The Daemon Device Read online

  “Oh, but I am afraid you do, dear boy. I can’t have you eviscerating people. Especially people I know. It isn’t cricket.” He held his arm up steadily, facing the tattooed Eye outward toward the hesitant creature. The magic pulsed within him. If he needed to, he thought he could defend himself. Probably.

  “I must do what I must do.”

  “What has Waldhar promised you? I can match it.”

  The demon threw back his head and laughed. When he settled to a snort, his forked tongue passed over his thick lips, snaking back over those sharp teeth. “You couldn’t possibly match it.”

  “So it is Waldhar?”

  Ogiel frowned. Oh, how demons hated identifying those that they trucked with. Come to think of it, Leopold was surprised Ogiel had given up is own name so easily. A name meant power over the other, but that only meant Ogiel wasn’t afraid of Leopold controlling him. Interesting.

  He pulled out his wand anyway. The demon eyed it suspiciously, sniffing at it with a piggy snout. All at once he shrank back. “Why do you torment me?”

  Leopold looked at his innocuous wand. To anyone else, it simply looked like any other magician’s wand, made of wood, polished and stained to a shiny black. But daemons could obviously tell its true nature. Made from the Talmudic four species—the date palm, the myrtle, and the willow, polished with the oil of the citron—it was a powerful talisman.

  “As I said, you must not kill again.”

  Ogiel stood taller. His clawed wings slowly flapped. He shook his head. “You have no power to command me. See!” He pointed toward the sky through the open doors. The fog parted revealing a starry expanse. “See how the planets draw closer? It is the Dawn of Reckoning. You have no power over me.”

  “Yes, well, we’ll see about that.” He raised the wand and Ogiel took a step back.

  And then a man holding a lamp swept its beam into the berth, and Ogiel turned. With a roar, he leapt onto the hapless person sinking his claws into him and raising him up over his head.

  “NO!” cried Leopold. He threw his arm forward, sending his magic bursting through the wand, cascading all around the demon in a shower of spitting sparks. But the demon had been right. The sparks fell around the creature, but none landed on his coal-black skin.

  The lamp had fallen from the hands of the unlucky man and he hung as a terrible silhouette from the beast’s hands over that horned head, until he was hurled to the wharf so hard the wood cracked and splintered beneath him.

  Ogiel rose up to his full height, wings extended over him in an elegant arch. “Stay away from me, Leopold of Kazsmer!” He shut himself within the wings and a clap of thunder followed by a bright flash encased him and then he was suddenly gone.

  The smoke cleared and the rumble of the thunderous sound rippled away. Leopold dropped the wand and fell to the ground before the lifeless form. The fog moved away again, allowing the gibbous moon to shine its light at his feet, illuminating the crumpled body in its bloody coat. Leopold turned the man over and released a cry of anguish. “Spense,” he gasped. “Spense.”

  Others arrived. Many policemen. Doctors. But there was no hope. Thacker was dead, ever before he had been slammed into the wharf.

  * * *

  THERE HAD BEEN questions. Leopold spent long hours throughout the night at Scotland Yard, sitting in the Chief Superintendent’s office. Coppers questioned him. He came up with what he hoped were convincing explanations. It all seemed like a dream. His exhaustion coupled with Thacker’s senseless death and the specter of that dashed Daemon Device thrashed at his senses. And when one of the coppers came forward and accused him of Thacker’s death, he froze in shock.

  It was Doctor Woodbine who came to the rescue. He, too, was in the room with the rozzers and inspectors. He gestured toward Leopold. “Don’t be absurd. That’s Leopold Kazsmer. He’s helped with the inspector’s investigations for years. Stop wasting everyone’s time.” He grasped Leopold gently by the shoulders and lifted him. “Don’t you think you should go home and get some rest, Mr. Kazsmer? It’s been a trying day.”

  Blinking, Leopold girded himself. “Yes. Yes it has. Thank you, Doctor. Is there anything more, Chief Superintendent?”

  The stoic man pushed his barrel chest forward and mumbled under his wide mustache. “Nothing more, Mr. Kazsmer. Our grateful thanks to you for all the work you’ve done for Scotland Yard.” He glared at the accusing copper as he said it, and the policeman shrank back into the crowd of men in the room.

  “It has been a long day. If you’ll excuse me.”

  He barely noticed the carriage ride and when it deposited him at his front stoop, he paused, not truly seeing it. He hadn’t felt this numb since his father’s death. What did it mean? And Ogiel. How could he stop him? He closed his hand into a fist. He dearly wanted to stop him in the cruelest way possible.

  His magic reached out without his realizing it and with a groan of twisting metal, bent the railing snaking up the stairs. He glared at it helplessly. He hadn’t meant to do it and vowed to repair it. Later.

  He cast a glance down the lane. A short Chinaman pushed a cart. The little man was very thin and seemed very old. He wore a linen tunic with frog closures down the front and loose linen trousers that flopped around his skinny ankles. Though as old as he appeared, he did not shuffle down the lane with body bent. He pushed his cart with full vigor, a cart selling God-knew-what. There was writing on the side of the pushcart whose contents were covered with a canvas tarpaulin. But the writing was in Chinese characters. It could have been food or shoes or some kind of useless trinket. The man smiled at Leopold with striated teeth, and bowed, bobbing his head and the long gray plait on the back of his head, swayed all the more as he smiled and bobbed, smiled and bobbed.

  Chapter Eight

  TWO DAYS LATER, Leopold’s friend Despenser Thacker was buried. They never did have a chance to get that pint, to make confessions, to clarify. Leopold ground his teeth, watching the coffin lower into the ground. He stood erect while a garrison’s worth of policemen attended, smart in their dark blue uniforms with bright brass buttons, standing stoically in the rain.

  The ceremony was solemn, muffled by the weather. Bobbies and men in mourning dress walked silently beside the rectangular hole and dropped in clods of earth, “commending him to God.”

  But Leopold was never certain of where he was going.

  In time, the vicar and all of Thacker’s police colleagues left, and Leopold stood under his umbrella a long while after, staring down at the freshly turned earth running away in rivulets.

  Thacker’s death wouldn’t have happened if Leopold had not been so self-absorbed. If he had only confided in the man. But tell him what? That he must beware of daemons? And dirigible magnates? And magicians who thought they did but didn’t know everything after all?

  “He will be missed,” said a feminine voice behind him. He spun.

  A beautiful Oriental woman—with black hair piled up in a tasteful arrangement of curls and waves—blinked at him. She wore a dark cloak over a deep green walking dress with a ruffled bustle in the French style. Her gloved hand clutched the tortoise shell handle of a black umbrella that sheltered her from the worst of the rain, but mud spattered the hem of her gown, and her black boots might have been shiny patent leather once, but they were now crusted in graveyard mud. He glanced behind her but she was quite alone.

  The presence of most women discommoded, but the attendance of such a beautiful woman nearly paralyzed him. “Er…yes,” he muttered. The need to flee was strong and he gave in to it. Touching the rim of his hat without looking at her again he stalked away.

  He reached the rise of the first hill and realized, much to his chagrin, that she was suddenly right beside him. He could not summon the nonchalance to spy her from the corner of his eye, so he tried in vain to stare straight ahead. His step faltered. Women were not to be at graveside. Didn’t she know this? Perhaps her ignorance stemmed from her Oriental nature. “Did…did you know the deceased?”
he said.

  She raised her chin under her umbrella and cocked her head. “No. Pity. I had heard that despite his intemperance he was usually most effective at his job.”

  Her accent was clipped as was her tone. Had he not seen her in the flesh but only heard her voice, he would have taken her for a well-educated English lady. But the incongruity of her Oriental features and her studied speech made him slide his finger around his suddenly tight collar. “Well…Thacker might often…indulge…but he was a fine man. May he rest in peace.”

  “He may,” she said dubiously, walking briskly to keep up to him. Or was he keeping pace with her?

  Leopold stopped and stared at her openly. “My dear young woman, I don’t know who you think you are, but to speak ill of the dead…well! It isn’t done in our circles.”

  She gave him an insolent perusal. “Your circles? Oh, I see. He was a magician, too?”

  “Of course not! He was a well-respected police inspector! And I will beg you to remember that. Now…good day!”

  Leopold spun and stomped across the slick grass until he reached the gate. He was at the pavement, splashing through a puddle and ready to hail a cab when she popped up beside him again. “Forgive me,” she said, looking not the least apologetic. “But by your speech I inferred that you meant to include him in the circle of magicians such as yourself. But what you really meant was to exclude me from the circle of…what shall we call it? Polite society? It hardly seems polite when it means to omit certain members because of their…sex? The shape of their eyes?” She ticked her head and her carefully cultivated curls swung back and forth. “I’ll wager that I have enjoyed far more education than you have, Mr. Kazsmer. With two degrees from Oxford alone.”

  “Jolly good for you,” he mumbled. “Perhaps I meant rude individuals who insinuate themselves into people’s faces when they are clearly in mourning.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t mean that, now did you?”

  “Young woman, would you please do me the kindness of clearing off?” He turned his back on her. He didn’t like to do it. Her manner was genteel enough, but after all. He was used to a better class of person. At least that’s what he told himself. In truth, the class of person he most often dealt with were stagehands and actors, hardly models of decorum.

  It was her foreignness, the unexpected posh accent, and her boorishness that had startled him. That was all.

  Wait. How did she know his name?

  He flicked a glance back, just to make certain that she had gone, when he jumped again. She had not gone and was standing just as she was and studying him curiously. He clenched his free hand. “See here, young woman…”

  “You are clearly no gentleman,” she said, sniffing. “You have failed to introduce yourself.”

  “A francba az összes,” he muttered. “Apparently, you already know who I am.”

  That only caused a brow to rise.

  “Very well,” he said, flustered. He doffed his hat. “I am Leopold Kazsmer, the Great Enchanter. And you are…?”

  “That’s better.” She smiled and offered her hand. It took him a few moments to accept it. Their leather gloves were damp, but he took her delicate hand in his. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “I am Mingli Zhao. Special Inspector Mingli Zhao…of Scotland Yard.”

  Chapter Nine

  LEOPOLD HAD NOT recovered from his shock. In fact, it took him so long to do so that he didn’t notice the cab when it arrived. The cabby opened the door from his soggy perch atop the carriage and Mingli strode forward, placing her foot on the first step, balancing by touching the doorway. “Coming, Mr. Kazsmer? I take it you are also heading to Scotland Yard?”

  “I…I…”

  She shook her head and climbed in the rest of the way. From inside the cab she called out sing-song through the open door, “Time is wasting, Mr. Kazsmer.”

  He shook his head, quickly closed his umbrella, and climbed in.

  It was too close. Far too tight and too close inside the hansom. He wished there was more room to at least sit opposite her, but he was grateful that her abundant skirts, ruffles, and petticoats prevented their hips from touching.

  He said nothing but stared straight ahead, even though he could sense that she was looking at him, and not even slightly surreptitiously. “Do I make you nervous?” she said.

  “Of course not.” He rubbed his gloved hands one over the other, again and again.

  “It’s absurd, really,” she said conversationally. “We have a queen, for heaven’s sake.”

  “And what has that got to do with anything?”

  “She’s a woman. She’s in command. At the helm of the country. If you accept that and are so used to having a queen rule you, why then should you object when women are in positions of power? Or is it the fact that I am a Chinese woman?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Oh, but I can tell you stories.” She leaned forward, resting her clasped hands on her umbrella handle, using the umbrella like a cane. “Men are intimidated by me. It’s quite true. There’s no need, you know. Just consider me like any other police inspector. No more, no less.”

  “My dear young woman, that is quite impossible, for the simple reason that you are

  not—” He turned toward her then, looking into her eyes. A fan of lashes surrounded them and she cocked her head, waiting for him to complete his sentence. His breath caught. “—like any… other…p-police inspector,” he finished lamely.

  She settled primly with a smug smile flickering at the edges of her lips. “Of course I’m not. I’m a special inspector. I daresay, that’s a cut above the ordinary peeler.”

  Leopold glared at her for several more seconds before planting himself back into his seat. He had no idea what to say to that.

  It took the better part of half an hour to get through traffic in the rain before the cab arrived in front of Scotland Yard’s entrance. In all that time, neither one had spoken. She seemed perfectly calm in a strange man’s company, while Leopold’s emotions bounded between annoyance and nervousness. Where had she come from? What in the world possessed Scotland Yard to hire such an unsuitable person as an inspector?

  The cabby opened the door without leaving his perch, and Leopold stepped out quickly in order to offer Mingli his hand. She took it delicately, and stepped down, looking up at the columned portico as he paid the cabby.

  The atmosphere was subdued when they entered, though many uniformed men turned their heads to stare openly at Inspector Zhao. She didn’t seem familiar with the building and though her strides were sure her sense of where to go was not.

  Leopold sighed and took her elbow. Startled, she flicked her gaze toward his face, the hand on her arm, and up to his face again.

  “Do you have an office here, Inspector?” he said quietly to her ear. Jet earrings dangled delicately from the lobe.

  “I suppose that I do, but in all honesty, this is the first time I have set foot in the place.”

  “Are you really an inspector?”

  She stopped, shaking off his hand. “Yes. I am Inspector Zhao.” She said the last loudly so that all could hear…and by the looks of the men, they did indeed. “And I beg you to treat me with the proper respect!”

  “What’s all this, then?” said a mustachioed serjeant, stepping forward from around a balustrade. He put his hands on his hips and looked her up and down. “What’s the trouble here?”

  Mingli studied him carefully. “There is no trouble, Serjeant…?”

  “McClellan, ma’am. May I enquire…?”

  “You may enquire as to where my office is. My best guess is that it is the same as that recently vacated by Inspector Thacker.”

  Everyone bristled. Leopold, appalled by her lack of tact, stared open-mouthed. “We’ve only just left his funeral,” he said stiffly.

  She turned to him with a cool expression. “Yes. And his killer has not been found. I intend to remedy that.” Her eyes slid toward the serjeant. “McClellan, co
uld you be so kind as to take me to his office?”

  “Just who the bloody hell do you think you are?”

  “Never mind,” Leopold cut in. “I’ll take her. Check with the chief superintendent.” Ignoring her protest when he grabbed her elbow again, he marched her smartly down the dimly lit corridor and to Thacker’s familiar office. He opened the door and dragged her in.

  The curtains were thrown wide on the window that overlooked the bustling street. He and Thacker had stood there many a time, contemplating a problem while staring at the goings on without.

  Thacker’s things were still in evidence. No one had yet taken his personal items away, nor organized his desk’s clutter. He had several caps dangling from a coat tree. On the corner of his desk sat a sculpture of a cat made of ebony that he liked to stroke because of its superbly smooth texture. And several walking sticks—including a broken one that Leopold couldn’t help but smile when remembering the occasion where it had become broken—sat idly in an old Wellington boot.

  Mingli made a sound of despair and the look of disgust on her face would have been comical in any other circumstances. She used as few fingers as she could picking something up from behind the desk—a brass cuspidor—and gingerly walked it to the door, where she carefully set it down in the corridor. Dusting her hands, she looked around. “Let us hope there are no more unpleasant surprises.”

  “Look, Inspector, do you truly think this is the opportune time to take possession of this office? My friend and colleague was only just laid to rest. Do you not think that, in all decency, an appropriate time for mourning is expected?”

  She was back behind the desk and leaned with both hands upon the cluttered surface, slanting toward him. “Appropriate? Oh, yes, we could certainly accommodate all conventions and allow his murderer to escape our clutches. But I wonder if you truly want me to do that.”

  “A…a day at least…”

  “Mr. Kazsmer.” She stood up straight, crossing her arms over her chest. She had removed her cloak—when had she done that?—and his eyes roved over her cropped jacket that accentuated her cinched waist and…other attributes. He blinked as he forced his eyes upward toward her face. “I don’t pretend to know the extent of your friendship with our dear departed inspector, but as you can see from the level of disarray on this desk alone—not to mention the rest in this untidy space—” She gestured to the many bookshelves where papers and dusty leather cases looked to be unceremoniously shoved into place. “—clearly shows a backlog of outrageous proportion. I am appalled at how long he has been allowed to continue in this higgledy-piggledy manner. Unsolved murders, missing children, burglaries…” She shook her head. Her hat, perched high on her hair, flicked a black pheasant tail feather like a school teacher’s admonishing finger.