Winterspell (8 page)

“They've found me,” Godfather whispered. He grabbed Clara's arms and left silver stains behind; shining liquid coated his fingers. It was in his hair, too, falling in tangles about his face.

Was it mercury?
Clara wondered.
A soldering accident?

“I told you I was close, didn't I?” he continued. “Closer than I knew, my Clara. I've had a
breakthrough
. But it must have alerted them, broken through my wards . . .”

“Hush, Godfather,” Clara said automatically. “People can hear you.” But propriety seemed foolish, with such an expression on Godfather's face; Clara had never seen him look so afraid.

“Let them hear. They need to leave.” He threw up his arms, turning to face the room. His shirt gaped open, revealing a chest so white, it seemed carved of ice, marred with ugly blackened lacerations. “Leave, I
tell you! It's safer that way. They'll come here; they're after me. And you, Clara.” He bent over his bag, drawing out toys—soldiers in fur hats with wide, hinged mouths; clockwork falcons with snapping wings; wooden swords and porcelain jester dolls. “You'll help me, won't you? You'll help me fight? I had to come here. The shop has been compromised. My protection failed at last, and a scout found me. I managed to subdue him, but my abilities are patchy, and more will follow him straight to the shop, if they haven't already. Here, little one, have this.” He shoved a shabby rat puppet into the hands of a girl who had dared to creep close. The child made a face at its ugliness. “It's not much use. Don't know how it slipped in here. But, oh, the delicious irony . . .”

“All right, I'll help you,” Clara said, trying to piece together his cryptic words. “But we should go into another room, don't you think? The party—”

Godfather kissed her forehead, interrupting her. “My darling Clara, my
brave
Clara.”

“Please, come sit with me quietly for a while.” Clara turned to smile at the gaping crowd, mind racing. She trusted Godfather more than anyone else; if he said there was danger, he was right. But what to do with their guests? And what sort of danger was it? “Godfather's already done a bit too much celebrating, it would seem. Haven't you, Godfather?”

He stared at her. “Oh?”

She returned the look pointedly.

“Oh!” He forced a smile. “Yes. To be sure. I'm pissed as a pirate.”

Some of the children, and not a few adults, giggled as Clara led Godfather toward the Christmas tree. The dirty street boys, eyeing the refreshments hungrily, followed them with the cloth-covered tower in tow. In their wake the orchestra resumed playing, and the murmuring crowd began drifting back to their party.

“Godfather—”

“Take your money and get far away, boys, as far as you can,”
Godfather said, shooing the boys away with a handful of coins. “It won't be safe here for much longer.”

“Godfather.”
Clara shook him. “You shouldn't be here. I told you not to come. Dr. Victor will try to ruin you.”

“The good doctor is the least of our worries, my Clara.” Godfather crouched by his towering bundle and pulled the cloth aside a little to reveal a chiseled metal thigh, the iron boot tipped with spikes, covered in those savage symbols.

Clara's skin flushed with sudden smoldering awareness.

The statue.
As always, her hands itched to touch it. Her body swayed toward it. She had to fight the urge to sidle close to it, as she so often did, to whisper hello and tell it about her day in that embarrassing way she had of pretending that it cared, or even could. But her secrets were so safe, held tightly in the statue's metal crevices. How could she resist? And there had been moments, she swore there had been, when the statue's face had softened as she'd nestled near and chattered mindlessly about things too private to speak of to others, even to Godfather.

She swallowed hard, tore her gaze from the statue's armor-plated thigh. “Why is that here?”

“I told you, my breakthrough.” Godfather raked silver fingers through his hair. “They've been after me for years, of course they have.
She
has. Trapping him wasn't enough; coming here wasn't enough. I've felt them jabbing”—he poked his fingers at her—“at the wards for years, but never getting any closer. Tonight, though . . . I've almost done it.
Almost.
” He punched his palm. “Unfortunately, my work disrupted the wards' protection.”

“Godfather, for heaven's sake, speak plainly.”

“Look. I've done it, I tell you. It's begun.
Look.
”

Clara followed his stained finger and saw it on the statue's leg—a thin, jagged crack in the metal, a seam ready to burst, and it glowed with a pale, blue light.

She stepped away, shaken. Years in its company, and she had never seen the statue do
that
. “You've got to get that out of here, Godfather. If Dr. Victor sees it, he'll brand you for a devil—”

Dr. Victor.
In the chaos of Godfather's arrival, she had forgotten him, her father, Patricia Plum. With a sick lurch of her heart, she whirled to search for them in the crowd.

They were gone.

“Oh, God.”

“I'm afraid that won't help in these matters,” Godfather said, withdrawing a leather packet of tools from his greatcoat. “Believe me, I have tried.”

Clara left him muttering and found Felicity's red curls in the sea of children picking over Godfather's toys.

“Felicity, watch Godfather for a moment, won't you?” Clara could hardly speak, her throat tight with fear. “Make sure he doesn't have one of his fits.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

But Clara had already left her, weaving through the crowded ballroom toward the winding corridor on the mansion's north side—the heavy quiet of her mother's parlor, the swirling color of the music room, the kitchen stairs.

Father, where are you?
She pressed close to the dark wood-paneled walls. The noise of the party faded, leaving Clara alone with her careful breathing.

At the hallway's end stood a set of grand wooden doors, slightly ajar—her father's private study. She hid among the shadows in the hallway's farthest corner.

“. . . I'm through.”

That was her father, hoarse, breathing hard.

“I'm afraid it's too late for that, John.” Patricia Plum's voice, sickly
sweet. “You can't just leave whenever you feel like it. What would we tell our citizens?”

“That I've resigned. Mayors resign.”

Clara could not believe it.
Resign?

Plum went on, ignoring him. “Besides, think of what you've seen, what you've done, what you've let happen.”

“Yes, and I've had enough.”

Dr. Victor laughed. “Had enough? Oh, now. John Stole, the face of Concordia, is taking the moral high ground?”

“I was a fool.” Her father's voice cracked on the last word. Clara could not bear the sound and had to fight not to run to him. “For years I was a fool.”

“That much is obvious, the way you've been acting. Spilling secrets to the
Times
, eh, John? Misplacing city funds?”

“You mean giving them back to the people they belong to.”

“You self-righteous idiot. You're sabotaging Concordia. You think we haven't noticed?”

“Why, John?” Patricia Plum, disappointed. “You knew what we were when you joined us. You never had qualms.”

“That was
before
.”

Dr. Victor scoffed. “Oh, of course. Almighty Saint Hope.”

Something heavy toppled over, glass crashing along with it. Clara reached under her skirt for her dagger, placing her palm atop it. Sweat trickled down her neck.

Her father was shouting, “You killed her, damn you.
Damn
you!”

“Get him off me,” snarled Dr. Victor, and Clara heard scuffling, grunts, the sick thud of a punch.

“I've told you again and again,” Plum said coldly, “Concordia had no part in Hope's murder.”

“Oh, as we've had no part in the gang wars downtown? The opium trade, the depression?” John Stole laughed, a choked, crazed sound. “Harrod House, for God's sake?”

“My work there is entirely respectable,” murmured Dr. Victor.

“Like hell it is, you sick bastard—”

“Tut, tut. Careful now.”

“You didn't like the work Hope was doing, how she was helping people, making them think differently, upsetting your control.”

Plum, derisively: “Your wife's work was never notable enough to concern us, John. Come now, let's not be naive.”

“You meant ‘
our
control,' didn't you, John?” Dr. Victor's voice, perilously soft. “You are, after all, one of us.”

“Not anymore.”

Clara heard the thump of angry footsteps, Patricia Plum saying, “Let him go.” A moment later her father emerged from the room, his tie undone and his face cloaked in shadow. He gulped down the glass of scotch in his hand and staggered around the corner.

Clara watched him leave, immobilized with panic. Resigning as mayor, leaving Concordia—were such things even possible? She moved to follow him, but then she heard Dr. Victor spit: “Enough's enough, Patricia. We've got to get rid of him.”

“He's a liability,” came the Merry Butcher's voice. “He's unpredictable and knows too much.”

Clara froze, halfway out of her corner.

“And I had so hoped we wouldn't have to.” Plum sighed delicately. “But he has allowed me no other choice. We'll proceed as planned. Have you found your man for Reginald Square, Hiram?”

Reginald Square. The New Year's Eve ceremony. Clara crept closer to the door.

Hiram Proctor wheezed in his distinctive rattle, “I have indeed. Rotten gent, clean shot. He'll be in the crowds that night, front and center. Once dear Johnny gets up to make his speech, auld lang syne, how do you do . . .
boom
.”

“How tragic,” Dr. Victor added, “that his wounds will be beyond even my skill to heal.”

“And what if the shot's not fatal?” asked the Butcher.

“Never fear, my merry friend. A good doctor knows how to kill as well as heal.”

Clara's knees gave out; she slid to the floor, clumsy and too distraught to care.

“A pity we can't kill him tonight,” added Dr. Victor. “Poor Clara would be hysterical. She'd seek comfort in familiar arms, and I'd be forced to oblige.” He hummed deep in his throat. “Merry Christmas to me.”

“Speaking of Clara,” said the widow, her voice floating like a song, closer now, “I know you're out there, sweet one.”

T
hey were on her immediately—the Butcher and Dr. Victor, yanking her into the room. Clara tried to scream, but Dr. Victor's arms were too strong, his stink too foul; it choked away her breath, sickened her with sudden terror.

“How long have you been hiding out there, girl?” the Merry Butcher demanded. Gone was the laughing, fat Commissioner of Human Health; this was the Butcher, whose hands reeked of blood. He shook her. “How long?”

She said nothing. Briefly she considered reaching for the dagger pressed against her thigh. Her mother, perhaps, would have been able to move as Godfather had taught her and skewer them all—but Clara's fear was too great. Her vision spun—the
world
spun. Dr. Victor's palm was tight over her mouth.

The Butcher scowled, pulled a pillbox from his jacket. “I'll make short work of this, Plum. It'll look like she had one too many. Easy, clean. Hold her mouth open, Doctor.”

Dr. Victor laughed. “She's not yours to claim, Butcher, not even for death. She's mine.”

“Really, Victor,” said Hiram Proctor from the corner. “There are lots of other legs to get between, and some of them prettier than these.”

Revolted, Clara twisted in Dr. Victor's arms, and his fingers tightened their grip on her face.

“Stop struggling, you wicked girl,” he hissed. “Behave yourself.”

“Gentlemen, that's enough.” Patricia Plum's voice silenced them at once, and as she rustled toward Clara, even Dr. Victor backed away. She took Clara's chin in hand. “Eavesdropping is an unbecoming practice for a young lady, Clara.”

“I—I didn't hear anything.” Clara cringed at the sound of her own voice. It trembled like a child's, and was entirely unconvincing.

Plum studied her for a long moment. Clara dropped her eyes and bit her tongue, as though the pain of that could keep her standing upright, and she decided she was not sure whom she hated more—the widow or herself.

“I'd be angry at you for trying to lie to me,” Plum said lightly, “if you weren't so terrible at it. I know you heard every word of our conversation.”

Perhaps in Godfather's shop Clara could spin tales and turn tricks, but there was no use trying to fool anyone in this room. Her own fear had turned the air toxic, and it was impossible to think. “But . . . why can't he simply resign?”

Plum released her, disdainful. “Your father has been part of Concordia for years. He has seen much and knows even more. How am I to trust that he wouldn't use that knowledge against us?”

“He wouldn't betray you, Mrs. Plum. Concordia has been his life—”

Plum was unmoved. “A life he is all too willing to throw away, it would seem.”

“So the only option is to kill him.” Clara's words sounded hollow, heavy, as if her body refused to speak properly. She felt thrust into a fog of disbelief.

After a moment, Plum smiled a small, false smile. “Oh, Clara. I can see you're going to be difficult. Dr. Victor, would you please fetch the younger Miss Stole?”

“With pleasure,” he said, his voice full of teeth.