The Collectors' Society

by Heather Lyons

  His quiet vehemence makes me smile. “I’m going to need a modern-day vocabulary primer, aren’t I?”

  There. He’s smiling once more. It’s not as wide as I’ve seen, but it’s a start.

  It takes me several minutes to make it to my room in Mansfield Park, and once I do, I’m met with a surprise. A man I’ve never met is in my chamber, one whose photograph I examined early this morning. He’s of average height, with a neat blond beard and large holes rimmed in metal in his ears. He’s dressed entirely in black and wearing a tool belt, a black hat with a long bill covering what is undoubtedly slicked-back hair. But more importantly, he’s holding a book in his hands. A certain playbook.

  Specifically, a catalyst.

  We stare at each other for what feels like forever but in reality must be just a few seconds. And then he growls, “Fuck me.”

  I shut and lock the door behind me, my eyes never leaving him. “I’d rather not.”

  A soft, menacing giggle floats between us. “Be a good gel and step aside. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but if you force my hand, I won’t have a choice.”

  “Funny,” I tell him calmly. “I was about to say something similar. Only I wish you’d set the playbook down first.”

  The bastard slides the book into the band of his pants. And then, out of the tool belt, he slips out a pair of switchblades. Once he flips them open, he performs a bizarre, grandstanding performance of swirling them around, all the while grinning like an egotistical fool.

  I have no time for such uselessness.

  Confusion reigns in the room, because I dart toward the fireplace at the same moment he charges me. A poker is claimed just as one of the blades grazes the skin of my arm.

  Muslin has been torn. A dress has been destroyed.

  “This,” I tell him flatly, “was not my dress to ruin.”

  His eyes widen as another malicious laugh escapes him. I happily wipe it straight off his face when the poker whips out and strikes him squarely across the arm he appears to favor. No howl sounds, though, just a grunt as he stumbles back.

  It’s my turn to rip the dress, straight down from the hip right before he charges me once more. I let loose a roundhouse kick to his throat that sends him sprawling. Granted, it’s only momentarily, but it’s enough for me to jab the poker smartly into ribs once, twice. Blood is drawn.

  I show him my teeth.

  The blades in his hands sweep in swishing arcs as we begin our dance. Clang after clang, strike after strike, slash after poke, I eventually make headway and angle the would-be thief away from the door. He catches me off guard once, sweeping me with a leg until I fall onto my bottom, but I’ve always been quick on my feet.

  When I knock off his hat, I tell him, “You’re boring me.”

  “See,” he volleys back in what sounds vaguely like the bastard child of French and Cockney accents, “I was just thinkin’ what a delight you are.”

  A kick sends one of his blades skittering out of his hand. “Polite gentlemen introduce themselves to ladies they find delightful.”

  A vase nearby shatters; a table overturns in our dance. Part of me revels in this, as I’ve been removed from such pastimes for far too long. And I’m inordinately pleased when a simple yet solid kick planted against his ribs leaves him winded and wincing.

  I spin as he stumbles back, gaining traction to slam the length of the poker across his nose just as he catches my shoulder with his blade. Blood spurts as he curses, and I use his momentary distraction to snatch the book right out of his pants.

  He howls, “Bitch!” from between blackened yet bloody teeth when I shove the catalyst down the front of my dress.

  Another well-placed kick sends him right where I want him, flat on his arse and without his second blade. “And here I was thinking I was delightful.”

  He wheezes, his eyes nearly bulging in fury. “I’ll enjoy slitting your throat.”

  It’s time to put this sorry fellow out of his misery. The dance is over. I punch him squarely in the face. Thankfully, his head crashes hard enough against the dresser behind to leave him finally languishing in unconsciousness. The mirror above falls and shatters in a deafening din. A bowl topples over, spilling water everywhere. Never one to trust one knock on the head to be enough, I straddle him and haul his newly bleeding skull back before slamming it as hard as I can into the dresser. Bits of wood splinter in his wake.

  His body slumps to the ground like a wet noodle.

  Amateur.

  A quick dig through his pockets leaves me empty handed, but when I reclaim his fallen switchblades, I find what I’m looking for. Carved neatly into each blade is the following: S Todd.

  I lean down and pet his damp hair. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck next time, Mr. Todd.”

  Shouting fills the hallway, and pounding sounds on the door. I stand up and smooth what is left of my tattered dress. “Be a good boy and stay where you are.”

  But before I can open the door, it crashes open, halfway ripped off its hinges. Finn is right there, a gun in one of his hands, as the rest of the men and women of Mansfield Park huddle behind him, terrified.

  “Alice! Are you—” He shoves the gun in a holster hidden beneath his coat I hadn’t noticed earlier. “Jesus! You’re bleeding!”

  I glance down at my arms. Thin lines beading with red crisscross through destroyed muslin. I’ve seen worse, much worse, so these don’t even register as noteworthy. “It’s nothing. We ought to be more concerned with this fellow.” I hook a thumb behind me. “I caught him trying to remove the catalyst.”

  Someone behind us screams. Scratch that—two or three somebodies scream. Well, wasn’t Finn mistaken? The vapors have arrived after all.

  But Finn isn’t looking at our sleeping thief or even the hysterical women behind him. His attention is still on me, his worried eyes running up and down my ruined dress. There’s shock there, but hints of that genuine concern, too. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Honestly, Finn. If you only—”

  He reaches out and gently tilts my head. “Did that asshole hit you in the face?!”

  I try not to melt at his touch. Stranger, I tell myself. Stranger. Finn Van Brunt is a stranger. You’re not allowed to feel this way. “Bruises heal. Just have a look at our guest, would you?”

  It’s reluctant, but he does as I ask. And then his eyes widen before they narrow as they take in my latest dance partner. I pass over one of the blades. “S. Todd. Sound familiar at all?”

  He takes a deep breath before tugging me away from the body. “Is he alone?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t have a chance to ask him that one yet. I’m sure we can pour some water on his head and wake him up, though.”

  Finn turns to our hosts—correction, host, as only the baronet is still present. He beckons us to the hallway with a trembling hand. “A word, please?”

  Before he says whatever it is he wants to, Finn tells him, “I’m afraid we won’t be able to stay tonight. It’s best we get back to the Institute with the catalyst right away.”

  The baronet pales. “Edmund took the ladies away, thought it not best to see . . .” He wipes a hand across his face. “I didn’t . . . I knew Fanny said, but I didn’t truly believe . . .”

  He isn’t the only one. I suppose I hadn’t believed it all, either. I mean, I’d heard what they’d said, saw photographs and videos and what not, but it’d been an intangible threat.

  The bruises on my hands now tell me differently.

  “Will you be taking the fiend with you?”

  But before either of us can answer the baronet, the sound of glass shattering fills the room behind us. Finn and I race back in to find one of the windows broken and no body left upon the floor. Somewhere outside, somebody yelps in terror.

  “Bloody hell,” I murmur. “And I was positive he was out for at least a good two hours.” Am I losing my touch?

  The baronet is off and running, shouting for men to begin a search outside as he
heads down the hallway. But Finn and I know it’s done in vain, because when we reach the window, an all-too-familiar light flashes in the dark, illuminating a doorway for two figures to run through before winking away just seconds later.

  Finn slams his fist down against the blood-stained dresser. “Well, if that isn’t the fucking worst news possible. Whoever these people are, they’re capable of editing.”

  I peer out of the demolished window. Men with lanterns swarm the courtyard. “Wasn’t that assumed, considering you all claimed the villains were going into Timelines and getting hold of catalysts before you could?”

  “We knew they were getting into Timelines, but this is now proof they’re editing.” He’s furious. “What if they’ve somehow gotten ahold of one of our pens?”

  “Wendy claimed they’re coded specifically to each person assigned one.”

  “Exactly!”

  I retrieve the other switchblade from the floor. “And to think your father insisted this would be an easy assignment for me to start out on.”

  Finn stares intently at me for a long moment. “You really kicked his ass, didn’t you?”

  I shrug.

  “‘Oh, I’m familiar with weapons, Finn.’ Ladies and gentlemen,” he sweeps a hand out, “may I present Alice, the master of understatement.”

  Unwelcome amusement fights to be released. “Your falsetto is terrible.”

  He steps into my space, our bodies just mere inches apart as he examines me further. “You need to see Victor, just in case some of those need stitches.”

  “I told you before, I do not break easily. Tonight was nothing. It was a mere skirmish.”

  He lifts up my hand, his attention fixated on my now-darkening knuckles. “Still.”

  I’m unnerved by this gentle touch. Furious with myself for even letting it register within me. “We ought to go. Our presence here, and that of the catalyst, can only be a dangerous temptation to our guests.”

  He lets go of my hand, and although it’s what I needed him to do, it isn’t lost on me that it felt sublimely good to have concern and attention from just such a man.

  The guilt within me is corrosive.

  THE BASEMENT OF THE Society’s Institute looks much like what a normal basement looks like: there are plain walls, old bits of furniture and boxes, and dark corners filled with items once loved and now forgotten. It feels vast, though, as Finn leads me through what can barely be referred to as a path.

  When we arrived in New York, nobody was there to greet us, which made sense as we weren’t expected until well after brunch. It was the dead of night, and other than security guards stationed on each floor, the building felt like it had fallen into a tremulous stasis.

  Honestly, all I’d wanted to do was sleep, but no amount of arguing swayed Finn from his insistences I visit Victor first. The poor doctor was rumpled when he answered his door, sleep clinging to his eyes and muscles. A yawn preceded, “You’re early,” but once a few good blinks passed, he became alert.

  “What in the bloody hell happened?” he’d barked at Finn while practically shoving me into his home office. “I thought this was one of Emma’s set-ups, not a fight!” He leaned closer to one of my arms. “And an ugly one, too. Christ, Alice. You need stitches.”

  A meaningful look passed between Finn and myself.

  “I really don’t,” I began to say, but Finn told Victor he better get at it.

  After that, my partner didn’t say much, which troubled me. As I perched on a leather exam table, he hovered nearby with arms crossed, his bottom lip tugged between his teeth. At various points, I could have sworn he was angry, but other times an unfamiliar sting accompanied what I could only describe as disappointment.

  But as he wasn’t talking much, it was up to me to fill Victor in about the night’s events, and of the would-be thief. Once my tale is done, the doctor whistled. “I’ll admit to not seeing that one coming.”

  “You mean that somebody would be willing to steal something from beneath your noses?”

  He shook his head, and I winced as he tugged the needle and thread through my skin. “Our noses, and yes. Not to mention I would have never guessed that the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the one trying to break into the Institute. Bloody hell. Finn, this isn’t good. Not good at all.”

  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street . . . Well, if that isn’t a dramatic name, then I don’t know what is.

  “So, you know of this man?” I pressed. “This S. Todd?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the muscles in Finn’s body tense even more so than just a minute before. Victor leaned in closer to examine his handiwork. “Sweeney Todd is his name, and he’s an infamous serial killer who, if I’m not mistaken, was apprehended by the police. Tended to cut his victims across their necks with straight razors.” A quick slash across his neck with a finger preceded a glanced to his friend. “Was Lovett there?”

  A slight shrug was all Finn allowed outside of, “Somebody went through the door with the bastard. They were in the shadows, though—and the door they went through was dark, too.”

  “Who is Lovett?” I asked.

  “She goes by Mrs. Lovett and was his henchman. Or lover.” Victor’s voice echoed in the room. “The stories say she’d cook Todd’s victims into pies. She might be dead, though. Some stories have him poisoning her. I guess even villains have trouble sticking together, eh?”

  I could honestly admit I had absolutely nothing to say in return to that, which was all right, as the rest of my stitches were sewn in moody silence. It gave me an opportunity to think about the puzzle pieces I’d been handed over the last few days. Todd and Lovett have been seen around the Institute on several occasions. Timelines are disappearing, catalysts are being destroyed. Todd tried to steal the catalyst from 1814AUS-MP right out from underneath us, in the guest bedroom I was to stay in and not in the family library. And that left a question a question most unwelcome, because . . . how did he know where it was? Normally, the family kept the catalyst in their library, but Todd wasn’t searching there.

  He was searching in my room.

  The obvious answer is simple, but a conclusion I’m reluctant to embrace. And, as I weave through bits of furniture and dusty boxes, I’m not too sure whether or not Finn, his father, or any other member of the Society is willing to hear it, even if it’s what they suspect, too. Could somebody in this building have tipped Todd off?

  Afterward, Finn had wanted to bring the catalyst to the Librarian by himself, claiming I needed to rest, but I insisted on tagging along. “This is growing wearisome,” I’d told him.

  When his eyebrows formed a V, I added, “You telling me to stay behind. Do you not think me capable?”

  Finn surprised me by directing us to a small alcove, out of the way of a group of people walking down the hall. “God, no. That’s not it at all, especially as you proved you’re more than capable in a fight. It’s just . . . you were hurt. I mean, you just got six rows of stitches. Nobody would blame you for wanting to crash.”

  I really need that vocabulary primer. “And nobody could blame me for wishing to see where the Librarian keeps all the catalysts, either.”

  He ran a hand through his short hair, staring at me so intently my toes curled within my boots.

  I wished he wasn’t so beautiful. I wished he didn’t look at me, our acquaintance so new still, with that slight shine of caring in his eyes. I wished he wasn’t so kind.

  “I told you. I’m not fragile. I’ve faced worse, and here I am, standing with you now, all in one piece. All I ask is that, if we are to truly be partners, you don’t shut me out.”

  That frustrated him. “I’m not trying to shut you out.”

  “And yet, every time something comes up, you tell me to stay behind. Did you do that with Sara?”

  My question wasn’t met with favor, that’s for sure.

  “Mary says Sara was too nice,” I continued. “That some people aren’t cut out for this work because their temperam
ents don’t allow it.”

  Anger flashed in his blue-gray eyes. “Mary should keep her mouth shut.”

  “I’m not always so nice, Finn. And I’m not one to sit by, idling twiddling my thumbs while strong men go out and fix all the problems. So, whether or not you mind, I’m going with you to drop off the catalyst. You might as well stop trying to urge me to stay behind from now on, too, because it’ll only leave you frustrated when I tell you to bugger off.”

  That was a quarter of an hour ago. I ask him now, as I trace a path in the dust covering an old piano, “Have you spoken to your father yet?”

  “No. I figured we’d do this first, and then we can go talk to him.”

  Good man. He’s learning quickly.

  “I would think a basement is an obvious place for thieves to look for hidden treasures.”

  I catch his profile in the dim light from overhead. “None of the catalysts are on this level. Just hang on a sec, and you’ll see where we’re really going.”

  A minute later, he’s shoving aside a dust-covered bookshelf against the far wall to reveal an elevator door. A small door roughly at eye level is flipped open to reveal a glass screen and a slot. He pulls a white card out of his pocket and runs it through the slot. Once a red light flashes, he leans in. Green crisscrossing lights scan across his face, zeroing in on his eye, before a disembodied voice says, “Welcome, Finn Van Brunt. You may proceed.”

  The elevator door slides open as he closes the small door. “Ladies first.”

  I step into the mirrored elevator; he follows, making sure he slides the bookcase into place with a hidden lever on the backside. Another button is pushed, and the elevator door shuts just as peppy music fills the space.

  I lift my eyebrows up, and he shrugs. “The Librarian likes her Muzak. What can I say?”

  The compartment lurches and then moves downward. Finn takes a deep breath and says, “I’m sorry.”

  “For?”

  “For not being there with you when Todd attacked.”

  I’m a bit stunned at the heat in his voice, and of the anger in his words. “Well,” I say carefully, “it’s not as if you knew he was waiting or anything.”