Beyond Compare

by Candace Camp

  “What the devil do you want!” he snapped. “Here! Stop making that infernal noise! What do you want?”

  “I have to go!” Alex wailed. This man was standing outside the room, holding the door open, and Alex could see past him. The other guard, the one who had entered the room before, stood behind him, leaning against the wall on the other side of the hallway. The key dangled loosely on its string from his hand.

  “Well, use that.” The man gestured at the pot.

  “I can’t! I just can’t!”

  “Do you think you’re at home in your castle?” the man asked derisively. “Do you think there’s indoor plumbing here?”

  “I don’t care! I don’t care! I won’t stay in the same room with it! I can’t. I want to go home! I can’t stay here any longer! I want to go home!”

  Alex found that he was actually rather enjoying his tantrum, which at home would have gotten him sent straight to his room with the admonition to not come out until he was ready to apologize and had written a five-hundred word paper on why he should control his anger. Jumping up and down in a paroxysm of childish rage, Alex moved closer and closer to the Englishman, who edged back, his face contorting at the assault on his eardrums. Alex finished his tirade by kicking the man in the shin as hard as he could.

  The Englishman let out a high shriek of his own and clutched at his shin, hopping about. Behind him the other guard began to laugh, quickly covering his mouth with one hand. At that moment, Alex lunged forward, grabbing the key from the man’s lax fingers and pelted off down the hall.

  “Blast! Well, don’t just stand there, you fool! Get him!”

  Belatedly the other guard started running after him. But by that time Alex had passed several doors and was sure that he was far enough along to be in the section where the building jutted out. He opened a door, relieved to find that it was not locked and darted in, slamming the door shut after him. Quickly he put the key in the lock and twisted it, letting out a laugh of relief and happiness when the key turned the lock.

  Whirling around, he scanned the room. There were some crates in this room and a wooden chair. He grabbed the chair and put it under the doorknob, hoping that that would delay them a little even if they managed to unlock the door.

  The knob rattled and the door trembled in its frame as the guard shook it, letting loose angry words in the same unknown language. The Englishman must have joined him, for Alex heard him say, “Well, go get another key, you bloody fool. There must be one down in the office.”

  Alex did not wait to hear any more. He ran to the window and began to work on its lock. This one was not painted over, fortunately, but it still took him three tries and another broken fingernail to get it undone, and then several more strenuous attempts, fueled by fear, to shove the window up. He stuck his head out. It was dark now, but the moon and stars and a few street lamps provided enough light to see the expanse of the roof a few feet below him and, not far away, the other building.

  Drawing a breath, Alex swung his leg over the sill and wriggled around until his legs were completely out of the window. He had to force himself to let go. The fall wasn’t far, and he landed on his feet. He turned and made his way across the roof, moving slowly in the dim light. He reached the edge of the roof and saw that the next building was more than a foot away, at least two. He knew he could easily jump that far, but this high, in the dark, the gap looked huge. He moved back, thinking that he would have to do a running jump if he hoped to make it.

  His heart pounded madly in his chest. He could do it, he told himself. He frequently jumped the brook at home, and it was wider than this. Still, his stomach jittered with nerves.

  Behind him there was a roar, then a crash. They had gotten into the room. Alex took off and launched himself at the other building.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kyria started toward the front door of the opium den, through which Nelson Ashcombe had entered, but Rafe took her hand and held her back.

  “This time, let’s start with the back door.”

  “What if it’s locked?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll improvise.”

  They took the narrow passageway that led between the opium den and the windowless brick wall of the building next to it. It was dark, with only a little light straying in from the street and the covered windows of the building that housed the opium den. Kyria tried not to think about what she might be stepping in as she lifted her skirts above her ankles and followed Rafe. The reached the vague outline of the back door, and Rafe turned the knob. It did not surprise either of them that it was locked.

  “Stay right here,” Rafe whispered, and moved down a few feet to a window. It was dark, and Rafe leaned close for a minute, listening. Then he pulled a pistol from the depths of his coat and rapped the handle sharply on the glass, breaking it. Carefully, he reached inside and turned the lock, then pushed the window up. Motioning to Kyria to stay where she was, he slipped over the windowsill and disappeared into the dark room.

  Kyria waited in a fever of impatience until the back door opened and Rafe reappeared. Letting out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, Kyria joined him inside. Rafe silently jerked his head toward the staircase, and she nodded, following him over to the stairs and up.

  They tiptoed along the hallway above, pausing outside doors, listening for the sound of voices. A few flickering sconces lit the hallway dimly and cast odd shadows as they passed. Kyria had noticed the first time they searched the opium den that light was not something seemingly favored by the patrons. The uncertain light and wavering shadows reminded her of something, she wasn’t sure what. She shivered, remembering what it was—the flickering torchlight in her dreams.

  There were murmuring voices in one or two rooms, and once they heard a man’s soft laughter, but they moved on, suspecting that it was not what they were searching for.

  They were approaching another door when they heard an explosive voice issuing from within. “…the devil are you playing at!”

  They stopped and glanced at each other, then crept closer, putting their ears to the door. They heard the murmur of another man’s voice, the tones soothing and calm.

  Then came the first man’s voice again, at first low, then louder as he apparently turned back toward the door. “…just a boy. How can you expose a child to danger?”

  Rafe and Kyria looked at each other again. She was sure the voice was Ashcombe’s and just as sure that they were talking about Alexander. But who was the other man? She strained her ears trying to distinguish his words.

  She heard a murmur, then the words “a fool,” followed by more murmuring, ending with “will happen.”

  “You hope so,” Ashcombe replied, then must have moved to the other side of the room for the rest of what he said was undecipherable.

  There was the sound of feet on the stairs, and Rafe and Kyria sprang back, alarmed. Quickly, they darted across the hall, and Rafe opened the nearest door. They slipped inside, easing the door shut behind them, and turned to see a young man reclining on his elbow on a narrow bed across the room. There was a small table beside him, and on it the usual water pipe and matches, as well as a few small ornate boxes. The sweet smell of opium and tobacco hung in the air.

  Kyria’s stared at the young man, her heart slamming in her chest, certain the man was about to yell for help. To her surprise, he just smiled sweetly and breathed, “Ah, a goddess. Or are you a muse, come to visit me?”

  Kyria shook her head and held her finger to her lips for silence.

  “Ah,” the young man said, nodding as if he understood. “The muse is silent. It is ever so, isn’t it?”

  He pulled again on his water pipe, and it burbled almost musically. Kyria looked back at Rafe. He had opened the door a sliver and had his eye to the crack. She heard steps in the hallway and then the opening and closing of the door opposite.

  Rafe eased the door to and leaned closer to Kyria, whispering in her ear, “One man just entered. He was dressed in black, wi
th a cloak flung over his shoulder and carrying a mask. And there was a gold medallion hanging around his neck.”

  Kyria’s eyes widened, and she clutched Rafe’s arm. “Alex? Did he have Alex?”

  He shook his head, then added softly, “I doubt they would bring him here—too many people about. But I wonder if the man might not be coming from or be on his way to wherever they’re keeping Alex.”

  He opened the door a fraction again and looked out. They waited an agonizingly long time. Kyria was afraid the occupant of the room might at any moment start talking to them again—or worse, decide to take offense at their invading his room and call for someone to evict them.

  When the door across the hall opened again, she jumped at the cracking sound. Her fingers dug into her palms as she waited, tautly listening to the man’s footsteps as he moved down the hallway toward the stairs. Then Rafe looked at her, and she nodded. He opened the door and peered out, then slipped out of the room, Kyria right behind him.

  “Farewell, fair muse,” said the man in the room as they eased the door closed behind them.

  They hurried down the hallway, paused, looked down the staircase, then moved silently down it and out the back door. At the end of the narrow alleyway, they saw the dark-robed figure silhouetted eerily for an instant against the faint light of the street. Then he turned left and disappeared from sight.

  Rafe and Kyria hurried after him, stopping when they reached the street and carefully peering around the corner of the building. They saw their quarry striding down the street in the distance, and they set out after him on foot.

  They kept a good distance behind him, staying in the shadows cast by the building walls. The area through which the robed man walked was much the same as where the opium den was located, dark and squalid, consisting primarily of stark warehouses and shipping offices, and as he came closer to the docks of Cheapside, cheap taverns and seamen’s hotels began to appear. Now and then noise and light spilled out of a tavern as the door opened and closed.

  One such door opened in front of Rafe and Kyria, and a number of men and a woman staggered out, laughing. For a moment they blocked their view of the cloaked man. Rafe and Kyria hurried around the group and found that the street ahead of them was empty. Their quarry had disappeared.

  “Did he see us? Do you think he tried to lose us?” Kyria asked as they broke into a trot.

  “I don’t know. It could have been sheer bad luck, too.”

  They reached the spot where they had last seen the man and proceeded more slowly, looking carefully around them. Rafe was very aware of the fact that if the man had spotted them, he might have just stepped into a darkened doorway in order to attack them.

  They reached the cross street and turned to look up and down it, searching for a glimpse of the cloaked and hooded man. They saw no one.

  “No!” Kyria cried softly. “We have to find him!”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She had been so hopeful that the man would lead them to Alex! It seemed unbearably cruel that they had lost him now.

  Rafe cursed under his breath. “Even if he didn’t lead us to Alex, I figured I could grab him and make him tell me what they’d done with him.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  Rafe shrugged, looking again all around them. “Just take a guess which way he went, I suppose.”

  Kyria turned to look up the narrow side street and spotted a dark carriage rolling down the street toward them at a fast pace.

  “Rafe…”

  “I see it.” Rafe took her arm and whisked her up the street, looking for a deep doorway.

  The carriage behind them picked up speed. A dark figure stuck his head out the window. Rafe jumped into the nearest doorway, pushing Kyria in before him, then whirled to stand in front of her, guns at the ready.

  The driver pulled up the horses, and the carriage clattered to a stop beside them. “McIntyre! Where’s Kyria?”

  Rafe relaxed as he recognized Reed, and he stepped out of the doorway. Kyria ran around him and up to the carriage.

  “What are you doing? You scared me half to death!” Kyria scolded. “How did you know we were here?”

  “I didn’t,” Reed said. “I just happened to see you. Get in. We are trying to find where Alex is hidden.”

  “We?”

  Reed opened the door, and Rafe and Kyria climbed into the carriage. Next to Reed sat Con, and across the seat from them was one of the white-robed Keepers of the Holy Standard.

  Kyria slipped into the seat next to Con and quietly took his hand in hers. His fingers curled around hers tightly.

  Rafe took a seat across from her, beside the Keeper, and said mildly, “All right. What happened?”

  “We lost the trail, couldn’t find anyone else who had seen the carriage,” Reed said. “So we went back home, and Brother Philip was there.”

  He gestured toward the Keeper, and the monk nodded gravely to them. He was a young man with thick, curling, black hair and huge, dark eyes, in which burned some emotion, though Rafe was unsure whether it was religious fervor or simply the excitement of the hunt.

  “It seems,” Reed went on, “that Brother Philip has been watching our house the last few days, working in shifts with some of the others. He happened to see Alex abducted this afternoon, and since there was only one of him and three of the kidnappers, he wisely decided not to try to fight the men, but to follow the carriage. He lost it somewhere around here close to the docks. So he came back to the house to tell us, and we have been driving around, hoping to see something that will give us a clue where Alex is.” He paused, then added, “What are you two doing here?”

  The carriage started up again as Rafe told them his story. Reed and Brother Philip looked out the window, searching for anything that would help them. Kyria and Rafe pushed aside the curtains on the other side of the carriage and joined them in the search.

  As they rode, Rafe told them how he and Kyria had followed the archaeologist to the opium den and from there had pursued a black-clad figure wearing a gold medallion.

  “Alex must be around here somewhere!” Reed burst out. “It isn’t just coincidence that we both found our way to this spot. They must be keeping him somewhere near.”

  “Yes, but where? How are we to find him?” Kyria asked. “How can we know which of all these buildings he is in? It seems impossible.”

  The carriage turned right at the next corner, the coachman turning in ever-widening circles as he had been all the time they had been near the docks. Rafe stiffened and looked more closely down the street ahead of them.

  “What’s that? Something is happening down there.”

  Everyone crowded to the windows on that side. In the next block they could see that several men had run into the street and were looking up at the top of a building as if searching for something. The occupants of the carriage turned their eyes upward, too, and there they saw a flash of movement in the dark. Reed thumped the roof of the carriage twice, and the coach jumped forward.

  They pounded down the street toward the knot of men. Kyria, her eyes glued to the roof of the building, gasped as she made out a small figure running across it, then jumping across the gap onto the next building.

  “Alex! Oh, my God, it must be Alex!”

  * * *

  Alex landed on the next building and fell, rolling across the flat roof, filled with relief to find himself on the sturdy surface of the roof, instead of falling down the narrow shaft between the buildings. Behind him, his pursuers were clambering out of the window and running across the roof after him.

  Alex jumped to his feet and took off across the roof, running over to the other side. He stopped when he came to the short parapet. It was a good four feet from this roof to the next one, a space he didn’t dare risk. He turned and looked behind him. The black-clad men were jumping across the gap and pounding toward him. He turned and ran toward the front of the building. He could see several men on the street below, gesturing and talking. A carria
ge was rattling down the street toward them. The men in the street ran toward the door of the building on which he now stood and tried to open the door, but it would not budge.

  Alex turned and started running back to the side he had just left, looking for a fire escape. But there were three men on the roof with him now, all closing in on him. He turned and ran back the way he had originally come, once more throwing himself over the gap and onto the roof of the building he had just escaped. As he landed, he heard the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

  It was the voices of his brothers and sister, all crying, “Alex! Alex! Hang on!”

  He could see the top of the fire escape on this building, and he ran along the roof toward it. He had just reached it and was about to swing his leg around onto it when hands grabbed him roughly from behind and snatched him back.

  * * *

  Kyria and the others tumbled out of the carriage and rushed toward the crowd of men. Rafe pulled his pistols from his coat as he ran and fired over the men’s heads, sending most of them running, then charged in the front door of the building. Brother Philip began to lay about him with his thick, wooden staff, quickly taking out another two ruffians. Reed, armed with only his fists, was doing a good job of taking care of the two who remained. Kyria ran for the metal staircase that went up the side of the building. The passageway between the two buildings was narrow, but she slipped through it easily and pulled down the bottom section of the fire escape, then started charging up the metal stairs toward the roof, where her little brother was now struggling in the grip of his captors. Constantine was right on her heels.

  By the time Kyria and Con reached the roof, a man was dragging Alex inside through the window. The boy was still squirming and kicking and screaming—at least until his captor doubled up his fist and slammed it into the side of his head. Alex went limp.

  Kyria let out an unholy shriek and ran across the roof, not so much climbing through the window as diving through it straight into the back of the man carrying Alex. All of them went tumbling to the floor, with Con jumping in on top.