Tarnished Knight

CHAPTER TWO





Rip shouldered through the back door into the enormous kitchen of the Warren. A blanket of heat hit him, blood stinging in his cheeks and his heart racing. All he could see was the shocked look on Esme’s face as she’d stood in the mouth of the alley, staring at him as if he’d just knifed her.

Hell. He hadn’t meant her to see that. He knew exactly what she’d be thinking. She’d made it quite clear over the last month or two that if he wished to begin taking thralls, then she and Blade thought it best he start with someone who was experienced with a blue blood’s volatile hungers. Her. Never mind that the mere thought of it set him on edge in a way any other woman would not have. Their friendship wouldn’t have survived; if she knew precisely what he thought of her, she’d be horrified.

Esme looked up from the scarred workbench where she was preparing dinner, then dropped her gaze. Will was seated on the other side of the bench, straddling a chair backward with a mug of tea in his hands. Hot amber eyes lit on Rip in an eerie, not-quite-friendly way.

“Esme,” Rip murmured. “You got a moment?”

Somehow he had to put this right. Explain to her that he’d never meant to take her as his thrall – that he didn’t dare. She didn’t owe them anything. She’d earned her right into this family over the years, no matter what the original deal of protection she’d made with Blade had been. Blade didn’t require her services anymore and Rip was hardly about to make fresh demands on her. She was free of her thrall contract.

Esme scraped a pile of butchered parsley off the chopping board into a bubbling pot on the enormous stove. “I’ve got to get dinner on.”

Rip shot Will a dark look and tipped his chin suggestively toward the door. “I’ll help,” he murmured. The way he usually did.

Will sat up a little straighter, setting the mug aside. His fingers curled around the back of the chair. Not going anywhere.

“That’s quite all right. Will can assist me.” Esme put the chopping board down, presenting her back to him. Tendrils of black hair trailed down her nape as she stared down at the board for a fraction longer than necessary.

She wouldn’t look at him. Rip’s teeth ground together, the thought of Will’s presence setting something off inside him, a flare of dark heat arrowing through his gut. Rip took a step toward her, hand curling into a fist.

“Esme, you weren’t meant to see that--”

“Evidently.” Setting a plucked chicken on the board, she picked up the cleaver and hefted its weight.

“I only meant--”

“You said you were fine.” The cleaver cut into the board with a meaty thunk, separating the leg from a chicken’s body. “That you didn’t require fresh blood. That you were drinking it cold, out of Blade’s supplies in the cellars.”

“I were,” he snapped, staring down at the stiffness between her shoulder blades. Look at me, damn you.

The cleaver made another decisive move and Will winced as the impact echoed in the cavernous room. Slowly he levered himself to his feet. “Think I’ll leave you two alone.”

Esme’s head jerked up. “What? Why?”

“Think you got matters to sort that ain’t to do with me,” Will replied.

“William Carver--”

Rip jerked his head. “Out.”

Esme didn’t like that none. She spun on him, her green eyes glittering with fury, the cleaver emphasising each word. “Don’t you think you can order him out of my kitchen! I want him to stay. I want you to leave.”

Will took his chance and bolted through the door.

“Looks like the decision’s been made,” Rip murmured.

As soon as Will left, the room suddenly seemed too small. Rip scraped a hand over his mouth, feeling the rough scratch of his stubble. Esme looked down, her jaw clenching as she set about dismembering the chicken. If he wasn’t mistaken he thought he heard a muttered, “Coward,” under her breath.

“I never meant you to be me thrall,” he started to say, watching as the cleaver flashed up and then buried itself in the board. “Weren’t ever me intention.” He swallowed hard, remembering that first night when he’d put his mouth to her throat and drank. The flash of fire through his veins as though someone had injected him with pure acid, an rush of heat tightening in his groin until he felt like he was going to explode… And Esme… Helpless little gasping noises coming from her throat as she curled her hands into his shirt and begged, pleaded, for more. “Yes… yes… Oh God, John!”

If they’d been alone, if Blade hadn’t been there… he’d have taken her. Shoved her down into his sheets and buried his heavy cock inside her, his teeth in her throat. The thought frightened him, because he didn’t know where he would have stopped.

Or if he would have stopped before it was too late.

Even now a clammy hand trailed down his spine. Safer to keep his distance, to satisfy his dark urges with a whore. All he wanted from them was blood. From Esme… he wanted everything. And to take her like that would destroy their friendship.

“It’s just blood,” he said. “Don’t mean nothin’.”

“I saw you,” she said, the cleaver hovering in the air. “I know exactly what it was. Do you think I don’t know what happens between a blue blood and his thrall?”

That scored a blow. “Blade?” His voice roughened, though he knew he had no damned right to feel this way. Like he wanted to go after his master with a knife.

“Blade?” She laughed breathlessly, turning back to the board. “It wasn’t like that. Not between us. Of course I felt desire, but it wasn’t—it was just my body’s response to the chemical in his saliva. On some distant level I always knew that. And he never... never made demands.”

Rip frowned, his hand easing over her wrist from behind. Curling around her grip on the cleaver. “Who then? You been with someone else?” he asked gruffly.

“Stupid,” she whispered. “You are so stupid, Rip.”

His thumb stroked hers, slipping the cleaver from her grasp. “What’s this ‘Rip’ you keep callin’ me?” She’d never called him that. Not in years. A little edge of panic curled through him. “You always called me John.”

He liked the sound of his name on her lips. Too much so.

“So I did,” she said in a toneless little voice that made the panic surge.

He put the cleaver down, his hard body curled around hers with but an inch between them. So small in his arms… His gaze dropped to the curl that had come loose from her chignon and trailed against the smooth skin of her nape. Daring him to put his lips there. But why the hell would a woman as beautiful as she ever want his ugly hands on her? Rip steeled himself. “Esme, come now. We’re friends. You always could tell me everythin’.”

“I used to think the same.” Breaking free of his grip, she pushed past in a swirl of dark green skirts. “Before I realized you weren’t telling me everything.” As he reached for her, she pulled away, hands held out of his grasp. “I’ve got to get this soup on.”

Rip pressed a hand flat on the kitchen bench and stared at her. “Ain’t stoppin’ you. And what the ‘ell you talkin’ about? I don’t know what’s goin’ on. You keep talkin’ like this is over – like you ain’t wantin’ to be friends anymore.” He stepped toward her but she backed away, a wary look on her face. Rip held up his hands incredulously. “I ain’t goin’ to ‘urt you. You know that, aye?”

Wouldn’t be the first time a woman backed away, and it f*cking hurt that she did. He’d never once lifted a hand, never once raised his voice… Growing up the way he did, out in the streets where he’d learned to be brutal, learned to use his size and speed to cultivate a reputation amongst the dangerous gangs… It had protected him of course, when his mother couldn’t. But it had also cost him.

Fear was just another weapon against the dark side of the ‘Chapel, but he hated the other flip of the coin. The isolation. The way women avoided him for fear of his reputation and children shied away from his great size. He’d survived what others wouldn’t have as a child, but he’d done it alone. Even here at the Warren he had friends, but no woman of his own. And he ached so much for it that he hurt.

“Of course I know that,” she said. The coldness had leeched out of her expression, just for a moment, and she actually stepped forward and gave his fingers a small squeeze before stepping back. “You would never hurt anyone smaller than you. You’re such a… gentle man. Even if others don’t see it.” Her shoulders slumped.

Rip let out the breath he’d been holding. He didn’t think he could handle it if she were afraid of him. “Then what the ‘ell is this? I never lied. I said months ago I were takin’ me blood cold and I were then. It’s only been lately… Just three times. Weren’t ever a lie, Esme. It just ain’t seemed right to discuss it with you.” Scrubbing a hand over the roughened stubble on his head, he looked at her, trying to force her to see the truth. “Not the sort of thing I’d talk about with a lady, you understand?”

The look on her face made hope die in his chest.

“Esme?” he took another step toward her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered. “I have waited and waited… I just thought you needed some time.”

“Can’t do what?” His eyes narrowed, focusing on the part of the conversation that made his blood run cold. If he could just understand what the hell was going on in her head.

She gave a breathless laugh. “Friends, Rip. Friends. It doesn’t matter. Forget I ever said anything.” Running a hand through her hair, she stared at the pot on the stove with a blank look on her face. “Soup. I need to get the soup on.”

He caught her arm as she hurried toward the stove and stared down at her. “Friends? You believe me? That I never meant to lie to you? You swear?”

Esme stared down at his hand. “I believe you.” She gave a little tug. “After all, what in Heaven’s name would you be trying to hide something from me for? It’s not as if I have any sort of hold over you.”

“True,” he said softly. Their eyes met and held, with Rip desperately searching for any sign that she might have felt otherwise. That she wanted him to have a hold over her. Anything that might have made him step forward and tilt her face up to his.

Esme’s dark lashes fluttered against her cheek and she glanced down, wiping her hands in her apron. “So that’s settled.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve got most of this done. I really don’t need any assistance.”

It felt far from settled to him, but he nodded slowly, letting out the breath he’d been holding. “As you wish.”


Later that night Rip started knocking on doors.

None of the neighbours had seen anything at Liza Kent’s and she hadn’t mentioned that she would be away to anyone. The corner she usually worked was cold and empty and Rip stared at it for a long time before returning to her apartment. Barely anybody would notice her disappearance and if they did they wouldn’t care. The corner would be claimed by someone else before too long and Liza Kent would vanish into the obscurity of just another Whitechapel disappearance.

Like his mother had.

The body of Flash Jacky was exactly where they’d left it. Usually Blade had men who handled the clean up, but Rip was loathe to involve him. And if he were honest with himself, he needed this. Something to keep his mind off the constant gnaw of the hunger and Esme. Of the two, he knew which thought ached the most. Their argument this afternoon felt unfinished. As though there were something she wasn’t telling him.

Though finding out who made Liza vanish would probably be easier than deciphering what was going through Esme’s mind.

Bending low, Rip tugged aside the gaping slash in Flash Jacky’s shirt and examined the wound. Looked like a knife but then he were no expert on wounds. Only on dealing them.

Luckily he knew someone who was.

Pounding on the door to Doctor Creavey’s, he held his breath for the stink that was starting to creep through the blanket he’d wrapped around Flash Jacky. Heavy footsteps sounded on the other side of the door and then Creavey peered out at him through his half-moon spectacles, his gaze narrowing on the body Rip had thrown over his shoulder. His red-rimmed eyes were watery and his thin wiry hair stuck out in gray tufts. There was more of it in his mutton chops than on the top of his head.

“Two pounds,” Creavey snapped.

Rip simply stared at him.

Creavey cursed. “It’s after hours, Rip. Man’s got to make his living.”

“After ‘ours?” Rip asked, shouldering over the stoop. “Or were you and your lads just gettin’ set to ‘ead out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wouldn’t do to ‘ave some of me boys come around diggin’,” Rip said deliberately, knowing full well what the disgraced doctor paid some of the local grave-robbers for. Creavey’s obsession with death was so far harmless; as long as it stayed that way Blade intended to leave him alone. He had his uses.

Creavey paled. “I suppose I can spare you a few minutes. Through here, if you will.”

The small set of rooms Creavey let were above a shop. They consisted of two separate rooms for his bedchambers and a small sitting room, connected to his surgery by a long, glass-roofed hallway that served as his laboratory. Chemical smells permeated the air. Rip took a sniff but it wasn’t quite the same scent as had been used at Liza Kent’s. That had seemed to burn in his nostrils and obliterate any chance of smelling anything else for hours – this was a combination that reminded him of the dizzying rush when they’d taken the mangled remains of his arm off after the accident and grafted the steel socket straight into his shoulder joint. Creavey’s rooms always made him feel uneasy, his head spinning. Best to get this over with quickly.

He strode through into the laboratory and dumped Flash Jacky on the long bench that lined the wall. Pots and burners slid out of the way of the body, a variety of metal implements scattered on every possible inch of bench. A dead rat was pinned to the timber, its intestines spread as if someone had been examining it in delicate curiosity. Rip’s lip curled. Bloody dead things. Place always gave him a shiver.

“Not there.” Creavey sighed in exasperation. “The surgery.”

With a grunt Rip hauled the body up and followed Creavey into the small room. Two sheets were draped over a pair of still forms on the steel examination tables. Creavey directed him toward the last table and then dragged his stained apron off its hook. It strained over his rounded belly.

Rip stared at one of the other bodies beneath the sheet, smelling the stale hint of graveside dirt and rot. “What ‘ave you got ‘ere?”

“Arsenic poisoning,” Creavey replied in a distracted voice. “A long, slow case of it, by the look of the white lines on his fingernails and his thinning hair. The wife, I suspect. Barely any mystery at all. So what have you bought me?” Creavey tugged a pair of goggles over his head.

“You tell me,” Rip replied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the doorjamb. The scent was different here, reminding him somewhat of what had been dropped at Liza Kent’s place. “What’s that smell?”

“Formaldehyde,” Creavey replied, gesturing toward the shelves and the glass jars with their gruesome displays.

“Many people get their ‘ands on it?”

“It’s not difficult to buy. Most doctors or surgeons will have it. Some chemists.”

Rip paced the far end of the room, tempted to scrub at the tiny erect hairs on his arm. An unnaturally pale hand hung out from under the far examination table, a puckered red line across the wrist. Not difficult to guess what the cause of death there was. Rip turned around, unnerved by how white the woman’s skin was. Drained by her own hand.

Hanging a lantern high against a mirrored backdrop that reflected the light down onto the body, Creavey cut the blanket off Flash Jacky and leaned closer. Dragging the amplifying goggles down over his eyes, he peered through them, using a pair of long metal forceps to tug the scraps of fabric out of the way. “Hmm.”

Creavey measured the length of the cut. “This was an upward slash,” he muttered. “Left handed, by the look of the angle.” Leaning closer, he hooked the tip of his forceps inside the ragged top edge of the wound and peered inside. “Jaysus.”

“What is it?” Rip asked, striding closer.

The good doctor had paled; whatever it was, it had to be dire. “I’m not sure yet… Here, hand me that scalpel.”

Rip paced the concrete floor near the drain as the doctor sliced Flash Jacky open from throat to pelvis to examine the internal damage. Using shears and a saw, Creavey snipped through the rib cage until Rip had to turn away and stare at the wall. He was no stranger to violence but this… this was somehow impersonal. Cold and calculating.

“Here,” Creavey called and pointed. “The weapon came up beneath the sternum – an upward thrust through there… But it also came out here. Like the blade was curved…”

Rip frowned. “A hook?”

“A razor-sharp hook,” Creavey said, stepping back and wiping the gore from his fingers. Some of the colour had drained from his florid face. “The type commonly used by fisherman, and also--”

“Slashers,” Rip finished, staring at Flash Jacky’s grisly remains. “The bleedin’ Slashers.”

“I would have to complete my findings but I believe this is the cause of death.” Creavey tugged at his apron strings. “I thought Blade done for the Slasher gangs six months back?”

“’e did,” Rip replied, though a vampire had actually taken care of that. Its haunt had been in Undertown, the dark world that had once been the ELU underground line before half the tunnels collapsed. Only the poor or the very desperate lived there – or the Slasher gangs that had once run rampant through this part of the East End. Initiation into one of the gangs required the sacrifice of a limb, preferably by a man’s own hand. Every single one of them had been enhanced with a metal hook or knife, the blade grafted into the forearm in rudimentary rookery style. Some even had wheels for feet or beady glass eyes that didn’t quite focus on the world properly.

Slashers stole people from their beds and dragged them down below, where they drained a body of its blood to sell to the Echelon’s draining factories. The type of scum Rip didn’t mind running afoul of – preferably with his own knife.

“It’s the way of the East End,” Rip explained gruffly. “Take out one of the groups in power and others spring up like mushrooms.” He thought of Liza Kent’s flat, with its very obvious symbol carved into the door. No Slasher could have missed it and being on the edges of Blade’s turf it was clear what this was. “Whoever they are, they’re challengin’ Blade. Takin’ one o’ ‘is.”

“Someone with no interest in continued existence,” Creavey muttered. “Aye.” Rip stepped back. This explained the disappearance of Liza Kent. Poor girl. No doubt her withered carcass would surface in the streets, drained of all its blood. “You ain’t seen a thing o’ this, you understand?”

Creavey wasn’t a foolish man. “I’ll bury the body myself. Make sure nobody but me sees it.

Rip glared at him. “Just you make sure you bury it. I don’t ‘old with none of this cuttin’ dead bodies up, you ‘ear me?”

“Getting hard to find bodies, Rip.”

Rip stared at him.

“How else is a man to know the secrets of death?” Creavey protested. “You don’t know how much good this could do.”

Rip took a step back, ready to leave the stench of death behind him. “One day someone’s goin’ to show you a first’and look at it, if you keep this up. Just you think on that.”