Forged by Desire (London Steampunk Book 4)

by Bec McMaster

  “Someone’s there!” she yelled, holding her arm up and pointing her wrist toward the railing. The pistol strapped there jolted forward into her palm, the magazine whirring as the mechanism readied itself. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!”

  The ring around her thumb tightened as she curled it toward her palm. Almost enough tension to pull the trigger. The footsteps receded and Perry swore, darting around the swinging winch as she tried to get a better vantage.

  “Strike me blind,” Byrnes cursed, rolling to his feet. “I’ll go up after him. Cover the other set of steps. He has to come down somehow.”

  Perry ran toward the filtration devices at the back of the factory, her boots echoing the fleeing footsteps. It was darker back here, the enormous glass beakers distorting the shadows. She slowed, one hand dropping to the knife at her hip and her other wrist leading, with the wrist pistol pointing up into the darkness. The footsteps had slowed too. She couldn’t see through the thin tin sheeting, though.

  “Byrnes?” she called.

  In the distance she heard him hammering up the stairs toward the walkway. “Got him covered.”

  Above her a shadow rippled along the wall. Perry ducked to the side, moving silently. The shadow took a step, almost as if he was aware of her. What the hell is he doing?

  Moving slowly, as if…as if he was luring her forward…

  Perry froze, gently placing her foot down. The moment she did, a grinding noise sounded in the walls and she felt the floor give way beneath her.

  “Byrnes!” she screamed as she vanished into the darkness below.

  Nine

  Garrett spent most of the afternoon going through the paperwork on the Keller-Fortescue case in his study—or Lynch’s study. It still bore the echo of the former Master of the Nighthawks, from the heavy, leather-bound tomes that lined the bookshelves to the case files he still hadn’t managed to put away and the ebony-framed map of the Empire that hung over the fireplace.

  Scraping at the stubble on his chin, Garrett tried to clear his mind. The press had been dealt with and Hayes had made a brief report earlier. Miss Keller’s only link to the East End was a charity she dealt with—a lending library for impoverished children. Miss Fortescue had never set foot in the place. Not a single person had seen them disappear from their homes.

  As for the Russians, they’d arrived in England three days before the tour through the factory. He had a list of events they’d attended and was trying to match them against functions either of the girls had been to.

  Garrett rubbed at his temples. He was reaching the point where the facts were becoming a useless jumble of information. God, he was tired. Every time he shut his eyes he could almost feel the dreams sucking him under.

  Concentrate.

  Miss Keller had died in the early hours of Monday morning, which at least gave him a timeline. Now he just needed to question the Russian party to discover where they’d been at the time of the murder.

  The tick of the clock was a slow beat that only highlighted the silence. Garrett could stand it no more. He lowered his hand from his eyes and glared at the stacked bookshelves. If he couldn’t damn well sleep or think, then it seemed past time to rid himself of at least one ghost.

  Hours later, a swift rap at the door drew his attention. Books were stacked in piles by the door, along with all of Lynch’s collection of necessities—lamps, maps, and even his inkwell. The room was bare.

  “Come in,” he called, dumping another pile of books by the door.

  Doyle’s eyebrow arched when he saw the mess. “We’ve got maids for this sort o’ thing.”

  “Excellent. Have them box the books and all of the duke’s personal belongings, and send them his way. I want the case files returned to the filing room and all these shelves swept clear of dust.”

  Doyle’s gaze slowly took in the bare furnishings. “There’s been a call of distress come in via telegraph from the garrison on Hart Street.” He held out the small rolled sheaf that the message was printed on.

  Hart Street. A ring of cold circled the back of Garrett’s neck. The garrison was close to the draining factories. Tearing the piece of parchment open, he scraped his thumb over the small black ink letters.

  Urgent attention: Guild Master. Nighthawk missing at draining factory five. Request immediate assistance.

  “No,” he whispered under his breath, knowing instantly who the missive had come from. Perry would have used longer sentences—and names. “No, no, no.” He snatched his coat off the back of a chair and swung it over his shoulders, his gut tight with dread.

  “Sir?” Doyle called. “Do you want the carriage?”

  “I’ll go on foot.” It would be quicker over the rooftops. He was moving, throwing the words over his shoulder. “Send a regiment of Nighthawks to the factory, and tell them they have twenty minutes to get there or I’ll have their heads.”

  ***

  Sensation returned slowly, pain spearing through the back of her skull. Perry blinked and carefully lifted her head. Her vision swam, and when she pressed her fingertips to the back of her scalp, they came away sticky. Blood.

  Where the devil was she? A gaslight flickered, highlighting a long, narrow room. An enormous steel examination table dominated the room, the gaslight gleaming on its edges. The moment she saw it, she rolled to her hands and knees, cold dread spiraling through her. Her stomach lurched at the movement, but Perry fought to stay upright.

  The man—the killer, she suspected—running overhead. The floor giving way. Hitting hard on the stone floor. Perry swallowed the fist of nausea lodged in her throat as memory sank its greedy claws through her throbbing head. Nothing moved in the shadows, but she could almost sense someone watching her.

  The thought was enough to send her scrambling for her knife. Her hands shook as she held it in front of her and staggered to her feet, leaning heavily against the smooth glass panel of the wall.

  Until something moved behind the glass.

  Perry jerked away, stumbling over her feet and staggering into the examination table. Blast it. Her heart pounded. “Byrnes!” she screamed as she stared in horror.

  Glazed blue eyes blinked hazily at her through the bluish cast of the liquid behind the glass. A brass mask, much like those the poorer Londoners wore to help with the black lung, locked over the girl’s face, with a tube leading out from it.

  Perry took a step back as those eyes met hers and she sucked back another scream. Still alive. Her gaze lowered. To the woman’s naked breasts and the long thin scar down the center of her chest. In the flickering light, it almost seemed she could see a shadow lodged like a fist in the stranger’s chest.

  Something skittered in the darkness. A rat, perhaps. As Perry’s vision cleared, she realized there were half a dozen of the strange aquariums lining the room. Figures hung suspended in the clear blue water, their hair streaming around them like mermaids. Hanging there. Floating. Four of them in all, with two empty glass cases at the end.

  Her breath came, short and sharp, her lungs clamping in her chest as if someone had knotted her corset far too tight. No. No, she wasn’t back there. She’d escaped Hague and what he’d planned to do with her. This wasn’t like her nightmares. She was free and she was strong. She could fight now, the way she hadn’t been able to do back then.

  It didn’t matter a damn to her body. Her feet refused to move, nothing but a strangled sound choking out of her throat. In that moment she was just a young girl again, frightened and alone and useless. No air in her lungs. Nothing.

  Stop it. She curled her fingernails into her palms, forcing them to cut into her skin. Breathe. Just breathe. You’re a damned Nighthawk now.

  Something shifted in the shadows behind her.

  Perry screamed.

  ***

  Garrett slammed through the factory doors, breathing hard. The cold, gray light hit him, as well as the stale scent of the factory. He raked the scene with a glance, taking in the three men at the back of the factory. Byrnes looke
d up, no expression on his face. The other two Nighthawks kept hammering on the floor. Stomping on the floorboards as if to break through them.

  There was no sign of her.

  Darkness descended. He was halfway across the factory before he realized, his gaze locked on Byrnes’s throat. Fingers curled into his palms, itching to strike out.

  “Where the hell is she? Perry?” Looking around. “Perry!”

  “The floor opened up beneath her. There’s some kind of hydraulic system in it. By the time I got back down here, she was gone. I left for just a few minutes to get help. I—”

  The next thing Garrett knew, he had his fists curled in the front of Byrnes’s leather uniform, throwing him back into the glass beakers they stored the blood in. The sound shattered the silence, glass spewing across the floor as Byrnes grunted and rolled, coming to his feet with a dangerous grace.

  “Feel better?” Byrnes spat blood, his eyes narrowing to cold blue chips of ice.

  “Where were you?” Garrett roared. “Where were you when she was taken?”

  “Chasing the man who tried to kill me!”

  Garrett took a step forward.

  Byrnes fell back into a defensive stance, his fists curled in front of him. “You only get one free hit.”

  “That’s all I’ll damned well need.”

  “Sir? Sir!”

  Both of them looked aside, breathing hard.

  The pair of Nighthawks from the garrison on Hart Street were watching. Garrett took a rasping breath, trying to hold on to himself. All he needed was word circulating through the guild about the division between him and Byrnes. And this wasn’t about Byrnes. This was about Perry. He had to find her.

  “Thomas.” Garrett put a name to the face. “Can you hear her?” He crossed the room in long strides, examining the floor. “Can we get this open?”

  “It’s a trapdoor of sorts,” Byrnes said, dusting glass shards out of his sleeve. “The floorboards are reinforced with steel. We’re not going to get through it in a hurry.”

  “Then find the damned contraption that will open it.” Garrett slipped a small tracking device from his pocket and wound it. It gave a steady blip as he released the clockwork mechanism, picking up the matching signal from the tracing device he’d planted on her years ago. “She’s here somewhere.” Damned thing wasn’t more specific than that.

  Byrnes looked up at the walkways above them. “He was up there. He must have pressed some mechanism.”

  “Keep working on the floor,” Garrett snapped. “Get hammers, the crane… Anything. Just get it bloody open.” He met Byrnes’s eyes. It was easier to hold on to the anger and the darkness within him if he had another focus. Right now that focus was on finding Perry. “We need to locate the mechanism he used.”

  Twenty minutes later they were no closer to finding it. Garrett swore, kicking at the railing on the upper walkways. Christ, if she’s already… No. He swallowed hard. She was alive. She had to be. He’d know somehow if she wasn’t…

  “We’ll find her.” Byrnes looked up from where he knelt near the fuse box. “She’s clever enough to find her way out.”

  Garrett simply stared at him, devoid of…anything. If I lose her… It choked him, rising up in his throat like a fist, and he turned away, sucking in air. He’d been pushing her away for the last month, so worried about the progression of his disease that he’d never given a thought to how he’d feel if he lost her.

  The truth hit him like the sledgehammers the men were using to tear up the floorboards downstairs. Perry was the only thing holding him together. The only one he trusted, truly trusted… He couldn’t lose her. She was his everything.

  Shouts echoed from below. Garrett and Byrnes strode to the railing, leaning over it with mirrored intensity.

  “Getting through the floor now, sir!” young Thomas Wiley called. “Won’t be long!”

  Garrett thundered toward the stairs. At the top of them, Byrnes caught his arm. “Wait.”

  The urge to shove him aside rose up but Garrett held it down. Byrnes’s head was cocked. Listening. Suddenly Byrnes turned, aiming a boot for the center of the foreman’s door. It splintered away from the frame, and he shoved at it with his shoulder. “I can hear something.”

  Faint, echoing thumps coming from within.

  As though someone was…inside the walls.

  Garrett slammed his shoulder against the remnants of the door and staggered into the small room, Byrnes stumbling with him.

  “Perry?” he yelled.

  The sound of knocking vanished. Then resumed again frantically, coming from behind a bookshelf.

  Garrett hammered on the walls. “Are you there? Perry, is that you?”

  “Get me out!”

  It was her voice, but he’d never heard her sound like that. Garrett started tearing books off the shelves, wrestling with the bookcase itself. It didn’t move.

  “Here,” Byrnes said, yanking on the gaslight on the wall. “I’ve seen these before. The bookcase is a door of sorts.”

  Slowly it opened, revealing a gaping black maw. Frigid air rushed over his face and there was Perry, curled up into a ball, her hands bruised and bloodied. His heart stopped beating in his chest for half a minute. He swore it did.

  She looked up and he had no words for the expression on her face. Huge, barely lucid gray eyes that widened as they saw him, her hands coming up defensively. As though she didn’t know who he was.

  “Perry?” He reached for her, dragging her out of the small cavity. She staggered forward on jerky feet, tumbling into his arms. A warm, trembling weight. Shaking from head to toe. Not a single sound came from her. “Perry. It’s me.” He gently curled his arms around her, shaking a little himself. “I’ve got you. I’m here. You’re safe.”

  Guilt smothered him, thick and choking. It was a wonder he could breathe. Garrett’s arms tightened around her. “Damn it.” He stroked her hair, fingers raking through the short silky strands. Clinging tighter. It was his own damned fault, sending her with Byrnes. Not watching over her the way he was supposed to. And for what? Because he knew he could barely control himself around her.

  Looking up, his eyes met Byrnes’s. Fury blazed inside him. You were supposed to keep her fucking safe. That was the deal they’d both agreed upon when he’d first sent them out together.

  Byrnes gave a tight nod. Accepting the fact they’d discuss this later. “I’ll let them know we’ve got her.” He might not have given a damn, except for the faint softening in his eyes as he looked at her. Then he was gone.

  Darkness prowled the edges of Garrett’s vision, but for once he wasn’t drowning in bloodlust. He just wanted to hold her. To never let her go. His.

  His eyes shot wide at the thought, his body stiffening. As if she sensed the change in his body, Perry’s fingers dug in tighter, locking herself around him. The tension melted out of him again and he pressed his lips to her hair. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.” A little fiercely. “I promise.”

  Of all the times to be having this revelation… He felt dumbstruck. All these years he’d wondered if there was something deficient in him. Wondering why he could like women, but never seemed to feel anything more, and here it was, sneaking up on him when he’d least expected it.

  Friendship was a blurred line, but the truth remained. Perry was the reason he’d never found anyone. He cared for her. Deeply, irrevocably. The idea of not having her in his life left a gaping hole somewhere in the region of his chest.

  Not going to happen.

  Garrett glanced behind himself, then reached out and hooked a chair with his boot, dragging it closer. He slumped into it, dragging her into his lap and pressing her head against his chest. “Shush… I’ve got you,” he whispered, rocking her gently. “Just breathe, love. Deep, slow breaths. You’re safe. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

  The burning truth of that statement almost crushed his chest. He pressed another frantic kiss to her forehead, then took her hand and s
lid it through the opening of his coat, directly over the steady thump of his heart. “There you are. Just listen to my heart. Listen to it beat. All for you, love. All of it for you.”

  Long, slow minutes followed. The men stayed away, which he grudgingly had to thank Byrnes for. There were enough rumors in the guild without bringing Perry into the heart of them. She’d always abhorred gossip, particularly about herself. If anyone saw them like this, there’d be no denying that they weren’t just partners.

  Not anymore.

  Even if he didn’t know what that precisely left them at.

  Garrett’s lips trailed across her cheek, listening to the soft sound of her breathing. She’d calmed down now, but she hadn’t moved. Just lying there, listening to his heart. Her palm splayed wide over his bare chest. Somehow she’d wriggled her fingers between the gaps in his shirt. He’d been in such a hurry that he hadn’t bothered with his armored waistcoat or even the leather body armor he usually wore when out on patrol. The feel of that small hand splayed over his bare chest rocked him to the core.

  The minutes ticked by. He wasn’t usually given to silence, but she was. She would speak when she needed to and not before.

  “I’m a coward,” she whispered. Those gray eyes looked up at him. So lost.

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re the least likely coward I’ve ever met.”

  Perry shook her head and tried to brush the hair off her hot face. “I was so frightened. I haven’t had one of my hysterical fits for…for years.” Her lip trembled, gaze growing distant.

  Garrett took her face in his hands, turning it up to him. “You were hardly hysterical. No more than I was.” His voice roughened. “I wanted to tear those bloody floorboards up with my bare hands.”

  The feel of her skin under his hands was silky soft. He couldn’t stop himself from stroking his thumb against the high curve of her cheekbone. Perry glanced down, as if surprised to find herself on his lap. Or his hands on her face.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

  “Damn it, don’t be sorry.” Garrett brushed the damp strands of hair off her forehead and leaned back, hands cupping her cheeks. Those gray eyes were red-rimmed but clear of tears. Beautiful. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time all over again. Seeing her, truly seeing her. He stroked his thumbs over her cheeks. Then again. A little more forcefully.