Bran had been growing increasingly tense up to this point, but now his hands fisted. His nostrils flared. His shoulders knotted, and I knew then that this was going to get very, very messy. His hand inched toward the gun I’d felt against my ribs when we danced.
Two men strolled up. Big. Balding. Almost interchangeable. “Everything okay here, Dr. Blasi?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Any trouble at the lab? Got that all wrapped up?”
The men nodded.
“Good. Time to go join them, I guess. Though I am having a marvelous time here. These Victorians really knew how to throw a party.” He sighed. “Let’s go get the professor and have him show me where he hid that damn enhancement. Then I want to watch while he and all the rest of you burn to a crisp in that fire.” Blasi clapped Bran on the shoulder. “Sorry about that, friend.”
He’d said it all so casually, so . . . pleasantly?. . . that for a second I thought I had misheard.
Bran’s fingers found mine.
“Gunnar.” Gabriella cozied up to him, trying to drape her sinewy body over his.
He shoved her away. She stumbled on her bad leg and nearly fell before Blasi’s men caught her. “You know what? I think I’m done with her, too. She can join the rest. Make it easier to clean house when we get back.”
Another of Blasi’s men appeared at a nod from his boss and bundled Gabriella away before we could even process what was happening.
“You,” Bran said to Blasi in a mild, conversational tone, “are a psychotic fuck. Oh, and Hope . . . ?” he went on. “Run!”
We shoved through the door back into the gallery. Gritting his teeth, Bran held on to the door handles as Blasi and his men tried to ram their way in.
“Grab that fireplace poker!” Bran yelled.
I snatched it up and he ran it through the handles, buying us a few precious seconds. The glamour of the manor vanished as we darted into a service corridor. Here, the plaster walls were unadorned. Dust skimmed the baseboards of the scratched wooden floors. No expensive electricity for the servants. In this normally invisible part of the house, old-fashioned gas wall sconces flickered as we raced through pools of the dull yellow light.
A greasy-haired man in white cap and stained apron stepped around a corner in front of us, toting a tray of dirty dishes. We swerved around him, a lit cigarette dropping out of his mouth as we ran past and down the stairs.
At the end of a short hallway, a door to the outside had been left propped open with a chunk of broken brick. The scent of damp concrete and cigarette smoke drifted in. All I could see of the dark alley beyond was the blank wall of the next building.
Shouts rang out behind us. The cobblestones were slick, and I skidded as we pounded across them toward the street. Bran yanked me upright as we made for the sidewalk.
On the street outside the Vanderbilt manor, Bran hauled a dozing carriage driver down off his seat. When the man saw Bran’s pistol, he did not hesitate. “Take it, then. It ain’t mine, what er I care?”
Gunnar Blasi’s men burst through the door we had escaped through just as Bran whipped the team of horses into a full-bore run.
In the thin layer of silk, I was shaking from the cold. From shock. From fear of what might happen to my friends. Bran grasped the reins with one hand and yanked off his coat with the other. I draped it over my shoulders and clutched tightly to him as we careened around corners. We pounded down empty streets, and I saw the stars begin to fade above us.
“He’s got them, Bran. All of them. And you heard what he said . . . he wants to watch them burn.”
His concentration fixed on urging the horses faster and faster, he called, “Not going to happen. We know where he’s headed. He’s a sadistic bastard, but he’s arrogant. We can use that.”
We jounced and jolted through street after street until at last we pulled up to the rear of Tesla’s building. We jumped down from the carriage, secured it, and quietly rounded the corner. Something moved near the front of the building. Two crouched figures. I took off running.
“Wait!” Bran hissed, but I ignored him, because I knew who I’d just seen. He ran to catch up.
On the shadowy New York sidewalk, Phoebe’s blade glinted in the latent glare from the new electric streetlights.
“Ready?” she was saying to someone as we approached. “And I swear by Saint Mary and Saint Bride, if they’ve touched a single hair on any of their heads, I’ll—”
“Hey.”
Phoebe and Collum wheeled, weapons raised. I held up my hands. “Whoa. Hold on. It’s just us.”
“Hope!” Phoebe threw herself at me. I didn’t dare move, not wanting her—?in her exuberance—?to accidentally stab me in the back.
“What happened?” I asked. “They took you and then you—”
“Got away,” Collum said. “As they were forcing us into the carriage. They took Jonathan and Tesla, but we ran. Stole some horses to get here. They marched them both into the building a couple of minutes ago.”
“We haven’t seen Peters or any of the other men,” said Phoebe. “But Doug and Mac are up there too.” She was breathing hard. “We—?we have to go get them.”
Collum leaned out to peer around. He turned back to us and whispered, “There’s blood on the sidewalk.”
Chapter 42
WE DIDN’T HESITATE AS WE ROUNDED THE CORNER TO the front of the building. I barely registered the splatter of dark crimson that painted the bricks just outside the half-open door as we shoved through it and charged into the darkness of the narrow stairwell.
On the second step, my foot skidded in something wet. I thrust my bare hand out to break my fall. It landed on something soft, pliant, and sticky. With a stifled cry, I jerked back just as Collum stepped down the steps to shove the door the rest of the way open. He was cursing under his breath, but stopped when the streetlight revealed the first body.
The man was lying face-up, features half-shadowed, but I recognized him immediately.
“Oh, no.”
Even though I hadn’t known him well, grief washed over me. Inside the horror show that was Greenwood Institute, only one person had tried to watch over me. Sergeant Peters had been my guardian angel there, and he’d looked out for the other girls, too, as much as he could. I hated to think what worse things might’ve happened without his restraining hand.
He looked at peace now, eyes closed, his face unlined. I sent up a prayer that he and the wife he had so loved were reunited at last.
“Shot in the back,” Bran muttered. He gestured toward the gleam of dark liquid that sheeted the front of the sergeant’s jacket and trailed down the steps to pool just inside the front stoop.
A little way up, a second body was shoved against the wall. Bran leaned down and pressed his fingers against the man’s neck. It wasn’t necessary. The young man’s sandy hair was dark with blood. Light brown eyes stared, glassy and empty.
While Bran closed the man’s eyes, Collum slammed a fist against his knee. “Bastards.” Blowing out a long breath, he visibly steadied himself.