The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil Read online

  Charles’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline as he inhaled. He let the smoke pool in his lungs, felt the buzz smooth out the edges in his head, and he watched the shadow melt away. He let the smoke out on a sigh. “Sounds kinky.”

  Bimsy shrugged. “No worse than anything you already done, I reckon.”

  Charles couldn’t argue that one. He smoked for a moment, considering. Sex magic with a rogue alchemist. It still sounded dangerous.

  In the corner of the room, the shadow stirred again, and Charles quickly looked away.

  “I sent a boy over to ask, and he said he could see you today,” Bimsy pressed. “Said you sounded intriguing.”

  The shadows in the other corners were moving too, not yet forming, but they were gaining strength too fast. Within an hour, he’d be in their throes again. I can’t take much more of this. He drew on the cigarette again with some intensity.

  “I thought you was dead when I first found you today,” Bimsy said. “Lord Whitby’s grandson, dead in my house. I all but felt the noose around my neck, lad.”

  Charles tapped his cigarette into the bucket and shook his head. “The ghosts don’t kill me. They won’t.” He didn’t know how he knew this, but he did. Drive him mad, though—that, they could do. Just like dear Dad. He sighed and turned to Bimsy. “If I go to this alchemist, can I come back here again?”

  “If he fixes you, sure enough you can,” Bimsy agreed.

  The shadows were moving again, and the mist was rising. It wouldn’t even be an hour before they were back.

  “The alchemist said to send you over as soon as you were about,” Bimsy said. “Just think, you could have a cure, go home and rest, and be back with a new pair of bunnies by tomorrow night.”

  It would never work like that, Charles knew. If it worked at all, with a rogue alchemist it would never be that easy. But the shadows stalking Charles were taller now, and he could see their faces forming as their thin gray fingers reached around Bimsy’s throat.

  Charles tossed his cigarette into the bucket and sat up in the bed. “Hand me my coat, Bimsy.”

  He shrugged into the blue silk, wrapping himself in stale beer and smoke and perfume, and headed for the door, ignoring as best he could the icy cold and the weak, plaintive cries that echoed all around him.

  * * *

  All alchemists had their lairs in Golden Lane.

  They practiced all over Etsey, but their sanctuaries were in the capital, in Boone: their laboratories, their dungeons, their cabinets of curiosity, and their vaults they never so much as let their apprentices open. The world’s darkest and most dangerous secrets were likely all tucked within this narrow half mile of street, but no thief dared so much as glance down it. Being cured by an alchemist was often enough to get you killed. Stumbling into one of their lairs without their knowledge could bring you a life that made you wish for death.

  Charles turned up his collar and huddled against the wind as he maneuvered his way into the narrow, brick-lined street. There were gas lamps flickering in several of the windows, and in one there was even an electric lamp, a luxury not even Charles’s family yet enjoyed. The shops at this end of the alley were of the guild and therefore were of high quality. Each alchemist here had a patron, and the grander the patron, the grander the storefront. Charles’s grandfather kept one of them. Charles had met him once a year from the time he was born until he was thirteen. He still had nightmares about being stuck with needles, his blood dripping into a bowl as the wizened old creature watched it spill away. The alchemist had taken extra when Lord Whitby wasn’t watching, because it was fun to play with the blood of a House heir, not to mention profitable. In fact, Charles had been fairly certain his first hit of drug at a party had been amplified with a by-product of a visit with Old Rooky.

  Alchemists were nasty, paranoid creatures, and they loved power. Charles’s blood was nothing but power, though little good it did him. He had no talent for magic. He’d tried, but it had come to nothing, which wasn’t unexpected. He had, as his grandfather loved to remind him, talent for nothing at all.

  Except sex. Charles was fantastically good at fucking.

  Charles stopped at the edge of Golden Lane and looked back to the dock, lighting another cigarette as he watched workers unload the cargo. Yes, Bimsy had known just how to work him, hadn’t he? Sex magic. If Old Rooky had used that to test his blood, he wouldn’t have minded so much. Still, Charles worried. Nothing about alchemists had ever been good, in his experience. And if this one was a rogue—well, either he was an even more heartless bastard than the others or he wasn’t any good. Also, fun as sex magic sounded, what good could it possibly do? One way or another, this was almost guaranteed to be a mistake.

  But as Charles stood there, hesitating, staring into the foggy shroud of the docks, he watched the gray mist begin to form again. He finished the cigarette, tossed it into a puddle, and continued down the winding lane. Mistake or not, it was the only choice left outside of madness.

  He passed the fancy shops, the modest ones, and then the very, very humble, until at last he left the lane altogether, leaving the brick paving to wade through the mucky mud of an even narrower alley to the small, huddled, unmarked dwellings that were the havens of the alchemists operating outside the guild. Charles grimaced and put his handkerchief to his nose to dull the stink as he wound his way to the dark shack at the farthest end of the street. Once there, he lifted his hand and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” said a voice from within.

  Charles smoothed his hair behind his ears, cleared his throat, and opened the door.

  The room was very small, and it was crowded with books and complicated sets of glass tubing. The shelves were full of pots, jars, and cases whose very appearance made Charles ill at ease. It smelled ten times worse than the alley and the Randy Sailor bedroom put together: there was sulfur, yes, but rot as well, and other unnamable, undesirable pungent scents that tickled the roof of Charles’s mouth and the back of his throat and made him want to gag. He pressed his handkerchief more firmly to his nose, sucked a breath in through his mouth, and waited.

  The alchemist sat at the desk in the far corner of the room. He was thin, sallow, and sandy-haired. He had his fingers threaded together, resting them beneath his chin as he ran his narrowed eyes up and down Charles as if he were little more than a laboratory sample.

  He was not in any way handsome. Not that it mattered. But given this was allegedly to be “sex magic,” it would have made things a little easier.

  Charles lowered his handkerchief and made a slightly awkward bow. “I am Charles Perry. I was told perhaps you could help me.”

  The man made no answer, only continued to watch Charles patiently. He looked mildly amused.

  Charles shifted uneasily on his feet and reached into his pocket for his purse. “I of course can pay—”

  The man sat up, freeing his hands so that one of them could wave Charles’s comment away. “Payment will be discussed at a later time. Before such mundane details are broached, I have several questions I wish to put to you.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Some are necessary for me to begin my work. Others are, I admit, simply to satisfy my own curiosity.”

  Charles forced a smile. “Certainly. Ask me anything you like.”

  “I know a great deal about your factual history, of course.” The alchemist laughed. “House of Perry and Whitby. Bastard son. I believe I’ve bought your blood on the black market a time or two, when your grandfather was still making certain you were his true offspring. Of course, one can see why he was so eager to try and disown you. Bit of a troublemaker, you are.”

  Charles hated this already. “Do you have a name?”

  “I am Martin Smith,” the alchemist replied. “And I think you will find, as we get to know one another, that we have more in common than you might suspect. But I get ahead of myself.” He leaned forward slightly, letting his steepled fingers fall away to join the others as they nestled casually beneath
his chin. “Tell me, Charles Perry, what it is that you want.”

  What he wanted? Charles blinked, then frowned. “I thought Bimsy told you. I have nightmares—”

  “I did not ask you why you wanted my help,” Smith said. “I asked you what it is you want.”

  Charles didn’t know what to say. What the devil could this have to do with anything? “I don’t know. To—well, to be happy,” he said lamely. “I want peace. Happiness. Peaceful happiness. Money’s all right, but happiness or peace would be fine. If the dreams were gone, if I could forget—” Charles blushed and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know,” Charles said again, almost in a whisper. “I truly don’t know what I want.”

  Smith rose from his chair and gestured at Charles. “Remove your clothes, then turn and face the door.”

  Charles took a step backward, stumbling over his own feet. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m certain I made myself clear.” Smith ran his gaze up and down Charles’s body once more, then curled his lip and shook his head. When Charles failed to move, Smith clapped his hands sharply. “Strip, pet. I don’t fancy doing it myself.”

  For a moment, Charles considered bolting. This meeting was clearly going pear-shaped. He’d known the alchemist would be eccentric, and Charles wasn’t against sex, obviously, but—well, this was just odd as all fuck, wasn’t it? But where else would he go if he left? If he got high again now, high enough to dull the wraiths, he risked killing himself or worse. If he went back to his grandfather’s house, he’d have to kill himself.

  “Please,” Charles said, trying to sound penitent, not panicked. “Please—I need you to stop these dreams.” He glanced at Smith’s long hands again, then, since the subject had been broached, at his groin. “I’m not—I don’t mind trading sex, if that’s what you want, and I’m flattered, but I truly need—”

  Smith laughed so hard he could not speak for several minutes.

  “Trading sex.” Smith wiped tears from his eyes and righted himself. “I’m not going to fuck you, pet, not if I can help it.”

  Charles glanced again at the door. “Bimsy said you used sex magic. I don’t know what that is, but…” When Charles trailed off, waiting for Smith to clarify, the alchemist only lifted one of his pencil-thin eyebrows. Charles cleared his throat. “How does it work?”

  Smith leaned forward, his pale eyes dancing in their own cold light. “Take off your clothes, and I’ll show you.”

  Oh, it was time to run. The stink was climbing inside Charles’s nostrils now, and he’d gotten his answer as to why this alchemist was rogue: because he was barking mad. Charles began to back away toward the door. “I think I will give this matter a bit more consideration. Thank you, though—yes, thank you, because you’ve been very helpful. Truly.” He tripped over a pile of books and knocked his elbow against a table, jostling some tubing. He laughed nervously. “Thank you. Very much. I’ll just—be going—”

  Smith tilted his head curiously to the side. “Goodness. Is that fog creeping beneath my door?”

  Charles turned, knocking the table again as he cried out. Goddess save him, it was here. And it was well formed. It was beneath the door, clinging to the walls, the ceiling—it was everywhere. Charles could see the hands of the wraiths and the edges of their faces. He shouted, glanced around for an exit, then slammed into the table and pressed himself tight against it.

  It was at the windows too. It was everywhere.

  Smith rose from the desk and walked idly toward Charles. He reached over Charles’s shoulder to a shelf behind the table, withdrew a cigarette from a box, and waved it at Charles. “Undress, pet. I need you naked for what I intend to do. If you hurry, I’ll drive them back before they can reach you.”

  Charles started to refuse, then stopped short, realizing what the alchemist was saying. “Wait—you can see them?”

  Smith picked up a flint from the table and shrugged. “Not like you, no. But I know they’re there.” He struck the flint, brought the spark up to the end of his cigarette, and inhaled lazily. “And I know they’ll get worse. I also know I won’t stop them until you start stripping down.”

  Charles stared at the alchemist for several seconds, trying to gauge his insanity, trying to find some other way out of this. But Smith only stood there smoking, looking slightly bored. The mist wraiths kept coming.

  Hesitantly Charles slid out of his jacket.

  Smith did nothing.

  Charles undid his vest and then his shirt, tugging it out of his trousers and peeling it away from his skin.

  Still the alchemist did nothing.

  But when Charles pulled his first arm from his sleeve, the alchemist picked up a small, white object from the table, and when Charles withdrew his other arm as well, leaving his torso naked, Smith aimed the object over his shoulder, tossing it backward into the mist. It exploded in a sharp, angry pop, shattering in a cloud of dust and stinking so bad that Charles finally gave up and gagged. But when the dust settled, the mist was gone.

  Smith resumed smoking. “That ought to buy us enough time to make some inquiries.” He gestured to Charles’s trousers. “Hurry up.”

  Charles looked around for somewhere to drape his shirt, but there was nowhere that was not already crowded with sharp objects or dirty apparatuses. He placed it as carefully as he could on a cleanish space on the floor.

  Smith watched impassively as Charles crouched down and fought his way out of his boots. “You do not have nightmares, Charles Perry,” he said. “You have visions and you have dreams, and because you have ignored them, they are stealing into your waking hours. But the dreams are not what truly ail you. Your dreams are but a symptom of something greater.” He leaned in closer, his eyes glinting in the dim gaslight and the smoke from his cigarette. “Dreams such as yours are whispers from other places, other times, and even other selves. It is the most basic sort of magic. It is the work of moments to turn off your dreams for a brief period; it is an hour to do so permanently. However you would soon find yourself feeling listless and dull witted.” Smith cast a derisive glance at Charles. “Despite your insistence that you desire nothing more than ‘peace and happiness,’ if you did not have your dreams, you would soon be begging for new nightmares.”

  Charles wrenched the second boot free and propped it with the other beneath the table. “I’ve had a lifetime of nightmares, living and waking. I won’t want more nightmares once you get rid of this one.” He rose and wrapped his arms over his naked chest. “I don’t want anything but a nice, boring existence from here on out.”

  Smith exhaled smoke into Charles’s face and gave him a withering look. “You practically sustain yourself on scandal. You drink too much. You smoke anything that will give you a high. You fuck anything that moves, male or female and both at once. How you’ve avoided the pillory and mandatory licensing is a magic more powerful than anything I’ll ever know, though I suppose having a grandfather as determined as Augustus Perry to keep his House out of the tabloids goes a long way. You’ve found your way into trouble since you were old enough to reach for it—even the circumstances of your conception are criminal. And this is saying nothing, of course, of that business in the north when you were seventeen.”

  Charles hugged himself tighter and looked away. “I don’t want to keep that fucking dream. You wouldn’t even suggest it if you knew what I see every time I close my eyes. For years now they’ve been haunting me—every night! You think I drink and whore for fun? Not anymore, I don’t. I’m trying to forget. I’m terrified of the dark space behind my own eyelids. I just want peace. I swear to you that’s all I want.”

  Smith made a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “Let us make a wager, then. For no payment whatsoever, I will remove your nightmare. But first I will walk you, waking, through your dream. All the way through it. If you still wish me to banish it, I will, and you will leave happy and peaceful. I will remain here, unpaid and well shamed for my arrogance.”

  Charles glanced at Smith
, unable to believe what he had just heard. “And if I want to keep the dream?” he asked, thinking, There is nothing in this world that can make that happen.

  “Then you will pay me whatever I ask,” Smith said. “You will submit to me in full rite. You will give me your power whenever I ask for it, however I ask. As much as I ask for. You will be bound to me completely, and you will submit to me willingly until I am finished with you.”

  Charles held up his hands. “No more bleeding. I’m not doing that again.”

  The end of the cigarette disappearing into the crease of two fingers as Smith bared his palms. “I have no designs on your House blood. I cannot even access it outside the guild. If I so much as sniff it, they will come down upon me.”

  “Then what ‘power’ of mine would you be bargaining for?” Charles asked.

  Smith’s eyes danced. “Your own, pet. The power that is your own.”

  Mad. The man was completely cracked. Power? What power? Charles didn’t have any power! Submit? Sex magic, but they weren’t going to fuck? What would Smith want to do, have Charles polish his shoes with his semen? Would fluids not be involved at all? Would Smith only want to paint mad little symbols all over Charles’s cock? He smiled to himself. This was too easy.

  Yes, a deeper part of his mind whispered. It is. Dwell on that for a moment.

  But Charles shoved the whisper aside. There was nothing to dwell on. The man had chased the mist away with nothing more than a chalk rock. The alchemist could do more, and he wanted to trade for Charles’s “own power.” Charles had no power. He couldn’t so much as pull a penny from behind someone’s ear. There was nothing to lose. So maybe somehow he lost this wager, and in a moment of insanity, he said he wanted his nightmares back because somehow they weren’t nightmares anymore. So he had to “submit” to Smith. Charles was not shy or proud. Maybe this alchemist was molly and wanted a sex slave. No problem—he’d done that before. Maybe he liked it rough. Also not a problem. Maybe he wanted no sex, like he said—maybe he wanted someone to clean up the place. Boring, but if it got rid of his nightmare or made it a good dream? He didn’t care.