Ghosts of Empire

by George Mann

  Gabriel watched him go, and then turned his attention to the dead body, still sprawled across the van’s hood behind him. He stumbled over, keeping his gun raised. He could see now that it was definitely a man, and Gabriel nudged him in the ribs with the nose of the gun. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Cautiously, keeping the gun pressed against the man’s chest, he reached down and yanked the hood back, revealing the face.

  The man was pale, with stark blue eyes—still open wide in shock—and dark hair that was thinning around the temples. He wore a long, wiry beard, and his cheeks were crudely tattooed with circular symbols that mirrored those he had conjured from thin air. His gray robes were crude and simple, and tied at the waist with a white cord. He must have been around thirty years of age, and was undoubtedly dead.

  Where had these people come from, and how had they known the van would come this way, at this particular time? And what the hell kind of magic were they using that could flip a couple of tonnes of speeding metal?

  Gabriel stepped back from the corpse, and it slid to the ground by his feet, crumpling into a heap.

  Behind him, the battle was still raging. Hargreaves was now on the opposite side of the road, his back pressed to a wall in the mouth of an alleyway. Regina was still raining bullets on the two hooded figures, which were deflecting the projectiles with sweeping hand gestures, as if their strange elemental magic had granted them invisible shields.

  Gabriel decided to even up the odds. He crossed the road, keeping to the shadows, heading for the same alleyway as Hargreaves. Maybe if he could loop around behind the hooded figures, he’d be able to catch them off guard.

  He stopped short, however, as the air before him suddenly crackled to life, as if with a discharge of electricity.

  He fell back, watching in awe as a large circle of fizzing blue light formed in the air before him, as if someone were tracing it with his or her finger. The circle hung there, complete for a moment, before strange, dancing symbols began to appear around its inner edges, followed by a second, smaller circle containing a pentagram.

  He raised his gun, his finger on the trigger.

  Seconds later, another hooded figure seemed to simply fold out of the glowing circle, sliding into existence where before there had been nothing but empty space. The figure glanced up at Gabriel, and he saw burning malevolence behind the eyes, sigils tattooed upon the cheeks, a long, dark beard, flecked with gray.

  Gabriel pulled the trigger and felt the gun kick as the bullet left the chamber. The hooded man, however, simply raised his hand and shimmered for a moment, before appearing again two feet to the left. Behind him, the crackling circle of light—a portal of some kind, Gabriel could only presume—began to burn itself out, fading away to nothing.

  Gabriel swiveled and fired again, but once again, the hooded man raised his hand and seemed to somehow temporarily discorporate, shifting himself to the right, allowing the bullet to ping harmlessly off the wall on the other side of the road. This time, Gabriel noticed that he was surrounded by a halo of the same crackling light as the portal. The hooded man murmured something in Russian, and behind him, more portals began to fizz open.

  Gabriel flicked his wrist, flipping the gun with a single, smooth motion, so that he was holding the still-hot barrel, effectively turning the butt into a deadly cosh. With a growl, he launched himself at the Russian, swinging the gun, bringing it down in a wide arc toward the man’s head.

  Gabriel’s aim was true, and the gun struck the man across the forehead—only meeting no resistance as his hand passed straight through the man’s now spectral head, causing Gabriel to overbalance, staggering forward so that his entire body burst through the ghostly form of the man. The light crackled painfully over Gabriel’s flesh, blinding him with its sudden glare, and then he was out the other side, and the man was shoving him forcefully between the shoulder blades, so that he continued to overbalance and tumbled to the ground, bashing his elbow and knee and rolling onto his back. At some point during the fall he’d lost the gun.

  Panicking, he pushed himself back, away from the oncoming Russian, his boots skidding across the slick road. The man was forming new, complex interlocking circles in the air before him.

  How could Gabriel even begin to fight an enemy who could make himself discorporate, or manipulate the very air around him into a weapon? He’d caught the other one off guard when he’d shot out from inside the wreckage of the van. This one didn’t seem to be letting up his defenses for even a second.

  Gabriel scrambled to his feet, but the man shoved at the air, and a force like a bolting horse struck Gabriel in the chest, expelling the air from his lungs and bowling him backwards. He struck the sidewalk hard, pain lighting up his chest. He groaned, rolling onto his side. Nearby, the Russian was readying himself for another attack.

  Gabriel gulped for breath, but couldn’t catch it. The air was growing thin. His lungs were burning. He watched, as the Russian stirred reality before him with a wave of his hand. It was impossible. However this strange hooded magician was doing it, he was stealing the very air from Gabriel’s lungs.

  Blackness limned the edges of his vision. He reached for his throat, desperation causing the muscles to spasm. He was going to die here, on a quiet street on the outskirts of London, away from all the people he cared about, from the city he loved. He thumped at the ground, trying to stop his body convulsing.

  And then the air was suddenly flowing again, and the Russian was lying on the wet concrete by Gabriel’s feet, blood streaming from an exit wound in the side of his head. It mingled with the rain, swirling away into the gutter.

  Gabriel, dragging air into his deprived lungs, looked up to see Hargreaves standing a few feet away, his weapon still trained on the dead magician.

  Gabriel nodded, unable to speak, and clambered to his feet, searching the road for Boyd’s gun. He found it a few feet away, and scooped it up, wiping the butt against his damp suit.

  He heard running footsteps and pivoted, raising his gun, to see Regina hurtling down the road toward them. Her jacket had been singed, and there was an angry red streak across her right cheek, but otherwise she looked unharmed. Russians were stalking along the road behind her, eldritch symbols dancing all around them.

  “Go!” she bellowed. “Get Rutherford and get out of here. He knows where to go. Get him to safety, and get him to Absalom.”

  “I can’t leave you here to face them alone,” said Gabriel, levelly. More portals were crackling open around them.

  “Who said anything about staying here to face them?” said Regina. She turned and squeezed off another shot. “We’ll rendezvous later at the safe house. Now go!”

  Gabriel glanced over at the wrecked van, and then back at the hooded figures marching toward them, arms raised. Portals of light were crackling open all around them.

  Hargreaves was hurriedly reloading his gun, backing away. “Go! We’ll cover you.”

  He turned and sprinted for the overturned vehicle, gunfire barking loudly behind him. The police would be here soon—at least one of the local residents would have called them—and he hoped the Russians would be gone before they arrived. If nothing else, Regina had been right about that—they needed to draw the enemy away before anyone else got hurt in the crossfire.

  He skidded to a halt, almost sliding into the roof of the wrecked van. He hauled himself up to the shattered window through which Hargreaves had previously wriggled free. “Rutherford! Come on!”

  He peered down into the vehicle, but there was no sign of anyone in the back seat. “Rutherford! Where are you?”

  He craned his neck. Boyd’s corpse had been disturbed—his pockets searched—but there was no one in the front seat, either. Was he too late? Had one of the Russians already dragged Rutherford out into the street?

  He dropped back to the ground, glancing around. Aside from the bundled corpses of the Russians they’d killed, there was nothing else in the road, and no sign of Rutherford.

  “Ruther
ford!” he hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough not to draw the attention of the other combatants, who presently seemed intent on Regina and Hargreaves.

  He heard a spluttering cough from around the other side of the van. He raised his gun and circled slowly around the back of the vehicle. His boots splashed in the gutter water as he mounted the sidewalk and peered cautiously around the back wheel.

  Rutherford was on his knees, sodden, rain pattering over his shoulders. He was hunched over the corpse of a hooded figure—another bearded man—who’d been repeatedly stabbed in the chest, judging by the torn robes and still-bubbling wounds. Rutherford was still holding the bloody knife.

  “Come on!” said Gabriel, stepping out from behind the rear end of the van. “Time to go.”

  Rutherford looked up, narrowed his eyes, and then clumsily got to his feet, wincing at the pain in his side. He wiped the knife on the corpse’s robes, and tucked it into his belt. “Come on. I know where to go.” He clapped Gabriel on the shoulder. “I need a drink.”

  SIX

  The safe house didn’t look particularly safe.

  They’d trudged across London for close to an hour, keeping to the back streets and alleyways to avoid running into any civilians or police patrols that were still out at this hour. Gabriel had lost all sense of time, but as they’d entered the Limehouse district he’d noticed the sun was beginning to show itself above the crenulated tops of the buildings. Soon, the city would stir, and the streets would be filled once again with the noisy bustle of people and machines.

  He was cold, weary, wet and smarting—and Rutherford had been forced to stop twice to catch his breath, still suffering from the after-effects of whatever mysterious treatment he’d received at the hands of the Fixer. They both knew he should have been resting, but time was a luxury they didn’t have—they were both intent on reaching the safe house before Regina and Hargreaves, assuming either of them had survived the encounter on the road.

  The safe house itself was in a narrow side street that stank of faeces and rotten food. It was quiet, save for the sounds of a crying baby, a shrill warble coming from deep inside one of the adjoining houses. Rainwater formed runnels down the soot-stained sides of the buildings, collecting in filthy channels that ran parallel to the cobbled lane, where it sloshed along like a foetid stream, eventually swirling down the open grates to the sewers below. The conditions here were as bad as Gabriel had ever seen, reminding him of many of the slum tenements of Hell’s Kitchen—where people were forced by circumstances to eke out a paltry existence, surviving hand-to-mouth, terrified of their own neighbours and the mob bosses who served as their landlords.

  Rutherford approached the heavy wooden door. Green paint—which had once been applied liberally—was now flaking off, and the door carried no nameplates or number. The downstairs window had been boarded over with thick, stained planks, and the whole place had an air of desertion about it. Rutherford tried the handle, but the door was locked.

  “Hold on,” he said. He crossed to the boarded window, pulled the knife from his belt, and set to work on the mortar around one of the half-bricks, worrying at it with the tip of the blade. It crumbled easily, and a moment later he’d worked the brick free, revealing a small hollow, from which he extracted a key. He slid the brick back into place and returned to the door. A moment later and he had it open. They both ducked inside, locking it behind them.

  Gabriel was relieved to get out of the rain, despite the primitive surroundings. Rutherford crossed immediately to the far wall and lit the gas lamp with a box of matches he found on the sideboard beneath, igniting everything in a warm yellow glow.

  The door opened directly into a living room, of sorts. It smelled damp and disused, and rodents had left their spoor scattered about the bare floorboards. A fireplace had already been built up with wood, and four mismatched armchairs had been placed in a circle before it. In the far corner, in an alcove beside the chimney breast, a holotube terminal and a telephone sat on a small table. A door, standing ajar, led through to what Gabriel presumed to be a kitchen. Behind him, a narrow set of stairs led to an upper floor.

  “Just give me a minute, and I’ll light the fire,” said Rutherford.

  “I can do that,” said Gabriel, taking the matches from him. “You find us that drink.”

  Rutherford nodded and wandered through into the kitchen while Gabriel set about starting the fire. A few minutes later the wood was crackling as the flames took hold. Gabriel removed his sodden jacket and draped it over the back of one of the chairs, before collapsing into another. The warmth of the fire prickled his cold skin, and he sank back into the embrace of the soft armchair, suddenly lethargic. He started when, a moment later, Rutherford reappeared from the kitchen bearing two glass tumblers. Rutherford crossed the room, smiled appreciatively at the fire, and then handed one of the glasses to Gabriel, before slumping into another of the chairs.

  “Well, bottoms up,” he said, before knocking back his head and draining the glass.

  Gabriel followed suit, shuddering as the cognac hit the back of his throat. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

  “It hasn’t been used in years,” said Rutherford. “The Service maintains a number of them around the city, for occasions such as this. Disposable addresses, rendezvous points, boltholes. By tomorrow it’ll be cleaned out and a family from one of the nearby slums moved in.” He ran a hand through his hair, then sighed.

  “So are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” said Gabriel.

  “Yes, I suppose I owe you that much. I’m sorry to involve you in all this, Gabriel. That was never my intention.”

  “All of what?”

  “The Russians.”

  “I gathered that much while one of them was trying to choke me to death with eldritch magic,” said Gabriel. “But why? What are they doing here?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Rutherford. He looked weary, as if the burden of it all had finally become too much to bear. “They’ve been operating on British soil for some months, working out of a house in Belgravia. The word around town was that they were looking to hire someone for a job—to secure some prized information—so I was assigned to go undercover, to put myself up for the job and find out what it was they were after.”

  “And?” prompted Gabriel.

  “Well, that’s the thing. The meeting was earlier on this evening, before I was set to meet you for dinner. A last-minute thing. I’d put out word in the right circles, and received an invitation to the house… the sort of invitation I couldn’t refuse.”

  “You went in alone?”

  “I didn’t have much choice,” said Rutherford. “Not without blowing my cover. But there was someone else there, a woman named Sabine Glogauer, a freelancer. It was a trap. She confirmed my real identity the moment she saw me.”

  “A trap?” echoed Gabriel. He reached over for his jacket, pulled out his cigarette case and flipped it open. Thankfully, the cigarettes inside were still dry. He lit one, and then tossed the case over to Rutherford.

  “I shouldn’t, you know. Not after…” he shrugged. “Sod it.” He took one, and dropped the case on the arm of his chair. Gabriel watched him light it, then draw gratefully on the aromatic smoke.

  “You were saying…?” said Gabriel.

  “I think they were expecting me,” said Rutherford. “And by that I mean—I think they’d known who I was all along. They’d lured me there to kill me, to send a message to my superiors. Someone had tipped them off.”

  “This Sabine woman?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Rutherford. “She was there to confirm my identity, and no doubt she’s the one they’ve hired to complete this mysterious job.”

  “Then who?” Gabriel leaned forward in his chair, warming his hands before the fire.

  “That’s just it,” said Rutherford. “There were only a handful of people who knew. And now, after that attack on the van back there, I’m almost certain.”
<
br />   “You think it’s an inside job,” said Gabriel.

  Rutherford nodded. “Someone in the Service is working with the Russians. They tipped them off about my real identity, and they set us up for the ambush this evening, when they realized their damn hounds hadn’t finished the job.”

  “And that’s why you came to me,” said Gabriel. It was all becoming clear—the reason Rutherford had gone to such extremes to reach the Savoy. If he’d called it in to one of his team, they might have sent the Russians instead. On top of that, he wouldn’t want to alert whoever was responsible that he was on to them.

  “As I said, I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I… well, look, I didn’t have anywhere else to turn. If I’m going to figure out what’s going on here, I’m going to need to work in the shadows, and there’s no one better equipped for that sort of business than you.” He took another drag on his cigarette, and looked Gabriel straight in the eye. “Will you help me?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Rutherford laughed. “Yes, I suppose you are. It’s not much of a holiday, though.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been one for kicking back and enjoying the weather,” said Gabriel, with a grin. “So what’s next?”

  “I need to work out how deep this goes,” said Rutherford, “and get to the bottom of what the Russians are doing here in London. Stop them, if necessary.”

  “Not to mention what powers they’re drawing on,” said Gabriel. “If we’re going up against them, we need to know how to fight them.”

  Rutherford was staring into the fire. He looked haunted. “What they did back at that house, the way they just folded the light to create those creatures…” he trailed off.

  “The hounds you mentioned?”

  Rutherford nodded. “Yes. For a while there, I really thought the game was up.”

  “We can’t do this alone. Not with forces like that involved.”

  “There’s a man I know. An old friend. He’s something of an expert in these matters.”