Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Tee Morris

  *****

  No one paid her a second glance once she walked into the humble tavern just outside the stones of Avebury Circle. The hearth was modest but managed to give a hint of warmth in this quiet corner of her empire. Just as promised, Culpepper Source sat in a lovely, high-backed chair, and he stoked coals in the fireplace. Victoria tugged the lapels of her black coat tighter and walked across smooth, worn planks that groaned lightly as she closed on him. She did not concern herself with stealth or with grace. Her attendants were all enjoying a lovely deep sleep thanks to a delightful laudanum concoction that her Mamma used on Victoria when she was younger. She was as he wished her to be—alone, which could have been an invitation for the downfall of the crown. Only two years into her reign as queen and to be kidnapped or worse, assassinated, and the British Empire would be thrown into chaos. And yet, here she was, the Queen of the Empire, in The Red Lion, unattended, meeting what her attendants in court—all save for her Lord Chancellor—believed was a madman.

  How thrilling, she thought with a delightful rush.

  He placed the poker back into its holder and then sat back into a reclining position. “I would stand upon ceremony,” he spoke over his shoulder softly, “but even with the collected subjects here, few as they are, that is attention neither of us desire, now is it?”

  She gave a giggle and took the seat opposite of him. Victoria crossed her legs, taking a moment to enjoy the outrageous outfit she currently wore. The thigh-high boots, even with their dull finish, caught the light of the tiny fire as did the leather trousers she wore. The clothes would have appeared more appropriate for riding, had she decided that black suddenly suited her as a colour. He looked at her and smiled approvingly. No doubt, he found the cleavage she was sporting with her cinched corset and waistcoat most unexpected as well as most appreciated.

  “I took you on your word,” Victoria purred, her breath appearing for just a moment before disappearing as wisps of æther, “and dressed appropriately.”

  “Indeed. You look hardly ladylike or appropriate.” His eyes sparkled in the firelight. “I approve.”

  Victoria gave her lapels another tug and looked around her. “And thank you for advising me on dressing warmly. I had no idea—”

  “The chill you are feeling has nothing to do with the weather or even an odd day of the season.” He looked over his shoulder, fixing his eyes on the publican for a moment, and then glanced around at those sitting at tables, many of them enjoying a soup or a pint. When Source spoke to her, his voice had dropped to nearly a whisper. “Your Majesty, what I have to show you tonight are those responsible for the anomaly.”

  “Those responsible?” Victoria considered that turn of phrase, and then asked, “You’re saying this cold is the work of man, not God?”

  Source went to answer but paused as if remembering something important. He pulled out his pocket watch and clicked his tongue lightly. “Actually, Your Majesty, it would be easier if I got on with it and showed you.” He stood, and then slipped a large haversack across his shoulder. He patted it for good measure, and motioned for the door. “Shall we?”

  Victoria looked at the door of the Red Lion and felt something in her slowly recoil, much like a cat feeling growing danger and slinking back into a corner. Stepping through that door carried a cost, something akin to that fateful night when she was first addressed as Queen of England. She knew following Professor Culpepper Source would completely change everything.

  Source was standing there at the door. He was far from the hearth, but his eyes still twinkled.

  Victoria placed her palms gently on her hips, feeling the two concealed Derringers that the Lord Chancellor insisted she have upon her person. Instinct told her she would be using them tonight, but that same instinct told her she would not need them against the professor.

  When she reached the door, he handed her a pair of Starlight goggles, leaned in, and stated quite plainly, “Do not leave my side, no matter what this evening offers. I wish to return you to the throne in one piece, and cannot guarantee as much if you gallivant off without me.”

  What cheek! Whatever made Source think he could address her in such a fashion?

  She would have voiced her outrage, had it not been for the look in his eyes.

  Victoria nodded, slipping the goggles around her neck and giving him a reassuring “Very well.”

  The affirmation, however, did not sound all too convincing to her.

  At first, there seemed to be no need for the Starlight goggles. They kept to the path defined by the outer circle’s larger stones. While still visible under the light of the full moon, the Red Lion was growing farther and farther off. As clouds began to block out the moonlight, however, the quaint pub seemed to wink out of existence.

  When her Starlights revealed the thick darkness, it dawned on her that it had been a crystal clear night moments before. A full moon. No sign of any cloud in the sky. Now, they were both plunged into a thick darkness where even the goggles were struggling to grant her vision. She looked up to see a rippled, tumultuous cover suspended above her. Not a single ray from the pale goddess of night pierced the heavy sky now over them.

  “Victoria,” came a whisper.

  Hearing such presumption ripped her gaze from the obscured heavens back to a pair of Starlights looking at her.

  “All will be made clear to you,” he whispered. “Just stay close and not a word until we are well-hidden.”

  Well-hidden? Calling the queen of the empire by her Christian name? And a cloud cover that appeared from nowhere?

  This intrigue was more and more exciting with each passing moment.

  Taking her gingerly by the wrist, he guided her to a tree growing just at the top of a deep ditch. He checked his watch, and then adjusted the goggles as he studied the clearing before them. He freed from his pocket a small flask and took a quick sip.

  “Care for a nip?” he asked Victoria pleasantly.

  When in Rome. “C’est bon,” and she took a swig.

  Whatever was in the flask tasted of nuts, and gave her body a delightful warmth a few moments later.

  “Direct your eyes to this open field before us,” he whispered, slipping the flask back into his coat pocket. “The party I wish for you to see should be appearing momentarily.”

  A deep rumble sounded in her ears, but instead of casting a glance to the far-off thunder, she concentrated on where Source assured her “all will be revealed.”

  Wind rustled through the nearby grove. Again came a threatening rumble of rain. Why was it so bloody cold? She dared to look back up for that full moon she remembered shining over the Red Lion when something caught her attention. Something in the forest. Running. Drawing closer, fast.

  Whatever they were, the beasts were about to emerge from the wood just off to their right.

  The shadows leapt across the ditch to land softly in the clearing, but the creatures stepping into her enhanced sight were not what she expected. They were human. Women, it seemed, by their gait. Three of them.

  She could hear another pattering of feet and then the noise ceased. Coming to meet them from the opposite direction, also dressed in some odd cloak, was a man.

  “Professor, they seem to be talking to one another.”

  “Yes, yes,” he muttered, and then offered her what appeared to be a palm-sized suction cup. “Place that on your ear, if you please.”

  When she did as told, a woman’s voice could be heard as if Victoria stood next to her. She followed the cable connected to the earcup, and it ended at what appeared to be a small wax cylinder with a strange bell device running from it that pointed in the direction of the gathered in the clearing.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “What I sincerely hope will become a tool of the trade,” he whispered, placing a similar cup to his own ear. “But please, Your Majesty, we must be quiet.”

  She turned her Starlights back to the clearing, and now saw a woman closing on the man. “Are you cert
ain it is to be this way, Matthew?”

  “It must be,” he told her in reply. “The only alternative we have is to live in hiding, and I have grown tired of it. We strike, and we strike now. The patronage of the House of Usher will give us everything we need.”

  “We have never needed the help of those outside our coven,” the woman in the middle protested.

  “It is a new world, Evanna,” Matthew conceded. “The Industrial Age is bringing upon us changes that we must understand, that we must exploit, before society does so. Then can we return to the true power we once held in this land.”

  Victoria felt herself bristle at that. “Not very pleasant people, are they, Professor?”

  “Your Majesty, please,” he whispered before placing a pudgy finger to his lips.

  Her mouth opened with a reminder to whom he addressed, but the words caught in her throat on hearing the third woman in the clearing ask, “Did you hear that?”

  The four faces turned in their direction, motionless save for the wind that tousled their cloaks. Victoria felt something in her stomach roil. Outlandish as it was, some instinct whispered to her that these four could hear her heartbeat.

  It was Matthew that finally broke the silence, turning to the elder woman and assuring her, “Merely the Goddess, Miriam, whispering her approval through the trees. Nothing more.”

  Victoria finally released the breath trapped inside and her muscles relaxed.

  The chill suddenly kissed the back of her neck, raising goose flesh on the nape of it and down along her arms. The professor’s hand gently touched hers, and she saw him staring at her through his own goggles.

  “The wind,” he whispered.

  In her Starlights, the one called Miriam snapped her head back in their direction. She was sniffing the air.

  “A man. And a woman. Over there. And…” Her voice trailed off. “Something metallic. I smell grease.”

  “Right then,” Source muttered. “Time to leave.”

  “Not just yet,” Victoria whispered. “You should give my guard a moment to intervene.”

  “Your what?” And both the Professor and she returned their gaze to the four treasonous strangers.

  Behind them, the shadows were taking forms of featureless grey men. The closer they drew, the more details appeared in their Starlights.

  “You really didn’t think the Queen of England would go unattended to Avebury Circle in the middle of the night?” Victoria said with a toss of her head. “If you did, you really are mad.”

  The four traitors turned to the advancing soldiers. They had only taken three steps when the Queen’s guard stopped, shouldering their rifles, calling out, “Halt in the name of Queen Victoria!”

  They kept walking. In the Starlights, Victoria watched them slip free of their robes, their pale skin giving them semblances of phantoms closing in on her loyal subjects.

  “I command you to ha—”

  That was the last utterance from the soldier as the man named Matthew disappeared, his form moulting, pieces of flesh peeling away from him as he walked, revealing something like a dog, or something that could have passed for a dog had it not sprouted bat-like wings and borne the posture of a small bear. The enormous size of the beast did not hinder its movement as it was on the soldier a moment later. There was no shot in defence, nor was there a scream.

  It was all over in seconds.

  “Your Majesty,” the professor said, tightening the strap of his Starlights, “whatever I tell you to do, do not question it. You must trust me. Secure your goggles. You will need them.”

  Victoria gave her own straps a few sharp tugs, feeling the goggles press deeper into her face. They were going to make a run for it, a tactic she would be hard pressed to hold in question as she watched the three women shimmer in the same grotesque manner Matthew had. With their massive wings cutting through the air, the four creatures made quick work of Victoria’s elite, then looked back where they hid. Through her goggles she could see small voids, where, no doubt, amber eyes would have stared back at her, narrow on her. Around their monstrous snouts were dark patches of what Victoria deduced was fresh blood and gore, now smeared into their own sheer pelts. Their heads jerk upward ever so slightly, nostrils flaring as the wind carried her fear to them.

  “Follow me. Stay close.”

  Professor Source leapt free of their hiding place, running towards the beasts, setting quite the pace for such a rotund gentleman.

  “Bloody hell,” Victoria hissed as she bounded into the night on the Professor’s heels.

  The queen could hear their footsteps pounding against the grass, but her eyes were focused in front of them on the four beasts, muscles underneath their smooth, shiny pelts bending and rippling underneath folded wings as they closed the distance. In her Starlights, she watched details emerge with each step. The beasts’ breath appearing for only a moment before the night’s chill claimed its warmth. Long, thin mouths that could not completely conceal such protruding curved teeth.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  The alpha male, Matthew, leapt upward, his wingspan extending fully to catch an invisible wind, causing his fantastic form to reach vertically into the night.

  Victoria felt Source take her by the arm. He called out, “Slide.”

  On feeling him tug, she followed his lead, repeating his command to herself as she tucked one leg underneath her and reached forward with the other. Their momentum and the evening’s moisture underfoot carried them onward, sending them underneath the flying monster and between those flanking him. Over the shrill, squeaking sounds of their bodies sliding on the wet grass, Victoria could also hear the dark beasts slipping and stumbling over themselves. Whatever precious seconds they had would be enough to stay ahead of them.

  His grip tightened on her arm as they stood.

  “Professor?” No need to whisper now. They were completely in sight.

  “Your Majesty, you must trust me,” he said, pulling a small rod from his coat pocket. His other hand snaked inside his coat’s outer pocket, but his eyes never left the pack of four creatures regrouping before them. “Look above us—are the clouds parting?”

  She looked behind them, and up. Much like a curtain rising to reveal Macready’s boy-king overlooking the field of Agincourt, the blanket of clouds were thinning, and suddenly they were awash in moonlight. She squinted from behind the Starlights, and then removed them all together. Victoria could now see the four beasts pacing slowly, sizing up their prey for a final attack, only a pale illumination cutting them free of the night’s canvas. She swallowed, and flinched at how dry and grating her throat felt.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Hold your ground with me,” Professor Source spoke over the packs’ low, undulating growl. He still kept his eyes on them, even as he affixed a perfectly clear crystal onto the end of what now Victoria could make out in his hand to be something like a brass spike.

  The pack leader—Matthew, Victoria had no doubt—did not look to either of the three she-beasts. He did not bark a command, or even paw at the ground. He gave a snort, conjuring a veil of breath that concealed his head for a heartbeat. When the warm mist dissipated, Matthew leapt forward, his only sound being his panting. Even. Rhythmic. Controlled.

  With a tiny click, the crystal locked into place.

  Victoria could hear a quick, soft snarl accompanying each breath now. The creature’s eyes flared crimson in the full moonlight.

  Then came the small explosion of steam from Professor Source. His hand was pressing a small button in the brass rod, and now the rod extended to the length of a quarterstaff. Source reared back, and drove the metal staff into the ground.

  On entering the grass and earth underfoot, Victoria watched the other three beasts flinch and melt quickly back to their human forms, their naked bodies pale and ghostly under the moonlight. They were now on their knees, grabbing at their stomachs and chests, wailing in pain.

  Matthew appeared far too determi
ned to slow down, even though his growl told Victoria he had been struck hard by something. It pushed on through whatever pain had stricken his followers, threatening to overtake them in a moment.

  Victoria started back when the beam appeared. It was as brilliant as a noonday sun, only pure white in its colour. The blast lifted Matthew off the grass and held him in the air, suspending him in time and space. She was not certain how long the winged creature remained frozen above the ground; and in this grandeur, Victoria became aware of Matthew’s nightmarish form. He had still not reverted to a human shape like his companions. She watched him fall, but his body never hit the ground. The beam exploded out from its back, splitting in three to strike each of the wailing women. As it had been with Matthew, the women swayed back in a slow, languid manner, defying the natural way of things before winking out of existence with a sudden crack of thunder.

  From above Victoria’s head, something popped and sizzled. She looked up to see the quartz obelisk at the tip of the staff emitting light wisps of smoke. It seemed to be glowing faintly, its colour reflecting the moon high above it.

  His eyes betrayed nothing. The skin around them tightened for a moment, the only indication that he himself had not been frozen by whatever force he had conjured mere moments ago. A mist appeared under his flaring nostrils, and his grip on the brass staff in his hand tightened.

  Victoria looked around her. Only mist and moonlight touched the grass of Avebury Circle. The stones remained standing as silent sentinel in the night.

  “Your Majesty,” Professor Source spoke gently, “I believe we should return to the pub. Warm ourselves by the fire. And,” he chortled, managing a friendly grin, “perhaps indulge with a wee drop of sherry.”