one

Alexei

Stars again. Nature could be so insufferable.

The night was bitterly cold, which was just as well. Dante would say the frost on the trees matched Alexei's st-cold heart exactly, but what did Dante know? He was still practically a child.

Alexei thought about the note he had received this morning:

‘Do not suffer the prince to live, if you value your life.

Surrender him, and you might be allowed to survive.'

One more threatening note to add to his collection.

The ‘prince' the vile note referred to was Prince Nikolaos of Moldovia, more commonly known as ‘the Greek prince', and he happened to be Alexei's friend, a fugitive, and a future corpse.

If his enemies found him, that is.

And since Alexei wasn't about to divulge the Greek prince's location to any, no matter how many threats on his life he received, that was not about to happen today. As long as Prince Nikolaos was hiding under Alexei's roof, he was safe. Tomorrow, his murderers were welcome to try again.

Alexei buried his chin in the folds of his coat and lowered his head, avoiding the snowflakes that were beginning to drift from the black skies. Still, the stars found a way to shine on his head. What next? The moon?

God forbid.

It was the cat he was following, he told himself, not the boy.

He had taken off, after the limping little figure, his eyes following its every movement in the darkness, darting after it around corners, wondering why on earth he was doing this, he who rarely went outside anymore.

For the cat. He was definitely doing it for the cat.

The spying boy had not made him curious in the least. Nor furious.

Alexei gritted his teeth and buried his hands further into his coat's pockets. Damn. He had forgotten his gloves, he who never forgot anything. But the boy had slipped out so quickly, he had barely had time to follow, let al gather his wits.

Where the devil is he going?

The boy, limping on, was following a narrow path down the quay. The Thames was snaking next to the boy's rapidly receding footsteps, and Alexei hurried after the thin silhouette, hating the feel of the water so near, slithering and shining under the sliver of a moon.

"I should have asked Wilder to do this," Alexei muttered under his breath, thinking of his manservant and guard, now safe in the warm club, with envy. "Just as well. He would probably be annoying about it."

The smell of the river-water met his nostrils, and Alexei fought the urge to vomit. This was why he hated going outside. There were memories everywhere, looking to devour him. He was only ever safe in the Hell Club; he had built every inch of it with the sole purpose of protecting himself from all memories.

And thoughts.

Case in point, he was now thinking of ruin. How many things he had ruined. How ruined he himself was. The thought seized him, the bloody thought, that unless he did something desperate, and possibly despicable, he wouldn't be able to stay alive. To endure living for more second.

Damn you, you absolutely useless, useless bastard, he said to himself, although it wasn't his own voice that said it. It was an echo from the past: he had grown up hearing those words. They would not allow themselves to be forgotten.

He had hoped to walk out under the cover of a pitch-black night, which would have been little change from his usual lighting indoors; he liked to have very little light around him, and was used to sitting al in a dark room, a pale beam of moonlight filtering through a window, the room lit with barely enough candlelight to read his book or see his glass of whiskey. Or else he would be in his rooms, two stories underground, safe from the light.

He slept during the daylight hours, and his club slept with him.

Once the sun went down, the club opened, and he woke to start business. He loved the cold and damp; he hated the light. Maybe it was the Slav in him that delighted in adverse circumstances, or, more probably, the darkness and cold matched his dark and cold heart.

Either way, tonight there was too much starlight.

His Highness Prince Alexei Vasili Anatol Igor Mikailoff Perlin made his way down the quay slowly, bored out of his mind. Why did these things always happen to him?

All he wanted was to sit in front of his fire with a glass of rather strong wine and drink himself to oblivion until he was woken by his exhausting—not to mention exhausted—valet to attend to business. He never went outside if he could help it. He had spent millions of pounds and hundreds of hours building his club and furnishing it with endless rooms and halls sprawling across London's underbelly, and then making sure that everything worked to perfection, from the dens of pleasure to the card tables, from the enormous ballroom to the hot Turkish baths.

He hadn't d all that so that he would end up having to go outside.

The plan was that he would spend his days in the Underworld, which was the name of his establishment. Within its walls, he had built his secret gentlemen's club, the Hellion Club, affectionately dubbed by the ton ‘the Hell Club'. Death would take him night as he sat by the roaring fire, lost in the sounds of pleasure and leisure coming faintly to him from the labyrinth of the Underworld's rooms.

But it wouldn't happen this way, would it?

Because these cats would be the death of him.

It was the cats that had started this whole thing. Even though Alexei had not yet met a feline he could resist, he now found himself wondering if the orange tabby that went by the name of Cerberus was worth all this.

Alexei spent two hours in the freezing sleet of London streets chasing down his cat—and the boy. Yes, that was what his life had been reduced to.

He couldn't wait until this farce was over and he returned home to his club and his threatening notes in the small hours of the morning, disgusted with himself, with Cerberus, and with life in general.

Today had not started well.

There had been no time to sleep last night either, so he had simply ordered coffee and sat down to start work. The Underworld was a complicated place to run, and every bit of it needed constant attention, from the servants to the supply chain, from the water pumps to the fires in the numerous rooms.

He had been in a foul mood throughout the day, and once the evening rolled around once more and the patrons had begun to arrive, he was ready to murder some.

And then, he came. For a second night in a row.

He was a young boy of no more than nineteen—he barely had any hairs on his chin yet—nothing more than a green youth, no doubt hell-bent on gambling away his father's my. Nothing special or interesting there. The club hosted dozens of such young men a night, and ruined most of them within a matter of weeks. But this young man was different: he was the reason Alexei had been obliged to go outside, searching for his cat, of all things.

And for that, the boy would pay.

At precisely ten o' clock at night, Alexei had reluctantly left the coziness of his book-laden office, and had headed upstairs, to the card rooms. His blood was boiling for murder, and as he walked up, he spotted the young man already seated at his spot, his cheeks aglow with the excitement of a new game starting.

Alexei had felt himself wake up for the first time since last night, hatred burning through him like a fire. Finally, he would get to kill some; it had been so long since something exciting had happened in this place.

But that was hours ago, before the young man had abducted his cat.

Now, the boy was well and truly a dead man.

After all, Alexei wasn't known as ‘Lord Hades' for nothing.

Alexei chuckled to himself as he remembered his unfortunate nickname, which he loathed even more than he loathed going outside, hunting down his cats, and then his laughter was cut short by the cold feel of a blade against his throat.

At once, he was still as a statue.

Some was here to kill him.

"Alexei Mikailoff Perlin," a rough, masculine voice listed all his names, as if to prove that he knew exactly who he was dealing with. Alexei would bet he didn't. "Tell us where he is," the voice hissed in his ear, "and you might be allowed to live."

"Finally," Alexei murmured, "something exciting."

"You're going to die tonight, Alexei Mikailoff Perlin," the voice continued, coming from behind his head, next to the blade. The accent was northern—the man was definitely not a Londr. An assassin, probably. Not very bright, possibly. Knew his name, that was for sure. "Or worse."

"Worse, you say?" Alexei feigned interest.

"I shall drive my dagger across yer insides," the assassin said, "until ye shout for mercy."

"I don't shout," Alexei said.

"You will die tonight, Alexei Mikailoff Perlin," the assassin repeated, dragging out his name with perverted pleasure, "unless you give us the Greek prince."

"Well," Alexei said with deadly calm. "Then as you said, I am going to die tonight."

Then he turned around, quick as lightning, and plunged his fist into the man's eye.

The assassin was a good head taller than Alexei, but Alexei was lighter on his feet and much better trained. Still, they fought hand to hand for what felt like a good hour but was probably no more than half.

Alexei wouldn't admit it, but by now, he was bleeding from at least seven places, albeit superficially, was close to getting winded, and could no longer feel his fingers because of the cold. The night was filled with their grunts, curses flying liberally from both their mouths.

A roar split the night, and the weight of the assassin was lifted off Alexei suddenly, just as the man's hands were beginning to clench Alexei's throat a tad too uncomfortably.

Alexei bent over, nearly becoming sick, and sucked in air, promptly choking on it.

The sounds of the assassin being beaten to within an inch of his life nearby were the only reason he still struggled to breathe, because every breath hurt like a thousand sharp knives, and otherwise he would have given up long ago. But the assassin was about to get murdered, and Alexei had to be alive to see it.

"Where the hell were you?" Alexei gasped.

"Sorry, m'lord," a muffled voice replied from the night. "Lost you in the darkness. Won't happen again." Isaac Wilder, Alexei's personal guard and friend, sounded dangerously out of breath.

Damn. The assassin wouldn't go down still, not even in Wilder's strong hands. Alexei would have to dirty his hands, wouldn't he?

"Well, it still remains to be seen," Alexei said, as another dark form appeared out of the mist, "whether we shall survive this."

Another assassin. This did not look good. Dammit.

Alexei climbed to his feet, gritting his teeth against the faintness that threatened.

"My lord, I—aargh!"

"Wilder?"

Alexei ran towards his guard's scream, not caring how much it hurt to breathe or how his chest burned. And then, in an instant, he saw what was happening. The assassin had somehow overpowered Wilder, which no had been able to do in his twenty years, and now had him in a chokehold. Wilder's eyes were bulging in the darkness, and his legs were writhing on the frozen ground.

As legs did right before some was strangled to death.

Alexei knew all about death; in fact, he knew little else.

And he knew, with that kind of absolute certainty that rendered him at once deadly calm and collected, that Wilder, his guard and friend, was about to die. The second assassin who had materialized out of the shadows was now gaining on them both, to finish the job that the first assassin had started.

And so, Alexei did what he had d from the first months of his life: he did what he had to do to survive.

With a fast, agile movement, he bent down on knee and removed a blade from his left boot. Then, without hesitating for a single breath, he walked over to where Wilder was being strangled and plunged his blade on the assassin's back, at the exact spot where his heart was beating.

The man was huge and Alexei had to use force to plunge the knife all the way up to the hilt, but still, for a moment, it was as if the assassin barely felt it.

Wilder spluttered and went still, his throat in the man's hands. The assassin was still on top of him, the blade fully plunged in what Alexei hoped was his heart, and time was standing still.

Alexei was frozen there, bent over the two unmoving men, when a hand closed around his throat. Dammit. Naturally, there was nothing for him to do but make a herculean effort to retrieve the knife from the killer's back and plunge it blindly into the second assassin's body, behind him. He hadn't even had time to turn around properly, and see where, or who, he was stabbing.

The hands tightened more firmly around his throat—the knife had probably not found its mark.

They do not call me Lord Hades for nothing, after all, was his last thought before his airway closed up and everything started going black. I couldn't even save Wilder. How absolutely pathetic, even for me.

But at least, finally, the moment I have waited for is here.

And, just like that, it came: Death.