by Lynn Viehl
I know they hurt you, but you are stronger than this. Your work here is not finished.
Work. That was all I ever did there. Work and struggle and suffer and despair, and why? I was alone in the world. There would be no little Charlies for me. Those women on the tram, they’d sacrificed me. That was all I was good for—being thrown to the wolves.
No, Charmian. He was angry and kind, all at once. You are wrong. You have me. I am yours. You come back to me.
I opened my eyes, and the light was no longer cool and blue but golden and flickering. It gilded the midnight eyes looking down into mine, glinting off the fine, straight black lashes and softening the slash of his brows. In the lamplight Lucien Dredmore looked like a much younger version of himself, a handsome boy. For a moment I was so enchanted I lifted my hand to touch his face.
Deep, throbbing pain raced up my arm into my shoulder and skidded down my back. I felt as if I’d been dashed across a brick wall, and groaned as I tried to sit up and made it worse.
“Be still now.” His hand came over my face, his fingers spreading out as his warmth sank into my skin. “Your spirit was battered out of your body. It will take a few moments to enmesh yourself.”
“Just shut up and kill me,” I begged. I’d have bitten his hand but I thought my teeth might fall out, my jaw was aching so. “The women and the kids on the tram?”
“Hysterical, but safe.” He stroked my forehead, and everywhere he touched the pain diminished. “You are not to think about it.”
“I don’t want to.” The horror of what I had seen bloomed back in my mind, however, and I had to tell him. “They were like animals, Lucien. Wolves with the bodies of men. But it wasn’t natural. Someone made them. They made animech beasts out of those men.”
He hushed me and pulled me close, and only then did I realize he lay beside me on the bed, our limbs entwined and nearly every part of us touching somewhere. Even his hair had tangled with mine, falling against my cheek like black and brown silk.
I drew back, looking at him. “You’re in bed with me. That can’t be right.” I turned my head to see a room very much like the one in which I visited Docket. “Hospital?”
He nodded. “When they couldn’t rouse you the beaters brought you here.” He moved his hand over my shoulder and along my arm. “I nearly lost you twice in one night. You should be locked up for your own good.”
I should have pushed him off the bed for that, but the effort required was beyond me. “Why was I floating off like that?”
“You’re spirit-born, Charmian. In times of great duress part of you will always seek out your other kind and their realm.” He lifted his head. “Your friend the inspector will be rejoining us in a minute. Is there anything I should know before he does?”
“I didn’t kill the Wolfmen. They killed each other.” I shuddered as I added, “One of them was named Akins. Until this morning, he was Lady Bestly’s footman.”
• • •
Dredmore departed with a promise—one that sounded like a threat—to return, ignoring Doyle entirely as he stalked from my hospital room. The chief inspector came to sit at my bedside, looking more troubled than annoyed.
“You have interesting friends, Miss Kittredge.” His fair hair glinted as he turned to regard me directly. “How are you feeling?”
“Knocked about, but I’ll live.” Carefully I moved onto my side so I could face him. “Your men in the alley, they were very kind to look after me.”
“They say you deserve a medal or two.” Instead of taking out his notebook or spouting something official, he reached for my hand. “Do you feel well enough to tell me what happened, Kit?”
I didn’t, but I did. Describing what I had seen sounded ridiculous, even to my own ears, but I gave him nearly every detail, leaving out only two facts: what I’d seen just before I’d fainted, and the fact that the second Wolfman had been the footman sacked earlier that day by my new client.
To his credit, Doyle didn’t laugh at me, although when I spoke of the physical transformations I’d witnessed his expression grew doubtful.
“I know it sounds like something out of a bad dream,” I said once I’d finished. “I can’t tell you how they did it, or God knows why, but their bodies changed shape. I could hear their bones cracking. And they were so fast, and so terribly strong.”
“My men said as much, at least the ones who survived.” His jaw tightened. “Those bastards killed six of them in the streets before they got to you. It’s a miracle you survived.”
That hadn’t been my doing. “Why did they fight each other, Tommy? Why didn’t they both attack me?”
“Those men were insane, Kit. You’ll never fathom it.” He gave my hand a squeeze and stood. “I have to go now and see the families of the men who died. Try and get some rest.”
What I wanted was to get up, get dressed, and get out of here—and never to sleep again. Fortunately my body would have none of that, and after a few minutes of fighting to stay awake I nodded off and slept without dreams, nightmares, Doyles, or Dredmores.
Sometime later a sister woke me for the physick’s exam, which was a quick but somewhat painful business.
“No signs of addlement or rupture,” the iron-haired, hatchet-faced surgeon told the nurse, who jotted the same down on the chart she carried. “I am Mr. Brecourt, Miss Kittredge. I expect you in some amount of pain, given the buffeting you’ve taken. You may have some opiate if you wish.”
What polite names doctors had for ruddy joy. “It’s tolerable, sir, so I’d rather not.” He must be a surgeon; they were called Mr. instead of Lord like other doctors because they were obliged to use their hands to work on patients, and no lord performed manual labor. “Is there some question of surgery?”
“Not at present. When you came in I was obliged to extract some splinters of wood from your back and buttocks,” he said bluntly. “They were not lodged very deep, however, and the wounds should heal in a few days.”
That explained why my back was sorest of all. “When can I be discharged?”
He considered that. “You lay senseless for most of the night, and there is always the possibility of relapse. You also cannot reach the wounds on your other side, and such are prone to turn septic. I would keep you at least three days more. Why do you frown?”
I told him the truth. “I appreciate your concern for me, sir, but I can’t afford that long a stay.”
His expression cleared. “That is not a worry, my dear,” he advised me. “Your account has already been paid in full.”
Doyle couldn’t have managed it. Dredmore could. “By whom, sir?”
Brecourt glanced at the nurse, who consulted the chart before she said, “There is no name, sir, only a notation that it was a grateful mother.”
He nodded. “I understand this morning many mothers are grateful to you, Miss Kittredge. Now, Nurse will change your bandages and see to some breakfast for you. I will look in on you during my afternoon rounds.”
Brecourt left me with the sister, who helped me to lay on my front while she dampened my dressings with warm water before carefully removing them.
“You’re a very good healer, miss,” she said. “Most of these gashes are beginning to mend.” She gasped, and I felt her touch a tender spot. “Goodness, this one’s already closed over.”
I’d always healed very quickly, but I couldn’t tell her having an immortal Aramanthan grandfather was the reason for it. “I’m sure it was just a scratch.”
“As you say, miss.” She finished her work quickly, however, and after replacing my bandages she practically ran from the room, nearly bumping into someone who was coming in.
I eased over onto my side to see it was Docket, who gave me a sheepish grin as he produced a bouquet of wild lavender. “Heard you’d taken a leaf from my book.” His voice dropped to a softer register. “How are you doing, love?”
“I’ve had better nights.” I pillowed my head on my arm and watched him arrange the fragrant bunch in my wa
ter carafe. “They tell you what put me here?”
“You playing catch-me with two Wolfmen, beaters said.” He dropped into the chair beside my bed. “You look awful, but they’re much worse. Made me vow never to get on your bad side.”
“You saw the Wolfmen?” I sat up. “When?”
“Just before I come up to see you. They brought the bodies here, and I know the cutter down in the morgue. He let me have a look.” His expression grew serious. “I know you didn’t do all that to them. Were someone too wicked for words.”
“You saw the mech, too.” I sat up quickly, biting my lip as my body punished me for it. “I thought I’d gone daft. Did you recognize what it was put there for?”
He moved his shoulders. “Didn’t take that close of a look.”
I eyed the wheeled chair sitting in the corner. “Can you help get in that, and push me down there, to the morgue?”
He sighed. “Now why would you want to look at dead monsters, best forgotten? Good riddance to the rubbish.”
“I need to talk to your cutter friend. Please, Doc,” I tacked on when he shook his head. “It’s for a case I have going. I need to learn as much as I can about these Wolfmen, and by the time I’m released the bodies will be gone and buried.”
He pursed his lips. “The sisters’ll have me head and hide.”
“They’re too busy serving breakfast to the other patients. I’m a patient, not a prisoner. If any of them ask I’ll say I needed some air.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Please, Doc. Help me. Can’t do it without you.”
“So you’re always nattering. Very well, stay there.” He retrieved the wheeled chair and positioned it beside me, and then helped move me from the bed to its caned seat. He then realized my bare legs were poking out from under the knee-length gown and snatched up the blanket from the bed, swaddling me with it. “If they haul me off to lockup for this, you’re bailing me out.”
“In a heartbeat,” I said, gritting my teeth against the pains stabbing my back and bottom. “Oh, you should say you’re my da, if they ask.”
“If I were your da, I’d give us both a proper thrashing.” He pushed me out of the room.
My guess that the sisters would be too busy to notice us proved correct; only one glanced our way as Docket wheeled me down the hall.
“She should be in bed,” the nurse said as she shifted her tray to one hip so she could open a door.
“Getting my gel some fresh air,” Docket said, pushing my chair a little faster.
He wheeled me to a cage-front box and lifted the cage. “This is the lift they use for downstairs,” he said. “I’ll lower you and your chair down in it and then take the stairs myself. Unless you want me to carry you?”
That would draw too much attention. “No, put me on the lift—and don’t drop me.”
He patted my hand. “Not a chance, love.”
The box, meant to transport items to the basement level, creaked a little as Docket wheeled me inside. I looked at him through the cage he lowered and crossed my fingers and my toes.
“Set that pulley brake when it stops,” he said, nodding to a lever to one side of me. “Else someone might bring it up while we’re off ogling the dead.”
I nodded, and winced as he released the pulley ropes and began lowering me down. The lift worked like a gigantic dumbwaiter, and as I descended into the shaft the light from the hall disappeared. I’d never been afraid of the dark, but suddenly I realized what the lift was really used for—moving dead bodies down to the morgue.
The box round me shuddered and landed with a heavy thump, jolting me to one side. I set the brake, and wheeled myself over to the cage panel to raise it.
“Oy.” Someone beat me to the cage, and jerked it to reveal a blocky man dressed in his shirtsleeves and spattered coveralls. A brass helmet covered his hair, but he lifted its hinged front glassine shield to reveal a very young face with very old eyes. “What you doing on my lift, miss? Someone pull a prank on you?”
“No. Hello.” I wheeled myself out, extended a hand, and beamed up at him. “How do you do? I’m Charmian Kittredge.”
“I don’t care if you’re the bloody queen of Talia,” he said frankly. “You can’t be coming down here like this. Not until you’re dead.” He peered at my face. “That’ll be awhile, I expect.”
“Your optimism is comforting.” I felt a surge of relief as Docket appeared behind him. “I think I’ve met your friend, Doc.”
“Dez, there you are.” Docket clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Kit, this is Desmond Holloway, known to one and all as Dez. Dez, my good friend Kit. We’ve a bit of a favor to ask, old chap.”
Dez looked from Docket to me and back again. “Is she the one they ravaged? What you bring her down here for? They’re still laid out on the bloody tables. I haven’t even stitched them up yet.”
Docket grimaced. “She needs to have a proper look at them, Dez.”
That request horrified the cutter. “No, she don’t. Sodding Christ, Doc, I don’t want to look at them, not after seeing . . .” Dez shook his head and turned to me. “See here, miss, you can’t be down here. I’ll take you back upstairs meself. We’ll find the physick and he’ll give you something, help you sleep. By morning you’ll forget all about it—”
“Both men have wounds all over them; deep claw marks and bite marks, broken bones in their faces, fractured ribs, and dislocated joints,” I stated calmly. “One has most of his throat torn out, and the other has a shattered wrist.”
His jaw dropped. “How’d you know all that?”
“I shattered the wrist,” I told him, “and I watched the rest happen. You let me look at the bodies, and I’ll tell you everything I saw them do before they died.”
“But you’ve already seen them,” Dez countered.
“The outside of them, yes.” I met his gaze. “I need to see the mech that was put inside them.”
• • •
Dez took charge of my chair while Docket walked ahead of us to hold open the swinging doors. “You ever been in a morgue, miss?”
“A few times.” The smell of preservative, sharp and sickly sweet, was growing stronger. “Why did you take a job as a hospital cutter? Are you hoping to become a surgeon?”
“Cut into live people? I don’t fancy that.” He turned a corner. “My da was a butcher, like his da, and his da before him. I only took this job ’cause it pays more, and I don’t have to be neat or sell what I cut to no one.”
I tried to appreciate the advantages, ghastly as they were. “But they’re people, not cows or pigs or chickens. Doesn’t that, ah . . .”
“Bother me? Sure, it did for a long while. Still does, when they send down a little one. But someone’s got to look after them, and I don’t make a hash of it.” He stopped in front of a set of closely fitted doors. “This is the cutting room.” He handed me a cloth mask that smelled of peppermint. “Tie this over your nose and mouth; it’ll help. If you feel sick, tell me. I’ve plenty of basins.”
Docket opened the doors and Dez wheeled me inside the brightly lit room. Five metal tables, two of them occupied by draped bodies, took up the center area. Each table had a perforated surface elevated over a long, broad drip basin. There were trays of knives and tools scattered about, as well as some open books displaying anatomical etchings.
I heard something dripping and looked beneath the shrouded bodies; the basins under them were half filled with dark, congealing blood.
Dez went to the nearest body and looked back at me for a long moment before he said to Doc, “Bring her closer.”
Docket wheeled me to the side of the table as Dez pulled down the draping cloth to expose the upper torso of the first Wolfman, which had been cut open from shoulder to shoulder and down to the waist; the skin and muscles were neatly folded back from an apparatus gleaming over the organs and the inner cavity.
The stink of the decaying body turned my stomach, so I pressed the cloth mask over my nose and mouth as I inspected the m
ech. A fist-sized sphere of riveted brass had been embedded in the breastbone, and layers of it moved in time with a loud ticking. From the sphere it sprang a dozen different geared, jointed shafts. The shafts narrowed as they spread out and disappeared into the arms and lower abdomen. A web of cords, some of them frayed, had been strung along the shafts, and vibrated slightly in time with the sphere.
I frowned. “Why is it ticking like that?”
Docket leaned over to take a better look at the sphere, and then turned his head to listen. “I don’t hear nothing, Kit.”
“The other one has the same mech in his chest, but it was smashed.” Dez turned the Wolfman’s head and peeled back a flap of skin. “There’s a recess here that goes right to the spine. I found a piece of brass stuck inside.”
He took a pair of tongs and fished a bloody chunk of metal from a dish fastened to the side of the table and held it up. “Looks like part of a key,” I said.
“Aye, to wind up the works, I’ll wager.” Docket glanced at me. “You’ve gone plaster-white, Kit.”
I ignored the acidic roiling in my belly and rolled closer. “Show me the rest of the body.”
“He’s naked,” Dez protested. “It ain’t decent.”
“Cover up what you think is indecent and let me see the legs,” I said.
Dez hadn’t cut open the corpse’s lower limbs, and when he drew up the bottom half of the drape I saw they were mostly intact.
“There’s something under the skin.” I pointed to a long ridge of bulges running from midthigh to ankle. “More broken bones?”
“Could be a shattered femur, but there’s no swelling.” Dez took a long metal pick attached to a handle and probed one of the bulges. “That’s metal. Has to be more of the mech.” He put down the probe and reached for a small blade. “Docket, move her out of the way.”
I rolled backward a few feet and watched as Dez cut open the leg, exposing more gears, four interconnected shafts, and cording weaving through all of it.
“How could he live through having so much mech put inside him like this?” I asked.
