The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare) Read online

  Clare could not fail to grasp the immensity of her gift. He might have some trouble with the illogical nature of near-immortality, of course–and there was another possibility, that the shredding of Llew’s physical substance as his wonderful, completely mad Work had unravelled had not been too much for even a wyrm’s-heart Stone to soothe.

  Concentrate upon Clare, and let Llew rest. He is, after all, dead. How would she appease the mentath?

  She did a great deal of smoothing-over when it came to Archibald Clare. He had some manners, but a mentath was not an easy companion. She did not grudge him the time and attention, but she very much grudged cavalier treatment.

  It was, after all, the reason she had quitted Victrix’s service. Not openly, of course. But in the secret chambers of a Prime sorceress’s heart, a measure had been taken… and a queen found wanting.

  Clare was not quite found wanting. He was a most logical, yet fragile, being, and seeing his limitations went far toward the forgiveness of certain of his regrettable tendencies. Still, it irked her. How could it not?

  To be a woman was to be a creature most put-upon and taken for granted, and even those among the opposite sex who meant one well had their moments of treating one otherwise.

  Yes, she had to admit, she was outright piqued.

  And… Ludo.

  She shut her eyes again. A precious few minutes of consciousness without the scrutiny of servants or Shield, and all she could think of was… what was Ludovico, quite, to her?

  What had he been?

  Simply a tool, an instrument to be played with fine attention and no little respect.

  Oh, Emma, lying to yourself is still bad form. That much, at least, has not changed.

  She had grown… accustomed… to the Neapolitan, much as she had grown accustomed to Clare. To Mikal, and Severine, and Isobel and Cook and Harthell. They were under her aegis, they were her responsibility, and if she cared for them as hothouse plants, had not such care acquired her certain rights as well as responsibilities? Watering, pruning, adjusting the climate-globes and their charmed tinkles…

  They are not plants, Emma. A Prime’s arrogance was a weakness, and one to be reined firmly lest it blind her to real dangers.

  Like yesterday. A bad bit of business, wouldn’t you say?

  She exhaled sharply, turned her attention to a more productive avenue. Had Victrix seen and felt what she had? It flew in the face of much of what was accepted about sorcery, but Sympathy was an ancient art. What could have made a drab in Whitchapel–because Emma Bannon knew a frail when she saw one, thank you very much–possess enough resonance to cause a reaction in the ruling spirit of the Isle, the Empress of Indus, the queen of an empire grander than even the Pax Latium?

  Viewing the location of the second body’s discovery should be done, but not until she had taken certain precautions.

  She stretched again, tapped her lips with a finger, and sighed. For the moment, enough to accept that a resonance indubitably had existed. The murders were not unconnected events, and they had some aim in mind.

  Why had Britannia bothered to move Victrix to Emma’s door? Why had Victrix come alone? Cold reflection would perhaps have assured the Queen that Emma Bannon was, perhaps, not likely to bruit the news of a ruling spirit’s weakness about high and low. Even if Victrix disliked her methods and person, Britannia was wise enough not to doubt Emma’s loyalty to Crown and Empire, no matter that the first rested on a wanting head and the second had not needed a certain sorceress’s efforts to continue widening its sway.

  Why had Victrix come to her?

  That is the wrong question, Emma. The correct question is: what is she hoping to gain? From the lowest sinks of the Eastron End to the Crown itself, that is the great secret that moves the world. Finding a man–or a woman–who does not obey its dictates is the rarity.

  And that was precisely why Clare could continue to treat her abominably if it so pleased him, and why she had allowed both Ludovico’s informality and his pride. It was why she allowed Severine’s nervousness and Mikal’s secrets and silences. It was why she had paid for Gilburn’s Altered leg and retained Finch’s services, why she had taken in Isobel and the half-crippled stable-boy, not to mention Cook. Those who did not play the great game of living solely for their own profit were rare and wondrous, and it pleased her to have a collection of them.

  Since she was, most definitely, not one of their number. Yet it was through her grace and under her protection they could thrive. If one had to bloody and muck oneself in the service of Empire, or even in the business of living in such an imperfect world as this one, sheltering such castaways could take some of the sting from the wound.

  “I have grown philosophical,” Emma Bannon murmured, with a wry smile, for she heard Severine Noyon’s step on the stairs, and further heard the housekeeper fussing at Catherine to step lively, the mistress waits!

  She arranged her expression into one most suited to a lady’s rising, and allowed herself one more luxurious stretch before pushing the covers away and sliding one small foot free of their encumbrance.

  It was at that moment a curious thought struck her. She supposed, had she been Clare, it would have already done so.

  This first murder was rather sloppily performed–it was a trial. There have been other trials, no doubt; perhaps the second was as well? Impossible to know without viewing the scene. What is it Clare says–experiment requires small steps? Britannia waited for a repeat of the event before moving Victrix to my door.

  She was still abed, staring across her bedroom at the lovely blue wallpaper, when the housekeeper and lady’s maids bustled in to begin their tending.

  For the logical extension of her ruminations was chilling indeed.

  There is likely to be another death, and very soon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Find The Limits

  Clare coughed, wrackingly, and set the knife against his forearm. He was interrupted by a sound not of his own creation, and he blinked rapidly as he watched the last shallow slice slowly congeal. The more he practised, the faster the superficial wounds seemed to seal themselves.

  The ramifications were quite fascinating. What had interrupted him?

  One step inside his workroom, despite the locked door–this was, to be sure, her house, and should she require entry into a portion of it, well, he could not grudge or gainsay her–and Emma’s dark eyes widened dangerously. Of course, the blood spattering the smooth stone walls, the chaos of tools on one of the sturdy wooden tables, and the shattered glass upon the floor–he had swept a few alembics from its surface in his irritation–were not comforting in the least.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Emma Bannon demanded, her earrings of shivering cascades of silver wire and splinters of jet trembling as she halted just over the threshold.

  She was in black again today, and looked none the worse for wear. In fact, with her eyes so wide and her expression so shocked, she looked more childlike than ever.

  Clare, blinking furiously through veils of acrid smoke, actually goggled at her for a few moments before finding his tongue. “Experiments! Must find the limits, you see. This is quite interesting.” He waved the knife absently. “It will make shallow cuts, but no matter how I try, I cannot so much as lop a fingertip off. Controlled explosives merely toss me about a bit. This is very—”

  “You’ve gone mad. S–x’v!” The collection of sounds she uttered shivered the walls, refusing to stay in Clare’s memory for more than a moment. When the echoes died, he found he could not move. The knife clattered from his nerveless fingers, and she made a short, sharp gesture that gathered up the thick white and grey smoke, compressing it into an ashen sphere that bumbled over her head and drifted out of sight up the stairs, seeking a chimney. “Good heavens. Look at all this.”

  Mikal appeared behind her, one eyebrow fractionally raised. “Is that… what is it?”

  “Dynamite.” She lifted her heavy skirts, stepping briskly through the litter
of glass and splinters. “Nitrou-glycerine and sawdust; it tends to be volatile. Do take care. Clare, what on earth?”

  He could breathe well enough, but his limbs refused to budge. Invisible bands circled him, gently but firmly, and he had the sudden, quite thought-provoking realisation that she was being rather delicate with him. “Experiments,” he wheezed. “Interfering… damn nuisance.”

  “Quite.” She examined the walls, wrinkling her small nose. “What are you hoping to discover, sir?”

  “What the… the limits of…” The words fled from him as he stared at her throat. Her pulse beat, a fraction too swiftly. “I say, you are quite agitated. And your dress is fashionable even for mourning, despite the tiny bustle, which means you did not deny what Isobel first proffered. She quite thinks you need a bit more mode lately, you have not been yourself. And Madame Noyon is becoming forgetful as she grows older—”

  “Clare.” She shook her head, the curls over her ears a bit old-fashioned, but she could simply have been a well-bred young miss with a hidebound guardian or duenna choosing her cloth. An observer who did not note the fact of her sorcery would perhaps draw such a conclusion. “You will refrain.”

  But I do not wish to. “I must know what the limits are. What the logical… what I can extrapolate…”

  “Did it occur to you to simply ask?”

  His reply was loosed before he considered its weight or its edge. “Would you answer honestly if I had?”

  She made a small spitting noise, expressing very unladylike irritation. Yet she did not deign to answer more fully, and Clare could hardly blame her. He strained against the invisible ropes holding him fast, and reflected that it was no wonder a woman with her abilities was held in such caution.

  It was downright unnatural for a female to possess such power.

  Miss Bannon examined the workroom once more, turning in a complete circle so as to leave nothing unseen. “You have not slept at all,” she remarked.

  “No.” There is too much to discern, too much to do.

  “You will likely continue in this fashion until you find some means of harming yourself.”

  “My dear lady, I cannot—” His struggles increased, and his voice rose. “Turn loose. I demand you release me, Emma.”

  “Have I been in any way unclear? I am quite unwilling to see you harmed, Archibald. I shall take steps to prevent it.”

  “You are not my nursemaid!” Why was he shouting? A mentath did not lose his temper. It was unheard of. It could not be borne.

  Neither could the restraints, and she watched him curiously as he continued to writhe without moving. Could she feel it? Her expression gave no indication. It was frankly maddening to see a slip of a girl, her head cocked slightly, regard a grown man much as a child might a specimen pinned to a board.

  “No. I am most definitely not your nursemaid.” She nodded once, briskly, her curls swinging. “But you do need one at this juncture. And I think it best you sleep now, dear Clare.”

  He was about to protest even more hotly, but a rumbling passed through him. More of those damnable unremembered words, her lips shaping incomprehensible, inhuman sounds, and blackness swallowed him whole.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Even If I Do Not Grant

  Longing thoughts of rum floated through her head. Emma pressed her fingers delicately against the bridge of her nose. “I cannot keep him in a cocoon.”

  “No,” Mikal agreed. He was maddeningly calm, but the high colour in his lean cheeks told her it was mere seeming. “Prima…”

  “I know. You cannot look after him, I need you elsewhere.” She decided to overlook his very plain sigh of relief, and turned the question over in her mind again.

  The workroom was a shambles. Clare was propped upright, trapped in sorcerous restraints she kept steady with threads of ætheric force trickling from the chalcedony pendant at her throat. The blood on the walls troubled her, and the wild-eyed man who had outright screamed at her troubled her even more. It was so unlike him, and doubly unlike what she knew of mentath temperament.

  “Perhaps…” But Mikal shook his sleek, dark head as she glanced at him. Whatever idea he had, perhaps he had discovered a great many holes in it as soon as he gave it voice.

  “Finch.” She twitched a slender ætheric thread, and the call bloomed subtly through the house. It took less than a half-minute for the familiar light step to be heard on the stairs outside the workroom–he must have suspected she would summon him.

  When he stepped through the flung-open door, his cadaverous face betrayed no surprise or irritation at all. It was a distinct relief to find him as imperturbable as ever. His indenture collar flashed once before subsiding to a steady glow.

  Her sigh was only partly theatrical. “I’ve a bit of a quandary, Mr Finch.”

  “So it seems, mum.” There was a hint of a curve to his thin mouth, and Emma allowed herself a rueful smile in return.

  “I need a minder for Mr Clare. Someone singularly… useful. And loyal, though I shall of course require a blood-binding.”

  Finch absorbed this, his thin shoulders stooped. He did not immediately answer, which gave her cause for hope. Which was roundly justified when he finally nodded, slowly. Sharp as a knife when he first entered her service, he had lost none of that edge in the ensuing years. Age sometimes brought a man more fully into dangerousness, and he had experienced enough of treachery to know even its hidden faces.

  He was no longer youthful-quick, but he was exceedingly subtle.

  To prove it, he produced an impossible necessity once more. “I’ve a… cousin, mum. He might do.”

  “A cousin?” Her eyebrows rose dangerously high. She could hardly help herself.

  “Well, after a fashion. He’s, well—”

  Was he blushing? She forged onward, twitching her skirts absently as she turned to regard the somnolent, propped-up figure of Clare. Who looked rather peaceful, d—n him, while she was required to solve this problem. “If you think he would suit, Finch, it is enough to set my mind at ease.”

  “He’s… well, he’s a molly, mum. If you catch my meaning.”

  It was a mark of her distraction that she did not take his meaning immediately. Perhaps Finch was right to blush, though he could hardly think her intolerant of such a thing, considering her acquaintance with, for example, the infamous Prime Dorian Childe, and others of his ilk. Society might very well frown upon the men of Sodom, but Emma had found no few of them bright and above all, useful.

  If Finch recommended a certain man, it mattered not a whit what that man liked to sport with. Unless said sport could lead him to treachery, but Finch’s recommendation would mitigate that danger somewhat. “I see. Well, I care little what he buggers, as long as he does his duty. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yesmum.” Finch bobbed his head, and she caught a slight movement–as if he would tug his forelock, as he used to before he studied a butler’s manners. “I shall go myself and fetch him.”

  “You are a treasure, Finch. Be about your business, then.” Do hurry. There is much to be done. She did not add the last, it was unnecessary.

  “Yesmum.” And he glided out the door.

  “A molly?” Mikal sounded amused, at least. He could not fail to be familiar with the term.

  She gathered herself, leashed her temper, and paused once more to determine what should be done and what was the most efficient way to accomplish it. “Perhaps he will feel affectionate toward Clare. Heaven knows our mentath seems to need it, and I rather think he would not receive my affection gratefully at the moment.”

  “Then he is a fool, Prima.” The warmth of Mikal’s tone was somewhat indecent, but they were alone. Or close to alone, as Clare was unconscious. He would rest until Tideturn, and by then she hoped to have made some arrangement for his comfort.

  And, incidentally, for her own.

  “Perhaps. But he is our fool.” She sighed, set her shoulders, and brushed at her skirts, though there was no need to
set them to rights. “I had rather hoped to view the second site today, but that is of little account. Come, help me get him to bed.”

  The cousin was a lean foxlike youth, a measure of rust touching his dark curls and no shame in his wide dark eyes. His cloth was indeed flash: a waistcoat very fine but the coat a trifle ill fitting, no doubt bought secondhand. His shoes were not quite fashionable but they were brushed very neatly, and the half-resentful courtesy he afforded the visibly relieved Finch was telling. A watch-chain that had certainly started life in a gentleman’s pocket before being deprived of such surroundings by quick fingers, the dove-grey gloves, and the pomade in his curls all shouted rough lad. The only question was whether he paid for his buggering–or was paid for it.

  Just where the line was drawn between an Æsthete (or Decadent, for that matter) and a slightly circumspect Merry-Ann was difficult to tell, since those who affected to live for Arte and Beauty often dressed in imitation of the panthers of St Jemes or Jermyn Street. Often in finer fabric, though the end result was the same.

  He passed the first inspection, and Emma motioned them further into the room.

  “Mum.” Finch inclined slightly from the waist. “May I present my cousin, Mr Philip Pico?”

  The drawing room was not the best setting for this lad. He belonged in one of the taverns the Merry-Anns frequented, or along the docks in the darkness wreathed by yellow greasy fog…

  … or in some dark corner of Whitchapel, where the trade was less merry and far more rough. Where a gentleman might go to seek danger to spice his buggery, where the panthers, both of Sodom and murder, prowled.

  “Mum.” The young man made the same motion Finch almost had that morning–as if to tug his forelock. He caught himself, and offered her a very proper half-bow.

  “How do you do,” Emma murmured, not deigning to offer her hand, and examined him closely.

  It was in the feet, she decided. Placed just so, his weight balanced nicely, one slightly forward. The fact that his shoulders were broad–though he was at pains to appear slender–was another indicator. He was not averse to violence, and he was alert.