Two Souls & a Pocket Watch, page 1
Two Souls & a Pocket Watch
Victorian Vampire Daddy
Inka York
Book 1: Two Souls & a Pocket Watch
Two Souls series
by Inka York
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Paperback edition ISBN: 978-1-915708-27-4
E-book edition ISBN: 978-1-915708-26-7
Published by Inklore Books
v. 20240617
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Copyright ©2024 Inka York
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any format whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Inka York asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously or satirically. Any resemblance to actual events, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Products/brands referred to in this work own their trademarks, and inclusion does not imply endorsement.
Cover design by Jacqueline Sweet Designs
Editing services by Esther Rae
Contents
Author’s Note
Two Souls & a Pocket Watch
1. A Bequest
2. Everywhere a Menace
3. Panic at the Docks
4. The Corpse of Dickie Wish
5. Abaddon Gets a Headache
6. A Lullaby & a Pocket Watch
7. The Horrendous State of Armando’s Wardrobe
8. The Climbing Corpse of Westminster
9. Cecilia is Bad at Arithmetic
10. In Search of a Vampire Daddy
11. A Pretty Flower
12. How Dare the Monster Not Want Me?
13. Armando & Uriel Have Words
14. Overheard from Inside the Cupboard
15. The Protector
16. Do You Want a Daddy?
17. The Negotiation
18. The Master Storyteller
19. The Beast in the Bath
20. The Bonded Wraith
21. Selene
22. Dreams Follow Nightmares
23. The Unwelcome Return of Bram’s Lunch
24. Marnie
25. Two Souls
26. A Convenient Story
27. Eyes on Me, Rose
28. Feltham
29. Feltham’s Flowers
30. Let Me Worship You
31. Daddy
32. A Gift for Abaddon
33. The White Raven’s Roost
34. A Grievous Misunderstanding
35. The Point of No Return
36. A Silver Coin & a Pocket Watch
37. Armando’s Father
38. Two Will Rise
39. Wish Blood
40. Make a Wish
41. The God-Wolf
42. An Acknowledgement of Sorts
43. Home
44. Patience, Boy
45. The Downside of Angel Song
A Message from Armando
A Note from the Author
Also by Inka York
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Content Warning
Author’s Note
Please be aware this story is set in England and is written in British English by a British author. That word you want to flag as a typo? That’s just how we spell savour here.
If you do spot a genuine typo though, please report it through the error report form on my website, where the reporting actually works.
The content warning is at the back of the book and is indexed on the Contents page.
For those lost to the fires of London,
For the survivors and grieving families of Grenfell United,
May you find the justice and peace you deserve.
“Real family does not come from your blood. It is the people standing beside you when no one else is.” – Nishan Panwar
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“You came to me for protection, but you’ve been protecting me ever since… You don’t know your own strength, Rose.” — Inka York
Two Souls & a Pocket Watch
A clumsy nephilim. A vampire necromancer. The best pickpocket in all of London.
Vampire daddies are all the rage, but Armando Rose really doesn't want one.
He's always been too pretty for his own good, but when a friend inconveniently dies, leaving him with a child to take care of, he assumes he'll suddenly become less desirable to the undesirable men of the underground—a fact which would've suited him eminently, thank you very much.
But he assumes wrong.
His new charge is already the best pickpocket in London at seven years old, and there is no shortage of men willing to exploit her.
Now the Thames is alive with corpses thanks to the vengeful machinations of Jack Wish, who wants Cecilia's nimble fingers and Armando's body for himself.
As a nephilim with two souls, Armando is corpse food. Unable to tap into his powers due to his father's refusal to acknowledge him, he is forced to seek out something he never has before—a vampire protector.
Disfigured by a deranged nephilim, Kilgarrah Abaddon has reason enough to distrust angels, especially pretty ones who have a knack for finding themselves in trouble.
If only Abaddon didn't have a hero complex.
Can a supernaturally awkward angel and an enormous scarred vampire necromancer find love with a little help from a mischievous pickpocket?
Features: bi vampire necromancer MC, gay nephilim MC, trans best friend, demi/pan well-demon friend, adorable pickpocket, queer archangel disasters Uriel and Bel, and… uhm, corpses. Lots of sexy times; sans corpses.
This story is also known as Victorian Vampire Daddy, and is set in London in 1900 in the Cascade Apocrypha storyworld.
1
A Bequest
Two years ago…
Armando Rose eyed the dirty child huddled on the floor between the wall and a perfectly serviceable chair in the corner of the solicitor’s office. Its matted hair was the golden colour of wheat fields ready for harvest, and appeared to have been appropriately threshed rather than shaped with scissors. The child was swamped by a baggy brown shirt and trousers that looked like they might fall down if the child moved, and which were rolled up into a thick sausage around its bony ankles.
“There must be a mistake,” Armando said.
The letter from Malory and Brown Solicitors had been vague. Harriett Oates had left him a bequest. He’d been saddened to hear of her death; she was a frolicking lamb of a woman, all sweet and cheerful until she was wronged. Then, she grew shark’s teeth.
The exhausted man behind the desk adjusted his spectacles. Mr Brown wore a brown suit with a brown tie. On the back of the door, hung a brown coat and a brown hat. He had that Irish look about him, where the hair goes white while the eyebrows refuse to give in to age and remain resolutely black. “No mistake.”
“But—”
“How many men do you suppose there are in London called Armando Rose?”
“Not many,” he conceded.
“And in Stepney?”
“Just the one, I should think.” Armando eyed the child again. It was slowly banging its head against the wall, just for something to do. Armando lowered his voice. “What is it?”
“It’s a child, Mr Rose.”
“No. I mean is it a boy?” He could probably manage a boy. It looked like it might be a boy. Or a very large mouse.
“She is a girl. Her name is Cecilia.”
She was the most unlikely Cecilia he’d ever seen. She looked more like a Harry or a Tom or a…
Armando sighed. “What am I supposed to do with a child?”
“Take care of her. Love her. And one day, if you are lucky, she’ll bankrupt you.”
“You have daughters?” Armando asked, refusing to contemplate how little he had to his name.
The solicitor’s lips twitched. “Four.”
“Oh.”
He smiled and leant forward to pat Armando’s hand. “And worth every penny.”
Armando smiled back, surprised he could even form a smile given the circumstances. He’d sheltered Cecilia’s mother a long time ago when she’d fallen in with Dickie Wish’s girls. Perhaps, she had even been with child then. It seemed impossible. He’d seen Harriet many times since, full of cheer and never with a child in tow.
What sort of people had she been running with if she thought Armando was the most suitable candidate to raise her child after her demise? If he had only one foot, he would be simultaneously choking on it and tripping over it.
“Does the girl know what happened?”
“To her mother?” Mr Brown took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Terrible business. She has been told the facts, not the grisly details, of course.”
As Armando understood it, only her arm had been found. God only knew what had become of the rest of her.
“And she understands she’s to come with me now?”
“Yes.” His voice softened. “Cecilia, come and meet Mr Rose.”
Instead of standing, Cecilia dug her heels into the floor and shuffled forwards on her backside, then she did it again. Armando frowned and turned to Mr Brown, eyebrows raised.
Mr Brown chuckled. “Are you a crab?”
“Crabs move sideways, silly,” said Cecilia, grinning at the solicitor. Her two front teeth were missing. Her brown eyes settled on Armando. “Where will I sleep?”
Taken aback, Armando thought on it for a moment. “I suppose you shall have my bed until I can buy you one of your own. I shall sleep on the floor with the spiders.”
Cecilia’s eyes glowed with excitement. “There’s spiders?”
“Do you like spiders?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall make sure I have some. Perhaps you can help. Are you a good spider hunter?”
She gave him a sideways look. “Better than most, but it ain’t what I’m best at.”
“Well, yes,” Mr Brown blustered. “Plenty of time for Mr Rose to discover your many talents.”
Armando narrowed his eyes at Mr Brown. Mr Brown looked resolutely at the wall.
“That is our cue to leave.” Armando stood and shook Mr Brown’s hand, then held his hand out for Cecilia.
For a moment, her lip wobbled, then her face shuttered altogether, like she had only just then understood the permanence of her situation. She was an orphan, expected to go home with a stranger. A very nice stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. Her small frame heaved with each swollen breath, like her lungs couldn’t get enough air. She bit her lip, then stood. The trousers stayed put.
After a brief glance at Mr Brown, who nodded, Cecilia turned to Armando. “I’m only staying with you ‘cause you’re giving up your bed for me, and Ma says only gentlemen gives up their beds for ladies, and if you’re a gentleman, then you’re better than the rest.”
Armando gestured to the door and watched Cecilia shuffle towards it, her head still turned in his direction.
“I’m ever so grateful you decided to walk,” said Armando. “For a moment, I thought I was going to have to join you on the floor and shuffle all the way home on my bottom. And these are my best trousers.”
“You’re so silly. G’bye, Mr Brown,” Cecilia called over her shoulder. She took Armando’s hand and led him down the stairs. “Ma says not to believe everyone what says he’s a gentleman, or them that walks or talks or dresses like a gentleman because they ain’t necesselly … uh, just ‘cause they look like one, don’t mean they are. Sometimes, monsters are kinder.”
“Well, I’m not sure—”
“Ma says so.”
“Then I suppose she must be right.”
“Is she in ‘eaven, Mr Rose?”
Armando knew better than to believe in such things; he was a nephilim, after all. “Yes, she’s in Heaven,” he said. “And you may call me Armando.”
“Armando,” Cecilia said, chewing over the vowels like they were tough meat.
Armando wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. How would he support them both? When he inherited his mother’s house, he’d turned it into a doss house because he needed the money. She would’ve been appalled, of course, but he hadn’t managed a single thing she was proud of him for when she’d lived; it seemed stupid to care what she might think when she was dead.
He had offered small services, like writing landlord references for jobs and helping people manage their money or look over contracts. He was canny at finding loopholes that could be exploited in contracts, but completely unaware when someone was stealing from him. More often than not, the money he was helping people manage had been lifted from his own pocket. On top of being fleeced left and right, he didn’t like charging people, especially poor people. He sold the house when he could no longer afford the bills. That’s when he went through his mother’s personal things and found his uncle—an archangel with a penchant for the finer things the world had to offer.
Uncle Uriel had fed, housed and clothed him ever since, but Armando had been firm in that he’d take no more than he needed. No fancy houses, no fancy food, but Uriel had drawn the line at no fancy clothes. “You may live like a pauper if you so choose,” he’d said. “But no nephew of mine will be seen dressed like a pauper.”
Armando was a peacock in a street of pigeons.
He had barely paid attention to where Cecilia was leading him, yet when he thought back over the journey, he recalled all the familiar sights. The brewery buildings huddled together—some squat, some cylindrical, some square—their chimneys towering over them, giving the whole arrangement the look of an angular set of bagpipes, the stench of hops trying to overpower the grain mash and fruitier notes. The boy who held the heavy dray horses at the brewery gates had tipped his hat. Armando had returned the gesture and wished him a good afternoon, and Cecilia had parroted his greeting. They’d deliberately stepped around a ladder propped up against the building that housed the London Rifle Volunteers and shared a look that suggested they both thought the window cleaner was mad to climb a ladder so high. They’d passed the old china dealer whose mismatched cups and saucers were stacked in gravity defying towers on his table outside the tobacconists.
Cecilia led him the whole way, finally turning onto the street on which he lived.
He looked down at her. “How—”
“Mr Brown told me where you live.”
“Where we live, but even so …”
Her gap-toothed smile lit her face at his impressed surprise and easy acceptance that it was her house too now. “I know me way round, don’t I?”
He eyed the tiny house on Burn Street. What would his landlady say about his guest? He rented two adjoining rooms on the second floor, neither of them large, and he’d have to shuffle his things around to accommodate another bed.
He smiled down at Cecilia. “Ready to see your new home?”
“Ready, Mando,” she said, leading him straight to his own door.
She’d been leading him ever since.
2
Everywhere a Menace
Two years later…
Cecilia was a charming little monster. Barely nine years old and already the best pickpocket in London. Armando had to watch her like a hawk. To set things straight, it wasn’t he who had taught her these skills. Her mother must have done it, or some scheming uncle looking to exploit a sweet child.
She was too young to be told of the horror in which she might find herself if she were caught. Armando tried his best to warn her in the vaguest of terms. She was definitely too young to know the harm which might befall Armando if he were called upon to atone for her thievery.
Far too young.
If truth be told, there were days they wouldn’t have eaten had it not been for Cecilia’s light-fingered approach to life. He felt no small degree of shame in admitting it. He’d failed Cecilia as he knew he would. He still didn’t know what Harriett had been thinking leaving Cecilia in his care. What was the use of behaving like a gentleman and dressing like a gentleman when he didn’t have the brains to carry it off?
Today, Cecilia was Uncle Uriel’s problem. He was likely being dragged around London Zoo, haunted by the spectre of their last visit. Cecilia had introduced him to Jingo with a great deal of excitement, whereupon the elephant of some magnitude had deposited a stinking load upon Uriel’s shoes.
The angel had wept.
In Cecilia’s absence, Armando had business to attend to on behalf of his good friend, Bram, who was in danger of being forced into marriage by his parents, who insisted he attend every ball they had the good fortune to be invited to, wearing the gaudiest ball gown they could muster. Bram hated having been born a girl above all things.
