The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare) Read Online Free Page A

Bannon sounded weary, and breathless. “If you can hear me… I am attending to matters. You are quite safe. I…”
    Tell me it is a dream. A nightmare.
    But mentaths did not dream. There was no room for it in their capacious skulls. Or if they did, such a thing was not remembered. It seemed a small price to pay for a rational, orderly world that performed as expected.
    You suspect the world is not rational at all, Clare. Therein lies your greatest fear.
    A rustle of silk, a breath of spiced pear. She had worn this particular perfume for quite some time now, and it suited her well. The smoky indefinable odour of sorcery, adding complexity. Another scent, too–the mix of flesh and breath that was a living woman.
    Living. As he was.
    Everyone about me was injured fatally. Perhaps I am grievously hurt and I cannot tell? Shock?
    Yet he could feel his fingers and toes, the flesh he was doing his best to ignore. There were cases of those who had lost a limb reporting phantom pain; were there also other sensations? A ghost-limb… perhaps the nerves, enduring a shock, struggled to re-create the lost wholeness?
    The horrible bubbling of Valentinelli’s tortured body struggling against the inevitable refused to recede intomemory. Paired with the utter gruesome silence of death, the two set up an echo that threatened to tear him asunder.
    “I am attending to everything,” she finally repeated. Had she paused, or had he simply lost track of Time, that great semi-fluid that could stretch at will? No matter how a clock sought to cage it, that flow did as it pleased.
    “Mum?” A discreet cough, and printed on the back of Clare’s eyelids came the cavernous face of Mr Finch, the indentured butler’s balding pate reflecting mellow light from the sorcerous globe depending from the ceiling. He could tell from the slight lift at the end of the word that Finch considered the situation rather uncomfortable but certainly not dire. “Carriage, from Windsor. Requesting the honour of your presence.”
    A short, crackling silence. There was a soft touch to the back of Clare’s hand–he shut it away, Feeling warring with Logic again. If he allowed any quarter in that battle, he would be defeated into sludge-brained uselessness in short order.
    Her reply, measured and thoughtful. “Give the coachman a dram and send him on his way. Say that I am indisposed.”
    “Yesmum?” It was all the question Finch would allow himself.
    “Thank you, Finch.” In other words, she was
quite
sure she did not wish to be transported to Windsor. Inferences began to tick under the surface of Clare’s faculties, but he did not dare give them free rein. “Archibald, if you can hear me… simply rest. You are safe.”
    A whisper of silk, the sound of bustling, and no doubt one of the footmen would be sent to sit with him and make certain of his continued breathing. Murmurs and hurrying feet, and Clare finally let himself face the unavoidable conclusion.
    Miss Bannon performed some miracle long ago, while I was ill with the Red and expected to die. She has not spoken of it since, and neither have I. But now…
    Now I rather think we must
.
    As a means of wrenching his attention from the memory of blood and dying, it was not enough. The tide of Feeling arose again, and this time he could not contain it. His body locked against itself, and a scream was caught in his stone-blocked throat.
    Nobody heard. For he did not let it loose.
    He woke to dim light, and for a long while stared at the ceiling. Dark wood, familiar stains and carven scroll-work. He heard the breath moving, in, and out. In, and out, the sough of respiration less than a cricket’s whisper. Just one pair of lungs, small and dainty as the rest of her.
    Her Shield was not standing inside his door, which was not normal but by no means completely unusual. It could mean she was cautious, or disposed to privacy.
    Whatever she wished to say, she wanted no witnesses. It suited him as well.
    Start with a