Our journey through Whitechapel took us through the curtains of rain descending from the skies. The downpour had not lessened in the least as we made our way out of the doll factory and over toward the riverside.
The streets were not cluttered by crowds or obstacles; the sudden rainstorm had driven most of the people of the borough back within the shelter of their homes. Those who did venture out in the weather only did so beneath the upraised shields of their umbrellas and armored against the damp with thick, nondescript overcoats. They muttered to themselves and stumbled by in an anonymous herd, neither deigning to offer protection from the wet nor expressions of sympathy for anyone foolish enough to have forgotten such basic amenities for themselves.
As one of those unfortunates without sufficient coat or umbrella to rely on, I found this behavior extremely reprehensible. My inability to resolve the situation myself was almost as frustrating. Among all the tools and equipment which Daniel had fabricated for my work, the closest item which would have resembled an umbrella was the repaired and improved bullet shield I had relied on during my battles with Rook. The shield was crafted of metal, however, and to utilize it in such a manner while the thunder grumbled and the lightning flashed above us would have been foolhardy at best, momentously stupid at worst. So I was forced to endure the growing sogginess of the day as the unrelenting precipitation hammered down upon us. It was not the kind of circumstance that encouraged a gentleman to look with any kindness on the self-interest of the crowd. The prospects for the day, which had truly not offered much hope to begin with, were steadily growing worse.
Not that Eaton’s continued presence was any help to my darkening view of society at large. He had remained rather stubbornly silent as we walked, stalking through the puddles without the slightest regard for my proximity. The rain had no effect on his person; indeed, one would think him utterly invulnerable to the chill, damp weather. From one of his pockets, the American had retrieved a small toothpick, which he was using to clean his teeth in a rather disgusting display of poor breeding. His vulgar behavior aside, the bounty hunter took every opportunity to bump into me and push me off into a gutter.
Patricia’s attitude was taking a rapid turn for the worse as well. A stiff and angry set to her shoulders told me more than I truly wanted to know about her state of mind toward her fellow bounty hunter. Of course, such a shift in her attitude toward the illustrious Mr. Eaton was something of a triumph for me, but as she descended into something of a sullen silence, it became hard to celebrate my good fortune. So despite my technical victory, we still marched along with only the splash of our footsteps and the roll of thunder to accompany us.
When we reached the location Patricia had been looking for, my mood soured much further. The place to which Mr. Eaton had drawn us was an even more dismal and abandoned area than that of the doll shop. It was an vacant coaching house, obviously left to molder amidst the rest of the broken buildings of Whitechapel. Unlike the doll factory, the door had not even been barred shut, and with the force of the wind, the portal swung open and shut with quiet thumps.
Two carriages waited outside, empty of passengers or drivers. I immediately took note of the emblems etched into their door panels and motioned to Patricia. “Ms. Anderson, I believe someone has reached the spot before us.”
Drawn out of her melancholy study, Patricia studied the markings and grimaced. “Von Messner’s mercenaries, is it?” I nodded, and she shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Then I guess we had better get in there. The faster we can scare off the man and his thugs, the more time we’ll have to set up for the Dollmaker.”
I was not quite so confident of our victory over the mercenaries. Von Messner had assembled a core group of former soldiers about him in the years since the New War, and the German’s zeal for both military discipline and tactical planning were almost legendary. Normally the mercenary band was attracted to jobs that required them to safeguard private individuals or protect shipments, which they had accomplished with professional consistency. Clearly, the offer of reward for bringing the Dollmaker to heel had lured them to join the hunt as well.
Mr. Eaton, for his part, seemed completely unworried. He tossed his toothpick aside with a grin, and then checked his revolver. The hunter looked up, and his face went lethally blank. “Well then, let’s get to work. Unless you’d rather stay outside, my friend?”
I bridled at his casual contempt, but Patricia did not leave me a chance to respond. Hefting her carbine, she led the way through the front gate and up to the doors. I held them open and they stepped inside. Lightning flashed as I paused on the doorstep, and then I followed them into the atrium of the coaching house.
Once, the place had been a fine testament to the luxuries of London. It had a fine arched ceiling and large windows, complete with pillars that supported the structure and gave an air of refined sophistication to the space. Mirrors and carpet had decorated the walls and floors respectively, and niches in the decorations showed where lanterns might have illuminated the entire scene when the light of day faded.
Now, however, the prevailing sense of the building was one of rot. Unlike the relatively pristine yet dusty doll factory, the hotel had clearly suffered the indignities of water and time. The once-fine carpet was now rank with mildew and patches of it appeared to have been cut away, leaving the wooden floor beneath exposed. Rain continued to pound down on the structure’s faulty roof, and the sound almost hid the steady drip of water from some leak hidden in the shadows. A smell of decay pervaded the air, and the feel of the sodden carpet squelching at each step brought fresh disgust to my senses.
Yet the floor still seemed firm enough to support us, and there was enough light to see despite the missing lights. Both Eaton and Patricia stalked forward into the space, guns out and searching for an enemy. I followed, pistol drawn, in their wake. While I almost expected von Messner to set his soldiers against us immediately, my eyes were drawn to the grand stairwell curling to the second floor of the structure. It was very likely that the finest rooms of the decrepit structure were hidden there, and I wagered it would be there that the mercenaries had laid their trap for the killer.
Then my foot nudged something lying close to a pillar. I looked down to find a well-cared for Walther Pappenheim Bolt Rifle lying on the carpet. My eyes widened as I studied its slender, deadly frame; a Pappenheim was rarely seen outside of Prussia, where it had originated, and I doubted that anyone would willingly abandon such a deadly weapon here. With a quick glance around, I assured myself that the gun was not some kind of trap, and bent to inspect it further.
I had reached for the gun when I noticed something else lying at the foot of the pillar. My blood chilled as I recognized it. The shape of a simple, crude doll was clear, and when I retrieved it from its resting place, I could see the wide-eyed, staring features of a young man. He wore a stark, military-styled uniform that carried the von Messner symbol on its breast. When I turned it over, the back of that uniform had been stained a deep red where the doll had been gouged in a single, deep scar.
The message was clear. I cleared my dry throat and whispered, “Ms. Anderson? Mr. Eaton? The Dollmaker has been here.”
Patricia was at my side a heartbeat later, with Eaton stalking over to join us. I gestured at them with the doll, and her eyes went wide. Eaton’s features simply grew stern, and he immediately began to search the shadows as if expecting the murderer to be waiting for us there. As his eyes darted about, he crouched to gather the rifle into his hands, checking the action and the ammunition with a practiced air.
I looked about as well, and felt the chill within me deepen as I recognized a second Pappenheim leaning casually against the nearest pillar. Another doll, with its head lolling at a sickening angle, sat next to the weapon. Within a few more moments, I picked out two more dolls at the foot of the staircase, with another pair of rifles laid on the first step above them. A fifth rifle, with the broken figure of a doll sprawled next to it, was halfway up the steps.
Patricia followed my gaze, and then looked back at me. I met her eyes and readied my pistol. “We go up.” She nodded, and again she led the way as we crept up the creaking stairway. Eaton guarded our backs, twisting and turning to probe the recesses of every shadow, as if the rifle in his hands was the only thing holding a pack of wolves at bay. There was some temptation to gather one of the weapons for myself as well, but clearly not even a Pappenheim had done von Messner’s men much good. Instead, I kept an eye out for hints of an ambush and put on Patricia’s brass knuckles.
We reached the landing at the top of the stairs without any sign of the Dollmaker himself, yet evidence of his presence remained. Two more dolls were lying on the stained carpet, with rifles placed against the wall nearby. I noted a bullet hole in the railing of the staircase, and realized that von Messner’s men had not been taken completely by surprise. All the same, the warning had clearly not done them any good.
A door creaked on its hinges, and we turned as one to face the potential threat. Nothing revealed itself to our alerted scrutiny, though as lightning flashed and thunder rolled, the brief wash of light through the windows revealed that a door to a room further inside the coaching inn had been left open.
Patricia led us down that hallway, gun at the ready. We passed another limp figure of a doll, lying beside a ruined rifle. I tightened my grip on the pistol as we neared the doorway. It was only a slim chance that our foe had remained at the site of the massacre, but even that small possibility was worth my careful preparation as we reached the still-creaking portal.
We paused at the threshold, listening for any whisper of movement, or even just the betrayed sigh of a man’s breathing. There was nothing, and Patricia’s grip on her carbine firmed. Then she rushed around the corner, shouldering the swinging door aside. I followed closely, almost diving through the opening to crouch at the opposite side of the door with my pistol ready. I heard Mr. Eaton follow, his own rifle pivoting to find a target.
What greeted our valiant charge was nothing but an empty room.
Though it was not entirely empty; I would rather it had been vacant by comparison. Three Pappenheim rifles lay discarded on the floor. An assortment of knives, swords, and even bayonets were piled with them, left like the detritus of a schoolchild’s pack on the soiled carpet. Among those weapons was a distinctive pistol, one I had last seen in the former Colonel von Messner’s possession. It had been awarded to him during the New War for conspicuous valor, or so went the story he told of it.
By those weapons, almost an afterthought, lay four small dolls. Their faces were painted in blank masks of pain or twisted expressions of terror. Red stained their tattered uniforms, and obviously fatal wounds had been gouged in their wooden bodies. Aside from those small figures, nothing remained.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the room through its single window. In that brief glimpse of clarity, I saw bullet holes which speckled the room, marking walls, floor, and ceiling. The carpet, once a dull, rotting brown, had red stains as well. Worst of all, I could see with startling precision that one of the dolls wore a white mustache and similarly white hair of a particular style I knew. Von Messner, for all his valor, had obviously met his end.
I lowered my gun. The Dollmaker was not here, though his handiwork had been left for us to find. With a certain level of anger, I turned on Mr. Eaton. “Are you satisfied now, Mr. Eaton? For all we know, this trap could have been laid for us.”
Eaton had stepped back from the room; shadows made his expression hard to read. His voice, however, retained that same lethal neutrality I had heard from him at our first meeting. “So he might be a bit tougher than we thought. Are you saying we should give up now that we’re so close?”
Even as I gathered a sharp retort, Patricia placed a hand on my arm. She turned to Eaton. “Nobody’s saying that.” Then she glanced back at the room, and the faint light from the window revealed an expression of anger mixed with regret. She had known von Messner well, and though they might have been competitors, she must have felt as I did that the man deserved a better end. “All this does is raise the stakes. We’re going to need to be careful here. The tiger’s got blood in its teeth, and anyone worth anything will know that means he’s even more dangerous than before.”
“I agree with you entirely, Ms. Mustang.”
That cool, courteous voice triggered widely differing responses amongst the three of us. Patricia pivoted on her feet and crouched, bringing her carbine around to train it on the newcomer. Eaton, for all his brave words before, jumped back and away. He dropped his newfound rifle and yanked his revolver from its holster, bringing it to bear in an uncertain, wavering way.
I, on the other hand, stiffened in recognition. It was Crimson. The light from the window barely touched her outline, and in a somewhat foreboding sign, her knife was drawn. Other than that, however, she had not attacked, and I had hope that the blood in the carpet was too old to provoke her hunger. With as much courtesy as I could manage, I inclined my head. “Ms. Crimson. It is a surprise to see you here.”
“Surprise, nothing!” Eaton’s grip on his revolver improved, and I did not need light to know that a vicious sort of rage was stamped on his features. “She’s the Dollmaker. She’s got to be. What else would she be doing here?”
Crimson glanced at him, not bothering to face him completely. “Why, the same thing as you, my good sir. I came to investigate the source of the supposed editorials baiting the Dollmaker. I would have come sooner, but von Messner had staked out the spot before I could. He did not…welcome my presence, and insisted he would take the Dollmaker alone.” She looked back toward the pile of weapons and dolls. “I do not believe his efforts ended well for him.”
Eaton snarled. “A bit of an understatement, wouldn’t you say?”
Patricia spoke before either of them could continue. “Maybe I should ask what you’re doing here, and who you are.” Her carbine had not wavered. “You’ll forgive me if I think those answers are important.”
Crimson smiled, a distinctly discomforting expression. “Of course, Ms. Mustang. My name is Crimson, and I am one of your fellow hunters, as Mr. Kingsley can surely attest.” She gestured at me with her knife. “As for what I am doing here, I imagine it is much the same as what you are doing. I am looking for the Dollmaker, and my instincts led me here.”
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“Instincts.” Eaton snorted. “More like you smelled blood and followed it, looking for a meal. This woman’s a vampire!”
She regarded him with implacable calm. “Yes, Mr. Eaton. I am a vampire, and I did smell blood here. It was my first clue that something had befallen Mr. von Messner and his associates.” Crimson paused, and turned her head as if testing the air. “Of course, the blood here is old now. I believe the Dollmaker struck here a little after midnight, unless I miss my guess entirely.”
Patricia nodded slowly. “That’d make sense. He’d need time to remove the bodies and carve these dolls. He couldn’t have thrown that together very quickly.”
Eaton had not moved. “That doesn’t mean this one didn’t do it. Plenty of time for her to go home and get changed. You can never trust a vampire.”
Crimson eyed me with faint curiosity. “Again, Mr. Eaton, you are correct that I could have done that—unless, of course, I was otherwise occupied last night. Mr. Kingsley, could you care to comment?”
I blinked as they all turned to face me. A sinking feeling filled my stomach as I saw a flash of anger on Patricia’s face, but I had no choice but to tell the truth this time. Better that Patricia find out now than she confirm Crimson’s alibi with the constabulary. “Crimson met me last night as I was walking through Whitechapel. There was not enough time for her to reach here and do all this, even if she obtained some form of transportation on the way.”
Patricia turned abruptly away from me, and I felt some absurd urge to apologize drift through me. Before I could sort the feeling out entirely, Eaton chuckled and holstered his gun. “Well, Mr. Kingsley, I guess I’ve been underestimating your courage. Anyone who’s willing to cuddle a vampire at night is brave enough to put any man to shame.”
A flash of rage swept through me, but before I could launch into a defense of my character, Patricia broke in. Her voice was rough. “Hector’s business is his own, Billie. You know that; now stop.” She looked at Crimson, her expression just short of a glare. “So you said you can smell blood. The Dollmaker’s got plenty of that on him by now, no matter what he’s done. Can you track where he went after this?”
Crimson looked thoughtful. “Why, yes, Ms. Mustang, I do believe I can.” She spent a moment sniffing at the air in that tentative, unnerving way all vampires shared. Then she turned and gestured further down the hallway. “I believe he went this way. He carried the bodies in that direction at the very least.”
“Then let’s be about it.” Patricia pointed her carbine at the ceiling and gestured for me to leave the room. “We’ve got prey to catch, so get moving.” Eaton and Crimson both sauntered down the hallway and I paused beside Patricia, still grasping for some sort of explanation that I could not quite find the reason to give.
“Ms. Anderson, I—”
“Not really the time, Kingsley.”
The cold formality of her tone struck hard, and I felt a swell of resentment fill me. It had not been my idea to hunt the Dollmaker—the entire venture was a form of favor to her—and she was angry about what happened while I pursued it? I stiffened my spine and made a short bow to her. “Very well, Ms. Anderson. Perhaps another time.”
Then I stalked ahead of her, easily catching up to the others as they walked down the hallway. Patricia joined us a moment later, muttering something under her breath that I did not care to hear. At the moment, the likelihood of it being helpful to our situation was rather remote.
No further doorways opened as we went down the hallway; the rooms were all locked tightly. Crimson did not seem interested in any of them anyway. Her path led us straight to the far end of the hall, where a set of double doors that had once been ornately engraved waited for our arrival. A quick study of their design and the mechanisms beside them revealed it to be the entrance to some sort of elevator, likely meant for guests or servants to use to access another part of the house. If the Dollmaker had used it, heavily burdened by the bodies of his victims, it would make a great amount of sense.
Crimson came to a halt before those doors. She made a dismissive gesture, and I stepped up to activate the ancient machinery. The handle creaked under my insistent tugs, and the gearworks of the elevator soon rattled to life. I could hear the ascending lift rumble upward, and I glanced at the others. Patricia’s face might as well have been made of stone. She stood close by Mr. Eaton, who was looking entirely too triumphant for my tastes. For her part, Crimson stood ahead of them and ignored the undertones of the situation. She obviously considered the entire matter beneath her, and the knife twitched in her hand as she waited for the lift to arrive.
The lift reached our floor with a final abrupt rattle and I turned to look as the doors slid open. I had only a heartbeat to recognize what sat within the confines of the lift. There was next to no time to react. Crouching, I yanked out my bullet shield and activated it. There was a whir of gears, a sizzle of something—some kind of fuse?—burning in the darkness ahead.
Then the explosion roared to life. Heat washed over the device I held, and a single massive impact mangled Daniel’s careful handiwork. I was sent hurtling backward, smashing into Eaton as he attempted to dive out of the way. He grunted in pain as we tumbled together along the rotten carpet. The pistol in his hand fired a shot into the wall on our left, leaving a smoking hole in the faded wood. Crimson screeched somewhere close by, and I heard Patricia crying out. Then the floor itself groaned under the strain of the blast. It collapsed, sending the lot of us plummeting into darkness.
I landed in a ruined dance hall, a room left empty and lightless long ago. A worm-eaten table crunched to sawdust as I came down upon it. It was barely enough padding to keep me from more serious injury—if not from sharp pain—on the harder surface below. Debris rained down all around me, and a silhouette interrupted the light of a fire burning above.
There was barely enough time to look up through the smoke before Mr. Eaton landed on me. The weight of the American knocked the wind from me and ground my back into the wreckage. He growled in anger and pain, writhing away from me as splinters continued to rain down on us.
It took some time for the pain to lessen and the world to make sense again.
I heard Patricia groan and Crimson cough violently. For myself, I managed to remain silent—at least until I levered myself to a sitting position. Then the manifold bruises which I had won by my misfortune made their bid for my attention, and I nearly fell back to the floor. As it was, only a determined effort to stay conscious kept things from going dark.
Mr. Eaton appeared to be much less bothered by his injuries, possibly since he had been spared serious harm by landing on me. He half rose to his knees, aiming his pistol up at the second floor, and fired three times. The act was more out of apparent frustration than anything else, as he spat and cursed. When I strove to rise as well, he rounded on me and seemed about to strike at me with the butt of his weapon until Patricia shifted behind him. Instantly, the hunter bent over her. “Trish, are you all right?”
She coughed and tried to shift beneath the debris. “I’m fine, Billie. You got me out of the way. What about Hector?”
“He’s fine enough.” The man gave me a murderous glance as he shoved a chunk of the burning floor away and helped Patricia stand. “Dollmaker set a trap.”
“A rather obvious statement, Mr. Eaton.” I stood and steadied myself by placing a hand on the wall. It did not fall apart under my efforts, and there was sufficient light from the fires burning above us to see. Then I paused, looking for the last of our group. “Ms. Crimson?”
The vampire had already pushed herself up against the wall and was now struggling to rise. Her voice seemed a bit labored when she answered. “I am unharmed, Mr. Kingsley.” She managed to stand, and I grunted as I saw a splinter the size of a small sword sticking out of her arm. I strove to control my voice.
“Ms. Crimson, you are injured. Your arm.” I gestured, and Crimson glanced down. There was no shock on her face, only a sort of resigned expression.
“I’m afraid you are right.” Then Crimson latched her hand around the jagged shard of wood and ripped it out. A bit of blood spurted, but she expertly wrapped the wound with a fragment from her torn dress. The vampire nodded her thanks to me. “If you would excuse me, Mr. Kingsley.”
Eaton stepped forward, disbelief plain on his face. “Now wait just a minute! You led us straight into a trap, and you expect us to—”
Crimson faced him, her composure fraying visibly. Anger lurked underneath, anger and a hunger I shuddered to identify. “There is blood here, Mr. Eaton. I must leave.”
The words filled me with a sudden swirl of fear. A glance told me that Patricia had at least a scrape across her hands and a small cut on her brow. Mr. Eaton had been wounded as well; a large splinter had pierced his left thigh, though he seemed to bear it well. I felt blood trickle from a wound on my side and realized that we were all still very much in danger, though now the Dollmaker was the least of our worries.
When I turned back to her, I strove to keep my voice even. “Ms. Crimson, you will need to contain yourself, both for our sake and for yours.”
Crimson turned her gaze back to me, and I saw fury in those eyes. Her hands twitched toward her sheathed dagger. “Do not lecture me on the need for control, Mr. Kingsley. If you would excuse me, I will retire.” She turned to leave, still a bit unsteady from the fall. At the same time, her stride was determined and firm as she walked across the floor—yet she did not relinquish her grip on her knife.
Then I heard a click as Mr. Eaton brought his pistol up. When he spoke, his voice was hot with anger. “I don’t think so, miss. You stay right where you are, or you won’t be going anywhere.” I risked a glance backward and found that his expression matched his voice. Behind him, Patricia was prying at her carbine, trying to extract it from the rubble. It had been caught beneath a pile of shattered wood, which was resisting her efforts.
When I turned back, I found Crimson with her teeth bared. “You would prefer me to stay, Mr. Eaton? How unselfish of you!” Her incisors shone in the dim light of the common room; her laugh was low and indulgent. “Then again, it is not as if you need it, or could put it back. It is just blood.” She took a step toward him, one less uncertain. Her grip on the knife was stronger now, less hesitant. “If I take enough, you won’t even miss it at all.”
Mr. Eaton growled low in his throat. “I’m warning you, Crimson, stay where you are.”
She laughed again and licked her lips. “Make me.”
“That is enough. Both of you.” Their eyes went back to me and I motioned with my pistol. “Mr. Eaton, lay your stupidity aside for the moment and tend to Patricia. Ms. Crimson, you are free to remove yourself from the room until you are able to reassert your composure.” Neither hunter moved, and both returned their attention to the other. I let my voice drop lower. “I hope not to repeat my instructions again.”
“Go find someone dumb enough to listen, limey. I can handle this one.” The contempt in Eaton’s voice stirred my anger, but I refused to be distracted. Crimson had moved forward again, her eyes intent on the American now. Her grin had taken on a truly disturbing slant. As formidable as the pistol Eaton held could be, I doubted that he would be able to fire off enough shots to stop her before she had taken a sizable chunk out of his throat, as she so clearly meant to do.
There was obviously no reasonable solution to the situation. I therefore resorted to force, though I was somewhat less reluctant to do so just to save Mr. Eaton. With a sharp motion I drew out one of the devices Daniel had fashioned for me to help with the hunt. He had modified one of my usual spice grenades, filling the weapon with an acrid powder that had a single peculiar purpose. Though his original intent had been to aid me against a werewolf or other such foe, in this case I felt it would serve my purposes just as well. A simple twist of a knob activated the mechanisms within, and I tossed it between the two belligerent bounty hunters.
It burst with a pop and a flash, forcing both of them to step back. A sudden, overpowering scent filled the air. It was bitter, enough so that it nearly staggered me. As it was, I recovered just in time for its effects to become obvious in the others. Mr. Eaton blinked and glanced at me. His nose wrinkled and he frowned for a moment. Only a heartbeat later, Crimson sniffed at the air as well, her eyes flickering. She slowly stepped back, and she shook her head as if dazed.
Mr. Eaton continued to aim his pistol in her direction, however. He did not notice—or more likely did not care—about the change that had come over the vampire. “That’s a nice trick there, Kingsley, but it won’t stop her craving. Nothing will.”
Crimson straightened up. She directed a contemptuous glance in Eaton’s direction before she turned her gaze to meet mine. “My hunger is mine to control, and mine to stop—but you have my thanks all the same, Mr. Kingsley.” Having composed her features, she turned calmly toward the nearest exit, which likely led to the front room. “If you will excuse me, I believe I need to refresh myself outside. Feel free to rest here a while.”
Without further discussion, Crimson stalked across the dance hall, apparently unmoved by whatever aches and pains that had to assail her. When she met with the obstacle of the door, she simply set her hands against the beam and heaved. The wooden barrier gave way with a crunch. Then she strode out into the foyer, undeterred by the darkness that engulfed her.
As she disappeared in the gloom, I turned back to Mr. Eaton. The American met my eyes, and we exchanged a cold stare for a moment. He spoke in a grinding voice, filled with anger. “You let her go. She nearly got all of us killed, and—”
“You’re the one who brought us here, Eaton!” I attempted to restrain my rage, but the tension that had been building in me now broke all its barriers. His constant attempts to lead Patricia into danger had nearly killed us all, and I was not about to tolerate his insolence any longer. “If anyone led us to that trap, it was you, you absolute idiot. Now if you would be so kind as to think for a moment, you might conclude that taunting a vampire in the presence of blood is an even more foolish risk than any you’ve already undertaken.”
His eyes glittered with hate. “And we all know the last thing you want is a risk.”
“That’s enough.” Patricia’s voice was sharp, and our attention snapped to her. She had recovered her carbine and was using it to support herself amid the debris. “Billie’s not the one who brought us here, Hector. I did. So the risks we’ve run are my fault, not his.” Her eyes flashed. “Not that you’ve been helping much when it comes to thinking up a better plan.”
Eaton looked over and grinned at me. The expression seemed quite obscene, and I wished for nothing more than to empty my pistol into him. Only a heroic exercise of will kept me from the act. “Ms. Anderson, you know I advised against this endeavor. It was too dangerous.”
Patricia paused, and then answered in a weary tone. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Hector, but we have to run risks if we want to catch this one. And we need to catch him, or else…” She shook her head, as if dazed. Her expression became unfocused. “Or else we…”
I took a step in her direction, but Mr. Eaton was closer. The hunter grabbed Patricia’s arm, encroaching on her space without any apparent concern for propriety as she staggered. For a moment it looked almost as if she would fall, but Patricia recovered and leaned heavily on both Eaton and her carbine to keep her upright. “We have to catch him, Hector. With or without your help.”
The words cut deeply. I looked from her to the gargoyle smile Eaton wore and then back to Patricia again. I stepped back. “Of course, Ms. Anderson. I completely understand.”
She looked at me sharply, as if despite her injuries she could sense the anger in my voice. I had expected a flash of anger in return, or even the usual frustration, but I was disappointed in that hope. Indeed, her eyes seemed to be shaded with some feeling that I did not fully comprehend. When she turned to Mr. Eaton again, her face showed far more gratitude than I had dreaded she would feel. “Billie, would you mind helping me outside? We need to get back to the constables. The Dollmaker’s not going to stick around after setting a trap like that.”
Irritated at her dependence on Eaton, I still could not help but appreciate her insight. It was entirely likely that the murderer had already escaped the hunting ground that von Messner had set for him, bearing away the prizes he had taken already today. After all, his purpose had already been fulfilled. As it was, von Messner was dead, and we had been nearly killed as well. Any future hunters would have to weigh the danger they faced to pursue him against any potential gain. Bounty hunters were businessmen, not heroes, and with the lethality of this single trap, the Dollmaker might very well have scared many of his enemies from the hunt with ease.
As Mr. Eaton helped Patricia steady herself, I turned away and considered the blackened, shattered remains all around me, unable to watch the man stand so close to her. Then I detected a curious glint of metal amid the rubble, which I immediately identified as a portion of the device which must have been place to destroy us. Either spurred by my sudden desire to bring the Dollmaker to justice—or perhaps out of the sheer discomfort created by the sight of Patricia leaning on Mr. Eaton’s arm for support—I made my cautious way across the splintered remnants toward the fragment.
I found it to be a rather plain container, half destroyed by the explosion that had given it purpose. As I tucked it away inside my coat for later examination, I heard Mr. Eaton sigh in frustration. “Are you coming, Kingsley?”
It was difficult to restrain a harsh response, but I saw no purpose in further arguments. I had wounds and pain enough without adding salt to the mix by exchanging more insults with a fool.