He had had to keep moving ahead of Kendrick’s well-ordered patrols, abandoning comfortable hideouts and advancing into less and less salubrious neighborhoods. Ones that stank of unemptied privies, full of pests and parasites. Wharf rats, that was what they were. Plague-filled vermin. Just like the unwashed who walked to and fro in the narrow, smoke-filled streets outside. To think that he was forced to rub shoulders with those he supped on!
He shuddered and rose. He had partaken of a fairly robust factory worker the night before, so his hunger was still assuaged, but his irritation rose as laughter and a rousing chorus of “Deck the hall with boughs of holly” filtered in through the closed shutters.
What right did they have to humor and cheer, while he was here suffering?
He stalked out of the room to the squalid parlor, where Oxley and a few others of his followers waited, murmuring in low voices.
“One of you make yourselves useful and go kill those carolers,” he snarled. “I can’t stand the din.”
They exchanged glances among themselves, making his ire rise all the more. What call did they have to question his orders? If he demanded something of them, they ought to fall over themselves to carry out his commands!
The knocker on the front door of the house rang out.
“I’ll get it,” Oxley said, sounding far too chipper. He hurried away and returned a moment later, escorting a woman in a black, voluminous coat.
The woman pulled the hood away from her face and shook out her dark hair; she stared around at the assembled vampires with a coldly bored expression.
“Ah, Gisela, good,” Laurent said, smiling widely. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve thought of another way to strike at the new master and his unblushing bride.” Laurent sneered.
“Then you’d best forget it,” she said flatly.
Laurent pulled up short. “What?”
“I’ve come to tell you to leave off this foolishness. They’re entrenched now. It’s too late. They’ve got too much support.”
He leaned forward like a striking snake. “You’re giving up?!”
She sniffed disdainfully. “I’m not fool enough to keep digging a hole for myself. Do I like them? No. But the truth of it is, they don’t want power for power’s sake. They’re actually doing things to improve the Ossuary, and they might even succeed. I’m willing to let them try. It will either work, or they’ll have enough rope to hang themselves.”
“You’re going to let Rupert’s murderer keep the powerhe stole? It ought to be yours be rights!”
“You meanyours?” Gisela leveled a cool look at Laurent. “Don’t play the innocent with me. I know the moment I would have reached for the throne, you would have done your best to strike me down as well. You couldn’t stand to see a woman in power in the Ossuary, and that’s a good amount of your problem with Genevieve.”
Laurent advanced on her. “You connivinghetaera?—”
“So, youdoremember something from your long-ago education. You keep back,” she warned, a sharp dagger appearing in her hand. “I’m not letting pride and hate get me killed, Laurent. You’re welcome to your schemes. But keep me out of it. There is no profit in them.” She turned on her heel to leave.
Laurent picked up a chair and threw it at her.
Gisela neatly dodged. It shattered against the wall.
“That’s the sort of thing I mean,” she said, staring down her nose at the wreckage of the chair. “Tantrums that come to nothing. You all watch yourselves,” she warned the room at large. “Or he’ll shatter you against the rocks of his insurmountable ambitions without a thought.”
“Coward!” Laurent screamed after her. “Tantrums? I’ll show you tantrums! I’ll kill Genevieve and Kendrick, and I’ll take the power for myself, and then we’ll see! You’d better watch yourself then, Gisela! You frigid?—”
He broke off, noticing Oxley edging away from him. “What? Are you scared, worm?”
“No need to be nasty, Laurent,” Oxley said, having the gall to look injured. “But are you sure this is?—”
“You’re questioning me?Me?”
“I just thought, since it’s Christmas and all, we might leave the revenge for a few days. Spirit of the season and all?—”
“You think I care aboutChristmas?” In a blink, Laurent had Oxley by the throat, his other hand ready and poised to rip out his larynx or his heart, whatever the haze of rage found easiest. But someone grabbed hold of his arm, and another vampire seized him by the shoulder, hauling him away from Oxley.
Oxley wheezed, staring at him with wounded eyes. “There was no call for that!” he rasped.
“Let go of me, or I’ll?—”
