Nine Shillings

Making Assumptions

London - 1842

'Come to threaten me?' Elizabeth sat up and leaned against the headboard of her bed. 'You have a flair for the dramatic.'

I was sitting in an armchair by the open window with my ankle resting against my knee. 'Seems we both miscalculated.'

She sighed. 'I doubt it. There's places you hero types can't go, you haven't got it in you.'

'I'm not a hero,' I said. 'I'm a different kind of monster.'

She laughed. 'The only monster is the one you share your bed with.' She leaned forward and whispered, 'Where do you think he gets blood from?'

'I know exactly where it comes from,' I replied.

She snorted. 'Eats you in more ways than one, does he?'

I made a show of looking around the room. Elizabeth was always dressed at the height of fashion but the style of her room was years out-of-date. I doubted, if she had the money, she'd let a room be five minutes out-of-date and she wouldn't have taken less than the money to ensure her ideal lifestyle from Josef in their bargain. No amount of money could replace the thrill of playing the odds, whether people or cards.

'Now I know how you knew Johnny Briggs. If you knew Briggs odds on you've met Gale before.' I picked at a loose thread on the arm of the chair. 'Josef likes to gamble, so high-class gambling risks bumping into him. Briggs was mid-range, no risk of meeting Josef there. And I'm sure he'd knock some off a debt for information on a cheat.'

'Put all the pieces together, have you?'

'Who told you I was keeping an eye on Gale, eludes me.'

She smiled. 'And how did I know Millie was cheating?'

'I'm sure you could glean from Veronica's letters Millie's skill in maths and tendency to cheat at card games.' I tapped my nails on the arm of the chair. 'Manipulating your child with "daughterly duty" to make her write to you...'

'Veronica has a tendency to tell me more than she means to. Your hold on her beloved papa's cock. The lover she's afraid you'll find out about. That you're a soft little doll.' Her smile became a smirk. 'Sometimes it's all in the things people try not to say, don't you find?'

'You've got to look at the wording.'

'Not only the words. Your precious Bran and Josef will be the first people they look at if I turn up dead,' she said.

It was a problematic assumption given neither of them had aged in twenty years, it would be difficult to prove they were the same men. Given Bran's transformation in the past few years, it might be impossible.

'You can't do a thing to me because people like you have to protect the weak and worthless,' she said. 'The only worth that man ever had was in his pocketbook.'

'As long as I'm around you won't get your hands on his pocketbook.' I crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

'Oh, I will. I know things about him he'd rather the world didn't know.' She smiled. 'Josef too.'

'You're not as clever as you think you are.'

She frowned. 'Calling my bluff?' She leaned toward me. 'I can tell you things those other vampires did to your precious Bran that would make you never want to touch him again.' She sat back, completely relaxed. 'So, are you going to pay up or shall I tell everyone?'

It was my turn to lean forward. 'You shouldn't have gone after my children.' I pinned her by her chest.

I wrapped my mental fingers around the strands of life running through her and pulled. They tore away.

Veins of purple energy threaded through her skin and laced around my fingers turning my nails black. Her heart accelerated. The air crackled. She grabbed my arm and shoved at me, gasping, choking, screaming. My body turned hot.

The thrashing of her legs lessened.

Her hands fell away

Her heart stopped.

I let her go. She slumped over.

'Some of us learn.' I wiped my hand on my trousers.

There was a deep bruise on her chest where the murderer left a burn. Close enough. I hoped.

I climbed out of the window, closed it, and crept up onto the roof as if I'd never been there.