A Study in Ashes (6 page)

But really, how can I fight a ghost?
And surely family ghosts were the most horrible of all.
It’s all nonsense. I was panicked by the battle and only imagined what she said. War plays tricks on the mind
.

The click of his heels on the cobbles was a solid, reassuring sound, and he clung to it like a drowning man clutches a spar of wood.
I am the Gold King’s maker. I build engines. I deal in brass and steel, not death magic
.

He kept one hand on the Webley revolver in his pocket. The feel of the grip against his palm comforted him more than he cared to admit. He’d customized the gun with a magnetized action for switching between conventional bullets and an aether discharge—not as impressive as some of the hardware on the underground market, but it fit into the pocket of a dress coat. He’d carried a weapon ever since the battle in the sky, his innate sense of safety going down in
flame and ash with the ships. They’d barely made it to the ground before the rigging on the
Helios
turned to ash.

Soldiers referred to their first battle as seeing the elephant. It was more like looking into the mouth of the Inferno. Like everything else from that night, the image of those burning airships lurked forever just behind his eyes.

And there had been no quiet, sane life to return to. London was restless, every night putting new cracks in its facade of civilization. Rumors of rebellion gave even the lowest thief an excuse for anarchy. Even this neighborhood near Bond Street was growing unpredictable.

He turned from the alley into what was little more than a passage between brick warehouses. The lowering shadows kicked his pulse into a higher gear, reminding him he was alone. Stopping in his tracks, he cursed himself for forgetting to bring a lantern of any kind, and then decided he was better off invisible.

Cautiously, Tobias forged ahead, finding just enough ambient light to keep from pitching into the mud. It had rained earlier, but now the sky had cleared and the ground glistened with moisture, a silver track sketched by a faint moon. Tobias took his time, listening to the squish of his boots—his valet was going to quit in high dudgeon any day now—and feeling the cool, wet air on his face.

Then the building to his left gave way to a tall fence, the signal that he’d arrived at his destination. The place was little more than a shack in an unkempt yard, but Tobias knew every inch of it; he’d spent half his time here only a few years ago. Candlelight shone around the circumference of the ill-fitting door, making it easy to find his way inside. The first thing he recognized was the smell—coal smoke, alcohol, rotting upholstery, and a lingering whiff of scorched wool. When he stepped inside, it seemed nothing had changed inside the clubhouse of the Society for the Proliferation of Impertinent Events, better known as SPIE. Still, Tobias took a good look around before taking his hand off the Webley.

“Drink?” asked Mr. Buckingham Penner, who was sitting
in an armchair that appeared to have survived being launched by a trebuchet over enemy lines.

“You know me too well,” Tobias replied to the man who had been his best friend ever since knee pants and toffee. The sound of Bucky’s voice uncranked the muscles in his back and his breath released in a whoosh.

Bucky poured wine into elegant glasses. He must have brought them with him, because nothing so fine had survived five minutes in the clubhouse. “Do you know the remnants of that giant automated squid are still in the yard? Quite rusted now, but it certainly brings back memories.”

That it did—memories replete with friendship and the sweet taste of irresponsible youth. There had been four charter members of SPIE, all full of ideals and devious plans. They’d scattered since, each to his own career. Of any of them, Tobias saw the least of his old companions. He walked forward and took the wine Bucky offered, tempted to drink it off at a swallow. “Those were simpler times.”

“Good God, you sound old.”

“I feel it.”

Bucky didn’t argue, but instead applied himself to his own glass with savage determination. He was a big man—he had inherited the physique of his blacksmith grandsire—but it was all fit muscle. He could hold his liquor, but he’d never sought oblivion the way Tobias had. Watching him gulp down the wine made Tobias wonder what was amiss—beyond the obvious, of course. Bucky had been betrothed to Imogen; they had been ready to elope when she had been kidnapped. Needless to say, there would be no wedding now.

“How is she?” Bucky asked, not needing to specify whom.

“Unchanged.”

Wisely, Bucky didn’t press the subject. He still came to sit at Imogen’s bedside when Tobias’s mother, Lady Bancroft, was alone in the house. She let him mourn in peace. Lord Bancroft blamed him for luring his daughter away.

“And how is your wife and scion?” Bucky asked.

Tobias blinked. It was easy on days like this—days so
fraught with ghosts—to forget that he was married and had a son. But that said a lot about his marriage. It was all so damned complicated. “In good health.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

Unhappiness made Tobias truculent. He fell into the chair opposite his friend, dangling one leg over the arm. “So, did you ask me here just for old times’ sake?”

Bucky refilled their glasses. “Do I need a reason? Maybe I just like to revisit happier times.”

But Tobias knew his friend well enough to suspect there was a reason lurking in the wings. He would just have to wait to find out what it was. He looked around at the moldering furniture and the derelict worktable crouching against the wall. “Memories are like the dirty dishes after a party. Best cleaned up and put away.”

“You make our past sound like a catalogue of disappointments.”

Whether he liked it or not, Tobias’s mind drifted back to the last of SPIE’s heyday. Back then, he’d almost become the man he’d wanted to be. It had slipped through his fingers, of course, but he’d felt his own potential with all the tingling excitement of thrusting his hand into a magnetic field. That last episode—with the squid and Dr. Magnus promising him the world—had lasted for skull-popping days before collapsing like a deflated dirigible. Before he’d lost Evelina Cooper and sold his soul to the Gold King.

Disappointment? What welled up was closer to grief. Still, Tobias made himself laugh. “Too much has happened. Being here feels a bit like walking on my own grave. There’s something dead in this place and I think it’s me.”

Bucky let his head loll back, sliding in his chair as if speared by the dart of exquisite boredom. “You always were the most maudlin bastard. Did you read
Childe Harold
one too many times?”

“I hate Byron. He whines.”

“Imagine the burden of listening to that.”

“Very droll.” And then he remembered that it was Bucky who had asked him to the clubhouse, and the reason for going there was suddenly clear.
It’s Bucky who wants to remember that time. It’s been a year and he still pines after Imogen when most men would have drifted away
. Guilt raked Tobias, and he wished he’d thought before opening his mouth. Bucky wasn’t the kind to make a show of grief, but his emotions burned stronger than those of anyone else Tobias knew. He wouldn’t give up on Imogen until the bitter end.

It was too much. Tobias needed light and cheerful noise before melancholy pulled him under. “Shall we get out of here? There’s got to be a club with comfortable chairs and a proper fire.” Tobias tossed off his wine and rose, promising himself he would talk about Imogen if his friend wanted it—just not here.

With a groan, Bucky followed and before long they were back in the alley, picking their way through the smelly grime between buildings. Tobias fingered his Webley again, feeling only slightly better with company along.

Unfortunately, the ghosts of SPIE trailed after, poking at memories of afternoons building machines, drawing plans, drinking, joking. There had been four members: Tobias, Bucky, Captain Diogenes Smythe, and Michael Edgerton.

“Do you even talk to Smythe anymore?” Tobias asked as they walked side by side.

“I don’t,” Bucky said evenly. “We fought a duel over your sister, remember? And he’s away with his regiment most of the time. I do see Edgerton now and again. We took flying lessons together. We’re both qualified to pilot a private dirigible now.”

Tobias cast him a sidelong look, suddenly worried. “Edgerton is rather on the wrong side of the law these days.”

“Only because his father’s ironworks in Sheffield fell afoul of the Scarlet King.”

Tobias stepped around a suspicious puddle. “I’ve heard he’s thrown in with the rebels.”

“Edgerton’s family was ruined, the way yours would have been if you hadn’t gone to work for the Gold King.” Bucky paused, his broad shoulders tensing. “The way mine well might be. Both my father and I work in the Gold King’s
territories, for all he’s in Yorkshire and my concerns are in London.”

They were on Bond Street now, walking southeast in the vague direction of St. James’s Park. It was drizzling faintly, not quite enough to admit that they were getting wet. Passersby walked in twos and threes under the gold-tinted gaslights, but it was nothing like the crowds of even six months ago. There weren’t many women, and fewer still looked respectable. That, more than anything, spoke to public unease.

Tobias considered Bucky’s statement, wondering where this conversation would lead. “Your father’s always been on good terms with the steam barons. He makes firearms and beer. Everyone loves that.”

“But he’s come under pressure to double his production, and he’s wondering why the Gold King is ordering so many shipments of arms. He wants to know if there is any truth to the rumors of war with Bohemia.”

“And you think I know the answer? Is that really why you asked me here tonight?”

“Not particularly, but I thought I might as well ask the question.” Bucky shrugged, the motion stiff with embarrassment. “You’re the Gold King’s chief maker. You married his daughter. You would know if something was coming.”

“My esteemed father-in-law doesn’t tell me everything.” What was more, Tobias didn’t like being lumped together with the Gold King’s camp. It made him feel soiled. “I haven’t heard anything about a foreign war. And why would we invade Bohemia, anyway?”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “Then the war’s to be at home? My father doesn’t fancy making guns to blow up his countrymen. If that’s the case, he’ll refuse.”

“As I said, I don’t know everything.” Tobias was about to add that denying the Gold King anything at all was a very bad idea—but he never got the chance.

A fleet of Steamers careened down the street, the tall back wheels churning with a skull-splitting rattle. Engines belched
smoke and steam out the high, crooked exhaust pipes, fogging the streets in a foul cloud. Bucky coughed. “What are they burning in those things? Old libraries?”

“They look like the types,” Tobias replied.

Black-masked youths crowded every one of the vehicles, and those who wouldn’t fit inside were draped over the roofs and clinging to the doors. They let out a loud, trilling yell as they sped down the street.
A very few years ago, that was me
.

Tobias counted five Steamers and probably thirty young men and women, though it was hard to tell. They had just about reached Piccadilly when the vehicles stopped so abruptly some of the hangers-on lost their grip and flew into the street. The rest dropped off like ticks abandoning a dog, pulling the doors open to let their fellows out. They ran away from the vehicles, leaving the Steamers puffing uselessly in the middle of the street. In a span of seconds, the road was jammed with masked youths.

“Hardly Bond Street quality,” Bucky muttered.

He was right. There were plenty of silks and velvets, but none of it matched or fit. Instead, it appeared to have been pilfered from a theater’s castoffs. There were broad-brimmed cavalier hats crowned with sweeping feathers, Punchinello’s puffy breeches, and ragged uniforms straight from Waterloo. One girl wore a ballerina’s spangled costume and thigh-high boots, her hair flying loose in the wind.

One young man leaped into their path, threw back his head, and howled like a wolf. Tobias winced.

“I didn’t know lycanthropy was a problem in these parts,” Bucky said dryly, unbuttoning his jacket to be fisticuff-ready.

Tobias snorted. “The moon isn’t even full. We’re clearly dealing with amateurs.”

Oblivious to the critique, the howler ceased to bay at the gaslights and lolloped off.

The respite was short-lived. One of the Steamer crowd pulled a cricket bat from the back of his vehicle and swung it experimentally even as he loped toward a draper’s shop window. And then he shattered the glass in one mighty swing, roaring with glee as shards flew into the street. He
wasn’t alone. Bats, sticks, and canes of all kinds appeared and the crashing of windows came from every side, punctuated by the shriek of a constable’s whistle.

“Bloody hell!” roared Bucky, surging into the fray. He grabbed the cricket bat out of the man’s hand and thumped the vandal over the head.

Tobias was half a step behind, using the butt of the Webley to fend off attackers. Fighting beside Bucky was a bit like guarding the back of a rampaging bear, but it was a role Tobias had played a hundred times back in school. For all his mild manners, Buckingham Penner was a full-steam-ahead kind of fighter with little regard for sneak attacks from behind.

A plump young woman in a black mask was leaning in through the broken window of the draper’s shop, dragging bolts of silk into the road and dumping them into the mud. Tobias didn’t stop to wonder why—this was just pure mayhem. Disgust surged through him until he could almost taste it at the back of his tongue. He grabbed her by the scruff and shoved her away, letting her get a good look at the Webley. Her mouth made a startled
O
the instant before she fled, one hand holding a purple velvet hat atop her unbound hair.

Distracted, Tobias didn’t see the fist coming. He staggered sideways, careening into the bricks of the building. His opponent—a tall man with a scruffy mustache—closed in. Tobias got one foot up in time to thrust him back. There suddenly seemed to be too many people—ordinary people and coppers as well as the attackers. There was no way he could fire the gun without risking an innocent life. And then the man was back, a nasty little knife in one hand. Tobias smashed him in the mustache before he had a chance to use the blade.