Supernatural Devices (2 page)

“This is yours, I believe,” the young man said, with just a trace of a smile as he held out the purse.

“Thank you, sir,” Scarlett replied, taking it and stowing it away safely. She held out her hand, in a move that was probably far too direct for London. “I am Scarlett Seely.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Seely.” The young man took her hand and bowed low over it to kiss it in the continental fashion, though Scarlett got the feeling that he was simply doing it because he could. “I am Cruces.”

“Well, Mr Cruces…”

The young man shook his head. “Forgive me, Miss Seely, but it is simply Cruces. And now, I fear I must be going.”

“Why?” Scarlett asked. “You clearly came here for something.”

“And how could you possibly know that I am not simply out for a stroll?” Cruces asked.

“Your clothing suggests that you have money, or at least that you want to give that impression,” Scarlett explained, “while your shoes do not show signs of having walked far, as they might were you out for a moonlit stroll. Neither suggests that you live in the area. The hour is not quite right for visiting, and this is hardly a quarter of the city noted for great entertainments, so you must be here on business.”

Cruces laughed at that, and his features came alive with it. “That could almost pass for the kind of thing a certain consulting detective who lives down the way does. Well done, Miss Seely.”

“If you mean Mr Holmes,” Scarlett said, “that is who I was intending to visit, before this. Incidentally, I notice you have stopped being overly familiar. Presumably, that is because you no longer wish to unnerve me into running off?”

Cruces held up his hands. “I surrender. Enough. If you are heading for 221b Baker Street, though, perhaps you would allow me to escort you there? I cannot imagine that the thief who had your property before will be back, but the night holds other dangers for a young lady walking alone. It would make me feel… happier.”

Scarlett nodded, with another smile. “That would be pleasant.”

It was. Surprisingly so. Cruces did not offer his arm, and Scarlet would not have taken it if he had, but the short journey back to Mr Holmes’ lodgings felt almost comfortable. Cruces asked what had brought her there, so Scarlett told him that she had recently returned from an expedition to Egypt, and that Mr Holmes was a friend of her family’s. Cruces asked her a couple of questions about her time abroad, and Scarlett did her best to answer, telling him of the beauty of the pyramids and the power of the Nile.

“Yet they are not what holds your heart, are they?” Cruces asked her.

Scarlett hesitated briefly, and then shook her head. “They are spectacular, but they are about the past. Everything that will happen there
has
happened. As much as my parents love that, I prefer places that are more about what is happening now.”

Cruces looked wistful for a moment. “The past has its moments, Miss Seely. And I believe we are here.”

They were. Scarlett went up the steps to ring the bell, and Mrs Hudson answered, scowling at the lateness of the visit as only an old woman could scowl until she saw who it was. Then her face creased into a smile.

“Scarlett, dear,” she said in the Scottish accent she had never lost. “I didn’t know that you were in England. You must be here to see Mr Holmes. Dr Watson is here as well. Come in, and I’ll see if I can’t rustle up some supper.”

Scarlett nodded. “It’s good to see you, Mrs Hudson.”

The landlady’s eyes skipped past her. “And what about you, young Mr Cruces? Will you be going up to see Mr Holmes too?”

Scarlett looked around sharply at that as Cruces made a short bow. “If that is all right, Mrs Hudson. I believe Mr Holmes and I may have business to discuss.”

S
carlett did her best to contain her surprise as they headed up to Mr. Holmes’ rooms, not asking how Cruces knew the detective, or what business he had there. Whatever it was, it could wait until after Scarlett had heard what mystery had brought her running all the way back from Egypt. She made her way upstairs and knocked on the door to the lodgings.

The great detective was there waiting for her, or possibly waiting for Cruces, given what Mrs. Hudson had just said, while John Watson was standing off to one side, by the fireplace. Holmes looked as he always did, with the wiry frame of a man in his thirties, that sharp, almost beak like nose, and those piercing eyes that always seemed to see through everything they touched. Dr. Watson was only a couple of years older than Holmes, though he always struck Scarlett as the friendlier looking of the two, with that open, honest face of his and the slight roundness of an ex-military man now eating too much good food. As usual, he kept his weight off the leg he had injured ten years before.

Scarlett looked around and smiled. “Mr. Holmes.”

“Oh, there isn’t the need for that kind of formality, Scarlett,” the detective said. “Even in front of Cruces. I have known you since you were a girl, after all.”

“Sherlock, then. And you, Doctor. Is Mary not keeping you at home with her cooking?”

John Watson laughed at that. “She tries. Tonight though, Sherlock requested that I be present for your homecoming.” He drew her into a brief hug that was surprisingly tight. “Welcome back to England, dear. You are looking as beautiful as ever.”

Scarlett tried to take the compliment with good grace. After all, she knew she was beautiful, with an athletic figure and high cheek bones that could hardly be called anything else. Knowing it was, her mother occasionally said, one of her few faults. It was just that she generally preferred it when people noticed other things about her, like her inquiring mind, or her mastery of languages. For now though, she had simpler things to concern her.

“You guessed when I would be back?” Scarlett asked Holmes.

“You know I receive the occasional message from friends at the ports when people I have asked them to look out for appear,” Holmes said casually. “From there, it was no great thing to determine that you would almost certainly come straight here. Did Theodore and Gemma allow you to go easily?”

“Easily enough,” Scarlett answered, thinking back to their parting. It had been tender enough, but her parents had been in a hurry to get back to their dig, and Scarlett had been in just as much of a hurry to get to London.

“Good. I have often sought their knowledge with items of a more… mystical sort, so it would be a shame if they did not allow their daughter the same involvement.”

Scarlett could remember some of the visits. Sherlock would come around to their town house, or to the small home in the country, both of which were filled with knick knacks and objects acquired on her parents’ travels. Invariably, he would have questions about their ritual significance, or what powers they were said to possess. Occasionally, he would have questions about some monster or creature of legend. As a girl, Scarlett had enjoyed those stories the most.

All of which was enough to leave Scarlett bursting with questions, but Mrs. Hudson chose that moment to enter with a tray of tea and cakes. Scarlett knew better than to argue. No one did anything but concentrate on the food when Mrs. Hudson’s cooking was involved, and in any case, one didn’t turn down tea. Even in Egypt, where coffee was the preferred beverage, Scarlett had stuck to it.

“And now I’m off to bed,” Mrs. Hudson said, “so if you want anything else, you shall have to fetch it.”

Of course, there was enough there to feed a small army, so there was little chance of that. Holmes and Watson both took cakes with their tea, moving over to the fireplace with them while they discussed something in low tones, while Scarlett ate with the hunger of someone who hadn’t touched anything since lunch. From the amount there was, she surmised that Mrs. Hudson had guessed as much.

As she ate, she watched Cruces. His features were so delicate that they almost spilled over from being handsome into being beautiful. Almost. The power of the rest of him prevented that. He sat casually, almost insouciantly, his eyes on Scarlett. He had one of Mrs. Hudson’s creations in front of him, but didn’t make any moves towards it. Nor did he touch the tea, nursing a glass of red wine instead. That struck Scarlett as remarkably anti-social, given that no one else there was drinking the stuff.

“What sort of English gentleman does not touch tea?” Scarlett asked.

Cruces smirked. He had the most infuriating smirk, and Scarlett knew just by looking at him that he was perfectly aware of it. “The sort who prefers wine? Besides, who says I have always been an English gentleman?”

Scarlett shook her head in exasperation and finished off what there was of the food. She had grown accustomed to eating all kinds of strange things in the course of her parents’ travels, but the opportunity for Mrs. Hudson’s cooking wasn’t one to be passed up. Once she had cleaned her own plate, she found herself looking hungrily at Cruces’. He obviously caught the glance, because he pushed it towards her with a laugh.

“You find me funny?” Scarlett demanded. She knew that she probably looked the same as all the simpering girls in London to the young man opposite her, but she certainly wasn’t there for his entertainment. She was there to help solve a mystery.

“Not funny, no,” Cruces replied. “Merely in need of a cake.”

As wit went, it was hardly Wilde, but it was enough to remind Scarlett of her manners. “Thank you,” she said, starting to attack the contents. Even that hardly counted as ladylike behavior, but one of the things Scarlett had learned with relatively wealthy parents was that such niceties could be ignored fairly easily. How else could they have spent so much time looking into hidden temples and dusty tombs?

“It is just nice to run into a young woman who does not eat like a bird,” Cruces replied, sipping his wine once more.

“I learned abroad not to bother with such fashions,” Scarlett said. “How many London girls spend all their time trying not to appear fat, and starving themselves into the process? Or squeeze themselves into corsetry instead.”

“There are those who believe that it is good for the health of the internal organs,” Cruces observed, but Scarlett caught the beginnings of another of those smirks at the corners of his mouth.

“I take it that is not what you believe?” Scarlett asked.

“Hardly. I like young women who are not ashamed of their beauty, like yourself, Miss Seely, and who do not hesitate to give in to their appetites.”

He glanced at the half eaten cake. Which was just as well, as far as Scarlett was concerned, because her cheeks briefly flushed the color of her name.

“I do not give in to all my appetites the same way,” she warned.

Cruces raised one perfect eyebrow. “Really? And there I was thinking you were without fault. Ah, the girls of England. I had hoped you were different. Far too many are so restrained. Too restrained for my liking.”

“And you do not think that I am restrained?” Scarlett shot back, bristling slightly.

“As I said, I hoped. You are clearly different to most young women, if you are prepared to try to run down thieves. Tell me, if you had caught the one who took your purse, would you have beaten him until he handed it over?”

“Do you think I could not?” Scarlett countered. Perhaps if this Cruces had seen her use a little of the French
savate
on the man, he would be a little more respectful.

Cruces gave her an appraising look. “I am certain that you could do almost anything you wanted to a man.”

“And I am certain that
you
are making fun of me again.”

“You would prefer a serious answer then? Yes, perhaps you could fell a man. It would make you a most remarkable young woman for this age, but then, we have already established that you are nothing like some of the vacuous songbirds there are so many of in this city.”

“True enough.” Scarlett nodded. After all, compared to most of the young women she met when she was in London; pretty, vacant things focused solely on coming out well and attracting the attentions of the right young men, she was something else entirely. Yet she wasn’t sure that she was entirely happy with Cruces’ line of conversation. He seemed far too
forward
for Scarlett’s tastes. And there was a word she had never thought she would find herself using. She tried for her most serious demeanor. “I would hope that I still have
some
sense of propriety.”

Cruces looked at her with such intensity that for a moment, Scarlett’s cheeks burned again. And this time there was no pretense that he was not watching. “Propriety is an overrated modern creation. Something created to persuade people to spend their lives feeling shame. I prefer the older standards of Greece and Rome, where if a man was interested in a woman, he would simply go up and kiss her.”

Scarlett struggled for some kind of control. It was all too easy to imagine Cruces kissing her. Imagine the healthy, wine tinged redness of his lips on hers. Imagine how pleasant it would be. “Then we have read very different books on the subject,” she managed. “In those
I
have read, doing such a thing to a woman of a noble family would have been an insult, even a crime. A man could end up killed for such a thing.”

“That,” Cruces said, “would very much depend on the woman in question, don’t you think?” He held her gaze a moment longer before looking away. “I imagine you are right though. We have learned in very different places. Oh, and you should not carry that dagger of yours in your purse, Miss Seely. It is a dangerous place to keep it. There might not be someone to retrieve it for you next time.”