Free The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Philippa Ballantine, Tee Morris

the technology he wore only served to make him more terrifying. Behind the helmet’s slightly grimy brass fixtures there was nothing of the man within to be seen. He was impregnable, a tower of modern power.
    Yet the collection of machinery threatening to devour him, supposedly granting him life and superhuman power, was merely part of the grand illusion. None of these apparatuses assisted him in staying alive, but they did perpetuate the illusion. Even though she knew the Maestro to be nothing more than a lie, he still possessed a power, a power that, if Jekyll lost control of it, would carry heavy costs. What she had heard on the
Titan
after her harrowing flight from San Francisco assured her of that.
    And Jekyll was hardly a trustworthy sort. Glancing at the soldiers flanking the Maestro and Jekyll’s examination table, she shuddered at the doctor’s intentions for them.
    Accompanied by a small, savage outpouring of steam from the breathing apparatus on his back—something Sophia now regarded as nothing more than cheap theatrics—his raspy voice was accentuated with mechanised amplification as he spoke. “I see you have caught a little rat for your experiments.”
    Jekyll turned away from the Maestro and winked at Sophia as he prepared a syringe of a serum she did not recognise. “I was just telling your lapdog here that very thing.”
    Sophia clenched her teeth, and only the presence of the Maestro stayed her hand from slitting the doctor’s throat then and there. In her brief time with him, she had noticed a certain attitude towards women from the doctor, just one of many traits he possessed that made her skin crawl. She would have liked to impart on this
bastardo
some manners . . .
    . . . but then, who would control the Maestro?
    “I trust this means that you will be able to stabilise Victoria.” One brass hand with its articulated fingers rested lightly on the laboratory bench. The boy’s eyes now welled up with tears.
    Sophia forced herself to look away from the young wretch.
    “Yes, yes,” Henry said, pulling the serum bottle free of the syringe. He remained ridiculously certain that the Maestro would not simply turn and smash him into the ground. “The Queen is merely a means to an end, bear that in mind.”
    Sophia could not help herself. The idea that this doctor would brush away control of the British Empire as a stepping stone to some kind of greater achievement was insulting. This was the end that the Maestro had envisioned all along. She knew that.
    “So what would the end be then?” she broke in, while stealing a glance up at Jekyll.
    The doctor’s stare was a warning. When he tapped the stopper to squirt a small measure from the tip, he smiled at her as though she were a bug he was ready to squash. “Progress has always been the goal. If I may?”
    “You may,” the Maestro said, watching Jekyll and the boy with keen interest.
    Jekyll leaned closer to the paralysed boy and spoke gently into his ear. “Lad, I know you are scared. And you should be.” He held the syringe in front of them both. “You and I are about to take great steps into the unknown. Like those grand explorers who traverse the poles, and those daring aviators talking of travel to the moon, we are about to test the limits of human knowledge and existence. Together, we will accomplish amazing things.”
    When the needle pierced the boy’s skin, its viscous liquid slowly entering his neck, the urchin finally made a sound: astrained, breathy moan. It was soft but just audible to the three of them.
    Jekyll tapped a small timer by the examination table, completely unmoved by the child’s pathetic wail. “What is power, control of Empire and Crown, compared to the betterment of the human race?”
    Sophia only barely held back her desire to clench her hands into fists, as the subject of the experiment foamed at the mouth. Jekyll’s only response to the lad’s distress manifested itself as furious scribbles in a nearby