Eterna and Omega Read online

  Brinkman liked to think he was at the center of all important goings-on. He’d had his hand, one way or another, in a great deal of the Empire’s successes industrially and internationally. Not that it came with honors; his work was private, quiet. So then was his pain, loss, terror, and constraint. The Crown would never know or understand what drove him to the lengths he would have to go.

  Electricity was of present interest to the Crown, who wished to make sure that electrical advancements were not solely the province of their upstart colony breeding so much innovation. However, the Crown was content that the progress was always tethered home, just like the first transatlantic cable bearing the first Morse code. Babe America would always reach out to Mother England. The Brooklyn Bridge would open on Queen Victoria’s birthday next year. America wanted to show off, the rebellious youngster caught between trying to make its elders proud or jealous.

  Brinkman’s service had included speaking to the managers of every English electrical company and reporting anything out of the ordinary.

  There were plenty of newfound “sciences” that inventors were keen to say would change the world. Brinkman believed electricity was one of the rare fads that actually might live up to their threats, and the man on the other side of this town house door knew all about it, could wield it, and had likely already killed with it.

  Thin, gangly, boyish, with a struggling mustache and nondescript limp light brown hair, the man behind the glass of the front door looked younger than he reportedly was. Slowly he opened the door.

  “What,” he said flatly.

  “Come with me, Mr. Mosley, if that even is your name, or was it taken from Mosley Street after its first electrical lights?”

  Mosley gave a thin-lipped, threatening smile. “I can hurt you without touching you.”

  “Current quicker than a bullet, is it, then?” Brinkman asked, gesturing to draw Mosley’s attention to the gun in his rubber-gloved hand. “Is that an experiment you’re willing to try?”

  “What do you want?” Mosley asked, fear replacing bravado.

  “Information. You’re too valuable to kill, but I can wound something terrible. I suspect a metal bullet won’t feel at all comfortable lodged in a body full of electricity. I am actually trying to help keep you out of the hands of those who would wish to do terrible things with your admittedly gruesome talents.”

  Defeated, Mosley said, “Come in, then, and say what you have to. At some point someone will see a man pointing a gun at a front door and trot over to the Centre Street police station. Keep the gun pointed if you must, but I’m not going with you anywhere. I don’t let bullies tell me where to go.”

  Brinkman set his jaw and walked inside, closing the door behind him with a rattle of leaded glass and the thump of hard wood.

  Mosley had backed down the hall, facing Brinkman, and stood before a tall rear window nearly his whole height, a wide, arched frame that looked onto a struggling and sad little plot where grass had been singed along paths he assumed were electrical wires. Backlit by a harsh sun, Brinkman could really see only the glint of the young man’s eerie eyes, and so he raised his gun a bit, into a shaft of light, just as a reminder.

  “What can you tell me about the New York City electrical grid and what might be trying to gain undue access to it?”

  Mosley cocked his head to the side. “What can you tell me about the grid? And isn’t it premature to call it something so organized, when it’s anything but?”

  “I thought I was coming to speak with the expert, so that’s why I’m asking.”

  “I’d like to know where you heard that. My being ‘the expert.’”

  Brinkman could smell the man’s paranoia from across the room. He shrugged casually. “I’ve my sources. There’s someone at the Edison plant who seems keenly interested in you.”

  At the name “Edison,” something flickered in the young man’s eyes, a hunger, but he recovered a mask of indifference. “I am my own source,” Mosley retorted.

  “You’d be quite the prized experiment, you know,” Brinkman said slowly, “if the wrong person—or society—got hold of you. There’s a group I’m following that would love using you in theirs. They are actively looking for those like you—”

  “There’s no one like me!” the man cried.

  Brinkman noticed a subtle movement, a shadow, at the window. Before he could say or do anything, a crashing sound came from behind the young man, and in a swift and terrifying motion, Mosley was seized, as if flown backward, through splintering glass and wood, into the arms of an enormous man in a long dark coat, his face broad and cruel, eyes no longer human but bloodshot with wide black irises.

  The last thing Brinkman saw before he saw only the brick wall opposite the now broken arch, was Mosley’s uncannily youthful face staring at him as his body was suddenly airborne, staring out as if Brinkman were no longer the enemy but his only source of help. And then he and his abductor were gone, spirited away with preternatural speed.

  “Damn this whole business to eternal hell,” Brinkman growled, spitting on the worn wooden floor strewn with broken glass.

  He followed, carefully navigating the glass as he ducked his head behind the house to determine the course of escape. The rear courtyard, if one could call such a sad shaft that, was enclosed all in differing colored bricks from the various row houses or businesses, and only an open gate to an adjoining whitewashed brick edifice offered any clue as to where Mosley had been seized by the possessed body exhibiting such inhuman strength.

  He darted off in pursuit.

  He’d have to let the Society use young Mosley for their aims, now that he was in their possession. If he could figure out a way to make the young man into the kind of double agent he was, if that result wouldn’t end up inevitable, it would be most valuable. In these matters, death begat death begat death, hate, and vengeance. In the end, would any of them be any better than the Society’s aims, or would they all be transformed into demons in the process?

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Rose had hoped in some small way that Harold Spire might see his company off—well, see her off. But he did not, and for days into the voyage, the fact gnawed at her.

  Why did she care? He had better things to do, and he was not a man of sentiment. But there was something about his respect and encouragement that helped Rose feel that someone else understood the value of her diligence and hard work, and didn’t feel that her sex was a handicap. It was this that meant so much to her, she assured herself, not Spire’s opinion of her personally.

  Though he did not arrive to see them off, she had managed to slide a bit of simple code under his office door about a lead into the guards who had supposedly hanged Beauregard Moriel. Guards who didn’t exist at all. It was a curious business, everything to do with Moriel, and it all rankled with foul mishandling. He’d want to know about it.

  Rose had been looking forward to days with nothing to do but read, and had packed a few books in anticipation, but that ended up an unattainable luxury. There was no hiding the flamboyance of the Omega team, and so Spire had encouraged them to present themselves as a traveling theatrical troupe. Rose hesitated to use the word “circus,” as she was rather averse to clowns, and there were, thankfully, no animals to oversee.

  Early in the journey, Blakely tried to erect a tent in steerage. It was soon realized that anchoring a tent not only would be inconvenient but also it could pose a serious structural threat to the ship. But the show most certainly went on, replete with the wirework that their infamous spies were, well, infamous for. They played to packed decks.

  With most of these newly ardent admirers hailing from Ireland, Blakely and his faux wife, Miss Knight, were making immediate plans for a Dublin tour upon their return across the Atlantic, encouraged by the entire compartment.

  The phrase “one more round” had made its rounds about the deck. However, there was no designated bar staff to make this dispensation—and indeed, insistence—of alcoho
l into a reality. There was grand cheer, at first, to this proclamation. Then there was the music and the singing. But then there was the question of said “round.”

  Mr. Wilson charmed his way into asking if a kind Russian clerk might see fit to offer up a personal store of vodka into a cask, cutting it all with water, and redistributing to a populous who was not used to fine liquor, thusly the expectations were low and the reward, he promised, would be high.

  Who else had such privilege as that of a British citizen? Rose wondered as she watched this unfold, as they held the fate of a teetering crowd in their control, speeding on a man-made vessel created to part the seas of distance and bring the far-flung world close unto British control … The Ciphers were soon the life of the boat.

  She asked herself how she could make this time useful, and it was the sight of a pyramid-shaped icon on a passerby’s pack that made her think to question midshipmen about Apex, if any of them had worked for the company.

  It became Rose’s habit to make her way through the throng during Blakely and Knight’s magic and spiritualism shows—Knight mixing legitimate psychic gifts with Blakely’s flair for compounds, effects, smoke, and pyrotechnics. As Rose wandered, she listened for conversations about London’s wharves or shipping in general. Enough lewd comments had been hurled her way the first few times she did this, as she was seen as an unescorted female and thus fair game, that she asked Mr. Wilson to accompany her the next time.

  Wilson showed an admirable glare and a curling fist to anyone who even looked at her wrong, making her task easier. Now she stopped before a young red-haired man whose last job, he said, had “frightened the holy ghost right out of me.”

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Rose began, taking the fine edge out of her voice to sound of his class, “but my cousin was killed working for a right nasty company with holdings on London docks. It’s terrible. One has to have a job to live, but then when the job kills you…” she said, ending on a near sob.

  The young man looked at her with plaintive eyes, as if he’d been hoping someone would understand. He nodded.

  “It’s why I’m on this ship, bought my ticket with the only money I had. I’m praying that my brother still lives in Boston. I haven’t heard from him in many months, but what else could I do? That place was going to kill me.”

  “I wonder if it was the same company,” Rose mused, taking a seat on the crowded bench beside him. Wilson stared down at them both with stern caution.

  “I hesitate to say. The whole place is cursed,” the young Irishman muttered, looking around as if speaking the word would smite him.

  Shielding her gesture from anyone watching, Rose traced the letter “A” on her skirt. The man nodded vigorously. She put on an expression of relief and commiseration that wasn’t entirely an act.

  “What did you see? My cousin said he saw dry goods”—she leaned closer—“that was actually a body.”

  The man nodded again. “Strange fluids, lots of wires, powders—I saw it all, more than I should have.” He shuddered. “Far more than I should have.”

  “My cousin was shipping a lot to New York, before he ‘fell overboard,’” Rose said, a hitch in her voice. “Do you know where everything was going? All to New York?”

  “New York mostly, that’s where I heard Apex was setting up offices and needing supplies and stock. But other cities, too, here and there, and up north of London, to an estate.” He turned very white as he added in a whisper nearly drowned out by the raucous greeting Blakely’s latest magic trick but chilling enough to carry: “It was a box of body parts that did me in. I know you’re not supposed to look in the boxes, but someone has to put things in the boxes in the first place. I got stuck with that job one day. They told me the next day I’d be transferred to another department. Transfer in their eyes might be terminate, and I’d be the next body in a box. So I never went back.”

  “You were wise to get out, I wish Johnny had,” Rose said mordantly. The young man glanced up at Mr. Wilson and respectfully tipped his hat.

  “I am sorry for your loss, ma’am,” the man said.

  “Stay safe,” Rose said encouragingly. “If your brother doesn’t answer in Boston, New York has a lot of work. And if Apex is setting up offices there, it’d be best to alert authorities to their presence.”

  “You’re going to New York, aren’t ye? They may take to the testimony of an upstanding lady better than a paddy like m’self.”

  Rose winced at the slur and stared at him in empathy. “I will, sir. I’m not asking for your name because I know the kind of damage that company has done and I don’t want to add to your fear. But I will alert New York authorities.” Here she could speak truth, and her conviction seemed to ease the other’s tension.

  “You’d be doing heaven’s work if so,” he said, and turned back toward his empty steel pint with another bob of his cap.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Rose said, as they returned to their crew.

  “Pleasure, Miss Everhart. I appreciate watching you at work. You’d be better in the field than you think,” he replied. Rose snorted. She had no wish do to more than gather information, sit with codes and ciphers, and bring a bit of justice to the world by thorough bookkeeping.

  Making notes about the conversation to later share with Spire, she realized just how solitary a person she was. Life on a ship was her version of hell.

  The sight of New York harbor was welcome after days of cramped quarters and endless din. Their tickets had been costly enough to exempt Rose and her Omega companions from the rabble of the downtown port system. Instead, first class was whisked efficiently through one of Manhattan’s finest docks. The rest of the passengers would be routed back downtown into the fray.

  In America, the differentiation of status was not about lineage but about assets. Accounts and holdings, not name. Yet this attitude created similar structures that separated people from each other and placed unspoken price tags on human value.

  Rose let the show persons deal with their equipment and baggage while she took charge of her carpetbag—she had been a bit too paranoid to stow anything and therefore had packed lightly. Not that she had much to pack, regardless; her wardrobe, while as fine as she could afford, was limited and practical. Once all was in tow, the team made their way to the designated safe house, a nondescript four-story granite building. It resembled any number of the municipal buildings in the area and had been owned by England since before the revolution, though that fact was not widely known.

  The third floor had been prepared for them thanks to Lord Black’s connections with the British embassy. Rose had been given a key to a plain wooden side door that opened into an empty vestibule; an interior stair lead directly to their floor, enabling them to keep their own activities to themselves.

  The teams took to their rooms and went soundly, gladly to sleep, for in the morning, it was showtime.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Spire hadn’t had much time to muse on his team being gone, Rose being the only one he really thought about. Lord Black had kept him preoccupied trying to gain access and details regarding Tourney’s gruesome prison death, and they both found themselves blocked at many turns.

  He took Rose’s last bit of information directly to Lord Black, having found her note, wishing she’d had the chance to give it to him in person.

  “Beauregard Moriel’s guards who were supposedly overseeing his hanging are two names that do not seem to exist,” Spire stated, folding his arms before the nobleman.

  “They do not appear in any court or police employment records. And before you tell me this doesn’t have to do with Omega—”

  “You’re going to investigate what you want to, whether I put my foot down or not,” Black retorted. “And the more I think about it, the more I think all of this stews in the same foul pot. Do you have any theories?”

  “Was Moriel—animus for the Master’s Society and Tourney’s inspiration—really ever killed at all?”

&
nbsp; “Who would have kept him alive?” Black asked quietly.

  “The Crown?”

  Lord Black sat at his desk with a sour look. After a long moment, he waved a hand. “Go. Talk to some guards. Newgate, Bedlam, Courts of Justice, wherever, I don’t really care. Come tomorrow to meet me at Westminster all the earlier, below the clock tower. From there, we’ll make our way to the queen’s parade.”

  “Yes, sir. And thank you.”

  Spending the rest of the day on what finally felt worthwhile, the only new information Spire received through talking with guards from varying palaces and courts all around the Westminster area was a freshly maddening rumor that there had been a second gruesome death of an indeterminate prisoner. Entirely unconfirmed and unsubstantiated, there was no identity to latch on to other than Spire’s supposition it had been another Society member killed to prevent confession.

  The next day, Lord Black appeared undaunted as he wove through the clusters of coats and bustles, parasols and raucous children in boaters and bows, Spire keeping up as best he could. It seemed everyone in London had turned out to see the queen.

  Farther down the green there was a dais with bunting and elevated parade seating. For the important folk, Spire thought. He never was the parade type, this sort of thing raised his hackles.

  They reached the area of seats reserved for nobility across from the dais. They had quite a view, give or take a few ostrich plumes on ostentatious hats.

  Making his way toward them through the crowd was a dashing young fellow in a fine black brocade frock coat with charcoal trim, black silk top hat atop a mane of black hair, and a blue waistcoat that took nothing away from his piercing ice-blue eyes.

  “Why, there’s our aura reader now, Jonathon Whitby, Lord Denbury,” Black shared with Spire. Spire’s heart sank at the idea of adding another preposterous character to his paranormal charade of a department. He was saved from thinking up a pleasantry when a cheer went up from the crowd, indicating that the queen was approaching. All eyes went to the parade green.