Of Silk and Steam (19 page)

“How?”

“My craving virus levels are moderate,” Mina continued. “But a blue blood’s blood can heal almost any wound.”

“Infecting her with the craving in the process.”

“Yes, but Honoria will live and so will the baby. Blade’s a blue blood—I have little doubt he’d rather see his wife live, no matter the change—”

“She won’t catch the virus.” Esme suddenly spoke up, interrupting them. Honoria was gasping through another contraction and Dolly knelt at her feet by the birthing stool, rubbing her hand. “She’s been vaccinated against the craving.”

Of course. One of those vaccinations Barrons had been particularly keen on championing. There was little doubt he’d have seen his family inoculated.

Honoria broke off, panting. “Might not…stop the bleeding,” she whispered. “I’m not entirely…certain what the vaccination would do…if your blood mingled with mine. If it affects the healing…”

Though they’d been speaking quietly, evidently the room had heard the plan. Four sets of eyes stared at her.

“Then we test it,” Mina said grimly. “Does anyone have a scalpel or a blade?”

* * *

“They’re fallin’ back!” Blade bellowed.

Dozens of men lifted their arms and roared, the sound spreading along the entire wall. Leo scraped a hand over his face, trying to remove some of the soot and grime.

So far Morioch’s attempts to breach the rookery had been driven back. “He’s not throwing everything he’s got at you yet,” Leo murmured, examining the orderly ranks of automatons.

Blade’s smile never slipped as he waved his fist along with the men. “I know.” Their eyes met and Blade lowered his arm. “Testin’ us for weaknesses.”

“He’ll find them.” He himself had, upon inspection of the wall. Built from whatever people could get their hands on over fifty years ago, the wall had certain places he’d hit if he were trying to destroy it.

“As to that, I’ve got plans.” Blade pointed at the fires burning in other parts of the city. “They can’t afford to send all their forces at us. That’ll ’old ’em a bit, enough mebbe to finish Morioch off.”

Leo considered the golden blazes highlighting the night. Three of them, by the look of it. “Or they’ll send the Trojan cavalry out in force and crush the mobs there, then hit you with the spitfires. They don’t need me alive, just dead. All they’ve got to do is burn us to the ground.”

“Aye.” Blade’s gaze darkened. “But they need
me
alive, to execute me in public so they can prove I’m dead, once and for all.”

Killing a legend. “Perhaps.” Leo eyed the fires again, noting where they were. “No sign of Will yet?”

Blade sobered. He looked at the fires too, particularly the one to the west, near the verwulfen ambassador’s house. “’E’ll get ’ere when ’e can, and all them verwulfen ’e’s got.”

Neither of them voiced the other option—that the prince consort’s forces would have hit there hard, knowing that Will was likely to come to Blade’s aid with dozens of the newly freed verwulfen. A single verwulfen in a berserker rage could cut through half an army by itself.

The image of Lena’s face flashed into Leo’s mind. His laughing sister; that was the way he’d always thought of her: the girl who smiled, even when she had nothing to smile about, because she lived to see others happy. She kept her pain private so as not to alarm anyone. Something he understood all too clearly, despite different methods. His own pain was hidden through indifference.

It ached inside him now. This was why they’d been so long in planning their offensive. People would die and neither he, Blade, Lynch, nor Garrett wanted to see familiar faces among the dead. If Lena was out there, she’d be by Will’s side, both the safest and most dangerous place to be at the moment.

She’d be safe. Will would die before he let anything happen to her.
But the words didn’t sound as confident in Leo’s own head. War was brutal and violent and unforgiving. People died. People who shouldn’t have or people who should—there was little distinction.

“Blade!” A voice cut through the laughter and bellowing of the men on the wall.

Lark scrambled up beside them like a cat, her face pale. Blade’s spine straightened, his body locking tight. “’Onoria?”

“She’s lyin’ in.” Lark sounded nervous. “The duchess said you ought to come.”

“But it ain’t ’er time yet,” Blade blurted, panic tightening his features. He turned to Leo. “She were right, weren’t she? When you saw ’er last?”

Leo tried to think of something to say and Blade saw it. “Honor didn’t want to distract you,” he said.

“Bloody ’ell.”

Lark looked very small all of a sudden. “They won’t let me in, but I don’t… I don’t think it’s goin’ real well. I could ’ear ’er screamin’.”

If Blade had been pale before, it was as nothing compared to now. Leo caught his arm, holding him up. “Steady.”

“I
can’t
go,” Blade whispered, looking around. “I’ve got to ’old the wall. If they overrun us, they’ll burn us and she won’t ’ave a chance to escape.”

Leo tipped his chin up, catching Rip’s attention. Firelight leered over the man’s brutal face as he clapped someone on the back, then strolled closer with a nonchalant step. Despite that, tension tightened the fine lines around his eyes.

“Go and see to her,” Leo said. “Rip and I will hold the wall. Nothing’s going to happen anytime soon. Not yet. Morioch’s still playing cat-and-mouse.”

Blade clasped his arm, giving it a squeeze, the relief on his face palpable. “Thank you.”

Pacing outside the door, Mina felt every hair on her body lift. She was no longer alone.

The Devil of Whitechapel appeared at the top of the staircase, his face pale and his eyes as black as Hades. There was no sign of the man she’d seen earlier; this was a predator, tight with tension and the need to kill. Prepared to defend every inch of the place he called his own.

A muffled sound of pain echoed from inside the bedroom. Blade’s attention shifted, and for a moment, his face contorted. Not a blue blood, not a predator now, just a man listening to his wife cry out and completely helpless because of it.

“Lark said the baby’s coming,” he said, his words strangely lacking any hint of his usual accent.

Mina took a deep breath as he strode closer. “It’s not going well. The child’s in a breech position, and the midwife seems to feel that Honoria is too narrow through the hips to give birth successfully. However, if we don’t get the baby out soon…”

Those black eyes stared at her, then he scraped a trembling hand over his mouth. “No. No, this can’t be happening.”

Mina reached out and touched his arm. He tensed. “There is a chance we could perform a cesarean on her. Mrs. Parsons has performed such operations before and—”

“Cut it out of her? What about Honoria? What about—”

“We’ll use my blood to heal her wound. It will significantly lower the risk of scarring and infection, and I’ve already tested her to see if her vaccination will interfere with the craving virus’s ability to heal. It doesn’t.”

He looked lost. “Is there no other way?”

“None of us are obstetricians and we cannot wait to find one. I feel we must take this chance or lose it forever.”

Blade rubbed his mouth again, his gaze staring at something she couldn’t see. “And you want my approval?”

“Your approval,” Mina said, “and your help. Your wife is very frightened right now. With her scientific background, she knows too well the risk of this pregnancy. I know it’s hardly the done thing for a man to attend his wife, but if you could be there…to hold her hand, to talk to her and calm her fears—”

“I’ll do it.”

Thank
goodness.
She didn’t fully understand the relationship between Honoria and her husband, but he seemed to care very strongly for her, enough to overcome a man’s instinctive fear of the birthing room.

“Let’s do this then,” Blade said. “Before I lose me nerve.”

“Wait.” She caught his arm. “How is the battle faring?”

A dangerous look from those green eyes. “You ain’t about to be rescued, princess. Barrons and Rip are ’oldin’ the wall. Morioch’s only playin’ with us for now.”

The familiar sound of his accent let her breathe a little easier. There was something entirely too intense about him when his inner demon held sway. A sense of…danger.

“Barrons,” she murmured, her mind flashing to the hints of fire she’d seen in the distance and the sounds of shouting. He’d be right at the forefront of the fighting, no doubt. For a moment, she felt ill.

“Well, I’ll be damned…” he murmured. “Barrons?”

A hint of heat surfaced in her cheeks. Mina straightened. “I don’t know what you’re speaking about. Come. And make sure you wash your hands. You practically reek of blood and smoke.”

* * *

“’Ere they come again,” Rip murmured.

“How many waves of this can the walls take?” Leo asked. Morioch hadn’t sent the spitfires in yet; no doubt the fear of uncontained fires stayed his hand. He’d see if he could bring them down with just the metaljackets.

Rip shrugged. “This wall were only ever a symbol. Not built as a means to stop an army.”

Not
many
then, by the sound of it.
“We need to bring the battle down into the streets. Stop them before they hit us too hard.”

“They’ll grind us up against our own wall,” Rip pointed out.

“Not if we’re coming at them from both sides.”

The pair of them shared a look. Firelight flickered off the giant’s green eyes, a considering expression on his face. “We go through Undertown. Come at ’em from behind before they even know we’re there.”

“You need to stay here, to be a figurehead for the men and lead this force.” A deep breath. “Who do you suggest should lead the other force?”

Rip stared at him. “You know who I’m goin’ to suggest.”

Christ.
“They won’t follow me. They’re Blade’s men. Not mine.”

“None o’ the lads know warfare,” Rip countered. “They know these streets, ’ow to ambush a gent, ’ow to fight, ’ow to kill… But you know tactics. You know ’ow Morioch thinks, ’ow the metaljackets work… All you need’s a few o’ the lads to direct the men and make it clear we’re workin’ for you.”

A certain kind of bleakness settled over him. He was used to command, to control. Why then did he feel so bloody uncertain?

You
wouldn’t have hesitated three days ago.

Leo crushed his eyes shut. Where was the “old Leo” with his confidence and his air of command? Would he ever be that man again?

“I’ll do it.” He’d made his sister and Blade too many promises—and this was what he was trained for. With a breathless laugh, he offered a silent prayer of thanks to Caine for teaching him the art of war.

“Good. You’ll need men. Tin Man, Dalloway, Higgins, and Charlie to help direct you.” Rip held up a hand. “No arguin’. This is my command, my choices. I’ll select the rest to go with you.” A slow, fierce smile slid over the man’s hard mouth. “Time to make metal bleed.”

* * *

The room stank of chloroform.

Honoria’s head sagged back and forth, vaguely aware, as Esme held the cloth over her mouth and nose. Blade sat at her side, his fingers clenched in hers and that dark-eyed stare locked on her abdomen.

When Mina had suggested such an operation—knowing the procedure theoretically but not practically—she’d never imagined there would be so many layers of flesh to cut through. Mrs. Parsons worked with swift efficiency, using both scalpel and scissors from her kit and a pair of clamps. Using Lister’s suggestions for antiseptic on the area and then on her hands, Mrs. Parsons had set to work.

Mina only managed to watch for a minute or two, then looked away, swallowing hard. Honoria made a small moan in her throat, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks.

“It’s all right, luv,” Blade murmured in her ear. “I’m ’ere. I’ve got you.”

“Baby?” she murmured vaguely.

“The baby’s fine.” Blade looked away from her imploring gaze, patting her hand. “Nothin’s gonna ’appen to either of you.”

Honoria’s head lolled, her consciousness dipping again.

“What are your CV levels coming in at?” Mina asked Blade, to distract them all.

“’Bout forty-eight percent.”

Higher than her own. The higher the virus percentage in the blood, the stronger its healing capabilities would be. “Perhaps we should use your blood to heal her. Mine are thirty-six percent.”

“If this works,” Esme said, “imagine the possibilities. The area of obstetrics would significantly improve if we could guarantee swift healing rates and lack of infection.”

Infection was often the cause of maternal mortality, and judging from her softened frame, Esme had her own stake in this.

“They would need to be vaccinated first.”

“Ladies, please attend, if you would,” Mrs. Parsons said. “Your Grace, would you hand me the clamps?”

It helped if she tried not to think of what she was seeing as a human body. Walling herself off from the procedure, Mina simply moved as Mrs. Parsons directed, holding various metal instruments and squishy body parts out of the way as Parsons continued her swift incisions. Finally a pair of feet appeared, straining inside a thin gelatinous sack. It was the most amazing and disgusting thing Mina had ever seen.

“Oh,” she said.

The wet sucking sound as the baby emerged was not at all what she’d expected. Mina held up the soft linens as a small, weakly struggling, slimy baby was deposited into her arms. Mrs. Parsons cleared the sack off its face and shoved a finger inside its throat to clear the airway. Its mouth opened in a silent squawk, and then suddenly, as if something had been cut, sound erupted. A hearty cry that made Mina jump.

“It’s a girl!” Mrs. Parsons cried, relief leaving her red and perspiring.

“A girl?” Blade said in a shaky voice. “I’ve a daughter?”

Mina swiftly wrapped the child up, holding her awkwardly. “Here. Look at her.”

Another feeble squall split the air. The baby had a wealth of dark hair plastered to her scalp, and her reddened face was all wrinkled up. Blade stared at her as if Mina had just offered to show him the moon.

“Just look at ’er,” he whispered, reaching out to touch the tiny shaking fist that was poking out of the blankets. “’Onor, look, luv. She’s so beautiful. Just like you.”

“I think perhaps we’d best wait to show her until after we’ve stitched her back together,” Mina suggested. “Esme?”

Esme surrendered the chloroform-soaked cloth to Dolly and gently took the baby from Mina’s arms. “Hello there, beautiful. Let me take her and clean her up.”

“Give me your wrist,” Mina said, taking Blade’s hand.

Making a neat little slash in Blade’s wrist, Mina used one of Honoria’s syringes to pour his blood into the wound that Mrs. Parsons was hastily clamping together. It was a matter of minutes before the first thin layer of membrane began to almost visibly heal itself and Mina let out her breath.

“It’s working,” she said excitedly.

Blade looked up sharply. “You weren’t certain?”

“There’s always an element of risk.” Blade was a hard man to look in the eyes at such a moment.

Within half an hour Mrs. Parsons was placing silk sutures into the outer abdominal cut. The area around the incision was red and swollen, but so far the hastily mended edges of the wound seemed to be knitting together. Taking the cloth away from Honoria’s face, Mina prepared a mixture of laudanum, should Honoria need it when she came to.

Before long, her eyelashes started groggily fluttering against her cheeks. Sweat plastered her hair to her scalp and Blade gently brushed it off her forehead. As she and Mrs. Parsons cleaned up, Mina couldn’t help stealing glances at them.

The Devil of Whitechapel in his fiercest moment. She smothered a smile and went to answer the rap at the door. Esme beamed at her as she returned with the baby, newly cleaned and somewhat prettier to look at for it.

“How is she?” Esme asked.

“She’s taken some laudanum, but the wound appears to be healing well.” Amazingly well. There was almost no sign of an incision.

“What are we going to call her?” Esme said, crossing the room to the bedside.

“Emmaline,” Honoria whispered, reaching out to touch the baby’s head with a shaking hand. “Oh, she’s so tiny.”

“Emmaline Grace,” Blade repeated as Esme settled the baby in his arms and he held her down for Honoria to peek at.

Both Mina and Esme shared a glance as Blade swallowed the lump in his throat. Mina had never felt a stronger sense of satisfaction, though a little part of her remained aware that of this group, she was the one standing on the outside, looking in.