Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  “I could,” Patrick replied, expressionless. Well, he usually was more or less expressionless, though Topaz could often gauge his feelings.

  “But miss,” Suzie protested, “if I used a weapon on a john—or worse, shot him—I’d be arrested, and no excuses.”

  “But it would be self-defense.”

  “Not for the likes of me,” she asserted. “Ask him.”

  Topaz lifted her brows at Kelly.

  “I am afraid she is right. The law tends to go hard on women in her position.”

  “That’s not right. What is she supposed to do?”

  “I did not say it is right, merely that it is.”

  “Thank you for the money, miss. This will see me through till I’m on my feet again.”

  “Pat, will you see her safely home? To a room, if she needs one?”

  “I will. And, Suzie, I am off duty tomorrow. I will accompany you to see Dr. Fleming, if you wish.” He added gently, “Go get your drink now, against the cold. I will be right out.”

  The girl went, and Kelly eyed Topaz. “You are a kind woman, Miss Topaz.”

  “I only wish I could do more for them.”

  “We do what we can. I wanted to mention while we are alone: I have news for you.”

  “News?”

  “I have made inquiries, unofficial ones, about the place you call Grayson.”

  Topaz’s heart leaped. She lowered her voice. “Tell me.”

  “It is not an asylum proper but a private house owned by one Cecil Crittenden. I discovered they do in fact house and apparently treat patients there on a basis most discreet, and for an exorbitant fee.”

  “So it wouldn’t be out of the question for someone who had been confined there—say against his will—to refer to it as an asylum.”

  “It would not.” Again Kelly’s expression remained bland, though Topaz felt his interest quicken. “Confinement against one’s will—as we discussed before—would be a police matter.”

  “Yes. But as we also discussed, I have no proof.” Not even the testimony of a spirit, at the moment.

  “A pity,” Kelly remarked.

  “It is.”

  “I do not like men who use other men for their own ends. Is there a way for you to get evidence? If so I will act upon it.”

  “I’m working on that. Tell me, Pat, do you believe in an afterlife?”

  “I should, Miss Topaz, since I’m living it.”

  “I speak of the continuation of the spirit after death.”

  “So do I. If I did not believe in the continuation of spirit, I would possess no humanity other than this skin I wear.”

  Topaz nodded.

  “But,” Kelly went on, “is the spirit the same as the soul? Having researched my past, I know I was raised in the Catholic Church. I would not like to risk perdition.”

  “You have researched your past?”

  “Indeed. I had a life before this one—as a full-fledged man. I had a wife. I have met her.”

  “What?”

  “She wanted nothing to do with me in this guise and has left the city to live elsewhere with relations. She took our children—two small lasses.”

  “Oh, Patrick, I’m sorry. She’s a fool.”

  “She is not. She married a man. I am not him. But I can still do some good in the world. Come to me if you find your evidence. Meanwhile, I will make sure Suzie has her drink before I see her home.”

  “Thank you, Patrick.”

  “You take care, Miss Topaz.” And he left her to don her clothing and make her way back to the mansion on Humboldt Parkway—the last place she wanted to be.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Topaz walked swiftly through a night made cold with a breath of air straight off the Niagara River. It penetrated her clothes and made her wish for a cab, but she had no chance of catching one in this neighborhood. The only cabbies to be found in the area would be off duty and looking for a quick tumble.

  At least, she thought wryly, she had good boots and a warm coat. Pity the poor girls like those she’d just left who had to make do in their shabby dresses, needing to show a bit of leg in order to attract customers.

  She wished with sudden passion she could free them all from the life. How dared her father criticize her for trying to assist these women? They hadn’t been born to the luxuries she enjoyed.

  Not that she’d wish life in the mansion, with its secrets, on anyone.

  She rounded a corner and the wind drove pellets of ice into her eyes, half obscuring the dark street. But she heard a woman’s cry, followed by a man’s raised voice, just ahead.

  One of the girls struggling with a john? Fearing the worst, Topaz hurried forward and saw a couple just ahead on the sidewalk. But they weren’t alone.

  The woman cried out again, and Topaz heard the sound of a slap; the woman fell back onto the bricks of the street.

  Topaz’s boots made barely a whisper of sound as she darted forward. When she drew near enough, she saw the girl was indeed a streetwalker, one she knew but who hadn’t attended tonight’s meeting. She now sat on the ground with her soiled petticoat showing and fear in her eyes.

  Her companion looked like a gentleman, no doubt out looking for a quick fumble. He wore a fine coat and scarf and stood with his back to Topaz.

  Two men faced him, and with a shock Topaz realized she knew them also. One, tall and bulky, wore a shabby coat and had a filthy bandage on one leg. The other, shorter, wore a soiled dressing on his head and another wrapped around one hand. This didn’t prevent either of them from holding weapons, one an ancient pistol and the other a knife.

  She’d interrupted a holdup.

  One of the bandits—the shorter—caught sight of Topaz over his victim’s shoulder and stared. His eyes widened in horror.

  “Look! Look, Bert, it’s her.”

  “Eh? What’s that, Sam?” The bigger fellow hadn’t taken his eyes off the gentleman. “Who?”

  “The strapping wench. With the knife.”

  Bert jerked his gaze from his intended victim, who also looked around, and fixed it on Topaz. A snarl contorted the villain’s face when he recognized her.

  A smile came to hers. “Gentlemen—and I use the term most loosely—we meet again.” She let her gaze move over them, inspecting the damages she’d inflicted, before she looked at the man in the fine coat, a dandy who at the present moment appeared both shocked and embarrassed.

  “Sir,” she flung at him with a gesture toward the girl in the street, “please see your companion to safety. I’ll take care of things here.”

  Instead of complying or making any display of relief, he flung a glance at the streetwalker, another at his assailants, and took off down the street as fast as his well-shod feet could take him.

  Bert, who held the pistol, visibly thought about firing on him; Topaz saw the weapon waver before it turned back toward her.

  “Now you’ve done it, missy. Took us a long time to find that mark.”

  “Injured as we are,” his fellow put in. “You think it’s easy to do business, given the shape you left us in?”

  “I did nothing but turn away a couple of trespassers. Not my fault if you were stupid enough to fall off a building.”

  “Looks like you’re gonna have to pay for it.” Bert grunted. “I did warn you.”

  “Bert—we could nab her after all, here and now.”

  The streetwalker—Topaz recalled her name as Tillie—scrambled to her feet.

  “Off with you,” Topaz told her. “Go somewhere safe, mind.”

  “I’ll not leave you here with the likes of them,” Tillie declared, proving herself far more honorable than her former companion.

  “Go to Nellie’s. Pat Kelly might still be there.”

  Tillie nodded, hiked up her skirts, and ran, leaving Topaz alone with the two thugs and the cold darkness.

  She drew the stiletto from the sleeve of her coat. “Remember this?” she asked Bert.

  “Not likely to forget, is he?”
asked Sam. “You cut him bad. On second thought, Bert, let’s not take a chance nabbing her. Shoot her, quick.”

  “Yes, Bert.” Topaz went tight and still. “Shoot me.”

  He grunted again. “Not sure I want to damage the goods. There are customers will pay a high price for that—on the black market.”

  “What are you talking about, Bert? You promised revenge, if we ever saw her again.”

  Topaz shifted on the balls of her feet. Given Bert’s injured leg, she knew she could out-maneuver him, and she had time to waste in conversation. “Tell me more, Bert. What black market is this?”

  He bared his teeth at her. “You should know. Rumor has it the end products’ve been makin’ their way into that mansion of your father’s. Be a funny thing to sell him his own daughter’s corpse, wouldn’t it?”

  “Corpse?” Topaz’s mind flailed over the implications.

  “Maybe you should just nab her after all, Bert.” Sam virtually jumped up and down, the knife in his hand. “Now, while we have the chance. You can decide later what to do with her—sell her or”—he licked his lips—“enjoy her ourselves.”

  “Stupid bitch needs to suffer for what she did to me.”

  Bert, his decision apparently made, raised the pistol. Before he could squeeze the trigger, Topaz leaped, her muscles quick and supple from the workout at Nellie’s. Her right foot knocked the pistol from Bert’s hand. Her left fist followed and took him in the jaw, snapping his head around.

  Sam swore and exclaimed.

  Topaz, with no attention to spare for him, delivered a blow to Bert’s gut that doubled him over. A final smack to his nose sent blood streaming into the street.

  The big man went down with a groan. Topaz turned on Sam.

  “Now tell me.” She fixed him with an unblinking stare. “What’s all this about my father’s house and bodies?”

  “I don’t know. Honest, miss.” He gestured at the unmoving lump that was Bert. “You’d have to ask him.”

  “Were you trying to rob that gentleman, or abduct him?”

  “Bert just said to grab the fellow while he was distracted with the whore. I’m not sure what he meant to do with him after.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth. I’m not the brains, just the brawn.” He eyed the thin blade in Topaz’s hand and seemed to reconsider. “Though I did hear Bert say they were paying up to a thousand dollars each.”

  “For what?”

  “Corpses. In good condition. Let me go, miss, please.”

  “Give me your knife.”

  Sam tossed it on the ground.

  “Now tell me you’ll consider going into a different line of work. This isn’t healthy for you, as you can plainly see.”

  The sound of pounding footsteps came from behind Topaz just then; Sam took off running.

  Topaz let him go and turned to see Patrick Kelly appear, with two other automatons, all puffing steam like breath. Tillie trailed them, gasping.

  “Miss Topaz, are you all right?” Pat called.

  “Didn’t even break a sweat. Caught this one trying to rob Tillie’s companion, or so I thought.” She gestured at the now-stirring Bert with one boot. “I’m wondering, though, if it wasn’t an abduction attempt.”

  “We’ll haul him in and try to learn what he was doing.” Pat nodded to his fellow members of the Irish Squad, who dragged Bert up, still bleeding.

  Topaz turned to Tillie. “Thank you for bringing help. It was most valiant. Pat, will you send one of your men to see Tillie home safely?”

  “Of course. I’d like to see you home, as well, Miss Topaz.”

  “Do I look like I need assistance?”

  Laughter ground from between Pat’s lips. “No.”

  Topaz stepped up closer to him. “Pat, you keep your ear to the ground. Have you heard anything about an increased number of abductions in the city?”

  His green eyes searched her face. “There have been one or two. But there always are.”

  “A thousand dollars is what that fellow said someone is paying for corpses.”

  “A huge sum of money. Are you quite certain you’re well? You appear shaken.”

  If she was, she could blame more than kicking down one thug in the street.

  “I’m fine, Pat,” she replied, and wondered if he could tell she lied.

  ****

  Hours later, Topaz gave up chasing her thoughts around her mind and lay staring up at her ceiling. Night ticked over to the accompaniment of sleet on her bedroom window, and she turned from pondering the inexplicable activities of her father to the whereabouts of Romney Marsh. Drawing on the powers she allowed herself to use so seldom, she marshaled her thoughts and sent them out like a beam of light through the darkness.

  It felt strange to search not with her eyes or her ears, or any of her more familiar senses, but that which she usually kept so fiercely battened down. Only when she had tried to follow Romney into the cellar had she unfurled it, and then her father had come in response. Dragged from his sleep by her psychic ability that spoke to his own?

  And did Frederick Hathor sleep now? Did he ever sleep? Topaz knew only that he had retired to his chamber, the one next to her mother’s; they no longer shared a room. The house had become quiet, with most if not all the steam units on shutdown.

  She twitched where she lay and sent her consciousness out into the ether again. Instincts she’d never guessed she possessed came into play. She could virtually see with her mind.

  Doing so distressed her, and her heart accelerated, but she pushed on. She could sense her father’s consciousness—a knot of power that seemed to glow like golden fire. She sensed her mother’s, as well, far more acquiescent. Sapphire’s room lay empty. On the third floor, the human servants slept.

  If she let herself—if she didn’t shut them out—she could also sense all the spirits that crowded around the house, both inside and out. Many clustered near her father’s room, others lingered in the chamber where he did his readings; some clung to the outer walls of the mansion. She could virtually see them when she used her inner eye.

  None inhabited the cellar. Romney—or whatever his true name might be—no longer lingered there.

  Where could he be? Destroyed? Chased into the outer darkness?

  A sudden thought struck her with such impact her entire body twitched again. Could he have fled back to his imprisoned form? To Grayson, the place he’d regarded with such horror?

  If so, could she reach him? Had she the ability, the strength?

  She curled her fingers into fists so tightly the nails bit into her palms.

  “Let’s see what you’re made of, Topaz Hathor,” she growled to herself, and sent her consciousness forth again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He lay in absolute darkness. Not so much as a glimmer existed to tell left from right, up from down. He knew very well part of his captors’ strategy lay in disorienting him. He had suffered this before between the sessions that dealt pain.

  Now once more he began to worry about his mind.

  He did not suffer disorientation easily. A man of somewhat orderly patterns of thought, he enjoyed a reasonable measure of control. Now all control had been stolen from him, just like the light.

  His body hurt, and his heart struggled in his chest. He wanted to escape this flesh, wanted once more to stream away from this place even as he had before. He longed to return to Topaz.

  The prospect of being with her might be the only thing keeping him from going insane. He squeezed his eyes against the terrible, suffocating darkness and imagined her as she had looked when she arose from her bed with the stiletto in her hand. Eyes flashing, black hair swirling around her strong body, balanced lightly on bare feet, grace in every line.

  A strong woman was Topaz Hathor. The kind a man could admire, follow for a lifetime…love.

  A rush of pain surged over him, more intense than that dealt by the electrodes. He would never know what it meant to love
her, to answer this need that lay inside. He would end here for certain—broken, if not dead.

  Surely he had broken already, back when he fled his body. They had revived him sufficiently that his body had called him back.

  To more pain. But now loss accompanied that hurt and made him want to scream into the darkness.

  Topaz. His mind shouted it, as did his spirit. He fought the bond of his body even as his limbs might fight the straps that pinned him. True madness nibbled at the edges of his sanity.

  He caught his breath and desperately tried to master himself. He had overheard his captors talking. When they broke him for good—rendered him a dribbling remnant of a man—they meant to cart him back to England for those who cared about him to find.

  He had connections, the man said. Connections high up. They dared not murder him outright—but destroy him? Oh, yes.

  An agent, they claimed.

  He frowned, eyes still shut, and sought to remember. What sort of agent? Working for the Queen? Why did that seem likely to him? If only he could remember why he had come to this country, on what assignment.

  Hopeless—he could not recall. Topaz possessed his mind. If only his longing might let him reach her.

  He sent out all his desire, reaching through the darkness.

  Romney.

  Surely he had become unhinged, for now he imagined he heard her voice: low, slightly husky, and unimaginably erotic in the darkness, an answer to his call.

  Where are you?

  By God, he did hear her, and felt her also, reaching for him with tiny tendrils of energy like wisps of light—or life—that came curling through his terrible void. Light and life. All at once they had become one, and he drew a breath of pure sustenance.

  Here, he told her.

  Where is here?

  Grayson.

  Come with me. She wrapped around him, her bright consciousness caressing his. Come away with me now.

  I can’t. He wanted to, wanted it with all his being. He felt her strength lift him, and he gasped, torn between bliss and agony. I can’t get free of my body.