The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Menace (21 page)

“
Damn it,” he muttered, grinding
the heels of his palms against his eyes. Anything to force it
down.

The intensity was ebbing slowly, his heart returning
to its normal rhythm. Garrett slowly lowered his hands, staring at
the blue of his eyes in the mirror. Almost normal. Only a shadow
existed, a warning that the demon of his hunger haunted him
still.

Pouring water into his shaving
jug, he splashed it across his face. The heavy brass spectrometer
in the corner caught his eye. There was no point avoiding it.
Ignoring the truth didn’t make it go away.

Taking up his razor, he slashed a small cut across
his finger and squeezed it to make blood well. It oozed slowly
through the cut, the dark bluish-red that gave blue bloods their
name. Slowly the drop quivered on the tip of his finger, then fell
into the glass vial at the end of the spectrometer. Garrett
squeezed another two drops out, but the cut was almost healed. With
a grimace, he turned the dials on the spectrometer to start the
acidic reaction.

The device spat out a small roll of paper with
several numbers printed on it. He ignored the first three and went
straight to the craving virus percentage.

Sixty-eight
.

Garrett stared at the piece of
paper for a long time, then scrunched it up in his fist. The
numbers were still burned across his retinas. They’d increased
since his last reading, which had been yesterday
morning.

Suddenly it wasn’t enough to
clench the paper in his fist. He tore it into fine shreds,
discarding them among the ashes in his cold hearth. He had a duty
to report this. Any blue blood that reached CV levels of nearly
seventy percent was staring the Fade in the eye. It was something
every blue blood feared, the final, unstoppable progression of the
disease.

Soon his skin would start paling, the color
bleaching out of his hair and eyes as he evolved—or devolved—into
something inhuman, something utterly vampiric. A blood-thirsty
monster incapable of rational thought, driven only by its hungers.
The albinism probably would have started already if his levels had
climbed slowly, but the swiftness of his increase had saved him
from that at least. He had time to hide this.

A rash of vampires a century ago
had made it compulsory to deliver reports of high craving levels to
the authorities. Nearing seventy percent was cause for increased
surveillance. Any higher and they’d consider executing
him.

Panic burned through his chest. He
couldn’t let anyone know. He had to find a way to deal with this.
He wasn’t ready, hadn’t done everything he wanted to… Garrett
turned and scraped the spectrometer off the bench as incoherent
fear roared through him. Kept going. Smashed the mirror, the
shaving bowl, ripped the linens from the bed.

None of it made him feel better. None of it made the
truth go away. He froze in the middle of the room, quivering as the
rage left him. The carnage was catastrophic. The type of thing the
authorities would expect to find if they discovered out how high
his CV levels were.

Water spilled across the floor, mingling with the
small patch of blood from the spectrometer. Instantly the puddle
diluted, but all he could see was blood. Could smell it, feel the
need for it bubbling up within him.

And suddenly Perry flashed into his mind, an image
from his dream, smiling up at him from behind her fan as she
flirted with him. Blood welled from her throat and the smile died
as she clapped a hand to her throat, blood pouring through her
white satin gloves and running down her arm and décolletage.

Garrett collapsed to his knees on the floor, sinking
his head into his hands again.

If he didn’t report this, then the
consequences could be catastrophic.

For he knew who his first victim would be.

MORE IN THE LONDON STEAMPUNK SERIES:

Kiss of Steel

Tarnished Knight

Heart of Iron

My Lady
Quicksilver

Forged By Desire

Of Silk and Steam
(coming March 2015)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award winning author Bec McMaster lives in a small
town in Victoria, Australia, and grew up with her nose in a book.
Following a lifelong love affair with fantasy, she discovered
romance and hasn’t looked back. A member of RWA, she writes sexy,
dark paranormals and adventurous steampunk romances. When not
writing, reading, or poring over travel brochures, she loves
spending time with her very own hero or daydreaming about new
worlds.

Her London Steampunk series is available from
Sourcebooks, with Heart of Iron being nominated for both Best
Steampunk Romance by RT Reviews 2013, and Best Romance 2013 by
Library Journal.