Of Silk and Steam (30 page)

The sort of thing he’d never had time for at their age. Hell, he felt old. Or perhaps he’d simply been raised as such, knowing that the pressures of a dukedom would rest on his shoulders one day.

In a way, both he and Mina were frighteningly similar.

He thought of her as he paused in front of the door to the rookery. Walking away and leaving her to face her own battles was harder than he’d imagined. Not because he doubted her abilities, but because she had become integral to his life in such a short time. Or perhaps she had slipped her way there in increments over the years as his steadily growing fascination had slowly turned to admiration.

Anything could happen. A stray bullet, a single mistake, the tiniest of oversights. All it would take would be one second to destroy her—to rip his heart out of his chest.

Don’t think about it.
Not for one second could he allow doubt to distract him. Not with a Falcon to deal with. After all, she wasn’t the only one whom a single mistake would see dead.

This was the best place to watch the melee and the Ivory Tower. The Falcon would be within, no doubt. Stanton guarded the staircase below and Byrnes pressed his back against the wall at Leo’s side. A quick gesture and both men nodded. Leo eased open the door, letting the stiletto hidden in his sleeve drop hilt first into his hand. A certain kind of coldness came over him, washing away all of the doubt and leaving him centered in a way that he recognized.

“
Go
ahead, boy, put aside that hate, that anger
,” Caine’s voice whispered in his head. “
Until
there
is
nothing
left. Nothing but purpose, nothing but a clear head. You’ll thank me for it one day…
”

Of all the ironies… He let his breath release slowly and eased the door wider, catching a glimpse within. A single man clad in black leather stood by the enormous open face of the slowly ticking clock, watching the top of the Ivory Tower as if that were the center of his world.

A whisper of sound was his only warning. Leo blocked a swinging arm, striking out with the stiletto and driving it between a pair of ribs. A man came out of nowhere—from behind the door it seemed—crashing into him and carrying them both to the ground. Leo twisted, locking his arm tight and cupping his thighs around the man’s throat. He rolled, taking the fellow with him, a throaty cry ending in the abrupt snap of the Falcon’s neck. The sound of scuffling caught Leo’s attention. Two other Falcons had cornered Byrnes.

No time to deal with that. The Nighthawk would have to hold his own.

Leo rolled to his feet, bending low as the Falcon by the window turned. An emotionless gaze flickered over the dead guard at his feet, then back again.

“Barrons.” The scar through his eyebrow identified him as Rigby, one of the prince consort’s body servants, a man so unassuming that Leo had never really paid him much attention. “A rather inconvenient entrance.”

“My apologies. I thought about swinging through the clock and perhaps kicking you in the face, but that seemed a ridiculous waste of time and energy.” Blade’s style, not his. Which was why he was up here in the shadows, while his brother-in-law was flamboyantly burning everything in sight.

“You arrogant bastard—and I use that term in all its derogatory senses. You haven’t the faintest idea what is going on, do you?”

“We’re winning?” Leo suggested. A grunt sounded behind him, then Stanton joined the fray.

Rigby sidestepped him, tugging a modified pistol from his pocket. One of the current-stimulating devices Mina had explained. Leo stilled, silencing the world around him, letting it all vanish into the shadows as his complete attention focused on the pistol.

“Winning?” Rigby laughed. “It’s a trap, you fool!”

Steel-plated cord shot out, the arrow-like prong thundering toward Leo’s chest. He sprang forward, rolling under the device and flinging the hidden stiletto at Rigby. Somewhere behind him, a raven gave a throaty scream as the prong tore through its cage and jolted it with current.

“A trap?” he asked, rolling to his feet and planting a boot in the middle of the man’s chest. Rigby grunted, wrenching the stiletto out of his arm with a snarl as he fell and rolled. Leo’s boot slammed down where his head had been, the man snapping a kick behind him that was insanely fast.

As fast as a blue blood.

Leo backed away. “I see the prince consort has been illegally infecting his nursemaids.”

Rigby’s eyes narrowed. “And someone has been keeping secrets. You’re very good, my lord.”

“Caine hired an ex-Falcon to tutor me as a child.”

“There are no ex-Falcons. We go to the grave for our prince.” A damning assessment, for it made Rigby a far more dangerous opponent than he’d seemed. A true believer.

“A sentiment not shared by all, it seems.”

Taking out a narrow cylinder, Rigby snapped it open with the barest flick of his wrist, turning it into a substantial metal truncheon. It was hardly the type of weapon to inspire fear, but in the hands of a trained professional, far more deadly than any knife.

The violent sounds behind him had stilled. Leo spared the Nighthawks the briefest glance, finding Byrnes kneeling over Stanton and pressing hard on his abdomen.

“Byrnes,” he called. Unfortunately there were more lives at stake than Stanton’s. “Take his right side.”

“Aye, my lord.”

With a muttered curse, Rigby shot an anguished look toward the Ivory Tower, then back at the pair of them. “Curse you.” He flipped something from his wrist, and a steel shuriken spun through the air. Leo jerked aside, the hot cut of the throwing star slashing along the outside of his thigh.

Rigby threw himself through the open clock, pressing something at his belt. A pair of metal wings tore through his coat, opening up into some sort of segmented gliding device.

Leo ran forward, catching himself on the minute hand. The next thing he knew, an enormous white flash of light erupted in the sky overhead, turning it molten. Rigby’s head tracked it, then returned to the ground as he focused on landing safely.

The signal.

Seconds to spare. Leo raked the room for anything to help him, settling on an old winch-and-rope pulley used to close the clock face during inclement weather. “Byrnes!”

The man nodded. Grabbing hold of the rope, Leo ran for the window. Byrnes cut through the rope at the precise moment needed.

The warm summer air lifted Leo for a second, his body arcing out past the ten on the clock, then gravity began to take its revenge. He shot downward, stomach plummeting as the ground rushed up to meet him. Rigby was gliding to a halt at the base of the tower.

Ten feet from the bottom the rope jerked hard in Leo’s hands. He gritted his teeth and hung on as he began to swing back toward the tower. Rigby slipped out of the harness of his glider and withdrew something from his coat.

The detonator.

No time to spare. Gauging the distance, Leo let go, plummeting onto the unsuspecting Falcon. They tumbled over each other, the detonator skittering across the ground toward a slim figure in the darkness. An elbow smashed Leo in the face, leaving him no time to look. Grabbing Rigby beneath his arms, he rolled them both until he was on top, grinding the man’s face into the cobbles.

His thigh throbbed, blood spilling down his trousers. Leo pinned the bastard, wrenching his gaze toward the detonator. Lark crouched low nearby, as if surprised to see them. Where the hell had she come from? She was supposed to be at the Warren with Charlie, guarding Honoria and the baby.

“Grab it!” Leo yelled. “But be careful with it!”

Rigby smashed his head back into Leo’s face. Pain exploded out from behind his nose, leaving him half-blinded as a pair of blows smashed into his ribs. Then he was on his back, trying to shake off the blow.
Damn
it.
“Lark! Run!”

Noise was everywhere, filling his head and ringing in his ears, but even over the din he heard the sound of a pistol retorting.

It shocked him out of his pain-induced haze. Lark sprinted toward the gates, and as Leo watched, time seemed to slow down. She jerked, her legs giving way beneath her as red bloomed between her shoulder blades. Like a marionette cut from its strings, she hit the ground, the detonator tumbling from her fingers.

She didn’t move.

“
No!
” Charlie appeared out of nowhere, his eyes blackening in a haze of rage as he saw her go down. Driven by his fury and grief, he started running toward the Falcon, fists pumping at his side. Tin Man tried to grab him, but it was too late.

Leo exploded to his feet. The boy wasn’t good enough for this… Not ready.
Christ
, he couldn’t—

Rigby lifted his pistol again, flicking the hammer back with contemptuous ease. The distance between them narrowed, but Leo knew he wouldn’t make it in time.

The pistol barked again, just as Tin Man launched himself at Charlie. They somersaulted out of view as Leo barreled into the Falcon. This time he wasn’t going to let anything distract him. A sharp chop of the fist sent the pistol flying.

Blows drove him back, and he swept them aside with his arms and hands, waiting for that one opening.

It came. Smashing a fist into Rigby’s throat, he followed up with another to the face when the man staggered, clutching at his neck and gagging. Rigby went down, breathing through broken teeth, and Leo scrambled for the pistol, his thigh almost going out from under him. He couldn’t even feel the wound now.

Rigby’s body jerked as Leo put a bullet straight through the man’s brain. Not even a blue blood could get up from that, but Leo coldly put another into him, just in case. He was starting to feel a little light-headed.

Sound rushed back in upon him with a roar—men cheering in the distance and chanting the national anthem. Fires licked the stone walls that guarded the Ivory Tower from the rest of the world. Dozens of macabre shadows danced gleefully against the backdrop of the flames, a nightmarish tableau his eyes couldn’t quite make out.

“
No!
No!” Charlie had Lark in his arms, rocking her gently. Tin Man lay still beside him, his eyes staring blankly at Leo, with half his jaw blown away, where the bullet meant for Charlie had taken him.

“Fix him!” Charlie screamed at him. The boy had a knife out and was trying to cut at his own wrist. “Help me!”

There was no fixing Tin Man. “Don’t.” Leo’s voice came out tight and dry. “You can’t… It’s too late.”

“It’s not!” Charlie squeezed blood from his wound into the bloodied hole in Lark’s back. A whistling sound came from her chest—still alive, but faintly. The bullet had nicked a lung.

Leo fell to his knees beside the boy. “What are you doing here? Where’s Honoria?”

A guilty, furtive look.

“Bloody hell,” Leo snapped. “You didn’t leave her alone?”

“There’s more’n enough men there,” Charlie retorted. “The fighting’s all here and I’m a blue blood. I can help.”

Christ
. Blade would tan his hide. “And what about the other Falcon?”

“What Falcon?”

Leo gritted his teeth. “Morioch knew his Falcons’ bomb attack on the Warren had failed. Did you never ask yourself how? There’s someone else in the rookery ranks that shouldn’t be there.”

Charlie paled. “But…why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Did they have to?” Leo snapped. “You were given your bloody orders. Keep Honoria and Emmaline safe. Did you think it was a jest?”

Charlie fell silent, a thousand emotions dancing through his eyes. Leo bit off his temper and checked Lark. “
Fuck.
” What a bloody mess.

“Why isn’t she healing?” Charlie demanded helplessly. There was a world of guilt in his blue eyes. “I gave her my blood. That’s how Blade healed Rip when he had his throat torn open!”

Leo examined the wound. Lark gasped as he shifted her shoulder. The bullet had gone through her steel-plated over-corset. What the hell kind of bullets were they? Not firebolts, but hard enough to tear through protective armor as if it were nothing.

Blood bubbled on her lips. “It’s pierced her all the way through,” Leo said gently. “She’ll be bleeding inside. You’ll only heal the superficial wounds.”

Despair filled his brother’s eyes. Then determination. “I can infect her.”

Not
in
time… Not before she bled out.
Blade had done so to Rip, but the amount of craving virus in his blood had been abnormally high then. Leo caught Charlie’s hand as the boy went to butcher his other wrist. “Here, let me. My CV levels are in the fifties.”

A quick slash of his wrist, then he dripped his own blood into Lark’s wounds. “Roll her over and let me see the front.”

It was worse, as though the bullet had fragmented on its way through her. Leo guided Charlie to hold her head up, then pressed his wrist against her lips. The craving virus would already be infecting her wounds, but the more blood they could get into her…

She couldn’t swallow it. Charlie clutched her tightly, rocking her gently no matter how much Leo tried to stop him. A low keening sound was coming from his throat. “What about…Tin Man?”

Leo shook his head.

“Why? Why did he do it? He had to know I’d heal.” Charlie stared blankly. “Oh God, this’ll kill her. He’s her world. If she finds out he’s dead…”

Leo didn’t have the heart to say she probably wouldn’t find out. “Maybe he thought it
might
kill you. You’re not invincible, Charlie, and that man was a Falcon, someone who knows how to take down blue bloods.”

“It shouldn’t be like this.” Charlie’s voice was broken.

“No, it shouldn’t.” Tin Man’s death had taken far more than just his life; it was also the death of the child that Charlie had still been. He’d never be quite the same after this. Mortality now had meaning for him. Grief had substance.
This
was
what
we
tried
to
shield
you from.

Something that, in the end, none of them had been able to do. Charlie and Lark were both verging on adulthood, but they couldn’t see it. Sneaking after the group who’d marched the Cyclops on the Tower had been a romp for them.