Photographs & Phantoms (7 page)

“I only met him yesterday.” Though that didn’t really matter. It had been the same for her parents and her grandparents. Love at first sight was a Deland family tradition.

“Sometimes a day is all it takes.”

Kendall paused at the door to the house and waited for the women. “I don’t think you should go inside until we’ve apprehended Peterson.”

“Can you really arrest a man for making possessed toys? Are we certain he did it on purpose?” Amy bit her lip, still having a hard time accepting that the sergeant had done such a despicable thing.

Kendall gave her a grim smile. “You’d be surprised at the authority vested in the Order. But I don’t want to try to take him alone, not with a houseful of innocent bystanders. I’ll take you and the others to the hotel and come back with a couple policemen.

Amy wanted to argue, but she agreed that Caro and Nell needed to be away from here. It seemed they wouldn’t leave without her, so she found herself being bundled off to the Bedford Hotel, Brighton’s foremost accommodations.

Tom and the footman had gone with Kendall to consult with the local constabulary, taking the massive clockwork dog with them. It galled Amy to sit and wait, but she did, taking tea in a private sitting room with Caro and her older children, while the little ones napped nearby. This was why she hadn’t planned to marry, she reminded herself, even while she was fascinated by what she learned about the Hadrian family and the Order of the Round table. She hated being relegated to sitting and waiting. When Kendall stopped back and asked Nell to come help pack up Peterson’s belongings, Amy began to silently think of ways to punish him for leaving her behind.

Peterson, damn him, was nowhere to be found. Kendall questioned the other residents of the boarding house and found none of them had seen the man since breakfast. Kendall talked Mrs. Bennett and the Stapleton sisters into checking into a hotel—at his expense—on the pretext of a toxic chemical spill in the attic. They’d promised to notify the bookseller on the way and take him as well. Only Mr. Saunders saw through their ruse and remained behind.

“Knew the blighter was up to no good.” The grizzled veteran helped box up the contents of Peterson’s workshop, under the strict supervision of Tom and Nell. Nothing else of interest was found. It seemed his source of power was with him, wherever he was. Interestingly, the scrap on his workbench looked more like he’d been making jewelry than mechanical toys. Whatever it was, Kendall got a sick feeling from touching the scrap gold—similar, if not nearly as potent as the one he’d gotten from the horse. Nell shook her head—there was no phantom, though the man was certainly up to no good. But where was he? And what did he plan to do next?

Finally, Nell was returned to her mother, and Saunders and a constable were left to watch the house and send word if Peterson approached. Kendall, Tom and an older inspector went to check the rail and dirigible stations. All Kendall could think of was that he couldn’t let the bastard get his hands on Amy. This wasn’t even about duty or his work. It had become personal.

Bloody hell, when had he gone and fallen in love? And in just one night?

Suddenly, even the idea of marriage and children sounded a whole lot better than living without her. In less than twenty-four hours, his world had turned upside down.

Amy walked along the beach promenade with a young boy on either side of her, one extolling the virtues of the local steam tram, while the other, a far more serious lad, peppered her with questions about the processes of photography. The Hadrian children never seemed to slow down, but she found herself enjoying their company.

“Jamie, I’d be happy to take you for a ride on the tram, but first we have to return to your family with these ices.” Each of them carried a tray of shaved-ice treats. “Piers, I find the calotype is still the best for outdoor photography, as you don’t have to carry your developing equipment and chemicals with you, but you’re right, it lacks the detailed clarity of glass-plate negatives.”

“I need to use the retiring room,” Piers said suddenly as they passed that public convenience. “Can you hold my tray for a moment, miss?”

“Of course.” She had two hands. When Jamie decided to join his brother, however, she was forced to find a table to set the trays down on to wait.

“Amy, there you are.” She looked up to see Sergeant Peterson striding toward her.

“Sergeant, what are you doing down here at this time of the day? I didn’t think you cared for the sun and sand.” Her heart pounded—she wished Kendall was here. How could she lure the man someplace where the constables could take him? Above all, she had to protect the boys.

“Looking for you.” He strode up, grabbed her hand and before she could stop him or jerk away, he’d jammed a golden ring around her finger, a modest sapphire glinting in its center.

“Sergeant—Michael—what are you doing? Let me go.” She wrenched at her wrist, but her hand didn’t seem to want to obey her command—it remained limply held in his.

“You’re coming with me, Amy. You’ve been a very naughty girl and need to be punished.” He tucked her hand into his elbow and she found herself walking alongside him, up the steps and away from the shore. She tried to stop, but her feet simply wouldn’t obey her—it was as if he’d taken complete control of her body—except for her stomach, which was threatening to rebel at any moment.

“Where are we going?” She could talk, it seemed, in a low, decorous voice, but not loudly enough to call for help. “What have you done to me?”

“Merely speeded up our courtship, my dear. I was worried you were becoming too entranced by that lordling. So I finished your engagement ring rather sooner than I’d expected. Do you like it?”

It was an attractive ring, simple and elegant with its clear blue, perfect stone. In other circumstances, she’d have loved it. “It’s disgusting.” Pain lanced through her throat, as if it were being constricted by a giant hand.

“There, there, be nice. You won’t like the consequences if you’re not.”

“Why are you doing this, Michael? Why not just court me openly if you were interested?” Perhaps the use of his first name would make him more amenable.

“Because you never paid attention to a damn thing besides your stupid photographs,” he growled. When they reached the King’s Road, he hailed a cab and bundled her inside, giving the name of one of the more moderate hotels toward the far end of town.

Amy tried to say something to the cabbie but found herself strangled again, as if by one of those invisible serpents. She waited until the cab was moving, and then asked pleasantly, “So how are you controlling me, Michael? Is it one of your serpent spirits? Is it linked to the ring you gave me?”

“How do you know about the serpents?” he demanded, jerking her closer to him. His dark eyes were crazed and she wondered if he was using opium or some other drug. “Did
he
see them?”

“They showed up in the photographs,” she snarled. “And every time, someone died.”

“You were meant to blame yourself.” He shook her, making her teeth rattle. “Stop pursuing such an unnatural profession for a female—especially when you don’t need the money.”

“I love my work,” she told him. “It feels perfectly natural to me. Why would I want to give it up? Clearly, you don’t know me at all. What is it you want from me?”

“To marry me, you stupid bitch.” He kissed her then, forcing his tongue inside her mouth, and she didn’t have enough control over even her jaw muscles to stop him. He tasted vile—of uncleaned teeth and cheap tobacco and stale beer. The combination made her stomach, already queasy, lurch, and she began to gag. He pulled away and pushed her head down just in time for her to vomit over the edge of the cab instead of on the two of them.

Then she felt something like fangs sinking into the base of her spine and her stomach settled—in fact, she couldn’t feel a thing from the waist down.

“Are you going to kill me?” A strange, floating sensation filled her head. “Is that what this has come down to? Poisoning me with one of your phantom snakes?”

“Poisoning you? Oh, no, no, my dear. This serpent is an entirely different sort. He doesn’t slay. He controls. I’m not going to kill you, Amy. I’m going to marry you and have all that lovely money to call my own.”

She wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Even speech was beyond her now.

“I earned this power, you know. One of the other stones is fire. My arm wasn’t cut off, but burned off, inch, by inch until I talked. Then they threw me out in the cold, expecting me to die. But I lived and snuck back in at night, slitting every single throat. Once I put the ring on, I knew it was meant to be mine.”

So torture and the ring’s evil power had corrupted his mind. That would have been nice to know earlier. She was conscious of the cab stopping and of walking beside him toward a room, but it was all hazy, like a dream. Somewhere beyond the dream, she thought longingly of Kendall.

Sitting in the police house, Kendall, Tom and Everett, the local inspector, had nothing so far. There was no trace of Peterson at any transportation depot, including the livery stables, not even the residual oily feel of his magick. Restless and angry at feeling helpless, Kendall leaped to his feet when a young boy ran in the door.

“Jamie, what is it?” Tom was on his feet right beside Kendall, catching hold of his foster brother’s arm.

“The blighter took Miss Amy,” he panted. “I caught hold of the back of the cab and followed.”

“Where is she?” Kendall was already grabbing his hat and stick. His pistol was primed and in a holster at his belt. Everett and two uniformed constables were right behind him.

“The Parthenon Hotel.” Jamie rattled off the street name and number. “Couldn’t see what room, but she was walking kind of funny—sort of like one of Wink’s animals.”

The men, including Jamie, piled into the police coach. Kendall knew the Hadrian children too well to bother arguing. Merrick had found them as a group of street children successfully fighting vampyres some four years earlier. Any one of them, even the girls, could handle themselves in a fight.

When they reached the faux-classical, middle-class hotel, Jamie scrambled to the top of the coach, ready to call out if he spotted Peterson trying to leave the building. Kendall, meanwhile, strode to the front desk with Everett beside him. “We need to see your guest registry from this morning.”

The clerk blustered, but after Everett prodded a bit, he handed Kendall the register. Unfortunately, no Peterson was listed. Kendall threw the list down in disgust. “Look, I need to know about a patron with red hair, military bearing and a mechanical left arm.”

“Oh,” said the clerk with a smile. “You mean Lieutenant Michaels. He and his wife checked in this morning.”

“Wife my arse,” Kendall muttered. “What room?”

“And we’ll need the key.” Everett’s tone left no room for argument.

The clerk nodded and handed over a key with the number 209 on it.

“Is there a balcony for that room?” Kendall didn’t like the idea of leaving Peterson an alternate way out.

The clerk shook his head. “He asked for one, but there were no private balconies available. Just a public one at the end of the hall.” He produced a map of the hotel and showed Kendall and Everett where the potential escape routes were located.

“There’s a roofline for the porch running right under that window,” Tom pointed out from over Kendall’s shoulder. “I’ll go that way.”

Kendall ignored the raised eyebrows of the policemen and nodded. “I assume you have a pistol. If it becomes a hostage situation, only shoot if you’re sure you won’t miss.”

“These two gentlemen are agents of the Crown,” Everett assured the clerk, who was gasping like a landed fish. “They know what they’re about. Thornton, you climb like a monkey. You’re with Sir Thomas.”

The younger constable nodded and followed Tom, while Kendall and Everett climbed the steam-powered main staircase at a run, skipping over the revolving steps two or three at a time. Bailey, the other constable, was assigned the cage lift, to make sure Peterson didn’t exit that way while they went up the steps.

Outside room 209, they paused, weapons drawn, while Everett inserted the key and then Kendall kicked open the door.

Kendall took in the scene in an instant, his heart lurching in his chest. Peterson lounged on the bed while Amy stood in the center of the room. Her eyes were glazed and vacant, staring straight ahead as she untied the front laces of her corset. Her hair was down and her dress already lay in a pool on the floor. She didn’t even start or look up when the door crashed in.

What the hell had Peterson done to her?

“Amy, stop,” Kendall called. He strode into the room, his weapon fixed on Peterson.

“She won’t listen to you,” the sergeant said evenly, sitting up straighter but not bothering to stand. “Amy, dearest, take the knife and hold it to your throat.”

Kendall hadn’t seen the hunting knife on the small dresser beside Amy’s hand. Moving as jerkily as an automaton, she picked it up and held it against her smooth, white throat.

“No!” Kendall lunged toward Peterson. “Stop it. Now.”

“Press harder, darling. Oh…and show him the ring.” He shook his head as if Kendall was being a particularly thick child.

Amy pressed harder with the knife and blood welled from the small cut on her neck, sending tendrils of horror down Kendall’s spine. She held out her left hand, displaying a poorly fashioned gold ring set with a single sapphire—just like the one missing from the ring on Peterson’s mechanical hand.

“What have you done to her, you bastard?”

Peterson chuckled. “You’re too late, my lord. We’re already married.”

“In what? Twenty minutes?” Everett gave a disgusted snort. “What about the banns, the license, the vows? It can’t be legal.”

“The license was obtained some time ago—I had to test the control phantom on someone, and a government clerk seemed utterly expendable. The parson was easier—he happily accepted a bribe. Lovely Amy signed the papers, and now she and her pots of money are all mine.”

A red haze swam before Kendall’s vision. There was no way in hell that this man was going to lay so much as a finger on Amy. Perhaps if the man were dead, she’d be freed from the compulsion she was so obviously under. He saw Tom lining up a pistol shot from the corner of his eye and kept talking, hoping Peterson would stay focused on him and Everett.

“Killing me won’t work, by the way,” Peterson said with a long-suffering sigh. “It takes some time to gain control of the serpents. She’d die of starvation or forget how to breathe on her own before you could determine how they work and set her free. And now, here’s another one of the set, just for you, inspector.” He popped one of the two remaining sapphires from his ring and hurled it at Everett. “This one isn’t designed to poison or control. This one goes for blood.”

Almost immediately, Everett yelled, as blood spurted from his thigh, dark and thick. He tried to fight off the invisible force, but soon another wound appeared, high on his shoulder.

Peterson plucked out the last sapphire and threw it at Kendall, but missed and it struck the constable behind him. Bailey crumpled. “He’ll sleep until I tell him to wake up.”

The stone. Kendall whispered a quick spell, took aim and fired his pistol at the gem lying far too close to Everett’s foot, just as the inspector began to sag. The bullet struck the gem and shattered it.

Peterson screamed in pain.

Everett passed out and fell onto Bailey behind him.

Kendall stepped up to Amy and took her hand. “Fight it, sweetheart. You can do it. There’s magick in your veins, remember. Fight for yourself, for us. I love you and I’m not going to let him take you from me.” Meanwhile he began to ease the ring from her outstretched hand.

“No,” Peterson shrieked. “Cut deeper, bitch.”

Several things happened at once. Kendall grabbed Amy’s hand with the knife and wrenched it away from her throat. A shot fired through the window. The bullet struck Peterson in the throat and he fell, gurgling.

Immediately, the light came back on in Amy’s eyes. She dropped the knife, yanked the ring off her finger and flung herself into Kendall’s arms.