Kelly’s strong arm caught her up. “Careful. It’s just here.”
His room proved to be a spacious accommodation on the ground floor of a tall house that stood dark when they arrived. Topaz sensed no other consciousnesses in the building.
“Who else lives here?”
“Other members of the Irish Squad, men like me. Either out now or…resting.”
He lit the steam lamps as they went in. Did he also rest here? Sleep? Shut down like an ordinary steamie? He was her friend, and she felt ashamed to admit she didn’t know.
A bed occupied one corner of the high-ceilinged space, but it looked as if it had never been slept in. A cavernous armchair appeared more well-worn; Topaz could picture Kelly sitting there like some ancient lord. A narrow settee lined one wall, and a table with two chairs stood by the windows, but there was no food—Kelly did not eat, as such. She wondered where he got the nutrition to keep alive his skin and the one or two organs he retained.
His uniform hung neatly from a peg on one wall, and on a shelf Topaz saw a collection of what looked like antique firearms. Besides those, she saw books—books everywhere, in stacks and piles and crowding the rest of the shelf space.
“You read?” she asked, surprised.
“I do. I must have a way to pass the time, and reading is edifying. Through the written word I am able to experience things I never actually will.” He emitted the grinding sound that, for him, denoted laughter. “I have traveled the world, Miss Topaz, and studied the human condition.”
What must it be like, having once been human and being human no more? He had attained a state other than but not necessarily inferior to humanity.
“Was the ability to read something you retained from your past life?”
“No. I taught myself. It is a facility that increases with use. Now it might be said I worship the written word. Sit down, Miss Topaz. Would you like a drink?”
“Yes, thanks.” She needed one. She chose the settee; sitting in the armchair would be tantamount to stealing a throne.
“I have whiskey.”
He would. “Whiskey’s fine.”
He poured her a glass, took a second for himself, and appropriated the armchair.
Did the other automatons congregate here? Did they sit about not drinking their whiskey?
“Tell me what has upset you.”
Topaz did. It helped that he already knew part of it—they had speculated together about what went on in her father’s cellar, and he had investigated Grayson. Now she strove to explain how she had contacted Romney on a spiritual level and discovered he was being held against his will.
“It would be difficult,” she concluded, “for me to go to the police. So I’ve come to you instead.”
Patrick did not move; he sat with his glass of whiskey resting on the arm of the chair, face blank. But she could feel him thinking.
“Do you come to me in an official capacity?”
“Well, I—I’m not certain. Could the police raid the asylum? Pull my friend out? There may be others there also held against their will for all I know.”
“There may. But it might be argued that all mental patients are held against their will, with very few exceptions. Who would choose to reside in an asylum?”
“True.”
“In order for me to approach my superiors and suggest a raid, I would need to present proof—significant proof—something beyond a psychic connection established by the daughter of one of the most notorious men in this city.”
“I see.” Topaz’s heart fell. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You must understand, Miss Topaz, many consider your father a charlatan. I know, because you have told me, that his abilities are genuine no matter how he may barter them. Those who denounce him are not likely to lend credence to any ability you might have inherited, either. I believe you in all that you say because you are my Friend.” He capitalized the word by virtue of the way he spoke it.
Topaz nodded wretchedly. “I appreciate that, Patrick, and I do understand. But I can’t leave him there. He’s suffering both mentally and physically. Whatever tortures they subjected him to have once separated his body and spirit. What if that happens again and he is lost to me? I would do anything—anything to prevent that.”
“You love him.”
Topaz stared at Patrick Kelly while she weighed the assertion. Impossible. Preposterous. She was not the kind of silly woman who fell in love precipitously—it had never happened yet. Unlike much of the female population, Carlotta apparently included, she did not need a male to make her complete. She could fight better than most men and prided herself on her fearlessness.
Patrick raised an eyebrow at her.
“I can’t be in love with him,” she objected. “Technically, I’ve never even seen him—at least not in the flesh.” Had never touched him, never kissed him if she didn’t count that quick fumble in the alley through the poor medium of the young sot’s body and that wondrous interval in her bed, after.
Yet she could not deny Romney Marsh—by whatever name—had taken hold of her spirit.
Spirit versus body: Which demanded love? Ideally, she supposed, it should be a combination of both, raising the connection to the sublime. But as Sapphire had pointed out, that all too often failed to happen. Sapphire had chosen the flesh and his self-professed addiction to little Carlotta.
To Patrick she said, “What is love?”
“You ask me? I am ill-equipped to answer.”
“As am I. My brother likes to say we Hathors may be gifted in some areas but we are maimed when it comes to that singular emotion.”
“You think so? I know only what I have read.” He nodded toward the bookshelves. “There is a wide range of opinion.”
“Do you read romance?”
“I read everything I can. It adds up to human experience.”
How sad, Topaz thought with a sudden rush of compassion—and how immeasurably admirable. Should her heart bleed for an automaton? Why not? He was her Friend.
She asked simply, “Can I love a man I’ve never met?”
“In my view, you have encountered him, exchanged thought and emotion. Therein, I would venture to suggest, lies love.”
Topaz got to her feet, suddenly restless. “All I know, Pat, is I barely recognize myself since I, as you put it, ‘encountered’ him. You know me. I have little time for foolishness or sentiment. I’ve worked hard at relying on no one. Now I feel vulnerable, as if I’m the one being held hostage.”
“As I understand it, love makes one vulnerable, since the object of one’s concern is suddenly outside oneself.”
“Well, I don’t like it. At the same time, it’s the most marvelous feeling I’ve ever known. Marvelous, terrible, powerful, and frightening.”
“I can only envy you. I believe I have achieved loyalty—not love.”
She spun on her heel and looked at him. “Loyalty is a form of love, Pat. Never underestimate yourself.”
He sat there, his big form far too motionless, all but his green eyes, in which Topaz saw…what?
Abruptly he said, “You are far too kind, Topaz Hathor.”
“Me?” She laughed incredulously. She who bled would-be abductors and suspected her own father of terrible misdeeds?
He nodded.
“Listen, Pat.” She hunkered down beside his chair. “There must be a way to get Romney out of Grayson.”
“Tell me about your father’s new partner.”
She blinked at the sudden change of subject but answered readily, “Danson Clifford.” Even speaking his name sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. “Do you think there’s a connection? Because he’s from England, just like Romney. I haven’t been able to reconcile the fact that the place from whence he says he comes is the same as the name Romney gave me. Romney Marsh.”
Patrick tipped his head, which meant he consulted his artificial intelligence. “That is, indeed, an actual place in the southeast of England.”
&
nbsp; “Clifford refers to himself as an undertaker.”
“And the Egyptian goddess Hathor was known for escorting the souls of the dead to the afterlife. An intriguing combination. You say your brother gave you the key to the cellar?”
“Yes.”
“If you could get a look at what is down there, it might prove most enlightening. I would not wish you to take any chances with your safety, Miss Topaz. But I cannot help believing there must be a correlation between the cellar and your lover’s return to Grayson.”
My lover.
Topaz nodded. “I can try, but my father’s already missing his key and may change the locks. He might also set some units as guards. It will be difficult.”
“As I say, do not take any chances. But if you could find sufficient cause for a raid, I will act upon it.”
“And Romney? What of him?”
“Give me the best description you can.”
“He’s fair-haired, about five foot ten or eleven and with light-colored eyes, very handsome, and has an English accent. I know it’s not much to go on—”
“Held against his will, you say?”
“Very much so.” Topaz swallowed hard. “And very nearly broken.”
The green gaze met hers. “Leave it with me, Miss Topaz.”
“But you’ve said you can’t go to your superiors—”
He gave her a solemn wink. “Leave it to me.”
Chapter Twenty
When they dragged him from his cell and hung him once again in the steel room, he knew what must then come. Suspended by his wrists from the high bar, clad in nothing but his smalls, he could already taste the pain. Next would come the water wetting down his feet, the hiss and throb of the steam plant, and pain.
The steel chamber, brightly lit, blinded him after so many hours in absolute darkness. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and willed himself elsewhere. Anywhere.
With Topaz.
Why couldn’t he flee this flesh, fly from here and stream to her like an arrow to its mark? Would he die here in this terrible place and never reach her again?
Ah, but perhaps after death…
Upon the thought his tormentors entered the chamber—the man with the black beard and the other who wore his weak rabbit’s face like a mask.
The evil rabbit—a name floated in his mind, just out of reach—approached and peered into his face. Reluctantly he kept his eyes open against the light.
“Let us begin our session with a simple question,” the rabbit hissed in his soft voice. “Answer truthfully, and we will not need to apply the persuasion we have used in the past: What is your name?”
Damned if he could remember. The only name that came to mind was Topaz’s, and he would not utter that, not if they flayed him alive.
“I don’t know.”
The rabbit’s expression changed, sharpened with something akin to anticipation. Strange thing, anticipation. It could be as intense awaiting enjoyment as pain.
This man, filled with cold, detached hate, enjoyed what happened in this room.
Another question, one he’d also heard before: “Why did you come to this city?”
“I don’t remember.”
The evil rabbit leaned closer. “You may not consciously remember, but you do know—deep within the recesses of your mind. I believe we can reach those recesses with the right persuasion.”
The bearded man shifted uneasily. “Perhaps the memories are truly gone; we have pressed him hard. In my opinion—”
“Did I ask for your opinion?”
“As a matter of fact, you did, when we began all this. If he doesn’t remember, you are safe. We can drop him somewhere—”
His heart leaped with treacherous hope. Hope, the seducer. Hope, so often false.
“What is your position with the British government?”
“I don’t fricking know!” He shouted the words so they echoed off the walls, just like his screams—the ones he had promised himself not to utter.
“Fire the generator,” the evil rabbit said.
****
Topaz!
The word burst into Topaz’s awareness the way a comet streaks across a night sky and caught her in midsentence. She stood in the small parlor where her father’s clients waited until she ushered them into the solarium and his presence. A pleasant place, so her father claimed, with its soft sofas and tall, narrow windows.
Today those windows admitted no sunshine—only gray light and the sound of the icy sleet that pelted down and ticked against the glass.
She’d been making conversation with Mrs. Randolph after serving her tea, all while clad in a gown that, to Topaz, seemed outlandishly sedate.
“He was such a good man, you see, and we were together so very long. I wed him when I was seventeen and”—Mrs. Randolph leaned forward confidingly—“I am almost sixty-seven now. A very fortunate match on my part, even though arranged by my parents. But I fell in love with him, truly I did.” The woman’s eyes filled with ready tears, and she raised a lacy handkerchief to her face. “And stayed in love. That’s what makes it so difficult now.”
Love, Topaz thought. In the past she might have dismissed it out of hand, even sneered at this woman with her wealth and comforts. How compare her loss with that of a woman living in one of the poorer areas of the city, who when she lost her husband lost everything along with him, including her livelihood?
But now, with her senses so recently opened, she could feel Mrs. Randolph’s genuine hurt and bewilderment, and her heart softened. She knew how it felt to long for someone to the exclusion of all else, to ache as with a hollow wound.
“I am so sorry for your loss, madame.”
“I only hope your father can help me. I’ve heard such good things about him, my dear—but can you tell me? Does he truly contact those who have gone from us?”
“Quite often, yes, madame.”
Mrs. Randolph wept harder. “I only want to know my Arthur is all right. Just to reassure myself.”
At that instant the cry tore across Topaz’s mind, dislodging every other coherent thought.
She froze where she stood as alarm flooded her, swift as reflex. The connection between her and Romney flared brighter than lightning and held tight, unfurling the ability within her, and she followed it back, back…
To its source.
A hot room that echoed with the throb of a generator and reeked of agony, sweat, and scorched flesh. She caught only a dim, cloud-enshrouded glimpse: a man suspended from a metal bar, twisting in pain.
Her man.
And she saw another, one whose face she knew all too well—he stood with a set of electrodes in his hands and an avid expression on his narrow, rabbity face. Danson Clifford.
“My dear! My dear, are you all right? Are you ill?”
Mrs. Randolph’s well-intentioned query interrupted the spell and broke the connection. Topaz swayed where she stood.
Mrs. Randolph, her face full of concern, got to her feet and cried, “Here, my dear, you sit down. Shall I call one of the servants?”
“I’m sorry?” Topaz, stretched by horror, stared. The diminutive woman barely reached her nose.
“You’ve taken a turn.”
Topaz!
He called her again, and the power of it nearly split her in two. Her knees wobbled beneath her.
“Here, Miss Hathor, sit down.” Mrs. Randolph guided Topaz to a chair. “I shall summon your father.”
“No. God, no—don’t interrupt his session.” A cardinal sin, as they had all been taught from an early age. Topaz strove mightily for control. “I’m all right.”
Where was he? Was the terrible room she’d seen somewhere inside Grayson or right here in this house? Because his tormentor—his torturer—was her father’s new associate. Topaz drew a painful breath. She would not leave him so a moment longer. She would find him, gather her weapons, including the steam-cannon she kept in her closet, and storm that room. Break him free. Smash down the walls if she had to; c
laim him for her own.
For all time.
The thought shocked her. She pressed her fingers to her temples and tried desperately to separate all the voices clamoring for her attention—thick on the ground here, so near her father’s presence—and hear only his.
But after the second cry she heard no more.
Hold on, she thought at him. Keep strong. I will be with you.
“Daughter, are you unwell?”
Impossibly, her father stood before her, dressed in the rich black frockcoat in which he received his clients. But how? He never interrupted his sessions; as Sapphire sometimes said, the house could burn down around him and Father would stay in communion.
Now he frowned at her, an unreadable look in his dark eyes. She gazed back at him, wondering what he knew about Clifford’s activities. Her father couldn’t be involved in Rom’s torture; he simply couldn’t.
“Oh, Mr. Hathor, your daughter has been taken unwell,” Mrs. Randolph gushed. “I truly think she should be relieved.”
“Certainly, madame, I agree with you. Spiritual overload perhaps, Daughter? I could feel your…distress.”
Ah! Danger. He knew far too much. But had he heard the call, also? Surely not with so many others clamoring for his attention.
“Your session—” she began.
“It has ended. I wondered why you did not escort Mrs. Randolph in.” Frederick snapped his fingers and a steam unit appeared and hovered solicitously.
Frederick told it, “See Miss Topaz to her room. Daughter, do you require a doctor?”
“No.”
His dark gaze probed hers. “Are you quite certain?”
“Yes, Father.”
“We shall speak shortly. Mrs. Randolph, I apologize for the delay. Please come right in.”
“Not at all, Mr. Hathor. The poor girl—I thought she would faint.”
“Topaz, faint?” Frederick gave a curious laugh even as the steam unit—named Edward—placed its cool, metal arm beneath Topaz’s fingers and helped her up.
“Miss Topaz?” It clicked at her.
Sheer Madness Page 11