by Viola Carr
She took it. Their fingers didn’t touch. Suddenly it all seemed so pointless. Run, whispered her secret heart, before it’s too late. Flee across the horizon, leave it all behind. Why care so much, when the world cares so little for you?
The silence screamed.
She blinked back acid tears, and stiffly turned away.
“Don’t.” Suddenly he caught her, dragged her close. He was shaking. Hot. In tears. “Not like this. Not us.” And he kissed her, hard, rage and guilt and sudden fierce desire that dragged her breath away.
Their teeth clashed, a sting of coppery sensation that only inflamed her more. He tasted raw, exhausted, of confession and heartache. She opened her mouth, crushed his hair in her fists, kissed him deeper. Suddenly his embrace was all there was. The only thing that made sense. Everything. “Remy. Love me.”
Somehow her back hit the wall. He lifted her, and she folded her legs around him. He broke open the clips on her bodice, rough and urgent. His hot mouth on her flesh made her swoon. She wanted to hurl him onto Lizzie’s bed, strip him bare, own him utterly. She inhaled, drinking in his scent, desperate to burn his memory into her soul one last time . . .
Bang! Bang! Footsteps thudded on the stairs. Impossibly heavy, metal footsteps.
Eliza stiffened in Remy’s arms, barely able to breathe. Her own stupidity stunned her. She’d been followed. “Oh, God. You have to run!”
“Too late.” He let her go, swiftly surveying the room. No other way out. He grabbed the chair and slammed it into the ceiling. Rotted planks splintered, leaving a dark hole.
“Remy, no—”
“I insist.” He was already gripping her waist.
She jumped, and hauled herself over jagged boards into the attic space. Dark, moldy, the timber already decayed and crumbling. An uncovered window blinked out over slate rooftops into the freezing night, stars glittering.
Her palms bristled with splinters. Her clothes were still loose. Heights made her sick. She didn’t care. She leaned over, straining to grab his hand. “Come on!”
Crash! The door blew off its rusted hinges, and Enforcers marched in. Brass limbs shining, glitter-blue electric pistols aheft. Efficiently, coldly, one of the metal beasts hurled Remy to the floor, pinning him with one huge brass foot and tearing his coat from his back to search for weapons. From the retching, the dry-stick crunch! and the stifled groan of pain, they weren’t being too careful about broken bones or concussions.
But they didn’t shoot. Oh, no. Remy was a sorcerer. A scientific heretic. They’d make sure he burned.
Scrape! Her boots slipped across treacherous timber.
Three pairs of red eyes swiveled to fix on her.
She scuttled backwards, teetering wildly on rotted struts. Her cowardice shamed her. Her crippling fear of heights—and the threat of ugly death—cramped her muscles like glue. She couldn’t help it. She’d lived in terror of these inhuman wretches all her life. And this was why.
Two of the Enforcers yanked Remy shaken and bleeding to his feet. That amulet gleamed around his neck, silver and black. He could have changed, she realized, with a bitter pang of guilt. Gone wild. Forced them to shoot him, cheated his agonizing, drawn-out fate at the Tower.
Her cruel words snapped back with vicious teeth. Just take it and stop pretending.
But he hadn’t. And she could only watch as they dragged him away.
The remaining Enforcer—a lopsided abomination, flesh grafted to one side of its body and pink brain tissue pulsating in a glass bubble inside its skull—craned its neck to stare up at her, and jumped.
Crunch! Hinged fingers fastened on the splintered plank, and the thing started to climb up. Hand over hand, crushing the timber, red eyes gleaming. Remorseless. Unstoppable.
Wildly, Eliza kicked. Her boots clanged uselessly into the Enforcer’s face. Cruel metal fingers stretched out . . . and crrrrack! The crumbling attic floor broke under the Enforcer’s massive weight. The monster fell, smashing the floorboards where it landed.
Too heavy.
The irony choked her, a bitter laugh. She crawled backwards, further into the mold-stinking darkness. The Enforcer picked itself up, shook its wonky head, and drew its pistol to fire.
Zzapp! The shot crackled into the wet wood, sizzling weakly. Thank heavens for Lizzie’s dank and disgusting love nest, and the Enforcers’ predilection for electric weapons. A conventional bullet—or that awful futuristic shockwave weapon, and what insane scientist invented that abomination?—would have killed her.
Shakily, Eliza scrambled for the window, fumbling to re-clip her loosened bodice. Only a matter of time before the metal monsters found the attic stairs. Remy was taken. She couldn’t help him by getting caught. And if she didn’t see the Regent in the next few hours, more would be broken than her stubborn, foolish heart.
She climbed the broken sill, wobbling with grief and shock. The city stretched out before her, crooked tenements and church steeples, arc-lights smearing through streets black with coal dust. On the horizon gleamed a faint bleeding breath of dawn.
She jumped onto the starlit rooftop, skidding on wet slate, and ran.
A SINGLE REDEEMING DEFECT
AT THE GATES OF BUCKINGHAM PALACE, IN BRIGHT early-morning sun, she flashed Remy’s Royal Society badge to the Enforcer on guard. Its electric eyes burned, studying her bruised face, and inwardly she quailed. Surely word had gotten back, and the thing would arrest her on sight, badge or no badge.
The Enforcer cocked its brassy head, and stepped aside. Not programmed to think. Just to obey.
On edge, she hurried across the gravel yard, shadows dogging her steps. She’d rushed home only for long enough to discard her filthy gown for a fresh one, and fatigue tugged at her, insistent. For once, the rain had stayed away, and the flowerbeds sparkled with dewdrops, a fresh scent that on any ordinary day would have lifted her spirits.
The sweetness only recalled what she’d lost. What more would be ruined should she fail.
The clockwork equerry led her ponderously up the grand staircase. Impatiently, she hopped, peering over its shoulder. “It’s urgent. I say, can we . . . oh, to hell with it.” She shoved past the indignant machine and sprinted along the red-carpeted hall, past marble statues and gilded plasterwork and frowning portraits of kings and queens long dead.
It suddenly hit her that King Edward—Bertie—might have returned from his dread sojourn as the Soho Slasher. That she’d have to look into those addled, doleful eyes and remember what he’d done—and that she’d let an innocent man be arrested for his crimes.
Too late. She skidded up to the chamber door, and burst in without knocking. “Sir Isaac, forgive me, I’ve urgent business.”
The Regent sat behind his desk, brocade coat immaculate and hair neatly tied. Opposite him, ankles fastidiously crossed on the chaise, lounged Lord Beaconsfield. In court dress, white tie and black coat skirts artfully arranged, one arm flung over the chaise’s gilded back and his diamond-headed cane leaning against the Regent’s desk.
Come to kiss hands, as the saying went. Today—at eleven o’clock—he’d be Prime Minister.
Both men stared at her. One in frank astonishment. The other in mordant amusement.
“I say,” drawled Beaconsfield, “is this customary?” His heavy-lidded eyes speared her, a reptile tracking its prey. Eliza recalled their first meeting, her impression that he’d formulated a purpose for her. Well, he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. And she’d played along most obediently.
Suddenly, she needed urgently to use the privy. “Regent, might we speak privately?”
The Regent smiled, a glint of ice. “Speak your piece, Doctor. Quick about it.”
Nothing for it, then. She took a deep breath. “Liberté du Sang are in London, sir. A man named la Bête. Their shapeshifters are planning to attack Lord Beaconsfield’s speech with . . .” She swallowed. “With a time machine. Sir.”
A beat of silence.
Beaconsfield laughed. Mocking, d
isbelieving laughter. “I don’t know where you’re getting your preposterous information, young lady, but I hope you didn’t pay for it. Absurd.”
“I once wrote a book on the laws of physics, madam.” Sir Isaac drummed his nails on the desk. “I presume you’ve glanced at it. Time travel is impossible, or at least vastly improbable. The fabric of the aether would disintegrate. Why do you think I enforce the Royal’s rules? It isn’t vanity. It’s survival.”
Eliza gulped on laughter. This was worse than ridiculous. He hadn’t said Liberté du Sang? A mythical gang of shapeshifters, you say? Just wait here while I call the alienists to carry you away. No. It was, Time travel? Dreadfully sorry, but I can’t allow it.
“Nevertheless, such a machine has been built.” She recalled irascible Seymour Locke—I did say advanced aether physics—and stifled more laughter. “I’ve traveled in it, and seen the future. One possible future,” she amended hastily, fending off another science lesson. Briefly, she explained what she’d seen: the ruined city, the dying aether, the mass graves and wretched populace under cruel sorcerers’ rule. “If we don’t intervene, catastrophe will be absolute.”
Sir Isaac’s rain-gray eyes glittered, sharper than thorns. She could almost hear his brain working, a rapid cacophony of bouncing ideas and colliding solutions. Her heart pounded. Please, let me have the Newton of old, of fluxions and optics and gravitational laws, who loves science in all its wonders. Not the jealous old skeleton who burns people for thinking.
An eternity passed.
“Built, you say,” he murmured at last, a strange varnish of excitement on his tone. “By whom?”
Her relief rushed out, and she almost started babbling. “A team of British scientists. Their secret was stolen, and sold to the enemy.” She pointed at Lord Beaconsfield. “By him.”
Beaconsfield jerked upright. Spine rigid, the most energetic movement she’d ever seen him make. “Ludicrous,” he declared, and his voice no longer drawled with boredom. It was whetted with lethal venom. “How dare you, madam? Regent, arrest this wretch immediately. I say, Enforcers!”
“It’s true.” Eliza’s throat thickened. “He conspired with Veronica Burton. She’s an enemy agent. And la Bête, the fellow with the withered hand. I witnessed this with my own eyes, in Soho four nights ago. Deny it if you can, my lord.”
“Naturally I deny it. You speak of treason, madam. I am a peer of the realm! By God, I’ll have you—” Beaconsfield stopped, his neat-bearded jaw hanging loose. “La Bête,” he said faintly at last. “Withered hand, you say? A time machine? I dealt with no time machine, sir. Skyships, that’s what. Professor Crane’s new engine. The War Office is infested with democrats and spineless republicans who refuse to act. Someone had to intervene!”
Sir Isaac didn’t move. “If this is true, Doctor, then treason’s the least of our problems. Whence this information?”
Her stomach churned. She didn’t want to mention Remy’s name. “A Royal Society agent.”
“Ah. Captain Lafayette, then.”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“A sorcerer,” cried Beaconsfield, “as well as an enemy spy. He’s the guilty one!”
“He’s not a sorcerer—”
“But he is an enemy spy,” cut in Sir Isaac sharply—but a flash of gleeful irony in his eyes made her despair. How to know if he was serious? “For Liberté du Sang. How else do you explain the illicit documents in his cellar?”
“Burton set him up! She’s the spy, not Remy. Beaconsfield, Burton, la Bête. They all conspired against you, because you’re the one stopping them getting what they want. It’s all about getting rid of you!”
She and Sir Isaac stared at each other, stunned.
The irony struck her hard. Protecting the Philosopher, after he’d brought her so many years of grief. While the man she loved languished in the Royal’s dungeons, answering the wrong questions for his life.
“I see,” said Sir Isaac at last. Color burned high on his pale cheeks. “Then we’ve not a moment to lose—”
“Not so fast.”
The door from the king’s chamber swung open. And out strode a trio of black-clad figures, faces hooded, skeletal hands wreathed in fire. Behind them, brandishing an ugly pistol, came a woman. A strange, blank-faced woman, wearing gentleman’s clothes. The Soho Slasher’s accomplice.
She gave a gloating smile, and her face shifted, like a melting mask.
Magic.
Her skin shimmered and stretched, forming another, different face.
Princess Victoria smirked, satisfied. “Arrest him,” she ordered, waving her weapon. On the back of her hand was a set of angry red scratches, fading now. Her obedient trio of sorcerers glided forwards, black robes whispering, and encircled the Philosopher in shackles of dark flame.
“Whee! Look, Vickie. Choo-choo!” Bertie crawled out on the carpet, zooming his little wooden train up and down to the clockwork strains of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The Magic Flute, a tale of sorcerers and secret societies and the vengeful Queen of the Night.
At the sight of Bertie, Lizzie swelled in Eliza’s chest like a cancer. Kill the bastard, she hissed. Kill ’em both! Wring their bloodthirsty necks until their eyes pop!
“There, Bertie,” soothed Victoria, “you’ll soon be well again. This nasty fellow has been making you sick. Shall we be rid of him?”
Sir Isaac tossed his imperious head. “This is irrational. You’ve no conception of the forces you’re playing with—”
“Don’t I?” said Victoria calmly. “Oh, well. Nullius in verba, you always say. I think I’ll see for myself. Take him away!”
The mute sorcerers obeyed, leading Newton out. He went, spluttering, practically shedding electric sparks of rage. “You shan’t win. I haven’t finished with you yet!”
Eliza despaired. She needed the Enforcers. Without Newton, all was lost. “But he’s the de facto head of state. You can’t—”
“Oh, I can.” Victoria trained her pistol on Lord Beaconsfield, who sat heavily on the chaise, for once bewildered into silence. “Or rather, Parliament can. I recall a famous occasion involving a treason trial and a beheading. Could we arrange something of that sort, my lord? To be announced this morning, at the speech? Or must I find myself another Prime Minister?”
Beaconsfield oozed from the chaise and edged backwards in Eliza’s direction, gripping his unicorn cane in front like a shield. “My dear lady—your highness—what you ask is quite impossible—”
“Don’t tell me what’s possible!” Victoria’s eyes blazed, deranged. “I’m sick of men of common birth telling me what I can and can’t do. Why, the ignominy . . .” and she launched into a rambling tirade, punctuated with brandishings of pistol and tossings of wild hair. “It’s my birthright, I tell you! Royal bloodline. Bertie isn’t fit . . . oh, the horror!”
Bertie giggled, smashing his train into the desk. His hair writhed, shaggy gray one moment, lank blond the next. “Pow!” he lisped with a hideous grin. “Pow! All dead!”
The horror, indeed. Which Eliza had helped create. Suddenly she felt sick. Her good intentions meant less than nothing. Her vanity knew no bounds. Would she never learn?
“Run!” whispered Beaconsfield fiercely. Hard-eyed, determined, his vacuous façade sloughed away like discarded skin. “While she’s distracted. Let me talk her down.”
Every instinct screamed at her to obey. “She’ll kill you.”
“Ha! Not I, madam. She’ll be eating out of my hand just like her mother. I can kiss royal arse with the Empire’s finest.” He sized up the ranting princess, his lip curling. “Seems we’re relying on you to save the Empire, Doctor. I shall watch for you at eleven. Now run, and God forgive me for all I’ve done.”
SINCE THE ASSASSINS WILL NOT
BY THE TIME SHE REACHED SCOTLAND YARD, SHE’D already hustled for two miles through traffic-clogged streets. Her legs ached, her lungs burned like poison, and it was a chilled but sunny nine o’clock. The nearby Horse Guards clock
chimed the hour sharply, clong! clong!, as if it mocked her for her tardiness. Late! Late!
On a book-seller’s cart, the latest penny dreadful’s cover read THE ARTFUL DODGER’S CUNNING COMEBACK, with an illustration of a grinning man in a dented top hat stabbing another fellow in the back. A mouse-eared paperboy with a curly tail sticking out of his trousers flung a stack of broadsheets into the dust. SOHO KILLER IDENTIFIED AS NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL FIGURE. HOME SECRETARY TO DECORATE POLICE OFFICER IN CHARGE.
Well, that was something. At least Harley Griffin would finally get the recognition he deserved.
“The King of Rats!” yelled the mouse boy, jumping and holding his cap on with both hands. “Hot off the presses! Slasher’s name is Hyde!”
A file of red-coated soldiers marched by, weapons smart and boots polished, and she spared a frightened thought for Remy, locked in his cruel cell with machines for company. Would the Enforcers interrogate him, perhaps with some human agent in charge? Or stay silent and torture him anyway, as their unquestioned instructions required?
Was he already dead?
For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, frustration itching. If Remy were here, they could have marched into Horse Guards and raised a battalion to face the sorcerers. But Eliza was a woman, and knew no one at Army HQ. Sorcerers, you say? The Regent incapacitated? No more Enforcers to get in our way? Pity, that. Grab us a drink, love.
She leapt up Scotland Yard’s stone steps and into the lobby, where clerks and constables milled. The subdued mood stung her like a scorpion. What was wrong? Harley had just solved the season’s biggest case. The papers were full of it. The police were heroes. She’d expected celebrations.
The front desk was hidden under a teetering tower of paperwork. Eliza rapped on the counter. “Where is Inspector Griffin, please? At Bow Street they said he was absent.” It had been her first port of call. She’d run halfway across London, hopping a ’bus for a few blocks but the rest on foot, only to have to run all the way back again.