My Lady Quicksilver by Bec McMaster

Author:Bec McMaster [McMaster, Bec]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Steampunk, Vampires, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781402270338
Google: 9YrfAAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17310126
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2013-09-30T11:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Fog boiled through the East End, filling the close-knit streets and obscuring the houses below. Lynch peered across the disembodied rooftops, rubbing at his knuckles absently. This was a dangerous part of town, ruled by cutthroat human gangs and the Devil of Whitechapel himself, one of the few rogue blue bloods who’d fought free of his fate and carved his own living outside of Echelon power.

The city walls loomed in the distance, keeping the Echelon in and the human rabble out. Both groups seemed to prefer it that way, and it was an easy way of distinguishing who belonged where.

Sound skittered off the tiles behind him and a half glance alerted him to the arrival of Byrnes. The other man moved with catlike grace along the ridge of the house, fog stirring around his boots as he silently surveyed the world. The taste of coal was thick in the air, like the exhale of a pipe-smoker’s breath.

“Well?” Lynch asked.

“I found an entrance to Undertown,” Byrnes murmured, kneeling beside him. His cold gaze raked the fog. Garrett was a leader of men, but Byrnes was the only choice when it came to hunting in dark spaces. He liked to be alone, liked the shadows. “I wish you’d brought more men.”

“I’ve had that lecture from Doyle already. I want to observe tonight, not attack.” Lynch scratched at his jaw. He’d let her go but that meant nothing. He needed Mercury’s secrets, to discover if what she had said about the mechs was true. “Where’s the entrance to Undertown?”

“Behind a whorehouse in Limey,” Byrnes replied. “Trapdoor around the back that looks like it leads to a cellar. Someone’s cut a hole down into the ELU tunnels.”

No doubt the brothel fronted as a smuggling den then. Undertown existed for enterprising types. Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “A guard?”

“I slipped him,” Byrnes replied. “He’s too busy fondling the merchandise.”

“Let’s move, then.”

The tiles were slick beneath Lynch’s boots, but he moved like liquid through the night, knowing that Byrnes followed. Fierce joy arose in him as he leaped across a narrow alley and landed on a nearby roof, his feet barely touching before he raced up the steep slope of the roof. This was the only time he felt truly free, unhindered by responsibility and duty. Byrnes might frown on him taking such an active role in the hunt, but Lynch needed it, now more than ever.

With a sharp gesture, he indicated Byrnes to take the lead once they reached Jamaica Street. The silence of the world was strangely eerie now that martial law had descended. People no doubt prowled the streets—there weren’t enough guards to police every rookery—but they kept their outings quiet.

A whispered argument caught his ear, ghosting through the fog. He ignored it, trying to stay low on the roofline and out of the stark moonlight.

And then something about the words caught his ear. A voice he knew only too well. “You must be mistaken,” Mrs.

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