Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  “Oh dear.” Briar looked vaguely ashamed. “I may have overdone things.”

  “It’s fine. I didn’t push hard enough.” She gave herself a mighty heave and found herself flying out of bed when she realized she didn’t have the energy to stop at the apex of her trajectory. Briar leaped to her side and steadied her, pulling her back from the fateful arc that threatened to leave her face-first on the floor. Isabella said nothing while Briar wrapped the sheet around her. She tried not to lean on her too heavily as they made their way over to the door. The more she moved around, the better her energy seemed to return. She was even able to remain upright, if slightly canted, when Briar let her go to glance out the door.

  “We’re clear,” Briar said, her voice low. “Let’s go.” She took Isabella by the elbow and steered her around the door frame, down the hall, and back to her own room. Before Isabella knew it, she was ensconced in her own bed and in her nightclothes.

  “Thank you, Isabella,” Briar said. She dropped a light kiss on Isabella’s forehead.

  Isabella’s eyes drifted shut again, lulled by the warmth of Briar’s regard and the comfort of her own bed. “For what?”

  “For giving yourself so freely to me. I could feel the strength of your affection.”

  Did she have the energy to blush? Apparently so, though she lacked the wherewithal to care about it. “That’s good.”

  “It is.” Briar’s voice was receding down a long tunnel. “And I want you to know I share that affection.”

  That was good to know. If she’d been a little more cogent, Isabella would have chuckled at the very Briar way she’d put it. It was both formal and endearing. She smiled, but it felt like her lips belonged to someone else. Then she felt nothing.

  When she woke, Isabella had no idea what time it was. The morning sunlight had already passed when she’d gone in to see Briar. It was still light outside her window, but impossible to tell how much time had gone by. She still felt a deep weariness, but not so much that she couldn’t rouse herself out of bed. Hunger grumbled through her belly, reminding her that while she’d been indulging her weariness by lying abed, her stomach had been much neglected.

  Isabella maneuvered herself carefully out from between the covers. Her thighs trembled, but at least her knees locked. Once she’d been on her feet a few moments, her legs ceased their complaints. She dressed herself, sitting down halfway through when her legs began to shake again and her stomach set to howling so loud that for a moment she thought perhaps the imps were back. Finally properly attired for leaving her room, Isabella headed down to the kitchen. There had to be some food available, even if she’d missed lunch as she suspected.

  There was no sign of Mrs. Patterson in the kitchen. A plate of food wrapped in parchment paper sat upon the table. Her gut set to complaining again as soon as she saw it. Isabella hoped it had been left for her. If it hadn’t been, she sent a silent provisional apology to the hypothetical person whose lunch she was stealing. The repast was good, but she ate it so quickly that she had no idea what it had been when she finished. Two apple cores sat on the plate and perhaps half a dozen crumbs. Isabella licked the tip of her finger to pick up the crumbs, then devoured those as well. No sense in letting even the smallest bit go to waste. It would allow her to make do for now.

  She was fortified with enough energy to see what the others were up to. Her mother was ensconced back in the chair in front of the fireplace, though the lodge had warmed up considerably in the sun. She most assuredly noted Isabella’s presence, but she did not look up from her book. Briar and Joseph were nowhere to be seen. They weren’t in the trophy room with its dead animals staring down accusingly at her, for which Isabella was exceedingly grateful, nor were they in either parlor. She wandered for a good while until she heard Joseph’s voice raised in question. Briar’s voice answered his. Isabella turned the corner to find them sitting side by side at a dusty table in the brownest greenhouse she had ever seen. Nothing lived in there, though many pots contained the remnants of plants long since dead.

  Briar was pointing to something on a piece of paper. Isabella drifted closer to get a better look. It was a diagram with three rectangles and arrows going from one block to the next.

  “Izzy!” Joseph exclaimed upon seeing her. “You’re about. Your friend assured us you were merely exhausted from yesterday’s ordeal, but I was beginning to worry. You are well?”

  “I am.” Isabella gave him a quick peck upon the cheek and settled into the chair across from them. “What are you two up to?”

  “Brionie is giving me a lesson on magical theory. She is quite learned in the matter.”

  “But don’t call her a magician.”

  “Quite so,” Briar said. “Nor sorceress, enchantress, or witch. Those terms are imprecise.”

  “Then what is the best term?” Joseph’s eyes lit up at Briar’s dignified refusal to be categorized.

  “Linguist might perhaps be the closest term.”

  “Linguist? That’s an odd preference.”

  “Not at all.” Briar’s voice grew lively with the passion of her defense. “What you call magic is no more than a set of instructions set out for infernal energy. I am intimately familiar with the language, having studied it most of my life. I know the structure, the grammar if you will, and the vagaries of the vocabulary. English is a complicated-enough language on its own, but the language of demons makes it look like one designed by toddlers.”

  “If that’s the case, why then can we not simply use human languages to direct the magic from this realm?”

  “The magic of the mortal realm is too inert when on its own plane. It permeates the world around you, but it is difficult to harness on its own. The alchemists did a passable job at it. Remember, the magic lies in the transition of the energy from one realm to another, not as much in the substance of the energy itself.” Briar stopped, visibly frustrated at her inability to communicate the concept as clearly as she would have liked. “The transition of the energy from the infernal plane to this plane is what charges it. If I were on the infernal plane, I would have to use the mortal plane’s energy and transfer it to that of the demonic plane. Here, one must draw energy from the infernal plane to the mortal plane or it would have no charge. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” Joseph said. “It is like the steam that turns a turbine. It is the conversion of the water to steam that moves the turbine to produce energy.”

  “After a fashion. The comparison is rather a tortured one, I’m afraid.”

  “Then what about…” The two stuck their heads back together, Joseph continuing to ask more questions about magic and Briar answering them in her precise way, all while dancing around the reason she knew so much about it. She was quite slippery about it, and Isabella wondered if her father even noticed how skillfully she evaded his questions in that direction.

  Isabella allowed her eyelids to droop again and was quite content to doze while they conversed. Eventually, Briar noticed her sleeping and sent her back to bed. She was happy enough to go. She undressed quickly and flopped into bed, her eyes shut before her head hit the pillow. She was asleep almost instantly.

  The next few days followed the same pattern, with Isabella forcing herself to leave her bed to feed her hunger when it would no longer be denied. Briar would find her wherever she’d curled up to sleep, then send her back to her room. Sometimes she would accompany Isabella. They would steal kisses and cuddles until Isabella could no longer keep her eyes open. She would awake a few hours later, and they’d repeat the dance. With every day that passed, the time between Isabella’s naps increased and they were able to spend more time canoodling before she fell asleep.

  And so it was that Isabella was dozing in a comfortable chair in front of the fire in the parlor when the front doors were pushed wide open. The congenial spring weather had taken rather a turn for the worse the previous day. Gone were the sun and fluffy clouds in bright blue skies. In their place had come dark and heavy clouds that
threatened rain, and they’d made good on that threat more often than not. A chill wind howled through the door, pushing with it a well-dressed gentleman and two other men, servants by their livery. From her seat in front of the fire, Isabella felt the chill draft as it curled through the room, tugging at the blanket upon her lap. From her angle, she couldn’t see much more of the men through the doorway.

  There had been no knock; the gentleman had simply strode in as if he owned the place. One of his men was helping him with his coat, and Giguere, their elderly footman stood to one side. The gentleman leaned forward and spoke to Giguere, who nodded and made his laborious way to the parlor where Isabella and Althea waited. Isabella stayed put beneath a heavy blanket. Garbed as she was in trousers and a man’s shirt, she was in no way dressed to receive company. She wasn’t even wearing a jacket, let alone the appropriate apparel of a young lady of her station. Althea waited because with the damp turn of the weather, her leg had decided to give her more trouble than it had in years. They would have to return to London soon, if only so Althea could have some relief from the cold. But what awaited them in London? She’d tried to raise the question with Briar, who had refused to give anything resembling a concrete answer. Briar disliked prevarication, and Isabella suspected that until she’d made up her mind, Briar would prefer not to answer the question than to give an answer that might be wrong.

  “Charles Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, has arrived, ma’am,” Giguere said to Althea. “He requests to speak with Miss Riley and Miss Isabella.”

  Isabella sat up straight in her chair. She had no idea the Earl of Hardwicke knew who she was. Surely Briar hadn’t betrayed her secret life to him. She couldn’t rightly imagine that she had, not when Briar had promised to keep it to herself until she’d retrieved the grimoire. So why did he want to talk to her now? Briar worked for him, so there was reason enough to want to talk to her. Isabella realized that she had no idea if Briar had informed the earl of their plan to stay at his hunting lodge. Had Briar told him? Was she about to be sacked?

  “Lady Sherard,” Yorke said upon entry to the room.

  “My Lord Hardwicke.” Althea smiled at him from her seat. “May I present my daughter, Miss Isabella Castel?”

  “Miss Castel.” The earl flicked an appraising glance over her inappropriate garb but held his tongue.

  “My apologies, Lord Hardwicke. I’ve been unwell and we weren’t expecting visitors.”

  “I’m hardly a visitor in my own home,” Yorke said. He looked around the room, his eyebrows drawn down into a fierce scowl. “Though it’s been thirty years or more since I last set foot in here. Still, it can’t be helped. I shall be in the drawing room. When you are prepared, please meet me there with Miss Riley. We have much to discuss.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The earl didn’t seem too put out. Surely his message to meet would have been different had his anger been known. And whether he be angry or not, Briar knew she had done what she could. The situation was a difficult one, but she did her best to ignore the butterflies that had cavorted in the pit of her stomach since the Sherard’s elderly footman had passed on his lordship’s summons. The butterflies declined to lessen at her refusal to acknowledge them, so she settled for acting as though they weren’t there.

  The drawing room door was closed, but she heard the murmur of voices behind it. Briar paused and smoothed out her skirts. They were actually Isabella’s. It was a good thing Isabella had taken to dressing almost exclusively in men’s garb, as that meant Briar was in little danger of running out of dresses. She had to admit the combination of a starched white shirt and collar with Isabella’s long red hair made her heart beat a little faster as well. She looked so natural in trousers that it hadn’t been until Briar saw her in them that she realized how uncomfortable Isabella looked in skirts. Her movements in a dress were small and necessarily demure, but in trousers Isabella moved with lithe confidence.

  This was the moment of truth. There was no sense putting it off any longer. She pushed the door open and sailed through without hesitation.

  The earl stood behind the large desk, glaring at the map spread out across the top. Isabella stood to one side, seemingly content to let her parents take the brunt of his attention. Althea studied the map with almost as much intensity as the earl. Joseph was in the middle of a question, Briar was sure. The man questioned more than anyone else she’d met. His thirst for knowledge was insatiable and matched her own curiosity in its intensity and quite outstripped it in its breadth. Briar was quite certain Lord Sherard would pepper Death with myriad questions upon his demise.

  Hardwicke looked up at her entry and motioned her over.

  “My lord.” Briar dropped into a deep curtsey. “It is a surprise to see you.”

  “Miss Riley.” Hardwicke inclined his head to her. “Perhaps not so surprising as being forced to do without my favorite horseless following your unenlightening note about a sudden retreat to my long-empty lodge. I never received the letter you promised would explain everything.”

  Briar felt her mouth fall open into a horrified O of surprise. She closed it with a snap. “My apologies, my lord. The letter seems to have slipped my mind completely.” Between her mother, Isabella’s mother, and Isabella, she’d forgotten to send it on. Such things never happened to her. One thing she prided herself on was her dependability, but with recent events she’d lost track of that promise. She willed her face to cease burning, but her mortification refused to recede and stayed on display for all to see.

  “And you must forgive me for suspecting that you might somehow be involved in the troubles London is currently experiencing.”

  “Troubles?” Briar looked down at the map. The streets of London sprawled there like a particularly messy spider web, following little order that she’d ever been able to discern. A dozen or more points were inked onto the map, though for no reason that she could ascertain from their locations. They appeared purely random.

  “Very much so. Over the past few days there have been reports of strange creatures in the city. The locations of the fourteen we have confirmed are on the map. I suspect there may be more that were given short shrift at the beginning of this plague, but now we know all too well the penalty for ignoring them.”

  Horror mounted in Briar’s breast. Was he implying what she thought he was? Her palms were uncomfortably moist in her gloves and she had to lick her lips to work moisture back into them. “Creatures?”

  “Imps.”

  “Oh dear.” She thought they’d had more time. The inventor’s plans hadn’t seemed that close to fruition, not in his grimoire, nor in the drawings Isabella had purloined.

  “Imps?” Althea looked up. “Weren’t those what attacked my husband’s workshop? What have you gotten my daughter into?”

  “Mother,” Isabella said. “This isn’t the place.”

  “Isn’t it?” She limped over to Briar, standing threateningly close to her. “I know what you did to her.”

  Briar’s mind flashed quite inappropriately to their morning of passion those days ago, regrettably the last such they’d been able to steal between Isabella’s subsequent incapacitation and the presence of her parents. How could Althea know about that? They’d been most discreet or as discreet as it was possible to be when having the most astounding sexual relations of her lifetime. A blush rode high upon her cheekbones as she stood, balanced between mortification at having been caught and anger at the woman for daring to bring it up at such an indelicate time.

  “Without your little trap,” Althea said, “we would be well out of this.”

  Is that all? Briar wanted to sag with relief but wasn’t about to give Althea the satisfaction. “I did what I had to do.”

  “And my daughter is in danger because of your thoughtless actions.”

  “Is that so? It seems to me that your actions are the ones that made it possible for her to walk into my trap, not to mention where we’d be without it.”

  Briar watched Althea sp
utter with no small amount of satisfaction. The actions of Isabella’s mother were well-justified in her mind, and she still couldn’t see how anyone might call her upon them. Briar was more than willing to do so. Her satisfaction withered abruptly when she saw the look on Isabella’s face. Helpless anger was writ large in the twist of her lips and the anguish in her eyes. She was doing to her beloved the same thing Isabella’s mother had done to Isabella. She was using her to further her own cause against Althea. Now was not the time, nor would it ever be the time.

  “I’m sorry, Isabella,” Briar said. “You are more than capable of fighting your own battles.”

  Isabella smiled wanly in response. “We’ve had this discussion, Mother. I won’t have it again and certainly not here. This is my decision. It may not have been at the beginning, but it is now.”

  “We shall discuss this later,” Althea said, drawing herself up in cold fury. “You’ve been through enough already. You’ve barely been able to stay awake the past few days.”

  “No, we won’t.” Isabella responded to her mother’s anger with calm resolve. “I’ve made my decision. I am an adult and this is my choice.”

  “While you live under your father’s roof—”

  “Your father will respect your decision,” Joseph interrupted. He laid a hand on his wife’s arm, attempting to calm her. “She’s grown, my pet. You can’t hold onto her forever.”

  “Until she’s married…”

  “Do you really think that’s likely?” Joseph drew Althea into a comforting embrace. “There’s far too much of both of us in her to be satisfied with the role she’s been told she must play. I’m afraid she has the best of the worst of us.”