A Soul's Worth

by T. S. Barnett

  “Because if you’re anythin’ like me, it’ll come as natural to you as breathin’. Because you say you love ‘at woman, your wife. If you keep goin’ down this path, you’ll forget what that even means. But I can’t make your decisions for you. You’ll dig your own grave if you like and it’s nothin’ to do wiv me. But you will do summin for me.”

  Warren looked up at him with a small frown. “What?”

  “You’ll give me enough money to buy your mother a little cottage down by the lake,” he said, “an’ you won’t talk to her again. Not if you keep on wiv this. It’d kill ‘er to know what you’re about, and I’m not goin’ to let ‘er find out. She deserves better from both of us. I’ll sell the coaching house, and you’ll give me enough to pay for the rest. If you ever get your ‘ead right, you’ll be welcome. Until then, I don’t want to so much as ‘ear your name. You understand, boy?”

  Warren laughed despite himself. “You want me to pay you off?”

  “I want you to give your mother what she deserves. She’s a good woman, and she never did no wrong to you, and I won’t ‘ave you breakin’ ‘er ‘eart because of this greedy nonsense.”

  “Fine,” Warren said immediately, and he moved to the cellar steps and gestured to the door to send his father out.

  He led him to the study and wrote him out a check for more than enough for a decent house in Huntingdon, tearing it away from the book and offering it to the older man. Warren tugged it just out of reach when Mason held out his hand for it, and he said softly, “Don’t imagine that this means you know me, old man. I expect I won’t have to hear from you either, once this is done.”

  “Have no worries on that front, boy,” Mason said, and he snatched the check from his son’s hand when it was offered again.

  Warren would have been glad to send his parents off early after his agreement with his father, but his mother insisted on remaining and visiting the entire week. They were in and out of the house at all hours of the day at their whim, which made getting any work done outrageously difficult. He could only really trust them to stay away at night, and even that was after a long dinner and a late coffee. Finally he was forced to excuse himself from after-dinner cordials when he heard his TXM chime in his pocket, and he knew that the Travers were in the cellar. He had hoped that his parents would have been gone by the time they arrived, but he couldn’t risk leaving his guest in the cellar for very long.

  He pecked Elizabeth on the cheek and promised to return shortly, then hurried through the hidden door to the cellar.

  “Family troubles, boss?” Owen asked, chuckling at Warren’s glare. “One good thing about not ‘avin’ any parents, eh Si?”

  “I wouldn’t trade it,” Simon said, and Warren gestured to them to drop the unconscious man by the circle he had drawn up earlier. “We may have the beginnings of a problem, Hayward,” he went on, dusting his hands of whatever dirt had been on the man’s clothes.

  “What problem?”

  “People are startin’ to keep shut in before it gets too late,” Owen said. “Too many people gone missin’.”

  “Perhaps you should take a sabbatical,” Simon suggested. “Give people time to forget. Give the constable time to forget,” he added, and Warren frowned.

  “Not yet,” Warren said after a moment. “Cast a wider net. We can slow down production if we have to. There are always people coming and going from the city, aren’t there?”

  Owen laughed. “Aye; I’ve always wanted to be a highwayman eh?” He nudged Simon with his elbow. “I like the sound of that.”

  “It’s an extra risk, Hayward,” Simon said.

  “Then we’ll have to be extra careful.” He took his knife from the table and bent over the man, lifting his head by the back of his hood and spilling the blood from his throat over the circle. The men swayed against the shockwave, and then Owen let out a small sound of surprise and cleared his throat loudly.

  Warren turned to see Elizabeth standing at the top of the cellar steps, watching him with wide eyes. He felt frozen. He must have forgotten to seal the door behind him in his hurry.

  “Your parents have gone,” she said quietly, moving down the steps and leaning over to get a better look at the guilty scene. “Warren, what is this?”

  “I can explain,” he said in a rush, and his mind raced for possible solutions. He hadn’t taken any blood from this one beforehand, so that wasn’t even an option. He couldn’t kill her. She was too important; too close to him. He dropped the knife to the floor and pushed Simon over to deal with the new golem, cautiously taking a few steps toward his wife while Owen scrambled to wrap up the body as though it wasn’t too late to hide it.

  “I’m listening,” she said calmly, but her eyebrows were raised like a schoolmistress expecting an explanation from a naughty child. “What was that light? Is that man dead?”

  “Well—yes, he’s dead.” He expected her to recoil, to run or cry, but she stood still, looking him in the face. “The light was that,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the golem as Simon walked it out from behind the partition. Warren sighed. “I’m going to tell you the truth, Elizabeth. I should have told you what you were getting into. The automatons I make—they aren’t mechanical. Well, they’re built of machinery, but the life...the life comes from life. By magic.”

  “Magic,” she echoed, and she actually let out a small laugh. “Why not?” She tilted her head as she watched the golem walk into the side room for storage until delivery in the morning. “I suppose stranger things have happened. Are you a magician, Warren?”

  “I am a witch, yes. And so is Simon, and so is Ben. There are many more of us, living secretly among the rest of you. I know this must be unbelievable to you—”

  “Show me,” she interrupted him, and she folded her arms to look him up and down. “That flash of light could have been anything. Show me something to make me believe.”

  “What—you’re serious?” She nodded sternly at him, so Warren let out a sigh and glanced around the room for something to use. He let out a small sound of realization, and he took his old leather case from the shelf. He opened it as he walked back to her, digging through the various pouches until he found the small, bumpy cylinder of rough stone he sought. It had runes etched around the edges, and he offered it to her for inspection.

  Elizabeth picked up the stone tentatively. “What is this?”

  “Easy proof,” Warren said, and he reached out to place his hand on hers over the stone in her palm. “This one’s an old favorite of mine. Mum actually used to scold me for using it on the village girls when I was a boy.” He spoke the words carved into the stone, and water began to drizzle over the both of them, gently falling from a vague place near the ceiling.

  Elizabeth gave a bit of a start and peered skeptically up at the ceiling, reaching her hand up to wave around at it as though looking for the source. When she looked back at Warren, he lifted his hand from hers, and the remaining droplets fell around them into the small puddle at their feet. “Well,” she said with a short sigh, “I suppose that answers that, doesn’t it? I never would have thought you had it in you, Warren. Couldn’t have perhaps done it without ruining my hair, could you?” She handed Warren the rough stone and leaned around him to peer at Simon. “And you?”

  Simon only held up a hand, producing a quick ball of flame in his palm without even the use of a token. Warren was still learning that sort of trick. Simon closed his hand to snuff out the flame and returned his hands to their relaxed position behind his back.

  “I see,” she muttered, and Simon smirked faintly at her. “But not you?”

  “Not I, missus,” Owen said with a shrug. “I’m perfectly ord’nary in all ways but one.” He winked his scarred eye at her, and she sighed and returned her attention to Warren.

  “Is that what’s been going on this whole time, then?”

  “You’re awfully calm about this, you know,” Warren said, glancing over his shoulder at the wrapped up body. “You realize
I told you that man is dead, don’t you? That means that every golem that’s come out of here has been followed by a dead body.”

  “Oh, Warren,” she said softly, “how many people could that possibly be?”

  “What—how do you mean? Quite a few, actually, if you’ve been keeping count.” He almost felt offended at her lack of fear or disgust.

  “My family owns coal mines, Warren. Coal mines are dangerous. Do you know how many men died in my mines last year? Almost a thousand. Last year, two hundred died in one collapse alone. You put out one of these machines per week? You haven’t even been doing this for a year yet. Death is a cost of business, dear; anyone who tells you otherwise is naive.” She chuckled at his stunned face and leaned in to peck his cheek. “Just don’t let the neighbors know. I won’t have scandal coming out of this house.” With that, she turned and went back up the stairs, leaving Warren in the cellar with the Travers and a dead body.

  After a long silence, Warren turned to the twins and gave a small shrug. “Well, be careful, gentlemen; we don’t want the neighbors to find out.”

  “I am goin’ to change that woman’s life,” Owen said with a distant smile, and he shook his head when Simon nudged him. They carried the body out together, and Warren stood alone for a moment before a short laugh came out of him, and he went up the steps and sealed the cellar door behind him. He had chosen the right woman to be a placeholder wife, at least.

  Warren escorted his parents to the train station the following afternoon, quite happy to see the back of them. His mother hugged him and kissed his cheek with tears in her eyes, and his father shook his hand for the sake of his mother if nothing else. They exchanged a long glance before Mason turned to board the train, and Warren let out a slow sigh as he returned to the autocar. At least that was one less trouble on his mind.

  Warren was grateful for a moment to be alone with Elizabeth as they rode home in the autocar. “I need to ask a favor of you,” he began, and a small smirk pulled at one corner of her lips.

  “Only the one?”

  “The most important one,” Warren said with a frown. “You mustn’t tell Ben about what you saw in the cellar.”

  Elizabeth lifted one eyebrow at him. “Your beloved Inspector isn’t privy to your nightly doings? No, I suppose he wouldn’t be,” she said in response to Warren’s furrowed brow. “It’s rather the thing it’s his business to prevent, isn’t it? I’d say he’s a touch too soft-hearted to approve of your methods, in any case.”

  “Then you won’t tell him?”

  “Your relationship with Mr. Cartwright is none of my affair, Warren. What you tell him or don’t tell him has absolutely nothing to do with me. I’m keeping enough of your secrets that this one more shouldn’t be any burden.”

  Warren released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Thank you. You’re very right to think he wouldn’t approve.”

  “I’m right about most things, I think you’ll find, dear.” He smiled faintly at her.

  Ben was waiting for him when they arrived back at the house, ready to greet Warren with a kiss which went politely ignored by Elizabeth.

  “Cam’s made supper,” Ben said as he lightly squeezed Warren’s hand. “Will you join us, Elizabeth?”

  The woman stopped mid-stride and glanced skeptically over at Ben, but he only gave her a warm smile. “You are in a good mood, Mr. Cartwright. I’ll stay if I’m welcome.”

  “Of course you’re welcome,” Warren said, and he shrugged off his jacket on his way to the dining room. He sat at the head of the table with Ben at his right side and Elizabeth at his left, and Cam served them the meal it had carefully prepared with its good friend the kitchen arm.

  Ben and Elizabeth actually exchanged a few pleasantries, which was a bit of a surprise, but Ben did seem in a much better mood than he had been for weeks. Perhaps he had finally taken to heart his promise to trust in Warren’s decisions. No matter what the cause, it was a vast improvement over his sulking. He still scowled when the Travers appeared in the doorway, and he very pointedly did not invite them to join in the meal, but at least all of his bad mood was reserved for the twins instead of Warren. Warren began to see the man he knew before any of this started, smiling and teasing. It made him ever more sure that everything he had done had been worth the cost if it meant that Ben smiled beside him this way.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ben found Warren in the study late one afternoon, the tall windows shut against the light snow falling on the estate lands outside Coventry. Warren had insisted that buying a country house was the proper thing to do, since he could hardly be expected to remain in a dusty, smog-ridden city like London for the entirety of his days without any relief. Ben had questioned the logic of spending so much time trying to get to London only to get away from it, but Warren waved him off and said that the occasional holiday would do them both good.

  Ben could hardly disagree, since their time together had been steadily waning over the last few months. Warren had apparently had cause to leave the city fairly regularly—looking at estates and dealing with solicitors, he said, though Ben didn’t know why that would require such extended visits, or why the Travers would need to go with him to choose a country house. He didn’t like to be suspicious, but he wouldn’t have been qualified for his title as Inspector if the details hadn’t seemed odd to him.

  All of the questioning and nosing around he had done on the Heolstran road had told him only that the Travers regularly came back with money to spend, which was no surprise to him. Thieves and killers they might be, but it seemed they could be trusted to be discreet, at least. Most people hardly seemed to know even the name of the gentleman the twins worked for, let alone what sort of work they did—which didn’t seem to be very much, really. If Warren felt safer having them around, he supposed he couldn’t blame him for wanting the security, but there hadn’t been any threat against him since the first break-in, and Simon had only made that problem worse by introducing Warren to real blood magic.

  Ben felt uneasy about the issue as he looked at Warren now, leaned back in his seat with a book in his lap, a burning cigarette in the ashtray, and his elbow leaned on the arm of the chair as he stirred the spoon in his teacup without touching it. That was almost sign enough on its own. Magic without a grounding token, without at least speaking the words or concentrating, was rare, and Warren was still young to have mastered such things. There was something off about him as well, something that Ben couldn’t quite put his finger on—or perhaps that he didn’t want to. Warren had suggested that Ben take time away from work so that they might take this holiday together. They brought Cam along to help with meals and upkeep, but Warren had hired a couple of men in the village to tidy the place up after they left. It meant that the two of them could spend a few weeks without any worry of being peeked on, overheard, or interrupted. They had spent the time lounging in the sun, eating whatever they pleased, sleeping together and reading in the evenings. It should have been wonderful, but something didn’t feel right. Warren wasn’t the same.

  Warren looked up when he noticed Ben in the doorway, but instead of the warm smile Ben expected and hoped for, he saw only the same dark blue eyes that had done nothing but stare at him for weeks. Ben went against every instinct he had by pretending he didn’t know the look. The stoic face, the blank mouth, the empty eyes. He hadn’t seen it often in his career, and for that he was grateful. It was the same face he recognized in Simon—the eyes of a maleficum. Everyone who performed blood magic ended up the same way if they let it get away from them.

  His father had told him long ago that a man couldn’t do inhuman things without losing some of his humanity along the way, and blood magic was one of the most inhuman things Ben could think of. He told himself that no one had been hurt, that no one Warren had any cause to interact with had gone missing or been killed—so he at least wasn’t doing anything too dangerous. But that didn’t seem to matter when it came to him staying the bright, smiling youn
g man that Ben had fallen in love with.

  “Can we discuss something, love?” Ben asked as he took a seat beside him. “If I’m not interrupting.”

  “You’re the reason we’re here, Ben,” Warren said, shutting his book and setting it aside.

  “And I’m glad to be here,” he assured him. “It’s good that you’ve given yourself a rest. Do you know how long it ‘ad been since we even shared a meal together before we came ‘ere? You’ve done nothing but work and go to parties—also business, I know,” he added before Warren could correct him. “But that isn’t what I want to talk about. I want to talk about your eyes.”

  A small smirk touched one corner of Warren’s lips. “I knew you were a romantic, but—”

  “That isn’t what I mean and you know it,” Ben interrupted. “You told me that after Callaway, it was done. Said that would be the only time.”

  Warren’s brow furrowed slightly. “You think I’m been doing blood magic?”

  “I know you ‘ave. I’m not a fool, Warren.”

  Warren considered the number of people whose opinions he had changed over the last few months—people who could have given away his secrets, who tried to overcharge him, or even those he simply didn’t like. He felt the weight of the flask in his jacket, the blood inside tainted with a few drops of a serum that kept it from rotting in his pocket. Having blood always at his fingertips had allowed him to cause more than one irritating guest at a dinner party to go red in the face and excuse himself, panting and dripping sweat as the blood heated in his veins. He was well used to the taste now, though he had been forced to develop a zealous habit of brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth to keep Ben from noticing.

  “I haven’t been hurting anyone,” he said easily, and Ben moved from his seat to kneel in front of him and clasp his hands.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he whispered. “You can lie to everyone else in the damn world, but don’t you lie to me. I can see it in you. You’ve got to stop this, love. I told you I can’t overlook it.”