The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance Page 12

  “Master Kind? Edwin Kind?” Frannie said. “The musician?”

  “Not much of a musician, if you ask me,” Casper muttered.

  The daimon nodded. “He’ll never have me now. Never.” She burst into tears, her thin body shaking horribly.

  “Do you think,” Casper said slowly, carefully enunciating each word, “that he meant to kill me?”

  Frannie, Thom, and Reve all turned to glare at him.

  “Of course, he meant you, ye great ninny!” Thom said. “The puir wee thing just botched it.”

  “But I’m not a man,” Frannie said. “Kind pointed to the two of us and told the daimon to kill the man. What would make the daimon think . . .”

  Casper lurched up and staggered to the door, furious and panting. “I’ll be leaving now,” he said, voice ragged. “I’ll send for my things. Better yet, keep them to pay for the trouble I’ve caused you. Good-bye, Frannie. I’m sorry. For everything.” Bottle in hand, he slammed the door and disappeared into the alley.

  “What was that all about?” Frannie asked, throwing her hands up in the air and sitting in a chair before her legs could collapse beneath her.

  Thom rubbed his chin, watching the door. “It means Casper’s not human,” he said thoughtfully. “But what is he, then?”

  Reve smiled a secret smile. “I don’t think even he knows yet,” she said. “But I suspect he will find out rather soon.”

  Reve took the other daimon with her into the night. No matter how often and how many ways Frannie asked what would become of the pathetic creature, Reve simply pursed her lips.

  “Daimon business is daimon business” was her only answer. “She will trouble you no more.”

  Thom locked the door and glanced into the pet shop, but the birds and pups had quieted. He turned on the light and winced. “The wee green snake is a bit of a mess,” he said. “Smushed.”

  “It’ll keep till morning. And good riddance.” Frannie put her head in her hands. Her lips were still numb, her eyes achy and stinging. “Good heavens, what a wreck. And we never finished dinner.”

  “That’ll keep till morning, too, lass. And it could still be poisoned.”

  For the third time—or fourth, she kept losing count—Thom picked her up and carried her upstairs, depositing her gently in her bed. His big hands were surprisingly nimble with her bootlaces and tender as he rolled down the high stockings.

  “Top drawer,” she said, cutting her eyes to the dresser. “On the left.”

  He obediently fetched her other nightgown as she unbuttoned the sweat-soaked blouse and slithered out of the heavy tweed skirt. When he turned around to find her in only a corset and petticoats, he swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t be lookin’ at ye like that, not when you’re half-killed.”

  “I’m still half-numb, honestly. And yet I feel better than I have in days. No one’s going to try to murder me tonight, and that’s rather saying something. Except the kitten—”

  “Reve took it,” Thom said. His eyes roamed over her, cautious but glowing, and he unconsciously balled the forgotten nightgown in his hands. “Nothing to be afeared of. I’ll keep ye safe, lass.”

  She held out her arms, and although they shook a little, he gladly settled into them and curled on the bed beside her. “If I asked you to kiss me, would you?” she asked.

  “I shouldn’t. Ye were on death’s door, woman!”

  “But now I’m on the other side. Just hold me close, and don’t let go, aye?”

  He dropped the nightgown onto the floor and stroked her hair back before cupping her face and kissing her, soft and warm and sweet. “I can help ye with that,” he murmured. “But I’m no’ bringing cakes this time.”

  19

  Three days later, a knock on the pet shop door set the puppies howling. Frannie was distributing seed to the sleep-ruffled birds as Thom dodged Filbert and swept up spilled hay and feathers, clad only in trousers and shirt. It wasn’t yet opening time, and their eyes met across the room, cautious.

  Thom reached the door first, peeking through the glass before unlocking it and looming at full height over the ragamuffin on the doorstep.

  “Fancy fella told me if I brought you this, you’d gimme his jacket,” the lad said, rubbing his smudged nose with a fist. He held out a normal-sized box wrapped with brown paper and tied with twine. Thom shrugged at Frannie, and she hurried upstairs, returning with the gaudy, glittering jacket Casper had worn the first day she found him, speckled with yark and mostly dead in the alley. It was clean now and the only thing left in Bertram’s old room. The lad grabbed it with a grin and took off, and they shut the door to stare at the box.

  “Ye don’t think it’s another incendiary device, do ye?” Thom asked.

  Frannie just smiled and shook her head. “He meant well. Even Reve said he meant well.”

  They took it to the counter where Frannie had once unwrapped a viper. She snipped the twine with scissors and let the paper fall away. The box was plain and unmarked, and Thom poked it hard with a finger. When nothing strange happened, Frannie set trembling fingers to the latch and opened it.

  A thick scroll was on top, the papers rolled up and tied with a red ribbon. Underneath that was a heavy package wrapped in thick velvet. When Frannie pulled it out, a posh jacket unfolded, and the heavy weight it had held dropped to the counter with a clank. Frannie held the bodice at arm’s length, noticing that between the fabric, the cut, and the gold thread around the edge, it was possibly worth more than a parrot.

  “It’s too much,” she murmured.

  Thom chuckled. “If ye think that’s too much, look at what else the bugger sent.”

  Frannie rolled the tubes of silvers back and forth under her glove. There were five of them.

  Unrolling the scroll, she found a writ and a letter:

  Dear Frannie,

  First of all, I apologize for nearly getting you killed. You showed me nothing but kindness, and I exploited your generosity in the worst way. You were right not to trust me. In return, I give you a jacket to replace the one ripped by the arrow and five rolls of silvers, one for each time the daimon aimed for you instead of me. I’m very glad she missed. That should cover my rent and hopefully ensure that you won’t take any other risky lodgers.

  The writ is a bit trickier. I’ve a confession: I found your garden. I was turned around and looking for my bottles and found the door in your closet one morning while you were in the shop. I couldn’t help going upstairs, and once there, I couldn’t help falling in love with the place. I haven’t felt the sun like that since I came to Sangland, nor have I smelled healthy grass and growing fruit and, heaven help me, manure. I know now why you’re so guarded about your home. This writ from the Magistrate himself gives you complete ownership of your building and, more important, the space above it. Such things are possible, if you know the right people. It’s yours now, for keeps, and you needn’t fear the Coppers.

  You were a good friend to me, and you taught me something very important about opening your heart to creatures that need comfort. And Thom, damn him, taught me something about being a man, although I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to apply it. The one time I could have helped you, I was drunk with self-pity, and that’s my biggest regret so far, which is saying a lot.

  I’ve sent a letter to Reve as well, thanking her for her part in keeping you alive. I suspect she appreciates my latest costuming commission even more. I’ll be in London, playing piano, and my box is yours any time you wish it.

  Best regards,

  Casper Sterling

  Frannie looked up, one hand resting on the coins as if they might get up and walk away. “Is it wrong to take money from a debauched gadabout?” she asked.

  Thom lifted a tube and stared at the silvers winking from either side. “You’ve more than earned it, puttin’ up with him.”

  She looked up as if she could see through the ceiling and the upper story, all the way to the rooftop garden. “We should cel
ebrate. All my worries, fixed in one fell swoop.”

  “All your worries?”

  “The garden’s safe. The shop’s safe. I’m safe.” She stepped close, one hand on his arm as she went up on tippytoes to kiss his cheek. “And I have you.”

  “Aye, well, that does seem like you’re in rather a good patch,” he admitted, his arms curling around her waist and pulling her close for another kiss. “And tell me, Miss Pleasance, how would ye like to celebrate?”

  Frannie checked that the door was locked and dropped Filbert into his cage. Grabbing Thom’s hand, she pulled him toward the stairs.

  “Let’s celebrate in the garden, where it all began,” she said.

  “What about the shop? It’s five past ten.”

  “Let the pets take care of themselves.” She grinned. “It’s my turn.”

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  I don’t know which called to me more, his music or his blood. Trapped in darkness, weak to the point of death, I woke only to suck his soul dry until the notes and droplets merged in my veins. Whoever he was, he was my subject, my inferior, my prey, and his life was my due. What’s the point of being a princess if you can’t kill your subjects?

  His blood was spiced with liquor; I could tell that much. And as I listened, stilling my breathing and willing my heart to pump again, I realized that I didn’t know the song he was playing. It wasn’t any of the Freesian lullabies from my childhood, nor was it anything that had been popular at court. I could even pick out the sound of his fingertips stroking the keys without the telltale muting of suede gloves. Peculiar. And no wonder I could smell him, whoever he was, if he wasn’t protecting his delicious skin from the world. From me.

  He stopped playing and sighed, and my instincts took over. The attempt to pounce was painfully foiled by . . . something. Leather. I was trapped, tucked into a ball, boxed and balanced on my bustled bum like a snail. When he started playing again, my hand stole sideways toward the musty leather. With one wicked claw, I began to carve a way out.

  The tiniest sliver of light stole in, orange and murky. Fresh air hit my face, and with it, his scent. It took every ounce of well-bred patience for me to remain silent and still and not fumble and flounder out of whatever held me bound like a Kraken from the deep. My mother’s voice rang in my mind, her queenly tone unmistakable.

  Silence. Cunning. Quickness. That is how the enemy falls, princess. You are the predator’s predator, the Bludman’s Bludman. The queen of the beasts. Now kill him. Slowly.

  My fingernails had grown overlong and sharper than was fashionable in court, and the rest of the leather fell away in one long curve. I lifted the flap with one hand and dared to peek out.

  The room was dim and mostly empty, with a high ceiling and wooden floors. Spindly chairs perched on round tables. Across the room, lit by one orange gas spotlight, was a stage, and on that stage was a harpsichord, and playing that harpsichord was my lunch.

  Seeing him there, the princess receded and the animal took over. Body crouched and fingers curled, I sidled out through my hole, my eyes glued to my prey. He didn’t notice the creature hunting him from the shadows. His eyes were closed, and he was singing something plaintive, something about someone named Jude. I wasn’t Jude. So that didn’t matter.

  The refined part of my brain barely registered that I was dressed in high-heeled boots and swishing taffeta. I knew well enough how to stalk in my best clothes, and had been doing so since my days in a linen pinafore and ermine ruff. As I slipped into the shadows along the wall and glided toward the stage, hunger pounded in time with my heartbeat and his slow keystrokes. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I had last eaten. And maybe it had. Never had I been so empty. So drained.

  I made it across the room without detection. He continued moaning about Jude in a husky voice so sad that it moved even the animal in me. I stopped to consider him from behind deep red velvet curtains that had definitely seen better days. But I didn’t see a man. Not yet. Just food. And in that sense, he had all but arrayed himself on a platter, walking around with his shirt open, boots off, and gloves nowhere to be seen. Exposed and reeking of alcohol, he was an easy target.

  He broke off from his song and reached for a green bottle, tipping it to lips flushed pink with blood and feeling. I watched his neck thrown back, Adam’s apple bobbing, and a deafening roar overtook me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I was across the stage and on him in a heartbeat.

  Tiny as I am, the momentum from my attack knocked him backward off the bench. The bottle skittered across the floor, and he made a pathetically clumsy grab for it. I had one hand tangled in his long hair, the other pinning down his chest, long talons prickling into his flesh and drawing pinpoints of delicious blood to pepper the air. I took a deep breath, savoring it. The kill was sure. I smiled, displaying pointy teeth.

  His red-rimmed eyes met mine in understanding, and he smiled back, a feral glint surprising me. Something smashed into my head, and he rolled me over and lurched backward with a laugh. Red liquid streamed through my hair and down my face, and I hissed and shook shards of green glass from my shoulders. The uppity little bastard had hit me with his bottle. If I hadn’t already had plans to kill him, I now had just cause.

  As I circled him, I wiped the stinging wine from my eyes with the back of my hand. I was dizzy with hunger, almost woozy, and he took advantage of my delicate condition to leap forward and slice my forearm with the jagged ends of his blasted bottle. I hissed again and went for his throat, but at the last minute something stopped me short. He didn’t smell so good, not anymore.

  The beast within receded, and my posture straightened. My arms swung, useless, at my sides. His finger was in his mouth, and when he pulled it out with a dramatic pop, his lips were stained red with my blood. Now he just smelled more like me. And less like food.

  “Not today, Josephine,” he said with a cocky grin.

  I struggled to stand tall and not wobble. Now that he had swallowed my blood, the beast wasn’t controlling me, and there was nothing holding me up. I was empty as a cloud, light as a snowflake, beyond hunger. My heart was barely beating. And I felt more than a little dizzy.

  “Oh my,” I said, one hand to my dripping hair. “I do believe I might swoon. And you’ve ruined my dress as well. Your lord is going to simply draw and quarter you.”

  I did swoon then. As the world went black, I felt his hands catching me, his delicious—if no longer maddening—blood pumping millimeters away from my own.

  “Easy, little girl,” he said. I smelled fumes and sadness on him and something else, something deep and musky and not quite right.

  I was delirious as he gently helped me fall to the ground. I could barely mumble, “I’m not a little girl, and you’re the most badly behaved serf I’ve ever met.”

  I fell away, and his laughter and music followed me into my dreams.

  Before my eyes were open, before I was actually awake, I was drinking. Four great gulps and I gasped for more. I clawed at the little glass tube held to my mouth and flung it to the ground.

  “More,” I rasped. “I demand more.”

  “How long have you been hiding in that old suitcase?” someone asked.

  I opened my eyes, suddenly aware of the unladylike nature of my predicament. A man’s arm was around my shoulders, his ungloved human hand holding another vial to my lips as I drank the blood as greedily as a child with holiday sweets. My hair had fallen into disarray, and some of the straggling locks around my face were tinted red with what smelled like old wine. I slapped the vial to the ground—after I’d finished the last drop, of course.

  “You,” I said. My eyes narrowed, focused on him. I’d never seen so much exposed skin on a serf who wasn’t being offered as a meal. His eyes were bright blue, regarding me with
curiosity and a noticeable absence of fear and respect.

  “What did you do to me, offal?”

  He chuckled and grinned. He had dimples. “I’m pretty sure I saved your life, right after you attacked me. I don’t hold it against you, though. Looks like you were drained.”

  “Drained?”

  “You can’t even stand, little girl.”

  “Let us understand each other,” I said, enunciating every word. “I am not little, and I am not a girl. I am twenty-seven years old, and I am a princess. And you, whoever you are, are my subject. You owe me obeisance, fealty, and blood.”

  “Come and get it, then,” he said with unexpected good humor. He held up a sparkling vial, the amber light glinting off the glass.

  “You know very well I cannot,” I spat, struggling for control. I had never been so helpless, and it was untenable. Once I was strong again, he was going to pay.

  “Then, we’ll have to strike a bargain, won’t we?”

  “I don’t bargain.”

  “Then, good luck.”

  He stood and began walking back to his harpsichord. Long tangled copper hair rippled over his stained white shirt, and I pledged that I would one day make a mop out of it. Rage consumed me. Rage, and hunger.

  “Wait,” I gasped, my black hands scrabbling against the ground. I heard my long white talons scritching over the wood, their sharp ends useless against the effects of being drained. He had to be right; only draining could reduce me to mewling like a kitten. To begging and desperation.