Arthur laughed again. “Go back to sleep,” he said, kissing Rory on the head. “I’m here until that happens, and then I’ll sneak back up in the morning. I’ve got some good ideas for how to wake you.”
As it turned out, Zhang got to Rory’s room in the morning sooner than Arthur did. Arthur made it upstairs just in time to catch the end of their conversation, or at least Rory’s side of the end of their conversation. Rory filled him in on the rest: Gwen had sent a telegram to the warehouse via courier, nothing but a location and a cryptic message.
Arthur didn’t like it, but then, he didn’t like anything about the plan to get in touch with Gwen and Ellis. So, resigned as he was, he and Rory slipped out after breakfast to Liverpool Street and the Great Eastern Hotel. They walked through the stately lobby and into the nearly empty lounge, where tall glass shelves of fancy liquors stretched up to a gilded ceiling, ornate gold against the dark wood beams and walls. The bar was unmanned and Jade and Zhang were the lounge’s only occupants, sitting together on a velvet couch in a small booth and talking quietly with their heads close.
“You two continue to be ridiculously lovely together,” Arthur said, as they joined the couple. “Why did Gwen want us to meet here?”
Jade shrugged helplessly. “Her telegram said start at the Great Eastern and go for a walk.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “A walk where?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” said Zhang. “I haven’t found her anywhere on the astral plane, so I suspect she’s still with Sebastian de Leon.”
“Oh good,” said Arthur. “I’d like to hit him again.”
Rory frowned.
“What?” said Arthur.
“I don’t like that he used his magic on you.” Rory was still frowning. “But Hyde would’ve ripped me and my mind to shreds if Sebastian hadn’t come between us.”
Arthur huffed. “Don’t go soft for him,” he chided. “Handsome men are perfectly capable of being villains too.”
Rory stiffened. “You think he’s handsome?”
Arthur opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.
“Why don’t we go for that walk?” Jade said hastily, standing. “Maybe Gwen’s missive will make sense outside.”
They walked down bustling Bishopsgate to a narrower side street near the tube station. Jade and Zhang were gazing appraisingly at the businesses at the bottom of the multistory buildings, a fish and chips shop, a pub, a chemist and an art gallery. “This is like being given a jigsaw puzzle without the box,” Arthur muttered.
“Yeah.” Rory’s gaze slid over the shops. Then he abruptly turned. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
“Oh yes,” said Jade. “Wasn’t the Great Eastern mentioned inDracula?”
“I loved that book,” Zhang said.
The three of them turned around and started walking back in the direction they had come.
Arthur blinked, then scrambled to get in front of them. “Why would we go back to the hotel?” he demanded. “We just came from there.”
Jade opened her mouth, then closed it. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding confused.
Zhang shook his head. “You’re right, Ace, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Exactly,” Arthur said. “Come on, we don’t need more things that don’t make sense.”
Their group turned around and began to walk again. The pub at the corner hadn’t opened yet, and neither had the fish and chips shop, but there was a light on in the art gallery. Arthur stared more closely at the painting in the window. It was a colorful Impressionist-style rendering of a coastal city, with church steeples rising up out of clustered homes and what might have been the Mediterranean in the distance. A couple, hand in hand, walked away, toward the edge of the painting, on a boardwalk under a bright sun.
Sebastian de Leon’s cousin was a paranormal painter—
Rory abruptly turned. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
“Oh yes,” said Jade. “Wasn’t the Great Eastern mentioned inDracula?”
“I loved that book,” Zhang said.
The three of them turned around and started walking back in the direction they had come.
