Murder in Drury Lane by Vanessa Riley

Author:Vanessa Riley [Riley, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The cobbles beneath me felt cold and slick. How long I’d been helpless, I wasn’t sure. But I lay on the street as my neighbor fought a fiend.

A pop to the jaw—the sound of the bloke’s fist hitting bone—made me shudder. This man cloaked in black struck Stapleton in the face again and again.

“Get away, Abigail.” My neighbor sounded like a ghost.

But I’d not take orders from a soon-to-be dead man, either. My visions had me convinced he or I would die if I left.

Even as the knife sliced his coat, Stapleton punched back. “Get away, Abigail. Now.”

He’d been hit in the head if he thought I’d leave.

I crawled and grabbed a loose cobble.

“Go, Lady Worthing,” Stapeleton said. “Go!”

With a thwack, I hit the attacker between his shoulders. After getting the stone again, I hit him in the temple. Red washed his face.

Then my protector brought our fiend to his knees, but he still had a hold on my friend.

Stapleton’s indigo eyes, ones I thought cruel, glazed over to perfect mirrors—black and powerful and deadly. He surged and kneed the assailant in the gut.

They flopped onto the cobbles and rolled, fighting.

The shiny metal appeared again. The blade caught the reflection of the stars along its ragged edge and brought them to the pulsing vein along Stapleton’s neck.

After grabbing the cobble again, I smashed it against the fiend’s skull.

This distraction gave Stapleton an advantage, and he flung away the knife. Then he knocked the man headfirst against the ground.

Crack, boom—the sound of a nose bouncing on the street was drowned in curses.

Stapleton had the assailant under control.

But those dark eyes wanted more than just subduing evil.

Wham. He drove his knee deep into the man’s chest.

Bones crunched.

He lifted himself up from the man and stomped on him again and again.

After scrounging for the knife, I picked it up and handed it to Stapleton. “Here. Now you won’t have to kill him. I suspect Mr. Watson may want to live.”

Smiling, or more so sneering, he took the weapon. “No. No, I don’t want that.”

Stapleton dropped and, like in my dream, pushed the steel into our attacker’s neck. “Tell me who sent you, and I’ll make your death less painful.”

I held myself back; I dared not stop him. I had to trust this was a jest, but I knew in my gut that Lieutenant Commander Stapleton Henderson had killed in the line of duty and would kill to protect himself and now me.

The man squirmed. From my cobbles and Stapleton’s fists, the man’s face held bruises. A fine line of scarlet streamed down his throat.

Blue eyes wide as plates begged. “If you must kill me, tell me why you killed Danielson and are trying to set me up for the blame? I know you been comin’ to see him here.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Stapleton grunted, then cut a little along the man’s neck. “Who sent you after us?”

More crimson flowed.

Into my stomach, nausea flooded.

My light head spun.

I thought I was used to such things, but I was actually used to seeing death, not dying.

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