Heaven's Bones (35 page)

It had been a difficult procedure. The baby had died
in utero
, and the girl, barely old enough to be out of pigtails, had had to deliver it regardless, and it was almost too big for her. Thankfully, they had not lost the mother with the child, and once she was assured that her patient was out of danger Sophia retreated to her inner office to wash up.

Robarts was there, and, seeing her state, hastily made his apologies.

“I'll return another time,” he said.

“No—I would much appreciate you checking in on the patient, if you're so inclined,” said Sophie, scrubbing under her fingernails. “She's resting, and I'm reasonably confident she'll recover, but one can never be completely sure there's been no internal damage in an
in utero
death …”

She turned to find him pale and transfixed, staring at her with a stricken expression.

“Oh!” she said, horrified. “Oh, I'm so sorry. How insensitive of me.”

She blushed red-hot, concentrating on wiping her hands over and over to regain her composure.

“Where,” he said, in a strangled voice. “Where did you get that medallion?”

She looked at him, puzzled. He was staring at the hollow of her neck, and she automatically felt there.

The Saint Margaret's medal. During her exertions it must have slipped out; she always kept it neatly tucked away beneath her chemise, against her skin.

She put the towel away and held out the medallion for him to see.

“It's my good-luck charm. I know it seems superstitious, but I found it when I was a child—in the street, of all things—and always kept it with me.”

He drew close, still staring at the circle of metal as if hypnotized.

“It's the medal of St. Margaret, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. My father showed me her dragon—see it here, between her feet?”

“A wyrm,” he said. “A dragon is a wyrm.”

She was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and foolish, which made her babble.

“I kept it because Margaret is my middle name, you see, and I had an idea the saint might have sent it to me, to keep me safe. Isn't that silly?”

He had been reaching up to the metal, his fingers hovering over her breast, inches from the charm. Now he glanced up at her and she was struck by the expression in his eyes: interest was there, and wonder, but also that predatory spark she'd noticed at Lady Cecelia's party—something alien, almost outside himself.

“Your name is Margaret?” he said, almost harshly.

“Yes—well, it's my middle name,” she said, somewhat taken aback. “Sophia Margaret.”

Then she remembered. His wife's name had been Margaret.

He held her with his stare, and then something passed over his face, something soft and kind, and the alien expression was gone, and he withdrew his hand.

“Saint Margaret with the Wyrm, Saint Catherine with the Wheel, and Saint Theresa in the Tower,” he said, smiling at her expression.

“No, I'm not mad, it's just an old rhyme I remembered—those three ladies were the most powerful saints, if I recall correctly. St. Theresa protected people from fevers, I think, and St. Catherine from the plague. St. Margaret, of course, protects women in childbirth.”

He reached out again, just a finger this time, and touched the medallion, gently pressing it against her skin.

“It suits you.”

He turned away and took off his overcoat.

“And now, shall we see your patient?”

She assented and led the way, tucking the charm back under her shirt. Odd—when he had pressed the metal against her skin, it had felt almost red-hot; it still felt unnaturally warm. She could still feel the circular area like a mild burn.

Robarts followed the girl, his heart singing. She had found Margaret's medallion. Her name was Margaret. Margaret herself had sent her to him.

She was destined to help him; Margaret had marked her for him fifteen years ago. It all made perfect sense.

Tomorrow he would meet with this Henry Thorpe, whom Trueblood said would be able to make him wings. And now, with a great burst of understanding, he realized why fate had sent him Sophia Huxley.

He must take her to Bryani House to help him in his great work. Together they would perfect his Angels.

Bryani House, Cornwall, 1882

“A weapon to storm heaven,” breathed Trueblood.
“Mishavah.”

The blades were embedded along the undersides of her wrists, leaving a thick ridge halfway down the insides of her forearms. She looked down on them in bewilderment.

“Like this,” he said, taking hold of her right arm gently. Carefully,
he extended it to that her palm was outstretched and facing the floor. Then he took her fingers and pulled them back with a sharp movement.

In response, six inches of razor-sharp steel sprang from her wrist, at the joint where the hand meets the forearm. A small slit constructed in the skin at the juncture of the bone allowed the blade to pass through without tearing the skin.

The Angel stared at the knife that protruded from her flesh, and glanced up at Trueblood with a searching expression.

“See?” He lifted the other arm to show her. The slit that would allow the left-hand knife to pass looked like a tiny eye, closed in sleep.

“You just flex your fingers back like so,” he said, indicating the bared weapon jutting from the right wrist. “It's rooted at the bone, so it's not flimsy. It'll hold tight no matter what you do.”

She tilted her head and looked at the smooth white skin, like the underbelly of a frog, at her left wrist. Experimentally she flexed, and a second blade sprang out.

Trueblood smiled proudly. “Very nice.”

She looked up again, and he didn't read her expression until it was too late, until the blade under her right wrist was buried in his throat.

He inhaled, shocked at the speed of it, and she stepped forward and swung the left-hand blade as hard as she could, straight into his gut.

They stood there an instant, the Angel and the Vistana, locked breast-to-breast in a deadly dance, looking deeper into each other's eyes than lovers. And then, negligently, Trueblood shrugged.

“My people cursed me and cursed my name,” he told her, his voice burred by the four inches of steel buried in his throat. “They cursed my name right out of existence. The Mists took me, and tore me apart, but they couldn't keep me.”

He took a step backward, sliding off the knives in both his gullet and belly.

“But I'll tell you a secret, little Angel—when they destroyed my name and blasted my body to the Mists, there's one thing that didn't occur to them. And that was: Without my name, no weapon could find me.”

There were gashes in his throat and across his stomach where she'd struck, and in the neck wound a swell of blood throbbed forward, threatening to spill. But the crimson blood halted, and turned gray, and sat in the wound until the gash closed, smooth and seamless.

The Angel backed up a step, raising her wrist-knives threateningly.

“Don't worry,” he said, smoothly, lifting his hand in a peacemaking gesture. “I'm not cross.”

She paused, and lightning-quick, he dashed out a hand and plunged it into her chest. She cried out and staggered back, but he followed her, his cruel, strong fingers burrowing into her flesh as if she were made of soft clay.

She flailed at him with her blades, opening slashes in his face that welled for an instant with blood and then closed up again, leaving not a trace. She struck and struck again, her screams becoming ragged and her movements spasmodic, until he grasped something, twisted, and withdrew his hand, holding her bloodied, beating heart in front of her.

Mouth open unnaturally wide, she stared at the pulsing lump of flesh, so small in his hand, and slumped to the floor, the tattered hole in her chest gaping. The blades protruding from her wrists looked graceless and clumsy now. One was stuck between the floorboards, holding her wrist at an odd angle.

The heart stilled in his hand, growing cold. He looked down at the Angel and prodded her with his toe. She was still.

With her death, his magics released her: The gap in her chest started gushing blood, slowly at first, as if it was surprised at its freedom, then copiously. Before the scarlet puddle beneath her could grow bigger he kneeled beside her, held his hand over the wound, and concentrated.

The blood stopped, and a coil of vapor rose from the wound. But still she didn't stir, and never would again.

Trueblood snorted in disgust and considered her arms and the fleshy sheaths where the blades were planted.

“I hope you're satisfied, my girl,” he growled. “Now I have to tell Robarts I've broken one of his Angels.”

London, 1882

McPherson had finished his rounds at the Clinic—Sophie had asked him to check on a patient that had a difficult miscarriage and he had obliged.

He was about to leave when he realized that there was a light under the door of Sophie's office. He knew she was planning to stop in tonight—he must not have heard her come in.

But when he opened the door he was startled to see the tall figure of Sebastian Robarts, bent over the desk.

“Oh!” he said, as the other man looked up. “I thought you were Doctor Huxley.”

“I am meeting her here tonight,” returned Robarts.

“Oh,” said McPherson again, nonplussed. He turned to go, then, on impulse, turned back to Robarts.

“I never got a chance to tell you, Doctor Robarts,” began McPherson hesitantly. “I mean—to express to you my regrets over the passing of your wife. I am so sorry circumstances went as they did—I know that Doctor Symons took it very hard, afterward.”

“Did you?” said Robarts. McPherson thought his tone was
odd—cold and sharp—he would almost say flippant. But that was impossible.

“We reviewed it afterward, many times over,” McPherson continued. “But we could never find anything we could have done differently—not at the time, at least. Of course, during the intervening years, there have been new developments—in anesthetic, especially. I wish they had happened sooner.”

Robarts smiled—or rather, twisted one side of his mouth into a parody of a smile.

“You with your clever hands, Bartholomew,” he remarked. “Even you couldn't help her. And I know how much Symons depended on those hands of yours—small and deft, he always said. I wondered how you felt about that.”

“I don't understand you,” said McPherson. “Doctor Symons always treated me very well—as a student, and later as a colleague and friend.”

“I wonder how often he took advantage of your skill with your hands, and took credit for work that was yours by right,” continued Robarts, as the other man watched him, astonished.

Unperturbed, Robarts reached for a paperweight Sophie kept on her desk—a heavy lump of glass, with the cunningly wrought figures of fish and other sea creatures in its center—a birthday gift from Cecelia. He lifted it, peering at the creatures inside, green and blue and black.

“Of course, you never seemed to mind, did you?” Robarts grinned at the speechless McPherson through the bubbled glass, his face warped and distorted. “Working with Symons gave you certain advantages, opened doors for you, did it not? You were content to have him use you.”

McPherson was red. “I must make allowances for your loss, and I understand it still affects you,” he said. “But if you're implying that there was any impropriety …”

“Oh, I didn't think of it at the time,” said Robarts. “But in the years since, I've had time to think of it. I've had time to consider and puzzle it out. But I don't think I really believed it until I saw you at that dinner party, so smug and self-satisfied, taking your position for granted. Oh yes, Symons took care of you. And how easy it must have been, with your clever hands, doing just the wrong things at just the right time.”

“How dare you, sir!” McPherson stuttered.

Robarts let his hands drop, still holding the paperweight. “Symons was jealous, wasn't he? I was a threat to him, to his position, to his supremacy.”

“This is absurd,” said McPherson. “It was a terrible thing, and I understand you must have been angry at times. But to say that James Symons would ever consider such an action … to imply that between the two of us we killed your wife …”

“Margaret,” said Robarts. McPherson felt he didn't recognize this Sebastian Robarts at all; it was as if something outside, something alien was in possession of his features, that he only could see Robarts through a subtly shifting mask.

“Her name was Margaret, just like this one.” With the hand holding the paperweight, he indicated the desk. “And you thought you could take her away from me too, didn't you?”

“What?”

“After you killed her, Margaret found her. Margaret sent her to me. Somehow you found her and tried to make her yours. You never thought I'd come back, did you? But I have, and you can't deceive me. You won't take away my Margaret again.”

“Enough,” said McPherson, with cold anger. “You have said quite enough. Good day, sir.”

He turned to the door and a spasm of rage contorted Robarts' face. He leaped at the other man, swinging the paperweight at his head with terrible strength.

It smashed into McPherson's temple, shattering the fragile bone at the side of the skull. He swayed, stunned for a moment before he crashed to the ground. A trickle of blood came from his right ear.

Robarts stood over McPherson, lifting the lump of glass for the final blow.

“Shall I send up tea, gentlemen?”

Janet stood in the door. The smile froze on her face.

“Janet,” said McPherson, weakly. “Sophie. He's after Sophie. For God's sake, stop him.”

Teeth bared, Robarts brought the lump of glass down again, this time on McPherson's forehead. He cried out softly and was still.