by A. W. Exley
She finished her coffee in silence and left the staff to clear away the breakfast things. With no set purpose for the day, she wandered across the tiled entrance and stopped in front of her favourite thing in the house; the massive Fabergé clock. Wired to a thermometer by the front door, one of the many dials told her the outside temperature continued to plummet, even as they moved through April and approached May. She could spend hours gazing at the enamelled peacocks either side of the clock face, their plumage vivid shades of green and blue. The object must have cost Nate a small fortune, assuming he actually paid for it.
Someone rattled the knocker and she turned to see a card pushed through the slot. The dove grey scrap floated to the marble floor. She sighed, small visiting cards were never members of the ton waiting to chat, but rather sordid business that needed her type of intervention. Women in trouble sought her help when they had problems that would ruin reputations unless she delivered a discreet solution. Although she was surprised there was anyone left in town.
She picked it up and read the scant message penned in a beautiful flowing script.
Only you can help me.
She flipped the card over but the other side only bore a time and place by the Thames.
How odd. A visiting card normally told her the name of the aggrieved party. Perhaps this person was higher up in society and wanted extra discretion, which could explain the odd spot she wished to meet. Perhaps this injured bird was in a worse pickle than most. They picked locations to rendezvous away from the public eye, where no one would know they handed off their dirty laundry to Cara. Part of her wondered why she bothered; they wouldn’t acknowledge her in public, so why should she solve their dilemmas? But she knew why, they weren’t all bad. Some were trapped in cages they could not break free from. Others become friends, like Dianne Forsyth, who had asked her to retrieve an unusual mechanical mouse.
Only a few errands needed her attention this morning and she wanted to see what Liberty’s department store had to offer in the way of decorating a young girl’s room. She had plenty of time to browse and make the appointed summons.
“Brick!” she yelled down the hallway. “We’re going out.”
At her favourite shop, she picked up wallpaper samples and fabrics in a variety of colours and patterns that the sales assistant assured her would delight a young girl. Cara remained to be convinced, and she suspected Rachel’s mop of frizzled curls hid a mind as keen as Amy’s.
I bet she grows up to be a mad scientist, she thought as the carriage dropped them by Tower Bridge. She looped arms with the Beau Brummel of pugilism and walked the remaining distance to the meeting with her troubled noble woman. Farther along the riverbank sat the brooding Lyons airship hangar. No windows punctuated its grey exterior and it looked like a soldier hunkered down against the cold. The men undertook winter repairs on the mechanism within the ramp that hauled the airships and cargo into the hangar. The frozen Thames stopped many craft from landing and only a few airships glided over the ice with supplies for London, the rest used the cove at the Lowestoft manor.
Her latest assignment chose Petite Pier, a narrow structure normally used by children to fish for minnows. She walked out onto the tiny jetty and stared at the frozen expanse. People pulled sleds up and down the solid river. A small group of youngsters skated on an area where the ice was regularly swept. Fishermen repaired nets and looked for other work to tide them over. Life continued as the citizens fought the gloom and carried on as best they could.
Her breath curled away from her. At least the snow has stopped. From above, the sun tried valiantly to pierce the clouds and gave the appearance that perhaps, one day, it would have enough warmth to melt the thick layer coating the city. The wood planks under her feet were coated in a thin layer of frost and she trod carefully least she slip and fall to the solid water below.
Brick paced on the dock, his gaze scanned the industrial buildings shut up against the weather. Flashes of light against the glass were the only signs of workmen inside. “Where is she?”
“You’re probably scaring her off,” she called over her shoulder. “Try to look non-threatening.” She pulled the small card from her pocket and ran a finger around the grey edge.
Only you can help me.
The handwriting was quite beautiful, full of curves and swoops, but told her nothing about the possible identity of this particular injured bird.
“Probably changed her mind,” she muttered to the real birds skating along the ice. Some thought better of contacting her and would rather suffer alone than voice their pain.
“Stay there, milady,” Brick called from behind.
She frowned and turned. Brick planted himself at the end of the pier where it joined the dockside. Before him spread out three men. The pier was so narrow, he blocked their path to her, but also left her stranded out over the river. The men were draped in dark grey woollen coats. With black scarves pulled up over their lower faces and bowler hats sitting low on their foreheads, they left only their eyes exposed.
The card fluttered from her fingers to the ground. A trap.
“Oh hell. Looks like the fun is about to start.” Her hand dropped to the pistol on her hip, and her fingers curled around the engraved ivory as she drew. She glanced down the Thames to the Lyons hangar, but even though the men worked on the slip, no one looked in her direction. The echo in her chest told her Nate was there somewhere, and she hoped he would walk to the dock and notice their predicament. Although with Brick to protect her, it would be over in short order.
Brick widened his stance and faced the men. “Only three? That’s kind of an insult.” He kept his back to Cara, obstructing their access to her. “You’ll not reach her.”
One man lunged at Brick and the bodyguard struck out with his fist, catching him in the throat. He staggered back and rasped for breath. Cara willed her bodyguard out of the way and caught an opportunity to fire a shot at the assailant on the left, while Brick dodged right. She moved her aim and fired at the third attacker, winging him in the shoulder. The impact spun him to one side but he regained his balance and continued his attack on Brick. The pugilist’s longer reach kept the trio from advancing down the pier as he threw punches that should have knocked out an ordinary man.
Cara fixed her aim on her next target—and faltered. The throat punch Brick threw would have shut off the airway of a normal man. She caught the first square the chest, but he still advanced on the fighter. She narrowed her gaze at the spreading moisture from his wound; it darkened his coat but didn’t have the expected red tinge. She examined the second fellow she shot, and again the wound seemed to seep clear liquid over his jacket.
“They’re not bleeding.” Only once before had she someone shed clear liquid instead of blood—the Curator. Her brain smacked against the inside of her skull, their clothing the same grey scale as his home. The same grey as the small card laying at her feet. He lured her here and set a trap―but why?
A noise tugged at her attention. A splintering as though someone chopped wood turned into a crashing roar that made her flinch. “What the hell—” Ignoring the advancing men, she turned. And froze.
Starting by Tower Bridge, the solid surface of the Thames fractured. Jagged lines raced across the ice as something tore through from below. Chunks of ice were tossed toward the shore as a waterspout forced its way upward. Gushing one hundred feet into the air, it headed toward Cara. A sound like thunder rent the air as the spout split apart and reformed itself.
She gazed at the swirling mass; the water undulated and shimmered, then held a shape. Within the depths, it formed watery eyes and an open jaw of flowing teeth. Arms with paws and jagged claws reached out to the tiny jetty.
“Rahab,” she whispered, as it came for her. The pistols fell from her hands.
Brick yelled, his words were drowned out over the roar emitted by the spout.
Cara couldn’t move or run, her path backward blocked by the men. Forward terminated in the ungodly water
creature. She turned and met Brick’s wide-eyed stare as the wall of water dropped.
The world around her dissolved in a shimmering haze and took her body and mind with it.
he ear-splitting crack ripped through the air like a canon blasting the opening gambit of war. Like a peel of thunder, the noise cut across London. The waterspout tore through two feet of solid ice and shot a hundred feet toward the sky. Those on the Thames and in immediate area screamed and ran as icicle shards rained down over a two hundred foot radius and embedded themselves in soft surfaces. Thousands flowed into the streets, convinced the devil himself rose from the water to drag them down to hell. The spinning fury of water was visible for miles around and panic spread through the populace.
The dockworkers nudged one another and dropped tools as their feet drew them to the riverbank. Made of sterner stuff, they didn’t worry about a watery demon, not when they worked for the devil himself.
Nate shielded his eyes as he squinted into the pale sunlight and tracked the funnel. The murky water split apart and reformed as though it reached out for something. He narrowed his gaze at the small figure on the end of the tiny pier, directly in the water’s path. Ice shot through his veins. Cara turned to him as the shadow fell over her form.
His heartbeat slowed. Thud.
“No!” He tossed the wrench in his hand and ran. Thud.
His feet pounded down the dock and he angled his shoulder to push through the frightened mass heading the other way, to shelter in warehouses and hangars.
“Cara,” he screamed, willing his legs to pump faster. He raced to where she raised her arms to fend off the force about to drop over her. Thud.
His brain registered he was too late as the water crashed over the pier and Brick lunged for his charge with outstretched hands, and snatched at nothing, but his body kept moving. If he could only run fast enough, he might make it. Water poured over the jetty, then flowed back to the Thames. The air temperature was so low, the liquid began to freeze before it re-joined itself through the chasm ripped in the surface. The spout took what it wanted, and then retreated.
Nate pushed the bodyguard aside and slid out onto the sopping timber. He dropped to his knees and slammed his fists into the sodden wood. In front of him lay her pistols, wedged in the gap between the boards. He pulled them out as a moment of pure hopelessness seared through his body and a cry welled up in his throat. The stutter in his chest between his beat and her echo grew, as Cara was swept farther away from him. He thrust the pistols through his belt and with a roar jumped to his feet, then leapt off the dock. Crystals formed in the Thames as it tried to heal the open wound. He scrambled to the edge of the rip, his feet finding no grip on the ice and slowing his progress. Arms wrapped around him and pulled him back, stopping him from plunging into the frigid water after her.
“It’s suicide to follow,” a voice said.
He didn’t care, no one would stand between him and Cara. He lashed out and reached for his blade. Brick caught his fist in his larger one and squeezed until the pain in his arm nudged up against the scream of his soul ripped from its mate.
“Think!” Brick yelled in his face. “We need to find her first, then go under the ice. If you jump in blind, you’ll freeze to death before you locate her and then we will have lost you both.”
His mind stilled for a moment. Yes, a plan. If Cara was trapped under the ice, they could follow the current and find her. He could breathe for her, like she did for him when Nolton had him long-lined behind the Aurora. It would buy them valuable time to locate her body.
He nodded at Brick as his monster retreated a fraction, enough for him to gain control. The shadow released his unyielding hold.
“Blankets,” he yelled to his men assembled on the jetty. “And bring the sleds so we can follow the trail.” Her body temperature would drop encased in so much ice. He would have to keep them both warm. He placed a hand over his chest, expecting a pressure to build in his lungs. Loki told him Cara vomited ocean water into a bucket to clear his breathing. Yet he felt nothing.
“No,” he whispered.
A moment is just a moment until it is caressed by agony. Pain wields a unique ability to distort time. It took minutes for each nerve ending in his body to register the loss and scream out. Agony took hours to cauterise each individual fibre. As he stared at the black rip in the ice, he saw years alone stretch in front of him. A frozen life, devoid of her warmth.
Inside his chest, his heart beat alone.
The echo he used to find her - gone.
The warm caress of Cara throughout his being, vanished.
Day One
The men brought three coal-fuelled sleds from the hangar. Inside, they loaded up axes, blankets, and lanterns. Two went to one side of the rip, one the other and they walked for hour after hour. Curious bystanders crept from where they hid to stand on the bank and point at the forming scar. The crowd grew as word spread of the strange phenomenon that burst through the Thames and claimed a victim. Enforcers in their dark blue uniforms strode out onto the ice to investigate. They scribbled in their notebooks and Nate ignored them all.
Combing the ice, they brushed away anything that looked lighter against the dirty water, since Cara wore cream. The tear across the Thames ran for five hundred feet and then stopped as though whatever it was vanished back below the surface. Crystals formed as the river knitted itself back into a solid sheet.
Nate screamed her name until his voice gave out. Dark fell, the men lit the lanterns, and still they searched.
Jackson appeared, summoned from Lowestoft by one of the men. He found them beyond Tower Bridge and wrapped a hand around Nate’s that clung to a lantern. “It’s dark, Gov. The men are frozen and they can’t see their own arses. Let them get warm and sleep, and we’ll all be back first thing in the morning.”
Nate straightened as his fingers itched for his blade. They would search until they found her. He would not leave her out here, alone. Not in the dark, when the nightmare would come for her. He needed her safe in his arms before the demons attacked.
Jackson held his ground, the only man apart from Loki who would dare confront him. “Don’t ever doubt that we want to find dollface as much as you, but don’t lose men doin’ it.” He laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and shook.
Nate met his second’s hazel gaze. This man had his back, and on occasion, had dug bullets out of him and stitched up slices. He trusted Jackson’s judgment.
“She’s alone, Jackson.” It was all he could say before his voice broke. He turned to stare at the rip, disappearing from view as night swallowed it whole.
“And she’s tough. She’ll be giving that waterspout hell until morning.”
Instinct kicked back in. He swallowed down bile and gave a sharp nod, not trusting his words, least he send them all out to slip under the ice into death’s embrace. “Send them home, but I’ll stay here.”
“I’ll have a hot meal sent out for you.” Jackson turned and yelled orders.
Men cast backward glances as they headed to the embankment to go home and warm up. The crowd thinned as people realised nothing more would happen tonight and no beasts of hell would rise up from beneath their feet.
Nate walked with care, watching the ice under each step, searching for a trace of the woman who shed light and warmth into his soul. He made it all the way back to petite pier with no sign to give him hope. He jumped up on to the jetty and turned off the lantern. He sat in the dark. The cold didn’t affect him for he was frozen on the inside already. Brick had followed his every step and kept up the vigil with him. The two men sipped coffee in silence, their breath formed clouds in the frigid air. Brick ate the pie Jackson sent, but Nate waved away the food. The sun dropped below the horizon hours ago, and yet he could not leave this spot, where he last saw her. If he waited long enough, she would return. The moon rose, its light bouncing off the ice and casting enough illumination that the men could see each other and the black scar running along the river.
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br /> “Tell me what happened.” His gaze stayed glued to the gouge, the path she took before she disappeared and their bond fell silent.
Brick stared at the drink in his hands. “Someone sent her a note saying they needed help and to meet them here. Whoever it was, they wanted her out here and vulnerable.”
This was his life, walking in the shadows, enticement and deadly deals. Someone would pay for setting this trap, but not with their life. No, rather the opposite. He planned on a very long life for the person responsible and every second would be filled with unimaginable agony. “What of the men who attacked you?”
“Three of them, armed with pistols and blades, but they didn’t use them. They kept me busy, and Cara behind me. I thought I was keeping her safe that out here the jetty was too narrow for them to pass. Except that was their plan.” Brick ran a massive hand over the back of his neck. “I didn’t see that thing rise up. God, I swear it sprouted arms and grabbed her, snatched her right from under my nose.”
Silence. Brick believed he failed, and usually with Nate that meant a harsh punishment. Under normal circumstances, such a monumental breach of duty would have seen the responsible bodyguard wearing stone shoes and playing hide and seek with the fish. Despite his grief, Nate chose leniency. Cara had grown fond of Brick and he was her shadow, a connection to her. If Brick lived, it was because Cara would need him again, one day. To drop him under the ice with his mistress would be acceptance that she wouldn’t return.
He pulled her Smith and Wesson from his belt and caressed the carved ivory. Vines and leaves scrambled over the grip. The material was warm in his hand and he imagined her fingers curled around the weapon. A crow called from a perch high on the Tower wall, the sound travelling on the still night.
“Any wounded? I didn’t see what happened to them.” Panic from the attack lent the mob strength, he swum upstream trying to reach this spot, whereas the assailants must have let the current take them away. Not that he focused on them at that moment, only one thought dominated his mind, reaching Cara. He needed to make something bleed for information about who laid a trap for her.