by Bec McMaster
Steam curled up from the orchestral pit. Some of the crowd clapped, no doubt thinking it an effect.
“Lynch,” she called sharply.
He looked, then strode to the edge of the box, his white gloves curling over the balcony. Another coughing roar echoed in the theatre below. Steam poured from the gaping gilt mouths of the gargoyles that lined the walls and whispered out from beneath chairs. Several of the blue bloods exclaimed in surprise, looking beneath their seats curiously. One of them fell into a paroxysm of coughing, landing on his knees in the aisle.
It would be a massacre.
“They must have set a timer on them,” Rosalind said, her gaze darting around the theatre.
Lynch shot her a hungry look, then swore under his breath. He ripped his coat off and threw it aside, tugging at the white bow tie around his throat until it eased. A pistol was tucked into the waistband of his trousers in the small of his back, but no other weapon seemed visible.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He stepped up onto one of the plush velvet chairs, then leaped lightly to the edge of the rail. “What I always do,” he said coldly. “My duty.” Glancing over his shoulder, he surveyed the crowd below and the curling wisps of steam. “Consider yourself fortunate the mechs are the greater threat at the moment.”
Rosalind swallowed. He was retreating behind that distant, efficient mask, pretending that nothing in the world was the matter—steel walls closing around his already guarded heart. The taste of shame was so thick she almost choked on it.
The theatre looked like the bowels of hell, frightened screams echoing through the darkened chamber. The singer strode to the edge of the stage and began arguing fiercely with the conductor.
Lynch’s weight shifted. Rosalind darted forward and grabbed the leg of his pants, making him look down in surprise at her.
“Where’s your mask?”
“Does it even work?”
She wanted to hit him she was so furious, but a part of her couldn’t blame him. She’d lied to him all along, why would he trust her?
“It works. Why would I send you in unprepared? I want to set you against the mechs, remember? I wanted you to destroy them.”
“So you did.” With a tight little smile, he straightened and stepped to the edge of the rail. “It’s in my coat.”
Rosalind fetched it swiftly. He hesitated for a moment and she couldn’t stop herself. “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d push you off the damned balcony. Take it!”
His white gloves curled around the tan leather. “You would be wise to use this opportunity to flee. If I see you again, I won’t be so remiss in my duty.”
Then he bowed tightly, a slight tilting of the head to an adversary—to a stranger—and stepped backward off the rail.
Twenty-three
A frightened scream pierced the theatre.
“What’s happening?” a woman called shrilly. “Robert, what’s going on?”
And then, from further back, near the doors. “We’re locked in!” A man yelled. “Someone’s locked the doors!”
Rosalind’s fingers tightened on the rail. A perfect opportunity for her to get away… Why then did the ache in her chest intensify? She didn’t owe him anything. She didn’t owe any of them, but it was Lynch she was suddenly frightened for.
Yes, run and you could get away, a little voice whispered. Run while you still have the chance…
A sweet scent drifted past her nose as the steam rose. The sound of coughing and choking began below. Rosalind hesitated.
Hundreds of blue bloods in the theatre. Lynch didn’t stand a chance by himself. And knowing the man as she did, he wouldn’t back away from the challenge. He’d risk his own damn head at the best of times and now… Now, wasn’t one of those.
Walk away now and she’d never forgive herself.
Rosalind wrenched her reticule open, fighting through the contents until she could drag out her opera glasses. They’d been modified with several different lenses: one that made everything black and white, so that she could view the world as a blue blood did; one that minimized distance, so that it seemed like she stood next to the soprano on the stage; and a phosphorus lens that amplified light, so that one could virtually see in the night, highlighting the faces in the audience below. That was for those theatregoers who were more interested in viewing what was going on around them in the darkened theatre than on stage.
Rosalind snapped the handle off the opera glasses and yanked at her skirts. Dragging her garter down her thigh, she looped it through the edges of the glasses, creating a makeshift pair of goggles. Yanking them over her head, the garter tugging tight at the back of her scalp, she slid the phosphor light-amplifying lens into place and peered over the rail.
The theatre was a green-tinted melee; ladies wilted in the aisles and blue bloods shoved their way toward the door as if escape could save them. One of them leaped onto the stage and rode the opera singer to the ground, her frightened screams piercing the air and then dying abruptly. The bright light from the stage left Rosalind momentarily blind.
Where was Lynch? Her vision blurred, her stomach fluttering with fear. She’d felt this way before: the helplessness, the fear, the guilt… Chained in the darkness while Balfour knelt in front of her and told her that she had five minutes to save her husband.
Taking a deep breath, Rosalind tore her skirts down the sides to free up her movement and then slid her legs over the balcony. Grabbing hold of the polished mahogany, she twisted and let her body fall, the weight dragging at her hands. It was barely a drop for Lynch, but if she landed this wrong, she’d twist her ankle…or worse.
Glancing down, she let herself drop, catching at a gilt gargoyle at the base of the balcony. The goggles skewed perception of distance and she found her fingers slipping. Somehow she turned the fall into a drop, landing on the plush velvet seat of one of the chairs. Thrown off balance, she tumbled into the aisle and rolled out of the way as a blue blood rushed past.
The air was humid here, the taste of the sweet scent stronger. Shoving to her feet, she found herself almost hip-deep in a dense fog. There was no sign of Lynch anywhere. An enormous mob of blue bloods hammered at the heavy bronze doors, cringing away from the steam. They might not know what it was, but they could see the effects clearly enough. Several of them had already succumbed and were hunting debutantes through the seats.
A figure in a white shirt and gleaming silk waistcoat leaped lightly onto a chair back as though it were solid ground and tackled a maddened blue blood lord to the ground as his frightened prey escaped. Lynch. Her breath caught in her chest, but she hesitated, glancing again at the main doors. The steam was rising. If the blue bloods didn’t get out of here, they’d all be stricken with the blood thirst.
Rosalind had to trust that Lynch could take care of himself for the moment. Better one maddened blue blood than an entire theatre full of them.
Lifting her foot onto a chair, she slid her skirts up high enough to retrieve the ladies pistol she kept strapped to her thigh. It was barely the size of her palm, but the firebolt bullets within it were packed with enough chemical to make a blue blood’s head explode on impact.
Shoving grimly into the pack of blue bloods, Rosalind made her way toward the doors, unafraid to use her elbows or wave the pistol in a few faces. Three men strained against the heavy brass doors, stripped to their shirtsleeves.
“Get out of the way,” she snapped, aiming the pistol. “It’s obviously barred from the outside.”
A clever move. Rosalind’s gaze fell on the hinges and she took aim, then fired twice. The hinges, a large section of the door and half the door frame vanished in a small explosion of brass slivers and splinters.
Covering his face with his sleeve as he coughed, one of the men rammed his shoulder against the door. Someone had shoved a heavy bar through the handles on the other side. There was no way to open it, but somehow a pair of the blue bloods managed to pry the outer edge open just wide enough
to slip through.
“Hurrah!” one of the lords cheered, clapping her on the back.
“My thanks,” another blue blood said sincerely, his pale blue eyes wide and frightened.
I didn’t do it for you. But then she stopped, watching as he helped a frightened young woman through the narrow gap. She of all people should know that sometimes the monsters were just as human as the rest of the world.
Rosalind didn’t bother to watch as the first of the crowd slipped through the gap. She had to find Lynch or, barring that, Garrett or Perry.
Something caught her eye as she glanced around the darkened theatre. A tall man flashed through the green-tinted lens of the opera glasses, his rough-hewn face watching something in the chairs intently as he stalked forward.
Mordecai.
Her blood went cold when she realized who he was staring at.
* * *
Lynch ground his teeth together and wrenched the blue blood’s head sharply to the right. A faint crack. Then all of the fight drained out of the man and the body slumped to the floor beneath him.
A thrall in buttercup yellow lay on the carpet between the seats, staring up at him in shock and horror. Blood splashed her skirts and there was a bite mark on her shoulder that would leave a scar. Her lips parted as the blue blood collapsed, then she scrambled to her hands and knees at his side.
“Epson?” she whispered. Her hands began to shake and she looked up at Lynch with wide blue eyes. “You’ve killed him.”
“It was either yourself or him,” he replied, struggling to assuage the bloodlust that roared through his veins. The mask helped. Each breath tasted like sugared buns, but though it stirred his heartbeat, he could control himself.
“Look out!” a woman screamed.
Lynch spun low, ducking between the seats as a man behind him lifted a pistol. The shot went over his head, an enormous chunk of plaster exploding on the wall.
The pistol lowered and Lynch stared down the barrel. The man’s face was rough with stubble, his eyes cold and merciless as he thumbed the hammer back. “Fare thee well, Sir Nighthawk.”
A blur of cream silk came out of nowhere just as the pistol retorted. The pair of them tumbled out of view, but he knew who that had been as surely as he knew his own name.
Rosa.
What the hell was she doing here? And where the hell did that bullet go? There was no sign of struggling, no sign of movement… The anger that had consumed him at her treachery lost its fire, a cold hard knot twisting in his chest.
Leaping over the row of chairs, Lynch skidded to a halt in the aisle. The stranger reached for the pistol on the ground with grim determination—an enormous brute in a workman’s shirt that strained over his enormous shoulders. Scrambling to her knees, Rosa launched herself past the stranger and kicked the pistol under the chairs.
“Curse you,” the stranger snarled, rolling to his feet. “Who’s damned side are you on?”
Rosa straightened, her cool glance shifting past him to settle on Lynch. Just a moment, one that burned him right through. “You want to know what I am? Who I am? Then stay out of this.”
The stranger shot him an uneasy look.
“Where’s my brother, Mordecai?” she asked.
So she had been telling the truth.
If she thought he could stay out of this, she was mistaken. She’d betrayed him, lied to him, made him think there was more between them than there was… But to watch her get hurt was beyond him.
“Ain’t seen ’im,” Mordecai retorted, turning so that he could keep them both in view. “Probably the same place as mine.”
Rosa’s lips thinned. Her expression was tight and focused, so far removed from Mrs. Marberry’s saucy cheer that Lynch suddenly realized he was seeing the reality of who she was. Not Mrs. Marberry. Perhaps not even Mercury. She stood with a self-assurance and determination that were but echoes of the other two women.
Herself.
“I’m sorry about that,” she admitted. “But Mendici went for his gun. I was faster.”
“Aye.” Darkness shadowed Mordecai’s eyes. “But are you faster ’an me?”
He lashed out with a meaty fist. Lynch leaped forward, then stopped as Rosa ducked beneath the blow as if she’d expected it, her elbow locking Mordecai’s arm in place as her metal hand chopped down in a brutal blow against the fellow’s neck. Mordecai roared in pain and drove her into the seats with his shoulder in her midriff.
Rosa drove a knee up, bringing her elbow down between his shoulder blades. Each movement was sparse and economical, lacking the flamboyancy of someone who did this to prove his skill. She could have drawn this out, but instead she aimed for blows that would cripple and maim—the swifter to finish this.
So quick. Mordecai staggered to his feet and Rosa hopped up lightly on the chair to get height, then kicked him in the face. Her skirt tore at the extension of her leg, high and graceful. Mordecai stumbled backward, blood dripping from his nose, but he didn’t go down.
Lynch’s vision dripped between color and black and white. The Doeppler Orbs had dissipated, but he didn’t dare take off the mask. He wanted to step in, to end this, despite the fact that Rosa had matters well in hand. The darkness in him was a gathering storm. For a moment his vision dulled, fury riding through him. This was his woman. His. And he wanted to kill anyone who threatened her.
Their eyes met.
Just long enough for Mordecai to lash out.
Rosa staggered back several steps in the aisle, grinding her teeth against the blow. Lynch dug his fingernails into his palms, fighting every instinct he owned.
Mordecai swung the enormous metal fist of his right arm. Rosa blocked it with her own bio-mech hand, but the force staggered her back into the seats. Light from the stage backlit them as Lynch took a step closer then stopped.
Mordecai flexed his metal fingers. “You hit like a girl.”
Rosa looked up, her eyes black as night. Kicking out, she drove her heel into his kneecap and Mordecai screamed as it shifted.
It should have been the end. But even Lynch was surprised when the huge mech lunged forward in an awkward lurch and drove his enormous body directly into Rosa.
For a moment they hovered on the edge of the orchestra pit, Rosa’s wide, startled eyes meeting Lynch’s and then they were gone. An enormous cacophony of noise drifted up.
“Rosa?” Lynch scrambled to the edge of the pit.
She lay on her back amongst the strings section, wincing as she lifted her hip. Her groping hand found the edge of a brass cymbal and she clenched it in her mech fingers, the edge a dangerous weapon.
Mordecai groaned, flat on his face beside her. Rosa scrambled over him, driving a stockinged knee into his back as she jerked his head back by his hair and pressed the cymbal to his throat. It wasn’t sharp but with enough force…
Lynch leaped down beside her, catching her wrist. “Enough.”
She looked up, black eyes gleaming. In that moment, he saw the coldness in her. She’d have done it. Not because she wanted to, but because it was what she should do—The next step to this.
A trained killer.
He recognized it, even as the coldness faded from her expression, replaced by breathless misery. Because of him. His hand slid from hers, unable to reconcile the woman he saw in front of him with the woman he’d known.
“I need him alive,” he said.
Rosa let go of the cymbal, as if seeming to see it for the first time. Color flooded into her cheeks, emotion heating her expression. He couldn’t read what she was thinking, but at least she was no longer the ruthless assassin he’d caught a glimpse of.
She knew it too. Her dark eyes flickered to his, saw everything he couldn’t hide and looked away. “Of course.”
Ripping out the strings on several violins, he knotted them together and then bound Mordecai’s hands behind his back. The man groaned but didn’t fight it. From the angle of his knee, he wouldn’t be fighting anything soon. Then Lynch sat down a
nd scraped his hand over his face.
What was he going to do?
Fury had died. He felt numb. Numb and so very, very old all of a sudden. The brightness he’d felt whenever he’d been around her had seemed to leech out of him, as if she’d sucked the very soul from him.
I loved you. He looked at her, waiting patiently on her knees, with her hands pressed so tightly together, he felt as if he’d somehow struck her a mortal blow. Dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks, but she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—look at him.
“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Your brother? Only your brother?” Was there ever anything for me?
She toyed with the fingertips of her gloves, a move so reminiscent of Mrs. Marberry that his lungs arrested. Then he shook it off. He couldn’t keep looking for things that weren’t there.
“I swear,” she whispered. “I only ever wanted to find my brother.”
The dull truth of that made the fluttering hope in his chest die. He couldn’t stay here anymore. Shoving to his feet, he buried everything deep inside. This was worse than that moment when he’d realized that Annabelle had played him false. Perhaps it was the healing balm of all those years dulling the memory, or perhaps because he’d finally dared to let himself feel something for someone, only to have it happen again.
Lesson learned.
Face expressionless, he yanked the groaning mech to his feet. At least he had something to show for this night’s efforts, though he knew it wouldn’t appease the prince consort. No, the Council wanted blood. Wanted the woman at his side.
He shoved the mech out of the pit. Jumping up, he caught the lip of it and hauled himself out, ignoring the way she watched him, as if waiting for him to speak.
He had no more words. Only one more night. And he couldn’t see any way out of it for himself. No matter how much she had hurt him, he could never hand her over. His feelings, at least, had been true.
“Lynch,” she whispered, looking up at him. “I’m sorry. I know…I know nothing I say could ever—”