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  TO AUNTIE KEMI

  BEFORE THE CATACLYSM

  October 1, 1884

  925 days since the Spring Day Massacre

  A SECOND SET OF KNOCKS on the front door once again interrupted Adam Temple’s very important business.

  “All right, all right,” Adam muttered, closing his hooded eyes as he stayed his hand. Ever the persistent one, that woman.

  But it was no more than a minor annoyance. With the rain beating the arched windows and the wind howling in the darkness outside, providing shelter to his esteemed visitor came first. It’s what a gentleman would do, even in this situation. Indeed, he’d given his servants the night off, so the door was his to get.

  Straightening up, he casually tossed his bloody knife onto the mantel of the roaring cast-iron fireplace. He looked fondly up at the golden-framed portrait of his mother, the baroness, hanging above it. She’d been a puritanical woman, lovely and stoic, her braided brown hair muted by canvas oils. Her authoritarian gaze aimed daggers at him.

  Now, don’t look at me like that, Mother, he thought with a little grin before heading out into the foyer.

  The rapping on the door made the crystals of the chandelier above him jingle brightly like bells, their light dancing along the dark carmine walls. To his left, a clay bust of his father, John Temple, cowered in the corner behind the twisting wooden staircase, but Adam spared no time for it. He would return to him later. The rapping had evolved into a frenzied pounding.

  How typical of Madame. “Don’t be so impatient, Violet,” he whispered as his hand reached for the knob. The opened door revealed a beautiful woman standing in the granite threshold of his family manor, a woman who tried very hard the moment she caught sight of his blue eyes to transform her frustrated scowl into a pleasant, welcoming smile.

  Madame Violet Bellerose was the very vision of a lady: Not a splash of rain had touched her long black gloves, nor her burgundy overdress, the same color as her gathered-up hair, because her servant—a dreadful-looking man, soaked from head to toe, with the expression and pallor of a corpse—held up a black umbrella to keep her dry. Her skirt fell straight at the front but draped elaborately at the back, billowing majestically below the waist as she crossed the doorway.

  “Well,” she said, her own pearl-colored parasol an unopened decoration in her hands, “isn’t it always lovely to visit Yorkshire at night?” Her French accent was as solid as the pearls draped around her neck. She turned to her servant. “Pierre, you’ll wait outside, won’t you?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer before she slammed the door in the wet man’s face. The wind and rain raged on behind it.

  And now they were alone.

  “My, the weather is just terrible.” She inched closer to him, her boots crisp against the marble. “Feels like the end of days, doesn’t it?”

  Adam wasn’t surprised when her slender fingers found his cheek sooner than he could blink, caressing his jawline up to his admittedly very unkempt black hair. The first time he’d met her, seven years ago, his father had entertained her in this manor. Adam was fourteen at that time, home from Eton, and she more than a decade older, but he could feel the illicit hunger in her eyes for him even then, as sure as he could now.

  It wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience or an unpleasant one. Her touch never shook his heart one way or another. Dealing with Madame Bellerose in any capacity required care and the utmost precaution. She was one of the more intelligent members of the Committee, after all. And while all of the members could brag of wealth, power, and an impressive body count, not all could boast of superior intellect. When in the presence of Madame Bellerose, it was imperative that he be in complete control of himself.

  He was balancing on the edge of a knife.

  “My, Adam, you only grow more handsome every time I see you.” She rested her finger underneath her red lips as if it were the Sword of Damocles dangling above his head, her thumb caressing her pointed chin in amusement. “Beautiful balanced features, delicate and fairy-like. Soft like a woman’s and yet somehow so masculine in its shape.”

  She admired him like a painting that she could never have no matter how many times she asked—and she had asked many times.

  “Though your hair could use a bit of a comb, young man,” she added in a scolding tone unsuited to her. He could feel her fingers grazing his scalp as she ran them through his hair. “Despite that little oversight, I’m sure any young British lady would just die to be your wife. If we hadn’t killed your father, I’m sure he would have set up an arrangement immediately.”

  Scoffing, Adam stepped away from her, widening the distance between them to a more comfortable degree. “In life, my father was never interested in such things. He could barely stand me. He certainly didn’t trust me.”

  “I suppose he was right in both regards.”

  As if she’d suddenly grown bored of his beauty, she peeked into the living room. Her blue eyes glinted dangerously, and certainly not because of the new neoclassical furniture he’d brought into the estate. She was used to expensive things; she’d inherited many from her family’s part in the slave trade, the abolition of which, she always maintained, was one of France’s biggest mistakes.

  “Why, that monsieur! Might he be…?”

  With a gentlemanly sweep of his arm, Adam gestured for the madame to enter first.

  “You are a loyal boy, aren’t you?”

  “As loyal as the Committee needs me to be.”

  “A smart boy too.”

  Madame Bellerose scurried into the living room. It was a spacious room, where his family used to spend much of their time together when all were alive, though the parlor in the east wing was another close favorite, a particular joy for his uncle Byron, now sadly committed. But by the sudden drop of her long face, Adam knew the carnage was clearly too contained for her taste. Golden-framed portraits of the Temple family lined the floral walls and mocked her with their spotlessness: Along with his mother sandwiched between two golden light fixtures above the fireplace, there was his cherubic little brother and beloved older sister. His grandfather. Oh, and a space where his father’s portrait used to be, a painting that now lay discarded in a closet somewhere. Gathering dust.

  On one side of the fireplace, a bust of Michelangelo’s David, bloodless, with not even a scratch upon it. And on the other, a low mahogany rocking chair next to a handcrafted, gold-trimmed monopodial table, carvings telling ghoulish stories along its single leg. Clean.

  No broken mirror. No intestines draped across the piano. Adam had kept the carnage to a minimum. The only blood in sight dripped from the chest, arms, and lips of the graying, middle-aged man tied to a chair in the center of the living room and collected in a respectable crimson pool on the earth-toned Persian rug. Adam was never one for a mess, but Madame Bellerose had a taste for the macabre, so he did what he could for her within reason. He picked the bloody knife back up off the mantel.

  Rain continued to batter the windows from behind the dark velvet curtains. Though Bellerose was not quite satisfied with the level of bloodshed, she was just fine, as he’d correctly predicted, with the man’s lifeless body. Neville Bradford—an old bosom friend of his father’s.

  Madame Bellerose scuttled over to his body, her heels muff
led against the carpet. There, she bent down low to listen to his breathing.

  “Dead.” She took a step back from him, clapping her hands. “The poor man’s heart must have given out after whatever you did to him.” Her eyes greedily drank in the sight of his blood-soaked cotton shirt, unbuttoned at the top, revealing some of his stained chest hairs. “You’ve done a fine job.”

  Adam approached her, his hands behind his back. “I just hope it’s to the Committee’s liking.”

  “Of course. We can’t afford any loose ends or open lips—not when the tournoi has yet to begin.” She let out a whimsical sigh. “You’re aware that it was your father who was supposed to be in your place. Now that both he and this man are gone, his responsibility falls on you.”

  “And I take on the responsibility with great honor and humility.” He bowed his head ever so slightly.

  Madame Bellerose’s laughter was like the shriek of a crow in the night. He suppressed a wince, rather proud of his uncanny ability to keep his expression so cordial.

  “Such a sweet tongue.” Grabbing his chin, she drew her face to his. “Though I always imagined silver would taste a little bitterer.”

  She gave the chair a hard shove so quickly Adam’s breath hitched, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t anticipated. As it toppled over to the floor, taking Neville with it, Adam closed the gap between himself and Madame Bellerose, catching her lips with his. She was momentarily taken aback, but then answered hungrily, just as Adam knew she would. It was a necessary distraction. Had she not been preoccupied with his kiss, she would have been watching carefully for a yell, a gasp, any sign of life that would signal Adam’s betrayal.

  Adam’s mouth was still wet and painted a messy red from Madame’s lipstick when he grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her away from him. Both eyes slid to Neville, lying on the floor. Madame Bellerose leaned over and waited. Nothing. He was a sack of flesh.

  “You’re certainly thorough,” he said, maintaining his amiable expression.

  “And he’s certainly dead.” Madame Bellerose pulled up her left glove, in danger of slipping down her elbow because of the suddenness of their exchange. “And you, full of surprises.” She rubbed her bottom lip with a finger, biting down as she stared at his.

  That hunger of yours was always your weak point, madame. Adam lowered his head with a little smile.

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with a little surprise carnality,” she said. “But if you were trying to curry favor with me just now, you needn’t have. You’ve already earned your seat, boy. The rest of the Committee will be pleased when I relay the message at our next meeting.”

  “You will relay the message, won’t you?”

  “Dear Adam, I would never betray you,” she said. Not at all convincing. But then, as if to remind him, she suddenly took off her right glove and flashed her palm. It was only in the moonlight that the symbol there hummed dully in her flesh—a pink scar patterned in the shape of a sword through a skull. The Oath Maker. It was meant to be proof of her word, but such a thing didn’t exist as far as Adam was concerned. Still, he knew he’d have to accept it for now.

  “We shall have to make sure our tracks are covered. As a political figure, Mr. Bradford’s kidnapping and murder will not go unnoticed. Benini is an expert in such things. He’s already agreed to take care of it. I certainly enjoy corpses, but the cleanup involved…” She shuddered. “Now that this particular business is over,” she said, moving closer, “what shall we do for the rest of the night?”

  “I must ask you to kindly take your leave,” Adam said just as her hand reached up to him once more. It stopped in midair. “It’s late, madame. Close to midnight. You should be getting back to the hotel. There are arrangements I’ve still to complete.”

  Madame Bellerose let her quiet fury simmer into a strained smirk. “Ever so accommodating.”

  She slapped him. It rather hurt.

  “Madame…”

  After her expression softened, she tapped him on the nose. “Oh, I understand, you delightful little boy.”

  Adam winced from pain as she suddenly grabbed his cheeks once more with the red nails of her ungloved hand and squeezed harder than she need have. He was growing tired of this.

  “We shall have to have dinner soon.” She brought her lips close to his. “I’m still making my own arrangements for the grand event, but while I’m in England, there’s no need for us to be estranged, is there? I needn’t remind you that there isn’t much time left for us to enjoy the little luxuries of this world.” She paused just before reaching his warm, open mouth. “You’ll visit me in London, won’t you?”

  “As surely as the sun will rise,” he lied. Wasting not another moment, he hastily showed her to the door and walked back into the living room alone, opening one side of the velvet curtain so he could watch her leave. Only when her carriage was completely out of his sight did he pick the fallen chair back up from the floor. As the legs hit the rug, Neville Bradford let out the breath he’d been holding, desperately gulping in the air as his whole body shook in pain.

  “That took dedication.” Adam laughed a little because he hadn’t expected Mr. Bradford to take his words so dearly to heart. Do you hear that? That is a member of the Committee, come to make sure I’ve killed you, he’d told him after the first set of knocks. But if you only pretend to be dead, I’ll spare your life. The kiss with Madame Bellerose would have given Mr. Bradford time to suck in another breath. A necessary evil.

  “So.” Mr. Bradford coughed out the words once he’d caught his breath. “You’ll let me go, won’t you?”

  “Well, there’s still the matter of the question you haven’t answered.” Adam pointed the tip of his bloody knife against a finger. “I wouldn’t have been torturing you otherwise,” he added with a shrug and leaned in so that they were at eye level, the closeness drawing a shudder from the older man. “The whereabouts of my father. We both know he isn’t in the grave.”

  Mr. Bradford pressed his pallid lips together.

  “Where has he gone to, Mr. Bradford? I need something from him.”

  Stubborn. Annoyingly stubborn. But since he was yet another victim of his father’s carelessness, he had Adam’s sympathy. He certainly wouldn’t be in this position if John Temple had known to keep his mouth shut too.

  “Come now, Mr. Bradford!” Adam skipped around him and gripped his shoulders as if to ease him with a massage. Bradford let out a gasp of pain. “You betrayed my father to me once.” He leaned in. “Surely it shouldn’t be so difficult to do it again.”

  “I shouldn’t have done so in the first place.”

  Adam’s jaw clenched at the regret in the man’s voice. “You’re in this situation now because of what my father told you and Mr. Anderson in confidence—information you thought could help procure your seat on the Committee. That knowledge now has you marked for death. If you want to avoid Mr. Anderson’s fate, all you have to do is let me know where my father is. You’re a political beast, aren’t you? You should be able to sniff out a good deal when it comes your way.”

  “What happened to you, Adam?” Mr. Bradford let out a series of bloody coughs before he looked back at him, this time with an air of pity that irked the younger man. “Is it because of the Committee? You’re not like them. I wanted to be so badly, but I…”

  Yes, the two of them were once under consideration for his father’s vacant seat. Now the older man’s forehead wrinkled as he furrowed his brow, regret engrained deep in his pained expression. Adam sighed impatiently and walked over to the window.

  “You’re still young,” Mr. Bradford continued as Adam leaned against the curtain. “You can still turn back. You’re better than them.”

  Adam softened his gaze, considering his words, and yet still stared at the quivering man so intensely he could almost feel an electrical charge between them. The spark that separates life and death. “I’ll ask one more time. Where is my father?”

  Mr. Bradford’s steadfast resol
ution was admirable, Adam had to admit. If only it was for someone more deserving. “I betrayed him once,” the man said. “I will not do it again.”

  Neville Bradford was a man Adam had known all his life. He would come over to the Temple Estate with his bowler hat and his pipe and read the newspaper to him in brighter times. Neville Bradford and Carl Anderson had been his father’s bosom friends since their school days. And so Adam’s heart sank at his answer. But Adam wasn’t a child anymore. He’d already murdered Mr. Anderson, and he could and would kill again.

  There was something that mattered to him now more than anything ever had before.

  The grandfather clock on the opposite end of the room struck midnight with echoing fervor. Adam drew the left curtain wide and opened the window, not at all bothered by the rain wetting his hair and clothes. Turning back, he leaned against the window ledge once more just as a pair of leather shoes landed lightly upon it.

  The stranger’s appearance drew a weak cry for help from Mr. Bradford’s lips, but the man draped in a black cape did not respond. He only tipped his top hat and bowed.

  Adam smirked. His servant was nothing if not punctual.

  “Fool,” Adam greeted the strange man without looking at him, though he could see his harlequin mask in the mirror on the other side of the room, split black and white down the middle with black oval eyes and a pair of golden lips pressed together in neither a frown nor a smile. “What have you seen?”

  “Luck is finally on your side, my lord.” Fool spoke in a voice that seemed always on the verge of laughter, pointed as the plucked string of a cello. “We’ve found her.”

  Adam’s heart skipped a beat as he pushed off the window ledge. “Are you certain?”

  “We spotted the girl and her circus caravan in Paris.”

  “Caravan?” A boyish laugh escaped from Adam’s lips. Just what has she been up to? “Good. Don’t lose track of her.”

  Strange. The circus? A majestic being like her—what need did she have to make money, especially in such a garish way? It wasn’t what he was expecting. Then again, the assumption that he could ever ascertain her thoughts was a sin in and of itself. As the glower of his mother’s portrait bore down on him, he felt the sudden need to repent.