The Serpent's Shadow em-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  She lit incense, picked up the box that held the mirror and settled into a pile of cushions, then removed the mirror from its container and unwrapped it.

  The black surface was utterly blank, which was precisely as it should be, for the slave could no longer show himself until she summoned him. He had not yet found a way to break through her confining spells. There was a chance that one day he might, but that chance was remote, and grew more distant with every hour that passed. She sometimes wondered why she had never made a mirror-servant before this. They were so useful, and it grew easier to control them, not harder, with the passing of time.

  "Mirror, mirror in my hand," she said softly, gazing at her own reflection in the black glass. "Come in haste to my command."

  The wavering image of the mirror-slave appeared immediately, and his desperately coaxing tone left nothing to be desired in the way of obedience. Oh, mistress, how may I please you? he fawned.

  He must have found this last bout of enforced inactivity very trying. No more did he vex her with wailing or protests, there was only instant obedience. He had broken at last, and it was high time, too.

  "You know where my sister's child dwells; can you penetrate her defenses to show me her and her household?" she asked.

  The image blanched; all color drained from it, and it became transparent with anxiety. I beg of you, do not be angered with me, the slave begged. I cannot. Indeed, I have tried, but I might as well seek to penetrate a wall of steel with a knife of paper. But— He brightened, and color came creeping delicately back into his visage. But I can show her to you as she is when she walks outside those protections.

  "Show me!" Shivani demanded imperiously, eager for a sight of the girl she had sought for so very long.

  The mirror clouded briefly, then brightened and cleared, revealing the interior of a very large room with many windows along one side. Shivani brought it closer to her eyes and studied the image moving therein.

  There was a young woman, slender and not over-tall, dressed in English clothing of some white fabric, with her long, black hair bound up in some formal English style on her head. There was a great deal of Surya in the girl; the likeness showed in her eyes in particular, large and seeming-wise, dark with secrets. Her complexion was of a shade between those of her mother and her father, Shivani noted with disapproval; a mark of the tainted blood, dusky rather than dark.

  She moved among low beds, each containing a single person covered with a clean, white sheet. The room was full of these beds, closely crowded together, sunlight streaming down upon them. This must be the hospital where Simon Parkening encountered her. She seemed most attentive to the occupants of those beds, also to Shivani's disapproval. Her expression was intent as she ministered to them; there was no sound, only a picture, but it was clear that she spoke to them with kind and gentle courtesy rather than issuing the orders that one of her exalted blood should have found natural.

  There was little doubt that she had thrown her lot in completely with the English; it seemed that only her servants and her pets were left as reminders of her homeland, for in all else, she was Western to the core. This must be why Shivani could neither break nor subvert her magical protections. She had surely learned the magic of the West, which was completely alien to Shivani's own. This—was unexpected. And it could prove a major stumbling block.

  Shivani ground her teeth in rage. How dare she? How dare she squander that precious gift of power in Western magery? How dare she reject the magic of the people who needed it?

  She was just like her mother, turning her back on her own people to consort with, and to aid, these arrogant usurpers.

  The image blurred again, and Shivani saw the girl in another place, one that she recognized from the descriptions of her servants as one of the great parks, the one with the large body of water in it. Overhead, a sky far less blue than that of the homeland; around her, trees and flowers that were the wrong shapes and colors. She was not alone.

  There was a man. And from her scandalous behavior with him, permitting him to put her hand in the crook of his elbow, laughing up at him, she was not indifferent to him.

  Worse upon worse! Now she would throw herself away on an English Sahib! Had she no pride? Was she to follow in her deceitful mother's footsteps?

  Shivani kept herself from throwing the mirror against the wall with an effort.

  Now there was an added urgency to her plans; she must take the girl and her power before she gave herself to this man, for there would be less of it if she were no longer virgin. . . .

  Provided she had not already given herself to the man.

  Shivani snatched up the mirror again and studied the image intently, looking for signs that the girl had done the unthinkable. Shortly she was able to assure herself that, although the prospect was imminent, it had not yet occurred. There was still the certain distance, the coy shyness, that spoke of passion as yet unconsummated, though acknowledged.

  "That will be enough," she commanded, and the mirror went blank, then the slave's uncertain image reappeared in it.

  Is there any other way in which I may serve you? the slave begged.

  "No," Shivani replied. "You have done as well as you can. You may rest now."

  She put the mirror down, but did not swathe it in silk again, nor invoke the barriers to the slave's coming and going. Leaving the box open as well, she set it all aside for the moment. The slave could, if he chose, see whatever transpired within the walls of her sanctuary, although he could not wander outside those bounds unless she gave him further freedoms she had no intention of granting unless it proved useful to do so on a temporary basis.

  She tapped her lips with one finger, considering all her possible options, and wondering if the Serpent could take the girl if given enough power. There would be fog tonight; the Serpent would certainly hunt. She had already prepared the baits for it—but she had no bait for the girl, and it did not appear that she would be able to readily obtain one. The dacoit now resting in the cellar had been supposed to get something of the girl's. Well, obviously that was out of the question.

  Still, she could try. The Serpent had ways and means of getting past protections that even Shivani did not entirely understand. The question was, how was she to get the Serpent the extra power it would need to make such an attempt? The victims she intended it to claim would not provide nearly enough to break through an alien magic. She had no ready sacrifices at hand, and it was not wise to risk exposure by merely taking one at random.

  A voice shook her from her reverie. "Wise One?" Her body servant hovered timorously in the doorway, her soft voice interrupting Shivani's thoughts.

  "What?" she asked sharply, gazing on the body servant with disfavor.

  "It is the English sahib, Wise One. He is at the door again, and most foully drunk. He demands entrance. There begins to be notice taken." The woman nervously twisted the scarf of her sari in her hands, torn between conflicting orders—that Shivani not be disturbed, and that nothing happen to cause attention to be drawn to this place.

  "Drive him a—" she began. Then a sudden thought struck her, and she smiled. The woman shrank back involuntarily from that smile. As well she should; there was nothing of humor in it.

  "Tell him that I will see him, if he will go away and come back in an hour, secretly," she said. "But he must come secretly, or I will not permit him within the door. Impress upon him the need for such secrecy, so that the police do not seek to interfere with us. And when he comes—bring him within, and when the door has closed behind him, take him as an offering to the temple."

  The servant bowed deeply, and scuttled away; with that order, there was no chance that Parkening would arrive in front of the statue of Kali Durga on his own two feet. Shivani laughed aloud at her own cleverness.

  How perfect was this—that a suitable sacrifice, primed with crude magic power and full of the extra energies of unbridled emotions should present itself on her doorstep? Parkening had gone beyond being a mere nui
sance, but until tonight, it had not occurred to Shivani that he had the potential to provide her with a last service before she rid herself of him.

  He would be missed, of course, but by the time his body was found, her dacoits would have taken it far from this place. Even drunk, he was intelligent enough—barely—to lay a false trail before he returned. She decided, as she descended to the hidden temple, that she would have him taken to the Chinese quarter and dumped there. Let the foolish yellow men take the blame for his death; they were so busy with their quick profits in bodies and drugs that they paid little heed to what went on in their quarter until it was past mending.

  Why had she not thought of this before? With every step she took, she wondered at her own obtuseness. At last she would be revenged on Parkening for every braying laugh, every whine, every complaint, and every petty annoyance. The Death of a Thousand Cuts would only be the last of the many experiences that awaited Parkening, and she had the shrewd notion that her loyal dacoits would enjoy helping her, for if Parkening had been annoying to her, he had delivered deadly insults to her underlings.

  And she would start with his hands, and his lips— for he had dared to lay those hands and lips in a lustful manner upon one who, though outcaste and only half Indian, was still descended from the purest Brahmin blood.

  Shivani paused only long enough on her way into the sanctum to select a very special set of sacrificial knives—for this would be a sacrifice she intended to make last a very long time.

  THE only benefit that the Fleet had in this heat was that it was at the bottom of a building which in turn was overshadowed on all sides by taller tenements. If the sun seldom penetrated here and it was dank, dark, and chill by winter, at least now it was something less than ovenlike. "There's a perleesemun 'ere t'see ye, miss," said a timid voice at Maya's elbow as she collected her medical instruments and some of the drugs it wasn't safe to keep at the clinic. She was layering them carefully into her bag, preparing to go home now that the last patient at the Fleet had been dealt with.

  She turned around and found one of the numerous offspring of a woman she had just treated for a broken arm hovering anxiously behind her. The poor thing had arrived with all of them in tow, like a wounded goose with anxious goslings paddling madly behind, her gander supporting her with anxious honks.

  "A policeman?" she replied, wrinkling her brow in puzzlement. "Well, thank you dear. I'll come right along and see him."

  The child's mother had not, for a wonder, been sent to the Fleet by a brutal husband; in fact, the husband was with her now, having held her while Maya set the broken limb, for a dose of opium could only do so much to keep her still during such an unpleasant operation. This time it was sheer bad luck and slippery steps that were to blame; seeing the poor man agonizing over his spouse's pain was a pleasant change from knowing that a similar injury was the result of one more in an endless series of beatings.

  As if the same doesn't happen in "better" families— just not so publicly. But that was unfair. There was equal measure of good and evil at every level; she just saw more of the evil because of the consequences.

  And I see good, too—little boys out sweeping crossings to bring precious pennies back to their mums, husbands giving up their 'baccy and beer to give the kids a Christmas, women working long into the night for the wherewithal to feed their families—

  Maya put on her hat, skewered it in place with a hatpin the size of a stiletto, and went to see the "per-leesmun" before he frightened three quarters of her patients. With her bag in hand, so that he would get the hint that she meant to be on her way home as soon as she'd done with him, she went out into the waiting room. The waiting room was full, of course, but thanks to Lord Peter's generosity, they'd been able to bring O'Reilly in on salary, and he, bless him, had arrived a half hour ago.

  It wasn't difficult to pick the policeman out, although he was not in uniform; not too many men coming into the Fleet were so nattily attired, and those that were generally were ill at ease or even alarmed at the sight of so many members of the lowest class of society. Besides the neat brown suit, he was too well-groomed and prosperous to be from around here; his old-fashioned mutton-chop brown whiskers and mustache surrounded a well-shaved, firm chin—such a good, strong chin with no hint of middle-aged fat that Maya suspected he kept it bare out of vanity. The bowler hat had not a speck of dust to disfigure it. Maya went straight to him, her free hand held out. He took it, and shook it gravely.

  "I am Doctor Witherspoon; I believe you are looking for me, Detective—?" she paused significantly, waiting for him to supply a name.

  "Detective Crider," the man replied, taking her hand and shaking it firmly. She liked his handshake; strong without being overbearing, a warm, dry hand, neither too familiar nor too distant. "You're quickwitted to know me for a 'tec, if I do say so, miss."

  "Well, a police officer, but out of uniform—what else could you be?" she said, smiling. "How can I help you?"

  "I was just hoping you would tell me about the last time you saw a gentleman by the name of Simon Parkening," was the odd reply. "I'm told you have had a bit to do with him."

  Maya frowned, puzzled. "Parkening? Goodness, the last time I saw him was at the hospital, when I was showing Bishop Mannering some of the charity wards I work in," she replied immediately. "I must say, he looked rather ill. He'd had what I thought might be a heatstroke the day .before, I found him on the floor of one of the storage closets, you know. I sent him up to the regular Male Wards to have one of the other physicians look him over, since he wasn't my patient." She smiled deprecatingly. "I am a very junior surgeon and physician, you see. As a consequence, most of my patients are charity cases, and when they are not charity, they are uniformly female. I'm hardly the type of doctor that Simon Parkening would welcome as attending physician."

  "You say he looked ill, miss?" the detective persisted.

  She nodded. "Quite green, to be honest. If he had been my patient, I would have insisted that he stop at home for several days, and if he felt he needed further attention, I would have made a house call. I can't imagine what he was thinking, coming into the hospital like that after collapsing the day before. Even if it was because he urgently needed to see his uncle, surely Doctor Clayton-Smythe would have come to him if he'd sent a message."

  "So—he wasn't thinking rational, you'd say?" The detective's mustache twitched, as if he were a bloodhound that had just sniffed something interesting.

  Well, this is certainly an odd conversation. I wonder what Parkening has gotten himself into now? More than his uncle can hush up, if there's a police detective asking questions. "That would depend entirely on what you think of as 'rational,' " she temporized. "Do I think he still knew the difference between right and wrong? Definitely. Do I think he was capable of getting himself from his flat to the hospital and back without losing his way? Obviously, or I would have made sure someone went with him. But do I think he was prepared to treat himself as an invalid? Definitely not—but that was as likely to be from a reluctance to accept an infirmity, however temporary, as from a deficiency in judgment. A man like Simon Parkening," she added judiciously, "is unlikely to admit to any sort of weakness."

  The detective nodded, but persisted. "Assumin' he had a heatstroke, could he have, well, gone off his head after you saw him? Not in any violent way, you understand—just, go a bit barmy, so to speak, and wander off somewhere?"

  Good heavens, don't tell me the man's gone missing! "It's less likely than that he'd simply fall down in a faint somewhere, but it could happen, I suppose," she replied. "The last I saw of him, his uncle had taken him in charge and was sending him back to his flat in a cab."

  "And that would be where?" the policeman asked.

  Curiouser and curiouser. "I'm not sure. We don't precisely move in the same social circles, you understand," she responded, and frowned. "Piccadilly? Or would that be—no, that's Doctor Greenway. I'm sure he must be in the West End somewhere. Doctor Clayton-Smythe is Sloa
ne Square—well, Mister Parkening isn't a doctor; I know all of the other doctors' addresses of course, but I'm afraid I can't tell you where Mister Parkening lives."

  Piccadilly probably wasn't where Parkening lived, but it was probably the right sort of area for him to be in. If something's wrong, I don't want to immediately deny that I know where he lives. Oh, dear, this is so difficult! How to avoid looking suspicious when I don't know what I might be suspected of!

  "Belgravia," the policeman supplied absently. "He's got a flat in Belgravia." He seemed to find Maya's responses perfectly reasonable; she detected a relaxation that hadn't been there a moment before.

  Oh, good. At least I'm not a suspect anymore!

  "Oh—that makes sense—so handy to his uncle." Maya smiled cheerfully. "Although I would never have guessed it; Simon Parkening doesn't strike me as the sort of gentleman for such an artistic neighborhood. It just goes to show how little I know about him, I suppose. Perhaps he has secret yearnings to act, or writes unpublished poetry! I don't suppose you can tell me what all this is about, can you, detective?"