by A. W. Exley
“Stop worrying,” Nate said from beside her.
“Stop giving me so much to worry about.”
Facing an angry monarch was still a relatively new experience for Cara. She didn’t have years of being in Her Majesty’s service like her husband. Despite his best efforts, the queen hadn’t executed him yet. Cara wondered if Victoria had a soft spot for a rogue. It was the only explanation for how Nate had survived so long.
The London traffic swarmed around them. Carriages, whether steam-powered, mechanical, or horse drawn, jostled for position. Pedestrians took their lives into their hands to run across the road. Children ran and laughed, and urchins snatched pocket books from the unwary.
Life had settled back into its usual pattern after the unnatural winter the Curator had inflicted on London. People returned from the countryside where they had sought escape from the deadly cold. Cara stared out the window and marvelled at the resilience of Londoners.
Artifacts had cast a deadly pall over London on a number of occasions now, and yet people picked up and continued on. Most convinced themselves it was random coincidence or fluke weather conditions, never knowing the ancient power wielded against them or the battles Nate and Cara fought to keep them all safe.
She leaned back on the plush seat. “Victoria can’t shoot you, no one else would want your job as her official Artifact Hunter.”
“Personally, I’m rather fond of the contingency fee we take from the royal purse to house the damned things.” Nate picked invisible motes from his sleeve.
“It’s not like you need the money.” Her husband had earned a fortune through piracy, smuggling, and who knew what other illegal activities.
“It’s not a matter of needing the money, but of being fairly compensated for the many attempts on our lives.”
The carriage passed under the arch at the palace, and the bronze horses stopped at the bottom of the stairs. A red-liveried footman opened the door and pulled down the metal steps.
Nate hopped down and took Cara’s hand. “No firing squad,” he muttered under his breath.
“She could have snipers on the roof,” Cara replied as they followed the queen’s man up the stairs and into the palace.
They were shown through to a near-deserted throne room. The queen’s Yeoman Warders, with their distinctive red uniforms and black hats, stood at either side of the wide entranceway. Staves were clutched in white-gloved hands, ready to bar the door behind them.
As Nate and Cara walked across the polished floor, each footstep rang out and echoed in the large chamber. Only a handful of courtiers clustered to one side of the dais where two thrones sat. Under the swath of red velvet, Victoria occupied the larger throne; the smaller, where her consort sat, was empty.
The queen was clad in full black, still mourning her beloved Albert. A white lace cap perched on her greying hair, and her hands were folded in her lap. The monarch had a better poker face than Nate, and Cara had trouble reading if she was mad, suffering indigestion, or bored.
Three feet from the bottom step, they halted. Nate bowed while Cara dropped in a curtsey.
Then they stood in silence, waiting for the queen to address them first. Cara darted sidelong glances around the room. If her stomach rebelled, she would need to dash for an ornamental urn or a potted plant.
The courtiers stared fixedly at them like hyenas waiting to see what would be left of the prey once the predator had finished savaging it.
Finally, the expected question broke the silence. “Explain to us, Lord Lyons, why we have reports of our dragon being sighted at your country estate?”
“The dragon now resident at Lowestoft didn’t want to fly back to Siberia, Your Majesty. He prefers the climate here.” Nate’s face was an impassive mask and his tone nonchalant.
Apparently it was too much to ask of her husband not to prod the angry monarch. Victoria might be small, but she packed a nasty sting like a queen bee, and there was no telling how she might retaliate.
Her keen gaze focused on Nate. “Is your memory so faulty that you have forgotten your incarceration in the Tower for refusing to hand over our dragon eggs?”
“Not at all, ma’am. However, this particular dragon came to England at my request, and he is no pet to be put on a lead. He followed us to Lowestoft and made himself at home, and I’m not sure how one evicts such a creature. I could trying waving my arms and yelling shoo, I suppose, if you so command.” Nate clasped his hands behind his back. He might have been discussing the weather at a dinner party, not how close he came to losing his head for defying his queen.
The queen narrowed her eyes and huffed. “Do you take us for a fool, my lord? You must have concealed this creature from us all along. A creature that was intended to reside in our Tower as a symbol of our might.”
Nate stared at the queen. Very few people called Nathaniel Trent, Viscount Lyons, a liar and survived such an accusation. Although technically the queen was correct, they had removed the dragons from her reach when the queen was in the grip of madness caused by Hatshepsut’s Collar. That madness had culminated in the death of her husband.
“As you are aware, ma’am, I do not know what happened to your dragon, but this dragon was brought to London by the Russian dragon master, Sergei Alenin.” Nate stressed the word as though the world were full of such incredible animals and the queen must have got two similar ones confused.
“And why would he do that?” She leaned back in her throne and arched one pale eyebrow.
“Because I asked him nicely, ma’am. Dragons have a sense of smell far superior to any tracker dog. When the Curator kidnapped my wife, your Enforcers said she was dead and to abandon the search. Imagine my relief to discover your policemen were wrong when the dragon located Cara hidden underground.”
“He dug me out, Your Majesty. Without the dragon I would still be trapped.” Not entirely true; Cara had been in the process of rescuing herself when the dragon had blasted through rock and bricks to reach her. Kirill had certainly accelerated her escape. She had sobbed in relief and joy when she touched Nate’s hand through the hole Kirill had made in the solid wall.
“And of course, since two females have left Siberia to join the male in England, this country now has its own breeding stock. History will remember Your Majesty as the monarch who brought dragons back to Britain.” Cara played their ace card and tried to make it all seem like part of the queen’s larger plan.
The queen stared at them. Would she order them taken to the Tower or shot on the spot?
“We allow you far more latitude than any other subject, Lord Lyons. Tread carefully, lest your antics cause you to trip and land in the hangman’s noose.”
Cara’s thought exactly. One day, he would overstep the mark with the queen and she would lop his head off. It was to his advantage that Victoria had a soft spot for him, much like Elizabeth Tudor and her fondness for pirates.
Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. “I constantly labour in the best interests of England, Your Majesty.”
Cara nearly choked swallowing that line.
“Only when they align with your own interests, Lord Lyons.” The queen curled her hands around the ornately carved ends of the throne. One finger tapped the polished wood as she considered her disobedient agent.
A courtier cleared his throat and stepped to her side. Cara tried to hold herself still during their whispered conversation. She hated waiting, and she hated being at the mercy of others even more.
The queen waved her hand and dismissed the courtier, who scuttled back to the side of the room. “After some consideration, we will allow you to be responsible for the care of our dragons. We would not wish to spark a panic among the people of London, should they freely wander our streets. See to it that it does not happen again.”
Nate glanced sideways at Cara, and she gave an imperceptible shrug. No one that she saw panicked when Kirill played in the snow. With his bronze and copper colouring, people assumed he was a mechanical creation. But if
the thought of protecting her citizens meant they had the dragons to themselves, she wasn’t going to raise any objections.
“Yes, ma’am, it would be my pleasure to safeguard them away from London,” Nate said.
Cara wondered how to impress on Kirill that he wouldn’t be visiting the hot baths any more. He had enjoyed swimming in the heated water. Perhaps they could create something similar at their estate, but that was a problem for Nate’s engineers to figure out. They already had a unicorn at the lake, may as well add a dragon-bathing hole.
“It will be of benefit to the British Empire to establish our own dragon flock. Too long have Russia and China hoarded the rare specimens of these creatures to themselves. As in all things, we will show the world our superiority,” Victoria said.
Cara had a bad feeling about this. The queen handed off the responsibility for the dragons to them too easily. What were they missing? Now with talk of dragons benefiting the Empire, the queasy unrest in her stomach grew legs and paced from side to side.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Nate bowed.
The queen waved a hand, and they were dismissed to find their own way back through the rabbit warren of corridors.
“See, you were worried about nothing. No imprisonment or firing squad,” Nate said as he handed her up into the carriage.
“I don’t like it. She capitulated too readily.” Cara tugged at her skirts as though the answer might be hiding in the folds.
Nate signalled for the carriage to move off. “Would you have preferred if she tortured me for a bit?”
That idea had a certain appeal. “Yes. Then I would have felt we earned Kirill and the females.”
Back at the mansion, Amy was shut in her study, preparing for her classes. Jackson met them in the entranceway. He looked his boss up and down. “No bullet holes.”
“I was disappointed too,” Cara murmured as she pulled off her gloves.
“Why do I keep you people around?” Nate removed his top hat and tossed it to the side table.
“Because we don’t pander to your ego.” Cara kissed his cheek, but the worry still gnawed at her insides. “The queen allowed us to keep the dragons too easily. We have overlooked something.”
Jackson grunted. “Probably the bounty hunters.”
“Bounty hunters?” Cara looked up sharply.
Jackson rolled his neck and one of the joints gave a crack. “Word has gone out that there’s a dragon in England, and every bounty hunter between here and Timbuktu will be wanting to try to skin his hide.”
Nate let out a hiss between clenched teeth. “Cunning woman. Now it’s on my head if anything happens to the blasted overgrown reptiles.”
Cara perked up once she saw the queen’s devious intent. “So we just have to fight off a horde of greedy bounty hunters? That sounds like an ordinary day for us. If any of them dares to touch my dragons, they won’t just have you to answer to, they’ll have me on their tails.”
“Becoming quite the maternal little tiger aren’t you, doll?” Jackson chortled.
4
Among the stack of cards and envelopes awaiting Cara in their Mayfair home was a scrawled missive on a page torn from what looked like The Vampyre by John Polidori. Red ink dribbled over the printed text like blood splatters.
You need to visit us. H.
“Still reading gothic novels,” Cara muttered as she turned the page sideways to read the message.
H was Helene, Countess de Sal, and the “us” could refer to her and her dog, the house, or any number of deceased persons who dropped in for a chat. Or maybe she had discovered another soul trapped in an object. The countess lived in a world where real people and events mingled with myth and madness.
To answer the summons or not?
Helene had been the beautiful lover of Nate’s uncle until she was infected with a deadly disease and he abandoned her. With each year that passed, the woman lost a little more of her body and mind to syphilis. Her nose had fallen off some years previously, and now her body sought to shed its outer skin like a snake. She rarely ventured out and relied on a few loyal friends to ensure she had food in the larder and fuel for her fire.
Despite Helene’s deteriorating mental state, Cara usually enjoyed visits with the countess. The distorted lens through which she saw the world often cut to the heart of any problem plaguing Cara. Helene’s conversations with ghosts and inanimate objects enabled her to detect the right leads to pursue in the hunt for artifacts.
Cara’s hesitation to visit had nothing to do with the person and everything to do with the location. Her friend had moved from her house in Belgravia into Cara’s old home in Soho. A house that held too many sad memories, and walls that had seen too much death.
A wave of nausea rose up, and she swallowed it back down. As life swelled within her, another faded away. She needed to see Helene. The woman had too few days left, and Cara would value each and every one.
“Could you ask for the carriage to be brought around please, Brick,” she asked her large and well-dressed bodyguard.
“Of course,” he said from where he had been standing, poised to throw himself on her mail if she were in danger of a paper cut.
News of her condition had raced through the ranks of Nate’s men. For a bunch of rough and scarred fighters, they gossiped more than old women at their knitting. Doors were being held open, chairs pulled out, and they treated her as though she were made of delicate porcelain. If they didn’t stop it soon, they would drive her mad long before the baby arrived.
Today she had more pressing matters than the overprotective men in her life. Today she was the mother tiger looking for a way to ensure no one harmed her family. There was a rather slim possibility that Helene’s troubled mind held the clue she needed. Malachi thought the Great Wall of China held a secret that would protect the dragons, but Cara wanted to tackle the problem from Helene’s unique perspective.
An hour later, Cara stood on the footpath in Soho and looked up at the tidy brick terrace house. Fate had doomed it from its inception to only hold sadness within its walls. On many an occasion, Cara had climbed from her bedroom window at the rear of the house to escape the suffocating atmosphere within.
Then her gaze fell to the stairs that led below street level to the kitchen and the dreadful secrets held in the shadows. Three women had lost their lives in the unseen basement, held by a deranged man who thought himself Akhenaten searching for his Nefertiti.
She drew a deep breath and walked to the front door. Should she knock? It felt odd to be a visitor in the house she owned. Although knocking was often futile if Helene’s mind had journeyed elsewhere.
Cara turned the handle and pushed the door open. A bark greeted her as Mignon, the countess’ pug, shot out from under the stairs. His curled tail wagged back and forth.
“Hello, boy.” Cara knelt down and slipped the dog a treat from her pocket.
Today he wore only a starched white cravat around his neck and cuffs on his front paws. Positively naked for the dog, or most likely he escaped before his owner finished dressing him.
“Helene?” Cara called out.
“In here,” a muffled voice answered from the front parlour.
The furniture was the same that Cara remembered from her childhood, yet the room seemed…lighter. The house felt as though a heavy burden had been lifted from the roof and all the windows thrown open to allow fresh air to enter.
“Helene?” There was no sign of her.
A hushed giggle came from the large palm in the corner, its fronds shaking with mirth.
It was going to be one of those days. Cara reminded herself to be patient. “Why are you hiding in the plant?”
“We’re playing. She has to find me,” the hushed voice said.
Don’t ask who. Don’t ask who… Oh, blast. She had to know; it was highly unusual for Helene to have any visitors apart from Cara or Jackson.
“Who has to find you?” Cara looked around the room in case someone was hiding beh
ind the curtains.
“The house, silly,” whispered the plant.
The electric light on the wall closest to the palm flashed on and off.
“No fair! You gave away my position.” The countess climbed out from behind the fronds. She was draped in floaty lengths of pale-grey silk organza that flared around her on an invisible breeze and turned her into an unearthly figure. With each day, she seemed more phantom than real.
Cara held in a pout. The house had never played hide and seek with her. Instead it played electrocute Cara whenever she touched a light switch. She mustered up a smile. At least Helene had company—of a sort. “I am glad the two of you are getting along.”
“She was so lonely at first. Now we fill her rooms with our souls, and soon we will have enough.” Helene danced around, her hands waving over her head.
“Enough for what?” That even one woman had died beneath the roof was one too many in Cara’s opinion.
“To protect those who seek our shelter.” Helene continued to spin, and her soft skirts became flower petals surrounding her body.
That answer was exactly why Cara sought out her friend. Protection was the very thing preying on her mind. Except unlike the house, Cara wasn’t planning on using murdered people’s souls to achieve her end.
Helene spun and then dropped to her knees on the carpet in front of Cara. She pressed an ear to Cara’s tummy. “Isn’t it marvellous to think a child grows inside you.”
Jackson must have passed on the news. He always kept Helene abreast of gossip. “Yes. But how the child intends to get out of there has me worried. The process of creation is much more fun than that of extraction.”
Helene snorted in laughter and patted Cara’s stomach. “You worry too much. Nature will find a way.”
“My family are poor bloodstock, and producing offspring for us often requires a trade. A life for a life.” A sigh heaved through her body. Her mother had laboured and died in the upstairs room. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them away. She didn’t want to die, nor did she want any harm to befall her child.