The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

by Pip Ballantine

  “Yeah,” Colin said, holding aloft his makeshift club, “and I’m remindin’ him who’s in charge!”

  “Wait-wait-wait!” the sniper shouted, making Christopher whip his head around to face him. “You know I’m with the Illuminati?”

  Christopher rounded on the man. “Wot? You think because I’m some sort of runt from the streets I wouldn’t recognise a lapel pin from the Illuminati?”

  “How do you know about the Illuminati?”

  “Aww c’mon, triangle with an eye on top? Ya’ know for a secret society, you don’t keep too much secret with plantin’ your symbol everywhere!”

  “But you have to know the Illuminati exists,” the sniper pressed. “Yes, our symbol is hidden in plain sight, but we are still a secret society because people don’t know what the symbol represents.”

  Colin stepped up and whacked him on the knee again. From the sound of it and the sniper’s reaction, this blow was a bit harder.

  “Would you stop doing that?!” the sniper barked.

  Christopher shrugged. “Colin, bloody hell…”

  “He’s talkin’ too much!” the boy returned. “He’s got an attitude or somethin’.”

  “Colin, it’s an inter-roh-ga-shun. We want him to talk!”

  “The problem is,” Liam spoke up, pointing to the groaning man before them, “he’s the only one learning anything right now!”

  Christopher’s finger was cocked back, ready to stick itself into Liam’s face as he readied himself to proclaim “Yes, I know this!” but he paused. Yes, he did know this. At least right at that point. This was not how an interrogation was supposed to go. He finally extended his arm, pointed at Liam, and said, “Bugger.”

  All of the boys turned back to the sniper who was chuckling softly to himself.

  “Let us review shall we?” the man asked. “We were casing the Delancy Academy, a rather prestigious place of learning where apparently, you lot have friends attending. Now why are you lot watching said Academy and not at the bloody place? Well, eight students pretending to know each other would be a rather difficult charade to maintain, but three? It’d be easier, now wouldn’t it?”

  Christopher felt a slight twinge in his temple. This was most definitely not the way an interrogation was supposed to go.

  “So, I have a delightful little pack of street urchins casing the Delancy Academy. A pack of street urchins who know of the existence of the Illuminati. That makes you lot the most informed Artful Dodgers of London. The question is by whom? Who told you we are more than just a figment of the paranoid masses?” He looked at Christopher and grinned. “You are quite good at this, lad. Please. Continue.”

  “Tell you what,” Christopher said, “you tell us how many of your Illuminati types are here, and I’ll loosen up them wrist bonds and let ya’ eat.” The other boys all stepped closer to Christopher, getting ready to voice concern, no doubt. “It’s alright, lads. He’s got us dead to rights, an’ honestly I don’ know why our kidsman wanted us ta’ tangle wit’ ya’. What’s worse is we all might be working towards the same goals, right?”

  The sniper tipped his head slightly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You Illuminati are all about the grand plan an’ all, right?” Christopher nodded, casting his glance casually across his mates. Liam and Colin were looking at him like he was a complete nutter, but the twins were keeping straight faces. Hopefully, the sniper was keeping eyes on him. “Maybe ‘e was jus’ nervous do-gooders would be out there. Not you lot. See, who we work for ain’t all about order, but if there is something at the Academy needs your attention—or, more to tha’ point, your intervention—we just need to know as we don’t step on your feet during this merry little dance.”

  “Usher?” he whispered. “You lot are with Usher?”

  “Initiates.”

  “But you all are just simpletons. Trash from the streets.”

  Christopher was pretty certain Colin was tightening up on his club, fit to burst at that insult. He had to wrap this up quickly. “Yeah, but when Usher needs to get their mitts all dirty, you think they rely on them toffs high up the ladder? Nah, mate—they need blokes like us. We’re also their eyes and ears in the streets. It’s good work, Usher, but you got to go through all them rituals and such.”

  “What’s Usher’s interest in the Delancy Academy?”

  “You’re probably hungry, mate. Why don’t you grab a bite ta’ eat, and we can talk a bit more. Talk about what we’re plannin’ and make sure we’re working together. Ya’ follow?” The sniper nodded, and Christopher looked back at Colin. He fixed the younger with a hard stare as he said in a light, friendly tone, “Colin, go on and untie our guest. Man’s going to need his hands to eat.”

  “Sure, Chrissy,” Colin said, slipping past him.

  Christopher closed his eyes and counted to five—a trick Agent Thorne had taught him in order to keep his wits about him—before turning around to the sniper. Colin would always call him “Chrissy” to let Christopher know when he was less-than-happy with him.

  “Sorry about keepin’ you tied up. We just wanted to make sure you really were Illuminati.” He went to the worktable where there were a few slices of ham and potatoes, a meal they managed to smuggle out of the main house earlier in the evening. “We can get you a spot of ale, if you like,” he offered as he passed the plate to him.

  He looked to each of them as he said, “That would be lovely.”

  “Good.” Christopher took a few steps to the door, then turned back to the sniper. “And as you’ve been probably needing to take care of…you know…things since you’ve been here for a spell, we’ll give you a few minutes’ privacy.”

  “Delightful,” he said.

  Christopher motioned to the other boys. “Come on, lads.”

  The twins, Colin, and Liam followed him out into the pitch dark. As he fitted the Starlights over his own eyes, a small hand touched his arm. “Not yet,” Christopher whispered. They were only a few steps from the door before quickly scooting over to far corner of the house, turning his lenses back on the barn.

  “What the hell, Chrissy?” Colin spat.

  “Watch your step, Colin,” Christopher warned over his shoulder. “Liam, be ready to go.”

  Liam leaned in close to him. “You told him we were with the House of Usher?”

  “Well, when you are right, mate, you are right.” He looked at the ghost-like figure to his left and said, “I done mucked up that little talk, and we needed a distraction. Not like I wanted to tip our hand and say ‘Actually, we are with the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences’ so I came up with Usher. Try to get this bloke to trust us.”

  Colin snorted. “You think he trusts us?”

  “Course he doesn’t trust us, but he probably thinks we’re dim enough to think we trust him. He’s going to scamper the minute we give him a chance.”

  Liam took in a quick gasp. “You want him to escape?”

  “An’ you and I are going to follow him wherever he goes. We just need to give him a lead, then we shadow the bastard back to where his mates are waitin’.”

  He heard whispering behind his back, then felt Colin pat him on the shoulder. “Nice one, Christopher.”

  Wood cracking and splintering cut through the silence. Christopher’s gaze jumped from one side of the barn to the other, waiting for the sniper to appear. As he had hoped, a human-sized shape slipped out from the left side of the farm, paused after a few steps to check the surroundings, and then continued on into the night.

  “Liam, you ready?” Christopher asked.

  He felt a sharp punch against his shoulder. “What about us?” Colin insisted.

  “Two pairs of Starlights, gents. Liam and I go. You all stay behind. As soon as we get what we need, we’ll get back here.” He waited a moment longer, just to give the bloke some distance and security. “Nommus.”

  And with Liam at his side, Christopher ran into the night on the heels of the Illuminati agent.

  Chapter
Twelve

  The Sound

  Muttering ripped Verity out of her sleep. Glancing across at Julia’s bed, she saw her roommate with her face turned to the wall. She was breathing heavily, her slumber punctuated with mumbled Gaelic and occasional thrashing. Perhaps concealing the truth about Heather von St James was weighing heavily on her. She absently wondered if Julia was the only student wrestling with her conscience tonight.

  Even with the mutterings and slight starts, Julia looked deep in sleep, though Verity was now wide awake. She glanced outside her window, then looked at the small pocket watch on her bed stand. As it was three in the morning and she felt no urge to fall back asleep, tonight would be as good as any night to try out the key that Professor Vidmar had given her. She slipped out of bed as quietly as she could manage and set about getting on with their mission in earnest.

  Wrapping her robe about her, she put on her slippers, and eased open the door. What ran into their room almost made her scream, but instead she slapped her hands over her mouth to suppress a cry.

  Two cats—one white, the other a tan colour—bolted into their room and immediately slipped under her bed. She bent down and stared at two pairs of reflective eyes.

  “Go on,” she whispered, “get out of there.”

  Their only reply was a low, deep growl from the white cat.

  With a disgusted shake of her head, Verity opened the door once again, peeked out of her room, and then slipped into the dark. Miss Delancy’s warning about the “precautions” came across more of a joke when they all first arrived at the academy. As far as gossip between students, there had been a few scandalous stories about rendezvous after hours, but none ending in an encounter with the so-called guardsmen.

  The matron should have been asleep, but already she displayed a terrifying ability to appear out of nowhere like a ghost.

  All Verity possessed against the redoubtable Mrs Pyke was this key bestowed upon her by Vidmar. She clenched the talisman so hard in her hand it was actually painful.

  Wrapping her arms around the bag with Mickey inside, Verity moved on towards the floor with the workshop. She had just rounded the corner when the rapid ticking swelled in her ears. With the sound growing louder and louder in her head, she knew whatever was approaching was close. Verity widened her stride to get to the workshop, holding her breath until slipping inside. The tension lifted off her as she locked the door behind her.

  Moving to the workbench, she took her mechanical mouse out and began to contemplate the idea brewing in her brain since Heather’s discovery. Mickey could go places, and he could do it under complete invisibility. Heather Von St James had been buried within the walls of the academy. That meant someone had to be able to hide her there. If there were secret chambers within the academy walls Mickey could map them. Then, he could guide Verity and Henry through these potential passages, using the same invisibility field as Mickey, only with a wider field of projection.

  The challenges before her: making use of Mickey but going without him for quite some time, maybe days, and increasing its power output in order to cloak itself, Verity, and Henry. Not something she could do with Vidmar watching over her shoulder; hence night work.

  “Alright then,” Verity said, flipping on one of the workbench lamps and peering through the magnifying glass. Taking a deep breath, she examined the small battery powering her mechanical mouse. “How do we solve this conundrum?”

  With Mickey splayed open under the magnifying glass, her hair knotted up and out of her face, Verity bent to the task. Her heart raced with the excitement of so many wonderful tools at her fingertips.

  She ejected the current battery and focused her attention on the mechanics. There were a few redundancies she could remove. They would risk device failure, though, but the additional space would lend for a larger, more efficient energy source. That was what she needed, and the faint, soothing tick-tock-tick-tock coming from the device before her served as an insurance that, yes, Verity was on the right track. Lost in the science and design of her creation, she tinkered surrounded by shadows and silence.

  When Verity finally paused for a break, she glanced at the clock by the chalkboard. The hour hand was soundly pointing at five. Had so much time passed? Working the kinks out of her neck and shoulders, she stepped away from the workbench to stretch. Whenever she was working on projects, fatigue never interfered with her concentration. Now aware of the time, a chill was invading her bones. Verity’s nightgown and robe were not very thick. Maybe this was a good spot to stop?

  “Just a few minutes more,” she whispered to herself. “I’m almost there with the new power supply.”

  Verity only took a few steps back to the workbench when she heard the door rattle. She froze, her focus fixed on the handle. It jiggled once more. Her gaze flicked from desk to desk, searching for anything she could use. She finally stopped at a wooden sculpture at the corner of Vidmar’s desk. A Chinese dragon. Rather odd desk decoration for a man of science. Hefting its weight though, it would serve her well.

  As she crept up to the door, the sculpture coming up in her other hand, the ticking she had heard earlier in her head started up again.

  The door handle jiggled.

  Verity disengaged the lock and nearly ripped the door off its hinges, bringing down the dragon in a quick arch. Her makeshift weapon would have struck Henry square in the skull had he not grabbed her arm, and pulled her into a shoulder lock with a smooth ease he’d always had in all things martial.

  “Bloody hell, Verity,” Henry snapped. They stood there in the doorway, his hands wrapped around her wrist, in the half-shadows, not saying anything for the longest time. “Trouble sleeping again?”

  “I’m trying to improve Mickey, thank you very much. We need to—” but her tirade abruptly stopped. It was five in the morning. What was Henry doing, awake at that hour? She shrugged him off her and spun around to face him. “Are you following me?” she asked in a hiss.

  Henry folded his hands in front of his chest, a wave of embarrassment crossing his face, if only briefly—then his head came up in that imperious fashion he had. “I am responsible for the Seven, so…”

  “You’re tracking me?”

  “I’m tracking everyone!” he snipped. “Thorne and his lot think they are so clever, but I cracked the signal in these.” Henry held up his hand and wiggled the ring on his finger. “How else did you think I knew Christopher was on the bleedin’ farm?”

  “Well, I am sure you can offer Agent Thorne and the clankertons at the Ministry an explanation on how you did that once we are done here.”

  “I won’t.” Henry folded his arms, his cheeks puffing out slightly as he looked down at her.

  Verity felt the urge to clobber him. Henry took entirely too many liberties, all under the guise of “for the betterment of the Seven” which she knew was utter rubbish. This was Henry’s insecurity. Especially around her.

  She was about to share with him this opinion when the ticking grew louder in her head.

  Whatever she heard earlier that night was coming down the hallway, and this time the device was not alone.

  Without a word, Verity grabbed Henry and yanked him into the shadows of the workshop. The noise came from far end of the hallway and was drawing closer. As Verity locked the classroom door, the regular ticking in her head quickened, growing louder, faster. This was no friendly rattle of warm clockwork such as occupied her thoughts when working on Mickey, but something far more determined and sharp. The rat-a-tat-tat in her brain reminded her of the drums the Coldstream Guard played when marching down by the Thames. The taste of bitter smoke filled her mouth, and the ticking in her head was joined by a quick thudding. Her heart was threatening to burst out of her chest.

  “Whatever is out there,” she whispered to Henry, her hands tightening on the dragon still in her hand, “we don’t want it to see us.” She had the key, but would it excuse Henry’s presence as well?

  “Think we can make it back to the dormitories t
hen?” he said, but it was too late.

  The ticking in her head grew louder than her heartbeat, and a searing pain caused Verity to drop to her knees. Through her screwed-shut eyes, Verity saw the source of the ticking moving with a speed not normally seen in automatons.

  Most creations, like the brass ones striding towards the workshop, were assembled with some consideration to their appearance. Most automatons looked human, their masters more comfortable with heads, arms, and most of all eyes. The guardians of the Delancy Academy had none of those affectations. Verity could see in her mind Delancy’s automatons had legs, four long ones jointed in such a way they moved swiftly and silently along the corridor’s wood and rugs. These limbs came to meet at a round spinning ball in the centre, a variety of nasty looking implements housed against its underside. Verity was in no doubt these implements would emerge when soft flesh was in the offering. Protruding from the top of the central sphere was a long rectangle emitting a deep crimson light ahead of it.

  There were two of these metallic creatures closing from both ends of the corridor outside the classroom. Verity calculated immediately they would be caught before reaching any escape route.

  “We’ve got to make a run for it, Verity!” she heard him say distantly.

  She shook her head vehemently, pressing her hands tighter against her ears. Sweat trickled down her spine. They were outside the door, and one of the automatons released from its belly a device resembling a key, welded at the end of a long, retractable arm.

  The hinges of the door creaked as it swung forward, and Verity’s eyes popped open when Henry’s grip tightened on her. Now seeing these metallic monsters in front of her, she was certain she had lead him to his death.

  The dreadful automatons strode relentlessly towards them. Those edged weapons emerging from underneath the central sphere of the approaching device would dice them both into tiny cubes. Verity shoved her hand into the pocket of her robe and thrust before them the key Professor Vidmar had given her.