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Alan paused at a seldom-used annex to St. Stephen the Eunuch’s Chapel, glancing around for signs of guards. Down the length of the great, sprawling reddish-tan and gray stone building that dominated the Buda side of the Danube, he knew guards would be posted at entrances that led directly into the castle, but this ...
“This is a side way into the castle, if you will,” he told Hallie in a voice low enough for just her to hear. “It connects to the Emperor’s Staircase, which leads to the imperator’s private apartments.”
“Ooh, a secret passage?” Hallie’s breath tickled his ear, making him wish he were back in bed, having his turn of tying her down and driving her insane with touches and nibbles, and long, long licks of his tongue. “I’ve always wanted to see one.”
“It’s not secret, just never used.” Alan carefully opened the door, wincing when it squeaked a bit, pausing to see if the guards located at the bottom of the stairs heard it.
No sound of alarm reached him. He eased the door open a bit more and stuck his head out. The silhouettes of two guards standing at the outside entrance could be seen reflected on the etched glass door, but the staircase itself was empty.
Alan glanced back. Hallie stood bright-eyed with excitement, a cloth satchel slung across her chest. Being the bearer of the satchel was the only way he could dissuade her from bringing along that damned bow that she was so fond of, and he made a mental note to find a good archer to give her advanced training, since she seemed to be a natural at it. Beyond her, Zand, Az, and three other members of his company stood, all watchful, waiting on his command.
“We’ll try this Hallie’s way first,” he said softly, gesturing toward the satchel. “But if it doesn’t work—”
“It will, Jack swears by it,” Hallie interrupted in a whisper, giving him a poke on the chest armor to emphasize just how annoyed she was by his lack of faith.
“If it, for some reason, fails, then do what you must to keep yourselves safe. Are you ready, my stabby little dove?”
Hallie whipped out a handful of glass syringes, fanning them in a manner that made Alan nervous. “Jack’s patented superfast knockout drugs at your service, Your Imperial Husbandness.”
They were silent as the proverbial church mouse when they ascended the stairs into the imperator’s apartments.
“The royal entrance hall,” Alan murmured in Hallie’s ear when she gawked at the long, rectangular room. The room was lit only by two gas jets on either side of an ornate stone fireplace bearing the bust of the imperator. A dull glow came from the moonlight that gleamed in through three massive windows that opened to the courtyard.
“Antechamber,” he whispered, dodging the chairs and occasional tables that littered the room.
“So pretty,” she answered, eyeing the gold-and-white floral wallpaper and stucco decorations. “But if you’re going to want to live here after we take care of your dad, I’m going to have a few things to say to you.”
“I have no intention of residing here,” he answered, and opened the doors to the adjacent room. This, too, was silent as the grave, just the faint sputtering of gas jets left on should the imperator need attendants during the night. “And this is the audience room.”
“OK, this is beyond gorgeous,” she said, looking at the windows on two sides of the corner room. “That crystal chandelier is bigger than your whole cabin on the Nightwing.”
“Not quite, but it’s close. Quiet, now. This next room may be occupied.”
Alan opened the door to the writing room slowly, peering in. Sitting at a large golden console table were four men in guard uniforms, cards, glasses, and two decanters laid out on the table before them.
Hallie peered around him, and silently handed out syringes to their men, nodding when Alan gestured for her to stand back. He threw open the door, and with his shoulders back—and donning Akbar’s arrogant strut—entered the room, scattering orders.
“I want the windows checked, and a guard at all the doors. The imperator’s life is at risk.” He stopped and glared at the men who had scrambled to their feet, two of them whisking the decanters behind them. “What is this? Why are you not at your posts?”
The men all exchanged looks. Then one of them made a smart bow and said, “We are, Your Imperial Highness. We guard the imperator’s bedchamber.”
“Faugh,” Alan said, gesturing to his men. “Relieve these guards of their duty. I will speak to the captain in the morning.”
“But, Your Imperial Highness—” The ringleader stared in surprise when Alan whisked out a syringe and jabbed it into the man’s arm, quickly depressing the plunger. The guard looked first at his arm, then at Alan; then, just when Alan was about to swear under his breath that he knew Jack’s concoction wasn’t as effective as Hallie had sworn it would be, the guard’s eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled forward.
Alan looked toward the doorway to where Hallie stood with one raised eyebrow. He made her a little bow, saying softly, “Yes, yes, you were right. You won the bet. You get to be in charge two times consecutively.”
“And I get to use the scarves both times,” she reminded him, moving over to stand at his side, glancing down at the guards who now littered the floor. “Jack says they should be out for about twenty minutes, so we should probably get cracking. I assume your dad’s bedroom is through there?” She nodded to the door set between two massive urns.
“Yes. Stay back.” He accepted two syringes and, after a glance at Zand, opened the door to the imperator’s bedchamber.
No gas jets fluttered in here. The room was close and humid, filled with a rumbling sound that came from the center of the massive canopied bed that dominated the room. Thankfully, the bed had only one occupant, Alan noted when he peeled back a bit of the blanket to expose the imperator’s arm.
“Hrmm? What is it?” The imperator grunted and snorted when Alan plunged the needle into the arm that lay on the bed, clamping his hand down on it when it jerked. “Who is that? What are you doing?”
Alan signaled to Zand, who lit a lamp next to the bed.
The imperator looked up at Alan with confused eyes. “What the devil do you think ... Akbar? What are you ... doing ... heee ...”
“I owe Jack a barrel of the imperator’s finest rum,” Alan said when his father fell back against his silk pillows, his mouth open and slack.
“Two barrels. And one for us, too. Well”—Hallie came forward and rubbed her belly—“we can save ours for after the miracle is born. I assume he’s out cold?”
“Yes.”
“I have to say, that’s kind of anticlimactic,” she said in a disappointed tone, watching when Alan quickly peeled off the blankets and, with his men, used the sheet beneath the imperator to lift him, wrapping him in it just as if he were a cocooned moth. “I expected us to have to shoot our way in, fight with your dad before you handily jabbed him with the knockout stuff, and then fight our dashing way out. This is just ... easy.”
“I much prefer easy to your dire imaginings, although to be honest, I fear the escape is going to be much more difficult.”
“Oh! That’s my cue,” Hallie said, and rushed to the window. She threw it open and leaned out to look to the north. “He’s there! At least, I think it’s William. There’s an airship where you said he would be.”
“Excellent.” Alan made a quick search of the drawers of small tables that sat on either side of the bed, pulling from one the imperial seal, which he pocketed before asking Hallie, “Would you go to the dressing room and collect some clothing for the imperator? Nothing too ornate. He is larger than William, and will need something to wear.”
“Sure. I assume it’s this way?” She pointed to a door on the far side of the room.
“Yes, that should lead to the dressing room, bathroom, and the body servant’s room. Do not enter the last one, as it will be occupied. Zand, do you see the strongbox anywhere?”
“No. Are you sure it is here, and not in the treasury?”
“The treasury is full of things he didn’t care about,” Alan said, peering into cupboards and drawers. “He always kept the most valuable items close by. Ah. Does this look different to you?”
He squatted to examine a square of wood in the parquet floor that looked a bit darker than the other pieces.
“It does indeed,” Zand said, pulling out a dagger while Alan did the same, the pair sliding their blades along the seam of the square, loosening it so that it could be lifted. “And that looks very much like an emperor’s hoard.”
“Which I will take great pleasure disbursing to those who have suffered the most from his atrocities.” Alan hauled up a small metal chest that was much heavier than it looked. “Az, you and Yussuf take the imperator. Zand, I leave the strongbox in your charge.”
Zand hefted the chest, grimacing at its weight.
“The emperor is waiting in the courtyard. Take the imperator to him, and tell him I’m right behind you.”
He waited until the men were through the writing room, the guards still crumpled blobs on the floor, before returning to the bedchamber. He glanced around it, mentally going through a checklist of items he needed to ensure the imperator’s supporters would have no ability to carry on in his name, then frowned at the door to the dressing room, opening it while he said, “Dove, you do not need to clean out his wardrobes—” He stopped when the room was empty of his wife.
A wave of cold fear hit him, followed immediately by heat, red-hot fury that sent him charging across the room, flinging open the door to the bathroom and, through it, the door to the body servant.
The vizier stood in a gold-embroidered nightdress, his bald head glistening in the gaslight, but it was the woman he held protectively in front of him, a dagger at her throat, that held Alan’s attention.
“I knew you would come, you murdering scum,” the vizier said, his high-pitched voice cracking with emotion. “I told His Imperial Majesty that you would come for him one day, but he did not believe me. Did you kill him? Did you slit his throat, and then send your whore in to steal his clothing?”
“No, I did not kill him, and do not speak of my wife in such a manner.”
“Wife?” the vizier snapped, then sneered down at Hallie’s head. “You wed the whore? Your father will have much to say about that.”
“I have no doubt about that,” Alan said mildly, his eyes on the dagger at Hallie’s throat. She was, to his infinite relief, looking more annoyed than frightened.
In fact, she sounded downright put-upon when, sighing, she said, “I told you I should have brought my bow. He grabbed me before I could jab him.”
Jab him. The words resonated in Alan’s head, pushing around the mental images of the sorts of torture he would enact upon the vizier. He leashed his anger, and forced himself to think coolly, one hand brushing against a hard glass syringe that was hidden in his pocket. If he could get close enough to the vizier, he could pull Hallie from the old man’s foul grasp and sedate him. ...
“You know,” she said with obvious meaning. “The jabby thing. Of which someone not a million miles away from here might have had two.”
“Be quiet, whore,” the vizier growled, tightening his grip on Hallie, yelling suddenly, “Guards!”
To Alan’s horror, the vizier jerked open a door to the hall and hauled Hallie backward out of it just as two guards, looking startled and hesitant, entered.
Alan snarled an oath and leaped forward, slamming the first guard into the doorframe, the man slumping to the ground just as Alan turned to the second. He had a disruptor out, firing at the moment that Alan lunged, the searing pain that bit deep into the left side of his chest warning him he’d been hit.
The thought of Hallie in the vizier’s grip was all that mattered, not the burning pain of flesh that had melted under the aether, nor the weakness that made his left arm feel like it was made of lead.
He could bear pain. He could bear losing the use of an arm. He couldn’t lose Hallie, not his bright, irreverent, enticing dove.
He couldn’t live without her love. He couldn’t live without her, period.
His dagger flashed in the gaslight, a spray of blood following. Alan didn’t wait to see how badly the guard was injured before he raced down the passage after the vizier. The man had dragged Hallie down a flight of stairs, spinning around at the bottom when Alan leaped down the stairs, his heart pounding in his ears, his soul calling for vengeance.
One of the vizier’s hands was in Hallie’s hair, her lovely amber hair, pulling her head back so that her throat was exposed, the curved dagger having evidently pricked her throat a few times, since several narrow lines of blood dripped down into her armor.
She squawked, her eyes widening at the sight of Alan stalking forward.
“Stay back,” the vizier called, shifting and glancing nervously around him. “Guards! Guards!”
“There is no one here,” Alan said, his fingers twitching with the need to throttle the man. “No one but me. Release my wife, and I will let you live.”
“You do not frighten me—” the vizier started to say.
“You have three seconds, and then you die.”
Hallie stared at him in surprise, but he kept his eyes on those of the old man, allowing him to see the depth of his fury, and the inevitability of his intentions.
The second the man wavered, he’d be on him.
To his amazement, the vizier must have read just as accurately as Hallie what his fate would be, because he dropped the dagger and shoved her forward at him, spitting out an oath that Alan ignored.
“Are you hurt badly?” he asked her, his eyes still on the vizier.
“No, but please tell me you’re going to knock that bastard out so I can administer a few kicks in his kidneys. Oh! Well, that was fast.”
Alan moved while she was speaking, spinning the vizier around and jamming his face into the wall while he stabbed the syringe into the man’s upper arm. The vizier screamed and moved feebly for a few seconds before slumping to the ground.
“I totally rescind that comment about taking down your dad as being anticlimactic—hey. What’s wrong with your sleeve? Why is it black ... oh my god, that’s your arm! Alan!”
He grabbed her with his good arm and gently pushed her from him. “Do not touch it, sweet. I will have it attended to later.”
“But you’ve been hurt! Oh my god, the whole left side of your armor—Alan! What happened?”
“One of the guards had better aim than I supposed.” He grunted painfully when he tried to heft the vizier one-handed, but it was impossible to get the man onto his shoulder. “Can you help lift this bastard without harming yourself or the babe?”
“What? Oh, yes, but you shouldn’t carry him, not with you being shot to hell and back again—”
“I can’t leave him here.” Alan took a couple of bracing breaths. “I don’t think he has the support of the courtiers to challenge me, but I would prefer him being out of the way regardless. On three.”
A very painful five minutes followed during which Hallie helped him hoist the vizier’s deadweight onto his good shoulder, after which they mounted the stairs and retraced their steps.
As they left the royal apartments and reached the staircase, a dark figure emerged from the opposite direction.
For a moment, Alan and Etienne considered each other. Like him, Etienne bore the limp form of a person over his shoulder, this one a woman in gauzy nightwear whose long golden hair brushed the floor.
“Etienne,” Alan said, with a nod at the other man.
“Alan.” Etienne nodded back, his gaze on the vizier’s unconscious form for a second. Then without another word, he strode off.
“Was that—” Hallie started to ask, staring after Etienne.
“The duchess? Yes.”
“Ah.” She turned and yelled after Etienne’s disappearing figure, “I hope you treat her a damned sight better than you treated me.”
They made it out to William’s airship just as the pain that Alan had tried so hard to ignore started to overwhelm him, the weakness growing across his chest and spreading down to his legs. He staggered the last few steps when Zand and Az burst from the hold, the latter holding him up while Zand pulled the vizier’s limp body from him.
“He’s been shot,” he heard Hallie say from a long distance away. “I hope to god you guys have a doctor on board, because I am not losing him. Do you understand? I refuse to let him die! Alan! Alan, my love, don’t you dare die on me! I will make your life a living hell if you do!”
He smiled to himself even as he slid slowly into the red haze of pain that had crawled across his mind. She wasn’t being a dove now. She was a fierce little falcon, fighting for him, fighting for them both. And for that, he would be eternally grateful.
