A Study In Ashes Part 17

"Feeding on sc.r.a.ps?" the thing mocked. "I would have expected more from you, Miss Cooper."

Evelina cupped her hand, summoning witch fire. A cl.u.s.ter of pale flame danced in the air above her hand, throwing bizarre shadows over the company. Someone gasped, "Sorcery!" Evelina ignored it.

"Show yourself," she commanded, throwing compulsion into her voice.

As if in obedience, Wood slumped to his knees. "Evelina!"

The voice was Imogen's. It was so startling, Evelina lost concentration, and the witch fire died abruptly.

"Help me, Evelina!"

"Dear G.o.d," Tobias started forward, lurching a few steps before stumbling to a confused halt, obviously unsure of what to do.

"I don't know how to get out of here," Imogen said in a tiny voice.

"Do something!" Tobias roared, his face twisted with fear and disgust.

The air was clearing and the other partic.i.p.ants had backed away, though Miss Barnes now stood guardian at the door, making sure no one-and no thing-entered or left the room. Evelina circled the table, approaching Wood's crumpled form. She could feel the ent.i.ty possessing him, tingling and sparking like the static from a coil. Wood held out a hand-a square, male hand that was simultaneously the slim white fingers of her friend. Evelina drifted closer, still unsure, her power coiled like a spring.

"Evelina, help her," said Tobias, pleading now.

"Please, Evelina," whispered the thing that was and was not Imogen.

She only stood a few feet away now, her heart yearning to believe she had finally found her friend. From here, she could get help, find a way to lead Imogen home.

Evelina reached out, inches away from grasping Imogen's hand.

"Watch out!" Imogen cried.

And Wood sprang at her, launching from the floor to pounce like a spider. The voice that snarled should not have come from any human throat. Evelina released her power, slamming him backward. Wood flew through the air, crashing into the back of the red velvet settee. The long, thin candle flame flared into a ball of fire, roaring and then blooming into a bright, miniature sun suspended over the table. Mrs. Phillips screamed.

Then it was Evelina's turn to attack, flinging her power again, this time to trap. But the ent.i.ty was too quick, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g out of her grasp like an eel. She almost caught it, tightening the whip of her power like a noose, but it slipped out, gone before she could even get a better look. Then something popped, as if a cork had been pulled from a bottle.

And it was gone. All she was left with was a lingering scent of the grave. The hunter in her howled with hunger and fury at the loss of its prey. Evelina staggered, dizzy with a cramping, desperate need to feed. She'd experienced the hunger before, but never with such ferocity. But then, she'd never starved for lives so long as this.

Evelina grabbed the back of a chair, her mind rendered blank by too many horrific ideas. And then, with a flash of insight, she understood what else the bracelets did. They dulled a sorcerer's requirement for human life, neutralizing the impulse to gather power. Unless she used her magic, she had been able to forget the desire for days at a time. What would I be like if they came off altogether?

There wasn't time to think about it. Wood fell to the floor in a dead faint. The ball of flame above the candle went out with a thunderclap, plunging them in darkness. Evelina cried out, finally, suddenly afraid.

After a heartbeat, and then two, Miss Barnes turned up the lights. They all stared at each other in astonishment. Evelina started to shake, hot tears streaking down her face as the hunger died back to a simmering, constant discomfort. But at least now she could think past it enough to function.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l was that?" said a gentleman in a tweed suit, thick mustaches quivering. "Was that a ghost or a demon?"

Tobias grabbed Evelina by the arm, spinning her around. "What are you?"

She met his eyes. They were bleak, as if what he'd seen her do had stripped him of some last shred of comfort. He'd been told she had magic, but clearly seeing it in action was something far more horrific. Her chin started to tremble, presaging yet more tears. "d.a.m.n you, Tobias, you asked me to come here. I did what I had to do."

His grip on her tightened until it was painful. "Was that Imogen?"

"No," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "At least I hope not." She prayed it wasn't, but then a whirlpool of doubt tugged at her, doing its best to drag her under. That was her voice. She knew the right words to say. "Sometimes it seemed like her, sometimes not. At the end, she tried to warn me."

"You don't know."

"It sounded as if she was fighting to be heard, but something wouldn't let her speak. Once she called me Miss Cooper. Imogen would never do that. I was always Evelina to her."

"But you don't know anything for certain."

"No," she whispered, tears of frustration stinging her eyes. "But Serafina called me Miss Cooper."

Tobias flinched. "Serafina-Anna-perished on the Wyvern."

"Did she?"

"d.a.m.nation." He dropped his hand, flexing it as if he wanted to wipe it clean of her magic-infested touch. Then he turned away without another word.

Miss Barnes regarded her steadily. "You have some interesting talents, Miss Cooper."

"But not enough," Evelina said bitterly. "Not enough to do one bit of good."

And then she started to weep in earnest.

Unknown IMOGEN CROUCHED BEHIND A Cl.u.s.tER OF GEARS, CLUTCHING her knees to her chest in a desperate effort to make herself small. The air was filled with the hot, tangy smell of working metal, and the entire s.p.a.ce pulsed with the incessant, relentless ticking of the longcase clock. It vibrated through her feet and rang in her skull, shaking every tooth in her head.

She was out of breath, and her hands and forearms were nicked and bruised from climbing through the bizarre landscape of the clock. Crawling through it was frightening, not to mention a challenge for someone more used to the ladylike arts. She'd had to be quick to avoid the swinging pendulum, and the sudden click of a gear could crush a hand or foot if her attention wavered.

But as bad as that was, being chased was worse. It had begun the moment she'd first felt the tug of Evelina's mind on hers. Her friend's touch had been just that, like a hand on her shoulder, bidding her to turn around and follow. And then a huge, fierce blast had torn her away, as if a giant had backhanded her into the gear works. Anna, she a.s.sumed. Her sister never had liked anyone else having friends.

Imogen had learned to hide after that, keeping to the s.p.a.ces in between protective fortifications of bra.s.s and steel. When the blows came, ducking behind a solid object helped. She glanced up at the hands of the clock face, which was mirrored inside the clock as well as out. The hands always matched the chimes, and yet their movement was utterly random. Two o'clock might be followed as easily by eleven or six as three. Wherever she was, time obeyed different rules.

And today-or tonight, or this morning, because who could tell?-she'd been able to make at least some contact. Perhaps because Evelina had touched her, she knew at once when the seance had begun. The medium's invitation to visit had been as clear as the peal of a bell. Unfortunately, she hadn't been the only one to hear. Again, she had come under fire, but at least now her friends knew she was still trying to get home.

Imogen raised herself up just enough to see over a giant spoked wheel of bra.s.s. She pressed a hand to her side, feeling the ache of a bruise. As much as it hurt, the pain was worthwhile because she'd actually witnessed the seance through the eyes of the medium. She'd seen Tobias and Evelina, and the hope and worry on their faces gave her something to clutch like an amulet. And she needed whatever luck and strength she could get.

She stretched up another inch. The view offered a narrow sightline past the thing with the chain and a vial of bubbling green goo. She had no notion what any of these parts were called and didn't care. If she got out of here, she was going to toss every timepiece in the house-whether or not it was made by a sorcerer-onto a gigantic bonfire. Imogen squinted and waited, the tick of the clock lapping around her like waves.

Then she saw something move, a shadow sliding between the wheeling gears. Her instinct was to catch her breath, but she stopped herself. Despite the racket of the machinery, she didn't want even a tiny gasp to give her away.

"I can feel you watching," said the voice from the shadows.

Anna. Imogen knew the timbre and the pitch, the slight roughness when the words dipped low. She'd heard that voice in her nightmares before-so like her own, but not. The voice was a relief in a way. There had been no way to tell how her sister would appear. She could have shown up as a monster or a mist or an ostrich or nothing at all. The dead seemed to have different rules. A sister who had been trapped in an automaton and slashed six women to death had none.

Imogen stayed silent as a mouse. Why had Anna chosen to emerge from the woodwork now? The seance, she supposed. Strangers were interfering in her domain.

"I suppose there are a number of things you're wondering about," Anna went on. "Why I brought you here, for starters."

Because I blew your head off with Captain Niccolo's aether gun and you're very, very upset? Fortunately, while Anna had shared her dreams in the past, she could not read her waking mind.

Her sister continued with a lecturing air. "Last time we met, you saw me as Serafina. I was Dr. Magnus's prize creation. He brought every automaton to life with a piece of his soul, but Serafina got a bigger piece because he wanted to make her-me-something more than the others. And so I learned everything that little nub of soul knew, and that included the secrets of this clock. He made it, you know."

And that knowledge gives you an enormous advantage. Imogen's gaze searched the shadows, trying to see Anna, but there was no movement where she'd been. And with the d.a.m.ned ticking, she could hear no footfalls. As interesting as this all was, she started looking for a way to retreat.

"It's a very special kind of clock." Anna's voice filled with pride, as if she'd made it herself. "The tubes of liquid are aether receptors. They translate the vibrational frequency of thought into a concrete form through a series of selectors that choose precisely which thoughts from all over the aether to record. Those get coded onto cards."

Imogen had always wondered what was on the messages the clock spit out from time to time. Only Lord Bancroft had ever collected and read the ciphered notes.

"And then of course there is the environment within the clock. Magnus built it as a magically protected refuge for when he was out and about in an incorporeal form. It seemed a perfect place for me to hide after Serafina went down with the ship. I didn't know if I'd survive, but Magnus had made me strong."

Imogen swayed where she stood. And she pulled me right out of my body to go with her. That was strange enough, but Imogen had even been on a different ship. She's my twin. I'll always be vulnerable to her.

She gripped a piece of metal frame, steadying herself. As she turned, she could see the narrow pa.s.sage between gears led to one of the many sections of the clock that had no floor. There was a dark chasm below where the pendulum swung, and a misstep would be disastrous. Since, in her current state, the clock was huge and she was tiny, it would be the equivalent of falling off a mountain.

But there was a narrow steel bar that ran from this side to the other, and from there a chain, heavy and thick as a ladder, went up to another level. Imogen started inching that way.

"This place can be anything one likes." The pride in Anna's voice curdled to contempt. "I was able to wish you into that salon for almost a year before you found me out. It's easy enough to do if you've lived with a piece of a sorcerer in your soul-and of course you always were such a gullible simpleton. You'd believe anything."

Oh, really? The words opened up a wellspring of old resentment. Imogen flinched, dragged back to the thousand battles that had waged between them before both sisters fell sick. Imogen, the quiet shy twin, had survived. Vivacious Anna had not.

And apparently, Anna still resented the fact. "I should have been the one to live, you know."

Imogen reached the beam that went across the deadly gap. She didn't much like heights, and she could feel her heart skitter with apprehension. But the steel bar was a good eighteen inches across. Evelina had walked tightropes. She could do this. But then she looked over her shoulder and saw ... herself. Her mirror image stood only a few yards away.

Anna was wearing identical clothes, with the very same smudges and tears in the hem. Revulsion reared up inside Imogen, almost masking her fear. "Can't you even get your own dress?"

"But I want to be you." The tone was soggy with mockery.

With a stifled gasp, Imogen began walking across the beam, knowing she was risking too much but needing distance between them. Anna had been a bully as a child and she didn't expect anything different now.

"You're still alive," Anna said matter-of-factly. "I can't take your body until you give it up. The sooner you do, the sooner this ends."

Imogen quickened her pace, nearly breaking into a run. When she got to the other side of the gap, she finally allowed herself to turn. She put one hand on the thick chain that hung down from the upper levels, feeling better with something solid in her hand. "It's an obvious question, but I have to ask: What makes you think I'll give anything up to you?"

"You will. You always do." Anna smiled with lips identical to Imogen's own, but the effect was chilling.

A cold claw of terror struck deep into Imogen, but she refused it. "b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to that, Annie. We're not in the nursery anymore."

"No, we aren't. There's no one here to stop me."

That was all too true. Evelina had tried to reach Imogen twice, and had failed both times. Who else even had a chance? The thought made Imogen quail, but she grabbed at the chain anyhow, fighting down the knot of fear clogging her throat. Nerves made her fumble the chain before she caught it again and started to climb, her shoes poor protection against the heavy links of bra.s.s. She struggled up, hand and foot, hand and foot, in a ridiculous scramble that was no escape at all.

Anna stood below, silently watching with flat, gray eyes.

London, September 29, 1889.

HILLIARD HOUSE.

2:05 p.m. Sunday.

POPPY WAS SURE that there was something wrong with the longcase clock on the stairway landing. It was still keeping time, but the tick sounded unwell and it had been making peculiar creaks and clicks, almost as if there were mice inside. She examined it carefully, peering closely for any signs of cracks or rust.

She had to stand on tiptoe. The clock, far taller than Poppy, was made from beautiful rich walnut rubbed to a shining gloss. The top was arched with finials at the corners, giving it the look of ears. There were seven moving dials besides the usual clock face, each with its own measurement of time and weather. The Scorpion followed the Scales across the top of the clock, and the moon phases-currently in a state of one-eyed wakefulness-cycled below.

Most interesting were the coded messages the clock spit out from time to time. Poppy had never cracked the cipher, but she'd heard that Evelina had done it. Her father had concocted it with Dr. Magnus long ago, back when they were still friends. Poppy supposed that being not only evil but dead, the doctor wouldn't be coming around to make repairs.

"What are you doing?" Tobias asked blandly.

"I'm looking at the clock."

"Why?"

"It doesn't sound right. Did you ever find out the cipher for the clock's messages?"

"No, it's Father's."

"But you said once Evelina knew it."

"Then I suppose Holmes does," Tobias said, almost to himself.

That was an interesting tidbit. Poppy came down off her toes and then turned to face her brother. He looked like he'd slept badly, and he had the hectic flush of someone running on nerves. She forgot about the clock and decided to worry about him instead.

The bags under his eyes were only the first sign that something was amiss. To everyone's surprise, he'd suggested the family go to church together. He'd settled down quite a lot since marrying Alice, but Poppy couldn't ever remember him initiating a Sunday gathering, much less one involving sermons. But they had gone and now Tobias, Alice, and Jeremy were there for a meal. Lady Bancroft was delighted, but Poppy was bemused.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

He gave an uneasy shrug. "Work."

"Are you still trying to figure out the bra.s.s bug?"

"I am," he said so quickly that she knew there was more. "And right now I'm going with Father to see about a logic processor. One of his cronies has an Italian pleasure craft with a processor that might be the same as the bra.s.s bug's brain."

"Why does that matter?"

He flashed a smile. "How many personal crafts are there in London, much less Italian ones? It should be fairly easy to trace where it came from."

With that, he sprang down the steps with more energy than she'd seen from him in months. A few moments later, she heard her mother's moan of dismay when she heard the menfolk would be late for the meal. Oh well, Tobias needs a victory more than he needs a roast of beef. Mind you, that roast did smell delicious.

Poppy decided there was nothing more that she could do about the clock and drifted downstairs to the drawing rooms. Alice was in the smaller, brighter of the two with Jeremy in her lap. Tobias was there, shrugging into his coat.

Alice gave him an admonishing look. "You shouldn't be working on a Sunday. You need to rest sometime."

He gave her a kiss on the cheek, but it was a real one, not a quick, formal peck. "I'm not working, I'm looking."

She gave a huff. "Which means you won't be fixing, tinkering, or otherwise applying tools to any fabricated surface. I will check your shirt cuffs when you return."