by Lynn Vieh
I wasn’t in any better shape. I needed a bath, a drink, and my head examined. Whatever they did to me, though, I wasn’t explaining what had happened at the docks. I wasn’t even sure I understood it. All I could feel was the awful weight inside me, like some hidden rot just waiting for the right moment to bloom.
Chief Inspector Tom Doyle came in and closed the door behind him. He didn’t come at me but walked to one end of the room, and then the other.
I watched him back and forth it. Working three straight shifts hadn’t wrinkled his jacket or trousers, and damp comb marks streaked his short hair. It didn’t surprise me that he’d taken the time to wash up and shave. He’d spent ten years in H.M.’s Fleet, and now had a bit of that all-hands-on-deck look about him. Now I was the enemy, and naturally he had to evaluate my threat potential before he issued any orders. I wondered if he’d ever dreamt we’d come to this.
Doyle finally tired of pacing, yanked out the chair on the other side of the table, and dropped in it. Gave me that cool, flint-edged stare he’d inherited from his Grandda, and said: “Why did you do it, Kit?”
I gave him my full statement in four words. “I didn’t kill him.” Of course I had, but admitting it wouldn’t gain me much chance to finish the work. For that I’d need a nice, quiet, isolated cell in lockup. “Is that what this is about, then? You’ve got the wrong—”
“They’ll send you to the gallows.” Beneath his rage was something more I hadn’t expected to see: regret.
“I doubt it. They hardly ever hang women.” A cramp in my right shoulder made me adjust the drape of my arms round the back of the chair. The five-link chain between my shackles jingled. “You’ve no body, no credible witnesses. How could I have done him, what with me being such a young, helpless female and all?”
“I’ve better.” He bent to one side, took something from his case, and placed it on the table between us. A small, flat square, carefully swaddled in soft black cloth. He didn’t have to unwrap it to show me what it was.
I stared at it, fascinated. “You’ve glass.”
“Aye, I’ve glass.” He braced his hands on the table and leaned over it. “Why did you kill him?”
It had to be a trick, the glass blank, the threat empty. Unless—“Show it to me.”
Tom unwrapped the cloth to expose the plate inside.
Silverblack mottled the slick surface with splotches and lines. They formed the reverse image of a long dock, a tall woman, and the possessed lover she was straddling. This tint showed the finer details. The tears in her bodice. The blood on her mouth. The iron spike she was just about to thrust into the monster’s chest.
Damn me, he had it all on glass. “That’s not what it looks like.”
He picked up the ambrotype showing me killing Lucien Dredmore. “This is not you shoving a rail tie through the man’s chest, then.” Hot blue eyes shifted to the remains of my bodice. “And I suppose that’s not Dredmore’s blood all over your tits.”
“No.” Well, most of it wasn’t his blood.
“You’ve a homicidal twin sister tucked away somewhere?”
“Sorry.” I grimaced. “Only child.”
Tom checked his pocket watch. “After you didn’t kill Dredmore, did someone else kick him over the side of the dock and send him for a bathe?”
“I don’t recall.” I wished I could explain, but he’d never believe it. “Tommy—”
“Inspector Doyle to the likes of you.”
“Inspector Doyle.” So much for the tender bud of that relationship. “I did not stab Lucien Dredmore in the heart or pitch his ass in the bay. I may have wanted to—I may have even dreamt about it now and then—but I am innocent of these charges being filed against me.”
“You’re lying.”
I smelled piss again and glanced down. No wonder the floor and the seat felt tacky; the chap they’d brought in before me had disgraced himself. Maybe the Yard hadn’t cleaned it up very well in order to break down the resistance of subsequent suspects. The stench was certainly working wonders on me.
“Kit.”
“Can’t you see what’s happening here?” No, he couldn’t, that much was obvious. “Think about it, Tommy. I hate the bleeding bastard. Everyone knows that. They wanted him and me out of the way. One stone, two birds. So they arranged to make it look like I killed him, and we’re both done for. Oldest trick in the book.”
“So you’re being framed for Dredmore’s murder.”
I kept a straight face. “Yes.”
“There’s just one problem with that.”
“What?”
“I’m the one who took this, and the others.” He shoved the glass across the table at me. “I was there at the docks the entire time, Kit. I watched you kill him. I arrested you at the scene.” His blond brows formed a vee over his bright blue eyes. “And I will testify.”
So he would, because that was the sort of man he was. If things had gone differently, Tommy and I might have been mates. Another thing to regret, but not enough to keep me from hanging myself. It didn’t matter. My life had ended hours ago when Zarath had shoved that spirit stone down my throat.
I had to finish this.
“I’ll say that we’ve slept together,” I said. “My barrister will use it to destroy your credibility—”
Pain exploded across my face and my head snapped to one side as his swinging hand connected with my cheek. I spat some blood-streaked saliva on the floor and rolled the bottom of my jaw.
“Very good, Inspector. Go on, hit me again. Use your fist this time. I deserve it, lying bitch that I am.” If I were very lucky, I might be able to goad him into breaking my neck.
“So you can use the bruises to discredit me?” He shook his head. “What happened, Kit? What did he do to you? How in God’s name did he drive you to murder? You were lovers.”
I laughed. “I’d rather bed a jackal.”
Doyle took something from his pocket and tossed it down in front of me. The last time I’d seen the old chain, Dredmore had made it vanish. Now, looking at it and the crystal-encrusted stone pendant hanging from it, I could hardly take in enough air to form words. “Where did you get this?”
“We recovered it,” he snapped. “We also have the murder weapon, which was recovered from the docks. It’ll be tested. They’ll find his blood on it.”
My hand shook as I scraped my fingers against the table, catching the chain and using it to tug the nightstone to me. As soon as I covered it with my palm, I felt something like tiny gears inside turning a notch. Before Zarath had possessed him Lucien had said he would be where Harry had been . . . and then I knew. I knew it all.
“Where’s the body?” Without thinking I tried to stand, only to be jerked back as my shackles cut into my wrists. “Where is it?”
“Down at the docks in a skip net,” he said. “Awaiting transport to the morgue. And why the devil do you care?”
The pendant changed everything. “I want a vicar.”
Outrage flagged his cheekbones red. “You don’t get—”
“I’ll confess,” I said quickly. “To all of it. Everything. In my own hand, if you like. After I speak to my vicar.”
He stared. “You’ve never been Church.”
I ran my tongue along the seam where my cheek met my gum line. “Remorse has converted me. It’s a miracle. Now, the vicar, if you please.”
Fury left Doyle speechless, and he stalked out. As soon as the door slammed I hooked the hairpin nestled next to my bottom gum with my tongue and caught it between my teeth. I turned my face as far as I could to the left and spat it carefully over my shoulder. It fell neatly into my cupped hands. I took a moment to work my wrist until it felt looser, stretched out the chain between the cuffs, and went to work.
The air vent was too small, and I’d never make it to the end of the corridor outside. That left the window, and the lock on the inside grid. Once I’d opened it I shoved it up, catching by reflex the old pomander as it fell. I left it on the table a
long with my shackles for Doyle.
The pendant I took with me.
Chapter Twelve
Escaping Rumsen Main in the middle of being questioned by Inspector Doyle proved almost comically simple; perhaps Tommy thought someone who had essentially just confessed to murdering the most important mage in the province incapable of such a feat.
As I jumped from the window to the alley, I hoped his anger and outrage over what he thought he’d seen at the docks would keep him from returning to the questioning room for at least another half hour. I needed to put some distance between me and all the beaters Tommy would be sending out to hunt for me. Once again on foot, I made haste down the alleyways.
I wrapped the broken chain of my pendant round my fist. I’d cherished it as a gift from my parents, and worn it practically every day of my life, but now it felt like an iron ball. As soon as this was over I’d find a nice big furnace to toss it in. And then there was the stone in my belly, waiting like some slumbering, poisonous snake. Somehow I had to get that out of me before something woke up Zarath’s queen and she had my spirit for tea.
I halted at the corner of the next street, forced to wait on a long row of hog carts coming down from the smoldering remains of the mansions on the Hill. Someone had piled costly furnishings, paintings, and other trappings of wealth in the back of the carts, right on top of the old, filthy straw. Even what didn’t end up stained with the former occupants’ waste and fluids would definitely absorb the distinctive stench.
Servants would have set fire to their masters’ possessions before permitting them to be hauled away in pig carts.
I caught up to one of the tired-looking nobbers providing escort for the carts. Soot blackened the end of his nose, his eyebrows were gone, and patches of burnt flesh showed through the rags he’d tied round both hands.
“Evening,” I said as I stretched my legs to pace him. “Are you lads back from the Hill? Were you able to save anything from Walsh’s Folly?”
He spared me a tired glance. “Piss off.”
“I’m Lady Diana’s cousin and companion, actually.” I tried to pitch my voice to sound half-snobby, half-forlorn. “Her husband got himself killed last night. I’ve just come from the morgue, and now I’ve got to break the news to her.”
“Tha’so?” He looked a bit uncomfortable now. “Pitiful, this night’s business. Bloody Talians.”
“Where are you taking all this?” I gestured to the cart.
“Some bigwig said move what we could down to the cargo houses.” A glimmer of sour humor came over his features. “Wouldn’t give us naught for hauling, ’course, so we had to make do.”
Evidently the nobbers had loaded the ton’s treasures deliberately into pig carts—and everyone said they had no sense of humor. I let him hear a little of my chuckle before I turned it into a polite cough. “That’s where I’m headed. Milady and her maids were taken down to the docks for their safety. Can’t find a cabbie to save my life, though.” I tugged at my bloodstained bodice. “I’d walk, but I’ve already been attacked once by some bloke covered in blood. Be all right if I walk with you, then?”
He looked doubtful. “With this pong, you’d want to?”
I shrugged and let my voice quaver a little. “Better than going on alone.”
“Aye.” He tugged on the lead rein, stopping the horses before offering me a hand. “But you’ll ride this time, lass. Like a proper lady.”
“Thank you.” I smiled and let him help me up onto the empty driver’s seat. Once he whistled the tired horses shuffled back into motion, and we were off.
As I suspected, the smell drove everyone away from the carts, even the beaters who came trotting from the direction of Rumsen Main. I hoped as long as I kept my head down and didn’t do anything to draw attention to myself I’d be as good as invisible.
Through the snarls of my hair I noted the brigadiers who were putting out fires by pumping seawater from tanker carts into the household tubes. If the owners survived the night, they’d be returning to a wet, scorched mess, but at least the stone shells of their homes would still stand. I hoped my own place would still be intact, and then I recalled that it wasn’t mine anymore. A laugh escaped me as I realized that I was not only a fugitive murderess but also a vagrant.
The cart creaked to a stop at the back of a loading dock, and the nobber helped me down from the seat.
“They’re keeping the gentry over there, with their boats,” he told me, nodding in the direction of the yacht yards. “I’d walk you over, but I’ve to unload all this scram first.”
I started to thank him, and then did one better by giving him a deep, respectful curtsey. “I will always remember your kindness, dear sir.”
“Aw, now. Weren’t nothing.” He looked pleased and embarrassed. “Get on with you, then.”
I started toward the yacht yard, but as soon as my escort went to hitch the horses I turned and hurried toward the docks. I could see the militia standing guard on the deck of the Talian ship, and counted among the prisoners shackled to the mast Montrose Walsh as well as Celestino. On the dock below stood a beater next to a row of bodies covered by blood- and soot-stained tarps; on the very end was one soaked with wide patches of brackish water.
This thing will occupy my flesh, Dredmore murmured from my last memory of him, but my spirit will go where it can never touch me. I understand now. I will be where Harry has been, all this time.
Zarath hadn’t won. Not yet.
The beater bristled as I approached him. “You can’t be here, miss. Crime scene, this is.”
“Inspector Thomas Doyle sent me,” I lied. “I am—I was—in the employ of Lord Dredmore. I’ve come down from Morehaven to identify his remains.”
“What now?” The beater looked confused. “I thought he were already tagged.”
“I’ve been asked to confirm it’s him.” I walked past him, moving down the line of tarps. I glanced back. “Which one, please?”
The beater took a step after me, stopped, and then waved an arm. “On the very end. Mind you don’t touch him.”
I got to the tarp and dropped down beside it, gripping the pendant tightly as I uncovered Dredmore’s head. Death had leached the cruel beauty from his features; they resembled a waxen mask cast in a too-smooth mold. When I lay my hand on his brow it felt like icy, damp stone.
“I said not to touch!” the beater called to me.
“Sorry!” I removed the pendant from my pocket, carefully draping the chain round his neck before I stood and stepped back. “All right, Lucien. The spell is over. I’m releasing you.”
While I waited for Dredmore’s spirit to return to his body, I wondered how he had fathomed the secret of my pendant. The mystery had come together for me only while Doyle had been questioning me, and even now I wasn’t sure I’d worked it out exactly right. My doubts loomed as Dredmore’s body remained still and lifeless.
“Don’t you do this to me, Lucien,” I muttered, reaching down to smack his face. “Not after all I’ve gone through this night. You’re a deathmage, damn you. Surely you can overcome it—you must try. For me, please.”
A shadow fell over Dredmore’s body, one that was shaped like Inspector Doyle. “Step away from the corpse.”
“He’s not a corpse.”
“Kit.”
I turned my head. “I lied to you, Tommy. I didn’t kill Dredmore. He wasn’t in his body, you see, because he put his spirit inside my pendant. Give him a minute and he’ll come back.”
“That’s enough of that.” He took hold of my arm. “Come away now.”
“But he will wake up. He has to.” My throat went tight as I considered the now very real possibility that I had been wrong about my parents, the pendant, everything. “I worked it out, I know I did.” Was there some sort of spell I was supposed to cast? Surely not. I’d break it the moment the words left my lips.
“My fault she got over here, sir.” The beater joined Doyle and glared at me. “Told me you sent her.”
<
br /> I looked up at the sky. “Lucien? I’ve made a mess of this. I need you to tell me what to do. How do I fix this?”
“Charm.” Tommy grabbed me by the arms and shook me until my teeth chattered. “Stop it. You can’t do anything more for him.”
“Damn you.” The moment he stopped I shoved him away. “You swore you wouldn’t do this.”
“I’m not—”
“Tommy Doyle calls me Kit, Harry.” I pushed him a second time as I advanced on him. “Only you call me Charm. Tell me how to bring Lucien back. Tell me.”
“You’re not Aramanthan, and neither is he. There is no coming back for mortals.”
He dodged my quick fist, teetered on the edge of the pier, and dropped into the water with a huge splash.
I leaned over to see that he bobbed to the surface, and ducked the white mist that rose from the water before I tossed a rope down to a very confused-looking Doyle. “Grab hold of this, Inspector.”
The beater came after me, his trunch held ready to pound my head in, but the white mist descended between us and reformed into Harry. That was enough for the beater, who spun round smartly and ran the other way, shouting for help.
“You can’t defy fate, gel.” Harry blocked my path back to Dredmore. “Killing him is what you were meant to do. What you were born to do. Even he knew it.”
“Then why did he say I had to release him?” I demanded.
“Death is his release.” Something like pity glimmered in his eyes. “You’ll find another chap someday, Charm. One who will treat you as you deserve.”
Since he was of no use to me, I forced myself to think. Mr. Jasper had said shattering the dreamstone dispelled its power . . . “What if I break the stone? Will that free him?”
“It’s nightstone, my dear,” he said. “You can’t.”
But I was a spell-breaker, and the stone was spelled, and suddenly Harry wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“You’re a terrible liar, old man.”
I knelt down and pulled the pendant from Dredmore’s neck. The only hard object I had was my father’s pocket watch, and once I wedged the stone against the dock boards I pulled it out.