“I expected someone stupider,” he elucidated in an odd drawl. “More balls, less brain, considering the nature of this fool’s errand. I’d have thought a girl’d have better sense.”
“Who the hell are you?” It was pointless to pretend he wasn’t something otherworldly and therefore ignorant of what I did. Nothing else in the Grey seemed to be, so why not this strange man, too? But I had no idea who or what he was.
“Marsden. Mole catcher, as used to be, but never chasin’ moles for Edward Kammerling—as are you.”
“You think I work for him.”
“As you’ve come from seein’ Jakob—and not many others would bother knockin’ on his master’s door as wasn’t Kammerling’s agent—yeah, I think you do, girl. The master’s gone away and them as took ’im wouldn’t have much cause to return for his menial wi’out laying that gruesome creature in a hot, dry grave. Jakob is still cursin’ you for wrenchin’ out ’is arm. That was a nifty trick you pulled comin’ over off the wall like that.”
“Yeah, everything I need to know I learned from Donald O’Connor,” I sneered, instantly suspect of his flattery.
“Who?”
“Haven’t you ever seen Singin’ in the Rain? It’s a movie. Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor. ”
He spat a laugh. “No,” he said, and turned a little my way. “It’s not the eyes, y’know. ”
Ineluctable fear lanced through me. I couldn’t seem to breathe right and what air flowed into my lungs felt thickened with knives of frost. My head swam and my body chilled and burned by rapid turns as if with malarial fever. I eased back a step, poised to run.
He raised his head. The hair fell back and he turned his face to me—a once-beautiful, eyeless nightmare of a face. His skin was pale and powdery, stretched over exquisite bones that pressed forward as if they wanted to escape from the confining flesh. Reddened, flaccid eyelids hung over orbless sockets rimmed with ragged scars, one lid not quite closed and showing a hint of the gouged hollow behind it. Yet I felt his stare from those empty eyes, a phantom gaze as sharp as an ice pick. I jerked back, teetering at the edge of the platform.
Marsden sprang forward and snatched my hand into his cold, rawhide-hard grip, yanking me forward to safety as a train rushed into the station. The Grey rocked and swayed for a few moments, flashing disco lights around me.
“You’re bloody naive, my girl,” Marsden whispered into my face on a breath that smelled of lilies and ash. “Though you’ve more bottle than I’d have credited—damned if you don’t.” He chortled and let me go. “This is my train. I’ll find you tomorrow where there aren’t so many of the wrong eyes to see us.”
I turned to watch him step onto the train. It was a phantom steam engine pulling a handful of old-style carriage cars, and though it looked too insubstantial to hold anything not already a wisp of smoke and memory, it lurched forward as Marsden got aboard and it started off. I jumped back from the platform edge as, with a blast of sound and wind, the normal train rushed in and displaced its ghostly predecessor.
I breathed in sharply, startled, and looked for any sign of the man, but he was gone. I waited through the next arrival just to be sure he hadn’t been crushed by the multiple tons of electric subway train, but there was nothing to show he’d been there at all.
I felt a little queasy about stepping into the bright red train when it next arrived—just in case something else went Greywards in the next fifteen minutes—but I got aboard and hung on to a pole in the increasing crush of commuters all the way to Temple. I was relieved to finally step out into the fresh air and see my hotel standing there looking quite dully dignified and ordinary. The temptation to run in, repack my bags, and get the hell out of London was strong for a moment, but I backed off, went around the block, and checked for observers and tails before I finally headed inside through one of the side doors to the courtyard.
CHAPTER 23
This had been one freakish day after a weird damned week even by my standards, and my mind was still trying to catch up to it all. The time difference had also left me a bit disoriented. I missed Quinton’s easy ways and willingness to listen to my strange tales. I felt like a clinging idiot—or just a plain one—for thinking of him so often, and after the cold set-down I’d had from Cary, that was the last thing I wanted to be. I let go of my urge to page Quinton and told myself there was nothing he could say or do that would help and I didn’t want him to worry about me. I’d been gone only a day, after all. What I wanted most after his sympathetic ear was a meal and a nap before I tried to make sense of the puzzles I’d been handed in Clerkenwell, but I thought I’d have to settle for just one or the other.
After I’d changed clothes and eaten, I returned to my room to make notes and call Bryson Goodall, who was acting as my contact to Edward for this trip. It would be dark here in a little while, but it was still daylight business hours back in Seattle, I thought.
Goodall answered his phone on the second ring. “Goodall. Go ahead.”
“Mr. Goodall, Harper Blaine.”
“How’s England?”
“Mixed. I arrived at the hotel about six hours ago. Since then I’ve tried to contact Purcell, but he was abducted about eighteen days ago. Looks like some faction within the local branch of the fraternal order of bloodsuckers, but I don’t know whose yet or where Purcell is now. Purcell’s. assistant is still around, but he’s not much use—he’s homicidal and disinclined to help, to be blunt about it. The upside is that Purcell is still walking around somewhere. Or that’s my guess based on the relationship between Purcell and his flunky.”
I heard his thoughtful grunt and the sound of typing. “So no idea where Purcell is or who’s got him. Any leads?”
“Not specifically. His office had been stripped of papers, except a few incomplete items. I’m following up on those tomorrow, since the business offices are closed here now.”
“What sort of items?”
“Some bills and letters about taxes and rents. A lead from Jakob—the minion—that might be undevelopable. It comes off as gibberish, but he’s not an idiot, so I’ll have to see if I can make anything of it. It’s not quite dark enough here yet, but I’ll be going out again soon to see about Edward’s other local contacts. No idea how that will go. So far, it’s looking bad.”
“Anything else?”
I didn’t say I’d been followed. The sinister Mr. Marsden didn’t seem to be part of the vampire community—quite the opposite—and I thought it was wiser to keep his presence to myself for now.
“That’s all I’ve got at the moment.”
“I’ll report. Stay in touch.”
“Planning to.”
We disconnected and I took my map out again to plan my evening stalking vampires. Prep can make up for a lot when you’re not familiar with an area and I was going to do my best to case the vampire neighborhoods before I hit the streets again. At least this time I might not walk down an alley that had ceased to exist unless I wanted to.
Funny thing about vampires: They’re arrogant. Sometimes stupid-arrogant, and I’ve used that to my advantage in the past. This was tricky, however. I couldn’t just say I was there on Edward’s behalf, since something had gone against him and I couldn’t risk bringing the wrong attention to myself.
I made the rounds of pubs and clubs, looking for signs of vampires on the prowl. Drunks and romantics were easy marks, and in the right kind of club, the herd would be especially pliable. Any place that catered to the emo and the fashionably disaffected would provide a preselected pool of easy, even willing, victims, but frankly any bar or club could do the same once the hour was late enough.