Mingli only let up on her grip when she spun him to face her. “What were you doing? I implored you to keep silent!”
“She seemed like a perfectly reasonable woman who spoke perfect English.”
“You don’t understand anything!”
“I understand that you choose to be mysterious for no discernable reason but to aggrandize yourself—”
“Stop talking! You know nothing. Now I suggest you concentrate on the task at hand and keep quiet when I say to keep quiet.”
“You’re making no sense.”
“Shall I explain it then? She knew nothing of you. Not until you opened your mouth. And then she knew all.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it? And do you know all forms of magic?”
He shuffled uncomfortably. “Well…no, but—”
“And have you seen how such magic works?”
“No, I just got done saying—”
“Then perhaps it’s best to keep quiet.”
“Look here. I want to know what you learned? What did you ask her? What happened to that coin?”
“How come that woman could see me?” Thacker put in.
“That old woman is what you might call a sorceress.”
“What?”
“You needn’t look so askance, Mr. Kazsmer. You yourself can perform true magic. You would be considered a sorcerer under these circumstances.”
Thacker looked aghast. “Is that true, Leo?”
“Erm…yes. I can perform true magic by, er, summoning daemons.”
“Cor blimey,” he muttered, his ghostly aura shimmering in the waning sunlight.
“I asked the old woman about human skins and what they could be used for. She told me that it was very bad magic indeed. For the worst kind of enchantments.”
“And?” said Thacker.
“And…she would not offer details.”
Thacker rubbed his chin. “Then we’re back to where we started.”
“Not quite. She told me how I could use you to discover the truth.”
“Me? And she could see me.”
“She is attuned to the spiritual world. I had hoped she could see you. It would prove to me that what she said was the truth.”
“And that scroll she gave you?” asked Leopold.
She opened her hand and unwound it. It was on some strange paper and written with Chinese characters. “This is a very ancient dialect. It will take some time to decipher it.”
“You could at least ask Thacker if he wants to help us in this.”
“I’m all for it, mate. I was killed, wasn’t I. That ain’t right. And I damn well want to see this whole rotten business done with. Begging your pardon,” he said to Mingli as he raised his transparent bowler.
“Then…what do you mean she knew all when I opened my mouth?”
“She’s a sorceress. As soon as you breathed, as soon as you made words, she could discern everything about you. Even English. That’s why I urged you to silence. So she wouldn’t know. Now she does.”
“Well…why didn’t you tell me beforehand?”
“Must I tell you everything beforehand? Can you not trust me?”
That was the crux of it. Could he? “What now?” he said, trying to sweep it all aside. What did he care if some Chinese sorceress knows his business? It had nothing to do with Waldhar and the device. Besides, he felt drained, emotionally and physically, by the magic he had performed and by Thacker’s unexpected return. Mostly he wanted to go home.
But he knew he’d have to go to the lockup instead, and to that end he had to get rid of her. “Miss Zhao, it has been a heady day. And there is still much on my plate. You yourself said that you must study that scroll and I must leave. I will hail you a cab and then we must part ways.”
“What about me?” said Thacker, pushing the brim of his hat back as he used to do. It made Leopold’s heart glad to see it.
“You can come with me, old friend. I, er, have much to explain to you.”
“You bet your arse you do. Oh, begging your pardon, miss.” He touched the brim of his hat.
She stood arms extended, hands on her umbrella handle. “You’re simply going to leave?”
“Forgive me, Inspector, but I must.” He lifted his hat to her. “Good day.” He turned abruptly so as not to have to answer any more questions and felt the chilly presence of his friend beside him.
“So what’s all this about summoning daemons?” said Thacker after they’d turned a corner.
“We should have had that drink, old chap. We truly should have.”
“I wonder if I can drink. Blimey! What a time to give it up!”
“There is much to explain.”
“I’m all ears.”
Leopold tramped down the shadowed lanes of Whitechapel, unmindful of the fact that, for all intents and purposes to those denizens of the East End, he was talking to himself. He told Thacker of his happy childhood…until it was brutally cut short by the death of his father. And then how he learned to summon daemons and the magic it gave him…and only a passing mention of the bargain he had made.
Thacker was silent, so silent in fact—with no footsteps to give his presence away—that Leopold had to look back several times to make certain he was still there. “Well,” the ghost said at last. “That’s crackers. All of it.”
“But it’s true.”
“Oh, aye. Just look at me. I keep thinking I’m dreaming but then I don’t wake up. Leo, what’s going to happen to me?”
“I don’t know, Spense. But I will find out. I shan’t leave you in this limbo forever. I’ll find a way to send you…on.”
“But on to where? It’s the truth that I haven’t been a good man, Leo.”
“Nonsense.”
“I drank, I gambled, I toyed with the ladies…lust, gluttony…so many sins. Where else would I go but…down?”
“I can scarce believe in any of that. I’ve seen how different it is from all we have learned…both synagogue and church.”
“But there has to be a Heaven, don’t there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Blimey. If you don’t know then who does?”
Leopold fell silent. How had his education gone lacking in so many areas? He thought he was versed in enough magic to know his way around, but he had certainly been shown up in just the last few hours.
As the day wore on, shadowy characters made their way along the streets of the East End and took shelter in dingy doorways. The evidence of the dim lives of its residents were all around them in the smoke-stained brick and crumbling walls, black windows, and leaning smokestacks.
The dirigible traffic was heaviest here. The East End residents had little voice when it came to complaining about the subversion of the law. Leopold saw for himself the floating leviathans chugging their smoky paths just over the tops of the houses. Laundry hanging between the alleys would surely never come clean with the ashes and soot raining down from countless chimneys and smoke-belching airships. How he hated the things.
They turned the corner where the lockup was and Leopold stopped. Thacker, not paying attention, slid right through him. Leopold shivered at the strange experience, like walking through a waterfall of ice cold water.
“Why have we stopped?”
“Because there is someone outside my lockup,” he whispered.
He peered around the corner and spotted the little man, Franz von Spiegel, pacing before the brick mews and checking his pocket watch.
There was nothing for it but to greet him.
“Professor!” he said coming around the corner and hailing him with a raised hand.
“Ah! Mr. Kazsmer. I was hoping you would be here.”
Leopold flicked a glance toward Thacker and was heartened that the man didn’t seem to see the phantom.
“No use standing out in the cold,” said Leopold. But as he fit the key into the padlock, another voice came from behind.
“So here are your secret doings,” said Min
gli with a bright smile.
“Blast you, woman!” He faced her down but she didn’t budge. Glancing at von Spiegel he was forced to surrender. He couldn’t very well throw her out now. “Excuse me,” he said reluctantly. “Professor, this is Special Inspector Mingli Zhao. And this is Professor Franz von Spiegel.”
The professor bowed and Mingli nodded her head. Thacker seemed to take advantage of his invisibility by walking around von Spiegel, hands behind his back, inspecting the professor from all angles.
“You studied in Germany,” said von Spiegel. “I think I remember you.”
“I am told I am difficult to forget.” She said it without a shred of modesty. Leopold frowned.
“Time is short,” said von Spiegel nervously with meaning in his eyes.
It was no use. They were baring all to the woman. If she was a spy, all was lost now. Unless he effectively kidnapped her. It was the only way now to be able to finish this blasted mission. “It’s all right, Professor. Miss Zhao seems all too aware of some of what we are doing.”
“Gott in Himmel! Mr. Kazsmer, did I not say how our…our project must be kept private? Especially from…”
Mingli smiled mildly. “Perhaps Mr. Kazsmer knows what an asset I can be in a…project. Have I not worked with some of the greatest scientific minds in Germany?”
Von Spiegel did not look convinced.
“We can trust her, Professor,” he said, not quite believing it himself. “We have a deadline, do we not? To delay further…”
He let the thought hang there, until von Spiegel seemed to relent. “Very well, Mr. Kazsmer. I must trust you. You must know that the device is all still dependent on the heavenly movements of the planets. And I see how I must modify my original designs.”
“Then perhaps we had best get inside and begin work on the project.”
“Yes, yes. This is the most expedient.”
“And I, for one, are most interested in your ‘project’,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
He opened the door and took out his match box to light the gas light nearest the door.
When the room jumped into view under the small nimbus of light, everyone stopped and gasped.
The arched room was in a shambles. Papers and books were strewn all about. His crates were hacked open and his magical devices picked through and broken. And, much to his horror, Raj lay on his side. He rushed forward to him first, unable to push down his panic at the thought of that porcelain head being smashed beyond repair. But when he knelt and reached him, he saw the automaton’s head was quite intact and lifted him upright. They were in company and it pained him that he could not ask Raj if he were all right or what had transpired. But the automaton took advantage of Leopold’s body to block his wink from the others. Leopold breathed a ragged sigh of relief.
“They’re gone!” rasped the old man.
Leopold turned to him. “What?”
“The plans. The plans for the Lock. They are gone!”
Chapter Fourteen
VON SPIEGEL SAT with his head in his hands. Mingli paid him no heed, but instead catalogued every inch of the room with her shrewd eyes. Leopold gritted his teeth. He felt twice violated. First by whoever turned over the lockup and again by the inspector’s sharp gaze.
“Herr Professor,” he said. The man slowly raised his head. “Do you think you can reconstruct the plans for the Lock?”
He blinked, staring at Leopold. “I…well.” He reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a small worn leather notebook. “I still have my notes. It…is possible. But…we are out of time!”
“If I leave you here alone, can you redo them as much as you can? I must escort the inspector home.”
“Home? Mr. Kazsmer, I can assure you—”
“I am taking you home, Miss Zhao. And I will brook no argument.”
For once, she fell silent. Only a raised brow seemed to indicate that the discussion was far from over.
Leopold straightened the room as best he could, restoring the upended table, finding paper and ink. He glanced forlornly toward Raj, wishing he could ask the automaton what had happened, hoping his friend wasn’t hurt. Instead, he made the room comfortable for von Spiegel before he announced to Mingli that it was time to depart.
Again, she made no argument as they left von Spiegel to himself, muttering over the paper as Thacker scrambled to catch up. The three of them stood outside the lockup, looking up and down the lonely street. “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk a fair amount in order to get a cab,” he told her. He patted his coat. “But I am armed, never fear.”
“You’re very gallant, aren’t you, Mr. Kazsmer? But I can assure you, I am perfectly capable of making my way on my own.”
“I don’t think you appreciate the dangers of London’s East End, Miss Zhao.”
“Don’t I? I know more about it than you think, sir.” He supposed she did. After all, they had just left an opium den with which she seemed wholly acquainted. “But I have a question,” she continued. “Just what is this ‘lock’ you and the professor were so furtively speaking of?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “A Lock to secure… the Daemon Device that you seem to know about already. It’s a machine for opening the gate between the worlds to let a golem army in.”
“I’ll be blowed!” swore Thacker.
“The lock is to render the device impossible to cross through the worlds.”
“I see.” She looked at Leopold anew. “And you have been engaged to make this mechanism?”
“Yes. I have yet to see this Daemon Device for myself, but I fear we have little time to make this Lock. But…” He thought about the cube. “I think I have seen a portion of it work. Did you not see the metal cube with the human heart inside it?”
“Yes! I was quite taken with it. The heart seemed powered by the engine within it.”
“Yes,” he said, the horror dawning on him. “And the heart was able to open a gateway. That’s what they want with the organs they stole.”
“That is diabolical,” she agreed. “The organs power the Daemon Device.”
“And we saw a prototype work. They’d need to be able to power it so it can open the gate but also return through it. It isn’t quite devised yet. There’s still time to build the lock.”
“It’s the planet alignment. Perhaps you’d like help.”
He awoke from his musings and frowned. “Perhaps I wouldn’t.”
“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”
“Is that…Confucius?”
She sneered. “Friedrich Nietzsche.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, reddening. “All the more reason for you to go home now, so that I can get back to my work.”
“I have no intention of going home just yet.”
“Oh? And what are your intentions, then?” He kept a sharp ear out for any footsteps that might be following them. Even Thacker glanced over his shoulder.
Just over the top of the building beside them, the smooth nose of a dirigible appeared. It peeked over the side at them and then surpassed the brick structure. Its great billowed flank heaved into the sky and the clank and chug of the engine within it grew louder as it moved over them. “I need to take a look at one of those. The airship stations are closed, but there are tours for five pence at the fair. I suggest we go there. It might prove illuminating. Didn’t one of your Gypsy girls encounter her death at that fair?”
He slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out his watch, flipping open the case. “It’s nearly eight. We’ll never make it there before eight-thirty.”
“It is the airships at the fair itself that intrigue me. We’ll make it.” She pressed her hat to her head, lifted her skirts above her ankles, and scurried up the High Street.
“Miss Zhao! Miss Zhao! Blasted woman!” Thacker chuckled as Leopold picked up the pace and caught up to her. “Miss Zhao, I have confided a great deal with you, a confidence I was not trul
y ready to offer, and yet I still know precious little about you.”
“You mean the letter you pilfered from my pocket didn’t tell you what you wanted to know?” She didn’t smile, but her eyes were shining.
“I…I apologize for that.” Sheepishly, he pulled it from his coat and handed it to her. She stuffed it inside her own cropped jacket. “But it was strictly necessary to obtain the information that you were unwilling to give.”
“And perhaps there is a reason for that, Mr. Kazsmer. Did you ever consider that perhaps I did not yet trust you?”
“Here now!” Thacker bleated. “Leopold Kazsmer is as honest as the day is long. And he’s worked for the Yard for years. With me.”
“And never told you a thing about his life, and it got you killed.”
Thacker opened his mouth but quickly closed it, thinking.
They reached Leman Street where the street lamps were brighter and cabs clopped down the cobblestones. He waved his hand to hail them. “The Inspector is right. I’m well known amongst the London Metropolitan Police.”
“It’s a great place to hide, out in the open.”
“I can say the same of you. Tell me. Did you work for Waldhar in Germany?”
“Oh, I see. That’s what troubles you. I might be a spy.” She chuckled.
“You might be worse than that.”
“I might be. And my assurances won’t convince you, will they?”
“Indeed not.”
The cab arrived and they stepped in.
“In fact, I believe, Miss Zhao, that you have been trying to pervert my investigations—”
“Pervert?” she cried. “My dear sir!”
“Insinuate yourself, then.”
“I wasn’t aware, Mr. Kazsmer, that you were a police officer.”
“I may not be, my dear Miss Zhao, but I am involved nonetheless. My assistant, my dear friend Thacker here—” who waved his hand, the only thing visible of him through the carriage wall, “my…my acquaintance Jaelle from the Gypsy camp,” he went on, “all killed by these same forces. I am involved.”
“And these…these daemons…that you can see.” She dropped the volume of her voice. “They involve you as well.”
The Daemon Device Page 12
