Immortal Devices (Steampunk Scarlett Novel #2)

by Kailin Gow

  “No,” Scarlett agreed, “and that is not a good sign. I cannot imagine that Gordon would have left the sword behind willingly. Not in a place so different from everywhere he has been.”

  Tavian nodded his agreement to that, and Scarlett turned back towards the vendor.

  “Please, can you tell me where you got this? It is important.”

  The stallholder shrugged. “From a peddler.”

  “And where did he get it?” Scarlett asked.

  Another shrug. “Are you going to buy the stick?”

  Scarlett fumbled with her purse, wondering how she would be able to do that. She had money, certainly, but it was in pounds, shillings and pence rather than drachma and obols. Cruces solved the problem by simply stepping past her to drop a number of coins into the vendor’s hand. Scarlett did not know if he had somehow acquired the right kind of money, or if he was just doing something that was far more Cruces, and throwing more than the stick was worth at it in the Empire’s coin, on the assumption that it would be accepted.

  “Now,” Cruces said, “where did the peddler get the stick?”

  The vendor shook his head. “You know peddlers like to keep their secrets, or other people will get to the next thing before them.”

  Scarlett stepped up and touched the hand of the young vendor. She smiled her most engaging smile and looked him in the eyes. “I would very much appreciate you letting me know where you think he found this stick,” she said, as sweetly as she could. “It belonged to a dear friend of mine, whom I miss greatly, and I would be very grateful for any news of him.”

  If the stallholder had been resolute before, it faded quickly then. In fact, he looked very much like he would gladly do anything Scarlett asked.

  “The peddler didn’t say much, but he mentioned that he found it near both the forest and the sea.”

  “Thank you,” Scarlett said, bringing his hands to her lips.

  The young man blushed, and blurted out, “I think he meant the area south of the city.”

  “Thank you…”

  “Caesar.”

  “Caesar,” Scarlett repeated, with a smile that seemed to have the young man blushing. “Now my friends and I must go.”

  She turned to Tavian, who stood there looking at her with an adoring expression that matched the way she felt about him.

  “It seems we have to find an area near both forest and sea,” Scarlett said, repeating what Caesar had told her. “After that, we will simply have to search for any sign of Gordon, or what could have happened to him.”

  Tavian nodded, but he looked a little uncomfortable. “That is quite a broad description,” he said, “and it could mean many spots.”

  “But Ceasar made it sound like the peddler meant somewhere specific, so perhaps it is just a question of local knowledge,” Scarlett said.

  “What do you think, Cruces?” Tavian asked. “You know this place better than…”

  Tavian tailed off as they looked around. Scarlett had expected the vampire to be standing just a little way away, yet now, there seemed to be no sign of him. It was as though Cruces had vanished into thin air.

  Chapter 7

  Scarlett’s first thought on seeing that Cruces had disappeared was that something must have happened to the vampire. That did not make her as frantic as it might have just a day or so before, but it still had her looking around for some sign of him. There was none, however, and that seemed more than a little strange. After all, nothing would have been able to grab Cruces without a fight, and any fight involving a vampire thousands of years old would have been easy to notice given how close she and Tavian had been standing to him.

  Which presumably meant Cruces had left voluntarily. Would he have run off in pursuit of some clue or other? He might, but Scarlett suspected it was not that. After all, he had been quick enough to draw Gordon’s sword stick to her attention. No, it was far likelier that the vampire had gone off for some reason of his own, either because he did not want to be around her and Tavian, or for the simpler reason that he needed blood. Yes, that would be just like Cruces. After all, he had abandoned their last investigation to seek out a drink from a public house that catered to his kind, so why not this one? The vampire was insufferable sometimes.

  Either way, it seemed foolish of him to go off without telling Scarlett and Tavian where he was going. What were they meant to do in his absence? Merely wait around for the vampire to return? That sounded like the kind of thing Cruces would expect. He would wander back in half an hour, or perhaps an hour, having satiated his hunger without a thought for the way Scarlett and Tavian had been waiting. Well, Scarlett was not going to do that when it seemed that they had an opportunity to find out more about what had happened to Gordon, and thus presumably about Cecilia and Rothschild too.

  No, the vampire would simply have to catch up once he was done with whatever he felt was important enough to call him away. Scarlett set off with Tavian in her wake, asking people as she went where she might be able to find a spot near the city where a forest met the sea. Some ignored her, but more were willing to help out. They pointed her south each time, and Scarlett walked on.

  Gradually, she began to notice more creatures along the way that were clearly not human. There was a woman singing near a fountain who wore a dress seemingly made out of kelp, and whose skin seemed to glow the deep blue of the ocean. When Scarlett saw the number of men crowding around her, she guessed that the woman had to be a siren.

  Above, meanwhile, creatures with the faces and torsos of women, but the claws and wings of great birds landed on the edges of nearby roofs. Scarlett tried not to flinch at the presence of the harpies, but given what she knew of the Greek myths, it was hard not to. There were other creatures too. Some, such as the minotaur who wandered through the crowd, his bull’s head apparently unnoticed, were strange, but others looked almost human. The three young women arguing around a poet would have seemed normal if not for the faint glow of immortality they gave off, while the crone who walked up to a house and came out with the spirit of a dead man looked merely like an ordinary old woman until she looked at Scarlett, and Scarlett saw just how ancient the look in her eyes was.

  “We should ask some of them about Cecilia, Rothschild, the bow and the rest of it,” Tavian suggested. “They will see more than most people.”

  That was a good idea, and Scarlett kissed him briefly for thinking of it. After that, she looked around for an immortal whom she would not mind asking, finally settling upon a young man playing the lyre, who gave off the same signs of immortality that Aphrodite and Hephaestus had. He was intent upon his tune, which was one of such loveliness Scarlett could barely bring herself to interrupt it. Still, there was too much at stake to wait.

  “Excuse me,” Scarlett said, “can you help us?”

  The young man blinked up at her, apparently surprised to be addressed directly. “Possibly.” He stared at Scarlett a little longer. “Interesting. You’re mortal? And yet you have the sight?”

  “I’ve always had it,” Scarlett said.

  “So what is it you wish to know? I must tell you, I will not unravel what the fates have in store.” The man smiled sadly. “Even if they would tell me, which they never will.”

  Scarlett shook her head. “It isn’t anything like that,” she explained. “We are looking… well, for several things, actually. First, we need to find a spot where the sea meets a forest.”

  As with all the others, the man pointed to the south of the city. “There is sea on three sides of the city,” he said, “but there is only really forest to the south. If you look there, you might find what you are looking for.”

  “There was also a young woman,” Scarlett continued. “She might have been dressed a little like me, so she would have stood out. She would have been travelling with a man, a vampire.” Scarlett wasn’t sure why she put it that bluntly. Perhaps it was simply because she suspected an immortal would be well placed to spot a vampire, where he might not pay attention to one woma
n in a strange style of dress.

  “I think I saw them earlier, though I could not say which way they went.”

  “Thank you anyway,” Scarlett replied. It was important to remain polite. She knew from the myths she had studied the kinds of fates that could befall those who insulted immortals. She knew it from personal experience too, given what had happened with Aphrodite. Though that seemed less tragic right then, given how much she loved Tavian, and he loved her back.

  That was moving away from the point though. There was still more that Scarlett needed to know. “Lastly, we are searching for a bow that has been lost.”

  The immortal’s expression briefly darkened, and it was obvious from it that Scarlett had said the wrong thing. “I know nothing of any bows.”

  “This one is Cupid’s bow,” Tavian put in.

  “I know nothing of any bows,” the young man with the lyre repeated, louder that time. “You should go now, both of you. Go.”

  Scarlett glanced at Tavian, who nodded, and they both hurried off. Neither of them wanted to risk angering a being who might be dangerously powerful. Instead, Scarlett found another person to ask, going back to the woman by the fountain. She was just as willing as the young man had been to point them in the direction of the forest, but again she shook her head and refused to say anything when Scarlett mentioned that they were looking for the bow.

  “They’ll not say anything, you know.” The old woman who had collected a man’s spirit stepped out of a side street, dressed in a collection of dark scraps that made her look a little like a crow. “They are not foolish enough to risk crossing Zeus. They’d risk my touch before they risked that.”

  “And what about you?” Scarlett asked. “Will you help us with this… Hecate?”

  The name was a guess, based on what Scarlett knew of the myths of the ancient world. As the barest trace of a smile crossed the old woman’s features, she knew that she had guessed right.

  “Why would I help you?” the goddess demanded. “Why would I risk Zeus’ wrath?”

  “You are afraid?” Tavian asked.

  “I am cautious. Besides, this is not a matter for the likes of you.”

  “So you won’t help us?” Scarlett asked.

  Hecate smiled. “I did not say that. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. All one of you has to do is take my hand.”

  Scarlett shook her head. She knew from the myths she had studied that Hecate’s touch meant death. “We will find out what we need to know another way.”

  “Maybe,” Hecate replied. “Though you’ll have to be more careful than you are being. Look.”

  Scarlett followed the line of Hecate’s gaze to where the harpies sat on a nearby roof. They were staring down at Scarlett intently.

  Hecate laughed. “It seems not all of us like nosy girls asking too many questions. Or maybe they just want to see what will happen next.”

  “What will happen next?” Scarlett asked.

  “Trouble, of course.” The goddess seemed to take a malicious delight in that. “Trouble for you. Trouble for whoever sent you. It will be most entertaining to watch. Now go. I have work to do. A pity really. I would have liked to see what is going to happen to you.”

  Scarlett glanced at Tavian and they hurried off, getting away from the goddess as quickly as they could. Scarlett couldn’t help noticing as she glanced back that the harpies had followed, landing on the next roof along. What would ordinary people, without her talent for spotting the unseen, see there? Would they just look like a flock of large birds to them, or would they not see anything at all?

  Scarlett tried to ignore them. Instead, she went up to the next immortal she saw, a woman with the lower body of a snake, and asked her the same questions she had asked the others before her. Again, the merest mention of the bow had the woman telling them to go, to get away from her.

  And when they went, she followed, the same way that the harpies did. That was worrying, particularly when other non-human creatures started to join them. The minotaur Scarlett had spotted before paced along one side of the street behind them, while a couple of goat-legged satyrs fell into step after Scarlett and Tavian passed the doorway in which they were gambling with dice. A woman who was veiled, and whose hair was a writhing mass of snakes, slipped out from a house to join them.

  Previously, Scarlett had rarely found herself frightened by the things that she saw. The things that she saw were simply natural to her, as much a part of the world as people or animals were. With those things though, there was rarely any sense that they meant Scarlett harm, or even that they had any interest in her at all. Here, the feeling she got was very different indeed. As the immortal creatures followed just a little way behind her, Scarlett couldn’t help but feel a mounting sense of dread at their presence. What were they there for? What were they planning to do?

  Scarlett did not plan on standing around to find out. Taking Tavian by the hand, she broke into a run, darting down a side street and pushing past people. She glanced back, and saw that the creatures behind her were keeping pace, but that only spurred Scarlett on to run quicker. It was obvious now that the creatures wanted something from her, perhaps even wanted to harm her. Scarlett was not going to give them the chance.

  With Tavian in tow, and with a host of creatures behind her all the while, Scarlett ran on.

  Chapter 8

  Scarlett and Tavian ran as quickly as they could, dodging past people and hoping to leave behind the collection of immortal creatures following them. Scarlett still wasn’t entirely sure why they were giving chase, but it wasn’t like she was really in a position to stop and ask. Besides, she had already found out with Aphrodite how easily the smallest things could spark anger in immortals.

  Were they all like that, Scarlett briefly wondered as she ran. Was there something about immortality that meant creatures had to have no patience, no kindness? Aphrodite had been petty with her curse, even if it did not feel like one when Scarlett was near Tavian. Zeus, in turn, had been cruel in hiding Cupid’s bow. Cupid was famously malicious, and the trick that had started all this had been far from kind. The cluster of immortals following Scarlett, meanwhile, clearly intended nothing good if it should catch her.

  And then there was Cruces. The vampire was manipulative, dangerous, and clearly not interested in what others thought. After all, he had wandered off in the middle of their search for no good reason Scarlett could see. Was that lack of consideration a side effect of living so long, or was it simply the way Cruces was? Scarlett did not know. She was not even sure that she wanted to know.

  All she wanted right then was to get away from the creatures chasing her. Keeping a firm grip on Tavian so that they would not be separated, Scarlett darted past a woman carrying a large jar of oil, sidestepped around a couple of older men arguing about philosophy in the street, and sprinted along a narrow alley.

  None of it was enough to rid them of the immortals. The harpies flew overhead, calling out Scarlett’s location. The land bound immortals simply ran, keeping pace with Scarlett. They did not catch up with her, but they did not fall back either. Scarlett found herself thinking of the way a pack of dogs might wear down its quarry before closing for the kill, and just that thought was enough to send a fresh burst of energy to her legs.

  In an effort to shake off the immortals, Scarlett decided to try more extreme measures. Some of the houses around her had staircases, leading up to flat roofs, so Scarlett climbed the next one she came to with Tavian in tow, then ran along the edge of the roof until she came to the next house. The gap between the two was small enough that even in a dress Scarlett could leap it, and Tavian followed her easily.

  The next jump was not so simple, and Scarlett found her feet catching in the hem of her dress. Tavian’s hand snaked out to wrap around her wrist, pulling her up on the other side. Scarlett risked a glance behind her. There were a few immortals following over the rooftops, and the harpies were still wheeling above them in the sky, but most of them seemed to
be trying to keep up at street level.

  It was time to change tactics again then. Scarlett ran to the edge of the house she currently stood on, looking down until she spotted the taut fabric roof of a vendor’s stall beneath. Quickly, so that she could not lose the courage for it, she dropped, slithering along the fabric of the roof and then rolling to her feet once she reached street level. Tavian skipped to his feet beside her, and they ran again while the street vendor yelled something behind them. They turned the next corner…

  …and came face to face with Cruces, fighting for his life.

  His opponent was a vampire. The bared fangs and unnatural speed made that much obvious. Yet he had almost nothing in common with Cruces. Cruces was refined, even elegant, whereas this new vampire was a hulking thing, stripped to the waist and covered in swirling tattoos that seemed to Scarlett to be similar to some of the things people decorated their bodies with in the South Sea Islands. At the center of them sat the mark of the Order, almost disguised by the presence of the other tattoos. The creature’s muscles seemed almost impossibly large, making Cruces appear smaller, yet it did nothing to slow him down.

  Cruces was fighting this new vampire, and from the looks of it, he was losing. His shirt was torn, while there was blood on one side of his face. Even as Scarlett watched, the larger vampire struck Cruces, sending him tumbling, so that he had to scramble like an acrobat for his footing. He lashed out with a foot in the manner of the French savateurs, but it seemed to make no difference.

  “We have to help him,” Scarlett exclaimed, her earlier thoughts of how thoughtless Cruces had been to go off forgotten. “Quick, Tavian.”

  Tavian didn’t hesitate, leaping forward to make a grab for the vampire attacking Cruces. Briefly, Scarlett felt a twinge of fear at that. What if Tavian was injured? What if something worse happened? Should she really have just sent the young man she loved into such a dangerous situation with the intention of aiding a mere vampire?