whisper. “Is that you?”

Elijah barely concealed a groan of vexation as Percy’s towhead peered
around the corner. She was dressed in a black suit that was on the sober side
for her Parminter disguise, but she still rather sparkled in the moonlight. He
reached out and pulled her into the shadows.

“I told you not to sneak up on me, you damn fool,” he growled. “Have you
no sense?”

If he wasn’t mistaken, Percy rolled her eyes behind her spectacles. “Give
yourself some credit, Elijah.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

Percy just shrugged. “Nothing. I came to lend assistance tonight.”

“Matthews sent you to be my nurse-maid,” he retorted.

 “I came to protect my investment in you. In the state you’re in, I
don’t trust you to follow through on our plans.”

“You trusted me enough to sneak up on this bloody roof.”

She gave him a dry look. “I trust you not to hurt me, despite your worry.
But I don’t trust that you won’t hurt yourself.”

He was the one to roll his eyes this time.

“You’re so bloody far gone, you don’t even realize it,” Percy said
acerbically. “And I
need
you … to help me bring down that bastard,” she
finished somewhat breathlessly, with the oddest expression on her face.

He turned from her and focused on the upper windows of the Montague
townhouse as best he could, feeling vaguely unsettled by Percy’s sudden
earnestness.

An image of her as that angelic, battered young girl in the expensive,
torn pinafore flashed through his mind, her expression shattering as they
killed her twin before her eyes. Sometimes it was hard to connect the memory of
that girl with the hardened, street-toughened charlatan she was today. But that
little girl lingered around the edges nonetheless at odd moments like this.

Percy had a dangerous weakness after all. He’d have to warn her against
betraying herself like that.

Though he suspected she wouldn’t be so incautious with someone else. Just
him. It was as if Percy cared … like a woman might care. Like Christiana cared.
Which was ridiculous. He knew Percy was female underneath all those clothes and
airs and knives, even if he didn’t know her true name. But she wasn’t supposed
to
feel
things like a woman. And especially not towards him.

It was probably all in his drug-addled head, anyway. “I don’t need a
nanny, damn you. I might be far gone, but I’ll take that rutting pederast down
with me if it’s the last thing I do.”

Percy studied him worriedly through the shadows. “
After
you get
the name of the other man,” she insisted quietly. “Don’t forget that part,
Elijah. Give me that man’s name, then do what you will to O’Connor.”

“You don’t need to bloody remind me,” Elijah muttered. Though she
probably did. He’d nearly forgotten that part of the plan. Most likely because
he had a fairly good idea of who that other man was anyway, after speaking to
Brightlingsea. His mind had been whirling around the subject for two days
– in between bouts of brooding over Ana, of course.

And if his suspicion was correct, Percy’s road to justice was going to be
as steep an ascent as Elijah’s own road to heaven, and just about as unlikely.
It was bad enough to suspect the man of being an Elder, but to suspect the man
of being
that
particular Elder…

Well
. Even the Allied Forces of a dozen nations had had trouble bringing
that man to heel. He doubted Percy could do it, even with all of her knife
skills.

Maybe he was wrong. He
hoped
he was wrong. He was far from
clear-headed these days. Why a man like Stieg Ehrengard would be in league with
a bugger reprobate like Newgate Nick was quite beyond him.

But then again, like attracted like, and a devil always had its minions.

“What aren’t you telling me, Elijah?” Percy demanded in a harsh whisper.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” he muttered. He kept forgetting how clever
she was. Too clever for her own good.

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you. I think…”

He cut her off with a sharp gesture, his preternatural senses coming into
sharp focus on Lord Montague’s rooftop. Someone was moving through the shadows
there, nearly silent and undetectable. But not to a creature like Elijah.

Percy gave him a questioning look, and he gave a slight gesture in the direction
of their quarry. There was no doubt it was the Gentleman, a small and wiry
shadow, dressed in coarse black trousers and jacket, with a wide-brimmed cap
pulled low over his brow, obscuring his identity. He suddenly vaulted over the
side of the townhouse and shimmied down to an attic window in a feat of
acrobatics even Elijah couldn’t hope to imitate. The thief slipped inside the
townhouse, and Percy exhaled with excitement.

“Let’s get him,” Percy said, starting from their hiding place.

Elijah held her back. “Wait,” he said.

“What do you mean, wait?” she demanded. “I say we take him now.”

“I’ll follow him, see where he leads. Chances are, he’ll take the
diamonds straight to O’Connor.”

“Why would you think that?” Percy asked. “I wouldn’t, if I had a take
like that. I’d make the bastard sweat for a while before showing my hand.”

“I don’t think our thief has the luxury of time,” Elijah insisted.
“O’Connor is holding something over him. Something to make him reckless enough
to return here, even after you nearly caught him.”

Percy looked unconvinced. “I couldn’t keep up with the blighter. And in
your condition, I wonder if you can either.”

“I know what I’m bloody doing, Percy.”

“I hope so. This is the first chance in
years
to find O’Connor.
We’ll not get another.”

He narrowed his eyes on the small, dark figure now emerging from the same
attic window. “Damn, he’s quick,” he murmured.

“I told you so,” Percy retorted. “Fast as a bloody leech.”

“Not quite. I can smell his blood from here. He’s human enough.” But
perhaps not quite all that he seemed. His blood was not that of a normal man
– not of a
man
at all, though Elijah didn’t tell Percy this. It
was irrelevant at the moment, and he had no time to explain. He made sure his
walking cane was secured to the strap at his back, and his pistols tucked
safely away at his waistband and boot, and sighed. It was going to be an
interesting evening after all.

“Keep up if you can,” he threw at Percy, before he took off in pursuit of
their little diamond thief. He followed the shadow as it wended its way
eastward, out of Mayfair, in the direction of Covent Garden, retracing nearly
the same path Elijah had taken earlier. The Gentleman was as fast as he’d
feared, and Percy quickly fell far behind the brisk, dangerous pace, though she
didn’t give up entirely. He sensed her trudging along somewhere in the
distance, tracking them.

When the streets narrowed enough, Elijah leapt across the rooftops,
putting himself directly behind the thief, closing the gap just a little bit
more. The Gentleman was fast, but Elijah was faster, despite all of his current
disadvantages. Though it had been rather more effort than he usually expended,
he quickly overtook his quarry, hanging behind just enough to avoid detection.

The further they travelled from Lord Montague’s residence, the more
careless the “lad” became, certain he’d emerged from his job unscathed and undetected.
His pace slowed, and he rarely bothered to avoid the moonlight. At one point,
he even pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette from a pocket and smoked it. If not
for the steep ledges between buildings, Elijah could have followed the little
thief with his eyes closed from that point on from the stench of the tobacco alone.

As they approached the lights of Covent Garden and the Gentleman didn’t
start to veer off from his course, however, Elijah cursed inwardly. He could
easily lose the thief in the throng that gathered there nightly.

Just as they were nearly upon the piazza, the Gentleman suddenly stopped
and flicked his cigarette to the ground, pulling a ticking wireless device from
his pocket. He waited until the message was unspooled then held it up close to
his eyes, trying to make out the words in the dim moonlight. Whatever he
managed to descry didn’t seem to be good news, however, for his whole body
stiffened all over, and he nearly dropped the tickertext from his suddenly
trembling hands.

“Oh, God, no! No!” he breathed in a high-pitched, frantic tone that
betrayed his true nature and absolute horror. Then he darted off with renewed
energy. Whatever he’d read in the message must have changed his mind about his
destination, for instead of heading straight to Covent Garden, he turned
southward, towards the Thames, and made his way east, following the river. He
moved faster than he ever had before, pushing himself so hard Elijah could hear
his heavy, frantic breathing up ahead.

It soon became apparent they were heading into Whitechapel, back where
Elijah had begun his evening. The destination was unsurprising, considering the
Gentleman’s profession, but what was surprising, however, was the direction the
Gentleman took once he arrived in the district. He seemed to be heading to the
eastern outskirts of Whitechapel, straight for Elijah’s neighborhood. Only the
most desperate and hopeless ventured to such a place after dark.

The lad even made use of the building Elijah called home, scurrying
across it, to the edge of the unnamed street. He finally dropped down from the
rooftops onto the busier George Street and sprinted into an alleyway, right
around the corner from Elijah’s flat.

Elijah kept to the shadows and followed in the lad’s wake, his senses
overflowing now that they were down from the rooftops and surrounded by other
people. Or at least that was what he expected to happen. George Street was
hardly Covent Garden, but the street seemed too quiet to him for a Friday night.

The kind of quiet that was usually followed by a shite-load of trouble.

Silently cursing, he crossed into the alley just in time to see the lad
slip into an old door at the rear of a run-down rooming house. The lad didn’t
even bother to shut the door in his haste, and Elijah approached it and paused
at the entrance, debating his next move. He decided to send off a quick
tickertext to Percy, giving her his location, then stepped into the doorway.