Hatred twisted in my gut. So far as I cared, every last layer of skin could burn from my hands if it meant ridding the world of this devil. Leaning a bit closer, I waited for the opportunity to pounce. “You’ve a powerful gift. Why not go after the healthy and strong? Surely they would offer more sport for someone like you.”
“Oh, I’ve longed to get yeh, Biddie girl, to muddle yehr brain or give yeh the plague.” She made to snatch at me, only to withdraw her hand at the last moment. “But yeh know the rules—yeh get what yeh give between us. Ain’t no sense plucking a hair from yehr pretty head if it means losing one of me own.”
I moved back with a jerk. You get what you give...The meaning struck hard—to stop her heart would have stopped mine. Merciful heavens! A few more seconds and we both would have been dead.
Frustrated by this new barrier, I opted to stall for time. “Why are we here, Deri? You’ve obviously gone to a great deal of effort to get me alone.”
She twisted her toe deeper into the mud. “Mam needs something, and sent me to fetch it.”
“Why not come herself if it’s so important?”
Her face tightened to a pout. “Didn’t say it were important.” One hand remained at chest level, and the fingers moved with nervous agitation. “‘Em hounds want yeh, too, Biddie girl,” she said, almost wistfully. “For all Mam knows, yeh could be dead already. No one can blame little Deri then—”
“What does your mam want from me?” I interrupted.
The lantern light glinted from her pale blue eyes. “King Bres locked her under the trees but she’s ready to come out now, and I’m to bring the key.”
“And you think I have it?” The girl was crazy as a loon. I had no key and King Bres hadn’t locked anyone up since his reign ended over three thousand years ago.
Deri gave a burst of laughter. “Not in yehr pocket. This key—” Henry’s voice came from the alleyway, drawing her gaze over my shoulder. “This key be carried deep in the heart.” She flexed her fingers and gazed at me longingly. “Oh, how I wish to kill yeh. Me fingers itch for it.”
My face turned to stone. “You’ve no idea.”
A chill ran straight to my hairline. The night air turned to ice and I shivered as a low growl passed over me. A hound stepped into the light, and brushed up against the girl’s side. “Maybe I can’t kill yeh, Biddie girl,” she said, gently stroking the sleek white fur. “But he can. And he shan’t tell Mam I’ve been naughty.” She patted the hound’s head one last time before turning to skip away, accompanied by the lines of a new verse. “Little Biddie girl, no bigger than a squirrel. He tore her apart, and ate out her heart...”
The hound lifted its muzzle and sniffed the air. I dropped to a crouch to keep him from lunging, and waited for the first opportunity to strike. Footsteps pounded across the muddy ground behind me. The hound moved closer, a low growl vibrating in its throat. Teeth snapped in hungry anticipation, and a puff of foul breath froze my cheeks. We were almost nose-to-nose when I slammed a hand into the white fur, sending an inferno straight to its heart.
A sword flashed overhead just as the beast dropped to the ground. The metal blade sliced the air in front of my face, coming to a sudden stop mere inches from the thick white neck. I looked up to find Henry towering above me, breath ragged and a warrior’s lust blazing in his eyes.
With grim satisfaction, I nudged the blade away. “This one was mine.”
A flood of emotion crossed his face. Surprise...anger...fear...pride...Sheathing the sword, he pulled me to my feet, and together we watched the hound vanish beneath a blanket of blue flames.
Chapter Eighteen
Madness and Mayhem
Cate didn’t return home until late afternoon. She came directly into the drawing room looking tired and more worried than I had seen her since arriving in London almost two weeks before. Tom had accompanied her to the rookery, and the stress showed equally on his face. Cate sank into the corner of the sofa opposite Henry and me and stared into the fire.
“Did you find him?” Henry asked, jumping straight to the point. His arm rested protectively along the back of the sofa behind me. I leaned into his side, my hand on his knee, and a raging curiosity that begged for answers.
Tom sighed and sat beside Cate. “We found him all right, for all the good it did.”
My expectations fizzled, though what expectations I couldn’t rightly say. Had I hoped Deri incapable of besting Cate’s abilities? Or, that once healed, the man would simply walk away from Jenny’s murder? The child had died at his hands, and culpable or not, they were stained with her blood so far as the crown was concerned.
“Sorry for the wild goose chase,” I said. “Deri’s power must be stronger than any of us suspected. I couldn’t even touch the man without being pulled into the private hell she had created.”
Cate looked at me for the first time since entering the room. “I did heal him. The man was perfectly restored before Tom and I left his lodging.”
I frowned in confusion. “But Tom said it didn’t do any good.”