Amanda Quick: Quicksilver

“Damn it to hell,” he said. But he said it very softly. “Very well, Mrs. Brent, show her in here, if you would.”

“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Brent started to retreat into the hall.

“But I warn you that it will be worth your position in this household if you bring in a tea tray,” Owen vowed. “I do not want to give my aunt any excuse to hang about here.”

Mrs. Brent’s mouth twitched in amusement, but she kept her professional composure. “Yes, sir.”

“I heard that,” Aurelia Sweetwater announced. She swept into the library, elegantly regal in a dark purple gown. Her gray hair was caught up in a towering chignon and crowned with a feather-trimmed hat that matched the dress. Her street-sweeper petticoats rustled ominously on the carpet. “As it happens, I do not have time for tea today, but that is beside the point.”

“Good morning, Aunt Aurelia,” Owen said. He left the table and crossed the carpet to give her an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “You are looking in excellent spirits today. A bit early, is it not? What brings you here at this hour?”

“You know perfectly well why I was forced to call on you at this ungodly hour of the morning. It is the only time I can hope to find you at home. You have been avoiding me, Owen.”

“Not at all. I have been busy of late. New client, you know.”

“I am aware that the family has taken on Arcane as a client. I’m not certain that is a wise move, but we shall see.”

“Arcane is changing,” Owen said. “Under the new Master, it has assumed new responsibilities. It seems the Joneses feel an obligation to protect the public from the monsters.”

Aurelia raised her brows. A thoughtful expression crossed her face. “If that is true, then we will likely be seeing a great deal of business from J & J in the years ahead.”

Owen angled himself on the corner of his desk. “Precisely. There is never a shortage of monsters to hunt.”

Aurelia smiled. So did Owen. It was a moment of silent, familial communication and mutual understanding that only another Sweetwater would comprehend. The men of the Sweetwater family were compelled to hunt the monsters. It was the nature of their talent. But they had long ago concluded that it made excellent financial sense to have a client pay for the work whenever possible.

Aurelia stopped smiling. “As it happens, I came here today to discuss Arcane with you.”

“What about it?”

“It seems the Society is now offering a matrimonial consulting service that specializes in introducing people of talent to each other.”

It took him a split second to realize where the conversation was going. When the full horror of it struck home, he came off the corner of the desk very suddenly.

“Do not even think about registering me with the Society’s matchmaking agency, Aunt Aurelia,” he said.

“Oh, I cannot do the registering for you.” She waved that aside, unfazed by his dark mood. “You would have to take care of the details yourself.”

“I am not about to employ a matchmaker.”

“My understanding is that Lady Milden, who operates the agency, has a true gift for matching people endowed with strong psychical natures. She has a number of resources to draw on, including Arcane’s extensive genealogical records.”

“Forget it.” He went to the window and stood looking out at the rain-dampened garden. “I am not interested in that approach.”

“Why not?”

“Sweetwaters find their own women.”

“Except when they don’t,” Aurelia said. She spoke quietly, but the words were heavy with meaning. “We both know what happens when a Sweetwater man goes too long without a true mate.”

He did not respond. There was no need.

“You have begun the nightwalking, haven’t you?” Aurelia said quietly.

A cold chill iced the nape of his neck. The Sweetwaters were very good at keeping secrets from outsiders, but it was damned difficult to keep a secret within the family.

“I have always hunted at night,” he said, trying to claw his way out of the trap. “Everyone in the family knows that. It’s the nature of my version of the family talent. I see the evidence of the monsters more clearly after dark.”

“What everyone in the family knows, ” Aurelia said, “is that you are spending more and more time on the streets late at night. It is one thing to troll for monsters occasionally. In this family, that passes for sport, rather like fishing. But it is quite another to go out alone night after night, searching for your prey. That way lies madness for a Sweetwater man.”

“I am not hunting at night for the sport of it. I have a particular client, J & J, and I have a specific target, a psychical maniac who is murdering glasslight-talents.”

“I realize that you have recently acquired a client, but that is only a short-term diversion. It will not change what is happening to you. Owen, your parents and the rest of the family are starting to worry. If you do not find the right woman soon, you will become a nightwalker.”

“What makes you think Lady Milden can find me a match?”

“I am told she is very skilled at what she does. What do you have to lose?”

“Time,” he said. “Time that I can spend searching for my own true mate.”

“You said yourself this is the modern era. You should take advantage of modern, more efficient ways of doing things.”

“I’ll consider it,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“I will take that as a promise.”

He swung around. “Damn it, Aunt Aurelia.”

“I will ignore the bad language this one time, because I am aware that you are under considerable stress.” She went toward the door. “You have wasted too much time already. You must not wait any longer, Owen. Your family does not want to lose you to the night.”

Ido not usually report to clients until the job is finished,” Owen Sweetwater said.

Caleb angled his chin in acknowledgment of the great favor that Sweetwater appeared to think he was granting to Jones & Jones. In the few months that he and Lucinda had been doing business at the agency, they had discovered that the only people more troublesome than the clients were the powerful and unpredictable talents the firm was obliged to hire in order to conduct the investigations.

“We appreciate that you are making an exception for us,” Caleb said.

His cousin Gabe, the Master of the Society, studied Sweetwater with a considering expression.

“You came highly recommended, Mr. Sweetwater, but please understand that this sort of business is new to us,” Gabe said.

The three of them were standing in an abandoned warehouse near the docks. Sweetwater had chosen the location for the meeting, just as he had selected the location the first time, when Caleb had contacted him about the possibility of employment. It had become clear immediately that when one engaged the services of the Sweetwater clan, one accepted the arrangements stipulated by the particular Sweetwater with whom one was dealing.

At the first meeting Caleb had been convinced that Owen Sweetwater was a hunter-talent of some sort but not the traditional variety. The psychical abilities of the average hunter tended to be of a more physical nature. Such talents were usually endowed with preternatural reflexes, speed, hearing and night vision. They hunted by detecting the psychical spoor of their prey.

Owen Sweetwater moved with a predatory ease and control that put one in mind of a hunter, but Caleb had grown up in a family that boasted a number of hunters sprinkled throughout the bloodline. He knew true hunters, and he was quite certain that whatever Sweetwater was, he was not a traditional hunter-talent.