“It looks like Mrs. Crofton is not yet home,” Matt said. He planted the umbrella into the wrought-iron stand. “Perhaps she has had some luck locating the Hollister housekeeper.”
“That would certainly be helpful.” Virginia undid her cloak. “The hem of my skirts and my walking boots are soaked from the wet streets. I’m going to dash upstairs and change into some dry clothes. Why don’t you go into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove? There are some biscuits in the pantry. I’ll join you shortly.”
“An excellent plan,” Matt said.
He assisted her with her cloak and then ambled happily down the hall, a young man in search of food.
Well, it was not his future that had just burned to the ground, Virginia told herself. The Sweetwaters enjoyed a very secure profession. There would always be monsters around to hunt, as well as people and organizations such as J & J who would no doubt be willing to pay well for the service.
She went up the stairs, the weight of her rain-soaked petticoats and skirts as heavy as the anchor of a ship. Or perhaps it was her mood that was weighing her down, she thought. She wanted very badly to talk to Charlotte, who was no doubt happily engaged in the exciting task of locating the mysterious paid companion.
At the top of the stairs, she went down the hall to her bedroom. Inside, she closed the door, unlaced her wet boots and stepped out of her damp clothing. She changed into a fresh petticoat and a simple day gown and secured the little chatelaine purse at her waist.
She crossed the room, went out into the hall and down the stairs. There were no sounds coming from the kitchen. That was curious. By now Matt should have gotten the kettle going and started rummaging around in the pantry for the biscuits.
“Matt? Did you find the tea things?”
She went through the doorway into the kitchen. There was no sign of Matt. The swinging door of the pantry was closed. She pushed it open.
She stopped at the sight of Matt sprawled unconscious on the floor.
He did not move. But something else did. She heard the ominous clank and thump before the clockwork doll toddled out of the shadows. The automaton was nearly three feet tall, a chillingly lifelike replica of Queen Victoria. Every detail was exquisitely rendered, from the miniature crown set with crystals to the high-button boots and the dark mourning attire that Her Majesty had worn since the death of her beloved Albert.
The Queen’s icy glass eyes rolled in their sockets and fixed on Virginia. Cold energy shivered in the small space. Virginia experienced the now-familiar chill with all of her senses. She fought back, heightening her talent.
The Queen clanked forward in her miniature boots. Desperate, Virginia pushed her talent higher. The clockwork doll stopped as though confused.
Virginia grabbed the nearest heavy object, a large iron skillet, and hurled it at the doll. The pan struck the curiosity full on, knocking the device off its feet. It toppled onto its back. The booted heels drummed relentlessly on the floor. The eyes rattled in the porcelain skull, seeking a target.
Virginia seized Matt’s ankles and tried to haul him across the floor out of range of the doll. The Sweetwater men were not small, and they were evidently constructed of pure muscle and bone. The smooth wooden floor was in her favor, though. She managed to slide Matt’s heavy frame halfway out the pantry door before she had to stop and gather her strength for another tug.
The clanking, thumping and rattling of the clockwork mechanism muffled the sound of the footsteps behind her until it was too late. She caught a whiff of a sweet, flowery scent just before the chloroformsoaked cloth covered her nose and mouth.
A man’s arm wrapped around her throat and wrenched her back against a hard chest. She reached upward, trying to claw at her captor’s eyes. Her fingers closed around a pair of spectacles. She ripped them off and dropped them to the floor. There was a sharp crack when the lenses shattered.
“You stupid woman,” Jasper Welch snarled. “Why do you have to make things so bloody difficult? You have come close to ruining my great work.”
She held her breath, but she had already inhaled some of the vapor. Her head was spinning, and the world was disappearing into a fathomless fog. She tried to struggle — at least, she thought she struggled — but she could not be certain.
She fell into an endless night.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Flames smoldered deep in the mirrors.
Virginia sensed the paranormal heat before she was fully awake. She knew glasslight the way she knew sunlight or rain. She did not have to look into the mirrors to know that they surrounded her and that they were infused with energy unlike anything she had ever experienced.
The power in the looking glasses called to her, triggering frissons of awareness, summoning her out of the darkness.
Warily she opened her eyes and beheld a dazzling, glittering wonderland of ice lit by massive glass chandeliers. For a few seconds she wondered why she did not feel the cold. It took her some time to realize that there was no ice. She was lying on a low bench in a long, highceilinged chamber that was entirely paneled in mirrors.
The room reminded her of the terrible chamber in the basement of the Hollister mansion, but this hall was fashioned on a far larger and grander scale, a palace room of mirrors. There were no windows, no obvious door.
The brilliantly reflective surfaces were everywhere. They covered the walls and clad the stately columns. An elaborate mosaic of tiny mirrored tiles patterned the coved ceiling and accented the decorative molding.
And all of the mirrors simmered and seethed with the paranormal fires trapped inside the glass.
She struggled to a sitting position and discovered that the bench on which she had awakened was padded in white velvet. She was still wearing the day gown she had changed into before she was kidnapped. The small chatelaine purse dangled at her waist.
For a moment she sat there, entranced and intoxicated by the energy that flooded the gallery. After a while, she gathered her nerve, heightened her senses and looked deeper into the mirrors.
She was braced for dreadful visions of death, but there were no afterimages, no visions that indicated that people had been murdered in the glittering chamber. All she perceived was power, an enormous quantity of it, locked inside the looking glasses.
She had been reading mirrors since the age of thirteen, but she had never seen or experienced anything like what she was viewing now. She could not imagine how so much raw energy had been trapped in the mirrors.
Slowly, cautiously, she got to her feet and discovered that she was in a museum gallery. All of the artifacts and antiquities were fashioned of mirrors and glass. Each relic was displayed on a mirrored pedestal or inside a glass case. Combined with the mirrored walls, floor and ceiling, the effect was visually disorienting. She had to elevate her talent slightly in order to maintain her balance.
Her bedazzled senses whispered that not all of the energy in the room came from the mirrors. The antiquities around her were infused with power.
It occurred to her that the relics were very likely the source of the fire in the mirrors. Over time the looking glasses had absorbed the paranormal radiation that emanated from the antiquities.
One of the display cases sat on the floor. It was roughly the size and shape of a coffin. The case was draped in a white-velvet cloth. Virginia’s intuition told her that she probably did not want to see what lay beneath the velvet covering.
She looked around, but there was no obvious way to tell which mirror concealed the door. There was always a slight draft across a threshold, she reminded herself. Perhaps if she walked the length of the gallery she would be able to detect a shift in the flow of air.
