His Lordship Possessed (20 page)

7/15/13 10:25 AM

LYNN VIEHL

As I sat in Questioning at Rumsen Main Station I idly

wished for a dagger. Th ey’d taken Wrecker’s from me, but

I didn’t especially need a kneecapper’s blade. Any dagger,

even a pen knife, would suffi ce for the last bit of killing I had to do.

I caught a whiff of piss as I imagined it. A quick slash

across the carotid. Lots of blood—lots of mess—but they

were used to tidying up death here. I knew no one would

shout for help or call for the whitecart. If anything, they’d have their tea hour down at the pub and share a few

good-riddance pints.

Th ey might still at that. I had one sleeve left intact.

When they tossed me in my cell, I’d be alone.

For now I’d have to endure this. Sitting shackled to a

chair for hours wasn’t comfortable, but it was a nice break

from the hell I’d been through over the past two weeks.

Questioning, for all its hideous rep, wasn’t as bad as

all that. Dust coated the gaslight chimneys, all of which

were blackened on the inside from long use. Yellowed

wanted posts and faded ambrotype tints hung on point

from a warped cork-backed board, on which someone

had pasted a headline from
Th e Queen’s Voice
:
Your
Colonial Taxes at Work.
It hadn’t taken that long for Her Majesty to decide to appropriate all unprocessed colonial

gold for Herself, or men would still be out panning the

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rivers.

Grimy footprints and skid marks from rubber-soled

shoes made odd trails across the cheap pine fl oor planks.

Old pipe and cigar smoke had shriveled an orange-clove

pomander hanging from the window bars to the size of

a walnut.

I wasn’t in any better shape. I needed a bath, a drink,

and my head examined. Whatever they did to me,

though, I wasn’t explaining what had happened at the

docks. I wasn’t even sure I understood it. All I could feel

was the awful weight inside me, like some hidden rot just

waiting for the right moment to bloom.

Chief Inspector Tom Doyle came in and closed the

door behind him. He didn’t come at me but walked to

one end of the room, and then the other.

I watched him back and forth it. Working three

straight shifts hadn’t wrinkled his jacket or trousers,

and damp comb marks streaked his short hair. It didn’t

surprise me that he’d taken the time to wash up and

shave. He’d spent ten years in H.M.’s Fleet, and now had

a bit of that all-hands-on-deck look about him. Now I

was the enemy, and naturally he had to evaluate my threat

potential before he issued any orders. I wondered if he’d

ever dreamt we’d come to this.

Doyle fi nally tired of pacing, yanked out the chair

on the other side of the table, and dropped in it. Gave

me that cool, fl int-edged stare he’d inherited from his

Grandda, and said: “Why did you do it, Kit?”

I gave him my full statement in four words. “I didn’t

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kill him.” Of course I had, but admitting it wouldn’t gain

me much chance to fi nish the work. For that I’d need a

nice, quiet, isolated cell in lockup. “Is that what this is

about, then? You’ve got the wrong—”

“Th ey’ll send you to the gallows.” Beneath his rage was

something more I hadn’t expected to see: regret.

“I doubt it. Th ey hardly ever hang women.” A cramp

in my right shoulder made me adjust the drape of my

arms round the back of the chair. Th e fi ve-link chain

between my shackles jingled. “You’ve no body, no

credible witnesses. How could I have done him, what

with me being such a young, helpless female and all?”

“I’ve better.” He bent to one side, took something

from his case, and placed it on the table between us. A

small, fl at square, carefully swaddled in soft black cloth.

He didn’t have to unwrap it to show me what it was.

I stared at it, fascinated. “You’ve glass.”

“Aye, I’ve glass.” He braced his hands on the table and

leaned over it. “Why did you kill him?”

It had to be a trick, the glass blank, the threat empty.

Unless—“Show it to me.”

Tom unwrapped the cloth to expose the plate inside.

Silverblack mottled the slick surface with splotches

and lines. Th ey formed the reverse image of a long dock,

a tall woman, and the possessed lover she was straddling.

Th is tint showed the fi ner details. Th e tears in her bodice.

Th e blood on her mouth. Th e iron spike she was just

about to thrust into the monster’s chest.

Damn me, he had it all on glass. “Th at’s not what it

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looks like.”

He picked up the ambrotype showing me killing

Lucien Dredmore. “Th is is
not
you shoving a rail tie through the man’s chest, then.” Hot blue eyes shifted

to the remains of my bodice. “And I suppose that’s not

Dredmore’s blood all over your tits.”

“No.” Well, most of it wasn’t his blood.

“You’ve a homicidal twin sister tucked away

somewhere?”

“Sorry.” I grimaced. “Only child.”

Tom checked his pocket watch. “After you didn’t kill

Dredmore, did someone else kick him over the side of the

dock and send him for a bathe?”

“I don’t recall.” I wished I could explain, but he’d

never believe it. “Tommy—”

“Inspector Doyle to the likes of you.”

“Inspector Doyle.” So much for the tender bud of that

relationship. “I did not stab Lucien Dredmore in the

heart or pitch his ass in the bay. I may have wanted to—I

may have even dreamt about it now and then—but I am

innocent of these charges being fi led against me.”

“You’re lying.”

I smelled piss again and glanced down. No wonder

the fl oor and the seat felt tacky; the chap they’d brought

in before me had disgraced himself. Maybe the Yard

hadn’t cleaned it up very well in order to break down

the resistance of subsequent suspects. Th e stench was

certainly working wonders on me.

“Kit.”

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“Can’t you see what’s happening here?” No, he

couldn’t, that much was obvious. “Th ink about it,

Tommy. I hate the bleeding bastard. Everyone knows

that. Th ey wanted him and me out of the way. One stone,

two birds. So they arranged to make it look like I killed

him, and we’re both done for. Oldest trick in the book.”

“So you’re being framed for Dredmore’s murder.”

I kept a straight face. “Yes.”

“Th ere’s just one problem with that.”

“What?”

“I’m the one who took this, and the others.” He

shoved the glass across the table at me. “I was there at

the docks the entire time, Kit. I watched you kill him. I

arrested you at the scene.” His blond brows formed a vee

over his bright blue eyes. “And I will testify.”

So he would, because that was the sort of man he was.

If things had gone diff erently, Tommy and I might have

been mates. Another thing to regret, but not enough to

keep me from hanging myself. It didn’t matter. My life

had ended hours ago when Zarath had shoved that spirit

stone down my throat.

I had to fi nish this.

“I’ll say that we’ve slept together,” I said. “My barrister

will use it to destroy your credibility—”

Pain exploded across my face and my head snapped to

one side as his swinging hand connected with my cheek.

I spat some blood-streaked saliva on the fl oor and rolled

the bottom of my jaw.

“Very good, Inspector. Go on, hit me again. Use your

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fi st this time. I deserve it, lying bitch that I am.” If I were very lucky, I might be able to goad him into breaking my

neck.

“So you can use the bruises to discredit me?” He shook

his head. “What happened, Kit? What did he do to you?

How in God’s name did he drive you to murder? You

were lovers.”

I laughed. “I’d rather bed a jackal.”

Doyle took something from his pocket and tossed it

down in front of me. Th e last time I’d seen the old chain,

Dredmore had made it vanish. Now, looking at it and the

crystal-encrusted stone pendant hanging from it, I could

hardly take in enough air to form words. “Where did you

get this?”

“We recovered it,” he snapped. “We also have the

murder weapon, which was recovered from the docks. It’ll

be tested. Th ey’ll fi nd his blood on it.”

My hand shook as I scraped my fi ngers against

the table, catching the chain and using it to tug the

nightstone to me. As soon as I covered it with my palm,

I felt something like tiny gears inside turning a notch.

Before Zarath had possessed him Lucien had said he

would be where Harry had been . . . and then I knew. I

knew it all.

“Where’s the body?” Without thinking I tried to

stand, only to be jerked back as my shackles cut into my

wrists. “Where is it?”

“Down at the docks in a skip net,” he said. “Awaiting

transport to the morgue. And why the devil do you care?”

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Th e pendant changed everything. “I want a vicar.”

Outrage fl agged his cheekbones red. “You don’t get—”

“I’ll confess,” I said quickly. “To all of it. Everything.

In my own hand, if you like.
After
I speak to my vicar.”

He stared. “You’ve never been Church.”

I ran my tongue along the seam where my cheek met

my gum line. “Remorse has converted me. It’s a miracle.

Now, the vicar, if you please.”

Fury left Doyle speechless, and he stalked out. As

soon as the door slammed I hooked the hairpin nestled

next to my bottom gum with my tongue and caught it

between my teeth. I turned my face as far as I could to the

left and spat it carefully over my shoulder. It fell neatly

into my cupped hands. I took a moment to work my wrist

until it felt looser, stretched out the chain between the

cuff s, and went to work.

Th e air vent was too small, and I’d never make it to the

end of the corridor outside. Th at left the window, and the

lock on the inside grid. Once I’d opened it I shoved it up,

catching by refl ex the old pomander as it fell. I left it on the table along with my shackles for Doyle.

Th e pendant I took with me.

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Escaping Rumsen Main in the middle of being questioned

by Inspector Doyle proved almost comically simple;

perhaps Tommy thought someone who had essentially

just confessed to murdering the most important mage in

the province incapable of such a feat.

As I jumped from the window to the alley, I hoped his

anger and outrage over what he thought he’d seen at the

docks would keep him from returning to the questioning

room for at least another half hour. I needed to put some

distance between me and all the beaters Tommy would be

sending out to hunt for me. Once again on foot, I made

haste down the alleyways.

I wrapped the broken chain of my pendant round my

fi st. I’d cherished it as a gift from my parents, and worn

it practically every day of my life, but now it felt like an iron ball. As soon as this was over I’d fi nd a nice big

furnace to toss it in. And then there was the stone in my

belly, waiting like some slumbering, poisonous snake.

Somehow I had to get that out of me before something

woke up Zarath’s queen and she had my spirit for tea.

I halted at the corner of the next street, forced to

wait on a long row of hog carts coming down from

the smoldering remains of the mansions on the Hill.

Someone had piled costly furnishings, paintings, and

other trappings of wealth in the back of the carts, right

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on top of the old, fi lthy straw. Even what didn’t end up

stained with the former occupants’ waste and fl uids would

defi nitely absorb the distinctive stench.

Servants would have set fi re to their masters’

possessions before permitting them to be hauled away in

pig carts.

I caught up to one of the tired-looking nobbers

providing escort for the carts. Soot blackened the end of

his nose, his eyebrows were gone, and patches of burnt

fl esh showed through the rags he’d tied round both

hands.

“Evening,” I said as I stretched my legs to pace him.

“Are you lads back from the Hill? Were you able to save

anything from Walsh’s Folly?”

He spared me a tired glance. “Piss off .”

“I’m Lady Diana’s cousin and companion, actually.”