London: March, 1822
Stephan Sincai steadied himself
with that memory of control as he swayed in the dark alleyway
off Cockspur Street behind the Admiralty. The blackness
that whirled around him pooled at his feet and then evaporated.
A moment before he had been in the bloodied rooms of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now the bitter wind ran its
fingers through his hair. There. That was better. He swallowed
and then took a lungful of air. What had happened wasn't
important, except as it brought him closer to his goal.
The power he had been trained for hadn't even been necessary.
Somewhere inside he knew that the fact that he had to
steel himself to do what had to be done was an indication
of weakness. He would not allow emotion. He couldn't.
The alley around him shivered into
focus. The stones were slick with rain and the greasy
residue of a city. Sounds of revelry, carriages clattering
in the street, whispered words of love, all cascaded over
him. He smelled the odor of rotting vegetables from a
refuse bin behind a tavern, wet dog and the smoke of cigarillos,
cheap perfume wafting down from the third story windows
of what must be a brothel. They would have good trade
this close to Whitehall Lane's government offices.
Too close. When they found the
horror that had been the Chancellor of the Exchequer in
the Treasury building, this whole area would be crawling
with watchmen and Bow Street Runners. And image of the
elegant office spattered with blood slipped behind his
eyes. Control. Remember why you do this. Forcibly
he replaced the bloody room with an image of Mirso Monastery.
Mirso. Refuge. Peace. Salvation.
He thought a gentle call to the
partner in his blood. Companion! The life and power
in his veins cycled up the scale until his body hummed
with it. A vermillion film washed the dingy alley around
him. Then it darkened with the whirling blackness he spun
about himself. Pain engulfed him. The alley disappeared.
If anyone had been watching they would have seen him disappear
too. Time to put more distance between him and the result
of his atonement.
Even as he thought that, memories
more dangerous than his recent crime seeped into his brain.
Beatrix. The woman he had loved
for what? Seven hundred years? But that love became all
entwined with the guilt. His love for Beatrix had been
a trap. He loved her more than Asharti, when he meant
to treat them both the same. Asharti went mad because
he had failed her. He knew she was dangerous, but he did
nothing. Beatrix went away with Asharti because she felt
betrayed that Stephan tried to love Asharti too. He had
never stopped loving Beatrix. When she reappeared in his
life, he allowed hope to surge-a fool, regardless of his
age. Hope had been revived and dashed in a single evening
by a man named John Staunton, Earl of Langley two years
ago in Amsterdam….
