Supernatural Devices (A Steampunk Scarlett Novel: Book 1)

by Kailin Gow

  “You think that Cecilia has gone into the market?” Scarlett asked. That Cruces would know about it was understandable enough. After all, he had to have acquired that ring of his somewhere.

  “Even if she has, she will have gone from it,” Cruces replied.

  Scarlett shook her head. “We should still look.”

  “I think we would be better off finding a place that stocks more wine,” Cruces said, and Scarlett looked at him with mild disdain. Was that all he thought about. Bad enough that he had taken it instead of tea back at Holmes’ lodgings, but breaking off the search for the object of their investigation?

  “We look,” Scarlett insisted, leading Cruces to the entrance to the market. There was a man on the door so swathed in old clothes that Scarlett could not make out anything of him beyond eyes that were slitted like a snake’s. He looked at them for a moment, but made no move to interfere as they entered the market and wandered between stalls lit almost solely by will o’ the wisps.

  Scarlett had not been there many times. Her parents had gone there before, following rumors that some artifact or other from abroad had shown up on the stands, and they had allowed Scarlett to accompany them to sate her curiosity, but she had not gone without them. She had not really wanted to. To most Londoners, it must have seemed a tremendously exciting experience to wander among stalls that sold anything and everything, and which were staffed by creatures far more exotic than they could imagine. Yet for Scarlett, who saw such things everywhere, it had never seemed like something particularly different.

  She realized now that she had been wrong. Yes, she saw the supernatural every day, but it was never like this. Ordinarily, it was a creature or a ghost or two standing out from the throng of humans. It was something and nothing, with which she was almost never expected to interact. Here, there were short, ugly, green-skinned creatures extolling the virtues of creams and unguents, slender, almost luminous sellers of jewelry and musical instruments, and more, far more. There were stalls for so many things, it was hard to see how they could all fit into the space.

  It was also hard to see how they could possibly find one young woman in the chaos of the place. Despite the hour, the market thronged with people of every shape and size conceivable, plus a few that were not. Many of them wore clothes every bit as bright as those Cecilia had been wearing, while even those who did not were usually intriguing enough to briefly distract Scarlett, despite the years she had been seeing such things. It was, in short, the one place in London where Cecilia could easily lose them.

  “Clever,” Scarlett said softly. “You never mentioned that Cecilia was clever, Cruces.”

  The aristocrat yawned. “Is she? A hunted deer will run into a thicket to make it harder to follow. It is no particular feat.”

  “Enough of one to lose you,” Scarlett pointed out, while beside her, a man dressed all in black exhorted her to buy candles apparently infused with the spirits of the dead. Scarlett, who could see the faint wisps of smoky spirit emanating from them, moved on hurriedly.

  “Enough of one to lose us, Miss Seely, and I am not the one who claims to be a detective here.”

  “Claims?” Scarlett bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Cruces shook his head. “It means that it is late, and that we will not find Cecilia again tonight. Now, if you wish to go home, you have already indicated your willingness to get a cab. I believe there are those that wait to serve the market goers. I, for one, am going to get a drink.”

  He set out across the market, coming at last to the side of the street, where a public house spilled light and noise out into the darkness. So close to the market, Scarlett could see that it held more than the usual run of humanity, from the ghost occupying one stool near the bar to the short man in eastern silks playing cards at a table in the corner. Cruces stepped inside.

  “I am going to get some wine, Miss Seely. Will you join me, or do you plan to stay out there in the hopes of catching a girl who is long gone?”

  Chapter 6

  Scarlett did not leave immediately, even though Cruces was right and there were a few cabs waiting to take people home from the market. Instead, she followed him into the public house, taking a moment to take in more of the sights and sounds there. It was a lively place, with a fiddler playing in one corner, and people talking at a volume that made it hard to hear much else. It wasn’t exactly the cleanest of spots, though. Scarlett might just have come from the heat and dust of Egypt, but she had some standards.

  She only stayed a moment or two longer because of the eclectic mix of people in the establishment. There were normal Londoners there, some from the slums in badly patched clothes while others had obviously come in from more affluent areas like Chelsea. There were also plenty of stranger things, figures with slightly pointed ears or odd colored eyes, a few insubstantial ghosts drifting through the mass. Off to one side, one of the short, ugly creatures from the market was arguing with a man over whether Grace was past his best on the cricket field. Even that oddity wasn’t enough to hold Scarlett’s attention for long. Not when there was a case to concentrate on.

  She headed over to the bar, where Cruces was just paying for a glass of that red wine he loved so much. He gave Scarlett an inviting look as she approached.

  “Are you sure you will not join me, Miss Seely?”

  “You are really just abandoning the hunt for Cecilia?” Scarlett demanded.

  Cruces shrugged. “You saw for yourself what it was like out there. What chance do you really think we have of finding her now? No, it is better just to enjoy what is left of the evening, and then try to find her tomorrow.”

  That would have been the plan had Scarlett not spotted Cecilia earlier, certainly. She would have gone back to the townhouse where the one or two servants kept on by her parents to run the place would have been waiting for her, gotten some sleep, and only even thought about trying to locate the girl the next day. That was then, however. Now, with Cecilia having led them here, it seemed utterly wasteful to simply abandon the search.

  “That might be how you see things,” Scarlett said, “but I do not give up so easily.”

  “And I admire that,” Cruces said, raising his glass. “Young women who do not give up too easily make life so much more interesting.”

  That wasn’t what Scarlett had meant, and she was sure Cruces knew it. She certainly was not going to dignify the comment with an answer.

  “Join me, Scarlett,” Cruces said, gesturing to an empty table. “If we are going to be working together, then we really should get to know one another better, don’t you think?”

  Scarlett tried not to react too strongly to that, but it was not easy. Cruces just got under her skin, somehow. And he had no right to use her given name like that. What would people think? “We are not working ‘together’, Lord Darthmoor. I am conducting investigations on your behalf. And it is Miss Seely.”

  “Well then, Miss Seely,” Cruces said with one of those smiles of his. “That means that I am your employer, does it not? And as your employer, I insist that you join me and tell me more about yourself. The barman may even be able to come up with some of that tea of yours. Though it will probably be the least alcoholic thing ever drunk in this establishment.”

  At letting herself be trapped like that, Scarlett used a number of words in her head that her parents almost certainly would not have approved of. She took the seat indicated by Cruces, and the barman did indeed manage to locate some tea somewhere in his premises. Scarlett did not see the need to make things easy for Cruces, however, so she sat as primly as she could and waited for him to speak rather than offering up any attempt at conversation herself.

  “You know, Miss Seely,” Cruces began, “you are most lovely when you are annoyed with me. Anger becomes you really quite well.”

  “Then I imagine that a few hours in your company will leave me fit to rival Aphrodite,” Scarlett snapped back.

  “You are assuming that you do not already.” Cruces to
ok a sip of his drink. “You must tell me of your adventures abroad.”

  “You called me over to hear of my times following my parents around, when we could be out retrieving that ring of yours?”

  “Oh, forget that for now. It is not going anywhere, and I have no doubt that you have more interesting things to say than most of the people I meet. Tell me about Egypt. It has been a long time since I have been there.”

  Scarlett did her best, telling Cruces of the dig her parents were on, and the sweep of the Nile. With a little prompting, she went on to mention a few of the other places she had been: Burma, Java, even the colonies in South Africa, where the memories of the war with the Boer farmers were still fresh, and everyone seemed to be obsessed with diamond mining.

  “I cannot imagine that would have suited you,” Cruces guessed, more perceptively than Scarlett would have given him credit for. “Politics and rocks do not strike me as interesting you too much.”

  “There was little adventure in it,” Scarlett admitted. “Even the things my parents find… when I left, they were excited about a clock said to belong to the Egyptian sky goddess, Nut. Do you know the legend?”

  Cruces nodded. “Tell me anyway. It will mean hearing more of that lovely voice of yours.”

  Scarlett looked for signs that he was mocking her in some way, but it seemed that he was not. “They say that the year began as three hundred and sixty days until Nut, fell in love with the Egyptian god of knowledge, Thoth. The sun god Ra, who had claimed Nut as his, became angry, and cursed her never to have children on any day of the year. Thoth extended the year for her, adding five days that weren’t in any of the existing months. The clock is how he is said to have done it.”

  “A lot to do for love,” Cruces said. “Though I suppose it would be worth it.”

  “Really?” Scarlett asked, slightly surprised. “From your attitude to Cecilia, I would not have thought you were a man to believe in love.”

  Cruces put his glass down carefully. “Just because I did not fall in love as a serving girl wished, that does not mean I am incapable of forming such an attachment.” He stared at Scarlett for a moment. “Quite the contrary, I assure you. Now, you have hardly touched your tea.”

  Scarlett was grateful for the excuse to do something other than look at Cruces. The man seemed to have none of the boundaries that well brought up young men were meant to have. It gave him an intensity that was almost like standing in the Egyptian sun again.

  “When this is over, you must give me the chance to paint you, Miss Seely,” Cruces said. There was a mischievous hint to his expression that probably should have warned Scarlett.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Perhaps something after the classical fashion? I am sure your form is most lovely.”

  Scarlett stood up abruptly. He would really insinuate that she should sit for him unclothed? Of course he would. If she had not thought the man insufferable before, this alone would have been enough.

  “You go too far, sir,” she said. “And I do not have to stay here to listen to it.”

  Cruces’ eyes danced with amusement. “Are you really so easily offended, Scarlett? I thought that you were not one of the silly girls London produces.”

  “And I thought that you were utterly without manners. It is nice to know that one of us was right. Now excuse me. I am going home.”

  With that, Scarlett left the pub, though she did not immediately head for the row of cabs that still waited. Instead, she stood for a moment or two, waiting. Waiting for what? For her anger to subside enough that she could think again? For Cruces to come hurrying out to apologize? The former would probably take more than a second or two, while the latter… Scarlett could no more imagine Cruces apologizing for something than she could imagine him drinking tea. He seemed to think that just because he happened to be almost unbelievably handsome, that gave him a license to treat women abysmally. Well, Scarlett was not going to be foolish enough to let herself get anywhere near him, despite the attraction she felt for him, especially when he held her.

  It wasn’t like she was not used to the attention of young men. She had experienced some of that while traveling with her parents and being the only blonde girl in a sea of men during an excavation. Her good friend Gordon even, whom she knew since childhood, sometimes gave her a look that appeared more than a friendly look. Cruces was definitely one of the most alluring, charming, yet straightforward men she had ever met. And she could kick herself for feeling anything towards the rake.

  Because she wasn’t quite ready to go home, Scarlett headed back towards the market. If she could catch some glimpse of Cecilia, then she would be able to tell Cruces exactly what a bad idea giving up the search had been. Not that she cared what he thought, of course. She made her way back through the stalls, not bothering to heed the cries of the hawkers trying to interest her in their wares.

  The London mist was starting to close in a little now, trailing between the stalls, so that they seemed even more mysterious. Scarlett was not bothered by that so much as by the fact that it meant she would never be able to spot Cecilia now, even if she were still in the market. Which meant that Cruces was right. Scarlett felt her hands ball reflexively in annoyance.

  There was nothing for it but to head back to the town house, so Scarlett turned and walked towards the exit once more. She would simply have to start again in the morning, bringing together such resources as she could. She wasn’t going to give up, not even with a client like Cruces. She was not going to fail at what should be such a simple task.

  Scarlett was deep enough in her thoughts that for a second or two, she did not pay attention to the woman who stepped out into her path. She merely assumed that the woman was there to buy something from one of the stalls. It was only when the woman did not move out of Scarlett’s way that Scarlett paid her a little more attention.

  She was old. Old in a way that suggested any number Scarlett tried to place on it would not be high enough. She wore black, in layers of clothing that might once have looked something like the mourning clothes Queen Victoria still wore for her husband, but now made her look more like a slightly battered crow. Her hair was wispy and grey where it stuck out under a simple scarf that looked a little like a darker version of the one Cecilia had been wearing.

  “If you want to find the girl,” she said, “follow me.”

  She turned and stepped back into the mists, leaving Scarlett with just a split second in which to think. Briefly, she considered fetching Cruces, but in the time it took to find him, the woman would undoubtedly be gone. Besides, Scarlett didn’t see why she should include the young aristocrat in this. It was her case, not his.

  Her mind made up, Scarlett hurried after the elderly woman.

  Chapter 7

  Scarlett followed the old woman as best she could through the thickening mist, keeping pace but not quite managing to catch her up. It wasn’t quite as bad as following Cecilia, because the old woman wasn’t making any real effort to get away from her, but it wasn’t easy, either. The woman didn’t stop at any point to let Scarlett catch up properly though; nor did she give her the chance to call for Cruces. Not that Scarlett would have called for Cruces right then, of course.

  Scarlett couldn’t see much through the mist, but she still had a reasonable idea of where she was. Time spent finding her way around old tombs with her parents had given her a good sense of direction, and she was not going to be disoriented by a little mist.

  When the old woman turned into an unlit alley, Scarlett had a moment of apprehension though. Why lead her down there, into a place that really did not look safe? Why lead her along like this at all, rather than simply telling her where to find Cecilia? It did not make sense. Would it not make more sense, in fact, to suggest that this was all some kind of trick?

  Scarlett could see how it would work all too easily. The old woman, or an accomplice, had undoubtedly overheard her speaking with Cruces about the young woman they were trying to find. T
hey would also have seen that Scarlett and Cruces appeared to have money, and marked them out as potential victims for a robbery. All they had to do was lure Scarlett away to somewhere she could not call for help.

  If she had any sense, therefore, Scarlett would turn around and walk away without setting a foot in that alley. Two things stopped her. The first was the thought that it was only an old woman. Scarlett was more than capable of protecting herself against even a strong and dangerous attacker, so one rather frail assailant would not represent much of a threat. She had not seen anyone else around, so the odds on there being more potential robbers were slim.

  The second, and much more compelling, reason came with the thought of what Cruces would say if he found out that Scarlett had an opportunity to recover the ring Cecilia had taken from him, but had not gone through with it. It wasn’t that he would be angry. No, it was far worse than that. He would laugh. He would laugh, or he would claim that he understood, and make it clear that Scarlett was just one more helpless young woman playing at being independent, when in fact she could not bring herself to take the smallest risk. Scarlett was not going to let him think that. Not after all his other small insults.

  So Scarlett forced herself forward. She had her knife if it came to violence, and she had her wits to keep her safe from everything else. She strode forward, determined to demand an explanation from the old woman, and find out one and for all what, if anything, she knew about Cecilia’s sudden flight.

  The woman was waiting for her at the end of the alley. There did not seem to be anyone else there, which made Scarlett feel briefly very foolish. After all, there was no chance that such an elderly woman was going to try to rob her alone. At worst, the woman would try to fool her with vague promises of information in return for money, which Scarlett would be able to get around easily enough. She stepped forward more confidently, advancing until she was only a pace or two from the gypsy woman.