Property of a Lady Faire (A Secret Histories Novel) (41 page)

I could tell she knew what I was feeling. She found it amusing.

Finally, we came to her room. The door swung open before us as we approached, apparently entirely of its own accord. And once we’d passed through, into the room beyond, the door closed itself quietly but firmly behind us. I listened for the sound of a lock engaging, but didn’t hear it. That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, though. Just as I’d expected, the Lady Faire’s room was a bedroom. The great circular bed in the middle was so big it seemed to take up half the available space. The Lady Faire finally let go of my hand, and I stumbled to a halt just inside the door. As though only her encouragement had kept me moving. She moved over to the bed, still not looking back at me.

“Nice place.” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm and steady.

“It suits me,” said the Lady Faire. “Though I’ve known better.”

“Why choose the Winter Palace for your Ball?” I said, just to be saying something.

“I rented it, from the Wulfshead Club management,” said the Lady Faire. “We go way back. They always do me a good deal. And they do have access to such unusual properties.”

“You know who they are?” I said. “The actual people?”

She finally turned around, and looked at me. Her glance, and her smile, was like a caress on my face. “Is that what you came here to talk about, Eddie Drood?”

“No,” I said.

She wandered around her room, quite casually, trailing her fingertips across the various surfaces. Like a cat rubbing its body against the fixtures and fittings, to remind them who was in charge. She smiled at me, quite easily, as though I was just an old friend who’d happened to drop by. Her body seemed to press out against the restrictions of her white tuxedo, as though all the buttons might burst open at any moment, unable to handle the strain of containing everything that lay within.

“Relax, Eddie,” she said. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

Disturbed that my voice didn’t sound as assured as I thought it should, I deliberately looked away from the Lady Faire, and took an interest in her room. It was large and open and almost unbearably sybaritic, with every conceivable luxury and comfort to hand. Lots of soft surfaces, in soft pastel colours. Modern furniture, in smooth organic shapes. Bare walls, without a single print or painting, and not even the smallest decorative object on any of the furniture tops. The bed dominated everything. The bed was what the room was for.

And yet there was no personality to the room. Nothing to show that the Lady Faire had any interest in impressing her character on it. You couldn’t say it was a woman’s room, or a man’s. No personal touches anywhere, to suggest the kind of person the Lady Faire was, in private. Perhaps there was no private person. Perhaps what you saw was what you got. God knew, that was impressive enough. Perhaps for the Lady Faire, being the ultimate honey trap that she was, a bedroom was just somewhere she did business.

When I looked at her again, she was bent over the mini-bar in the far corner. The gleaming white fabric of her trousers stretched tight across her bottom. And I caught my breath despite myself. She straightened up, taking her time, poured herself a tall glass of Perrier water, and slammed the door to the mini-bar shut with a careless bump of her hip. She took a long drink, her Adam’s apple moving up and down sensuously slowly. She put down the glass, and looked at me again, and I knew immediately from her smile that she knew I’d been watching. Her golden-pupiled eyes were sparkling, teasing. She stood there, not saying anything, to put the pressure on me to talk, to break the silence. An old agents’ trick. I didn’t say anything.

She moved over to the huge circular bed. The fitted sheets had already been folded back invitingly. Waiting. The sheets were a dark pink, almost blood colour. Almost . . . organic. Presumably the Lady Faire just liked to have everything ready, for whatever the night might bring. Or whoever. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked at me. I looked around the room, at anything but the bed. She started to say something, and then stopped herself. I could still see her, out of the corner of my eye. She sat with her back straight, and her legs elegantly crossed. I couldn’t help but feel I was in the presence of a practised performance. For an audience of one. Something she had done so often, she’d refined it down to just the barest necessary essentials. Much reduced, but still a display intended only for me. Aimed at me, like a weapon.

Her interest in me seemed real enough, but I was still sufficiently in control of myself to know I couldn’t trust it. She let her hand move slowly across the taut bedsheet, as though stroking a favoured pet. She caught my glance, and leaned forward a little, to show off her smile and her eyes. I still couldn’t get a sense of what her body might be like, under that expertly fitted white tuxedo. It curved out well enough, to suggest breasts and hips, but there was a masculine strength in the long arms and legs. Broad shoulders, but a swan’s neck. A woman’s grace, but a man’s power. Ladything, omnisexual, male and female and everything in between. Up close, that was just words. She was simply magnificent. Desirable. Turned up to eleven.

“Come and sit beside me, Eddie,” said the Lady Faire. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the boys,” I said. And I made myself pull up a smoothly curved chair and sit down on it, facing the bed. I sat carefully upright, with my legs firmly crossed. Trying not to look too defensive. I had an erection so hard it was almost painful, and I was pretty sure she knew that, though she’d never looked. I suspected the Lady Faire wasn’t fooled by anything I said or did. She really had seen it all before. I couldn’t help feeling that the only reason I wasn’t completely captivated by the Lady Faire, the legendary Ice Queen, was that she wasn’t really trying.

“You’re wondering what they all wonder,” she said. “What lies beneath, when the outer trappings are discarded. Who and what the Lady Faire really is, when she’s at home. The answer is, everything you could ever want. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of, especially the ones you never tell anyone about. I was designed to appeal to every taste, to be open to everything. I could take your breath away, Eddie. My body was made to quicken the heart and madden the senses, in every way there is. I could make you love me, Eddie Drood. Make you serve me and worship me, and make you enjoy every moment of it. You’ve never had a lover like me. I could make you mine, forever.”

“Bet you couldn’t,” I said. My mouth was dry, but my voice was perfectly steady. “I already have a lover. My own true love. And she is more to me than you’ll ever be. Because she gives a damn.”

“The witch? Dear little Molly Metcalf? I don’t think so.”

“She would rip your heart out with her bare hands,” I said. “And I hate to think what she’d rip off me . . .”

“It’s all right, Eddie. She doesn’t need to know. I won’t tell her if you won’t. Come here, and sit with me on the bed. How can we really understand each other, if we don’t know each other intimately? How can we discuss anything, if we’re not open with each other? You do want something from me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But for what I have in mind, we don’t need to understand each other that well. I’m just here to do some business.”

“So am I!” said the Lady Faire. “I’ve been trying to tell you that all along, darling. For me, it’s always about the give-and-take.”

“I’m not here for you,” I said.

“Don’t you want me, Eddie?”

“You know I do,” I said. “But what I want doesn’t matter. You’d be surprised how often in my life what I wanted has never mattered.”

“Now that’s just sad,” said the Lady Faire. “Come to me, and I’ll make it feel all better. That’s what I’m for.”

I think I surprised her then, by laughing briefly. “You need new material, Lady. The old lines are getting worn out.”

She sighed, and leaned back on the bed. “Very well, Eddie. We’ll play it your way. What do you want from me? Why did you come all this way, to Ultima Thule and the Winter Palace, and my annual Ball, if not for me?”

“Tell me what you know,” I said. “About my uncle, James Drood.”

She shrugged quickly, just a little irritated, as though she didn’t like to think about the past. Or her past lovers. Because the past, and everything in it, didn’t matter to her.

“Of course I remember James. He wasn’t everything his legend suggested, but he was a perfectly adequate lover. Of course he was getting on a bit, when I knew him. I don’t age as normal people do. But then I don’t do anything as normal people do. The Baron Frankenstein saw to that. You do know he was responsible for my creation . . . Of course you do. You’re a Drood. Droods know everything. Many people have told me that I should have known the Grey Fox when he was younger, in his prime. And I did try! But he was always so very busy, and so very elusive . . . I had to wait for him to come to me. And of course he did, in the end, like everyone does. It is possible he had almost as many lovers as I did . . .”

“He certainly had more children,” I said.

“I don’t have children,” the Lady Faire said coldly. “The Baron saw to that too. I was made from dead things, in his laboratory, made from pieces of old life, stitched together. And while every part of me functions perfectly, I remain dead inside. It’s not important. Children would only have got in the way for what I was made to be.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” said the Lady Faire. “I’m not. James . . . Yes. He was fun to have around, for a while. We had a very pleasant time together while it lasted. What do you want from me, Eddie? You must have known him better and longer than I ever did. Or do you want me to tell you what your precious Uncle and I did in bed? What he liked me to do to him?”

“No,” I said. “This isn’t about that. He gave you something. Something he really shouldn’t have. I’m here because I want it back.”

She sat up straight on the bed, giving me her full attention for the first time. Her face was expressionless, her golden eyes utterly cold.

“So that’s why you’re here! The Lazarus Stone! I should have known . . . Well, you can’t have it. It’s mine. Mine! James gave it to me!”

“You must have known he wasn’t supposed to do that. You must have known you wouldn’t be allowed to keep it.”

“You think you can just walk in here and take it?” said the Lady Faire, and her voice was deadly cold.

“Well, yes,” I said. “I’m a Drood. That’s pretty much what Droods do.”

“My security people . . .”

“Are currently scattered to the farthest reaches of the Winter Palace,” I said. “On my direct orders, as your Head of Security. And whilst you undoubtedly have many . . . abilities, I don’t think you’ve got anything that would stand against Drood armour. So, where is the Lazarus Stone?”

The Lady Faire put her arms behind her and leaned back on the bed, giving me her best languorous, heavy-lidded look. “Are you planning to beat the information out of me? I might enjoy that.”

“The word is out, in all the important places, that you have the Lazarus Stone,” I said patiently. “I’m just the first to come after it. The first to find you. There will be others. A never-ending stream of others. And you can bet they won’t be nearly as polite as me. You could go into hiding, I suppose. Dig yourself a really deep hole, drop in, and pull it in after you. But you’re not ready to turn your back on the world and all its pleasures, to live the solitary life of the hermit. Come, my Lady. Be reasonable. You don’t need the Stone that badly. So give it up. I mean, what would you use it for, anyway? Is there really anyone you would want to bring back, out of Time?”

“The Baron, of course,” said the Lady Faire. “Because he was . . . my first. And no one does it like Daddy.” She laughed softly then, at the look on my face, and something in the sound of that laughter raised all the hackles on the back of my neck. “Yes . . . I’d bring the Baron back, out of the dead Past. Just so I could thank him properly, for making me what I am. I’d keep him alive in constant agony for years, before I finally let him die.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I’m afraid . . . Afraid that if I did bring him back . . . even after all these years, he would control me again. And no one controls the Lady Faire.”

“You’re never going to use the Stone,” I said. “Because if you were, you would have done it by now. So give it back. And put temptation behind you.”

“No,” said the Lady Faire. “You can’t have it. It’s mine. My property. And I never give up anything that’s mine. Why do you think the Ballroom is full of my ex-lovers? Because I just can’t bear to let anything go.”

She stood up abruptly, and advanced on me. I stood up to face her, and didn’t retreat. She strode right up to me, and I put up a hand to stop her. She took my hand in both of hers and clutched it tightly. Her hands felt very soft, and very warm, and very strong. She was standing close to me now, only our linked hands separating our two bodies. I could feel the breath from her mouth on mine. Feel the forceful pressure of her breath on my lips. Her eyes stared into mine. She hit me with the full force of her influence, and whether it was the pheromones or her personality, it didn’t matter. I could feel my willpower withering, like a moth in a flame. And there, in that moment, I wanted her like I’d never wanted anything else in my life. But I’d had a lot of experience in wanting things I knew I could never have.

So I did what I always do when I feel threatened. I called up my armour, and it flowed out of the torc at my throat and covered me from head to toe in a moment. Sealing me off from the world, and all the things in it that were a danger to me. The golden strange matter closed over my hand, gently forcing her hands away. And just like that, her power over me was gone. Swept away like a bad dream. She could tell. She stayed where she was, looking at her own face reflected in the featureless golden mask.

“So lovely,” she said. “So lovely.”

And then we both looked round sharply, as a whole bunch of alarms and sirens went off at once.

“Something’s happened, back at the Ballroom!” snapped the Lady Faire, immediately all business again. “That’s the general alarm. Is this more of your doing, Drood?”