Forged by Desire (11 page)

Garrett’s teeth ground together. “He
isn’t
trusted.”

“That’s arrogance speaking, not the man I know you could be. Not a
leader
.”

A long moment of silence. “And how do you propose I reconcile this matter?”

“Give him the same work you give to any of us. Involve him in your decisions. Ask his opinion—he’s good at what he does, Garrett. You can’t ask for his respect if you can’t give him the same.”

“So this situation is my fault?”

“No. But you’re the man in charge. He’s not. You’re Master of the Nighthawks now, which means you need to be the one to act decisively in this matter, rather than giving in to the actions you’d prefer to take.”

Garrett rubbed at the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“You know I speak the truth.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” he corrected.

Perry smiled her most secretive smile.

“And Lynch?”

It was eating away at him. Perry nibbled her lip. “He’ll come around.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. He’s being stubborn and foolish. Much like someone else I know at times… But he’s not a fool.”

Garrett rolled onto his side. “When did you get to be so wise?”

“I’m always wise,” she quipped back.

Lazing on his side, he reached out and stroked her bare foot. Perry froze. The room suddenly seemed far too small.

It would be wise to pull away, but as his gaze held hers, Perry found she couldn’t move. Something about the moment seemed to draw her in. A longing she couldn’t quite disguise.

He saw it. His thumb paused beneath the arch of her foot, a long, considering moment. Black heat suffused his eyes. Full of dangerous promises.

Perry couldn’t breathe.

“Garrett?” She could feel it igniting in her too, the richness of the hunger seeping through her veins. Her vision darkened and she reached out to stroke his jaw—

Garrett turned his face away sharply and drew back with a shaky breath. “I’m sending you out with Byrnes to examine the factory again. The preliminary reports are back from the autopsy. Dr. Gibson believes the second murder occurred on-site or very close to the factory. The first girl was killed elsewhere, as suspected, and moved.”

Byrnes?
Perry’s hand lowered. “Why?”

“That’s what we need to know.” He rolled to his feet, straightening his clothes.

“Not the murders. Why Byrnes? You know he and I—”

“I need a murder weapon,” he replied, speaking over the top of her. “I need you to find either the knife or scalpel that removed Miss Fortescue’s heart, or someone who saw something. And it’s about time I dealt with the press. Is there anything else?” The look he gave her might as well have been offered to a stranger. The blackness had faded from his irises.

Yes. You’re a nodcock
. Her jaw locked and she glared back.

Garrett arched a brow, correctly interpreting the look. “Then I’ll see you later this afternoon.”

As he left the room, she refrained from mentioning that Byrnes wasn’t the only one he wasn’t handling very well.

She just didn’t understand why.

Byrnes and Perry caught the train to the newly renamed Wapping station, which lingered in the remnants of the Thames Tunnel. The previous tunnel had been a marvel of modern engineering, burrowing beneath the river and providing pedestrian access to Rotherhithe on the southern bank. In recent years the East London Railway Company had transformed the tunnel to carry trains, and people were taking full advantage of that fact.

Perry disembarked at the platform, striding into the crowd. The guild’s steam coach was reserved solely for the use of the guild master, so most Nighthawks had to find alternative means of transport. Garrett had offered the use of the steam coach until she’d reminded him very pointedly of that fact. A foolish victory, and one she regretted as they swam against the crowd.

“This is ridiculous,” Byrnes muttered, leading her through the streets toward the draining factory. “The men have already been over the factory with a fine-tooth comb. What does Garrett think we’re going to find?”

“Something sharp.” A murder weapon, no less.

“Perhaps if we find it, I’d best take it in hand,” Byrnes said. “Considering your current mood.”

Perry stopped in her tracks. “My mood?”

“You have that look in your eye.” Byrnes caught her arm and steered her forward. “The one that says you’d like something sharp and pointy, all the better to stick it down his throat.”

“Unfortunately, your grasp of anatomy is almost as woeful as your concept of charm. I wasn’t contemplating his throat at all.”

Byrnes laughed.

The nearest storefront had no fewer than five cages in the window, with squawking parrots, a lark, and a nightingale captured within. In these streets, one could buy almost anything. Particularly the exotic. On Sundays the street was an open-air market, with raucous birds and monkeys for sale at every cart, fighting for space with barrows and stands, with cheapjacks selling whatever they could lay their hands on. Refreshment stalls offered apple fritters cooked while you waited. Perry had on occasion tried one, though she could only stomach a couple of mouthfuls before her cursed body rebelled against food.

Today the streets were manageable. The wreckage of the draining factories loomed ahead, with a full squadron of metaljacket guards keeping people at bay. Weak afternoon sunlight gleamed on the polished steel of the guards’ breastplates, and the polished glass of their eye slits revealed a hint of pale blue gaslight within. It looked almost eerily as if the automatons were staring back at her. Workmen scurried behind them, with scaffolding surmounting the buildings and steam-driven cranes shuffling into place with a faint hiss. Earthshakers—the armadillo-plated automatons the Echelon owned—were being used to clear the wreckage from the burned-out factories.

Factory Five loomed at the end, with soot stains showing where the fire had almost spread. It was strangely silent down here, gravel crunching beneath her boots as she and Byrnes strode toward the factory.

“So what was all that about?” Byrnes asked.

“All what?” Perry pushed her brass identity card into the keyhole. The doors to the draining factory had been keyed to the senior identity cards of all the Nighthawks while the investigation was in place.

“Reed seems a little on edge of late,” Byrnes replied, following her. “You wouldn’t happen to know the cause?”

“No.”

“How curious.” He eased the door shut with a slow squeal of the hinges. “If someone perceptive—say, someone trained to investigate people—were paying attention, it might actually seem that the strain began that night we investigated the opera.”

“Don’t tempt me to find something sharp and pointy.” A hand rested over the knife at her hip. “I’m most certainly not in the mood for your so-called humor.”

His laugh was rough and low. “So you and Reed are both on edge. The plot thickens.”

In the almost unearthly silence, the factory seemed watchful. Dull gray light streamed through the dusty windows high above, and the air was frigidly cold this close to winter. Perry took careful steps, eyeing the enormous glass vats that had once been used to store blood. The brass filtration devices beneath them lay silent now, the overhead cranes and rows of conveyor belts preternaturally still. The Echelon would be screaming for fresh blood and for this case to be solved. It wouldn’t be long before the Nighthawks’ opportunity to examine the factory vanished and the Council of Dukes demanded that the workers return to their labors.

After all, what were the lives of two young girls compared to the Echelon’s needs?

She followed Byrnes, gaze locking directly on the spot where they’d found the bodies. His words finally got the better of her. “What do you mean he’s been much changed since the opera?”

“You haven’t noticed?”

“No.” Her cheeks grew hotter. “Yes. I don’t know—”

Crouching low, Byrnes examined the bloodstain on the floor. It had long since leached into the timber floorboards. “I think that you finally played your hand.”

Perry could barely breathe through the sudden scorching embarrassment that bit into her. If Byrnes had guessed the truth of her feelings, then she would never live it down. “My hand? What the devil do you mean?”

Byrnes held up a hand. His brows drew together. “Frankly I don’t give a damn, although it’s proving to be rather entertaining.” Cocking his head, he lowered it toward the floor. “The entire factory is meant to be off-limits until we clear it, yes?”

Ignoring her embarrassment, Perry nodded. “Yes.”

“Then why is a furnace rumbling?”

Perry knelt down, listening intently. Beneath the floorboards, she could just make out the whispering sound of some machine. Beneath her fingers, the floorboards vibrated, just slightly. As she watched, dust skittered across the floor.

Her heart leaped into her throat. “There’s something beneath the main factory.”

“A boiler or furnace somewhere.” Byrnes flashed her a grin. “One that’s not on the schematics.”

Behind him, she caught a glimpse of something moving. Her mind fought to recognize it, then Perry leaped forward, hitting Byrnes hard in the shoulder. They catapulted backward just as a winch screamed through the air where his head had been.

Perry rolled to her feet, looking up. The winch was suspended from an overhead crane. It reached the end of its swing and began the return journey, sweeping back toward the walkway that it had come from. The flap of a coat vanished around the edge of the offices overhead, footsteps echoing on the tin walkway.

“Someone’s there!” she yelled, holding her arm up and pointing her wrist toward the railing. The pistol strapped there jolted forward into her palm, the magazine whirring as the mechanism readied itself. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!”

The ring around her thumb tightened as she curled it toward her palm. Almost enough tension to pull the trigger. The footsteps receded and Perry swore, darting around the swinging winch as she tried to get a better vantage.

“Strike me blind,” Byrnes cursed, rolling to his feet. “I’ll go up after him. Cover the other set of steps. He has to come down somehow.”

Perry ran toward the filtration devices at the back of the factory, her boots echoing the fleeing footsteps. It was darker back here, the enormous glass beakers distorting the shadows. She slowed, one hand dropping to the knife at her hip and her other wrist leading, with the wrist pistol pointing up into the darkness. The footsteps had slowed too. She couldn’t see through the thin tin sheeting, though.

“Byrnes?” she called.

In the distance she heard him hammering up the stairs toward the walkway. “Got him covered.”

Above her a shadow rippled along the wall. Perry ducked to the side, moving silently. The shadow took a step, almost as if he was aware of her.
What
the
hell
is
he
doing?

Moving slowly, as if…as if he was luring her forward…

Perry froze, gently placing her foot down. The moment she did, a grinding noise sounded in the walls and she felt the floor give way beneath her.

“Byrnes!” she screamed as she vanished into the darkness below.

Garrett spent most of the afternoon going through the paperwork on the Keller-Fortescue case in his study—or Lynch’s study. It still bore the echo of the former Master of the Nighthawks, from the heavy, leather-bound tomes that lined the bookshelves to the case files he still hadn’t managed to put away and the ebony-framed map of the Empire that hung over the fireplace.

Scraping at the stubble on his chin, Garrett tried to clear his mind. The press had been dealt with and Hayes had made a brief report earlier. Miss Keller’s only link to the East End was a charity she dealt with—a lending library for impoverished children. Miss Fortescue had never set foot in the place. Not a single person had seen them disappear from their homes.

As for the Russians, they’d arrived in England three days before the tour through the factory. He had a list of events they’d attended and was trying to match them against functions either of the girls had been to.

Garrett rubbed at his temples. He was reaching the point where the facts were becoming a useless jumble of information. God, he was tired. Every time he shut his eyes he could almost feel the dreams sucking him under.

Concentrate
.

Miss Keller had died in the early hours of Monday morning, which at least gave him a timeline. Now he just needed to question the Russian party to discover where they’d been at the time of the murder.

The tick of the clock was a slow beat that only highlighted the silence. Garrett could stand it no more. He lowered his hand from his eyes and glared at the stacked bookshelves. If he couldn’t damn well sleep or think, then it seemed past time to rid himself of at least one ghost.

Hours later, a swift rap at the door drew his attention. Books were stacked in piles by the door, along with all of Lynch’s collection of necessities—lamps, maps, and even his inkwell. The room was bare.

“Come in,” he called, dumping another pile of books by the door.

Doyle’s eyebrow arched when he saw the mess. “We’ve got maids for this sort o’ thing.”

“Excellent. Have them box the books and all of the duke’s personal belongings, and send them his way. I want the case files returned to the filing room and all these shelves swept clear of dust.”

Doyle’s gaze slowly took in the bare furnishings. “There’s been a call of distress come in via telegraph from the garrison on Hart Street.” He held out the small rolled sheaf that the message was printed on.

Hart Street. A ring of cold circled the back of Garrett’s neck. The garrison was close to the draining factories. Tearing the piece of parchment open, he scraped his thumb over the small black ink letters.

Urgent
attention: Guild Master. Nighthawk missing at draining factory five. Request immediate assistance.

“
No
,” he whispered under his breath, knowing instantly who the missive had come from. Perry would have used longer sentences—and names. “No, no, no.” He snatched his coat off the back of a chair and swung it over his shoulders, his gut tight with dread.

“Sir?” Doyle called. “Do you want the carriage?”

“I’ll go on foot.” It would be quicker over the rooftops. He was moving, throwing the words over his shoulder. “Send a regiment of Nighthawks to the factory, and tell them they have twenty minutes to get there or I’ll have their heads.”

***

Sensation returned slowly, pain spearing through the back of her skull. Perry blinked and carefully lifted her head. Her vision swam, and when she pressed her fingertips to the back of her scalp, they came away sticky. Blood.

Where the devil was she? A gaslight flickered, highlighting a long, narrow room. An enormous steel examination table dominated the room, the gaslight gleaming on its edges. The moment she saw it, she rolled to her hands and knees, cold dread spiraling through her. Her stomach lurched at the movement, but Perry fought to stay upright.

The
man—the killer, she suspected—running overhead. The floor giving way. Hitting hard on the stone floor.
Perry swallowed the fist of nausea lodged in her throat as memory sank its greedy claws through her throbbing head. Nothing moved in the shadows, but she could almost sense someone watching her.

The thought was enough to send her scrambling for her knife. Her hands shook as she held it in front of her and staggered to her feet, leaning heavily against the smooth glass panel of the wall.

Until something moved behind the glass.

Perry jerked away, stumbling over her feet and staggering into the examination table.
Blast
it
. Her heart pounded. “Byrnes!” she screamed as she stared in horror.

Glazed blue eyes blinked hazily at her through the bluish cast of the liquid behind the glass. A brass mask, much like those the poorer Londoners wore to help with the black lung, locked over the girl’s face, with a tube leading out from it.

Perry took a step back as those eyes met hers and she sucked back another scream.
Still
alive.
Her gaze lowered. To the woman’s naked breasts and the long thin scar down the center of her chest. In the flickering light, it almost seemed she could see a shadow lodged like a fist in the stranger’s chest.

Something skittered in the darkness. A rat, perhaps. As Perry’s vision cleared, she realized there were half a dozen of the strange aquariums lining the room. Figures hung suspended in the clear blue water, their hair streaming around them like mermaids. Hanging there. Floating. Four of them in all, with two empty glass cases at the end.

Her breath came, short and sharp, her lungs clamping in her chest as if someone had knotted her corset far too tight.
No
. No, she wasn’t back there. She’d escaped Hague and what he’d planned to do with her. This wasn’t like her nightmares. She was free and she was strong. She could fight now, the way she hadn’t been able to do back then.

It didn’t matter a damn to her body. Her feet refused to move, nothing but a strangled sound choking out of her throat. In that moment she was just a young girl again, frightened and alone and useless. No air in her lungs. Nothing.

Stop
it.
She curled her fingernails into her palms, forcing them to cut into her skin.
Breathe. Just breathe. You’re a damned Nighthawk now
.

Something shifted in the shadows behind her.

Perry screamed.

***

Garrett slammed through the factory doors, breathing hard. The cold, gray light hit him, as well as the stale scent of the factory. He raked the scene with a glance, taking in the three men at the back of the factory. Byrnes looked up, no expression on his face. The other two Nighthawks kept hammering on the floor. Stomping on the floorboards as if to break through them.

There was no sign of her.

Darkness descended. He was halfway across the factory before he realized, his gaze locked on Byrnes’s throat. Fingers curled into his palms, itching to strike out.

“Where the hell is she? Perry?” Looking around. “
Perry!
”

“The floor opened up beneath her. There’s some kind of hydraulic system in it. By the time I got back down here, she was gone. I left for just a few minutes to get help. I—”

The next thing Garrett knew, he had his fists curled in the front of Byrnes’s leather uniform, throwing him back into the glass beakers they stored the blood in. The sound shattered the silence, glass spewing across the floor as Byrnes grunted and rolled, coming to his feet with a dangerous grace.

“Feel better?” Byrnes spat blood, his eyes narrowing to cold blue chips of ice.

“
Where
were
you?
” Garrett roared. “Where were you when she was taken?”

“Chasing the man who tried to kill me!”

Garrett took a step forward.

Byrnes fell back into a defensive stance, his fists curled in front of him. “You only get one free hit.”

“That’s all I’ll damned well need.”

“Sir? Sir!”

Both of them looked aside, breathing hard.

The pair of Nighthawks from the garrison on Hart Street were watching. Garrett took a rasping breath, trying to hold on to himself. All he needed was word circulating through the guild about the division between him and Byrnes. And this wasn’t about Byrnes. This was about Perry. He had to find her.

“Thomas.” Garrett put a name to the face. “Can you hear her?” He crossed the room in long strides, examining the floor. “Can we get this open?”

“It’s a trapdoor of sorts,” Byrnes said, dusting glass shards out of his sleeve. “The floorboards are reinforced with steel. We’re not going to get through it in a hurry.”

“Then find the damned contraption that will open it.” Garrett slipped a small tracking device from his pocket and wound it. It gave a steady blip as he released the clockwork mechanism, picking up the matching signal from the tracing device he’d planted on her years ago. “She’s here somewhere.” Damned thing wasn’t more specific than that.

Byrnes looked up at the walkways above them. “He was up there. He must have pressed some mechanism.”

“Keep working on the floor,” Garrett snapped. “Get hammers, the crane… Anything. Just get it bloody open.” He met Byrnes’s eyes. It was easier to hold on to the anger and the darkness within him if he had another focus. Right now that focus was on finding Perry. “We need to locate the mechanism he used.”

Twenty minutes later they were no closer to finding it. Garrett swore, kicking at the railing on the upper walkways.
Christ,
if
she’s
already…
No. He swallowed hard. She was alive. She had to be. He’d know somehow if she wasn’t…

“We’ll find her.” Byrnes looked up from where he knelt near the fuse box. “She’s clever enough to find her way out.”

Garrett simply stared at him, devoid of…anything.
If
I lose
her…
It choked him, rising up in his throat like a fist, and he turned away, sucking in air. He’d been pushing her away for the last month, so worried about the progression of his disease that he’d never given a thought to how he’d feel if he lost her.

The truth hit him like the sledgehammers the men were using to tear up the floorboards downstairs. Perry was the only thing holding him together. The only one he trusted, truly trusted… He couldn’t lose her. She was his everything.

Shouts echoed from below. Garrett and Byrnes strode to the railing, leaning over it with mirrored intensity.

“Getting through the floor now, sir!” young Thomas Wiley called. “Won’t be long!”

Garrett thundered toward the stairs. At the top of them, Byrnes caught his arm. “Wait.”

The urge to shove him aside rose up but Garrett held it down. Byrnes’s head was cocked. Listening. Suddenly Byrnes turned, aiming a boot for the center of the foreman’s door. It splintered away from the frame, and he shoved at it with his shoulder. “I can hear something.”

Faint, echoing thumps coming from within.

As though someone was…inside the walls.

Garrett slammed his shoulder against the remnants of the door and staggered into the small room, Byrnes stumbling with him.

“Perry?” he yelled.

The sound of knocking vanished. Then resumed again frantically, coming from behind a bookshelf.

Garrett hammered on the walls. “Are you there? Perry, is that you?”

“Get me
out
!”

It was her voice, but he’d never heard her sound like that. Garrett started tearing books off the shelves, wrestling with the bookcase itself. It didn’t move.

“Here,” Byrnes said, yanking on the gaslight on the wall. “I’ve seen these before. The bookcase is a door of sorts.”

Slowly it opened, revealing a gaping black maw. Frigid air rushed over his face and there was Perry, curled up into a ball, her hands bruised and bloodied. His heart stopped beating in his chest for half a minute. He swore it did.

She looked up and he had no words for the expression on her face. Huge, barely lucid gray eyes that widened as they saw him, her hands coming up defensively. As though she didn’t know who he was.

“Perry?” He reached for her, dragging her out of the small cavity. She staggered forward on jerky feet, tumbling into his arms. A warm, trembling weight. Shaking from head to toe. Not a single sound came from her. “Perry. It’s me.” He gently curled his arms around her, shaking a little himself. “I’ve got you. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Guilt smothered him, thick and choking. It was a wonder he could breathe. Garrett’s arms tightened around her. “Damn it.” He stroked her hair, fingers raking through the short silky strands. Clinging tighter. It was his own damned fault, sending her with Byrnes. Not watching over her the way he was supposed to. And for what? Because he knew he could barely control himself around her.

Looking up, his eyes met Byrnes’s. Fury blazed inside him.
You
were
supposed
to
keep
her
fucking
safe
. That was the deal they’d both agreed upon when he’d first sent them out together.

Byrnes gave a tight nod. Accepting the fact they’d discuss this later. “I’ll let them know we’ve got her.” He might not have given a damn, except for the faint softening in his eyes as he looked at her. Then he was gone.

Darkness prowled the edges of Garrett’s vision, but for once he wasn’t drowning in bloodlust. He just wanted to hold her. To never let her go.
His
.

His eyes shot wide at the thought, his body stiffening. As if she sensed the change in his body, Perry’s fingers dug in tighter, locking herself around him. The tension melted out of him again and he pressed his lips to her hair. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.” A little fiercely. “I promise.”

Of all the times to be having this revelation… He felt dumbstruck. All these years he’d wondered if there was something deficient in him. Wondering why he could like women, but never seemed to feel anything more, and here it was, sneaking up on him when he’d least expected it.