The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul) (6 page)

“Gabriel Brinkman at your service, Lord Denbury,” he said in a gently refined accent that I guessed came from a London elite. Though I knew little about England and its regionalisms, I could tell upper class from common well enough. “And who might this feisty young lady be?” he asked, offering a dazzling smile that dimpled lean cheeks. “I saw a telling flash of silver.” He bowed his head to me. “An impressively quick draw, miss.” He then turned to Jonathon. “Hiring a female bodyguard? Very clever and very good cover, sir.”

Jonathon offered a slight smile, but I could tell he wanted to laugh. I said nothing and tried to look menacing. I doubted it worked, but both gentlemen seemed to enjoy it. Jonathon introduced me only as “a colleague” and gave no name. If Brinkman was a good spy, he’d figure it out. Brinkman narrowed his bright eyes at me and did.

“You must be Miss Stewart. I had a look through the files pertaining to your portrait, Lord Denbury, and the goings on surrounding it. Sergeant James Patt seemed all too glad to have your nonsense wrapped up and to have pinned the blame on someone, batty Mister Crenfall, eh?”

“Well, he
was
an accomplice,” Jonathon replied. “He was the broker who facilitated the transfer of my portrait and...incapacitated body onto these shores. Justice was served in his arrest, certainly.”

“Indeed.” Brinkman nodded. “As for the rest of the justice... You’ve taken that upon yourselves, have you?” While his tone held no judgment, neither of us were sure how we should reply. Brinkman continued. “Patt gave me leave to peruse your diary, Miss Stewart. And am I to presume that it is true?”

I blushed. He’d have read all the kissing bits in that diary. That was
so
unfair.

“It is,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I stake my life on it,” Jonathon replied. “The life that is wholly in her debt, you’ll know from having read her accounts.”

Brinkman smiled at me again. That didn’t help the blush. “You’re a very good writer, Miss Stewart.” Even worse. There went the heat of my cheeks a few degrees further. He released me from his stare and turned again to Jonathon. “My contact, Mister Knowles, tells me you met a certain ‘Majesty,’ and there has been correspondence.” Jonathon nodded. “May I see it, please? Do you have it with you?”

Jonathon reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a letter with the familiar, insidious red and gold seal of The Master’s Society, the one he’d withheld from me pertaining to the offices and looking in on Stevens. “They have three avenues of experimentation,” Jonathon explained. “Splitting the soul from the body, I was the unfortunate test on that. Reanimation had us dealing with poor Doctor Preston. And now, pharmacology, with the chemical given to Veil’s Associates.” He lifted up the note and proffered it to Brinkman for perusal. “This may have come before what you assume was the undoing of my cover in Doctor Preston’s death. How should I proceed with this Doctor Stevens? I went to the offices herein, but there is nothing there.”

“Are you entirely sure about that?” Brinkman asked.

“Indeed. I’ve a way of…seeing things,” Jonathon replied carefully, keeping the particulars of his new gifts out of the discussion. “No living soul was present there.”

“
Seeing
things?”

“Keen eyes, Mister Brinkman,” I offered quietly. “I do hope you have them too.”

“Things are never exactly as they seem at first glance with the Society,” Brinkman replied cryptically.

“And you? Are you as you seem at first glance?” I queried. “What reason do we have to trust you?”

Jonathon flashed me a warning glance not to be too harsh and was quick to add: “I’ve my reasons for why I will trust you, Mister Brinkman. But I also have ways of knowing if you’ve betrayed me to my enemy, so I’d truly not suggest you do so. Are you saying I should try these addresses again?”

“I think you might find
evidence
there. Persons, no. The Master’s Society manages to operate with scant personnel that don’t keep regular patterns, the bane of any spy.”

Brinkman held up the Master’s Society letter to the light. He fished in his own breast pocket and produced a small vial with a sponge on the stopper. He uncorked the vial, brushed the damp sponge over the paper and something bloomed forth in response.

My mouth hung open a bit at this magic, and Brinkman smiled again as he explained: “Sympathetic stain. Terribly useful in espionage. Your American Revolutionary rings, that Culper set, were quite fond of it. Your troops gained many advantages passed through unsuspecting pages.” He glanced down at what had been revealed, then passed it to Jonathon. It was a date. The following Tuesday. “It is likely Master’s Society protocol, then, to encode something important within the letter. Something is obviously scheduled.”

“Another experiment?” Jonathon posed. “Should we expect for another ‘outbreak’ like what happened with Nathaniel’s Association?” He turned to his countryman. “We believe we need to find their center of operations to terminate the beast at its source. I hope you’ll help us in that quest, Mister Brinkman.”

“It changes, they’ve several offices. I’ve only pinpointed two, there may be four. They seem to like to commandeer grand spaces.”

At this, Jonathon’s jaw clenched, and his crystalline eyes darkened. “I don’t suppose you’ve any news of my Greenwich estate.”

“The situation will have to be...addressed, Lord Denbury. I don’t believe the tenants who overtook your manor are fully in control there; Knowles informed me that he thinks something is a bit off.”

“Could that be a center of operations?” I asked.

“In part, perhaps, though their focus seems to zero in on a few cities, London, New York, Chicago. That your estate got swept into this is rather an outlier, my lord,” Brinkman replied. Jonathon’s leather-gloved hand clenched, and I resisted the urge to put my lace-gloved hand over his. There was no avoiding Jonathon’s return to England. This time I wouldn’t let him go without me.

“I’d like to know those addresses, and also, do elaborate on how you know someone is ‘coming for me’ as your note intimated,” Jonathon said carefully.

“The former? Intercepted mail. The latter? Let’s say instinct. And I was trying to get your attention.”

“Idle threats may get attention but not trust,” Jonathon countered.

“If I knew exactly who or what or when something was coming for you, my lord, I’d have left you an itinerary. But I do believe they’d rather kill you than wait to see if you bested them, especially without word from Doctor Preston directly. So be on the lookout for anything and everything. Where are you staying? I’m sure I could arrange for protection.”

“I am well protected,” Jonathon assured. I wondered if Mrs. Northe had increased guards around her home. If so, they weren’t visible. The woman was artfully subtle. Brinkman bowed his head. “How can I find you, Mister Brinkman, if I have information to give you or questions to ask?”

“Here is what I know of possible property in Master’s Society hands,” the spy replied. “And don’t worry where to find me, I’ll find you.” And with that, he was again out of the still-moving carriage, the door slamming behind him.

“Well,” Jonathon and I said at the same time.

“He didn’t have any aura of the demon about him, but then again, he didn’t have any light at all. Generally speaking, when people will be of particular help, they’ve a soft white light about them. You, of course, were colored in the exact inverse hues the demon sported; thusly, I knew you could stand in direct opposition to its magic. But this fellow, curiously nothing, and for him to be so involved, I’m not sure what it means.”

“Could he be a possessed body?” I asked.

“Generally, the possessed have a flicker of fire about them, that odd sulfuric haze. I saw none of that. What do you think, were the eyes off? Did they have that dog-like reflective quality?” Jonathon replied. I shook my head. He shrugged. “Perhaps it means he’s neutral.”

“You mean he won’t help but won’t harm?”

“That’s all I can think of it.”

“Well, that’s disappointing.” I folded my arms, elbow brushing the knife hilt I’d returned to the unconventional sheath of my corset.

“And troubling,” Jonathon added, “if his allegiances are easily swayed.” He unfolded the paper.

“You’re not going alone,” I cautioned. “That you went, with that note, and tried to find—”

“That I did anything without you truly disturbs you, I realize. But you cannot mother me through everything, Natalie,” he said, an edge to his tone.

“Mother you? No, I…” I felt sounds die in my throat.
Come on, Natalie, words. Words to fight what isn’t fair.

He sighed. “I’m not ungrateful for anything, Natalie, but I also need to be able to do things for myself and on my own. Not only because I worry for your safety, but also because this is, at heart, my own personal vendetta and the only thing that sets my mind at ease is constantly thinking of the next step to best them. I will try to involve you if it seems plausible. Allow my independence, as you would wish I allow you yours,
Miss
Natalie
,” he said, driving home the point of my femininity, of the world that sought to confine me and offer me no independence whatsoever. He didn’t say it with cruelty, but with a worldliness I could not deny. I had to tread carefully with him. I could lose him at any moment, and while I was not one to beg or plead for anything, I truly wanted him in my life.

His words were not to be argued. But I did take the paper from his hand to examine the addresses before he could yank it back away from me. One was on the Upper East Side, Park and 66, the other downtown, in an area I was fairly sure was industrial, off 14
th
Street.

“Tomorrow?” Jonathon queried. “Shall we scout?”

“No, tomorrow I’m…busy.”

“Busy?”

I considered a moment whether or not I’d tell him, but there was no sense in secrets. It was all for his benefit, to set this madness to rest once and for all. “Mrs. Northe and I have a date with a madman. Crenfall. Mrs. Northe thinks she might glean some sort of clue from him about what to target in the city.”

Jonathon made a face and was silent. He helped me down from the carriage as it let me out near the red-brick Romanesque façade of the Metropolitan, a grand building quickly outgrowing itself, where I would go check in on Father so that he could feel as though he were checking in on me. It was now more important than ever that I keep my freedom by making Father think I were subject to his constraints as any good unmarried girl should be. Jonathon bowed his head to me before turning away. The gesture seemed too formal. If the forced intimacy of having met soul to soul receded into the cool detachment that supposedly came with “mature” sentiment, I couldn’t bear it. I was passionate, and I wanted to live, and love, passionately. Mutually.

“Do you want to come tomorrow?” I blurted, not wanting him to go, wishing we could replace our last day in the park with a better one, one where everything was said exactly so and unfolded as any girl might dream.

“I doubt a madhouse will do me good, Natalie. I will walk by the addresses Brinkman gave—” He put up his hand as I opened my mouth. “I’ll not make any attempts at entry or contact. Merely surveillance. Allow me this while you see what can be gleaned from that wretch who helped imprison me,” he muttered, grinding out words through clenched teeth. “We’ll be more productive if our team splits up.”

I prayed he didn’t mean that in terms of our relationship as well, and the fear of this had me blurting again. “I love you.”

His beautiful face, as world-weary as it had been in the painting when he feared all was lost, brightened a bit. He took my hand and kissed it softly. My entire body reacted in a sweeping thrill. And then he turned away, gave Mrs. Northe’s cross streets to the driver, and climbed in, disappearing behind the lace curtain of the carriage window. Perhaps his wounded pride still sought to punish me a bit, and so he did not return my words of love, but I would relive that kiss upon my hand until he could.

I watched the carriage turn town a side street, waiting for him to look out the window at me. He didn’t. I waved at the carriage anyway, biting my lip. I doubted a madhouse would do me good, either, but I’d rather I suffer it than Jonathon. He was truly alone in the world save for me. The young man who had yet to grieve his murdered parents and all that had been taken from him was doing the very best he could in a land that was not his own, and I had to be the best I could be, for his sake. For our sake. Tomorrow might bring us one step closer to answers and closure.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day till the last syllable of recorded time
… My Shakespearean life would yet unfold day by day, in an inexorable march toward the undiscovered country.

I watched from the window of my small upstairs room for Mrs. Northe’s fine carriage and magnificent mare. When they came around the corner of my block, I darted out to the door. Bessie asked nothing of my business—Mrs. Northe’s wealth and high social status offered us that privilege—so I hurried down to the street and hopped in as soon as she opened the door from inside. Before the driver could climb down to assist me, I had already clambered up in a swish of skirts far less fine than those opposite me. I threw myself into the seat a bit like Brinkman had the day prior. It was an impressive skill I wanted to practice.