Corroded tscc-3

by Karina Cooper

  The voice, to be truthful, lacked all distinction of either sex. It was not as honeyed as certain feminine voices, yet it lacked the deep tones of a truly dark-voiced cove. When he spoke his native tongue, he did so in those higher ranges the foreign language seemed to demand.

  I had decided on “sir,” as the manner of the Veil was rather aggressive and somewhat reminiscent of Hawke’s more diplomatic moments.

  The Veil sighed, a sound nearly swallowed by the crackle of the fire, whose light I could see glowing through the first screen’s silk paneling. “You are well aware of your dictates, Miss Black. Shall we avoid all these terribly English pleasantries?”

  For perfectly ordinary words, evenly spoken, the Veil had a way of turning a phrase. This time, it was wariness that crept along the rippling flesh of my arms. I took a step back, shoulders straightening. “If you’d prefer,” I cautiously said, aware that comparing a lack of pleasantries to heathen dispositions might not be quite so much the appropriate thing. “If this is about Mr. Coventry—”

  “You may save your excuses,” the Veil interrupted. Despite the heat of the room, my wariness turned to chilly concern. “We are equally as aware of your doings as you are of our demands. That you chose to spend your evening in one of our establishments is no secret.”

  I bristled at the unspoken accusation. “I was staying close to Coventry.”

  “And yet here you are. Where is he, we wonder?”

  My mouth closed on the hot words that formed. The Veil knew very well where Coventry was, no doubt.

  I glared at the screen, cleared my throat in non-verbal denial of any wrongdoing. It scratched, aching with the effort.

  I could not fall ill now. This was not the time, nor the place, and I would not trust anyone here to see to my well-being with any degree of selflessness.

  Nor did I want to be a burden on the sweets who tolerated me thus far.

  Clenching my fists, I attempted to soften the issue at hand. “If you’ll allow me to beg your pardon.” The civilities bedeviled me. “I have plans to see to his collection this very day.”

  “That will neither be possible, nor welcomed.”

  “Have you another bounty posted, then?”

  “We have another task entirely for you.” When I narrowed my eyes, folding my arms across my soot-stained shirt, the voice sharpened. “Let us be very clear, Miss Black. You are here not because we desire it.”

  “Yes, I’ve been made aware.” I did not soften my own tongue, either. “You want the serum Professor Woolsey made.” Before the Veil could interrupt again, I pushed on, taking a step forward—but no farther, for I knew how quickly the Chinese men behind me could move. “What am I to do about that? The professor is dead, his works destroyed. There is neither hide nor hair of his madness left.” None, of course, but myself.

  What I had not told others—what had not been made apparent even to me until it was far too late—was that my father, Abraham St. Croix, and the mad Professor Woolsey had been one and the same man. The serum he’d concocted had been his greatest achievement, the likes of which no alchemist alive could ever hope to create again.

  That was what the madman had railed in his time of triumph.

  That was simply madness.

  Whatever the formula was, whatever the serum, opium had been its root, and the alchemical ingredients within still proved a powerful tool—if it could be unlocked. The things I had gone through while under its sway continued to haunt me, to frighten me.

  Yet I had no method by which to hunt it down. My father’s secret laboratory had been emptied, his body taken, all of his tools gone.

  The cameo that had sported my mother’s likeness was gone forever.

  These things I could not share with the Karakash Veil. I could not even share them with Zylphia.

  I was not so daft that I’d admit this to the Veil.

  Instead, I looked at the floor between my feet and admitted, “Whatever had been designed, it was used and discarded upon its failure. The professor who developed it is dead.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  “I am.” More than sure. After all, the same rival collector who would go on to murder my husband had killed Mad St. Croix at the crux of his achievement. I had watched my father die, though I sometimes wondered as to the veracity of my memory on the subject.

  At the time, I had been quite gone on the opium concoction.

  That the sweet tooth I had been hired by the sweets to collect and the collector working for my father had been one and the same was terrible enough. He had with one hand saved me from my father’s murderous inclinations, and with the other murdered my own husband in those few hours after our vows.

  Whatever life I had owed him, the sweet tooth had taken. An act I would not soon forget—and bore no intention to forgive.

  “This leaves us with a terrible problem, Miss Black.”

  I had long stopped cringing at the term. Where some called me cherie, Hawke had long been the only to call me “Miss Black”—a name given for my black hair, I believe. He knew my true hair color now, but he had not given up the name.

  The Veil used it with impunity.

  “I will keep collecting for you.” It wasn’t my favorite of the options at my disposal, but it was the lesser of two evils.

  “And how do you propose to do that,” the Veil silkily replied, “when you have failed us twice?”

  My teeth clicked together. “Haven’t I just explained? The serum—”

  “The móshù—” Chinese for magic, as far as was explained to me, “—was only the first of two, and Bartholomew Coventry is the second. We do not give third chances.” The denunciation inherent in each flat word stung. “Had it not been for the efforts of our wūshī, you would have delivered your pound of flesh long ago.”

  A shudder seized me, forcing me to tighten my arms around myself. “I can not be stopped now.”

  “Yes, we know of your desires.”

  I sincerely wished that the voice would change. Gain an octave, mock me, something that gave me a clue as to what the speaker thought. I did not know if he was speaking the truth now. “How?” I asked, trying very hard to keep the accusation from it. “Did Zylphia tell you?”

  “You seek this other man, this murderer.” The Veil did not deign to answer me directly, which was all the answer I required. “The sweets call him a sweet tooth, we understand. Quaint, though unlikely he has ever partaken of our gardens with honest coin.”

  It mirrored closely the certainty Hawke had once given me; an assurance that Leather Apron, the murderer who called himself Jack the Ripper, had never given the Menagerie coin.

  They were two separate men, I was utterly sure. The sweet tooth had called the Ripper a talentless lout, eager for attention.

  A bit of professional rivalry, maybe. It didn’t matter. A murderer’s pride was less than worthless, and the reference to “honest coin” had to be let go in deference to my complicated situation.

  The Veil allowed the silence to linger as I stared at the gleaming floor. It wasn’t until I winced that I realized I’d bitten the soft part of my lip, so lost in my concerns was I.

  I looked up. “I will bring him to the Menagerie.”

  “Yes. You were hired, were you not?” By Zylphia, which the Veil had already known. The girl had been whipped for the temerity of hiring her own collector. “Yet, Zylphia belongs to us, and we can revoke the collection order.”

  Panic drove me to take a step. “No!” I did not need to see them to know the men had moved. I flung one arm wide, to show I meant no further transgression. No hands seized at me. Quickly, I continued, “Please. This man, this sweet tooth, he was there with the professor.”

  A pause. “Explain.”

  “If I can locate him, he’ll have more secrets.” I didn’t know for sure. From what he’d told me in that dark, terrifying night, he’d only been the professor’s killing hand, collecting the healthier organs from the sweets for the my father’s use. I d
id not have to elucidate that much to the Veil, however. “I have been trying to locate him for near a month.”

  “It seems, Miss Black, that he located you.”

  “Yes.” It took effort not to let the fury of that statement fill my voice; it ate at my consciousness like a plague, fed the ache in my throat and made it harder to breathe.

  I dared not let on. Staring instead at the crimson silk, I stopped just short of pleading. “I ask that you allow me to pursue this man and deliver him here.”

  Another pause, a thoughtful silence. Only the crackle of fire filled it, and the humming intensity of raging need—of burning revenge—filling my ears.

  I had said “please.” There was no greater clue I could have given as to the strength of my need.

  Finally, the Veil sighed, this time in thinly masked exasperation. “You are given one more opportunity, Miss Black.” Before I could echo his put-upon exhalation with my own sigh of relief, he added shortly, “Yet it comes with strings.”

  I shook my head. “I am already bound.”

  “Not carefully enough, obviously.”

  “What more can I do? Our negotiations demand I be left from the auction rings.”

  “We are not in the habit of requiring reminders of what we ourselves negotiated,” returned the Veil, and I finally received my silent wish. His tone turned cutting sharp; a warning, and my last if I did not gather my wits.

  Although I had never heard the Veil yell, I couldn’t help but think a raised voice would be the death of whomever invoked it.

  I would not be so stupid. I had wished for a change in nature once, and did not like the result. Impatient by the constant drain at my nasal passages, I cleared my throat again roughly, swallowed the garbled liquid building within it lest it affect my words.

  “What do you demand I do?” If my tone came over that divide as a weary one, if I considered that it rang with the death knell of the despairing, I had nothing more to say of it.

  The Veil was, in the end, right.

  If the serum was all I had to barter with, and I could not complete my collections, what sort of use was I?

  Worthless above the drift, and indebted below.

  That same black cloak of melancholy that had accosted me before Coventry’s attack now clung to me like a blanket, stifling in the hot air.

  “You are not so pretty that the auction rings would be efficient,” said that voice, lacking in sting and made all the worse for its practical application. “And such duties would leave you unable to find your quarry. No, your talents are better—”

  Slam! The harsh crack of wood against silk-lined paneling cut the Veil’s words sharply, leaving a silence thicker than the haze affecting the warm air. Both Chinese men were already moving in lockstep as I spun, weight on the balls of their feet, lethal hands unsheathed from their sleeves.

  Yet it was not their simple grace that earned my stare.

  Micajah Hawke filled the frame of polished wood and suddenly frozen warriors, a halo of light shining from behind him as the gaslights that illuminated the interior halls flickered brightly.

  If the Veil’s men were graceful birds in flight, Hawke was the tiger that would tear feather and bone. Both broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his physique had never leant any credence towards pampered softness, and his carriage naturally invited wariness from those intelligent enough to listen to the visceral instinct of prey. He walked with supreme confidence, spoke with the polished edge of a born sinner.

  Hair black as midnight brushed his shoulders in a perfectly straight mass, held back with a leather thong and swept from his face to reveal sharp lines and unyielding planes set in an implacable scowl. Rumor suggested he came from Gypsy stock, which would account for the dark hair and swarthy tint of his golden skin. Yet given as I was to wild fancies on occasion, I often considered that a pact with the Devil was to blame for his eyes.

  Dark brown under most circumstances, now they gleamed as if a flame had been lit behind them. The blue streak running through the center of his left eye burned as if the heart of that fire centered there, uniquely colored and wholly unforgettable.

  In the depths of my opium dreams, wrapped in a mire of guilty fascination, I had spent many hours remembering the color of that blue river. Whatever characteristics my disorderly imagination had given Hawke’s stare, it paled beside the truth of it. Sharp as the knives I carried in my corset, wicked as the Devil with a bargain in mind, that gaze pinned on me.

  This was not a glare that imparted the kindness of friendship.

  The Veil’s men hesitated, exchanging a glance I could not read behind impassive features, but Hawke strode between them as if they were mere objects—a careless authority he wore like the finest mantle, whose hem the lowly mortals of his realm dared not touch. I had always hated the way he made me feel, as if I were a temporary interest, or a contrary bother he was forced to manage.

  Hated especially that he made me feel at all.

  I almost always found him by night, already bedecked in the fashions of the day as if born into them. Not so, this day.

  The lack of tails and waistcoat did not soften his dangerously seductive demeanor. Where he was so often a temptation in the dark, now he was the foreman who would not be crossed. Every long stride pulled his working trousers tight against powerful thighs. His shirtsleeves, plain and rolled over his muscled forearms, did nothing to soften the taut shape of his beautifully tapered chest. The dizziness I fought as he encroached seemed all too familiar, my heart pounding furiously.

  I could lie, to myself and to all who dared inquire, but I recognized the unwelcome stirrings of simple arousal.

  I may not have appreciated the length to which Hawke had gone to save me, putting his mouth on me in places where such things should not be, but my body remembered him keenly. And, I was ashamed to admit, still wanted.

  Flesh has always been weaker than the mind.

  I took a step back, though I did not raise my fists in preparation for a fight. Hawke had never struck me; I would not expect him to do so now. “What do you want?” I demanded, the words roughly spoken as my symptoms finally sharpened to an unavoidable discomfort.

  Plague. I would claim illness until the moon fell from the sky.

  His eyes narrowed, thick lashes a line of kohl-black. Wordlessly, slowing not even a whit, he reached my side, snapped out a gloveless hand and caught one wrist over my sleeve.

  I had not expected to be so seized, though in hindsight, I should have. Hawke was not a man to rely on words when action would so much quicker appease a dilemma.

  I had no doubt Hawke considered me a dilemma.

  His grip was steel, the momentum of his trajectory uninterrupted as he turned abruptly and dragged me back to the door. I staggered, yet before I could catch my footing and demand release, the Veil’s voice finally floated from that screen. A question, I think.

  I did not understand it, but Hawke stopped so fast that I collided with his broad back. The fingers of my free hand caught at his thin cotton shirt; overly warm flesh burned through the material, seared into my fingers and caused me to bite back a helpless sound of dismay.

  My stomach turned, fluttered.

  I expected him to turn to address his superior, but he did not. His low, determined voice never approached the same high ranges. Whatever he said, it did not sound like a humble request.

  Plastered to his broad back, held by his unwavering grasp upon my arm, I could not turn my head to regard the screen. Had I done so, I was more than certain the red and gold facing would tell me nothing. Instead, I watched both of the Chinese men revert to simple watchfulness, regarding Hawke with dark, implacable eyes.

  After a lengthy, taut pause, the Veil replied in a faintly mocking tone, “Tù zi wĕi ba cháng bu liăo.”

  The fingers around my wrist tightened, and I winced. It was the same wrist that had been injured in a scuffle with a woman gone mad nearly a fortnight before. I’d solved the mystery surrounding her murdering
spree, had revealed her tricks as a misuse of an alchemical serum, yet it had not ended well for either of us. She’d plummeted to her death, and nearly taken me with her to an unsightly grave.

  It had been the last of my adventures before my subsequent marriage—and that the same night Hawke had offered me a bargain. Marry the earl, retire from this life of collection and London low escapades, and my debts would be forgiven.

  I had done just that, taken that covenant with some small misgiving. I had hoped to earn for my staff the security of a countess.

  If I had also hoped to rid myself of Hawke’s looming presence once and for all, I would never admit it aloud. What a fool was I. Although I had married my earl, it had only ended in blood.

  I did not keep to my bargain. I returned to London below the drift, seeking sanctuary from my mother-in-law’s vengeful grief, and in so doing, found myself enslaved by the very debt I’d hoped to shake.

  Hawke had never said what the bargain had cost him. I did not possess the fortitude to ask.

  Hawke glanced over his shoulder. Though the Veil had spoken last, it was not to the voice he looked, but at me.

  The breath stilled in my lungs. Even the tickle in my nose and throat, the faint queasiness the air instilled, faded to an aching point of pain at the bones of my wrist and the vivid blue flame trapped in the darkened gold of his stare.

  Something cruel shaped the edge of his sculpted mouth; a frown that was as much a declaration of violent aversion as supreme conviction. “Shì.” A single syllable. I heard it often from the Chinese, and took it to mean yes.

  Hawke, whatever was said, had agreed to something.

  Laughter, strangely tinkling, provided me no answer at all.

  I tugged at his grasp. “Unhand me this instant, Mr. Hawke.”

  His nostrils flared with a sharp breath. “For once in your misspent life,” he said between gritted teeth, “hold your fool tongue.”

  Where I would have ardently contested his summation of my history, I had no chance. He all but wrenched me off my feet, my shoulder twisted high and straining in its socket. Faced with the very likely risk of hurting myself, I seized the back of his shirt in my hand for balance and did my best to keep up with his stride.