The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 805

"Thank you for coming, sir," Natasha said in the mirror. The wipers squeaked. The car smelled of leather and her coffee. "May I tell you about the Morgans?"

"Please."

Natasha Vale had worked for him for less than two weeks, since the night the Second Queen's money built Halcyon. Outside Harland, she was the only one who knew whose money ran it. She had never once wasted a word.

"The old count is Thomas Morgan. The Morgans of Calder, sir. The big city, an hour up the road. Some sickness nobody can name. Every doctor in Calder has stood at his bed for two months. Every one of them went home shaking his head. They've sent to the capital for the famous one now. Dr. Henry Foster. The most famous doctor in the Empire, sir. Princes wait a month to see him. He's flying in tomorrow morning." A pause. "The family doesn't think the count will see the morning."

Cold air leaked in round the door. Ahead, the first lights of Calder came up out of the dark.

"Why me?"

"Because of a meeting at six o'clock, sir." Her coffee cup clinked against her teeth. The coffee smelled burnt. "Countess Rebecca Morgan came to my office on business. The Morgans want a share in Halcyon's new hotels. In Calder they call her the Cruel Lady. I've watched that woman ruin a bank before lunch over a missing comma."

"And?"

"And when the business was done, she didn't get up. Just talk, sir, the way people talk when the papers are signed and the tea's gone cold. She had no idea I could help her. She asked if I'd heard the rumour from Greyhallow. A man in a mask who walked into the dying queen's room and walked out with her alive."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I might know a friend of a friend." Natasha's mouth went thin. "Then she stood in my office with rain in her hair and said, I don't beg. And then she begged. She'll pay anything."

"No name," Alex said. "No face."

"I told her that, sir. She said she'd heard you were rude." Natasha sniffed. "I told her you were worse. It seemed safer. She said she didn't care if you came in a sack."

He almost laughed. But an old man was dying, and the cold wind off the hills was shoving at the car.

"And I took a f*e, sir," Natasha said. "A large one. I'm sorry. You can be angry later."

"Keep the f*e," Alex said. "What I want is the count."

"I know, sir." She met his eyes in the mirror. "A Morgan who owes you his life is worth more than any f*e. They own half of Calder. Its banks, its stores, its towers. And every queen wants them. After tonight, they'll come when you call."

In the back seat beside him lay a flat case. Inside: A plain dark coat. A smooth white mask with nothing on it at all. No mouth. No smile. Just two eyes.

"I had it made in the capital," Natasha said. "It cost more than my car. Mr. Moss keeps the porcelain one on Harland, sir. Greyhallow saw it at the queen's bed. Nobody must ever see it again." The case was cold under his fingers.

"You'll need a name too, sir. The rich are already calling you something. When the queen woke up, her doctors stood round her bed in their gold chains, and the oldest one said, That wasn't medicine. That was a god's hand." Natasha's mouth went thin. "Now every rich house from Westmere to Calder is whispering it. God's Hand. Like children telling a ghost story."

He put on the mask. It was cool against his face. It smelled of new paint.

"God's Hand," he said through it. "That's a lot to live up to."

"Then you'll live up to it, sir," Natasha said. "I've already spent the f*e."

---

The car climbed the hill above Calder. Morgan House stood at the top of it, every window lit, the whole city spread out below like spilled coins.

For a hundred years the Morgans had always kept out of the war between the queens. They had run Calder's banks and stores and kept their mouths shut. That was why every side had left them alone. The night air smelled of wet stone and chimney smoke.

Tired doctors in wet coats lined the hall like men waiting for a train. Every one of them turned to stare at the mask.

"A mask," one of them said, loud enough. "Two months of the best doctors in Calder, and she sends for a magician."

The sickroom was hot. The windows were shut. It smelled of camphor and old sheets and fear.

In the big bed, under too many blankets, lay the old count. White beard on a grey face. Breath slow and thin.

At the foot of the bed stood Rebecca Morgan. Tall and cold. Dark red hair pinned back hard. A man's watch on her thin wrist.

She looked at the mask for a long moment.

"You came," she said. Her voice was steady. Her hands were not. They gripped the bed rail like a rope in a storm.

"Why the mask?" she asked.

"Some of the people I save have enemies," Alex said. "Their enemies would very much like to know who saved them."

Rebecca held his eyes a moment longer. Then she nodded once, the way she signed away a bank. "Then nobody in this house ever saw your face."

"How long has he been like this?"

"Two months. He stopped eating five days ago. Since this morning, he hasn't known my name." Her voice dropped. "He taught me to read a bank ledger when I was six. Tonight he looked at me and asked who I was."

A woman rose from the armchair by the fire. Sixty, broad as a sofa, rings on every finger, hair a brave shade of copper. She smelled of violets from a shop bottle, and under the violets, very faintly, of something else.

Behind her a young man unfolded from the window seat. Thirty, smooth fair hair, a gold watch he checked too often. He smelled of hair oil and expensive soap.

For forty years Aunt Ruby had been the count's younger sister and the loudest mouth in Calder. She had married old Grant of Grant's Bank, buried him, and raised his boy Oliver as her own. She had always meant that boy to marry the Morgan banks.

"Rebecca, have you lost your mind?" she said. "A mask? Is he a doctor or a highwayman?"

"Maybe both, Mother," Oliver said, smiling at Rebecca. "The highwaymen in Calder have very good tailors these days."

"I have had every doctor in Calder through this room. I have their cards in my bag." Aunt Ruby swung round on the mask. "Are you even a doctor?"

"I know a little about medicine," Alex said.

"A little." Oliver laughed softly, for Rebecca's ears. "Darling, Mother brought you the best men in the city. And you've brought home a man who won't show his face."

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