He woke up spluttering and thrashing in light, but not sunlight. This was man-made. He could see windows across from him, the world outside black as pitch. It was night. Eliza was leaning over him, her hair rumpled, her linen suit stained with soot, but it didn’t matter. He’d made it back. Just next to her, similarly dishevelled, was Vania Pujari.
Then Wellington’s muscles stiffened, and his head throbbed with the most painful of migraines. He managed a moan which, he was most grateful, did not lead to retching. However, a good vomit might have made him feel better.
“Dear Lord,” Wellington finally uttered, “what happened to me?”
“A question for the ages, Agent Books,” came a mechanical voice.
Wellington looked around and realised he had been laid out across a boardroom table. He was in Maulik’s office, so it was hardly a surprise to see the director himself wheel into view. The woman to one side of him, however...
“You,” he gasped, sitting up and feeling about for a weapon of some kind.
Sophia del Morte, assassin and woman responsible for so much death and destruction, merely smiled. “A pleasure to see you again, as well.”
“Calm down, Welly,” Eliza said, taking hold of his hands. “She’s the one that saved you...well, at least saved me from having to shoot you.”
“What?” Wellington looked between the two women as if they had both run mad. “You were going to shoot me?”
“He doesn’t remember.” Sophia tilted his head and examined Wellington in a clinical fashion, most unexpected from a killer of her calibre. She then looked down at Maulik. “Sometimes that happens. It might be a blessing…”
A chill of fear ran over Wellington as he looked around the office. There were four agents, both English and Indian, present along with Lieutenant O’Neil. All of them, save for Eliza and Sophia, were watching him intently. “What—” he cleared his throat, “—what did I do?”
“That is what we are all trying to find out,” O’Neil said.
Was the clasp to his gun holster undone?
Eliza let out a long sigh. The fact that she had her back turned to the assassin was some kind of strange occurrence in itself. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“An electroporter!” Wellington blurted out. “Eliza, Maulik, the Ghost Rebellion have an electroporter!”
“Easy there, Books,” the director replied, slowly easing his wheelchair back. “We need to keep our wits about us.”
Wellington went to continue but then noticed Maulik was only one retreating. The other Ministry agents stood stock still. That was when he noticed they all held either Remington-Elliots or Bulldogs. Drawn. And primed.
“Wellington, darling, we know about the electroporter,” Eliza said, her tone an attempt to soothe him. It was not working. “What happened after that?”
“I recall the separatists, the Ghost Rebellion if you will, opening fire. I remember Agent Thorp doing the same. We were pinned down—Thorp, myself, and Agent Strickland. Thorp didn’t make it. Strickland and I were going to drive the Bug into the fray, try and reach a small squad pinned down by the rebels.” He paused as Eliza turned away to glare at O’Neil. The officer did not seem impressed in the slightest. “Then Strickland was shot, and then…” Wellington’s face contorted. His mind plummeted into an abyss. “Nothing.”
Eliza’s expression went from caring to cold and hard, as if he had done something wrong. “You did it again, Welly. You tapped into your particular skills again, but this time you lost control of it.”
“I lost…control?” He was hoping against hope this was some kind of test.
“You started attacking anyone near you,” O’Neil barked at him, causing him to nearly leap up from the table. “You took out the rebels, and then you opened fire on your own.”
“That will do, Lieutenant,” warned Maulik.
The officer’s Bulldog slipped out of his holster with a whisper of leather, still echoing in Wellington’s ears as O’Neil pulled back the hammer. “Some of those men were friends of mine.”
Eliza’s pistols were out just as the Ministry agents turned their weapons on O’Neil. “Holster that sidearm, mate.”
Vania remained with Wellington, her own Remington-Elliot drawn and ready with two compressors showing green.
“That will do, everyone!” Maulik snapped. He rolled his chair between Wellington and O’Neil. “Today’s events were a tragedy, to be sure, but Wellington’s condition not withstanding, we are all seeking justice for both this and Fort St Paul, now then…” He motioned to his Ministry agents, and their pistols lowered. “You too, Eliza.”
“He goes first.”
“Stand down, Agent Braun,” Maulik ordered gently. At least, it sounded gentle, but his intent was crystal clear.
Eliza’s pistol lowered with evident reluctance.
“Do not make this any worse for yourself,” Maulik said to O’Neil.
“On myself?” he asked, tightening the grip on his pistol.
“You see, while we have been holding this standoff of Military versus Ministry, the formidable Miss del Morte has slipped right next to you. If you so much as flinch, I believe she will cut you with the blade she now holds.”
“You will be dead before you hit the floor,” she warned in her usual charming manner.
Once O’Neil’s pistol retuned to his holster, Maulik let out a long breath. “So, Books, been keeping secrets, have you?”
“It’s complicated. Usually, I can keep these talents under control.” Wellington looked over to Eliza. “All it takes is a focal point.”
“Not today, love,” Eliza said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “You even turned on me.”
Sophia slipped her knife back into her sleeve as she spoke. “I had to use a knock-out dart I keep in my gauntlet.”
That was a bit shocking. “A knock-out dart? From you?” Wellington asked.
“When I need to move incognito, I must leave fewer corpses in my wake.”
“Speaking of which,” Maulik said, turning his chair to face the Italian assassin, “Miss del Morte, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
“If I may?” she asked, motioning to the satchel hanging across her hip.
“You’re amongst…well…” Maulik looked at Wellington and Eliza, then at his own agents, and continued with “…professional acquaintances.”
From the satchel came eight dossiers, all of them Wellington recognised as being from Usher on account of the raven seal seared into the leather. He slipped one of the folders out of the pile, and inspected its contents. Eliza did the same, a frown forming on her face.
“Elizabeth Case,” Wellington read aloud from another dossier. “Did we tangle with an Usher agent named Beth Case?”
“The name sounds familiar,” Eliza said, tapping her fingers on the folder.
“That’s because,” Sophia said, offering Maulik a small box, the last item in the satchel from the looks of it, “she was close to you. A colleague.”
Maulik opened the box and pulled out the familiar wallet bearing the crest of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.
“She was a double agent?” Vania whispered as if the mere idea of such a thing had never crossed her mind.
“And apparently, this black widow for Usher was using Bruges as her web,” Sophia stated.
“Hold on,” Maulik began, looking through the Ministry identification. “London Office received an æthermessage from her, stating that she had rendezvoused with Wellington and Eliza in Bruges. We immediately sent back in code that it had to be some elaborate operation to compromise her position.”
“Ah, you mean,” and Sophia pulled from her pocket a small piece of paper which she unfurled and read. “Have a care, cousin. We last heard Wellington and Eliza were enjoying their stay at Uncle Allan’s. A safe guess things at the Hume estate are booming.”
Eliza shrugged. “Fantastic code, that is. Even I don’t know what it means.”
“Allan Hume. One of the founder
s of the Indian National Congress,” Wellington said. “First meeting, 1855 in Bombay.”
“Now you know how I found you,” Sophia said, handing the message to Maulik.
“Lovely,” Maulik said. “As if this Ghost Rebellion was not enough to worry about, now we have to be on alert for double agents.”
Wellington pulled himself off the long table and, with Eliza offering support, he approached O’Neil. “You have no reason to trust me, but I implore you, sir. This Ghost Rebellion of yours now has access to an electroporter. It has its own limitations like an æthergate, but not the same risks. The only people who know about electroporters are myself, Miss Braun here, and those directly involved with them.”
O’Neil’s eyes narrowed. “When we met, you all were investigating Featherstone. He never mentioned to us anything called by that name.”
“But Featherstone was answering to Jekyll,” Wellington said, pointing to a chair at the head of the grand table. Eliza helped him over to it, and he found the seat indeed as comfortable as it looked. “There has to be a connection between Featherstone, Jekyll, the æthergate, and the electroporter.” He looked up at the officer. “It may seem difficult to grasp, but I am a victim in this as well. Please, help us with this investigation.”
Not a word was spoken for a few moments.
“If you even show a hint of turning on us,” O’Neil said, “I will end you with a bullet.”
“Charming notion to carry into the fray,” Wellington said with a tilt of his head, “which brings to light a more pressing matter. We have managed to contain the incident at Fort St Paul. Yet now we have an attack on the headquarters of the British military in the heart of Bombay?”
“Yes,” Maulik sighed, shaking his head. “It will be all the talk in the streets and across the headlines. Parliament and the House of Lords, and possibly the British people, will demand blood for blood.”
“So much for borrowed time,” Eliza said, standing at Wellington’s side, her eyes never leaving O’Neil. “What do we know about this Ghost Rebellion?”
Maulik nodded to his own agents, and a pair of them went to the director’s desk. That was when Wellington noticed the modest collection of case files. Vania also picked up a stack of dossiers, the one atop her pile he immediately recognised as what he was about to open before being interrupted by Agent Strickland.
Case #18840716INLD, the Lilac of Durga. This was when and where Director-then-Agent Maulik Smith had confronted Dr Henry Jekyll for the first time.
“I suppose great minds really do think alike,” Maulik said as he brought himself to the table. “While you were sound asleep, we were pulling any and all cases that could bring this Ghost Rebellion to light.”
Wellington looked over to O’Neil. “You said the Ghost Rebellion got its moniker from your men claiming the fighters were ‘ghosts’ refusing to rest until India is free.”
The lieutenant glowered at Wellington before finally relenting, joining the Ministry agents at the long table. “Yes, and we all saw Phani Talwar. I put a bullet in him six months ago. The body was never recovered. Missing, presumed dead.”
“Here are cases of missing rebels over the past few months,” Maulik said, patting the dossiers gently. “All these men were active in the rebellion against Her Majesty, and then they started disappearing, one by one. Either in situations such as Talwar’s, or just up and vanished. One disappearance, quite frankly, has kept my knickers in a twist ever since it happened.”
Vania pulled the file just underneath Maulik’s old case and opened it. “Wellington, Eliza, meet Nahush Kari, known separatist. Fought for the Fire of Shiva.”
“I’ve heard of that lot,” Eliza said. “The Fire of Shiva are radical, even by the standards of F.I. and Mohini’s Wish.”
“He was the first to disappear. Seven months ago and I’ve been investigating it all this time. Considering how active he was, it made no sense.”
Wellington’s throat tightened on looking at the photograph. “I saw him. Today.”
“You saw Nahush Kari at the attack on the Army & Navy Building?” Vania asked.
“I am certain of it. He was armed with a rather nasty piece of hardware that threw fire wherever he pleased.”
“It is a blessing that you’re here at all,” Maulik stated. “Kari is known for being thorough at whatever he does.” The director glanced across at O’Neil. “While he was at large, he took responsibility for several bombings. The last one particularly terrible. The Bangalore Club.”
“He bombed a gentlemen’s club? A civilian target?” asked Wellington.
“Enough explosives to raze it to the ground,” Maulik replied, “and he was hardly concerned with whatever retribution would fall upon his people or himself. Quite the showman, until seven months ago when he vanished.”
Eliza let out a long breath that sounded like she had been holding it for a while. “So what brings this separatist to the attention of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences?”
Vania dug deeper into Kari’s file. “We were investigating another rebel disappearance last month—three insurgent lieutenants went unaccounted for after a standoff with Free India. This photo was taken at the scene.” She placed a photograph of a warehouse ablaze, on-lookers crowded to one side of an empty street. She handed Eliza a magnifying glass. “Lower left, in the foreground.”
Eliza pressed closer into Wellington as they both looked at the image, the glass in her hand bringing out a detail easily missed by an untrained eye. “Well now,” she cooed, “hello again, Mr Kari.”
“I can see several points that match, but probability and certainty are not one and the same,” Wellington noted.
“How good is your probability, you think?” asked Maulik.
He looked up from the photo to the dark lenses of the director’s mask. “I’m thinking my assessment won’t change your mind.”
“It’s not just the face. Relative height to the others in the street. A blemish on the hand that just matches the pattern of a tattoo others in his order took when pledging themselves to the cause.” Maulik tapped gently on the photo. “And the man you saw today?”
Wellington studied the magnified image. Even blurry, the man’s eyes were unmistakable. “The resemblance is uncanny.”
“To go underground for this long, not so much as a manifesto or even a whisper in the streets that he was planning something bolder than the Bangalore Club, and then out for a stroll on the streets of Bombay?”
“No,” Eliza began. “Vania, after Kari, exactly when did people start disappearing?”
“About five months ago, give or take a few weeks.”
Eliza then asked O’Neil, “And when did you men claim to see these ghosts?”
“Maybe two, three months ago,” he replied.
She looked up to Wellington, and he knew Eliza’s thoughts before she shared them with everyone. “Kari wasn’t there by chance. He was supervising an operation. An extraction.”
Wellington nodded, then turned to O’Neil. “Featherstone must have opened a secret dialogue with Kari months ago, offered him æthergate technology. And why not? Perhaps if the odd experimental fails on you, it can be dismissed as the risks of modifying firearms. An æthergate? I would wager Featherstone wanted to avoid attention if something like that failed.”
“But now the Ghost Rebellion has an electroporter. An entirely different matter. Featherstone wouldn’t know about them. Jekyll would.” Eliza’s look was fixed and hard. The electroporter was still a sore subject with her. Placing her hands on her hips, she glanced at Wellington. “But why would Jekyll give the Ghost Rebellion an electroporter? The Seven discovered that was how he got around London with minimal detection. What does he gain from surrendering that sort of technology?”
“Jekyll is not an advocate for independence in India,” Sophia stated, making Wellington start slightly. She really could be silent as the grave. “He is more of an opportunist.”
Wellington’s eyes fell on Case #1884071
6INLD. He took it up and quickly glanced at the preliminary notes. “Maulik, when you tangled with Jekyll, it was at the Water Palace, correct?”
“Jal Mahal, yes. He was after the Lilac of Durga, a rare flower found only there. We were not certain as to why he was so desperate for that particular flora, but after witnessing first hand the science he was dabbling in, he must need it for his rather potent cocktails.”
Closing the file and sliding it next to the one on Kari, Wellington locked his gaze with Eliza’s. “Safe passage. Instead of risking life and limb getting to the Water Palace, he had offered the Ghost Rebellion an advantage against the English, an advantage that does not pose the same dangers as æthergate travel. In exchange, Kari gets him safely to the Water Palace.”
“So Featherstone intends to test æthergates on Indian rebels, Jekyll gets wind of it, and then manipulates all parties to grant him safe passage back to Jal Mahal,” Maulik concluded. “If the good doctor were not such a monster, I would applaud him for his ingenuity.”
“Sir,” Vania spoke up, “perhaps we should send a detail to Jal Mahal. A team of three should suffice, not to mention they will travel most quickly. They can scout the palace, or at the very least offer reconnaissance in case the Ghost Rebellion is already there.”
“I concur. You up for the assignment, Pujari?”
The young agent’s back straightened, and a glimmer of pride flickered across her features. “I am, sir.”
“Excellent. Take Agents Rivers and Sethi with you.” Maulik slipped out a pocket watch and checked the time. “Might be able to catch the last flight out of the aeroport, provided normal operations have resumed after today’s dust-up.”
“Sir,” the three agents replied in unison before leaving.
“So, this is what it has all led to?” Maulik said, glancing over the case files strewn across the table.
“As you said,” Sophia began, “quite the manipulator. It is his way.”
“And what is your way?” O’Neil asked.
The assassin gave the dashing officer a sidelong look, her smile surprisingly warm. “I’m sure you would enjoy finding out.”
The Ghost Rebellion Page 20
