These Vengeful Souls Read online

  Mr. Kent unceremoniously dropped Mr. Jarsdel, leaving Sebastian with the weight. He set him down on the ground and stepped away, giving me space to heal him.

  “Who are you, sir?” the thin booking officer yelled. “What division are you with?”

  “Z division,” Mr. Kent said. “They formed one just for me. Now I have here a man responsible for a recent murder you’re investigating. He has one of those powers you’ve no doubt heard about.”

  The booking officer snorted. “So do my wife and my sister,” he said, earning the easy laughs of a few other policemen.

  With the effects of Sebastian’s power healed away, Mr. Jarsdel finally came to after a sniff of smelling salts. He looked rather dazed and then panicked. He struggled with his restraints, his hands glowing a bright orange that cut all the laughter short. A room full of suspicious eyes watched us.

  “Thank you for the quiet,” Mr. Kent said before turning to our prisoner. “Now, sir, please tell these good men, is your name Mr. Jarsdel?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Jarsdel said, his face reddening with anger as he realized where he was and what we had planned.

  “Now Mr. Jarsdel, are you responsible for the murder of Sir Thomas Cox at the brothel on Leman Street last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who told you to murder the poor baronet?”

  “Goode.”

  “What is the man’s title?”

  “Captain.”

  “So it was Captain Goode who ordered this murder?”

  Mr. Jarsdel tried to muffle the words in his shoulder, but the affirmative reply was heard anyway. “Mmph.”

  As Mr. Kent lifted Mr. Jarsdel’s head and forced him to answer, brilliantly building his case, the curious detectives were warily striding forward, looking more and more intrigued.

  “Did Captain Goode also plan the attack on the Queen at Westminster Abbey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how do you explain Sebastian Braddock’s appearance there?”

  “It was an illusion. To blame him.”

  “And Captain Goode is responsible for both the Westminster Abbey event and the murder last night?”

  “Technically.”

  “Wonderful. And now, gentlemen, I leave this filth in your hands.”

  The men were staring among themselves, slack-jawed, as we backed away.

  “I suggest you grab him,” I said, as Mr. Jarsdel worked at the necktie with his teeth, his breath coming in angry hisses. “And keep his palms together unless you want to be burned to death.”

  That finally snapped the room into action, the men surrounding Mr. Jarsdel as we backed away toward the exit.

  “Wait! You are not to leave yet!” the booking officer called after us. “Who are you? Who is your superintendent? Stop!”

  But we were already out the door, hurrying back to the carriage. We’d done enough. They could sort out the rest without detaining us.

  When we got back to Mrs. Tuffins’s, I ran to tell Rose and Catherine. Rose was thrilled and Catherine was pleased until she learned that the British Museum was no longer looking its best.

  “The entire room of jewels from the Far East?”

  “Well, Miss Chen saved one piece,” I said, nodding at her. We had taken over the parlor again and were sitting on the floor together, sharing a bottle of wine.

  “Yes.” Miss Chen held up her wrist, showing off her bracelet.

  “Ah. Well, fair enough. The architects and curators who have been building the museum’s collections are terrible thieves,” Catherine said, sounding as though she were about to start a much longer and angrier diatribe. But she stopped and sighed. “All those beautiful pieces, though.”

  “It’s worth it,” I said firmly. When Sebastian’s name was cleared and Captain Goode’s was in the mud, he wouldn’t be able to hide. I looked behind me to see if Sebastian was paying us any mind. He looked up, then, and seemed to instinctively soften as our eyes caught.

  Yes. It was worth a few ruined rooms, a few antiques. I would knock down buildings if it meant Sebastian had a chance at happiness.

  Chapter Nine

  “GOOD NEWS,” Mr. Kent said, entering the kitchen the next morning with the latest newspaper in one hand and a buttered roll in the other. “The world finally knows the truth: Mr. Braddock is a vampire.”

  The newspaper dropped onto the table in front of me. Sebastian, Rose, Catherine, and Miss Chen stopped eating their breakfasts and waited as I scanned the article, finding only nonsense implicating Sebastian in the baronet’s murder.

  “An eyewitness says,” I read aloud, “she saw Mr. Braddock climbing up the building’s three floors with his bare hands, breaking through the window, draining the life out of the poor Sir Thomas, burning him, and throwing him down to his death.”

  Mr. Kent tut-tutted. “You really must be more discreet with your blood cravings, Mr. Braddock.”

  “What nonsense,” I said. “We did every bit of work for the police! Really, all they had to do was move Jarsdel from the lobby into a jail cell. It couldn’t have been that difficult. When will they announce Sebastian’s innocence?”

  “It’s … possible they might not be planning an announcement,” Mr. Kent said.

  “What do you mean?” Rose asked.

  “When I went out, I saw new police notices for Mr. Braddock blaming him for the Belgrave Ball, the attack on the Queen, and Sir Thomas’s murder.”

  Sebastian sighed, taking the paper from me before I could crumple it up. I wasn’t sure if it was a good sign that a mild sigh was now his reaction to more false accusations of murder.

  I dropped the rest of my cake. “But you made him confess in full view of several policemen,” I said, struggling to take this as calmly as Sebastian was. “They can’t ignore that.”

  “Perhaps Captain Goode’s influence reaches further than we thought,” Miss Chen put in. “He did save the Queen, after all.”

  “Then maybe we should overreach him,” I said, jabbing at the newspaper. “They’ll want to hear the truth.”

  Mr. Kent snorted. “They most definitely will not. They want a good story.”

  “Then we’ll give them that, too.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, when Mr. Kent, a disguised Sebastian, and I entered the office of the Daily Telegraph, we found ourselves stopped at the front by an assistant. He wouldn’t let us speak to the editor, despite our use of the magic words: “We have information about Sebastian Braddock.”

  “So do ten others this morning,” he told us. “You can tell me first, and I’ll bring it to Mr. Warren when he’s not quite so busy.”

  Mr. Kent tried another set of magic words. “But if you take us to him now, then we won’t tell Mr. Warren about … what was that awful thing you did?”

  Suddenly, Mr. Warren was no longer busy.

  We were let into his cluttered office. He was a slight man with spectacles and a thin mustache. He looked buried by the amount of stacked books and papers around him.

  “What is it?” Mr. Warren barked without even the politeness to look up. “We’re very busy here, there’s a great deal—”

  “We have the truth about Sebastian Braddock for you,” I said. “And it’s not that ridiculous story portraying him as a vampire.”

  Mr. Warren finally gave me his attention. His disdainful attention. “There have been many ridiculous stories that have been proven true this past week,” he said. “What is your rational explanation then for the horrible murders?”

  “He was framed for the murder,” I said. “Because he is already wanted by the police, he is being blamed while the true murderer goes unnamed.”

  “And who is the true murderer?”

  “His name is Mr. Jarsdel. He was brought to the Brunswick Square police station yesterday and provided a full confession of his involvement in the murder, and not a single report has been made about it.”

  Now Mr. Warren looked at us with actual interest. “And you know this because you
were the three who brought him in and left.”

  “So the police would actually do their job.”

  Mr. Warren put his pen down and folded his hands. “From what I’ve heard, they did. They questioned him extensively and found he’d been threatened and coerced into making these confessions. At the end of the day, an order was sent down to let him go due to insufficient evidence.”

  I felt my rage grow, and I resisted the impulse to destroy the editor’s office. Not that it could be made messier. “They what? He just lied to them, and they let him go?”

  “Do you have any proof that he did what you say he did?”

  I glanced at Mr. Kent.

  He took his cue. “Mr. Warren, do you believe in the existence of the ridiculous powers that Captain Goode has so recently informed the world of?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Have you ever cried because someone didn’t love you back?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Warren answered, disconcerted.

  “Did you want to answer that last question?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you think you did?”

  Mr. Warren’s eyes widened as he realized it. “You have a power.”

  Mr. Kent nodded in approval. “I do, indeed. The power to ask a question and receive an honest answer. Which is what I used to question Mr. Jarsdel when we brought him to the police after cornering him at the British Museum. Anything that I asked him was his true confession. Anything he said to the police after was likely a lie.”

  Mr. Warren took a heavy breath and leaned back in his chair, taking in everything that we had said. He looked between the three of us as if he might figure out what we were thinking.

  “You know, before Captain Goode made his announcement, I heard a strange story about a man who managed to extract secrets from three policemen in C Division and blackmail them to help Sebastian Braddock and an unnamed woman escape arrest.”

  Mr. Kent’s face remained impassive. “That does sound rather strange.”

  Mr. Warren looked at Sebastian closely, seeing through his disguise. “Can you ask Mr. Braddock whether he murdered Sir Thomas Cox?”

  Mr. Kent chuckled. “Oh, we didn’t introduce ourselves. This is Mr. Haddock—”

  “Just do it,” I said.

  He frowned at me for not playing along, as if changing to a rhyming name would completely fool everyone. “Fine, Mr. Braddock, did you kill the baronet two nights before?”

  “No,” Sebastian answered.

  “Now ask him if he attacked the Queen at Westminster Abbey.”

  Mr. Kent rolled his eyes. “Did you attack the Queen at Westminster Abbey?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Warren sniffed, still looking stern. “I see. One last question. Ask him if he killed those people at the Belgrave Ball.”

  Oh dear. That was not a question I wanted him to answer. “We told you he did not,” I said.

  “Then allow me this one question, otherwise I will call for the police right now.”

  A moment of silence reigned.

  Mr. Kent sucked on his teeth and cleared his throat. “Fine. Mr. Braddock, were you responsible for the deaths at the Belgrave Ball?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said, his voice a broken whisper, his face wretched.

  Dammit. Even with the slightly rephrased question. “It’s more complicated than that,” I said. “Captain Goode is the one who orchestrated it—”

  But Mr. Warren was already up and out of his chair.

  “I’ll handle this,” Mr. Kent said, blocking Mr. Warren’s path to the door. “Mr. Warren, what is the worst thing you’ve done?”

  “I’ve missed church several times because I wanted to sleep longer,” he said.

  Mr. Kent scoffed. “Fine, what is your deepest secret?”

  “I wish I’d had more fun in my youth rather than work so much,” Mr. Warren sputtered out.

  “Yes, you really should have. Bad choice there. Is there anything at all that I can blackmail you with?”

  “No.” The answer hung in the air as Mr. Warren sneered at us. “Do you realize you’re not even the first person to attempt to blackmail me today? I run a newspaper.”

  Mr. Kent looked at us sheepishly. “I must admit, I don’t know what to do next. This hasn’t happened before.” His eyes lit up with an idea, and he turned back to Mr. Warren. “Oh, do you take bribes?”

  “I do not!” Mr. Warren declared. “So I will tell you what we will do next. I will write the story of your arrest right after the police arrive.”

  He tried to rush to the door, but Mr. Kent was expecting it. He seized him by the arm and asked Mr. Warren for his eighty favorite foods, interrupting his shout for help.

  “Call the—porridge! Mincemeat pie! Strawberries!”

  “We should probably let Mr. Warren get his lunch. He sounds hungry,” Mr. Kent said, hurrying us out of the office.

  Mr. Warren’s shouts got louder and more frantic behind us as he grabbed members of his staff and pointed at us, cursing us with various food names. “Pork roast! Cucumber sandwiches! Milk!”

  Mr. Kent paused for a moment. “I don’t think milk qualifies as a food—”

  I shoved him forward. “We’ll write a letter to the editor later.”

  “Thank you,” Sebastian said politely to the assistant by the front.

  As we left the building, the last thing I saw was Mr. Warren by the window, frantically writing a message even as his mouth continued to move against his will.

  Then we were outside and safely in our carriage, our breaths heavy and the only sounds the fading exclamations of a man sharing his appreciation for various types of tarts.

  Chapter Ten

  “IT COULD BE WORSE,” Miss Chen said as we stared at the next morning’s Daily Telegraph headline.

  BRADDOCK & COMPANIONS: BLACKMAILING CRIMINALS, it read.

  “At least he didn’t know who you were,” Catherine said.

  “Underneath their poor disguises, I could see they matched the witness descriptions of the three assailants at the Queen’s speech,” I read aloud.

  “But he must admit you did some good, too,” Mr. Adeoti said hopefully.

  “In their attempt to convince me of their innocence, they all but admitted to setting the British Museum on fire in an effort to capture the man they claimed to be the real culprit.”

  “That’s … a little of your side of the story,” Rose offered.

  “Given this pattern, it is very likely that they had some involvement in the two fires last night that each claimed a victim.”

  The dining room sat silent; the words of encouragement drained away.

  I took solace in a piece of cake, silently thanking Mrs. Tuffins for her breakfast choices on the worst mornings.

  “Well, it can’t get any worse,” Miss Chen said, sipping her tea.

  I held up the newspaper for her. “Also there are pictures.”

  She spit out a little tea back into the cup. “Oh no, I take that back,” she said, dabbing her chin with a napkin. “Those drawings are supposed to be you?”

  “Yes, that is me, the healing harlot.” I indicated my own crude depiction. The artist had rendered me as a wily seductress, emphasizing my features so it was mostly curled lips and sneaky eyes. My brothel double was probably refining her costume accordingly.

  “It’ll be impossible to recognize you, at least,” Catherine said.

  “Why don’t you show me his office?” Miss Chen suggested. “Just tell me where to look.”

  I shook my head. “No, he still seems to be a good and honest reporter.”

  “I would not call the man ‘good’ exactly,” Catherine said, picking up the paper to read the end aloud. “They are as cunning and cruel as the heroic Captain Goode suggested them to be. What do they want? We do not know. But this reporter is sure they will stop at nothing short of complete chaos. My gentle readers, take care. Be wary. We do not know enough about these extraordinary powers, but I can tell you that, like all po
wer, in the hands of our new Constable of the Tower, it can keep us safe, but in the hands of the wicked Braddock, the effects are only ill.”

  “Bit overdramatic,” Miss Chen snapped.

  “‘New … Constable’?” I asked. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

  Catherine and Rose were already turning through other newspapers, trying to find an explanation. Catherine stopped at one article, bit her lip, and read, “They are honoring Captain Goode with the position of Constable of the Tower of London.”

  “That’s … absurd,” I said. “He hasn’t done anything.”

  The position was reserved as an honor for high-ranking and successful military officers like the Duke of Wellington. Captain Goode was no Duke of Wellington. Did they just hand out constable positions willy-nilly to anyone with a positive adjective in their name?

  Rose skimmed through another paper. “I think they are considering his work at the Society. They say he’s been protecting England secretly for years without any recognition.”

  “I think there’s a lesson to be learned from this,” Catherine said.

  “Never hope for anything good?” Miss Chen asked, biting into a biscuit.

  “We can’t keep doing bad things for good reasons,” Catherine continued. “All it does is make us appear worse.”

  “What if we wrote a letter to the editor explaining everything?” Rose asked. “Tell him this is a misunderstanding. He would appreciate the truth.”

  “I don’t know what we’d write. ‘Our deepest apologies. We got nervous and Mr. Kent’s tongue slipped and he accidentally attempted to blackmail you.’ I wouldn’t even believe it myself.” I paused for a moment, realizing the house was quieter than usual. “Where is Mr. Kent, anyway?”

  “He was gone when I woke up,” Mr. Adeoti said, looking up from his notes.

  “Trying to avoid us, I assume,” Miss Chen said.

  “Knowing him, he’s already gone to blackmail a competing newspaper,” Catherine said.

  I glanced out the window to the yard in the back. Sebastian was just outside, apron-clad, helping Mrs. Tuffins ready her garden for the spring. He didn’t exactly look joyful as he knelt and dug into the hard soil, but he didn’t look quite so lost, either. And he didn’t look for me every few seconds for reassurance.