all of you come in."
"I had friends as died in the Packenham
Riots," Kincaid said. "Why should I help you?
Your Echelon used your Cyclops war machines to
mow down half the mob that day."
"A mistake, in hindsight," Malloryn admitted.
"And you're not helping me. I don't even
particularly want you on this team. You're a
hothead and I don't entirely trust you, but you came
highly recommended by my friend the Duchess of
Casavian, and I need someone with a particular
skill set that's hard to find. You fit that
description."
"And what’s in it for me?" Kincaid
demanded.
"For you? A comfortable wage and the help of
one of my best inventors for that project you've
been working upon,” Malloryn replied. "Someone
who
has
recently
passed
his
Bio-mech
examinations with the Royal Mechanics Society.”
Kincaid reeled back as if struck and Byrnes
sipped his blud-wein. Bio-mechanics dealt
directly with the application of mechanical limbs
and organs that were fused directly to a man or
woman’s flesh as if they were one. Oh, there were
cruder mech limbs in circulation, but only those
within the Royal Society knew how to deal with
the process called fusion.
Which meant that Kincaid needed some sort
of limb or organ that crude mechwork couldn’t
cover, and was shocked to realize that Malloryn
knew of it. For himself though? Or someone he
knew?
Bio-mech was ridiculously expensive. If
Malloryn could gift that so negligently, then what
else could he offer the rest of them?
Byrnes's heart raced. Bio-mech, medical
technology... was there an answer for his mother's
fate? "And the rest of us? What can you do for us?”
"You all have something you want and I have
the means to provide it. But we can discuss that
later. In private.” Malloryn gestured to the
mysterious woman at his side, the one in blood red
silk. "This is my colleague, Isabella Rouchard, the
Baroness Schröder. She will be in charge of this
team."
Charlie Todd stuck his hand in the air.
"Arguments aside... what team? Why precisely are
we here? To find the instigators of the riots? That
was over a year ago."
Isabella Rouchard leaned on the back of her
chair, every inch of her thick black hair tamed into
an elegant chignon. "The queen has tasked
Malloryn with putting together a team of highly
skilled participants to discover who is behind
these incidents that threaten national security. We
have… information networks, but we need more.
We need people who can deal with and contain
threats, and are equipped to both delve directly to
the heart of a mystery, and then handle it.”
"Why would you choose us?” Kincaid asked.
Malloryn shuffled some files on his desk.
"Don’t assume that you haven’t been thoroughly
vetted. All of you came recommended to me by
various members of the Council of Dukes who rule
this city. I have spies—I don’t need more of them.
But what I don’t have,” he said, picking up the files
and gesturing toward Byrnes, "is someone trained
to investigate.” One of the files hit the desk and
that gaze turned to Ingrid. "Someone who works
private commissions to find what others can’t find
and has ties to the verwulfen community; someone
who understands the mech world,”—this at
Kincaid—"someone who knows the rookeries and
how to steal the eyes from a man’s sockets."
Charlie Todd. "An inventor trained in detailing
crime scene investigations." Ava. His hard blue
gaze turned to Miss Townsend. "And—”
"Someone you swore you’d never work with
again,” Gemma Townsend said softly, her
challenging gaze locked on Malloryn’s.
There was a moment's pause as the two of
them stared at each other.
"Someone experienced in the arts of
dropping the final file onto the desk.
Miss Townsend looked away, as if there was
far more to it than that.
Interesting.
"There are others who have already been
briefed on the situation,” Malloryn said. "In my
absence the baroness will be the leader of this
group and you will report directly to her. Jack
Fairchild is our resident inventor, whom Miss
McLaren will be working with, and Herbert will
handle… security. Anything else?"
Every single hand in the room went up, but
Malloryn ignored them as he circled the room and
gestured to the baroness. "If you would, Isabella.
It’s easier if I show them."
The baroness wheeled a screen into place and
Malloryn flicked a switch on the projector at the
back of the room.
Byrnes leaned forward in his chair as a
photograph appeared: a street, middle class by the
look of it, with abandoned handcarts and steam
cabs sitting under a line of washing. He recognized
the place immediately and that old thrill tickled
through his veins. Begby Square. An unsolved
case. There was nothing more interesting than a
riddle that remained unsolved.
That alone might convince him to go along
with this.
"The Packenham riots were just the beginning.
In March, an entire street of people vanished near
Begby Square. Despite Nighthawk assistance not a
single person has been recovered out of fifty-three.
Nobody knows where the Begby Square people
are, or what happened to them. In most of the
houses dishes lay covered with half-eaten dinners,
and washing was hung to dry as though it were a
normal day. Only a single baby remained behind,
crying in his crib. No blood, minimal signs of
violence such as scattered dishes, and no tracks or
scent trail. It all happened within the space of two
hours, just as evening fell on March sixteenth."
Malloryn flicked the slide. A sandy arena
sprang to view, spattered with blackened shadows
of blood and covered in bodies. "The Devil's Pit,
beneath the Barking Dog Tavern on the outskirts of
Whitechapel. The entire crowd was slaughtered,
and most of the combatants. Nobody knows who
did it, but the doors were locked from the outside.
Considering the location we left the scene to
Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel, to solve. So far,
he's got nothing. No scent, no tracks, just
slaughter."
Byrnes's interest sharpened. He'd heard
nothing of this, but that was not unusual. The Devil
of Whitechapel was a force of his own, and had
been part of the consortium that overthrew the
prince consort during the revolution. H
e policed
his own territories with his gang of ruffians, and
Nighthawks were rarely invited in. Charlie Todd,
however, didn’t look surprised, and he was one of
Blade's lieutenants.
Something caught his attention as Malloryn
flicked through several slides from the fighting
pits. "Wait a minute," Byrnes called. "Go back to
that previous slide. There." He pointed. "That
black flag painted on the wall, with the letters
above it... that symbol was on the walls at Begby
Square."
"Very good. So it was." Malloryn pressed the
slides forward. More images, more chaos. "The
same symbol appears on the nearby walls at the St.
Andrew’s Church in Holborn, where the local
congregation was attempting to rebuild the church
now that the laws against humans practicing
religion have been relaxed." A photograph showed
a man crucified outside the burning church. "The
newly ordained priest, Joseph Cannon. Or should I
say, the late Reverend Joseph Cannon. The symbol
also appeared at the abandoned King Street
enclaves last month, where fourteen mechs lay
crushed in the machinery. All of them had worked
there in the past, and there was no reason for them
to be there once the project was abandoned."
"Four incidents in London," Byrnes mused.
"That we know of," Malloryn hastily
corrected. "Since March this year."
"Traditionally, a black flag has been a symbol
of anarchy," Ingrid said with a frown. "What do the
letters painted above them say?"
Malloryn flicked hastily through the slides
until he showed a closer view of the symbol.
"Sometimes it reads SOG. Sometimes it is simply
the number zero. At the enclaves, it was a numeral
three."
"Which means?" Ingrid asked.
Malloryn leaned back, crossing his arms over
his chest. "That's what I am interested in
discovering. People are growing scared and there
is a rumor on the streets that the queen's new rule
isn't so different to the prince consort's. All of the
progress that the queen and the Council of Dukes
have made in the past three years to improve the
city and create peace between the factions and
species has been obliterated."
"No scent," Kincaid said. "Slaughter... that
sounds like a blue blood to me. Any of your pasty-
faced lords unaccounted for?"
"No member of the Echelon did this—"
"How do you know it's not a member of the
Echelon?" Kincaid demanded.
"Because information is currency, and I'm the
type of person who is extremely rich in
information. No one blue blood could do this.
"Every time the queen and the Council of
Dukes make a proclamation—such as the
reformation of the Anti-Religious Act—someone
goes out and wreaks havoc against the very thing
that we are trying to improve. I've seen
broadsheets stating that the queen rules that people
can gather at houses of worship again, then goes
and slaughters the lot of them, just to prove that
they can't. People are scared," Malloryn said,
resting his hip on the edge of his desk. "And when
people become scared, trouble starts to occur.
"I need to know who is doing this and my
traditional network isn't coming up with answers.
In short order, that's why you're all sitting here.
You have been invited to form a company of elite
agents to protect the queen and the people of the
city. Are you in?"
"What if we're not?" Kincaid's voice
roughened.
"I'm fairly certain that Jem Whitlow was your
cousin, was he not?" Malloryn lifted a folder from
his desk and flipped through it, though Byrnes was
fairly certain that Malloryn had the information
memorized. "Whitlow spent eleven years in the
King Street enclaves before helping you march on
the Ivory Tower to cast the prince consort down.
Imagine that... eleven years in hell, then three
blissful years of freedom before someone crushes
him beneath a manufacturing machine—"
"I know what eleven years of hell in the
enclaves feel like," Kincaid snapped. "I don't have
to imagine it."
"Don't you want to find out who killed him?"
Malloryn arched a brow.
Silence. The entire group focused on the burly
mech.
"The enclaves are mine," Kincaid finally
said, his jaw jutting pugnaciously. "I get to hunt the
bastards as did this."
"Done." Malloryn gave no sign of satisfaction
other than a slight heaviness around his eyelids.
"Everybody else?"
"Aye," both Byrnes and Ingrid said at the
same time. They shot each other a sharp look as the
others echoed them.
"What do we call ourselves?" Charlie called.
"Malloryn's Henchmen?" This from Gemma.
"The Merry Men—and Women," Charlie
Todd countered.
"Malloryn’s Misfits?” suggested Gemma
again.
Malloryn did not quite roll his eyes. "I'm sure
you'll all think of something." Grabbing a stack of
files, he and Isabella began handing them out to
people. "Byrnes, I know you're familiar with the
Begby case. I want you back on it."
Byrnes stared hungrily at the images on the
screen, the bloody and broken bodies in the
enclaves. Then he sighed. "It's a cold scene, sir.
Seven months cold, to be precise."
"True." Malloryn's eyes glittered. "But these
disappearances aren't. Same type of scene, same
kind of mayhem. Happened last night." Sliding a
folder across the table toward Byrnes, he
straightened. "We move fast, we keep it quiet, and
we stop whoever is doing this before the general
public finds out about it."
Byrnes dragged the file toward him with his
fingertips. A case, one that nobody had been able
to solve last time. Intriguing.
Byrnes lifted the edge of the folder as
Malloryn muttered something.
"Hell, no," Ingrid stated flatly.
That made him look up. He'd missed
something.
"You brought down the Vampire of Drury
Lane," Malloryn replied. "Your expertise is
exceedingly valuable, and you and Byrnes should
make one hell of a team."
Team. Everything in him went on point. Like
bloody hell. This was his case. His—
"I would rather spend the rest of my days
knitting," Ingrid stated, crossing her arms. "There's
no way I'll work with Byrnes."
Byrnes slowly tilted his head to look at her.
That stubborn mouth was set in a line he
remembered only too clearly and suddenly his
brain kicked into gear. A flash of memory cut
through his emotions: of himself lying naked on his
bed, finally forced to concede and yell for help
once he realized he couldn't get free of the
silk
stockings binding him to the bed. "Sounds like an
excellent idea," he found himself saying, and
suddenly he was the recipient of every stare in the
room.
"It— What—?" Ingrid demanded. "Are you
mad? Or drunk? We very nearly killed each other
last time."
"Think about it, Ingrid. My experience, my
skills at deduction married with your strength, and
your skills at tracking, so much better than mine,"
Byrnes said, watching her eyes narrow as he laid it
on thick. Oh yes, my dear. Now you're catching
on. "Who else could handle such a case?"
"Anybody in this room."
"What's wrong?" Byrnes taunted, letting
silence fill the gap, until the moment had stretched
out long enough. "Scared?"
Ingrid's almond-shaped eyes narrowed to thin
slits. They really were beautiful, though at the
moment, they were practically incinerating. "Of
you? I don't think so."
"Excellent," Malloryn interceded. "Consider
yourself enlisted, ladies and gentlemen. You're
now protectors of the realm. I'll give the rest of
you your own assignments the second these two
stop arguing with each other, and then I need some
eyes on the ground at the Venetian Gardens scene.
Understood?"
THREE
LIGHTS FLOODED THE Venetian Gardens, a
dirigible flooding the scene with sweeping light as
it hovered over the walled pleasure gardens. It
was one of the latest improvements to the
Nighthawks' ability to fight crime, but Byrnes
personally thought it a waste of taxpayers' money.
He much preferred an on-foot hunt with the scent of
a criminal in his nostrils, and pavement under his
feet.
Reporters
hovered
like
vultures,
the
flashbulbs of their cameras hammering his retinas
as he tipped his head to the pair of Nighthawks on
duty at the gates. "Brasham, Copeland. What have
we got?"
"Not sure, Byrnes," Copeland said with a
scowl. "The bloody Duke of Malloryn won't let us
in, so we've been set to nursemaid the gates until
his 'elite' unit arrives."
Byrnes eyed the reporters. "Someone seems
to think this is a major case. Have you heard
anything?"
"Thirty or forty people vanished from the
Grand Pavilion"—Brasham clicked his fingers
—"like smoke. The Earl of Carrington was hosting
some sort of party there. When sunrise started to
come up, the manager of the gardens realized that
his blue blood guests ought to be departing soon if