Chapter Sixteen

A lex’s flat was as luxurious as Josef remembered, brightly lit and warm.

Tonight, its elevation and distance from the streets where danger lurked came as an unexpected comfort. Even if, from the window, Josef could see the fires from the night’s air raid turning the sky ruddy. Just like at the front.

He wondered how many had died tonight.

As he walked closer to the window, Josef was aware of Alex behind him—lighting lamps, setting the fire. Meanwhile, far below them, teemed a frightened population. Spooks and ghouls aside, it was horrors of man’s invention that stalked the streets tonight.

“You’d think,” he said into the room’s quiet, “that having bombs dropped on you from aeroplanes would turn people against this bloody war. But it just makes them more gung-ho to ‘stick it to the Hun’.”

“It makes them afraid,” Alex said from the fireplace. “Anger is a potent salve for fear.” He rose and joined Josef at the window. “It’s why we keep our work secret. Over the years, many of us have fallen victim to fear and anger.”

Josef glanced at him, at his strong, serious profile and felt that peculiar shifting in his chest again. Carefully, feeling his way, he said, “Because people fear what they don’t understand.”

Turning his head, Alex met his eyes. “Naturally.”

“Don’t you think, in this modern era of scientific curiosity, there’s scope for more understanding? Why hoard all this secret information to some hereditary society? It’s the twentieth century, for God’s sake. Share your knowledge with the people.”

Alex gave a contained smile. “I don’t entirely disagree. But look what happened when I tried to tell you the truth, and you’d seen evidence with your own eyes.”

Josef had to concede the point.

“Besides, it’s too dangerous to be more open.” He gave a peculiar little nod, as if convincing himself. “It’s worked like this for a thousand years, and it can work for a thousand more.”

“Except now you have ghouls running around London.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “ That is not our fault. This damned war is waking too many things best left sleeping.”

“And do you think this war will be the last, or the worst? For God’s sake, we’re dropping bombs out of aeroplanes onto people’s homes.” He shook his head, staring out over the burning city. “It’s only going to get worse from here—God knows what we’ll disturb. And then what will you and your merry band of toffs do? Will there even be enough of you to deal with it?”

Alex didn’t answer, but he looked troubled, and Josef suspected he’d hit a nerve. Good. Some nerves needed to be hit. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Let me publish the story. Let me tell people about the ghoul, about how the war is bringing evil into the world.”

“Absolutely not.” Alex had lost all colour, his reflection ghostlike in the window. “Under no circumstances are you to do that.”

Josef’s hackles rose as they always did when he met with closed doors. “You can’t stop me, you know.”

Alex’s expression turned baleful. “Do you truly believe that?”

“Yes. Unless you’re planning to do me in. We still have something like a free press in this country, despite DORA.”

Alex turned from the window, holding Josef’s gaze with an expression impossible to decipher. “Then let me be absolutely clear,” he said. “It would very much not be in your interest to attempt to publish a story about the situation with the ghoul.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It is a threat.” Taken aback, Josef retreated a step, and Alex’s mouth tightened. “Not from me. Others…are less tolerant.”

“You mean your boss, Saint.”

Alex jerked his head in a nod. “Secrecy has kept The Society safe for close to a millennium. It won’t change now. He won’t change.”

“And I’m a loose end,” Josef said, quoting Saint’s words. “To be dealt with.”

Alex didn’t answer, turning back to the window, and for a while they both stared out over the city.

“So, what’s the plan?” Josef said. “Knock me over the head and dump me in the Thames? Or shoot me with that gun of yours—the one you keep in the bathroom?”

“If you truly thought I’d do any of that, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Wouldn’t I? I went to the front to report the truth, and this isn't half so risky. Besides, you can’t kill me; you want that photograph, and only I know where it is.”

Alex turned his head, half his face in shadow cast by the flickering light of the gas lamps. He looked stern, and unfairly beautiful. Josef had to clench his teeth against a betraying twist of want. Alex said, “Destroy it, both the print and the negative. It puts you in danger, and not only from the ghoul.” His expression darkened further. “The Society goes to great lengths to keep its secrets.”

Josef thought of the photograph, and of the pamphlet May had agreed to publish. “I can’t destroy it. I need it. I’m trying to tell people the truth.”

“No one will believe you about the ghoul—"

“About the war,” Josef interrupted. “About working men like Sykes being forced to kill each other to satisfy the greed of their bourgeois, imperial masters. Your lot can’t have a problem with that truth, can they?”

“They will if you publish a photograph of a man clearly infected by a ghoul.”

Josef lifted his chin. “It’s my best one.”

“For God’s sake!” Alex grabbed his shoulder, turning Josef to face him. “I’m not joking. They will do anything to protect their secrets. Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand,” Josef said, shaking free. “That’s what your lot always do: protect their secrets. Why do you think they’ve gagged all the war correspondents?”

Jaw clenched, Alex said, “This is different.”

“Is it? How?”

“Because some truths are too dangerous to tell.” His eyes met Josef’s with a look he couldn’t misinterpret. “As you well know.”

That, he supposed was true, but what Alex was talking about was a private matter that hurt nobody. “In that case,” he said, “secrecy protects a man's right to live as he chooses. In the case of your Society, it keeps the people in ignorance of their own danger.”

“And, in both cases, it preserves the peace.”

“Until ghouls start infecting people in London.”

Alex lifted a brow. “And you think provoking mass panic would help?”

“I think, if people knew the truth about that, about the war, they wouldn’t keep taking it. Not when they’re being slaughtered in the millions. Mustard gas or fucking ghouls, what difference does it make in the end? They’re still bloody dead. And for what? To keep their bourgeois masters in champagne and caviar. That’s the real reason for all this bloody secrecy.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “I see you’re an acolyte of Messrs Marx and Engels.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Josef added with a sarcastic smile, “Maybe you should read them. Then you’ll know what’s coming.”

“What makes you think I haven’t?” Alex spun from the window, heading for his drinks cabinet. “Meanwhile, while we await the proletarian revolution, I still have the pressing issue of a nest of flesh-eating ghouls somewhere in London.” He set out two glasses and reached for a bottle of brandy. “Drink?”

On principle, Josef felt like he should refuse. Some socialist he was, drinking with Lord Beaumont in his fancy flat. Even so, it felt churlish to refuse—and after the day he’d had, he could really do with a drink. And Alex had a point about the ghoul. “What do you mean ‘somewhere in London?’ Don’t you know where they are?”

“If I knew where they were, I’d have dealt with them by now.” He poured two generous glasses and held one out for Josef. “What else did you think I’d been doing for the last few weeks? Following you around for fun?”

“It crossed my mind,” Josef said, accepting the drink.

To his astonishment, a flush coloured Alex’s refined features. He said, crisply, “I’m looking for the nest.”

Which was a terrifying thought. “Are you saying they could be anywhere in London?”

“Pretty much. Anywhere dark and dank, with a ready supply of fresh corpses.”

With a snort, Josef said, “Have you tried the House of Lords?”

Alex choked on his brandy, resulting in an extremely inelegant coughing fit which set Josef giggling—fucking giggling!—as he tried ineffectually to thump Alex on the back. He didn’t even know why he was laughing; nothing in his life was remotely funny. But maybe that was the point. Maybe you couldn’t be afraid and angry all the time. Maybe sometimes those worming dark emotions escaped. And better to laugh than to cry.

Seemed like Alex agreed, because his coughing and laughter were all mixed up as he doubled over, hands on his thighs, and wheezed, “God, but that’s so true!” before collapsing again into laughter.

Eventually, the squall passed, and Josef got himself under control, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Alex leaned against the drinks cabinet, catching his breath, watching Josef. And Josef watched him back, taking in the elegant suit with the splash of blood on one cuff, the brick dust in his hair and streaking his face.

Out of nowhere, reality landed a stealthy right hook.

Josef had nearly died today. Twice. By rights, he should be in the mortuary right now. Cold and dead, or worse.

But he wasn’t dead; by some miracle he was warm and breathing and very much alive . Blood rushed in his ears, his heart thumped in his chest, and his body sang with sudden, physical presence as if every nerve was fighting for a taste of life.

“Fuck,” he said in a voice that shook as hard as his hand. He set his drink down before he spilled it. “Fucking hell. If we’d been a hundred yards closer to that bomb...”

Alex straightened, eyes locked with Josef’s, a bolt of heat flashing between them. “We were lucky.”

“Bloody lucky.” Josef took a step closer, too close to be misconstrued. “How about we do something with that luck?”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “What did you have in mind?”

“I think you know.”

“But you…” He faltered, looking uncertain for a moment, before scrambling on a wry expression. “It’s not against your principles, then, to fuck an aristocrat?”

Josef smiled, grinning when he saw the same expression kindling in Alex’s eyes. “Fucking the aristocracy is my mission in life, my lord .”

“Is that so?” Alex lifted his hand to run a light, intentional finger along the line of Josef’s jaw. “I suppose you’d like to see us on our knees.”

“Fuck, yes,” Josef said, rather more breathily that he’d hoped. “I’d bloody love that.”

Alex drew his bottom lips between his teeth, biting gently, a gesture at once so knowing and vulnerable that Josef groaned. Fuck . Was he really going to risk this? Again?

Apparently, he was.

“ Jesus ,” Alex hissed, one hand landing on Josef’s hip and pulling them together. He was hard; so was Josef. It felt wonderful. “I didn’t think you’d want—”

“Shut up,” Josef growled, and silenced both their doubts with a fierce kiss, driving his fingers into Alex’s silken hair and holding him just where he wanted him.

Groaning softly, Alex met the kiss with the eagerness of a famished man. Josef knew how he felt; they were kissing as if the bombs were about to fall, and perhaps they were.

Perhaps this night was all they’d have.

He got his hands beneath Alex’s jacket and shoved it off his shoulders, and then they were undressing each other in a scramble of buttons and waistcoats. There were no more words, only touch and want, and fire burning away the terrors of the night.