Black Iron Ghost

Black Iron Ghost

Morning light filtered through the dirty windows of my second story apartment, and I stretched under the loose mas-fibre sheet. Outside the ironshod-hooves of horses clattered on stone and the large wheels of waggons rumbled as they moved over cobbles. Inside was a different world. Elisabeth shifted beside me, the gentle curves of her naked body pressing against my back.

I rolled over and stared into her sparkling blue eyes. "Morning, beautiful," I whispered and leaned forward, touching my lips to hers.

She giggled and kissed me back. "Morning, Jeanne."

The contact made my heart quicken in my breast, and I kissed her again, once on the lips, again on the cheek and then many times down the graceful curve of her neck. She withdrew back into the bed and bared her milk white throat to me. I set my lips against it just enough to wet the skin, drew back and blew. My breath danced against her skin.

"Ooh," she moaned and arched her back. The sheet fell away from her chest, revealing the soft swells of her breasts, each topped by a small pink nipple.

"I'm going to mark you," I whispered and set my teeth against the small of her throat, just enough to lightly dent the skin. "Should I do it here, a mark where everyone can see? What would your students think?" I returned my teeth, bit down harder and sealed my lips. She quivered under me.

"No!" she moaned. The word vibrated against my lips.

I withdrew and kissed down her neck, up the rise of her chest and to the tips of her breasts. Her nipples cried out to be suckled and ravaged. I took one in my mouth and rolled it between my lips. It tasted both sweet and salty, the product of our pleasures the night before. I pulled back, letting it slowly drag free of my mouth.

"No," I said, musing, "not here either."

The bed sheet blocked the rest of her body so I pulled it aside. It swept across her, the fine fibres dancing against her skin. Elisabeth shivered and not from cold. She lay completely revealed, five foot three inches of smooth, flawless white skin and tumbling chestnut locks. Golden light played across her, rendering her a goddess of erotic perfection. I returned my lips to her radiant skin and kissed the flat of her stomach. Her flesh was warm and hard, the product of regular exercise and the healthy body demanded of a fencing mistress.

I set my lips against her bellybutton and teased the edges with my tongue. That brought a giggle to her lips, and she set her hands on my head, fingers toying with my hair. I escaped her clutches by kissing lower still, over the rolling swell of her mons and to her sex. My ministrations had quickened her sleeping fire and her lips were open, the exposed flesh the red of roses.

The nub of her pleasure begged for attention. It called to me, that little nub. Suck me, it said, oh please lick me, please. I teased it with the tip of my tongue, tiny motions like a cat to cream. She jerked at each touch in the most enjoyable way, like a toy I could control and play with anyway I wanted. Grinning I gave her a full lick, starting at the bottom of her sex and ending at the very top.

She gasped and her thighs closed around my head, crushing my ears. I pushed them apart and shook my head. "Now, now, none of that. I still owe you a mark, and I don't think I'll put it here either."

With a wicked smile I kissed her inner thigh, just below where leg met sex. It's a wonderful location, a guarded length of oh-so-soft skin that quivers at even the softest of touches. It quivered for me, flesh shaking. "Yes," I said, "right here".

"Don't you dare-" started Elisabeth, but I didn't let her finish.

I made a seal of my lips and sucked hard. At the same time I bit down with my teeth, not truly vicious and certainly not enough to pierce the skin, but enough to be felt. She bucked under me, and her sex twitched with need. Without moving my lips, I reached up and stroked her outer lips, slow rhythmic motions to keep her ready. Finally I broke my kiss. Two white crescents of teeth marks showed inside an oval of rapidly darkening skin. It was a single flaw on an otherwise flawless beauty.

"Your mine now," I said. "I own you. No matter where you go today or what you do."

"No," she moaned, but to those learned in the mysteries of womanly flesh, the meaning couldn't have been more different.

Her sex pulsed with blood and concentrated need. I reached forward and slipped two fingers inside, curled slightly to pet as much of her as I could. It felt like a velvet glove.

"Punk gods, you're good at this," she breathed and her hands returned to my hair, running through it and rubbing against my scalp in an erotic rhythm.

I dedicated myself to her pleasure. I licked around her clit, full motions that never quiet touched that aching bundle of nerves. My fingers worked slowly in and out, touching and toying with all the secret folds of the female body. I spoke to her sex, murmured to it, hummed to it and made it promises grand and exotic using action and words both.

She teetered on the edge of release, that glorious wave which sweeps away the physical world. I kept her there, balanced for long agonising seconds. More, higher, delaying pleasure to make it grander. She vibrated like a strung bow.

With a single puff of hot humid breath against her clit, I sent her tumbling into orgasm. Her pleasure rolled through her, not the violence of a man but the all-consuming wave of a woman's pleasure. Heat rolled of her skin as a dark, bloody flush rushed over her body. The sight took my breath away, and I crawled up her body and kissed her deeply, sharing her pleasure through the union of breath to breath and soul to soul.

Her orgasm passed and for long minutes we snuggled together, enjoying the intimacy of human contact.

"You are truly beautiful, Elisabeth Vinoy," I said quietly.

"And you are too, Jeanne Clement," she said.

And with that our long rest was over, the morning already growing old. We kissed one final time, almost chaste, our noses touching, and set to rising.

She pulled on her clothes from the night before - tight pale brown jodhpurs that showed the athletic lines of her legs and a cream man's dress shirt, frilled and unbuttoned to show a bit of bosom. I leered. There's just something about a woman in men's clothes... I knee walked across the bed, swept her hair aside and kissed her behind the ear.

"Oh you," she said and pushed me away.

I smiled and returned to dressing. Though I do own a few pairs of trousers, I simply don't have the legs for them and my knees have made grown men cry. Instead, I retrieved a respectable riding habit from my wardrobe and a lightly embroidered silk chemisette. I pulled the chemisette on first and settled it properly. Then I began the somewhat labours process of donning the habit. I have a number of riding habits I use for day wear. This one was made from cloth, died a deep navy blue, and treated to withstand ill weather. It had a tightly tailored bodice that showed off my chest and hour-glass figure, and a closed skirt that reached the ground. The bodice buttoned up the front using simple brass buttons, each imprinted with a different geometric pattern. I snapped them into place one by one.

Elisabeth finished dressing first. She hung her street rapier off her belt, attached her red libertine pin and bowed at the waste. "I must bid you adieu, Ms Clement, though I thank you for a most enjoyable evening."

"Will I see you tonight?"

Elisabeth gave a coy smile. "Perhaps. I will need to consider how angry I am at you for this." She tapped her thigh.

"If you're that angry," I said with a naughty grin, "maybe you should come over and punish me?"

She raised her small pert nose and her fingers drummed on the hilt of her rapier. "Maybe I will."

A knock came from the door. My apartment's not big, just two rooms which lead straight into each other. I motioned Elisabeth to the corner where she'd be out of view and went to the door. Two unmarried women spending the night together was quite improper. Libertine Elisabeth might not care, but I had a reputation to maintain.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Tis me miss." Young, high-pitched, far too keen.

"Amo?"

"Yep, miss. Got a messege from Lasard. He needs you."

"Is this business?"

His voice lowered. "Bad business," he said. "He's waiting in a carriage outside."

A leaden weight settled in my stomach. "Give me but a moment."

Bad Business... Business was never good and bad was worse, even if it paid for this apartment and my living expenses. I returned to the bedroom and took Elisabeth's hands in mine. Her deep blue eyes showed concern and worry. "I have to go," I said. "There's a carriage for me. Can you wait ten minutes and then let yourself out?"

"Of course," she said and kissed my cheek. "Be safe."

"I will."

I picked up my purse, my pocket copy of A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices by A. C. Zieglerin and my flintlock pistol from its box by my bed. Thus armed, I set off to brave the city.

---

Amo met me outside my door and trotted beside me as I strode for the stairs. He's a good kid with a cute mob of sandy blond hair but entirely too keen.

"What do you know?" I asked him.

"Nothing, miss." He looked up at me with a gap-toothed smile. "Just paid a sou to get you."

"Very well."

We descended the stairs carefully due to the old worn bricks and poor light. It was only two stories, though, so it didn't take long. Amo and I exited the close and walked out onto the road beyond. It was still morning and the cobblestones gleamed with morning dew. It dripped off the gas lamps, rolled of the glass tubes of the telegraph cables and dribbled down the gutters. The redbrick tenements of the street looked almost burgundy. The horses clattered loudly as they moved past.

Amo pointed at a waiting carriage, a full box painted black and marked with the shield of the Commission of Public Order. Four uniformed police officers hung from the sides. The closest pulled the door open. I stepped carefully up onto the running board and climbed inside.

Pierre Lasard greeted me with a tight smile, the expression out of place on his long drawn face. He wore a grey sort of fashion - a three-piece suit coloured only by a yellow pin showing his allegiance to the Old Radicals faction.

"Mr Lasard," I said politely, "good morning."

"And you too, Ms Clement." He turned and tapped the wall. "Driver, the Old Tea Street house. Fast."

The carriage jerked into motion, and I settled myself properly into the upholstered seat.

Lasard looked at me for long seconds, and I looked back. As deputy for the 3rd district, respected member of the General Committee and secretary of the Commission of Public Order, he was a powerful man, and one I could ill afford to upset. But part of me could not forget. Could not forget what he and his revolutionary brothers had done those five years ago.

"We have a situation," he said finally.

"I'll need more information than that." My tone bordered on insolence but he didn't seem to care.

"Tax inspectors found a hidden room on Old Tea Street. They were... disturbed by what they found."

Disturbed. That could mean just about anything. It probably meant bad, though. I tapped my pistol where it rested in my pocket, its well-worn handle something of a comfort.

"I think it best if you see for yourself," he finished.

We reached our destination in such time that I suspect Lasard had police lining the route to keep the way clear. He climbed out one side of the carriage, and I exited via the other. A police officer took my arm, and I stepped down. Old Tea Street was located in the 32nd district, mostly cottage industry and residences. I could just make the immense wrought iron and glass dome of the La Pylaie Botanic Farm to the west and smell the slaughter yards to the south. It was a poor place, although not so poor that they ate their mas unflavoured.

"This way," said Lasard. He pointed with his black lacquered cane.

In better times the house wouldn't have appeared out of place on the street. Now, I could have identified it even without Lasard's aid. The door was a splintered ruin and smashed furniture filled part of the street. More, guards stood outside and they didn't wear the green uniform jackets of the police either. They wore the blue and white of the Republic Guard and carried muskets, brass fixtures gleaming in the dew. This went higher than I thought. Only the Commission of National Defence or a motion of the General Committee could deploy troops. Someone powerful wanted this scene secret and secure.

They snapped to attention at Lasard's approach and stood aside to let us passed. We walked down a damp passage lined with boot prints, wall paint already peeling.

"The residents?" I asked.

"It was a midnight raid, so we of course took a number of suspects into custody. My interrogators are working on them as we speak, but I do not believe they were involved. The room appears long abandoned, and the current residents acquired the home after it became vacant during the unpleasantness."

Is that what he called it? The unpleasantness, the dark shadow of his glorious revolution? Mobs rampaging in the streets, pulling innocent people from their homes to stand trial before guillotine courts. Every petty slight and old resentment a reason for murder. Was it unpleasantness who murdered my parents? Was it unpleasantness who almost killed my sister?

"Just show me the room."

The room was down a set of stairs, built underground below the stones of the street. That was always a bad sign. A brick wall had once hidden the doorway but did no longer. Brute force probably via sledge hammers had made a rough hole. More guards stood outside, ramrod straight and eyes facing away from the hole.

I hiked up my skirt and climbed through. Lasard followed a moment later carrying a sugar-gas lamp, given to him by one of the soldiers. He adjusted the gauge and the blue-flame flared in size.

The room was old and dirty, clearly long abandoned. Dirt, dust, cobwebs and small bones covered the floor. A large braided spike rose from the centre, made from three lengths of twisted black iron. A skeleton hung from it, impaled in life and now impaled in death.

Bile rose in my throat. This was very bad business.

"Hold the light steady," I said and approached the spike, hand out stretched to detect any latent energy. It should be dormant after so much time but a careful thaumaturgist is a living thaumaturgist.

Nothing struck at me, and I knelt before it. Writing covered the iron, the primitive grammar of this black magic. My lips moved as I read.

It was an old story, perhaps the oldest story. Turmaric, chief of the gods and city-lord, fought his wild brother, Calamas, and bound him in glass, iron and stone. But Turmaric knew Calamas was a fertile god and had hidden his seed deep in the earth where it might one day germinate and grow. To stop this Turmaric laid down and covered the world, his body becoming the infinite and eternal city which bears his name. With the soil thus covered, Calamas's plan was foiled.

Or should have been.

The story written on the spike went on, describing a dark working to reach deep into the earth and find one of those seeds. The magic would take the seed and coax it into the womb of a nubile woman. There it would quicken and in time a child would be born, a new punk god of riot and rebellion.

I read the last words aloud. "His body will be white and red, as both the purest snow and the flowering rose. His hair will be the flax of beaten gold. His eyes shall blaze like the sun. He shall be his father's son." I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the baleful sounds. "His father's son."

I stood and stretched. "Brooms, mops and water," I said. "This room will need to be cleaned if I'm to trace this working."

"Trace?" asked Lasard.

"Yes, trace," I said. "There are three strands to this iron spike. That means two other ritual sites working in concert with this. I need to find them before it is too late."

As Lasard gave orders, my mind went down darker passages. It had been at least five years. What if it was already too late?

---

Brooms, mops and soapy water soon appeared, and I commandeered the soldiers to help clean. They set to it with the practised ease of men under arms. Despite that, a general disquiet held the room, and they kept their eyes off the spike and its skeletal occupant. I didn't blame them. The dark shadowed eyes followed me around the room as I charted force lines and readied my working in my mind.

Before long the ancient stone slabs which lined the basement gleamed, all except for a narrow circle of earth around the spike itself. It sat on the raw soil.

"Out," I said. The soldiers trooped out in the hole in the wall and tension left their shoulders. "You too, Mr Lasard."

"Given the situation," he said. "I rather think I should stay."

I shook my head. "That wasn't our deal."

He looked like he might argue but finally nodded. "The lamp?" he asked.

"Please."

He set it against the wall and climbed out the hole.

Alone, I withdrew my copy of A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices and flipped to the last section where a narrow folio held my ritual implements. It wasn't an extensive collection - just chalk, a pencil stub, a protractor, a set square, a string compass and a small silvered knife. I slipped the chalk from its holder and knelt, riding habit tight around my knees. Roseguard University has giant difference engines, light mills, luminance tubes and more, all dedicated to deriving the complex grammar of modern thaumaturgy. I made do with less.

Grammar defines magic. For the primitive sort, that means rolling poetic verses in Old Turmin. For modern thaumaturgy, it means geometry. I sketched shapes of amplification, containment and location. Lines intersected each other at precise angles. Circles joined with triangles, complex polygons and oscillation tracks isolated by the brightest minds of the age. My working fully contained the spike. I consulted my book for some of the higher order interaction charts but mostly I worked of my half-completed schooling and gut instincts.

When done, I stood, brushed chalk from my hands and dress and checked my work. A mistake here was unlikely to kill me, not at the low energy levels involved, but it would render my task near impossible. All appeared well, so I returned the chalk to its holder and withdrew my silver knife.

Carefully, slowly, I pricked my finger and let the blood drop onto the control nexus of the working. Even the most refined modern thaumaturgy requires power, you see, and that only comes from two sources: life and death. The small death of the blood provided the spark the working needed, those bare few rhians of energy that separated chalk lines from magic.

There was no flash of light or blast of sound. Nothing so unrefined or gauche. Like a perfectly engineered machine, the working came to life. Invisible power rushed down the chalk lines and radiated from the key nexuses. With proper equipment such as a light vane I could have precisely measured and tuned their outputs. I made do with a thaumaturgist's senses.

At my instruction, the working reached out with unseen hands to the spike and resuscitated the residual magic that clung dormant in the iron. It tasted that magic, quantified it, analysed it and fed the information back to me. I read the results in the pulses of power from the output sinks - vectors, angles and alignments. As quick as I could I noted them down in the back of my book.

The working ended as quickly as it began. The energy from my blood dwindled to nothing, and I scuff the control nexus with my boot, breaking what little power might remain. I'd need to properly dispose of the spike but that could happen later, when I had more time. I had a more important mission right then.

My book clutched against my chest, I exited the hole and found Lasard. "I need a map," I said. "The most accurate you have."

Such a map required a second carriage ride. The wheels clattered along cobbles and I gazed out the window as the dense lines of houses, shops, botanic farms, soaring shot towers and factories whipped past - a million different combinations of stone, glass, iron and brass. Smoke hung in a lazy murk, hiding the depths of the city. Was a new punk god of riot and rebellion walking the world even now?

"What was the magic attempting?" asked Lasard.

"They were summoning something, something bad," I said and turned back around. "With the map I can work out where the other locations are and where the epicentre is. With that I can attempt to stop the ritual directly." I took a breath. He wasn't going to like this. "Mr Lasard, you must listen to me. Our deal was for me to serve as the republic's thaumaturgist, but if I should fail." I shook my head. "If something happens to me, you must contact the black cloaks. This is not something you can ignore."

"The Benediction will not return to these streets, Ms Clement," he said, voice flat and hard, "not while I live."

"Then there may be no streets to return too."

The carriage pulled up beside the New Opera House, now little more than a facade which held the Commission of Public Order and Police Headquarters. Great white stone arches framed the front and gave space for story high lead-glass windows. It was a new building for a new republic, a far cry from the dark fortresses of the Benevolence and her black cloak agents.

Lasard climbed out and offered me a hand. I took it at stepped down. "We keep our most up-to-date maps in the operations room," he said as he led the way into building.

Noise and motion filled the operations room - young officers scurrying with messages in hand, senior officials holding miniature courts, clerks filing stacks of paper, too much to take in at a glance. To a man, they stopped and came to attention when Lasard entered.

"Carry on," he said and waved with his walking stick.

The police's best map filled a room by itself and could only be viewed using a series of iron walkways which hung over it. It showed all one thousand, two hundred and twenty seven square miles of the Free Republic, every road, street, alley, building and open space clearly marked. It seemed to show so much of the city, but I knew it barely showed a fraction. The City Turmaric was infinite, or nearly so, a million million miles of streets, houses and people.

Beyond the borders of the Free Republic the map's cartography grew less definite but still surprisingly detailed. The still potent Benevolence Association filled much of the western edge, not much diminished by the Republic's bloody birth. Stranger place names showed on the east and south, mere suggestions of distant city areas such as Grand Bridge, Old Docks, Floating Market and Ox Wheel Gathering. If the map makers add any idea of what lay beyond even those places, they'd not added it to the map. In the north the scholar lords of Roseguard held sway. I'd attended there, in the days before the revolution, before that desperate telegram had brought me back.

I traced the route I'd taken home, from street to street, by stagecoach, taxi cab and foot. I'd arrived just in time to speak at my sister's trial and forever bind myself to Pierre Lasard in exchange for her life. She'd been only thirteen at the time. I looked up, into Lasard's long impassive face, and knew I'd kill him if I could without a second's remorse. But first I needed to save the republic.

An intricate system of telescopic lenses attached to mechanical brass arms allowed individual parts of the map to be enlarged. Other stranger instruments lurked higher up - large lamps with coloured filters, glowing boxes fed by gas lines and brass constructs I couldn't even guess at. As the engineer explained, they could be used to project markers onto the map to aid planning.

"A marker on the Old Tea Street house, please" I said, pointing down at the map.

"House at A33-F2-32," shouted an overall-clad engineer.

"Mark and located," shouted another.

Above, a lamp swung into position and a bright dot appeared, positioned perfectly on the house. I pulled out A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices by A. C. Zieglerin, flicked to the page I'd made my notes and began reading off figures.

It took some time but I transferred the results of my working onto the map. It was a simple matter of triangulation based upon extrapolated energy and known thaumaturgic principles. Bright lines of light formed two equilateral triangles. They shared two points - one at the Old Tea Street house and another some four miles north-west at a place called Elephant Circus. The remaining points where eight miles apart - one four miles south-west of Old Tea Street at Best Way and the other four miles north-east at Circle Road. I was sure Elephant Circus contained a ritual spike but my results showed only one of Best Way and Circle Road could. I needed to know which if I was to find the epicentre of the magic. There was no time for niceties.

"Mr Lasard," I said, turning to the man. "I have two possible sites for ritual spikes. I know one has a spike and one does not. Can you find out which?"

"I will have men deployed at once," he said. "I will see to it personally."

A lead ball settled in my stomach. I'd just sent police bursting into the houses of two citizens. People could die, but people would die if a punk god of riot and rebellion entered the world, a wild son of Calamas.

While I waited for news, a junior officer took me to the canteen. It was a noisome place but my mind stayed focused on the tasks ahead. Once I located the ritual epicentre, I'd need to counteract the magic with a potent working of my own. How would I do it? Was I able? How would I power the thaumaturgy? It all seemed too much. I wasn't even a fully trained thaumaturgist. I had six years training out of the full ten, but I was the best we had with the black cloaks of the Benediction banished beyond the borders.

My stomach grumbled, reminding me I'd yet to eat that day. I started into a bowl of mas, sweetened with extra virgin treacle. It did something to settle my nerves.

An hour passed, then two, then three. Finally a young police officer sprinted up and handed me a folded note. "Message from Deputy Lasard for you, ma'am."

I took it with a shaking hand and flipped it open. It read, "Spikes at Elephant Circus and Circle Road - Lasard."

I flipped open A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices and checked my notes. The two possible epicentres were the Delescluze Treacle Mine and the Wu-Shan Neo-Botanic Farm - the centres of their respective triangles. A spike at Circle Road meant the Treacle Mine. It made sense. A botanic farm was Calamas bound in iron and glass, as Turmaric did so long ago. The mine was a breach in the stone of the city and an entranceway to the deep soil. I rose with steely calm and snapped the book shuck. "Evacuate the Delescluze Treacle Mine," I said as I strode towards the main doors. "And ready a carriage for me at once. There is no time to lose."

---

Despite the bone-rattling speed of the police carriage, the telegraph proved faster still and the treacle mine was already evacuated by the time I arrived. Miners and engineers milled in the street, overalls covered with soot, oil and treacle crudes. Interested onlookers gawked from the upper story windows of nearby tenements. A double line of guards surrounded the great iron gates to the mine – the men and women of the Republic Guards in their blues and whites on the inside and police in their deep green uniforms on the out. The two groups spent at least as much time warily eyeing each other as the crowd.

"What is the meaning of this?" A short, fat man marched, or maybe waddled, up the cobbled street. His nose and cheeks were purple from too much drink and he wore a top-hat to hide a balding head. His purple pin marked him as a member of the Collectivist Workers faction.

"Ah Deputy Victor," said Lasard. He walked forward and the crowd parted before him.

The fat man froze and looked nervous for a moment but quickly hid his emotions. He nodded his head. "Deputy Lasard. Is this your doing? I won't have it, you hear. I won't have it."

"You won't have the Commission of Public Order carry out its lawful duties?"

"That isn't what I mean at all and you know it. Why have your men taken over my mine?" He jabbed with a pudgy finger.

"It is hardly just my men."

For the first time Victor seemed to notice the blue and white Republic Guards. "Ah," he said, mouth slightly agape. I could see the wheels spinning in his mind. "I can certainly assure you none of the men here are involved with plots against the republic."

"Plots? Whoever mentioned plots?" Lasard's voice held no emotion.

I didn't have time for their political duel.

"Mr Lasard," I said, striding forward. "Time is critical." Five years had already passed. Even a second more could spell disaster.

Lasard turned his back on Victor. "Quite true, Ms Clement." He motioned at the lines of soldiers and police. "Let her through." He turned back to me. "Do you require anything else?"

I shook my head. "Just remember what I said if I don't come back."

His face darkened. "I have made my position clear."

"Just remember," I said and set off towards the treacle mine.

Behind my back, Victor said, "Who by the gods is she?"

---

It was strangely silent within the fences of the mine. Normally, the city was full of noise - horses and carriages on cobblestones, ruckus crowds and the hammers of manufactories. In that empty space, those were dimmed.

Great engines of industry slept around me. Huge boilers of sooty brass lurked in corners and towering coal stacks stood nearby, ready to feed the currently dark furnaces. Gigantic water towers stood on stilts high in the sky. Dripping segmented hoses led from the towers to the boilers and to other mechanica. An enormous drilling assembly stood over the central pit, a rocky maw leading deep into the earth. Hoses attached to mechanical bellows snaked inside too - no doubt to extract the precious crude treacle and other by-products like sugar-gas. I could smell the tarry sweetness in the air. Crude treacle needs refinement to be edible but has a distinctive smell in all its forms.

A number of workshops made from sheet metal sat at the edge of the site. I'd need somewhere covered to work but closest to the pit was best. The closest was the foreman's shack. Telegraph wires ran from it to the outside world and the walls were stone - cobbled together from a dozen different types, sizes and colours. Stone was always good when dealing with the foulest of black magic.

The door was a thin sheet of rusted iron. I pushed it open to an ear rending screech and ducked inside. The room was small and crowded but well lit by a large glass window. Log books lay on a desk in one corner and a telegraph station sat in another, post and instruments abandoned. I found a dust and cobweb covered broom behind the door and set to sweeping the floor. There should just be enough room.

Properly removing the grime was impossible. A decade of booted feet had worked treacle deep into the ground. The best I could do was move the dust and small rocks. They made a large pile in the corner. Once I'd done what I could, I set the broom aside and emptied my pockets.

I placed A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices on the table along with my purse and my flintlock pistol. It was a sleek and deadly weapon. I ran a critical eye over its mechanical parts and spent a few minutes making sure it would still fire. All my checks showed it in an excellent state. The hammer sat half-cocked and the sliding bracket safety was on. I flipped it off and set the pistol back down.

After that there was nothing to do but again take up my copy of A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices and start marking the ritual on the floor.

This working was far more complex than the magic I'd performed in Old Tea Street. The core was a containment circle, one of the most basic forms of thaumaturgic grammar, but around it was an immensely intricate collection of beckoning, isolation, summoning, disentanglement and counter-thaumic geometries. Connected to that on a spoke of chalk was the control nexus, a multifaceted gathering of input sources, output sinks and calibration proofs. The final piece was the debtor's spiral, an example of modern thaumaturgy as useful as it was deadly. This ritual wouldn't be powered by the small death of a drop of blood. It needed something a lot more substantial and the spiral would provide that.

The preparations complete, I started to undress. The brass buttons of my riding habit came undone one by one, and I shrugged out of the jacket. Next went the dress, then the chemisette, shoes, socks and private wear. I folded my clothes neatly on a nearby chair which looked narrowly cleaner than the rest of the shack. The cold air chilled my breasts and hardened my nipples. I breathed out and rubbed by hands together. It was time to begin.

Naked, shivering, I stepped forward and raised my silver knife. Its edge caught the light, glittering like a narrow slice of sugar-gas flame. Carefully, I pricked a finger and let a single drop of blood fall onto the control nexus. The small death infused the working with power, running along chalk lines and acting in accordance with the rules and instructions of thaumaturgic geometric grammar. With my thaumaturgist's senses I felt each part of the working activate and unify with the whole.

The last was the debtor's spiral. It spun up to full power with the magical equivalent of crackling white noise and activated with a mule's kick. Blunt psychic hooks shot towards me and lodged in my soul. At the same time, raw power flooded the ritual, enough to burn me to a crisp should anything go awry. For miles around, light mills would spin, and skilled thaumaturgists as far away as the Benevolence might feel the edges of my work. The power released was immense, and I'd need every millirhian.

It was a heady sensation, controlling a working of such power, but I could not let myself waver. The power was only a loan. I'd pay it back by working's end or the spiral would take my life in compensation.

I touched the input sources on the control nexus and instructed the beckoning and summoning geometries to begin. They reached out towards the pit, towards the epicentre of the dark magic worked those long years ago. I'd find the active seeker component of the magic, bring it here, bind it and destroy it.

The air stirred in the containment circle. Light wavered. A shape began to form - transparent, flickering like a thaumatrope, here one moment gone the next. I adjusted the ritual the slightest degree. The figure resolved.

A ghostly woman stood there, body born of swirling blue mists. "Where am I-" she started but her face changed. She became a man, sharp of face with a pointed beard.

"What is-" Then he was gone.

A young youth with fuzzy cheeks took his place. "Please-" he said, but then the man was back.

"Where-"

The woman. "Help-"

The youth. "It hurt-"

The woman. "Please. Please. Please."

These were the three victims, just as I'd hoped, those poor souls who died on the black iron spikes to fuel the magic. I touched my working again and brought the isolation geometries to full power, focusing in on the woman.

The ghost shifted, changing and flowing at incredible speed. Man, youth, woman, man, woman, man and finally woman. Her ghostly formed solidified a fraction, still formed of swirling mists but more details emerged. She wore a maid's dress of a timeless style. The only thing out of place was a rosette showing a toppled tower. She'd styled her hair into a tight braid down her back and had a stocky beauty to her.

"Who are you?" I asked. This might be my only chance to get information.

"Please," she said, "Please I- Where am I? Where is this?"

"This is a spell," I said. "Bad people did something very wrong to you. I need to stop it, to free you."

"A spell?" Her eyes were wide and strange gasses swirled in their depths.

"An evil spell," I said. My tutors at Roseguard would have winced at the word but allowances must be made. "Who are you?"

"I," she said, "I don't remember." Distress twisted her face.

I frowned. The spike had stripped away the self, leaving only the death. That meant I wouldn't get information from her. It was time for the second stage of my plan, and there came the key. If I activated the counter-thaumic geometries now, the evil magic would be destroyed, ripped apart by focused modern thaumaturgy. She would be free, along with the two other victims, but the debtor's spiral would kill me. Thankfully, there was a way around. There are two sources of magical power, you see: death and life. I'd used death and now it was time to use life.

"I need your help," I said, trying to force sincerity into my voice. "You remember the spike, the evil magic?"

"I remember pain," she whispered. "So much pain."

"You can help me put a stop to that," I said. "But I need energy for the magic."

"Energy?" she asked.

"Yes," I said and spread myself, showing her my naked body. I tried to draw attention away from my awful knees but there was only so much I could do. "Life can power magic and the purest expression of life is sex."

Mists swirled at her cheeks, a ghostly blush. "I," she said, the words trailing off.

I stepped forward, into the containment circle, and kissed her on her lips. She was more solid than I thought, like water held in a rubber bladder. Her tongue found my mouth, and I bared my inner self to her, breath to breath, soul to soul.

Even such a small act raised energy, and I fed it back to the debtor's spiral, a few rhians towards my debt. Her eyes were wide, her ghostly pupils dilated with arousal. We broke apart and she lowered her eyes.

"Please," I said, heart beating fast.

She nodded.

I kissed her hard and full of passion. She returned my embrace, slow at first but with growing excitement. Her body heated, growing both hot and fast in the ways of gasses. I broke the kiss and licked down her neck. She tasted of nothing at all, not sweat, salt or even stranger otherworldly things. She moaned under my embrace, and I pushed her down to her knees.

"Lick me," I whispered as she looked up with wide eyes containing an equal mixture of fear and excitement.

Her tongue came out, and she leaned forward. Hesitantly, she licked up my sex. My desire quickened, growing hot. Her inexpert motions sent a softly rolling wave through my body, which left my flesh tingling. I smiled and patted her head. "Good, now a little harder next time."

There is artistry to sapphic love, as much as with anything. The poet creates, the sculptor sculpts and the lover loves. It is a subtle skill, far more refined than any plunging male member, full of raging blood, and I guided her through. With careful instruction, I introduced her to my sex and where the pleasure lay. She ran her quick tongue around my clit, and the nub burned bright with intense pleasure. She teased my nether lips. She toyed with my dark depths. I ran my hands over her tightly braided hair, toying with it, using small motions to guide her attention.

All the time I fed the fruits of our passion into the spiral, and those fruits grew and grew.

A bright pressure grew inside me, and I ground myself against her face. Harder, faster, just a little more. She didn't have the skills to tease or deny, and right then I was glad.

I peeked softly and gently, a defuse light which slowly expanded until it filled everything. For long, blissful seconds I hung in a timeless, spaceless void. Then the real world returned, creeping in at the edges.

"Such a good girl," I muttered, toying with her hair. "So skilled and quick to learn."

She preened under me and I drew her back to her feet. Her ghostly eyes held a queer sort of puppy love. She looked so beautiful it almost took my breath away, my own little ghost girl.

I tested the debtor's spiral and found it almost full. One last act would settle my account. I drew the ghost to me, kissing her long and deep. I tasted myself on her lips and tongue, my juices tart and welcome. As we kissed I snaked a hand under her spectral clothes and to her sex. It smouldered, the smoky gasses of her body almost burning. I slipped two fingers up and into her and toyed with her shy clit with my thumb.

Her body was an open book, and I slowly guided her to the climax of her story. I read her through our kiss, feeling the motions and reactions of her body. It didn't take much to push her over the edge and she screamed into me, a sound of pure pleasure.

When her orgasm past, I carefully set her on the ground of the containment circle and stepped back. The spiral spun down, voiding the last of its energy now its debt was paid. The blunt hooks jerked free of my soul. There was one thing left to do.

I reached out to the control node with my mind and touched the input source which led to the counter-thaumic geometries. They came to life like sleeping giants, wielding deadly sharp knives.

"Goodbye," I whispered.

They struck. In a flash of brooding purple light the dark magic I'd bound to the circle exploded apart. My ghost girl faded away into the mist. The last thing I saw was a tear in her eye.

An unexpected morose feeling in my heart, I told the working to deactivate. It was over.

Or so I thought.

As the last power vanished from the working, the ground shook. A crack appeared at the very centre, breaking up through the stone. A monster climbed forth, something like a hound in shape but made from twisted skinless flesh bound together with gnarled tree roots.

It leapt for me, and I threw myself to the side. It smashed into the telegraph table, sending delicate instruments crashing to the ground. I clambered upright as it twisted around. Its eyes smouldered like dying embers. It charged, claws tearing up the ground, and I grabbed up my flintlock pistol. As it bore down on me, I aimed, let out a breath and pulled the trigger.

Bang.

Smoke and burnt mas-fibre shot from the barrel. The noise rang my ears and the kick hurt my arm. That was all secondary. The ball took the monster right in the head.

It fell, limbs twitching as it died. Its momentum carried it into the desk, which toppled over with a crash. The fire in its eyes snuffed out and silence reigned. The animating power of its body ended, and it came apart at the seams - blood, flesh and plant matter spilling across the floor.

It was a demon of Calamas, one of the foul creatures which lurk in soil below the stone. Such creatures had terrorised thaumaturgists for hundreds of years, sensing workings through gaps in the stone and attacking. This one, at least, would harry no one anymore.

I let out a breath as my hands started to shake.

---

I arrived back at my apartment as the light of day began to fade. It had taken many hours to explain the aftermath to the involved parties, and I still had much work before me in the week to come, but now I could rest.

I pushed open the door and found a note waiting for me on the floor. It read:

Jeanne,
I've decided I am not so angry at you after all. If you should wish to join me at the Wild Street drink house I would be grateful of your company.
Elisabeth

My smile grew as I read the note. I'd never thought Elisabeth would be angry at me, not really, but the chance to spend the evening together was a welcome treat. I placed A Practical Study of Modern Thaumaturgic Practices back on its shelf, checked myself in a mirror and left my apartment.

I walked the short distance to the drinking house. It perhaps wasn't the safest thing for a woman alone to do, but I'd been in too many bouncing carriages today already. I arrived half an hour later. The drinking house was a single raucous room, serving as something of a meeting place for the libertine faction. Men and women drank, kissed, fondled each other and read raunchy (and quite possibly treasonous) poetry, apparently without any particular preference in the choice of partner or audience.

Elisabeth sat at a small table near the back. She rose as I approached, and we shared a quick kiss.

"I wasn't sure you'd make it," she said and moved a lock of hair out of my face.

"Long job," I said. "I only just got your note."

"Well, I'm glad you did."

She had a bottle of wine on the table and poured me a glass. I'm not normally one for drinking, and I seldom have the money for such extravagances as wine. Anything more than mas liquor would bankrupt me in short order. I drank this wine, though, and it tasted sweet, like victory.

Elisabeth spoke lightly as we sipped our drinks, mostly concerning her day teaching the daughters of the new rich the art of the sword. Some were eager to learn, but far too many seemed to think a few lessons would make them a swaggering brava. I listened with half an ear and let my attention wander around the bar. Something on the back wall caught my eye, a yellow rosette showing a toppled tower.

I stopped Elisabeth mid story and pointed. "What is that?" Visions of a similar rosette on my ghost girl filled my mind.

She turned and looked. "Oh that. It was the symbol of the Radiance Club."

"Was?" I asked, a sinking sensation in my chest.

"Yes. It closed-" her lips moved "-must be thirty years ago now. It's important because it was one of the first libertine meeting places. We have the marks of a number of such places up on the walls."

Thirty years... I could fool myself with five, pretend perhaps the dark magic of the spikes had yet to birth a punk god of riot and rebellion. But, thirty, no. That was too long.

Somewhere in the world there was a new punk god. A man with a body of red and white. A man with hair of flaxen gold. A man with blazing eyes. A man who was his father's son.

The End

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