Quicksilver

by Amanda Quick

  Aurelia raised her brows. A thoughtful expression crossed her face. “If that is true, then we will likely be seeing a great deal of business from J & J in the years ahead.”

  Owen angled himself on the corner of his desk. “Precisely. There is never a shortage of monsters to hunt.”

  Aurelia smiled. So did Owen. It was a moment of silent, familial communication and mutual understanding that only another Sweetwater would comprehend. The men of the Sweetwater family were compelled to hunt the monsters. It was the nature of their talent. But they had long ago concluded that it made excellent financial sense to have a client pay for the work whenever possible.

  Aurelia stopped smiling. “As it happens, I came here today to discuss Arcane with you.”

  “What about it?”

  “It seems the Society is now offering a matrimonial consulting service that specializes in introducing people of talent to each other.”

  It took him a split second to realize where the conversation was going. When the full horror of it struck home, he came off the corner of the desk very suddenly.

  “Do not even think about registering me with the Society’s matchmaking agency, Aunt Aurelia,” he said.

  “Oh, I cannot do the registering for you.” She waved that aside, unfazed by his dark mood. “You would have to take care of the details yourself.”

  “I am not about to employ a matchmaker.”

  “My understanding is that Lady Milden, who operates the agency, has a true gift for matching people endowed with strong psychical natures. She has a number of resources to draw on, including Arcane’s extensive genealogical records.”

  “Forget it.” He went to the window and stood looking out at the rain-dampened garden. “I am not interested in that approach.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sweetwaters find their own women.”

  “Except when they don’t,” Aurelia said. She spoke quietly, but the words were heavy with meaning. “We both know what happens when a Sweetwater man goes too long without a true mate.”

  He did not respond. There was no need.

  “You have begun the nightwalking, haven’t you?” Aurelia said quietly.

  A cold chill iced the nape of his neck. The Sweetwaters were very good at keeping secrets from outsiders, but it was damned difficult to keep a secret within the family.

  “I have always hunted at night,” he said, trying to claw his way out of the trap. “Everyone in the family knows that. It’s the nature of my version of the family talent. I see the evidence of the monsters more clearly after dark.”

  “What everyone in the family knows,” Aurelia said, “is that you are spending more and more time on the streets late at night. It is one thing to troll for monsters occasionally. In this family, that passes for sport, rather like fishing. But it is quite another to go out alone night after night, searching for your prey. That way lies madness for a Sweetwater man.”

  “I am not hunting at night for the sport of it. I have a particular client, J & J, and I have a specific target, a psychical maniac who is murdering glasslight-talents.”

  “I realize that you have recently acquired a client, but that is only a short-term diversion. It will not change what is happening to you. Owen, your parents and the rest of the family are starting to worry. If you do not find the right woman soon, you will become a nightwalker.”

  “What makes you think Lady Milden can find me a match?”

  “I am told she is very skilled at what she does. What do you have to lose?”

  “Time,” he said. “Time that I can spend searching for my own true mate.”

  “You said yourself this is the modern era. You should take advantage of modern, more efficient ways of doing things.”

  “I’ll consider it,” he said, lying through his teeth.

  “I will take that as a promise.”

  He swung around. “Damn it, Aunt Aurelia.”

  “I will ignore the bad language this one time, because I am aware that you are under considerable stress.” She went toward the door. “You have wasted too much time already. You must not wait any longer, Owen. Your family does not want to lose you to the night.”

  FIVE

  I do not usually report to clients until the job is finished,” Owen Sweetwater said.

  Caleb angled his chin in acknowledgment of the great favor that Sweetwater appeared to think he was granting to Jones & Jones. In the few months that he and Lucinda had been doing business at the agency, they had discovered that the only people more troublesome than the clients were the powerful and unpredictable talents the firm was obliged to hire in order to conduct the investigations.

  “We appreciate that you are making an exception for us,” Caleb said.

  His cousin Gabe, the Master of the Society, studied Sweetwater with a considering expression.

  “You came highly recommended, Mr. Sweetwater, but please understand that this sort of business is new to us,” Gabe said.

  The three of them were standing in an abandoned warehouse near the docks. Sweetwater had chosen the location for the meeting, just as he had selected the location the first time, when Caleb had contacted him about the possibility of employment. It had become clear immediately that when one engaged the services of the Sweetwater clan, one accepted the arrangements stipulated by the particular Sweetwater with whom one was dealing.

  At the first meeting Caleb had been convinced that Owen Sweetwater was a hunter-talent of some sort but not the traditional variety. The psychical abilities of the average hunter tended to be of a more physical nature. Such talents were usually endowed with preternatural reflexes, speed, hearing and night vision. They hunted by detecting the psychical spoor of their prey.

  Owen Sweetwater moved with a predatory ease and control that put one in mind of a hunter, but Caleb had grown up in a family that boasted a number of hunters sprinkled throughout the bloodline. He knew true hunters, and he was quite certain that whatever Sweetwater was, he was not a traditional hunter-talent.

  “What we want to know,” Caleb said carefully, “is whether you have found any evidence that supports my belief that the two glass-readers were killed by paranormal means. If not, then this case is not J & J’s problem. I will give what information we have to an acquaintance at Scotland Yard. The police can take responsibility for finding the killer.”

  “The way they took responsibility for the murders of an untold number of prostitutes in the past several years?”

  Gabe frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Tomorrow or the following day, you will read of the tragic death of Lord Hollister in the morning papers,” Owen said. “The official cause of his demise will likely be a heart attack or stroke. In reality, he died of a knife in the chest.”

  Caleb raised his brows. “Your work?”

  “I cannot take the credit. I suspect the wife. I found the body when I explored the basement beneath the mansion.”

  “What the devil were you doing in Hollister’s basement?” Gabe asked.

  “That is where my investigation led me,” Owen said a little too smoothly. “What the press will not be aware of is that Hollister preyed on young prostitutes for years. He lured them into his carriage and took them to the basement beneath his mansion, where he raped and murdered them. There is no telling how many he killed. While I was on the premises, I found another girl who was still alive. I took her to the charity house in Elm Street.”

  “I have seen nothing in the papers about missing streetwalkers,” Caleb said.

  “That is because the press rarely notices when girls go missing,” Owen said. “Prostitutes are forever vanishing from the streets. Sometimes they turn up in the river, sometimes they simply disappear. But unless the death is a particularly bloody one, the public has no interest. Hollister was careful to dispose of the bodies so that they did not draw attention.”

  Gabe thought about that. “You say Hollister was a talent?”

  “Yes, I’m sure
of it, possibly a glass-reader.”

  “That is why your investigation led you to his basement,” Caleb said, mentally assembling the pieces of the puzzle. “Was he the one who murdered the glass-readers?”

  “No, but there is some connection between Hollister and the murders of the glass-readers,” Owen said. “My investigation is ongoing.”

  “That does not tell us a great deal,” Gabe said without inflection.

  “I can give you one or two other interesting facts. I came across a rather dangerous psychical weapon disguised as a clockwork curiosity in the Hollister mansion. There may be other such devices out there.”

  Caleb groaned. “I had hoped that the crystal guns that gave us so much trouble in the course of a recent case were the end of our problems with paranormal weaponry.”

  “Evidently not,” Owen said. “I can also tell you that the link between Hollister’s death and the deaths of the glass-readers runs through the Leybrook Institute.”

  Irritation flashed through Caleb. “That damned Institute is rife with charlatans and frauds.”

  “When you consider the matter closely,” Gabe said, “it is the ideal place for a true psychical killer to conceal himself.”

  “A genuine talent hidden among the fakes.” Caleb sighed. “Very clever.”

  “It’s called hiding in plain sight,” Owen said. “The monsters are very good at that.”

  It seemed to Caleb that there was a new chill in the atmosphere. It was not coming from the river or the fog that shrouded the warehouse. It emanated from Owen Sweetwater’s aura. We are doing business with a very dangerous man, he thought.

  “It seems you were right, Caleb,” Gabe said. “But then, you generally are when it comes to this sort of thing.”

  Caleb did not respond. There was nothing to say. He was almost always right when it came to seeing patterns. He was especially skilled at noting the dark evidence that indicated crimes that had been committed by villains endowed with psychical talent. But no one was right one hundred percent of the time. Deep inside, he lived with the knowledge that someday he would miscalculate and innocents might die. It was the theme of his darkest dreams.

  He frowned at Owen. “How do you intend to proceed?”

  Owen shrugged, as if the question had an obvious answer.

  “I will identify the killer and remove him,” he said. “I will then, of course, send you a bill for services rendered.”

  Gabe leaned back against a large, empty wooden cask and folded his arms. “A simple plan.”

  “I have always found that they work best,” Owen said. “Now, then, I am rather busy at the moment. If there is nothing else, I trust you will excuse me.”

  He turned and walked away through the deep shadows at the back of the warehouse. In a moment he was gone.

  Gabe watched the darkness where Sweetwater had vanished. “I do not think that he told us everything he knows.”

  “You can place a wager on that assumption,” Caleb agreed.

  “He’s one of us, though, isn’t he?”

  “A hunter?” Caleb said. “Yes, I’m sure of it. But he is not like any hunter-talent I have ever met.”

  “How do you think he hunts?”

  “From what little I have learned about him, I suspect that he has the ability to discern what it is that compels the killer. Once he knows that, he can make some predictions.”

  “Such as the possible identity of the killer’s next victim?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if he’s wrong?”

  “Then I was wrong to employ him,” Caleb said. “If another innocent glass-reader dies, I will bear a good portion of the blame.”

  “No,” Gabe said. “You took the only step you could take to try to stop the person who is murdering the glass-readers. And as the Master of the Society, I authorized the hiring of Sweetwater for this venture. It was, I believe, a very logical move. We are sending a man who hunts monsters out to hunt his natural prey.”

  Caleb exhaled slowly. “What gives us the right to do such a thing?”

  “Damned if I know,” Gabe said. “But if J & J doesn’t go after the psychical villains, who will? It is not as if the police are equipped to track down killers who are endowed with paranormal talents.”

  “No.”

  “I would remind you this is not an act of pure altruism on our parts,” Gabe said. “Our survival and the survival of those like us may well be at stake. Arcane has a great interest in protecting the public from the monsters.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  At the moment, the press and the public were fascinated by the paranormal. But if it became common knowledge that there were those who could use their psychical abilities to commit murder, the popular interest would transmute instantly into panic.

  Gabe strode toward the door. “As long as I am Master, I will do everything in my power to ensure that we do not return to the days when those with even a scrap of paranormal talent were branded as witches and sorcerers. If that means occasionally hiring a psychical assassin, so be it.”

  Caleb fell into step beside him. “You have certainly become a good deal more obsessed with protecting the members of the Society and future generations of talents since Venetia delivered your firstborn last month.”

  Gabe opened the door and moved out into the fog-shrouded night. “It is astonishing how becoming a father focuses one’s priorities.”

  SIX

  Owen went up the steps of the modest town house in Garnet Lane, keenly aware of the sense of anticipation that had been whispering through him all morning. The prospect of seeing Virginia again energized him in ways that probably should have been deeply disturbing or at least mildly concerning. It was invariably a mistake to allow himself to give free rein to any strong emotion when he was on the hunt. The Sweetwaters were a notoriously passionate lot. A side effect of their talents, some said. But indulging in strong passions while hunting violated all of the family rules.

  Virginia Dean was proving to be the exception to every rule he had lived by for all of his life.

  The door at the top of the steps opened before he could knock more than twice. Mrs. Crofton, the housekeeper, stood before him. She was a tall woman in her late thirties, garbed in a gray housedress trimmed with a white, crisply starched apron. A neatly pleated white cap covered most of her tightly pinned blond hair. There was a mix of curiosity and veiled assessment in her blue eyes. He knew from their initial encounter that she was not accustomed to finding a man on her employer’s front steps. The knowledge that Virginia did not, apparently, receive a lot of gentlemen callers pleased him more than he wanted to admit.

  “You’re back, then, Mr. Sweetwater,” Mrs. Crofton said.

  Her voice was laced with the cool, professional accents of a woman who at one time or another had served in a far more exclusive household. He wondered how she had come to work for an employer who was obliged to go out into the world to earn a living. Housekeepers and others in service were as concerned with their social status as everyone else. The social standing of one’s employer mattered.

  “I believe I am expected.” He gave her his card.

  “Yes, sir. Miss Dean said you would be calling today, sir. She will see you.” Mrs. Crofton stepped back and held out a hand for his hat and gloves. “I’ll show you into her study.”

  When she closed the door, a heavy gloom descended on the front hall. It took him a moment to realize that there was no mirror on the wall over the console as was commonplace in many homes, to add the illusion of light and space.

  He followed Mrs. Crofton down a narrow corridor and into a snug, book-lined study. The window at the far end overlooked a small, attractive garden. There was a mirror in this room, he noted. It looked new.

  Virginia was seated behind a compact rolltop desk. She looked up, pen in hand. For a heartbeat, he just looked at her, fascinated by the way the morning light burnished her red-and-gold hair.

  “Mr. Sweetwater to see you, ma’am,
” Mrs. Crofton announced.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Crofton,” Virginia said. She put aside the pen. “Please sit down, Mr. Sweetwater.”

  Mrs. Crofton hesitated in the doorway. “Will you be wanting tea, ma’am?”

  Virginia looked suddenly uncertain. Having faced the same weighty question earlier that day, Owen smiled to himself. Offering tea was a silent way of inviting a guest to linger longer than might otherwise be necessary. Virginia’s decision would provide him with a clue to how she viewed their association.

  “Yes, please,” Virginia said with an air of sudden decision. “Thank you, Mrs. Crofton.”

  He had his answer, Owen thought. Virginia was still wary of him, but she had accepted the fact that she could no longer avoid him. Serving tea did not mean that she would cooperate fully, but it was a silent acknowledgment that they were bound together, if only temporarily, by the events of the night.

  Mrs. Crofton closed the door. Owen sat down in a chair facing the desk and the window.

  “I must admit I’m curious to know how you explained your late return home last night to your housekeeper,” he said.

  “I simply said that I had been detained at the client’s house longer than expected.” Virginia indicated the copy of the Flying Intelligencer on top of the desk. “There is nothing on Hollister’s death in the morning papers, so Mrs. Crofton has no reason to ask any questions.”

  “Do not be too sure of that. In my experience, housekeepers always know more than anyone realizes. The reason there is no gossip yet is because, as of midnight last night, no one except us and the killer was aware that Hollister was dead. For all we know the body is still down there in that chamber, waiting to be discovered. When it does appear in the papers, the death will no doubt be attributed to natural causes.”

  “Yes, of course. The family will make certain of it. They will not want the scandal of a murder investigation, especially if the killer was the wife, as we suspect.”

  “No.”

  Virginia clasped her hands on the blotter. “Given that no high-ranking family wants to become involved with the police, I cannot understand why someone tried to arrange matters so that I would be found at the scene of the murder with a knife in my hand.”