Lilith Saintcrow - The Iron Wyrm Affair

He had almost certainly suspected what had happened in Crawford’s round room, and further suspected that Emma would be vulnerable. He was far too dangerous to possess knowledge of a weakness of that magnitude.

It is well that he is dead, and we have business with the living . She returned to herself, shaking her head slightly. The alley was piled with refuse, and if not for the air-clearing charm every Londinium sorcerer with any talent learned early and used religiously, it would be easily ripe enough to turn her stomach. The cobbles underfoot were coated with slick foulness, and she edged forward cautiously.

There . She caught sight of a gleam – a copper disc and a broken ribbon, tossed aside as soon as it was used. Oh, you idiot, whoever you are. Bless your stupidity, for you have given me an opening .

Here in the sunlight, without a single Shield, she would have to use all appropriate caution. She picked her way over the slimy stones, keeping her breathing even with an effort. Sarpesson Street was quieter at this hour, but traffic still rumbled past, whipcracks and clockwork sparks echoing oddly in the alley’s choked confines.

He came down there, triggered the protection, flung it away. Hard to see in the dark, and hoping the refuse would cover it. Then … where would he go?

She bent, her stays digging briefly even though she was only loosely corseted – there was fashion and there was idiocy, and while she was vain enough to love the former, she was not willing to indulge the latter. A stray shaft of weak sunlight pierced the alley’s roof, buildings sloping together alarmingly overhead, and even that was enough to jab at her sensitised eyes.

Blast and bother . She tweezed the ribbon carefully between gloved fingers and slowly straightened, holding the protection disc stiff-armed away from her body as it glowed dully. The charm had been well made, even though its physical matrix was flimsy and disposable. It was at the very least the work of a Master Sorcerer, and as she examined it more closely, Emma realised it was familiar.

She breathed a term a respectable lady would faint upon hearing, then cast a squinting glance over her shoulder as if someone might witness her lapse. No, the alley was deserted. So why the sudden sense of being observed, lifting the fine hairs on her nape and tingling down her spine under the drab brown velvet?

Proceed very carefully indeed, Emma. He is bound to guess you will show up at his door, unless you are dead .

And Konstantin Serafimovitch Gippius would not trust a rumour of Emma Bannon’s demise until he could see her mutilated body.

Perhaps not even then.

Even this early in the day, Whitchapel seethed with a crush of stinking humanity – ragpickers, pickpockets, loiterers, day labourers, streetmerchants, hevvymancers and drays, public houses doing a brisk trade in cups of gin and tankers of beer, washerwomen and ragged drabs, stray sparks and flicks of charm and sorcery crackling along the filthy street. Pawnbrokers’ coloured signs flashed with catchcharms, their infrequent windows glowing with lightfinger wards and their doors reinforced. Clockhorses strained and whinnied, shouts and cries echoed, and the entire squeezing, throbbing mass teemed not only with the living but the vaporous dead. Ragged children darted through the crowd; at the corner of Dray Street and Sephrin a cart carrying a load of barrels lay sideways, a man lying groaning, half crushed under one side and the onlookers jostling to get a better view as a gang of labourers – not a hevvymancer in sight – struggled to heave the cart away. Clockwork horses screamed, their gears grating and sorcerous energy spilling dangerously uncontrolled.

It would have taken mere moments to restore some order, but any disturbance of the æther here would warn her quarry.

The carter will be dead within a quarter-hour anyway , she told herself sternly as she threaded through the crowd, the cameo at her throat warming as thin filaments of glamour turned her into anything other than a respectable woman sliding into Whitchapel. The greater good of all demands I do not become distracted here .

Still, the screams and moans rang in her ears as she turned on Thrawl, slowing as a press of human flesh choked about her. A pickmancer’s nimble fingers brushed for her skirt pocket, but her sardonyx ring sparked and the touch was hurriedly drawn back. A raddled drab, her ruined face turned up to the morning light and runnelled with decaying powder, sang nonsense in a cracked unlovely alto, while a mob of flashboys whooped near the low sooty entrance of the Cross and Spaulders, their draggled finery sparking slightly with sartorial charms. Alterations gleamed – any flashboy worth the name would have an amendment, the more visible the better. One had a blackened clockwork hand that spat sparks from its hooked fingers, another a green-glass eye rolling in an exposed, bony socket. Cheap work, that, but this was Whitchapel.

Everything was cheap here. Including human life.

Already the sky was hazed – not nearly enough; the light speared through her skull. This would be so much easier after dusk.

It would be easier for Gippius too. So Emma blinked furiously, did not lift her handkerchief to her nose, and kept the subtle threads of glamour blending together. Some few of the slightly sorcerous on the street glanced at her once or twice, but she was Prime and they were merely sparks. They would not see what she truly was unless she willed it.

A venous network of alleys had grown around Thrawl, slumping tenements festooned with sagging laundry hung on lines despite the coal dust, refuse packed into corners. Children screamed and ran about, playing some game that made sense only to them, the slurring drawl of the Eastron End already evident in their joyous accents. Malnourished but agile, they were more problematic than the adults – sometimes a child’s gaze would pierce a glamour where even an Adept’s could not.

She found the rat’s nest of alleyways she was looking for, and plunged into welcome gloom. Some doors hung ajar, shadows flitting through them; a colourless vapour of gin and hopelessness rose. A baby cried, wheedling and insistent, somewhere in the depths of a building. A man crouched on a low step in front of a battered, dispirited wooden door. Muffled cries were heard from inside, and the man’s eyes followed Emma’s shadow as he peeled his nails with a short, wicked knife, taking care to palm the filthy clippings up to his mouth as an insurance against charming.

At the far end of the alley the abortionist’s door, studded with iron nails, grimaced. Emma braced herself and strode for it, her boots slipping a little against the crust coating the alley floor. No wonder Gippius had sunk into this quarter of the city – few constables would brave this hole.

Few sorcerers would, even.

Invisible strings quivered under the surface of the visible. The cameo warmed at her throat, and the ætheric protections in Gippius’s walls resonated slightly.

That is not a good sign . The door had no knob; she simply focused – and stepped through, a shivering curtain of glamour sparking and fizzing as her will shunted the river of charm and charter aside.

Gippius was quick and deadly, but he was not native. In his country, she would be the sorcerous stranger, and the resultant struggle might have had a different outcome. As it was, she flung out a hand, the Cossack who did a Shield’s duty for Konstantin stumbled back into a mound of clothing waiting for the ragpickers, and Emma’s other gloved hand made a curious tracing motion as she spoke a minor Word. Witchlight flared, and Konstantin Gippius stumbled back, clutching at his throat. A single line of chant, low and vicious, poured from Emma’s mouth, a fierce hurtful thrill of sorcery spilling through her, and the Cossack shrieked as ætheric bonds snapped into place over him.