Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  “Here in this city?” Topaz asked.

  “No. We lived in Philadelphia, but he is here now. He came for the express purpose of consulting with Frederick Hathor, who I understand is your father.”

  “He is.” Topaz drew a breath Romney could feel. “And you came with him?”

  “No. By then I was dead—killed when he pushed me down a flight of stairs and I struck my head. My husband, Louis Dennison, had heard there were two men in Buffalo who could entrap spirits and force them into new bodies.”

  Topaz faltered out, “Mechanicals, you mean.”

  “No.” Rose shook her head. “Into corpses—reanimated through a process designed by the man called the Undertaker.”

  “Danson Clifford,” Topaz said quietly and with loathing. Romney twitched in response.

  He spoke out of horror and wonder. “Is that what you are, Mrs. Dennison?”

  Her smile turned bitter. “I am. But please don’t call me by that name. I want no connection with the man and consider our marriage ties were severed when I died.”

  “Of course.” But Romney couldn’t keep his gaze from wandering over her. “You say you remember everything. Do you recall the process?”

  “Vividly. It happened in the cellar of the house from which Miss Hathor helped me escape yesterday evening. Frederick Hathor called me from the ether where I lingered after my death. I wanted to move on, but I could not. There is a time when we hover and reexamine the events that occurred during the life just passed. I was with many other spirits, but he snared me, captured me.” A delicate shudder passed through her. “He is very powerful.”

  Topaz said nothing, but again Romney felt her dismay.

  “You understand”—Rose laid a hand flat on the table—“I did not wish to return, especially when I sensed the presence of Dennison. I fought without success. When once captured and I realized what was intended for me, my horror became complete.”

  Romney asked gently, “From whence did they procure this body you now wear?”

  Rose looked at him, her gaze that of a tortured animal. “She was killed there in the lab located in that cellar.”

  “What?” Topaz half rose. Romney pulled her down again.

  “Yes, Miss Hathor. I believe she was a poor woman lured with the promise of employment. I have no access to her memories, but I heard the two who did this to me speak of it—of her.”

  “My father party to murder?” Topaz shook her head. “I know he is unscrupulous in his dealings with his clients, but for him to dismiss one spirit from a body only to replace it with another… What would prompt him to such an act?”

  Patrick Kelly replied, “Money. Miss Rose says a fearful amount of money was to change hands when she was returned to her husband in this new flesh.”

  Rose nodded. “One million dollars.”

  “What!” Topaz uttered the word again and fell silent, though Romney could feel her thinking furiously.

  Rose leaned toward her. “Your father’s name, Miss Hathor, is most apt. Mr. Kelly tells me one of the duties of the Egyptian goddess Hathor was to conduct the souls of the dead to a new life. Though he never said she made a profit from it.”

  Patrick Kelly looked at Romney. “I believe, Mr. Marsh, you must indeed be an agent of the British government sent to follow Clifford here and perhaps try to halt his activities. If so, you and I are now working on the same side. We make an odd team of four, do we not?” He emitted the grinding sound that for him represented laughter. “A man who is not, in fact, a man; another who does not recall his past; a fledgling spiritualist; and a woman with no desire to be alive. A curious situation.”

  “Indeed.” Rose’s gaze fell to the table. “I intend to tell Mr. Kelly, here, all the details I possess so he may apprehend these monsters. And then I will decide whether to end my life.”

  ****

  Much later, Topaz and Romney lay together in Patrick Kelly’s narrow bed. As soon as evening fell, Patrick had demonstrated exquisite tact by vacating the place and taking Rose with him, leaving Topaz exactly where she wanted to be. But with the dark came Romney’s agitation. He began to pace and glanced repeatedly toward the windows even after she drew the drapes. Despite his exhaustion and obvious pain, he refused to settle.

  She lit every lamp in the room and wondered how best to comfort him. Through their spiritual connection she’d experienced the edges of the darkness that had confined him and could now feel him fighting against the terror. Perhaps distraction would serve.

  She led him to the cot, pressed him down upon it, and joined him there, trying unsuccessfully to make herself small. Immediately, she felt some of the tension leave his body.

  Like a woman in a trance, she gazed into his eyes.

  “Do you know how much I’ve wanted this?” she breathed. “To touch you, I mean.”

  Wryly he said, “That was quite a buildup between us. I hope I’m not a disappointment, given this poor, battered body.”

  “No disappointment on my part. Better, in fact, than I ever imagined.”

  “Really?” He quirked a brow. “I’ll admit my imagination has run wild.”

  “As has mine. But now—bless Pat Kelly—I have the chance to satisfy it. That is, if you wouldn’t rather wait till you’re recovered—”

  “I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Any more anticipation and I just might not survive. You just lie there. How about if I begin by removing your clothing?”

  “That won’t take long. I’m not wearing much.”

  “Good.” She kissed him, and it felt like the first breath of air after an age-long suffocation. The sweetness of it flowed through her blood, and she sensed it laid claim to him as well, despite his weakness. His desire flared, inevitable desire that had existed from the moment they’d first encountered one another in her room. They were the two halves of one whole: stiletto and foil, question and answer, body and heartbeat.

  “Topaz.” He lifted his hands and cradled her face; the connection between them intensified unbearably. He laced his fingers through her hair, and she shuddered with desire. “I must have you.”

  “Take me.” She unfastened the shirt she wore. No room here for insignificant things like modesty. He’d already seen all of her, and anyway, she belonged to him without reservation.

  “But despite how much I want you, there’s a darkness in me.”

  “Then,” she said a moment before she kissed him again, “let me see if I can burn it away.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A man could quite happily die with Topaz Hathor in his arms, Romney thought. But he discovered, sharp as pain, how much he wanted to keep on living, stay right here in the flesh where he could touch her, taste her, and indulge each fantasy that had haunted him these many days past.

  Every light in the room now blazed. Topaz knew he feared the darkness just as she knew everything else about him—where he wanted her to put her hands and her mouth. She must feel his weakness also—bone deep—but she ignored it as if he were whole again.

  Complete.

  The mad idea flitted through his mind: He would only ever be complete when this woman touched him, when he touched her.

  And oh, she’d been made for touching, for his hands, and for his pleasure. Her generous curves molded to his fingers as he caressed her, and her tongue claimed him wherever it touched—the inside of his mouth, his throat, his chest, his belly. Her hair slid over his skin like a curtain of black silk, quickening every nerve, and when she took him in her mouth he forgot the darkness in a blaze of inner light.

  Weakness? What weakness? It fled from him, chased by the magic of her tongue, the heat of it like the touch of flame.

  “Topaz.” He spoke her name for the sheer joy of it even as she worked her lips and tongue up and down him—now miraculously upstanding—in an avid dance. She was magic, an enchantress, a part of him so primitive it underlay all else, even identity. “I want—”

  “No need to tell
me. I know.” She slid back up his body and gazed at him with bright, golden eyes, and he promptly lost all the breath in his body.

  Beautiful. Her lips blood red and her flesh, atop his, one caress.

  “If I love you now,” she told him, “there’s no going back from it. You know that, don’t you? We will be bonded beyond severing.”

  “We already are.”

  She smiled, glorious as the sun, and he felt her strength uplift him. “Yes, spiritually. But if I take you inside me it will be forever—beyond even the point when death may part us.”

  “You don’t even know my name.”

  Her gaze held his. “I don’t care about your name. I want you—your intelligence, your light.”

  “Sorely diminished—”

  “Let me reignite it.”

  She began to move atop him, a goddess made of strength and vigor. His heartbeat and energy rose to meet her in a crest of glorious passion.

  This made up for the hours in the dark. This made all the pain worthwhile. This, he thought at the moment he arched up into her, when she tossed her black hair and rode him with consuming pleasure, made even losing himself worthwhile. For at least he’d found her—and himself in her—forevermore.

  With each flex of her muscles, her body called to his, with each brush of softness overlying her strength. He could see now that bruises covered her white body, including a dark area across her ribs and a livid scrape down one of the legs that straddled him. She disregarded those hurts even as he disregarded his own, fixed her gaze on his, and did not waver. And when he strove to be gentle and spare her, she demanded his fire and summoned his strength from a place so deep he never knew it existed.

  “Come to me. Come in me,” she seduced.

  And she’d been right; he felt the connections between them flare irrevocably at the moment they climaxed together. She collapsed against him and, still inside her, he wrapped her in his arms.

  “Beautiful Topaz. You are so beautiful.”

  She went still in his arms. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Let me drink of you again.”

  She opened her lips to him readily, and he drank deep with eyes closed on a wave of bliss. Still inside her, he grew hard once more.

  She broke the kiss and laughed softly, one of the most arousing sounds he’d ever heard.

  “What?” he asked and palmed the delectable mound of one breast.

  “It seems your strength returns swiftly.”

  “So it does.” In one glorious movement he flipped her on her back. “I suggest you lie there and allow me to show you just how swiftly.”

  “Show me. Oh, show me,” she begged.

  ****

  He awoke to the enduring bliss, warmth, and yet more desire. It didn’t hurt, he reflected, to wake with his cheek pillowed on Topaz Hathor’s breast, his lips but a breath from one luscious nipple. Had he fallen asleep while suckling her? Quite possibly. He tried to remember the details of the night just past and found only a jumble of mind-searing images. They had roused—quite literally—several times during the night desperate for one another. Once he had fallen into a pit of darkness, dreams too terrible to contemplate now. Her touch had pulled him from that place and saved him. Each time she loved him, he grew stronger.

  In fact, he now felt surprisingly restored—far better than he could have imagined this time yesterday when every nerve end had seemed blasted by pain. He flexed his body surreptitiously, unwilling to wake Topaz. His muscles protested, but not unbearably.

  He pushed up and looked at the miracle in his arms. What made her so beautiful, besides that wickedly seductive hair, those curves he found so irresistible, and those enchanting eyes, now closed? The strong, exotic planes of her face spoke of far-off places, wild music, and firelight. Her ruby lips had been all over him last night, whispering, caressing.

  Even now, when she slept, her strength burned steady as a flame. How could he ever hope to express what she meant to him? And how would the future ever sort itself?

  As if she felt his regard, her black lashes twitched and she opened her eyes. He promptly lost all his worries on a rush of joy.

  “Good morning,” he told her.

  “Morning.” She examined him minutely, measuring the width of his brow, tracing his nose, and lingering on his mouth. “It wasn’t a dream—you’re really here.”

  “There were dreams. You saved me from them.”

  She lifted a hand and placed it against his face. A new expression flooded her eyes, grave and mysterious. He’d seen many things there before: anger, courage, defiance, desire. But this stole his breath.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’ll do, Miss Hathor. And you?” He caressed her with his gaze. “You took quite a beating in that crash. You should have reminded me.”

  “Yes?” She quirked an eyebrow. “And what would you have done differently?”

  “Been gentler with you.”

  “You were gentle with me.” Heat kindled in her eyes. “I trust you will be again.”

  “Oh?” He teased in an effort to hide his emotion. “Are we going to make love once more?”

  She tipped her head on the pillow. “Is it ‘love’?”

  “I believe so,” he answered steadily.

  She drew a breath that did amazing things to her bosom. “Ah, but I have no experience with that emotion. Like Patrick Kelly, I can’t begin to fathom it. I never believed it would find me.”

  He brushed his lips across hers lightly. “Just proves even the matchless Topaz Hathor can be wrong.”

  Beneath his hand, her heartbeat accelerated. “I must warn you, I’m not sure I can do love.”

  “I’m certain.”

  “You will need to help me through, Romney.”

  “Place your trust in me. I will give you my certainty; you give me your strength.”

  “It seems an equable arrangement, give and take. But fair warning—when I’m this close to you, I lose all perspective. I don’t know what this day will bring. I shudder to think. All I know is, before it begins, I want you.”

  “I need you,” he returned.

  And there in the bright light of morning they deepened their bonds still further. What matter, he thought again, if he’d lost his identity? In her, he found himself anew.

  ****

  If Topaz didn’t know better, she’d say Patrick Kelly looked curious when he returned to his room. He’d arrived soon after she and Romney rose—at last—from bed and now stood just inside the door, examining the place with interested, green eyes.

  Did he wonder what had taken place here during the night? Would he be so bold as to ask?

  Topaz, bundling her hair into a knot at the back of her head, also wondered just exactly what had taken place last night, beyond the obvious. Romney had barely been able to stand when he arrived here. Now he looked pale but steady, and she could personally attest to the return of his strength.

  She’d never been one to shirk battles, verbal ones with Sapphire, mental ones with her father, bouts on the waterfront. She prided herself on her fearlessness. But this bonding with Romney both thrilled and terrified her because, miraculous though it was, as her need for him deepened so did her vulnerability.

  “Good morning, Officer Kelly.” Romney still buttoned his borrowed shirt. Just thinking about what lay beneath his clothing raised Topaz’s temperature several degrees. “Thank you for your kind hospitality last night.”

  “Please call me Patrick, or Pat. We are friends, are we not?”

  “I do hope so.”

  “Being a friend of Pat Kelly is most enviable.” Topaz crossed the room and took Kelly’s hands. “He has proved a true friend to me, and I’m grateful.”

  Kelly squeezed her hands gently. “I trust you spent a pleasant night.”

  Topaz fought the sudden desire to grin. “Most pleasant.”

  “Good. I come with news. Your brother, Sapphire, has been located and is on his way to the hospital where your injured co
mpanion was taken.”

  “Where was he found?”

  “At a house on Pennsylvania Street, where he has taken rooms for himself and his fiancée. Apparently he intended to collect her from your father’s house later today.”

  “He called her that? His fiancée?”

  “He did.”

  Topaz sobered. “Any word from the hospital about how Carlotta’s doing?”

  “No. I imagine you would like to join your brother at her bedside.”

  “I would.”

  “Unfortunately, I do not consider that a safe option. Nor do I believe it safe for you to stay here. I have located a house where you may, as they say, ‘go to ground’ for a time.”

  “Oh.” Topaz glanced at Romney, who said nothing. “Together?”

  Patrick Kelly replied, “I wouldn’t dare to suggest anything else.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The building to which Patrick Kelly conducted them belonged to another of his friends. The automaton, Romney reflected, possessed more close ties than might be expected. But then, Kelly had a strong and generous spirit.

  And could an automaton—a machine built of skin laid over steel that didn’t breathe and had no actual heart—possess a spirit? It seemed abundantly evident Kelly did.

  And Romney had already begun to learn it was all about the spirit, not the flesh at all. He’d met Topaz first in spirit; he knew for a fact that during duress the spirit might vacate the flesh. But it did endure.

  And now his spirit had bonded to Topaz Hathor’s, and his flesh craved her, like a fire burning.

  Kelly shuttled them by horse and buggy, well-swathed against the cold, down Niagara Street to the warehouse that had been adapted into a dwelling. A sign out front read, Buffalo Animal Refuge, and Kelly’s knock was answered by a diminutive woman, visibly pregnant, who promptly threw herself into his arms.

  “Pat, come in out of the cold. Jamie’s just in the yard and will be here directly.”

  “How are you, Miss Cat?”

  She smiled infectiously and gestured at herself. “Blooming, as you can see.”