Àìàíäà Êâèê - Quicksilver

"What about it?"

"It seems the Society is now offering a matrimonial consulting service that specializes in introducing people of talent to each other."

It took him a split second to realize where the conversation was going. When the full horror of it struck home, he came off the corner of the desk very suddenly.

"Do not even think about registering me with the Society's matchmaking agency, Aunt Aurelia," he said.

"Oh, I cannot do the registering for you." She waved that aside, unfazed by his dark mood. "You would have to take care of the details yourself."

"I am not about to employ a matchmaker."

"My understanding is that Lady Milden, who operates the agency, has a true gift for matching people endowed with strong psychical natures. She has a number of resources to draw on, including Arcane's extensive genealogical records."

"Forget it." He went to the window and stood looking out at the rain-dampened garden. "I am not interested in that approach."

"Why not?"

"Sweetwaters find their own women."

"Except when they don't," Aurelia said. She spoke quietly, but the words were heavy with meaning. "We both know what happens when a Sweetwater man goes too long without a true mate."

He did not respond. There was no need.

"You have begun the nightwalking, haven't you?" Aurelia said quietly.

A cold chill iced the nape of his neck. The Sweetwaters were very good at keeping secrets from outsiders, but it was damned difficult to keep a secret within the family.

"I have always hunted at night," he said, trying to claw his way out of the trap. "Everyone in the family knows that. It's the nature of my version of the family talent. I see the evidence of the monsters more clearly after dark."

"What everyone in the familyknows, " Aurelia said, "is that you are spending more and more time on the streets late at night. It is one thing to troll for monsters occasionally. In this family, that passes for sport, rather like fishing. But it is quite another to go out alone night after night, searching for your prey. That way lies madness for a Sweetwater man."

"I am not hunting at night for the sport of it. I have a particular client, J J, and I have a specific target, a psychical maniac who is murdering glasslight-talents."

"I realize that you have recently acquired a client, but that is only a short-term diversion. It will not change what is happening to you. Owen, your parents and the rest of the family are starting to worry. If you do not find the right woman soon, you will become a nightwalker."

"What makes you think Lady Milden can find me a match?"

"I am told she is very skilled at what she does. What do you have to lose?"

"Time," he said. "Time that I can spend searching for my own true mate."

"You said yourself this is the modern era. You should take advantage of modern, more efficient ways of doing things."

"I'll consider it," he said, lying through his teeth.

"I will take that as a promise."

He swung around. "Damn it, Aunt Aurelia."

"I will ignore the bad language this one time, because I am aware that you are under considerable stress." She went toward the door. "You have wasted too much time already. You must not wait any longer, Owen. Your family does not want to lose you to the night."

I do not usually report to clients until the job is finished," Owen Sweetwater said.

Caleb angled his chin in acknowledgment of the great favor that Sweetwater appeared to think he was granting to Jones Jones. In the few months that he and Lucinda had been doing business at the agency, they had discovered that the only people more troublesome than the clients were the powerful and unpredictable talents the firm was obliged to hire in order to conduct the investigations.

"We appreciate that you are making an exception for us," Caleb said.

His cousin Gabe, the Master of the Society, studied Sweetwater with a considering expression.

"You came highly recommended, Mr. Sweetwater, but please understand that this sort of business is new to us," Gabe said.

The three of them were standing in an abandoned warehouse near the docks. Sweetwater had chosen the location for the meeting, just as he had selected the location the first time, when Caleb had contacted him about the possibility of employment. It had become clear immediately that when one engaged the services of the Sweetwater clan, one accepted the arrangements stipulated by the particular Sweetwater with whom one was dealing.

At the first meeting Caleb had been convinced that Owen Sweetwater was a hunter-talent of some sort but not the traditional variety. The psychical abilities of the average hunter tended to be of a more physical nature. Such talents were usually endowed with preternatural reflexes, speed, hearing and night vision. They hunted by detecting the psychical spoor of their prey.

Owen Sweetwater moved with a predatory ease and control that put one in mind of a hunter, but Caleb had grown up in a family that boasted a number of hunters sprinkled throughout the bloodline. He knew true hunters, and he was quite certain that whatever Sweetwater was, he was not a traditional hunter-talent.

"What we want to know," Caleb said carefully, "is whether you have found any evidence that supports my belief that the two glass-readers were killed by paranormal means. If not, then this case is not J J's problem. I will give what information we have to an acquaintance at Scotland Yard. The police can take responsibility for finding the killer."

"The way they took responsibility for the murders of an untold number of prostitutes in the past several years?"

Gabe frowned. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Tomorrow or the following day, you will read of the tragic death of Lord Hollister in the morning papers," Owen said. "The official cause of his demise will likely be a heart attack or stroke. In reality, he died of a knife in the chest."

Caleb raised his brows. "Your work?"

"I cannot take the credit. I suspect the wife. I found the body when I explored the basement beneath the mansion."

"What the devil were you doing in Hollister's basement?" Gabe asked.

"That is where my investigation led me," Owen said a little too smoothly. "What the press will not be aware of is that Hollister preyed on young prostitutes for years. He lured them into his carriage and took them to the basement beneath his mansion, where he raped and murdered them. There is no telling how many he killed. While I was on the premises, I found another girl who was still alive. I took her to the charity house in Elm Street."

"I have seen nothing in the papers about missing streetwalkers," Caleb said.

"That is because the press rarely notices when girls go missing," Owen said. "Prostitutes are forever vanishing from the streets. Sometimes they turn up in the river, sometimes they simply disappear. But unless the death is a particularly bloody one, the public has no interest. Hollister was careful to dispose of the bodies so that they did not draw attention."

Gabe thought about that. "You say Hollister was a talent?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it, possibly a glass-reader."

"That is why your investigation led you to his basement," Caleb said, mentally assembling the pieces of the puzzle. "Was he the one who murdered the glass-readers?"

"No, but there is some connection between Hollister and the murders of the glass-readers," Owen said. "My investigation is ongoing."

"That does not tell us a great deal," Gabe said without inflection.

"I can give you one or two other interesting facts. I came across a rather dangerous psychical weapon disguised as a clockwork curiosity in the Hollister mansion. There may be other such devices out there."

Caleb groaned. "I had hoped that the crystal guns that gave us so much trouble in the course of a recent case were the end of our problems with paranormal weaponry."

"Evidently not," Owen said. "I can also tell you that the link between Hollister's death and the deaths of the glass-readers runs through the Leybrook Institute."

Irritation flashed through Caleb. "That damned Institute is rife with charlatans and frauds."

"When you consider the matter closely," Gabe said, "it is the ideal place for a true psychical killer to conceal himself."

"A genuine talent hidden among the fakes." Caleb sighed. "Very clever."

"It's called hiding in plain sight," Owen said. "The monsters are very good at that."

It seemed to Caleb that there was a new chill in the atmosphere. It was not coming from the river or the fog that shrouded the warehouse. It emanated from Owen Sweetwater's aura.We are doing business with avery dangerous man, he thought.

"It seems you were right, Caleb," Gabe said. "But then, you generally are when it comes to this sort of thing."

Caleb did not respond. There was nothing to say. He was almost always right when it came to seeing patterns. He was especially skilled at noting the dark evidence that indicated crimes that had been committed by villains endowed with psychical talent. But no one was right one hundred percent of the time. Deep inside, he lived with the knowledge that someday he would miscalculate and innocents might die. It was the theme of his darkest dreams.

He frowned at Owen. "How do you intend to proceed?"

Owen shrugged, as if the question had an obvious answer.

"I will identify the killer and remove him," he said. "I will then, of course, send you a bill for services rendered."