Jack didn’t want sympathy. And he didn’t want a bloody friend. “Have you noticed anything unusual of late?” he tossed out, just to see how Darby would react.
“Aside from regulators skulking about?” Darby gave a tight smile. “No.” He cocked his head, and his carefully combed and shellacked hair shone bright. “Why is it, do you theorize, that the Bishop has turned his attention to shifters? Jealousy perhaps? Hate?”
“I couldn’t wager a guess at this time.”
“Cannot? Or will not?”
Jack did not know why Darby’s questions sounded like a taunt, but he didn’t like it. “Have you a theory?”
Darby shrugged. “I’d say he was trying to send a message.” Jack’s gaze sharpened, but Darby merely took a casual sip of his drink before finishing. “But that’s your burden to discover, not mine.”
“Hence my presence here.”
That ugly thing, a strange emotion Jack couldn’t quite pinpoint, pushed along the edges of Darby’s fallacious smile. Yet when he spoke, it was all lightness and lordly boredom. “I’m going to take two up to my bed when this party is over. And I’m going to fuck them. Rigorously.” He quirked a golden brow, his gaze measuring. “Are you and your lovely little partner up for watching?”
Jack set his untouched glass down. “We’ll be watching your house. If you need an audience to perform, then fuck in your ballroom for all I care.”
Darby laughed. “An interesting idea. However, I find I rather like the idea of regulators watching. Perhaps Mistress Chase can give me a little rap on the knuckles if I fail to perform to satisfaction.” His smile grew dark, luxuriant. “Are you certain I cannot persuade you? Or perhaps you’d care to join in?”
“Do these taunts ever work?” Jack asked idly. “For I confess, they bore me.”
“What would it take to shock you then, Mr. Talent?”
“I understand it chafes to be guarded. Unfortunately, you have two choices. Leave the country and go into hiding until this is over”—an option Jack would greatly prefer—“or bear the inconvenience.”
High color blazed across Darby’s cheeks just before a snarl rent through his clenched teeth. “Unless this Bishop is the bloody Prince of Darkness himself, I will tear his head off before he gets within two feet of me.”
“So confident. And yet he’s killed two shifters.”
Darby waved a hand. “Weaklings who never saw him coming.” He laughed lightly. “Believe me, the bastard doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Then I don’t have to worry about saving your arse. My partner and I will instead focus on capturing him.” Jack adjusted one of his cuffs, and the gesture, one that he hadn’t bothered with in ages, felt good. “Thank you for being our bait.”
Chapter Twelve
I don’t believe I’ll ever get over how tedious it is to do a watch.” Talent’s voice, though lower than a whisper, was crystal-clear in the sharp morning air. It was a quip, given the situation, and one much appreciated by Mary just then. Since he’d returned, he hadn’t spoken more than necessary, except to proclaim Darby a peacock nitwit of the first order.
Mary, who stood scant inches away from him on the rooftop facing Darby’s open bedroom window, huddled down farther in her thick cloak. She’d changed into thick woolen trousers, a heavy tunic, and fur-lined boots, all the easier to move quickly and efficiently should the need arise. Even so, her feet were numb, her fingertips and nose too, but she wouldn’t complain. “The waiting is much more comfortable in the astral plane, I can tell you.” Though impossible now, since she needed to be prepared for a physical confrontation should the killer show. God give her the strength, for her spirits were flagging.
The ball had lasted until three in the morning, but Talent and Mary still had watch over Darby for hours more. Regulators Honeychurch and Evans would take over the next evening.
But until then they’d had to suffer. Just their luck that Darby had left his curtains open and proceeded to have intercourse with both a man and a woman until the sun came up and rode high in the sky. Now it was afternoon, and the bloody shifter was still going at it, with another couple. When working for Lucien, Mary had seen all manner of sexual acts, from the profane to the mundane. It meant nothing to her. In truth, the more she saw of the act, the less she was inclined to partake in it. But to watch while forced to stand next to Talent was another matter. So she did what she’d done her entire life and sank deep into herself where such things ceased to matter, where it was nothing more than moving shapes and flashes of color.