The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare) (15 page)

More stillness. Mikal’s arm lifted, and he gently, slowly, pushed Emma back a step. His other hand lingered at a knife hilt, and Emma’s pulse sought to speed itself, was repressed.

“Oh, aye, and not with my leave.” Thin Meg laughed, and this time the heavy, ugly sound was truly amused. Still cold, though, a razor’s edge cutting the gloom, sparking against creeping fingers made of fine-woven smoke as they inched closer, pressing against Emma’s skirts. “What do you know of it? One of your kind, little hands prodding and poking where they shouldn’t. Take care lest the lid snap on those fingers!”

“I suppose if the odd bit of information comes to your lovely ears…”

Meg found this funny as well. At least, she shook with jollity, bits of her heaving and slopping, flashing dead-white flesh and pinging creaks as the building itself shuddered. Material split, shredding; the tortured souls in the chapel’s
shadows shrank back from Emma, Mikal, and the stew of flesh and tawdry finery bubbling before them.

Mikal’s shoulders were rigid under black velvet; Emma’s throat ached to cut the din with a sharp Word, but she did not.

Finally, the heaving ended. Meg’s bulk receded, the sucking and shifting quieting as she eased back.

“It suits me to send you a starveling, should I have news.” Her mouth was still plainly visible, that stark, sharp smile causing candleflames to shudder and gutter
en masse
. A breath of rank foulness now slid between the columns, disturbing the fluttering smoke-hangings, which had quieted as they pressed back against the door, half-seen faces writhing with dismay. “You shall pay me by stopping
him
.”

“Him.” Emma nodded. “The faceless one.”

“He has no need of a face,” the creature crooned. “He’s a sharp canny jack, that one.”

Mikal stamped sharply, and there was a wet splattering. Thin Meg hissed, a long indrawn sound of pain, and Emma found herself pushed back further, blinking and shaking her head.

Her Shield shook the green, sticky sludge from his boot, and the pale, wriggling tendril retreated into the cauldron. “Prima?” Soft, but the edge of leashed deadliness under the word made each flame straighten and dance.

“Can’t fault me for trying.” The creature bubble-hissed, chuckling thickly. “But sparrow-slight she is. Now you,
you
are a finer morsel.”

“Not for your dining, madam,” he returned, equably enough.

Emma found her tongue. “Very well.” She turned, despite the fact that her skin was alive with revulsion–imagine feeling one of Meg’s grasping little fingers curling around one’s ankle, nudging upward, and the lassitude that would follow…

Her footsteps tapped with their usual authority as she set off down the central aisle. “Thank you, Maharimat of the Third Host. We shall be on our way.”

“He knows your name, sparrow-witch.” There was no laughter now, and the foul breath of a fallen creature that had once sung of and to holiness in other spheres was darker than sewage. It was difficult not to gag, and Emma took her air in tiny sips as she made for the doors. “You have more enemies than you know.”

“Pray you do not find yourself among them, bonny Meg,” she returned over her shoulder, finding she had enough breath for a parting sting. “For I might decide to let him finish his work, and weaken
you
as well.”

The doors creaked open, and she might have tumbled into the ranks of starvelings if Mikal had not caught her again.

Their clutching, brushing fingers were feeble, easily pushed aside, but she did not halt until they were a good distance from both the Chapelease
and
the creeping, cringing, venomous green tendrils of Scab.

^“
I
am no donkey, sir.” Philip Pico bridled, as Alice took his gloves and hat with a sniff.

The other maid, Bridget of the slightly lame left leg and the engaging gapped-tooth smile, took Clare’s, and he held his peace until they had both vanished into the depths of 34½ Brooke Street. “You bear a suspicious resemblance to a stubborn ass. And yet it is
me
saddled with
you
.”

“Keep him in one piece, she said. Welladay, I will, sir.”

“Oh? And what else did she say?”

“Naught that would interest you.”

“Oh, I think it would. Did she mention your predecessor?”

“The one you were in love with, sir? No. She said nothing to me about
him
.”

Clare halted, and the heat in his cheeks was new and
unwelcome. “His name was Ludovico, and I was not
in love
with him. Mentaths do not—”

“Good evening, gentlemen.” A rustle of black silk, a breath of smoky sorcery laced with spiced-pear perfume, and Emma Bannon halted on the stairs, eyeing them both with arch amusement. “A drink before dinner?”

“Rid me of this
encumbrance
, madam,” Clare managed, stiffly. “This is insupportable!”

“Oh?” One eyebrow, elegantly arched. “Philip?”

“About to go slumming with the detective inspector, he was.” The bratling straightened his sleeves much as a gentleman would, and matched Clare glare for glare. “And on such short acquaintance. I thought it best we come home for dinner.”

“It is not
slumming
, it is searching for clews! And, had you not rudely objected,
Philip
, we would have had Aberline here for questioning during dinner, and added his considerable talents to our—”

“Inspector Aberline is not welcome at my table, Clare.” Very softly. “Philip, you did well. Go and dress for dinner, if you please. Mr Clare and I have a few matters to settle.”

“Oh, I shall say we do.” Clare straightened as the youth made that same abortive gesture–as if to tug his forelock–and made for the safety of the stairs. He passed Miss Bannon, giving her as wide a berth as possible, and Clare almost did not note that she did not bother to twitch her skirts back as if he suffered something contagious.

As she always had with Ludovico. Did this young annoyance have Valentinelli’s room as well?

Why, Clare asked himself, should he care?

Miss Bannon rested one hand on the banister, the curve of her wrist just delicate enough to make a man think of snapping it.

The idea was a dash of icy water, and Clare inhaled, tensing fruitlessly. He had spent the entire afternoon sifting through papers holding bloodless information about singularly bloody acts, and they had not nettled him one whit. Now, just a few moments in Miss Bannon’s company, and he was boiling.

This is Feeling. It is illogical.
It did not help that the murders Aberline had so painstakingly gathered were clearly not the work of the current madman–except for two, and those two offered frustratingly little in the way of fresh insight.

“Do go on.” She was maddeningly calm, but her fingers were tense. A girl who could snap a word that immobilised a grown man, and yet she appeared so fragile.

Clare had seen this woman perform illogical miracles, and they had left no mark on her youthful face. Was this what the churches of the world, both Popish and Englene, meant when they raved of Woman’s diabolical nature?

He gathered what he could of his dignity. It was a thin cloak indeed. “I am not a pet, nor am I your ward.”

“I agree.” She nodded once, her dark curls swinging. “Were you one, I would cosset you, and were you the other I would not allow you to step forth into the dangers outside for a good long while. You are not well, Clare, and this affair, I am beginning to think, is beyond your ken.”

For a moment he could not quite believe his ears. “I am
perfectly
well.” He was aware of the lie even as he spoke it. “I have endured a succession of shocks to my faculties, true. And I had some… difficulty… with the notion of… but
dash
it all, Emma, this case is fascinating, and work is the best cure for a completely natural… loss.”

“Except you do not consider your loss natural at all, sir, on either account. This is a matter best left to sorcery. I have discovered much today, and it quite disturbs me.”

He could have fastened on
that
little tidbit, but the tide of Anger had him now. “So, I am to be set upon a shelf? I think not. Aberline and I do get on very well, and he is the best man to investigate—”

“He is a slightly useful tool, nothing more, and will serve to distract my quarry quite handily with his bumbling about.” Her tone cooled, and the movement on the stairs above her was Mikal, a gleam in darkness. “You would do well to be cautious of the good inspector, Archibald. If he may do me a disservice through you, he shall no doubt try.”

“And what did you do to earn such treatment from a gentleman?” Unjustified, perhaps, but the way she rocked slightly back onto her heels, paling a shade or two–though she was already much whiter than her wont, almost drained-looking–made a certain hot bubble rise under his breastbone.

No trace of paleness in her tone, however. “I saved a somewhat-soiled innocent from his clutches, and consequently he bears me a grudge. It nettles a certain type of petty man to be denied something by a woman.”

Did she mean it as a return cut? Clare’s head had begun to pound as he struggled to lower his voice. “What baseness you attribute to a gentleman who—”

Her chin lifted, and her eyes were flashing dangerously now. “On what do you build your assessment of his good character, mentath? Let me hear your logic.”

“I would grant you a full explanation, if I could be certain of your understanding it.” Was he actually
sneering
? Clare had the exquisitely odd sensation of falling into a hole, watching himself from its bottom as his face twisted and took on a rather ugly cast.

“Likewise, sir.” A dot of crimson had appeared on each soft cheek, yet she was iron-straight. “You are relieved of the need to give any further attention to this matter.
Do
try to stay out of trouble while I attend to the Crown’s business.”

With that, she swept down the stairs, turning so sharply at the foot her skirt flared and almost touched his knee.

Mikal drifted in her wake, but her pace was such that he had no time to do anything but glower in Clare’s general direction, the flame in the Shield’s yellow irises waking.

She goes to her study, instead of to the drawing room. Angry? Perhaps. Nettled? Hurt?

What on earth had
possessed
him? A mentath did not behave so. Nor did a proper gentleman.

He found he was wringing his hands, and forced himself to stop. To let them hang loosely, fingers throbbing and the appendages afire because he had driven his nails deep into palmflesh. His shoulders loosened, and he cast about for something, anything, to distract his aching head.

Nothing was to be found. He made it to the stairs before sinking down, dropping said tender head into his hands, elbows on knees, and there he stayed until Philip Pico found him an hour later, to bring him to the dining room, where Miss Bannon–and Mikal–were both absent during a long, exquisite, and tortuously silent dinner.

^“
P
rima?”

“Hm?” She glanced up from the large leatherbound tome, her eyes for a moment refusing to focus as she was pulled away from creaking ropes and singing sails. The book–
Marina Invicta
–which her well-trained memory had dragged forth the remembrance of from a dusty room, contained several passages about Britannia.

Nothing of any real use, however. Just as every other blasted book she had pulled from the shelves was useless in the current situation.

Mikal closed the door: a soft snick of the latch catching and the lock thrown. “Shall you be attending dinner? Or shall Finch bring you a plate?”

“Neither.” She waved a hand, her gaze already straying back to the pages. “Rum, perhaps. Thank you.”

“Emma.” He had approached her desk, soundlessly, and the study came back into focus around her. The shelves were arranged as they should be, though holes had been created by her rummaging, and a stack of tomes large and small lay heaped upon the table she had pulled from its place behind a leather chair she was wont to sink into on certain nights, watching the coal in the grate shed heat and ætheric force while it built its white jacket. Bits of paper covered in her handwriting–sketches of charter symbols and Name-glyphs shifting uneasily as their ink shivered–littered the entire room, but the sopha was bare. It was perhaps where she would sleep tonight, did her researches take her in any promising direction.

She was being rather untidy. And there was a line between Mikal’s eyebrows, though his expression was just the same as usual in every other regard. Trouble was brewing in that quarter.

Of course, she had ordered him to cool his heels outside the door and vanished; normally, she did not mind his company while she worked. But she had not wished him to see her discomfiture. Or the tears that had blistered a spare page of notes, tossed unceremoniously into the grate and lit with a hissed imprecation.

To add to her displeasure, every single ætheric strand leading to the fate of the unfortunate Keller
had
been trapped, closing off each avenue of possibly safe enquiry. It took a great deal of power, and a great deal of care, to hide the distinct stamp of one’s personality on one’s sorcery
so completely. Whoever this murderer was, he was thorough, and wickedly intelligent to boot.

She grimaced at the thought, but only inwardly. A lady’s face did not twist so. “You have my attention, Shield. Is there some new manner of disaster?”

“Not so much. I merely thought… you seem distressed.”

“I have undertaken what is likely to be a thankless task. And my library, while normally more than adequate, is of very little use.” She blew a vagrant curl out of her face; it irritated her mightily to be so disarranged. “I am distressed only by the bloody
inconvenience
of this entire affair.”

“The mentath—”

Oh, is that what you wish to speak of?
“—is none of your concern, Shield.”

“He
distresses
you.”

“So do you. Now, if you will not leave, at least be quiet.”
Though I have little hope of you doing either. It seems every single blessed thing on the Isle is conspiring to try my temper today, from Marimat to a simple hansom ride.

“How do I distress you, Emma?”

“Shall I list the ways? And yet, I am very busy right now.
Do
be quiet.”

“How long will you ignore—”

“As long as I please, Shield. If you do not cease, I shall force you to do so.”

“And how shall you do that, Prima?”

She set the book down carefully, brushing her hands together as if to rid them of dust, and rose. The chair legs
squeaked slightly against the wooden floor, and she reminded herself again that a lady did not shout. Then, and only then, she met Mikal’s gaze, and the room chilled slightly. Every piece of paper ruffled itself, brushed by an unphysical current.

When she was certain she could keep a civil tone, she spoke. “With whatever means are to hand. Are you weary of my employ, Mikal?”

“Of course not.” His hands were loose, and he seemed relaxed. She did not trust the seeming. “You are my Prima.”

Miles Crawford was your Prime; you strangled him as I watched, then mutilated his corpse. Because he hurt me
. The contradiction–trusting her life to a Shield who had done the unthinkable and murdered his charge–was as sharp as it had ever been. Yet he had earned that trust, times beyond counting. Whatever danger he represented, it was not mere murder. “Then why do you take me up in such an unseemly manner?”

“He causes you pain.” His chin jutted slightly, and how he managed to look like the defiant, almost-ugly boy he must have been on the Collegia’s training grounds could have been mildly entertaining, if she had been inclined to amusement. “Much of it, and I am helpless to stop him. As long as you continue to let him, he will pain you.”

“Yes.” Anger, tightly reined, suddenly evaporated. Her stays dug into her flesh, and she wondered if she would ever see a day such appurtenances were no longer fashionable or expected.

Of course, Fashion being the beast she was, something equally uncomfortable and ridiculous would likely take its place.

“Yes,” she repeated. “He pains me. I am told this is an occasional consequence of having friends. Which is no doubt why so many of my colleagues have so few they use that word to describe. At least, to describe seriously and with meaning.”

“And I distress you.”

“That is a consequence of having… you.”

“What am I, to you? If I may ask, Prima.”

“You may not.” She found her head was aching again, and longed for vinegar and brown paper to soothe the pounding. “We shall have a reckoning, as they say, at some moment. But not
now
, Mikal.” She found herself almost willing to utter an absurdity.

Please
.

A Prime did not
ask
. A Prime
commanded
. But with Clare chasing will o’wisps with the bumbling idiot inspector–and he was too sharp an idiot to give any lee to, indeed–she had lost… what? Certainly a resource, and possibly Clare’s regard as well.

“I believe a Prime may be behind this series of murders,” she said, carefully. Almost, dare she think it,
logically
. “If so, I believe this Prime’s aim is no less than the toppling of Victrix, which may please me to some small extent, and the uprooting of Britannia, which may or may not. In any case,
I
am now entangled in this affair, and I may suffer an unpleasant consequence or
two if it is not tidily arranged in some fashion.”
Which means you–and the rest of my household–may be cast adrift.

“Ah.” A slight nod, and his gaze had grown sharp. “A Sympathy has been created?”

“Perhaps.” Yet she was uneasy even as she admitted the possibility. The oldest branch of sorcery, while powerful, was not enough to cause these effects on a ruling spirit’s vessel–and if a Sympathy to Victrix had been in effect, Emma herself would not have become attuned to whatever work was being performed.

If it was indeed a
work
, and not a symptom of some other series of events at play. Uncomfortable thoughts were crowding her fast and thick now; Emma returned her attention to the present situation with an effort. “In any case, there is another… aspect… to this matter.”

“Which is?”

At least he did not seek to
guess
.

Emma turned, took two irresolute steps toward the coal grate. Halted. “If not for an accident, I could have been one of them.”
Who can tell what makes a sorcerer? Had the Collegia childcatchers not found me, I could have been dead, laid out on a marble slab with a doctor rummaging through me.

Or worse.
A shudder passed through her.

“Ah.” Thankfully, he added no more. He merely let her know she was heard, perhaps understood. Though
understanding
was much to ask of any man.

She swung back to face him, her jewellery running with
crackling sparks as tension made itself visible. “I need your help, Mikal.”

The Shield cocked his sleek dark head. He actually looked thunderstruck, and well he might. Two slow blinks–his yellow irises quenched for a moment–then another.

“You have it without asking, Prima.” Formal, and very soft.

Do I?
But she merely nodded, her face a mask. “Good. Fetch me some rum, and leave Clare to himself for a while. I cannot spare attention to keep him from trouble, I only hope Finch’s cousin can.”

“He seems capable of that much, at least.” A half-bow, a Shield’s traditional obeisance, he turned on his heel and was gone in a heartbeat.

The door closed behind him, and she let out a pent breath.

If he sought to reassure her, he had succeeded halfway. She gazed over the wrack and ruin of her study, and brought her hands together, sharply.

The resultant
crack
, freighted with a sharp-edged Word that left her with the sensation of a weight lifting through her spine, echoed for far longer than it should have. The books flew, snapping shut, arranging themselves in their appointed places. A slight lift at the end of the sound shuffled the paper together in a neat pile, stacking it on her desk; ink hissed free of the blotter in venomous little puffs of steam.

What had she not told him?

She held up one hand, counted said and unsaid reasons as if teaching a child-rhyme.

One finger.
I am alone.

Two.
I suspect I am not drawn into this dance by mere chance.

Three.
I am matched against another Prime.

Four.
One I do not recognise.

And fifth, last but not least, the most galling of all, counted upon her dexterous thumb, the digit that separated man from beast.

I am afraid.