Prince of Hearts (20 page)

I am Lt. Col. Alyosius Finch, a Specialist under His Grace, the Duke of Brightlingsea, and an architect of the Final Solution of Sevastopol. I make no excuses for what at the time we felt was a Necessary Evil. I still cannot entirely regret it.

However, I will not condone the present policies of the Allied Forces following the resignation of His Grace. You have professed a similar, public opinion, which has earned you such infamy among your compatriots. I am counting upon that infamy, however, to rescue me from my current predicament.

I have come into possession of a certain casualty of war that our superiors have ordered terminated. However much we have been assured of their inhumanity, I have seen the lie of this with my own eyes. These Russian Abominables have suffered enough at the hands of their own masters, who fashioned them into these wretched creatures of war. This particular model has lost his ability to speak, and communication remains severely limited. As you are originally from that region of the world, or so legend has it, I believe you would have better luck assisting him. I fear discovery, and have not your resources to remove him to a safer location. I await your response,

A. Finch

Aline didn't know how long she sat there, staring blankly at the letter, her mind reeling with its implications. She didn't even know where to begin. Her whole conception of British history had been undermined in a few paragraphs.

What had truly happened during the War? At Sevastopol? She was beginning to think it was not what she'd been taught in school, which painted the British Army and its allies as noble and just victors.

But these considerations paled at the moment to the fact that her uncle had been an officer under Brightlingsea himself, and she had never known.

But this was the least of the letter's blows. She was not an idiot. All the clues were there. But the clues added up to an impossible answer. Alexandre Romaine was merely a poor Gallic translation of the Professor’s name; her uncle seemed to be referring to Fyodor in the letter; and legend had it this Alexandre Romaine was from Russia.

Legend? She thought of that secret drawer downstairs, full of letters to men she'd never heard of, to men who should be long dead. That earliest, precious page had been dated 1581. The same year that horrible painting in the secret room had depicted.

She shuddered. What she was beginning to suspect was too fantastic to entertain.

This is not your penny-dreadful
, she told herself.
Whatever you're thinking is just not possible in the real world.

There was one way to know for sure if the man her uncle had written to in 1855 was the same one he'd written to in 1891. But she had to return to her flat to look through Alyosius' old things for the answer.

She rose and went to the window. It would be dawn soon, hardly the prime time for psychopaths to strike. Surely it would be safe, if she went with Fyodor. The Professor had said she could leave the house if she had an escort.

Though why she was paying heed to anything that man said after all she was beginning to suspect, she had no clue.

She pulled her bloodstained, wrinkled gown back on and struggled to steady her shaking fingers long enough to do up the buttons. Then she repocketed the letters and went in search of Fyodor.

She didn't have far to look. He was standing guard right outside her room with the hellhounds, wide-awake and looking grim as always. Aline studied him with new eyes after what she'd read in the letter. She'd never considered who he'd been before the war, or how he'd ended up an Abominable Soldier. Clearly, it had not been by choice. And according to her uncle, if the British Army had had its way, all of his kind would have been summarily killed.

When she just continued to stare at him, the human side of his face gave her a questioning look.

"You knew my uncle," she stated. Because she knew in her heart that much of the letter was true at least.

Fyodor's brow rose, his mouth took on a grim cast. It was response enough, in Aline's opinion. Her heart sank a little more.

"Is the Professor out with the police?"

Fyodor nodded.

She breathed with relief. The last thing she needed was to face Romanov at the moment. "I need to go to my flat for some of my things."

He shook his head and made a few hand gestures she was able to interpret. He'd send someone for her things.

But she wasn't about to trust anyone at the moment.

"I need to go myself," she insisted. "I need some particular
feminine
items. For a particularly
feminine
complaint."

As she'd hoped, the word feminine had overwhelmed Fyodor. His human side went scarlet, and he looked as if he'd rather be back in the Crimea than listen to her.

"And the Professor said I could leave the house, if I had an escort, did he not? I'm not a prisoner, am I?" she demanded.

Fyodor gave her an unhappy frown, took out and tapped his wireless.

She shrugged and swept past him towards the stairs. "Fine. Inform him if you must. But let's be on our way."

When he continued to hesitate, she put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "It's dawn, for heaven's sakes. Nothing's going to happen at this hour. And besides, if
you
can't protect me from this psychopath, then it doesn't matter where we are, does it?"

He sighed and followed her.

In the end, with Matthews also off hunting for the killer with the police, Fyodor had her ride in the steam carriage with the dubious protection of the hellhounds, who did more drooling on her already ruined skirts than any actual guarding. She would not be wearing this gown again, not that it was much of a loss. The Professor had certainly made his opinion of her gown clear last night in the garden
.

Not. A. Single. Stitch
.

Had it only been last night he'd whispered that in her ear? It seemed several lifetimes ago, so much had happened since then.

Any fears she had of being attacked in broad daylight faded completely by the time they reached her boarding house. Her landlady, Mrs. Phillips, greeted her at the door with her usual warm smile. When she caught sight of Fyodor, the color left her face, however, and her smile wavered. But she had become accustomed to Aline's strange entourage, so she let him inside only a little reluctantly. The hellhounds were a new addition, however, and it took a stern look from Fyodor's fierce visage to convince Mrs. Phillips to let them pass.

Fyodor checked her room briefly, and then took up his post outside the door. He'd agreed to give her privacy, if the hellhounds accompanied her inside. They did so, wandering around her flat, sniffing everything in sight. When Ilya lifted his leg near one of her favorite plants, she squeaked out her protest and shooed him away.

"Behave, you beasts!" she cried. "I've no patience left for the two of you. Not now."

They looked unimpressed at her temper and watched her as she went to her closet, pulled out a fresh frock, and quickly changed into it. She'd worry about bathing later. Right now, she had too much on her mind.

She pulled out a small step stool from the back of the closet, mounted it, and reached onto the top shelf. She found the old metal lock-box that had belonged to her uncle and pulled it down. She’d kept it when she'd moved, but she'd never gone through its contents. All she'd known was that it contained documents precious to her uncle, and she hadn't the heart to get rid of it.

She set the box on her desk and found the key to it in the top drawer. She unlocked it and lifted the lid. The contents were innocuous enough, mostly old sketches of devices Alyosius had tried to build, and notes on some of the procedures he'd performed on his Machinist patients.

She finally found what she was looking for tucked into the back corner of the box. It was a thick bundle of old letters tied with a red string. She closed her eyes as she lifted the bundle out, afraid to look. Afraid to know.

But she couldn't put it off forever. She sat down at her desk with a sigh, untied the string, and unfolded a letter at random. The writing was very familiar. The date was impossible. 1862. The year she was born.

My Dear Dr. Finch, Forgive the full year it has taken to pen a response to your last letter. As you know, I am occasionally required to relocate, for obvious reasons, and it has taken us a good while to settle in our new lives. Fyodor communicated with me the desire to see the New World, so we are at present in New York City. It is a fascinating place, but I fear our tenure here may be short. This country is a land of Luddites and Puritans of the worst sort. Poor Fyodor is made to feel extremely uncomfortable, as there is no hiding his automata.

I must admit this whole venture was poorly conceived all around, as this country is currently engaged in a most dreadful Civil War. As we have just put one terrible war behind us, we have no desire to become embroiled in another.

Or at least, I do not. Fyodor, despite his rather lukewarm reception, has entertained the idea of joining the Union troops. He sympathizes with the African slaves in the Southern States, whose plight resembles that of the serfs back in our Motherland. I hope I can convince him to another course of action, even though his cause is righteous. I am too old, too weary for righteousness. The last time I tried to muster up some enthusiasm, it was in Paris in 1789. How wrong that went!

I believe I might be able to distract Fyodor with the temptation of a dirigible ride to this country's uncharted western regions. He is exhausting, my new companion! But I am grateful for the gift of his company. You saved his life, and I know to you that seems like a small reparation. But it does not seem small to him. That is something.

In your last letter, you spoke of your intention to devote yourself to the unfortunates of your country. You are a better man than I, and to demonstrate my faith in you, I have had my solicitors set up a fund for your endeavors. You'll starve playing the martyr, and that is something I cannot allow. I hope your work can give you some peace. It is something that continues to elude me, alas, but therein lies the fundamental difference between us. You are a good man who once made a terrible choice. I was never a good man, and I never had a choice. And please, call me as my mother did,

Sasha

Aline dropped the letter to her lap, and squeezed her eyes shut, as if to block out the damning evidence. Had she gone insane, or was the Professor some sort of ... well, she didn't know what he was. But this was his handwriting, and she was as certain of that as she was of her own name. She'd been his secretary for five years.

That meant the Professor had been a grown man in 1862. And apparently, he'd been a grown man in 1789. In which case, he was well over a hundred years old. Which wasn't possible. Not in the world that she knew.

Perhaps she was just having a nervous breakdown. She’d been under a lot of stress this past month, and the corpse she’d seen last night was enough to drive most people to Bedlam. God, she rather hoped that was all it was. A nervous breakdown seemed the more palatable option at the moment. None of this was real, but rather some sort of waking dream she'd conjured in her hysteria.

Suddenly, both the hellhounds, who had been dozing at her feet, jumped to their full height and began to growl in the direction of the door. More than growl. She'd never heard such a terrible sound emerge from them. They seemed fixated in a deadly way on whatever they sensed on the other side, their fur standing on end, their tails tucked under, and their mechanical eyes going red.

There was a heavy thud in the hallway, and the hellhounds started barking frantically. That was a bad sign. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and gooseflesh pricked her arms. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heart thudding heavily against her ribcage. A dull roar began in her ears, and for a moment she felt frozen in place.

Hide
.

It was an instinctual desire, because she knew, she just
knew
, someone – something – other than Fyodor lurked on the other side of the door. Heart in her throat, legs like calf's jelly, she hurried to the only place she could think of: her closet, pulling the door closed, burying herself as far as she could go in the mound of dresses and underclothes, trying not to breathe.

She heard the door to her flat swing open, and Ilya and Ikaterina's barking turned into snarls. She heard the crashing of furniture, and then two yelps of pain, and then ... silence.

She clutched her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out in dismay. Those yelps of pain had come from the hellhounds. She prayed they weren't injured, or dead, but the ominous silence made her fear the worst. She'd never forgive herself if something had happened to them, to Fyodor, because of her foolish mission.

"Come out, come out, my little bird," came a heavily accented voice she'd never heard before. It was filled with such menace, such evil intent, she felt her blood congeal in her veins.

She could hear the owner of the voice moving around the flat, as if he were in no great rush, which unsettled her all the more. He was toying with her. "I can smell you, little bird, no need to be coy. Such sweet blood." She heard the man sniff the air like some animal, and she shuddered, closing her eyes, praying this was all a bad dream. "I couldn't wait a moment longer to have you, little bird."

Oh, God. Why had she ever left the townhouse? And how had he gotten past Fyodor? No one was stronger than an Abominable Soldier.

Aline sucked in a breath and held it, afraid to blink. The intruder was just outside the closet door. She could hear his breathing, then a low chuckle.

"I know you're in there, little bird. Shall I come let you out?"

No
, she wanted to scream. She clutched the knob and held it firm, but any ideas that she could hold it tight against the intruder were quickly dashed when the door suddenly flew off its hinges and landed on the other side of the room with a loud clap, splintering across her desk. She opened her mouth to scream, but when she saw the man who stood before her, her voice died in her throat.