The Iron Fin

by Anne Renwick

  “Time…‌ first twenty-four hours…‌ most important.” His words were slurred, but Shaw had heard them all before.

  “Which leaves us with nineteen.” Shaw shoved the chair into motion. “While you were stomping all over, I contacted the doc. He cleared his schedule. You’re getting an upgrade to titanium. It’ll take him four hours to change out the gears.”

  “Roideach.” Missing‌—‌as always‌—‌from his laboratory, but at the moment he was the only suspect. “Keep. Searching.”

  “Never surrender, never give up,” Shaw said, swinging the chair around to back through a door. “We won’t, not until we find out where Lord Roideach is and what he’s been up to while you take a nap. Let that subconscious of yours ponder the question.”

  Alec bobbed his head in agreement as the white room swam. He eyelids grew heavy and slammed shut. “Marine scientist. Only possibility.”

  Shaw spun the chair, backing them through the swinging door of the operating room. “By the time the tranq wears off, the doc will be done with repairs, and we’ll storm Roideach’s laboratory.”

  “Promising my patient miracles, Mr. Shaw?” Hands lifted Alec onto a steel table and cut away the heavy cotton of his combat trousers. “A bit heavy-handed on the medication…‌”

  “Gotta up the dose when you’re dealing with a man who’s lost his love, when he needs to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  “Love?” Alec slurred, flapping a hand. “Just met. She’s…‌” What was Isa to him, anyway? More than an affair, yet still not his lover.

  “I told you no more jumping out of dirigibles. You’ve stripped the teeth off the hypoid gear. You’ll have your knee working in four hours, but it’s going to hurt.” Steel tools clanged on a metal tray. A bright light shone through his eyelids.

  “No ether,” Alec begged.

  “Sorry,” doc said. “But I can’t have you moving.”

  A mask fell upon his face, the strong, pungent smell spinning him away into a deep abyss where he hoped he might dream of Isa.

  ~~~

  “Wake up!” A hand slapped her face, but Isa could barely bring herself to care. The cold had carried away all her aches and pains, and the shivering had finally stopped. Sleep beckoned, offering a welcome release.

  “Too many have died.” A man’s voice boomed, echoing off distant walls hidden in shadow. “If we lose this one, it will not matter that we have eradicated the caeruleus amoeba.”

  “The sensor indicates her body temperature has fallen to thirty degrees Centigrade,” the woman, his assistant, stated. “We might have pushed her too far.” Her voice suggested that the next time Isa was stretched out horizontally, it would be in a coffin.

  “Discovering the temperature limit of a Finn isn’t enough,” the man said. “We need solid proof that the attachment procedure will work consistently. We can’t lose her. Besides, do you not realize who she is?”

  “I’m well aware, my lord.” A hint of insolence laced her voice.

  “Then make it happen. Bring her back.”

  Isa started to float away. Calm waters beckoned. So peaceful.

  Fingers wrapped about Isa’s wrist. Another set of fingers gripped her chin. “Blue lips. Pulse of twenty-five beats per minute. She’s barely breathing. Three breaths a minute.”

  “Increase the percentage of oxygen through the line, Miss Russel,” the man ordered. “And it’s time to begin raising her core temperature.” A pause. “Thomas, shovel more coal into the boiler.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gas began to hiss through the hose attached to Isa’s mouth. Some distance away, there was a loud clang. The sound of metal scraping over stones. Another clang. A snap. And then the sound of flames roaring to life as the boy stoked a boiler.

  Isa slipped back into dreams of Alec’s strong arms.

  Only to be yanked awake once more. A current, tugging, pulling, sucking her toward the bottom of the tank, but her bound wrists refused to let her follow the draining water. Then warm water trickled over her hair, ran down the length of her body and dripped from her toes, slowly refilling the tank. Disappointment washed over her. So much for a peaceful death.

  ~~~

  He dreamed of Isa. Of her long, red hair streaming down her back as she stood, hip deep in the sea. Of her bare skin shimmering in the moonlight as she glanced at him over her shoulder, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

  Fog rolled in from the ocean, reaching out with misty tendrils, engulfing everything but a long, curved tentacle that lifted into the air, water dripping from its many suckers. It snaked around Isa’s neck, cutting off her screams as it dragged her beneath the waves. Screams that continued to echo off the rocks of a nearby castle. Stones tumbled from the weed-infested fortress, crashing downward onto‌—‌

  Alec bolted upright, blinking at the sudden change of scenery. Bright lights. A lingering chemical smell. Dr. Morgan and a bevy of nurses stared back at him. He was in the operating room. Falling backward onto his elbows, he dragged in a deep, ragged breath.

  “Welcome back,” Dr. Morgan said, his voiced laced with sarcasm. “Unpleasant dreams? Knee’s fixed, a full hour ahead of schedule. You’re welcome.”

  Alec stared down at his knee. After three surgeries, it was a railroad of stitches. Five new stitches adding to the pre-existing twenty-two, the scars beneath still pink and somewhat raw. “What, no bandage?” he rasped.

  Dr. Morgan pushed a glass of water into his hand. “Figured you’d want to inspect the work. It’ll hurt, but only superficially this time. You’re lucky. I didn’t need to fiddle the bone attachments, but no more jumping from dirigibles.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll try.” Had Isa been found yet? Safe?

  “Try.” Dr. Morgan sighed and passed Alec a sheet of paper. “Take a look at that while we bandage your knee. Shaw dropped it off while you were still under.”

  Alec’s eyes widened at the list of names dating back some ten years.

  Fifteen minutes later‌—‌ignoring stitches that tugged and burned, Alec banged on Roideach’s laboratory door for the third time.

  The door cracked open. “Go away,” Miss Lourney said. “How many times do you need to be reminded. Your clearance was revoked. I can’t let you in.”

  “I don’t need to come in.” He held out the paper Shaw had obtained from human resources. “Roideach makes a habit of hiring female laboratory technicians. Mine is the only male name to ever appear.”

  “You really have no idea?” She stared at him for a long minute. “It’s why I tolerated you, Dr. McCullough.” Miss Lourney’s laugh was brittle. “For the first time, Roideach stopped standing too close, stopped measuring the span of my waist with his hands, stopped pinching my arse. For the first time invitations to his bed ceased.”

  Alec’s jaw hung open. “Why didn’t you say something?” His irritation with Roideach grew every time he learned something more about the man. “Why keep working here?”

  “Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “How many marine research laboratories will employ a female technician? Exactly none. There are two choices for us, endure or quit.” She reached out and snatched the list from Alec. “Let me see. Most of these are from before my time. I knew Bridget Stewart. She didn’t last long. One grope and she screamed. Erica Thompson won herself a promotion to Lister Institute in London. Flora Murray.” Amanda’s face twisted with pain. “Suicide by arsenic. Plenty of poisons to choose from when you work in a laboratory.”

  Bringing a lord to justice was a near impossibility, though he could try. Alec was silent a moment, contemplating all his sister faced should she continue to pursue a career in chemical research. They would need to talk. Soon.

  “Miss Russel,” Alec prompted. Isa was extremely ill, all else needed to wait.

  “Has grand ambitions.” Miss Lourney met his gaze directly. “And fell into his lap a bit too quickly, not realizing that he can’t marry her or that her duties would include nursemaid.”

  Alec
raised an eyebrow. His understanding was that most gentry handed their children over to staff within minutes of their birth.

  Miss Lourney threw her hands in the air. “I’ve no idea why he doesn’t hire one. In any case, her willingness to care for the child in exchange for the opportunity to work with Lord Roideach on some cherished and secret project funded by CEAP reflects that.”

  “CEAP?” he nudged.

  She shrugged. “Secret.”

  “You must know something more about this project,” he pressed.

  Miss Lourney stared at him a moment, then heaved a great, long sigh, handing him back the paper. “Most of their work is done off site, though they make free use of Institute resources. A few hours ago, Miss Russel was here, loading a satchel with supplies and gloating about a promotion. Better her than me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A MARK OF TRUE desperation it was, entering his family’s home through the front door in the full light of day, an open invitation for his mother to drag him into the midst of eligible young women. But she‌—‌and her friends‌—‌were the fastest way to learn about Lord Roideach’s Scottish property holdings, in particular, the location of one possessing a castle in disrepair.

  “Sir!” Munro blinked.

  The steam butler rocked backward on his wheels and nearly toppled over when Alec strode past him to peer into the parlor. Into an empty parlor.

  “Is this not Mother’s day at home?” Irritation crept into his voice. Of all the days for her to break protocol. “Where is she?”

  “She’s in bed with a malevolent megrim,” Cait’s disembodied voice called from the speaking tube. “Social disaster has struck.”

  Any other day and Alec would have been amused, but with Isa missing, he wasn’t in the mood for showmanship or games. Despite her earlier request, a headache meant Mother would refuse to speak with him, that left his sister. He crossed to the speaking tube. “What do you know about Lord Roideach?”

  “So, so much,” Cait answered, her voice crackling. “Descend and I will impart all the gossip.”

  Resigned, he yanked open the door and descended a flight of stairs, ducking beneath a curtain of dusty cotton thread spun to resemble a spider’s web. The deterrent contained no less than nine hairy spiders constructed from lint and wire. Not a real threat, perhaps, but enough to have kept their parents and the servants from ever entering the basement laboratory.

  Cait held up a finger as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He waited silently while a rotor slowed, as his sister pulled the test tubes free, nestling them each into a bucket of ice shavings with extreme care.

  He squinted at her scrawled notes, then took a quick step back. “Tell me you are not culturing Corynebacterium diphtheriae.”

  “How else is one supposed to collect the toxin of a nasty pathogenic bacteria for study?” Cait asked, her voice pure innocence.

  Swearing loudly, he jammed his fingers into his hair. One kidnapped woman was enough to worry about. He didn’t need his sister challenging her immune system with a potentially lethal exotoxin. Not that he could stop her. She’d just find something else to experiment with.

  His sister turned toward him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. He narrowed his. “You mentioned social disaster.”

  “Of the best kind.” A sudden grin split her face. “I finally did it, Alec. I discovered the best way to stop a man from weighing down our parlor cushions in pursuit of my hand. All it took to chase away Mr. Morrison was one, simple phrase whispered in his ear!”

  “What was that?” He braced himself for the answer.

  “I’m not my father’s daughter.”

  He groaned.

  “Oh, but it worked like a charm. Most gentlemen don’t need such a blatant push toward the truth.” Cait waved a dramatic hand beside her face. Her eye color and complexion were far darker than his pale, blue-eyed parents could ever have produced. “Who could have known he was such a shameless gossip? And now Mother has taken to her bed, freeing my time even further.”

  His father’s absence had cleared the way for Mother, frustrated by her inability to marry off her sons, to hunt for a husband for Cait among the upper crust of Glasgow society. Most men, able to read her family tree‌—‌or lack thereof‌—‌upon her face, politely refused to engage. If Cait wanted to chase away a man, well, it was her life, her decision. He rubbed the back of his neck. But to grab the truth by the scruff of its neck and drag it from the back of the closet into the light? Well, there would be a backlash that might negatively affect her future.

  “We’ll have to table this topic for later, Cait. I’m here for information about a pressing and serious matter.”

  “What’s wrong?” She rolled the papers from her workbench and held them tightly against her chest.

  “It’s nothing to do with you.” He narrowed his eyes. “But don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to down here. Promise you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “I promise.”

  She blinked a few too many times, but short of setting a guard on her, there was little to do. “Lord Roideach. He’s been rebuilding some ancestral castle. Do you know where?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Allanach Castle on Asgog Loch. Such fussing over castles lately. Did you hear about the one they’ve built out of iron and steel for the future Queen of Iceland?”

  Alec stared at her. “Even you’ve been sucked into this wedding nonsense?”

  “It’s all society talks about,” Cait huffed and bugged out her eyes at him. “No one seems interested in discussing the latest monograph on poison dart frogs and the lipophilic alkaloid toxins they secrete. Imagine that.”

  “Probably not the best topic to introduce over tea,” he admitted with a grin. “Thank you.” Then, with a wary glance at her ice bucket, he gave his sister a quick hug. “Be safe.” He started for the stairs, but Cait’s next words brought him to a sudden halt.

  “Don’t you want to hear the rumors?” Her voice teased.

  “Rumors?” He turned. “About the royal wedding?”

  “No, idiot, about Lord Roideach and his medieval castle.”

  Alec crooked his fingers. “Spill, Cait. I’ve not time for games.” Isa’s life might hang in the balance.

  “Fine. Six, maybe seven years ago‌—‌or so the story begins, Lord Roideach was collecting mussels on the shore when he came upon a gray-eyed lass taking a dip in the sea. Besotted, he pursued and married her. She made quite the splash in society. Bore him a son. Then simply…‌ disappeared.” His sister’s matter-of-fact voice took on a lilt as the story turned into a fairytale. “Some say she’s a selkie, that Lord Roideach stole her seal pelt, trapping her in human form and forcing her to wed him.”

  “Nonsense,” Alec said. “Shapeshifting is a physical impossibility.” But he couldn’t entirely discredit the myth, not after Isa had all but claimed to be one. Every time he uncovered new information, it tied back to her and her so-called people. Finn, she’d called them, and they clearly possessed physiological characteristics not found among the general Scottish population.

  Cait shrugged. “Agreed, but it makes a good story. Do you want to hear the rest?”

  “There’s more?”

  “No one has seen his wife in years, though he is sometimes seen with the child. He refuses to speak of her and there’s speculation that childbirth unhinged her mind. Shortly after her disappearance, Lord Roideach set about restoring Allanach Castle. Some say she’s there now, locked away in a tower, but calmed by the view of open water and the Scottish Highlands.”

  Alec rolled his eyes. “Perhaps he returned her pelt.”

  “What?” Cait widened her eyes in mock horror. “Allow his love to change forms and disappear back into the ocean? Never.” She sobered. “Any man who would steal such a thing to force a woman into his bed would be disinclined to return it.”

  “That’s not love.” Alec might not know exactly what love was, but it didn’t involve force or captivity. But h
e wasn’t here for a philosophical discussion or to debate the existence of mythological creatures. “No one has visited this castle?”

  “Only those involved in its restoration. Lord Roideach claims it too dangerous for tours. But yet another rumor, no doubt perpetuated by said workmen, claims it’s haunted, that screams echo from the dungeons.”

  “Haunted.” Alec doubted that anything supernatural loitered in its halls, but expected to find at least one tortured soul within its walls.

  “The moment it’s finished, Lord Roideach will have all kinds of visitors keen to wander about in the dark pushing at locked doors and listening for nighttime disturbances.”

  “He’ll have one tonight.” No mistaking the growl in his voice

  “You,” Cait surmised. “Who has he kidnapped? Another selkie?”

  Alec swore.

  “Really? A selkie?”

  “There’s no such thing,” he insisted. “Now, not a word about my mission.” He pointed at her ice bucket. “Or I’m sending in a biohazard team.”

  “Oh please. I’ve held my tongue for years. If you’re not ‘eliminating a threat’, you’re rescuing some poor hapless individual.” Cait tipped her head. “But there’s something different about this rescue.” She slapped him on his shoulder with the rolled-up papers, laughing. “There’s a woman involved. And you care. Have you gone and fallen in love?”

  Why did everyone keep accusing him of that? “Me? Of course not.”

  ~~~

  Rough fingers pried open Isa’s eyes. A bright light blinded her, and she tried to turn away‌—‌a futile attempt as a leather strap bound her head to a hard metal surface. She clenched every muscle‌—‌arms, legs, back‌—‌but moved not an inch. Straps bound her tightly in place upon a metal gurney. But for the rough wool blanket that covered her, she was naked.