Lilith Saintcrow - The Red Plague Affair

“Alive?”

He did not realise he had spoken aloud until someone wearily laughed, a disbelieving sound. It was Miss Bannon, ragged in a smoke-scored black dress, her hair a loose glory of dark curls falling past her shoulders, tangling to her waist. The hair seemed to have drained its bearer of all strength, for she was wan and hollow-cheeked, the dark circles under her eyes almost painted in their intensity.

Her little fingers were cool against his. Emma picked up his hand, squeezing with surprising strength. “Quite. I worried for you, Clare, but the worst is past.”

We do not know that. He let out a long sigh. “Ludo?”

“Mending. Swearing at everyone in sight. Londinium is still plagued. It is rather desperate outside, dear Clare, so if you have any news… Dr Vance was quite of the opinion that you have solved the riddle?”

His hand, at his trouser pocket. “The cure – the cure . In his pocket. A glass vial…”

She actually paled, though he could not see how she could achieve such a feat without becoming utterly transparent. “He… Clare, his body was taken by the corpse-pickers two days ago.”

“Ah.” Clare coughed, more out of habit than anything else. His throat was dry, and Miss Bannon helped to lift him, held a glass to his lips. A wonderfully sweet draught of something tang-laden and cool eased his throat.

Water had never tasted so good.

She settled him back on the pillow. “I can perhaps find his body with a sympathy. It will be—”

“No.” Clare felt the smile tilting the corners of his lips. All in all, he had to admit, he felt very fine, considering. A wonderful lassitude had overtaken him, but within it was a feeling of well-being he could not remember ever having before. Perhaps it was simply in comparison to the nastiness of Morris’s plague. “I am not a fool, dear Emma. Well, I am in some matters, but not when it comes to Vance. There are extra vials of the cure – they are labelled quite clearly – in the pockets of my jacket, in the workroom.” He paused. “Dead, you say? You are quite sure?”

“Dead of the plague.” She sounded certain enough, settling back into the chair.

He closed his eyes, briefly. “Shame. A damned shame.”

“Well.” The single word expressed that she perhaps did not agree, but that she would not argue. Dashed polite of the woman, he thought, a trifle fondly. “The vials hold a cure?”

“And the method for making more is noted quite clearly. I made four copies; one should be in the pockets as well. There is a certain physician – Tarshingale, at King’s. He will not only believe, but has the resources to see the cure performed, and can spread the formula and method of manufacture as widely as possible.”

“I am told it must be introduced under the skin? Vance mentioned as much, before he…”

“Yes. There are many methods… I say, Miss Bannon, are you quite certain? Of his… demise?”

“Very much so, Clare.” There was a rustle as she stood. “I shall search your workroom, then, and the matter of disseminating the cure is easy enough. You have done very well, sir.”

He nodded, a yawn fit to crack his jaw rising from the depths of his chest. His heart thudded along, sedately observing its beat. Though his ribs seemed a trifle heavy, didn’t they? A warmth quite unlike anything he had felt before, but perhaps it was merely a…

Miss Bannon breathed a word, the exact contours of which he could not remember as soon as they left the quivering air, and Clare fell into a dreamless, restorative slumber.

Tarshingale was easily found, and explanations given; the man’s gaze was quite disconcerting and he had given her short shrift until Clare’s name was mentioned and the vials and notations – which might as well have been in some tongue of the Indus for all she could make sense of them, though she had prudently retained a copy – shown. She left the man in his bespattered coat with instructions on how to gain admittance to the Palace; no doubt the cure would be administered to Alberich very soon.

If he was not already dead. She had not bothered to check the broadsheets. She told herself it did not matter now.

King’s Hospital, bursting at the seams with victims of the Red crammed four to a bed, was also full of moaning and screaming. It reminded her uncomfortably of the one time she had ever braved the halls of Bethlehem Hospital; the cries of Bedlam held an edge of misery this place lacked, though it was a very close-run race indeed. At least the very bricks of King’s were not warped as Bedlam’s were.

Harthell and Mikal had stayed with the carriage, both were armed with a brace of pistols as well, though the coachman would be of little use except to frighten away the jackals who would prey when the city’s forces of order were occupied with other matters.

Besides, she had taken care not to be alone with Mikal since Clare’s… cure.

The exhaustion was all through her. She had forgotten how weary flesh could become without the bolstering of a wyrm’s heart, the Philosopher’s Stone granting all manner of immunities.

Even a Prime’s strength had limits.

Still, her head came up as her fingers touched Mikal’s. Instead of stepping up into her carriage, she dropped his hand and turned swiftly, as if stung, twitching her skirts back and sweeping her hair from her face.

“Penny, madam?” the shambling man asked, querulous, and Mikal moved forward – and halted as her hand, clothed in the tattered rags of a black lace glove, caught his sleeve. “Penny for a poor man? Ha’pence? Farthing?”

The importunate sir was dressed in stinking oddments as well, and under his soft slouching hat the gleam of his changeable eyes was sunken. He had shaved his fair moustache and was far thinner than he had been the first time she had seen him. He halted, and the ghost of amusement on his filthy, crusted mouth was almost too much to be borne.

“Dr Vance.” She shook her head, once, sadly. “You rather hoped I would throw your corpse out.”

“No other way to leave your tender care, my dear.” He had a tin cup with a few thin farthings in it; he shook it and the coins rattled. “We have business, you and I.”

She should, she supposed, evince some surprise, but it was useless. “Indeed we have. Pray do enter the carriage, sir. We may at least speak privately there.”

He stretched out his legs. Harthell cracked the whip, and Mikal, settled watchfully next to Emma, was tense as a wound clockspring.

As badly as the resurrected criminal’s clothes were tattered, he did not smell . Which was either an oversight to his costume, a mark of his fastidiousness… or the sweetstink of Londinium roasting under the Red had deadened Emma’s nose.

“You introduced the cure under your skin in some manner while I was occupied with Clare.” She nodded, once, slowly. “You must have been very amused at my questions about that method of applying said cure.”

“I expected no less than brilliance from you, my dear, which you have amply demonstrated. I shall be on my way, soon, to sell the lovely cure I helped create at a high price before it becomes common. Profit does not linger.”

The missing canisters are in your hands . She was suddenly quite certain of that, though she could not tell if it was intuition or simple logic. But you had no choice but to work for a cure once you were trapped in my house. Interesting. “Nor does vengeance.”

“I rather suspected you would feel so, yes.” He tipped the slouching hat back with one soot-blackened fingertip. “You do not strike me as a forgiving woman.”

I have never been. Least of all to myself. “The thought of striking you dead at this very moment amuses me mightily. Why should I not?”