Nick raised the revolver in two hands, wanting to be rid of the fool now. “I’m here to stop a man before he hurts someone I love. Be useful or be gone.”
“And I’ve been hunting the doctor for two solid days but found you. Seems my time hasn’t been a waste after all.” With a swift movement, Striker pulled a second gun from beneath his coat and hit a switch on its side. It came to life with a whirr. It was sleeker than the one he’d had before, and to Nick’s eyes, seemed even more deadly. Blue lightning arced in a glass dome at the top, giving off a faint crackle.
“You ever killed a man before?” the streetkeeper asked.
“Once,” Nick said through clenched teeth, refusing to show fear.
Striker smiled, and in that blue-white light from the gun, it was a ghastly leer. The nose of the hellish weapon didn’t waver. “You get better at it with practice. I would know.”
A sinking feeling took Nick, that same sensation as when a trick went wrong and he knew that a fall was coming. Twenty feet of air and fragile human bones, his stomach somewhere up around his ears. Oh, bugger, this is it. I’m done.
There was a moment of regret. So much he’d never done in his short life.
He’d barely finished the thought when his eye caught a gleam from the street. He flicked his gaze up and saw Dr. Magnus there, the streetlight glancing off the silver head of his walking stick.
Nick’s eyes met Striker’s, and he saw his own doubt. Maybe they wouldn’t be killing each other after all.
“I see you two have met,” Magnus said with an amused air. “You’ve been dogging my steps, Mr. Striker. I take it that the Gold King is displeased with me.”
Striker’s face hardened. “I’m not the one he sends if he’s asking you to tea.” He raised the strange weapon, but before he could fire, the doctor raised his stick.
Reflex made Nick duck. He grabbed Striker’s arm, pulling him to the ground at the same moment. Then the front of the house exploded. Shards of wood and brick sprayed into the air. Glass crashed and frame splintered. Pale fire licked down the door, pouring over the steps like something liquid before it was slurped back into the darkness and extinguished.
The flame missed Nick’s boot by inches. His ankle smarted from the heat.
“Holy fardlin’ hell,” Striker cursed, rolling into a crouch and pointing toward the street. “What was that?”
“I think he plans to defend himself,” Nick muttered, scrabbling to take cover behind the porch pillar. Magnus’s shot had badly damaged the front of his house, but hadn’t breached the door. Nick had the sinking feeling that Magnus had been holding back in hopes of saving his property.
And the doctor was walking toward them now, a thick, dark cloud gathering around him. No light glanced off the buttons of his coat or the silver of his walking stick. Everything around him was stark blackness.
Striker snorted. “Any ideas?”
Nick’s mind scrabbled for something he could use. “He’s smart. He knew he was going to be followed. He waited until we showed ourselves. He’s probably dealt with people trying to kill him before.”
“Like that matters now,” Striker said with contempt. “Any useful ideas?”
Nick was dimly aware of noise and lights up and down the street. Neighbors. They didn’t have time to get fancy. “Blow his head off.”
“Heh.” Striker discharged the weapon in Magnus’s direction. It made a kind of zzooop noise followed by an iridescent flash. Across the street, a cherry tree blew to smithereens. Striker gave the gun a dirty look. “Range ain’t right yet.”
“What in all the dark hells is that thing?” Nick asked.
Striker gave an evil smile. “Aether disruptor.”
“What is—” He didn’t have time to finish the question. “Watch out!”
While Striker’s shot had smashed the tree, the force of the explosion bounced the energy back on itself. When the rebound careened into Magnus’s black nimbus, the sound was like the rip of a tearing bed sheet. Nick saw the doctor stumble forward, obviously taken unawares. The next instant, the dark cloud around Magnus sparked pale blue, washing him in a ghastly light as he staggered forward.
Nick was hard-pressed to understand what happened next. Magnus thrust out his hands, as if warding off a blow. Squiggling snakes of energy crawled over the nimbus around him, seeming to suck up the shadows Magnus had gathered. The arcing energy wadded into a bright knot of lightning, shooting arrows of electricity into the night sky.
“Bugger,” Striker muttered under his breath. “Bet I’ve made him mad now.”
Magnus wheeled, the pale blue light making a terrible mask of his face. Nick’s stomach turned to ice as the doctor clutched at the swirling, crackling energy Striker’s gun had set loose, and seemed to thrust the sparks into the air.
The door behind Nick flew to pieces with a resounding crack. A foot lower, and it would have been Striker spraying into the air.
“Get off the porch!” Nick cried, dodging out from behind the pillar with the sole intention of leaping out of the way.
Another blast came their way, landing in front of them this time. The force threw Nick backward into the house, mud hitting his face and blinding him. He was dimly aware of sailing clear through the doors into the big room with the worktable and all the books. He landed hard, facedown and skidding across the carpet, coming to rest just in front of Magnus’s peacock chair.
Everything hurt. Deaf, dizzy, he made a vague swimming motion, figuring out where the floor was. The gun was still in a death-grip in his right hand. He supposed that was good. Somehow, he pushed himself up and got his knees under him. His back hurt horribly. When he tried to straighten, he found the left side of his jacket was soaked in warm, sticky blood.
Nick searched for an emotion, but didn’t find any. Raising his left arm was hard, but he managed to peel back his jacket. A huge gash had opened up from his armpit diagonally to his hip. If he had to guess, he’d say that something sharp had caught him in the blast, slicing him cleanly as a kitchen knife. The wound was seeping rivulets of blood. Will you look at that?
Then he started to feel hot and sick and a surge of terror kicked his heart into high gear. He stumbled to his feet, weaving slightly and grabbing a cloth from one of the side tables and pressing it against the wound. Then he grabbed another cloth, then papers, stuffing whatever he could under his jacket and buttoning it closed. Hurt or not, he still had to rid the world of Dr. Magnus.
He had no idea what was going on in the street. He staggered forward, alternating between an urge to hide and the need to storm out the ruined doorway and back into the street, revolver blazing. He compromised by listing against what was left of the front doorway and peering into the darkness. The street was all but invisible, drowning in a fog of darkness. Somehow, the doctor’s influence was keeping people away, blocking what was happening from sight. Good. He didn’t want to shoot someone by accident.
And then suddenly Magnus stood right there, halfway down the front walk.
“You’ve become something of a nuisance, Nick with no name,” he said.
Hey! Nick heard the panic in the bird’s voice. It was near enough to touch his mind. Nick pulled the trigger, but Magnus had vanished. He thought he heard the bullet hit, but he couldn’t be sure. In the next second, he heard the peculiar sound of Striker’s gun. Zoop! Zoop! Zoop!
Nick ducked, covering his eyes from the flashes, his breath hissing in because it hurt to move. But even through his hands he could see the the air around Magnus catch fire, the bright illumination showing blood-red between his fingers. Whatever Striker’s gun did, it reacted to magic like a spark to gunpowder.
The doctor’s roar of pain escalated into a scream. Nick dropped to one knee, blinking white blotches from his vision. The scream faded to a whimper, and then to silence.
Nick’s skin crawled, the hair on his arms standing straight up. He’d only ever heard that kind of cry once, when a tiger tore open the underbelly of one of the hors
es. Gods forgive us.
A dark shape lay on the ground where Magnus had been. It stank of cooking flesh, a shade too similar to what Nick had eaten for supper. Bile rose in his throat, but he stubbornly swallowed it down. He couldn’t stand the thought of heaving with his side bloody and raw.
Striker stood to the left of Magnus, the gun casting a pool of oscilating blue light around him. With an almost mechanical motion, he reached over and hit a switch. The gun powered down with a whirr.
Nick found his feet and jumped to the soft grass below with a grunt. There were no stairs anymore. “You got the range sorted.”
Striker rubbed his forehead. “That I did.”
Neither man sounded triumphant, because they weren’t. There was nothing there to celebrate. Magnus was lying on the ground, his chest a burned mass of bone and blood. He’d fallen on one side, his tall hat adrift on the paving stones, his fingers helplessly trailing in the dirt. From his staring eyes, there was no question he was dead. Striker had shot him in the back, blowing his heart through his breastbone.
Well, he wouldn’t be bothering Evelina anymore. Nick bent with a shuddering intake of breath, and searched Magnus’s pockets.
“You robbing the bloke?” Striker sounded more curious than judgmental.
Nick found what he was looking for. A tiny steel mouse. He could just sense a consciousness inside, shivering in terror. He slipped it into his own pocket. “I’ve got what I want.”
Striker hesitated an instant, and then made his own search, letting out a gratified grunt when he found the doctor’s purse.
Nick looked away from the puddle of blood darkening the ground, a sudden foreboding taking him. A few yards away, brass gleamed dully in the uncertain light. The bird lay in pieces, shattered by the force of the blasts. He had no idea if destroying the mechanism freed the deva, or if it was trapped inside a broken shell.
The street was in chaos now that Magnus’s magic was gone. The black fog was lifting and people were streaming out of their houses and coming their way. They would be on them in seconds.
“Come on,” said Striker. “Time to run.”
Forgetting his wound, Nick dropped to his knees, sweeping up the shards of Evelina’s creation. He pulled the kerchief from around his neck, using it to gather the pieces.
“Come on!” Striker repeated, his voice rising.
Nick tucked the kerchief inside his shirt, feeling the bundle of cool brass against the heat of his body.
“Bloody hell, mate.” Striker hauled Nick up by his collar, then his eyes widened as he saw the blood-soaked side of Nick’s clothes.
A police whistle shrilled.
The streetkeeper swore viciously. “You just keep making my life interesting, don’t you?”
Chapter Thirty-five
VIOLENT EXPLOSION DESTROYS HOUSE
A respectable neighborhood in the Yellow District was shattered last night as a detonation of unknown origin destroyed 113 Pemberton Row. The owner, Dr. Symeon Magnus, was found dead in his front yard, clearly the victim of a vicious attack. Police are investigating the matter, but will give no further comment at this time.
—The Bugle
London, April 13, 1888
HILLIARD HOUSE
3 p.m. Friday
Evelina was attempting to read Barrett’s Guide to the Mechanics of Ancient Europe. However, the events of the day before had taken their toll, and she was exhausted, anxious, and unable to concentrate for more than three words at a stretch.
And the problems just kept mounting. A whole week had passed, and she still hadn’t found out who had killed Grace Child and the grooms, or why the automatons were so valuable. And she had a hundred questions about the ancient Greek object they called Athena’s Casket. She’d looked it up in what books she could find, but they all said it was an instrument used for navigation. Magnus had suggested it had magical properties—infusing spirit into mechanics and all that—but none of the volumes in Lord Bancroft’s library mentioned any such thing.
And what had been going on at the warehouse? A lot of people were dead, including the Chinese workers, but what exactly had they been doing there? Whatever it was, somehow Grace Child and her silk bag of gold was the link between the warehouse and Hilliard House.
Evelina had started to investigate in order to protect Imogen and her family from scandal. Unfortunately, all she’d managed to do was piece together a reason someone in the house was guilty. It was simple math. Gold artifacts arrived at the warehouse in crates, and melted gold and unset stones were carried away by a servant who worked at Hilliard House. It didn’t take a huge intellect to make a connection. Clearly, someone with no respect for archaeology was melting down the treasures. And since Keating was mad for all things Greek and Roman, it would be out of character for him to allow the destruction of historical treasures. And besides, the wealth was showing up in Lord B’s cloakroom, not Jasper Keating’s bank. Everything pointed to the fact that he was being robbed.
So who was doing it and how? Was that where the Chinese came in? So why had they been murdered? If she had to guess, they were the worker bees and their usefulness had expired—and that meant the villain was beating a retreat. If she meant to find out who that was, she had better do it now.
For more reasons than one. Her Uncle Sherlock was back in London and had written to say that he had begun work on Jasper Keating’s case. He planned to stop by that afternoon to see her. At any other time, she would have been delighted by a visit. Now, with so much at stake, it was a glaring reminder of her failure to preemptively solve Grace’s murder.
And Lestrade would be sure to contact him, because Scotland Yard was having no better luck than Evelina. There had been no progress in solving the murders of any of Lord Bancroft’s servants, the dozen Chinese, and now Dr. Magnus. Public opinion was growing foul.
If Uncle Sherlock got involved, the question of the magic-infested automatons would be sure to come to light. The only thing Evelina could do was try to deflect her uncle from that part of the puzzle. It wouldn’t be easy, because Sherlock Holmes was not a man easily fooled.
Evelina buried her face in her hands, summoning her strength. It was hard to believe, but her uncle was only one problem. There were others.
She’d sent Bird for help, hoping he’d find Nick, but it hadn’t returned. She’d seen—with the sense of an answered prayer—the article on Magnus’s death, but there had been no sign of Mouse scampering back home. A frantic need to find the two creatures gnawed at her, but London was a vast city. She’d search the sorcerer’s house, or his personal effects at the morgue, but she’d need her uncle’s help to gain access. Explaining her need to search a corpse was going to take some doing.
Then again, it was Uncle Sherlock.
“Evelina?”
Tobias came through the door of the sitting room. She greeted the interruption with relief, and set the book aside. “Yes?”
“There is, um, a person who wishes to see you.”
“Uncle Sherlock?”
“No. Mr. Keating’s streetkeeper, I understand.” Tobias frowned. “Highly irregular, so I told Bigelow I’d see to this personally. I don’t like the looks of him. Says his name is Striker.”
“What does he want from me?”
“He won’t say.” Tobias was clearly irritated. “Since he’s Keating’s man, it’s harder to simply toss him down the steps.”
She was intrigued. “Then I suppose I must see what he wants.”
A minute later, the man called Striker was standing in the middle of the sunny green and yellow room, with its flowers in the pretty china jug. At first glance, he resembled a cross between a pugilist and an armadillo masquerading as a rusted-out boiler. He smelled of grease, gunpowder, and gin with an underlying tang of dried blood. A man who lived hard.
If one looked closer, however, there was a quick and wary intelligence in the man’s brown eyes. He held his hat in his hands and studied Evelina with some curiosity.
�
�Miss,” he said. “Pardon the intrusion.”
He was clearly minding his manners to the utmost of his ability. Tobias was watching from a few feet away, arms crossed and a disapproving scowl on his face that made him look alarmingly like his father.
“Consider it pardoned,” said Evelina, wanting to ease Striker’s discomfort. “What brings you here?”
“I came to give you these.” He held out a cloth bundle in one grease-stained paw.
She recognized Nick’s neckcloth immediately. It was the one he had been wearing last night. Alarm ran chilly fingers over her body. Why does a streetkeeper have it?
A coppery taste of fear flooded her mouth. She darted forward, reaching for the bundle, but Tobias got there first. “Tobias!”
“Let me see,” he said, setting the package on the table and working at the knots. “Before you go touching whatever is inside.” The contents gave an interesting metallic sound.
Evelina looked from Tobias to Striker, who looked unimpressed.
“It’s quite safe, sir,” the streetkeeper said.
The corners of the neckcloth parted. Mouse and Bird sprawled on the table, frozen as wind-up toys that had lost their keys. Both looked the worse for wear, Bird in particular sporting unfamiliar patches of metal that looked like they might have come from Striker’s coat. She reached out with her mind. They were still and silent, but they were both alive.
Evelina whirled to Striker. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Flushing slightly, the young man shifted, the coat giving a faint rattle. “The bird was in bad shape. I tried a bit o’ repair, miss, but I don’t have the tools for work that fine. Nick said you could take it from here.”
Tobias was intrigued, picking up Mouse and turning it over in his hand. “Did you make these, Evelina?”
She suddenly realized her secret was slipping out of the bag. She shot Striker a look, but his face was completely neutral. A man used to keeping his mouth shut.
“Yes,” she forced her voice to be calm. “As you know, I have an interest in clockwork toys.”
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