Page 57 of The Doctor and the Devil
A blonde head poked around the doorframe, and a sigh of relief whooshed out of me.
“I’ll have you know Étienne and I areveryput out, Rafael,” Daphne grumbled. “This is a horribly ill-advised idea, and if we get into trouble down here, it’s entirely your fault.” She inclined her head at Laszlo and smiled. “Your Highness.”
He eyed me questioningly.
“It’s a very long story,” I answered. I looked back at Daphne. “Étienne? Mina?”
She waved my concern away. “The only reason I’m down here is because I convinced them to wait in the carriage while I came down to fetch you.” Her eyes sparkled when she added, “And I don’t fancy being in your shoes when Mina gets a hold of you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her use that language.”
I winced. “Best for us to hurry, then. I’m looking for the key to this cell.”
“Oh, damn the key, Rafael, let me see if I can pick the lock.”
She produced a small roll of leather with half a dozen thin, metal picks of varying size and shape. As she knelt before the lock, I came back to Laszlo.
“What happened? And where is everyone tonight?” I wanted to know.
“We were wondering why they would leave you unguarded. Do you know when they will return?” Daphne asked.
After a few tense moments, there was a soft, metallic click and Daphne let out a triumphant laugh. She yanked the door back and Laszlo fell forward into my arms. He stumbled, nearly dragging me down with him.
“Just give me a moment,” he wheezed. “I haven’t much strength left.”
“Rafael, we will need to carry him! We must get out of here before the Order returns,” Daphne pressed.
A piercing sense of foreboding sliced through me just as I picked up the sounds of a struggle above me. Daphne whirled around; her face drained of color.
“Étienne!” she screamed.
She ran for the door in a blur of speed but staggered back just as she reached it. Two young vampires marched in, carrying the unconscious emissary between them. There was a mighty gash on his head spilling thick, black blood, but he was otherwise unharmed. The vampires tossed him in one of the cells. Before the enraged duchess could launch herself at her love’s captors, Marguerite appeared in the stairwell behind them.
“Easy, Duchess,” she warned. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to your friend here.”
Terror unlike I’d ever experienced blanketed my body, almost swallowing me into oblivion. Marguerite tugged Mina forward, bound, gagged, and bleeding from her nose. She kicked furiously at Marguerite, connecting with a satisfyingthwack. Marguerite grunted and dropped Mina to the ground, where she landed with a sickening crack. She stilled, but I could still hear the beat of her heart—alive, but unconscious. I made to run toward her, but bands of iron wrapped around my waist and held me in place—Laszlo.
Stunned, confused, I turned to him. “Laszlo! What are you doing?”
His thin lips cracked on a sad smile.
“I’m sorry, Rafael—truly I am. But they said it was you or us.”
I stared, uncomprehending. He couldn’t be—couldn’t be—betraying me again. Not after all this time. Not after everything I went through to find him. To come here and release him.
“Unhand me, you absolute clod! Do you have any idea who I am?” The outraged bellows of Charlotte’s voice drifted through the staircase next, followed by the roar of rage coming from Antoine.
“Yes, Comtesse de Brionne,” said a soft voice that sent chills down my spine. “But I’m afraid titles don’t impress the likes of us very much.”
“I wasn’t talking about my title,” she snarled. “I meant that the moment I get out of here, I’m going to rip your throat out with my teeth and spill your insides with my claws.”
Several more vampires trudged in. Charlotte was utterly nude beneath what looked like a borrowed cloak, her wrists and ankles shackled in the same peculiar metal as the cells and the inner door. Antoine, pinned between four vampires, was led in behind her, similarly bound. The vampires shoved them into the cell next to Daphne and Étienne, closed the doors, and marched back out of the room. In their wake, a cloaked, masked figure emerged. He was tall and lean, with silvery hair and the sloped shoulders of idle aristocracy. He reeked of expensive perfume that could not hide the stink of rancid hair pomade, sweat, and cognac.
“Monsieur Derais,” Charlotte chuckled darkly. “I know you’re not intelligent enough to try to carry out some villainous plan all on your own. Where, pray tell, are your compatriots?”
The gentleman sneered. “How like you, Comtesse, to swiftly come to the wrong conclusion. We are not the ones plotting a coup.”
“Mon dieu,have you been drinking? What the hell are you on about? No, you know what? I do not care. Simply release my friends and I and I shall endeavor to forget this whole misunderstanding happened,” she said airily.
I had to hand it to her—she was putting on a spectacular performance of the entitled aristocrat, given I could scent her fear.
