Gilded Hearts (The Shadow Guild Series) (24 page)

At the sound of his name, dread began to spread through Samuel. “Where is he?”

“What? Not ‘Who is he?’ You’re already to ‘where’? Well, wouldn’t you like to know, Sammy-boy.”

He couldn’t move, couldn’t get any closer to vent his rage on the mad doctor. It was a distraction, a means to pull Samuel’s focus away from where it needed to be. “Are you working for the French?”

“No.”

“He’s an even worse liar than I am.” Dennison entered the room with Timmons close on his heels. “We checked the rest of the building. There were two others upstairs. We secured them in separate rooms.”

Samuel looked to Timmons, who shrugged and nodded.

“Then we are free to have our talk. You’re working with the French alliance. Who exactly are these men? And don’t tell me they’re the Children of Osiris.”

“But they are. We are working to destroy the Archives, free the souls of the people you’ve trapped.” Constantine closed his eyes and rested his head back on the table. “If the French’s price for bankrolling us is the memories of a few of the more prominent residents of the Archives, then who am I to say no? It serves the greater good.”

Dear God. Everything had been true.

They weren’t simply stealing government secrets to sell; they wanted to shake the very foundation of England. Even a fraction of their memories would be able to cripple the governments of New London and England, not to mention jeopardizing trade routes with North America and disrupting innovations being passed from the Hudson’s Bay Company. “You’re an anarchist.”

“This needs to come to an end.” Dennison pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where the hell is Jack?”

Constantine laughed and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Not anymore. You won’t be able to stop him, and I’ll still get to watch you all burn.”

No, it wasn’t going to end like this. Without thinking, Samuel grabbed the knife from Piper and shoved her aside. It felt right to press the blade to Constantine’s throat, to lean in and let the steel pierce the skin until a trickle of blood rolled down his neck, an echo of the scabbed-over wound on Sam’s own neck. Constantine swallowed, nudging the blade, an assertion of life transmitting itself to Samuel’s palm like a strong pulse. The moment he felt that sensation, he understood what Jack had felt, the seductive pull of power, the temptation of such immediate, godlike importance. He controlled Constantine’s fate—life or death.

“Where’s Jack?” He heard his whispered words as if detached from the scene. “I need to find him.”

“Sam, no!”

Constantine’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re a traitor to this country, to every citizen of New London. Why shouldn’t I slit your throat, right now, cut you up the way Jack cut up those girls?”

“Do it, then.” Constantine swallowed hard. “You’re just like him, you know.”

Samuel blinked, but he didn’t relent.

“You strut about making people believe that you are a better man. You’re not. You’re nothing more than a killer playing at being a copper.” He began to laugh. “Blood will tell!”

Samuel dropped the knife, letting it fall to the floor with a clang. In the next heartbeat he was beating Constantine. Knuckles against skin and bone. Pain, pain, and more pain, pulled from him like a parasite from a dying body.

“Sam!”

Arms wrapped around him, yanking him off Constantine. Blood covered the doctor’s face, but that goddammed smile still lingered.

“See.” Constantine turned his head and spit blood. “You’re both the same. No better. Both killers.”

“Enough of this shit.” Timmons pulled out his device and pressed a button. “I signaled Williams. He’ll drive the train here. We’ll take this bastard back to the Tower.”

“You don’t know.” Constantine laughed once more. “I didn’t believe him when he told me.”

“Told you what?”

“Why should I tell you the truth? Do you think me a fool?”

“Not in the least. But I suspect the members of your cult wouldn’t take too kindly to knowing their good leader sold them out to the French.” Samuel smiled as realization dawned on the doctor’s face.

“You wouldn’t do that.” But he’d lost most of his earlier confidence, his words scaring him more than Samuel’s fists. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Of course he would.” Piper closed in on Constantine’s other side. “He’d make a few comments on our way out the door after we leave you tied up. I’m sure they’d make your death as painful as possible, leaving your body behind to rot. Then once the coast was clear, I’d return with my tools and extract your memories. I could take whatever I wanted to know.”

What a beautiful, devious mind his Piper had. “The beauty of it all is that then we’d get to store you away in the bowels of the very place you sought to destroy.” Samuel reached out for her, letting his hand drop as she shifted to avoid him. “Well played, Pip.”

“This is murder.” Constantine looked at each of them. “You do that and you might as well have plunged the blade into my chest yourself.”

Dennison pressed the muzzle of his gun to Constantine’s neck. “I could always shoot you and save a step. I’d probably earn myself a medal.”

“Either way, we will be getting the information.” Piper patted Constantine’s cheek.

Samuel had a dark side that he managed to repress most days. His foster father, Detective Inspector Williams, had worked with him, helping him work through his frustration and rage in a positive way. He learned to defend people who couldn’t defend themselves, perform manual tasks to burn off the energy, work at the blacksmiths or clockwerker shops lifting metal and stoking fires until exhaustion overtook him.

The darkness never went away, however. It was always there, not quite dormant, poking at Samuel, wanting to come out and stretch its legs. Wanting to
play
. And when Constantine’s boldness faded into terror, that dark place inside his head laughed.

The rest of him hated it.

“Fine. You want to know the truth about Jack. I’ll tell you. But you won’t like it. None of you.” Constantine licked his lips and he fixed his gaze on a single spot on the ceiling. “Jack is nothing like you or me. When I met him he wasn’t really even human. He’d been trapped, alone, used his entire life. No friends, given up as lost by his family. Slowly going mad for years and years and years.”

With every word, Samuel knew Constantine spoke the truth. He daren’t breathe for fear of breaking the spell they all seemed to be under.
Shit, Jack, what did they do to you?

“I found him quite by accident. He was being used in such a cruel fashion, I couldn’t imagine that another human being had put him there. I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the level of hate and cruelty mankind seems capable of. But this… this was worse than I could have believed if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

“Where did you find him?” Piper once again voiced the question Samuel was unable to.

Constantine’s eyes grew wide. “Do you know how much time I spent alone in the Archives? Once the Guild Masters thought they could trust me, I was practically given free rein. I was looking for the secured vaults one day. The ones in the deep tunnels, where they keep the memory vials deemed too important or too dangerous to store with the general population. I was confident I remembered the way, but I took a wrong turn. A very wrong turn. It was almost too easy to stumble upon him, and yet no one had, not for years.”

“The secure vaults?” Samuel swallowed down the bile rising up his throat, retreating from the doctor and his hateful gaze. “I looked for him down in those tunnels, but I never found him. He wasn’t there. I never saw him.”

Run! God, get away! Blood and pain, too much to bear. The monsters were real and they wanted him.

Constantine stared him down. Before the words were spoken, Samuel knew what he would say. “But he was there. Hooked up to wires and cables running straight from his body to the machine, with some twisted sort of helmet on his head, blocking out his sight. He didn’t eat or drink. They just pumped him full of nutrients and chemical concoctions, like an animal in a laboratory.”

“No.” The voice in the night, the crying Samuel thought he’d always hear in his dreams. The dreams that sometimes seemed more real than anything outside the Archives. Too real, horribly real.
Jack
. “No.”

“Yes. They made him into a part of the bloody machine. Jack wasn’t an archivist. He
was
the Archives.”

Piper stood beneath the largest of the trees in the front of the estate, watching as Samuel and Timmons moved Constantine and his men into the back of the train. The doctor’s words still echoed in her mind, though Piper couldn’t quite make herself accept them.

The Guild Masters had taken a human being, a child, and forced him to become a part of a machine. What kind of monsters did that? Dear God, what kind of monster did that make
her
? She was as responsible as any of the other archivists, perpetuating the extractions and the continued belief that what they did was a vital and necessary part of society.

It didn’t matter that she’d been unaware of Jack’s presence. She should have known there was something wrong—Samuel had. And he’d tried to tell her, but she’d never listened. She watched as he spoke with Timmons and William, his radiation goggles making it impossible to see his eyes. He’d said nothing after the doctor’s testimony, simply walking from the room and leaving the rest of them to deal with Constantine and the men. She knew he was as shocked as the rest of them.

He probably felt vindicated for fleeing all those years ago.

“Are you going to stay over here until he climbs into the train?” Dennison came up beside her. His voice lacked his normal cockiness, another disturbing fallout from the revelation. “I know myself I plan to avoid him as much as possible.”

“Who, Samuel or Constantine?”

“Yes.” Dennison smirked. “I don’t have a bloody clue what to do about this. If what he said is even true.”

“It is.”

Piper watched Samuel yawn for the fourth time in only a few minutes. Master Tolan’s back was thankfully turned, so the Guild Master was unaware of his lack of attention to his studies.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” she whispered.

Samuel’s gaze flicked to the Master before he slid closer to her. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Why?”

“The crying again.”

Piper had tried to stay awake so she could hear what Samuel did on several different nights, but she never did manage. “Did it last long?”

“All night. He sounded like he was in pain.”

Forced into silence by Master Tolan’s return, Piper had to wait before Samuel could continue.

“I’m going to go looking for him again. See if I can help.”

“Maybe he’s a prisoner. Maybe the Administrators took him away and he’s being punished.”

Samuel shrugged. “I want to try.”

“Why?”

“You’ll think it’s dumb.”

“No I won’t.” She hated when he didn’t trust her. He was her best friend in this place, and Piper would do anything for him.

Sighing, Samuel pushed his book away. “When I’m alone, in my room or walking around, I feel like someone’s watching me. I think whoever is crying might be trying to talk to me.”

John had been there, forced to watch as his friend lived his life while the machine slowly turned him into a madman. Turned him into Jack.

“It explains why the machine didn’t react normally when Samuel was connected, and all of the other problems we’ve been having for the past few months. It’s missing a part.” Things were beginning to disintegrate around them. “We need to tell the others.”

“Tell them what?” Dennison scoffed and pressed the heel of his hand to his eye. “That some poor soul needs to be a part of the machine? That we might be forced to put a madman back into its works? That their lives might now mean nothing if no one chooses to take Jack’s place and the Archives are closed? We don’t even know for certain that anyone
can
step in and fill his post. God knows no one would do it willingly.”

As important as the future of the Archives was, they needed to find Jack first and stop him from killing again. “It’s our responsibility to make sure no one else dies. Jack was driven insane by the Guild Masters and that awful machine. We need to make this right.” She turned and grabbed Dennison’s hand. “Not the King’s Sentry, but
us
.”

He looked at her with a mix of longing and regret. His blond hair blew with the breeze, and there was something else there that Piper didn’t want to acknowledge. When he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, Piper’s world tilted. “Emmet—”

“I know. It’s not me you want. It never was.”

“I’m sorry.”

He stepped away and for the first time since their acquaintance Piper felt as if she was saying goodbye to what might have been. “What happens when we find him? We can’t take Jack back to the Archives, but he’s not fit for society.”

“I’ll think of something.”

“What of Samuel? I have no doubt he won’t stand by while we take Jack.”

No, Samuel would insist on being there every step of the way. He’d want—no, he’d
need
to talk to Jack, ask the questions she knew would be burning inside him. Piper wouldn’t do anything to stop him from finding out his answers, but she wouldn’t stand by and let a madman who was clearly obsessed with Samuel hurt him. She’d stick a blade in him herself if she had to.

Her body seemed to relax at the thought.

Samuel stopped whatever he’d been saying and turned to look at the two of them. She wished she could see his eyes, know what he was thinking and what she could do to make things better. As it was, the only thing she could think to do was let Dennison’s hand drop and go to Sam’s side.

With every step her body began to react, heat with awareness in places it shouldn’t. The moment she could smell him, hear the steady in-out of his breathing, she knew there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him. In fact, she thought it likely there wasn’t anything she hadn’t already done for him. He was playing the gentleman, but her body knew better.

“Hello.” She cleared her throat, hoping to sound more confident, less rattled by her thoughts and their current revelations. “You looked like we were ready to go.”

Timmons and William shared a glance and boarded the train without another word. Even Dennison passed by, for once without a snide remark.

There was a vast chasm between them, one created by experiences she didn’t remember because of the void in her mind. But as he was interrogating Constantine, dark emotions shifting across his face, she knew what he was feeling, the conflict and vindication. The desire to comfort him, to reassure him that he’d done the right thing all those years ago, was overwhelming.

Lifting the goggles from his eyes as well as her own, Piper made sure he was looking at her, really looking, before she spoke.

“Are you all right?”

“No.”

Taking his hand in hers, she ran her thumb along the back of his bruised knuckles. “What happened to you in there?”

“I…” He chuckled softly. “I think I proved Constantine right. No matter how much I like to think I’m a better man than him or Jack, I’m not. I beat a defenseless man, not because I had to, but because I was so… bloody angry, Pip. What kind of man does that make me?”

“It makes you human.” The blood had dried on his skin, but mixed with his sweat, it left rust-colored smears. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared for you.”

“Pip—”

“Sam, it isn’t your fault. John wasn’t your responsibility. You were only a child.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t know how, but I knew.”

“It’s still not your fault. Even if you’d found John strapped to the machine, you were only a child. You wouldn’t have been able to get him free.”

“Someone might have listened to me. The other apprentices. The Administrators. Dennison and Jones. You.” He lifted his hand to touch, but stopped short. “You would have listened.”

“Of course I would have. But we can’t change the past. All we can do is try to fix this now.”

“He’ll come for me again. I don’t know how or why, but he will.”

“You knew him. You have a history together that he is clearly trying to cling to. You’ll be able to use that to your advantage when the time comes.”

“Pip—”

“I’ll be able to help you.”

“Unacceptable.” Samuel stepped back, and the two feet between them felt like a chasm. “I’ll send you back with Timmons, where I know you’ll be safe.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not up for discussion.”

Self-centered fool.
“Why not?”

“You’ve had your memory wiped twice. You’re vulnerable, and I won’t put you at further risk by placing you in the path of a killer.”

Piper shoved at his shoulder, letting her anger fly. “You ass. I’m not a child, nor do you have any say over what I can do, where I can go, or how I can live my life. I’ll leave with Dennison. I know he’ll have no problem treating me like an equal and giving me the information I need to complete my investigation. And yes, we are as much a part of this as the Sentry now. Jack is one of us. We need to deal with him.”

She only got two steps from him when Piper found herself pressed to the side of the train. The scent of mud and oil overwhelmed her, even as Samuel filled her vision. She couldn’t bear to look into his eyes, knowing she’d see nothing but anger and betrayal.

Samuel leaned in, his mouth inches from hers. “Don’t leave. Please.”

She swallowed and tried to ignore the way her body shivered, the heat between her legs and the tightening of her nipples beneath her dress.

“Please don’t go to him.” There was no hesitation, no room for doubt. Samuel leaned a hand on either side of her head, and pinned her in place with his gaze. “You don’t belong to him.”

“I don’t belong to you, either.”

“Don’t you?” His chuckle sent another thrill through her. “You think that after everything that’s happened between us that I would give you up without a fight?”

“I don’t know what happened between us.” The idiot needed to be hit over the head. “My memories are gone.”

He blinked and shook his head slowly. “I forgot.”

“I woke up alone in an unfamiliar house with two strangers. If it hadn’t been for David’s recording, I wouldn’t have believed his story. But I did, and I made him bring me to you despite the raging pain in my head and the weakness in my body. I knew I needed to be with you, to see this through, whatever it was. I needed to be there for you. But if you’re too damn stubborn to give me what I need, then I’ll find it from someone else.”

Ducking beneath his arm, Piper jumped onto the bottom step.

“Pip, wait.”

She paused, scared that if she didn’t walk away from him then, there would be heartbreak in her future.

“We’ll find it together.”

His arms shook from the strain of holding his body from hers. She didn’t know how, but she knew what his body would feel like, its weight pressing her down into a mattress. No, that wasn’t possible.

“Sam?”

He turned his face, his lips finding hers in a kiss that felt far more familiar than it should. The caress of his tongue made her core flutter with heat and desire, the press of his thigh encouraged her legs to part. They slotted together like a cog in a gear, grinding and spinning in perfect harmony. Piper gasped as Samuel broke the kiss. He pulled back only enough to look into her eyes.

“Pip.”

She licked her lips, familiarizing herself with his taste. “We’ve done this before?”

“Yes.”

“More than this?”

Samuel closed his eyes and nodded. “At Timmons’ house.”

“I don’t remember.” God was certainly an unfair being. If she had gone against the rules of the Archives, the least she should be given were the memories of the event. “That’s a bloody crime.”

“When all this is done, I’ll make sure you do.” He rubbed his nose against hers before stepping away and taking her by the hand. “We should go. I won’t feel comfortable until we get these men into a secure facility.”

“Then we need to come up with a plan to lure Jack out into the open. Together.”

“Pip—”

“I’m not letting you do this on your own. If you want me in your life, you better get used to the fact I won’t sit by and let the ones I love get hurt.”

She made her way into the train and ignored Samuel’s soft “Yes, ma’am.”

Piper had little recollection of the journey back to New London. With the tunnels free of debris, it was a far smoother ride. The vibrations, heat, and dirt from the train were still close to overpowering, however, making it next to impossible to keep a thought in her head.

Her three companions moved Constantine and the rest of the cult members from their seats to the platform in the Tower’s underground, leaving Piper to disembark on her own. She hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings on her earlier visit, too shocked by the sight of the train itself. With their mission now completed, she allowed herself the opportunity.

The ceiling of the station area was an unadorned framework of steel girders and sheet metal. A network of pipes ran the length of the roof, dotted with the same steam lamps that lined the hallways of the main Tower. The walls of the embarking platform were likewise austere, and looked hastily constructed. Rivets stuck out along the seams, allowing parts of the metal to pop up, exposing the steel and wood framework beneath. It was as if the King’s Sentry hadn’t a clue how best to construct a facility beneath the surface, so they’d just patchworked the quickest solution so a cave-in wouldn’t occur, then given up. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care what it looked like.