The Perfect Poison Read online

  “Did the demon touch Sharpy? Give him anything to eat or drink? Was there a weapon of any kind?”

  “No, that’s what I’m trying to explain.” Perrett peered around the quiet tavern and lowered his voice all the way to a whisper. “Nobody will believe me. They think I’m crazy. But I’m telling you, the monster never even pulled a knife or a gun. He must have been at least ten paces away from us when he used his sorcery on Sharpy.”

  “What else can you tell me about the demon?” Caleb asked. “Aside from the glowing eyes and the wings and the claws, that is.”

  Perrett shrugged and drank more gin. “Not much else to tell.”

  “Did he speak like a well-educated man?”

  Perrett’s broad face tightened. “Aye, he sounded a bit like you, come to that. Told you, he was a gentleman. You wouldn’t expect a demon to pretend to be a working-class cove, now would you?”

  “No, probably not. Was he dressed like a gentleman?”

  “That he was.”

  “Did you get a good look at his face?”

  “No. Both times we met him it was at night in a dark lane. He wore a hat and a scarf and a coat with a high collar.” Perrett broke off, frowning in confusion. “Like you.”

  “Did he arrive in a private carriage?”

  Perrett shook his shaggy head. Anxiety was starting to pierce the fog created by the gin.

  “Hansom,” he said. He squinted. “See here, why do you care about the kind of carriage he used?”

  Caleb ignored the question. “Was he wearing any jewelry?” No matter how drunk he was, a professional criminal would be unlikely to forget any details when it came to valuables.

  Perrett’s eyes glittered with a brief flash of excitement. “Had a very nice little snuffbox. Saw it gleam in the lantern light when he took it out of his pocket. Looked like real gold. Some kind of stones on top. Too dark to tell what sort. Not diamonds, though. Maybe emeralds. Could have been sapphires, I suppose. The thing would have fetched a nice price from a fence I know.”

  “The demon took snuff?”

  “Aye. Took a pinch just before he used his magic to kill Ned.”

  “Interesting.”

  Perrett sunk back into a haze of drunken despair. “You’re like all the others. You don’t believe me.”

  “I believe every word you said, Perrett.” Caleb reached inside his coat and withdrew some notes. He tossed them onto the table.

  Perrett was immediately riveted by the sight of the money. “What’s that for?”

  “Payment for a most informative tale.” Caleb got to his feet. “I’ll also throw in some free advice. I would avoid any future encounters with the demon, if I were you.”

  Perrett flinched. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he never finds me.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Perrett shrugged. “He may be a demon but like I said, he’s also a gentleman. That sort never comes into this part of town. They don’t know their way around neighborhoods like this one, y’see. I’m safe here.”

  “Don’t be too certain of that,” Caleb said softly. “A man might find his way to this street if he wanted something very badly from someone like you.”

  Perrett froze. His gin-bleary eyes widened first with shocked comprehension and then with panic. There was a beat or two of silence while Caleb waited for him to digest the fact that one particular gentleman had found his way into the Red Dog tavern that night.

  “Who are you?” Perrett whispered.

  “You will recall the lady you attempted to abduct in Guppy Lane?”

  “What of her?”

  “She is mine,” Caleb said. “The only reason you are still alive is because I needed information from you. But I give you my oath that if you go anywhere near her after this moment, I will find you again, just as easily as I did tonight.”

  He smiled.

  Perrett’s mouth opened and closed several times. No words emerged. He started to shiver uncontrollably.

  Satisfied, Caleb walked toward the door. He might not possess the more dramatic predatory talents that were so prevalent on the Jones family tree but he was, nevertheless, a hunter at heart. He could send that message with a smile.

  THIRTY-TWO

  AN HOUR LATER LUCINDA STOOD WITH VICTORIA, PATRICIA and Edmund in a small alcove off the main ballroom. Together they contemplated the elegant crowd.

  “It is just as you said, Lady Milden,” Patricia declared with relish. “It seems that every gentleman in the room wants to dance with Lucinda. I do believe she has been out on the floor more often than I have.”

  “I don’t understand it.” Lucinda seized another glass of lemonade from a passing tray. She was parched. The only reason she had accepted so many invitations to dance was because the physical activity served as a temporary distraction from her growing sense of impending disaster. She could not escape the sensation that Caleb had made a grave mistake by meeting with the kidnapper. “What on earth is the attraction of a woman everyone believes was nearly sold into a brothel?”

  Victoria smiled a serenely satisfied smile. “Never underestimate the appeal of a notorious lady, especially one who has been claimed by a member of the Jones family.”

  Lucinda choked on her lemonade. “Claimed?” she sputtered. “Claimed? What on earth are you saying? Mr. Jones danced one dance with me tonight and then took his leave.”

  “You may believe me when I tell you that the rumors about your association with Caleb Jones have been flying for days,” Victoria said cheerfully.

  Lucinda felt the heat rush into her face. “I hired him in his professional capacity to look into a private matter for me. Our association is a matter of business.”

  Victoria chuckled. “No one who saw him dancing with you the other evening and again tonight could possibly conclude that your relationship is limited to a matter of business.”

  “This is getting awkward,” Lucinda said.

  “Nonsense.” Victoria waved the entire thing aside with a flick of her fan. “Nothing awkward about it.” She raised a brow at Edmund. “I think it is past time you took Patricia out onto the floor, Mr. Fletcher. We must maintain the impression that you are a friend of the family.”

  Lucinda could have sworn that Edmund flushed a dull red. Patricia turned a warm pink and suddenly became very busy adjusting the hooks that pinned up the train of her gown.

  Edmund stiffened and inclined his head very formally. “Miss Patricia, if you will do me the honor?”

  Patricia stopped fussing with her gown, took a deep breath and gave him her gloved hand. Edmund led her away through the crowd.

  Victoria glowed with enthusiasm. “Don’t they make a lovely couple?”

  Lucinda watched Edmund and Patricia move onto the dance floor. “When they aren’t bickering. Honestly, I have never heard two young people squabble more than that pair. It’s enough to make you . . .” She stopped and turned her head to look at Victoria. “Oh, good grief, surely you aren’t going to tell me that they are a match?”

  “A perfect match. Knew it the moment I saw them together, of course. Now we shall see what happens. Nothing like the waltz to quicken the pulse of romance.”

  Lucinda saw Edmund pull Patricia a little closer and spin her away into a long, whirling turn. Even from this distance it was easy to see that Patricia was practically effervescent.

  “Hmm,” she said. “Well, I suppose that explains the squabbling and the giggles. But I foresee problems. Mr. Fletcher seems very nice and he has certainly devoted himself to protecting Patricia but I fear he does not meet her requirements in a husband. He does not appear to have a steady, respectable income of his own, for one thing. As I understand it, his work for Mr. Jones is of a somewhat erratic and unpredictable nature. And he knows nothing of archaeology.”

  “Mere trifles, I assure you.”

  “I’m not so sure that Patricia or her parents will view those issues as trifles.”

  “When the energy is right, love finds a way.�
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  Lucinda looked at her. “Love might find a way but it could lead to disaster. It is one thing for a woman of a certain age to engage in an illicit relationship, quite another for a young lady like my cousin to do so. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I assure you, I am not in the business of promoting illicit affairs.” Victoria was genuinely offended. “I’m a matchmaker and I take my professional responsibilities very seriously. Mark my words, Patricia and Mr. Fletcher will be properly wed.”

  “In spite of the obvious obstacles?”

  “No,” Victoria said. “Because of them. Growing love is rather like growing good wine grapes.”

  “Meaning that the fruit is sweeter when the vines are forced to struggle under somewhat difficult conditions?”

  “Precisely.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  NO HANSOMS OR HACKNEYS PROWLED THE DARK STREETS in the vicinity of the Red Dog tavern. It was not the heavy fog that kept them away. It was the fact that the drivers were well aware that few of the denizens of the poorly lit neighborhood could afford the luxury of traveling by carriage.

  Caleb walked toward the corner where a single gas lamp glowed in the mist. The glary light served as a beacon but it did not penetrate far into the night. His intuition warned him that he was being followed even before he heard the footsteps echoing behind him. The door to the tavern had not opened again. Whoever was back there in the shadows had been watching the entrance from across the street, waiting for him.

  He had been followed from the Wrothmere ball, he thought. That certainly explained the edgy sensation he had been experiencing for the past hour.

  Heat and energy pulsed through him, the same arousing sensations he experienced when previously dark sections of the maze were suddenly illuminated. It was always possible that his follower was an ordinary footpad seeking a convenient victim to rob but his talent told him otherwise. He estimated there was a ninety-nine percent probability that he was about to meet Perrett’s demon.

  He kept his own pace steady and deliberate as though unaware of the man behind him. The footsteps drew closer. There was no point in turning around to try to catch a glimpse of his pursuer. Only a true hunter endowed with psychical night vision would be able to see anything more than a dark shadow in the thick fog.

  He removed one glove, put his hand into the pocket of his overcoat and took out the gun. Keeping the pistol out of sight alongside his leg, he moved into the glowing mist that surrounded the streetlamp.

  The shocking blast of fear came out of nowhere. It stopped his breath for an instant, scattering his senses and flaying his nerves. There was a sharp clang. He realized in a rather vague way that he had dropped the gun.

  He stumbled to a halt, frozen with a nameless dread that, in some small corner of his brain, he knew had no basis in logic or reason. His pulse thudded. His lungs tightened. It was all he could do to breathe.

  He was suddenly plunged into his ultimate nightmare, teetering on the brink of the abyss that was chaos. Raw panic scorched through his veins.

  Instinctively and intuitively he heightened all of his senses in response to the assault. His talent flared. The sense of impending chaos receded slightly, enough to allow him to pluck a few certainties from the swamp of incomprehensible darkness that threatened to engulf him.

  He is doing this to you. This is how he murdered Sharpy and Daykin. He sends his victims into a great panic. You must push back or you will drown in chaos.

  He would not leave the world like this, a victim of a maelstrom of utterly random, meaningless energy. He would find the patterns of clarity, reason and stability. That was his gift and he would use it to make the center hold even if he died in the process.

  It took every fiber of willpower that he possessed but he managed to turn around to confront the killer. The process seemed to take an eternity because he had to concentrate so fiercely to make his muscles respond.

  Perrett’s demon materialized out of the fog and moved into the misty light. There were no flames in its eyes, no long claws or giant bat wings, but Caleb did not doubt but that he was confronting a monster.

  “I’m surprised to see you here tonight, Jones.” The creature came to a halt a few feet away. “Not the sort of neighborhood where one expects to find a gentleman of your station, is it? What brings you to these streets? Some amusing lust that cannot be satisfied in a better part of town, perhaps? A favorite opium den?”

  Caleb said nothing. He was not sure he could speak. The searing energy assailing his senses seemed to have paralyzed his tongue. But his talent was responding to his will. Deep in his mind, a maze grew sharper, clearer, more comprehensible. A crystal wall glowed here, a floor there. Now all he had to do was find ways to link the illuminated portions.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the demon said. With a leisurely gesture he stripped off a glove, reached into his coat pocket and took out a small object that gleamed gold in the hazy light. “My name is Allister Norcross.”

  He opened the snuffbox and took a pinch of the powdery contents. Holding the mixture to his nose, he inhaled sharply.

  An instant later another sharp blast of panic scorched Caleb’s senses. It was all he could do not to collapse to the pavement in shivering, mindless terror.

  “Ah, yes, the new version of the formula is working very well, indeed,” Norcross said. “Hulsey was right.”

  Inside the maze more corridors glowed. Caleb forced back the tidal wave of fear and focused on the pattern. He could do this. He knew how to hold his emotions at bay while he engaged his talent. He had spent most of his life learning how to control the core of wild, dangerous energy that was the source of his psychical power.

  “I must say, I’m disappointed in you, sir.” Norcross closed the snuffbox and dropped it back into his pocket. “I expected more from a member of the legendary Jones family.”

  “What do you want from me?” Caleb got out.

  “So you found your tongue, did you?” Norcross was pleased. “Very good. Now I am somewhat impressed. Very few people can manage a coherent sentence when I demonstrate my talent.”

  Caleb said nothing.

  “I will tell you what I want from you, Caleb Jones.” Excitement crept into Norcross’s voice. “I want to watch you go mad with fear, and then I want to watch you die of sheer fright.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I enjoy such entertainment, of course. If it is any consolation, you will make a suitable test subject for the latest version of the formula. Hulsey gave it to me this afternoon and I have not yet had an opportunity to experiment. I will be an audience of one, however. Sadly, the truth of what I can do with the power of my mind must remain known and appreciated only within a very small circle.”

  “One of the Circles within the Order of the Emerald Tablet.”

  For a couple of seconds the pressure of fear let up. Caleb realized that the statement had surprised Norcross into losing his focus for a short time. Generating fear at such a high level would require great energy and intense concentration.

  A second later, however, another wave of panic struck. Even though he was prepared for it, Caleb sensed chaos drawing closer.

  “So you have learned something of the Order,” Norcross said. “More than certain parties have realized, perhaps. Very good, Mr. Jones. In answer to your question, I am a member of the Seventh Circle of Power. But that is about to change. Those of us in that Circle will soon be elevated to a much higher level.”

  “Killing me is the price of promotion?”

  Norcross laughed. “No, Jones, killing you has become necessary because you have been deemed a threat to my Circle. We have no choice but to get rid of you now that it has become obvious that you have discovered Hulsey’s trail. Can’t have you finding him, you see. That would ruin everything. After you are gone, I will see to Miss Bromley and then all the loose ends will have been snipped off.”

  And with that a dozen more corridors glowed in several different dimensio
ns within the maze. A new kind of fear shuddered through Caleb. This was no longer a matter of hanging on to his sanity until his last breath. He had to survive this encounter in order to protect Lucinda. That realization allowed him to focus with renewed intensity.

  “Miss Bromley is not a threat to you,” he said.

  “Perhaps not, but we really can’t take any more chances. The public and the press will not be unduly surprised to learn that she poisoned you, just as she did her fiancé. Then she will take her own life, just as her father did. All very neat, don’t you think?”

  “Lucinda knows nothing about your damned Circle.”

  “You, of all people, will surely understand the need to be thorough. Now then, this conversation has been amusing but it is finished. Goodbye, Mr. Jones.”

  Chaos rose up out of the abyss, a dark wave of uncontrolled power. Caleb took refuge in the most brightly lit section of the maze in the dimension where the single most important truth glowed with the strength of the sun. He had to survive because he was all that stood between the demon and Lucinda. The answers, when one finally saw them, were always so astonishingly simple.

  The whirling darkness crashed over and around the psychical construct in his mind. Caleb watched the scene from within the safety of the crystalline structure. A strange exhilaration swept through him. It was not often that one was given a chance to observe the raw power of pure chaos. He was enthralled.

  He thought he heard a man scream somewhere in the night but he ignored it, his entire attention fixed on the raging currents. He concentrated harder, certain now that he could perceive the faintest glimmerings of a pattern in the very heart of the energy storm.

  He knew then that all the answers were there, waiting for him. He also understood with complete certainty that no man could fully comprehend such grand truths and still remain sane. Nevertheless, a glimpse or two would be enough to thrill him to the end of his days.