Doyle went straight to the fire and stoked it, sending a gush of smoke through the room. “You look like you’ve been three solid nights in a gin ’ouse. Smell like it too.”
“Hardly,” Lynch replied, scraping his hair back out of his face. He must have dozed off. “I know what a gin house smells like.”
Pushing to his feet, he staggered toward the liquor cabinet in the corner. Thick, viscous blood pooled in one of the decanters. For a moment his vision sharpened, the color leeching out of his sight. His hand shook as he unstoppered the decanter and poured himself a short glass.
Staring out through the windows at the gray morning, he drained the blood. The taste of it burned through him, igniting desire in his belly like the hot stroke of a woman’s touch. Lynch forced himself to put the glass aside and stoppered the decanter again. He rationed himself strictly—a necessary evil. No matter how much he thirsted for more, he never allowed it. It was one of the few methods he used to control his unnatural hungers. Meditation was another.
“How’s Garrett?” he asked quietly.
“Still breathin’,” Doyle replied, wiping his hands on his trousers as he turned. His own expression was inscrutable. They never spoke of it amongst themselves, but every Nighthawk knew the risks of the job.
Every hour Garrett survived meant increased hope that the craving virus was healing him. He might survive. Might.
“Here,” Doyle muttered, tugging a letter out of his pocket. “It’s got the gold seal on it.”
The Council then. Lynch snatched it and broke the seal with his thumbnail. His gaze raked over the words, any warmth draining from his face.
“What is it?” Doyle asked bluntly.
“A summons,” he replied, striding toward the set of rooms he kept off his study. “At eleven at the tower.”
Doyle followed him into the bedroom. “Aye, its not good news then?”
“I’m not sure.” The last time he’d received a summons, it had come with a threat. This reeked of the prince consort’s touch. A reminder of his absolute power? Or something far more sinister? He was growing bloody tired of being jerked around like a puppet.
“Send for my horse to be saddled.”
“Done,” Doyle replied.
“Then I’ll need a pair of lads to escort me—”
“They’ll be waitin’ at the stables.” Doyle restrained himself from giving Lynch a telling look. He knew his job. “A pair of the latest recruits. Still so new they piss their pants at the sound o’ your name.”
“Preferably not in the Council chambers.”
Lynch poured a pitcher of warm water into his shaving bowl and made short work of the task. Doyle wasn’t far wrong. With his bloodshot eyes and the thick, dark stubble along his jaw, he looked rather more like a miscreant than the respectable Guild Master.
Doyle yanked open his closet and fetched the black velvet coat Lynch wore to court and a crisp, white shirt that had been starched to within an inch of its life. “We’d best get you ready then. The gray waistcoat? Or the black checked one?”
“Black.” Lynch dragged the heavy leather carapace of the breastplate off over his head, then shrugged out of his undershirt. He stripped completely and gave himself a brisk wash.
“I want last night’s reports on my desk by the time I return,” he instructed. “And Doctor Gibson’s final autopsy results on Lord Falcone. If you can, have his blood run through the brass spectrometer again. I know his CV count came in normal, but I want to see if it’s changed at all. The craving virus tends to survive in the tissues after death for several days. Let’s see if it’s still within its normal ranges. And send Byrnes to question the Haversham heir again.”
Doyle threw the shirt at him. Lynch toweled himself off, then dressed quickly. The stark white of the shirt was the only sign of color. Doyle tossed him a black silk cravat and Lynch tied it swiftly.
“Oh,” Lynch said, on his way out the door. “Mrs. Marberry is due at nine. Show her to my study and instruct her to begin transcribing my notes into the formal case file.” He paused. “See that somebody sends her some tea or…something.”
He’d realized last evening that he’d barely fed her the previous day.
Doyle nodded. “Will do.”
Lynch opened his mouth. Then shut it again. Doyle was giving him a long-suffering look. The man had been with him for forty years, as evidenced by the gray in his hair. He might be only human, but he knew his job.
“Very well then,” he replied. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Lynch entered the atrium of the Ivory Tower, bowing his head to the seated Council members.
Two chairs remained empty. Barrons was most likely still indisposed from Falcone’s attack and the chair of the Duke of Lannister had been shrouded in black since his murder.
The sign of mourning was a mockery. Lynch had proved that the duke had known of the bombing before it occurred and still said nothing. If the duke hadn’t died in the assault, then the prince consort would have had him executed regardless. Even now the Council seat stood empty, the prince consort obliterating the House of Lannister in his rage.
Lynch’s fingers dipped into his pocket, automatically fingering the scrap of leather there.
Ignoring the man in the center of the brass circle that was cut into the tiles—Sir Richard Maitland, that lickspittle—Lynch strode to his side and turned to face the Council. The enmity between the Nighthawks and the Coldrush Guards had always boiled under the surface and Lynch would have liked nothing better than to drop the Master of the Guards off the top of the tower.
The prince consort’s face was expressionless, the queen’s hand resting on his shoulder as she stood beside him and stared distantly over Lynch’s shoulder. None of the other councilors showed so much as a glimmer of their intentions.
“Sir Jasper, Sir Richard.” It was the young Duke of Malloryn who stepped forward. Despite his youth, Malloryn had been duke for ten years, since the moment he’d reached his majority. The House had been nearly annihilated with his father’s assassination, but Malloryn had hauled it back from obscurity with an almost- aggressive determination. “The Council has decided that this situation with the humanists in the city must be given priority, most particularly the capture of the revolutionary leader, Mercury. Since little headway seems to be made and you don’t have a single humanist in your grasp, we have decided to set the pair of you on the case.”
Lynch’s jaw tightened. That was not precisely true, but they didn’t need to know that. Not yet. Not until he had all the pieces of the puzzle.
Having more men on the street did not guarantee success. Indeed, it only made the task more difficult. No doubt it looked appealing from their precious Ivory Tower, so far removed from the streets Lynch walked.
“Do you have anything to say, Sir Jasper?” The prince consort’s colorless eyes locked on him.
“No, Your Grace.” He gave a curt nod. “Why would I argue with your infinite wisdom?”
The prince consort’s eyes narrowed minutely.
“It has also been recommended that we provide some incentive for this capture,” Malloryn continued. “As such, whoever brings us Mercury shall be rewarded most suitably. Your rogue status shall be revoked and you will be granted the privileges of one of the Echelon.”
Sir Richard sucked in a sharp hiss of air beside him. Lynch’s gaze jerked to the dais. He knew who to thank for this piece of news—Barrons’s hand, working behind the scenes.
His mind raced. Enticement indeed. Maitland was almost quivering in anticipation beside him. He’d have every single available man he had on the streets, flooding them with guards. The populace would be in an uproar, men and woman too afraid to venture out.
And Mercury… Lynch stopped breathing. If Maitland got his hands on her, Lynch would kill him. His vision darkened, bleeding into shadows at the thought.
“Don’t think my former command has been rescinded, Lynch,” the prince consort said coldly. “It
