Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy Read online

  MISSION: IMPROPER

  LONDON STEAMPUNK: THE BLUE BLOOD CONSPIRACY

  BEC MCMASTER

  LOCHABER PRESS PTY. LTD

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  MISSION: IMPROPER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  THE MECH WHO LOVED ME

  ALSO AVAILABLE:

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  * * *

  This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Mission: Improper

  Copyright (c) Bec McMaster

  Kobo Edition

  * * *

  Cover Art (c) Damonza.com

  Print formatting: Athena Interiors and Marisa Shor at Cover Me Darling

  Editing: Hot Tree Edits

  ISBN: 978-1-925491-05-0

  Created with Vellum

  MISSION: IMPROPER

  Three years ago, London society changed forever, with a revolution placing the widowed Queen firmly on the throne her blue blood husband tried to take from her. Humans, verwulfen and mechs are no longer considered the lesser classes, but not everybody is happy with the new order...

  * * *

  When Caleb Byrnes receives an invitation to join the Company of Rogues as an undercover agent pledged to protect the crown, he jumps at the chance to find out who, or what, is behind disappearances in the East End. Hunting criminals is what the darkly driven blue blood does best, and though he prefers to work alone, the opportunity is too good to resist.

  The problem? He's partnered with Ingrid Miller, the fiery and passionate verwulfen woman who won a private bet against him a year ago. Byrnes has a score to settle, but one stolen kiss and suddenly the killer is not the only thing Byrnes is interested in hunting.

  Soon they're chasing whispered rumours of a secret project gone wrong, and a monster that just might be more dangerous than either of them combined. The only way to find out more is to go undercover among the blue blood elite...

  ISBN: 978-1-925491-05-0

  ONE

  London, 1883

  * * *

  THE INVITATION CONTAINED an address and two words: Come alone.

  Caleb Byrnes had found it earlier that morning, in the middle of his bed in the Nighthawks Guild headquarters, a place that he'd previously considered impenetrable. Not only were the Nighthawks comprised of rogue blue bloods—those afflicted with the craving virus, whose infection had not been sanctioned by the aristocrats who'd once ruled London—but they were also thief-takers and bounty hunters. An intruder should have been heard, or smelled, or spotted before they got within five yards of the place. And if they hadn't been, then the guild was protected with all manner of mechanical devices. It was a virtual labyrinth. To his knowledge, nobody had ever broken in successfully.

  His curiosity was aroused.

  Or perhaps that was just a side effect of the fact that the invitation smelled quite liberally of perfume.

  Someone had just dared him.

  Someone who knew enough about him to know what piqued his interest.

  Someone female.

  If there was one thing that Byrnes desired above all else it was a mystery, or a chase. The hunt was everything to him, whether he was hunting miscreants over the rooftops of London, vampires causing mayhem, or women.

  It was only once the chase was done that he grew bored, and considering that it had been a good year since he'd had a decent pursuit or case—that actress from the theatre, or the so-called Vampire of Drury Lane—he figured he was due.

  Hence why he was here, at the address listed.

  Lifting the invitation to his face, Byrnes breathed in the scent, and stared up at the nondescript Georgian townhouse in front of him that threatened to blend in to all of the others along the street. If he hadn't owned preternatural senses, the perfume would have been subtle, that of lilies floating in the wind past him. As it was he could make out the tiny trace notes of oils and chemicals, of solvents and preservatives, and something faintly musky that he couldn't quite identify.

  Lifting his hand to knock, Byrnes paused as skirts swished behind him along the footpath.

  "Goodness, Byrnes, is that you?" Ava McLaren asked, coming directly to a halt behind him.

  Not his intended pursuit, though Ava certainly could have delivered the invitation, as she too was a Nighthawk, and therefore had the means to enter his room. The scent was wrong however. Ava was engine oil, blood, and chemicals, masked by the faint trace of rose perfume she sometimes wore.

  "Indeed it is." Byrnes raked a glance over her, and missed nothing—including the gold-engraved invitation trailing from her fingers. His eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?"

  Three years ago, Ava had been the victim of a madman who performed clockwork experiments on women, a case that had left her with a thick, ragged scar down her chest, a mechanical heart, and a case of the craving virus. Her parents had thought her dead, and there was no place in the world for a female blue blood such as herself, so she'd ended up staying at the guild and taking a position there in the laboratories with Fitz. In three short years, she'd become quite adept at crime scene investigation, whereas Fitz still fainted at the sight of blood.

  Had Ava received the same invitation? The thought irritated him a little, for he'd thought this to be his mystery. However, he saw Ava as a friend—one of the few he truly owned—so he pushed the thought away.

  "Same reason, perhaps, as yours." Ava lifted the invitation ruefully, juggling her parasol in her other hand. "I received this but an hour ago. It sounded urgent."

  "Urgent?"

  Ava offered him the piece of parchment.

  To the Divine Miss McLaren. An offer awaits you, if you dare. Come immediately.

  Ava's cheeks colored. "I thought—perhaps—an admirer. I was just curious...."

  "You should be more careful," Byrnes said with a frown, turning it over to find the same address listed. "What if it hadn't been? What if someone with nefarious intentions sent this to you instead?"

  "They still might have nefarious intentions," she suggested.

  "Yes, but my virtue is nonexistent, and everyone knows it. So I doubt they'd have invited me."

  Ava rolled her pretty green eyes. S
he was used to his humor, though she often told him it was lacking. "I'm a blue blood, Byrnes. There's not a lot that could kill me, and considering my heart is made of metal, perhaps not even a stake through that, hmm? And you've taught me how to protect myself. I deemed it an acceptable risk."

  True. Blue bloods were exceedingly difficult to kill, thanks to the craving virus, which could heal most injuries. That didn’t mean that killing one was impossible, and Ava had already suffered enough in life.

  Byrnes looked up at the building. "They still might have dangerous intentions. You should let me go first."

  "I should," Ava said, swinging her parasol with a dangerous glint in her eyes, "but I'm not going to. For goodness sakes, Byrnes, I'm not a debutante. Besides, I have this—"

  The parasol swung toward him, and Byrnes tensed, ready for anything. "I'm not certain I've fully recovered from the last ingenious device. What does this one do?"

  Her eyes glittered, and she slid her hand toward some trigger on the handle. The tip of it was pressed directly against his chest. “Want to find out?”

  "On second thought, I don't want to know," he replied, moving it swiftly away from him.

  Ava laughed. "Trust me. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of my electromagnetic discombobulating device. Talk about sweeping men off their feet...."

  "After you, then," he said, and knocked on the door again.

  The second his knock died down, the door swung inwards.

  A butler appeared, impeccable in black. "Good morning, Master Byrnes. Miss McLaren.”

  Byrnes hadn't heard him so much as breathing. “I believe you have the advantage of us….” He didn’t like not being the one in the know.

  “My name is Herbert. Please come in. You're expected."

  Herbert's eyes were far too watchful for a mere servant, and the way he moved was... disturbingly graceful. Then there was the pale skin. Could just be a result of London's perpetual cloud coverage, but it might also be sign of a blue blood. Byrne's eyes narrowed, one hand dropping to the knife sheathed at his side as he stepped past. If he didn't know any better, he would have classified the butler as dangerous.

  "Oh, thank you," Ava told the butler, holding out her parasol.

  Byrnes intercepted it and tossed it toward the fellow.

  Herbert snatched the parasol out of the air, moving faster than the eye could see. The butler froze, then returned Byrnes's narrowed glare with a bland one. "Let me put this away for you, Miss McLaren."

  Huh.

  Byrnes didn't take his eyes off the man as he stepped inside, until the fellow turned to the coatrack.

  Ava gave him a look. "Byrnes," she mouthed.

  He let a smile stretch over his lips. "For a rogue blue blood, Herbert, you seem to have escaped the fate of the rest of us."

  Which was either an offer to join the Nighthawks, the Coldrush Guards that protected the queen, or death. Although “offer” could be considered too charitable a word. The aristocratic Echelon had once guarded their blue blood status as a privilege, reserved only for the best. They didn't take kindly to accidental infections.

  "I still serve, Master Byrnes. However, my particular skills were noticed by one who can bypass certain rules."

  Which narrowed the field considerably. The plot thickened.

  "The others are gathered in the library," Herbert said, gesturing them toward the stairs.

  "Others?" Byrnes glanced up. He could hear murmurs from above.

  "The rest of the company, sir." Herbert returned a bland smile that told him nothing. "If you'll join them, I'll send for refreshments—"

  "Do you know the purpose of this meeting? Who's hosting it? Who's—"

  "All shall be revealed, sir. Perhaps some blud-wein for the lady?"

  "Please," Byrnes replied, then offered Ava his arm to escort her up the stairs.

  "What do you think is going on?" she whispered, her flyaway blonde curls brushing against his shoulder.

  "I don't have a bloody clue," he replied. "Who are the others? What could they want with a pair of Nighthawks? A case?" He shook his head. "No. They wouldn't have requested your presence, and they would have applied for the commission through the guild master. Plus I'm fairly certain Herbert could handle something like that himself."

  "Do you think he's—"

  "Very dangerous, I suspect."

  That widened her eyes. Ava gave a delicate sniff. "Not a case, then. I cannot smell any blood. Only... lilies."

  Lilies. His gut clenched, and his gaze raked the foyer. That at least, boded well. There was something mingled with the scent now though, something almost musky. Byrnes frowned, as a slither of warning lit down his spine, but Ava tugged on his arm and drew him toward the library. He lost whatever train of thought instinct had served up.

  "You seem distracted," she noted.

  "Something on my mind." The curiosity was almost itching on his skin. Who was the woman who’d delivered the invitation? "Here we are."

  Byrnes threw the doors open to the library, drawing the attention of three sets of eyes from within. Two men eyed each other across the expanse of the room, one an enormous bruiser with black hair and evil blue eyes, and the other a young lad who bore evidence of the craving virus on his pale skin and the faint gilded tones of his hair. The higher a man's craving virus levels, the more his skin and hair paled. The distance of almost five feet parted the two men, and the lad looked both cocky and amused, as if he'd been picking a fight with the brute.

  The woman leaning against the curtains rolled her eyes. She was everything elegant, with loose black hair swept into a chignon, and a sweeping fall of violet skirts. Beautiful, but ultimately uninteresting, as Byrnes could detect an Oriental perfume about her, not the one he was hunting for.

  "So who the hell are you?" The black-haired giant demanded, staring up at them from an armchair with his boot hooked up on his other knee.

  "This would be Master Byrnes, of the Nighthawks," said the woman by the window, crossing her arms with amused disdain, "and Miss Ava McLaren, I presume?"

  Byrnes and Ava exchanged a glance. Ava looked a little discomfited by the strange man's animosity, but tipped her chin up. "I believe you have the advantage of us—"

  The lady strode forward, her skirts swishing about her legs as she clasped Ava's hand and squeezed it gently. "My apologies. You may call me Gemma Townsend. Information is an interest of mine, and female blue bloods are so rare that I've made a note of them. I believe you to be the third located in London proper? The Duchess of Casavian, Lady Peregrine of the Nighthawks—and yourself?"

  "There's one more," the lad muttered, "but she... she ain't likely to be known."

  Byrnes eyed him. "Charlie Todd?" He recognized the boy as one of the rookery lads who ran with Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel, though the little bugger had grown. They were almost of a height now.

  The young man grinned and shook his hand. "The one and only."

  The Nighthawks occasionally had dealings in the rookeries, and ever since the corrupt prince consort had been dethroned, Blade had become a common sight around town. The Hero of the Realm, the commoners called him, thanks to his part in the revolution that overthrew the prince consort. More like the devil, Byrnes thought privately. But Charlie was Blade’s ward, and had passed on information before. Trustworthy enough, which, considering Byrnes’s trust in others only went so far, meant a lot.

  "More fuckin’ blue bloods," the dark-haired man said under his breath. "Like we don't already have enough in here."

  "Kincaid," Gemma warned.

  Ava stiffened, and Byrnes strolled toward the window, hands clasped behind him. "By the scent of oil and the whir of clockwork, I presume you're a mech."

  The word had once been an insult, before the Uprising of 1880. Humans had been considered cattle, useful only for their blood, and mechs—those with mechanical limbs or clockwork organs—even less. Once, there had been a line in the sand: blue bloods versus humans and mechs. Taxes to be paid i
n blood. Mechs to be imprisoned in the enclaves, where they worked metal to repay the gift of their clockwork organs or mechanical limbs.

  Times had changed, or at least, they were changing. Old hatreds, however, still lingered.

  "Aye, I'm a mech. What of it?" Kincaid asked, in a low, threatening tone as he found his feet. Byrnes had an inch on the bastard, but Kincaid more than made up for that in breadth. Muscle rippled beneath his coat and bulged as the brute flexed his forearms.

  Byrnes simply clasped his hands behind him and stared back. Ava would no doubt tell him later that he was causing trouble, but sometimes he simply couldn't help himself. "Nothing really. It explains a great deal." Then he turned away and ran his fingertips over the shelves, as though dismissing the man.

  "Aye, well—"

  "Mr. Kincaid," Gemma mocked. "Pray don't tell me that blue bloods make you uneasy."

  Kincaid's voice flattened. "Not really. They tend to bleed just as well as any other, only takes a bit more sticking to finish the job."

  "Gentlemen," Ava said firmly. When he looked at her, she arched a brow behind her steel-rimmed spectacles. "Byrnes." This was said somewhat more warmly, with just a touch of exasperation.

  He held his arms out, as if to say, what?

  "Well, don't you all wonder why we're here?" Ava asked, including them all in her look. "I don't think picking fights with each other is conducive to anyone's cause."

  "But hardly unexpected," Gemma declared, with a faint snort of amusement. "After all, what happens when you put four blue bloods and a mech in a room together?"

  "That sounds like the beginning of a good joke," Charlie Todd declared.

  "I just hope it's not on us." Ava sounded nervous.

  "Only thing is, we're missing one particular species, if we want it to have a truly decent punch line," Gemma replied.

  "A verwulfen?" Charlie said with a grin.

  The only one who didn't find that thought amusing was Byrnes. His gut dropped through his boots at the word. No.

  "Let us hope not," Gemma said. "We already have one hothead."