The Transference Engine (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
HAD TO SIT up straight in the carriage, every muscle rigid and my bones perfectly centered. Too much had happened. Too much to think about.

I could not separate my outrage at the necromancy from my disgust at the Norwynd family's prejudice and insults.

Taking the soul from a living body, but leaving the body alive, just empty.
That was a new puzzle piece. What did the necromancer hope to achieve by this new method of chaos?

Chaos. As good an answer as any.

I choked. My lungs fought for air, but my throat refused to work. I felt as if burning iron bands caged my chest, growing tighter by the second.

Through a red haze, I saw Reverend Rigby draw out his rosary and begin sliding the beads through his fingers.

At last, I forced myself to breathe and gasp, “Ideas? Solutions? Plans?”

“The girl will be cared for. Beyond that?” The earl shrugged his shoulders in the dim light from the carriage lanterns hung from the four outside corners of our conveyance.

Rigby nodded, gulped, and finally spoke. “I cannot predict the outcome. But . . .”

“What . . . what happened in Rome?” I asked. The carriage increased speed in the deserted streets of early morning London. I doubted I'd sleep tonight since I had to rise in a few hours to begin the bread rising.

“We never knew for certain.” Rigby blinked rapidly, as if fighting tears. “But one of the victims woke up one morning, fully restored. Or so her caretakers thought.”

“Until?”

“Until she spoke with the accent, education, wisdom, and memories of the Reverend Mother who had died from a tragic accident on the same day the girl arrived at the convent.” He let that statement rest among us for a long moment.

“Not her own soul,” Lord William gasped. “The ghost of one who was not ready to pass took possession of her body?”

Rigby nodded.

Was possession a worse fate than to have one's soul stolen? To merely exist without mind or will? Or to speak and think with another's voice?

“How did this happen?” Lord William logically came back to the core of the problem.

“As best I could piece together, each of the victims had encountered a known sorcerer from Persia. A necromancer. We had no proof to bring him down. His Holiness Pope Pius VIII managed to have him exiled.”

“Are we dealing with the same sorcerer?” I asked. Stamata and the dwarf hailed from Greece, much closer to Persia than we were, but still far removed in geography, culture, religion, and language. So I dismissed them from my list of suspects. Dr. Jeremy Badenough would know more.

But he, too, numbered among the missing.

“I doubt it. The Persian was an old man at the time, over eighty. From the transcript of interviews with him, I gathered that he saw the end of his life looming and hoped to reinvigorate himself with the stolen souls of young people, preferably virgins, both male and female.”

“Our victims are young . . .” I couldn't vouch for virginity since I knew most of the girls had been street walkers, the girls I sought to help with real jobs and a modicum of education and manners.

We all bowed our heads a moment, each seeking solace in our own way.

My mind jerked back to the ill-translated book about necromancy in Persia. Could the original have been written by
the
Persian?

A connection? Jeremy had said that Lord Ruthven—a decidedly English lord but with ties to India—had asked him to decode the tome. A bad translation of a bad translation did not lend itself to decoding. One would have to go back to the original.

“Rejuvenation? Seeking eternal life? That has been a source of evil in the name of science, and of religion for time out of mind. And no one has succeeded.” Lord William pounded his thigh with an emphatic fist.

A vision of how Drew explained the awesome wonder of necromancy flashed before my memory with a painful jolt. “Power. If not endless youthful vigor, there is power in the ritual taking of a life.”

Lord Byron had said the same, oh, those many years ago. He'd begun torturing cats and dogs, and elevated to people while still in his teens. I'd never witnessed it, but I heard his speeches to Shelley, my Miss Mary, and Byron's
inamorata
, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont.

“But the taking of the soul? Not the life, just the God-given unique and wonderful soul?” Rigby said.

Power. Life. Soul. Not the death of the body, the death of the soul.

Another vision of the Greek dwarf attached to wires and crystals and other arcane paraphernalia that transferred the soul of Percy Shelley, and possibly Lord Byron, from a body to a Leyden jar for storage.

Then to another body until they found one with a connection to the original. I'd be willing to bet a year's profits that Byron had been in and out of the jars dozens of times, waiting to get his tendrils into Ada, or one of her children.

“Why preserve the soul without the body?” I gasped at the horrible thought. “The necromancer wants to use the soul for something else. Maybe not to practice transference to another body, heaven forbid, but for power . . . power. What purpose is power except . . . as fuel for something that gains more power?”

“The light weapon,” Rigby said, eyes wide with new understanding. “An angry soul—and a soul stolen from a living person rather than a dead one would be much more angry—could fuel a light.”

“Enough angry souls could wreak havoc,” Lord William added.

My thoughts twisted through my own anger and outrage. Toby and Violet stolen off the street. Toby didn't have an angry bone in his body, except when frustrated that he couldn't
do
something he felt important, or find the right words, or please me the way he thought he should.

But Violet did. She'd worked hard to overcome the stigma of poverty and prostitution as her only option to earn enough money to survive. I'd helped give her a future, but she'd fought hard to gain that possible future. Her angry soul would fuel a dozen torches.

What of the other girls stolen from the streets—ladies of the night who had lost everything, dignity, family, honor . . . They were more victims to despair than anger. Miss Abigail was a young virgin from a noble family with prospects of a brilliant marriage. Now, even if her soul returned to her, she was ruined. At best, if she healed, she would find herself a spinster aunt, merely tolerated by her respectable family and locked in an attic or tower room when “good” society came calling. Her anger would fuel two dozen torches.

“Lord William, I believe our villain has failed in finding power in the souls and deaths of the street girls. He has had to step up the quality of his victims.”

“That makes sense. Miss Abigail was not the only gently bred girl to disappear in the past few days. She was the first, and the first to return.”

“Why have I not heard of this?” Reverend Rigby nearly shouted before I could.

“The Cabinet ministers and senior nobility thought it best to prevent panic. Can you imagine the chaos if every well-born daughter was whisked away from London to the safety of country houses mere days before the coronation?”

“Chaos indeed. Possibly a postponement. Does our villain wish the postponement? Or does he wish it to go forward with every important personage in the nation gathered into one building at a specific hour?” I asked.

The black balloon had hovered over Westminster Abbey and shot its light cannon. Practicing? Finding its aim? With the new railroads bringing in spectators from far and wide, an assassin could easily escape merely by blending in with the crowds.

News of an assassination would spread quickly, deepening the chaos, and further inhibiting investigation. Inspector Witherspoon was right to be worried.

“What are the arguments for murdering our queen at her coronation?” Lord William asked. He progressed from pounding his thigh to drumming his fingers on it. I knew him well enough to know that his mind whirled almost as rapidly as his wife's. But while she worked with the precision of theoretical mathematics, he sought logical solutions to imprecise politics and history.

Reverend Rigby fingered his beads, also thinking deeply.

“Who is to say she is the target?” I asked the most illogical question of all, but in a strange way it made much more sense.

Rigby froze, his forefinger poised over one of the big decade beads. “Many people packed together. Few isolated enough to target. Except at the altar, at the moment of crowning. The archbishop!”

“That explains why so many young men, students and clerics, are immersing themselves in the literature and legal reports on the Great Reform Act. Her Majesty is not the target. The man who did not condemn the reforms is.” The blackmailers knew why and accepted his reasons for silence rather than a resounding no vote.

So the current necromancer was not privy to the scandal, and why the archbishop had not voted no.

“I petitioned copies of the work from you, Madame Magdala, because so many other clerics wanted Church library copies that I could not commandeer one. Research to help defend His Grace. The students, though . . . could they be recruits of our master criminal? Doing his research for him?” Rigby mused aloud.

“I don't understand,” Lord William said.

As quickly as I could, I explained the provision against necromancy in the act. Howley couldn't condemn the entire act, or he'd lose the provision against necromancy.

The issue of the archbishop secretly supporting the act to avoid revelation of a scandal I kept to myself. Rigby and I exchanged agreeing nods to keep that part quiet.

Rigby jumped in to mention how a few tried to argue that Howley had betrayed his Freemason brothers by
not
denouncing the reforms and that since the Freemasons had not come out for or against the new laws they must therefore condemn the archbishop.

The carriage slowed, and I heard a snort of released steam from the horses.

“Flawed logic,” Lord William said. But he leaned forward with interest even as he checked outside the window to see how close we were to his home. Or to see if anyone listened to our conversation.

“We are dealing with a flawed man,” I said with contempt. “Anyone who embraces necromancy is deeply flawed in mind and soul. Logic does not enter into the equation.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

I
NSTEAD OF RETIRING TO my bed when Lord William's carriage finally took me home, I changed to a threadbare day dress and engulfing apron, then set about kneading the dough the girls had mixed the night before and set to rise. By the time Lucy and Emma descended from the attic room, I'd given it a second kneading and shaping.

Lucy had taken extra time to coil her hair in a complex knot at the back of her head with enticing tendrils curling down to her jaw in front of her ears. The height of fashion. I didn't have to wonder who she had primped and primed herself for.

“I doubt Father Rigby will grace us with his presence today,” I whispered to her as I passed up the stairs to the café. He probably had no more sleep than I did and faced an equally grueling day.

As the kitchen filled with the enticing aroma of baking, I carefully wrote down a new recipe for Emma, down to how the dough should feel beneath the fingers before baking and the tint of the pastry when it was done.

Mickey wandered in from his adjacent cubbyhole. He didn't like the feeling of a lot of open space around him when he slept, (and who could blame him after living most of his life on the streets with predators of the two-legged and the four-legged variety at every turn). So the tiny alcove lined with shelves gave him just enough room to stretch out on a thin mattress beneath the bottom shelf. I'd removed two shelves to make that room for him, not begrudging the storage space to know he was safe at night.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked me, feet spread and hands on hips in an authoritative stance.

“No. I spent most of the night in service to Her Majesty on a matter that I will not discuss.” I returned to dusting some French puff pastry with powdered sugar and cocoa.

“Well, then, shouldn't you take yourself off to bed and let us run the shop in your place. As you trained us?”

Oh, my. I'd created a bit of monster in the eight-going-on-thirty-year-old tyrant. I'd tamed him of his feral ways, brought him indoors, and started teaching him. I should have known better. I usually found apprenticeships for the boys
elsewhere
when they reached this stage. Kit Doyle would never be ready, and I expected him to run afoul of Inspector Witherspoon any day now. Then he'd either face a judge and transportation for his crimes, or become an informant for the inspector.

I didn't like the thought of Mickey facing those alternatives. And he'd shown no talent for any craft, other than grinding coffee beans and ordering me about.

“Well, Mickey, since you seem to have settled in and made this your permanent home, I have a better idea.”

“Don't know as I like the sounds of that,” he said suspiciously, backing toward his own private space.

I'd have a devil of a time getting him out of that cubbyhole if he wedged himself in.

“I am going to teach you the fine art of bathing.” I grabbed his shirt collar and held on for dear life. Fortunately, the cloth was relatively new and still strong. His struggles didn't tear it.

“You . . . you mean get everything wet. At once?” He sounded terrified.

“Don't worry. I won't let you drown.”

“With all me clothes off at once? 'Tis indecent.”

“Not indecent. Healthy. You know the rules. If you stay, you have to be clean. All over. Every inch of you.”

Behind me, the girls giggled at his discomfiture.

“Seems to me 'twasn't too long ago, you girls gave me the same arguments. Now back to work. I expect everything ready for opening before we finish.”

I dragged the boy down another level toward the bathtub beside the boiler. Nice hot water right to hand. Soon I'd have the money to install the pipes to take the same hot water up to my own bathing chamber.

Much screaming and a few attempted kicks ensued. “I am bigger, stronger, and smarter than you, young Mickey. You will do this, or you're back out on the streets and out of my employ forever.” I foiled his plot to escape this cruel and unusual punishment by grabbing his bare foot and tipping him backward into the tub. He came up spluttering, but quieter.

Then I handed him a cake of soap and a washrag. “You know how to use them. Do it, or I will. Your choice.” Politely, I turned my back on him, arms crossed and stance wide enough to shift my balance to any direction should he choose to run. I doubted he'd do that since I'd confiscated his clothes and thrown them into the laundry on the other side of the boiler, beneath the chute from the upper levels.

I had a woman come in once a week who washed and pressed the clothes. I don't know how she did it, but my petticoats always came away from her hands, crisp and sparkling clean without damage to the '
Broidery Anglais
and less sturdy lace. And the hems of my gowns never showed traces of the mud and dirt one was forced to march through on the streets of London.

When the sounds of splashing and dipping became more playful than angry, I reminded him, “Hair, neck, and behind your ears.”

“My hair? Water will ruin it!”

“But soap will restore it. Now wash, and make sure you don't get any suds in your eyes. You'll cry the whole day through if you do.” Mickey thought himself too big and grown up to cry anymore.

More splashes and splutters. I counted to twenty, slowly, and handed Mickey a bath sheet. “Dry off every inch of you. Even cracks and crevices you don't normally think about. Those are the worst if left wet and chafed by clean nether garments.”

A mumbled mutter came from the depths of the towel. Then a prolonged silence. Very unlike Mickey. I risked a peek over my shoulder. His head emerged from the enveloping folds of white cotton. I opened my eyes in wonder at the cherubic white skin with pink cheeks. Water had darkened his hair, but I thought it might dry to a comfortable dark blond with auburn lights. A handsome child after all, now that I could see the real Mickey beneath the dirt and grime.

Then his nose started wrinkling in puzzled sniffing.

“What?”

“I don't smell like me,” he said.

I couldn't tell if he was disappointed, pleased, or just surprised. “Actually, now you do smell like you rather than dirt and sewage.”

“All I can smell is soap.”

“Which is what polite folk smell of.” I started rummaging through the clean clothing on shelves behind the tub and came up with suitable linen and outer clothing. He'd have to make do with the shoes he'd been wearing until I found or bought another pair for him. Now that he was eating properly and regularly, he'd start growing more rapidly than I could keep up.

He leaned forward and took a long smell of me. “That is very impolite, Mickey.”

“How else are we supposed to tell who's really who beneath the soap and smelly flower stuff?” He shrugged. “You smell like you. Lucy and Emma smell like the café, baking and spices and sugar and coffee. Me, I'm not sure. But I guess I can get used to it.”

“Um . . . in polite society we rely on appearance and voice.”

“Easy to lie that way.”

“Of course it is. So we become very observant to how they hold their body, blink their eyes, or touch their ear, and listen to the undertones of the words.”

“But we still need to smell people to know where they've been, what they've eaten, and maybe what they are trying to hide. Like that toff what come the night of your salon.”

“Which toff? Many came.”

“The slimy man what brung the man with the withered hand.”

My blood froze and every muscle stilled in preparation to flee or fight. “Lord Ruthven.”

“Yeah, him. Only he didn't smell like a regular toff. The bloke pretending to have a withered hand smelled like normal people: soap and food and horse and stuff.”

“What did Lord Ruthven smell like?”

“Whitewash.”

Immediately I was back in my father's dairy before I turned sixteen and was sent off to serve at the big villa rented by Lord Byron that year without a summer. Cold. Whitewash always smelled cold, with an undertone of damp earth; even on days with blistering heat, whitewash smelled cold.

The book on Persian necromancy insisted the workspace must be kept clean and the floors, walls, and ceilings whitewashed to keep them so. Stamata had whitewashed the cellar she used as a laboratory.

The warehouse where Lord Ruthven had temporarily hidden his captives had been whitewashed.

What was he whitewashing now?

Was Drew with him? Helping in the nefarious rituals?

I shuddered and left Mickey to drain the tub of grimy water and dress in privacy.

Questions about Drew burned in my belly without relief. Food, even my finest French puff, tasted like sawdust. I went about my duties as proprietor of the Book View Café by rote, as if one of Lady Ada's automatons.

Drew had been my lover for many years now. Everyone expected a comely and vigorous young man of title and wealth to take a mistress. His wife had not welcomed him in her bed since they had conceived their son, shortly after their marriage. Indeed, she'd suffered horribly during pregnancy and labor and now lived the life of an invalid. I asked my network of spies, and three servants who befriended Fitzandrew's servants confirmed that Lady F never left the house, accepted few visitors other than the parish priest and her family, and only moved about when she could lean on the stout arm of the housekeeper. Her son had turned seven last month.

Many times Drew had asked me to become his true mistress, dependent upon him for income, and living in one of his houses. I'd fiercely clung to my ability to support myself with my café and my salon. I had purpose and reasons for living on the fringes of society, outré enough to appear flamboyant and attract the adventurous to my side. People confided in me and didn't ask questions when I associated with the Rom or rescued guttersnipes. They welcomed me at the opera and ballet and accepted my fashions with a lower neckline, deeper lace, higher hems, brighter color, and more feathers and gems in my bonnets and hairpieces.

I liked my life.

But I loved Drew. There. I admitted it. I loved him and would have married him if his inconvenient wife ever succumbed to her illnesses—real or feigned.

Was it my fault that he dabbled in unpleasant hobbies like necromancy because I refused to always be at his beck and call?

Polite society might blame me in this. I could not take responsibility for his actions. I encouraged his jewelry designs and clockwork toys. I did not push him into necromancy.

He was a younger son with too much money and not enough responsibility. He found adventure where he could, pushing ethics, morality, and legality a bit further every year.

I was not responsible for his behavior.

And yet I loved him.

So if he were not Lord Ruthven's partner or apprentice, then where was he?

He had not appeared at my salon, nor had he been seen at the opera or theater, or any of the parties, galas, or musicales we frequented together or apart.

Where was he?

My answer came five days before the coronation. The sun had not yet set, but teatime had passed and the dinner hour approached. I'd ushered the last customer out the door and locked up. While Mickey and Philippa cleaned up (she succumbed to her first bath the day after Mickey told her she'd be safe in the tub), I showed Emma how to garnish and carve a haunch of mutton that had been roasting in the back of the oven all day with potatoes and carrots and new spring peas. She needed to learn to cook more than just biscuits and scones.

I looked up sharply as a tap on the back door barely reached my hearing. My legion of urchins reported in at odd times, frequently when they knew I had a meal ready to set out. Maybe one of them had spotted Drew.

Drew himself slithered through the barely opened door, looking back up the steps to the courtyard and alley. Fatigue lines deepened the hollows beneath his cheekbones, sagged beneath his eyes, and drew his mouth into a dark frown.

“I haven't much time,” he whispered quietly, eyes darting anxiously right and left, never settling on anything. Or anyone. Not on me.