“What club is that?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not a club. It’s a brothel.”
Tarnation. Could I look more naïve than that? “Not every man who goes to a disorderly house is evil.”
“No, but it’s a place like any other to start, and it was the favourite of Riley and his men. Focus on someone and tell me what deep colours you see.”
The life of a man depended on my ability to see deep auras. “What if I make a mistake?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Bad luck for the unfortunate man.”
“Alex!”
“Has your power ever been wrong? Trust it. Besides, if you accidentally kill a good man, you won’t get stronger but weaker.”
I took a deep breath and focused on a particularly loud man. He was laughing with another man while buttoning up the fly-front of his trousers. I stared until a dark halo formed around him and didn’t change colour, not even when I dug deeper. The dark aura had the shape of an octopus with smoky tendrils writhing in the air. Superficial feelings of excitement and laughter sparked brightly outside the smoky core.
“The outer layer is normal,” I said. “The inner one is dark with smoky tendrils.”
“We’ve found tonight’s winner.” He clicked his tongue. “I smell tobacco. He’s a smoker. His blood is going to taste horrible.”
“Would you please stop joking?”
“I’m not joking.” He looked affronted. “I avoid biting smokers. Their blood is so bitter it makes chicory taste like honey.”
We followed the man down a dark alley. He walked past an old man begging for a shilling and kicked him hard when the old man stretched out his arm. The old man whimpered, putting a hand on his ribs.
“Awful man.” My determination strengthened.
Alex dropped a few sovereigns into the old man’s hat, and I beamed at him as the old man gasped in surprise.
“That was generous.”
“I was a beggar once.” Alex handed me the dagger. “Be ready.”
“What…?”
He shot forwards at an impossible speed. The next moment, the man was on the cobbles, unconscious, and Alex’s mouth was on his neck. I supposed he had to knock out the man, not to touch him more than necessary. The man wouldn’t have stayed still otherwise.
I approached them slowly, wielding the dagger with a trembling hand. The blade grew heavier the closer I got. What had Darius said about the position of my thumb on the hilt?
Alex lifted his head, blood trickling down his chin. “Come.”
When his eyes were obsidian and his fangs fully extended, his voice sounded resonant and deep.
I raised the dagger over the man’s body. Alex’s fangs had left two wounds on the man’s neck, and a small amount of blood oozed out.
His head was tilted to the side as if he’d fallen asleep, but his open mouth showed yellowed teeth, and his crooked nose looked familiar.
“I’ll do it. You just keep your hand around the hilt.” Alex put his palm on the pommel of the hilt. “You can close your eyes if you want.”
But a vision of the night of the attack flashed across my mind. This man had been with Sean. He’d entered the dining room and drunk Papa’s wine.
“Wait!”
Alex stopped the blade an inch from the man’s chest. “Irene, it has to be done.”
“This man was with Sean the night he attacked me.”
