The Transference Engine (31 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

I
SHIVERED
as the cold damp of the cave penetrated my bones. Wrapping my arms around myself offered little comfort, so I turned my back on the man who had threatened the stability of all Britain with his perversions. Then I bent and attacked my petticoat with a small knife. In seconds I'd freed several yards of cordage designed to stiffen and shape layers of delicate cloth.

I handed the silken rope to Drew, with my back still turned to Ruthven. “Restrain him lest he do himself more damage,” I said curtly. I had to swallow hard to keep from crying.

Crying for lost Toby and Kit Doyle, for Violet! For damage to Reva, for all the deaths Ruthven had caused, for Drew's betrayal of all I thought he held sacred and moral, and for . . . for whatever Rigby was or did that I could no longer trust him.

“You never cease to amaze me, Magdala,” Rigby said. His respect sounded grudging. He stepped away from me and entered the din of Ruthven's madness.

I responded by turning my attention to Toby. I owed him a respectful burial, alongside Kit Doyle. I owed him more, but there was little else I could do for him now.

“He won't live long,” Drew said as he stuffed something into Ruthven's mouth to keep him from biting off his own tongue. “Not even in restraints in Bethlehem Hospital.”

“That's what happens when you transfer souls without the permission of the victim,” I replied, remembering in detail what Stamata promised me.

A fate that might have been my own if Jimmy hadn't rescued me from Byron's last lover, so that I might rescue Reva, his sister.

Her exposure, both physical and mental, to the outside world and the eyes of strangers meant she was dead to the Romany community. But they still loved her and honored her. I owed it to them—I owed it to
her
—to take care of her now.

No one could replace Violet, but Reva would take her place at my side.

Keeping my eyes averted, I went to her. More resilient than I expected, she sat up on the table on her own and worked to drape the sheet around her. Holding her head high with a straight spine, and a determined thrust of her chin. Then her mouth opened and her dark eyes grew wide. She pointed at the other table.

Toby twisted and jerked. He blinked his eyes and turned his head, fixing his gaze upon me.

“He was dead,” Reva whispered. “I watched the life leave his body. That man did not even give him the respect of transferring his soul to a jar. Your boy saved my little brother. He deserved more. He deserved better. That man killed him just because the boy was annoying,” she sobbed. She wouldn't name Ruthven. He was dead to her and to name him might awaken his ghost to haunt her.

She jumped down from her table and hurried to Toby's side, brushing tangled hair off his brow and whispering soothing words.

Toby's throat worked as he tried to form sounds. That surprised me. Toby didn't speak much because he forgot proper words for things and what he said rarely matched the images in his head.

I went quickly to his side and held his hand. He blinked again and again as he focused upon me. Then he squeezed my hand.

“Toby?” I asked. In this bizarre cave with arcane equipment of death, anyone, or anything could reside inside my boy.

“J . . . Jeremy,” he croaked dryly.

“Dr. Jeremy Badenough?” I gasped in wonder.

“At your service, Madame Magdala.” He nodded in respect, not able to sit up on his own yet.

“Not Toby? And he is Toby,” Reva protested.

“You were in one of those jars?” I blurted out.

“Yes,” he breathed, then swallowed, trying to force moisture into his mouth to lubricate speaking. “Water?”

Drew approached with a flask and touched the mouth of it to Jeremy's lips. “Not water. But something to jolt you back.”

Jeremy took a sip, then sighed in relief. “The water of life.”

“Whiskey,” I finished the thought for him.

“Rigby needs a doctor,” Drew said quietly.

I glanced over his shoulder to see the priest sitting up, back against the funeral niches, cradling his crudely bandaged hand against his chest. His face twisted in agony, as pale as death. And he panted shallowly. Not good.

“Can you drive the train?” I asked Drew. I couldn't look him in the eye. Guilt formed a hard and heavy knot in my belly. I'd doubted and questioned him.

“I can,” Jeremy piped up. He sounded quite chipper.

But then Reva held his other hand as she bent to kiss his brow. “My hero,” she whispered. “You sacrificed yourself to save me.”

“Jeremy or Toby?” I asked, just as quietly.

“Jeremy tried to save me. Toby was a hero before that.” Reva straightened still clutching her makeshift toga about her. “That one,” she pointed to the writhing and choking Ruthven, “wanted to rape me to enhance my outrage. Toby was already dead. Jeremy broke free of his bonds and attacked Ruthven. He died for his efforts, and the others put his soul into a jar.”

I stiffened.

“How . . . what atrocities did you commit while trying to gain Ruthven's confidence?” I asked Drew, finally raising my eyes to his.

He said nothing, merely turning to help Rigby stand and supporting him on the short trek to the idling steam engine.

An outlaw at heart. From highwayman to necromancer. What else?

Reva helped Jeremy off the table. He and I checked Ruthven's bonds as we lifted him to his feet. His ravings quieted to muttered foul words, whether his own or provided by those who possessed him, I did not know. Then we escorted him to the baggage car of the train that would shortly leave hell.

Epilogue

“I
HAVE ASKED
His Grace the Archbishop to reassign me to a parish,” Rigby said quietly when I visited him in his quarters at the episcopal palace a day and a half later.

“Is that a good or a bad move?” I asked. I sat primly on the edge of a hard wooden chair a proper three feet from his bed. A simple monastic room, with minimal furniture and stark in lines. A prie-dieu in the corner beside a window supported his open prayer book. I could picture him crawling out of his bed with the crisp white linens and thin blanket to spend hours on his knees. He'd have to prop his damaged left hand on the slanted surface as a constant reminder of what he'd done. What he'd
accomplished
. And how he'd managed it.

I imagined he had more than a few sins to atone for in his quests to bring down necromancy for His Grace.

“For me, it is good news. It is time I left the field of clandestine work. The sinister side of me has been burned away.” He glanced ruefully at his heavily bandaged hand resting within a substantial sling.

“Does it hurt much?” I had to know how much he'd sacrificed for his work.

“No more than my conscience.”

Ouch.

“You had a right not to trust Sir Drew.” He looked up at me then. I could not read his emotions.

“I doubt he will see it that way,” I said on a deep sigh. My one regret in this mess was that I'd lost my love. He hadn't spoken to me since leaving the cave of whitewashed death. Not one word on the long journey home, not even a note to say he'd arrived home safely or delivered Rigby to the tender mercies of the archbishop and his physician. Nothing.

This was worse than the loneliness when I didn't know where he'd gone or what he was doing.

“No. I doubt he understands himself well enough to realize what he was really doing,” Rigby said. He shifted his gaze out the window to the inviting green leaves of a willow. “Fitzandrew entered into partnership with Lord Ruthven with the good intention of stopping his plot. And he ended it well by aiding you in destroying his weapon.”

“But in the middle . . . while he sought to gain Ruthven's confidence?”

“Let me say, that if you hadn't come to rescue the girl, I doubt Sir Drew would have done anything to stop Ruthven. He appeared deep in the thrall of the power necromancy offers. Such a lure can make a man justify any action to gain it.” Rigby dropped his head back into his pillow and kept his face turned away from me.

“He has long sought adventure skirting the laws of man and God. A normal and productive life was never enough for him.” I had to look away and blink hard against new tears.

“Even his affair with you was risky. You skirt those same laws, but with an aim to correct wrongs in our society. He sought only to tear holes in the fabric of life as he tore through it.”

“And you?” I asked. Did I truly want to know what atrocities he had committed in trying to root out the enemies of his faith?

“When I have recovered my strength and have settled in to my new parish, I would like your permission to court Miss Lucy.”

Whatever he had done in that cave of horrors was between him and his God. He'd work it out eventually. For good or ill.

“If my Lucy will have you, that is her decision. I presume the archbishop and his wife love you enough to make certain your parish can provide you with a decent living.”

“His Grace has given me a large bonus for my years of work, which I have invested carefully. He also recovered part of my inheritance from my adopted parents. I can provide for a wife and several children.”

“Then, my only proviso, as Lucy's protector, is that you tell her everything.” I set my chin in determination.

“Everything?” he asked bleakly.

“Everything.”

He drew in a deep gulp of air. Then nodded. “If that is my penance, I accept.”

“Your penance is not mine to dole out. You have to figure that out for yourself.”

“Will you take Sir Drew back if he does a similar penance?” He speared me with a penetrating gaze, determined to drag all my secrets from me.

“I don't know.”

“What will you do in the meantime?” His face cleared of strong emotion. His boyish smile tugged at his lips and lit his eyes.

“I shall apologize to Ish and let him return to his safe and solid life in Oxford. He does not appreciate adventure as we do. I shall destroy the kinetic galvatron when Ish has finished examining it. I have taken Jeremy back to the Book View Café where he uses the guise of the simple, moon-faced boy sweeping my stoop as a means for gathering information. It is amazing how people ignore those less fortunate and presume that because Toby is simple of mind, he won't repeat their gossip. In private, he is looking forward to working with my book catalog—he is a most excellent librarian—and courting Reva. She looks upon him favorably.”

“What will happen to Reva? She can't go home.”

“No, she can't. By Romany law she is contaminated and dead to her family; though they still love her and honor her memory. I shall attend their funeral for her. So Jeremy and I shall teach her to read, as she wants, and she shall help me run the café because Lucy is soon to leave me for you.” I breathed deeply. “The time has come to bring Maggie into the fold, to train her for something less nefarious than life as a pickpocket. My little family of ragamuffins is growing.”

He smiled brightly. “And tonight?”

“Tonight I bake and cook a feast for after the coronation. Tomorrow, you are welcome to join us, if you have the strength. I shall close the café and take all of my helpers to view the celebration of the peaceful transfer of power from one monarch to another. And we will dance in the streets with thousands of others to celebrate the peaceful continuation of Britain as we know it.”

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