A Study in Ashes (57 page)

Let’s see. You had your soul ripped from your body, you’re trapped in a sorcerer’s alternate reality, and you’re being hunted to the death by the malevolent shade of your dead twin. Not to mention using previously untapped parapsychological strengths to send coded messages into reality. A bit of a lie-down was in order
.

Imogen bristled at the sarcastic tone, then realized the rush of temper had cleared her head. “Why do I need to look around?”

You’re about to learn a new trick—one that not every spirit can manage, but I’ll tell you what to do
.

“All right,” Imogen said uneasily.

Dreams are what happen when your spirit wanders into another place—it might be a real place, or one that you’ve created for just that moment. But you’re already a wandering spirit. The only way you can dream while you’re in this place is through someone else
.

“How?”

Everyone is connected to those close to them. That is how Evelina found you, and how you knew there was a séance. Those who know how to look for it can see the weave of connections on the spirit plane. All you need to do is find the thread you want and follow the spiderweb into someone’s dream
.

That sounded like a fine theory, but she still couldn’t visualize how it worked. “And yet I’m already in a different place, so how did I get here?”

Sometimes a living soul wants to see someone so badly they call that person right across the spirit plane. Find out whose dream you’re in
.

“Someone dragged me here?”

Not a kind way of putting it, but essentially correct
.

She shuddered, remembering the horrible nightmares she’d shared with Anna for so many years. The only thing that had kept her sister out of her dreams was laudanum. The invasion had felt like such a monstrous violation—sleep was one of the few places a person could be truly private. The last thing Imogen wanted to do was haunt someone else.

A feather of uneasiness brushing through her, she rose.
She’d been asleep on an old worn sofa. A dirty teacup sat on the floor beside it, along with a notebook and pen. Imogen looked around, realizing she was in the back room of Bucky’s toy factory.

Bucky?
Knowing it was him made everything different. With a rush of anticipation, she slipped through the door. The great, cavernous workshop loomed, machines and workbenches lost in a wilderness of shadows. There were shelves of toys in various states of assembly—mostly wood and clockwork, but some with soft bodies and luxurious fur. She saw a small army of ducklings with their wings outstretched, bills opened as if to quack. The next row down, ranks of tiny leopards were drying their spots. But there weren’t as many toys as she remembered seeing the other time she had visited, and she felt a pang of disappointment.

In the darkness beyond, near the bay doors that opened to the outside, something enormous loomed. She couldn’t quite make it out, but she wondered if whatever it was had consumed all of Bucky’s time.
Of course, this is only a dream and what I see might not be real. I mustn’t forget that
.

And then she began wandering through the dark warehouse. It had the shifty feel of a dream, as if the furniture and rooms weren’t quite right. Even stranger, it was pitch black, but she could see perfectly well. But then a sudden bloom of candlelight drew her like a moth.

Bucky was slumped over a table with his head cradled on his arms. Imogen stopped, her hands clasped against her middle. It felt like it had been years since she’d seen him, and she drank in the sight of his sleeping face as if it were the only cool water in the desert.
I love him so much
.

It wasn’t just that he was an educated, pleasant, well-off or good-looking young man. He was all those things, but he was also the one who’d put her happiness before everything else. Plus, he’d known her from the time she’d been a skinny girl in braids. If he knew her that well and still liked her—that said much.

However, she’d had no idea until that moment that he snored. “I suppose no one is perfect,” she muttered, drawing
near. The candle had burned low, giving off the smell of hot wax. The glow flickered across the worn wood of the table and spilled over his broad, capable hands. Bucky was in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his coat tossed carelessly over the back of his chair. Imogen reached out, her fingertips almost, but not quite, brushing the waves of his hair. It was a true brown, the highlights just hinting at auburn. She could just see one sleeping eye and the straight blade of his nose. She wondered if she could get away with kissing him before he woke up. After all, what was the fun of a dream without a dash of fantasy?

“Did you call me into your dreams?” she whispered. Was it just chance? Or did the fact that she’d been longing for him—and for his help—influence what had happened?

She peered over his shoulder at the papers scattered on the desk and saw it was a pencil and paper with a graph filled with alphabets and a lot of crossings-out. Imogen frowned, trying to make sense of the jumbled letters. Then she recognized the card from the clock and realized with mounting horror that it was her message—except that the clock had spelled it out in cipher.

Frustration stung. It looked like her message had been deciphered but now he was trying to find some alternate meaning for her words. And why not? The terse message she’d managed to scrape together hardly made sense.
Damn and blast!
Any scruples she had about haunting him vanished.

She put out a hand to shake his shoulder and paused a beat, wondering if her fingers would pass right through him, but she touched the smooth, cool cloth of his shirt and the hard muscle beneath. “Bucky!”

He sat bolt upright, blinking. “Huh?” His brown eyes looked almost black in the candlelight. When he saw her, they went wide. “Imogen!”

She nodded, her heart beating wildly. “Yes, it’s me. I’m in your dream.”

“You always were,” he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hands to her. “How are you?” she asked, perhaps a little stupidly but
she’d never contacted anyone in a dream before—at least not anyone she actually wanted to see.

“I’ve had a very strange day,” he replied. “This is going to be the only good part, but why are you here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be with you whenever I could?” She wanted to fall into his arms. She could feel his embrace already, that strong, steady warmth healing her from the bones outward. But first she had to make sure he understood. “The message from the clock is real. I need your help if I’m going to make it home.”

His eyes suddenly lost their unfocussed look, replaced by the sharp intelligence she knew so well. But he still took her hands, engulfing them in his as he drew her close and pressed his lips to her brow. His touch was like a lifeline, saving her when she hadn’t even known she was drowning.

“What do you need?” he murmured. “Just ask, and it’s yours.”

She caught his scent—male and redolent of freshly cut wood. His presence was making it desperately hard to concentrate. And he kept looking at her as if she had descended from the heavens on a glittering cloud, her bedraggled dress a gown of moonbeams. Suddenly shy, she babbled an answer, barely aware if she was making sense.

His expression turned thoughtful. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t have any other weapons,” Imogen replied, aware that the room seemed to be fading around them, so that they were the only solid things there.

“Then I have what you need,” he said, releasing her hands. “Wait here.”

And he walked into the darkness of the workshop. Alone and slightly disoriented, Imogen clasped her hands. They felt lonely without his answering grip, like half a set.

Hurry
, said Mouse, startling her. She’d forgotten all about him.
We don’t have much time before we need to move
.

“Bucky?” she called plaintively.

And then he was suddenly there again, holding an object in both hands. It was the size of a pineapple and covered in many overlapping plates of silver metal. “Be careful with this.”

She took it from him, the weight surprising her. In the way of dreams part of her understood everything it could do while the rest of her could not. “Thank you. I think you just saved my life.”

“Then open your eyes so you can save mine,” he whispered, leaning over. This time he kissed her on the lips, cradling her face as if she were a flower. The living warmth of his breath thawed her, returning color to her soul. She’d been lost and starving for touch, and his touch most of all.

“Don’t let me go,” she pleaded. “Let me stay with you here!”

His gaze met hers, and she saw his heartbreak there. “If only I could,” he whispered.

Imogen trembled as he kissed her again, and she tasted him thoroughly and long, but eventually the pressure of his mouth on hers began to fade. She became aware of the ache of fatigue, the heavy, incessant ticking of machinery, and a heavy weight on her stomach.

“No!” she cried softly as her eyes opened and she found herself back in the clock.

I feel as if I have been caught between the pages of a penny romance. There was enough sticky sweetness there to ice a dozen tea buns
.

Imogen narrowed her eyes. “If you don’t like my dreams, stay out of them.”

At least your steely jawed hero has some useful talents
.

“Of course he does,” she said automatically as Mouse shifted, making her sit up.

It was then she looked down to see what was sitting on her stomach. Her fingers ran over the chill metal of the silver plates. A wave of triumph made her laugh out loud and she scrambled to her feet.

The bomb Bucky had given her was still in her hands.

London, October 9, 1889
THE VIOLET QUEEN’S RESIDENCE
2:15 p.m. Wednesday

“YOU ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR MRS. LOREN’S HOUSE
of pleasure, did you not?” said the Violet Queen to Miss Hyacinth, motioning for her to take a chair in the overstuffed, overbaubled purple velvet parlor. The decor was at once titillating and inappropriately amusing. Purple might have been the color of sin in the Empire—Hyacinth had dyed her own hair the lightest shade of lilac—but this sitting room was too much. All in all, the place was a bit like the inside of a grape.

“That is so, madam,” Hyacinth replied with excruciating politeness, settling on the edge of a chaise longue. She was wearing a dark blue corded silk that spread like an ink stain across the plush fabric.

“Which is why I asked that you come to see me.” The Violet Queen resumed her own seat, nearly sitting on a peach-colored Pomeranian, which yapped querulously at the descending bustle. “It’s customary to pay a courtesy call, my dear, just for the sake of being good neighbors. We are in the same line of work after all. Better yet, Mrs. Loren should have brought you around for an introduction. But there you are. Times just aren’t what they once were.”

Hyacinth smiled apologetically at the so-called Queen of Whores.
Indeed. Once upon a time, my parents’ footmen would have tossed you down the front steps in the unlikely event that you set foot on our property
.

And then, of course, there was the fact that a piece of the metropolis had been blasted to smithereens. Not here, well north of Russell Square, and not in Whitechapel, where Hyacinth kept her establishment, but right around where the ill-fated Green Queen had counted her coin. The morning had brought a queer mood to the city, as if everyone was holding his breath for what came next. Hyacinth expected business would be hopping. Danger brought out the need for pleasure.

“I apologize for my tardiness in paying my courtesies, madam. Unfortunately, there was much to do and learn. I must say that I’m surprised you thought to keep this appointment, with everything else going on.”

“Our business doesn’t stop for war.” The Violet Queen tilted her head slightly. She had once been a beautiful woman, but time had reduced her valuation. Lines bracketed her mouth, and no amount of powder could substitute for the flawless sheen of youth. But her dark hair was still glossy and elegantly dressed, and her dark rose gown was the latest in French couture. Hyacinth filed away the details for future reference. It was good to know a whore could age so well. If she lived long enough, she might need the pointers.

“But never mind all that,” said the Violet Queen. The woman pulled the dog into her lap, stroking its puff of fur. “You are here now, and we can catch up our acquaintance. I have it on good authority that revenues have gone up in your establishment. You are to be congratulated.”

“My clientele sets a high premium on novelty,” Hyacinth replied. “There had been a shortage of fresh ideas in the establishment before I arrived.”

The Violet Queen narrowed her eyes. “And where would you have got such ideas, Miss Hyacinth?”

“I was always good with a riding crop.”

“And you have no qualms about applying it to human flesh?”

“None. In fact, I have laid in quite the selection of aids. I
had, um, acquaintances who were quick to instruct me once they realized I had an aptitude for such work.”