THE SIREN
1902—New York
Jack Grew had had enough of the constant coddling and fussing of his mother after two days. After five, he was finished completely, so he moved himself back into his own set of rooms. It had given him some peace, not having a constant parade of maids and doctors checking on him, and also some space from the rest of his family, who seemed always to be showing up to remind him about the next interview or appointment they’d arranged.
They were always doing the arranging. Never asking. Never consulting. Only demanding, and he was damn well sick of it. Now, at least, he had time to pour himself into deciphering the Ars Arcana.
When the clock struck eight, its long, sonorous chimes dragged Jack from his stupor. He blinked a few times, trying to remember where he was or what he had been doing. On the table in front of him, the Book was lying open, the page filled with symbols and markings in a language he didn’t recognize.
Right. He’d been reading. Or he’d been trying to.
He rubbed at his eyes. He’d sat down not long after five to wade through a page of Greek and must have fallen asleep at some point. That was the thing he’d discovered about the Book—when he was studying it, time seemed to have no real meaning. He’d often wake in the morning, still dressed in the clothes he had been wearing the night before, his neck aching from sleeping upright in a chair, and the Book open in front of him.
Or perhaps that was simply an effect of the morphine, he thought dully, even as the ache in his head made him grimace. Taking the vial from his pocket, he removed a cube of the morphine and popped it into his mouth, cringing at the bitterness of it. But a few moments later the pain started to fade.
Not quickly enough, he thought, placing two more of the bitter cubes into his mouth. A little while longer, maybe, and he’d stop using the painkiller. He wasn’t some damn soldier who couldn’t give it up. It hadn’t been that long, he thought, his mind already softening and growing clearer. It simply took time, he told himself as he turned back to the Book.
It wasn’t the ringing of the clock that brought him out of his stupor the second time. No. That was a different bell altogether.
He blinked, his head still swirling pleasantly and the pain in his head feeling very far away. He went to rub his eyes only to discover that his hand held a pen. The Book was still open, but now the page that had been completely incomprehensible before was filled with notations . . . and they were in his own hand.
Not just notations. Translations. And he didn’t recall writing any of it.
The bell was still ringing.
The doorbell. Sam Watson. He’d almost completely forgotten about the appointment his uncle had made for another interview. The first one had been a complete waste of time, but apparently the Order felt that they needed to put a word in the ear of the press about the gala, and they were using Sam—and Jack—to do it.
Jack groaned as he closed the Book with a violent snap. The pages rippled, bouncing with the force of it. The bell—and Watson—could damned well wait, he thought as he took the Book into his bedroom and secured it in the safe. He took two more cubes of morphine to dampen the pain that was already shooting through his head from the incessant ringing of the bell. Then he went to the door.
It wasn’t Watson.
“Miss DeMure,” Jack said, surprised to see her standing in his doorway. She was wearing a silk gown of the deepest emerald green, which contrasted with the red of her hair and lips.
She’d come with Sam before, to the first interview he’d had with the reporter. From the looks she’d given Jack during that interview, she’d been interested in Jack—more than interested. He’d hoped to see her again, but he hadn’t expected her to arrive at his town house, unannounced and alone.
He looked past her, for some sign that Sam Watson was with her.
“Sam couldn’t come,” she said, stepping past him. “Regrettably, he was detained by something at the office. I thought you might enjoy my company instead.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder, and Jack, who was not one to overlook a gift like this, shut the door behind her.
“Your company?” he asked expectantly, turning back to her.
She was running her gloved fingertips over the smooth, dark wood of the entry table. “Was I wrong?”
“No,” he said, feeling a flush of warmth and satisfaction. “Not at all. Please, come in. Something to drink?”
The went into the parlor, and he poured them both glasses of sherry. She took the offered drink with a coy smile, but then she turned from him to examine one of the figurines on the sideboard.
He understood immediately the dance that she’d just started, and his gut went tight at the thought of what was to come—the give and take as they circled each other. The tease and the promise of it. And the moment he would triumph.
After a moment Evelyn turned to him, her eyes glittering in the soft light. “I knew Harte Darrigan, you know. . . .”
“Darrigan?” Irritation coursed through Jack as his mood went icy. The last thing he wanted to think about when he was entertaining a willing woman was that damned magician.
Evelyn nodded. “Some might say that I knew him intimately.”
“Did you?” he asked, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice.
“Oh, don’t be jealous, Jack,” she said, and then she laughed, deep and throaty.
Despite his irritation, the sound tugged at his gut again, but the morphine was still in his blood, making his mind clear and his thoughts direct. She was toying with him.
But he was no mouse.
He stalked over to her slowly, so she wouldn’t be afraid. So she wouldn’t realize that it wasn’t he who was the prey. “I wouldn’t waste my time being jealous of trash like Darrigan,” he told her.
Her red mouth drew up into a smile. “I didn’t think you would. I knew from the moment I heard you speak to Sam the other day that you were too smart, too shrewd for an emotion as petty as jealousy. Which is why I thought you might be interested in information I have about him.”
He took another step closer, until he could smell the cloying perfume that hung around her like a cloud, brash and loud—just like she was. “What information?”
“I was there that night, you know,” she told him, sipping her sherry and never once breaking eye contact. A challenge if ever there was one. “I was at Khafre Hall the night everything happened. I know the Order is trying to cover the truth, that they’re using you to distract the public from what actually happened. If you say Darrigan was on the train, I believe you.”
“You do?” Jack asked, coming closer yet and placing his glass on the sideboard.
“Of course, Jack. I knew Darrigan, and I knew that bitch of an assistant he found. She’s the one to blame for all of this, you know.”
He took her by the arm and was gratified to see the flash of fear in her eyes. “I’m not interested in games. If you know where Darrigan or the girl are, you will tell me.”
“I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he even made it off the train—” He tightened his grip on her arm, and her eyes went wide. “But I do know that he might have left something behind . . . something that might interest you.”
“Did he?” Jack asked, releasing his hold on her a little and then releasing her completely. The morphine had finally bloomed in his veins, softening everything and making him feel very present, like he was everywhere in the room at once. “What did he leave behind?”
“Information like that I could only share with my friends. My very close friends,” she purred. “Are we friends, Jack?”
“Of course,” he murmured.
His mouth curved up of its own accord as she stepped toward him, her eyes lighting with victory, clearly believing that she had won.
But oh, how very, very wrong she was.