A Study in Silks (23 page)

But Nick had no intention of surrendering. By this point, emptying out his pockets could hardly be enough to buy his safety. Striker was out for blood, and he was still coming down the stairs. Nick charged for the door, fumbling for the latch because he still couldn’t see.

He breathed a prayer of thanks when the knob finally turned and the door cracked open to the world outside. Once he reached the street, he ran, aiming for the shortest way out of the Yellowbacks’ territory. He’d turned his right ankle landing on the marble floor, but he was used to shutting off pain. For a moment, he actually thought he’d escaped.

Then he heard the high, shrill whistle common to every streetkeeper’s gang. The universal signal for
Enemy Among Us
. He blinked hard, only able to see around the splotches in his vision, but it was enough to navigate the street. He
pushed harder, aiming for the busiest streets, hoping the crowds could provide some basic protection. Nick’s lungs burned with London’s filthy air.

As he scrambled through the throngs of shoppers, his vision cleared. He almost wished it hadn’t. The shadows between buildings suddenly teemed with ragged Yellowbacks. Nick dodged between carriages, behind barrows and signboards, doing his best to disappear from sight. It didn’t work. A glance over his shoulder showed him a stampede of pursuers.

He turned down Piccadilly, then down Swallow, finally rounding onto Regent Street. He pounded past gentlemen’s clubs and whorehouses—the best of everything could be bought and sold here—and slipped between two buildings just when his heart threatened to burst.

Nick leaned against the bricks, chest heaving. He was faster, but the pack of Yellowbacks wouldn’t be far behind. Their blood was up and the chase begun. It would only end when they dragged him down like a wounded stag or he vanished into thin air.

Obviously, his choice was the latter. He glanced around and then up. The building was only two stories high, the mortar half gone from its sides. There was no time to hesitate; he jumped, grabbing at the worn grooves between the bricks, and started to climb, ignoring the protests from his ankle. His fingers dug into the gritty, cold crevices, his arms and chest bunching painfully as he dragged himself up. His toes scraped and pawed until the soft soles of his boots found purchase—and then he was away.

It was an easy ascent, and it gave him a moment to think. Striker had been spoiling for a fight and had been quick to give his name. And he’d been quick to show off his arsenal. All that told Nick he was ambitious. He wanted word to get out that the Gold King’s streetkeeper was a man to be feared. The last thing he wanted was Nick noising it about that he had skipped away from Striker’s net scot-free.

But where had a street thug got such weapons? The worst he’d ever encountered in London’s back alleys was a crazy old soldier who had somehow stolen a howitzer left over
from Waterloo. There were suddenly more important questions afoot than how Tobias Roth spent his idle afternoons—questions like how Nick would survive to taste his supper.

Nick grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself up. The pitch was mercifully slight, and he was able to crawl a few feet and collapse to catch his breath. All around him, roofs peaked and rippled like a slate ocean.

The key he had grabbed from Striker’s neck poked him as he lay there. He fished in his pocket with stiff fingers and pulled out the bright key on its grubby chain of rusting gray metal. It had been foolish to grab it, a whim based on pride more than logic. Then again, pride was all he had. And curiosity. What was the key for?

That was a question for another day, when he wasn’t scrambling to survive. Nick stuffed the thing back into his pocket, then prodded his sore ankle. It felt like it was swelling inside his boot. Bad news, when he had two performances on the morrow. He had to get back to the circus and take care of it.

Nick crawled cautiously up the roof, keeping low. Hot from exertion, he unbuttoned his coat, letting the spring breeze touch his skin. From a higher vantage point, he made out the route back to safe territory. Some of the buildings along the street hugged its curve, sporting flat-roofed porticos just made for Nick to run on. He could travel for some distance before he would be forced to drop back down to street level. He hoped by then Striker would have lost track of him. With luck, he had already.

He’d almost reached the peak of the roof when he heard a noise like a rifle shot. He thought he saw a plume of smoke, then a grappling hook shaped like a heavy, brass octopus snagged the gutter. Astonished, Nick stared as it clattered and scraped a moment before grabbing hold.

Nick drew the knife strapped to his hip, edging sideways down the roof toward the hook. A glance down showed the top of Striker’s spiky head as the man swarmed up the rope dangling from the octopus. Other Yellowbacks were clustered on the street below, their faces turned up like pale
blossoms. When they saw Nick, a derisive hoot rose up, making passing shoppers skitter nervously into the street.

Well, this was easily solved. Nick dropped to his knees and immediately hacked at the rope. But the thrust of his blade struck something solid, sending a shock up his arm. To his utter surprise, the knife glanced off it. The rope wasn’t rope. It was made of dull metal fashioned in tiny flexible sections, jointed like a lobster’s tail. If there was hemp involved, it was inside armor hard enough to turn a blade. Frustrated, he stabbed at the joints with the tip, trying to wedge the knife between them. The blade snapped in two.

With a spurt of alarm, Nick dropped his knife hilt and scrambled up the rooftop, building up speed for a leap to the next building. He made the jump easily, but when he hit the next roof, pain shot up his right foot as if he’d landed on a sword point. Nick rolled, a cry escaping him before he could stifle it. After a long moment of dizzying agony, he got to his feet, refusing to limp. If he lost command of his balance, he would never survive the next hour.

Pain turned him cold, then sweat began to trickle down his back. This roof was flat and easy to cross, but the seconds spent nursing his injury had cost him. Halfway to the next jump, he heard a thud that said Striker was just behind. His step faltered, agony slowing him down despite his refusal to accept that the chase was over.

“Stop, Gypsy boy.”

Nick stopped. “Let me go.” His hands slid over his jacket, looking for one last trick, one last weapon.

“Sorry, boyo. Too many eyes on you to give you a pass.”

“How unfortunate.” Nick’s fingers closed on the long, thin shape of Evelina’s silver paper knife. With a flutter of dark satisfaction, he pulled it out, wheeled, and threw it in the same smooth motion.

It was a trick he performed every night—sometimes blindfolded, sometimes standing on the back of a galloping mare. The knife sank deep into the soft meat of Striker’s thigh, aimed right where the heavy leather skirt of the coat parted in front. The man yelped in pain, then fell to his knees, then collapsed on his side, moaning in agony. Another
few inches, and he would have lost his equipment. A single inch, and the blade would have cut an artery. But Nick had put the knife exactly where he’d meant to.

Nick wasted no time. He staggered, hopped, and ran for the next rooftop, leaving Striker at the mercy of the other Yellowbacks. And he kept running, circling back almost to Old Bond Street, looking for a place where he could drop onto the roof of one of the steam-powered omnibuses, or maybe find his way down to an underground station where the trains ran beneath the streets. He had to get away—and soon—because the Yellowbacks would be out for his blood.

Unfortunately, he had let himself be led more by which rooftops were the easiest to cross than by which went in a direct path. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was. He stopped, dropping to his stomach and crawling to the edge of the roofline. In a moment, he had found his bearings, but he had also found something else.

Tobias Roth, walking across a courtyard. They were several streets away from the tailor’s shop, and whatever Roth was up to had nothing to do with fashion. He had shed his fine coat in exchange for a workmen’s smock, his soft-soled shoes for a pair of shabby boots. What, by the Dark Mother, was Roth doing?

Nick inched forward, trying to get a better look. The courtyard was surrounded by high walls, making it invisible from the street. On one side was a warehouse. The large double doors stood open, showing the inside was full of mechanical detritus, a woodstove, and a few pieces of derelict furniture.

Nick sucked in a breath, half in wonder, half in bitterness. This was the workshop! Nick had thought Magnus half cracked, thinking His Lordship, his son, or both were playing with machinery. But the doctor was right. Nick had never heard of a toff playing with greasy springs and wheels—dirt might get lodged around his nails, after all—but there was Tobias Roth, dressed for honest work.

Roth stopped in the middle of the yard, falling deep into conversation with another man of his own age. They were discussing some sort of contraption that looked to Nick like
a giant metal insect with most of its legs pulled off. It lay belly-up on the ground, a few limbs stuck straight into the air. That must have once been the opera-eating monster.

Look at all those parts
, Nick thought. Where did Roth get them? Did he have the Gold King’s permission, or did rich bastards get to build whatever they wanted? And all those resources were being squandered on a gigantic toy—not a generator for light, or a pump to move clean water uphill. He didn’t understand the rich.

Nick pulled back, taking care not to be seen.
So, did the Golden Boy go in the front of the tailor’s shop, then out the back door to come here?
Maybe Roth wasn’t as stupid as Nick had assumed. But what was Tobias doing, and why was he trying to keep it a secret?

Nick pondered the broken machine, turning what he knew of the young man over and over in his mind, and then adding what he’d read in the papers over the last few days. A slow smile began tugging at the corners of his mouth, finally breaking into a grin. Perhaps the metal monstrosity wasn’t an entire waste. He had to admit, Tobias Roth knew how to put on a show. Not at Nick’s level, but not bad for an amateur. And as an inventor, the toff had a wealth of raw talent.

He knew instinctively that this was exactly what Dr. Magnus wanted to know.

EVELINA HAD JUST FINISHED REPAIRING HER NECKLACE WHEN
the afternoon paper arrived. The two dead men were Lord Bancroft’s grooms. Grace was no longer the only victim among the staff. The papers had made no mention of the men’s names, or where they had worked, but the Peelers had come asking questions for the second time in less than a week. If Evelina wanted to keep Lestrade from finding anything that would hurt Imogen’s family, she had to find answers, and fast.

Now Evelina stood in the dusty gloom of the attic, candle in hand, searching for a clue. The automatons hadn’t reappeared with a sinister clap of thunder. The closest item was a headless dress form with a pincushion topping its neck. And an hour of searching had produced no more information than she already had.

It was time to go back downstairs. Evelina knelt, peering under a trunk. “Time to go.”

A faint whirring was accompanied by the patter of tiny, tiny paws.

“Come on, stop mucking about,” she said impatiently. A minuscule nose popped out from under the trunk. Dust bunnies clung to its fine steel whiskers.
I discovered twelve misanthropic spiders and a nest of wary moths, but sadly there is a paucity of information on demon-possessed automatons. Mind you, this is an attic, and I am a mouse. You might have made me a researcher at the Bodleian, able to—let’s be rash here—actually read and turn pages. But, no. You went for cute and amusing, ergo, I am a rodent. If you think I’m going to squeak adorably, you have lessons to learn
.

“Oh, do be quiet. And who said anything about demons?” The automatons had dark magic clinging to them, but thankfully they hadn’t been demon-class evil.

I’m improvising
.

“You’re whining.” That’s what she got for using another earth deva.

But temperament aside, her latest creation worked beautifully. The mouse had been her idea for indoor spying. Its dark, etched coat looked almost real in the dim light. She picked it up gently, balancing it on her palm.

The lark she’d sent after Lestrade had not come back. She had forgotten to specify
when
it was to return with news. It might show up tomorrow, or sometime in the next century. A classic mistake when casting a spell. She didn’t have time to wait, so she’d brought her second toy to life with the deva that had found her in the oak tree—a comeuppance for taunting her when she had slipped from the branch.