Wet and dripping, Colleen fell into his arms. Violent tremors shook her petite body. Not only had the water Glover poured down the coal chute soaked her to the skin, it had splashed onto his own clothes, drenching the front of his waistcoat and trousers. Hypothermia was now a given. At best, they could lessen its severity.
“Hang in there.” Nick carried her to the chair as quickly as he could manage. With stiff fingers, he wrung out her long hair, then twisted it into a rough knot and pinned it in place with his pencil to keep the wet from the back of her neck.
“Your sister…” Her teeth chattered, clicking uncontrollably as she spoke. “Is it possible… he has her?”
The thought nagged at him. “Doubtful. She rarely leaves the house and forever has her attendant trailing behind her.” And she was in bed. Sleeping deeply after her most recent syncopal episode. Police officers would be swarming the property. Glover could not possibly have Anna in his clutches.
Hanging his wet waistcoat from the back of the chair, he stripped away his coat, then Colleen’s cincher and shirt. Tugging off his own shirt, he shoved her cold arms through its sleeves, fingers fumbling to fasten its buttons. Back on went his own waistcoat; when hypothermia threatened, damp clothing was better than no clothing at all.
“But… promise… of a cure.”
“With a dead body on our doorstep, I would hope Anna and my parents would be more circumspect about miraculous offers.” Off came her boots. He dumped the water pooled within onto the floor and forced her frigid feet back into the damp leather. Stockinged feet were not an option. Not on cold, wet metal. That way led nowhere but to frostbite.
He retrieved her wet shirt from the floor and knotted the garment at the wrist, gathering the bolts within the makeshift pouch. Another knot secured them in place. It was a crude weapon but useful when swung at an enemy. He set it along with the metal grating beside the door. When Glover and his minions arrived, Nick intended to be waiting. He only hoped he’d not be too cold to wield it when the opportunity arose.
When. Not if.
For the deluge of water spoke of impatience, of a desire to push the moment of the cruel experiment sooner.
Lifting Colleen from the chair, he lowered himself onto its seat and settled her upon his lap. Nick tucked her wet head beneath his chin and clasped her against his chest. Shared body heat was their best hope to slow their decent into hypothermia. There’d be no stopping it.
“How are you feeling?” He did his best to ignore the frosty air that billowed about their legs. If the cold drove the nematode into the cardiac muscle of the heart as Farquhar insisted, had it now lodged in her myocardium? “Has your heart skipped a beat? Any sensations of fluttering? Chest pain?”
“No… to all.” She touched the bare skin of his arm—a sensation that barely registered. “I’m so cold, Nick. How much longer… before…” A tear slid down her cheek.
“We’ll hold out as long as we can,” he answered. “Remember, they wish us to live.” Farquhar had a mad hypothesis to prove, but Glover only cared to the extent that their—temporary—survival might fill his coffers.
“When this… is over…” A shiver ran through her body, and Colleen tucked her hands beneath her arms. “Ask me again… to marry you. Properly. On one knee.”
“Why? Have you finally come to your senses?” The levity in his voice was forced. He rubbed his hands up and down her body, hoping friction might warm her. He’d not win her, only to lose her. “When did you finally realize I was the only man for you?”
Her tremors subsided. Some. In a few moments, he’d insist they stand, move about in an attempt to keep blood flowing through their extremities. Soon. When his own shivering slowed.
She huffed a frosty laugh. “It wasn’t one moment. More an accumulation of them. The waltz that first brought us too close. The night we passed an hour with our backs pressed to a chimney stack. Watching you slink through halls. Storm into a room. Seeing you care for your family. Working with you as a partner.”
“Let’s not forget that desktop kiss. Or time spent in a certain aviary.”
“But a thief shouldn’t angle for a Queen’s agent.” Her smile was faint, and if his decilamp could illuminate a full spectrum of colors, he had no doubt her lips would cast a faint blue.
“And yet she caught one.” For he was well and truly hooked. “Tell me, if we marry, do I become a laird?” He refused to let morbid thoughts occupy space in his mind. They would survive this.
She laughed softly into his neck. “No. That title belongs to the landowner. While a wife is afforded a courtesy title, I do not believe the tradition extends to a husband. Does this third son find himself overly disappointed?”
“Not at all. I’ve never wished for a title and find myself happy to ponder a future in which I’m a kept man.” He kissed her damp hair and tightened his arms about her. “Tell me again about Craigieburn Castle.”
“It’s styled after a tower house.” Her voice grew wistful. “And looks like a miniature castle, stretching straight up toward the sky. No moats. No curtain wall surrounding a courtyard.”
“So very disappointing, that. At least it’s old.”
“If you consider that it dates to the sixteenth century old.” She laughed into his shoulder. “And before its heirs depleted the family coffers, they fussed with the architecture adding turrets and balustrades, corbeling and gargoyles.”
“What’s not to love about a scowling gargoyle?” But though she cherished the castle, he knew the inhabitants of its surrounding lands were ever at the forefront of her mind. “And the countryside?”
“Forests and fields. Most of those who farm the land can lay claim to at least one ancestor with golden eyes, and in the surrounding woods prowl the cat sìth.” The faint smile upon her face faded away. “I’m the last Stewart. If I don’t return—”
“You will, and I’ll escort you there myself.” He kissed her cool forehead. “Do tell me there’s a massive fireplace in the great hall where we can stretch out before a fire.”
“Upon piles of warm blankets woven in the clan tartan.” She sighed as her eyelids fluttered shut.
“Such a tease,” he quipped. But Colleen’s sleepiness worried him. “Time to stand up.” He pushed them to their booted feet. “We need to move. Circulate the blood. Frostbite is something potential brides and grooms ought to avoid before a wedding.”
Side by side, they moved about the icebox, careful to avoid puddles—be they of blood or water—as they struggled against the deepening freeze.
Time passed. Minutes or hours, he no longer knew. Only when the decilamp flickered and died, only after shaking it failed to reinvigorate the bioluminescent bacteria within, did Nick notice the gray, feeble light filtering down the ventilation coal shaft from some six feet above.
Dawn had arrived. With it came the sounds of iron-shod hooves. Cart wheels clattering over cobblestones. Halloos of workers calling out to each other. Ought they themselves scream from the depths of their prison? Or would it earn them another bucket of water? Did it matter? Yes, they needed to try. Any minute they might succumb to hypothermia.
As their circuit once more drew them near the opening of the ventilation shaft, his ears caught a faint sound. Metal scraping against stone.
“Did you hear that?” Colleen’s voice was a thready whisper. “It came from inside the coal chute.”
“I did.” With Herculean effort, he hastened their progress, but each step required far more effort than it ought and a horrible pounding had begun inside his skull. Each symptom attributable to the onset of hypothermia… save for the jump in his heart rate and an increasing shortness of breath. Something was dreadfully wrong.
Colleen leaned into the opening. “Copper pipe has been threaded through the grating of the coal hole cover.” She sniffed. “There’s a bite of vinegar and the air feels heavier somehow.” Straightening, her eyebrows drew together. “Might they pump some kind of gas down the coal chute?”
All too slowly, his brain churned, and then he swore. “Hypercapnia.” That would explain why the pulse at Colleen’s throat beat at such a rapid pace. “Carbon dioxide. Easily produced by mixing vinegar and sodium bicarbonate, otherwise known as baking soda.”
Aether. He glanced at the bolt-filled sleeve he’d left beside the door. Glover was smarter than Nick had credited him. Their captors wouldn’t be entering their prison, not while the occupants were still conscious. Instead, they would send a silent, odorless gas to ease their entry. It was fast becoming a struggle to draw a satisfying breath.
“That sounds… medical. And chemical.” She staggered sideways, then sagged against the wall. “Does it explain why the room has begun to spin?”
“Yes.” On the floor lay Colleen’s damp shirt, minus a sleeve. Snatching it up, he tore the other sleeve loose and pressed it into her hand. His ribs screamed in pain as intercostal muscles contracted with all their might, a futile attempt to provide enough oxygen. “You need to climb into the shaft, Colleen.” His words were a desperate plea. “You need to plug the pipe.” He pushed her toward the shaft, clumsy as she struggled to climb through the hole. “When its levels become elevated, our blood becomes too acidic. The central nervous system will shut down.”
“Can’t…” Her foot slipped off the wall, and she fell to the floor even as she reached again for the opening. “Too cold. Too tired.”
“No giving up.” Catching Colleen beneath her arms, Nick heaved. But she was dead weight and no longer shivering. Her eyelids fell shut. The rag tumbled from her limp fingers.
Shit. Hypothermia. Carbon dioxide poisoning. Both meant death. Air. Fresh air. Door. Crack. He grabbed the collar of her shirt and dragged Colleen across the room. His rib cage ached with the effort of pulling in air. Still, it wasn’t enough. The door was tightly sealed.
He’d failed the woman he loved by involving her in this mess. By provoking Glover to such rash behavior. Nick would kill the man at the very first opportunity. As he collapsed beside her, he wrapped his fist about the bolt-filled sleeve, praying he might have a chance to use it. “Sorry. So sorry,” he whispered.
A heartbeat before the gas stole the last of his vision, his hearing—both fading with every blink—the door slammed open and two men wearing gas masks burst into the room.
Cold. So very, very cold. Stiff rubber pressed against her face while warm air filled her lungs. Her body gave a great shudder. Pinpricks of pain needled her fingers and toes as feeling returned. Wet and damp, her clothes stuck to her skin. Soggy boots encased her toes and ankles. But she’d been lifted, transferred to a smooth surface. A table of sorts, the kind upon which a mad scientist might dissect his specimens.
Colleen pried open her frozen eyelids, blinking at the bright light that glared overhead. A shock of white hair rose above a beaked mask. Enormous circular eyes ringed in brass stared down at her. From beneath the pointed beak ran a hose, like a giant bird attempting to swallow an equally large worm.
Worm.
“No!” she screamed, her cries muffled as she kicked and thrashed against the iron bands that bound her wrists and ankles. Medical instruments upon a metal tray beside her rattled and shook. “No. NO. NO!”
Memory snapped back. Frozen and gassed, they’d been all but dead. But Mr. Glover and Dr. Farquhar wanted her alive, if only so they could snuff out the last of her life to prove the miracle worked as promised. Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to believe in the resurrective powers of a heart worm.
Her heart gave a great twist. Nick. Was he still alive? Nick had to be alive. Her heart and soul insisted. He was still alive, her mind reasoned. Mr. Glover would save him, if only to hold him as a bargaining chip, as a lure to draw Anna into a similar trap.
Colleen fought against the rubber mask the giant avian creature held to her mouth and nose, turning her head.
There! On the floor. A long tube trailed behind another masked birdman, one who hunched over a collapsed form upon the metal floor. Nick. But instead of holding a mask to his mouth, the masked birdman snapped shackles about Nick’s wrists and ankles, ones bound to each other via chains, a design used to prevent a convict from spreading his arms, from lifting his hands above his waist.
Which meant Nick was alive.
For now.
The masked man stood, tethering a length of chain to a metal eye loop affixed to the ceiling with a padlock. Snap. He turned, then reached behind his head to drag off his mask. Thick-necked and unrepentant, Mr. Vanderburn stared at her with dead eyes. “All secure,” he called. “Air acceptable.”
The man who stood over her pulled off his beaked mask and handed it to Mr. Vanderburn. “If you’ll bring the rest of our supplies,” Dr. Farquhar said, “I’d like to take advantage of her near hypothermic state to begin the procedure.”
Gathering the masks and hoses, Mr. Vanderburn left the refrigeration unit as Mr. Glover strolled into the frigid chamber, wearing a fur-lined coat and a woolen muffler about his throat. “Rather Arctic in here, isn’t it?” He gave a dramatic shiver and patted his arms. “One wonders that you’ve not already died a time or two, wife.” He tipped his head. “Or have you, without yet slipping into cat form?”
She growled into the rubber mask.
“No? Well, we’ll have a few more tries regardless. We need firm evidence. To lose a Scottish woman with nothing but a courtesy title is one thing. More care must be taken with titled patients.”
“Let us go now.” Relief swept through her at the sound of Nick’s voice. Chains clanged against the metal floor as he stirred. “And I’ll consider letting you live. But if you touch Colleen again or dare to lay a finger on my sister…”
Mr. Glover snorted. “Ah, but that is precisely what I intend to do the very minute Farquhar here finishes working out a few pertinent details. Well, I’ll not touch your precious sister, but the good doctor will. Take heart,” he cackled, “the first step of the procedure appears to have done my wife no permanent harm.” Mr. Glover turned back to her and patted her cheek. “Did it, wife?”
Colleen snapped her head to the side, dislodging the oxygen mask, and bit his bare hand. A salty tang touched her tongue. She’d drawn blood.
He yanked his hand away, cradling it against his chest. “Witch!”
Silent, she curved her lips into a feral smile. Let him worry what would happen when she survived.
There was a clatter, and Mr. Vanderburn reappeared pushing a machine before him, one that looked exactly like the one Anna’s nurse had attempted to use, save this one’s wires were not connected to a sharp metal probe. Instead, the leads attached to a jointed metal belt. Humiliation burned as Dr. Farquhar’s cold, clinical hands unbuttoned the lower half of Nick’s shirt and wrapped the device about her chest. A leather belt cinched it about her ribs, and a buckle held it firmly in place.
Her heart slammed into her ribcage, then took off like a runaway train. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t do this.”
Dr. Farquhar leaned close, eyes dancing. “Know you make history, my dear, for in all the archives I’ve studied, only one man has witnessed such a forced transition of a witch, but—mired in his pagan belief of magic—failed to discover the scientific underpinnings of such a miracle. An element we will test today.”
Swearing, Nick pushed to his knees. Chains clattered as he struggled to stand.
“Scientist or inquisitor, you be the judge.” Mr. Glover rolled his eyes. “But know I’ve every interest in this procedure working and becoming a financial success. Not to mention a living wife would help certify the veracity of our marriage. Though, I’ll remind you again, with the right solicitor, a grieving widower could easily take control of his lawful property.” Mr. Glover tipped his head, uncaring of Nick’s attempts to stand. “Torrington, however, presents a problem. For now he lives, but…” A shrug. “I’ve no qualms about disposing of your lover. We will need to point a finger at someone to explain your uncle’s death. A thwarted suitor would do nicely.” He gave her a sharp, toothy grin. “In the end, it might be the best course of action, allowing me to focus entirely upon you.”
“And all I possess,” she snapped. With any luck, the bite to his hand would grow septic and bring him the death he so richly deserved.
“All I possess,” he corrected. “I’m done dancing to your whims. To your uncle’s. I did everything he asked of me and more. What did I receive for my troubles? Nothing but contempt and a callous dismissal. From both of you. There will be no bargaining, no deals.”
Mr. Vanderburn was back wheeling a new cart stacked tall with bulging oil cloth bags tied with coarse string, and a bucket of ice. Tucked within the bucket, as if a bottle of fine wine, was a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid.
Mr. Glover stepped back. “Today you’ll die,” he waggled his hand, “eight times? Or just once, if Dr. Farquhar’s postulates prove false. I suppose there is also the possibility that you will transform into a fairy cat, in which case there will be much to rethink. Survive,” his face contorted into that of a madman as he cackled, “and I shall suffer a witch to live.”
“A quick test.” Dr. Farquhar fiddled with the knobs and dials of the Magneto-Shock Machine, then pushed a button.
“Ow!” She jumped as a buzz of electricity zipped through her. Or would have jumped, but for the restraints.
“Excellent. The machine appears to be in good working order.” Dr. Farquhar cinched the belt tighter still.
“Stop! This is madness.” She twisted, trying to loosen the electrical belt. “Shape-shifting is a physical impossibility.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see.” Dr. Farquhar’s wild eyes danced. “Behind all myths and legends lie core truths. The cat sìth are special, this is true, but I have established that they do not metamorphose into a human form.”
“How many?” she demanded, seething. “How many fairy cats have met their end beneath your hands?”
“A dozen, maybe more?” Dr. Farquhar answered as if her question was a request for facts, not a furious attempt to point out the harm he’d wrought. “It may well be the felines I’ve been provided are witches forced into a ninth and final transformation, fated to live the remainder of their lives in cat form.”
She gaped, unable to form a response to such insanity.
“You and yours may bear the name Stewart, but in my clan, those with eyes like yours once bore the Kellas name,” he rambled on as if recalling the bedtime stories told to him as a small boy, ones he’d now twisted into a bizarre hypothesis requiring experimental proof. “All but lost now. Finding you was a stroke of luck. All that remains is to test the stories, to determine if—when your life spark flickers and dies—your body will shift into the configuration of a cat. A black cat, I expect, with no white patch of innocence upon your chest.”
“Stop this now, Glover.” Nick stood upright, though he leaned against the wall for support. “Or you’ll end this day in a grave.”
“Ah, Torrington.” Glover shrugged. “A man in chains is not much of a threat, is he?”
Mr. Vanderburn picked up an oilcloth bag and lifted an eyebrow.
“Stack them upon her hips, waist, and chest. We need to drop her core temperature yet further.” Dr. Farquhar plucked a glass bottle with a nozzle from the ice bucket and hung it from the overhead hook by means of a leather strap before connecting it to a long rubber tube.
When the first bag of ice landed upon her, all the breath left her lungs in one giant rush. Cold. So cold. Another bag of ice landed upon her. And another. The warmth that had begun to seep back into her veins retreated once more. “Please.” Tears streamed down her face.
A vision of her own skull placed upon a laboratory shelf beside those of the cat sìth flashed through her mind. All of them cooled until their hearts stopped, never again to prowl the night.
“It’s true, I’ve been labeled insane by my colleagues, but see here?” He waved a hand at the Magneto-Shock Machine. “I took the precaution of insisting they locate and drag this device through the streets of London. Should my hypothesis prove false, should your heart not leap back to life, I will do my best to restart it.” He smiled down at her with benevolence in his eyes.
Did he expect her to thank him?
Her teeth chattered. She was sinking faster this time, unable to resist the pull of hypothermia. “I love you,” she called to Nick, her voice faint. The words wouldn’t console him, but she needed to say them nonetheless. Not at all the circumstances under which she’d wished to speak, but at least he would know. Should the worst happen. And she rather thought it might.
She didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when everything she’d ever wanted lay within reach. Marriage to the man who had stolen her heart and had done it without demanding she surrender possession or control of Craigieburn or its lands. Nights spent prowling the streets of London together, working side by side on behalf of their country. And, eventually, the possibility of welcoming a child of their own into this world.
“No!” Nick yanked against the iron chains that bound him in a futile struggle to reach her. “Stop this insanity!”
Dr. Farquhar tied a length of rubber tubing about her upper arm, then tapped along the inside of her elbow, hunting for a vein that had not collapsed in fear. “I don’t suppose you’ll cooperate and hold a thermometer in your mouth, my dear? No. It wouldn’t do to have the glass shatter between your clenched teeth. I suppose we’ll do without. Hypothermia is imminent, but the heart will not cease beating until it reaches approximately seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Chilled saline will hasten internal cooling and speed this process.” A ball of cold wet cotton swept across her arm a moment before he produced a needle from the instrument tray beside her. “Mr. Vanderburn, I require precision and our subject refuses to hold her arm perfectly still. Your assistance, please.”
Uncaring hands clamped down upon her arms, and the doctor slid the needle into Colleen’s arm. The scientist worked quickly, connecting the tube to the needle. Icy fluid burned a path through her veins, and she screamed.