by Lynn Viehl
“I’m an officer of the law, Kit, and until I’ve sorted this out, you’re in my custody.” He nodded toward the mug. “Now be a good gel and drink your tea.”
I pretended to take a sip. Because it was so strong and bitter, country black was regarded as more of a man’s drink. Customarily served as a morning brew, it roused sluggards from their beds and sent them off braced to build another bit of the Empire. Not at all the sort of thing to be serving to a lady at night, unless of course one had other motives.
I reached into my pocket, springing the back latch on Da’s pocket watch that opened the back of the case, and removed one of the dippers before I pretended to check the time. Then, as Doyle fixed his own mug, I checked the tea.
Fortunately for me Tom’s crockery was all plain heavy white china, the sort a bachelor who hated female frippery bought for himself. When he came to sit beside me on the settee, he placed his own mug next to mine.
“The sandwiches were scrumptious; you should give up being a cop and cater picnics and hen parties instead.” I handed him the empty plate. “Could I have two more of those ham sandwiches? They’re absolutely delicious.”
As soon as his back was turned I took care of the present problem, and smiled when he brought me the food.
“Lovely, thank you.” I settled back and let my eyelids droop a little. “Tell me something, Doyle. Why haven’t you found yourself a wife yet?”
“I don’t know,” he said, testing the tea before taking a swallow. “Mum says I’m too particular. Da says it’s the job.”
I used my hand to cover a yawn. “What do you say?”
He gave me the oddest look. “Could be that I was waiting for you.”
“For twenty-odd years? My, you’ve patience.” I uttered a sleepy chuckle as I pillowed my head against my arm and the backrest. With Tommy Doyle it would be courtship, then engagement, then marriage and a house full of little ones. I would never give up what little freedom I had left for that, but still I felt as if I’d been given a tremendous compliment. “Well, whether that’s true or not, I think your grandda would have approved.”
“He said we were meant for each other, but then he adored you almost as much as I did.” He hunched his shoulders and gulped his tea. “I’m going to send you to my folks’ place in the morning.”
I watched him through half-closed eyes.
“You’ll stay on the farm until I sort this out.” He put down the empty mug and turned toward me, and put his hand over mine. “Then we’ll see if Grandfather was right about us.”
On impulse, I leaned forward and brushed my lips across his mouth. He stiffened, and then reached for me, only to look down at the hands that fell against his thighs. “Kit . . . you . . .”
“I switched the mugs,” I confirmed, catching him as he began to topple forward. “It was the country black that gave it away. It’s the only tea strong enough to mask the taste of sleeping powder.” I eased him back against the cushions. “That’s why you didn’t bother to shackle me to the furniture. You didn’t think you’d have to.”
“Don’t . . . go,” he said, slurring the words. “He’ll . . .”
“I’m sure you’re right.” I got up and retrieved the crazy patch from the armchair and draped it over him. “But I made a promise to the man, and it’s one I have to keep.” I waited until his head slumped over before I helped myself to several things, including the heavy trench and long brim I found hanging on his coatrack. “Good-bye, Tommy.”
As soon as I slipped out of Doyle’s back door, the raw slap of air against my face reminded me that I couldn’t chase after Dredmore on foot. I needed transportation that would conceal as well as convey me.
A quick peek inside the window of the carriwright’s shop revealed about a dozen wagons, carts, and carris, all in various stages of disrepair. The lock on the back door would be simple to pick, but the carris would make too much racket, and I had no horse to draw the others. They would be watching anyone approaching the docks, too.
As I stepped back, my foot shuffled over the lip of an access hatch. The old sewer lines on the Hill and in the smarter quarters of the city had been sealed off or filled in, but here in the working quarter they hadn’t bothered. Hedger had once told me that before the city’s incinerators had been installed, all the old sewer lines had emptied out directly into the sea.
I hadn’t forgotten the old tunneler’s last warning, though: Ye’re to go now, and ye’re not to come back down here, do ye understand? Never again. I glanced up at the sky. Dawn would arrive in another hour, and so would the invasion. “Harry? Harry, where are you? I need you.”
My grandfather’s almost-transparent form appeared before me. “Ready to leave, then?”
“I’m going belowground,” I told him. “You’re coming along.”
“You can’t hide from it down there,” Harry snapped. “Nor can I help—”
“Oh, shut up, Harry.” I crouched down and with some difficulty released the old hatch. “I’m not asking for your help. All you need do is come with me.”
I climbed down the ladder and made my way through the malodorous confines of the old sewer, but as soon as I emerged into the tube junction Harry took on more substance and moved ahead to block my path.
“You’re as daft as you are stubborn,” he told me. “Zarath is not Dredmore. He’s not even a man. He hasn’t the slightest regard for mortals. He’ll crush you, Charmian, with no more than a pebble and a few words. Or he’ll do things to you to make you wish you were dead.”
Hearing him use my given name only made me think of Lucien and want to throttle my grandfather. “Mr. Hedgeworth,” I called out as loud as I dared. “I know the rounds have you in this section of the tunnels now. If you’re watching us, please, come out.”
The old tunneler emerged from behind a cluster of tubes. He’d wrapped his stooped body in layers of thick meshing and held a pair of wicked-looking cudgels in his hands. “Get out of me tunnels”—he pointed one of the clubs at Harry—“and take that thing with ye.”
I glanced at Harry. “How can he see you?”
“Long story,” my grandfather mumbled back.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hedgeworth, but we can’t. I am in desperate need of your help. My grandfather also wishes to make amends for whatever caused this rift between the two of you.” I turned to Harry. “You go first.”
My grandfather made an exasperated sound. “For God’s sake, Archibald. Put down those things.” As the old man eyed me, he added, “Obviously I’ve not possessed her. Nor has any other.”
“Not yet,” Hedger agreed. “With what she can do, won’t be long. Without that ginny bauble hanging about her neck she glows like a right black beacon. Soon as they come for the citizens they’ll take her, too.” He jabbed one of the cudgels toward me. “And that’s why ye’ll go topside, Miss Kit, this very moment, or I’ll finish ye meself.”
“You see? It’s hopeless. You’ve no option but to leave Rumsen and save yourself.” Harry’s tone grew wheedling. “You’re the last of my mortal bloodline, Charm. I can’t lose you.”
“You never had me, Harry.” To the old tunneler, I said, “Mr. Hedgeworth, you may do exactly as you wish to me. From the sound of things, bashing in my skull will probably be a kindness.”
Hedger’s arm tightened, and for a moment I thought he really would strike me. With great reluctance he lowered the club and scowled. “If ye were a lad, I’d not hesitate, ye know.”
I kept my expression respectful. “Thank you, sir.”
Hedger jabbed his other cudgel at Harry. “If she’s truly the last, then ye tell her everything. All of it, ye hear me?”
“He’ll tell me later,” I assured him. “For now, I must hurry. Can you tell me if any of the old sewer lines to the docks remain open?”
“Aye.” He pointed across to a moss-covered hatch. “That one runs about three mile. Comes up into the alley behind the old fish tinnery.” As I started for it, he added, “Hang on, Miss Kit,”
and bent down to open his kipbag.
“I’ll go on ahead and check the line. Wait here.” Harry floated through the closed hatch and vanished.
“Spineless sod.” The old tunneler rummaged through his bag for a moment before he produced what looked like a large, rusty nail, which he tossed to me.
I caught it and turned it over in my hands. “I can’t really use this, Mr. Hedgeworth.”
“ ’Tis an iron rail tie. Only thing what gets rid of Harry’s sort, permanent-like.” He tapped the left side of his chest. “Plant it in the heart, straight through. As the body dies, the iron traps ’em inside it. They’re dragged off with the departed spirit, and can’t ever come back.”
The blunt end of the rusty spike suggested that the only place I’d be planting it would be the ground, but to avoid more arguments I nodded. “I appreciate the advice.” On impulse I walked to him and kissed his whiskery cheek. “I’ll be all right, you know.”
He looked over my shoulder at the hatch before he muttered, “Ye’d be all right shed of him, Miss Kit. Harry’s naught but trouble and tragedy awaiting ye.”
“He’s my family.” There, I’d said it. Out loud I’d claimed Harry as my kin. It didn’t feel as terrible as I’d thought it might. “Why are you so angry with him, Mr. Hedgeworth?”
He shuffled his feet. “Ye won’t like knowing.”
“I don’t like not knowing,” I said.
Hedger heaved out a long breath. “Me family were miners in Cornwall, cross the pond. Every man I knew and called mate worked down in the shafts.” He shifted on his feet as he scowled, but his expression appeared more pained than angry. “One shift we hit a gas pocket, the tunnel blows, and we’re trapped, fifty of us. Air goes thin, and we know we’re done for, so we make our peace with it.”
“Fifty of you.” I felt horrified. “But surely you were rescued?”
“We were too deep, Miss Kit. Weren’t nothing could be done for us.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “All the others had blacked out, and I were a blink from it when I saw a bit of pretty speckled stone, all the colors of the rainbow, and picked it up for luck. Soon as it’s in me hand, Harry shows up. Like some angel to save us.” He started to say something, paused, and then shook his head.
“You don’t have to tell me any more, Mr. Hedgeworth,” I hurried to assure him. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. I can tell ye. I have to, I think.” He looked down at his battered waders. “Harry led me out some back tunnel none of us knew were there. He’d been digging himself, ye see. But as soon as I’m topside, everything goes black again. Harry, he were in spirit form. Took me body over so he could use me to do sommat his spy business for him.”
I winced. “But he did save your lives.”
“Aye. One. Me life.” He spat on the ground. “While he was riding me about like a carri, the rest of me brothers and mates choked to death in that hole. Forty-nine men, Miss Kit. After, when I was shed of him and came to, I went back to me village. Seen all me brothers’ wives in black, all the other widows, and then everyone crowded round, wanting to know how I got out. How I could leave ’em behind. When I told ’em about Harry and what he did, they thought I’d gone mad. Tried to send me to the loony bin, afore I nipped out of there, signed on a cargo ship, and came here. So yeah, Harry saved me life. It just cost me home, me family, me mates, everything in the world I cared for.”
I knew exactly how that felt. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hedgeworth.”
“Ah, weren’t none of yer doing, lass.” He looked a little embarrassed now. “I shouldna’ve scared ye with me clubs. Ye’re a good gel. Only make the old bugger mind ye, not the other way round.”
“I’ll do my best.” I took out my father’s pocket watch. “Harry’s been gone almost ten minutes.”
Hedger made a rude sound. “Ye still think he’s coming back for ye?”
I couldn’t afford to wait and find out. Since I couldn’t drift through the hatch like Harry, I asked Hedger to help me pry it open.
Just as I stepped inside, he touched my shoulder. “He’ll never tell ye anything unless ye force it out of him, Miss Kit. If naught else, make him tell ye his name. His true name, what he was born with, afore all the others.”
I frowned, but before I could ask him what he meant the old tunneler scurried off, disappearing behind the snarl of tubes.
I turned and started down the old line. The rounded walls remained coated with a layer of dried, caked-on mold, and the lingering stench was equally alluring. But there was enough room for me to walk upright, and I didn’t encounter any living vermin along the way.
I knew I was getting close to the tinnery when I picked up the scents of old fish, brackish water, damp rope, and tar. Although Rumsen’s fish market had relocated to the north side of the docks, where the fish merchants had built their new canning factories, the old tinnery was still used by anyone who needed inside space to work, mostly hull menders, trap builders, and net makers.
When I came to the end of the line I encountered the rotting wood of the planks nailed over the sea outlet, and carefully climbed up the rickety ladder to the topside hatch. I emerged in an empty alley just behind the tinnery, and stopped only to brush from my head and shoulders the snow that I’d dislodged coming up.
Harry’s form took shape beside me, but almost immediately he moved several feet away. “Archibald gave you iron.”
“A nice, big rail spike.” I patted my pocket. “Can I try it out on you, see if it works like he said it would?”
“There’s a more pressing matter.” He pointed out to sea. “The Reaper ships are beginning to appear on the horizon. Once their army is in place, all Zarath will have to do is cast a spell, wake the dreamstone, and take whatever he likes.”
“Dreamstone, icestone, spirit stone,” I taunted. “Why can’t you mages do anything without these bloody rocks?”
“They’re all that’s left of Aramantha,” Harry told me. “The rest of it the ocean swallowed long ago, after the first mage war. That is how old and powerful we are, Charm. You can’t fight my sort or kill them. You can never defeat them. Get away from here while you still can.”
I looked at the cluster of vessels coming in with the tide. They were large military galleons flying Talian colors. “If I kill Dredmore before Zarath’s army arrives, and I keep Zarath from possessing any other body, what happens then?”
“Without a physical form to channel and project his power, Zarath will be unable to use it. None of the other mages in his service have his gift for marshalling armies. If the men choose to fight, they’ll have to battle like ordinary men.” Harry glared at me. “These immortals aren’t fools. You’ll never get close enough. Even if you could kill Dredmore, Zarath will jump from him to the next warm body.” As a flicker of daylight came over the horizon, he began to fade. “For all that is holy, Charm, please. When the fighting begins I have to retreat to the netherside.”
“Why?” When he didn’t answer I stamped my foot. “Harry, you can’t be neutral anymore. You have to choose a side.”
He shook his head. “Run, gel. Run for your life.”
I had no burning desire to be Rumsen’s savior. Since I’d come here, the city had shown no particular affection for me. Nor did I want to kill Dredmore, who despite being an arrogant ass had cared for me in his own fashion. I even understood why Harry didn’t wish to get involved; this business between the Reapers and the Tillers was none of mine.
But there were the women of the city, the women who were so often treated like so many nameless cattle, who would not know to run away. Carina, and Bridget, the cartlass round the corner from my building, they had no one to defend them. Even Lady Diana Walsh, snob that she was, would be left helpless before Zarath—and from what I had seen in his bloody eyes, the women would be made to suffer unthinkable horrors.
I waited until my grandfather had almost faded from sight before I said, “I’m staying, Harry, and I’m fighting.”
“S
o like my Connie,” he replied, but he was still shaking his head when he vanished.
Once Harry had gone my courage wanted to accompany him. To keep from changing my mind I crept along the back of the tinnery and peeked round the corner at the docks, which stood empty. Zarath and his men had either not arrived, or had taken refuge in one of the cargo houses to wait for the ships.
As I put together a plan, the wind off the sea made Tommy’s coat flap. I cinched it tight and pulled the long brim down before I darted across to one of the scale shacks where fish were brought to be weighed. I opened the door to the stench of death, and the sight of a woman’s mangled corpse.
“I’ll be.” Something batted the long brim from my head. “If it isn’t Dredmore’s little tart.” A hard hand spun me round, and Montrose leered at me. “Nipped away from the beaters? You should have stayed in jail.”
“Cousin Monty. How delightful to see you again.” I looked round for Zarath and the others, but Walsh’s son appeared to be alone. “Where are your Talian mates, then?”
“Waiting in the cargo house with the master.” He gestured toward the largest of them. “Zarath sent me to see if you’d crawled out the rubbish yet. Don’t know how he knew you’d show yourself, but he did.”
My heart sank a little. “How could he know I was here?”
“Felt you like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Seems the spirit-eater fancies the taste of cheap trollop. Meant to come back to the hotel to collect you for him once we’d finished some business.” He smirked as he nodded at the dead woman. “Likes to play with them a bit first. Not especially careful, either.”
“But I’d much rather be your plaything, Monty.” I sidled up to him. “You wanted your da to give me to you, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He reached down and pinched my buttock through my skirts. “So you fancy it with me, then?”
