Page 8 of You Only Love Twice
"It's probably a good thing we took the unmarked carriage." As one of the Council of Dukes who ruled the city, the embossed silver griffin symbol that was the House of Malloryn's personal sigil would have only inflamed the current situation.
"Might take the long way around, Your Grace."The tinny echo of Herbert's voice vibrated through the small speaking device installed in the carriage. It looked like any other hack on the streets, but Jack, the inventor who worked for Malloryn, had made improvements."Streets ahead look congested."
A polite way of saying a riot was brewing.
The humans and mechs resented the long years they'd spent crushed beneath blue blood heels. The blue bloods who'd once done exactly as they pleased resented the new rules. The queen walked a knife edge of balance, trying to assuage all the races, and so far, it seemed she could please nobody.
One glimpse of a pasty face, and this entire section of London would go up as though someone had struck a match. Gemma had never hidden her face before, but there'd been reports in the paper of people being beaten because of how pale their complexions were. A couple of innocent humans had been torn apart last week in Hyde Park. The Nighthawks who patrolled the streets were pushed to the brink of their capacities, especially with their leader still recovering from an assassination attempt last month.
Whistles suddenly blew.
A dozen Nighthawks appeared out of nowhere, clad in the strict black leather uniforms that heralded them. Charged with keeping the streets quiet, they'd been dealing with unruly mobs all month since the last clash between rioters and Nighthawks turned deadly, and now trouble constantly brewed, like a storm on the horizon.
"Do you think it will ever end?" she asked quietly. "Do you think we can ever come back from this point?"
Could there ever truly be peace in London?
Malloryn reached past her to tug the curtains closed.
"There is always hope, Gemma. I spent the last fifteen years fighting for freedom from a despot who had all the power. We did it then. We can overcome our problems now. It will just take time."
She sighed.
"Frankly, I refuse to allow someone to destroy our fragile peace." Malloryn rapped on the carriage roof with his silver-handled cane, as if to prompt Herbert for speed. "Which is why we must stop whoever is trying to rouse these riots and set London aflame. I know it seems overwhelming, but take it one step at a time, Gemma. Today we deal with the Chameleon. Tomorrow we deal with the true enemy."
* * *
Home sweet home.
The Company of Rogues’ new safe house was a nondescript townhouse in the middle of Marylebone. Malloryn's spy network was unparalleled, but he'd wanted a group who could deal with the current threat to the monarchy—the mysterious, as yet unnamed organization who'd been stirring up chaos in the past year with the intent of replacing the queen.
What he'd ended up with was the aptly named Company of Rogues.
COR had been formed several months ago from a random assortment of blue bloods, mechs, and verwulfen. Each member was a specialist in his or her field; Caleb Byrnes was the best tracker the Nighthawks had to offer; Ingrid Miller, now IngridByrnes, had been a verwulfen bounty hunter; Liam Kincaid had a particular gift for mechwork; Ava McLaren was a crime scene investigator from the Nighthawks; Jack Fairchild worked downstairs in the laboratory, creating all manner of mechwork weapons to assist them in their endeavors; and Charlie Todd came from the rookeries of Whitechapel, where he was a jack-of-all trades. Thief. Roguish charmer. And what she suspected was a near-level genius, with his father's gift for tinkering with gadgets.
Which left herself, trained in the arts of espionage; Herbert, the most dangerous butler in London; the baroness, who ran COR in Malloryn's absence; and Malloryn at the head of them all, setting them into play like a master puppeteer.
Gemma trailed Malloryn up the stairs toward the training room, where the sounds of grunts and blows echoed.
Inside the room, Byrnes, Kincaid, and Charlie looked like they'd been busy beating the stuffing out of each other.
Byrnes appeared to have been doing most of the beating. Since his transformation into adhampirtwo months ago, the color had begun to drain out of his skin and hair, thanks to the Fade, and while he'd been dangerously fast and lethal as a blue blood, now he was incomparable.
Kincaid, a newly infected blue blood with a mechanical arm, was still getting used to the changes to his body and his increased bloodlust. He and Charlie circled Byrnes, fists held up defensively, as Byrnes lashed out with a sudden high kick that almost took Charlie's head off his shoulders. Charlie ducked, slapping the blow aside, as Kincaid slammed his fists down on Byrnes's back.
Or where Byrnes had just been.
Byrnes spun low, sweeping Kincaid's feet out from under him, and then straightened abruptly, slamming the flat of his palm into Charlie's chest.
The pair of them hit the training mats, and Kincaid stayed there, cursing under his breath. Charlie flipped to his feet, his blue eyes twinkling as he noticed the pair of them in the door.
"Gemma. Malloryn." He winced. "Just in time to see Byrnes hand us a thrashing."
Byrnes scrubbed his mouth, showing no hint of surprise. No doubt he'd heard them coming up the stairs with his exquisite hearing. "You almost had me that one time."
"Once." Kincaid groaned, and found his feet with a flexibility he hadn't owned last month. There was no sign of the mechanical leg braces he'd once worn. "You were being generous."
"Where are the others?" Malloryn asked.
