‘Sir!’ the maid protested.
Helen swiftly gathered in her surroundings: a small hallway, papered in green striped silk. The only furnishing was a long hall table set against the stair casement with a large vase of pink roses upon it, their delicate perfume carrying across the air. The Comte stood on the stairs, halfway up, clad in a blue kerseymere jacket with his hat upon his head, as if he had been caught ready to descend to the coach. Lord Carlston had positioned himself a few steps below, the journal in one hand and a pistol in the other, only the barrel of the weapon in view. Road grime and sweat smeared his face, his profile set into the savagery that Helen knew only too well. Even so, he swayed upon his feet. No wonder: he held the journal tight in his bare hand. Behind him, Quinn stood with legs braced over two steps, body tensed, as if ready to catch him. Or leap upon him.
‘Louis!’ Helen turned at the Comtesse’s irritated call to her husband. The woman still stood in the doorway, her hands spread in outraged inquiry. ‘Where did all these men come from?’ she demanded in French. ‘What do they want?’
She had clearly not seen the pistol.
‘It is all right, my love. Lord Carlston is an old acquaintance,’ the Comte answered in English, his voice measured. He dragged his eyes from the gun to glance at Helen on the floor below. ‘Do I know you, monsieur?’
‘It is I, Lady Helen.’
She saw Quinn take a quick breath — relief — although he kept his eyes on his master. Carlston did not seem to register her arrival. The elderly Frenchman above him held all his attention.
The Comte gave a forced smile. ‘Ah, Lady Helen. A most excellent disguise.’ He addressed the maid at his wife’s side. ‘Elizabeth, take your mistress outside.’
The Comtesse hitched her hands upon her hips, rouged lips pursing. ‘But, Louis,’ she said in French, ‘we must go now if we are to make this appointment.’
He held up his hand. ‘Antoinette. Please! Elizabeth, take your mistress out, now!’
The Comtesse murmured a frustrated ‘sa-sa’ beneath her breath, but allowed herself to be ushered from the house.
The Comte waited until his wife and her maid had disappeared through the door, then said, ‘So, you have discovered Benchley’s journal, Guillaume, and come to make our deal?’
‘What is the cure?’ Carlston rasped.
‘No,’ Helen said. She crossed to the balustrade and looked up through its rail. ‘Carlston, you must give me the journal.’
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as if trying to focus sight and mind.
‘What is happening?’ the Comte asked, perplexed. ‘Lady Helen, do you not wish Guillaume to be cured?’
A clatter from the back of the house swung Helen to face the dark passage that led beyond the hall. She heard footsteps, so fast that she had only a second to register one thought — uncanny speed — and then crouch into readiness as a figure burst into the vestibule. Her vision adjusted, the speed of the man sliding from a blur into the recognisable tall, thin form of Stokes. Behind him, another figure approached, caught in the treacle-slow progress of normal momentum. Pike.
Stokes came to a stop in front of Helen. The jarring shift of speed snapped her senses back into normality, bringing an instant of dizziness that resolved into Pike coming down the corridor at a run.
‘Throw the journal to me, Carlston,’ Stokes ordered. ‘You must surrender it.’
Carlston stared at him as if he did not recognise the other Reclaimer.
‘Come on, man,’ Stokes urged. ‘You cannot give a Ligatus to a Deceiver!’
‘What?’ the Comte said, his gaze fixing upon the journal. ‘Benchley made a Ligatus?’
Pike entered the hallway, panting. ‘Lord Carlston!’ Drawing in deep breaths, he strode past Helen and Stokes and took the first two steps, coming to an abrupt halt as Quinn turned and blocked the way.
‘Do not make this worse, Quinn,’ Pike snapped. He looked past the big man and jabbed the air with his forefinger. ‘Carlston, I order you to hand over that journal now. If you attempt to give it to the Comte, it is treason.’
Carlston lifted the pistol, aiming at Pike. Did he not care that Quinn was too close?
‘Look out!’ Helen yelled.
The Terrene slammed his back against the wall as Carlston pulled the trigger. The blast cracked through the air, pushing Helen into a reflexive duck. The ball whirred and hit the stringboard of the staircase with a dull thud. A plume of acrid smoke rolled across the hallway.
‘Did you see that?’ Pike demanded, lurching back down the steps. ‘He tried to kill me!’
Carlston dropped the spent pistol. It bounced down the steps past Quinn. The Terrene stared at its trajectory, his face pale.
Above them, the Comte declared, ‘Guillaume, get out! I want no part of this.’
‘You promised me a cure,’ Carlston said.
He advanced upon the Comte, forcing him back up the stairs. With a desperate glance at Helen, Quinn followed.
‘Stokes, get the journal,’ Pike ordered. ‘Whatever way you can!’
Stokes started towards the staircase, but Helen grabbed his arm, stopping him. ‘I will get it.’ She rounded on Pike. ‘Let me try. He will give it to me.’
‘Too late. He nearly killed me!’
‘He does not know what he is doing! The journal brings on madness. It is making him worse.’
‘Exactly.’ Pike jerked his chin at Stokes. ‘Get going.’
Stokes pulled his arm from Helen’s grasp. ‘I’m sorry, it has to be destroyed, Lady Helen.’
‘Lawrence! Lawrence!’ The yell came from outside. A woman’s voice: the maid. ‘Murder, murder!’
Helen whirled around to face the open doorway. The maid was on her knees beside her mistress. The Comtesse had collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap of royal blue silk, her vivid face drained of colour, a red stain blossoming through the lace above her left breast.
Helen’s view of the two women was suddenly blocked as Lawrence, the Comte’s valet, ran into the hall, dark face intent, body angled, a coppery tang of blood on his body.
Stokes clearly smelled it too, for he charged at the smaller man at Reclaimer speed. Helen followed, a step behind, catching sight of a dagger in Lawrence’s hand as it flashed upward in a lethal arc.
‘Watch out!’ she yelled.
Stokes recoiled, his reflexes saving him from the slash at his throat. Instead, the knife connected with his chin, slicing along his jaw in a hot spray of blood. He staggered back into Helen, his desperate grab at her shoulders for support slamming both of them into the wall. The brutal impact punched the air from Helen’s lungs. Gulping, she clutched Stokes’s jacket, struggling to keep upright, her hands wet with his blood.
She reached out wildly with her other senses — searching for the taste, shape, sound of an energy whip around Lawrence — but found nothing. He’d not had a chance to glut. He only had the knife, yet that was deadly enough.