by Kim Knox
The door clicked shut again and Mason pressed his finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. He had to find some sense. It was almost as if Sir Randolph had brought on drunkenness and a hangover at the same time. It was a disturbing experience.
A heavy thump against the carpet said Frost’s wardrobe trunk had arrived. Mason willed himself to sit up and found Frost wandering out into the little sitting room, his arm in the air. Something bronze flashed in his hand. Being automata was making an eccentric man even more strange. An unexpected smile pulled at his mouth with that thought.
“What...?”
Frost turned and shook his head. He brought a finger to his lips and carried on through the rooms.
Mason unfastened and shrugged off his coat. The thick odour of blood hit him, even in a room that seemed to deaden every sense. He pulled at his collar, yanking free the shredded shirt-front. He pushed his fingers through the hole left in his thin shirt beneath and felt the warmth of his skin, the rough brush of chest hair and the dry flake of blood...but no scar. Nothing there to say a five-inch pipe had drilled a hole to his spine and eaten him from the inside out.
He drew in a deep breath, and the tasteless air calmed him.
“We’ve heard of settlement rooms such as this.” Frost strode back into the bedroom, tugging at the buttons of his greatcoat. “A place where they put automata to mask them from the world, far enough from the machine that made them. There’s a specific alignment—” he drew a line in the air, “—between the place of transfiguration and the settlement room. We didn’t know the position of his apparatus, so couldn’t begin to find this room. Even this mission was still guesswork.” He stared up at the ceiling. “But this place allows an automaton to settle into the change.” A dark smile pulled at his mouth. “It would have been a relief to know a room like this.”
He’d changed his masks again. Not the dandy, nor the seducer, nor the cold automaton. Even with the blankness of the room clearing some of Mason’s mind, Frost was still confusing him. But this man could give him the answers he needed.
“Why am I alive?” He pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the very solid thud of his heart. Even and strong. Almost mechanical in its precision. “What am I?” He waved at Frost. “What are we?”
“You stopped saying ‘sir.’”
Mason opened his mouth, trying for the word. The effort failed. “I have.”
“Interesting.”
“Again, why am I alive?”
Frost drew in a deep breath. “Yes. Something about the air affects their machines.” He twisted a smile. “Gets into the gears, makes it difficult to crank out their army. So—” he spread his hands, “—they pair people up, matching age, sex, where they were born. There’s a connection between the subjects. One we don’t have the theories or the science to prove. As if their lives were...entangled somehow.” He frowned. “Whatever the connection, within the thrall of the machine, one lives, one dies.”
“I lived.” Some of Sir Randolph’s words came back to his mind and he pressed his hands together. “I took out five footmen.”
“My guess? With you unable—or unwilling—to feed from me, you took what you could from them. Putting odd numbers into the machine forces it to fail.”
Mason frowned. “There were two of us.”
“No. There was you.” Frost stopped at his trunk and ran his fingers over the metal edging one corner. “They got to me in ’78. The same time as they changed my brother and his wife.”
“Three,” Mason murmured. He frowned. “But...if there were three of you, wouldn’t that make six bodies strapped into the machine?”
“The original apparatus—the one Pandarus brought with him—didn’t require the extra soul.” Frost paused, his gaze unfocused. “We took the risk that this new machine would still fail with an odd number.” He focused on the trunk again. “There were rumours of disappearances. People with similar qualities to those who we believe have been changed. The theory was sound.”
“But they didn’t know you were already transfigured?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be in Egypt. But I ran foul of the law in Constantinople and jumped a ship to Alexandria.” He twisted and broke a length of the brass away from the wood and leather of the trunk. “I found out fairly early that their equipment is unable to sense their own handiwork.” He ran his thumb along the length of the plate. “There is something to be said for our foetid air.”
He looked up. “The apparatus in the cellar at Holt Hall is different to the machine that ripped me apart in Egypt. Pandarus built this one himself, in situ. We found only pieces of the original in the Hall of Caracalla, built with a material we haven’t been able to manufacture ourselves. But we’re close. Hence the aeolipile.” His smile grew and deepened. “I like to think I contributed to the destruction of his plans in Egypt. The discovery of Hero’s Pneumatica—attributed falsely to my brother—has masked our work. After all, we needed some explanation for our sudden and meteoric advancement.”
“And you went to Sir Randolph knowing that he’d have someone...like me?”
Frost stilled. “Yes.” He rubbed his thumb over the brass plate he held. “You have to understand, we are at war. In war, there are casualties.”
Something edged his voice and it pricked at Mason’s thoughts. It was a feeling he was used to; his instincts were often razor sharp, but this was different. Whispers came with it. Ones that pushed at the back of his mind, stating that Frost was his enemy. A traitor to their Ilarches.
Mason was standing before he realised that his legs had moved. Everything in him said he had to remove Frost. Push his hand into his chest and tear out his made heart. He was a threat, a rogue automaton. Unworthy—
Mason clamped down hard on the demand and he swayed. Fuck. Whatever Frost thought he’d done with him had failed. He was a puppet. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Frost looked up from the metal he held in his hand. “You need to wash and eat.”
Mason sat down again and clenched his hands. His knuckles whitened. He could only watch as the brass in Frost’s hand lit up and a moving image—grey and blurred at the edges—rose above the metal.
“Achilles. It’s a relief to hear from you.”
The voice, male and more clear than from a telephone receiver, reminded Mason of one of his senior officers. Sir Randolph had mimicked such a man. That name brought the whispers out again and Mason crushed his hands until he felt a sharp stab of pain.
“I take it the aeolipile is so many spare parts?”
Mason caught the brief image of an older man with a thick moustache and brushed back waves of white hair. He focused and the sharpness gripped him. There was a scar along the man’s jaw, the pattern the quick, precise work of a kardax. He’d gone up against one and survived.
Frost winced. “To be fair, it was one of our older models, Nestor.”
Rough laughter broke across the room. Sound. It bounced off smooth walls and metal equipment... He was underground. Possibly in a room similar to Sir Randolph’s chamber.
“And your partner in the change? Was your theory proved? Did he survive? And yourself? Any alterations?”
Frost’s gaze flicked to him and Mason’s chest hitched. The little blaze of heat shot through his flesh and something in him loosened, and the surety of his need to analyse Nestor and his surroundings faded back. “The theory worked. Mason is automata free of the controlling influence of Pandarus. I’m...much the same.” He rolled his shoulders. “A touch more limber.”
Frost’s expression sobered. “I can also finally confirm—as we suspected—that Sir Randolph is the original Pandarus. He’s transfigured his entire household. He also has a man he’s calling a cousin. Colonel Archibald Whitney. Perhaps another koile ready for use.”
“Good work, Achilles.” Nestor’s mouth thinned.
“Stay where you are. We rendezvous at three. With proof Pandarus has a conversion apparatus at his country house, we intend to take care of it and him and end this insanity. We’re air-shipping in the necessary equipment.”
“Understood.”
“Nestor, out.”
Frost ran his thumb over the brass plate, watching it dull before he pushed it back against the trunk. It reattached with a quiet click.
“Achilles?”
“My code name. It reflects my changed state.” His firm lips quirked upwards. “Though I resent the implication of weak ankles.”
Mason huffed a laugh. “This is still all very strange.” He paused. “That’s obvious, isn’t it?” He waved at his head. “My thoughts...are confused.” He’d planned to say his thoughts weren’t his own. The words had been there on his tongue, but something denied them. Frost was wrong. He was Sir Randolph’s puppet. “Pandarus?”
“Sir Randolph Cadwallader.” Frost pressed his hand to his hair and his eyes became distant. “The Trojan who wounded Menelaus.”
“And koile?”
Frost frowned. “Strange beings. Not automata, but a kind of flesh. Much more common and not easy to uncover. They appear human, appear to have individual will, yet at times they’re almost a suit. Flesh that can be worn. More off-the-peg than bespoke, I would imagine. Pandarus can...become them.”
“Did he become your chauffeur?”
“I don’t know. He changed him, we knew that. I was aware I was walking into a trap here.”
“And you came anyway.”
“As I said, we’re fighting a war. I’m not a field agent, but the prize—his conversion apparatus—was worth risking me. And you.”
The voice pushed forward again, the need for knowledge focusing Mason’s brain. “What are they going to do?” He pointed to the trunk. “What’s Nestor going to do?”
“What he’s good at.” Frost’s gaze narrowed on his chest and Mason had the sudden need to cover the hole in his shirt. His attention blocked the forming of Mason’s next question. “You need to wash.” He shucked off his jacket, pocketed his cufflinks and found a hanger. Tilting his head toward a door, he rolled up his sleeves. “Shower room is that way.”
Mason narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
Frost tapped his temple. “I’m thyreos, your shield.” His expression changed and one of the man’s many masks slipped into place. The little hint of wickedness stopped Mason’s breath. “And it’s time to prepare you.”
6. Frost and His Preparations
Mason fought to speak. “My shield?” His thyreos. The word resonated. Mason was newly formed and a simple pezos, a junior foot soldier to their Martian masters. Frost was senior and more adapted to the change. As thyreos, Frost was his commander. Of a sort. Mason still had difficulty in calling him sir. “Surely you’re—”
“This is not up for discussion. They expect it.”
“They’re not here.” Mason caught his hands in his hair. “You should go first.”
“Already done.”
Mason glanced back at the bed and frowned. “We only arrived minutes ago.”
“It’s been almost an hour.” Frost put a firm hand under his arm and pulled Mason to his feet. Mason stiffened. Frost stared at his hand, then removed it. He lifted his chin. “The first part of the change is disorientating. Time becomes compressed.”
Frost’s clothes were fresh and his face shaved. His hair was damp, the scent of the macassar oil mixing with the familiar odours of sandalwood and vanilla. How had Mason not noticed the fact that Frost had washed and changed when he knew that Nestor was in an underground room, simply from the echo of his voice?
“I don’t understand any of this.” He also didn’t understand why he had almost flinched at the man’s touch. He wanted Frost, had wanted him from almost the very first moment of their meeting. To deny that...? “None of it.”
“You will. Parts of your mind still have to slide into place.”
Frost pushed open the door to the shower room. Warm, damp air filled the windowless space, lit by a small but brilliant covered lamp. A large glass-and-metal-framed shower filled most of the far end of the room, its copper pipes and showerhead tightening Mason’s chest. It was a deliberate taunt. There was a sly grin lurking in the dark place at the back of his skull. He had to know his place. Know that his superiors—the Martians—gave him life.
Frost opened the glass door. “Livery off, Mason.”
“What are their real names?” His fingers moved over the buttons of his stained waistcoat and dropped it across a small wooden chair. He carried on to the buttons of his shredded shirt as he toed off his boots. “They can’t be called Martians.”
“They’re from Mars. So, Martians.” He paused. “We have the command names. No one, as yet, has uncovered any other name for what they call themselves or what they truly look like.” His gaze slid over Mason’s body, and the familiar heat rose again. “The rest of it.”
Mason paused at his braces. “How are you going to prepare me?”
Frost smiled, that slow wanton smile that made him resemble a debauched illustration from the News. “We will do what has to be done.”
Mason’s mechanical heart groaned. He felt the strain of it in his chest, the tightness, the sudden fast pace. And his dick was hard. Frost still liked to play his games.
Mason dropped his braces over his shoulders, letting them fall against his thighs. His shirt joined his waistcoat on the chair and he pushed through his trouser buttons, very aware that Frost watched him with a keen interest.
He’d never undressed for a man. Not with the surety that the man wanted him.
“I need you clean.” Frost stepped back from the shower and waved him towards it.
Aware of his nakedness—and the way his dick bobbed—Mason padded across the cool tiles. His face was red. He knew it. And he hadn’t blushed since he was a little boy.
“Inside.”
Frost closed the door, the hinges creaking. Mason faced the array of spoked taps, turned them and pushed out a quick breath—his hands smacking against the glass—as hot water cascaded over him. He sluiced the water over his face, pushing back his hair. The water was clean, unbelievably clean, the scent of it, the stinging hot taste on his tongue unlike anything he’d ever known.
Maybe it was his new senses. The world had changed around him.
He picked up the cake of soap and held it to his nose. The light scent of a spice he couldn’t name tickled his new, deeper sense of smell. His instinct was to push the scent all over his skin, to seal himself within it...
He frowned, but his hands didn’t stop as he lathered it over his skin, the foam pink where it washed away the flaky stain of his blood. He didn’t like or trust his new instincts. They still weren’t entirely...him.
Clean, he let the water wash over him, until a sharp rap on the glass forced him to turn. Mason wiped away the steam to reveal Frost standing outside the shower with a towel. The new, dark part of him recognised that the man was wrong, a canker to be rooted out and destroyed. There was the part that had flinched at the thought of his touch. But there was also his true self. And that held the need to use the newness in his body to touch and taste. To explore every inch of Agamemnon Frost.
He still wasn’t certain which part owned him as he turned off the flow of water and pushed open the door.
Frost held up the towel. “The soap contained a compound that settles the change in your bones.”
Mason dried his chest, his stomach, the material thin and rough against his skin. “You know this because you’re now my thyreos.”
It wasn’t a question, but Frost answered anyway. “They embed instincts. Needs.”
Mason held his gaze, his heart squeezing. The towel hid his erection. “Needs?”
> There was that slow smile again. Mason’s pulse jumped. He wanted Frost, the fire within him pushing everything back...but the promise of his touch, with the man’s fingers so close to brushing his cheek, caused him to freeze.
Frost frowned. “What is that? It’s something under the surface. Not them.” Frost ran a light finger across his mouth, barely touching, but the warm air stirred against Mason’s skin, featherlight, teasing...and horrifying. “You.”
Mason jerked his head back, away from the brief touch. “You can’t touch me!” The words burst from him, even as he ached to lose himself in Frost. He swore. “What have you done?”
“Ah, yes.” Frost tilted his head and for a moment his eyes were distant. “You’re right. I have to acknowledge my actions here. I used you. I knew what lay ahead for me, for you, and I dragged you along.” He pulled in a breath. “And for that I apologise.”
Mason stared. Was that what it was? He was reacting to Frost’s touch because he blamed him for the Martians transfiguring him? He had vague memories of forgiving the man, of blaming Sir Randolph. It obviously hadn’t been enough.
Frost had mentioned the casualties of their war. He was one as well. Yet the man had walked into Holt Hall, with the risk that his plan could fail, that he could die. And he’d gone anyway.
Mason was no innocent. His ten years of fighting for queen and country had stripped that from him. “It had to be done.”
Frost lifted his chin. “It did.”
Mason took his hand and caught the quick flicker of surprise that moved across Frost’s face. His own body rioted with heat and the fierce need to pull away gripped him. He ignored it. He wanted Frost to touch him. More than touch him. He would not deny himself that. Frost did what he had to. The pezos, the soldier in him, understood that all too well.
He brought his hand up to his own cheek, and Frost’s fingertips brushed over the rough bristles of his jaw to the edge of his mouth. The contact was electrifying, making his pulse run. He parted his lips and watched Frost’s eyes darken as his breath touched his fingertip.
