by Amanda Quick
“You.”
“Indeed.” Virginia sat down behind her desk.
Owen lowered himself into one of the reading chairs with a fluid, masculine grace that struck Virginia as decidedly sensual. She realized that he had brought an aura of energy into the room that stirred her senses.
“Have you considered letting Mrs. Crofton go and perhaps replacing her with an employee who might not be so concerned with her own social status?” he asked.
She took a grip on her overheated imagination and forced herself to pay attention to the conversation.
“That would be quite impossible,” she explained. “Those in service are every bit as concerned with their social standing as those who move in society. Besides, Mrs. Crofton is an excellent housekeeper. I am very fortunate to have her.”
Laughter glittered in Owen’s eyes. “I have the impression she is well aware of that.”
Virginia sighed. “Yes, and there is no doubt but that she can do better than this household. In fact, between you and me, I am quite certain that I will not have her much longer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She received a letter earlier this week. I could not help but notice the return address. The letter was from the Billings Agency. That is the agency that sent her to me. I have a feeling that Mrs. Billings now has a better post to offer Mrs. Crofton. But enough of my domestic problems. Did you learn anything when you examined the clockwork carriage?”
“A few things,” he said, “but I’m not sure any will prove helpful. The quality of the materials used to construct the device and the fine detailing are reminiscent of some of the elaborate clockwork curiosities crafted during the Renaissance. That leads me to believe that the person who created the carriage considers himself to be a true artist.”
“But the carriage is a weapon, not a work of art.”
“The distinction between the artist and the armorer has not always been obvious. During the Renaissance, fine weapons were produced that were also masterpieces of craftsmanship. There is a long tradition of swords and armor and daggers that are encrusted with jewels and detailed with gold.”
“Have you started searching for the clock maker?”
“I’ve asked my cousin Nicholas Sweetwater to pursue that angle of the investigation.”
“There are no doubt a great many clock makers in London.”
“Yes,” he said. “But Nick has a talent for that sort of hunting.”
Owen went home an hour later, satiated by the excellent tea and tarts that Mrs. Crofton had served, and energized by the time spent with Virginia. He could grow accustomed to calling regularly on Number Seven Garnet Lane, he reflected.
NINE
Owen returned to Garnet Lane that evening in an anonymous hired carriage. Virginia was waiting for him. She wore a hooded cloak against the chill of the night. He sensed the mix of excitement and foreboding that animated her. When he took her gloved hand to assist her into the carriage he could have sworn that electricity sparked between them. The hair stirred on the nape of his neck.
They spoke little on the drive to the quiet street where Mrs. Ratford had rented a small house, but Owen was intensely conscious of Virginia’s nearness the entire time. He would have given a great deal to know if she felt the same sense of awareness.
When they reached their destination he sent the carriage on its way. There would be other cabs about later, when they left the scene of the murder.
There was an empty, shuttered feeling about the house where Mrs. Ratford had died. The curtains were drawn closed across the windows.
“You’re certain there is no one home?” Virginia asked.
“I checked again earlier today. The house is still vacant. The rumors concerning the former occupant’s death have probably made it difficult to attract new tenants. Prospective renters are no doubt reluctant to move into a house in which the previous resident may have been dispatched by spirits from the Other Side.”
Virginia looked at him. A gas lamp burned close by in the mist, but he could not see her face clearly. Her features were shadowed by the hood of her cloak.
“There are always rumors about those of us who read mirrors,” she said. “Many people are convinced that we see ghosts and spirits. They do not understand that what we perceive are simply afterimages caught in the glass. Mirrors are nothing more than paranormal cameras that capture some of the energy given off at the time of death or near death.”
“I understand.”
They went down the alley behind Number Fourteen. Owen opened the gate that guarded the tiny garden. They went up the back steps. Owen inserted the lock pick into the kitchen door. The lock gave way immediately.
“May I ask where one buys that sort of tool?” Virginia asked.
He smiled a little at the bright curiosity in her voice.
“This particular pick was crafted by one of my uncles. He has a knack for that sort of thing.”
“Yours is an interesting family, sir.”
“That is certainly one way to describe my relatives.” He opened the door and listened for a moment with all of his senses. “Still vacant.”
Virginia moved past him to enter the house. He heard the soft, sultry swish of the ruffles at the hem of her gown as they brushed across the toe of his boot. Her scent briefly clouded his mind. He was aroused not just by the anticipation of the hunt but by the woman who shared it with him tonight.
He followed her into the narrow hall, closed the door and turned up the lantern he had brought along. The light did little to alleviate the heavy gloom.
“Death always affects a house, doesn’t it?” Virginia looked around. “One can sense it in the atmosphere.”
“Yes. Which is why so many people find it easy to believe in ghosts.”
“What, exactly, are we looking for?” she asked.
“Something, anything, that will give us a clue to how Mrs. Ratford was killed. I went through this house, and Mrs. Hackett’s as well, shortly after I accepted the case. I am certain that both deaths were caused by paranormal means, but I do not think the killer was present at the time of the actual murders. He has come and gone on several occasions since the murders, however.”
“You can detect those sorts of details so plainly?”
“It is the nature of my talent, Virginia,” he said, willing her to understand and accept the compulsion that drove him.
Virginia said nothing. She halted in the doorway of the small parlor. “There is a mirror over the fireplace. I may be able to discern something in the glass.”
Owen stood behind her and waited. The light of the lantern flashed on the mirror, casting ominous shadows around the room.
Virginia walked forward and stopped in front of the fireplace. Her eyes met his in the darkly silvered glass. He felt the atmosphere heat and knew that she had raised her talent.
She turned her full attention on the mirror, gazing into it as though into another dimension. She concentrated intently, not speaking for a time.
A moment later she lowered her talent and turned to face him with eyes that were still filled with mysteries.
“The mirror has been hanging above the fireplace for a very long time,” she said. “There are certainly shadows in it but nothing distinct. Certainly nothing of violent death.”
“That makes sense. The body was found upstairs in a bedroom. There is a mirror on the dressing table.”
They went back out into the hall and up the narrow staircase.
“I noticed that the mirror over your own mantel is new,” he said.
“I purchased it when I rented the house. There was an old one in that room and another in the front hall. I removed both of them.”
“You do not like old mirrors?”
“Looking glasses absorb energy over the years. The old ones hold a lot of shadows. I find them disturbing.”
“Yet Mrs. Ratford kept the old one in this house.”
“Perhaps she could not afford to replace it. It is a
lso possible that it did not bother her greatly. She had some talent, but she was not a very strong glass-reader. Only powerful glasslight-talents find old mirrors disturbing.”
At the top of the stairs they paused. The light of the lantern revealed three doors. Two stood open. The one at the far end of the hall was closed.
“That is the room where she died,” Owen said.
They both heard the muffled scraping, clanking noise at the same time. It came from the nearest open doorway.
“What in the name of heaven?” Virginia whispered.
Owen angled the lantern for a closer look. An elegantly made mechanical dragon appeared from the darkened room. The clockwork device was the size of a small dog. Its segmented tail, set with crystals, snaked from side to side. Long, gilded claws rasped on the floor. The glass eyes radiated a cold, compelling paranormal fire.
“Another one of those damned weapons,” Owen said. “Where the hell did that come from? It wasn’t here the last time I visited this house.”
He seized Virginia’s arm and started to haul her back toward the staircase.
She moved willingly and with some speed, but it was too late.
A dark fog descended. The nightmare exploded around him, inundating the hall with hellish visions from a madman’s fevered dreams. The dead and the dying descended on him, mouths open in silent screams.
TEN
All the terrible shadows that Virginia had seen in mirrors since she had first come into her talent at the age of thirteen prowled the eerie mist that filled the hall. The dying stared at her with horrified, dread-filled eyes, as if they somehow sensed that she bore witness to their deaths. They did not plead for her to save them. They knew there was no hope. They asked for something else from her, something she could almost never provide: justice.
The ghastly visions whirled around her. She was suddenly dizzy. Her stomach roiled. For an instant she thought she would be ill, and then she realized she could not orient herself in the strange fog. There was no way to distinguish up from down. If she put one foot wrong she might tumble down the staircase that she could no longer see.
A voice came out of the mist, edged with the grim determination of a man who is hanging on to sanity by sheer force of will.
“Hallucinations,” Owen rasped. “Get down. This energy is so thick we won’t be able to find the stairs.”
He used the grip on her arm to pull her down onto her knees and then into a sitting position beside him. They locked hands and scrambled backward, feeling their way, until they came up against a hard surface. The wall, Virginia thought. At least she now had a sense of direction.
“It’s glasslight energy,” she said. “The same energy that was infused in the clockwork carriage. But there’s so much of it. It’s as if I’m trapped in a nightmare. I can’t lower my talent.”
“Neither can I,” Owen said. “Too much stimulation. The radiation is so intense, it’s electrifying our senses.”
“This thing is a far more powerful weapon than the carriage.”
“I think the carriage was designed to induce unconsciousness. This device was made to kill.”
“Or drive one to one’s death,” Virginia said.
“Can you control it? If not, we’re going to have to feel our way to the staircase.”
“I am doing my best.”
She strained to concentrate her senses in an effort to perceive some image in the mist that she knew was real. The horrific visions blurred and faded slightly. The clockwork dragon came back into view. It wavered in and out of focus as it slithered, scraped and clanked toward her.
“Much better,” Owen said. “A little closer and I will be able to kick it over.”
The device halted several feet away. The nightmarish scenes flickered on and off like visions in some ghostly magic lantern show.
“Not close enough,” Owen said. “But given the erratic way in which it is generating energy now, I may be able to reach it.”
She felt him shift beside her and knew that he was about to push himself away from the wall.
“Wait,” she said quickly. “I’ve managed to neutralize some of the energy, but if you get too close, it will get a better fix on you. Right now it appears to be confused.”
“You speak of the damn thing as though it were alive. It’s just a machine, a bloody damn clock.”
“I’m aware of that, thank you very much,” she snapped.
“Right,” Owen said, his tone suddenly very neutral. “Sorry.”
This was hardly the best moment for a quarrel, she thought. She concentrated on holding the currents steady.
“I believe the problem from the machine’s point of view is that we are touching each other,” she said. She tightened her hand around Owen’s gloved fingers and pressed her shoulder more firmly against his. “Our auras are overlapping. I think we appear to be a single entity to the dragon.”
“A single entity with two auras. It can’t get a strong fix.”
“Yes, I think so. But I cannot hold it still much longer. Let’s remove our gloves. Perhaps we can increase the confusion with skin-to-skin contact.”
“Worth a try.”
Arms linked, they each stripped off a glove. Seconds later Owen’s powerful bare hand closed firmly around Virginia’s fingers. A shock of awareness shivered through her. The surging currents of masculine energy thrilled her. It seemed to her that she was drawing power from him, as if the currents of her aura were now carried along on the rush of Owen’s energy field. Like a swimmer taking advantage of a powerful ocean wave, she thought. She should have been terrified, but the unfamiliar sensation was exhilarating. Because it is connected to Owen.
On the heels of that thought came another: What is happening here between us?
But there was no time to try to understand the sense of intimate connection that she was experiencing. The dragon’s energy was becoming increasingly violent.
She drew on the link with Owen to heighten her talent and intensify her focus. Underneath the waves of raw power that she was wielding, she sensed a danger, one she had never before encountered. Like the swimmer riding the crest of the wave, she had to remain in control of the dazzling white-hot storm she had created. She did not know for certain what would happen if she failed, but her intuition warned her that if she lost her focus for even a second, she and Owen would both drown in the raging sea of energy.
For a heartbeat or two it seemed that the effort was not working. But in the next breath the room steadied around them. The visions did not evaporate entirely, but they faded to ghostly images. The eyes of the clockwork dragon continued to spark and flash with ominous light, but the death masks in the magic lantern show that filled the hall grew pale and erratic.
“Let’s approach it together,” Owen said. “With luck, it will remain confused.”
Hands tightly clasped, they pushed themselves to their feet against the wall. Virginia kept up a high level of dampening energy. They waited a moment. When the paranormal storm did not flare up again, they moved toward the dragon.
When he got within range, Owen lashed out with one booted foot. The dragon toppled onto its side, glass eyes rattling in their sockets in an attempt to obtain another focus on its target. Virginia breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the dreadful hallucinations evaporated.
“I am no longer seeing visions,” she said.
“Neither am I,” Owen said. “Let’s get this damn thing deactivated.”
Keeping his grip on Virginia’s hand, he stripped off his other glove and crouched beside the device. He moved his fingers over the enameled body of the dragon and pressed a spot on the side. The back of the device opened on small hinges, revealing a complicated clockwork mechanism. Owen reached into the beast and did something to the metal innards. The dragon’s gilded claws froze in midair. Its eyes went dark as the energy inside faded.
In the eerie stillness that settled in the hall, Virginia was suddenly conscious of the rapid beat of her own pulse and
an edgy sensation. She was acutely aware that Owen still gripped her hand. Little frissons continued to crackle through her, jangling her senses, arousing them in unfamiliar ways.
Owen released her fingers. The strange sensations dimmed a little, but they did not vanish altogether. She was certain that if Owen touched her again the thrilling feelings would flare up at once. She took a step back, putting some distance between herself and Owen, who seemed oblivious to the stirring energy in the atmosphere.
“I’ve got the key,” Owen said. He slipped it into the pocket of his coat. “I’m certain the device won’t operate now until it is rewound.”
“Like a clock?”
“Exactly like a clock.” Owen inspected the insides of the dragon. “And an elegantly made one, at that. Our clock maker spares no expense when it comes to materials.”
“Why on earth would anyone leave such an expensive device in an empty house?”
“It is hardly likely to be stolen,” Owen pointed out. “The average housebreaker would not survive an encounter with this toy.”
“True. Which implies that someone left it behind to guard the premises.”
Owen gave that a few seconds of close thought. “But it was not on guard when I came here the first time. That means that on one of his return visits the killer realized that someone else had been inside. He set the dragon to make certain that any future intruder would not survive.”
“He is protecting something that is very important to him.”
“I found nothing of value here on my first visit.” Owen got to his feet and looked at the closed door at the end of the hall. “I overlooked something. We must find out what there is in this house that warrants such an exotic guardian.”
ELEVEN
Owen collected the lantern and walked to the end of the hall, very aware of Virginia beside him. His senses were still on fire from whatever had just happened between them a few minutes ago. Had she felt that compelling intimacy, too?