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

bare fact.
“I was untouched,” Archibald Clare heard himself state, dully. The ceiling did not move,and he did not look away from its curves and hollows. “I should have died.”
    Her dress made a sweet silken sliding as she shifted. “That would distress me most awfully, Archibald.”
    “And Valentinelli?”
    A long silence, broken only by a single syllable. “Yes.”
    It was, he decided, not quite an answer. Was he likely to receive more from her?
    This room was part of the suite he used while availing himself of Miss Bannon’s hospitality. Dark wood wainscoting and worn red velvet, the shelves of books and the two heavy wooden tables littered with papers and glassware for small experiments, both like and unlike the larger tables in the workroom she made available for him.
    It had taken him some time to enter that stone-walled rectangle again, though. After the affair with the Red, it had taken him a long while to look through a spæctroscope, too. Flesh remembering the nearness of its own mortality, despite Reason and Logic pointing out that at least he was still alive–the inward flinch when he heard a wracking cough, or the sick-sweet smell of some spun-sugar confections, were also troublesome.
    He wrenched his attention away from that line of thought. This bed was as familiar as an old pair of slippers. Wide and comfortable, and his weary, aching body sank into it with little trouble.
    Questions boiled up. He attempted to set them in some approximation of order, failed, tried again. When he had the most important one, he finally set it loose. “What did you do,Miss Bannon? What manner of miracle did you perform upon me?” Stated twice, so she could not possibly misunderstand.
    “Are you certain you wish to know?” It was the first time he had ever heard her sound… well,
sad
. Not merely downcast, but weary and heart-wrung. She was altogether too brisk and practical at any other moment to sound so… female?
    No, Archibald. The word you are seeking is
human.
Instead of
sorceress.
    “I think I have some small right. I should have died, and I have not so much as a scratch upon me.”
    She did not demur. “And you have no doubt noticed you are far more vigorous than your age should permit. Even your hair is thicker than it was, though no less grey.” A slight sound–her curls moving, she had nodded. “I thought you would remark upon that. I am amazed you did not press for an explanation sooner.”
    He held his tongue with difficulty. Long acquaintance with her had accustomed him to the fact that such was the best policy, and that she was on the verge of solving the mystery for him. She very much disliked being compelled, or harried. The best way of inducing her to speak was simply to be attentive and patient, no matter how time or need pressed.
    “Do you remember when we met?” Her little fingers had crept upon his hand now, and the intimacy of the touch surprised him. They rested, those gentle fingertips, upon his palm, just below the wrist. “The affair with the mecha, and the dragon.”
    How on earth could I forget?
He permitted himself a slight nod. His scorched hair moved against the pillow, crisp white linen charm-washed and smelling of freshness. His throat moved as he swallowed, dryly.
    Her words came slowly and with some difficulty. “There was… during that rather trying episode, a certain artefact came into my possession. I bore it for a while afterward, but when the plague… Archibald.” Her tone dropped to a whisper. “I could not bear to lose you. And the weight of the artefact… the method of its acquisition… it wore upon me. I sought to expiate a measure of my sins, such as they are, by ensuring your survival. You are proof against Time’s wearing now, and your faculties will suffer no diminishing. You are immune to disease, and to all but the most extraordinary violence.”
    He waited, but apparently she had finished.
    His most immediate objection was at once the most