Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  “You can open your eyes,” Briar called to Isabella. She got up and looked into the thing’s face. “You should be quiet now, or things will not go well for you.” She licked her finger and added a bump to the diagram, despite its thrashing to avoid her. Green eyes followed her, and the screaming died in its throat. “That’s right. You know what I can do to you.”

  “Your kind only want one thing. Saw what you and girl were doing.” It fluttered its tongue, sucking obscenely. “Know what you want to do. Won’t say no if wish to go now.”

  Isabella shuddered next to her. Briar stopped herself just in time. She wanted to comfort Isabella, to let her know she had everything in hand, but she was afraid if she touched her, she would lose control and they would end up doing exactly what the repulsive thing wanted of them.

  Its eyes burned as it watched her struggle for self-possession.

  “Pass me my gloves, would you please?” That would give her another layer of control. She pulled on one while watching the man’s passenger. “Isabella, what you see here is a man possessed by a demon.”

  “Hellfire and damnation.” Isabella whispered the words as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. Even she should be able to see that the man’s eyes glowed green, though she might not have been able to see the crimson web Briar had woven around his head. “Demons are real?”

  “Of course they are. Why do you think you call it demoniac magic?”

  “I never thought about it that much,” Isabella said faintly. “It’s just a word, like electricity.”

  “This is the root of that energy.” More or less. It was an oversimplification, but now was not the time for a lesson in magical theory, no matter how badly Briar wanted to impart that important tidbit of information. “What we need now is to find out what it is and how it came to be in this poor man.”

  The thing hissed at them through its teeth. “Won’t tell.”

  Briar smiled and it shrank back against the mattress. “You don’t need to, it’s true. There’s enough I can tell from your signature to guess you’re an imp. Am I right?” She licked her finger and reached out toward the addition she’d made to the inscription.

  It hissed again, its mouth open. “Yes! What’s to you?”

  “Now I know how to hurt you properly.” She knew her smile was ugly, but her experience with imps had never been pleasant. The smallest of demons had delighted in tormenting her when she was a girl. As she was one of the few beings on the infernal plane who was smaller and weaker than they, the imps had never shied away from making her life miserable, sometimes at the behest of her sisters, but often of their own volition. The first research she’d done had been to the end of protecting herself from the cockroaches of the infernal world.

  “No hurt! No!” It smiled at her, lips spreading wider than a human’s face should have allowed. Isabella choked next to her. Briar placed her gloved hand on Isabella’s arm. She hoped it was comforting.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Master sent. Said if compass glows, follow needle, report back. Found you and girl. Must return.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Master will know if don’t return.”

  “Perhaps eventually.” Briar looked at Isabella. “We need to go after the grimoire now. If we don’t, at some point the magician who summoned this one will wonder where it’s gone. They’ll move again, and we’ll lose our chance.”

  Isabella chewed at her lower lip. “I don’t like it. I’ll be going in blind. I’ve never been inside a factory, let alone this one. I haven’t had time even to walk the outside of it.”

  “We can dress you up in his clothes.” Briar sympathized with Isabella’s look of disgust. She wouldn’t want to touch anything the imp touched, whether directly or through its human host, but it was a good idea. “You’ll blend in, I know you will. I can make you look just like him with magic.” If she could have, Briar would have imparted her shroud upon Isabella. Sadly, that ability was personal, a gift from her mother’s side of the family. Succubi could take the shape that most attracted their prey, allowing them to shift their appearance to almost anything. But it only worked on them.

  “I thought you said you’re not a magician.”

  She was stalling, Briar knew it. “I said I’d tell you everything once we’re done, and I will. This is important. The imp’s presence here makes it even more so.”

  “Then I go in tonight.” Isabella straightened to her full height. “I brought my suit. If we’re doing this, we do it my way. It’s what I know and so has the best chance of succeeding. If you’re right and we won’t get another chance, it’s the only way. There are some things I need you to get done while I’m in there.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  “Need girls kiss again,” the imp muttered. “Then more.”

  “That’s enough of you,” Briar said. Licking her finger, she drew a line through the key-rune, obliterating their conduit to the imp.

  The light snuffed out of the man’s eyes and his lids drifted closed. Once again, he was only human, though Briar could feel the imp still in him like a layer of pond scum coating her skin after dipping her hand into fetid water.

  “I know you can do this, Isabella,” she said. “You must succeed.”

  “Not a problem.” Isabella grinned cockily.

  “I know.” Briar didn’t know, of course, but she wasn’t going to say so to Isabella. If anyone could do it and get out again, it was Isabella. If only she could go along.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The factory loomed in the night, a brick cathedral to the industrial, its smokestacks rising like spires. If not for the coating of grime and lack of windows, it could have been a shrine. It was certainly imposing enough. Unless Isabella missed her guess, the Mirabilia factory had started out life as two or three smaller buildings. The builders had built up and up until it blotted out the sky. The haphazard expansions had run the buildings together to become something that was not only enormous but gave her no idea what the interior layout might be like.

  How did I let Briar talk me into this? Mother would have my head if she knew I was heading in there without proper preparation. And all for a kiss or two? Her groin tingled, reminding her that those had been more than simple kisses. She’d never connected with anybody like that. Even her first experience with another woman couldn’t hold a candle to what she’d felt while kissing Briar.

  Briar. Whose eyes glowed red sometimes. Who did magic, but refused to be called a magician. Who knew more than she had any right to and yet whose blind spots were numerous and adorable. Well, mostly adorable. Isabella had the suspicion that no one else could have talked her into taking this risk. Briar was terrified by those engines and whatever evil she thought they represented. How could Isabella not do everything in her power to assuage that fear?

  Isabella trudged along the roofline, looking for the best spot to make her jump. The rooming house had been too close to the front gate to be a good location to get in undetected. Fortunately, the apartments and hotels that lined the streets around the factory gave her plenty of choices. This one afforded her the best chance. The building was a little taller than the others, and the architect had built it out over the street a ways. It gave her a few extra feet; she would need all the help she could get.

  She wrapped her hands around the controls of her jump rig. The helmet was seated firmly on her head. For a change, she’d actually done up the strap under her chin. It was a long way down if she missed this jump. It was at the edge of her range and if she didn’t make it, she wasn’t completely sure if the rig would have time to recharge and kick in again before she hit the ground. It probably would. But if she did make it, she knew she’d be able to get back. Her getaway route went over the rooftops, and if she couldn’t make this jump, she wouldn’t be in any shape to consider an alternate exit from the factory.

  Here we go! Isabella backed up as far as she could on the flat rooftop. She set herself against the brick li
p on the far side and pushed off, running for all she was worth. She launched herself off the edge and opened up the throttle on her rig as far as it would go. The shock of being thrust forward so suddenly almost snapped her head back; only the fact that she’d been expecting the kick and had braced herself against it kept her from serious pain. There was no time to dwell on that. She hurtled toward the side of the factory, off course from the small roof she’d been aiming for. Without much thought, she stuck out her left elbow and activated the thruster, aiming toward her small landing spot. A larger roof would have been ideal, but those were all higher than she could reach given the space she needed to cross. Besides, that one had windows, which afforded her a way in. If she was lucky, those windows went to an office, one where a mad magician might keep his book of magic.

  The extra thrust did the trick to get her back on track, but she’d hit the apex of her arc too soon. She wasn’t going to make it; being off on her initial jump had cost her dearly.

  Isabella drew her grapple-pistol and fired it at the line of small windows right above the roof. Without waiting to see if it made contact, she ejected the line spool and popped open the winch at her belt. Wind whistled past her as she gathered speed on the downward slope of her arc. She tried not to think of the cobbles getting ever closer. If she didn’t get this right, she would have no other chances.

  Lightweight line whistled out of the spool, humming as it played out toward the window. Isabella snagged the end and engaged the winch, jamming the line in and hoping it didn’t foul. The winch caught almost immediately; now all she had to do was hope the harpoon had engaged somewhere and that it wasn’t flying back toward her.

  Isabella was falling even as the winch spun. Those cobbles were damn close; she wasn’t going to make it. Desperately, she tried to engage some thrust from her jump pack, but all she received for her efforts was a low hiss. It needed more time, time she didn’t have. She was going to die of a broken neck.

  The line caught, jerking her forward and away from the rapidly approaching ground. The winch groaned, overtaxed by the sudden addition of her full weight. It hadn’t been built to pull her unassisted by the thrust of the pack. It wouldn’t be able to absorb her weight for much longer, but if she was lucky it wouldn’t have to. Isabella engaged the throttle again, cautiously at first. There was no response, and the winch labored against her weight.

  Isabella tucked in her elbows, keeping any thrust from being wasted on steering and tried the throttle again.

  It engaged with a thunderous whoosh, sending her soaring through the air once again. At her waist, the winch thrummed happily, doing what it had been built to do. It kept her on track on the way up to her entry point. Isabella cut thrust shy of the roof’s edge and alighted easily. She didn’t even have to roll to absorb the speed of her landing. Oil paper ripped under her feet as the winch pulled her toward the wall at the far edge of the roof. Isabella disengaged it and stopped sliding almost immediately.

  Her aim had been off with the harpoon, but close enough considering her circumstances at the time. Instead of going through the window, it had embedded itself between two bricks below it. That was probably just as well. If anybody had been on the other side of the window, the harpoon and line would have betrayed her intentions immediately. As it was, her landing had been the opposite of stealthy. She crouched under the window to retrieve the harpoon and kept her ears open for any sound of disturbance from within. To her relief, there was nothing except the sounds of machinery and rhythmic thumping.

  The window was a good enough place to start. Isabella peered through it, making sure to keep as low as possible. The glass was filthy. She spat on the smooth surface and rubbed it with her cuff, clearing a small space that was marginally cleaner than that around it.

  I must have used up all my luck getting over here. The windows did not look into an office as she’d hoped. Instead, they looked over a cavernous room filled with equipment and men. In a veritable hive of activity, groups of workers gathered around the partially assembled carcasses of dozens of horseless carriages. A series of catwalks traversed the top of the room. They would have been an ideal way to get across; one of them passed not far from the window where Isabella was. The men who were wandering to and fro up there made it a very bad idea. They looked down and occasionally shouted at the workers below, then made marks upon clipboards. The yelling was likely futile, as the din in the factory was significant. Isabella doubted the workers could hear anything other than the clang of metal upon metal. She ducked down but not before noting the series of low rooms on the far side of the factory floor. Those looked like they might be the offices she was looking for. It was somewhere to start, in any case.

  Isabella looked up. Making her way across the factory floor or the catwalks was out of the question. The man who was still tied up in the room they’d rented would have fit in well enough. His clothes looked similar to what the men on the catwalks wore. Maybe he was some kind of foreman. It was pointless to speculate. There was no way she would have worn his clothes, even as a disguise over her jumping rig, not after what she’d seen and heard. Up and over was the best option.

  It was a simple matter to jump to the next roof, as it was well within the optimal range for her rig. A large open space greeted her, broken only by the smokestack at one end and a tall spire. She ghosted her way across as quickly as possible. Habit kept her footfalls light, though she likely needn’t have bothered.

  The spire reminded her of something, and she glanced at it continually as she crossed the roof. She was almost to the other side when it hit her. It was a mooring mast, though a small one. It certainly wasn’t the size of the one at Hanworth Park, but that one was for large passenger air ships. Someone at Mirabilia had a personal zeppelin. Those were still relatively uncommon, though they were becoming less rare for civilians. A handful among the nobility had them. If she wasn’t mistaken, Briar’s employer was among that number. Mostly they were used as spotting stations for the British Army’s artillery, or so she’d been told by a tiresome lieutenant at a ball. Doubtless, it was supposed to impress her that he’d been up in one. Perhaps if he hadn’t been boasting to someone who arced her way through the London skies at night he might have had better results. Still, his efforts hadn’t been completely wasted. He was now affianced to Millie, having resigned his commission in favor of the profit of a mercantile lifestyle.

  That Mirabilia had its own zeppelin or was able to accommodate one was more impressive. Are they building those also? Isabella decided not to mention the possibility to Briar unless she knew for certain. There was no point in worrying her unnecessarily.

  She peered over the edge of the roof. Below her was a side yard filled with dozens upon dozens of completed horselesses. Apparently all they required were owners. A small frisson of fear shivered its way delicately down her spine. If there was indeed some evil intent behind them, there were a lot of them—with countless more on the way. The manufacturing operation must have been running all day. It was almost midnight and yet the factory bustled as if it were high noon.

  Directly below her, someone had built a long set of low outbuildings that now abutted the walls directly. They might have been separate from the factory at one time, but that hadn’t been the case for a while. Unless she missed her guess, these were the offices. Hopefully she’d find what she needed there.

  Isabella stepped off the edge and activated the thrusters halfway down. She didn’t open the throttle more than halfway, trusting the thrust to cushion her landing and not to launch her through the air. She landed as softly as possible. The roof here was metal, probably tin. If there was nothing beneath it, her landing would echo through the space below.

  A nearby skylight afforded her the chance to glance inside. The room below certainly had the look of an office. Desks sat in the middle of the room, while cabinets lined the walls. This was as good a place to start as any.

  My luck must be recharging, Isabella thought. The room was empty. She
tugged on the skylight gently, trying—and failing—to avoid the screech of metal upon metal that she feared might accompany its opening. Isabella winced and held still, but there was no indication anyone had heard it above the muffled sounds of pounding from the factory floor. The skylight stopped long before it was wide enough for her to squeeze in, unfortunately. She would have to break the hinges. She braced herself under it as well as she could and heaved. The hinges cracked and the window gave enough that she’d be able to slide in easily. Eventually somebody would discover the broken window, but she would be long gone.

  She looked about and located a length of metal bar left forgotten on the roof. It was the perfect length to keep the skylight from closing behind her. Isabella propped open the window and levered herself carefully over the edge. For a moment she stayed suspended over the office, then let go. She came down square on top of one of the desks and rolled off the top to absorb the shock of her landing. Thankfully the desk was of sturdy wood, and it withstood the sudden assault easily. Twin footprints marred the papers on top of the desk. Isabella quickly shuffled those to the bottom of a nearby stack.

  Inside the factory office, the sound of machinery and metal was much louder, though not as deafening as it had been on the roof where she’d landed. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to work there, having to withstand the constant din. Perhaps the clerks who worked here became acclimated to the noise. Her own workshop was occasionally quite loud, but since it was only her and Father in there, there wasn’t the same relentless pounding.

  This room had nothing that looked like plans or grimoires. These seemed to be invoices and receipts. This was more along the lines of the papers she’d expected to find in the decoy Mirabilia office. Here were the ledgers of sales and payroll to workers. Those were extensive. Mirabilia was quite profitable from what she could tell.