by Bec McMaster
* * *
"Why did you insist I partner with Ava?" The thought had been frustrating Kincaid lately.
Malloryn glanced up from the desk. "Do you really want to know?"
"I wouldn't have asked otherwise."
Malloryn put his pen down and leaned back in the chair. "When you first joined the company, you hated every single one of us for what we are. It surprised me to realize you'd mellowed enough to consider a friendship with Byrnes and Charlie, though your prejudices still show at times—"
"So you thought you'd partner me with the least predatory blue blood you know." He tasted disgust. "I hate being manipulated."
"I know."
But it was working. Kincaid crossed his arms, squeezing his fists. "She's a kitten compared to you. I get it. I do. Not all blue bloods are the same. Not all blue bloods are blood-thirsty monsters. Not even you." He paused. "Why do you do this? I understand you're interested in progress, but it seems as though you expend a great deal of energy for a cause not your own. One could almost say you're driven by it."
Those icy gray eyes met his. "It's not the sort of thing I speak of to anyone."
"Yet you demand everyone else spill their fuckin' secrets. No, you insist. How can you ask for the trust of your agents if you won't give it in return?"
A long silence. "There was a girl. Back when I was young and foolish, and I got her killed. And that is the extent of what I'm willing to share. Anything else?" Malloryn's voice encouraged him to move on.
A girl? Malloryn? The man with no heart?
But then, the same could have been said of him.
"Why did you invite me to join COR?" Another question that had been plaguing him. "I can't physically match you or the others. I'm cannon fodder when it comes to the dhampir. You've got Jack in the basement, building your devices, so you don't need a mech. I just don't understand what I…" bring to the group. "What you want from me."
"You came highly recommended. The Duchess of Casavian told me you'd fight me every step of the way, but you were cunning, ruthless, and ingenious. You think in ways I don't, and you know the mech world, the humanist cause." Malloryn leaned forward, elbows on his desk. "You represent a part of the population I need to be able to read and reach out to."
"So it was all political?"
"Partly. I think you sell yourself short. You're a fighter, and you don't flinch in the face of danger—"
"I'm still the most likely to get my throat torn out."
Malloryn's gaze shuttered. "Your physical limitations bother you."
It cut right to the core of him. Was that why he'd been questioning his value so often this past month? Malloryn couldn't know of the iceberg he touched upon—or he'd better bloody not—but maybe there was something to that train of thought?
"And?" he asked icily.
"Why don't you do something about it?" Malloryn suggested, leaning back again as if to dismiss the conversation. "Stop thinking about your weaknesses, Kincaid, and start thinking about your strengths and what you can bring to this team. Specifically that thing in the basement you've been playing with over the last month."
His mech-suit. Kincaid frowned, wondering how Malloryn found out about it. "It's something to do in my spare time."
"Is it?" Malloryn picked up his spring-pen again. "A curious choice of hobby for a man who derides his physical limits. Are you sure your mind's not trying to tell you something?"
* * *
Play to his strengths. He could do that.
After pacing the house for the next half hour, Kincaid found himself in the basement, or what they affectionately referred to as Dungeon II, after Malloryn moved them from the first compromised safe house. It was no enclave, but not too shabby in itself, with every tool he could possibly want. He couldn't stop thinking about what Malloryn had said. Jack blinked up at him through a set of goggles, as if wondering why he was there.
The other man wore a mask covering the lower half of his face, with a filtration device to purify the air he breathed. Scars disfigured his face, and Kincaid had heard Jack's lungs were affected too, but the man had the kind of hands that could build anything, and a voice like a circus ringmaster. "Here to finish your project?"
"I haven't had a chance to look at it in over a week," Kincaid said, crossing to the corner he'd taken for himself and ripping the sheet off his project. A full mech-suit gleamed in the bright lights Jack had installed.
It wasn't finished. He'd been hesitating to solder the final joints together, tinkering with the small steam-engine component that drove it, even though it was ready. A mechanical suit to reinforce a man's body, with pistons in the leg guards that could force a man's legs to work if they were feeble, and overlapping steel plates to protect his inner organs. He wasn't sure why he'd started making it. Or no... that wasn't strictly true.
His legs would fail, his muscles turning traitor on him at some stage. His leg braces kept him moving so far, but soon enough they wouldn't be strong enough to hold him up. Even now, he could feel the faint tremor in his calves, and stairs would one day be the bane of his existence. Kincaid ran the pads of his fingers over the chest piece. A suit like this meant an independent life for as long as he could strap himself into it.
But if one looked at it in another way, it was also a means to give a man mechanical strength his own body couldn't provide, as well as protection from injury. With this, Kincaid could leap off roofs, punch his way through a brick wall, and deflect any blow from a blue blood.
Jack slid his magnifying goggles atop his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Are you going to finish it today?"
"Not much else to do." Malloryn had set his spies into action, and Ava needed rest. By himself, he couldn't work out the science behind Ava's assumptions. He needed her quicksilver mind and defiant focus. The Nighthawks were keeping an eye on the city, and they'd be contacted the moment another Black Vein case came up, but for now... he needed something mindless to do.
"I like it," Jack said, admiring his work. "Not a Cyclops—nowhere near as heavy, for example, but it will give you greater maneuverability, and the smaller size makes it more versatile. Are you thinking of getting a patent for it? I know a great many factories would see a use in making a single man as strong as an ox, and I'm sure those who work in law enforcement would appreciate the added protection and strength."
He hadn't thought so far ahead. Kincaid dragged on his gloves slowly. A patent on something like this and a means to manufacture it would provide enough money for Orla to pay for proper care for Ian—and give her a damned rest every now and then. There'd be risks involved—he hadn't a clue how to get started, but it was a spark of inspiration. "Now there's an idea."
"You'd need a partner." Jack circled the suit. "Someone mechanically minded."
"Anyone you know?" Kincaid slowly smiled. Jack had been one of the masterminds behind the Cyclops.
"Possibly." Jack's eyes creased in a smile the mask hid. "And a backer... preferably a rich one."
A grimace. "If you're suggesting I go talk to Malloryn—"
"He's got the funds, he's a duke, he has influence, and he's very likely uninterested in controlling a business something like this would need." Jack sucked in a slow breath through his mask. "My sister is married to a duke too. But there's certainly no harm in talking to Malloryn. He's quite forward-thinking, for a blue blood."
For a blue blood. It wasn't as though he was growing to like Malloryn, but... the duke wasn't as bad as he sometimes made out. None of the blue blood Rogues were. Kincaid stared at the suit, then glanced at Jack. "You were a humanist once. What do you make of all of this?"
Jack's green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "The mech-suit? Or the brewing war between blue bloods and humans?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Jack sighed. "My sister's married to a blue blood, and while he can be a little stiff at times, he's a good man. Then there's Debney."
Jack's friendship with the viscount had not gone
unnoticed. Kincaid said nothing, but he'd seen the pair of them slip away at Byrnes's wedding. In the past, men like that would have been executed, but it wasn't his place to say anything. Nor his place to judge.
"I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a storm," Kincaid admitted quietly. "I have friends. Humanist friends. I see their anger over the blood taxes and the draining factories still loom large in the East End. But I also understand it's not an easy solution.
"And we don't know who's working to stir up the general population—whether it's on Ulbricht's side, or the dhampir, or someone working behind the scenes—but a part of me is tired of war," he said. "I don't want to see any more humanists die. I don't want to see any of my blue blood friends die. But we're heading toward a collision. Any fucking fool can see that."
Jack sighed, rolling a coin over the back of his gloved hands—a habit he had sometimes. "All London needs is a spark, and it will go up in a fiery blaze, you mark my words."
Fuck. Kincaid rested his hip on the edge of a stool. Maybe he'd overtaxed his body recently, but he felt dull and weak today. Exhausted. "But what's the spark going to be? We can stamp out all the fires we see—these Black Vein murders, the vaccine clinics being sabotaged—but I just feel like there's something else out there. Something we're not seeing. I mean, one by one these Black Vein murders aren't going to tip this war over the edge. The humanists don't care about blue bloods dying, and the Echelon doesn't give a damn about rogue blue bloods. If it were one of their own, however...."
"I agree," Jack said, shrugging. "But I don't think the spark's going to come from the Echelon. This all feels like it's a stalking horse. Something to set the Echelon on edge, but they don't have the advantage anymore. Some of them still stockpile automaton troops, but if they step out of line? The queen and the Council of Dukes will use the Cyclops they confiscated during the revolution against them. It would require a mass effort from most of the Echelon aristocrats working together to start a war, and they'd have to topple the queen or the Council first."
It all made little sense. These riots were stirring, yes, but some people still liked the queen. She wasn't her husband, mad and dangerous. She was human, and she'd been their figurehead during the revolution. Disappointment reigned at the moment, thanks to the recent lowering of the Blood Tax bill, but it hadn't destroyed the people's confidence in her.
"To whip the humanists into a frenzy, they'd have to strike at something the humans consider important. Hell if I know what that will be." Kincaid pulled on his protective gear, then reached for the carbon arc welder and his carbon rods. "Guess we'll just have to be prepared for anything."
Jack turned away. "Have a think about what I said earlier. It’s just conjecture at this point, but I think you have a marketable product."
Kincaid clipped each claw onto the positive and negative wires, and then dragged his face mask down. "Will do."
Twenty-One
"ARE YOU AVOIDING me?" Ava's voice broke through Kincaid's solitude as he stared at the nearly finished mech-suit.
"Of course not." His words were brusque; he heard it himself.
"After last night, I thought you might have...."
"Might have?" ...slipped into her bed, and woken her. He'd thought about it.
But Gemma's words kept hounding him.
Ava didn't reply. Blonde lashes swept down, obscuring her eyes, and his stomach dropped through his boots. "Ava." He picked up a screwdriver. "You were hurt. You needed sleep. I'm not avoiding you."
Liar.
Guilt scoured him. He didn't want to hurt her. And while there was passion between them, there was something else growing. Hell, he couldn't deny it. Last night she'd fallen asleep in his arms, and before he'd slipped from her bed this morning, there'd been a part of him that wanted to linger. Just to relax for a few more hours with Ava curled up against him, all those messy, vibrant curls spread across his pillow. But he was fooling himself. Gemma said it herself this morning: he was no good for her.
They just needed a little space between them. A clearly marked line that said, this is an affair, and it will end when we finish this case. Then they could go their own separate ways, and even though a part of him would always look back in regret at what he'd let slip through his fingers, it would be better for her.
Until he looked at her and saw her face.
Shit.
Glancing around, Kincaid captured her cheeks in his hands, carefully wielding the screwdriver. "I didn't think we wanted anyone else to know."
"We don't."
Kincaid kissed her gently on the lips, his heart softening. "Then that's all it was. Should you even be out of bed?" He could still see it, the moment he'd seen her face and realized she'd been poisoned.
That he could lose her.
He wasn't coping very well with the idea, and Ava made a small sound as his grip on her face tightened.
Kincaid released a heavy breath and let her go.
"I'm fine," she said, frowning in confusion, as though she'd sensed some part of his inner turmoil. "My chest still aches a little, but every hour I can feel the weight in my lungs easing. At least there's one good thing about the craving virus... it heals very quickly."
One good thing.... He'd have never even thought it before, but he could admit it now. And he knew she was making a point to him, one he couldn't accept.
Can't you? He'd deliberately not vaccinated himself, after all, and though he'd told her it had to do with a fear of needles, he'd been lying.
"What have you been doing down here? What are you making?" Ava stepped around him, gaping at the steel mech-suit. "Is it a Cyclops?"
The enormous Cyclops had been used to thwart the mechanical army the prince consort used to protect himself during the revolution.
"Not a Cyclops," Kincaid muttered, swinging under the arm of the suit and prying open the electrical panel on the back. "Though it's inspired by one of them." He tugged a few wires loose, examining the circuit board. Something still wasn't right in the boiler, and he set his mind to the problem of working out what. "I call it the Achilles, an invincible exosuit I can fit inside. It's smaller than a Cyclops, and designed to protect a human's vulnerable points, while also packing power behind any movements. The idea is that wearing this means I can jump off a building and land without busting a kneecap, or punch my way through a brick wall. Jack's been working on it with me in his spare time."
There was a moment of silence.
He turned to find Ava peering at him with big eyes. "You'd be as strong as a blue blood," she said softly, seeing straight to the heart of the matter.
"Not as fast though," he muttered, finding the loose wire in the circuit that was currently thwarting him. Aha. "Not until I can get the pistons in the leg armor working better."
"You do realize Achilles had one major vulnerability?"
Kincaid knelt and patted the steel boots he'd fit his foot inside. "As you can see, no issues with the heel here."
"I didn't know you had an interest in mechanical... creations." Ava knelt beside him, stroking a curious finger down the slick spar that bound the thigh armor to the shin guard.
"I spent ten years in the enclaves," he replied, looking down at her gilded blonde curls. Jaysus. If she turned her head, she'd catch an eyeful of his hardening cock. "That's what my sentence was to repay the cost of my hand."
"How'd you lose it?"
Ava looked up, and Kincaid had the sudden urge to grab a fistful of her hair and haul her toward his aching cock. He could suddenly picture her on her knees, her hands on his thighs as he undid his belt, her lips parting to swallow his cock whole....
Not going there. Not at this moment. Gemma's words had undone him. Kincaid scowled, and slammed the electrical panel shut, pinching his finger in the process. Thinking about his hand deflated his cock. He could almost feel his nonexistent fingers tingling. "I was an apprentice mech-maker when I was fifteen. The older lads thought it'd be funny to hold my hand close to a threshing machine
and turn it on."
Her face drained of color. "It didn't—"
"It did." He stepped back from the mech-suit, wiping his hands clean on a rag. "Nearly killed me, what with the shock and blood loss, and then the surgeon removing what was left. My brother nursed me through the fever, then went to the enclaves to barter for a replacement." Kincaid looked down, clenching the rag in his fist. Bloody William. Always trying to play the knight in shining armor. "He served two years in that hellhole while I recovered and learned to use the bloody thing. Then I took over the debt, and took his place. His health wasn't.... He should never have been there."
"I'm so sorry. They say they were horrible places."
"Aye." No denying that. "But I'll be honest and admit I made something of myself there. I've got a gift for mechanics. Wires, and steel and cogs... it all makes a certain sort of sense to me. I've always been good with my hands and I worked my way up to overseer. Gave me a chance to get in on the action when the humanist cause first started rearing its head among the downtrodden classes. The Duchess of Casavian gave me the designs for the Cyclops, and the mechs in my enclave created them, right beneath the noses of the blue blood lords who owned shares in the place."
"What do you intend to do with the Achilles?" she murmured, glancing up at him from beneath her lashes.
"Punch a dhampir in the teeth," he told her, "and hopefully survive. I haven't tested it yet, but it's better than nothing."
"You think we're going to come face-to-face with the dhampir again?"
He exhaled slowly. "One of them tried to kill you. It happened for a reason, and I think that reason is because we've discovered their precious poison. So yes. I expect we'll see them again."
Ava shifted, and he realized she meant to stand. Reaching down, he caught her bare fingers and hauled her to her feet. Ava balanced on the tips of her toes, trying not to fall against him, but to no avail. When she tried to take her fingers back from him, he resisted.