I drew in a deep breath and looked at the gear-ridden, wired device. It was still where I’d placed it.
Hathor tightened another wire around my right arm, positioning it against Sekhmet’s scepter, and then Bastet brought over the false diadem. I trembled a little as she positioned the crown on my head. I mentally reviewed the steps of my plan. Me. The one who never made plans. If only Miss Holmes were here to witness my brilliance.
When the Ankh began to pull the lever, I would have a few brief seconds to lunge to the side. I’d pull the heavy statue over with me . . . down and onto the Ankh.
We’d fall into the mechanical device together, and thus entwined, the Ankh and I would together give our life forces to a Sekhmet who would never rise.
My pulse was faster now. The Ankh placed the dishes of smoking coals around the statue, and the fog rose around me like a red curtain. It was time.
Which was worse? Knowing what was to come—the searing, sharp agony? Death? Or to be ignorant of it, as Della Exington had been?
“I’m not certain whether to be offended or pleased that you began the festivities without me.”
The familiar, pompous voice carried across the chamber.
Mina!
A soft little pop of warmth spread through my chest . . . then drat! She was here. She was going to ruin everything!
“Well, well, my sweet. So you’ve graced us with your presence after all,” said the Ankh.
I shifted in my restricted position to see Mina standing in the doorway. She was holding a cloth-wrapped parcel, and . . .
Bloody hell. She’d got herself captured. And the diadem too.
Hathor’s counterpart prodded my partner into the chamber with a complicated looking weapon. Whatever it was—gun, Steam-Streamer—it looked lethal.
I met Miss Holmes’s gaze. Either she was too stubborn or too distracted to see the message I sent: Get out of here!
“Please come in, Miss Holmes. I’m delighted that you’ve arrived in time to see your friend share her life force with my beloved Sekhmet. We were just about to begin. Osiris?”
The attendant followed the implicit command by taking the parcel from Miss Holmes and ushering her into the chamber.
“I’m sorry I didn’t follow your directions,” my partner said. “I wasn’t fond of the idea of being taken by surprise or otherwise abducted while on my way to Fannery’s Square, which was, I’m certain, your original intent.”
“Pish,” said the Ankh. He sounded delighted. “But you are here, and it truly doesn’t matter how that happened. You won’t be leaving anytime soon, and Osiris would have made certain you came alone.”
At that moment, I heard a soft sound to the right behind me. As if something was sliding across the floor. Miss Holmes had a sudden coughing attack, meeting my eyes over her hand. I turned to look in that direction, on the other side of Sekhmet, but no one was there.
“Very well, then,” said the Ankh. “Where were we? Ah, yes,” he said, moving to the machine. His hand rested on the lever, which I had positioned so he stood in the perfect place for me to bring the statue down on top of him.
I craned my neck, trying to look at Mina, but she was too busy making some odd expression at me. Her eyes bugged out and her mouth was twitching.
The last thing I wanted to remember seeing before I died was Mina Holmes, silently lecturing me about the mess she’d gotten herself into.
I heard another soft, skimming sound of something going across the floor. I looked over as the Ankh began to lower the lever.
I focused, waiting for the right moment . . . waiting for the first sensation of shock. I must act before it paralyzed me.
The lever shot down and I propelled myself toward the Ankh.
Miss Holmes
A Disembodied Voice
I watched in horror as Miss Stoker jolted in pain, then all at once, she was falling—toward the Ankh.
The massive Sekhmet statue teetered ominously. I saw what was going to happen, and I screamed a warning, but it was too late. All three of them tumbled to the floor with a metallic crash that echoed through the chamber. A sizzle of power zapped from the machine, then fizzled into orange sparks.
“No!” I shouted, heedless of the firearm pushing into my back. “Evaline!”
Suddenly a loud noise filled the space. A blaring, blasting, screeching noise the likes of which I’d never heard before, but the sound of which was a relief. My plan was working! If only it weren’t too late.
Osiris whirled as the Ankh’s other servants bolted into action, confused at the distractions from every direction. As they spun around in panic, the second element of my plan was executed: a low, rolling boom! erupted from the fireplace.
In seconds, the chamber filled with heavy black smoke. I heard the sounds of footsteps and shouts, followed by a disembodied voice—“You’re surrounded! Stand where you are!”—and knew that Dylan had fulfilled the third and final element of the plan.
But, good gad, Evaline! Was I too late? What had she done? How could she think I’d appear without a plan?
I ducked away from Osiris and dashed through the thick fog toward Miss Stoker and the Sekhmet statue, terrified everything had happened too late and she was dead—crushed under the heavy weight or electrocuted.
I coughed and then remembered to pull up the mask I had around my neck, covering my nose and mouth as I crawled along the floor. How much easier it was to do so in trousers than a bundle of skirts! I touched the base of the Sekhmet statue first, then my frantic hands encountered something soft and warm.
It moved, and as I attempted to wave away the smoke, I felt the statue shuddering and shifting against my leg with someone’s effort to move it. I heard the sound of metallic clinks and clanks nearby. More shouts filled my ears, smoke stung my eyes, and I heard the sound of glass shattering. A rush of fresh air burst into the chamber.
“Stop her!” cried a voice I recognized. Evaline! Evaline was alive! She was a heap on the floor, a mass of clinking chains and struggling limbs, but she was alive.
But the Ankh was getting away! I bolted to my feet in time to see the slim, dark-clad figure stumbling toward the broken window. I stumbled after her, but tripped over something and fell hard on the ground. My palms landed on something sharp and painful. “Stop her! Dylan! She’s getting away!”
The sounds of pounding footsteps and shouts—real ones this time, not from Dylan’s useful device—came from the floor and stairs below. “Stop! Scotland Yard commands you to halt!”
I lurched toward the Ankh again. I wasn’t about to let her get away. “Oh, no, you don’t—” Someone or something slammed into me from behind, and I thwumped to the floor once more. My cut palms screamed as I struggled to remove myself from beneath the hindrance of something heavy, I watched the shape at the window.
The Ankh’s slender figure shone against the opening, now jagged with glass in the drassy moonbeams. She looked at me from across the dim, smoky chamber, and I fancied our eyes met in acknowledgment and understanding. Then, outlined by the silvery light, she gave a condescending lift of her chin in my direction. Infuriated, I started toward her again. I couldn’t let her get away. I had to find out who she was!
The door burst open behind me with a flood of light. I recognized Luckworth’s voice shouting orders. “Stop! Halt! Scotland Yard!”
At the window, the Ankh froze, an arrogant yet surprised silhouette. . . . I shouted, finally erupting unencumbered to my feet, but it was too late. My nemesis gave a flippant wave—a clear farewell—then tipped backward, tumbling out into the night.
“No!” I charged toward the jagged black window. My foot caught on something, and I hurtled through the air. Screaming, I clawed at where the window should have been. Just before I crashed through into midair, two hands grabbed me from behind.
I flew up and back, and landed on the floor in an ignominious heap of gangly trousered limbs and sagging hair. I saw Dylan’s relieved expression, then looked up into the
furious face of Inspector Grayling.
Miss Holmes
Wherein Our Heroines Learn the
Meaning of the Word “Debrief”
“If you’d just waited a moment longer, everything would have been fine,” I said, eyeing Evaline with unconcealed resentment.
It was three days after the events above the fish-smokers’ shop at the docks.
“If you hadn’t shown up, my plan would have worked perfectly,” she retorted, folding her arms over her middle.
“Yes, and you would have been dead.”
“That might be the case, but at least we’d be certain of the Ankh’s identity. Thanks to your ridiculous, overly complicated plan, we still don’t know who she was.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then I saw the glint of humor in her eyes and relaxed. “Quite true,” I conceded, and exchanged a glance with Dylan. Our plan had been perfectly wrought and flawlessly executed . . . but in the end, the Ankh had had her own victory.
That was the only thing that continued to niggle at me.
We still didn’t know who the Ankh was, or precisely why she (at least I’d been correct about the gender) had collected young women. Had she been trying to stir up their independence while attempting to raise a goddess’s powers, or had that merely been a byproduct of her mad plan? I still found the concept absurd, but then again . . . Dylan Ekhert’s time traveling was a testament to events and concepts beyond my understanding.
We did have a body . . . but it was bloated and nibbled beyond recognition. Pulled just this morning from the canal where it met the Thames, the dead woman had been dressed in dark trousers and a loose black tunic—just as the Ankh had been. I hadn’t been given ample opportunity to examine the deceased, thanks to Inspector Luckworth’s insistence that girls had no reason to be so morbid, but one thing was certain: even from my brief look, it was clear that the body didn’t resemble Lady Cosgrove-Pitt.
Aside from that, the lady in question had been seen leaving London yesterday with her husband, bound for their country estate. It was still inconceivable that I’d been wrong about the Ankh’s identity, but unless the body wasn’t actually the villainess in question, the unthinkable was true: my deductions were incorrect.
No one could have survived the fall from that window, three stories off the ground. As I would have been such a casualty myself if it weren’t for Inspector Grayling and Dylan both grabbing me at the last minute (how humiliating), I’d examined the area below quite carefully. Someone tumbling from the window would either have crashed to the cobblestones or landed in the canal. No body was found or witnessed on the street, which left the canal. And although it took three days, a corpse matching the description of the Ankh as we’d last seen her had been dragged from the sewage.
Thus, as far as Scotland Yard was concerned, the case was closed. The only reason I wasn’t completely convinced was because in accepting that, it would mean I had been irrefutably wrong. And that I probably owed Lady Cosgrove-Pitt, as well as Grayling, an explanation. And an apology.
I turned my mind away from that unpleasant thought and looked at Evaline. I might have made a deductive reasoning error, but I must admit: she had done something much more heroic. “You were ready to die,” I said. “You would have died. Willingly.”
Our eyes met, and I saw wariness there, and another emotion I couldn’t identify. Surprise? Gratitude? Shyness?
Evaline shrugged, but I could see how much it cost her to appear casual. “And you ignored the directions on the message from the Ankh. You didn’t go to Fannery’s Square. Instead, you risked your life to find me. You saved my life.”
I remembered again how utterly tied in knots my insides had been after I reversed my decision to go to Fannery’s Square. They didn’t relax until I saw Sekhmet through the high window above the fish-smokers’ shop. Only then was I certain I’d done the right thing. And only then did I send for Grayling and Luckworth. “In the end, I had to listen to my instincts.”
“I’m rather glad you did.”
That was when I realized that, somewhere along the way, she’d ceased being Miss Stoker and had become Evaline.
Not quite a friend, but no longer a stranger.
The unfamiliar sensation of camaraderie made me smile. “And I’m quite certain the remaining Society of Sekhmet members would have been just as appreciative of your sacrifice if you’d actually been able to make it.”
A loud throat-clearing drew my attention to Miss Adler. She, Evaline, Dylan, and myself were sitting in her office, engaging in what our friend from the future oddly called a “debrief.”
Miss Adler looked around at us, her eyes tired but pleased. I wasn’t certain when she’d returned from whatever had called her away so unexpectedly, but yesterday morning I received communication from her to meet at the museum today. “The important thing is, you’re all safe. Perhaps in the future, you’ll learn to work together more easily instead of relying only on yourselves.” She looked at us meaningfully, and I felt my cheeks warm. “Nevertheless, you’ve completed your first task for Her Royal Highness. She is very pleased, as am I. You undertook a complicated, dangerous mission and came through mostly unscathed and . . . I am inclined to believe . . . a bit more willing to recognize your limitations as well as your strengths.”
Evaline and I exchanged glances.
“But no one’s found any of the Ankh’s papers? Her hideout? Anything she left behind about her plans? Any evidence at all?”
I looked at Dylan. Defeat showed in his face, and I understood why. He’d hoped that once we stopped the Ankh, we’d be able to find something that would help him. Something about the statue’s history, her research . . . anything. We’d found Sekhmet, of course, and Miss Adler had made arrangements to have the statue delivered here to the museum.
We all hoped that once Dylan was in the presence of the artifact again, he’d be able to use it to return to his time. But when we replaced it in the cellar chamber in which he’d first appeared, nothing happened.
“There was a scarab in the base,” he said, pointing to a deep indentation where the beetle had once been. “It was glowing, and when I touched it, that’s when and how it happened. But I’m not sure how.”
“It must have had something to do with timing of the Ankh performing her ceremony. The one when Mayellen Hodgeworth died. She was conducting her activity here at the same time you saw the glowing scarab . . . a hundred years from now. You touched it, and . . . it happened.”
“There’s no way to send me back, is there? Replacing the scarab won’t work?”
“The ones we found from Lilly and the others don’t fit in the spot,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. His muscles trembled beneath my touch, and I felt his breath hitch. I waited for a long moment for him to regain control of his emotions. “But there must be one. Somewhere. Or we’ll find another way.”
“I guess I won’t be going home anytime soon,” he said. His voice was strangely muffled.
When he stood, I wrapped one arm around him in an awkward embrace and patted him on the shoulder. I knew a little how he felt, a stranger forced to be part of a world in which one didn’t quite fit. He was warm and very tall against me, and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d touched another person with affection.
Or was touched.
I experienced a sudden momentary relief that he wouldn’t be leaving after all. That he’d be here a little longer, someone who was even more of an outsider than I. Angry with myself for such selfish thoughts, I pushed them away.
“I’m sorry, Dylan. I promise, I’m going to find a way to help you. Perhaps one of the Ankh’s assistants might know where the missing scarab is. Since the Ankh is dead, they may be willing to help us now. There’s a way. There must be a way.”
Osiris and Amunet were in police custody. The explosions, noises, and general altercation—even for a location as rough as the docks—had brought not only the authorities but also other witnesses. Even so, Hathor and Bast
et had managed to escape, but enough witnesses had seen fugitives running from the rooms above the fish-smokers’ shop that I was optimistic that they’d be apprehended. I’d been down at Scotland Yard several times to give them my story . . . but I hadn’t seen Inspector Grayling.
I considered that very fortunate.
Thank goodness I hadn’t told anyone—even Dylan and Miss Adler—my suspicions about Lady Cosgrove-Pitt.
Dylan was looking hard at Evaline. “By the way . . . I’ve been trying to figure out how that all worked. The Ankh actually did move the lever, right? So, like, why didn’t you get zapped? Or did you? What happened?”
“I felt a low, buzzing sensation just before I knocked us over. But it evaporated as we fell, and I hardly felt any shock at all.”
“I suspect it was because the Ankh wasn’t using the true diadem,” I interjected. “Only the true diadem would extract the life force from the individual. If one believed in that sort of thing.”
“Or,” Evaline said, “the lever could have bounced back when we fell to the ground. And then everything went into chaos.”
“And it was Dylan who created this distraction?” asked Miss Adler.
“It was all my plan, but he was the one who made it possible. I knew his telephone could make loud odd noises, and he arranged it so that it would do so at a certain time.”
“I set two alarms,” he explained. “One to go off first and to make a siren sound, and then another one to sound off later, with police voices shouting that they were surrounding the building.”
“But the sounds came from across the room. No one was there,” Evaline said.
I couldn’t control my complacent smile. “Yes. That was precisely the point. We were able to employ Dylan’s particular skill called . . . hockey—is that correct?”
“The game is called hockey,” he said. “It involves shooting a puck across the ice—well, anyway, I’m really good at it and I can shoot exactly where something needs to go. Fast, straight, and smooth. That came in handy when I had to slide the phone across the room without anyone seeing it. The phone’s about the same size as a puck. I sneaked in after Mina, and no one noticed me standing in the dark corner. And then I shot a smoke bomb into the fireplace without anyone seeing me either. It was like scoring two perfect goals.”
The Clockwork Scarab s&h-1 Page 25
