Tarnished (33 page)

Once at the empty collectors’ station, I focused only on those bounties put out by the Menagerie.

I had a sinking sensation that it would be weeks of tightening my metaphorical belt. As long as I took only those bounties that would free me from debt, I wouldn’t get paid. That meant I’d have to skimp on the laudanum that I’d once more turned to with a vengeance.

Zylla noticed, of course she noticed how quickly the ruby liquid was depleted. But she said nothing.

“Hello,” I murmured, my voice sinking to rasping whispers in the fog-filled station. I reached up, very delicately, and pinned a fluttering note to the wall with two fingers. The bifurcated halves came together into a call for murder.

Despite myself, my mouth twisted up into a rueful smile. “Come and get me,” I murmured. And as I did, something clicked into place inside my scattered thoughts.

Was it possible that the collector who left his mark so boldly on the wall was the very same who’d collected the sweets’ organs? Murder, after all. And he was a flashy devil, wasn’t he?

I jerked my hand away from the note so quickly, the paper tore loose. One half fluttered to the ground, buried in the shrouded fog. Suddenly all too aware of the darkened corners around me, I pocketed the three notes I’d pulled and hurried back to meet with Zylphia.

She eased out of the shadows as I arrived. “Did you find some?”

“Three,” I told her, and showcased one between thumb and forefinger.

My heart kicked in my chest as I recognized the gesture. My own, yes, but exactly like that of my father’s. Only he’d held a thick cameo, a carefully modified flask for his alchemical compound.

“
Cherie?
”

“I’m fine,” I said hastily, staring off into the roiling devil fog through the uncracked lens of my goggles. “I’m all right. Let’s go find this bloke, shall we?”

Fortunately, it wasn’t hard. “I know that one,” Zylphia said as I told her the name. “And I know exactly where he likes to go. Are you sure the Veil will accept bounties in lieu of the cameo you described?”

No. I wasn’t sure at all. But devil take it, I had to try. “They’d best,” I said grimly. “It won’t be my fault if the stuff vanishes for good.”

“They won’t see it that way,” she pointed out. Her eyes, covered behind a pair of plain goggles, were unreadable. “In fact, I bet they’d prefer to have their own pet collector.”

“I’m not a pet,” I snapped, and strode away.

I heard her sigh before she hurried to catch up.

We didn’t talk again until we reached the vantage point where I intended to set a trap. After a brief exchange, I found myself locking my knees and peering between my splayed legs at the fog-ridden alley below. The bald head of my quarry was just easing by, and I weighed my options. It was a cold night; autumn closed in with a vengeance. It felt almost like snow in the air, curling vicious cold into my bones, but no matter how much I wanted a fire and warm tea, I didn’t have the luxury of returning empty-handed.

It was my hope that when I delivered my quarry to the Menagerie, his payment would come out of my debt. The unfortunate consequence here was that I’d see nothing but empty hands and a wasted night for each bounty, but I’d rather chip off every bit of owed compensation as I could.

My knees flexed. The short, muscular man passed beneath my wide, straining legs and I recognized him as the sailor caught fighting the day I woke from the laboratory fire. So he’d only gotten into deeper trouble, then.

Quickly, I loosened the cosh from its place at my belt, and skimmed the fog-ravaged depths of the alley laid out like a serpent beneath me. The one working lens of my goggles painted the cobbles lurid yellow, and I enjoyed my unfettered view while I could.

My neck prickled again. The fine hairs at my nape lifted, and it took all I had not to let my imagination run with me.

Perhaps I’d start taking opium for my nerves.

The sailor whistled jauntily. The tune’s echoes slashed across my memory, and I stiffened. The sudden imprint of memory clashed with the cold and dark and damp, but it felt so real. As if I
must
have experienced it.

I’m sure I’d heard a whistle in the dark before, that it was nothing at all to worry about, but my heart was suddenly in my throat and I couldn’t breathe. My foot slid, grinding against the pitted brick and sending fractured rock clattering to the alley.

The whistle died.

Bloody bells. I had no time for this. “
Allez, hop
,” I muttered under my breath, and dropped silently down into the fog.

I had work to do.

I
t was just nearing dawn when we crept back in through Lord Pennington’s hedgerows. Zylphia’s face was smudged with black, and for a moment, I was struck with a fit of the giggles. Normally, it was
my
face that looked as if I’d been rolling in the chimneys below. On her dark skin, it looked more as if she’d slept in tar. And she didn’t even have the excuse of lampblack in her hair.

But she wasn’t laughing with me.

Instead, as we hurried across my small yard, her blue eyes narrowed. “What is that?” she whispered.

Too tired after two successful bounties and one fruitless back-alley footrace with a third, it took me a moment to understand what she indicated. The sky was lightening in that strange way London above did beneath a blanket of morning clouds, and my mind was still too sluggish for my taste.

I kept thinking of ways,
reasons
, to find more opium. As if the thought were a magnet and my head were filled with iron.

But then I saw it. A dab of red beneath my window. My smile died. “The devil?”

“Cherry, wait—”

I ignored her, sprinting across my yard to seize the dangling rope ladder in both hands. Scaling it with much more ease than Zylphia had yet mastered, I reached the top before my friend managed to reach a third of the way above.

Tucked against the glass, bold as blood on the muted green window sill, a single red rose beckoned.

My stomach sank.

“What is it?”

I looked back over my shoulder, scrutinizing the hedges behind us. The shadows slowly lightened to shades of blue and violet and gray. Nothing moved. In the distance, I dimly heard the beginnings of life in a district that never truly found its bed.

I’d had a visitor, clearly. “A message,” I said. “From a mysterious benefactor, it seems.”

“Get inside, then,” Zylphia said impatiently beneath me, and with the rose clutched in one gloved hand, I slid open the window and crawled inside. She was a breath behind me, voice kept to a serious whisper. “From your earl, you think?”

I tried to imagine Lord Compton running about at dawn, climbing ladders hanging out of young ladies’ windows, and snorted loudly. “Not likely. He’s not in Town, for that matter.”

“Then who?”

I could only think of one. “Blood on the snow,” I muttered. “That rotter.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” I said, and tossed the flower to the vanity surface. It plinked across my perfume bottles and stayed there, crimson against silvered glass.

Only one man had ever sent me red roses.

Zylphia stared at me. Then at the flower once more. “It’s him, right? The sweet tooth. Him what’s a collector.”

“Possibly.” Most assuredly. The man knew where I lived, I’d known that. But he also knew how I escaped from my home. Knew about the ladder, which window was mine.

Ice slid down my spine.

“
Cherie?
”

I set my jaw. “Summon a bath, Zylla,” I said evenly.

“But—”

“Summon a bath,” I repeated, and drew the curtains with a sharp tug. If he was out there now, watching and waiting, then I hope he enjoyed the view of damask rose fabric. “Whoever he is, I can’t do a thing about it right at this moment.”

But there was tomorrow. And the subsequent days and evenings after. The collector hadn’t killed me yet; he’d certainly had plenty of opportunity. He could have just as simply let St. Croix end my life, but he hadn’t. Heaven knew why.

He was waiting for something, maybe. Waiting for me to find him?

Not just a bounty, after all.

Fine. Challenge accepted. I would find him.

There was, after all, an outstanding bounty on the man.

Zylphia slipped out of the room to order my bath. As the door slid softly closed behind her, I picked up the bruised flower and strode to the window. I pushed aside the drapes, wrenched the window open, and flung the rose out into the cold. It tumbled to the ground below, a sad little blot of bloody red.

Clapping my hands together, I once more closed window and drapes and breathed out a shuddering sigh of anxiety. I suspected my message would not go unnoticed. But was I prepared for the consequences?

Grimly, I reached for the decanter by my bed. The remnants of ruby liquid glittered like fire beneath the crystal facets.

I would have to find this collector. Find him and deliver him to Zylphia and the girls. I would have to go below, to the Thames Tunnel once more, and search for this laboratory. The very thought made my stomach churn with fear.

Of course, I’d have to keep a close eye on Zylphia. Whatever her
useful
heritage really was, it hadn’t come to my attention just yet. Given I was still struggling to come to terms with anything even remotely termed
alchemy
, I wasn’t ready to give her any more benefit of the doubt than what I already had.

And somehow, I had to do this all without forcing my staff to worry.

One good night’s sleep, I thought. Just give me a few dreamless hours, and I’d be ready for anything.

As the liquid slid down my throat, medicinal and sharp, I called myself a liar.

Acknowledgments

At the risk of overstating the obvious—which I am rather prone to doing, both on the page and off—I must mention that this is a work of fiction. Please, delicious readers, believe me when I say that most changes made to the placement, description, events and residents of London are done so deliberately and with an eye toward the simple fact that this is no longer the London once known. That said, I’m positive that with the inclusion of mad scientists, aether, móshù and more, we all know exactly on which side of the True Story line this book will fall.

I must take a moment and thank those who came before me: those adventurous, imaginative men and women who penned such brilliance to initial critical disdain. The authors of penny dreadfuls, of Victorian adventure tales, and those who continued to tell such stories over and over, each more fantastical than the last. From eras past to modern affairs, Gothic to Steampunk to classic to horror; thank you for paving the way for me.

Nae earns my undying gratitude for allowing me to drone on and on about the things I wanted to do, would like to do, didn’t know how to do and had yet to figure out how else to do, and for her patience, she has earned a certain reward that will, in time, make itself clear. Kyle—and most notably, his Changeling players—earns a nod for the inspirational use of the term “Brick Street Bakers.” Thomas de Quincey’s honest, often dryly amused extract entitled Confessions of an English Opium Eater provided much of my source material for opium addiction, and what he failed to explain, Ali—a nurse who knew all too much about the gory medicinal details—filled in.

And lastly, because this book would be nothing without either, Laura and Esi each deserve the unending riches of the universe. For taking a chance on an unapologetic opium-eater, on a new genre, a strange concept and on an author who spends her time dressing in odd costumes for little reason.

About the Author

Born from the genetic mash-up of lesser royalty, storytellers, wanderers, and dreamers, K
ARINA
C
OOPER
was destined to be a creative genius. As a child, she moved all over the country like some kind of waifish blond gypsy and thrived in the new cultures her family settled in. When she (finally) grew up, she skipped the whole genius part and fell in love with writing because, really, who doesn’t love making things up for a living?

One part romance fanatic, one part total dork, and all imagination, she writes dark and sexy paranormal romance and historical urban fantasy. When she isn’t writing, Karina is an airship captain’s wife and Steampunk fashionista. She lives in the beautiful and rainy Pacific Northwest with a husband, four cats, two rabbits, the fantasy of a dog, and a passel of adopted gamer geeks.

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