The Hidden Goddess

by M. K. Hobson

  Had she told Mama about the hair sticks? Had she? Was that why Mama had killed him?

  Emily looked down in the gutter, where the trickle of ugly water flowed over her bare feet. And there were words again, another message, spelled out in letters of filth and muck and blood, shining with urgency:

  Run.

  She stared at the message, hands over her ears. She stared at it, feeling its urgency. But all urgency in her was gone. She should run immediately, as fast as her feet would take her, but it all seemed so hard now, like her feet were cast iron.

  Then, suddenly, she felt eyes upon her. Two sets of eyes, men in the crowd outside the Faery Reader’s shop. A tallish man followed by a shorter one; they wore black suits and bowler hats. They were looking straight at her. One of them said something; she could see his mouth moving but she could not make out his words. Then they began moving toward her.

  “Run, you idiot!” Emily growled at herself, and the words spoken aloud seemed to bring her back to herself a little. She stood quickly, looking around. The men were pushing through the crowd, bearing toward her. The street was thick with traffic; she darted between a swiftly moving carriage and a heavy cart laden with crates of cabbages, running fast as she could on her bare feet. She could lose them in the confusion of traffic. But as soon as she was across the street, she could see them hurrying in her direction. She ran faster, past pedestrians and tradesmen, vomit-stained skirts tangling around her bare ankles, tripping her. Then she caught a glimpse of another policeman, friendly looking, swinging his club, whistling.

  “They’re following me!” She fell on him heavily, grabbing his arm. “Please, I have to get back … I have to get back to …”

  The policeman stared down at her, and she watched his friendliness become hard distaste. Glancing backward, she could see that the men were still approaching. They were not hurrying now, but they were walking normally, keeping their eyes on her.

  “One too many, sister?” the policeman asked her.

  “Those men!” Emily quavered, pointing at them. “They’re following me. They’re after me.”

  “After you?” The policeman frowned at her. “Pick the wrong pocket?”

  “No, I didn’t steal anything. They’re following me.” Emily tried to make her voice sound calm, but tears were still streaming from her eyes. “Help me, please!”

  The taller of the two men approached the police officer. He was young, with a stock-straight bearing. He had a strange bruise on his forehead, right between his eyes, and his blood-red tie was pierced with a silver stickpin that was set with gleaming obsidian. Emily cowered away from him, clinging more tightly to the policeman’s sleeve.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed.

  “Officer, we’re from the Pinkerton Agency,” the young man said, quickly flashing a badge. His voice was thin and raspy, as if his vocal cords had been dipped in acid until nothing but a fine cobweb of them remained. “This woman left the care of her relatives last night, and we’ve been sent to retrieve her.”

  “I’ll need some proof of that,” the officer said. “What’s her name?”

  “Her name is Emily Edwards.” The shorter man procured paperwork and handed it to the police officer. With a burst of energy, Emily tried to run, but the man with the obsidian stickpin caught her easily. His fingers dug painfully into the muscles of her upper arm.

  “They’re lying!” she screamed at the policeman, trying to pull away. The hand around her arm tightened, and she winced. “I don’t know these men. They’re going to hurt me. They’re going to kill me. I know it, I know it—”

  “Miss Edwards has been drinking,” Stickpin said calmly, fingers tightening even more. Emily could feel his nails cutting through the fabric of her sleeve. “But from the smell of her, I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “It is imperative that she be returned to the care of her fiancé’s family,” the shorter man said. “I think you recognize the name, don’t you?”

  The officer looked over the papers. He tilted back his hat and scratched his head.

  “Well, that’s something else,” he said, handing the papers back to the man. “I don’t argue where senators are involved.” His face became stern as he looked Emily up and down. He shook his head and tsked.

  Emily screamed, kicked, tried to hang on to the policeman’s blue-wool sleeve, but Stickpin jerked her away, dragging her down the sidewalk.

  He raised a hand, whistled for a black-curtained carriage that was waiting a ways down the street. There were more men in black suits riding on the back of the carriage, their faces covered with scarves, glittering eyes visible beneath their round black hats. They were going to put her in that carriage. They were going to take her away. She threw her body from side to side desperately, screaming at the top of her lungs, but Stickpin wrapped his arm around her neck, his hand pressing hard over her mouth. She kept screaming in her throat and tried to bite his dry, raspy palm.

  “Stop fighting, you little bitch,” he hissed, and with his other hand, he pressed the sharp tip of a hidden knife up under Emily’s arm—a place where it could slide easily through her ribs. But Emily did not stop fighting. Something told her it would be better to be stabbed than to be put in that black carriage. She kept scrabbling and kicking and trying to scream until they came to the open door of the carriage. Then Stickpin was pushing her in, lifting her and shoving her inside. He climbed in over her, boot heels grinding into her back and legs. Closing the door, Stickpin knocked hard on the roof. The carriage gave a lurch and rolled forward.

  “So you want to scrap, do you?” he growled, his voice cracking. He reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair. He pulled her up easily, threw her back into the seat, and raised a clenched fist.

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant.” The words came from the seat across from them. “Your enthusiasm in the Goddess’ service is duly noted.”

  Emily’s eyes went to the voice. There was another man inside the carriage. Indeed, it was hard to miss him, as he filled an entire half of it. He was massively fat, in an ill-fitting black suit with a high collar. He had tiny shoe-button eyes. His lips were red and cracked, and his pink tongue kept darting over them, moistening them. Emily subsided into trembling watchfulness, staring at him. She knew him.

  “You remember me, Miss Edwards?” The man’s features lightened with obvious enjoyment of her fear. “Indeed, we have met before. That night at the Institute, the night of Professor Mirabilis’ gruesome demise.”

  “The High Priest,” she said stupidly, her voice a thin quiver. “Heusler.”

  “The Faery Reader told us you were to come back in the morning. And here you are.”

  “You killed them all.” Emily breathed hard. “Even the children—”

  “How do you think we got Pearl to tell us everything he did?” Heusler smirked. “Howling little monsters, but he seemed attached to them—”

  Emily screamed, throwing herself at him. Lieutenant Stickpin held her back, but Heusler drew in a breath of sheer delight at the attack, gasping as if she’d offered him a tender caress. He licked his lips as the lieutenant pulled her back, held her down, his heavy hot hand pressing against her breast.

  “What do you want?” Emily snarled at Heusler, trying—and failing—to push the hand away. “I don’t have anything. I don’t know anything.”

  “The Black Glass Goddess has everything she wants now,” Heusler said. “The hair sticks, inscribed with the formula for Volos’ Anodyne, are on their way to her as we speak.” He paused. “But there is one small matter that remains. One little thing that she desires. You. Dead. In the most lingering and agonizing way I can imagine.” He leaned forward and spoke the next words as solemnly as if he were swearing an oath of true love. “And I have a very good imagination.”

  The fat man lifted a soft heavy hand. He pinched her chin and cheeks between thick fingers, his palm clammy with sweat. He turned her face from one side to the other, scrutinizing her.

&nbs
p; “You have very nice eyes,” he said finally. She tried to flinch away, but Stickpin held her fast as Heusler put his puffy, slick thumbs over her eyes. He pressed them against her lids harder and harder. “The eyes are always such a good place to start …”

  But then, suddenly, he let his hands fall away. He settled himself back into his seat. His belly was rising and falling rapidly. He licked his red, rough lips.

  “I’m going to take you to a place where I can really get to work,” he said, wiping the sweat from his palms onto his trousers. “No point in ending things too soon.”

  Then there was a jolt. The horses at the front of the carriage must have spooked, for the vehicle stopped abruptly, tossing all the passengers forward.

  “What the … ?” Heusler braced himself against the walls of the carriage, and Stickpin scrambled to push aside the black curtains at the windows. Outside, there was the sound of guns. Rifle shots. In the confusion, Emily reached for the door, wrenched it open. She threw herself out onto the cobblestones. Lieutenant Stickpin jumped down after her, swearing in a querulous rasp. She scrambled backward. Stickpin snarled as he lunged for her.

  There were men near the front of the carriage, men holding the heads of the panicking horses, men with shotguns, yelling to each other in Russian.

  “Wait!”

  “There she is!”

  “Hold the horses!”

  Emily wrenched herself from Stickpin’s grasp and ran. He started on her heels, but one of the Russians was on him, striking at him with the butt of a rifle. Emily saw him reach inside his collar and draw something from beneath it.

  More rifle cracks. Emily ducked as a bullet whizzed past her ear, and dived for cover under a heavy drayage cart. She watched as the carriage outriders—the black-suited sangrimancers—jerked down the scarves masking their faces and raised their alembics high in glowing fists. The sound of spells chanted in a guttural, ugly language filled the air. Dark sinuous magic wreathed a large man in a loose embroidered tunic—one of the Russians—holding the plunging carriage horses. He screamed, crossing himself as he fell to his knees, his body cocooned in smoke and green flame.

  She could see where the gunfire was coming from now—dozens of men in rough clothing were pouring from side streets, rifles raised. Screams echoed as pedestrians scattered in all directions.

  She saw one of the sangrimancers fall, half his head vanishing in a spray of red. But the rest remained standing, shielded with spheres of terrible power. Emily saw Lieutenant Stickpin, alembic held high, muttering up a heavy black storm cloud around his hands. Little strikes of lightning sizzled within it. With a cry he released it upward into the air, and it spread over the whole block, a churning tempest. There was a crack of unearthly thunder and rain began to pour down—black rain that hissed and sizzled as it hit the pavement. The men with the rifles screamed when the rain struck their bare skin. Arms over their heads, those who could not find shelter fell shrieking and writhing beneath the downpour. Under the heavy cart, Emily jerked back with a cry of pain as a few drops of the black rain splashed onto her bare arm. It burned like molten lead.

  Heusler dragged his ponderous bulk from the carriage, his massive form surrounded by a glowing sphere of protection. He looked bored and angry. Emily tried to scramble backward under the heavy cart to the sidewalk beyond, where she would be free to run, rain or no rain. But Heusler’s eyes found her. He lifted a hand, and magic glowed.

  “Stay where you are,” he muttered.

  Emily felt her muscles cramping painfully, her hands balling into fists, even the bottoms of her feet tensing and curling inward. She felt as if she were being crushed under a terrible weight. Then Heusler turned away from her, lifting his hands like a preacher giving an invocation. He spoke words that rang off the tall buildings around them. From the puddles that had formed from the burning black rain, a huge snakelike thing grew, raising an eyeless black head. The thing struck out at whatever Russians were still standing, heedless of their bullets. Opening a huge mouth, it swallowed one of them whole. The man shrieked, dissolving in a conflagration of red and gold.

  Over the sounds of the shrieking was another sound—a sudden cry, high and furious. Heusler staggered forward as a man threw himself onto the High Priest’s back. Even though he was wearing a heavy overcoat and gloves, she recognized him.

  Dmitri.

  Dmitri wrapped a hand around Heusler’s forehead and pulled the fat man’s head back. Then he brought his hand up, slashing abruptly. Emily did not see the knife in Dmitri’s hand, but she did see the blood fountaining from Heusler’s throat. Heusler fell, his hands reaching up with futile magic streaming from them. Dmitri rode Heusler’s body to the ground, then leapt up, pulling his shotgun from a holster on his back. Emily felt the spell cramping her muscles slacken, fall away. The writhing snake collapsed inward on itself, becoming a spreading thick puddle of black. Smoke rose from it, acrid and foul.

  New waves of men were storming into the fray now, and they were all wearing heavy overcoats and dark smoked goggles. They fell upon Heusler’s men, grappling wildly. With Heusler bleeding on the ground, it seemed that more rifle shots were finding their mark; Emily saw another sangrimancer fall, a cavernous hole blown in his chest. Everything churned—swirling freshets of black rain and humming waves of glowing red magic hissing up like mist and vapor, the close sound of firearms and breaking glass, the screams of the wounded and dying. Dmitri looked up the street. Emily followed his gaze.

  At the end of the street a man stood alone, carefully working some kind of device. He was ice-white, neatly tailored, calm.

  Perun.

  He stood within some kind of egg-shaped shield that glowed yellow and green; the black rain sizzled and smoked against it. Like the other Russians, he was wearing dark goggles. A cigarette dangled forgotten between his lips. He glanced up at Dmitri and gave a small nod. Dmitri quickly lifted a similar pair of goggles hanging around his neck and fixed them over his eyes.

  Then, to her horror, Emily realized that Heusler was not dead. He was inching his bulk toward her, his fingers clutching at the black, slimy cobblestones. The wound on his throat closed even as she watched, creeping magic seaming the lips of the wound, stanching the gouting spurts of blood. The black knife was in his hand.

  At that moment, Perun punched a button on the device in his hand, then tossed it away from himself. She watched it roll out onto the cobblestones with a small tink tink tink.

  It was the last thing Emily saw.

  The device exploded with a rumbling boom and a flash of light that made everything go stark white, like the light of a hundred midday suns.

  She felt Heusler’s hand on her arm, then on her throat. He pulled her out from under the cart and pulled himself up over her body, panting like a dog. She felt him raise his arm.

  There was a lone rifle crack. Warm sharp chunks splattered across her face. Something dropped beside her head, shattering. Shards of it sliced into the flesh of her neck. Burning pain flamed through her.

  Heusler’s bulk fell over her, a smothering weight.

  “Cursed Warlock,” Emily heard Dmitri’s voice say. “Let him heal himself of that.” She heard him grunt as he rolled Heusler’s body off of her. Then he was helping her sit up. She felt warmth spill down the side of her throat, down into the well of her collarbone. His hand brushed something from her face, sharp bits scratching her skin.

  “You see, Miss Edwards?” he said. “I told you I had been sent to protect you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pelmeni with Smetana

  The next hour was a blur of shadows and pain.

  Emily could see nothing, but she could feel herself being quickly lifted into a large covered drayage wagon, carried away swiftly from the sounds of screaming and scattered rifle pops. There was the sound of horses’ feet, and the smell of blood and black acid rain, and the feeling of men’s bodies all around her—wounded men, groaning.

  The cut place on her throat burned, and the
whole side of her neck was tight and sticky with clotted blood. But that pain paled in comparison to the pain searing her eyes. They ached as if they’d been put out with red hot pokers, and her head was splitting. She tried to blink away the blindness, but there was nothing, not even the faintest shadow of motion.

  Dmitri sat beside her. He had a cool damp cloth, and he laid it over her aching eyes. It smelled of chamomile and mint and other smells she could not identify—chemical smells.

  “The compress will help the blindness pass,” he said, his body rocking against hers as the wagon moved. “The Solar Flash is hard on the eyes, but will do no permanent damage if treated quickly.”

  And after a while, Emily’s vision did begin to return. First she could distinguish vague forms around her, the men sitting hunched forward, nursing injuries. Then, everything became very red, and she began to see details. Loose tunics stained with blood. Thick fingers fumbling with heavy wooden crosses on beaded strings, heads bowed, lips moved in prayer. A bottle of vodka, a bulwark against pain, being passed from dirty hand to dirty hand. Emily reached for it as it passed, taking a long swallow. Shuddering, she looked out the flapping canvas at the back of the wagon, trying to see where they were going.

  Dmitri lifted the compress to her face again.

  “Keep it over your eyes,” he said curtly, and the way he said it made Emily wonder if it was really because he was worried about her vision.

  But silently, she did as she was told.

  The wagon stopped after a little while, and Emily, the compress still over her eyes, was led into a place that smelled good. There was the sharp tangy smell of tea, the rich earthy odor of beets and potatoes, the savory whiff of chicken broth. When Emily removed the compress, she found that her vision was mostly restored, and that she was in a big kitchen. A squat woman in a colorful headscarf was stirring a pot of soup and muttering to herself in Russian. Dmitri, in the far corner, was rummaging in a box, pulling out pieces of clean white linen. Laying these over his arm, he took up a steaming bowl and a small vial of iodine and came to sit next to Emily.