Mission: Nutcracker

Chapter 2

2

Terminus, 16 December 1871

Devon didn’t mind supporting Fiona Telfair’s weight as they all gazed at the spot where the airship had vanished into the night sky. He bet that the scientists in the ballroom and their families had been rounded up and taken, leaving…

The servants. Devon had only been in Terminus a short time but knew that no one would think to check on them. He needed to make sure they were all right, that everyone had gotten out and would get the necessary medical attention. He turned to the best logistical mind he knew.

“Pierce, the servants.”

Pierce turned to look at him, his expression strangely blank…or was it satisfied? Then he blinked. “Oh, right, they weren’t taken.”

Devon wanted to say something to comfort him—Pierce loved the Tinkerer’s Guild—but he couldn’t find the words. He felt other eyes on him, and his skin heated from his chest up. Right, he still supported Fiona. And he’d run from danger again. He tensed, waiting for the typical whispers.

He cleared his throat. “Please go around back and check on the situation there. If anyone needs help, arrange it.”

“Right, Cousin.” Pierce mock-saluted and hurried away.

Devon turned his attention to Fiona. He’d go help Pierce, but he needed to ensure Fiona’s comfort. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” Fiona pulled away, but he didn’t let go of her until he knew she’d be steady on her feet. “I’m more worried about my father. And my mother. Her health is fragile.”

“We’ll take her home.” A young woman with dark brown hair and dressed in a shimmery blue dress with a matching mask smiled at him, then gave him a coy look. “Unless you’d rather?”

“Lucy!” Fiona jerked her arm away from Devon’s. “I’ll go with you.”

Devon knew Fiona had just rejected the thought of accepting a ride from him—even though he hadn’t offered—out of propriety, but still, it stung. Or maybe she truly didn’t want to spend more time with him. He knew she would be aware of the grumblings against the “cowardly cousins,” as Terminus society called him and Pierce.

She looked at the sky, then at Lucy, who nodded. Devon relaxed slightly. She was likely still focused on her father, who’d been taken gods-knew-where. He didn’t know what the girls communicated with each other, but they piqued his curiosity. Were they already coming up with a plan to find and retrieve the missing Guild members?

“Thank you for your assistance,” Fiona said and held out a hand.

Devon gave her what he hoped was an appropriately serious smile. He admired the confidence with which she shook his hand. Right, in the Tinkerer’s Guild, men and women were treated as equals, at least socially if not with regard to Guild business itself. He’d heard some rumblings from the older members. But now they all had bigger problems.

“You’re welcome,” he told her.

“Will you let me know if you find out anything about what happened?” She glanced toward the roof of Tinkerer Hall again. “We need to find them.”

He tried not to grin at her use of we. What in blazes was happening to him? “Yes. Of course.”

Once she’d joined her friends in their carriage, Devon looked for the medical team that often accompanied the fire brigade. The war had been good for one thing—they’d all gotten much more prepared for disasters. He found them packing up their things and loading the stretchers, which they hadn’t used, into the carriage.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “There are more people around the back.”

Two of the men exchanged glances.

One of them squinted at him. “Oh, Mister Meriweather. You’re concerned about the coloreds?”

Devon didn’t miss the man’s disrespectful tone. “Yes. They may need help.”

They hesitated, and Devon clenched his jaw, trying to find the words that would get through to them.

Finally, one of them said, “Let’s check them out. Don’t want to piss off the tinkerers. I don’t want clockwork critters sneaking into my house making mischief.”

“What?” But Devon didn’t want to waste time listening to their explanations.

He led the medics around to the back of the house, where the servants huddled together by the outer kitchen. His ankle throbbed with every step. The bandage keeping it stable had come loose with the rush out of the hall.

He quickly found Pierce, who arched an eyebrow at Devon’s limp and handed him his flask. “Laudanum,” he mouthed before turning to one of the waiters. “So you said you were in one of the guest rooms upstairs when you heard something on the roof?”

Devon hated the stuff, which Pierce kept on hand in case his back pain flared, but he took a swig. The warmth from the alcohol slithered into his stomach, and fog swallowed the ankle pain without reaching his brain. Or perhaps not—his thoughts seemed to slow. What the heck kind of opium was his cousin getting? With effort, he turned his attention to the server’s words.

“Yes, a thump. Then footsteps. I thought at first someone had activated the Santa Claus protocol as a joke, but they were too heavy.”

Devon nodded as the man described running out of the room and seeing the first of the automatons descending the stairs that led from the observation deck, where the tinkerers engaged in telescope experimentation and development.

“I was so scared I yelled for people to get out and came flying down the stairs and warned the people in the front hall to go back outside. But those things—they moved fast. I barely got out the front door ahead of them. One caught my jacket.” He turned, and Devon saw a piece had been torn from the man’s black uniform.

“Is the door to the roof typically locked?” Pierce asked.

“Yes, but they got it open.”

“Did they force it?”

The man frowned. “Now that I think about it, no. There was no bang. It was like it had been unlocked or they had a key.” He shook his head. “I know I’d’ve heard it if they’d picked the lock or broken it. The room I was in was right under the entrance to the stairs. It’s a heavy-duty door. High security so no one comes in stealin’ guild secrets.”

Devon and Pierce exchanged a glance. “Was anyone upstairs?” Devon asked. “Besides you?”

He nodded. “My wife and daughter. They were getting some of the ladies’ rooms ready.” He looked around, then spoke quietly. “I’ve been lookin’ for them, but I haven’t seen them.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Devon said. “Thank you for telling us what you saw. If you think of anything else, let us know.”

“There was one more thing…” He held out a mass of wire. “I found these all over the roof.”

Devon took it, wrapped it loosely in a handkerchief, and stuck it in his dinner jacket pocket. “Do you know what it is?”

“No, haven’t had the chance to look.”

“Thank you, we’ll look at it. And thanks for your help.”

“Name’s Thom.” The man shook hands with both of them. “Let me help you if I can.”

“We’ll let you know.”

Pierce murmured some sort of condolence, and Devon cursed under his breath. What were those nutcracker things?

When he turned, the device he’d put in his pocket moved and stuck an appendage through his clothes into his side. Devon hissed.

“What is it?” Pierce asked.

Devon pulled the bundle of wires out and held it gingerly. He hoped he wasn’t bleeding. “Do you know what this is?”

Pierce shook his head. “Can’t tell in the dark. Let’s have a look when we get home. Here.” He picked up a blanket from the ground, where someone had dropped it. “Wrap it in that. Is there anyone else you want to talk to?”

Devon took the cloth and looked around to make sure no one needed it. People stood together comforting each other. They all had blankets, and it looked like they were being taken care of. He wrapped the offending device tightly enough for it to not stick him again and—hopefully—loosely enough not to damage it.

“Not this evening. Let’s not intrude on their grief and worry.”

“Right. So,” Pierce asked as they walked away, “who was the attractive mouse you were talking to?”

“Oh, just one of the tinkerer’s daughters. Smart girl.” He didn’t want to say too much. Now another chilling thought born of his time engaged in espionage overseas occurred to him—what if she was still in danger?

Typically after they left a party together—the few times Fiona’s mother had allowed her to go home with her friends—Fiona, Lucy, and Jane would spend the ride deconstructing the evening, both in terms of typical female talk but also the technological advances on display. New methods of lighting, ways of keeping food warm or cold, and other new ideas brought on by the forced ingenuity of a long war would all be topics of conversation. But they remained silent for this ride, caught up in the horror of the evening. Lucy held Fiona’s hand, and Fiona appreciated the small comfort it gave her. She also had faith that her friend—more qualified than she to extrapolate the direction the airship had taken—was working on the problem. More than anything else, she feared for her father…and herself. She’d failed so badly with handling things after her brother’s death. And now it would just be her and her mother.

Fiona’s heartbeat accelerated, and the fickle organ felt like it crept higher and higher in her chest until, by the time they’d reached her house, it had firmly lodged itself in her throat. She could barely speak when Mrs. Lillet asked if she would like for them to accompany her in.

“No, thank you. I had better handle this alone.” Her mother had accepted condolence callers after Connor had been killed, but then had faded out of society. Fiona didn’t know how she’d respond now.

The driver helped Fiona out of the carriage and walked her to the door. Once inside the house, Fiona paused to listen to determine where her mother could be. The household had taken on a certain hush after Connor had left, his quick male footsteps no longer echoing through the rooms, and their father’s heavier ones not making up the tempo. Then after Connor had died, the silence had thickened for a time, stifling sound and thought. Tonight it lay over the house like a winter shroud.

No. I will not allow myself to fall into despair. Father is still alive. For if the automatons had wanted the tinkerers dead, they would have killed them all on the spot, not taken them. She had to believe her father had been one of those kidnapped and wasn’t lying dead on the ballroom floor.

“Fiona? Bryan?” Her mother’s voice floated through the quiet, as wispy as candle smoke.

“Mother?” Fiona’s voice cracked—from smoke or unshed tears? She could be strong for a few more minutes. She had to be.

She always had to be. And then a few more minutes would turn into a few more days, and months, and then she would find herself unable to shed tears after years. At only seventeen, she had already discovered one of the dark secrets of womanhood—how not to cry.

“In the parlor.”

Her mother’s favorite room. A portrait of Connor in his Union uniform hung over the fireplace. She’d had it commissioned after he died, and the painter had used old photographs to create a decent, although stiff image. Fiona remembered Connor as always moving and laughing, not this grim-faced person whose face looked like it had been stuck on someone else’s body. Indeed, his portrait seemed to frown at her when she entered.

Margaret Telfair, once known as Margie to her friends, sat in her favorite armchair, the one that faced the fireplace and the portrait. She held a cup of tea, no doubt brewed from the same leaves she’d been using all day.

“Oh.” She looked up at Fiona. “What happened to you? You smell like smoke and look like you’ve been through a fire.” She leaned forward and looked around. “Where’s your father?”

“There was a fire, Mother.” She wouldn’t tell her of the sconces that had turned and set the place ablaze. “And I don’t know where Father is. He and several of the others were kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” The teacup rattled as it met the saucer. “By whom?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Well?” Margie frowned and leaned forward, her disapproval almost tangible, like an invisible wall pushing Fiona backward. “Why don’t you? Why did he get taken and not you?”

Fiona blinked so she wouldn’t crack in front of her mother. No tears now. “He showed me a secret exit, and I got out with the help of Devon Meriweather.” She hoped dangling the name of the bachelor everyone was curious about would distract her mother.

“And why didn’t you force your father to go with you?”

Fiona didn’t say she’d been asking herself the same question. “He ran back inside to save others. I couldn’t.”

Margie slumped back. “And now we are doomed.”

“Doomed?” While Fiona knew her mother was prone to drama, she felt that was a bit much. “No, we’ll find him, and everything will be fine.” But she knew from before that nothing would be fine. Not after something like this. She hadn’t felt so helpless since Connor—

Her mother’s voice broke into her memories. “We spent all our savings on gowns and other fripperies for your debut. Your father had some jobs lined up so we could pay off the last of the debts. And to bring in income again. But now that he’s gone…” She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief she always carried. “We’ll have to fend off creditors. Perhaps end up in prison.”

Sorrow might have overtaken her mother, but a hot flood of anger spread from Fiona’s gut to her extremities, and she found herself clenching her fists and even her toes. “What? I didn’t ask for you to do that, to spend all our money! How could you do something so stupid?”

“Because it’s the best gift we could give you, ungrateful child.” Now her mother’s words hissed from within the shadows between the chair’s wings. “You have this foolish dream of being a tinkerer, to spend your life with objects and puzzles, but that’s not the way of the world. Not now. Do you think anyone will pay you, a girl, to build things for them? Maybe if they think it’s your husband’s work.”

Fiona stepped back. Could that be true? Even if she convinced the Tinkerer’s Guild to allow her to access the traditional training path from apprentice to master? She’d hoped the world would be changed, more open to female commerce now that so many of the men had been wounded or killed. But if she couldn’t even convince her own mother…

“So this is our last hope,” Fiona said, the words emerging like slugs. “For me to marry well?”

“Yes. Else we’ll be on the street. Or worse.”

Fiona said nothing else. She turned and pushed through the silence, which had thickened again, and crept up to her room. The tears pricked at the backs of her eyes, and she thought she would be able to release them, but then she saw it.

A small nutcracker doll stood in the middle of the room. Its grin mocked her.

If she’d had the choice between crying or fainting, she would have cried, but blackness overtook her.

When Devon and Pierce arrived at their house, they proceeded into a room in the basement that Pierce had converted to a laboratory. He had progressed immensely in his tinkering education and talent while Devon had been abroad, and although proud of his cousin, Devon couldn’t help but feel jealous. Also while Devon was away, Pierce had moved the household to one of the larger estates north of downtown, abandoned by its previous owners when the Confederates had surrendered. He’d argued that being out of the city would be better for Therese’s lungs, and Devon couldn’t disagree. His sister seemed to be maintaining her improvement better than she ever had previously after a trip abroad.

No, Devon couldn’t complain. It had been a mild winter, and the almanac said the weather would hold, which bode well for them getting started on expanding and repairing the rail system through Terminus and beyond, and would be healthier for Therese. As much as he’d enjoyed talking to Fiona, he had to remember his responsibilities. Alas, she was not in a position to enhance his social cachet through marriage, and while he didn’t need to secure another fortune in order to maintain his upward trajectory, he would have to marry strategically to achieve his legacy and goals for Terminus’ progress. And to allow his sister to be in the best position when she wanted to marry.

Pierce cleared off a space on his long workbench. “Do you have it?”

“Yes.” Devon handed Pierce the bundled-up blanket with the device inside it. He took the opportunity to pull his shirtsleeve from his pants and peek at his side, which showed a small cut, but nothing too deep. Good. He didn’t need additional discomfort. His ankle throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

Pierce unwrapped the device, his brows drawn in concentration. He and Devon looked enough alike that people who didn’t know the family often mixed them up or thought they were brothers, one reason Therese said she didn’t want to marry Pierce, who had been attempting to court her since they returned home. Did Devon tighten his mouth like Pierce currently did when he focused hard on something?

As if Devon’s thoughts had summoned her, Therese appeared at the top of the stairs. An extraordinarily clever girl, of course she’d have figured out there was something up when they came straight to the laboratory after the ball. She and Devon shared the same reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, and curiosity about the world, but it would be obvious to anyone who saw them that he’d gotten the healthy constitution.

“How was the ball—oh!” Her eyes widened, and Devon realized that he and Pierce must be smudged from the fire.

“Don’t get too close,” Pierce told her without taking his attention from the crushed clockwork. “We still reek of smoke.”

Devon leaned over to get a better look, but Pierce waved him back.

“Light,” Pierce snapped.

“Right.” Devon stepped back. He shouldn’t be surprised that Pierce took command in this realm. Pierce couldn’t always be expected to defer to him. That’s what made them a good team—they each respected the other’s strengths.

Pierce poked and prodded at the object, turning it and looking at it from every angle. From what Devon could tell, the black wire cage had once been an oblong shape, and the inner clockworks, now half-disassembled by someone’s foot, still had an elegant delicacy. Then Pierce dropped the device and sucked on his finger.

“It has a defense that’s triggered when two of the outer parts are squeezed together. It ejects a wire that pokes at whatever is closest.”

“Are you all right?” Therese asked. “I’ll get one of the maids to bring something to clean the wound with.”

“Thank you,” Devon told her. “Please ask her to bring double. It got me, too.”

“Oh, Devon,” she sighed, and her light footsteps ascended the stairs.

“Oh, Devon,” Pierce mocked in a falsetto voice. Devon punched his arm. “But did you see that?” Pierce asked. “She’s worried about me.”

Devon shrugged noncommittally. “She’d take care of anyone who’s injured.”

“Right.” Pierce cleared his throat. “From what I can see, this was once some sort of clockwork bug.”

Devon walked to the other side of his cousin so he wouldn’t cast a shadow on the workbench. “Reminds me of a cockroach with its shape. Can you determine its purpose?”

Pierce turned it over again, careful not to compress it. “Perhaps. It has a wax cylinder as though for recording sounds. Not that it could hold much data with the size of it. Mostly volume, if anything.”

“So something loud coming close.” Devon frowned. “And then what?”

“That’s the ingenious part. If the needle scores the cylinder deeply enough, it causes a lighting mechanism to set the wick here on fire.”

“So a crawling, noise-triggered flare.”

“Yes.” Pierce demonstrated by pressing the tip of a knife into the cylinder, and they both shielded their eyes against the bright flash, which subsided into a glow. “That could be seen from a ways off.”

Devon thought through the possibilities. “What if some of these had been on the roof of the hall? When the party reached a loud enough volume, they’d trigger…”

“…and light up to show the automaton airship it was time to descend…”

“…to grab the maximum number of tinkerers,” Devon finished. “Someone finally figured out how to tell when parties really get started.”

Therese arrived and directed a maid and a valet down to the two men. Pierce covered the now dark clockwork creature with a rag. They didn’t speak of it again in front of Therese. Devon didn’t know how the excitement would affect her delicate constitution. Besides, he needed time to think and plan. As if the automatons weren’t enough evidence, he now knew without a doubt that they were dealing with a master tinkerer, perhaps even a Clockwork Guild mason. He’d only heard of one so talented while he was abroad, a man who had haunted a theatre and escaped during the Prussian siege of Paris—Paul Farrell.

And if Farrell was involved, it meant the situation held more peril than he’d originally thought. How had the clockwork bugs been placed on the roof? Their location pointed to the involvement of someone at Tinkerer Hall.

His butler and former valet, Crenshaw, met him at the top of the stairs.

“Good,” Devon said. “I need you to go into town and send a telegram.”

Crenshaw didn’t question or object to it being the middle of the night. “Yes, sir. To whom?”

Devon sighed. He’d hoped he was done with foreign service, but he’d been warned it wouldn’t be that easy to leave. “To my contacts at the bureau.”

Crenshaw nodded. “Very good, sir. And what should I tell them?”

“That I have a lead on the man who got away.”