Burning Lamp, Page 2

  Before she could catch her breath she heard a key in a lock. The door of the chamber slammed open. Mrs. Rosser loomed in the entrance. Her bony frame was darkly silhouetted against the low glare of the gaslight that illuminated the hallway behind her. At that moment she embodied the nickname that the women of the brothel had bestowed upon her: The Vulture.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans, sir,” Rosser said. Her voice was as hard and pitiless as the rest of her. “You must leave the premises immediately.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Smith demanded. He tightened his grip on Adelaide’s arm. “I paid Quinton an exorbitant price for the girl.”

  “I just received a message informing me that this establishment is now under new ownership,” Rosser said. “It is my understanding that my former employer recently expired. Heart attack. His business enterprises have been taken over by another. There is no cause for concern. Rest assured your money will be refunded.”

  “I don’t want a refund,” Smith said. “I want this girl.”

  “Plenty more where she came from. I’ve got two downstairs right now who are younger and prettier. Never been touched. This one’s fifteen if she’s a day. Doubt that you’d be the first to bed her.”

  “Do you think I give a damn about the girl’s virginity?”

  Rosser was clearly startled. “But that’s what you’re paying for.”

  “Stupid woman. This concerns a vastly more important attribute. I made a bargain with your employer. I intend to hold him to it.”

  “I just told you, he is no longer among the living. I’ve got a new employer.”

  “The business affairs of crime lords are of no interest to me. The girl is now my property. I’m taking her out of here tonight, assuming the experiment is completed to my satisfaction.”

  “What’s this about an experiment?” Mrs. Rosser was outraged. “I never heard of such a thing. This is a brothel, not a laboratory. In any event, you can’t have the girl and that’s final.”

  “It appears that the test will have to be conducted elsewhere,” Smith said to Adelaide. “Come along.”

  He jerked her out of the wardrobe. She tumbled to the floor.

  “Get up.” He used his grip on her arm to haul her to her feet. “We’re leaving this place immediately. Never fear, if it transpires that you are of no use to me, you’ll be quite free to return to this establishment.”

  “You’re not taking her away.” Rosser reached for the bellpull just inside the door. “I’m going to summon the guards.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Smith said. “I’ve had quite enough of this nonsense.”

  He removed a fist- sized crystal from the pocket of his coat. The object glowed blood red. The temperature dropped another few degrees. Adelaide sensed invisible ice-cold energy blazing in the chamber.

  Mrs. Rosser opened her mouth but no sound emerged. She raised her arms as though she really were a great bird trying to take wing. Her head fell back. A violent spasm shot through her. She collapsed in the doorway and lay very still.

  Adelaide was too stunned to speak. The Vulture was dead.

  “Just as well,” Smith said. “She is no great loss to anyone.”

  He was right, Adelaide thought. Heaven knew that she had no fondness for the brothel keeper but watching someone die in such a fashion was a horrifying experience.

  Belatedly, the full impact of what had just occurred jolted through her. Smith had used his talent and the crystal to commit murder. She had never known that such a thing was possible.

  “What did you do to her?” Adelaide whispered.

  “The same thing I will do to you if you do not obey me.” The ruby crystal had gone dark. “Damn things never last long,” he muttered. He dropped the stone back into his pocket. “Come along. There is no time to waste. We must get out of here at once.”

  He drew her toward the table where he had left the artifact. She could feel the euphoric excitement flooding through him. He had just murdered a woman and he had enjoyed doing it; no, he had rejoiced in the experience.

  She sensed something else as well. Whatever Smith had done with the crystal had required a great deal of energy. The psychical senses, like every other aspect of the mind and body, required time to recover after one drew heavily on them. Smith would no doubt soon regain the full force of his great power, but at that moment he was probably at least somewhat weakened.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said.

  He did not bother to respond with words. The next thing she knew, icy cold pain washed through her in searing waves.

  She gasped, doubled over and sank to her knees beneath the weight of the chilling agony. So much for thinking that he had exhausted his psychical resources.

  “Now you know what I did to Rosser,” Smith said. “But in her case I used far more power. Such intense cold shatters the senses and then stops the heart. Behave yourself or you will get more of the same.”

  The pain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, leaving her dazed and breathless. Surely this time he had used the last of his reserves to punish her. She had to act quickly. Fortunately he was still gripping her arm. She required physical contact to manipulate another individual’s dreamlight energy.

  She raised her talent again, gritting her teeth against the dreadful sensations, and focused every ounce of energy she possessed on the currents of Smith’s dreamlight. In the past year she had occasionally manipulated the wavelengths of other people’s nightmares but she had never before attempted what she was about to try now.

  For an instant Smith did not seem to realize that he was under attack. He stared at her, mouth partially open in confusion. Fury quickly ignited in him.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “You will pay for this, whore. I will make you freeze in your own private hell for daring to defy me. Stop.”

  He raised his other arm to strike her but it was too late; he was already sliding into a deep sleep. He started to crumple. At the last second he tried to grab the edge of the table. His flailing arm knocked the candle off the stand and onto the floor.

  The taper rolled across the wooden floorboards toward the bed. There was a soft whoosh when the flame caught the trailing edge of the satin drapery.

  Adelaide rushed back to the wardrobe and took out the cloak and shoes that she had stashed inside earlier in preparation for her escape. By the time she was dressed the bed skirt was fully ablaze, the flames licking at the white quilt. Smoke was drifting out into the hall. Soon someone would sound the alarm.

  She pulled the hood of the cloak up over her head and went toward the door. But something made her stop. She turned reluctantly and looked back at the artifact. She knew then that she had to take the strange object with her. It was a foolish notion. It would only slow her down. But she could not leave it behind.

  She stuffed the relic into the black satchel, fastened the buckles, and started once more toward the door. She paused a second time over Smith’s motionless figure and quickly searched his pockets. There was money in one of them. The dark ruby-colored crystal was in another. She took the money but when she touched the crystal she got an uneasy feeling. Heeding her intuition, she left it where it was.

  Straightening, she went to the door, stepped over Rosser’s dead body and moved out into the corridor.

  Behind her the white satin bed was now engulfed in crackling, snapping flames. Down the hall someone started screaming. Men and women in various stages of dress and undress burst out of nearby doorways, seeking the closest exits. No one paid any attention to Adelaide when she joined the frantic crush on the staircase.

  Minutes later she was outside on the street. Clutching the satchel, she fled into the night, running for her life.

  1

  Thirteen years later . . .

  “Got her.” Griffin Winters drew a circle around Avery Street and set the pen back into the brass inkstand. He flattened his palms on the desk and studied the large ma
p of London spread out before him. Intense satisfaction swept through him. The hunt was all but over. The lady did not know it yet, but from now on she belonged to him. “I’m certain of her next target.”

  “What makes you think that you can predict where she’ll strike next?” Delbert Voyle asked. He reached into his pocket and took out a pair of spectacles.

  A large, powerfully built man in his early forties, Delbert had only recently concluded that he needed spectacles. They had an oddly trans-formative effect on his appearance. Without them he looked like what he was: a hardened man of the streets who made his living as an enforcer for a crime lord. But whenever he plunked the gold-rimmed spectacles onto his lumpy nose he suddenly metamorphosed into a slightly overweight scholar who belonged in a library or behind the counter of a bookshop.

  “I saw the pattern this morning after I read the account of last night’s raid on the Avery Street brothel,” Griffin explained. “It all became clear.”

  Delbert leaned over the desk to get a closer look at the locations of the brothels. He knew every alley and unmarked lane in both the good and bad neighborhoods. He had no difficulty comprehending the map. In fact, he could have drawn it.

  Delbert possessed a sense of direction as well as a photographic memory of every location he had ever visited that was, in Griffin’s opinion, probably psychical in nature. Delbert scoffed at the notion, although he took Griffin’s talent for granted, just as Jed and Leggett did. To his men, Griffin knew, he was simply the Boss and, as such, he was expected to be different.

  Delbert, Jed and Leggett were among the first members of the crew of young street thieves whom Griffin had recruited into his fledgling gang two decades earlier. They had all left the streets a long time ago. Now the three enforcers supervised and guarded the household.

  Delbert was in charge of the kitchens. Jed took care of the grounds and the dogs and served as coachman. Leggett shouldered the responsibilities that would normally have fallen to a butler. A laundry maid came in twice a week and other day staff was employed as required, but all of the outsiders worked under strict supervision. None spent the night. Griffin was not concerned that someone might try to pinch the silver. The house held secrets, however, and he was single-mindedly obsessive when it came to concealing them. He had not become one of the most powerful crime lords in London by being careless.

  Although Jed, Delbert and Leggett kept the big house running smoothly, that was not their primary responsibility. In reality they were Griffin’s lieutenants. Each was charged with overseeing a specific aspect of the empire that Griffin had built.

  The ragtag band of thieves he had formed years ago had matured into a well-organized business enterprise with a variety of holdings. Its tentacles reached deep into London’s grittier neighborhoods and also into its most respectable streets. In the past several years Griffin had discovered that he had a knack for investing. He owned shares in a number of banking, shipping, and railroad companies and with those shares had come even more power.

  None of his neighbors on St. Clare Street was aware that the big house built on the ruins of the ancient Abbey belonged to one of the most notorious figures in the city’s criminal underworld. To those in the nearby mansions the owner of the pile of stone at the end of the street was simply a wealthy, if decidedly eccentric, recluse.

  “You’re still convinced that it’s a woman who is organizing the raids?” Delbert asked, forehead wrinkling a little as he studied the map.

  “There is no doubt in my mind,” Griffin said.

  Delbert removed his spectacles and put them carefully back into his pocket. “Well, I’ll say this much for her, she’s moving up in the world. The Peacock Lane and the Avery Street whorehouses are a good deal more elegant than the first three she hit. Do you think she knows that the latest two are owned by Luttrell?”

  “I’d stake the Abbey on it. I’m sure she’s had her sights set on Luttrell’s brothels all along. The first three raids on the small, independent houses were staged to gain experience. Like any good general, she learned from those raids and refined her tactics. From now on, she’ll concentrate on Luttrell’s operations. She is nothing if not ambitious.”

  “That’s a social reformer for you. No common sense at all.” Delbert clicked his teeth in a tut-tutting sound. “Probably doesn’t realize what kind of viper she’s dealing with.”

  “She knows. That’s why she’s hitting his operations. Social reformers seem to be convinced that they are somehow protected by the righteousness of their cause. It would never occur to our little brothel raider that Luttrell would not hesitate to slit her throat.”

  “She appears to be focusing all of her attention on the whorehouses,” Delbert mused.

  “That’s been obvious from the very first newspaper accounts.”

  Delbert shrugged. “No need for us to be concerned, in that case. We don’t operate any whorehouses. She might become a nuisance if she decides to go after gaming clubs or taverns, but as long as she sticks to raiding brothels, she’s Luttrell’s problem.”

  “Unfortunately,” Griffin said, “if she keeps on with her hobby, she’s going to get herself killed.”

  Delbert shot him a searching look. “You’re worried about a social reformer? They’re nothing but pests, same as squirrels and pigeons, except that you can’t roast them or make a decent stew out of them.”

  “I think this particular reformer might come in very handy if I can get to her before she ends up floating in the river.”

  Delbert was starting to become alarmed. “Bloody hell. She’s caught your fancy, hasn’t she, Boss? Why her?”

  “It’s difficult to explain.”

  Griffin looked at the portrait on the wall. It was akin to gazing into a dark mirror. Nicholas Winters was dressed in the style of the late seventeenth century, but his black velvet coat and elaborately tied cravat did nothing to obscure the startling similarity between the two of them. From the dark hair and brilliant green eyes to the fiercely etched planes and angles of their faces, the resemblance was uncanny.

  The portrait had been completed shortly after Nicholas had come into his second talent. The nightmares and hallucinations had already begun. Every time Griffin examined the painting he found himself searching for some indication of the madness that would soon follow.

  The image in the painting suddenly wavered and shimmered. Nicholas stirred to life. He fixed Griffin with his alchemist’s eyes.

  “You are my true heir,” Nicholas said. “The three talents will be yours. It’s in the blood. Find the lamp. Find the woman.”

  Griffin suppressed the vision with an effort of will. The disturbing daytime hallucinations had begun a few weeks earlier at about the same time that his new talent had appeared. The nightmares were so bad now that he dreaded sleep. There was no longer any way to deny the truth. He had been struck with the Winters Curse.

  Delbert, blissfully unaware of the hallucination, contemplated Griffin with the knowing look of a longtime friend and confidant.

  “You’re bored,” Delbert announced. “That’s the real problem here. You haven’t had a woman since you parted company with that pretty blond widow you were seeing a few months back. You’re a healthy man in your prime. You need regular exercise. There’s no shortage of willing females who would be more than pleased to scratch that particular itch for you. No need to pursue one who will surely cause you no end of trouble.”

  “Trust me, I’m not interested in bedding a social reformer,” Griffin said.

  But even as he spoke the words, he realized with a frisson of awareness that he was lying. He was very good when it came to lying. The skill had helped him rise to the top of his profession. But he conducted his life by a few, inflexible rules, one of which was that he never lied to himself.

  Although he had no intention of explaining the situation to Delbert, the reality was that he was obsessed with the woman who was conducting the brothel raids. He had been fascinated by her since the first rumors fro
m the street had reached him. Initially he had found the fixation inexplicable. Delbert was right, social reformers were just another form of urban pest.

  “No offense, Boss, but I know that look,” Delbert said grimly. “It’s the same one you get whenever you decide to go after something you want. But use your head, man. For all you know this female, assuming she is a female, might be a little old gray- haired grandmother or a crazed religious zealot. Hell, she might prove to be one of those women who has no interest in men.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Griffin said. Yet some part of him was convinced otherwise. It was, no doubt, the part that would soon be standing on an invisible edge looking down into the hell of insanity.

  Find the lamp. Find the woman.

  Delbert, glumly resigned, exhaled a deep sigh. “You’re going to track her down, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t have any choice.” Griffin contemplated the circles he had drawn on the map. “But I need to do it quickly.”

  “Before Luttrell gets to her, do you mean?”

  “Yes. She’s found a strategy that works and she’s sticking to it. Predictability is always a weakness.”

  “Once we locate her, Jed and I’ll grab her for you.”

  “No, that approach won’t work. I need the lady’s full and willing cooperation. This situation calls for a proper social introduction.”

  Delbert snorted. “A respectable social reformer agrees to be introduced to a crime lord? Now that’s a sight I’d pay good money to see. How do you plan to arrange that?”

  “I believe the lady and I have a mutual acquaintance who can be persuaded to set up a meeting on neutral territory,” Griffin said.

  2

  THE WIDOW SWEPT INTO THE CHARITY HOUSE KITCHEN JUST as Irene and the others were digging into mountains of scrambled eggs and sausages. Forks frozen in midair, the girls stared at the new arrival, astonished. Elegant ladies, even those devoted to good works, never, ever allowed themselves to be tainted by the presence of fallen women. And The Widow was clearly a very elegant person.