The Eidolon Read online

  Copyright 2017 Tiffany Dominguez

  Smashwords Edition

  Discover other titles by Tiffany Dominguez:

  Elemental

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Two days before

  Lady Veronica raised her Tesla-ray and shot the final guard in the chest. His mouth gaped open and a wheezing sound escaped his lips. He sank to the ground, stunned, falling with a sickening thud. His whistle dropped with a small clatter on the cobblestones.

  She stepped back into the shadows of the alleyway before addressing the children. Their faces were streaked with grease, their thin cotton shirts hung limply on scarecrow frames. Veronica wanted to kneel in front of them, take their hands and tell them they were safe. That no one could hurt them now. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

  “I’m the Eidolon. Have you heard of me?” Veronica spoke in the rough, deep voice she’d spent many hours perfecting.

  The younger children gasped and squealed. The older ones simply nodded in fascination. “The gent wot saves kids?” a boy asked.

  “Yes. If you want to escape this place, you must go with my manservant. He doesn’t speak, but he is strong and fast and will get you to a place of safety. Do you understand?”

  Twenty heads turned toward Clank, her automaton, and then back to Lady Veronica. They looked brittle, like bags of bones, not soft as children of their age should be. Veronica could only hope, as she always did, that they had strength enough left.

  “Yes, sir!” they answered quickly, voices clear and unbelievably strong. Even the youngest among them, a boy of not more than four, stood straight and at attention. Another, a girl, saluted her.

  She smiled. The courage of this motley group shored and steeled her for what lay ahead. The fallen guard had alerted the Enforcers, a foe she’d avoided facing these many months. One she wasn’t certain she could conquer. Hearing the children answer her with a brave faith inspired her. She would keep them safe, no matter what happened to her.

  “Go! And do not look back,” Veronica ordered. She nodded at Clank.

  Clank bowed, his long leather jacket billowing behind him. He swept up the four youngest, placing one on each shoulder and cradling one in each arm, and ran. The others followed, their eyes lit with a desperate hope, as if waking from a dream. One girl, a thin, blond specter, stopped and called back, “Thank you, sir!” before joining the others.

  Veronica spared only a moment to ensure they’d all disappeared before turning to face the Enforcers. Now that Clank was gone, she would do so alone. Veronica knew Grillett’s Enforcers only by their undeniable reputation. Chosen from among the fencing elite and armed with sharpened steel blades that could cut through metal, they rarely left any alive. The slum’s guerilla fighters, they didn’t answer to any authority but Grillett.

  Veronica tugged her goggles down from her top hat, enabling her to see more clearly through the mist and hiding the flare of rage in her narrow, blue eyes. She hated nothing more in this world than the great deceiver and child-slaver, Lord almighty Grillett. She need only delay his cursed Enforcers, giving the children enough time to reach the steam-powered carriage waiting outside the slums.

  She heard the flutter of fabric above her and rolled to the side just in time. An Enforcer landed directly in front of her; a tall, sharply featured man dressed in a red cape, his sword already in his hand.

  Veronica blocked the strike she anticipated. The Enforcer obliged, moving far quicker than any foe she’d ever encountered. She channeled her anger into a sinister calm, making her movements fast and smooth. When she saw the opportunity, she ducked, stepped to the side, and knelt. Veronica drew her ray gun and squeezed the trigger. The Enforcer’s sword clattered on the stone and he fell forward, face frozen in pain.

  She stood and whirled around, but was too late. A second Enforcer’s blade sliced through her upper right arm. She leapt back, minimizing the damage to a deep cut, instead of losing the entire limb. Cursed sharp blades.

  “So you’re the Eidolon. The deity of the gutter trash.” The new Enforcer sneered. He tossed his blade from hand to hand, circling her. “You’re a little smaller than I imagined.”

  She glared at him through her goggles. He was faster than the last, his sword moving through the air with dizzying speed. She had to outsmart this one. He was only a man, after all.

  With a sneer that made his face even uglier, he said, “No one’s coming to save you, Angel. You’re in my territory now. Around here, we call it The Grave.” He raised his sword.

  A sacrifice. Few expected that. It would give her the opening she needed. Veronica raised the leather guard on her wrist to block his strike. The blade sliced clean through, cutting deeply into her scarred skin. She didn’t scream at the pain. That was the one gift her papá had given her—she felt little.

  At the same time, Veronica raised her Tesla-ray and shot him, enveloping the Enforcer in a beam of circular light. He scrambled backward and fell; yet she continued to fire.

  “The Grave. How appropriate for you,” she said.

  This man spoke to her like every other man in her life, as though her very existence irked him. This man told her what she could not do. This man cut her, threatened her. Made her bleed.

  This man, like Grillett, stood guard on the other side of the door, keeping the weak and helpless locked inside. Too dark of soul and too greedy to run a legitimate business, he scooped up street rats like the brushes of a Sweeper. He manufactured the children’s pain, turning it into profit.

  He deserved this.

  How many moments later, she didn’t know, the smell of burning flesh stung her nose. She blinked and lowered the Tesla-ray. Rancid smoke rose from the Enforcer’s charred body, scorched too long by her gun. His shirt was singed nearly to pieces, a gaping hole revealing red, puckered skin, still steaming. Most of his face was unrecognizable now. He didn’t look human anymore, but like something out of nightmare.

  Her arm fell by her
side and she sank to her knees. Dr. Hoch had warned her about this—the stun setting could turn deadly if she fired too long. All her anger seeped down into the puddles now mixed with her blood.

  What had she done?

  She crawled over and checked for a pulse. Nothing. The heavy clouds above opened, drizzling cold rain that drenched her in seconds and doused the Enforcer’s skin.

  “No,” she muttered, as though saying the words aloud might erase her actions. Might allow her to re-do the past few minutes.

  She’d lost control and burnt a man to a crisp. She’d killed before, a guard here and there when it was necessary, always quick and clean. But she’d never tortured a man so. She picked up the Enforcer’s sodden cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  Heavy footsteps splashed nearby, the boots of more of Grillett’s guard. Veronica left the Enforcer and stumbled through the empty streets. It was now past curfew in the slums. She headed toward the rendezvous point. Clank would be waiting there to take her back to the Richmond town home. The steam carriage only took minutes to make the trip to the workhouse, Bridges, hidden under the auspice of a Laundry. Clank should’ve returned by now.

  Her arm ached with the fire of a hundred suns, and she could feel her forehead heating in spite of the chill. She tore off a piece of silk from her shirt and wrapped it tightly around the cut, but the fabric did little to staunch the flow. She leaned heavily against the wall now as she continued on. Only one more block.

  Veronica pushed the pain further down, narrowing her focus to the drops of water as they fell, pinging on the stone. The yellow orb of the gas lamps flickering in the fog. The murmur of voices, trapped indoors after curfew.

  But she couldn’t do the same with her guilt. She’d killed, murdered a man in a savage, brutal rage. The nights on these forsaken streets had forged her into a darker being, one capable of such acts. Veronica did what she must to rescue the children, but this time she’d taken one step too far. Anger had always been her ally in survival but now it had turned against her.

  Steam rising from putrid-smelling flesh. Oh what had she done?

  The image refused to leave her mind. The more she tried to push through it, the fiercer it clung. An Enforcer. Twisted, burned until dead.

  Veronica wrapped the cloak tighter around her shoulders but it couldn’t staunch the chill. Cold. It was always so cold. Perhaps, after what she had just done, she would never feel warm again.

  She heard the sound of metal hitting stone a few moments before Clank appeared, eyes whirling beneath the goggles. “Take me home, Clank. Through the back door, please. And get Matilda.”

  He swept her up into his cool, metal arms and sprinted for the carriage.

  Chapter Two

  Two days before (continued)

  Clank placed Veronica carefully onto the padded seats and wrapped her in a soft, dark blanket. He stepped onto the driver’s platform and pulled the forward lever. She bounced around as the wheels clicked on the stone streets. The vehicle hissed and clattered along, joining in the chorus of grinding gears from other carriages. They passed through the merchant section and into the fashionable part of town. Clank drove carefully through the thick clouds of mist shrouding the streets. Most of society dined or danced at this hour, including Veronica’s papá, so her carriage thankfully attracted little notice. The twin lamps on the front of the vehicle and the gas lamps on the street spouted yellow flame, the only illumination in this murky, black night.

  When they reached the townhouse, Clank pulled into the empty barn and shut down the carriage. Moving swiftly, he snatched her up again and ran through the shadows into the house and up to her room on the second floor. She gripped his shoulder through his leather coat, trying to find purchase, though she needn’t have. Clank never dropped her.

  He set her down on her feet and pulled the bell to summon Matilda.

  “Thank you, Clank,” she managed to say. She could only keep the pain at bay for so long. It threatened now, swarming the edges of her vision.

  Clank bowed and then returned to his hiding place in a hidden compartment behind the armoire. Before he closed the door, his eyes whirred even faster, as though he wasn’t pleased to be put to rest. But he’d been programmed to conceal himself the instant they returned to the townhouse. Veronica didn’t trust her father’s servants, especially the ancient butler, Critchton, who was as mean as Matilda was kind.

  Veronica sank into the waiting bath with a groan, almost too tired to sit up above the water. She had no idea how Matilda kept it warm when Veronica never returned at the same time.

  Matilda flew into the room, closing the door silently behind her. When she saw Veronica, her already pale complexion whitened even further. “Oh, my lady! What have you done this time?” Strawberry-blond curls fell forward on her face as she leaned over to examine Lady Veronica’s arm.

  “I’m sorry, Matilda, but I’m going to need some stitches. I’m afraid I ran into some rather sharply armed company tonight.”

  “Again?” Matilda tossed Veronica’s bloodstained clothes into the false bottom of a drawer in her armoire and placed the ray gun and goggles in the locked suitcase under her bed. Then she picked up a cloth and began gently washing and disinfecting Veronica’s cuts. In spite of Matilda’s obvious horror, her hands worked expertly over the injuries. Veronica, for her own part, shoves aside the pain. She’d saved twenty tonight. She closed her eyes, savoring the remembered astonishment and hope in their eyes.

  “There now,” Matilda said after a few minutes. She held out a towel and helped Veronica wrap herself in it. “Enforcers, was it?”

  “The very same. Please do try to minimize the scarring if you can. The Duke knows exactly how many are his.” She sat in the chair by the fireplace. When the needle pierced the flesh on her upper arm, she didn’t wince, embracing the stab of pain.

  “Did you get them? The children?” Matilda worked quickly, stitching a neat, straight line.

  “Yes. Yes, I did,” Veronica said softly, managing a smile. It never failed to amaze her, the quiet strength of her seventeen-year old companion. It had taken three years to find a girl Veronica knew she could trust with her secret and her life. Matilda’s compassion for the children at Bridges, where she’d initially been hired as a teacher, amazed Veronica. Enough that Veronica had taken a chance. That same compassion now directed at Veronica made her uncomfortable, as she was unused to such care. It felt frivolous, in spite of the severity of her injuries.

  Matilda tied off the stitches and rubbed a smelly ointment on the wound. “Your other arm, my lady?”

  Veronica presented the deep gash on her lower arm and Matilda stilled. “Bless my soul! Was he carrying an axe?” She muttered under her breath while quickly disinfected the cut and stitched it up.

  Veronica gritted her teeth, the room wavering before her. She wouldn’t pass out. It’d been years since she’d done so.

  “All finished, my lady.” Matilda’s wiry arms helped Veronica into a nightgown made of fine lawn. She tucked her into bed, fussing with the covers as if Veronica were a little child. “Did something…else happen tonight? You don’t seem yourself.”

  Veronica stilled Matilda’s movements. “I’m fine. Don’t concern yourself. Go, get some rest. I know it must weary you to attend me at all hours.” She squeezed her companion’s hands reassuringly and then waved her out the door.

  Matilda sniffed. “I know you better than that. But you can tell me after you’ve rested. I’ve left a tea with that herbal tisane that will ease your pain. In the meantime, I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.” She turned down the lamps.

  Veronica shifted, hiding the sudden tears. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. When Matilda left, Veronica drank the entire cup of tea. The tincture smoothed the sharp edges of her aches. She slid into her covers and pressed her face into her pillow, perhaps thinking that if she couldn’t see her injuries, she would not feel them. Both the burn from her cuts and the regret from what had just happened.


  She’d never deluded herself into thinking that no one would ever get hurt. But in the past year since she’d become the Eidolon, a name the residents of The Grave had bestowed upon her, she’d been well in control of every situation. Everything had been timed precisely, every strike, every grab.

  Tonight, she’d lost control.

  Perhaps she’d been a fool, thinking she could defy him.

  She laughed once; the sound felt cold as it left her throat. Yes, her dear papá expected nothing of her, save that she be the perfect lady of high society. She must walk with her back straight, manner cool and smooth. She must be able to converse on any subject from the EurAsian wars to the latest fashion of the season. She must represent him as a kind and benevolent father. She must never, at all costs, reveal weakness. Reveal what a fool she truly was, what a disappointment to the Richmond name. She must never reveal that her papá hated her, despised her, wished he’d never been burdened with such flawed progeny.

  Such expectations! How could she fail?

  They’d saved her—those orphans. Cocooned her when her papá punished her, as he always did. Suzie, Claire, those that she rescued. They warmed her in this townhouse that more accurately entombed than housed its’ residents.

  There was no one but her to save the children at the factories. No one else had the means, nor such tools as Dr. Hoch provided her.

  It was too late to care about the consequences of her work. She’d vowed to save as many children as she could and if that meant embracing the guilt of torturing and killing an Enforcer, she had no choice. The stakes were simply too high. There were thousands waiting for the Eidolon’s arm to reach out and pluck them from their misery. And there were the hundreds she’d already saved, who still needed a home, education and the future that only someone with means could provide. If she couldn’t live with the violent side effects of her destiny, she was useless.

  And that was something Veronica vowed she would never be. No matter how many raps of the cane or lashes from her father.

  * * *

  “My lady! Your papá requests your presence in the library. We must hurry!” Matilda stripped back the covers on the bed and opened the drapes. Sunlight streamed into the room in a blinding rush. “He doesn’t know you’re still abed.”