When Sebastian pushed open the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs, everyone's attention was instantly on the two of us.
The room, which was dark and seedy and just how I had expected a basement drug lair to be, was filled with greasy, dirty looking men, bent over tables assembly line style as they packaged and boxed drugs to be dispersed.
All that activity stopped, however, as soon as we walked in.
Sebastian ignored the stares from the workers, their hooded eyes suspicious and leering from deep within their filthy, hollowed faces. Instead, he let the door swing shut heavily behind us, and then offered the men a smile, not unlike the one he had given the barmaid upstairs, as he said in a pleasantly loud voice, "Good evening, gentlemen. Who can I address as the manager of this establishment?"
I rolled my eyes. Manager? Establishment? This was a sweatshop cranking out drugs, in the basement of an inn, run by a group of tattered men who probably didn't even know how to read or write. Why did Sebastian speak as if it were a highly regarded place of relaxation?
Honestly. He drove me mad sometimes.
A man rose from his seat behind a desk at the back of the room, hidden from our view until now, and planted his hands firmly on the surface in front of him, leaning forward to peer at us with wary eyes. "Aye, that's me, I s'pose." He flicked his gaze from Sebastian, who was standing erect and proper, still in that damned suit, over to me, his eyes shifting down my figure in such a way that I was glad I had on my cloak as an extra layer of protection between myself and his leering look. "You musta presented the correct entry fee upstairs? What's yer business then?"
I saw Sebastian flick his eyes around the room quickly, taking in the men who were all still staring at us, and then he turned his attention back to the man at the back of the room before he said in an amicable voice, "Well, I was hoping this could be between the two of us. It's a private matter, you see." He shrugged one shoulder slightly and tilted his head toward the men watching, as if to ask the man to call them off.
The man watched him for another moment, seeming to hesitate, before he barked out, "A'right you lot. Get back to work! The boss'll have our heads if we don't get that shipped out t'night!"
The men hurried back to their stations, resuming the processing tasks they had been doing when we entered, and a quiet hum of noise and activity once again filled the room.
Sebastian pulled me down the center of the room, back toward where the man had seated himself behind his desk again, and as we walked among the rows of tables and the assembly lines of men, I muttered under my breath so that only he could hear, "I don't think you're going to be able to charm your way out of this one, butler. He looks a little less impressionable than the woman upstairs."
Sebastian kept his gaze on the man in front of us as we neared, but before we reached him, he responded to my statement, a slight hint of amusement in his low voice as his lips hinted at his customary smirk. "I won't need charm for this, my lady. I've got you."
We had reached the desk, and Sebastian pulled out the lone chair for me, bowing slightly as he did so, and I took my seat. He moved to stand behind me, and I was surprised when he rested a light hand on my shoulder, his long fingers curling slightly into the fabric of my cloak as he did so.
He was really milking this couple disguise for all that it was worth.
I was pulled from my thoughts when the man in front of us spoke, his voice gravelly, his eyes lighting on Sebastian and then me. "Now. You had a coin. You're obviously here for the product. You said it was a private matter?" He flicked his eyes down to me again, as if questioning if I should partake in this discussion.
I studied his face for a brief moment, now that we were sitting across from each other.
His skin was marred by prominent pockmarks, as if he picked at his blemishes obsessively, and his hair was slicked back from his forehead, although I doubted any gel had been used. It looked as if to be held up by grease and dirt alone, the strands thick with debris and obvious flakes of skin. His teeth were yellow and crooked, and the slight sneer that graced his lips as he looked at me showed that his gums were black with miscare.
Overall, I didn't like the man one bit.
Sebastian broke my quiet study with his lilting voice, he must have seen the man look at me as if hesitant to speak in front of me, and wanted to assuage his fears. "Ah. Yes. It is private, but you may speak freely in front of my wife. She knows everything." He squeezed my shoulder affectionately, and though I didn't look up at him, I could just imagine the smile that drew across his mouth, putting the man at ease.
Satisfied, the man sat back in his chair, his paunch of a belly hanging over his worn trousers as he crossed his muddy boots and put his hands behind his head, still regarding us closely, but with less suspicion than before. "Well then. What can I do for ye?" He raised an eyebrow at us. "Are ye buying for the supplier who gave ye the coin then?"
"Actually." I spoke up, my voice light, an innocent smile playing across my lips as I watched the dealer look at me in surprise. I held my hand out, palm up, and opened my fingers one by one, revealing the marked coin nestled in the fabric of my glove. I had stolen it back as soon as the woman upstairs had tried to pocket it. The man's gaze fell to the token as I continued in an even tone. "Your boss, Nicholas Irvine, gave me this coin himself."
The man's eyes widened imperceptibly at his boss's name and I smiled at him again, this time, not quite as innocently, as I flipped the coin between my fingers, the copper flashing in the light of the lanterns.
Sebastian spoke again, and though I didn't turn to look at him, I could hear the slight hint of amused malice in his voice as he said, "Oh, did something she say surprise you? I can't imagine why. The lady is a very close acquaintance of Lord Irvine. She speaks the truth of the origin of that coin."
The man's eyes moved from Sebastian back to me, and then to the coin being rolled between my gloved fingers. "That's impossible..." His voice came out hoarse, as if what we were saying had robbed him of the ability to speak.
"Why?" I raised an eyebrow at him and tilted my head to the side, as if curious why he said what he did. "You don't think your boss would give me this? I'm telling you, he did." I flipped the coin across the table to him, and it landed on the desk with a clatter, in front of his clenched fists. He stared at it, but didn't touch it, as I leaned forward and lowered my voice, before saying, "Did you see his face?"
The man's eyes shot up to mine so quickly, that I didn't need him to answer my question. He already had.
"Oh..." I breathed out the word, as if making a realization, although I already knew he knew what I was talking about. "You did." I sat back, steepling my fingers in front of my chin as I regarded him from across the table. I felt Sebastian's hand drop back onto my shoulder, but I didn't glance away from the man in front of me.
He was mine. I had him now.
A smirk flickered across my lips, and when I spoke, my voice was dangerous. "Wasn't it disgusting? The peeling, sloughing, burnt, scarred, deep red of his skin? When my husband said that Lord Irvine and I were acquaintances, he meant it. We're very well acquainted." I held up a hand, splaying my fingers wide for him to see. "So well acquainted, in fact, that I ruined his perfect, pretty face. And then." I grinned at him, leaning forward once more, relishing the terror that was starting to build in his eyes. "I cut out his tongue. With this knife." I pulled the dagger from my cloak and threw it onto the table in front of the man, where it clattered to a stop next to the coin.
The man looked down at the objects in front of him, and then back up to Sebastian and I, the fear in his eyes no longer hidden. He pushed back from the desk, the chair clattering to the floor behind him, as he said wildly, "You're both crazy!" His wide eyes flitted around the room in no pattern whatsoever, the men at the tables starting to look in our direction at the commotion, and suddenly, his voice rose to a scream as he commanded the men, "Kill 'em! Kill 'em both! They can't leave here alive!"
As the men around the room lunged into motion toward us, and the man behind the desk moved to get away from us, I stood from my chair and glanced at Sebastian for the barest of moments. His crimson eyes met mine, flared fuschia for a moment, and then he spoke, his voice as calm and even as if we were enjoying a day at the beach, not surrounded by drug lords who wanted us both dead. "You secure the leader. I'll take care of these gentlemen."
I barely had time to nod to him before the force of men had converged on us.
I slipped through easily, the group focusing mainly on Sebastian, and took off around the desk, toward the open doorway where the man had disappeared moments before.
Entering what appeared to be a storeroom, I caught sight of the boss in the far corner, back against a wall of shelves, the dagger from earlier clutched in his white fist as he stared me down, his eyes wild, nostrils flared. "Don't come any closer, ye hear? I'll gut ye like a fish!"
"See. That's where you're wrong." I spoke calmly, walking toward him slowly, reaching into the recesses of my cloak as I did so. Before he could react, I pulled another dagger from the fabric and as quick as a flash, flung the blade across the room, where it landed neatly with a thunk into the wood of the shelves behind him, pinning his knife hand against the wall.
He let out a tortured cry, the dagger piercing neatly through the flesh of his palm, and dropped the dagger he had been holding from his fingers as he reached to remove my knife.
I darted the rest of the way across the room, and picked up the dagger from the floor, reaching out to slam his free hand back against the wall behind him as I did so, dagger dangling between my fingertips as I offered him a smile. "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Crimson blood dripped down his forearm and onto the floor at our feet as I held his other hand securely with my own.
Behind us, I heard footsteps enter the room, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Sebastian, clean and unruffled as ever, not a hair out of place, come into the room.
His eyes lit upon me and then on the man in front of me as he approached us, his dark dress shoes making his steps echo off the cobbles and walls around us. He raised a slender eyebrow slightly at me as he said in a bemused tone, "Everything handled here, darling?"
I blew a loose strand of hair from my eyes as I glanced back at the immobilized man in my grip. "Oh, I have everything under control, love." The term of endearment was stressed with sarcasm, as if our parts that we had played could now be regarded as a joke as the tension of the situation diffused. I looked over my shoulder at him again, and as we made eye contact, I noted that his eyes were glowing that deep scarlet again. "How did things go in the other room?"
His trademark smirk graced his lips for the briefest of moments before he responded, "Everything is taken care of. Just as planned. Our gentlemen friends have been handled, and the product has been disposed of."
I turned my attention back to the man in front of me, who was still held against the wall with my hand and my knife, his eyes wide with fear, his arm shaking underneath my grip, his face pale, his blood red at my feet. I leaned close to him, and he shrunk away from me in response, but I didn't let him go far, my face almost touching his as I said in a low growl, "Did you hear that? You're done. And so is your boss, Irvine. This business is finished. Your drugs are no longer going to sicken and darken the south side of London." My eyes darkened, and I slammed him back roughly against the wall, making sure he was listening closely to me, before I got back into his face and hissed between my teeth, "Do you hear me, you bastard? You don't get to prey on the weak anymore. So take your shit, and go to hell."
And with that statement, I slammed the dagger in my hand into his other palm, his blood spurting warm across my cheek as he let out a bloodcurdling scream and writhed in my grip.
I released him, and without looking back, walked past Sebastian toward the door.
As I passed the demon, without meeting his bloody gaze, I said flatly, coldly, my tone devoid of emotion, "Do it."
And as I left the room, a gunshot echoed through the silence and stillness of Nicholas Irvine's once bustling drug den.
And the macabre thread, dripping with blood, that now connected Sebastian and I together, was complete.