London Steam

Part 1: The Shadows of Kenfig-3

Dr. Poindexter Fitzhugh, Dex to his friends, rolled his gear-eye a few times, relishing the clench of jaw and flexing of hands in his fellow players. He clamped his mouth tightly, containing his smirk. By the gods, normals were so easy to aggravate. Coggers—those with artificial limbs, permanent devices, or other gear-driven enhancements—were not actively shunned from society, but they did loiter on the very cusp of it. Coggers were viewed as peculiar, uncouth, perhaps even not-quite-human by normals—people unchanged by machinery advancements.

The only one of the players who wasn’t currently contemplating his death was the American woman, who was much too busy trying to find someone to warm her bed to pay him any mind. Perhaps she knew his secret and had dismissed him from consideration. If so, he didn’t mind. It wasn’t that much of a secret. But people didn’t talk about it, anyway.

Foolishness, he thought. It wasn’t like there weren’t already too many people in London. Taking himself out of the pool of people who would pass on their blood to the next generation wasn’t a bad thing.

The young newcomer, Seth Maitland, glanced at him over green-tinted spectacles. His eyes were green, or perhaps they were blue. In the flickering of the gaslamp, Dex couldn’t quite tell. There was a shadow about that gaze, the intensity with which Maitland studied him, that sent a chill right down Dex’s spine. Maitland was beyond gorgeous, his jaw firm and strong, stubbled with beard that probably started growing in only a few moments after the young lord shaved. He had a full, sensual mouth and the accent with which he rolled the words around on his tongue was slightly exotic. His mother was Italian and she had probably passed down some of her romantic language to her children. She had certainly passed along the darker skin, the Roman nose, and a thick head of black hair.

Now there was the type of man that Dex would love to take home. He was tired of the effeminate boys who often tried to interest him in a little bedroom adventure; if he’d wanted a girl, he would have frequented a brothel. He wanted a man, a real man, with muscles and calluses, the knowledge of sweat and hard work.

Despite being of the gentry, the pampered and privileged, Maitland’s figure screamed violence, just barely contained. There was tension in his shoulders and he possessed the tightly coiled spine one seldom saw in the elite. Maitland knew pain, loss, and the inevitable wounds of regret. Maitland looked as if he knew what it was to have no choices.

Dex was entirely too familiar with no choices. He hadn’t meant to slaughter anyone at Kenfig, no matter that the papers made him out to be a hero. (Dex had gone into convulsive fits of anger the first time someone thrust that penny-dreadful at him and asked for his autograph.) He hadn’t ridden in with the intent of killing every man, woman, and cub in that cursed and grieving castle. In truth, he’d only killed one, and that was mischance. Ill fortune of the worst sort.

Lack of information, he thought. That was the downfall of many civilizations. Kenfig had been abandoned after the accident. Dex refused to think of it as anything other. It was an accident, tragic and unnecessary, and he could not bring himself to glorify it with the name “battle” nor vilify himself by calling it “the murder.” Since then, he had thrown himself into research, learning everything he could about the gwren. What it meant, the conditions under which a man might lose total control of himself to the beast within. If possible, what could be done.

The people of Marlas—the nearest non-infected village—saw only that the castle was abandoned. That they no longer heard the blood-chilling cry of gwr at every full moon, and that there was a drop in the number of sheep and other livestock that went missing.

Thus, Poindexter Fitzhugh, hero, was born. His deeds, embellished, enhanced, all an out-and-out lie, blazoned on the covers of penny-dreadfuls. Comparisons were made between the brass and leather of his prosthetic and the antique gold of his hair, the oil-black color of his eye. His chiseled good looks were featured on printed cards that young girls swooned over. He’d been likened unto the heroes of legend, adored and imitated.

No one wanted to hear the truth. No one even listened.

It was not, he felt, at all conducive to a good night’s sleep. Ever again.

Tildren threw his cards on the table in disgust. Young Maitland followed soon after and the hand returned to him. Dex looked at his cards, then at the remaining players. Cordelia simpered at him over the top edge of her hand, her painted mouth a rose-bow. Jester glared. Maitland watched Dex with an odd, feverish intensity.

“Call.” Dex evened out the pot with a few coins from his stash.

“Agreed,” Cordelia said. She turned her hazel eyes on Jester, waiting his decision.

“Three of a kind.” The thief laid out his hand in a sweeping fan. “Tens.”

Cordelia squealed and signaled the waitress for another round of drinks. “Queens and twos.”

“That’s me out, then,” Dex sighed. He put his cards face-down on the table. It wasn’t true, he’d actually had four kings, but his luck was getting a bit out of hand. He rather suspected Tildren would come across the table at him if he took another hand. Better to lose a few.

Cordelia raked in the rather substantial sum with both hands, providing him with yet another telling glimpse of her treasures; really, where had she found a modiste to sell her such a low-cut gown?

Dex knocked back the drink he was brought without looking. He was well on his way to getting foxed; it was often considered a sign of manhood to be able to handle one’s whiskey, as if it were a fractious horse, but Dex was drinking to get drunk. He didn’t think he could face another night of dreams, another night alone. Another whiskey…the waitress, Kate, smirked and slammed another shot glass down next to him. He was being obvious, he supposed. Kate knew him well enough. He’d walked into the Observatory tonight with that haunted look. Her tip would be good, so long as she kept them coming and didn’t chide him. She was no fool. He drank the following shot. And the next one. He lost count.

Farnsworth dealt another hand.

* * * *

Dex wasn’t sure how this had happened. One minute he was playing in a card-game, more concerned only with drinking himself into oblivion, and the next, he was facing Maitland over one last hand, a towering stack of coins, and an I.O.U. chit that would take him the better part of nine years to repay. Less if he sold off his last bit of property. He could probably find a low-rent set of rooms in town that—

“I call.” Maitland’s eyes, clouded by those green-tinted lenses, were shuttered. Not quite flat, as Dex had thought at first. There was a spark of light, just the tiniest flicker of wild—was it excitement? Joy? Interest? Eagerness. If the young lord was nervous, he hid it well. Of course, a landed gentleman would have substantially more money than a scientist and physician, hero or not.

“Somehow,” Dex drawled, looking at his cards again, and then closing up the hand so only the king winked out at him, “this seems hardly fair. A matter of honor, one might say. We combat over this mountain of gold, so to speak, but will it really put you out of pocket?”

“Are you calling?”

“I’m debating the finer points of percentages.”

“Admirable that you’re so scholarly, while playing cards.”

“Mathematics deteriorates into philosophy late in the evening. Still.” Dex appealed to Cordelia. She’d bowed out some time ago, her small stash of coins gone, but still entertained by the game. In fact, she’d been so entertained by the game that she hadn’t seemed to mourn the loss of Tildren. Perhaps she would make good with Jester’s company in her bed this evening. Or morning, more precisely. “Do you agree, my dear, that this is wickedly unfair?”

“You’re asking me?” Cordelia rolled the words around in her mouth like a pastille. Her lipstick was slightly smeared. “I daresay Maitland will be in foul odor at home, should he actually lose this much of the ready. But will he be on Queer Street with you? That remains to be seen.” Dex turned sharply at that remark—was she meaning, innocently, that he would be flat-broke, or was she making a deeper, slyer implication? He was certain she knew about his preferences, but…

Maitland blushed.

Actually blushed.

And licked his lips.