Of Silk and Steam (20 page)

“Pull back!” Leo bellowed, waving his arm at the line of men behind him. A bull of a man that Rip had introduced as Dalloway cupped his hands around his mouth and trumpeted the same words, making nearby men wince.

Leo looked up at the roofline and flicked two signals that Rip had taught him. Dozens of lads appeared in the smoky shadows, brandishing nets. Made of tightly woven metal strands, they were heavy, requiring two men to drag them, but as they arced up into the air and dropped over the horde of metaljackets pressing him and his sortie of men, their use became swiftly apparent.

Metaljackets went down, entangled in the mesh.

The rest of the rookery gang moved in with brutal efficiency, wielding the short, heavy metal clubs the rookery lads seemed to favor. Leo instructed them to aim for the back of the metaljackets’ helms, where the control chip was located, and the knees, to shatter the joints. Anything to keep them out of action.

“Spitfire!” Higgins roared, darting out of a nearby alley. Fire bloomed, spewing forth from the alley and catching his sleeve. Higgins screamed, dropping to the ground as the greenish flames licked up over his skin and clothes, igniting like a match set to dry tinder.

Nothing to do for him, not now, but Leo clenched his teeth and beckoned his men out of the way. A glance at Charlie confirmed the boy was ready. Leo scrambled up onto the roof behind him, trying to keep up. As blue bloods, the pair of them could move faster than any human—and could heal from things no man here could.

No point going after the spitfire. The rookery men scattered, using diversionary tactics as the huge automaton clanked out of the alley, its flamethrower cannon lifted in front of it. Instead, Leo spied the trio of metaljackets carefully guarding a handler. The man worked his control device, twisting dials and flipping a couple of switches to make the metal automaton turn and clank after Leo’s lads.

Charlie sailed across the gap of the alley, landing on the rooftop opposite them and crouching low. The handler never looked up.

It was done swiftly. Charlie sent a metaljacket staggering into the others, and Leo used the opportunity to grab the handler and slide his knife up between the man’s ribs. The handler gurgled and quivered in Leo’s arms, his weight slumping. Leo held him for a second longer, then let him drop, slipping the device from his lax fingers.

Charlie kicked the back of one of the metaljackets’ knees out from under it.

“Don’t destroy them,” Leo snapped. He twisted a dial and looked at the metaljackets expectantly.

One of them swung an arm directly at his head and he ducked to the side.

“Give me that,” Charlie said, tugging the device from Leo’s hands. He darted back out of the way and started fiddling with the controls. After several seconds—and helpless jerking moves—one of the metaljackets strode toward the wall and punched it, brick dust coughing into the alley. It drew back, repeating the gesture again and again.

“This row controls this drone,” Charlie said, turning his attention to the second row. The metaljacket behind Leo lurched forward, and he had to step aside. “Sorry,” Charlie muttered. He corrected a dial. The metaljacket straightened up and turned to attention, both of them falling in together.

“Now for the main one.” Charlie’s eyes gleamed as he turned his attention to the spitfire.

He only burned one building before he managed to figure out which button
not
to press.

Charlie swung up onto the spitfire’s shoulders, his legs dangling down over its chest and his elbows resting on its helm as he wielded the control device. “Lark is not going to believe this.” He grinned. “Tally-ho!” One flick of his fingers and the spitfire lurched forward, Charlie riding him into battle with the pair of metaljackets clanking along behind him.

“Don’t let him get hurt,” Leo snapped at a pair of men, who turned and trotted after the boy.

Nobody was watching her this time.

Mina asked for a change of clothing to clean up, and Esme found an older shirt, short coat, and trousers that belonged to Charlie.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” Esme said. “You’re much taller than Honoria or me. I’m afraid there’s little else to be had at the moment. However, I could send—”

“They’re perfect,” Mina interrupted, barely able to contain her glee. Washing up by herself, she swiftly dressed and cracked open the door. Nobody lurked nearby.

Moving quickly, she saw Blade’s coat and holster slung carelessly over the back of a chair in the washroom from when he’d cleaned up, and stole them and his knife. The pair of pistols were larger than she was used to, the rounds built to contain a mix of chemical that would explode on impact. Not the sort of weapon used indiscriminately, these were designed to kill. A firebolt could take half a man’s torso apart.

Perfect.

It was a tense minute as she made her way back down to the kitchens and checked for Esme. No sign of her, but voices broke out upstairs and she recognized Blade’s distinctive cockney. If he found his coat and pistols missing…

Time
to
move.

Slipping through the door, she nodded to a pair of prostitutes who were organizing bandages. Esme’s voice rang out across the courtyard as she directed a lad to help split firewood. Tugging her cap down over her eyes—and distinctive hair—Mina turned the other way.

Fighting could be heard in the east, where Morioch directed his forces. Mina turned deeper into the rookery instead. She’d have to take the long way and then circle back around toward the Ivory Tower once she was free of Whitechapel.

Her nerves were buzzing. Being so far from the City left her feeling slightly powerless. Anything could have happened to Alexa in the meantime. That moment when the queen had blankly agreed to Barrons’s execution—that wasn’t the Alexandra she knew.

Mina needed to get back, to find out what was wrong with her friend and protect her if need be. If the queen gave up when they were so close…

She couldn’t allow that to happen.

Even
if
she
left
Barrons
behind
to
face
the
consequen
ces
himself?

“Focus,” she whispered to herself, ducking between barrels and into the shadows. Barrons had no meaning in this. The queen was her concern. Not a man she was only just coming to understand, to know.

And what if Blade and Barrons were the allies she and the queen had been so desperately searching for? What if this was the moment in which fate shifted, if she dared throw her cause in with them?

Blood
and
damnation.
She couldn’t afford to falter. They’d made no mention of who they wanted to see in power once this attempt was made—and if it succeeded. And every moment she hesitated was one in which the queen might succumb to her ever-growing despair.

Her decision was made. Alexandra needed her.

Pausing in an alley, Mina peered around the corner. Laundry lines were strung between houses but bare of washing. An almost eerie silence echoed in this section of the rookery, darkness sitting heavily in the streets. Empty of life and laughter and the whisper of human heartbeats. Blade had no doubt commanded every able body for the wall.

She could see it in the distance. This section was only lightly manned, with most of Blade’s forces directed toward the threat of Morioch. Hardly difficult to slip up and over without being seen, if one was a blue blood.

A little prickle of unease swept over her skin and she paused.

Nothing moved. No harsh breath or whispered words, but she couldn’t fight the sensation that somebody was nearby.

Metal rasped on the cobbled streets. A steady
click-click-click
noise. What the devil was that?

Sneaking a glance, she saw a tiny shadow bobbing its way out into the streets. It marched with deliberate movements, its metal arms swinging at its sides and its feet making the tinny noise she could hear. A clockwork soldier? A toy?

The wind blew her way, carrying with it the scent of smoke…and something else. Something she was quite familiar with, thanks to her work with the humanists.

TNT.

Highly explosive.

Her gaze narrowed on that marching clockwork. Its body was full and round, large enough to carry a charge sufficient to destroy a house.

Bloody
hell.
Morioch was in charge of provisional warfare; he always had been. While she and the rest of the councilors had directed their attentions elsewhere—to building the city and trade contacts—Morioch had been directly involved in working with the spitfires and metaljacket legions.

And why else would he be sitting outside the rookery, throwing a few metaljackets at the walls here and there, almost as if testing its defenses? Morioch wasn’t a cautious man by nature—a planner, certainly—but when it came to an attack, he was deliberate and effective. A shark with a contingency for everything.

He wasn’t wary of Blade. He was simply waiting for another type of assault to succeed, one that would destroy the very heart of the rookery.

The little clockwork soldier ticked on, heading straight for the Warren. The metaljackets were directed by radio frequency, their handlers forced to remain within two hundred feet of their assigned automatons at all times. If the clockwork soldier worked on the same principles, then the handler had to be somewhere near.

She couldn’t risk touching the clockwork in case it exploded, but the handler… Oh yes. The handler was a different matter entirely.

* * *

“That was easier than expected,” Leo said, staring at the shattered formation below as he wiped blood from his forehead. A stray bullet had clipped him as he climbed the wall.

Rip clapped hands with him, jerking him into a rough embrace. “Good work. Like puttin’ ’em in a mincer.” His hard green gaze raked the streets. “Though I wonder why he’d keep most of ’is forces back.”

“Because ’e’s plannin’ summat.” Blade’s voice came directly out of the darkness behind them.

Both men turned. Blade pushed away from the top of the ladder, wearing lightly plated body armor and an expression that warned others to tread lightly.

“How is she?” Leo demanded, his heart in his throat. “And the baby?”

Blade gave him a tight little smile. “I’ve a daughter. Emmaline Grace Rachinger.”

Rip laughed and clasped Blade’s hand, drawing him in for a meaty slap against the back. “Bloody ’ell. Wait ’til the lads get word o’ that. They’ll be linin’ up from ’ere to the city when she’s sixteen…”

“Anyone touches ’er and he’s a dead man.” Blade saw the expression on Leo’s face and the smile slipped off his own. “She’s fine. They ’ad to cut the baby out o’ ’er.” A faint expression of respect crossed his face. “Your duchess’s idea, actually. Then ’ealed ’er up with me blood. Mrs. Parsons thinks she’ll be right as rain. She ain’t never seen a wound ’eal like that before.”

Your
duchess…
Leo ignored it but the thought sent a shiver beneath his skin. Some part of him liked those words. The darker, predatory part of him. It didn’t make sense, but for a moment he felt somewhat less adrift. “Congratulations. You’re a father.”

“Aye, and no time to enjoy it. Now”—his expression hardened—“the stakes just got ’igher. Morioch’s grandfather were the Butcher o’ Culloden, weren’t ’e?”

Leo nodded. Culloden was something he preferred not to think of, a time when the English blue bloods had risen against the Scottish verwulfen clans and crushed them, turning those verwulfen left alive over to slavery or throwing them into the Manchester Pits to fight to the death for the crowds. Though he personally considered it a dark time in blue-blood history, others still whispered that perhaps they shouldn’t have left
any
verwulfen alive. Not everyone was pleased with the new laws regarding the verwulfens’ newly legal status, Morioch chief among them.

“And the duke were never shy about cuttin’ a throat.” Blade leaned on the wall. “Rip, I want you to lead a team down into the tunnels of Undertown. It’s the only other way into the rookery, barrin’ the wall.”

“And me?” Leo asked.

“I want you back at the Warren to relieve Tin Man. Keep an eye on things there for me.”

Guard
duty.
A part of him bristled—as a blue blood he was worth more here, and at least the fighting took his mind off matters—but Blade rarely did anything without a reason. “You think he’ll attack the Warren?”

“It’s what I’d do.” Their eyes met and Blade’s went black with hunger for a moment, a reminder that the man before him could be utterly ruthless when he wanted to be.

“You wouldn’t kill women and children.”

“No, but ain’t nobody else knows that. I’d capture ’em and ’old ’em for ransom. I don’t think Morioch’s got it in ’im to be quite as benevolent.”

The words were stark. Blade stared down at the amassed forces below with a cold, almost calculating gleam in his eyes. For years he’d been the Devil of Whitechapel, a man whose name was whispered into small ears by nannies all through the city’s mansions, warning aristocratic children to behave or else the Devil would come and steal them away.

Honoria’s presence in his life had softened some of those edges, humanized him in a way Leo would never have expected; yet the merest hint of a threat to his wife and daughter brought out everything in Blade that was dangerous. He would kill to defend his own, and he would be utterly ruthless in doing it if need be. Morioch might eventually be able to take the rookery, but he would do it through a hail of raining fire.

“I want you to get ’em out,” Blade said quietly. “If things go wrong ’ere for me. Get ’em out through Undertown and try to find Will.”

“It won’t come to that—”

Blade cut him off with a harsh glare. “You ever get one o’ those feelin’s? Where you don’t think it’s gonna end well for you? I got it now. The prince consort can’t afford to let me live. It’s either ’im or me this time. ’E won’t stop ’til it’s done, no matter ’ow many lives ’e needs to throw away, and I need to know that my wife and my daughter are in safe ’ands. You’re the only man I’d trust with this, because they belong to you too. Do this for me. Promise me.”

They
belong
to
you
too…
“You’re not going to die, you stubborn bastard. You are
not
going to leave me to tell my sister that she’s a widow.”

“Aye.” Blade looked out over the wall once more. “Just keep an eye on ’em at the Warren. You see red smoke, and you get ’em out and don’t come back.” A long hesitation. “No matter what she begs you to do.”

“She’ll hate me for leaving you behind.”

“She’ll live.” Blade looked at him. “That’s all I need to know.”

* * *

The artillery started up almost five minutes after he’d left the wall. Leo gritted his teeth together, striding away from the white flashes illuminating the night behind him. A stronger offensive this time.

Blade didn’t think he could hold the wall. What the hell was Leo going to do? This lay on his shoulders.
Think, damn it.
The control devices. If he could manipulate the frequency somehow… That had to be the way out of this.

Sound exploded as Blade and his men fired back. Someone in Morioch’s forces had a revolving gun, based on the design of the Hotchkiss revolving cannon—able to fire almost sixty-eight rounds per minute. The sharp hammer-strike
rat-a-tat
of the gun cut through the stillness of the rookery. Then Blade was shouting and Leo could almost hear the return fire focus on that area. It fell silent a minute later.

A stronger strike, but not as hard as Morioch should have sent in. If that were him… His strides slowed as the Warren came into sight. If that were him he’d have leveled the walls already, what with the artillery and legions Morioch had under his command, or he’d be damned close to it.

Blade was correct. Morioch was waiting for something.

But what?

It lifted the hairs along his spine. With Rip leading men down into Undertown, Morioch couldn’t come at them from that direction.

Esme had marshaled the women at the Warren with military efficiency. Leo nodded to Tin Man, the guard, as he passed him and prowled through the yard. A dozen strategies worked through his head. Obviously the prince consort’s intelligence on the rookery was better than they’d been led to believe.

How would
he
do it?

Take Honoria and you had the key to destroying the Devil of Whitechapel. If the prince consort knew about Leo’s relationship with her, then he certainly knew how much Blade doted on her. Anyone in the rookery could tell you that.

Leo’s blood ran cold, a wash of unfamiliar feeling.

Taking the steps two at a time, he ghosted through the almost-silent Warren to his sister’s room. Voices murmured within and Leo didn’t bother knocking. He jerked the door open, startling both a bed-bound Honoria and a slim woman he presumed was Mrs. Parsons. The sensation died a little, though his gaze raked the room, taking in the shuttered windows and the small fire warming the hearth. Nobody here. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps Morioch would be too arrogant to risk such a move.

“Sir!” the midwife protested. “What are you doing in here?”

“It’s all right, Ann,” Honoria murmured, looking up from the small weight cradled on the pillows beside her. Dark shadows circled her eyes and she looked pale with exhaustion, her voice whisper-soft, but the smile that softened her face was radiant. “Look, Leo. You’re an uncle.”

An
uncle.

Until that moment, the baby had been an abstract thing, an idea that he couldn’t quite seem to comprehend.

Ignoring Mrs. Parsons’s clear disapproval, Leo crossed toward the bed. Honoria twitched aside the blanket with a wince, revealing a tiny little button nose that was set over rosebud-shaped lips. Emmaline had hair as dark as a raven. Leo’s breath caught, despite the sense of urgency he felt, and he leaned on the bed and held out a trembling finger to stroke the baby’s cheek. So soft. “Oh, Honor, she’s beautiful. She looks just like you, thank goodness.”