David was a small man by anyone's standard. They fit, face-to-face, lying in one another's arms, although Jack gave them a doubtful glance before he settled the lid. "Breathe shallowly," he joked, hefting the hammer.
"I shan't breathe at all," Sebastien reminded.
"Right. This is insane, you realize." Sebastien disdained to answer, instead watching Jack's face as wood ground on wood. The last words he said, before his eyes vanished, were, "And no talking."
No, they did not speak.
But that didn't stop David from silently, stealthily, nuzzling his face into Sebastien's throat and working his fangs into the soft flesh there. Sebastien gasped, first at pain like flame and then pleasure, and somehow scraped his hand through the narrow pace between David's back and the lid so he could knot his fingers in David's hair. He bit his lip, and did not cry out, while they rode in the bumping coffin.
* * *
Sebastien quickly came to understand that something was wrong, and to judge by the tension in David's gripping hands, he knew it too. The carriage ride—balanced atop a hired hack whose driver, Sebastien judged, must have been in tight financial straits indeed to venture out on such a day—was longer than it should have been, punctuated by a great deal of pausing and hurrying and the clatter of iron-shod wheels on cobblestones.
He heard shouting, once, and the neigh of a frantic horse—not the hack's gelding, he didn't think—and by his estimation it was almost two hours before the coffin was unloaded, and the lid cracked open. Sebastien flinched from the light for a moment, his eyes adapted to the dark, and fought the ridiculous urge to sit bolt upright and take a deep, cold, unnecessary breath. But David jerked himself back and rocketed to his feet with unsubtle, inhuman grace. And Sebastien, knowing where he was by the scent, arose with better dignity.
He found himself, surprisingly but now not unexpectedly, looking into the eyes of Miss de Courten. "I see," he said. "And how came we here?"
"We were too late for Chouchou," Abby Irene said, from beside her. "I'm sorry. I thought it best we not be discovered there."
"Indeed," Sebastien said, straightening his collar. The marks of David's teeth would have already vanished. "And how did you think to come here?"
Phoebe touched his arm. David, catlike, was still attempting to straighten his crumpled demeanor. "There were patrolmen at my house when we came within sight," she said. "Discretion being presumed the better part of valor, Jack directed us here."
". . .Jack?"
Jack, who had been pacing fretfully to the window and back again, peeking around drawn curtains each time, looked over his shoulder and licked his lips. "I know where you go."
"Oh," Sebastien said. He turned to Miss de Courten.
She tipped her head, a lovely feminine shrug. "Perhaps you could manage the introductions, John?"
His manners were slipping. He was not, he admitted, at his best. "I beg your pardon," he said, and obliged. That responsibility dispensed with, he redirected his attention to Phoebe. "Patrolmen. At your house."
Miss de Courten cleared her throat, quite daintily. "There are broadsides," she said. "Wanted posters. All over the city."
"I think we should consider ourselves fugitives until further notice," Phoebe said.
"Wanted posters for all of us?"
"Just for Don Sebastien de Ulloa, wampyr. For the murder of three young vagrants. It seems that the governor has found a scapegoat for his son." Phoebe fiddled with her eyeglasses. "The drawing doesn't look a thing like you, though."
"Oh dear," he said. "I'm so sorry. Miss de Courten, I shall be on my way with sunset, if you'll agree to risk yourself for so long. As for the rest of you—"
Jack nodded. "You know how to find me. I'll look out for the rest."
He took Phoebe's hand and squeezed it, as she was about to protest.
Abby Irene examined him for some time, expressionless, before she nodded—once. She knew as well as Sebastien that he would travel faster and more safely alone.
"If I may," she said, and unbuttoned her collar. "You can't know when you'll have the chance again, and I imagine I'm freshest."
The rest of his court avoided his eyes as he sought—what, their approval? their permission?—and of course Abby Irene was right. Normally, he would not drink from the throat; he did not care to leave visible scars. But then there were the bounds of public behavior to consider, here in a room with five others, some of whom were strangers to Abby Irene if they were not, quite, to