Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  Despite her best efforts, a few brave souls did manage to get their names on Briar’s dance card. They whirled her around the dance floor before escorting her back to her spot along the wall. At least none of them stepped upon her toes. She was a good enough dancer, her reflexes saw to that, though her heart was rarely in it. She found it difficult to move in sync with a man. Their insistence on being the ones to direct the dance was tiresome, but convention dictated it must be so and she wasn’t there to draw attention to herself.

  Deciding that enough time had passed, Briar made her way from the dance floor and to the other end of the hall. Tables were set up there and young men and women refreshed themselves after the exertion of dancing. Older men and women dotted the tables as well, chaperones to the younger set or there upon their own recognizance. Many of the older set talked among themselves, those there to keep an eye on younger female relatives glancing over occasionally to make sure their young charges hadn’t disappeared into a corner on the arm of some young man. Within sight of the dance floor sat the Baron and Baroness Selborne, who were alone at a table with a couple of empty seats. They chatted amiably with each other.

  A glint of glass peeking out from under the edge of the long tablecloth caught Briar’s attention. She wrinkled her nose at the whiff of brimstone that followed along soon after. The scent of burning rock was not one she’d anticipated smelling in a place like this. Curious, she picked up the object. A fine crystalline lens winked at her, reflecting hundreds of points of light from the room’s glittering chandelier. Etched into the bronze ring holding it in place were runes of infernal power and the source of the smell. She turned the curious device of crystal and brass over in her hand and traced her fingertip over the characters. A broken hinge was attached to one side. It had clearly come off something else, but what?

  The lens held in her left hand, Briar continued on toward the baron and his wife. She plastered a gracious smile upon her face.

  “May I join you?” she asked.

  “Of course.” The baron stood hurriedly, his generous paunch barely clearing the table. The baroness smiled back at Briar with equal graciousness. He pulled the nearest chair out for her and Briar perched gracefully upon the edge, the bustle of her dress allowing her to do no more.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Briar said. “Are you enjoying the evening?” Small talk was as tiresome as the rest of the evening, but a necessary evil. She paid less than half a mind to the inane platitudes she spouted. No, her attention was on the odd lens she’d found on the floor. What was a thing like that doing here? It would have been strange enough on its own, but add in the scrawlings of infernal magic and it was an enigma. Briar had no patience for unknowns. She worked her left glove off her hand while exchanging comments with the baroness about the weather and drew her fingertip along the top of the brass lens holder.

  Briar looked down as the door swung open slowly, propelled by a black-gloved hand. She blinked or tried to. Lenses didn’t blink, so neither could she. Whatever she’d been expecting when she tried to read the lens, this was not it. Objects carried with them a strange point of view, one she was quite used to. Their utter lack of curiosity over their circumstances was refreshing. They experienced no emotions at all, unlike the people she had to deal with every day whose every feeling intruded on her unless she was meticulously careful. This was unusual, however. It was rare for her to be pulled completely into the experiences of an object. She wondered what this one had in store for her.

  The only source of light in the large room beyond was the smoldering coals in the banked fireplace. There wasn’t much to make out; shadows cloaked this room as deeply as they had the hall from which they’d entered. The lack of light didn’t seem to be a problem. Whoever carried the lens crossed the room with perfect confidence. If Briar hadn’t known better, she would have said the owner of the lens lived here, but then why the skullduggery? Books filled shelves from floor to ceiling. The gloved hands caressed the thick leather spines, lingering here and there as they traced gilt lettering. The hand stopped on a particularly weighty volume and grasped the top, then pulled back.

  The book didn’t come off the shelf, rather it tilted backward before the hand returned the leather-bound volume to its resting place on the shelf. It was some sort of latch. Briar had heard of such things, but she had never witnessed one herself. The earl thought they were pointless fripperies, more useful for those who wished to claim the cachet of having a hidden compartment. Inevitably, those with such compartments couldn’t resist showing them off, at which point they lost their singular advantage. A stout safe with the most advanced locking mechanisms was what Hardwicke relied upon. Of course, that also included some nasty traps of a magical variety. There seemed to be none of those here.

  Without missing a beat, the hands busily plucked books off the shelf beside the trick volume. They stacked the books in neat piles on the floor. Instead of the plaster wall behind the built-in bookshelves, a dark hole was revealed. The shelf was far deeper than it should have been.

  The owner of the hands knew as much. He pulled out long boxes, emptying them somewhere before replacing them. Briar watched as he pulled a larger box. The lock upon it was assaulted by the hands, wielding delicate tools, and the box swiftly revealed its secrets. Gold sovereigns winked sullenly, reflecting the scant light from the coals in the fireplace.

  The coins disappeared also, swept out of sight by those questing hands before he reached for more boxes, pouches, and bags. Nimble hands opened the nearest bag and extricated a string of brilliantly glowing diamonds. The jewels gleamed with an internal fire that practically licked the edge of each gem. Their glitter wasn’t natural. Even the finest diamonds didn’t gleam so on their own. One box held a selection of bejeweled rings. Some rings lacked the glow of the others, and those were ignored. They went back into the safe with the now much emptier box. The hands continued their deft sorting. Any jewels that didn’t glow, he left behind. A thick stack of banknotes disappeared into the same place as the glowing jewels.

  The whole process of looting the safe took less than five minutes. When there were no more bags or boxes to interest the owner of the lens, he replaced the row of books quickly and precisely. The books were replaced on the shelf in the reverse order from which they’d been taken. He fussed over them for a moment, tweaking one a little further out, pushing another one back into place. It was quick work, and before long the shelf looked exactly as it had when they’d entered. What had happened here wasn’t obvious at all. Depending on how frequently the owner of the safe checked his valuables, the theft might pass unremarked for quite some time.

  Briar expected they would leave the way they had come. Instead, she was carried over to the drapes. A hand reached out and parted the heavy curtains. Large windows went up almost eight feet. The dim London night beckoned beyond the leaded glass panes. The owner of the lens glanced back across the room. Briar suffered a moment of vertigo as shelves with their books flashed past her. They focused on the door for a second, then turned back. The hands had lost their smooth deliberation. Instead, they flew with decisive haste. With a quick twist, they unlatched the nearest window and pulled open the window barely far enough for a human body to slip through. A moment later he was up on the sill, turning back to face into the room. His hand twitched the drapes back into place behind them.

  The hands slipped a hooked length of wire over the latch and pulled the window shut. With a small twist, the wire pulled the latch into place, then was pulled through slight gap between the window and the one next to it. That was neat; there would be no more sign that someone had left that way than perhaps a small scratch.

  They dropped away from the window, the side of the building flashing past them, then they slowed until they seemed to be floating a few feet off the ground. The last few feet came up suddenly, then they bounced up, some ten feet in the air before falling in an arc, London’s dark streets whizzing by.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” The
words emanated from the dark around them. That wasn’t right.

  Chapter Two

  “Miss Riley, are you quite well?”

  Briar blinked, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the brightly lit ballroom. Vivid colors swirled out on the dance floor, resolving into gaily dressed women who danced by on the arms of soberly dressed men. Even there, flashes of color peeked out from beneath dark jackets or in the breast pockets of their coats.

  She turned and smiled stiffly at the elderly man and woman at the table with her. They wore twin expressions of dismay, perhaps not accustomed to a young woman suddenly dropping into a trance. Briar hoped she hadn’t been drooling. That would be most undignified. She covered her discomfiture by pulling her glove back on.

  “I am fine, my lord and lady.” What were their names again? She’d been sent there specifically to engage them in conversation and to determine what in their collections her employer might find of interest. Instead, she’d found something altogether more fascinating. “I require a breath of fresh air, I think.”

  The elderly baron nodded gravely. “You do look a trifle pale, Miss Riley.”

  His wife nodded with more energy, looking for all the world like a small bird bobbing for seeds. “You do, at that.” She stood, alighting from her chair in one motion. “Come, let us go onto the terrace.”

  “Thank you.” Briar smiled, trying to mask her irritation. “You’re too kind.” She was too kind. Briar didn’t think she’d ever acclimate to the human assumption that women were too weak or indelicate to be out on their own. It certainly wasn’t the case where she was from. But then, the entirety of polite society would disintegrate into chaos if even half the things she’d endured growing up came to pass here.

  Still, the terrace was a good idea. It was warm in the ballroom. The heat of the gas lamps and the dancing throng combined to a stifling degree. That, coupled with her return from reading the lens, made fresh air a necessity if she was going to regain her concentration and accomplish the evening’s task.

  She managed not to wobble as she stood up. The corset wrapped around her ribcage made drawing a full breath an impossibility but added some much needed support. The ball was still going strong and it was much too early to make her excuses and leave. After a few moments she’d be right as rain and would finish what she’d been sent there to do and could be on her way home.

  At her side, the baroness chattered gaily about something. Briar listened with half an ear, not overly interested in the latest fashions. Her employer always saw to it that she was dressed in the latest of high couture before sending her off to one of these soirees. Though she appreciated the dignity and decorum the locals’ clothing brought with it, sometimes the combined layers were quite stultifying when compared to what she’d worn in her younger days. She didn’t yearn for the near-nudity of her upbringing, but dressing then had been much simpler and something she could accomplish on her own. However, appearing in a state of extreme undress would have closed the doors of high society to her. And heavens forbid they should see her true form. That would not have done at all, for their sake and hers.

  Cool air washed over her as they emerged onto a long terrace. Clumps of young women conversed quietly in the lamp light that poured through the open doors. They made every attempt to embody the reserve befitting a young lady, but their excitement was nonetheless palpable, a shared feeling of energy that helped bring Briar back to herself. The dimly lit lamps smoking on the walls did little to dispel the gloom of a London evening. Tall trees and thick bushes ringed the terrace on all sides, seeming to soak up what little light made it that far. Muffled whispers and other noises from the underbrush reached Briar’s sensitive ears. At least a couple somebodies were involved in some unchaperoned amusement.

  “Is that better, my dear?” the baroness asked, her voice brimming over with solicitousness.

  “Much. Thank you, Baroness.” Briar turned the lens over in her hand. It had been the glint of reflected light that had first drawn her eye to it where it peeked out from under a long tablecloth, but the unmistakable feel of infernal energy had compelled her to pick it up. How did such an object come to be in a place like this? The question had prompted her to surrender to her own curiosity and give the item what she’d thought would be a cursory reading. She hadn’t counted on being pulled into the lens’s point of view. Usually, she received the barest impression from an object. She might be able to determine who it belonged to or how old it was. Rarely, she could experience what the object had been through, but that generally required a strong emotional attachment, either from her or from the item’s owner. That such an innocuous thing could hold that kind of emotional resonance was unusual, to say the least.

  “Are you overcome by such episodes frequently?” The question was delicately phrased, but the baroness’s eyes glittered in the light. It seemed the woman loved to gossip.

  “Not at all.” Briar’s smile was practiced. “It was quite warm in there, but I’m feeling much recovered already.” She turned the lens absently between gloved fingers.

  “What is that?”

  “I’m not sure. I found it on the floor. I thought it was pretty.”

  “Indeed?” The baroness seemed unconvinced. The lens itself was unprepossessing, a simple piece of crystal. It was the bronze mounting that interested Briar, etched around as it was by the intricate design still glowing faintly with energy. It was doubtful the baroness could make out the glow; she likely didn’t have the ancestry to do so. Briar did, much to her constant dismay.

  “I have particular tastes, I suppose.” Briar placed the lens on the stone terrace railing in front of her. “Much like the baron. I’ve heard his collection of manuscripts is quite extensive.”

  “He seems to think so.” The baroness tutted and shook her head. “He spends most of his time poring over them, and it’s been even worse since his latest acquisition.”

  “Is that so?” Briar tried to suppress her excitement. This was what she was here to find out. She reached out to stroke the edge of the lens again. “Where did he acquire them?”

  “Somewhere on the Continent.” With an airy wave, the baroness dismissed the line of questioning. “But enough of dusty tomes. How is the earl?”

  And there it was. Not long after the inquiry after the earl’s health would come the probing into why she attended so many events in his stead. She turned her smile back on. “He is well, though busy with the workings of Parliament.” It was a true enough statement and one that deflected many of the following questions.

  “Of course.”

  “Excuse me.” A young woman joined them at the railing. Briar looked down her nose at the pretty young thing in her pale green gown that made a pleasant contrast with bright red hair. Isabella Castel, only daughter of the Viscount of Sherard, was one of her least favorite people. The girl fancied herself a wit and spent much of her time playing to a group of hangers-on who laughed at every one of her jokes and clever put-downs. The Sherard girl had a nickname for everyone or so it seemed. Briar knew what hers was, and she didn’t appreciate it. She didn’t wonder how she’d been saddled with “The Stick.” Many of the young women found her too rigid, even for their tightly held code of morality, simply because Briar strove for decorum in all things.

  “Yes?” The cool word hung in the air between the three of them, but Miss Castel seemed not to notice.

  “Where did you get that?” Miss Castel reached toward Briar’s hand.

  “This?” Surely she doesn’t mean the lens? If this girl had anything to do with the object, Briar would eat her reticule. She twitched it out of the Sherard girl’s reach. “I found it on the floor. Surely it isn’t yours.”

  “Of course not.” The reply was sharp and color bloomed in the Sherard girl’s cheeks, washing away her freckles. Her pale complexion did her no favors when it came to hiding her emotions. “It belongs to my brother. I use it as a…good luck charm. I’d like it back.” She stretched out her hand, hazel eyes fairly
snapping in anger.

  Her brother was the second-storey man then. Briar wondered if he knew his sister had the lens or not. There was no point in holding on to it. If the Sherard girl claimed it, it was undoubtedly hers. She dropped it into Miss Castel’s waiting palm. The girl whirled on the heel of her dainty slipper and stormed off. Who knew she had so much fire to her? In her anger, the Sherard girl was a far cry from the insipid little thing Briar saw dancing across the floor or in a tittering knot with her friends. Briar watched after her for a moment before turning back to Baroness Selborne. The baroness shook her head at Miss Castel’s retreating form.

  “Such rudeness,” she said. “Still, it is no surprise given who her mother is.”

  This kind of gossip was of no use to Briar. It would tell her nothing of Selborne’s holdings and beside that, she had little interest in the Sherard family and especially not with Miss Castel.

  “I am quite recovered. Shall we return?” She followed the baroness back to the table where the baron was deep in conversation with another gentleman. Both men stood upon their return. To her disappointment, they turned their conversation away from what they’d been discussing. It was something about the new engines, but that was all she’d been able to hear.

  “My lord,” Briar said to Baron Selborne. “Your wife tells me you’ve made an exciting acquisition. May I inquire as to its origin?”

  “Quite so!” Baron Selborne puffed himself up with excitement. “It is a fascinating treatise on…” he leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially, “…demoniac workings during the early Ottoman Empire.”