Agatha & the Scarlet Scarab

by Karl Fish

  ‘If I recall, your sacrifice should be the girl. And not that girl.’ Noone laughed back.

  Louds flew into a rage. ‘Her uncle will suffice, for now. The gods will understand. Besides, she will come for him. She will come.’

  ‘I’ll kill her first,’ Noone replied. ‘If I have to. I will ensure your rites are never fulfilled.’ Noone spat as he spoke.

  ‘The melted man, he who almost burned himself alive to save her all those years ago. I do not think so,’ Louds rebuked him.

  Noone angled himself to find a shot. Louds lurked in the shadows but as the flames grew orange, light began to illuminate the marble white room and showed the veins of the stone as dark amber. The carved deities cast solid shadows onto the walls, and between them, the forearm of Louds was exposed.

  Bang! Bang!

  Two deft shots flew from Nathaniel’s gun. A thud echoed across the room as the body slumped to the floor.

  *****

  ‘Where are you?’ Thompson whispered to himself, trying to locate his adversary.

  ‘Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?’ echoed back at him, though it was his own voice. He paused. He heard the locks of a suitcase click and their sounds also bounced around the walls and sounded back, just behind him. He turned quickly but there was no one there. There was a sign on the wall:

  The Whispering Gallery.

  Each sound echoed and reverberated but announced itself far from where it had been created. It was a vocal hall of mirrors.

  ‘I’m getting closer,’ Thompson announced, momentarily raising his gas mask, as the sounds bounced and repeated themselves throughout.

  ‘It’s already over. Join me?’ Draper said and laughed before his footsteps echoed and disappeared once more.

  Thompson followed the route he could determine would lead him onwards. Yet more steps; steps that led to St Paul’s pinnacle.

  *****

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’ Belle Soames called through the radio. ‘Hello?’

  No response came from the children as Belle waited desperately to hear from anyone. Unbeknownst to her, the governess’s room was now empty.

  ****

  ‘STOP!’ came the young girl’s voice from outside the schoolhouse.

  Jennifer James looked up, un-cocked her gun and pushed Elizabeth aside. It was too far to confirm her identity but, nevertheless, the girl with the black bobbed hair was walking straight towards her. Her hands were held high and there was a brilliant glow emitting from one of them.

  ‘Let her go. Let them all go!’ Agatha called out. The magnifier in her hand increasingly grew brighter as the crescent moon smiled down upon them and the facets beamed out brilliant white light.

  ‘It’s you. It really is you,’ Jennifer replied. ‘Turn around. Walk backwards to me.’

  Accompanied by the two subdued American guardsmen, whose eyes were covered with an opaque film, and who held rifles to their fronts, Jennifer James approached Aggie’s cloaked figure. Quickly forcing Aggie’s head forward, Jennifer peered upon her spine. Between her shoulder blades, the raised birthmark of the moon revealed itself to her.

  The light of the magnifier was beginning to heat the ebony handle and burn Aggie’s fingers but as she held it aloft, its shining brilliance subdued the purple hues and they began to pale into insignificance. The nearer the town folk were to Aggie’s light the sooner they snapped out of their induced service and confusingly looked towards one another.

  ‘What’s happening?’ people asked as they began to wake up and recover. ‘Who’s she?’ they said pointing towards Jennifer James.

  Jennifer snatched the magnifier, scolding her hand in the process. She thrust it back into Aggie’s cloaked pocket.

  ‘Fire,’ she said to the Americans who duly obliged and volleyed shots across the crowd, allowing her time to escape. Snatching Aggie by the scruff and forcing a gun to her back, she passed the hump of Amble Bridge towards the munitions factory where the Americans’ jeep was parked.

  Aggie turned for a second to see Eric in his gas mask desperately sprinting down the Steep as fast as his legs could carry him. The boy’s sister was safely slumped on the bridge.

  ‘In, now,’ Jennifer ordered her. She shoved Aggie into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Aggie asked.

  Jennifer’s response was a sharp spike into her arm.

  Aggie began to shake violently as her muscles were overwhelmed with the poison.

  ‘Aggie! Aggie!’ she heard Eric’s voice disappear into the distance.

  *****

  Thompson’s gas mask was covered in a hazardous mist, condensation, and sweat. It was impeding his vision and making him breathless. His instinct was to remove it and indulge in a huge gulp of the air outside, but he resisted. He stumbled out and supported his back against the doorframe. The glare of brilliant violet forced his arm upwards to protect his eyes.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ came Draper’s voice as his pistol hilt cracked into Thompson’s ribs, winding him and doubling him over. ‘Remove your mask. Take it all in.’

  Thompson gazed outward from the top of St Paul’s, took a deep, clean breath and gazed upon purple skies. The smoke had not penetrated to such lofty heights just yet but was being consumed by the tens of thousands of people, insect-like, on the streets below who it overwhelmed and left senseless.

  From his elevated perspective, he looked down upon the white circle and illuminated purple cross of an ambulance truck’s canvas roof, the perfect target from a pilot’s perspective. A final fighter peppered it with ammunition, sending a burning plume of ethereal spores into the smoke below.

  ‘The Thunder Machines are coming and with them the real smoke and fire,’ Draper advised him. ‘Pity you won’t be here to see it. Shame, I had such high hopes for you, Thompson,’ Draper encouraged him with another crack to his ribs.

  Thompson exhaled, winded, and fell exhausted to his knees. ‘Not sticking around to enjoy the view with me?’ Thompson mustered up enough energy to say.

  ‘I have a plane to catch. The Fuhrer has grand plans for me.’

  ‘Traitor!’ Thompson screamed reaching inside his left-hand pocket towards his final firearm.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Draper eased his gun downwards, placing pressure from the gun in his right hand on Thompson’s temple. Disarming Thompson’s weapon with his left, Draper continued. ‘Why would you want to do that? Why did you reveal your hand? I trained you better than that,’ Draper replied, annoyed.

  ‘You’re right, you did,’ Thompson confirmed. ‘Because as you were disarming me with your left, I was readying myself with my right.’

  Thompson snatched the broken phial from his right-hand pocket. The second blow from Draper had ensured the glass had cracked.

  ‘What?’ Draper replied confused.

  Thompson stabbed the glass phial downward, piercing Draper’s skin at the ankle, and ensuring the dark-emerald poison flowed freely. The immediacy of such a potent poison caused Draper’s nervous system to capitulate. He shook violently at the extreme dosage and collapsed towards his subordinate.

  Thompson bent forward, allowing Draper’s motion to carry him over. Unable to grasp or clamber in a last-ditch attempt to save himself, Draper’s catatonic stare did not blink as his frozen body rolled, tumbling towards the edge of the dome until St Paul’s ball and lantern disappeared into the distance His spectacles scattered to the wind as he fell several hundred feet to his death without so much as a scream, fully conscious, until shattering onto the pavement below. An unidentifiable blood-splattered torso broke into a thousand pieces as he left this world in unbearable pain.

  Thompson steadied himself, retrieved his guns, and emptied the barrels into the huge lantern. The light faltered and faded as the beam stopped signalling across the city and beyond. The outlying Protocols soon followed as the domino effect toppled the enemy’s illuminations.

  ‘Tuchhandler? Tuchhandler,’ came the nervous static voice, echoi
ng up the stairwell from the radio inside.

  *****

  As ordered, Eric had kept his gas mask on as he sprinted between the static adults down the Steep.

  ‘Lizzy! Lizzy!’ he cried out on approaching his sister.

  Elizabeth Peabody lay motionless but was still alive. With no music or orders to follow, people began to revive.

  ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ Eric reassured her. Dashing back to the shop where the large shoe hung outside, he banged the glass window as rapidly as machine-gunfire. ‘Tink, Tink!’ he shouted from his muffled mask.

  The blinds were down, and the shop was locked and closed. Eric Peabody stepped back, removed a cobblestone, and launched it through the window. It smashed into a thousand pieces that he kicked through the doorway and went through to Tink’s workshop. A tiny light surrounded the secured vault door. Eric thumped again and again. Tink who was concentrating on the radio in front of him with both earpieces on was oblivious to the world around him.

  Eric encouraged remaining purple smoke through the doorway, wafting it through the tiny holes of the door edges. A sharp cough and shuffle of feet and Tink’s attention had been gained. Grabbing a gas mask, he opened the secured vault to find Eric Peabody furiously staring back at him through his own.

  ‘Get another mask. Now!’ Eric screamed at him, snatching one before Tink could react.

  They both left the shop, and Eric went and placed the mask on his sister’s head.

  Tink revolved and observed the sight in front of him. Gobsmacked, he wandered about the motionless human statues through their fog of purple smoke. The Steep continued to burn from above.

  ‘She’s taken her. She’s taken Aggie,’ Eric informed him.

  *****

  Thompson heard the radio but was confused as to where the sound was coming from. Wandering back to the whispering gallery, the same voice was desperately trying to contact Tuchhandler. Thompson’s plan was to search in the opposite direction from where he thought the sound was coming from. Arches of stone, covered in red velvet drapes, led to priest holes, and, beyond them, hidden chambers. He searched two or three before finding the large metal machinery staring back at him.

  In front of him were three sets of hidden telephone exchanges. To the right, one flashed with a red light. The one to the left crackled and buzzed as if communications were still on-going. The central one was connected to a wire and a recently deposited suitcase discarded beneath it. He grabbed the wire and followed its elastic curl beneath the machines. There, a tape was spooling, playing classical music. He immediately ripped the spool, leaving silence to fall upon the city. Outside, people stopped swaying and just stared motionless into space.

  ‘Tuchhandler, Tuchhandler,’ came the increasingly aggressive German voice.

  Thompson pressed the accompanying microphone that cut the incoming message and prepared to return an exchange. The flashing red light to the right caught his attention and delayed any communication.

  ‘Why are there three of you?’ he thought to himself. The red light was throbbing curiously.

  He swapped his left hand for his right and pressed the opposite microphone’s button, but once again refrained from speaking.

  *****

  ‘So glad you remember my name, Nathaniel,’ Brian Louds replied.

  ‘How could I forget it?’ Noone responded, desperately seeking another angle.

  ‘I’m not surprised your best friend changed his. Halcombe Stubbs-Moffatt, I mean, really, what sort of a name is that? His sister on the other hand –’

  ‘You don’t get to talk about her,’ Noone snapped.

  ‘Still burn a candle do you? Forgive the pun.’ Louds laughed.

  Noone fired two more shots in anger.

  ‘Would you sacrifice yourself again, Nathaniel? I might consider a swap for your good friend if you let me finish the job.’

  ‘If that’s your final offer, I may consider it,’ Noone continued.

  ‘Your friend is dying down here. Tick, tock.’ Louds laughed.

  Gideon lay upon the altar, and blood from his wounds flowed through the hidden channel, feeding a dark crimson into the flames. The deeper red was encouraging the Scarlet Scarab to throb and find strength as the light burned brighter.

  ‘The thing is, all he required from me was to protect his niece and ensure you did not escape. He didn’t factor his safety into the equation,’ said Noone.

  ‘Selfless. How kind of him, Nathaniel. Quite a literal statement, wouldn’t you say? It’d be careless to lose two great friends, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Noone said. ‘By my reckoning, if you could have escaped already you would have, the coward that you are. Perhaps, I’ll go now. You’ve nowhere to go. I’ve people to save.’ Nathaniel Noone moved back from the trapdoor and waited. Luna barked aggressively as The Lady flapped about the laboratory.

  ‘Noone!’ Louds shouted. ‘Nathaniel Noone!’

  Noone did not reply.

  *****

  ‘Hello?’ Belle replied to the voiceless static she was presented with.

  ‘Belle? Is that you?’ Thompson replied, surprised.

  ‘Thompson? Thompson? I’m confused. I was expecting the children.’

  ‘Draper is dead. I managed to bring the lights down, and stop the music, but I fear we are under imminent attack regardless. I am sat at several exchanges in the cathedral of St Paul’s with German voices furiously trying to contact Tuchhandler – who must be Draper!’

  ‘And he’s dead?’ Belle confirmed. ‘But they don’t know that?’

  ‘No. They couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘OK. Patch them through to me. Just press down on my microphone so I can hear.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Tuchhandler is dead, but not Taube. I have an idea. Just patch them through.’

  Thompson and Belle didn’t have to wait for long.

  ‘Tuchhandler!’ came the furious German voice.

  Thompson pressed the buttons simultaneously and Belle took over.

  ‘Nein, das ist Taube. (No, this is Dove.)’ Belle announced ‘Tuchhandler is tot. (Draper is dead). Tuchhandler is tot.’

  There was a sustained silence. Both Thompson and Belle waited nervously for a response.

  ‘Taube, das ist Geschwader Führer eins. (Dove, this is Squadron Leader One). Wir haben unser licht verloren. (We have lost our leading light.)’

  ‘Abbrechen, abbrechen. (Abort, abort.)’ Belle improvised.

  ‘Verstanden. (Understood). Weiter zum zweiten ziel. (Moving on to Target Two.)’

  Thompson waited for the conversation to conclude.

  ‘Belle, what did they say?’

  ‘They’re aborting their first mission,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes!’ Thompson shouted punching the air.

  ‘But they’re moving on to Target Two.’

  ‘Target Two?’

  Chapter 58

  The second coming

  Luna’s occasional growl towards the room below was all that Brian Louds, better known to Nathaniel and Gideon as Salazar, could hear from the laboratory above. Occasionally, The Lady would inadvertently extend her wings, causing a flask to fall and smash as the moonlight reflected upon them and she was helpless to resist their shimmering charms.

  ‘You see, Nathaniel Noone? I can still hear you, fumbling in the dark. You would never abandon your friend,’ Salazar called out.

  Salazar was greeted with yet more silence as Nathaniel did not respond. He was already exiting the Institute. He was using what little time he could create to initiate his plan.

  Stepping over the body of the unconscious orderly, Archie Goodfellow was tentatively guiding Sir Wallace James as he stumbled through the dark. Noone grabbed an elbow of each of them to help them on the way. His firearm clutched in his hand.

  ‘Archie, I will need your help soon. I’m sorry to ask this of you. First, we must ensure Sir Wallace is safe. Then we must try to rescue all of the vetera
ns, your friends.’

  ‘You have it, sir. You have it,’ Archie replied.

  Beams of light flashed over the hill and Noone was caught like a rabbit in the headlights. The vehicle skidded on the stone-gravel driveway and halted in front of them, blinding Noone and Sir Wallace. Caught with nowhere to hide, Nathaniel thrust Archie and Sir Wallace in front of himself to shield him from the light. The tall dark woman stepped out of the car, fired a shot at their feet, and issued her first warning.

  Staring into the graphic horror of Noone’s melted face, she began to speak. ‘I have her. Now, you let him go. You tell Tuchhandler, you tell Louds, my bidding is over. I have fulfilled my part of the deal. Now let my father go.’

  ‘Tuchhandler?’ Noone questioned back. ‘Your father?’ ‘Archie,’ Noone whispered in his ear. ‘Do you have a daughter?’

  A slow shake from his head and the truth dawned on him.

  ‘Jennifer?’ Noone called out.

  *****

  ‘What is the second target?’ Thompson fired back.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Belle replied.

  ‘Well, find out,’ Thompson panicked. ‘I’ll pass you through after three. Ready, one, two, three.’

  The crackle of static ran for several seconds. Calmly and with authority Belle continued.

  ‘Geschwader Führer eins, bestätigen sie ihr ziel uber. (Confirm your target.)’

  Minutes went by with no response.

  ‘Belle, try again. We must know. Patching you through now,’ Thompson interrupted.

  ‘Das ist Taube. Vorbei, (this is Dove. Over,)’ she shouted in a demanding voice. ‘Bestatigen Sie ihren Standort. (Confirm your location.)’

  ‘Taube, das ist Geschwader Führer eins. (Dove, this is Squadron Leader One.). Wir haben den Kanal betreten, (We have entered the Channel,)’ came the reply from the German pilot.

  Thompson removed his hand and spoke directly to Belle. ‘Where are they?’