He was not the first so-called investigator to attempt to label all practitioners as frauds. But she had privately begun to wonder if, in his zeal, Sweetwater had decided to take matters a step further. Two glass-readers—women with talents similar to her own—had died under mysterious circumstances in the past two months. The authorities had declared the deaths accidental, but she had her doubts.
Perhaps Owen Sweetwater had taken it upon himself to do more than try to destroy careers. Perhaps, in addition to acting as judge and jury, he had assumed the role of executioner. There was something in his eyes, in the energy around him, that told her his nature was that of the hunter and that his chosen prey would be human.
Sweetwater was certainly no friend or ally, but all indications were that he did not intend to kill her, at least not here and now. Going with him seemed a wiser choice than attempting to find a route to safety on her own. She did not even know where she was.
They went through the doorway. Owen paused long enough to light a lantern that he had evidently left on the other side of the entrance. The flaring light illuminated an ancient corridor fashioned of stone.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“In a basement below the grounds of the Hollister mansion,” Owen said. “The house was built on the ruins of a medieval abbey. There is a warren of tunnels and cells down here. The place is a maze.”
“How did you find me?”
“You probably don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“I insist on knowing how you found me, sir.”
“I have had two people watching your house from an empty house across the street for the past few nights.”
For a moment she was too stunned to speak.
“How dare you,” she finally managed.
“I told you that you would not like the answer. When you set off tonight for a reading, my watchers thought nothing of it. You go out several nights a week to practice your art. But when you did not return in a reasonable length of time, the watchers sent word to me. I went to your town house and asked your housekeeper for the address of your client.”
“Mrs. Crofton told you that I came here to do a reading?”
“She was concerned that you had not returned. When I arrived on the grounds of the Hollister estate I knew at once that something was very wrong.”
“Your talent told you as much?” she asked, deeply wary.
“I’m afraid so.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say that you are not the first woman to disappear into these tunnels. The difference between you and the rest of Hollister’s victims is that you are alive.”
“Dear heaven.” She took a moment to grasp the meaning of what he had said. “You detect violent death?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Explain yourself, sir.”
“Trust me, you are better off not knowing.”
“It’s a bit late to concern yourself with my delicate sensibilities,” she snapped. “I just woke up in a bed with a high-ranking gentleman who was recently stabbed to death.”
“Your nerves are obviously quite sturdy. Nevertheless, this is not the time or place to discuss the nature of my talent.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
“We have more pressing priorities at the moment. I would remind you that if you did not stab Hollister to death, then it follows that someone else did. That individual may still be in the vicinity.”
She swallowed hard. “Right, then. I’ll save the questions for later.”
“A wise decision,” Owen said.
He stopped so suddenly that Virginia stumbled against him. He did not seem to be aware of the impact. He raised the lantern and held it so that the yellow glare lit the passageway to the right.
“Do you feel some energy?” he asked in low tones.
A strange flicker of icy awareness brushed Virginia’s senses.
“Yes,” she said.
The sensation grew stronger. It was accompanied by a rhythmic clank-and-thud.
A miniature carriage rolled toward them out of the darkness. When it came into the light Virginia saw that it was drawn by two clockwork horses. The toy vehicle stood about a foot tall. The equipage was a work of art, not a child’s plaything. Every detail was exquisitely rendered. The cab was finished in gleaming black enamel and elaborately gilded. Small windows glinted in the lantern light. The horses were realistically sculpted, complete with flowing black manes and tails. Their harness fittings were trimmed with gold.
“Why would someone leave such an expensive toy down here?” Virginia asked.
Owen took her arm again and drew her back a step. “That thing is no toy.”
She could not take her eyes off the carriage. It fascinated her.
“What, then?” she asked.
“Damned if I know.”
Another wave of chilling energy feathered her senses.
“I can sense the power in the device,” she said. “It’s glasslight, the same kind of energy that I read in mirrors. But only humans can generate psychical energy. How is that carriage doing it?”
“We are not going to investigate.” Owen hauled her around a corner, out of the direct path of the clockwork carriage. “We must keep the wall between us and that device, whatever it is. Stone blocks psychical currents.”
A faint, frightened voice came out of the dark passageway behind the carriage.
“Is there someone out there? Please help me.”
Owen stilled. “Damn,” he said, very softly. “One complication after another.”
Virginia turned back toward the intersection of the hallways.
“Who’s there?” she called in a low voice.
“My name is Becky, ma’am. Help me, I beg you. I can’t get out. It’s very dark here. There are bars on the door.”
“Another one of Hollister’s victims,” Owen said.
Virginia glanced at him. “We must do something.”
“We can’t get to her unless we can get past that clockwork mechanism.”
“It is producing my kind of energy,” she said. “I might be able to control it.”
“Are you certain?”
“I must try. Let me take a look.”
Owen’s fingers closed like a manacle around her wrist. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of my hand. Understand?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, impatient now. “I need some light.”
He held the lantern out and aloft so that it partially illuminated the intersecting corridor.
The clank-and-thud noise had ceased. Virginia risked a peek around the corner.
In the flaring light the windows of the miniature vehicle glinted ominously. As though sensing prey, the automaton lurched forward again.
“Interesting,” Owen said, listening. “It seems to be activated by movement. Since it is a psychical device of some sort, it is probably reacting to our auras.”
“Yes, I think so.” She pulled back out of range of the carriage and flattened herself against the stone wall. “The energy is infused into the windows. I cannot be absolutely positive until I try, but I believe I may be able to neutralize the currents, at least temporarily.”
In the adjoining corridor the clank-and-thud noise ceased again.
“It definitely reacts to motion,” Owen said. “If you can neutralize it long enough for me to get to it, I may be able to smash it or disable it. If it is a true clockwork mechanism, there will be a key.”
“Are you still there, ma’am?” Becky called from the darkness. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“Coming, Becky,” Virginia said. She worked to keep her tone calm and reassuring. “We’ll just be a moment.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Please hurry. I’m so scared.”
“Everything is under control, Becky,” Virginia said.
Owen tightened his grip on her wrist. “Give it a try. If it feels as though you are being overcome, I will pull you back out of range.”
“That sounds like a reasonable plan.”
She gathered her nerves, heightened her talent and stepped cautiously around the corner. Owen angled the light so that it fell on the motionless carriage.
There was a brief, tense silence before the dark windows of the miniature vehicle started to glitter as though illuminated from inside the cab. Virginia sensed energy pulsing once more in the atmosphere. The mechanical horses started forward. The wheels of the carriage began to turn. The device was much closer to her now, only a few feet away.
Without warning, currents of senses-freezing energy lashed at her. Although she thought she was prepared, she nevertheless flinched at the impact.
Owen tightened his grip. She knew he was preparing to pull her around the corner and out of reach of the carriage weapon.
“It’s all right,” she managed. “I can handle this.”
Ignoring the freezing wave of energy, she found a focus the same way she did when she looked deep into a mirror. She established a counterpoint pattern, dampening the oscillating waves of power coming from the device. The effect was swift, almost immediate. The currents smoothed out rapidly. The carriage continued to roll forward, driven by the clockwork mechanism.
“It’s done,” Virginia said. She did not dare look away from the carriage. “Do what you must. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to maintain control.”
One could draw on one’s psychical reserves for only so long when employing them to the maximum degree, as she was doing now.
Owen did not waste time asking questions. He released her and moved swiftly around the corner into the passageway, where she stood facing the device. He used one booted foot to tip the entire miniature equipage onto its side. The legs of the horses continued to thrash rhythmically but uselessly in the air.
Virginia became aware of a muffled ticktock, ticktock. “Sounds like a clock.”
Owen crouched beside the weapon. “There must be a way to open this thing.”
He stripped off a glove and ran his fingertips lightly over the elegant curiosity.
“I thought you were going to smash it,” Virginia said.
“I’d rather preserve it intact, if possible. I want to study it. To my knowledge, no one has ever succeeded in infusing energy into an inanimate substance like glass in such a way that the currents could be activated by mechanical means. This device is really quite extraordinary.”
“Perhaps you could conduct your examination another time?” she suggested icily. “I cannot maintain control indefinitely.”
“Are you still out there, ma’am?” Becky called plaintively.
“We’re here, Becky,” Virginia responded. “Mr. Sweetwater, if you don’t mind?”
“Got it,” Owen said.
His fingers moved on the roof of the carriage. The top swung open on small hinges. He reached into the cab. A few seconds later the ticking ceased. The currents of energy that Virginia had been holding in neutral winked out of existence. Cautiously, she relaxed her senses. There was no more energy coming from the toy’s windows.
“A standard clockwork mechanism.” Owen got to his feet. “One stops the carriage just as one would a clock. Come, let’s find that girl.”
Virginia was already in motion. She went past a row of ancient dark cells, the lantern held high.
“Becky?” she called. “Where are you?”
“Damn it,” Owen muttered. He moved quickly to catch up with her. “Have a care, Virginia. There may be other traps.”
She was vaguely aware that he had used her first name as though they were longtime friends rather than near strangers, but she paid no attention. She stopped in front of a heavy wood-and-iron door. A small opening in the door was blocked by bars. A terrified young woman of no more than fourteen or fifteen years looked out, fingers gripping the iron rods. Her eyes were hollow with fear and tears.
“Are you badly hurt?” Virginia asked.
“No, ma’am. But it’s a good thing you came along when you did. There’s no telling what would have happened to me.”
Owen took out his lock pick. “I’ll have you out of there in a moment.”
“What occurred here?” Virginia asked gently.
Becky hesitated. “I don’t remember too much, ma’am. I was at my usual corner outside the tavern. A fine carriage stopped. A handsome gentleman inside leaned out and said he thought that I was very pretty. Said he’d pay me twice my usual fee. I got into the carriage, and that is the last thing that I recall until I woke up in this dreadful place. I called and called for the longest time, but no one ever answered. I gave up. Then I heard you and your gentleman friend.”
Owen got the door open and stood back. “Come along, Becky. We’ve wasted enough time here.”
Becky hurried out of the cell. “Thank you, sir.”
Owen did not respond. He was looking at the stone floor. Virginia felt dark energy shift in the atmosphere and knew that he had raised his talent, whatever it was.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I believe this may have been where Hollister encountered the person who planted that knife in his chest.”
He kept his voice very low, but Virginia knew that Becky was not paying any attention. The girl was wholly focused on getting out of the stone tunnel.
“You can see that sort of thing?” Virginia asked.
“I can see where the killer stood when she did the deed,” Owen said.
“A woman killed him?”
“Yes. What is more, she was mad as a hatter.”
“Dear heaven. Lady Hollister.”
TWO
It occurred to Owen that he had no right to be offended by Virginia’s deeply wary attitude. After all, he was a Sweetwater. As a rule, women were either fascinated or repelled by the men of his family. There was rarely any middle ground. But regardless of which group they fell into, women intuitively considered Sweetwater men dangerous. According to his Aunt Marian, an aura-talent, something about the auras of the Sweetwater males made sensible people—male and female, talented and untalented alike—uneasy.
Nevertheless, romantic fool that he was, Virginia’s edgy suspicion had blindsided him. He was chagrined to realize that he actually felt rather crushed. It was his own fault for employing poor tactics, he thought. In hindsight, establishing himself as a psychical investigator who specialized in exposing fraudulent practitioners had been a mistake. But he had not been able to think of any other way to gain entrée into the tightly knit community of practitioners affiliated with the Leybrook Institute.
There would be time enough to ponder his blunder later, he told himself. He now had two females to escort to safety.
He picked up the clockwork carriage and tucked it under one arm. The small horses dangled in their harnesses.
“Miss Dean, if you would take the lantern,” he said.
“I have it,” she said, hoisting the lantern.
He looked at both women. “Stay close.” He started forward. “We will leave this place the same way I entered, through the old drying shed. There is a carriage waiting nearby.”
He heard a small muffled sound behind him. The lantern light flared wildly on the stone walls.
“Are you all right, Miss Dean?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” she said coolly. “I stumbled on one of the floor stones. They are very uneven, and the lighting is quite poor down here.”
In spite of his ill-tempered mood, he smiled a little to himself. Virginia Dean was living up to his expectations. It would take more than a bloody corpse and an encounter with a deadly clockwork curiosity to shatter her nerves.
Not that he had anticipated weak nerves from her. He had known from the beginning that she was a formidable lady infused with determination and a strong spirit. She was also a woman of considerable talent. He had never doubted that, unlike the talents of so many of her colleagues at the Institute, her gifts were genuine. There was an exhilarating energy i
n the atmosphere around her—at least he found it exhilarating.
In his experience, the vast majority of her competitors and colleagues were outright frauds. The best that could be said of most of them was that they were entertainers who, like magicians and illusionists, had perfected showy tricks based on sleight of hand. At worst, they were villains who deliberately deceived and exploited the gullible.
But Virginia Dean was different. He had been transfixed by her from the first moment he saw her. That had been a week ago, when he had stood at the back of a small group of Arcane researchers gathered in Lady Pomeroy’s elegant drawing room and watched Virginia perform a mirror reading. When she looked into the glass above the fireplace, he had been acutely aware of the energy that had crackled in the atmosphere.
Their eyes had met fleetingly in the mirror before she looked away. He had sensed in that brief connection that she was as aware of him as he was of her. At least, that was what he had wanted to believe.
She had worn a dark, conservatively tailored gown with a high neck; long, tight sleeves; and a small, discreetly draped bustle similar to the one she had on tonight. Her hair had been pinned beneath a crisp little confection of a hat. If she had chosen the sober attire in an effort to offset the feylike quality bestowed by her red-gold hair and haunted, blue-green eyes, she had failed spectacularly. She was not beautiful in the traditional sense; she was something far more intriguing to a man of his nature: a woman of mystery and power. Everything that was male in him was enthralled.
He had been certain that she was aware of his intense interest that day, and he’d known something else as well. She had been quietly seething. Lady Pomeroy, the woman who had commissioned the reading, had not informed her ahead of time that there would be an audience of paranormal investigators. He could see that Virginia had not appreciated having the surprise sprung on her.
He did not know what Virginia had seen in the mirror that evening, but when she was finished she had turned away to speak very quietly to Lady Pomeroy. The others in the crowd had clamored loudly, demanding to ask questions and conduct experiments on her talent.