The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare) Read online

  “Your cousin has no doubt informed you of my requirements.” She nodded slightly, and Finch shuffled away to the sideboard. If she found the lad did not suit, she would give him a drink and send him on his way, with a guinea or two for his trouble.

  “Discretion, loyalty, efficiency, so on, so forth.” He chanted it sing-song, and she almost missed the flicker of his gaze towards the door as Mikal entered, noiseless. She did not miss the sudden tension in his left hand.

  That is where the knife will be, then. “Yes. You may be amusing, but I do not countenance impoliteness.”

  “Your countenance is set very politely, madam.” Quick as a whip, and with a winning smile to boot.

  She found herself measuring him against a Neapolitan with a sneer and dirty fingernails, and had to eye him afresh, so she would not find him wanting without reason. “I take pains to preserve it so,” she replied, dryly. “You have no objection to a blood-binding?”

  He paled slightly, but set his shoulders. “None at all, mum. He—” A slight tip of his head took in the attentive Finch. “—tells me you do right by those in your service, and that I’m getting too old to molly much more. The gentlemen prefer younger, even with the rough.” A defiant tilt to his chin, watching to see if he could shock her.

  Her estimation of his intelligence rose, even though he seemed very young indeed to her. “And just how old are you, Philip?”

  “Old ’nough. I don’t enjoy the molly, mum. It’s just easy.”

  Ah. She allowed herself to feel cautiously hopeful. “Your enjoyment of such things, or not, holds no interest for me. I wish to know if you are capable of discharging the duties of a minder for my mentath. He requires a companion of a certain… durability, discretion, and capability to deal with Londinium’s nastier areas. I require that you keep his skin whole and your mouth closed on the subject his affairs, and my own, to anyone outside this room. Mr Finch has no doubt negotiated your wages, should you be accepted for the position, and has also given you to understand certain… peculiarities… of said position.”

  He waited. Mute and stubborn, giving nothing away.

  Very good. “Mikal?”

  The Shield was suddenly across the room, locking the young man’s wrist and striking the knife from his grasp. Finch did not move, a curious expression–part distaste, part amusement–flickering over his graven features. The youth actually almost managed to strike Mikal once, but the Shield finished by holding him by his scruff and shaking lightly, before dropping him to hands and knees and stalking away.

  Her Shield retook his place by the door. “Amateur.”

  Which was high praise indeed, coming from a fully trained Shield. At least he hadn’t said useless.

  Emma found herself suddenly weary, and a sour taste had crept into her mouth. “Very well. You shall do, Mr Philip Pico. Do you wish the hire?”

  The youth looked up. With his curls tumbled and high colour in his shaven cheeks, his true age was a little more visible. Yes, he was rather a shade too old for mollying to gentlemen, and a swift pang passed through her. Mikal must be out of sorts, to embarrass the lad so.

  He climbed swiftly to his feet, scooping up the knife and slipping it back into its hiding-place behind his left hip. “One condition.”

  After that display, I suppose you might be allowed to ask, even if I do not grant. “Which is?”

  He pointed at Mikal. “He’s a fair boxer. He teaches me that. I’ll not shirk, I’ll not talk, and I’ll keep your mentath safe as a babe in cradle.”

  She found herself smiling, and Finch’s relief visibly mounted. Of course, she supposed he had to have been very sure of the boy to bring him, and who knew what their true relationship was? “Cousin” was as good a word as any, and it mattered little, if the youth was dependable.

  “I think that is quite possible, and even acceptable, though Mikal is a much harsher taskmaster than myself. As long as his tutelage does not distract from your other duties, you shall do very nicely, Philip. While Finch arranges for your effects to be brought, we shall settle you in a room and you shall see your charge immediately.” Clare will not like this. But I cannot watch him day and night, and this young enigma will at least keep him occupied while I seek to discern what nastiness is afoot.

  “Yesmum.” Pico bent to retrieve his hat, as well, and darted a venomous look past her, at Mikal. Who would, of course, be entirely unaffected.

  The little molly seemed to completely discount her as a threat.

  Which was very much how Emma preferred it at the moment. She nodded once again, more to herself than to any man present. “Very well.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Like A Weathervane

  Archibald Clare woke from a sound, sorcery-induced sleep and sat straight up in the bed’s familiar embrace. “Who the devil are you?”

  The young man in the high-backed chair cocked his head. “Shh. Listen.”

  What now? He opened his mouth to take this stranger to task, before he noted that the youth’s shirt and waistcoat were tailored with familiar, tiny stitches–Catherine’s work, beyond a doubt–and the way his hair was plastered down bespoke a good scrubbing. Whoever he was, he had the blessing of the mistress of the house, and had been given attention so his clothing did not offend her sensibilities. His boots were well brushed and sturdy, but their age shouted quite plainly that they were his own, instead of Miss Bannon’s largesse.

  “Tideturn,” the young man breathed, and the vowels placed him as one of Londinium’s native sons, born within a few yards of Lincoln Inn unless Clare missed his guess. Or perhaps he had merely been a child in such a place, for Clare’s sensitive nose caught traces of… pomade? And ash, and old blood.

  What on earth can this be? “Does she think…?” Words failed him.

  The youth gave him a scorching, contemptuous look–and the entire house, from cellar Clare had never seen to whatever attic Miss Bannon saw fit to keep under its trim roof, shook like the coat of a dog shedding itself of water.

  Clare did not halt to consider the fascinating conundrum of the lad at his bedside. Instead, he scrambled from the covers, hopping as he found he was barefoot on cold wooden flooring, and hurled himself for the door.

  It was not locked, which was a mercy, for he would have bruised himself on its heavy wooden carapace had it been. He scrambled up the corridor, booted steps behind him too heavy to be Valentinelli’s, the stairs at the end of the hall heaved, creaking and crackling. Screams came from the depths–the servants, of course–and there was a single hissing curse as he slipped.

  The youth’s fingers clamped around his upper arm like a vice, and he was hauled to his feet as the house shook again. Up the stairs, the other familiar hall shuddering as its very walls warped.

  What is she doing?

  Her dressing-room door ran with foxfire light, leprous green, and for a moment Clare was caught in a net of memory: Emma Bannon dying of the Red Plague and his own monstrous, helpless uselessness in the face of that event. But then it had only been the lights dimming and the sobbing of the maids—

  A blow, and he was spinning. His elbow hit the hall floor, but he was on his feet again and striking with a bladed hand, just as Ludo had taught him, strike for throat, mentale, if a man no breathe, he no trouble you—

  “Stop!” Mikal hissed, and bent back with impossible grace, out of the path of Clare’s strike. His fingers clamped Clare’s wrist and he twisted, one foot flicking out to double the youth, who was hard on Clare’s heels. A chiming clatter–someone has a knife– then a keening scream rose behind Miss Bannon’s dressing-room door, turning the air frigid and shivering. Clare’s breath became a white cloud as he fell once more, twisting to lash out at the Shield’s legs with his own. It was an instinctive move, which somehow Mikal evaded as a final grating shock ran through the house, wood groaning and plaster cracking, the floor rippling in incomprehensible, impossible ways.

  The Shield did not fall. Instead, he leapt backward, fishlike, his
own bare feet thudding on the heaving boards. He flung himself at the dressing-room door, carried it down in a tide of exploding shards and splinters. He was gone into the darkness then, and the house settled against itself with an audible thump.

  “Pax!” Mikal screamed, beyond the door. “Pax, Prima! Emma! Emmaaaaaa!”

  Clare pushed himself up, staggered after him.

  Miss Bannon’s dressing room was pale-carpeted, strewn with broken wood, and he thought, quite calmly, that she was going to be extremely put out by the mess.

  The youth caught at his arm, but Clare evaded him easily enough. There was a very real danger of skewering his feet; when he reached Miss Bannon’s bedroom door he was gratified that he had not done so. “Emma?” he called tentatively, into the dimness. It smelled, powerfully, of a foreign, feminine country–perfume, and long hair, and silk. The rustle of dresses and the slightly oily healthiness of a dark-haired woman, the smoky overlay of sorcery, pear-spiced perfume, and a hint of rosewater from her morning ablutions. The impressions whirled through him and away, and he had stepped over the threshold before he knew it, blindly. “Emma, please, say something.”

  “Clare?” She sounded very young, and breathless. “And… Mikal.” A huskiness–of course, that throat-scouring scream. Was it merely a nightmare?

  Somehow, no matter how given the fairer sex was to vapours, he did not think so.

  “Here.” The Shield sounded even more sober than usual. “What is it?”

  “I am not dead.” Wondering, a half-disbelieving laugh. “I… Mikal. Clare.”

  “Yes.” Mikal’s eyes were a yellow glimmer; Clare’s adapted to the darkness. He saw Miss Bannon’s bed, the dressing table and its beautifully clear oval mirror, the bulk of an armoire, other shapes he could not quite infer just yet. Mikal’s glare was a pair of yellow lamps in the dimness. “Come no closer, sir.”

  “Mikal.” She sounded much more like herself now. “Do not be impolite. I am well enough. It was… simply a shock. Clare, have you been introduced to—”

  “—the young man who was at my bedside? Quite an odd choice for a nanny, madam.”

  “I suppose I am to let you lock yourself in the workroom and attempt to bring down my house with explosives?” Did she sound irritated? It was, he decided, a very good sign. “Yes, Mr Clare. That sounds ever so helpful. Kindly remove yourself from my bedroom, sir, I have little time to quarrel with you.”

  “You do not need explosives to level your domicile, Miss Bannon. Which is why I am here.”

  “The damage is temporary. Get out. No—” This was no doubt directed at Mikal, for there was a flicker of movement in the darkness near her bed. Light glinting from metal, and Clare’s skin chilled. “Mikal. Absolutely not.”

  “Little thief,” the Shield said, softly. “Come closer, and lose a limb.”

  “Just looking after me investment, squire,” came the cheeky reply–from right next to Clare, and he was hard-pressed to suppress a start. How very curious.

  “Investment?” he enquired, blithely. “Did you think to replace Ludovico, Miss Bannon?”

  “No.” Sharp and curt, material sliding, and a bloom of silvery light from the sconces near the door. A globe of malachite on her bedside table, next to a stack of novels–her taste in bed-reading was shockingly salacious, really–made a soft slithering sound as it turned in its stand, and a shiver ran through the house again. “I thought to ensure your safety, sir. A rather onerous duty, but one I have undertaken. Now leave me in peace, I must dress.”

  She inhaled sharply, and Clare was confronted with the exotic sight of Miss Bannon shrugging herself into a wine-red dressing gown over her nightgown, lace and satin scratching against plain, high-necked white linen. Her small, well-formed feet were bare as his and Mikal’s, and her unbound hair was a river down her back. With her tumbled curls and the high colour in her cheeks, she looked every inch a child up too late on a holiday night. “Mikal, send Severine up and rouse Harthell, have the carriage prepared. We are bound for Whitchapel.” She strode for her dressing table, sliding past the Shield with a determined air.

  “Whitchapel?” How extraordinary. Clare’s rebellious faculties strained, turning sharply in a most unwelcome direction. “There has been another murder.” And you have sensed it in some sorcerous fashion. Very extraordinary indeed.

  She glanced over her shoulder, and he stepped back, almost into the nameless youth, who was observing this scene with a great deal of interest. “Yes. There has. And I must go.”

  “Philip Pico.” The youth offered his hand, a firm shake, and settled into the carriage’s upholstery just where Ludovico had been wont to sit.

  Clare suppressed a protest. It was illogical; the seat was there, he had to sit somewhere, and—

  “Absolutely not,” Miss Bannon said. Her mourning today was wool, and her hair was in place again. There was no trace of the dishevelled, just-wakened child she had appeared, except for a slight puffiness about her eyes. “Archibald, I do not have time—”

  “You–and she–asked for my aid in untangling this affair.” He quite enjoyed her discomfiture. “Which I am determined to provide. And this young man, no replacement for our dear Valentinelli indeed, is nevertheless bound to be quite handy.”

  The door slammed, Harthell cracked the whip and the carriage jolted into motion.

  Miss Bannon closed her eyes, the cameo at her throat flashing once. It was a familiar sight, and he knew a silvery ball of strange witchlight would now coalesce before the gleaming clockhorses, directing the coachman to whatever incident had drawn his mistress’s attention–and telling the rest of Londinium a sorcerer was impatient with delay.

  So much irrationality he had learned to live with as merely part of his acquaintance with this most logical of sorceresses. Had he not often thought that if only all practitioners of the arts of æther were as practical as she, mentaths would have little difficulty with their number?

  Now he cast a fresh eye upon her as the carriage jolted, and found she was pale, her veil tucked aside, her gloved fingers entirely too tense, and her chin set.

  She met his gaze directly. How had he never noticed before that her manner was of a man facing a duel? So much of Miss Bannon only made sense if one ceased to think of her as a proper woman.

  And yet. Her little attentions, her gracefulness, her arranging of matters to suit those about her, her collection of castaway servants–none of those graces bore a masculine stamp.

  The woman in question remained silent, still gazing at him with that odd expression. As if she expected trouble from his quarter, and soon.

  He drummed his fingers upon his knee. It was past baker’s-morn but still grey-dark, Londinium’s yellow fog choke-wreathing wrought-iron lamps both sputtering with gasflame and, in the better quarters, held to steadier life by carefully applied wick-charms. Hooves sounded and carriage wheels thrummed, even at this hour. The city did not sleep, and a vision of it as a gigantic coal-fed, sorcery-stroked beast had no room in a mentath’s logic-ordered brain.

  Still, even mentaths had passing fancies. He leaned forward slightly. “Are you… are you quite well, Miss Bannon?”

  “I was a-study all afternoon, seeking to discern a clew, ætheric or not, to the identity of our killer, and had absolutely no success. I did not wish to view the site of the second murder after a day spent so unprofitably, so I retired.” She took a deep breath. “Then I felt a woman die within my own corpus, sir. I am a trifle unsettled.” She did not look it. “And do forgive my manners. Mr Clare, meet Philip Pico; he is a cousin to Mr Finch and I have engaged him to perform a valet’s duty for you, as well as other small tasks you may require of him. Philip, this is your charge, Mr Archibald Clare. Esquire, I believe. Do behave appropriately.”

  “ ’Ave no fear, mum.” The youth gave her a toothy grin, and stretched his legs out most disagreeably in the carriage’s close confines.

  Clare suppressed the urge to poke the lad in the ribs. Such uncharitable Feeling
could not be tolerated. He told himself firmly not to mind its prodding. “You are not in a tavern, sir.”

  “No, there’d be drink if I were.” A twist of a half-grin, and the attention he paid to paring his fingernails impinged on Clare’s consciousness like a silent thunderbolt.

  A quite extraordinary further deduction occurred to Clare. He tested it thoroughly, and found it not wanting at all. A Sodom boy? In Miss Bannon’s employ? “Your taste in domestics, as usual, is most curious.”

  “So I am told.” She tilted her head, slightly, perhaps listening to some sorcerous noise. “Now do be quiet, if you can. I am rather occupied.”

  Nettled, he sank back into the seat and felt a most uncharacteristic desire to curse, roundly and loudly. This was the deadliness of Feeling: it swung one about like a weathervane, and made Reason so very difficult.

  I was merely seeking to find the limits of this extraordinary thing you have inflicted on me, Emma. But he realised, as Harthell cracked his whip and Miss Bannon’s paleness took on another, more worrisome cast, that was not quite accurate.

  He had, for a short while, lost his bloody mind. The longer this state of affairs endured, the more likely it was he would do so again. Unless he found some method of making rational the fact of his unwanted, unwholesome…

  … and, likely to be very useful, immortality.

  Chapter Twenty

  Founded Upon Much Less

  Emma freed her hand from Mikal’s and took in the grey light of predawn, the fog sallow and the Scab underfoot slippery enough that she had to take care with her balance.

  “What the devil are you about here?”

  It was a greeting from a direction she would not have preferred, but at least the hailer’s presence would solve a number of problems. She used her sweetest smile. “Mr Aberline. My, you’ve grown.”