The Clockwork Wolf Read Free Page A

empty jar from the rack above the bench, dropped the chunk of flesh inside, and sealed it. “Aye, that was the source of the stench. You can take off the mask now.”
    I didn’t want to breathe again until I was at least a mile away, but I’d run out of air and had to remove the mask. When I did I could still smell a trace of the noxious odor, but a moment later it seemed to disappear completely. “They needn’t have used a bomb. That reek would have done me in.”
    â€œMight have made you faint, you being a female and all, but it were tucked inside a capsule. Wouldn’t have smelled anything until after you’ve been blown to smithereens.” Docket scratched the three days of beard stubbling his jaw. “You’d have smelled right pungent, though. Or whatever was left of you.”
    â€œPerhaps they wished to spoil the funeral as well as the current arrangement of my parts.” I handed him the mask. “I should take it over to Rumsen Main and make a report.”
    â€œBest I keep it here. Chief Inspector Doyle won’t thank you for smelling up New Scotland Yard.” He studied the animech again. “This didn’t come cheap, neither. Workmanship’s too bloody fine for a toy. To get this detail, whoever put it together had to hand-work the brass while it was heated nearly to the melting point.”
    I knew next to nothing about metal workers. “Who would have that level of skill?”
    â€œSomeone who works with metals regular, like me,”he admitted. “A watchmaker or a jeweler might, too; they can do this sort of wee mech. But they likely wouldn’t know how to sort out the charge or the fuse.”
    â€œA mage?” I watched Docket shake his head. “Anyone else?”
    â€œI’d put my coin on a blast master.” He saw my expression and grimaced. “That’s what they called the torpedo makers during the Insurrection. Those lads could make most anything into a bomb—stones, flowers, even shoes.”
    â€œI’ve had no dealings with the militia.” I prodded the rat with a finger. “I’m not a hostile or a rebel. I pay my taxes and my rent on time.”
    â€œThis is the sort of thing they do to get rid of turncoats.” Docket was regarding the rat so he didn’t see my expression change. “Give us a day to take this apart, love, see what else there is to it. Might find something useful for the Yard.”
    I wasn’t going anywhere near Rumsen Main now. “I owe you one, mate.”
    Docket winked. “Let me keep the rat’s works after, and we’ll call it even.”
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    I spent the remainder of the day visiting two new clients and solving their dilemmas. The ghost supposedly haunting a cobbler’s shop turned out to be a cat sneaking in at night to escape the cold; I found the felonious feline snoozing in a bin of laces. My proof of his crimes, bits of leather from the shoes he’d scratched and chewed, still lay caught in his claws. The fishmonger who’d hired me to dispel the curse on his dockside stand wasn’t too pleased to learn that the ridiculously high prices being demanded by his avaricious new wife, not evil magic,were chasing away his best customers. She denied everything and blamed me for trying to swindle her husband and ruin her marriage with my false accusations.
    Relocating the cat and mediating a truce between the unhappy couple took more time than I expected, and I had to rush to return to the office in time to meet Dredmore’s driver, who sat waiting beside his master’s finest coach and four, all perfectly matched in the most depressing shade of gray.
    â€œI don’t suppose I could reschedule this for tomorrow.” I stepped aside as Connell, silent and impassive as always, opened the door to the coach. “No, of course not.”
    I climbed in and sat down, leaning back against