Nero's Fiddle (39 page)

“Oh good, you’re back.” Nan removed the glasses perched on the end of her nose. “There’s something I have to tell you, dear.”

“It will have to wait, Nan, where is Brick?” Cara itched to move, to do something to protect her family. Shooting was too good for Dalkeith, he needed a slow end. Maybe they could stake him out over fast-growing bamboo in the green house.

Nan waved a hand in the direction of the window. “Stalking around the house. Now it really is important. I remembered something about when this horrid man pulled my hair in the market.”

She sighed and willed her feet to stay put for a few moments longer before she ran in search of Brick and nodded for her grandmother to speak.

Five minutes later, she headed out through the kitchens. “Seen anyone we don’t know around, Duffie? “she asked on her way past.

“No,” the cook replied, stacking the dishes away under the shelf. “Only that gent who fell off his horse.”

Cara halted, her feet nearly to the door. “What?” Her comment was a throw away, she never expected a positive response.

“There was a gentleman out for a ride. He fell off, hurt his leg. The lads put him and the horse in the stable to rest. I took him out some supper.” Duffie folded the tea towel into a neat small square.

The warning itch crawled up Cara’s spine and pounded on her brain. “When, Duffie?”

She looked up at the enormous kitchen clock, used to track every meal and snack prepared under its watchful face. “About an hour ago? He felt much better and said he would be gone by dark.”

Cara jogged outside and found Brick crossing the lawn. “Nate is not far behind with Fraser. What happened to the man in the stable?”

“Just been there. Gone. Up and scarpered.” The line of Brick’s suit was completely ruined with strange bulges and lumps.

Cara wondered just how many different weapons he had strapped around his body. “Damn.”

“We’ll find him, you said he has to be close to the house.” He fell into step next to her.

“Thirty yards, fifty max,” she said, peering into the dark. She hoped her affinity to artifacts worked and alerted her to the presence of Nero’s Fiddle.

“Let’s keep circling,” Brick said; his breath frosted on the air and curled up to the sky. “Most of the house is clear lawn in that distance. He’ll turn up, he has to expose his position to get close enough to his quarry.”

They moved around the side of the mansion, ears and eyes straining to notice something amongst the moving shadows of the trees and shrubs. The pulse through her body stuttered and then synchronised as a familiar shadow cloaked in darkness strode toward her.

“Where’s Fraser?” she asked. This monster in the dark would never harm her.

“Going around the other side with his sergeant,” Nate replied.

As they rounded the old wing of the house, the shiver skated over her skin despite the thick coat. A plaintive musical note carried across the crisp air. “There.” She ran in the direction of the music.

He stood on the back lawn. A single shaft of moonlight struck him from above, a celestial spotlight for the man about to call forth God’s fire. He held the small lyre in his hands. Two sinuous curves made of ebony and walnut that danced and swayed to the music as though made of serpents, not wood. A beautiful and deadly item. It only had six strings and one glowed compared to the others. The single strand held the note like a tuning fork. The hair shimmered as it vibrated.

“No!” Cara cried as she hurtled toward him.

His head shot up. The corner of his lip tilted in a sneer and then his other hand came up holding a pistol. She slid to a stop, Nate grabbed her from behind and rolled her to one side as a shot fired across the lawn.

A cloud drifted over the moon and darkness dropped over them. Under the enveloping blanket, their target vanished.

“I thought we had this conversation about you throwing yourself in front of bullets?” Nate breathed against her ear.

“Sometimes my brain forgets to tell my hand to draw.” She swung her head around and her hand remembered the pistol at her hip. She tried to figure out where Dalkeith might have run under the covering darkness. The estate lacked London’s street lights, something to remedy in the future.

“Well at least he has fired at us. Now I can kill him without Fraser tut-tutting at me.” Nate’s hand moved down her arm and he clasped her fingers. “Where did he go, Cara? Close your eyes and reach out to the lyre, you are more in tune with the artifacts than I.”

She took a deep breath, shut her eyes and surrendered to the black abyss waiting for her. The pulse of their joined hearts was the music of her body. Like an ocean kissing the shore, it washed through her. She lowered the volume and listened for a clue. A faint ping shot down her spine and she faced the direction of the noise.

“The tree,” Nate whispered, his senses following the lead. “He’s up the old copper beech.”

A frown crossed her face. “Oh no, I love that tree,” she muttered as they crept past the clipped box hedging to the ancient guardian of the back lawn.

Fraser and Connor approached from the other side. Nate held a finger to his lips and pointed up at the spreading canopy. The Enforcers nodded their understanding.

Winter stripped the tree of all greenery but its twisted outstretched limbs could still easily hide a man. Or a man and a woman, as it proved one summer’s day. With a trunk as wide as a carriage, the bracts created platforms and hidey holes where the young Cara hid, played and read. Now, it concealed a man with vengeance on his mind.

Another tinkle of notes drifted down, followed by a high-pitched scream from the house.

Cara froze. “Nan,” she cried.

“Come down Dalkeith,” Fraser yelled to their treed prey. “You have nowhere to go.”

“Not until this is over,” a voice answered.

“It is over. There are more tongues than you can silence and you are stuck up a tree,” Fraser said.

The scream tailed off and was replaced by pale yellow that bounced out to the lawn as people moved through the mansion. Electric lights turned on as staff rushed toward the source of the ungodly wailing.

Cara’s attention split between the man in the tree and events unfolding in the house. She held her breath, waiting for the call to return to her grandmother’s side.

Fraser paced around the trunk, his service pistol drawn as he tried to find a target amongst the branches. “You don’t have to do this, Thomas. Those people didn’t have to die.”

They spread out; each of them two yards apart as the circled the beech.

Laughter filtered from above. “Old tongues can wag, they all need to be silenced before Parliament can ask its questions.”

“You cannot hide the truth by killing innocent people. It will be brought into the light. Too many of us know now.” Fraser holstered his weapon and looked for handholds.

Nate touched Cara’s shoulder. “I’ll go up and end this, unless you want at him?”

She shook her head. “There’s no maniac in an exo-skeleton and no military airship. It’s just a valet with a musical instrument, he’s all yours.”

He caressed the side of her face. “You should go, be with your Nan, see what you can do.”

Cara stood her ground. “I know what I’m doing, I’m not hiding inside.”

Another strum, a clear note hanging on the air and screaming rolled from the house.

“End this,” she whispered. “Now the lyre has hold of him, he cannot stop.”

Nate knew this tree, having climbed amongst its canopy before in pursuit of a far more pleasurable target. He could visualise in his mind where Dalketih would stand. There was one spot where the ancient trunk formed a hand and provided a level palm to cup a person, or two if they were very close. The person hidden by the tree had a clear view of the house, but no one below could see you.

He grabbed a gnarled piece of trunk and hauled himself up the side of the tree. Fraser did the same from the other side. Years of experience in climbing the netting on an airship bladder made scaling a tree an easy task. He reached the desired spot ahead of Fraser, who huffed, scratched and scrapped as his boots slipped.

He leaned against the trunk in the shadows and watched his prey, waiting for his attention to be fixed on the inspector. Perhaps they would tussle and both fall from the tree solving two problems in one hit.

Clouds drifted past and a shaft of moonlight revealed Fraser’s bowler hat as a knot on a branch. “You cannot escape, Dalkeith. We have the tree surrounded.”

“I will end the slander and keep Edward secure as the heir. He will reward me.” The valet kept talking as he played Nero’s Fiddle. “Victoria is our queen. If Parliament forces her to step down, it will throw England into chaos. I am preventing civil war.” His laughter tinged with madness as the artifact wrapped its tendrils tighter around his brain.

Nate’s fingers caressed the hilt of his dagger as he waited for his moment.

“No it won’t. We’re British.” Fraser hauled himself up and balanced on an outstretched limb, three feet from their target. “We’d have the succession sorted by tea time.”

“I will not lose my position.” The notes stopped as he slammed his hand against the strings. “I am a king’s man, not the valet for a poor nobody!”

“Ah, so you seek to line your own pockets, not just to protect the royal family.” Holding on to an overhanging limb with one hand, Fraser fumbled at his waist for his revolver.

“Edward will rule and reward me for my loyalty. I will have whatever I want.” Dalkeith plucked another note. The hair strung in the lyre burned bright, soon it would catch fire and crumble away to dust. Cries and shrieks came from the house. “You cannot stop me,” Dalkeith yelled as he took a step backward on the branch.

Fraser edged along his branch, one hand grasped his revolver and pointed it at Dalkeith.

Nate coughed into his hand, alerting the valet to his presence behind him.

The man whirled and snatched at the pistol tucked into his waistband while trying to maintain his balance on the limb and his hold on the artifact.

As Dalkeith moved, Fraser fired and the shot echoed through the night.

Nate jumped for the branch above his head and swung his feet, connecting both boots with the man’s chest.

Dalkeith yelled as his body was propelled one way by a bullet and another by the force of Nate’s kick. His arms flailed for something to grasp, and in doing so, he dropped the instrument of his revenge. He grabbed a limb, but unable to support the sudden weight of the man, the wood splintered with a crack.

Twigs cracked and he dropped from the sky like Gabriel flung to earth.

A thud and silence.

Cara and the two men rushed to the fallen man, his leg twisted under his body at an unnatural angle. Light glistened on his shoulder as a growing stain spread over his jacket. Relief flashed through her that it wasn’t Nate. A soft moan came as they rolled him flat on his back. The moan turned into a sharp cry as Brick took hold of his ankle and realigned the leg.

Connor removed handcuffs from his utility belt and secured the prone valet.

Two more shadows detached from the tree and touched the earth, standing over the downed bird.

Fraser peered close and gave the injured valet a quick inspection. “Looks like his leg is broken and a shoulder wound where I winged him. We’ll bind the wounds for now and Doc can deal with him at Headquarters.”

Connor searched in his multiple pockets for a roll of bandage while Brick cut two sticks to length as splints.

Nate held out the small wooden lyre to Cara. “You should take this, don’t let anyone else touch it.”

The frown left her face as soon as her hand slid over the smooth wood and she understood why Nate handed it over so fast. The artifact
called
to her. With gentle fingers it caressed her mind and plucked forth her darkest desires and deepest fears. It played a haunting tune in her brain, begging to be of service to her, to end her pain by eliminating those who hurt her. The instrument promised to deliver anything she wanted, so long as she plucked the human hair strings. She gasped as it tried to seduce her, preying on her secrets. Like a siren’s song the music flowed through her body and drew her closer so it could burrow deeper into her psyche.