Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  “Did you? Or did you just come looking for my father the way any good hunter would?”

  He caressed her cheek. “I felt drawn to something at that house, and it wasn’t Frederick Hathor.”

  He bent his head and let his lips follow his fingers across the velvet of her cheek. When he found her lips, time seemed to stand still. Warmth lay in her kiss, and passion and belonging.

  But she ended it much too soon and whispered, “I have another question, a most important one.”

  “Yes?” He lifted his brows.

  “In this other life of yours in England—is there a wife?”

  “No wife. No desire for one. Just a wild lad running the fens, refusing to grow up, and playing at monster-hunter, thinking it quite the lark to be in service to the Queen.”

  “So it is, quite a lark.” She bestowed another little kiss; this one parted his lips. He felt her tongue slip inside. “But no desire for a wife?”

  “Not till now.”

  She caught her breath. Connected to her as he was, spirit to spirit, he felt her hesitant delight. “But now?”

  “I would ascribe to the state of wedded union in an instant, but I am fairly sure the woman I have in mind is not the marrying sort.”

  “Is she not?”

  “I wouldn’t have said so.” Again he skipped his lips across hers softly. “Even wilder of spirit than I am, she is—fiercely independent.”

  “Perhaps so. But then, she’d never met a man like you.” She sampled him. He felt the sweetness flare, and along with it desire.

  “Well, now,” he murmured. “Surely she hasn’t reconsidered the marital state?”

  “I think she has. If you might ask her to marry you—”

  “In a graveyard? At midnight?” He could not help but chuckle.

  “Even so. Seems fitting, don’t you think, for two people who first met in spirit?”

  He captured her face between his cold hands and gazed into her eyes. “Will you marry me, Topaz Hathor—in the event we survive?”

  “I will, Romney Gideon—in the event we survive.”

  They sealed the pledge with a long kiss before she said, “Sapphire insists he knew Carly in a past life. I don’t think I ever knew you before, though your spirit attracts me like,” she struggled for expression, “a missing piece of my own.”

  “You might have been a wild gypsy queen and I lord of the marshes.”

  At their side, Greta growled softly. Topaz froze in Romney’s arms.

  “What?” he breathed.

  “He’s here. My father is here.”

  “Where?” Rom peered out into the darkness. “I see no one.”

  “I’m not at all sure he’s brought his body.”

  ****

  Topaz quailed inwardly as she felt the force of her father’s consciousness overspread the graveyard. No mistaking that presence—she had been aware of his spiritual signature, at least peripherally, all her life. Greta must have picked up on her subconscious awareness and reacted. And if she needed further confirmation, she felt Sapphire’s awareness spike also, across the expanse of graves. But she didn’t really need the confirmation.

  Instinctively, she got to her feet, the dog trembling beside her. A warrior faced battle on her feet, and this would be a battle of the first water.

  Hastily, Rom pulled her back down into his arms. “No, don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  She could feel everything about Rom—his spirit, his heartbeat, and the love for her that burgeoned inside him. She could also feel Frederick Hathor’s power close around the graveyard like a fist around a dove.

  “No need to draw attention,” she whispered. “Rom, I want you to leave me here—go now, while he’s at least partially distracted by me and Sapphire. Save yourself.”

  “Like hell I will.” He spoke the words without emphasis, but she felt his intent, unbending as iron. He possessed strength, this man she loved—enough to survive the separation of flesh from spirit.

  But she looked at him and said, “Please. He’s after me, not you. He knows I fled his house with Rose.” She drew a quick breath. “I can risk anything but your safety.”

  “If you suppose I’ll walk away from here not knowing what might happen to you—”

  “They’ll kill you if they find you. But I’m his daughter.” He couldn’t kill her, could he? Desperately she contemplated the question even as her father’s power flared like unseen light. “Let me fight him, Rom, without worrying for you.”

  At that moment, Greta lunged forward into the darkness. Topaz narrowed her eyes. The undulating expanse of the cemetery lay lit by only a few steam lamps; one burned at the entrance near the statue of Redjacket, another across the way where she thought Sapphire had secreted himself, near Main Street. But she and Rom had chosen a nest of darkness.

  Now, though, she thought she caught a hint of movement in bright silver—a mechanical moving toward them silently.

  Just one? Breath gusted between her lips. Her father had possessed but the two advanced units that he’d trusted in the cellar, and one had been destroyed in the steamcab crash. Did her father now send the other searching for them, guided by his spirit?

  Horror clawed its way up her spine. For suddenly the graveyard felt alive with spirits, as aware of Frederick’s presence as she. They arose from every side and began flocking to him, like iron filings to a magnet.

  She felt several brush past her from behind and caught back a curse. This had been Pat Kelly’s intention, to stymie her father when he came looking, inflict psychic overload on him and make this place into a trap. But Frederick may not have come in person. How far did his power extend? Still, the flocking of the spirits argued he might be here in the flesh, as well.

  And what of Danson Clifford, who needed to recapture Rom at any cost?

  Oh, why had she ever brought Rom here with her? For the comfort of his company? All at once it seemed the height of foolishness.

  She didn’t know if all the strength she and Sapphire together could muster might defend against the power her father had now unleashed.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Greta had run into the darkness and did not return. Topaz stumbled once more to her feet and stood with her eyes closed and her hands clenched. She felt for her father’s consciousness and tried desperately to wield a sense she’d sought all too seldom to employ.

  In truth, she’d fought just this all her life, had hidden from it, preferring to rely on muscle, quickness, even a length of steel in her hand. This power she’d inherited from her father could twist her awareness, warp her life—even steal her will if she let it.

  Now, though, she reached for it greedily, seeking to fashion a shield that might, among all these seething spirits, make the man beside her invisible. She cared little for herself and all for him.

  With her eyes closed, everything turned to light. The graveyard became a velvet expanse and the spirits all around her moving points of brightness. Most of them streamed toward Frederick where he—or his consciousness—hovered near the main entrance. It looked like the air around the house on the Parkway. Others moved aimlessly near what must be their graves. Still others gravitated toward where she knew Sapphire hid.

  Would all this activity, as Pat believed, camouflage her and Sapphire from their father? Would it obscure Rom? She wondered suddenly just how much faith Pat had in his plan, given he’d secreted Rose elsewhere.

  Carefully, tentatively, she sent her senses out searching—rather one particular sense, the one she so seldom employed. She’d used it to make contact with Rom when he suffered at Grayson. Now she did not want to draw attention to herself or him. But she wanted to locate her father in truth.

  At first the presence of the other spirits confounded her. But she’d grown up surrounded by such psychic background clutter and must have learned more than she suspected during that time, for she was able to filter at least some of it away.

  Her blood began to pound in her veins—gypsy bloo
d that had traveled from North Africa across Europe and jumped an ocean to reach this place. She needed to trust that blood.

  Upon the thought, everything snapped into place. She could “see” Sapphire on the other side of the cemetery. His shield did little to hide him from her and that made her heart skip a beat because it meant Frederick Hathor would eventually find both of them.

  She touched briefly, spirit to spirit, with her brother and felt a surge of reassurance. Sapphire possessed more power than she’d ever guessed. Could the two of them together overwhelm Frederick?

  Greta had disappeared. Where? Topaz reached farther and picked up the spark of the dog’s consciousness—headed straight for Frederick.

  “Come.” She caught Rom’s hand and towed him into motion. If he wouldn’t leave her, she had to protect him as best she could, and that meant joining forces with Sapphire.

  But her brother, when they reached him, looked pale and tense with strain. He rolled his eyes at Topaz like an unbroken horse feeling the harness for the first time.

  “I hate this,” he greeted her, and bared his teeth. Topaz saw how he sweated. “I’ll have you know I’ve resisted using this accursed ability all my life.”

  “As have I. I don’t think he’s here in the flesh. Do you?” No need to specify which he. Both of them now knew only one.

  “It isn’t his flesh that worries me.” Sapphire gasped the words. “I hope your friend the automaton’s plan is sound. If they take the opportunity to go after Carly while we’re trapped here…”

  “Why should he go after Carly?”

  “Because you took her with you and Rose; because that will make him think she knows too much. He didn’t get where he is by being less than perceptive.”

  “He’s after Rose. Or Rom.” That last thought terrified Topaz beyond measure. She tightened her grip on Rom’s arm. Did her father, or more importantly Clifford, suspect all of what Rom had begun to remember?

  Sapphire grunted, all his attention focused elsewhere.

  “He’s brought his pet automaton,” Topaz said. “The last remaining one. I saw it.”

  “He’s brought at least five or six.” Again Sapphire rolled his eyes at her. “Must be household units pressed into service.”

  “Is Pat here?” Rom asked in Topaz’s ear. “Can you tell?”

  She shook her head violently. The hybrid’s spiritual signature was, at best, hard to pick up.

  “Well, then,” Rom breathed, “I suggest I set about taking out your father’s steam units; you two see to the psychic defense.”

  “We are not splitting up!” she told him.

  Sapphire grunted again. “Quiet, for God’s sake. And don’t be a fool—we have to use him any way we can.”

  Rom caught Topaz’s shoulders between his hands. “I’m an agent of the British government, love. You can’t keep me tethered to your side.”

  “But—” Terror rose in a dark wave.

  He kissed her, a brief, hard kiss. “Be strong, strong as you really are.” And he disappeared into the night.

  Topaz wanted to scream, wail out her despair and protest. For an instant she couldn’t breathe. Then she caught a hint of the light that was Rom’s spirit moving away from her, pausing, moving, before it mingled with the other lights and became lost to her.

  “Push against him,” Sapphire said suddenly, startling her.

  “Against Rom?” But, no—of course Sapphire meant against Frederick.

  “See if we’re strong enough together to trap him, or at least confound him.”

  “He’ll know we’re here.”

  “He already knows, fool! We must keep him occupied till your friend arrives. It’s the best way to protect your lover.”

  Her lover. The other half of her soul. But Topaz refused to think about Rom somewhere in the dark ahead of her, for fear that would draw Frederick’s attention to him.

  A spirit passed by her, so close she jumped back. Others still streamed toward the blaze of light and intelligence that represented Frederick Hathor, near the cemetery entrance.

  Sapphire reached out and clasped Topaz’s hand. Immediately her senses focused and strengthened.

  “Envision a net. Throw it around him. Let’s see what we can do.”

  ****

  In daylight, Romney reflected, this must be a pleasant place, with its broad roadways and undulating lawn, punctuated with looming forms of funereal statuary. Only the finest of Buffalo’s residents would be buried here—the departed elite. Unlike Topaz, he couldn’t sense their spirits, yet the mood of the place lying beneath its blanket of white snow gripped him. And he could still feel his connection to Topaz, now well behind him, like a cord stretching tight.

  Fear gripped his belly at the thought of her going up against her ruthless father. Would he be more likely to spare his children than any of the others whose spirits he’d forced into what amounted to slavery? Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knew what motivated such a man?

  As a partner of the vile Undertaker, he must be stopped. Rom reminded himself he had crossed an ocean for just that purpose and couldn’t let himself falter now merely because the better part of his heart, his sanity, no longer rested inside his own body but with Topaz.

  He ducked around a white marble plinth twice his height and saw something moving on the roadway ahead of him—a steam unit, but not one of those that had done Clifford’s bidding at Grayson and strung him up like so much meat.

  Don’t think about that, he bade himself. In those thoughts lay madness. And he couldn’t afford a mistake.

  This looked like a common household steam unit made intimidating by the presence of the side-cannon it carried, a big model that breathed faint wisps of vapor, betraying itself as fully charged. Death, as he well knew, lay in the mouth of that weapon.

  He looked around for a weapon of his own. The lawn, immaculately cared for and groomed even in winter, offered little. But he did see a broken limb hanging from the lower branches of a nearby tree. Moving with all the stealth he could muster, he leaped for it, swung like a monkey, and pulled it down with a loud crack.

  The steam unit turned. Above the reaching branches of the tree, the wind drove the clouds apart. Wan moonlight filtered down and glinted off the unit’s metal skin.

  It saw Rom, and he charged forward even as it raised the cannon.

  Would it aim to kill? What were its orders—to maim, capture? The last thing Rom wanted was a return to the echoing cell at Grayson and the smell of his own seared skin in his nostrils.

  Upon that thought, he leaped into the center of the road and faced the unit. The sidearm fired and Rom leaped again, swinging his wooden weapon even as the steam blast roared by him, so close he felt the heat on his leg.

  The unit spun to face him. But this—no advanced model—floundered and flailed as it moved. Rom’s first blow took it where its head met its metal shoulders. The second, with all his strength behind it, separated the two components but broke his branch in the process.

  The headless unit floundered some more before trundling away from him—to report his whereabouts, perhaps? Rom chased after it, knocked it down, and kicked it to pieces, burning his foot when its boiler erupted.

  Somewhere a dog barked—Greta. His eye caught the glint of yet another steam unit moving his way. He spared a thought for Topaz somewhere behind him and told himself he had no cause—and no time—to worry about her.

  A warrior, she could take care of herself. As he jogged to meet the next unit, the steam cannon now in hand, he remembered the night he’d watched her take on her two would-be abductors—the same night they’d met.

  Strong and beautiful, that was his Topaz. Would she prove strong enough?

  Greta barked again, closer this time. He bet the dog would circle around and rejoin Topaz, where she wanted to be.

  Rom charged on into the darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Far off across the broad lawn sewn with graves, Topaz heard Greta bark. The sound raised her
anxiety another notch. She could again feel the dog’s consciousness, faint but frenetic. She could feel so many things, all those she’d striven to deny most of her life.

  It all came upon her now, for the love of a man.

  Who would have thought she could be tripped up by such feelings? But she could no more deny Rom’s importance to her than declare herself free of Hathor blood and this gift or curse that resided within her. She adored everything about him, from his sense of humor—dark as her own—to the way he tasted on her tongue. But if she wanted a life with him, she would have to face that which terrified her most.

  She closed her eyes again and sent her consciousness out in a wave. Every spirit in the graveyard once more transformed into light. Sapphire, beside her, burned like blue fire—how had he ever concealed all that power? The spirits of the dead still streamed to her father, whose consciousness made it difficult to see anything else, like trying to see stars in daylight. But she did glimpse fainter points that must be members of the Irish Squad surrounding the perimeter.

  Pat Kelly would be pleased to know he did in fact possess a visible spirit—provided she survived and had a chance to tell him.

  She hoped Pat’s trap would work. Frederick might not even be here; someone, likely the Undertaker—would be directing the steamies. If the Irish Squad could capture him…

  At her side, Sapphire groaned. “He’s increasing his concentration. Can’t you feel it?”

  Topaz could. She stood rigid as Sapphire grasped her hand, his fingers hot.

  And at that instant her father’s voice burst into her mind.

  Daughter, why have you turned against me? Why do you stand in defiance? Where is the one we seek?

  The one they sought: Rose. Wise of Pat Kelly not to let her and Sapphire know where he’d secreted her. For even beneath this unbearable demand, she couldn’t break and tell.

  “Raise a barrier,” Sapphire gasped, and his fingers tightened on hers. “Shove him out of our heads.”

  “How?”

  “Call up the power.” With the words, knowledge flooded into Topaz’s mind from Sapphire’s. She called up all her ability and joined it with his in a wall of psychic stone.