The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  A much larger group of men attacked Neco in waves, encroaching on the celludrone’s space inch by inch but never getting close enough to use their swords. None attempted to reflect the beams, although that happened every now and then by pure chance. Either way, in less than a minute, three dozen men littered the floor with only Neco and Ana standing.

  “Impressive,” Kelan called out. “Armand has been busy while I’ve been gone.”

  Neco nodded in his direction, then came over. “Armand appears to keep himself habitually busy, my lord.”

  Kelan flexed his fingers, shooting imaginary light bolts. “I’m talking about your upgrade,” he elaborated. “He fitted you with a Strobe machine?”

  “Portable electrical light, my lord,” Neco replied in his usual monotone voice. “He was able to mimic the functionality of his Strobe machine in a miniature device that fits inside my chest and draws charge from my life cell.”

  “The man is a genius.” Kelan reached for the sword sheathed inside his boot and, with a flick, extended the Cairngorm blade to full length.

  He swept a look across his men, who’d formed a loose semi-circle around him as they’d become aware of his presence. “You cannot defeat the energy bolts,” he told them as he stepped forward. “But you can use them to your advantage.”

  He sent Neco to one end of the ballroom and took up his position at the other. “Ready when you are.”

  Neco raised one hand, flexed his fingers a couple of times, then released a flash of light.

  Kelan easily curved his body out of the beam’s path and angled his sword to deflect the next one.

  “Forget about charging,” he instructed his men as he dipped and swerved, brandishing his sword to reflect beams that struck Neco’s large body again and again. “You don’t want to get close to your opponent. The army we’re going to war against is like none you have ever faced. Your best hope is to incapacitate by turning their energy bolts back on them.”

  Their swords weren’t Cairngorm ore, but the broadside of their blades could reflect a fire bolt back at the demon just as effectively, stunning the demon for precious seconds that may well save their life.

  He spent the rest of the morning training with his men, refining their tactics and imparting as much knowledge as he dared on the specific art of demon warfare without revealing the truth about the technologically advanced soldiers they believed the enemy to be.

  The exercise invigorated his body and mind, but not his soul. No matter how much they trained or how many genius inventions Armand came up with, he would probably be sending each and every one of these loyal men to their deaths. That responsibility did not sit lightly on him, but what was the alternative?

  It was close to midday before he eventually found Armand in the library, kneeling on the rug amidst a sea of scientific debris.

  Kelan cleared his throat. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

  The elegant Italian rose gracefully to his feet without so much as a flinch in his composure or a crease in his dark grey suit. “Not hiding, my lord.” He turned, his frown lifting from the length of copper wire grasped in his hand.

  “Do you have the materials to make more Stylometors?” Kelan strode deeper into the room, taking care to avoid the bits and pieces of metal plating and glass tubes strewn about. “We need around fifty, more if you’re able.”

  Armand’s mouth quirked. “I have the materials, but may I assume you’re not thinking of opening a market stall?”

  Kelan ignored the man’s amusement. “I’m thinking a rune-stamp will be useful on the battlefield.”

  The device was a silver-plated rod that discharged molten iron-filings into the pattern for the rune to bind and keep. In the heat of battle, the demon trap could be hastily scorched in the ground, activated with a few drops of human blood.

  “I’ll make the Stylometors,” Armand said. “That’s the easy part. How will we explain the concept when we’re showing the men how to use it?”

  “We’ll think of something.” Navigating the cluttered floor, Kelan narrowly missed crushing some delicate feathery instrument with his boot. On closer examination, he realised it was a lifeless black eagle. Not dead, but a beautifully crafted automaton.

  He picked the bird up by the tip of one wing and dangled it at Armand. “Is there a reason you’ve moved your laboratory upstairs?”

  “I needed to be close to the Aether Signaller, my lord.” Armand rushed forward to save his eagle from Kelan’s rough-handling. “My success with the Strobe machine led me to another idea.”

  “I had the pleasure of sparring with Neco this morning,” Kelan said. “Your modification is remarkable.”

  Excitement sparked a glint in Armand’s obsidian eyes. “Now imagine a portable Signaller, a communication device you could carry on the move.”

  Kelan shrugged. In all honesty, he couldn’t. He glanced at the eagle cradled in Armand’s hands. “Like a carrier pigeon?”

  “Something a little more sophisticated than that,” Armand drawled. He turned the bird over and pulled aside the flap of leathery skin that covered the underbelly to reveal the inner workings; a tiny celludrone life cell connected to an equally diminutive mechanical box that controlled the automaton.

  “I’ve reconfigured the mechanics to receive frequency waves instead of vocal commands and installed a recording device,” Armand continued, pulling gently at a tangle of copper spirals bunched beneath the box. “A rather simple adjustment, using dedicated Aether waves to control the mechanical operations and open a channel of communication.”

  He closed the flap again, running his thumb firmly along the seam to seal it before returning the eagle to Kelan. “Hold this and I’ll give you a small demonstration.”

  Kelan’s sceptical gaze followed as Armand hurried into the Aether Signaller chamber that led off from the library.

  “The capacity is severely limited,” Armand called from inside the chamber. “A natural consequence of condensing all the parts to the smallest size possible, but the functionality may still prove quite useful. And this is just the start, of course…”

  Kelan waited, concentrating so hard on whatever was supposed to happen on the other side of the open doorway, he almost dropped the damned bird when it made a sudden whirring vibration. There was a faint click-click-click from within the belly, and then the noise and vibration abruptly stopped.

  Armand appeared in the doorway, beckoning him closer. “I rewired that frequency to activate the recorder instead of opening the eagle’s beak. Did you hear it turn on?”

  Nodding, beginning to understand at last, Kelan’s gaze dropped to the hooked orange beak as he walked over. “And it records whatever you speak over the Aether Signaller?”

  “In theory, when I get that part working,” Armand said. “Now feel beneath the right wing, close to the joint, there’s a hard knob that controls the flapping action for flight. I’ve set the Signaller to receive on the same frequency emitted when you press the knob.” He nodded encouragingly when Kelan just looked at him. “Try it.”

  With a shrug, Kelan felt for the knob and pressed. A loud crackle sounded from the open channel on the Signaller. He pressed again. Another loud crackle. His eyes lifted to Armand. “Should I speak?”

  Armand shook his head. “That’s as far as I’ve got.”

  “So, the Aether Signaller and this…this eagle, can communicate?” Kelan said. “Over a distance?”

  “Any distance,” Armand confirmed. “It has the same reach as any Aether wave.”

  “Damned marvellous.”

  “Well, yes,” Armand said, “but there’s still a lot of work…”

  Kelan held a finger up to quieten the man. A plan was forming. His mind whirred as distinctly as the bird’s belly had a moment earlier. He pressed the knob again, listened for the crackle. “You said this controls the flapping action for flight?”

  “That’s correct, my lord.”

  He looked Armand in the eye. “These eagle a
utomatons can fly?”

  “That one can,” Armand said. “The Manchester Menagerie Company discontinued the line before it went into production, though, replaced them with birds that merely flap their wings and walk. They couldn’t implement intricate flight control to either land the bird safely or turn it around to fly back to the owner.”

  “Ah, so it would either fly away—”

  “In a straight line,” Armand cut in, grimacing. “Or crash to the ground.”

  “An expensive toy to lose the first time you use it,” Kelan said. “Perfect.”

  “My lord?” Armand’s eyes widened fractionally.

  “How difficult would it be to alter the usual variety of bird to fly like this eagle?”

  Armand considered that for a moment. “A simple matter of adjusting the elevation angles.” He stroked his chin, his brow furrowed with the questions on his mind. “What are you thinking, my lord?”

  “I’m thinking…” Kelan turned the bird over and over in his hands. “I’m thinking you need to contact the Manchester Menagerie Company and order us more birds.”

  “How many?”

  “As many as they have,” Kelan replied. “I’ll arrange for a Customs Dirigible to take delivery in the morning.”

  THREE

  From the outside, The Pig and Briar was a hovel crammed down the arse end of the deepest, darkest alley in the seedy labyrinth that made up Edinburgh’s underbelly. The cobbled path that led Greyston to the rotted door was chipped and slippery from the bucket loads of slosh emptied from the apartments leaning precariously on either side. A dim lantern swung drunkenly in the wind that gusted through the alley, its squeaky protest swallowed into the blustery night.

  Greyston ducked through the low door and stepped into the heat of packed bodies and the two giant hearths alight with roaring flames to ward off the early November chill. The talk was bawdy, the laughter gruff, half the beer in the tankards spilt en-route to consumption. Women with full cleavages and tight bodices sauntered between the men, refilling tankards and pocketing coins, delivering elbow jabs when and as deserved.

  The only tables in the establishment lined the wall at the back, reserved for the real business of the day. Bakerville himself attended the men seated there, serving messages with the tumblers of whiskey and spiced rum. The proprietor was a large man with a shock of white hair standing awkwardly on his head, as if it didn’t want to be there. His mutton chops roamed halfway across pockmarked cheeks before fizzling into fluff. His one squint eye kept creeping around the corner, probably with the good sense to watch his back. The Pig and Briar was the equivalent of a posting station for those who’d pay good money to ensure their letters didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

  Greyston headed for an empty table in the corner and shoved down onto a rickety chair. Bakerville noted he had a new customer, acknowledged Greyston with a nod and a short while later came over with a glass of heather-spiced whiskey.

  He slammed the glass on the table and leant in, meeting Greyston’s gaze with his focussed eye as he shook his head.

  Greyston bit down on the reflex to ask if he was sure. He wasn’t expecting anything, not anymore, and Bakerville would never trade his reputation on maybes. If the man said no message had been delivered or collected, then it hadn’t.

  He dug into his pocket and slid the five guineas over the man’s meaty palm.

  Bakerville closed his fist and straightened. “Ye sure ye want ta keep givin’ me yer coin?”

  “You’ve never balked at taking it before.”

  “Aye, that I ne’er,” he agreed with a grumbling chuckle. “But e’en I can see the lass hae done a runner, an’ that with only one good eye.”

  Greyston threw back half the whiskey, then gestured with the glass. “Keep them coming.”

  He settled lower in the chair and stretched his legs out, unhappily aware he was little better than a scrawny dog sniffing after picked bones and getting nowhere. The last seven weeks crisscrossing the Scottish Aether had yielded nothing. Except for the scuffle of excitement when they’d come across the massive barnyard, which in the end only housed two giant mechanical harvesters, the search for the warship Gossamer was a dismal waste of time. No less than his weekly Friday stop here for a message that would never come.

  Greyston slugged down the second half of his whiskey and gave the burn a moment to coat heat over his dire mood. It was this place. For years, trading letters through Bakerville had been his only communication with Aragon. He’d made his peace with his brother’s death, committed Aragon’s memory to a place swept clean of guilt and bitter regret. But sometimes it still hurt like hell.

  He had three glasses lined up and one on the way when he saw her. Pushing through the door. Brought up short by the sheer volume of noise and bodies, but only for a brief moment and then she was weaving a path through the room while her gaze swept the place with unobtrusive skill. That gaze swept straight over him, then jerked back and stuck.

  Greyston tipped his head at her, a grin tucking up at the corner of his mouth and his mood as he rose to his feet and made his way over. His eyes never left her, not for a damned blink.

  Her coat was leather, coffee brown streaked with lighter tan lines creased into the fabric from wear, scraping the cuff of mid-thigh boots. Her hat pulled low to shade the slant of exotic cheekbones. His grin cracked wider as he wondered how the hell she’d managed to fit the full tumble of her curls beneath.

  Eyes that brought the summer sky into this blustery Autumn night lit on him with a sparkle as he drew near. “Hello, Grey.”

  Without a word, he grabbed her hand and dragged, using his broad shoulder to clear their path to the door.

  “Eh, gov,” a slurred voice called after them. “E’rything a’right there?”

  “Perfectly fine, thank you,” Georgina replied from her half pace behind him.

  The Welsh lilt trebled warmth into his blood for a couple more notes after she’d finished speaking.

  Not all the apartments toppling above them were dark, but the windows were small, caked with soot and grime and disinclined to share their flickering candlelight to those below. A mound of rubbish to his left moved, moaned…

  Greyston pulled Georgina closer and picked up the pace. “You were supposed to leave word for me here,” he told her. “Not come in person.”

  “As if I’d ever send a man or woman into any place I feared to tread myself,” she scoffed. A tug came at his hand. “I’m capable of walking without being dragged.”

  Greyston stopped dragging, but he didn’t release her hand. He didn’t trust Georgina to not slip away as quickly as she’d appeared.

  “Georgina…” He didn’t know where to start. He’d given up on ever seeing this woman again. He could have hunted her down, extracted her whereabouts from Hastings or her uncle. But she’d somehow convinced him not to. She’d looked into his eyes, told him she’d find him. She’d come to him. And he’d understood. If he did the chasing, she’d flee.

  When it became clear he had nothing more to say, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  “The Red Hawk.”

  She tugged at his hand again.

  “She’s not far.” His eyes dipped to her, her profile just an outline in the moonless alley. “If you’re not up for the walk,” he drawled with a wolfish grin, “I don’t mind carrying you.”

  She ignored the offer. “Where’s your man? Neco?”

  “Cragloden,” Greyston said. He couldn’t see her expression, but he heard the frown in her voice. Why was she so concerned? “He’s helping out at the castle.”

  After an endless number of turns into alleys dark enough to absorb the feral gleam of rodents’ eyes and so narrow at times they had to side-step through sideways, the labyrinth spat them out into the dusky yellow lighting that bathed the High Street. Greyston pulled left toward the shadowed spire of St Giles.

  Pedestrian traffic was light. The doxies were superstitious about peddling their wares on the church c
orner. The more fashionable establishments avoided this part of town and the drinking holes were pressed deep into the underbelly’s veins and closer to the heart.

  Georgina dug her heels in, reeling him to an abrupt stop face to face with her.

  Her stubborn chin nudged high. “Give me one reason I should allow myself to be kidnapped.”

  “Allow?” His brow quirked.

  A smile touched her mouth as she guided their joined hands beneath the edge of her coat, flattening his palm over her lower thigh, sliding it up inch by sensual inch. Desire heated his blood, weighing heavy on his hooded lids as his gaze dropped to her plump lips. Before he could follow through, his palm slid over cool steel.

  He lifted his eyes to hers, fire licking his veins as desire reacted with admiration and combusted. The vixen had a dagger strapped to her thigh. He took her free hand, fed it between the lapels of his open coat, pressed her palm to where his heart beat beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. Then he dragged her hot palm slowly, slowly downward, making sure she had time to relish every ridge of muscle along the way.

  Her mouth softened. His other hand roamed from the dagger at her thigh and over the curve of her backside. He gave a small squeeze.

  She sucked in her lower lip and he swore he heard a purr. A second later, he guided her captured hand to the butt of the pistol holstered at his hip.

  Her eyes widened. Then a laugh, velvet soft. “But you’d never use that on me.”

  “And you would use this on me.” With the elegance and lightning flash of a viper at the dance’s end, Greyston withdrew her dagger and presented it to her, balanced on his palm. “You owe me.”