Wicked as They Come (20 page)

He dropped a gold coin onto the table and strode purposefully back into the crowd. My next customer stepped up, a middle-aged woman with desperate eyes.

“One moment, madam,” I said.

Fortunately, there was a feather quill on my table, along with the crystal ball, skull, and other props. I scrawled on the back of Criminy’s earlier note,
Old man big mustache head of Coppers wants to kill Bludmen is really Stranger!!!
I crumpled it up and gave it to Pemberly.

“Take it to Criminy,” I told her.

Her eyes clicked closed and open again in acknowledgment, and she scampered into the crowd. I put on a professional smile for the waiting customer and held out my hand.

Then I went unconscious.

14

Even before my
eyes opened, I was overwhelmed. The cacophony was dizzying. My alarm was buzzing, my cell phone was jingling, and my cat was meowing.

9:47.
Crap.

First the alarm. Slept in for more than two hours.
Oops.

Then the cell phone.

“Nana, I’m so, so sorry,” I began.

“Well, sugar, you’re the one who has to clean up if I wet myself,” she said in her most peevish tone, “Although breakfast would be nice, too.”

“I’m on my way, and I’m bringing doughnuts,”I said.

“I might forgive you, then,” she said.

I was so exhausted that I could barely stand up. I made a beeline for the coffeemaker.

My morning was blurry and heavy, like being drunk without the fun. I showed up at Nana’s just in time to prevent a laundry crisis and mutual mortification, served her hot doughnuts and hotter coffee, and sleepwalked through my chores there, barely able to focus on what she said. I was so tired that I was scared to drive to my next patient.

I ran a red light and nearly got T-boned on the way to
Mr. Rathbin’s. When I parked in the driveway, I barely registered that two tires were in his grass. I didn’t bother to repark.

“Having a good day, Mr. Rathbin?” I asked with a yawn.

He was pretty jolly for a terminal patient—unless I was late. Luckily, I had brought him one of Nana’s extra doughnuts, so he was in a great mood. I set up his meds and helped him brush his teeth. Then, as I was carrying his used bedpan to the toilet, I passed out and hit the floor in a puddle of Mr. Rathbin’s urine.

As I slowly rose to
consciousness, I had the marvelous, achy, breathless feeling that I only got from several hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was completely delicious. I wiggled my toes and stretched my arms and legs and yawned. It was good to feel rested again. I opened my eyes to complete darkness.

I knew immediately that something wasn’t right.

I felt around blindly until I found a side table with a button. I pushed it, and orange light filled the room. It was my wagon.

“Criminy?” I called. There was an answering rustle in the other part of the wagon, and the door opened. He looked confused. And sleepy.

“Are you all right, love?” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s barely morning.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I was at work, and then I woke up here. What happened?”

He came in and sat down on the bed, his hand warm on my cheek. I was still in the blouse and skirt from my costume, with my corset laces mercifully loosened. And I was scared.

“You fell after nine,” he said. “In the middle of glancing. It was very dramatic, and I suspect your line will be doubly long tonight. I carried you here and put you to bed. But you shouldn’t be awake now, I don’t think. Unless you fell asleep in your dinner.”

“It was just after lunch,” I said. “I was helping a patient, and . . .”

“And what?”

“I don’t know. I just opened my eyes, and I was here. But I feel rested. How is that possible?”

I tried to look into Criminy’s eyes, but they were focused on my exposed cleavage.

“Up here, mister,” I said with a playful grin.

“My locket,” he said simply. “It’s gone.”

I reached down, and he was right. Both locket and chain were gone.

“Where? How?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he answered, angry. “I was right outside. I only fell asleep for a moment. No one came near the door. Pemberly’s been on guard. There hasn’t been a sound. It’s impossible.”

“Does it mean I’m stuck here? Is that why I’m not exhausted—because I was actually asleep? In Sang?”

“That could be possible,” he said slowly.

“So what am I doing in my other world? Am I asleep there? Am I dead?” I said, voice trembling, fearful. “Who’s going to take care of my grandmother? Am I on Mr. Rathbin’s floor? Oh, my God. What’s happening to me?”

Tears coursed hot down my cheeks. Criminy wrapped his arms around me and stroked my head.

“I don’t know, love,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked. My nose was buried
in his neck, and the scent was calming and powerful. I somehow hadn’t imagined him being this warm and comforting.

“I don’t know that, either,” he said. “But we’re going to find out how it happened.”

He stood up and whistled, and Pemberly capered in through the door.

“Pem, someone got into this room. Search it. Find a hole, a trapdoor, anything.”

The little monkey began to skitter along the walls. Red beams flickered from her eyes, scanning. Criminy watched her, and I couldn’t read him. He should have seemed more worried, more angry. But he wasn’t. He almost seemed relaxed. I was missing something.

Then I realized why. If the loss of the locket meant that I was trapped here, then he didn’t have to share me.

It meant that I was stuck here. I couldn’t leave him.

“Criminy,” I said, low and flat.

“Yes, love?” he asked calmly.

“Did you take the locket?”

“Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“I know what it means, if you don’t find it,” I said. “Don’t think I can’t see. And I’m not playing along. If you don’t find the locket, I’m not just going to give up and live here as your personal plaything. It’s all or nothing. If I’m trapped here, I’m leaving. I’ll never love you. I’ll go live in the city. You can’t keep me here against my will. I get both worlds, or I get none.”

“So that’s how it is,” he said softly.

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

“I suppose I should have expected that,” he said. “If you weren’t a wild sort of creature, I wouldn’t love you. It
would be easy if you just gave in, but easy isn’t worth anything, is it?”

“You said so yourself,” I admitted.

“We’ll find it, then,” he said. “I promise.”

Once Pemberly showed us the
perfectly round, rat-sized hole along the baseboard, the story was easy enough to piece together. The culprit had been a clockwork, and it had known exactly what it was looking for.

“Nibbled through the chain’s links with titanium teeth, most likely,” said Criminy. “Whoever took it must be powerful and rich. And determined.”

“Determined?” I said. “Is it worth much?”

“Depends how much your other world is worth to you, pet,” he said, thoughtful as he sipped his breakfast from a cup delicately painted with pansies. “The ruby is big enough but not worth such trouble. He must have known it was enchanted. Tell me—has anyone spoken to you about the locket?”

Oh.

Suddenly, it all made sense. The old man, a Stranger himself, interested in my pretty locket. A Stranger who wanted to destroy all of the Bludmen. A Stranger who might want a way back to my world. In between meeting him and passing out, I hadn’t had time to piece it together. I told Criminy everything, from Ferling’s glance to the old man’s curiosity about the necklace.

He went very still as he listened, his lips compressing into a thin white line and his eyes growing hard. “I never got that note,” he said. “Someone’s been tampering with my clockworks. And planning a secret genocide. Did you get a name?

“No,” I said. “But he’s the boss of the two we saw on the moor, Rodvey and Ferling. He’s an old man with a big, white mustache. And he’s a sort of leader—of a city and of all of the Coppers. Like a mayor. And he works way up high, near a big, ruined, white church with an X on top.”

“That’s Manchester,” Criminy said. “Cathedral of Saint Ermenegilda. He must be the Magistrate.”

“Why did no one recognize him, though?” I asked. “Isn’t he important?”

“Not to me, not until now. I live outside his laws. It’s not an elected position, see? He’s in power, he makes the rules, and everyone in the city has to live by them. But he’s not going to advertise. Still, he shouldn’t be hard to find, and I have friends there. Wisest course of action would be to beat him at his own game. Steal the locket back.”

We planned to set out after breakfast, traveling the road on foot. There was much to do before leaving, from briefing Mrs. Cleavers on caravan business to gathering up food and blood. We took a little money but not much. It wouldn’t pay to appear suspicious or remotely like a target. Besides, we could always earn our supper on the streets with Criminy’s magic or my glancing.

While Criminy was talking to Mrs. Cleavers, I sat on the steps of her wagon, gazing at the morning haze hanging over the moors and thinking about my grandmother. I had never felt so far away from comfort and safety.

“Ready to go fetch your wonderful cities?” someone asked, and I looked up to find Casper leaning against the wagon, his smile playful. As if he had forgotten our earlier disagreement. So I played along.

“Maybe, Mr. Whitman,” I said coyly. “But I’m a little scared of the contemptible dreams part.”

“I know how that feels,” he said. “I’m worried about your dreams, too. And I don’t like to think of you alone on the moors with
him
.” He looked thoughtful and inviting, hair down and smile warm. Being around him made me feel young and special and full of hope, and I liked it. With a quick, guilty thought of Criminy, I patted the wood board beside me.

He sat down next to me on the step, and I was hyper-aware of his hip and shoulder touching mine. The wind blew his hair in my face, and it smelled of soap. Not berries and vines and darkness but good, clean soap. And his skin smelled so human, so manly, of a life lived in the sun.

“Criminy says that glancers can see everyone’s future but their own,” I said, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. “But I truly believe that in the end, you’ll have what you want.”

“All I’ve ever wanted before now was music,” he said. His shoulder pressed against me, and I unconsciously leaned into him. “I was so busy practicing and traveling and writing. I never had time for people. And now I have so much time and no one to share it with.”

A breeze came up, and a lock of my hair whipped across my face. He gently tucked it behind my ear, and his fingers left velvet trails of fire on my skin. I closed my eyes, lost in the moment, and his lips pressed against mine, warm and soft and tender. I felt like a teenager having her first kiss on the doorstep, a stolen moment where everything is golden and shimmering and achingly beautiful. And so, so fleeting.

Just when I hoped the kiss would get deeper, he pulled away and stroked my face. “You’re so lovely,” he said. “Gentle and curving and beautiful, as a woman should be.”

My eyebrows rose at the word
should,
and I had to ask, “What else do you think I am?”

“Let’s see,” he said with a smile. “You’re a nurse, so you must be kind and good-hearted. You know
Leaves of Grass,
so you must be educated and poetic. You’re beautiful, but anyone can see that. And you’ve got that monster Stain wrapped around your little finger, which is pretty clever. The girls fawn at him all day, and he ignores them, and here he’s already given you your own wagon. But being my girl won’t keep you on his good side, I’m sorry to say.”

“I’m not anyone’s girl,” I said, pulling away and peeling my shoulder off his.