The Extraordinaires 2

by Michael Pryor

‘I see.’ Evadne flicked at some dust on her cuff. ‘You understand they’re leading a band of like-minded Trojans on a search for the perfect place to found New Troy?’

  ‘I’m sure she’s doing a fine job.’

  ‘They both are. Lavinia is serious, Troilus is light-hearted. They work well together.’

  ‘Better light-hearted than light-headed, I suppose.’

  Evadne rolled her eyes and marched through the curtain.

  Kingsley followed, wondering if Lavinia enjoyed the theatre.

  Kingsley shuttled between being on duty at the front desk and continuing their work behind the scenes – and even taking in a little neo-Platonic philosophy. For a time, it made him consider the connection between the Demimonde and the mundane world, but his head started to hurt when he tried to determine which was a copy of which, and which was the more imperfect.

  The neo-Platonist tracts also made him wonder about Mrs Winter and the encounter with the small god of their workshop. Perhaps neo-Platonic theory was a way of describing this notion of living in a god stew, with local deities, sprits and divinities in every nook and cranny. It made him shiver. London was enough to deal with, let alone other layers of reality.

  Evadne made them take periods of rest, and insisted on his making tea. She’d bought an excellent Ceylonese blend but was firm in her opinion that he made better tea than she did.

  Kingsley was disappointed when no minion of the Immortals appeared, even though their bait and switch scheme wasn’t quite ready. The Agency people had fears that the sorcerers’ plans were close to completion. The fire may have bought some time, but Kingsley wanted to see an agent of the Immortals – at least – very, very soon.

  Otherwise we may be too late.

  If a minion did arrive on the doorstep, Kingsley was ready. With Finny’s help, he had a number of ruses ready. The Ficino Institute would present itself as credible, serious and well worth a second visit.

  Once the doors closed for the day, Evadne, Finny and Kingsley immediately swung into putting the last aspects of their scheme into place. Kingsley was relieved when, just before midnight, the false dodecahedron was delivered by Finny’s sculptor. She was a bohemian woman, very thin and with elfin short dark hair. ‘Two hundred pounds,’ was all she said. When Evadne gave her the cash, she disappeared out the back door without another word and left Kingsley to manhandle the crate into the middle of the back room with the assistance of some of the Free Trojans. When this was done, they too slipped out the back door and into the Demimonde night.

  Early the next day, Kingsley finished his carpentry and donned his beard and spectacles. He settled a top hat on his head for good measure. He put on a long black coat, too, feeling every inch the undertaker, and took his walking stick.

  He peeped through the curtain before leaving the rear room. Evadne was at the front desk, and Mrs Kropotkin was pointing out something in the catalogue. Two intense young men, both with long grey hair and bony fingers, were arguing in the far corner of the room. More of the Free Trojans.

  Kingsley slipped through the curtain and joined Evadne as she stood at the desk, sorting photographs of Greek monuments. For a moment he enjoyed the sensation of being near her and the sandalwood-based scent she was wearing. Her fingernails were painted a dark red, the colour of Lancaster roses, a rather bold display in the upper world of London, but entirely fitting for her current appearance.

  An older man was standing just inside the front doors. He was watching Evadne and his hands were clasped on the handle of the Gladstone bag he held in front of him. He removed his top hat and gloves. He had a light cane walking stick under one arm. As Kingsley watched, the man dismissed Evadne from his notice, then surveyed the room with a gaze so intent that Kingsley thought it could nail things to the wall.

  Evadne’s reaction took Kingsley by surprise. She was staring at the newcomer with such hatred that Kingsley was astonished that the man hadn’t dropped dead on the spot.

  He only had moments before the stranger would notice. Staying in character, he shuffled to interpose himself between Evadne and the man, then he approached the front desk. ‘Don’t,’ he said softly when he was near enough.

  She shook herself, almost as if she were waking from a dream. ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘I recognise that look. You’ve just seen someone who you think deserves to be expunged.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she breathed. ‘Gompers deserves expunging, at the very least.’

  Kingsley reached across the desk and put his hands on hers. She was trembling. ‘Perhaps so. You can tell me later.’ He looked over his shoulder. The man was frowning at the other patrons. ‘What I don’t want is for you to fly into a fury right now. It would ruin everything.’

  Evadne closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Before you intervened, I may have, but I’m in possession of myself now.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A nasty man who hasn’t been afraid to conduct experiments on children.’

  ‘Steady, now.’

  ‘The unfortunate ones lived.’

  ‘That’s terrible, but you need to restrain yourself or all is lost.’

  ‘It looks as if he’s allied himself with the Immortals and he’s a towering figure in the world of wireless telegraphy, which tends to suggest that the Agency’s information has some basis.’

  ‘How can you tell he’s allied with the Immortals?’

  ‘The Spawn bodyguards are a telltale hint.’

  Kingsley turned. His eyes widened. Even bowler hatted and well suited as they were, the two gangly creatures that had just entered were unmistakeably Spawn. They stood either side of the door, a pace or two behind the old man. Kingsley could make out the peculiar putty colour of their skin, while their eyes had the lack of animation typical of the creatures. Their hands hung at their sides, as if forgotten, and completed their unsettling presence. With his heightened sense of smell he could detect the corruption on them. They were not alive, not dead, but something in between, created by the malignant sorcery of the Immortals – a sorcery that required the sacrificing of their own body parts.

  At that moment, Kingsley’s Inner Animal recoiled from such unnaturalness and he understood part of Evadne’s antipathy for Gompers. Anyone who voluntarily associated with such creatures was, at best, a dubious character.

  He was conscious, too, of the urgency of finding the Immortals. Kingsley’s Inner Animal imagined bounding across the room, seizing Gompers by the scruff of the neck and shaking the truth out of him – but Finny’s advice came back to him. This initial contact with a mark was a delicate time. Hasten slowly, was the arch-dodger’s motto. Hasten slowly.

  The two Trojans at the table didn’t stop their arguing, but one glanced at Evadne. She very deliberately touched her ear.

  The old man sniffed, quite audibly, then approached the front desk, with his Spawn in close attendance. ‘Pay attention,’ he barked. ‘I need to know if you’re going to waste my time or not.’

  He was nearly as tall as Kingsley. His head was a massive dome, completely bald apart from a patch in the centre, a stubborn outcrop that had remained while all the rest of the hair had fled. He had great, billowing mutton-chop whiskers. His eyebrows were white and narrow. He didn’t wear spectacles and his eyes were an unsettling deep blue: sharp and demanding. His frockcoat and the top hat under his arm were of the finest quality, and now that he had come close, Kingsley could see that the head of his cane was a dark rock crystal. Its facets caught the light and seemed reluctant to let it go.

  Evadne smiled, and in the tightening of her neck, Kingsley could see how much it cost her. ‘Here at the Ficino Institute, we endeavour to give our clients satisfaction, at a very reasonable price.’

  ‘Reasonable, eh? I’ll be the judge of that.’ Gompers sniffed again. ‘I imagine you’re talking about a subscription, but I’ll be hanged if you’ll see a penny without some proof
that it will be worth my while.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Evadne smiled again. Gompers didn’t respond, which Kingsley found astonishing, for that smile could unman the most manly. ‘Feel free to browse. I’m sure you will find our offerings to your liking.’

  ‘That, as I said before, is for me to judge.’ He rapped his cane on the desk. ‘So pay attention. I won’t waste time browsing, as you call it. Tell me what you have and I’ll decide if you have anything to look at.’

  ‘What are you after?’ Evadne asked. ‘We have Plotinus, Ammonius Saccus . . .’

  Gompers snorted. ‘Tcha! Everyone has Plotinus and Ammonius Saccus. If that’s the extent of your holdings, I’ll leave now.’

  Evadne gestured to Mrs Kropotkin, who had been hovering not far away. ‘Mrs Kropotkin? It sounds as if this gentleman is after items from our special collections. Can you think of anything that might interest him?’

  Mrs Kropotkin stepped forward with a rustle of highly starched petticoats. Kingsley caught the lemon verbena scent he had come to associate with her. ‘Our special collection has many highly sought after volumes,’ she began, and she wasn’t deterred by the snort from the old man. ‘We have an original text of Porphyry of Tyre –’

  ‘His “Introduction to Philosophy”, no doubt,’ sneered Gompers.

  ‘No, sir. While we do have that esteemed volume, the one I was referring to is a scroll, handwritten, with marginal annotations in the hand of Porphyry himself. It’s his “Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind”.’

  ‘You have that? Impossible.’

  ‘If sir would care to take a seat, I’ll fetch it for him to peruse.’

  For the next hour, Kingsley and Evadne nervously busied themselves with needless re-shelving and tidying, while Mrs Kropotkin brought out an increasing number of scrolls and books – so many that the two Trojans volunteered to move to another table.

  Another customer entered. Kingsley glanced at Evadne but her slightest of shrugs told him that this wasn’t one of her Free Trojans.

  Kingsley picked up a book from the front desk. He circled the room, careful not to disturb Mrs Kropotkin and Gompers. He shuffled along, using his walking stick, and eyeing the stranger who was working his way along the bookshelf in the other direction.

  The man looked harmless. He had a huge beard and moustache and still had his hat jammed on his head. Kingsley shuffled towards him. ‘Hello, good sir,’ he said when he was close enough. ‘Can I help you at all?’

  The stranger started, which surprised Kingsley, for his progress hadn’t been clandestine at all. The man’s hand flew to his face, and he stroked his beard as if surprised to find it there. ‘No, sir,’ he said in a heavy accent that could have been Russian, if Kingsley were forgiving. ‘I am correct here. Very good.’

  Then the stranger leaned forward. Kingsley gripped the handle of his walking stick, but all the stranger did was gape. ‘Kingsley,’ he breathed in a decidedly non-Slavic voice. ‘Is that you?’

  Kingsley stared. ‘Mr Kipling?’

  TWENTY-THREE

  His flabbergastedness threatened to floor him, but – with a huge effort – Kingsley managed to stay in character. He took the writer’s arm and steered him towards the front desk and an alarmed Evadne. ‘Sir! Please, come this way. I have something you might be very interested in.’

  Kipling was no fool, for which Kingsley was exceedingly grateful. After a moment’s puzzlement he saw the way things were unfolding. He threw himself back into his appalling Russian accent: ‘I warn you, my good man – I am hard to please in the matter of neo-Platonic studies. You must be most excellent, surely!’

  Ever the gentleman, Kipling tipped his hat to a puzzled Evadne, but not a trace of recognition crossed his face. Amused, Kingsley steered him through the curtain and to the large crate that had become the centrepiece of their workroom. When Evadne followed them, the writer was on his feet immediately, smiling and tipping his hat again. ‘Rudyard Kipling,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘At your service.’

  Evadne laughed. ‘Mr Kipling. It’s Evadne. In disguise.’

  ‘Evadne? My stars, so it is! What a transformation, my dear! You stagger me! I thought I was embarking on a spot of adventuring when I made my way here, but it appears as if I’ve joined yours instead.’ He whipped out a notebook and sat. ‘Would you care to enlighten me?’

  ‘Things are much more diabolical than when we left you,’ Evadne said. She sat, smoothing her long skirt around her legs in a way that Kingsley thought should be used as a lesson in elegance. ‘The Immortals are planning something grotesque.’

  ‘The Immortals? That doesn’t surprise me, my dear, not in the least.’

  Kingsley could see that tea was going to be needed and was grateful for the excuse to take his time. The desire to rush out and confront Gompers still burned in him. Kipling’s presence was a helpful distraction.

  Kingsley went to the sink to fill the kettle. ‘We located their base. Their new base, I mean, to replace the Greenwich lair. But we were nearly killed when it caught fire.’

  ‘So the first base – Greenwich – was consumed by water,’ Kipling said, his pencil flying, ‘and the second by fire. Fascinating.’

  ‘We need to find them again,’ Evadne said.

  ‘They’re aiming to conquer the country as a stepping stone to conquering the world,’ Kingsley said, ‘combining ancient sorcery and modern technology to do it.’

  ‘And we’re aiming to stop them,’ Evadne said.

  ‘Good heavens,’ Kipling said, then he frowned. ‘This is rather more than I expected.’

  ‘You had some notion of the Immortals’ plans?’ Kingsley had found the matches, but Kipling’s revelation stopped him before he could light one.

  Kipling shrugged. ‘Do you recall those Hindi texts I was helping you with, Evadne? Some of the lines we were puzzling over stayed with me, and I sought help from some of my more exotic sources.’

  ‘In the Demimonde, you mean,’ Evadne said.

  ‘Precisely. I learned that the lines were concerned with the Immortals, and hinted at some evil they were responsible for in India. The lines also suggested that the Immortals were quite capable of vanishing completely and reappearing unexpectedly – especially to wreak revenge on their enemies.’

  ‘That sounds like them,’ Kingsley said.

  ‘I admit to curiosity, but I knew of your interest in them.’ Kipling looked at Evadne. ‘Yours in particular, my dear. So I thought I’d try to help.’ He shook his head. ‘Given what you’ve found, I think I may have been overly ambitious.’

  ‘In what way?’ Evadne asked.

  ‘Well, this is rather more than a spot of adventuring, isn’t it?’

  ‘Considerably more.’

  Kingsley lit the tiny spirit stove. Blue flames appeared with a satisfying pop and he settled the kettle on the ring. Kipling took out a small knife and sharpened his pencil into a tobacco tin that Finny had left on the crate. He laughed a little. ‘You two are responsible, you understand. Ever since meeting you I’ve been stirred, so to speak. Certain impulses have been aroused in me that I wasn’t sure that I had.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Evadne asked.

  Kipling tapped his pencil on his notebook, three times, sharply. ‘I’m a storyteller,’ he said finally. ‘First, foremost and always, I want to tell stories to people. I imagine, I dream and then I craft a narrative designed to beguile, entertain, amuse and enlighten.’ He coughed. ‘I leave the judgement of my success to others.’

  ‘You are one of our greatest writers,’ Evadne said. ‘You don’t need to doubt your success.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but it’s not the success that is concerning me.’ Kipling snapped his notebook shut and tucked it away inside his jacket. ‘Since I’ve met you both, and particularly you, Kingsley, I’ve been impressed all over again by the power of story. My boy, you are my imagination made real. You could have stepped straight from the pages of one of my tales.’

  Kingsley we
ighed the tea caddy in one hand, to save himself from answering straight away. ‘I’m not Mowgli,’ he said finally.

  ‘I know you’re not,’ Kipling said. ‘Even though there can’t be many people raised by wolves, I’m not making the mistake of confusing fiction with reality. No, what’s happening here is more subtle than that, much more complex.’

  Kingsley was relieved. He admired Kipling and if the man had been turning strange, it would have been distressing.

  Kipling continued. ‘It’s the other way around. Instead of someone stepping out of one of my stories, I want to step into one myself.’ He grinned, a shy half-smile. ‘Me, a forty-four-year-old duffer, wanting to be in a story. It’s risible, I know, but I yearned for it.’

  ‘Adventures can be dangerous,’ Kingsley said. He brought the teacups and rested them on top of the crate. Once Evadne and Kipling were serving themselves, he peeked through the curtain to see the mound of papers and books on the table was nearly obscuring Mrs Kropotkin and Gompers. The two Spawn were still there, unmoving.

  Kingsley hoped their preparations weren’t in vain. Gompers hadn’t left, at least, and he didn’t look as if he were the type to suffer fools at all, let alone gladly.

  He sat opposite Kipling, next to Evadne. Tea is good for nervousness, he told himself, but he found his fingers jittering on the handle. Waiting was hard. Doing something was much easier.

  ‘Adventures aren’t all fun and games,’ Evadne was saying to the writer.

  Kipling declined the sugar Evadne offered him. ‘I saw enough in India to let me know that if I were to be a character in a story, I wasn’t suited to being a hero of the more dashing type. That, Kingsley, is you.’ He nodded at Evadne. ‘And you, too, Evadne. A thoroughly modern, independent heroine.’

  Evadne sipped her tea. ‘Thank you, Mr Kipling. I don’t think I’m quite right for an unassuming character. I prefer to live in a full and complete world, for all its dangers.’

  She’s right, Kingsley thought. What was the point of being bound in a paper bag, wrists tied with string? Escaping from such would be humdrum, whereas freeing oneself from a steel trunk riveted shut, bound with chains and lowered into a pool full of sharks – now there was a challenge!