by Rhys Ford
“What do you say?” Marcus pulled himself up, hefting the man’s slender body into the cradle of his arms with ease. “He’s injured. And an innocent Englishman attacked by his own. He needs assistance.”
“Ye wouldn’t say that if ye’d recognized ’im, guv,” the bobby said, spitting on the ground as if to wash himself of a foul taste in his mouth. “That’s the bloody fucking Toymaker.”
Two
THE TOYMAKER.
Those two words became a silent dirge Marcus marched to as he carried the man to the bobby’s direction. He couldn’t convince the man to accompany him, and it was all he could do to get the bobby to lay the cloak-covered device on his burden’s chest so it could be transported back as well.
The man. He was no longer the man, but rather a nightmare made of bone and flesh.
He didn’t look old enough to be a nightmare. Despite the streak in his hair, the man… no… Robin Harris… couldn’t have been more than thirty-five. Far too young to be the Society’s Mad Terror… its Toymaker… the architect of its mechanical killing machines.
The man who thought up the skitter that killed his father.
No, Marcus decided as he looked down at the man’s face. They were of the same age. The Society had fallen almost twenty years ago, torn apart by the Queen’s armies and its supporters scattered to the winds. The man he held was too young. He would have been in his early teens during the turmoil brought on by the Society’s Golems and mechanical monsters.
He could not be holding Robin Harris in his arms. He could not have saved the man who’d brought the Empire to the brink of falling.
Any doubts Marcus had about the man he’d rescued were answered once he reached the three-story brownstone on the edge of the pier. A light burned in a front bay window, heralding its owner home, and a small, discreet rap of his boot against the wood brought a sleepy-eyed old woman to the door.
Well, at least one eye was sleepy. The other was a clicking tangle of glass and an aperture that rapidly moved about in her socket as it opened and closed to focus on Marcus’s movements.
Only one man he knew of could be skilled enough to replace someone’s sight with a mechanical gewgaw. The man he was holding had to be Robin Harris, the Society’s Toymaker.
If the woman wasn’t enough proof, the front room was evidence still.
What should have been a parlor seemed to have been turned into a workroom of sorts. Long tables lined one wall, and every flat surface appeared to be covered with things Marcus couldn’t begin to understand without some instruction. Tiny blips of light flashed on and off from embedded divots along slender girders and gears, evidence of arcane amid the mechanical wonders. Most of the things piled up along the workbenches and tables appeared to be nearly human in shape, as if they were bones of a man left bare to the eye.
The far wall sported shelves, but they were nearly buried beneath a weight of books and papers. Here and there, tiny remnants of the outside world made it indoors: a long white feather poking out of a thick tome, a mesh bag of marbles, and even what looked like a canine skull… if a dog had ear ridges sprouting out of the side of its head.
“This way.” The woman’s voice was as mechanical as her eye, and she walked with her left shoulder down, her long, thick graying braid swaying down her back as she struggled to mount the stairs.
“You don’t have to go up with me, Mistress.” Marcus hefted Harris to a more comfortable position in his arms. “Just tell me where to take him.”
“He’ll need healing.” She sounded resigned, and when she turned, the light caught on the slick web of scars marring most of her face. “He always does. He needs a nurse, not a housekeeper.”
Despite his insistence she remain downstairs, the woman followed him up, opening a door off the second floor landing. Excusing herself, the woman plodded away, heading back into the depths of the brownstone to hunt up medical supplies and leaving Marcus behind with her employer.
Thankfully for Marcus’s nerves, the sleeping chamber was just that, a bedroom. No long-legged maybe-monsters peered out at him from hidden places or tiny lights moving about to follow his progress across the floor. Instead, the room boasted an enormous four-poster bed, a couple of worn wing chairs obviously chosen more for comfort than style, and a few overburdened bookshelves. A large round table sat near the wide windows, its surface covered with notebooks and drawings, but the room’s filmy curtains were pulled back, showing off a spectacular view of the bay.
If the bay weren’t covered in fog, Marcus’s breath would have been taken away. He was sure of it.
Instead, he carefully laid the man he now knew was Robin Harris on the thick duvet and nearly jumped out of his skin when a pillow stretched out and yawned at him.
The cat was… odd. Long and lean, more whippet than feline and hairless to the eye, at least until Marcus looked closer and saw a thick pale down covering her slender body. Her tail curled up around her back and she crouched, spreading her front paws out in an obviously delicious display of muscular relaxation.
Her back legs were a different story.
They appeared to end in stumps where the cat’s knees might have been, but a fine spiderweb latticework fit up around the feline’s truncated limbs. The devices were attached to what appeared to be cat’s legs, if God had made them of metal and wood instead of flesh. Whatever they were constructed of, they worked, because the feline stretched them out behind her, first one and then the other, before sniffing at Harris’s bruised face. Losing interest quickly—either deciding the man wasn’t dead enough to be food or the smell of blood turned her off—she jumped from the bed, her legs singing a metal-on-metal tune, and was out the door before Marcus could blink.
Now the devices Harris’d been carrying made sense. The elongated structures were legs as well, long, and probably made for a human if Marcus remembered their shape right. Their length didn’t make much sense until he realized the mechanisms were nearly in perfect proportion for a very short person or perhaps even a child, and suddenly he was glad he’d bribed a rubbish picker to help carry them to Harris’s home.
“You live in a curious world, little crow,” Marcus mused. “Although should I dare to call you Robin?”
All he got in response was a slight moan, and Marcus frowned, trying to reconcile himself with the idea of the injured man he desired and the monster created by the Society’s ambitions.
Robin Harris looked… well, beaten. Not just his body but his very spirit. Even unconscious, the man held himself tenderly, as if breathing were painful. Although, Marcus figured, at this point, it probably was.
“Well, if you’re going to be here, you might as well be of some use. Get him undressed. I’ll see if the doctor will come see him.” The old woman’s voice startled Marcus from his thoughts, and he started, nearly falling onto the bed. Catching himself, Marcus hemmed and hawed, stumbling over his words as the woman’s nictitating mechanical eye followed him about the room. Her other eye was inert, fixing on a point floating someplace in front of her face. “Stay and help or get out. Either way, I don’t care. I’m not being paid enough to stitch him together. I’m giving my notice. Tell him when he wakes up, or he’ll figure it out eventually. Bad enough I’m working for a sodomite. I’ll not work for one that has a death wish.”
She was gone, much like the cat. Ungrateful and sour, the old woman left behind a box of medical supplies and a tainted air about the room. She’d obviously benefited from Harris’s mechanisms, but gratitude apparently only went so far. Marcus heard the stump of her legs hitting the stairs, and then the house was quiet, either empty of her presence or the housekeeper was stealthily gathering up the silver before fleeing the premises.
“Well then,” Marcus murmured to the unconscious man laid out before him. “You’re becoming more and more trouble.”
He was torn, if torn was even a strong enough word for the conflicting emotions coursing through Marcus’s thoughts. He couldn’t turn away from the man he’d resc
ued. Not even after everything he’d learned… everything he knew about what the man had done.
Thousands had suffered at the hands of the Society. They’d brought about the rise of the Golems, creatures—humans according to the courts—created in workshops and grown to adolescence in bowls of plasma and blood, only to be used as shock troops and assassins for the Society’s cause. They’d been terrorists of the basest form, attacking the very foundation of the British Empire, but Marcus had a difficult time reconciling the idea of the man laid out before him had anything to do with their destructive agenda.
Especially since it appeared the man devoted his entire life to fixing lost causes.
Because if anyone was a lost cause, it was the sour-faced housekeeper who’d just given her notice over her employer’s unconscious body.
Responsibility lies with those who can enact changes, his father had always preached from the head of the dinner table. It is our duty to step up and do what is right for all, even if it is for someone we do not care for. We cannot pick and choose who we champion. To do so denies your birthright… your responsibilities… your very legacy.
“And we can’t have that, can we, Mr. Harris?” Marcus told the man on the bed. “Now let’s get you undressed and I’ll see how badly you are injured. Pray my body is cooperative and I’ll be able to walk when I’m done.”
AT LEAST the housekeeper did him one small favor before she packed up her belongings and left. Within half an hour of Marcus hearing the woman stomp out of the house with a suspiciously clinking carpetbag, there was a loud rap on the front door, and he’d opened it to find a small, harried-looking blonde woman standing on Harris’s front stoop. She was handsome in a way only a woman could be, pretty enough but made beautiful by the sharp intelligence in her eyes. He was about to introduce himself when she stepped forward, edging into the brownstone.
“Did Harris get a butler?” She pushed past him, a leather medical bag swinging from her tiny hand. Keen to the weather, she’d dressed as practically as a woman could in a hunter-green walking dress, and her short leather boots rapped a sharp retort on the front hall’s floor. Still, the weather had gone sour, and the scalloped hem of her dress was damp and flecked with mud. “Now, where is he and where did Mrs. Conrad get to? Answer me, man. Never mind, I’m guessing he’s up in his room.”
The dynamo didn’t wait for his reply. Instead, she marched up the stairs and turned at the landing, clearly knowing her way to Harris’s bedchambers. Marcus followed, bemused to find a woman with a personality on par with his headstrong grandmother.
“How long has he been like this?” the woman asked.
“A few hours. He was being beaten rather badly when I came across him.” Marcus took the sharp look she gave him and tried to soften its edge with a smile. “I ran them off and brought him home. A bobby knew who he was and gave me his direction.”
“I’m surprised the bloody bobby didn’t get in a few whacks of his own.” She bustled about the edge of the bed, pushing her sleeves up her arms, and began to tug on the sheet Marcus had tucked around Harris’s slender waist. “Sorry there’s no one to introduce us properly, but I’m the doctor for the resident insane asylum down here in the Stews. Great, now that we’re chums, help me get his trousers undone. I’ll need to check his kidneys for damage. Blokes seem to love kicking in a man’s spine for some reason.”
“I was only able to get his shirt off,” Marcus replied softly. “He’s a bit lanky to manage by myself.”
“Well, now I’m here. We can manage it. You hold him up. I’ll tug down his trousers. He’s got a sore knee I’ll need to look at as well. What’s your name again?”
“Westwood.” Marcus cleared his throat. “Well, Marcus Stenhill, Viscount Westwood, and you are…?”
“Bloody shite!” Her eyes went wide, and then the woman composed herself with a shake. “Well then, on we go. Doctor Elle Horan, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, grab his arms and lift him up so I can see what those thugs did to him.”
Marcus felt a wide grin stretch over his face. The blonde woman was a refreshing change from the women he knew in the ton. She reminded him of his grandmother more than any of the sallow, frilled society dames, and when her eyes narrowed sharply at him, Marcus knew it was time to do what she told him or suffer the consequences.
Cradling Harris’s shoulders, he gently pushed the man up and slid behind him, supporting the inventor’s body against his chest. Harris felt warm, too warm for Marcus’s liking, and the bruising on his face and torso ran dark over the man’s pale skin. In the time since he’d been brought home, Harris’s injured flesh had deepened its color until it looked like he’d carelessly fallen into a vat of indigo and India ink.
The whole thing was too… intimate. His cock was responding, damn it to hell, but Marcus couldn’t blame his contrary piece of flesh. He’d never spent more than a few moments seeking his release in a willing whore’s ass, covert, hushed experiences done in shadowy bawdy houses catering to men with his perversions. The scent of Harris’s skin touched his senses, and he inhaled deeply, drawing in the perfume of lemony soap and pure masculine sweat.
His cock got even harder, and Marcus shifted, angling his hips for some relief.
Then Harris moved in his arms, skin sliding over fabric, and Marcus was lost.
No amount of clothing could hold back the intense feeling of the man’s flesh on his body. Even through his trousers and waistcoat, the sensation of Harris’s movements burned into Marcus’s thoughts, and he swallowed hard, his throat sucked dry of any moisture.
His brain quickly jumped in with a solution: swallowing and suckling on Harris’s yet unseen cock until the man coated Marcus’s throat with his bitter-salt seed.
“Can you hold him tighter, please?” The doctor’s voice broke through Marcus’s lust more effectively than falling into a snow bank. Suddenly the thought of having a female audience for his lusty thoughts churned ice chips through Marcus’s hot blood, and his cock limped back into submission.
“I’ll try. He’s definitely limber, even unconscious,” Marcus said as he worked to contain the man’s arms. Harris’s dark hair spilled over his shoulder, hiding the swelling on his face, and Marcus frowned at the color forming on the man’s temple. “It’s good of you to come. Harris needed more help than I could muster.”
The doctor cleared her throat, and he glanced up to find the woman staring at him, a deep suspicion clouding her expression.
“So you know who he is, then?” There was a deep current of protectiveness in her voice, and a surge of relief ran through Marcus as he noticed the high color in her cheeks. The good doctor was definitely a friend of Harris’s, someone who’d at least care the man lay injured. The housekeeper certainly hadn’t possessed that loyalty.
“Yes. I do,” he assured her with a calming smile. “He needed help, and I was in a position to give it to him. The men beating him were run off easily enough, and in this case, it was my pleasure just for the chance of seeing the inside of this house. It’s like… a clockwork shop gone mad.”
“Well, I hope you gave a few good thumps into the asses who did this to him.” The doctor grunted as she tugged at Harris’s waistband, the placket of his trousers opened and flapping loose. “Shift him up, please. I’ll need to get his weight off his back to get these off. Damn his skinny, bony rear! And I think he bled onto the sheets. I don’t want to reopen the wound by tearing him loose of them if he’s stuck. Damned bloody shits for doing this to him.”
She was shocking, loose with her tongue, but her hands were definitely skilled as they probed over the man’s ribs. Worry creased Horan’s brow, and concern bloomed in Marcus’s chest, growing deeper when the woman leaned over and listened to the inventor’s torso.
“Good. I was worried that his ribs pierced his lungs. I think they’re just cracked.” Nodding, she indicated for Marcus to lift her charge again. “Okay, steady on. Let’s do this in one go.”
The man’s slender torso
was sturdy enough, lean muscles over long bones, and at the first peek of downy hair being revealed below Harris’s belly, Marcus looked away, more to prevent himself from being aroused than respecting the unconscious man’s privacy. If there was one thing Marcus wanted more than to sneak a peek of Harris’s toned body, it was possibly to lick every inch of it and kiss away every bruise he could find. It was bad enough he was lusting after an injured man. It was supremely uncomfortable to be aroused by the means of his father’s death.
“Deal with that later, Westwood,” Marcus scolded himself softly, keeping his voice to a dull whisper so the doctor couldn’t hear him. “Man needs help.”
Harris’s limp body proved to be a problem as Horan tugged off his trousers. Struggling to contain the seemingly boneless man, Marcus was forced to wrap his arms around Harris’s waist and hoist him up as Horan reached under the man’s rear. Her skirts slithered across the duvet, and at some point, she must have caught at a fold in the fabric, because one moment she was kneeling on the bed, and the next, she was sprawled out on her back across Harris’s bared belly, her dress pooled up nearly to her hips.
And Marcus stared at her right leg—or what she wore for a leg.
If the cat’s artificial limbs were a surprise, the doctor’s was a shock.
Her foot was covered in a low-heeled button-up boot, but the rest of her leg was exposed, and it was a marvel of engineering. The device was artificial, that much Marcus was certain of, and it ended in a leather sleeve that fit neatly over her thigh. A soft row of bezel-set lights haphazardly spotted the soft, buttery leather, magick nodes glowing as she shifted her constructed knee and ankle. Metallic lacework scrolled over her porcelain-glazed shin, providing cut-throughs to the complex rods and gears setup inside. It was both beautiful and horrifically mesmerizing, a profanity of science and arcane many would be averse to wearing.
