The Mech Who Loved Me

by Bec McMaster

  Ahead of them a roar of fury went up.

  "Stand back!" someone bellowed, but a missile was launched over the crowded Nighthawks and smashed onto the cobbles among them. A bottle perhaps, one filled with oil. Flames whooshed out of the midst of the Nighthawks, and one of them screamed as they all parted.

  The shield wall began to fail and howling rioters plunged through the gap, swallowed whole by Nighthawks. Truncheons went up and down, and she heard the crunch of breaking bones mingled with unearthly screams.

  "Guild master's here himself!" Kennewick replied, wiping sweat from his face. His eyes were wild. "You can't go through, Miss McLaren. It's too dangerous."

  Garrett is here? That could only be a good sign. The guild master was experienced in handling confrontations, and he knew how to control his Nighthawks. Ava grabbed Kennewick by the arm, forcing him to look at her. "Get me to Garrett now. I don't care how dangerous it is. If I don't talk to him, things are only going to get worse."

  Maybe it was the intensity in her expression, or the firmness of her tone, but Kennewick nodded.

  "He's just behind the shield wall." Kennewick took her hand and escorted her through the back ranks of Nighthawks, using his body to protect her. "Make way! Make way!" he yelled. "Important message for the guild master."

  The smoke was thicker here, and she flinched as one of the men dragged a burning Nighthawk out of the legion. The scent of burning flesh made bile crawl up her throat, and she clasped her lace gloves over her mouth and nose.

  Men pressed around her, bodies threatening to trample her at a moment's notice. It was so damned hot too. Barely any oxygen in the press. That hollow roaring sensation she knew so well dulled her hearing. Not now. Ava pressed onwards, her breathing coming a little faster, and a gasp catching in her throat.

  "Message for the guild master!" Kennewick bellowed. "Make way! Make way!"

  "Garrett!" Ava screamed, pushing against a man who stepped back and nearly knocked her over. "Garrett!"

  "Jesus, lass." Doyle, Garrett's second-in-command, appeared out of nowhere and caught her by the arm. "What are you doing here? Get yourself well away. This crowd's about to go up like Guy Fawkes night. We've got nearly two legions of Nighthawks on the scene."

  "I know!" She caught his forearm, her breath coming short and sharp. "I need to speak to Garrett. He can't let the Nighthawks retaliate! This is all planned. Someone wants to set the Nighthawks against the mob, and if we retaliate then we're playing into their plans!"

  Thought flickered behind Doyle's rheumy eyes. He was the only human within Nighthawks ranks, and tended to be a touch old-fashioned. "Aye, well, they just shot Tommy Henderson—straight through the head. He's dead."

  Straight through...? "What type of bullet did they use?"

  Doyle paused. "A firebolt."

  Firebolts had been designed by the humanist faction before they overthrew the Echelon. Each bullet was filled with a mix of dangerous chemicals separated by a thin metallic layer. Upon impact the chemicals mixed, and the bullet exploded.

  They'd been designed to kill blue bloods.

  And maybe it was happenstance, but maybe it wasn't.

  "Where'd the bullet come from?" she demanded, her mind racing. "From the mob?"

  "I don't see why—"

  "Just bloody tell me," she snarled.

  "We don't know," Doyle replied abruptly, as though years of discipline inclined him to agree with a commanding tone. "Up high, Garrett thinks. Maybe one of them climbed a statue and used the height to pick off one of our own." A horrified expression crossed his face, and she realized he'd been there. He'd seen it happen.

  A single bullet designed to set off a chain reaction. She'd been naïve once—before she started working for the Duke of Malloryn—but she wasn't anymore.

  "I need to see Garrett." What were the odds the bullet hadn't come from the mob itself, but from some strategic vantage point?

  Garrett was a patient man, and he had years of experience under his belt. The Nighthawks were trained to deal with combative forces, and had settled riots for years. They knew not to retaliate.

  Unless they had reason to.

  Unless emotion overruled them in the moment, and what better way to pit two forces against each other than to make one think the other had murdered one of their own?

  "Hold the line!" someone bellowed, and it sounded like Charles Finch, the enormous weapons master of the guild.

  "Please lay down your weapons," a voice said through a speaking trumpet, a desperate plea. "Disperse peacefully, or we will be forced to disband you."

  Firelight reflected off the coppery hair in front of her—just a split-second glimpse she caught through the crowd of black-clad blue bloods. Garrett.

  There.

  If she was just fast enough to get to him....

  "Let me through!" Nighthawks jostled her on all sides. Ava pushed and shoved, earning startled looks before they saw whom it was and let her through.

  Garrett gestured men into place, clad head to toe in strict black leather. Runnels of sweat slid through the sooty layer of grime on his handsome face. Every command came from him in a sharp staccato, as if he was holding the Nighthawks together by sheer force of will.

  He saw her and paused, momentarily torn out of the melee around him. "Ava, what are you doing here?" he yelled.

  "Don't suppress the mob!" she called back, staggering as the shield wall was pummeled by a wave of angry protesters and the horde of Nighthawks, in general, were forced body-to-body, crushing her a little. "Don't retaliate!"

  Some instinct made her look past him, as if her peripheral vision caught sight of something moving across the street. A curtain twitching in an upper story window. Something long and hollow staring directly at them, no, at him—

  It clicked into place far too slowly in her mind.

  "Garrett!" she screamed, and made a last frantic scramble to get to him.

  Maybe he saw it in her face. Maybe it was the tone of voice she used, but Garrett frowned and twisted back to look at what had caught her eye—

  —and it was possibly the only reason the bullet that ripped through him took him in the shoulder, rather than the middle of the back.

  Blood sprayed across her face as he jerked forward in surprise and began to fall, his left arm a bloody stump just below the shoulder.

  Garrett. Charming, handsome Garrett who loved his wife, and had two sweet daughters who adored their father.

  Garrett who'd been there for Ava at every moment during her recovery, after he and Perry rescued her from Hague's laboratory.

  Gone beneath the feet of his Nighthawks.

  Twenty-Five

  THE WORLD NARROWED to a very small bubble around her.

  Ava blinked, and then she was at his side, her mouth babbling soundlessly as she saw the damage. "It's all right," she thought she said. "It's all right."

  But it was not all right.

  Too much blood. Bone. The gaping mush of burned flesh. Garrett gasped, his eyes so very wide, but it was Hague's face swimming through her mind as he shined the lamp in her eyes. Hague's hand lifting a scalpel as he said, "This won't hurt at all, mijn lien."

  Suddenly she was in a distant world, where she was the one screaming—

  —Blink—

  Screams echoed. She looked up, nostrils flaring and her stomach in revolt. Found the streets a melee of Nighthawks fighting against the crowd. Not in Hague's laboratory. Not the one screaming.

  And Garrett was bleeding to death beneath her hesitant hands.

  Horror filled Ava, but it was a distant hollow ache as she stared at everything she'd tried to prevent. All she could do was babble to Garrett that he was going to survive, as she tried to stem the bleeding with a piece of torn skirt.

  "Stay with me!" she cried desperately, but the pressure in her ears and around her forehead was getting tighter, and the world dulled around her.

  —Blink—

  A man at her side, asking if she was okay. No
. Demanding it. Shaking her. "Ava? Ava?"

  She looked up into Kincaid's face, and stupidly enough, the first thing that went through her head was his words from last night: we have no future.

  "They shot him," she whispered. She saw it again. The rifle. The curtains moving. Garrett turning to look at what caught her eye. Ava looked down, to where her hands were covered in blood. "He's bleeding."

  "Aye. I know." Kincaid stripped out of his coat. "Is there a doctor here?" He lifted his head to bellow, "The guild master's down! Is there a doctor here?"

  Garrett's chest heaved and he tried to clutch her fingers with his remaining hand. His face was so, so pale. "Ava...." An exhale as he shivered. He tried to look at the ruined stump of his arm. "Jesus. Jesus, my arm—"

  "You're going to be all right," Kincaid said sternly, ripping his shirt off over his head and pushing Ava's bloodied hands out of the way as he swiftly wrapped his shirt around the stump. "You've lost the arm, but you're a blue blood. You'll heal." He shot Ava a glance as he gently used his shirt to try and stem the bleeding. "He'll heal, yes?"

  "Yes." Maybe. Her ears were ringing. The blood loss would be crucial.

  "Get my belt off," Kincaid told her.

  "What?"

  "Get my belt off," he ground out, applying pressure to the wound and looking up at her with such vibrant blue eyes. "We need a tourniquet. At least until we can slow the bleeding down."

  All she could do was focus on the blue. There was a rushing sound in her ears that sounded like it was going to swallow her whole. A cold band seemed to squeeze her head in a vise.

  —Blink—

  Garrett's teeth started chattering, and her stomach took a dive. Ava found Kincaid's coat in her hands and wrapped it around Garrett, trying to keep him warm.

  "No other injuries?" Kincaid asked.

  She checked him over, just as Garrett's eyes rolled back in his head. "None."

  Someone screamed, and Ava flinched. She could hear herself screaming, banging on the glass of the aquarium Hague had trapped her in, an oxygen mask over her face, and warm liquid caressing her naked body.

  But nobody heard her screaming.

  "Ava?" someone barked, and a hand curled around hers, slick with blood. Kincaid's face swam into view. "Why are you friends with Garrett?"

  "What?" She swam out of the nothing, jarred by the strange question. Forced to think.

  "C'mon, kitten. Tell me a memory. One of you and Garrett." Even as he said the words, his hands worked constantly, doing what she could not—saving Garrett's life. Kincaid slashed a nick in the vein at his wrist, and held it to Garrett's mouth, cradling Garrett's head in his lap.

  What a fool she was. Of course. Ava watched helplessly as Kincaid tried to get Garrett conscious enough to drink. Garrett's eyes flickered open, black with the hunger as the craving awoke within him at the scent of the blood.

  "When was the first time you met him?" Kincaid crooned. "That's it. Drink it down."

  She had to think. "He saved my life. He and Perry. They rescued me from Hague's laboratory."

  Blue eyes seared her own. "When did you start working for the Nighthawks?"

  It was all starting to come back to her. "It was Garrett." Heat flushed her eyes, but no tears, damn it. "He suggested if I wanted a career, then Fitz—the crime scene investigator—needed another set of hands at his side, and I'd shown an interest." She swallowed the lump in her throat, and held Garrett's cold fingers. "I think he knew I needed something."

  I think he knew going home had torn the blindfold from her eyes—there was no home there in Edinburgh for her anymore, no fiancé, nothing but a cold barren hall where her father didn't know quite what to say to her anymore.

  —Blink—

  Dr. Gibson was there, pushing her aside. He had his medical bag, but the first thing he grabbed was a flask of blood. "Out of the way, lass. We need to get more blood into him."

  Then there was a gurney, and worried Nighthawks helping to lift the guild master onto it.

  A coat around her shoulders she couldn't remember acquiring.

  Hands resting on those very same shoulders, drawing her back against a hard body.

  Blood.

  Ava tore her face away from Kincaid's bandaged wrist, shivering with need. "Don't touch me."

  "All right. I'll stand here beside you then," he replied.

  Dr. Gibson instructed the Nighthawks to lift the gurney into the medical wagon. The streets were eerily quiet. People groaned on the cobbles, crushed by the retreating mob, or perhaps beaten down by Nighthawks’ truncheons. A burned Nighthawk was rushed to Gibson's medical wagon, his leather body armor still smoldering, the stink of it making her retch.

  Nighthawks crowded around. Some were bloodied. Others hung their heads as the doors were closed behind Garrett.

  Ava clung to the lapels of Kincaid's coat, staring desolately at the smoky streets. "We failed," she whispered.

  Nobody had won. Not the human mob. Not the Nighthawks. Not the Company of Rogues.

  Only Ulbricht and his unseen master.

  For she had the feeling this was just the start.

  Twenty-Six

  IT WAS A nightmare, an utter nightmare.

  Ava pressed her hands to her lips, letting Kincaid rub her back as they waited to hear word. He'd been particularly quiet since they arrived at the guild, letting her process what was happening around her without pushing her to make conversation, or trying to hug her or overwhelm her.

  She was grateful for that. She needed the small touch of his hand in the middle of her back, but she didn't think she could cope with more. Not right now. Perry had stridden into the courtyard when they arrived, and Ava couldn't stop seeing the look on the other woman's face when Ava breathlessly tried to explain what had all gone so horribly wrong. Perry had known. The second she saw the medic van her face lost every trace of expression, and then she was barking orders, sending Doyle off with the twins, who desperately wanted to see their papa.

  Ava nearly vomited in that moment.

  The doors to Garrett's office slammed open, and Jasper Lynch, the Duke of Bleight, strode inside, his jaw firm and his nostrils thinned. Once upon a time he'd been the guild master, before he challenged his uncle for the duchy and took his uncle's place on the Council of Dukes that ruled the city.

  It had been before her time with the guild, but Ava knew him well. Garrett and Byrnes considered him akin to a mentor, and he'd always been kind to her.

  "How is he?" Lynch demanded, striding toward her and the door to Garrett's bedchamber.

  "Alive," she whispered, choking on the sudden lump in her throat. She could see it all over again, feel Garrett's blood spraying across her face. "Though we haven't heard anything in the last half hour. Perry's with him."

  "Who's this?" Lynch's gaze slid over Kincaid, and she had a funny feeling in her chest—almost as though she wanted to step between them, to protect Kincaid. But that was ridiculous.

  "Liam Kincaid," the mech said. "I work with Ava for the Duke of Malloryn."

  "The Duchess of Casavian's pet mech," Lynch said. "I remember you. From the night we stormed the Ivory Tower."

  "I'm nobody's pet," Kincaid replied coolly.

  Lynch's gaze flickered, very mildly, to her. "No?" Then he was heading for the door to Garrett's bedchamber. "Keep an eye on her. I should think a hot cup of tea laced with some blood wouldn't go astray."

  "She's got her formula," Kincaid replied, lacing his arms across his chest, as though to prove he knew her better than the duke.

  She hadn't told him she'd been taking blood.

  "Sir." She caught Lynch's sleeve, and Lynch shot her a hawkish gaze that almost made her tremble. She'd been horribly out of sorts when it all happened, but now she needed to start thinking again. "I know you're aware I've been working with Malloryn on his special project."

  "Yes, I recommended you to him."

  He had? Ava pushed the thought aside. "This was planned, sir. Someone is behind these
riots, stirring them up. We suspect it's Ulbricht, and he has enough of a certain type of poison to kill thousands of blue bloods, but the full depth of the plan is unknown." The words came out of her in a rush. "What I do know is this is a two-pronged attack. We don't know what they're planning with the poison, but they wanted to pit the Nighthawks against the humanists. If I hadn't called out to Garrett when I did, that bullet would have taken him right through the chest. It was deliberate, sir. There was a sniper, one who wasn't involved with the riot."

  Lynch's face paled, but it wasn't a look of fear—but one of rage. "Why?"

  "We think they meant to push this riot over the edge. If they assassinated the guild master, then nothing could hold the Nighthawks back from retaliation." She squeezed her eyes shut. "And it didn't hold them back. They crushed the mob. Forced them back. Beat them down. I've never...." She faltered. "These men are my friends, but I've never seen them like that before."

  As if the loss of their leader drove half of them mad, their primal natures overrunning the strict control each Nighthawk was taught upon entry to the guild. Every blue blood knew what they were capable of, but she'd never seen it in such devastating detail.

  "It felt like before," she whispered, "when the prince consort sent the Trojan cavalry through the streets crushing people, only this time, we were the prince consort and his automatons. We were the enemy."

  Lynch's lips thinned at her assessment. "So they want war?"

  "It's a ploy, Your Grace," Kincaid added. "Something designed to take us back into the past, when it was humans against blue bloods, and murder in the streets. Humans have always been wary of the Nighthawks, but they trusted them more than the rest of the Echelon. Nighthawks worked to solve their murders, and kept the worst of the crime down. All of that vanishes after today. And that's exactly what Ulbricht wants—fear, terror, people too frightened to go to the Nighthawks who might protect them. Even unrest."