“I’m a daredevil adventurer in service to a masked vigilante.”
Cedric’s bark of laughter drew a surprised glance from Koepp and a deep frown from Marlowe. “You are a hoot!” he exclaimed. “Let me guess which one… masked, eh? I bet you work with The Darkling. Am I right?”
“I really can’t say,” Li answered softly. “I took an oath.”
Cedric reached out and patted her leg just above the knee. “A daredevil,” he said, shaking his head. “I like that in a woman.”
Li stood up, eliciting a look of disappointment from Cedric. “I’ll be back,” she said. “I’d like to get to know the rest of our family, if I could.” Before Cedric could respond, Li had sat herself down across from Marlowe.
The sour-faced man looked up from his game of solitaire. “Only a few more hours,” he said.
“Oh, I know!” Li leaned forward, her eyes twinkling. “Are you excited?”
Marlowe tugged at his moustache. “I don’t get excited.”
“Too bad for your wife.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, looking shocked.
Li decided not to pursue her little joke. “Well, I’m thrilled. It’s so great to not only be a part of this… but to meet new members of my family!”
“Yes. It is… most interesting.”
“Married? Any kids?”
Marlowe harrumphed and put down the card he had been waiting to play. “No and no.”
Li nodded. “What are you going to do with your share of the loot?”
“The estate,” Marlowe corrected, “Is quite substantial from what I have been told. But seeing it split five ways might reduce it quite a bit. Since I don’t have any ideas about Maxwell’s exact worth, it’s difficult to project my future plans.”
Li tapped her chin. “You’re lying.”
“What? How dare you-!”
“I just mean that you strike me as a very careful, methodical person. Heck, you’ve been contemplating where to put that one card since I first arrived! And you just said you’re not the excitable type… so you wouldn’t go to something like this without having fully thought out all the angles.”
Marlowe said nothing for a moment. When he did speak, his tone had softened somewhat and he seemed to view her through new eyes. “For a woman, you’re very clever. Yes, I have plans for my part of the fortune. Over the years, I’ve become quite the gambler. It’s my one vice and I like to study the odds long and hard before I place my bet. Sometimes I win… and sometimes I lose. Unfortunately, I’ve had more of the latter of late.”
“You’d pay off some debts, you mean?”
“Yes. And then I’d translate what I had left into even greater wealth!” Marlowe confidentially lowered his voice. “I know of a sure thing, you see.”
Li looked impressed. Inside, she was anything but. So far, she knew that Cedric wanted to become a famous business leader and Marlowe needed a quick influx of cash to handle his gambling debts. That meant one or both might be willing to bump off the competition… but there was no indication that they had or would.
Li excused herself from the conversation without much effort, since Marlowe was keen to get back to his game. The last man in the room was Koepp, who had by this time moved over to an antique vase that rested on a pedestal just inside the doorway.
“Is that worth much?”
Koepp didn’t bother looking in her direction. “Why do you ask? Planning to steal it?”
Li’s acting skills weren’t quite good enough to hide her anger. “I wouldn’t want to horn in on your action. You’ve been casing the place for hours!”
Koepp turned, a smug look on his face. His hairless skull shone in the firelight. “I happen to be an art appraiser.”
“I thought you were just money hungry.”
“No. That would describe the rest of you, I would think.” Koepp leaned closer. “Where I come from, people like you knew their place. And it wasn’t in the house.”
“What do you mean?” Li asked, though she knew very well what he was implying.
“I mean that all families have a chink or a nigger in the woodpile but usually they stay out in the servants’ quarters.”
What happened next was such a blur that neither Cedric nor Marlowe truly witnessed it. Li’s fist shot forward, slamming into Koepp’s nose. The bald man fell back, knocking the vase to the floor, where it shattered into a dozen ceramic shards. Blood streamed from Koepp’s wounded proboscis and he cupped it with his hands.
“You little whore!” he shouted. He drew his own hand back, intending to slap her across the face, but Cedric caught his elbow and held it firm.
“That’s enough!” Cedric shouted. Glaring at Marlowe, he added, “I don’t know what you said to provoke her but I have no doubt that you were a cad. Apologize.”
“Never! Unhand me!”
Cedric drew even closer and his expression became one of tremendous threat. “I’d think about that if I were you.”
Koepp withered under the force of the other man’s presence. In a low voice, he said, “I apologize for offending you, Miss Yuchun.”
Li was rubbing her injured knuckles but she managed to nod her head in acceptance.
Cedric shoved Koepp away, adding, “Maybe you should wait in your room until the lawyer calls for us.”
Koepp exited the room, still holding his bleeding nose. The look he shot Li was one that promised vengeance.
“You’d better stay close to me,” Cedric warned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to frighten you again. May I ask what he said-?”
“I’d rather not get into it.”
“Of course.” Cedric kindly led her back to the seat next to the fireplace. “There’s a wonderfully stocked bar in the corner. Can I get you something?”
Li’s smile returned. Her estimation of Cedric had gone up slightly since his gallant response so she didn’t see how a drink could hurt. “I’d love one. Thank you.”
Gravedigger felt like she was at home, wandering through the overgrown cemetery. In just a few months, she’d killed more than her fair share of criminals… already, her name was becoming a common one on the lips of the underworld’s major figures. Unlike Doc Daye or Lazarus Gray, she wasn’t going to throw the various mob bosses into jail… she was putting them six feet under.
Of course, it had almost been the other way around when Meeks’ apartment had exploded. She and The Peregrine had been thrown nearly half a block by the force of the portal’s closing. When Charity had woken up, her uniform had been in tatters and her left arm had been broken in a half dozen places.
Max had been even worse, bleeding from a number of shrapnel-induced wounds. The police and fire department were both arriving and she’d been able to drag him to a nearby alleyway, where she had waited for Mitchell to pick them both up.
The authorities were uncertain as to the cause of the explosion but in the end, they didn’t care to pursue the matter. To them, all that mattered was that Meeks was dead. The museum had been upset about the loss of its treasure, of course, but all in all, it seemed to all be resolved.
Gravedigger’s recovery had been rapid — far more than it should have been. She had done all she could to help Max but in the end, he had returned to Atlanta to recuperate.
The experience had unnerved Li more than it had Charity. She and Mitchell both thought that Charity should take some time off — that she was moving so quickly that they feared she might still be in shock.
They didn’t understand, though. She had no time to waste — the clock was ticking, every day bringing her closer to Judgment.
Something had tickled in the back of her brain when she’d first seen this cemetery and she knew that it was important to investigate it. Li would be fine, she reasoned — the girl could certainly maintain her composure no matter what happened.