The Jade Suit of Death (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist Book 2)

by Josh Reynolds

  That had been her mantra since childhood. The world had its rails and it could run along them, if it were properly encouraged by a dedicated hand. People as well as gardens. She stooped to examine the nasturtiums, and said, “You’re right, of course.”

  “I am?” Shepherd asked, visibly surprised.

  Sadie smiled, but didn’t look at him. “Yes, it is dangerous. But so am I. I have our Syrian friend on a tight leash, and he—it—serves me.” She rose to her feet. “It whispers to me, Albert. It told me about the thing that father refused to help Melion recover, even after he helped father capture the devil. Not a man for gratitude, my dear old pater. It told me where said thing was coming into the city, and what secrets are hidden within it.”

  “And then we stole it,” Shepherd said. Not without some bitterness, she noted. It galled him to play the thief, to hide and skulk. Shepherd was the sort of man who liked to wade in, fists flailing, all chin and trousers. “You still haven’t told me why we bothered.”

  “Because it was necessary, Albert. The vernal equinox is closing in on us, and father has called for a gathering of the Order at Wayebury. Oh, we’ll have a ceremony celebrating the power of the Ram, and then go home, like always, having achieved nothing. Just like every other vernal equinox, since my ancestor first put a sacrificial knife to the throat of a virgin lass.” Her eyes flashed, and her voice rose. “Well not this time,” she snarled. “I have worked too hard—sacrificed too much—to get to this point.”

  “Yes, but—”

  She held a finger to his lips. “Not. This. Time.” She smiled, her moment of anger forgotten. “Trust me, Albert. There are wonders and glories a-burgeoning, and we shall be well placed in the world to come. But…you must trust me.”

  He grabbed her hand between both of his. “I do,” he said fiercely. “God help me, I do.”

  “Good,” she said. She extricated her hand from his. “Now—Charles will figure out that I put him on the wrong track the moment he meets Wendy-Smythe. We need to cover our tracks while we have the time. You know what to do?”

  Shepherd hesitated. “I…yes. Yes,” he said.

  She patted his cheek. “Just do as I taught you, Albert. It is only a minor conjuring, after all. There are children who can do as much.” Her words stung him, as she’d intended. Shepherd’s rails were easier to travel than many.

  “Then let one of them do it, dash it,” he snapped.

  “If you keep whining, I might just as well,” Sadie said. “Now, hop to it. You’re wasting time. Charles is like a hound when he gets a scent. He’ll be off to Wendy-Smythe’s flat before the day is out. And that’ll be the perfect moment to do what needs doing.”

  “God, you’re a cold one,” Shepherd said, half-admiringly.

  Sadie paused. Then she said, “Merely a pragmatist, Albert,” she said softly. “What I do, I do for the good of us all. For the good of the Empire, and the world we will bestride like a colossus. And for the greater good, Charles St. Cyprian must die.”

  8.

  Limehouse, the East End, London

  “We’ve occupied Istanbul,” Keeble said, excitedly. He lowered the newspaper and peered at the other three men sitting at the table. “Did you hear me? The Sultan is exiling parliament to Malta, by George. That’ll show the bloody Turk!”

  “Didn’t it used to be Constantinople?” Whelpton said, pulling a pack of cards out of his coat and setting it on the table beside the lone electric lantern which provided light for their surroundings. “I never could figure out why they changed it.”

  “That’s nobody’s business but the Turks, I suppose,” Hayden said, snatching the cards out from under Whelpton’s fingers. He began to toss them out casually, creating a pile in front of each of the men sitting at the table. There were four of them, though there had been considerably more the previous day. The table itself stood behind a wall of cargo containers and crates that smelled of salt water, bilges and damp holds. The warehouse that the table and the aforementioned wall sat in occupied a section of the West India docks not currently in use, which made it the perfect hiding place for a load of stolen antiquities – as well as the men who’d done the stealing.

  Arbuthnot watched the cards and reached up to scratch his cheek, his thumbnail sinking into the grooves of the scars that marked his face, courtesy of a passing caress from an artillery strike at the Somme. The scars made it hard to shave, and painful, and his personal grooming had drifted slightly down from Eton standards. A lot of things he’d once taken for granted had drifted away from old familiar moorings into newer, darker waters.

  He’d come back from the war a good deal uglier in body and soul both, and lacking the sense of purpose which had compelled him to join up in the first place. Patriotism had been replaced by a sense of disenchantment, and his former nationalism replaced by a singular question—what sort of empire fed men into a meat grinder only to achieve the status quo? The answer was easy enough, and he’d found others who’d asked the same question. Brothers in all but blood, from every corner of the Empire. Men burnt brown by the border sun, who’d wasted years fighting to defend a hard-won kingdom whose rulers seemed determined to sell it off bit by bit, or gift it to foreign potentates and barbaric chieftains.

  Keeble folded the paper he’d been reading and stood. He was full of nervous energy, and had been since the night before, his fingers straying to the pistol holstered beneath his coat. It had been Keeble who’d gotten the lorry away, back to the meeting spot. When the others reached him, he’d been white and shaking. Apparently, the man who’d been guarding the crates had come perilously close to lopping off Keeble’s head with his knife, before a sharp turn had sent him flying out the back and into the street.

  Keeble had sworn that he’d seen something else in the back of the lorry, but a search had turned up nothing. He’d quieted down since. It wasn’t that they disbelieved him, in particular. They’d all seen much in the service of the Order of the Cosmic Ram. Unlike Keeble, they simply knew better than to talk about it.

  “What do you suppose is in there?”

  Arbuthnot turned to see Keeble giving the crate they’d gone to so much trouble to steal a good kick. He resisted the urge to give Keeble a thump in reply. “Nothing you should be kicking, is what it is,” he growled.

  “Whatever it is, it better be worth the men we lost trying to get it,” Whelpton grunted.

  “Shepherd said it was,” Keeble said, still snooping around the box.

  Arbuthnot lit a cigarette and bent the edges of his cards up. The pasteboard was worn thin, and it was peeling. Whelpton’s cards were in worse shape than Whelpton, who periodically coughed into a rag and looked like death warmed over. He’d caught a bug in some godforsaken part of Africa, and it was eating him away from the inside. As long as he kept the rag over his mouth and let someone else deal the cards, Arbuthnot didn’t begrudge him a bit of mucus. Whelpton coughed again and said, “Shepherd says a lot of things. He’s the one who said that damned monkey of Melion’s wouldn’t give us any trouble.” He made a face. “Little yellow bastard will run, he says. Run right at us, he meant.” Whelpton shuddered and hunched forward, wheezing, “What sort of Chinee does that?”

  “He was a Gurkha, and I wouldn’t touch that box,” Hayden said, as he dealt a round of cards to the others at the table. Hayden was an old hand at this sort of business, Arbuthnot recalled. He’d spent some time in the Orient, spear-carrying for one petty warlord or the other, before the War had brought him home to Blighty, and the Order had seen fit to employ his talents for the good of the Empire. “Can’t trust heathen muck, lads. Take it from one who knows. Whatever is in there is the devil’s business.”

  Keeble laughed. “I doubt he minds us taking a peek,” he said, as he hefted a pry bar. “What say, lads? How about we see what we went to all that trouble for?”

  “No,” Hayden said.

  “No,” Arbuthnot echoed.

  “N—no,” Whelpton hacked.

  “Too lat
e,” Keeble said, jamming the pry bar between the lid and side of the crate.

  “Keeble, get away from the damn crate,” Arbuthnot barked. “We were told not to touch it, other than to bring it in here. Go play with the other boxes we brought off of the truck if you want to loot something.”

  “What, the bloody pottery and spice jars? No, I want to see what’s in here,” Keeble said. He grunted and nails popped. “What’s so important that the soldiers of the Order of the Cosmic Ram were sent out to steal it, eh?”

  “A question said soldiers don’t ask, not if they’re smart,” Arbuthnot said. He shoved his chair back and stood. “We already bungled the snatch. Let’s not mess up any further, shall we? Herself will be mad enough as it is.” He strode over and made to snatch the pry bar out of Keeble’s hands. Keeble resisted, and in the ensuing struggle, the lid of the crate popped loose and slid off.

  Both Keeble and Arbuthnot jumped back, the former with an oath that echoed through the warehouse, as what lay within was revealed. Hayden and Whelpton stood, but Arbuthnot ignored them. “Is that…jade?” he said, half to himself. The thing was roughly man shaped, and a tall one at that, but its body was hidden in a shroud made from carefully shaped squares of jade, the likes of which Arbuthnot had never seen.

  “It’s a Chinee burial suit,” Hayden said, softly. “Only ever seen one, once before, in Mancheng. Whoever he was, he was important. Those things were one to a customer.”

  Arbuthnot peered more closely at it. The plaques of jade had been joined by means of wire, threaded through small holes drilled into the corners of each. The wire itself looked to be made of gold, and his mouth went dry as he considered its worth, to the right buyers. Keeble must have had the same thought, because he reached out to touch the thing. His hand paused, just above the torso of the thing in jade. “I say, do you hear that?” he whispered.

  “Hear what?” Arbuthnot said.

  “It’s—I don’t know—it’s like teeth grinding.” Keeble’s eyes widened. “It’s like something snapping its teeth together, like a dog. Can’t you hear it?” He looked down at the thing in jade and his face paled. “It’s—I think it’s coming from whatever is in there.” He reached towards the jade, as if to pull the suit open.

  Arbuthnot was about to answer, when he heard something. Not the sound Keeble had heard, but something else. Something like…hooves, he thought. He was reminded of a time in France, when a goat had gotten on the top of a dug out and traipsed back and forth across the corrugated metal. It was the same sort of sound.

  He looked at the others. They’d heard it as well. Hayden, his pistol drawn, pointed upwards silently. He heard the clatter of jade squares as Keeble began to pull the burial suit open. The golden wire snapped. Keeble made a sudden sound, a whining gulping noise that Arbuthnot had never heard before. Keeble staggered back, bumping into Arbuthnot. Arbuthnot looked down, into the crate, wondering what had startled Keeble so, when something hairy and rank, with eyes like two simmering coals, rose up to meet him.

  It was over before Arbuthnot could scream.

  Edwardes Square, Kensington, London

  St. Cyprian tapped the buzzer again. He turned away from the door and looked around. Edwardes Square was quiet, for Kensington, and he could see why a fellow like Wendy-Smythe might seek shelter in its contented bower. Not that he knew who Wendy-Smythe was, but he could make a general guess as to the sort of man that the Order of the Cosmic Ram might be interested in.

  London was lousy with occultists of varying degrees of knowledge, dedication and erudition. In the wake of the war, men and women sought some degree of understanding of the horrors that had been unleashed. Many found it in organizations like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the various Theosophical societies that proliferated the city like mushrooms on damp wood. Then, there were those who were attracted to more unsettling organizations like the Order of the Cosmic Ram, the Gorgon Society or the Cult of the Horrible. If Wendy-Smythe were one of the latter, then there was every likelihood that he was a rotter of the first order, admitted or otherwise.

  Even as the thought occurred to him, he felt a familiar sensation—he was being observed. He looked away from the door, but saw no obvious watchers. The windows of the nearby flats were curtained and closed, or open but empty of life. He still felt the tell-tale weight of an unknown gaze, however, and the nape of his neck prickled. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been spied upon by sorcerous means. He gestured covertly, warding himself from observation by spirits, scryers and shades.

  The door opened, and he turned. A face glared at him with the sort of heavy-lidded disdain only a servant of long standing and sure of his place in the downstairs food-chain could manage. The owner of the face looked him up and down. “Tradesmen around the back, sir,” the servant murmured, before St. Cyprian could speak.

  St. Cyprian looked down at his clothes and then back up. “I’ll have you know that this suit came from Gieves and Hawkes,” he said, unable to prevent a hint of indignation from creeping into his voice.

  “I am certain, sir, but you appear to have neglected its cleaning after procuring it from the alleyway at the back of the shop,” the servant said, popping his lips snootily on the word ‘shop’. St. Cyprian looked down again. There was a speck of blood on his shirt cuff, and his knuckles were red, from the brief sparring match in Mayfair. For a moment, he wished Gallowglass were with him. But he’d sent her to Limehouse to see if she could track down the rest of the gang that had been responsible for the theft of Melion’s property. He sighed and said, “Be a good fellow and tell your employer that the Royal Occultist has come calling, would you?”

  The man sniffed, stepped back, and closed the door. St. Cyprian stared at the door for a moment, and then began to scrape the blood off of his cuff with his thumbnail. The shirt was ruined, of course, and his heart gave a tiny lurch. He brightened a moment later. He’d have to buy a new one. The thought filled him with a certain amount of glee.

  He wiped the smile from his face as the door opened again. “Mr. Wendy-Smythe will see you in the library, sir,” the servant said. He led St. Cyprian into and through the smallish flat, his shoulders and back as stiff as boards. The flat wasn’t much to look at, but it was stuffed to the lintels with oddities and curios. Patently fake native fetish masks and framed, equally fraudulent parchments lined the walls. Somewhere, incense was burning, and the wooden floors were covered by rugs of every hue, make and design.

  St. Cyprian was led into a large room—likely the largest in the flat—which had been made over into what he could only call a poor man’s version of his own sitting room. A large fireplace occupied one wall, and high bookshelves covered the others, all save the wall opposite the fireplace, which was taken up by a large window which overlooked the street. A small, round shape stood before the window, looking out, pudgy hands clasped behind his back.

  St. Cyprian paused in the door, taking in the spectacle of Philip Wendy-Smythe. He wore an ill-fitting wool suit and a bright crimson fez was perched at a ridiculous angle on his head. Amulets and talismans purchased from back-alley market stalls rattled around his thick neck, and his plump fingers were heavy with tarnished rings. He realized, as he examined the little man, that he might rather have gotten the wrong end of the stick. He’d assumed that the Order had dispensed with Wendy-Smythe because he, like the unlamented Gladstone, had been far more of a nutter than an order of ram-worshipping militants wanted to deal with. But what if it were the other way around? Before he could examine the theory, Wendy-Smythe cleared his throat.

  “At last,” he said, drawing the syllables out like a pantomime sage. He turned. “At last we meet, Queen’s Conjurer,” he continued portentously. He flung out a hand in a ridiculous gesture. “Now, shall we test each other’s magics?”

  “I was rather hoping for a cuppa, actually,” St. Cyprian said.

  “What?” Wendy-Smythe asked.

  “Tea? Nothing fancy, no milk, one sugar,” St. Cyprian
said, crossing to one of the bookshelves. He traced the spines with a finger as he took note of the titles.

  “Tea?” Wendy-Smythe repeated. His lip trembled, and St. Cyprian wondered if he were going to cry. He hoped not. “But—but I thought you’d come to challenge me!”

  “Why in the name of God would I do that?”

  “Because of my secret knowledge!” Wendy-Smythe said.

  “And what secret knowledge would that be?” St. Cyprian asked, curious.

  “The hidden mysteries of Lemuria and ancient Khem,” Wendy-Smythe said, hesitantly.

  “Oh, those mysteries.” He looked back at the books on the shelves. “Is that a first edition Waite?”

  “I—wait—what?”

  “By Gad, look at this—you must have a copy of every book Eliphas Levi wrote, and in the original French,” St. Cyprian said. “Is that a first edition of Des Moeurs et des Doctrines du Rationalisme en France?”

  “Yes?” Wendy-Smythe said, in obvious confusion. “1839, I think.”

  “And what are your thoughts on the Counter-Enlightenment, Mr. Wendy-Smythe?” St. Cyprian asked. He gestured to the book. “Never mind. May I?”

  Wendy-Smythe nodded, visibly confused. St. Cyprian made to pull the book down, but paused. “Oh my word, is that a copy of Le Sorciere de Meudon? And with the original dust jacket? Fancy that,” he said. He looked at Wendy-Smythe. “You are quite the connoisseur of the macabre, Mr. Wendy-Smythe.” The library was that of an amateur occultist, at best, unless the really good books were hidden somewhere. It was the sort of collection someone who only had the vaguest notion of what was what might put together. Dashed impressive, if you weren’t knee-deep in unspeakable tomes and Atlantean grimoires.

  “Thank you?” Wendy-Smythe blinked at him, looking for all the world like a man who’d been sucker-punched.