She snorted, tossed her corset on the bed and pulled her dress over her head. “Lead the way.”
Aiko was already racing down the hall when they emerged. “David?”
The Japanese woman spun around. “That baka is going to get himself killed. And us along with him.”
“Need help?” They were already moving to join her. There was no way he’d be able to stop Piper’s curiosity, or his own for that matter. “Where’s Timmons?”
They took the stairs two at a time and raced down the short hallway until Aiko slid in front of a large wooden door. “He was called to a case.”
Samuel glanced at Piper, her expression mirroring his own fears. “Did he say what happened?”
“Another prostitute was killed.” Aiko pounded her fist on the door, while Samuel shared a look with Piper. They were too late. “David, open up right now.”
“He might be injured.” Piper shifted to move closer to Samuel. “Is there a way we can force the door open?”
“If he isn’t injured, he will be when I get through with him. David!”
Beyond the door came the sound of broken glass and the clanking of metal being moved. Piper held her breath while Aiko continued to scowl at the door, until finally it was pulled open with a jerk, revealing a soot-covered David.
“Hullo.” He grinned at them. “I seem to have made a bit of a mess.”
“I’m going to kill you.” Aiko pushed her way past the clockwerker into his workroom. “What did you do this time?”
“I’m afraid I got a bit distracted by your case, sergeant. I forgot the time and overboiled the anticorrosive compound I plan to use to coat the metal of my new radiation detector.”
Samuel moved past David to join Aiko in lifting up a large piece of wood that looked to be a former desk. Piper grabbed a cloth and began to wipe the black mess from David’s face. “What case is that?”
“Oh, the dead women. Rory got called out again this morning, and with everything you all said it got me thinking.”
Samuel caught Aiko’s gaze and frowned. She dropped the warped and blackened metal she’d been holding, crossing her arms as her frown deepened to a scowl. “How did you hear what they were talking about? You were with me creating the antidote.”
“Yes, how do you feel this morning, sergeant?” David stepped over the rubble until he reached Samuel. Grabbing his face, David peered into his eyes. “No glassiness and your color looks good. I’d say you’re feeling well.”
“He sounded fine last night,” Aiko muttered. Samuel chuckled even as Piper turned red. “How did you hear about the woman?”
“Oh, well I might have left one of my automatons behind.” He stepped away from Samuel and shrugged. “I needed to test it to see if its ability to record limited speech was working again. Sergeant, I might get you to take a look as well, see if you can make her sing.”
Jumping over the rubble once more, David picked up a small mechanical dove from the undisturbed workbench on the far side of the room. Its copper wings were coated in a thick layer of soot that came off when he rubbed it against his shirt. Each metal feather was inlaid with silver, capturing the details in such a way that made them look delicate, almost fragile.
“It’s not like my other automatons. This one doesn’t give any outward appearance of being able to function. The real beauty is on the inside.”
Unable to stop his curiosity, Samuel moved closer so he could see what David was doing. The underbelly of the dove contained a small door. Opening it revealed a complex array of cogs and gears, each one so tiny Samuel feared he would crush the entire works merely by brushing a finger along the edges.
“It has a limited recording capability, but if you look close you can see the metal strip that captures the voice and images.”
“Images?” Piper pressed up against him, trying to see where David indicated. “How is that possible?”
“Watch.” Setting the dove back on the table, he turned it so the head faced the wall. When he pressed a button concealed beneath the left wing, a small beam of light projected from the eye onto the wall.
The images were jerky and unfocused at best, but Samuel was able to make out himself, Timmons, and Piper as they moved about the room. Their voices were metallic in sound, but clearly discernible. Within moments their entire conversation had been recounted.
“That is amazing.” Carefully picking the bird up once the projection stopped, Samuel turned it over once more, inspecting the work. “I can’t tell you the number of occasions something like this would have been valuable to an investigation.”
“Rory said the same thing. Not that I don’t fancy making several of these and selling them at a profit, but I hate knowing they’d be used to invade the privacy of others.”
“But you have no difficulty being the master of your own espionage.” Aiko snorted. “Typical.”
“Oh, that was only Rory.” David grinned, rocking back on his heels. “I’m allowed to do as I please to him. He’s family.”
The inner workings of the dove were as beautiful as any art piece Samuel had ever seen. He could see how David’s mind had connected the lines, pulled everything together to create an intricate puzzle. He was a brilliant clockwerker, but he didn’t know how to make the animals come truly alive.
Picking up a small screwdriver, Samuel found the linchpin in the center. One half-turn, a slight redirection of the electrical current, a gentle shifting of the copper wire to cross-thread the current and…
Closing the bottom of the dove, Samuel placed it back on the table.
It began to sing.
David wiped the soot from his eyes. “Amazing. Be sure never to tell the Company about your skills. They’ll have you stowed away in the back of a factory, churning out inventions. The hours are hell, but the pay is amazing.”
It still shocked Samuel that the clockwerker could quip about his imprisonment in such a manner.
Piper placed a hand on David’s arm, causing him to stop moving immediately. “What did you learn from listening to our conversation?”
David’s smile lost some of its boyish charm and took on a sly quality that had Samuel itching to remove Piper’s touch from his person.
“Your killer is going after prostitutes.”
“Yes, we knew that.” Piper’s smile was sweet, disarming, her fingers flexed around his arm.
“Oh, well then you probably already know the rest.”
It was only then Samuel noticed the map of New London David had pinned to the wall. Three red pins were pressed into the faded and torn canvas, small indicators Sam quickly identified as the murder scene locations. David had taken a thread and connected each pin, a thin line stretched between the points, in the center of which was a familiar location.
The Archives.
“Jack was once a member of the Archivist Guild.” Swallowing, he turned to David. “If you’ve figured this out, then it will only be a matter of time before others do as well.”
“Once they do, the king will have no choice but to open up the Archives to search for him. That is, if we don’t find him first.” Piper voiced his own thoughts. But as she turned to face him, Samuel realized where her feelings were leading. “We need to get to the new crime scene.”
“No, we need the case notes once Timmons returns.”
“We need her thoughts. See how they compare to Annie’s. Maybe get some insight into where Jack is hiding. If I can get to another machine, perform an extraction—”
“Absolutely not!”
Samuel hadn’t meant to yell quite so forcefully, but the mere idea of Piper putting herself back into the machine, having her brain subjected to yet another mind with the potential to wash away her personality, he couldn’t tolerate.
Piper didn’t break eye contact. She pulled her shoulders back and leveled her chin. “David, Aiko, would it be possible for the sergeant and I to have a few moments in private?”
“Come with me. We need to discuss how you intend to cle
an up this mess.” Aiko grabbed David by the arm and jerked him toward the door. “And no spying this time.”
“I had no intention of using the—” The door slammed shut behind them.
Images of another dead body stretched out on the cracked and pitted cobblestone road, hooked up to another extractor, pumping Piper full of a poison that should never fill her, were ones Samuel never wanted to see come to fruition.
“It will kill you.” He undercut the dramatic statement with every ounce of concern and compassion he had. “If you don’t rid Annie from your mind, and try to cram the thoughts of yet another person into your head, you will get lost. Even the bloody bastards who run the guild would tell you that, and in this case I would have to agree with them.”
Piper dropped her chin to her chest and sighed softly. “I know. I have to cleanse my mind of her. I think she knows it too.” Tears trickled down Piper’s cheeks. It wasn’t fear for her own well-being that caused her pain, but remorse. Annie would be purged from her mind, taken off to oblivion, and it would be Piper’s doing.
Samuel stepped closer, still uncertain if his touch would be welcomed, but needing the proximity to her. “I thought she was burying herself deep in your mind?”
“She’s grown quiet. While she’s strong I think she knows my mind will win out in the end.”
“As long as you rid yourself of her soon.”
Piper nodded. “I don’t want her to die.”
“She already has, Pip.”
He’d never thought about needing to leave a legacy before. It hadn’t been important to him. All Samuel had ever wanted after leaving the Archives was to find a place in the world where he could belong, make a difference the way Detective Inspector Williams had. Solving this case, bringing John—no, not John any longer—bringing Jack to justice, that would be his legacy.
But none of it would matter if anything happened to Piper.
“We need to talk to Annie. Really talk to her.” Reaching for her, Samuel pulled Piper into a hug. “Then we find a way to let her go.”
“Fine.” Her hot breath soaked into his shirt, heating the skin below. “But I don’t want to go back to the Archives. I don’t trust the machine.”
“David will come up with something. He has access to resources that could help. He might be able to get a device that can clear your mind safely, right here, without having to go near the Archives.”
Piper stepped back, her face devoid of emotion, though her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “All right then. We talk to Annie. Tonight.”
Timmons came back as they were finishing up the arrangements, converting the main sitting room into a makeshift lab. David had enthusiastically agreed to help, despite his workroom being declared unfit for use. He had departed the house and returned within two hours with a large black trunk bearing the Hudson’s Bay Company logo. David and Aiko set to work unloading it while Piper went upstairs to spend some time alone before they began.
Samuel had wanted nothing more than to go with her, but he recognized her need for solitude. Instead, he let Aiko put him to work carrying equipment and bottles of liquids he didn’t recognize.
Timmons stood in the doorway, eyebrows raised and his arms crossed. “Dare I ask?”
“Oh, don’t sound like that.” David waved him away before returning to the task of connecting a rubber tube to a gear box. “I’m being helpful.”
“For once.” Aiko tossed a cog at the clockwerker, who neatly caught it without looking.
Samuel abandoned his seat to join his friend. “We need to cleanse Piper’s memories of Annie. I’m going to interview her and then David will wipe her mind.”
“They sent someone to take the memories of the woman we found last night. Her name was Elizabeth Stride. Another prostitute.”
“David mentioned.”
Timmons guided Samuel from the room until they were alone in the hallway. “You know how when the archivists are hooked up, they spout out a lot of random nonsense?”
“What did you hear?”
“She mentioned a meeting, a dark man, and then started rambling off a bunch of nonsense.”
Shit.
“She also mentioned a man. Jack. It’s a common enough name, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s your boy again. He’s growing bolder.”
“He slashes my throat then kills again.” Samuel couldn’t tell Timmons the full truth, didn’t want to put him at risk any more than necessary. “He’s escalating.”
“Wonderful. Things are going to get messier.”
“We’ll manage.” There was one question he needed an answer to before they’d be able to move on. “Why didn’t you wake me when the call came in? Am I not the head investigator any longer?”
Timmons slapped him on the back of the head. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course you are. But in case you’ve forgotten, you had the small business of having your throat cut and getting poisoned. I thought you could do with a bit of a lie-in.”
“Thanks.”
“You should have seen her, Sam.” Timmons had curled his mechanical fingers into a fist as he closed his eyes. “He’d torn her apart. I’d say he was an animal, but the cuts were too precise, almost like a doctor, or a surgical machine.”
Bile rose in the back of Samuel’s throat. “Let’s keep this from Piper for now. At least until we get Annie out of her head.”
“She wanted to see the body, didn’t she?” Timmons snorted. “Are all you zombies trained to flock to death, or is it just an occupational hazard?”
“Shut up, Timmons.” Death followed them around, they were steeped in it from the moment they entered the Archives. Death employed them. As an apprentice, you made peace with that early on, or else you went mad. “David should be ready. I best find Pip.”
The night air was cool, the smell of rain permeating it as Samuel stepped out onto the side balcony. The street below was beginning to grow busy as people made their way to tea. Supremely civilized, given there was a killer prowling the streets.
Piper’s hair had slipped from the simple bun she normally wore, and long strands fell to caress her back and shoulders. Memories of last night, her body giving way beneath his as he pressed into her, made him want to reach out and pull her close. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat.
“They’re ready for you.”
“Thanks.”
Samuel knew she needed her distance, was fighting a battle with the woman who was trapped in her head, the one who was about to die for the second time. But as she turned, it grew incredibly hard to remember why he couldn’t pull her into his arms, offering what little comfort he could before she went through hell.
Instead, he balled his hands inside his pockets, pressing his nails into the fleshy palm. The pain grounded him, forcing him to focus. “Timmons is back. It looks like the victim was another prostitute. Went by the name of Elizabeth.”
“I see. Was there an extraction?”
“Of course. You do realize that even if you were still at the Archives, they wouldn’t have allowed you anywhere near that body.”
“I know.”
“They wouldn’t have even allowed you to be a part of the team to see what went on. You’d have been punished for even suggesting it.”
“I’m not a fool, Sam.”
Samuel stepped close so he could smell the sweet mix of woman and roses that always clung to her. “Then why do I get the impression you’d rather be there than here?”
“Do you remember what you felt like that first night you ran from the Archives?”
Pain, fear, determination stronger than anything he’d ever experienced before. All of that, and yet there was one emotion that overrode everything else. “I was terrified.”
She nodded. “I’ve had no life outside the Archives. I hadn’t had a chance to live my life before they came and took me. The only place I’ve ever known was the world within and below the Archives. My only parents were Master Ryerson and Master June. The onl
y friends I’ve spent time with were the other apprentices. Dennison, Jones.”
Moving so she was close enough that their clothing brushed, Piper looked up into Samuel’s eyes, unblinking. “I also found the only boy I thought I could love. But he ran away, leaving me behind.”
“I came back.”
“Not because you wanted to. If I hadn’t been at that extraction, would you have sought me out? Come and broken down the Archives’ door to find me?”
How he wished she hadn’t asked him that. Despite how he’d given his heart to her all those years ago, he knew this was the one sin he’d committed that he’d forever regret. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Clearing Annie from your mind is the right thing. Ryerson wanted to do it himself.”
“I shouldn’t want her to stay. I’ve been trained to participate in the mental cleansing as a means of self-preservation. I shouldn’t be questioning if this is the right thing to do at all.” Her breath was coming out in gasps, even as her voice grew quiet. “I’m angry because you’ve made me doubt my entire life, but you’ve given me nothing to replace it with.”
“You can replace it with me.”
“You don’t really want me, you know. If you did, you would have tried to see me before now. Oh, you like my body well enough, I’m sure, but what you want is some idea of me that you’ve carried around with you all this time. That’s the only person who can absolve you from the sins of your youth, reassure you that you made the right decision. And your idea of me was frozen in time all those years ago. But I didn’t freeze, Sam. I didn’t just stop when you ran away. I grew up and made plans of my own, plans that didn’t take you into account. Because you weren’t there.”
“Piper—”
“I need time, Sam.”
“What about last night?”
“I… it was wonderful.”
“But?” He didn’t need to hear the words to know what she was thinking. As the wind blew the strands of her hair around her face, Samuel felt his heart harden against the rejection.
“I need time.” Piper moved around him, stepping back into the house. “Are they in the parlor?”
Gilded Hearts (The Shadow Guild Series) Page 20
