The Transference Engine (3 page)

I kept a neat kitchen, but no order survives the first onslaught of sifted flour and sugar. Butter and cream, cheeses and herbs, fruits and glazes, all my ingredients came readily to hand. I fell into a soothing rhythm combining them in proper ratios, losing myself in recipes based upon my mother's confections that I'd perfected for British tastes. Modern scientists extolled the virtues of coal-fired steam ovens that added moisture and an even baking temperature. While I embraced much of the new technology, properly banked coals from a wood fire still suited my baking best.

When I looked up from removing a fifth batch from the oven, the clock chimed six.

“Six?” I asked aloud, somewhat alarmed.

“Violet?” I called. My assistant should have returned five hours ago. I would have noticed her return no matter how deeply immersed I was in the rituals of baking. Between batches, I had set the wine to breathing and arranged a nice store of hard liquor safely locked into its cupboard in my parlor.

“Violet?”

Silence inside, subdued traffic noise outside.

Chapter Two

“V
IOLET!” I LET ANGER mask the growing fear in my belly as I ran through the entire building. I started with my assistant's room and the extra cubicles in the attic, then down to my private suite. No sounds, no out-of-place shadows, nothing. The more public parlor and reading room on the first floor abovestairs was equally empty, as was the café, which occupied the entire ground floor, and the kitchen one level lower. That left the hot, moist cellar with the café boiler and the brick walls between the cellar moisture and part of the bookshelves. Violet hated the cellars and refused to enter even with the drayman from the dairy master, whom she fancied, as escort and a brightly lit oil lamp. I didn't find her there either.

So I drew a deep breath for courage and entered the stationers next door from the back courtyard and down to that cellar—I owned it but leased the upper part of the building. The cellar here was filled with boilers, the ones that powered the clockwork book catalog and search engine. The amount of steam they put forth would have ruined my books and periodicals. I had trouble enough keeping the smaller boiler beneath the café from making the entire building too damp for book storage.

No sign of Violet or the coal drayman here either. I made a note to order more coal, having peeked into the bin and finding it half-empty. By the time I could get another delivery, it would be down to less than a quarter.

The only other building on my property was the pump shed that doubled as an icehouse, packed tightly with eggs, milk, and cheese. I'd caught the girl there a time or two with the drayman of her choice. But she wasn't there, nor did it look like she had been.

As I ran down the formal staircase from parlor to café for the third time, a rapid tap on the back door brought me to an abrupt halt beside the circular desk that guarded the steam-and-clockwork–powered library catalog and the empty coffee bar. I did serve tea, but most of my customers preferred to savor the stimulating dark brew recently made popular in Paris by new explorations in Africa. Tea was for ladies and boringly respectable men. My customers sought something bolder, and I embodied that boldness.

A repeat of the knock broke the paralysis from my knees. I hastened down to the kitchen where I cranked open the three locks, and dislodged two chains, hoping desperately that Violet had forgotten her key. A modicum of common sense stilled my hand. Cautiously, I peered through the spy hole beside the door, before opening it. A small ragged silhouette cowered against the building, warily searching the alleyway. Two taller, decidedly feminine figures stood before the peephole.

“Who?” I whispered through the tiny hole covered with a magnifying glass lens before I opened the latch.

The shape against the wall jumped and pressed itself closer to the door. “Charlotte and Addie. We've brought Mickey,” came the quiet reply.

I twisted the latch and yanked open the door. My fingers curled around the boy's collar and pulled him inward even as I scanned the alley for any sign that Violet lingered there, perhaps frightened she might lose her job for returning late. Finding no sign of the girl I needed, I made way for the two young women I'd rescued from a life of prostitution at the ages of eleven and twelve and found them places with the milliner down the lane. Then I slammed the door closed again and reengaged the locks. “Mickey, what are you doing out so late of a Monday afternoon? And why couldn't you find your way back here alone?”

Mickey looked scared. Therefore, I needed to be as well.

“We found him huddled in our alley behind the dustbin, crying like the world was ending,” Charlotte said. “We brought him to you and now we have to go home before our mistress discovers we aren't crimping blue ribbons and twisting red ones into roses.” She and Addie looked to each other as if some silent communication passed between them, then left quickly and quietly together. Arm in arm—more than just friendship between those two, but I'd never say that out loud.

“You be closed 'a Monday. Cain't come sooner, or you'd no be here,” Mickey wailed with a trembling lip and a nose just snotty enough to tell me the eight-year-old orphan who knew the back streets and alleyways of London better than I did had cried for a good long time but hadn't cried away all his tears.

“What has happened to upset you so?” I pumped water onto a dishtowel and handed it to him so he could clean his face and hands. Then I used another dry cloth to protect my hands while I drew forth the baking from the oven. Mentally I counted the numbers and hoped this would suffice for my guests.

Mickey rubbed at his embedded grime diligently. He knew the rules of working for me, even if he'd only been tamed a few weeks before. Many of my boys, orphaned guttersnipes, one and all, were like feral cats who had to be tempted back to civilization with tidbits of nourishing food, a discarded blanket, and an occasional foray into the warmth. I pushed them toward a full bath by insisting on clean hands and faces indoors—even if the occasional dishtowel had to be discarded, too grimy to ever come clean. Trust came hard between us, so I let them stay a bit wild. They kept their familiarity with the streets better that way. If they ever showed signs of wanting to stay inside, they lost their usefulness to me. That's when I found them apprenticeships and permanent shelter. No sense littering my nice clean café with muddy boot prints and ragged clothing. Boys were messy and rebellious. Too much trouble past the age of twelve.

Except for . . .

“Cain't find Toby,” Mickey said around a sniffle.

I gestured toward the damp and now very hopelessly grimy towel.

“Toby is a big boy.” The biggest of my boys, pushing sixteen and all arms and legs and feet. The slight uptilt of his eyes and round face made him an endearing cherub long past needing his first shave. Keeping him in shoes was getting to be a problem, though his castoffs did help the littler ones.

“Toby can find his way home when he wants.” I sniffed this time. Lately Toby had shown a streak of dependence and a need to sleep by the fire that indicated I'd have to find him new employment before long. Who else would take on his slow mind? His extreme loyalty to me would be hard to transfer.

“But that's just it, Missus. He gets lost. Cain't read the road markers like I kin. Toby don't know up from down without me tellin' 'im,” Mickey protested.

There was that problem. A boy with a body too big for his mind.

“He allus stays real close to me. Holdin' me coattails. Today he just disappeared, cain't find him in any of our usual places.”

“Where did you lose him?” I demanded, seriously worried now.

“By the Circus.”

Not far from Trafalgar Square where the black balloon hovered.

“Piccadilly,” I sighed. For some reason the circular road around a looming statue that connected Regent Street with Shaftesbury always fascinated Mickey but frightened Toby. He saw the winged bronze statue on its tower pedestal with a nocked arrow—often called
The Angel of Christian Charity
, though it was intended to be Anteros
,
god of requited love—as some kind of vengeful monster about to break free of its bronze casing and devour him.

“What were you doing there, Mickey?” I tapped my toe impatiently, hoping he'd enlighten me to something unusual that the black balloon might spy upon. Maybe Toby was at nearby Trafalgar Square, lost in the open spaces, using the statue of a warrior to protect him from the vengeful angel at Piccadilly.

Inside the darkened café the bronze clock bonged the three-quarter hour. Time was slipping away, and I needed to prepare for tonight's gathering.

Where was Violet?

“We was watchin' t' nobs, like you tell us to.” Mickey sounded defensive, building a bit of courage, I hoped. Courage to go back out into the twilight and search for his lost charge and maybe Violet as well.

“Did you see anything interesting? Or useful?”

“Aye, Missus. Aye, that I did. Heard things, too, I did. Seen the beggar with the withered right hand, and heard him say somethin' odd, too.” Now his eyes became cunning. I'd have to pay for whatever information littered his brain in scattered fragments. Organization was not Mickey's best talent. He showed signs of needing greater order, like touching his fingers as he recounted things, building lists in his mind, but so far hadn't mastered it.

“There's bread in the pantry, butter and cheese in the stillroom.”

“Cream?” His eyes brightened in anticipation.

Did I say he was like a feral cat?

“Tighter, Mickey,” I ordered as the little boy tugged feebly on my laces. I could manage my corsets most of the time. Tonight I needed to go tighter, almost to not breathing, in order to fit into my gown. Made two years ago, before I began to fill out.

Where the hell was Violet? She'd lose her job the moment she poked her nose in my door. I had to trade Mickey's report on the odd comment about the black balloon by a beggar with a withered hand for assistance in dressing. By the time we finished, Mickey would have forgotten what he heard.

“If'n I pull any tighter, you won't be able to breathe,” Mickey protested. Puzzlement colored his voice rather than embarrassment. He was only eight and I showed little more skin in my nether garments than I did fully clothed in evening wear.

“That is rather the point: keeping women from breathing deep enough to speak their minds, or getting up and leaving fast enough to avoid being restrained by a man.”

He gave another weak tug and I resigned myself to looking a little stout, with less of a distracting shelf shoved above my corset to hold male eyes this evening. Maybe if I only ate two sugar buns with breakfast instead of four . . .

“You are fed. You are warm. You are clean, and I've given you
three
ha' pennies. Tell me about the black monster in the sky above Trafalgar Square and what the beggar said about it.”

“Making me your lady's maid's going to cost you extra, Missus.” He looked sullen and embarrassed after all.

“You may have two each of the savory pastries.” I'd saved out some of the broken ones just in case.

His smile brightened a bit. “An' you won't go a-tellin' me mates about this? Cain't have 'em thinking I've gone all fancy boy on 'em.”

“I won't tell a soul.” I had more of a reputation to lose than he. One thing to be bold and flamboyant, quite another to be so penurious I couldn't afford a proper maid who showed up on time. If only Violet had given me some warning that she was about to elope! Or, worse, gossip from the gutter spread faster to the fine houses and salons than butter on hot toast. Rumor would have me the corrupter of young boys. Now if they were older boys. . . .

“Talk, Mickey.” I scooped a frothy red gown over my head so I only heard a few muffled words.

“Dragon, it were. All black with one horrible orange eye. An' it spit flame, too.”

I didn't correct his redundant language. “A
black
dragon, you say. Flying over the Square.” The black balloon could be described as such by the unlearned. The one orange eye: the glow from the firebox. Spitting flame could describe the pushing of hot air into the envelope.

But how did it hover? And what was it looking for?

“Not just the Square. All over t' West End,” Mickey insisted. “The beggar said 'e'd seen it spitting flames, green flames, right at Parliament. Toby might 'a run from't.” The boy sidled toward the door of my private rooms, aiming for the backstairs. Like any feral cat, the time had come for him to escape comfort for freedom. I'd left the cream out for him along with the pastries.

He fled before I could ask him to fasten the back of my gown. “Keep an eye out for Violet! Check with the drayman at the dairy. And tell him I need an extra gallon of milk,” I called after him as soon as my head was free of layers and layers of frothy red silk. Cursed fashions. I said a harsher word, actually, but I don't usually curse, let alone in public. Unless I really,
really
need to.