“I see a hound,” Hatun continued. She had screwed her eyes shut while she spoke. “And a man with red eyes at the end of a long, dark hallway . . .”
Jackaby went ashen. “What did you say?”
“Death. Death is waiting for you on the other side of Rosemary’s Green. This is the one, Miss Rook. This is the path.”
“Of course there’s death on the other side of Rosemary’s Green,” Jackaby said. “There’s a cemetery on the other side of Rosemary’s Green. What about the man—the hallway? What do you see? Hatun!” His sudden intensity seemed to rattle the woman. She opened her eyes. Dilated pupils contracted and she blinked up at him.
“What? Yes, rosemary’s always green. It’s an herb, isn’t it? What’s got you so bothered?”
Jackaby deflated. “Nothing. We will look into the matter of Hammett’s cat at our earliest convenience, Hatun. Come along, Miss Rook.”
“Take care of yourself,” I said.
Hatun smiled weakly back at me, her eyes hung with quiet sadness. She patted my arm gently. “Good-bye, Miss Rook.” She spoke the words heavily.
Jackaby was already halfway up the block when I turned to hurry after him. He said nothing. His shoulders were stiff and his face was clouded with dark thoughts as he rounded the corner ahead of me.
My feet still ached and, beautiful or not, New Fiddleham’s labyrinthine streets were a shade of madness I would be hard pressed to appreciate even in full daylight. I froze as I reached the turn. The street was empty. I silently cursed Jackaby and hurried toward the next crossing. The alleyways to the left and right were dark. There was no sign of my employer in either direction. Children giggled somewhere nearby, and I could hear footfalls and the distant clop of hooves. A leaden feeling hit my stomach as I realized I was alone in the middle of the night with a murderer on the loose.
“Sir?” I called, trying not to sound too timid. “Mr. Jackaby?”
“This way, Miss Rook.”
The voice crept in a whisper out of the shadows to my left. “Oh, my word!” I jumped and then collected myself, stepping out of the glow of the gaslights and into the gloom of the alleyway. “I lost you for a moment, sir. You nearly startled me out of my—”
My voice caught in my throat.
The face in the darkness was not Jackaby’s. “Your skin?” The face was round and deathly pale, tinted with a bluish shadow along the chin. The pale man smiled and tipped his hat, and the grin etched wrinkles from his brow up into his jet-black hair. “Hello, Miss Rook. I’m so glad we could meet face-to-face at last. Please, call me Pavel.”
Chapter Nine
My breath was coming in shallow gasps. I tried to steady my nerves. How far could I run before he caught me? Would I even reach the light? Would he kill me more quickly if I screamed? “You—”
“Me,” the pale man confirmed with a wink. “Do calm down. I can hear your blood pumping from here. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, Miss Rook.”
“You’re . . .” I panted. “You’re . . .”
He nodded. “Monstrously underdressed for our first business meeting, I know. I’m rather fond of this coat, though. It’s older than you are—you’d never guess to look at it, but that’s craftsmanship for you. Tailors today just aren’t what they used to be. The scarf is new, at least. I do like a nice scarf.”
I blinked.
Pavel shrugged. “I know. You were going to say a vampire, yes? This is also true.”
“Y-You admit it?”
“Honesty is essential if we are to forge a functional working relationship, my dear girl.”
“What are you talking about? We’re not working together. You—You murdered all those people!”
“Yes, I did. More than you know. Lots more. That’s honesty, right there. We’ve already discussed how I’m not killing you. So, let’s call that compassion. See? I’m full of good qualities.” He flashed a winning smile and I saw that he was missing a canine on one side. He caught my gaze and closed his lips self-consciously. “Never mind about that,” he said. His tongue brushed over the gap. “I ate something that disagreed with me.”
“Eating something that disagreed with you dislodged a tooth?” I asked.
“Well, he disagreed with my decision to eat him,” Pavel said, “and he disagreed rather firmly. Bitter blood, that one.”
I swallowed. “What have you done with Mr. Jackaby?”
“I haven’t done anything with him, Miss Rook. As it happens, my benefactors have use for your master’s unique services. That is why we’re talking.”
“Did you have use for Mr. Jackaby’s services when you set him up against a fifty-foot, man-eating dragon?”
Pavel flinched. “Mistakes were made in Gad’s Valley,” he admitted. “Events escalated further than I intended.”
“My friend is dead!” I yelled at him. His mistake had murdered the indomitable Nellie Fuller right in front of me.
“All of my friends are dead,” he spat curtly. “Every last human being who walked this stinking earth when my heart still beat is dead. If it makes you feel any better, though . . .” He drew his chalk white hand gingerly from the pocket of his coat and held it up for me to see, flexing his fingers in the dim light. His pinkie had been severed just above the knuckle, leaving only a short nub. “My superiors were not pleased about the affair, either.”
I looked away from the disfigured hand and focused on his eyes. They were hung with sickly blue shadows. “If you’re just the big bad attack dog,” I said, “then who’s holding the leash?”
“Not so big and bad, Miss Rook.” Pavel chuckled. “But I understand you have a special fondness for dogs, don’t you?”
My hands clenched into fists and I gritted my teeth.
“Oh yes,” he went on, reading me easily. “I know all about your little beau on the police force. Charlie Cane and I aren’t so different, really. Oh, it’s Charlie Howler or some such nonesense now, isn’t it?”
My blood was pumping again. Charlie was sweet and noble and good. This cretin had no business knowing his deepest secret. “It’s Barker. And you’re nothing alike.”
“Barker, right. A dog by any other name would bite as deep. I’m rather fond him, actually. A fellow monster from the old country. You know, I camped with a pack of Om Caini for a while in Bulgaria. Do you think one of them might have been your little pup’s grandfather? We’re practically family!”
I glared. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not hunting tonight, if that’s what you’re afraid of—at least not the way you think.”
“Then what do you want? Why are you doing this? Who are you working for?”
“My, my—you’re looking for a lot of answers, young lady. Information is expensive in my line of work, but I would be happy to arrange a trade.”
“Jenny Cavanaugh and Howard Carson. Ten years ago. I want to know what happened.”
Pavel cocked his head ever so slightly. “I can tell you everything you want to know about Carson and his girl—but it won’t come free.”