on either side of the black horse.
Both cultists, like their fellows behind them, held naked blades in both hands.
“Those,” Logan murmured, “are cult assassins.”
“Ah,” Charles replied, and uncharacteristically left it at that.
Linnet, behind Logan, heard the exchange. Looking over his shoulder, she finally comprehended just what had driven him and his friends to battle so hard, for so long, to face so many dangers to bring it down. To defeat it.
True evil.
It stared back at her, not from the cult assassins’ dark, unflinching eyes but from the shadowed eyes of the rider. He… somehow, he made the hair on her nape lift, made her skin pebble and crawl; when his gaze found her, and, as if intrigued, rested on her, she had to fight to quell a wholly instinctive shiver.
An instinctive reaction.
An instinctive fear.
He wore a black coat, he rode a black horse, he had black hair. Yet it was his soul that was blackest; she knew that to her bones.
Her cutlass was already in her hand; she tightened her grip on the hilt. Not a single thought-not even a fleeting one-of fleeing entered her head. She’d come to fight alongside Logan and she intended to do just that.
Yet the odds… were by any estimation hopeless. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be overcome. She counted twelve assassins, but the biggest threat was the mounted man. He carried an unsheathed sword, held lightly balanced across the front of his saddle.
If they could get rid of him…
The rider had shifted his gaze to Logan. After another long, studied silence, he said, “At last we meet, Major Monteith.”
His voice was educated, very English, his diction only lightly muffled by the scarf.
When Logan said nothing, the rider’s eyes smiled. “I believe you know what I want. Please don’t waste time by telling me you haven’t got it-that you aren’t carrying it on your person at this moment.”
Opportunity. Possibility… Leaning forward, Linnet whispered to Logan, loudly enough for the rider to hear, “Give it to him. It’s no use to us if we’re dead.”
She knew it was a decoy, no use to anyone anyway. But the rider didn’t know that, and if he could be fooled into taking it and leaving, they had a chance of surviving even this attack.
Logan shifted, frowned. Made every show of reluctance, grateful to Linnet for giving him that chance. Whoever this man was, he’d know immediately that the letter was a decoy if Logan simply offered it up.
He waited, hoping that the man would make some threat-preferably against Linnet-to further excuse his surrendering the document he’d fought to ferry over half the world.
But the rider’s gaze remained locked on him and didn’t again shift to Linnet. Eventually, the rider arched a brow, as if growing bored.
Who the devil was he? He wasn’t Ferrar, yet from the color of his hands he’d been in India, and not long ago. He clearly commanded cult assassins, so he was, at the very least, a close associate of the cult leader. Coat, breeches, boots, and the horse were all of excellent quality, and the rider wore them, rode the horse, with the unthinking air of one long accustomed to such luxuries.
Logan allowed his frown to deepen. “Who are you?” He saw no reason not to ask.
The rider’s gaze took on an edge. “My name is not something you need to know. All you need to understand is that I am, in this moment, in this place, the Black Cobra.”
“The Black Cobra’s Ferrar.”
“Really?” The rider’s smile returned; he seemed genuinely amused. “I believe you’ll discover you’re mistaken. However”-his voice hardened, along with his gaze-“the one thing you should note is that I am here, Black Cobra or not, to retrieve the letter that inadvertently fell into your hands.” His gaze flicked to the others, then returned to Logan’s face. “And I’m willing to barter for it-your lives for the letter.” When Logan didn’t reply, the rider drawled, “Word of a gentleman.”
Logan managed not to scoff. Not to react at all. The offer was the best he could hope for, not that he believed it; he knew better than to trust the Black Cobra in whatever guise. Still… moving slowly, he withdrew the scroll- holder from the back of his belt, held it up for the rider to see.
The rider’s gaze turned superior. “Yes, but is there anything inside?”
Letting his saber hang from its lanyard, Logan slowly opened the holder, then tipped it so the man could see the parchment inside.
The rider sighed theatrically and beckoned. “Give me the letter itself-I’m not going to cede you your lives in exchange for a plain sheet of paper. You can keep the scroll-holder as a souvenir.”
Inwardly, Logan sighed, too. He didn’t expect the rider to allow them to live, to call off his assassins-no one from the Black Cobra hierarchy would ever be so forgiving-but if the rider had taken the scroll-holder and ridden off, they might have had a fighting chance.
While reaching into the holder and drawing out the rolled parchment, he was planning, plotting, evaluating the closest assassins, imagining how a fight would commence; the opening minute would be crucial.
Drawing out the letter, he tossed it to the nearest assassin. The man caught it in his right hand and passed it up to his master.
Logan kept the empty scroll-holder, its brass end open and flapping, in his left hand, slid his right hand into the guard of his saber, gripped the hilt.
Beside him, he felt Charles shift slightly, also tensing for action.
The rider had, as Logan had feared he would, unrolled the parchment. He angled it to the moonlight; it was bright enough for him to confirm the letter was a copy.
The rider flipped the parchment over, confirming the absence of any telltale seal, and once again the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled in a smile.
Logan blinked. A
If anything, the rider’s smile lines deepened as he folded the letter, tucked it into his inner coat pocket, then he looked up, inclined his head. “A pleasure doing business with you, Major.”
Raising his reins, the rider backed his horse. His men parted to let the beast through, but they didn’t fall back; they held their ground, reforming as the horse retreated beyond them.
Once free of his men, the rider turned his horse; the alley was just wide enough to allow it. Then he walked the horse up the alley.
For one instant, Logan wondered… yet he still couldn’t believe it.
The rider halted in the mouth of the alley, looked back at them, over the heads of his men saluted them. Then what they could see of his face leached of all expression, and something coldly sinister took its place. “Kill them.”
The order was given in a flat, even tone.
Instinct prodded, and Logan called, “I thought you were a gentleman.”
The rider laughed, a chilling sound. Abruptly he sobered. “I was born a bastard-I’m simply living up to my birth.”
With that, he spurred away.
At the first clack of hooves, the assassins attacked.
Alex had been about to turn and flee the debacle Daniel’s plan had degenerated into when Daniel had suddenly spurred out of his hiding place down the street, opposite the hotel, much closer to the writhing mass of cutlists and townspeople. Alex had drawn back into hiding, watched Daniel ride up and turn down the opposite half of the same street Alex hovered in. A little way along, Daniel reined in, unsheathed his sword. With his guard close behind him, he proceeded slowly down the lane behind the buildings facing the street-the lane that, Alex felt sure, ran all the way along the block to the back of the hotel.
What had caught Daniel’s attention? What had he gone to take care of?
Alex hoped, sincerely hoped, the answer was Monteith.
But as the minutes ticked by with no further sign of Daniel, and the melee down the street increasingly turned the townspeople’s way, the compulsion to quit the scene grew. Alex didn’t want to be caught there-a stranger
