Touch of Steel: A Novel of the Clockwork Agents (18 page)

“Sure there is. You’re out here making barbecue out of me over a useless twat who didn’t even remember your last birthday.”

“He was still my brother.” Now she was the one grinding her teeth. “And how the hell do you know that he missed my birthday?” Why was she listening to any of this? Alastair would be here soon, and it would be so much better if Howard was already dead when he arrived.

He was still chuckling, only now he slid down into the chair bolted to the deck beside him. He reached up and tugged at his hair—it came off in his hand, revealing light brown, slicked-back hair. He pulled off his eyebrows as well—revealing others beneath.

It was the perfect time to kill him, but Claire couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger. She could only stand there like an idiot as he took thin, gelatin-like lenses from his eyes, removed a false nose and muttonchops, and pulled padding from his mouth along with a set of teeth. All of these things he placed on the length of deck chair beside his wounded leg, until he finally turned to her, his true face revealed.

“Robert,” she whispered—it came out like a sob, squeezed from her tight throat. Good God. Stanton Howard hadn’t just been pretending to be her brother. He
was
her brother.

Her brother stared at her. “Not any more. Robert Brooks died in an explosion caused by Stanton Howard. Soon Stanton Howard will disappear as well.”

“Why?” It was the only thought to pierce the clamor in her mind as she moved toward him, still not quite believing her eyes. The hand holding the pistol trembled, but she didn’t lower it completely. Her mind didn’t completely trust what her eyes had just seen.

He smiled. “Because I was tired of being someone’s puppet. I want to be the one pulling the strings.”

“But . . . you didn’t tell me.”

“Of course I didn’t.” He made a face indicating he thought she was stupid to think otherwise. “I couldn’t tell anyone. I really didn’t think you’d come looking for revenge.”

“How could you not know I’d want to avenge you?”

He looked almost sympathetic through his pain. “We haven’t spoken in what, six months? It’s not as though we’ve been close these last few years. Honestly, Sis, I don’t think I would have done this for you.”

His words cut her to the bone. “I betrayed my agency for you. I resigned myself to dying to avenge you. For nothing.”

There must have been something in her tone or in her face, because he gave her a loving glance—one that came far too easily. “I couldn’t tell you, Claire-a-bell. It was too dangerous.”

He had always been the better actor of the two of them. It took this to make her realize just how much of a willing audience she had been. If not for her chasing Stanton Howard, he never would have revealed to her that he still lived. He would have let her go on thinking he was dead. He wouldn’t have cared.

“You shot me,” she said. It was an idiotic statement given the scope of his crimes, but it encapsulated so much of how she felt.

“You shot me!” He lifted his injured leg. “Twice!”

“I didn’t know it was you! You knew when you pulled the trigger just who you were aiming at.”

“Why do you think you’re still alive? Anyone else and you would have died that night.” His expression softened. “But now that you know, you can join me. We can be a team again.”

“Join you? And what, run away, change my face and my name and become
your
puppet? No, Robert.” He didn’t mean it anyway. He was just playing her, as she imagined he’d always played her.

Robert’s jaw tightened. No wonder “Howard” had reminded her of her father. Why had she never realized that Robert had grown up to be an even bigger monster? There was no warmth of feeling in him at all. Perhaps their father was to blame for some of that, the Company for a share as well, but her brother was rotten to the core, and she hadn’t seen it. This was the cruelest joke of all.

“I can’t have you telling my secret, Claire.”

She didn’t quite hear him. “The way you killed that poor Russian . . .”

He lunged suddenly—so fast she couldn’t react—and snatched the pistol from her hand. He turned his arm and torso. “Will be nothing compared to the way I’m going to kill your lover.”

Claire’s gaze followed the length of his arm. Her heart leaped at the sight of Alastair. How long had he been standing there? His rugged face was void of expression, and his attention was focused on Robert. “You can’t run, Brooks.”

Robert chuckled. “Of course I can. You think I didn’t notice that lovely little submersible attached to the ship. I assume it’s yours? I’ll take that—and my sister.”

“You won’t get very far.” Aver fas if on cue, the bright light of a dirigible washed over the deck, the soft engines whirring high above them. Beneath that was the sound of smaller craft—sparrows, as they were called, tiny personal flying machines that were used for landing in tight spots or flanking an enemy. They looked like big fireflies, Claire thought.

“They’ll be so busy trying to save you, they won’t worry about me.” Robert grinned. “You lose.”

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter 16

The blast caught Alastair in the chest, knocking him off his feet and into the wall behind him. For a second, his entire torso seemed to be engulfed in flame—which died just as quickly as it flared.

Claire didn’t think; she just moved. She pulled her fan from her reticule and tossed the ridiculous bag aside. As she lunged, she flicked her wrist, opening the fan with a sharp “snick”. Robert pivoted, the smile draining from his face as he spotted her. He whipped his arm around to shoot her, but she lashed out before he could fire—the pistol hadn’t quite recharged. The gregorite razors of her fan sliced through his wrist as though it were no more substantial than butter.

Hot blood struck the side of her face. Her brother grasped at his arm and fell screaming to the deck. Claire grabbed the pistol from where it had slid as two sparrows landed on the deck, the wind from their blades stirring up the cool air. The sounds of excited voices filled the night, coming from passengers, curious and excited; from W.O.R. agents arriving on the scene; and from her brother’s screams. Claire ignored them all—even the ones yelling at her—and ran to Alastair’s side.

“Alastair?” She fell to her knees. He was so still. “Alastair?”

He was breathing. He was alive, thank God.

“You bitch!” She turned to see her brother coming at her. He’d somehow managed to incapacitate a Warden and steal the woman’s weapon. He ran toward her, slipping in his own blood as it poured down his front from the stump of his wrist and limping from the burn on his leg.

He could kill her if he wanted, but he was not going to touch Alastair. Not again. She raised the pistol, aimed and fired. By some manner of grace she managed to shoot him in the hand holding the weapon. He collapsed to the deck, whimpering. If he’d screamed one more time, she would have gone for his throat.

The next few minutes unfolded terribly fast. Wardens claimed her brother as more came for her. They seized her by the arms and pulled her to her feet.

“I can’t leave him!” she cried. “You have to help him.”

“We’ll look after Lord Wolfred, ma’am,” one of the male agents informed her, “but now you have to come with us.”

She didn’t fight them—it would do her no good, and only prevent as many agents as possible helping Alastair. She kept her gaze focused on him as they dragged her away, toward one of the sparrows.

They took her weapons and strapped her into the small backseat of the largest of the sparrow ships—most weren’t designed to caridthry more than one rider. Buckles and straps secured a volans canopy to her person. The canopy was a dome of silk that would deploy should she fall from the flier or should there be some sort of malfunction that resulted in falling from a great height, and carry her safely to the ground, or in this case, the ocean. The pilot had a folding metal partition behind her head to prevent Claire from attacking her, and to save Claire from being restrained. These safety measures had been implemented by many agencies after both agents and prisoners had died as the result of aircraft-related incidents.

The same agent who buckled her in draped a blanket over her to keep her from getting chilled.

She watched over the side of the small craft as it lifted off the deck, its whirling blades blocking out almost any other sound. Agents surrounded her brother and Alastair. She didn’t want her brother to die, but he was not her concern—Alastair was. How much of her conversation with Robert had he heard? Would he live? And if so, would she ever see him again?

Why couldn’t Robert have shot her instead? It wouldn’t have hurt any more than realizing he hadn’t cared about her the same way she had about him. He’d not only betrayed the Company; he betrayed her as well, by turning into such a beast their father would be proud to call son.

Slowly the sparrow ascended. Alastair grew smaller and smaller until there was nothing but the ship and its lights below her, and even those were becoming tiny and distant.

She didn’t cry. The wind stung her eyes and made them water a bit, but that was the extent of tearing. Even when the sparrow docked in the lower decks of a large Warden dirigible, her eyes remained dry. The pack containing the canopy was removed from her person and her hands were bound with what appeared to be garters. They were the ones she’d been given before the mission—the ones that had a multitude of uses. Obviously someone had retrieved her reticule from the deck.

Her pistol had been taken from her when they nabbed her on the ship, as had her fan, leaving her defenseless—not that she was of the mind to defend herself. She was too . . . shocked for that.

Robert, the one person she thought she had in this world, the person she had depended on, who had looked after her, was not what she thought he was. Maybe as a young man he had loved her and wanted to do what was best for her, but the life he’d led as a Company agent had destroyed the boy who used to rescue her from the closet. He used to stand up to their father, and now he had become him—or something even worse.

The truly awful part was that she wasn’t even completely surprised by it. Part of her had known he wasn’t the hero she made him out to be. Hell, she’d almost killed her own brother. She would have killed him if she had had to.

To save Alastair. And now he was gone, too. Perhaps even for good if that wound got the best of him. Ah, the thought of a world without him in it proved that her tear ducts still worked. She blinked the tears away. Men like Alastair didn’t die without a fight, and if they got him to Dr. Stone in time, she would save him. If anyone could save him, it was Evelyn.

“Where do you want me to put her, Captain MacRae?” the guard asked a tall, well-built man with sandy brown hair and dark blue eyes.

The captain lookedcap t at her, the blood on her hands and face, the state of her gown. “Put her in my cabin.”

“Sir?” The guard sounded just as astounded as Claire was.

MacRae’s features hardened. “She just cut off a man’s hand and shot the son of a bitch to save one of ours. Give her my damn cabin. Never mind—I’ll take her myself. And get those restraints off her.”

“As a Warden, I can’t do that, sir.”

“Then get the hell out of my sight.” MacRae took her by the elbow. “This way, Miss Brooks.”

“How do you know my name?” Claire asked.

“When I intercepted the Wardens’ call for a ship, they told me it was you I’d be picking up. You’re the Dove, right?”

“Yes.” It hardly mattered now. “Are you going to kill me?”

He shot her a frown as he led her down a set of narrow steps, belowdecks. “Hadn’t occurred to me, no. My job’s to return you safe and sound to the Wardens.”

“You’re not British.” Inane, but it was what came to mind. She should ask why he was being so nice to her, but she could assume only that it was a lie or he was getting paid a lot to deliver her.

“No, ma’am. My father was Scottish, my mother American, and I grew up in Canada, Australia and China and other parts of the world. My father’s business didn’t exactly lend itself to living in one place for very long, if you take my meaning.”

Claire smiled. “I believe I do. You don’t have to give me your cabin. Just put me in a cell if you have one.”

He steered her left at the bottom of the stairs, toward the back of the ship. “I’m putting you where you’ll be safe, and my room’s the safest I’ve got.”

As they passed by a door, it opened and a gentleman stuck his head out. “Everything all right, Mac?”

The captain waved at him. “Brief detour, Theo. Don’t worry, I’ll have you where you need to be on time.”

The man smiled, his relief almost palpable. He gave a nod to Claire before he closed the door. She caught a glimpse of an attractive blond woman in the room as well. It was none of her business, so she didn’t ask.

Captain MacRae slipped a punch card into the lock of the last room at the end of the corridor and opened the door. He stood back so she could enter first.

The room was large, with dark wood and richly colored fabrics. It was neat—for a man—and smelled of sandalwood and leather.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “We’ll be in London in less than two hours.” He withdrew a wicked-looking blade from the sheath at his waist. “Let me get those restraints off you.”

Claire extended her arms. MacRae slipped the tip of the blade into a small notch on the clip of the garter and turned. There was a soft click, and the bonds slid open, releasing their bite on her wrists.

“Thank you.”

He took the deceptively strong piece of ribbon and tucked it in his pocket. “You’re welcome. There’s whiskey if you want, some shortbread in the box on the desk and a few books on the shelf. If you need anything, just ring.”

“Just like Evelyn,” she murmured as she looked around the room.

“What was that?” MacRae asked. His tone was clipped, his shoulders suddenly very straight.

“Nothing,” Claire replied, stunned by his sudden change in demeanor. “Just that you’re being so kind. The only other Warden to show me such concern was Dr. Stone.”

“I’m not a Warden,” he informed her coolly. “And I’m not like Dr. Stone. I keep my promises. Make yourself at home.” With that, he closed the door to the cabin, leaving her alone and locked in—if the sound of the punch lock was any indication. Obviously he didn’t want her wandering around on her own or escaping. Chivalry went just so far.

It was only then that Claire allowed her spine to sag. A wave of weariness washed over her, driving her to the bed, where she sat down on the soft mattress. She looked up and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Damn. She looked like something out of a nightmare. Blood smeared her face, dappled her gown and stained her hands.

Her brother’s blood. The memory of slicing through his flesh rolled her stomach, but she would have slit his throat if it meant saving Alastair. Robert had betrayed her deeper than anyone else—betrayed everything he swore allegiance to. How could she have loved him? Believed he loved her? Perhaps he had once, but he’d changed into something hard and selfish—and insane.

Had she become that as well? Almost. She’d been willing to put her own desire for vengeance ahead of capturing a vicious spy, above saving the lives of many. The Wardens would manage to get secrets out of Robert. She’d heard they had some sort of device that could literally suck memories out of a person’s head. Perhaps they’d use it on her and take away the moments she’d spent with Alastair.

Of course, the thought of him brought all those moments rushing to the front of her mind. Claire rose from the bed and crossed to a narrow door that opened as soon as she turned the handle. It was a small water closet with a shower-bath stall and a small sink. She washed her hands and face with cool water, scrubbing as best she could so she didn’t leave rusty stains on the towel.

It was because of Alastair alone that she hadn’t killed her own brother. Even before she knew his true identity and still thought of him as Howard, she hadn’t pulled the trigger because Alastair wanted him alive. She might have actually done the deed, but now she would never know for certain. It had been a selfless moment—something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Hell, she’d had sex with him out of purely selfish reasons, and now he was wounded—maybe even dead—because he had protected a friend and ended up stuck with her instead.

If Alastair died, his blood would be on her hands as surely as Robert’s had been. And that . . . That would be one regret she couldn’t bear to live with.

She made it back to the bed before the tears started. Then she curled up on the quilt and let them come. For the first time since her mother’s death Claire allowed hair maerself to truly cry—not just a few hot tears, but great, gulping sobs wrenched from the bottom of her soul.

By the time the ship docked in London, Claire had pulled herself together, though her eyes were still scratchy and a little red. She was taken from the cabin by Captain MacRae and escorted to the deck where she was handed over into Warden custody. A woman of obvious Indian descent met her. The moonlight turned the woman’s hair almost blue and added a surreal element to the scene.

“Miss Brooks, I am director of the W.O.R. Thank you for your assistance in apprehending Stanton Howard. Given the circumstances, you have the sincere appreciation of the entire Warden agency.”

So the Wardens knew Howard was really Robert. Of course they did. Nice of her not to refer to him by his proper name. “Is Alastair all right?”

The woman’s face tightened. “He’s in Dr. Stone’s care now. We have every confidence that he will make a full recovery.”

Claire’s weary gaze lifted. “Meaning you have no idea whether he’ll live or not.”

She pursed her full lips. “You’ll be taken back to your accommodations at our headquarters. I will meet with you tomorrow for a debriefing.” Then to the captain she said, “Thank you for your assistance, Mac.”

He merely nodded before turning his back on them both and walking away. The guards led Claire to the other side of the boarding plank where the director waited—with another two guards, both heavily armed. Did they think she’d try to escape?

Then she heard it—the subtle click of an aether pistol being primed.

“Get down!” one of the guards shouted. He shoved Claire toward the other woman, using his own body to shield them. Claire watched in horror as his body stiffened and his eyes rolled back into his head as the smell of burned flesh rent the air. The guard crumpled to the ground.