A Study in Darkness (3 page)

“Withdraw your men, Niccolo,” the captain snarled. He was tall and ruddy, with salt-and-pepper hair in short, tight waves.

It didn’t surprise Nick that his adversary knew his name. The
Red Jack
had earned its reputation. “Captain Hughes, I presume,” he said. “Give up and you keep your life.”

“Not bloody likely, pirate.” Hughes jerked the nose of the gun.

Acting on instinct, Nick threw the ax. He was a knife man, not used to the balance of the heavier weapon, and it flew wide. But the distraction bought him a sliver of time, just enough to follow with the blade in his left hand. That struck the captain’s fingers, making him release the pistol. It fell to the deck, discharging with a bang as it spun away.

There was a sound behind Nick. He dropped on instinct, avoiding the blast of the aether gun by the breadth of a cat’s whisker. Then he rolled to his feet and launched himself through the air, grappling the shooter and bearing him to the ground. Nick had the impression of a brown suit, brown hair, and a forgettable face. They rolled over and over, scraps of broken metal digging into their flesh as they went. Nick thumped the man’s head against the deck, then smashed a fist into his face. The man went limp, but Nick hit him again just to be sure. When his eyes rolled up in his head, Nick scrambled to his feet, grabbed the aether gun, and surveyed the situation.

He stood still for a moment, emotions catching up. Fear, triumph, and rage chased through his blood, leaving his nerves sparking with wild energy. Then he was back in the action, waving the deadly gun. “Put down your weapons!” he bellowed.

There were only half a dozen of the Hind’s men left standing, including Captain Hughes. Nick caught Hughes’s eye, willing the man to see reason, but the captain glared back, fury tightening his face.

The crewmen on both sides sensed the struggle of wills
between the two captains, and the battle slowed to a stop. The last few thumps and grunts sounded, then Striker sent his determined opponent crashing into a water butt. Silence followed.

The officer who had fought with his sword released a low moan of pain. He had collapsed on a coil of ropes, a gunshot wound to his shoulder, his bright uniform giving him the look of a discarded nutcracker doll. Hughes was looking at him with an intensity that said the young man was more than just another officer. Perhaps a relation, by the similarity of their features. The wounded man made another muffled noise, and Nick saw the moment when the captain of the
Leaping Hind
gave in. Hughes drew his sword and passed it, hilt first, to Nick.

“He demanded that you put down your weapons,” Hughes said to his men. “I authorize you to do so.”

They did as they were told. Nick had won. Within minutes, the able men of the
Hind
’s crew were bound and the best of the cargo was being looted one basketful at a time. Nick stood guard on the prisoners. Royce and Striker did the hauling while Digby kept his weapon trained on the
Hind
’s surgeon, who was seeing to the wounded.

The raven king landed on the rigging in a thunderous flapping of wings.
Hail, Niccolo
.

“Gwilliam,” Nick said. “Thank you for finding this ship when I could not.”

Do not doubt the ash rooks. This alliance feeds the flock well, and Saria of the silken feathers has agreed to fly at my side. It is to my advantage that Captain Niccolo finds his mark
.

There were two dead among the
Hind
’s crew, and the birds were taking their tribute. The rooks were valuable allies, but Nick was doing his best to ignore the sight and especially the sound of the carrion flock at work.

And now I say that you should not tarry. There is danger below
.

“When isn’t there?” Nick muttered, but the bird had launched itself back into the air. Nick’s gaze followed it for
a moment, the ink-black arrow of Gwilliam’s wings cutting a perfect curve through the mist.

Then Nick glanced over the side of the ship, wondering what the rook had been talking about. Through a patchwork of fleecy cloud, he could see the south bank of the Thames, east of Guy’s Hospital and the Tower. It was still the part of London where the steam baron called the Blue King held sway, but more in the country than in the city proper. He froze, a sudden sense of displacement taking him. He knew this landscape, and yet it didn’t look the same as when he had passed over just two months before. Now there were large yards—fields, really—ringed with tall, impenetrable fences. Corner towers gave the place a fortified look. Huge sheds stood here and there, hiding whatever was inside.

Nick didn’t give the sheds a second thought. What was outside worried him enough.
Great mother of basilisks!

There were huge monsters of steel down below—gigantic engines, each one trapped in a spherical metal cage. Six of them sat in a cluster, all as tall as houses. And if their sheer size wasn’t eye-catching enough, one of them appeared to be rolling forward like a ball, the engine inside suspended upright as its latticework superstructure bumped over the rocky field. His gaze flicked from one to the next, wondering what the contraptions were for.

He wheeled on Captain Hughes. “This is where you were bound, is it not?”

The captain was standing only yards away, hands bound at his back. Hughes gave Nick a cold stare, refusing to respond.

Striker had just fastened his basket of loot to the winch, and it was smoothly rising to the
Red Jack
as an empty container drifted down the other line. Overhearing the exchange, he grabbed the captain’s elbow and marched him over to where Nick stood. Then all three of them peered down at the strange sight.

“What am I looking at?” Nick demanded.

Hughes frowned. “This is the place I am contracted to deliver my cargo.”

“What are those machines?” Nick said in a tight voice. “Whom do they belong to?”

The lines around Hughes’s mouth deepened. “This is the Blue King’s property, but I know nothing. I’m under orders to send any unnecessary personnel below deck when we land. Only myself and my first mate are allowed to disembark, and we have given our word to maintain silence about anything we see.”

“And that doesn’t smell rotten at all,” Nick said dryly. “What
have
we got ourselves into?”

Striker gave Hughes a warning look. “How about our friend with the aether gun? That’s a rare item for a fellow who looks like a money-changer’s clerk.”

The captain shrugged, but his attempt at nonchalance failed, pushed aside by curiosity. “Bingham is on the Blue King’s business. He keeps to himself.”

“And I’d say he was under orders to make sure this delivery got made, and quietly.” Striker gave one of his fierce grins, his teeth white against his dark face. “Maybe we should wake him up and ask a few questions.”

Nick didn’t reply, his eyes still fixed on the machines below. He was no genius with mechanics, but the longer he looked, the better he could see the potential in the device. Twin channels had been left free of the crisscrossing steel bars of the globe. That way, as the superstructure rolled forward, something sticking out from the engine wouldn’t catch on the latticework. Nick pulled out his spyglass, taking a closer look at one of the machines. In fact, there was a pair of arms jutting out from the core of each monster. Some pointed their arms straight ahead, some straight up. He angled his view to see the appendages head on. Twin maws peered back at him, like hungry mouths ready to spit death. Nick knew a cannon when he saw it—and this kind didn’t just go boom.

Nick’s entire body clenched and he let loose a curse. With a hand suddenly slippery with sweat, he passed the glass to Striker.
Athena
, he said to the deva in his mind.
Tow us away from here. Fast
.

“What are those?” asked Hughes.

“Guns designed to shoot at airships.” Nick’s jaw ached with tension. “Magnetic aether cannons.”

Striker swore. “Where would the Blue King get the plans for those? There are only three or four makers who would begin to understand how to build ’em.”

“More to the point,
why
would the Blue King have them?” Hughes said incredulously. “Bohemia is the only other nation with a significant air fleet, and they’re not about to attack the Empire. There is no threat of war.”

“What if he knows about a threat?” Striker asked. “The Steam Council has men abroad.”

“Or,” said Nick, “what if he’s planning a war of his own?”

IMOGEN ROTH DRIFTED IN A GRAY ZONE THAT WAS NOT
quite sleep. Part of her knew that she was dreaming, and that a hard bed in a strange house fed her restlessness. But with the sharp clarity that came only in the dead of night, the greater part of her dream-mind fixed on the darkness waiting by the bedposts, the consuming nothingness that slithered across the room, eager to engulf her.

Of all her nightmares, this was the most familiar and the worst. It settled over her like a coverlet woven from death itself, trapping her where she lay. A lead weight pressed against her chest, crushing her limbs against the unforgiving mattress. Movement was impossible, even to take a breath. In a moment or two, she began to struggle for air.

Helpless, her mind scrabbled like a beast in a cage, frantically hurling itself against the prison of her flesh. It was utterly dark now, no sight or sound or feel of air against her face. Just the pain of starved lungs, the last rush of heartbeat, an involuntary twitch of a sparking nerve—and then that was gone, too.

Nothingness
. While her body lay deeply sleeping, her spirit drifted elsewhere, losing all sense of physical form without even a pulse to mark the passage of time. Silence stretched backward through infinity, memory shrinking to a distant pinpoint. And with no memory, the future—floating
like a shipwrecked hull on a still, starless sea—was a moot point.

Worse, she wasn’t alone. Something waited in the silent dark. When it would strike, she didn’t know. What it was, she didn’t know. She had the notion that it was herself, waiting for her own moment of weakness to strike. And while that didn’t make sense, it wasn’t the business of dreams to be logical. Or maybe she had died after all, and she would remain there, floating forever, robbed of all her senses.

Whatever was left of her mind started to unravel like knitting gone wrong.

Then, unexpectedly, the dream changed. Imogen was standing on a street she didn’t know—the kind that her father would never allow her to visit. Rain glistened on patches of mud and greasy cobbles that led between soot-blackened walls. Instinctively, she looked around. There weren’t many lights, but in the distance she could see the blue globe of a gaslight.
I’m in the East End, the Blue King’s territory
. Pleased with herself for figuring that much out, Imogen took a few steps forward, trying to spot some other clue. She’d never had this dream before, and she liked it much better. At least now there was something to see.

She heard voices, loud with drink. She wheeled around to spy two soldiers—the uniforms looked something like the Coldstream Guards—laughing and jostling with two women. It was the kind of playful push and tug that usually ended in kisses, but in this case the party was breaking up. One couple went to the left, the other to the right. Under some compulsion she didn’t understand, Imogen followed the second pair down a narrow street, keeping some distance behind. She wasn’t sure why, but the rules of the dream required that she stay out of sight.

About halfway along, the couple found a dark doorway and the woman lifted her skirts. Imogen turned away, embarrassment and disgust curling her insides into a cold ball. There were ugly sounds coming from the pair—sounds that didn’t belong with what she’d always imagined the act of love to be. What was this encounter doing in her dream? Why was a good girl like her dreaming this?

Why not?

Imogen stopped. The question hadn’t been hers. It was coming from that other thing, the one that hid in the still darkness when it crushed her to the bed. With clammy, horrific certainty, she realized she hadn’t escaped the dark place at all. It had just relocated inside her, and now it was speaking. That had never happened before.

She shuddered, wondering what to do. If she spoke to it, would that make things worse? But she was too curious not to ask at least one question. “Who are you?”

The voice didn’t respond. She could feel the presence thinking, considering, observing. The man buttoned himself up and walked away, and the woman shook her skirts back into place.

Do you understand?

Imogen couldn’t answer. She’d seen money change hands and knew what it meant, but what else was she supposed to know? Imogen’s experience of the world stopped far short of these streets.

The presence sensed her ignorance, and made her follow the woman as she left the alley in the opposite direction from the man. Imogen tried to stop her feet, to turn them around, but they wouldn’t obey. It was clear the presence had a goal, something it wanted to find out. Something she was going to have to learn, too.