Balfour drove forward, and this time it was all Malloryn could do to keep the bastard off him. The tip of Balfour's rapier flicked across his arm, leaving a burning lash in its wake. And then it was under his guard again, skewering through his side.
Malloryn gritted his teeth and fell back.
"That's just a taste of what is to come."
Back and forth they went, his eyes stinging from the smoke. It was growing thicker in here, and he could hear Adele coughing. Having her here distracted him, but he couldn't do anything about it.
"Where are your precious Rogues now?" Balfour sneered as he scored another slash along Malloryn's shoulder.
Safe. Hopefully safe.
"Your precious Gemma and her lover? Your pair of thieves? Your mech and his wife? And the verwulfen bitch and her lover? Have they left you here to die?"
No. I made them go, so they would not.
He ignored the taunt as Balfour suddenly intensified his attack. Behind Balfour, he could see a shadowy figure emerge from behind a tapestry that hung on the walls; a secret passage only he was aware of. Relief burst through him as he recognized the familiar mask.
"Watch out!" Adele cried.
A pistol suddenly echoed behind him.
Heat burst through his right shoulder, a shooting numbness jolting down his arm. Grinding his teeth together, he tried to hold Balfour's sword at bay with both hands on the hilt of his own rapier, but it felt as though someone was slowly sliding a hot poker through his upper back.
He went down on one knee, his arm giving way beneath Balfour's pressure. Behind him he could hear Adele grunting with exertion.
"You son of a bitch."
A quick glance showed a familiar figure wrestling with Adele, his pistol still smoking. Fucking Devoncourt.
"Always have an ace up your sleeve," Balfour told him, almost fondly. "You should have learned that lesson by now."
Then a knee was driving toward his face.
Pain burst through Malloryn, and he slammed onto the marble tiles, sliding back several paces.
Balfour drove his sword down, but Malloryn managed to parry it. And again. He kicked out, aiming for Balfour's knee even as his nose throbbed. Broken, possibly.
"I did," he managed to grind out as he rolled onto his knees. Behind him, Adele went sprawling as Devoncourt threw her aside.
Balfour paused. "Pardon?"
Malloryn slowly pushed to his feet. "I said, I did learn that lesson. You weren't the only one who brought a friend. You missed one of my Rogues."
Balfour stilled.
Behind him, the pistol lifted.
Devoncourt didn't even see his death coming.
There was a swift retort and then a dart stuck out of his chest.
The false earl looked down in shock, plucking at the dart, but it was too late.
"A taste of your own concoction," Malloryn sneered as Adele escaped the earl.
Balfour snarled as he spun toward Malloryn's last ace.
And then he froze.
"Hello, Father," Jack rasped, his facemask strapped into place and his green eyes glittering mercilessly as he took a threatening step forward.
It had been an agreement Malloryn had conceded weeks ago. He's mine, Jack had claimed.
Balfour seemed taken aback. "You shouldn't be here."
If there was anyone in the entire company who deserved revenge more than Malloryn, it was Jack. Balfour had twisted him to his use as a child, molded him, and then shunned him when his sister, Rosalind, proved the more dangerous.
And then he'd punished Jack for Rosalind's betrayal.
"You and I have unfinished business," Jack replied. Then he pulled the trigger on his dart-gun.
The dart slammed into Balfour's chest, but it only quivered there, stuck by its point.
Something was wrong.
Balfour smiled at the pair of them, and then yanked it out. "Did you think I didn't come prepared for Black Vein?"
He rapped his knuckles on his chest, and the sound echoed hollowly. No wonder all of Malloryn's strikes had skittered harmlessly off him.
It happened in an instant.
Balfour glanced at Malloryn as if to say what can you do? And then his left arm flicked out, a flash of silver spinning from his fingers.
"Jack!" Malloryn yelled, but his agent staggered back, the knife hilt-deep in his chest.
Jack's face paled behind the mask, and he went down on one knee.
And then, dart in hand, Balfour turned back to him. "Perhaps a taste of your own medicine?"
Devoncourt thrashed on the floor as Black Vein wreaked its damage. Adele took one look at this face—mottled with dark veins—and knew he was no longer a problem.
She scrambled for the knife at his side.
But as Devoncourt began gasping his last breath, she saw something better hanging from his belt. He must have found one of the Doeppler Orbs Lark had dropped.
Adele wrenched it away from him, glancing at Malloryn.
"Do it!" he yelled at her.
Adele twisted both halves of the orb and threw it at Balfour's feet.
The orb sprang open, gas hissing from its internals in an inky cloud of pure death—for any blue blood or dhampir in the room.
Malloryn draped his shirt sleeve over his mouth as Balfour sucked in a startled gasp. He turned on her, Malloryn's blood still dripping off the end of his rapier.
One step.
Two.
Black veins mottled through Balfour's face.
He clutched at his throat, clawing at the skin there.
"Auvry!" Adele slid to his side, grabbing two handfuls of Malloryn's shirt and trying to haul him away from the deadly hiss of atomized Black Vein. Where the hell was his gas mask? He should have had it strapped at his belt. She managed to drag him three feet, but he was coughing in earnest now, and she had to presume he'd lost the mask in the melee.
Something nudged her foot.
She looked down, and found Jack dragging himself toward them, holding out the filtration mask he wore to help him breathe in London's smoggy air.
"Take it," he rasped.
Adele tore the mask from his bloody fingers and slapped it over Malloryn's mouth and nose, holding it there. "Breathe," she told him, praying to every god in the sky that it would filter the poison from the air.
Malloryn sucked in a heaving gasp, tiny little black capillaries spreading through his cheeks.
"Don't you dare die on me," she rasped through a raw throat.
A hand came up. Slid through her hair.
Then he was pushing her away.