The Iron Duke (11 page)

“What position?”

“My interests span six continents. We’d have found something that suited your talents.” He shrugged. “But it no longer matters, inspector. Only your bed will do now.”

Damn and blast.
Jaw set, Mina faced forward, staring blindly out over the gate. Why did he still intend to pursue her? Somehow, she’d made a critical error. She wouldn’t have thought that threatening a man’s privates would encourage him, but—
Oh, blue heavens
.

She’d fired back. Though she’d been outgunned, she’d challenged the Iron Duke.

So she
was
a fool. And now she would stay out of his way—she’d run, if necessary—until he forgot about it.

She was already unlocking the gate when Trahaearn stopped the lift on the third level. His hand clamped over the steel before she could slide it open.

His voice was low. “I warn you, inspector. The next time I have you alone, I’ll
have
you. Your mouth, at the least—and more, if you offer it.”

She wouldn’t. “We’ve both lived many years in London, and our paths never crossed. After today, I cannot imagine we’ll meet again or have reason to be alone.”

“You’ll go wherever there are dead bodies.” He released the gate. “I can arrange for several to be found.”

Mina choked on a laugh. He would be like her mother, sending out letters until the recipients gave in. She hoped he did use bodies, then. With every one, her resolve would harden against him.

Pushing aside the grating, she abandoned the lift and came upon Newberry standing in the middle of a large room, blushing a fiery red and unable to meet her eyes. Frowning, Mina looked round and saw why.

The devices in this room weren’t sold in the public shops, but by special arrangement. A low chair supported a rubber phallus attached to a piston, which would pump when the user pushed on a pedal. A similar device sat next to it, designed to function with the woman in a standing position. Various others obviously took two people to operate, with suction cups and pistons driven by complicated gear mechanisms.

Trahaearn stopped beside her, his gaze once again cold and disinterested as it skimmed the equipment. She truly, truly hated that look.

“That one might serve your needs, Your Grace,” she said, and Newberry made a noise like a skewered eel when she gestured to a life-sized automaton featuring a rubber vagina and hips that swiveled. Though Mina felt sorry for the poor man, she could not resist pointing to another device. “But I suggest you do not try
that
one. A man hung himself on a similar machine last year. His mother suspected his wife of murder, but he’d simply been too eager, and strapped himself in before she returned from the market. Before the wife returned, that is. Not the mother.”

Without expression, Trahaearn turned away from her. “The Blacksmith’s laboratories are in this direction.”

Could a man who boldly propositioned a woman in a lift so quickly become a prude? She frowned, looking after him, but another wretched sound had her swinging around to check on her assistant.

“
Breathe
, Newberry. If you faint in the Blacksmith’s laboratory, only the stars above know what might be grafted to your body when you wake up.”

 

 

Mina didn’t know when the Blacksmith had come to England.
Years before the revolution, rumors had begun to circulate that a man in London could manipulate the advanced Horde technology that had created the nanoagents, creating mechanical flesh from it—advanced technology, which was forbidden outside of Xanadu, the Horde capital. But perhaps those rumors had just been wishful thinking, like the tales of a Horde rebellion that would destroy the empire from within.

The rumors of a Horde resistance had proven false—but the Blacksmith might very well have been the source of the other tales. Before the fires of the revolution had cooled, he’d already carved out his territory in the Narrow, and defended it fiercely.

But he rarely had to fight for it. Instead, his weapons included the incredible amounts of money from his shops—much of which he poured into the Crèche and the industrial guilds—and the unwavering loyalty he earned by offering prosthetic repairs and replacement parts for less than most blacksmiths could. For those laborers who couldn’t afford even his rates, he traded on favors. There were few people who had passed through the Blacksmith’s shop who didn’t feel as if they still owed him, even if they’d paid their debt in full or completed the task he’d asked of them.

And for those who didn’t feel loyalty, and those who weren’t indebted, there were always those who feared him.

From behind her, she heard Newberry’s step falter when the Blacksmith emerged from a laboratory into the corridor. Mina had tried to prepare the constable by describing the Blacksmith’s appearance, but she supposed preparation was impossible—just as most people who’d been told about her mother’s eyes still reacted with shock when they saw her.

The Blacksmith had the same silver eyes, but the modification hadn’t stopped there. Every inch of skin not covered by his shirtsleeves and brown trousers was the pale gray of mechanical flesh, shaped to mimic human features. The effect, Mina had to admit, was uncanny. With steel prosthetics, the difference between the human parts and the machine was obvious. Even prosthetics made of mechanical flesh, sculpted to match the person’s natural limbs in everything but color, didn’t generate a shiver of unease on the first glance. But when it was the face—the
whole
face—something beyond the hairless gray skin seemed wrong, even if Mina couldn’t have pointed to a feature that didn’t look and move as it should. Perhaps it was simply not knowing whether the face that the Blacksmith owned was his. Had he modeled the broad forehead and high cheekbones on his natural features, or did they serve a different function?

That unsettling effect was compounded by his appearance denying any attempt to place him—and Mina thought that most disturbed anyone first meeting him. He could have been an American native or the Horde, or from the islands in the South Seas. He could have had Liberé blood, descended from the Africans who’d managed to flee the Horde on French ships, mixed with European or the few Russians who’d escaped to the New World, instead of running north to the Scandinavian countries.

But although the Blacksmith’s lineage was impossible to guess, his origins weren’t. Mina had once met a man from Australia—the Japanese districts in the north, rather than the southern territories that teemed with smugglers—and she thought the Blacksmith’s accent resembled his.

To her surprise, he and the duke clasped forearms in greeting, as if no formality existed between them. That impression was strengthened when the Blacksmith simply said, “Trahaearn.”

“Blacksmith,” the duke replied, dashing Mina’s hope that she might learn his real name.

Maybe he didn’t have one, however. Many children raised in the Horde’s crèches weren’t given family names. Most named themselves, as Trahaearn probably had, or made their occupation a surname. Perhaps “blacksmith”
was
his only identity.

“Inspector.” The Blacksmith looked to Mina before his mirrored gaze settled on Newberry. “You share the same nanoagents.”

“My father’s,” Mina said. “He infected us both.”

“Yes, I recognize them. He assisted me during your mother’s operation. He’s a skilled physician.”

Mina would make a point to repeat that to her father later. “Yes.”

The Blacksmith nodded and approached Newberry, taking the heavy ice box from him. The bugs made everyone strong; even Mina could have carried it braced against her chest. The Blacksmith tucked it under his arm like a pillow.

To Mina’s disappointment, he led them into an office, not a laboratory. Still, she had plenty to look at while he set the chest on a desk. A tall armored suit stood in the corner, less clunky than the Royal Marines’ steelcoats, too small for the Blacksmith to wear—and probably far too heavy for anyone to walk in without a boiler to operate the limbs. A curious device sat on a shelf: a smooth, foot-long spike atop a solid cube. It didn’t seem to have any moveable parts, but it might have been a puzzle bank, which unfolded and reshaped itself when the right combination was dialed in. Next to it lay a half-constructed model of a kraken, its tentacles made of mechanical flesh—and a dull gray, obviously lacking electrical input.

In humans, that input came from the nervous system and was delivered by the bugs. Without electrical impulses to power it, however, the mechanical flesh remained as immovable as a metal slab.

At the desk, the Blacksmith lifted the arm from the ice chest. His frown creased the smooth gray skin around his mouth. “The nanoagents are dead.”

“So is he,” Trahaearn said.

“Yes. But there should be residual activity.” He reached for a battery of Kleistian jars and connected the nodes to the ragged end of the shoulder, where wires blended into flesh. A spark arced between the contact points. The Blacksmith’s frown deepened. “How long was he dead?”

“I don’t know,” Mina told him. “He was frozen.”

He scooped the brain out of the ice, holding it cupped in his palms. The intense focus of his silvery eyes reminded Mina of her mother’s—looking at the brain on a scale few humans would ever see. So small were the nanoagents that Mina couldn’t hope to observe them, even with a microscope.

But the Blacksmith saw more than her mother did. He could detect and interpret the last electrical signals the nanoagents had received from the visual regions of the brain, seeing the final images that the dead man had seen.

Mina didn’t think that he was seeing them now, however. A line had formed between his brows, as if he were baffled.

He glanced at her. “What was the state of the body?”

“Frozen, but mostly uninjured. Some trauma from the fall from the airship. If he’d been injured before his death, the impact destroyed the evidence.”

Shaking his head, the Blacksmith slid the brain back into the box. “The nanoagents are dead,” he repeated.

Mina didn’t understand. “Like a battery will fail?”

“No. Even completely drained, they should have responded to the electrical impulse. They didn’t.”

“Have they been utterly destroyed?” She didn’t even know what the bugs
looked
like; she could hardly imagine them broken. “Did they shatter in the fall?”

“They haven’t been physically destroyed. All of their components are in order, but they’ve stopped functioning. They’re inert.”

All right.
She’d accept that, and move on. “Would that kill a man?”

“Yes. Immediately, if they were all deactivated. If only some were destroyed, he might recover, but the dead nanoagents would act as poison in his system. He’d probably contract bug fever as the remaining nanoagents tried to heal him—and possibly die of the fever.” The Blacksmith paused, examining the arm and brain again. “All of this man’s are dead.”

“What could kill the bugs? A signal that could turn them off—like disconnecting a wire?” Mina gestured to his battery of Kleistian jars.

The Blacksmith looked at her, and she saw her uneasiness mirrored in his eyes. “No. There is no ‘off.’ Not as long as the host is alive.”

Trahaearn stepped closer to the desk. “Do you know what could do this?”

“No.”

Then they desperately needed to know where this man had come from. “Do you know who it is?”

“Yes.” The Blacksmith looked to Trahaearn, who seemed to still—as if a message had passed between them.

Trahaearn’s face hardened. “Who?”

The Blacksmith glanced at Mina.

Interpreting that look as well, Trahaearn said, “You can tell her.”

You’ll damn well tell me.
Mina held her tongue with difficulty.

“It’s Baxter’s grandson.”

Baxter?
Mina looked at him blankly. The name meant something. But
what
?

It meant something to the Iron Duke, too. After a moment of absolute stillness, he turned and strode for the door.

Oh, blast.
Whoever it was, he was going after them.

Mina hurried into the corridor, calling behind, “Newberry, please collect the parts and find us!”

Trahaearn hadn’t slowed. Running, Mina finally caught up at the stairs. “Your Grace? What does the name mean to you?”

Without even looking at her, he started down the stairs. Cursing, Mina followed, jogging to keep up with his long stride as he reached the ground floor and strode into the street, trying desperately to recall why the name seemed so familiar.
Baxter, Baxter
. . .

Oh, blue heavens.
The captain who had conscripted the Iron Duke from a slave ship’s crew into the navy had been a Baxter. He was an admiral now . . . whose grandson, Roger Haynes, captained the most famous ship in the Royal Navy:
Marco’s Terror
.

Mina’s heart almost lurched out of her chest. Her head swam, and she slowed, dizzy.

And her only hope of knowing what had happened to him was still walking away. She caught up to Trahaearn again as he passed the Hammer & Chain.

“Was that Roger Haynes? Did that man come off of
Marco’s Terror
?”

He didn’t stop. Damn him. Mina tugged at his coat sleeve, then pulled harder when he didn’t acknowledge her.

“Trahaearn!
Was that Haynes?
”

The duke paused, looked down at her. Deliberately, he gripped her shoulders and steered her back against the pub’s brick wall, holding her there for a long second. As if satisfied, he let her go and walked away.

Mina shook her head in disbelief. Did he think she would remain here, as if magnetized to the building?

Farther along the Narrow, the steamcoach driver left his bench and opened the carriage door. Newberry’s cart would never catch up to that vehicle, but Mina would leap onto the back and hang on through the streets, if necessary. She waited for a drunk leaving the pub to stagger past her, preparing to sprint for the coach.