Eros Element (29 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Hotel Segreto, Rome, 28 June 1870

Marie woke when a stray sunbeam speared her left eye. She listened for Iris's regular breathing and bolted upright when she didn't hear it. Relief that Iris's breathing hadn't stopped was replaced by panic—where had she gone? Marie didn't know exactly what had transpired between Iris and Edward or between Iris and Lord Jeremy, but she hadn't missed how Iris rubbed her left elbow off and on all evening or the mumblings in Iris's sleep, mostly to let go of her and she didn't love him. Marie had seen all kinds of men at her mother's theatre and knew better than most how some were not to be trusted with a woman's well-being, either physical or mental. Lord Jeremy's expression, which contained a new level of hardness since they unearthed the temple, had made it quite clear that things would not go well for Iris, and Iris's stab of fear when she saw him enter the trattoria confirmed Marie's suspicions. He'd hurt her and promised more if she didn't obey him. Knowing Iris, she wouldn't.

So if Iris had gone to the site, and if Edward was there and Jeremy walked in on them… He might do something to eliminate the competition permanently. Or eliminate Iris before she further injured his pride and caused him more trouble.

Marie dressed as quickly as she could and rushed from the room. She ran into Johann Bledsoe on the stairs. His bloodshot eyes, disheveled clothing, and alcohol odor told her all she needed to know of how he'd spent his night. She gave him her best Lucille glare.
I know what kind of man you are.
But he blocked her way.

“Where are you off to in such a rush?” he asked.

“Iris and Edward might be in danger.”

He blinked, and the foggy expression on his face cleared. “Where?”

“The temple.”

He followed her down the stairs. “Why do you think they're in danger?”

“I don't have time to explain. Call it a sixth sense.”

“Nothing's ever normal with you is it?”

Now they crossed the hotel foyer. “No. Nor is it boring,” Marie shot over her shoulder.

“I have no doubt of that.”

Was he flirting with her? No time to think about that now. The edge of the sun peeked over the horizon, and a new sense of urgency bloomed in Marie's gut. “Hurry!”

The odious lordling stood at the top of the ramp and held something in his right hand. The early morning sun streaming into the chapel glinted off of the object. Iris didn't need to look closely to see it was one of the long, thin stiletto knives the Italians favored.

Edward tried to shove Iris behind him, but she wouldn't let him rescue her. Lord Jeremy was her problem, not his.

“I can't marry you, Jeremy.” She moved around the altar to block the globe with the aether from his view. “You and I both know it wouldn't be good for either of us.”

“I don't care what would be good for you. I warned you to stay away from him, and you said your relationship was professional. Apparently it isn't.”

She tried again to appeal to his self-interest. “I watched my parents have a loveless relationship. I'm not going to inflict that upon myself or anyone else.”

He moved toward her more quickly than she thought he could, and she turned to flee, but her skirt caught on a rough corner of the altar, and the pocket that held the courtesan's poison case caught and tore. The gold container clattered to the floor, and when Iris reached for it, Lord Jeremy grabbed her arm with one hand and the golden object with the one that held the knife.

“What's this? Have you been hiding temple treasure from me along with your dishonorable behavior?”

“Give it back,” Iris twisted and tried to grab it, but he held her firm against him.

“What is it?”

“It's an Italian courtesan's container. Completely wrong period for this place, which you should know. My father gave it to me.”

“Fine. It along with everything else will become my property when we marry.” He dropped it into her hand.

Images flooded through Iris. Hands opening the container in a ballroom in London and pouring something into her father's drink. Lord Jeremy watching the whole proceeding. The lordling receiving payment from a shady-looking character in an alley and passing it along to another one. Iris couldn't see the first criminal's face but did see the tattoo on his wrist, of the same symbol that had been etched on the study window and that was on the piece of paper the doomed Monsieur Anctil gave her.

“You killed my father!” Iris kicked him in the shin, but he held her tighter. “You took bribe money from the Pythagoreans and paid the Clockwork Guild to finish him off.”

“How do you—? Never mind. Stop struggling, or I'll cut your throat.”

“No!” Edward moved toward them, but Jeremy held the knife to Iris's neck.

“One step closer and neither of us will have her,” Jeremy said. “Yes, I arranged for your father's illness, Iris. He humiliated me in class and was going to have me kicked out of the program. Luckily his unfortunate and sudden need for a sabbatical made sure that wouldn't happen. But I didn't mean for him to die.”

“I don't believe you,” she said. “Lie all you want to me, but I'll never marry you.”

“You gave your word. Or were you lying about that as about so much else? Either way, what you discovered in here including this glowing thing in the glass globe belongs to me, as do you.”

Edward picked up two of the tuning forks. “Then allow me to demonstrate.” He gave Iris a significant look.

“Don't,” she said. “It's not worth it. I'm not worth it.”

“What's another copper globe in the grand scheme of things?” He struck the two forks on the altar, and a discordant combination of tones slithered through the air. He held the tuning forks over the copper globe but didn't touch them to it. The air vibrated with the discord, an almost solid manifestation of what was happening among them.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy asked.

“Augmenting its power. Look at it.”

The mass grew, and its edges became ragged.

“How much will that be worth?” Jeremy leaned in to see better, but to do so, he had to move the knife away from Iris's neck. She let her muscles relax but couldn't pull away without focusing Scott's attention back on her.

At least I can breathe.
She watched Edward's face. His expression was that of a patient teacher, but behind his goggles, his eyes held a ruthlessness she'd never seen in them. Was he willing to do it, to destroy the temple and everything in it, including them, to keep the Eros Element away from Scott?

“It requires testing and development to make it practical,” Edward said. “But once we do figure out how to harness it, it will be a new source of power, particularly important because it's self-sustaining.” He glanced at Iris and then down. She understood his message:
duck under the altar.
She shook her head—
not worth it
—but he ignored her.

“Self-sustaining power. I can be like those coal moguls, but without having to bleed resources on personnel and property,” Jeremy mused. He leaned in closer so his nose almost touched the glass, and Edward put the two now barely vibrating tuning forks to the copper globe. The mass inside expanded, and Scott put his hands to his eyes, releasing Iris. She dropped to the floor and darted under the altar. Shattering glass filled the air, and two bodies hit the floor.

Iris curled into a ball under the altar. The air buzzed with the dissipating energy, and the next two noises—a loud bang and footsteps—made her cringe further.

“Oh my god!” It was Marie. “Dammit, Johann, I told you to break the door down.”

“I tried. Who knew Italian construction could be so strong?”

“They build churches that last for centuries, you ninny. Iris? Iris, are you here?”

Iris crawled toward where Edward lay with an arm over his face. The fabric over his elbow hung in ashy shreds, and his skin blistered. Iris moved his arm out of the way and was relieved to see it had blocked his nose and mouth, but his face also showed burns, and worse, he didn't breathe.

“Edward?” she tried to ask, but all she could manage was a moan. “Edward, please don't be dead. I can't lose someone else I care about.”

Marie knelt beside her and put two fingers to Edward's neck. “I'm not feeling a pulse.”

Iris put her head to his chest and remembered how good it had felt in the train when they'd all ended up tumbled on the floor and he supported her. Nothing. Marie removed his goggles, and he lay there as if asleep.

“No!” Iris pressed her hands to his chest and moved so her face was a whisper away from his. “No, Edward, please don't leave me.” She took a deep breath and parted his lips with hers. She exhaled into his mouth, then breathed again and again for him.

Edward stood to the side and watched Iris breathe into his mouth. It didn't make sense, but his mind kept going back to the discovery. The experiments had disappointed him so, but Iris's genius suggestion that they combine the two new tones—well, it was called the Eros Element, after all, so it made sense that simple things would beget a new, different whole.

But then Lord Jeremy Scott had threatened her with that long knife. A simple mistake, an unintentional slip, and she'd be maimed or worse. Not that he wouldn't still love her—and his mind tripped over that word too—if she had a scar on her face, but he didn't want her to be killed. Lord Jeremy's motives were easy enough to read, so Edward had lured him in with the promise of wealth and power, and—

And that was where Edward's mind didn't want to venture. He'd killed a man. With science, which he'd come to believe was to be used not only to gain knowledge, but also for the common good. And after he took that man's fiancée and kissed her like he was some sort of savage laying claim on another man's property. What must Iris think of him? What should Edward think of himself? He'd gone so far beyond the bounds of what he considered reasonable, but he'd done what he had to protect her. And himself. That part was jumbled too. Had he died? Well, empirical evidence suggested otherwise. Or did it? He did stand outside himself looking down and feeling happy he couldn't feel the burns on his face and arm. Iris breathed into him, and he wished he could feel what it was like to have her mouth on his again.

Edward looked around at the others assembled there. Iris's hands glowed gold. She'd said something about her sense of touch, how it told her more than it did other people, and Edward suspected her father could do something similar. The existence of such a talent didn't make sense in the normal world, but here, in this space outside reality, more seemed possible. Did others have abilities like that? A golden film stretched and waved over Marie's face like a mask. Then Radcliffe came down the ramp and broke into a run when he saw Iris kneeling by Edward. O'Connell followed him. Radcliffe shooed her aside and pulled his stethoscope out.

“There's something,” he said. “Keep breathing for him, Iris. Whatever you're doing, it's helping.”

Is it? I don't feel any different.
Edward looked at his own hands. He could see the chapel floor through them.

“You need to get his heart going stronger,” Radcliffe said. “His pulse is fluttering.”

“Wait.” She looked back at the altar. “I need the two he tried first. I felt the frequency in my own chest. Which ones were they?”

She stood and ran to where the tuning forks had fallen after Edward destabilized the aether and destroyed the globe. “Big hairy ox's bollocks, I can't tell which ones they were!”

Edward stood beside her in his transparent form and picked them out, but he couldn't grab them. Standing so near Iris, he heard her thoughts.

“Eros, if you're there, if you're listening, you can't let it end like this. Whether you're a force or a god, Edward kept your element from being poached by an evil man. Doesn't he deserve some sort of reward?”

A deep voice resonated through Edward.
“And what price will you pay? No one can come back from Hades without a fee.”

Edward found himself in his body, and the pain kept him trapped there.

The voice sounded like it echoed around the temple, but a quick glance told Iris none of the others heard it. She'd read enough mythology to know that gods were tricky and would twist words, so she had to choose carefully.

“I will give up my house in Huntington Village.”

“That is not yours to give.”

“I will give Father's papers and artifacts to the University rather than keep them for myself, which I had planned to do in secret. I will make my career on my own rather than rely on building upon his.”
The grief-crack in her heart throbbed at the thought of losing that tangible connection to her father.

“Giving up one link of the heart for another will suffice. Have faith, little sister. You will need it for what's to come. The rose is opening.”

The next breath brought a gasp from Edward, and Iris moved back so he could sit with the support of Radcliffe and Johann.

Iris collapsed with relief against Marie, and a lava mix of emotion welled from her center. Relief mingled with grief, happiness with loss, and soon Edward held her as she released the sobs she'd held back since her father's funeral, the ones she said she couldn't allow herself because she had to put her energy into figuring everything out. The tears subsided, and the crack down her middle felt smaller.

She looked up at Edward and blinked the last of the salt out of her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“For what? You're supposed to cry when you're sad. It's a perfectly logical thing to do.”

“No, for lying. For not trusting you.”

“I forgive you.” And he kissed her. It was a gentle kiss at first, a butterfly landing on a flower, but it deepened, and Iris kissed back with a wanton fierceness she didn't know she possessed. They broke apart when someone cleared their throat.