For an instant their father’s power wavered. Then he seemed to gather himself and in a tremendous show of might pushed through their defenses like a fist through a plank.
Sapphire cursed. Topaz swayed with the impact and would have fallen but for her brother’s grip. Dimly she heard Greta barking, barking, and felt Sapphire struggle as Frederick’s grasp tightened around their minds.
Where is she?
I do not know! Topaz shouted in victorious defiance. She felt a blinding pain as her father rifled her mind, let her go, and pounced on Sapphire.
Topaz fell to the ground, suffused by pain and weakness. Beside her she felt Sapphire struggle, throw back his head, and roar like an animal in agony. A violent burst of light exploded, shattering Sapphire’s defenses, and ended in fathomless darkness.
****
Rom, more than halfway across the lawn and stalking his third steam unit, heard Topaz’s voice in his mind, calling his name. He spun like a dancer, his new weapon raised in his hands. All his awareness leaped to hers, searching, searching, and found—
Fear and distress!
His heart jumped into his throat sickeningly. Topaz almost never gave in to fear. What, then?
Without warning, Greta rushed out of the darkness past him and ran in Topaz’s direction. Rom, about to follow, instead halted at the sound of a voice behind him—one he knew full well.
“So there you are.”
Rom spun again to see the Undertaker flanked by not one but four steam units. Only one of the units worried him; he recognized it from the questioning room at Grayson. The others were common household steamies such as those he’d already destroyed.
He fixed his gaze on Clifford. The man fairly oozed confidence, and a dim corona of light surrounded him, visible even to Rom’s eyes. Lent by Hathor? Protection?
“How dare you run from me,” Clifford said. “No one runs from me. But,” he added with satisfaction, “I have you now.”
“No.” Rom raised his weapon. He could take the premier steam unit out first and then Clifford himself—clean up the others after.
“Take him,” Clifford told the units. “But don’t injure him too badly. I may need his body.”
Cold horror washed over Rom. Did that make one of the reasons Clifford had tortured but not killed him? The Undertaker had decided he’d end up like Rose.
After he broke, his mind too devastated to report the details of the procedure or anything else he knew.
The steam units came at him in unison. Rom fired on the largest of them even as it flipped up the steam cannon it carried. He needed to seize the offensive, but once his cannon fired it would take time to recharge. How much?
He blasted the leading unit even as the other three closed in around him, and hit the arm that held the cannon. Arm and weapon both exploded, taking out the wheels on a second steamie, which tipped over, flailing its arms.
Rom smiled grimly, now in his element. As soon as the cannon recharged he would take out the units and then face Clifford fairly, man to man, without bonds and electrodes.
No sooner had that thought blossomed in his mind than a blinding flash of light burst through the graveyard, rolling like a tidal wave from the direction of the entrance and over the rolling lawn. He saw the other units go dark as it reached them, felt it sear his own consciousness, and heard a scream in his mind—one of agony.
Topaz!
His blunted consciousness reached for her, searching, before the light went out.
****
Topaz came to slowly, in agonized pieces, the way one might put together a puzzle bit by bit. Pain found her first, most of it centralized in her head and radiating out through every limb, then distress, then terror. She couldn’t seem to open her eyes. She didn’t know where she was.
Rom.
The idea of him blazed across her mind, almost as bright as the wave of light that had seared all her senses. Yes, that was what had felled her. She remembered…
Rom.
She pried her eyelids open one at a time, at a great cost in pain. It did her little good, for she still couldn’t tell where she lay: on a cold surface, the sensation coming up through her back told her that, and in a dim room.
Rom.
With the blunted ends of her consciousness she searched for him, used now to her awareness of their connection. More pieces clicked into place. She recalled…
Forest Lawn. Sapphire. Her father.
Her heart leaped into her throat, and she struggled to draw breath past her pain. Not a woman to suffer terror gladly, she felt it now, and not on her own behalf.
“Daughter, I am sorely disappointed in you.”
The voice sounded so close beside her, she started. Desperately, she focused on the form beside her and saw…
Her father looked much as he did when prepared to receive clients: immaculately clad in a black suit with brocade jacket lapels and a silk shirt, his red tie a cascade of brightness on his chest and his black hair elaborately dressed. As soon as her gaze met his she felt the impact of his will. The rest of the pieces fell into place.
Somehow she freed her gaze from his and cast it about the room. She knew this place—the very chamber from which she’d freed Rose. Her horror deepened. The corpses were gone; in fact, she lay on one of the metal tables where they’d once rested. Sapphire lay on another; he looked dead. The Undertaker, wearing a black doctor’s coat, stood with his back to her and hanging from a metal pipe overhead—
Her mind winked out and in again, the way sunlight winks through the windows of a moving train.
Rom. He dangled from metal fetters locked around his wrists, feet just shy of the floor. He too looked unconscious, or dead.
No.
She sat up so quickly she nearly butted Frederick on the chin. He took a measured step back and told her, “Careful, Topaz. Do not force me to overwhelm you again. Such violence could do permanent damage.”
Topaz did not look at him; she couldn’t take her gaze off the man hanging from the pipe.
“What are you doing?” she croaked. “Let him go.”
Clifford turned around. He wore a smirk of satisfaction on his face and leather gloves on his hands. Each hand held what Topaz recognized as an electrode. And somewhere close at hand a steam plant chugged and throbbed.
They were going to…
Her mind blinked out on the thought.
“We need to have a serious talk, Daughter, about loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” she spat. “What about madness? You cannot possibly expect me to join you in this—this scheme.”
“Why not?” Frederick’s dark eyes, almost hypnotic, recaptured her gaze. “Do you not owe me that much?”
“Owe you?”
“Oh, yes.” He spread his hands. “Did I not provide you with a good life? I gave you every comfort, this grand house in which to live, the finest food, luxurious clothing, freedom from want. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for my precious children—my jewels, as I call you. And how do you repay me—you, and him?”
He switched his gaze abruptly to Sapphire on the next table, who promptly stirred as if he felt the touch of his father’s mind.
“You did this for money and power,” Topaz corrected. She felt Sapphire’s awareness rouse, as sluggish as her own.
“What do those things buy but a good life for my family?” Frederick returned, and frowned. “But what to do with you now? That is the question.”
Clifford, who peered at them over his shoulder, giggled. The sound chased itself over Topaz’s skin like a shudder of horror.
“Kill them,” Clifford suggested. “They’re powerful enough to be dangerous.”
“Yes,” Frederick returned almost conversationally, “that’s the thing. My children are powerful. I always knew, Topaz, you had inherited a measure of my ability. I will admit Sapphire surprised me. He hid his light so very well.”
When Frederick spoke his name, Sapphire opened his eyes, and Topaz felt his spirit leap and fla
re with fear, loathing, determination. Had Sapphire the strength left to help her fight? They’d not had much success standing against Frederick at the graveyard, even before taking that frightful psychic hit.
She spared a fleeting thought for Pat Kelly, wondering what the blast in Forest Lawn had done to him and the other members of his squad.
Then, unpreventably, she focused on Rom. “What are you going to do to him?”
Clifford giggled again. He, not Frederick, answered her with what sounded like glee.
“Oh, just wait and see. You’re going to like this.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Echoes. Pain and the dim return of memory. He knew this place, or one very much like it. Fear, dread, and loathing twisted through him with devastating violence.
No, not that. Not again.
Combating the terror, a voice curled through him, precisely like a rush of adrenaline.
Topaz’s voice.
The connection between them flared, and he opened his eyes.
He was in time to see her move, slide herself off a metal table, and come to stand between him, where he hung, and—
Two men occupied the room, along with a number of steamies, one of them heavily damaged. He’d done that.
Memory rushed at him like a train. Forest Lawn. Greta. Topaz.
Topaz faced one of the men, her father, poised on the balls of her feet like a dancer, or a warrior. The other man, Rom saw with sinking dismay, was Danson Clifford, a set of electrodes already in his hands. But this wasn’t the room at Grayson. Where?
And did Topaz truly believe she could defend him? He felt her protectiveness, her determination; he virtually tasted her love. He saw the black curtain of her hair, now loosened, twitch as she set her powerful shoulders. But in the graveyard Frederick had overwhelmed her. Could he not do so again?
“Move aside, Daughter. You have no weapons you may use against me.”
“I have my hands—my heart—my will. You’ll not touch him.”
Frederick tipped his head. “What is this poor specimen to you? I told you, if you wish to marry—a state in which you’ve never expressed an interest—I will procure a suitable husband, as I did for your sisters. Someone worthy.”
“I’ll choose my own husband, thank you.”
She already had. Rom remembered the promises given in the graveyard, and strength flooded through him, battling the dread.
“The heart makes a poor weapon,” Frederick said scornfully. “It can so easily be turned against you. Do you truly care for him?”
Topaz hesitated, and Rom felt her dilemma: reveal her vulnerability? Make a bid for mercy? But no mercy would be forthcoming.
Steel entered her voice as she said, “A miracle I’m capable of loving anyone, given the way I was raised and the examples before me.”
Frederick actually managed to look injured. “Whatever do you mean? Everything I did, as I have said, I did for love of my family.”
“Don’t say that!” Topaz exclaimed, and her voice cracked, revealing her emotional fragility. “Do you claim to love Ruby and Pearl, auctioning them off to the highest bidders?”
“To men with the ability to look after them lifelong. My children shall never want for anything.”
“Except affection. Or is that what you are supposed to feel for Mother, with your separate bedrooms?”
“You know nothing about my relationship with your mother. The presence of the spirits disturbs her sleep. That is why I spare her.”
“Enough of this,” Clifford cried. “You can play emotional games with your children later, Frederick. Now we have a paying customer, and a spirit waiting for his flesh.”
“No.” Slowly, almost gracefully, Topaz drew the stiletto from the pouch on her belt.
Frederick raised his eyebrows. “Would you use a blade on your own father?”
“Only if I have to. Cut him down and let us go.”
“Can’t,” Clifford replied. “He knows too much. All three of you do.” He stepped toward Topaz and slanted a look at Frederick. “You do realize we can’t release any of them.”
Frederick did not speak.
Clifford edged around him. “Move aside, girlie, unless you want to feel the bite of these electrodes.”
Topaz snarled, sounding like a maddened dog.
Rom lifted his head and croaked, “Topaz, love, do as he says.” Anything—even his own death—would be better than seeing her tortured.
Topaz and Clifford leaped at the same moment, she with her stiletto flashing. Clifford dodged her, giving a yelp as he did so, and the electrodes found the flesh of Rom’s bare chest. Agony arced through him, and he hollered as it ran along pathways already set during past sessions, knocking down his flimsy resistance.
A bright line of red sprang forth across Clifford’s cheek—he had not dodged quickly enough, and Topaz’s blade had achieved a glancing strike.
He paused, breathing hard and snarling at Topaz. He no longer looked like a mild rabbit but a ferret half mad with excitement.
“I can kill him, you know,” he told Topaz, once more waving the electrodes in Rom’s direction. “There’s such a fine line between torment and death, and it would not take much to break his mind. Then my good friend, your father, will banish his spirit and replace it with another.”
Topaz turned her head and looked at her father. “Would you do such a thing? Use your talents to banish a spirit from its holy dwelling place for money?”
Frederick did not reply. He stood as if frozen, his dark eyes glittering, and regarded his daughter.
Clifford once more emitted his disturbing, high-pitched giggle. “Do you expect him to have scruples? He’s a gypsy. Beneath all the trappings, the fine clothes, and the grand home, he’s no better than the filthy tinkers who roamed the fens back where I was born.”
Still Frederick did not react. Rom, fighting his way through the aftermath of pain, swaying where he hung, blinked at him.
Clifford, electrodes still in gloved hands, turned to face Frederick. Blood dripped down his cheek and spattered on the floor.
“You know we have to finish it. Things have gone too far now. It’s perhaps unfortunate your children became involved, but their loyalties are obviously engaged and those loyalties do not belong to you. We have a paying customer for the agent’s body, and it’s the perfect solution.” He flicked his gaze at Rom. “A very wealthy woman described in some detail the new body she wants for her husband’s spirit. You fit the bill almost perfectly.”
Vomit rose into the back of Rom’s throat. And did Hathor have the power to tear his spirit away from Topaz?
“No,” Topaz said and backed up so she stood directly in front of Rom, so close he could feel the heat of her body. “You will have to go through me.”
Clifford sneered. “Remove her, Hathor.”
Topaz looked at her father, and Rom, through their connection, felt her defenses rise. Could she withstand Hathor? He’d been able to overwhelm both her and Sapphire at Forest Lawn. Upon that thought, Rom looked at Sapphire who lay—supposedly still insensate—on a second metal table. Sapphire’s eyes were open and full of caution.
Frederick extended a hand to Topaz. “Do not make me harm you, Daughter. Give me the weapon.”
She shook her head, and her black hair brushed the new burns on Rom’s chest. He felt her spirit rise still more fiercely and knew at that moment she would fight to the death for him.
“If you do not want to kill them outright,” Clifford insinuated, “then we will keep their bodies alive. You can deal with their troublesome spirits.” He flicked Topaz with his gaze. “She’s a robust specimen, if lacking in refinement. I am sure such a flesh host would fetch a fine price.”
Frederick stirred at last and turned toward his associate. “You’re asking me to cast my own children into the outer darkness?”
“They have proved disloyal to you and—as I have pointed out—know too much. If you do not wish to do the job, have the unit strap them t
o the tables and I will do what’s needed with these.” He raised the electrodes, still live and sparking.
“Father,” Topaz said. Only that one word, but it caught all of Frederick’s attention.
Rom wondered suddenly what lay between them. From the moment he’d met Topaz she’d displayed dissatisfaction with her father. Yet, as Rom well knew, blood ties ran deep.
For an instant longer Frederick hesitated, his glittering gaze fixed on the floor rather than on his daughter. Then, with a sudden movement, he turned away and spoke to the steam unit that stood by.
“Take her. Subdue her. Let it be done.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Breathing hard, air scorching her lungs even as she fought her bonds, Topaz writhed on the table. Her ears still rang with the percussion of the steam blast fired in the confined space. The steam unit, taking her father’s orders literally, had caught her a glancing blow with it. Part of her right side, from her breast down, had been seared by superheated steam.
Some of her writhing came of pain, some from rage. Her feelings for her father rose in such a fierce wave they nearly choked her. Their relationship had always been complicated, but deep inside she’d believed that in his twisted way he did love her.
She found that impossible to believe now. Bitterness joined the anger that choked her. Frederick Hathor—the great spirit master—had chosen wealth over decency and traded his conscience to this madman with the graveyard skills. And now—now he chose his own welfare and survival over that of his own child.
It is all about survival, Daughter.
How many times had he said those words to her over the years? Enough that she now seemed to hear them in her mind.
The steamie had relentlessly closed on her, wrested away her stiletto, and strapped her down to the table—the same where Rose had been brought back to life. And would her father truly let Clifford keep her body alive, replace her spirit with another? Would he banish Rom’s spirit, as well?
Upon that thought she turned her eyes on him. Obviously in agony, his wrists strained white, he hung from the iron pipe, his feet reaching desperately for the floor. New, livid burns marked the skin of his chest, but his blue gaze reached for Topaz, vital as a touch.
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