Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  “Where should I look?” Imogene asked, her voice somewhat muffled.

  “Try beneath the undercarriage.” Now that she had someone to do the looking for her, Briar had no need to stand so close to the hated device. She backed up until her shoulder blades touched the outer wall, being careful never to take her eyes off the horseless.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “Keep looking,” Briar called. “Maybe the engine?”

  Imogene scrabbled deeper beneath the carriage. If she’d felt even a quarter of the malevolence Briar experienced when she went near the horseless, she wouldn’t have been so eager to dig around beneath it. A vague sense of guilt tickled annoyingly at the back of Briar’s head. Had she sent Imogene into harm’s way? Surely the discomfort was only in her own mind, a byproduct of her discomfort with the newest technologies. Except progress didn’t bother her; Briar had quite liked the earl’s old horseless. She enjoyed traveling by train or dirigible, finding both infinitely preferable to travel by horseback or stagecoach. The invention of the fountain pen was one she quite approved of. She’d found quill pens messy and inefficient. So why did this carriage bother her so much?

  She was about to call Imogene back out when the girl called out. It was gibberish, from what Briar could hear.

  “What was that?”

  “Mirabilia Carriageworks,” Imogene said again, enunciating each word carefully.

  From the Latin mirabile, Briar’s mind translated automatically, meaning wondrous. Someone has a sense of humor. “Very good,” she said aloud. “Now come out of there before someone happens by and we’re both in trouble.”

  Imogene scooted out from under the carriage, her dress covered in dirt. It was a good thing she’d been filthy going in, or Briar would have some explaining to do. Except that she hadn’t seen Imogene, not according to their agreement. It was time to go. She had what she’d come for.

  “Thank you, Imogene. I never saw you.”

  Imogene’s grin seemed all the brighter for the grimy streak that slashed across her lips. Briar shook her head. Hardwicke was going to have his hands full with her in a year or two.

  She closed the door to the carriage house behind her, then realized the electric lights were still on. There was no way she was going back in there. Imogene would take care of it for her.

  The rest of Briar’s morning was spent tracking down as many copies of the London Times as she could find, then skimming through them for mentions of the Mirabilia Carriageworks. Finally, right before she was about to give up and go join the earl and his family for the noon luncheon, she found her first mention.

  Mirabilia Carriageworks becomes Mirabilia Manufacturing, the small headline said. The article that followed was short on words and content. All Briar learned was that the company was expanding into other types of manufacturing. She reread the ten lines the newspaper had devoted to the news again and again, hoping to glean something more useful, but there was nothing. No mention of the types of objects they would be making or when they would appear. The newspaper was one of the oldest she’d gathered. What had Mirabilia gotten up to in the past month?

  It was time to expand her research. Lunch forgotten, Briar folded the paper in half and retreated to her chamber.

  Her room was above stairs; the earl considered her a special kind of employee, one who was too valuable to live with the serving folk. The room was cheerful, especially on this day when sunlight flooded through the double windows on the room’s south wall. The woodwork practically glowed from the sun’s rays.

  That wouldn’t do at all, not for what Briar had to do. It was too bad, really. She loved the sun. Perhaps it was the result of a childhood spent in the dark places of another world. Or perhaps it was because so much of her work took place in dark and dusty libraries. The sun was an enemy of paper, right there with mold and silverfish.

  She drew the heavy drapes, still in their winter weight. The housekeeper, Mrs. Houghton, thought her strange indeed for insisting upon the heavy velvet, even in the warmest months, but lightweight muslin didn’t shroud the room in shadows like she needed it. She snugged the drapes close to the wall with a couple of lead weights. It was time.

  The dark room wasn’t difficult for her to navigate. To her eyes, it was only as dark as the beginning of the twilight hour. A human would have had a devil of a time moving around without walking into something. She had no such handicap. What she needed was in the closet. She stared reflectively at the door before opening it. How many years had it been since she’d last resorted to this method? The situation required it, but she couldn’t be pleased about it. There was something going on and she needed more information.

  Briar reached into the closet and shouldered aside her heaviest dresses. She needed the mirror hung behind them, the reflective surface turned toward the wall. The edges were sharp and she handled them with care. It would not do to activate it before she was prepared.

  Mirror held in one hand, she locked the door to her room and pushed a chair under the doorknob. Satisfied no one could interrupt her, Briar rolled aside the large circular rug in front of the window. Runes glowed a dim magenta at her. They hadn’t been activated in a long time. She carefully composed herself in the middle of the runic circle.

  She drew both hands along the sharp edges of the mirror, paying no mind to the stinging pain in her palms. Blood flowed freely and the inscription on the mirror sprang to life. The fire of bright magenta shifted to brilliant crimson as it spread from the edges where she held it. In no time, the back of the mirror burned brightly with runes inscribed to make the walls between planes thinner.

  The mirror’s surface no longer reflected any light. It was a matte black that sucked in what little daylight there was in the room. It wasn’t enough. The earl’s home had protections against infernal magic and these often interfered. Briar slapped her left hand down on the runes around her. Magenta chased by crimson crawled across those runes as well. The circle filled completely, and the mirror went through another change. It glowed with sullen color that shifted through the spectrum visible to humans and beyond.

  Briar waited. The mirror was doing its work, seeking through the infernal plane for the recipient to which it was tuned.

  The mirror shimmered once and suddenly a face looked back at her. Skin of opalescent grey shone at her. Despite knowing better, Briar couldn’t help but be drawn in by the perfect contours of the woman’s cheekbones, the eyes of smoky embers that stared back at her, one perfect eyebrow arched in question—or maybe amusement. The flawless red eyes crinkled slightly above full lips in a beautiful smile, one that exposed sleek black teeth slightly pointed at the ends. A bright red tongue peeked out from between her lips and casually caressed her bottom lip. It was easy to overlook the onyx horns that curved proudly back from her forehead and the faint rustling that accompanied her movements as leathery wings were settled and resettled against her back with each motion.

  Briar closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself before opening them and regarding the woman in the mirror.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t the tallest townhouse Isabella had burgled, not by a long shot, and yet it loomed over her in the scant moonlight. Fog wreathed the full moon almost completely, creating a shining silver patch in the sky that did little to illuminate the streets below. Had the night been a little clearer, she wouldn’t have risked it, but Althea had stressed how short their finances had gotten. Too much lower and even Isabella’s father would notice. They hadn’t gone to such pains to keep him in the dark about the true state of the family’s fortunes to have that inconvenient truth exposed now. In two more years, Wellington would be finished with his schooling in Germany and would be back home. Things would return to normal. Then she could stop stealing from her friends.

  The back garden was well tended and neat. Plants only now greening up from winter stretched all the way to the high brick wall that ran the perimeter. The gardener had been ha
rd at work. The scent of freshly turned earth filled Isabella’s nostrils, and she had to work to keep from leaving footprints in the soft ground. The space was tiny, as was typical in London. Having any sort of garden in the city indicated great wealth, but it left her few options for concealment. Her vantage behind a very square bush didn’t have an ideal view of the house out of necessity. If a servant peered out and saw her lurking among the budding flowers, she would lose her chance at the house. Millie’s rubies alone would keep Isabella’s household going for a few weeks, not to mention what else she might find while she was in there.

  So she waited for the last of the lights in the windows to go out. There was a small window of time when she could strike. The servants would finally bed down after their masters, but they would be up before the sun to prepare the house for the day. One window, high up in the servants’ quarters, still spilled light out into the night. It was likely an oil lamp. The color was too warm to be gas, which in turn was warmer than that of electricity, though neither were as orange as the light from a fire. That she could identify a type of light source only from its color through a window was not a skill Isabella had ever thought she might have. It was probably the most innocuous of the skills she’d acquired since she started her second-storey work.

  Isabella tried not to fret. Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts, both places she couldn’t reach. There was nothing worse than waiting. She risked leaning out to take a closer look at the window. Had someone fallen asleep with the lamp still burning? No, there was movement in the room and Isabella ducked back behind her hedge.

  Moments later, the light went out. Isabella sighed with relief. Soon she would be able to go up. The mysterious servant only had to fall asleep now. Thirty minutes should be more than enough in her experience. It had been some time since she’d last been interrupted by the occupants of a house, and she preferred to keep it that way.

  When she judged enough time had passed, Isabella stood and advanced stealthily up to the house. The moon’s sullen silver glow gave enough light to be collected by her goggles and illuminate the garden. She pulled a small pistol-looking device from the back of her belt and aimed it up at the left-most brick chimney. With the pull of the trigger and a small report, the small hook was away. It buried itself in the brick and proved well-seated when Isabella tugged experimentally at the line. She didn’t need it to climb, rather it was a guide to make sure she didn’t go winging off into the night or through one of the windows lining the house’s rear facade.

  She hooked the end of the line into a winch at her belt. The tension tugged at her trousers, hard enough that she could feel it but not enough that she was in any danger of losing her pants while standing in the garden of her best friend’s parents.

  This was it. There was no more delaying now.

  Isabella shook out her arms, the throttle and steering mechanisms for her jump pack settling into her hands with twin clicks. The pack vibrated on her back as she increased the throttle, then pushed off when she released it. A sound like a cresting wave released behind her and she was launched on twin streams of air. The winch at her belt hummed as it guided her upward. She twisted the steering mechanism in her right hand and extended one elbow. Her target, a window on the second storey, swung into view. Immediately, she cut the throttle and turned in midair, allowing the last of her boost to direct her onto the windowsill.

  A twist and pull dislodged the small harpoon from above. The winch whirred and the harpoon got hung up on the edge of the rain gutter for a moment before pulling free with a clang. Isabella winced and froze, her ears peeled for any sign that someone had heard the noise. That was sloppy—and right over the window where the last light had gone out. To her relief, no one threw open the windows to look out into the night. She pulled off the hook and stored it in one of the many pouches at her waist, then turned her attention to the window on the second floor that was her goal.

  The night wasn’t warm enough that the window had been left open. Isabella squinted at the crack between the window and casement. It had been too much to hope for this to be a double window, like those lining the front of the house, giving an impression of alternating glass and brick. The windows on the back were fewer and sparer. It didn’t matter the kind of window, however. There was always a latch. This window had two; it was the work of a moment to slide a thin metal pick into the crack where the sill met the window and lift each one.

  Isabella had seen the types of latches on the windows in her friend’s house. She’d been disappointed. Didn’t Millie’s father know the upper echelon was being targeted for a series of daring burglaries? Did he think himself beyond such things? It was a fairly common attitude Isabella had found and one that worked to her advantage, but if there had been a few measures in place, Millie’s home wouldn’t have been worth the risk to burgle. As it was, they were fairly inviting her in.

  The window opened without so much as a creak. Isabella dropped quietly from the windowsill to a thick rug richly patterned after the Oriental fashion. A large armoire dominated one wall of the large dressing room. Beside it was a dressing table. Not two days earlier, she’d watched Millie stow the ruby necklace in the top drawer on the left-hand side.

  Isabella pushed down the lens that allowed her to winnow out real jewels from fake ones. The drawer didn’t budge to her gentle tug at first, but the simple lock yielded readily to her lock picks. Into one pouch went the rubies that almost burned through her lens. Since she was there, she took the time to look through the rest of Millie’s jewelry. A surprising amount of it was glass or paste, but those with real gems joined the rubies.

  She took a moment to listen at the door to the bedroom, but she heard nothing more than the gentle snores of one fast asleep. She debated whether or not she should take a look inside, then shook her head sadly. Millie didn’t deserve to lose the necklace her fiancé had gifted her. At least she knew Nelson could well afford it and would likely replace it with commendable haste. He adored Millie and treated her quite well. Theirs was the kind of match she might aspire to if she’d had any interest in the harsher sex. As it was, Millie’s engagement had been an unsurprising blow.

  Though Isabella might have dreamed of a day where she could tell Millie how she felt for her, the engagement had made that impossible. As close as she was with the girl, as much as she enjoyed her company and envisioned what her full lips might taste like, even Millie didn’t know the real her. She didn’t even know that Isabella liked to tinker with machinery. She saw only the facade of the genteel girl-child that Isabella had crafted to display to polite society. Millie took such joy in the trappings of high society. When they were together, the charade became easier to bear. In less than a year, that would be over. Millie would be safely married, and who knew if she would still have time for her friend.

  It was time to move on. Other treasures were surely hidden in other dressing tables. These would keep her own family together, and there was no time to lose.

  Chapter Four

  Another tiresome ball, thought Briar. At least I didn’t have to sit through the ride in that horrible carriage. The earl hadn’t understood why she’d been so insistent upon using his older horseless but had eventually conceded to her request. Having her arrive in a carriage that was the height of new technology might be a feather in his cap but not at the price of her peace of mind.

  She was supposed to be cultivating a relationship with the daughter of a minor baron, but the opportunity to approach her or her parents had simply not been there. Whenever she finished a dance with one vapid young gentleman, there was another to take his place. It was maddening. She had work to do, but the boys had apparently decided she was too entrancing to avoid. The only explanation was that her shroud wasn’t working, though she’d tested it three times already. As usual, it was battened down, not even a hint of her true nature could escape it.

  So why then could she not avoid yet another dance with a young bore who would tread upon her feet an
d try to keep her diverted with banal comments about the weather? Briar permitted the latest one to lead her out onto the floor and allowed her mind to wander, responding to his inane babble with short answers that may or may not have been appropriate.

  Her mother had thought her shroud was too effective, but then she always did. The Fourth Minister to the Ruling Council of Lust could never understand why Briar wanted to fit in with the humans of the mortal plane. As a succubus, Carnélie reveled in her unabashed sexuality. Their race was carnality unbridled. Briar controlled that side of her nature with an iron fist, never allowing it to take over her life. Not that she didn’t feel attraction. The gentleman who twirled her about now was a fine specimen of humanity. His face was quite symmetrical, and he had nice hard shoulders beneath his coat. Certainly, she found him attractive, but she had little desire to act upon the attraction. Her mother would likely have him in some back room already, which was how Briar had been conceived.

  Still, if she was a disappointment to Carnélie, at least her mother had other daughters who were happy to be something more befitting her appetites.

  She smiled automatically at something the lordling said to her, then looked away. The smile was almost always a logical response to what brainless young men of substance said to a lady.

  Her mother had made her divest herself of the shroud when she had contacted her, and for what? Not much. Briar had known it would happen; it always did. Carnélie always refused to acknowledge her until she looked more attractive and not like the dowdy human woman she pretended to be. And for all that, she’d been useless. Carnélie had no information on what might be going on. There were always plots to interfere in the mortal realm among her infernal half-brethren. Infernal magic couldn’t exist without the mortal realm, and the more infernals who occupied a corner of this world, the more magic they could send down to the infernal realm. It seemed there was nothing going on beyond the normal level of scheming, certainly nothing that should have put Briar so on edge.