A Study in Darkness (20 page)

“You would be too tempting if somebody saw you. You’d end up in a pawn shop or sold for scrap in minutes. And there’s nobody else who can look after Im.”

And how shall we defend maiden fair?
demanded Mouse.
Shall I nibble at her persecutor’s toes?

“You can go for help.”

Bird gave an indignant cheep.
Last time we did that, I ended up in pieces on a streetkeeper’s workbench
.

“If something bad happens, find Uncle Sherlock. He’ll know what to do.” Her uncle couldn’t speak to the devas, but he’d figure it out. Probably using something involving an algorithm, semaphores, and cigar ashes. “Go to Hilliard House and wait for Imogen to come home.”

Mouse cleaned its whiskers.
This sounds like an ill-conceived plan. I don’t see how you’re going to manage without us
.

“I’ll manage if I know Imogen isn’t going to end up marched down the aisle into a marriage she doesn’t want.”

But we belong to you
. Bird huddled in the hollow under her ear, leaning its cold body against her skin. Mouse scampered up her knee, rising on its haunches to peer up at her from its bright black eyes. A soft pain crawled up her chest, threatening to turn her resolve to jelly.

I’m so afraid
, she thought, but kept the words in the most private place inside her that even the devas could not hear.
I’m so afraid I can’t do this
.

But when the train stopped at Paddington Station, all Evelina took with her was the carpetbag. Two tiny figures left the platform the other way, keeping to the invisible places as only devas could.

IMOGEN DREAMED, AND AGAIN THE DREAMS BEGAN WITH
the nightmare of being suffocated. But this time that part passed quickly, and she was once again standing on a dirty street. It was dark, the air chill and clammy, and it smelled of horses and vaguely like rotting fish, as if the river might be nearby. The blue haze of a distant streetlight touched veils of moisture in the air—not quite fog, but working toward it.

Before her was a gate about ten feet high, and something was on the sidewalk before it, almost at her feet. Imogen could see the shape, but she didn’t want to look closely. She concentrated instead on other things—the row housing to one side, the big building, maybe a school or a hospital, to the other. Some part of her knew with gut-churning urgency that looking would be bad. But this was a nightmare, and so her chin tilted down, her eyes refusing to squeeze shut.

I looked inside
, said the presence,
and I couldn’t find anything that answered my question
.

The thing on the ground was—had been—a woman, her skirts pulled up to show a savage wound to her belly. Imogen squinted, her mind not making sense of the shadowy ruin, and her gaze quickly skittered away to the woman’s face. Like the woman from the other dream, this person wasn’t young. Her black straw bonnet had rolled a little distance away, and Imogen could see gray in the woman’s hair.

And she could see the seeping slash at the woman’s throat.
She’s still bleeding!
That meant there was a chance she was still alive.

Imogen knelt, bending over the woman’s face. She heard a faint gasp of breath, and saw the glitter of her eyes. Imogen lifted her hand to cover the wound, maybe stop the bleeding, and saw that it was already covered in blood. The woman’s eyes flared in panic, a horrible sound emerging from her ruined throat. Reflexively, Imogen looked down at her own body.

Her other hand held a knife.

Imogen sat straight up in bed, sucking in her breath. The sudden movement left her light-headed and she quickly sank back to her pillow, the tear-dampened linen already clammy and chill. She pulled the blanket up to her ears, eyes wide and staring into the dim light, afraid.

She’d hoped that Evelina’s presence would stop the dreams, but her friend had barely arrived before she was gone again. And since that night—and Tobias’s guilt and Evelina’s tight-lipped grief—the dreams had come back worse than ever.
This time I killed someone
. She could still sense the stink of ripped bowels, the thick slickness of blood between her fingers. She poked a hand out from under the cover, examining the pale outline of her fingers in the glow of her guttering candle. There was nothing to see.
Am I going mad?

She hadn’t had a nightmare quite that bad since she’d been a little girl. That was when the dreams of the dark, suffocating place had started. The doctors said a violent shock could cause such things, and back then they had blamed it all on the death of her sister. Poor little Im, sick in bed and bereft of her double. No doubt she’d been stricken to the core of her soul.

Actually, she didn’t remember Anna with any fondness. They’d been identical twins, but their similarity ended with their looks. Anna was vivacious, Imogen shy. Anna charmed the adults with her curtsies and pirouettes, but Imogen preferred a book and her puppy. Anna broke the china, and
Imogen took the blame. In truth, sweet Anna had been a little savage, as mean to her sister as only children could be. Everyone assumed she would grow out of her spiteful streak, but Imogen wasn’t sure. There had been something out of tune in her sister, like a violin left too long in a damp attic.

However, since no one spoke ill of the dead, Imogen had kept that to herself once Anna had gone to ashes and dust. After all, she’d survived, and that should be victory enough. And yet the dreams hadn’t gone away. They clutched at her like a tiny hand plucking her sleeve from the other side of the grave, a flickering, grasping shadow cast across her soul.

Imogen rolled over to face the candle. The flame shivered in the drafty room, undulating like a dancing imp. She had been able to live with the dreams when they were persistent but relatively mild. A sleepless night now and again could be overlooked. But something had changed, the wisp of malevolent shadow gathering into a storm.

One that she wasn’t sure she was going to survive.

“
THERE IS A SEA SERPENT IN THE LOCH
,
THEY SAY
,”
SAID THE
man who sat on the other side of the overturned barrel from Nick. They were using it as a chess table, a sturdy bench on either side. “I didn’t see it, but that’s not to say it wasn’t there.”

“Too bad I didn’t know that sooner,” Nick replied, surveying his black pieces carefully. So far he had lost three Steamers and a streetkeeper, but had taken Mycroft’s white engine and one baron—though he had sweated for those pieces. “I could have flown over Loch Ness and had a look.”

“I half expect it’s one of the maker’s creations meant to scare the council’s army.”

The rebels were secretive enough to try something like that. The Schoolmaster’s real instructions, stuffed into Nick’s pocket at the last moment, had only given coordinates. A casual observer would never have guessed the name of their destination in the misty Scottish wilds. Loch Ness, complete with sea serpent. Why was it that Nick never landed a simple job?

The
Red Jack
had dropped off the package, spent a few days at the new rebel headquarters, and then picked up the goods and passenger the Schoolmaster had asked they take to London. Half Nick’s payment had been waiting for him. The other half would be at the drop-off point near London.

Casting a glance at his opponent, Nick wondered if he should have charged extra. He could hear the motors straining to keep the
Jack
aloft. Even with an air deva, there was only so much a ship could do.

Mycroft Holmes was not a small man. He was about forty, as tall as his brother but several Sherlocks wide, and with none of the younger man’s mercurial energy. Instead, there was a patient stillness in the man’s steel-gray gaze that Nick had seen in the best marksmen.

Nick moved one of his Steamers forward a square. “The loch seems like an awkward place to raise an army. Far away, bad supply lines, and the like.”

“Who says that is what they are doing?” Mycroft replied, the merest suggestion of a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. Nick studied him, looking for a family resemblance to Evie. There wasn’t much beyond the dark hair, but he did have some of Sherlock’s mannerisms—the way he held his glass between his thumb and middle finger and the way he waved away an argument that didn’t please him. And beyond that, Nick felt a familiar and irritating sense of being in the presence of someone much smarter than he was. Mycroft slid his remaining baron a few squares, and Nick felt a tickle at the back of his neck that said he’d better look to his queen.

“I know a little about the rebels and what they are doing,” Nick ventured. “They keep calling on me to run their missions.”

“Is that a problem?”

“I didn’t sign on with their cause.” He moved his streetkeeper into a defensive position.

“No?”

“The
Red Jack
is a pirate ship, plain and simple. Attack, plunder, burn, smuggle when it suits us.” Over a tankard of beer, that always sounded easy. “Not that I mind giving the council a black eye now and again, but why me?”

“Sherlock recommended you.”

Surprise brought Nick’s gaze up from the board to the man’s heavy-jowled face. “By the dark furies, why?”

“You stole Athena’s Casket from Jasper Keating. You won the loyalty of his streetkeeper and together you killed the sorcerer Magnus. You put yourself in harm’s way to keep our niece from danger. We want you on our side.” And he promptly took another one of Nick’s Steamers. “Check.”

Bloody hell
. Nick scowled at the board. “That’s a leap of faith on your part.”

Mycroft watched him carefully. “I understand our niece is very fond of you.”

Nick couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be a good thing or a bad one, but he doubted it was true anymore. Yes, they’d grown up together and been sweethearts, but as they’d got older the magic had become a problem. To put it simply, Nick and Evelina’s powers were fine when apart, but together they were disastrous.

“Evelina is a fine lady,” he said diplomatically.

“But you are still friendly?”

“Her life is very different from mine.”
She’s a lady. I’m a pirate. Sounds like a plot for a comic opera
.

Even Nick’s magic was so different that no one had been able to train him to use it. Anything more than a casual touch—such as anything two young lovers might do behind the stables—had sparked a flood of raw, wild power. Gran Cooper—who knew what there was to know of such things—had called it wild magic. Devas flocked to it like butterflies to nectar, and the chaos caused by a swarm of inebriated devas was impossible to hide. In a world where
magic carried a death sentence, such power could have cost the lives of every member of Ploughman’s circus.

Nick had been desperate to find a solution, even if Gran Cooper denied one could be found. But right when things were at their worst, Evelina had left without a word. It had taken him years to find her again. But then she had sent him away.

Mycroft rested one elbow on the barrel, propping up his head. “Please take this the right way when I say that I approve of your keeping a distance from Evelina. She is wise beyond her years, but still of an impressionable age and headstrong disposition. My brother, Sherlock, is too prone to give her liberty. And while I applaud your enterprise and daring, I am cautious about encouraging her friendship with a, um—”

“Pirate?” Nick finished for him.
Pompous ass
. But he wasn’t sure he’d want his daughter keeping company with some younger version of himself, either.

“ ’Scuse me, Captain,” came a voice to Nick’s right.

He looked up to see Digby standing there. “Yes?”

The helmsman looked exasperated to the point of tears. “I’m wondering if you could have a word with the ship, like. I’m trying to steer southwest and Athena keeps going the other way.”

Nick felt the warm touch of the deva in his mind. Gran Cooper had been wrong about his magic being too wild to tame. Athena had taught him much, showing him things mind to mind in ways no human could. It was as if he were an orphan no longer, finally finding something to which he belonged. “Tell me, Athena.”