“Melion isn’t a monster—not yet,” Fleece grunted. He jerked his hand from her grip. “He has the curse under control, if only just. But that thing is another matter entirely. It’s too dangerous to be allowed to get loose!” He began to rise from his chair.
“And it won’t, father. Not until I decide the time is right,” Sadie said.
Fleece stared at her. “What?” He paled. “Then you’re the one who stole the thing?”
“Well who else did you think had done it? Albert?”
“I am standing right here, Sadie,” Shepherd protested.
“And doing a fine job of it, yes, Albert.” She looked at her father. “Of course I stole it, father. It was too dangerous to leave in Melion’s hands, as you yourself said. But come the vernal equinox, I will have control over it—Baphomet has shown me certain antediluvian rites which will allow me to control the unfortunate creature, as the sorcerers of Averoigne were said to do. A bit of blood and bother, and the job’s a good one, as the servants say.” She smiled. “Think of it, father…think of what we could do with such a creature. Why, with a monster like that, we could change the course of history.”
“Change it into what?” Fleece asked. “The creature is nothing less than a plague made flesh. Such beasts are like fires, waiting to be stirred to life. It will kill anything that crosses its path, or worse, infect them with its abominable…curse…” He blinked. “Oh. Oh lord.”
Sadie’s smile widened and she nodded. “We’d have to be careful, of course. Even in this decadent age, there are those who know how to deal with such creatures. Charles, for one. Melion, for another. But, well, they’ll soon be out of our hair, and good riddance. After that, well, there are a number of organizations our members have infiltrated, which will need to be dismantled and made fit for purpose—the Ministry of Esoteric Observation, the Westenra Fund, Special Branch, the Black Brotherhood, the Cult of the Horrible, the Gorgon Society…all of them could use a thorough house-cleaning, I think. Shake out all the nasty Labour voters and Bolsheviks, and make proper use of their resources. The beast—and those it leaves in its wake—will be our scouring fire, burning England clean of impurities.”
Fleece stared at her. “What do you mean, out of our hair?” He rose to his feet and grabbed her arms. “What have you done, girl?”
Sadie wriggled out of his grip. “What had to be done, father. You might be content to muddle through the next century, but I am not. The world is different now. The old empires are dying a death of increments, and I will not have it. You taught me that the British Empire was to be preserved at all costs, well, that’s what I intend to do. Even if I must take an active hand to do it. Even if I must make use of the devil’s own tools.” She slipped off the desk and stepped around it, avoiding her father’s grasping hands.
“This—this is madness,” he said. “I never taught you this.” His eyes narrowed. “The demon—it’s whispered its nonsense to you, and turned your head about. You can’t listen to it, Sadie—it lies…”
“Oh father, you know as well as I do that demons can’t lie. They merely choose which truth to tell.” Sadie tugged on her locket and stepped back. “And the truth Baphomet told me was one of horror stretching across eons—of pyramids of gray metal and light rising from the blasted earth, housing millions, and of vast, living shapes which wait and watch in the eternal dark for the lights to fade so that they might consume mankind’s redoubts one after the next. A future your inaction will all but guarantee.”
Fleece froze. The description was familiar, and horribly so. He’d heard such things described once before, and in greater detail by a man named Dorr. Dorr had brought them all together—Glossop, Flamel, Melion, even that fool, Eddowes—and told them of the world to come. Of the Watchers in the Dark, and mankind’s final extinguishment at their hands. How he knew these things, he’d never said, and Fleece, at least, had never asked. Dorr had always been, for him, if not a rival, then someone to be wary of.
But Dorr had shown them another future, as well—a future that could not be allowed to come to pass. A future that Fleece had dedicated himself to preventing, even if it meant mankind must dwindle to nothing in stifling pyramids of metal. He reached towards the telephone on his desk. He had to warn Melion; for all that they had had a falling out, the man was still a friend. “You don’t understand…” he began.
“I understand perfectly, father. You and Melion, and yes, those others—Baphomet named them all, and they will be first against the wall, when Zhang Su is under my control.” Her eyes burned with anger. “You should have told me, father. But I forgive you. And that’s why I’m telling you all of this now…I’m giving you a chance.”
“A chance to what—join you in your madness? What would your mother say, I wonder?” he said. “I’m going to warn William, before whatever foolishness you’ve set in motion ruins everything.” He looked up at her, and froze.
Sadie held a gun in her hand, and it was aimed at him. Her face was set, and seemed as stiff and unyielding as stone. “If you don’t take your hand off of that phone, you can ask her yourself, father,” she said softly.
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he blustered. He wanted to believe that, but Sadie had never lacked for will, when she thought she was in the right. He had raised her to be steel, and she had taken his lessons to heart. Pride warred with fear for a moment.
“Sadie…” Shepherd began.
“Do be quiet, Albert. I’m having a conversation with father. Leave the phone, father.” Her eyes softened. She gestured to the painting of Hopwood Fleece. “We can display the same mettle he did, when he roused the storm to send the Great Armada to the bottom of the sea. If only we but seize our chance. If you simply take your hand from the phone.”
Fleece did not. He stared down the barrel of the pistol, and then glanced up at the painting of his ancestor. He came to his decision.
“Father,” Sadie hissed. Her eyes were no longer soft.
“I’m sorry,” Fleece said. He lifted the phone.
Soho, the West End, London
“Dying? But, you look—?” St. Cyprian began, shocked.
“Healthy?” Melion said. “You can thank Ghale for that. That tea of his—brewed from the blossoms of the mariphasa, a flower known to grow only in the higher altitudes of Tibet—has kept me seeming hale and hearty. But it’s only a seeming. A mask, hiding the sickness beneath.” Melion’s hands began to tremble, and he sank down into his chair. “I had hoped that the body of Zhang Su might hold some answers. During my studies, I came to suspect that that ancient philosopher and I suffered from the same illness. I thought that by studying his remains, I might determine a cure of some sort.”
“Why didn’t you come to me, William?” St. Cyprian asked. The fire in the fireplace crackled, as more soot and ash tumbled into it from above.
“And said what, Charles? No, I did what I thought best. I have ever relied on myself.” He looked up, his jaw set. “I will not be conquered by my own body. I will not!”
“But you had no trouble accepting help from the Order of the Cosmic Ram,” St. Cyprian said pointedly. “Was that what the argument with Fleece was about?”
“Fleece refused to help me recover the remains of Zhang Su. He said it was too dangerous—that I had no idea what sort of dark plague I might unleash on England.” Melion waved a hand irritably. “He refused to pay me what he owed me—said letting me talk to that foul spirit I had wrangled for him was payment enough.” He pounded a fist on his chair. “I needed that money, blast it! It cost a small fortune to uncover that hidden tomb, and extricate the remains from China without alerting the wrong sort of person.”
“But that obviously didn’t deter you,” St. Cyprian said.
Melion sniffed. “Wiser heads prevailed. That daughter of Fleece’s, the one you used to gad about with, she sent a man ’round with the money. Very helpful, that girl.”
St. Cyprian froze. “Sadie helped you?” he asked quickly. “Did she know what yo
u intended the money for?”
“She didn’t ask,” Melion said, with a shrug. “Her father knew, though. He knew, and when he learned what I was bringing back, he set out to stop me. That black-hearted swine.” Melion was about to continue in that vein when the telephone sitting on the occasional table near one of the windows jangled. Melion shot a look at St. Cyprian and stood. He snatched up the receiver.
“Yes, I—Fleece?” He looked at St. Cyprian. “Speak of the Devil,” he said. He turned his attention back to the telephone. St. Cyprian could hear a tinny voice crackling loudly on the other end of the line. “Hermes, what is it? What are you saying? I can’t—” A sharp sound echoed out of the receiver, and Melion jerked back, his expression one of shock. “Hermes? Fleece?” He looked at St. Cyprian. “I say, I think we were cut off.”
The fireplace erupted in a explosion of flame and soot as something horrible and hairy dropped down into it and sprang out, hooves trip-trapping across the burning logs. Baphomet sprang towards Melion with a savage bleat, claws spread, fire trailing from its horns. Gallowglass reacted first, leaping forward and smashing her elbow into the demon before it could complete its lunge and driving it to the floor. Baphomet shrilled and batted at her. Gallowglass jerked back as the demon’s claws tore a scatter of buttons from the front of her coat. She stumbled and fell onto her rear.
Baphomet shrugged up onto all fours. A sound like a tea kettle boiling over slithered from its gaping, toothy maw and it scrambled towards her, its yellow eyes alight with recognition. Gallowglass stuffed her hand in her coat pocket, going for her knife, St. Cyprian hoped.
While the demon was occupied by his assistant, he leapt over the couch and lunged for his greatcoat. He’d prepared himself before coming out, suspecting that where one attempt at demonic assassination had been made another was sure to follow. He extricated a palm sized prayer stone, engraved with dozens of delicate lines of Chaldean cuneiform script. Great ones for demonology, the Assyrians.
Even as he retrieved the stone, he saw Melion, who’d been frozen in shock, erupt from his chair like a stone from a trebuchet. Melion hooked Baphomet’s gangly arm before the demon could take a swipe at Gallowglass, who had retrieved her balisong and flicked it open with a quick gesture. “Ghale,” Melion bellowed, as he fought to hold the demon.
Gallowglass had been lucky last time, St. Cyprian knew. The demon had been surprised by the knife, and the proximity of that particular stretch of the Thames had weakened it even further. But now they were far from sacred waters and it knew she was armed. Baphomet hurled Melion to the ground, and slashed at Gallowglass with its horns. The carpet smoldered beneath its feet where the fire logs had rolled.
Ghale charged into the sitting room in response to Melion’s call, kukri knife held low. If the sight of the demon gave him pause, he didn’t show it. Instead he lowered his head and made for the beast. But Baphomet was quicker than its awkward shape suggested, and it twisted around, catching him by the throat. He gagged and chopped futilely at the demon’s arm. It hefted him as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour and tossed him up against the ceiling hard enough to crack the plaster. Ghale fell to the floor in a cloud of dust. Melion, still holding onto the demon’s other arm, roared and drove a meaty fist into the creature’s jaw. Baphomet grunted and turned to look down at him. Acidic drool dripped from its lips as it gently took his head in its hand and bounced the back of skull off of the floor. Melion slumped with a groan.
“Come on then, come get a taste,” Gallowglass barked, making a ‘come hither’ gesture with her free hand. Baphomet held a handful of Melion’s dressing gown, but it let the dazed occultist fall and grinned at the invitation. It spoke, and the air shuddered. The glass of the windows blued as if exposed to a great heat and cracks sprouted on their surfaces, spreading outward from a central point. The air was filled with the stink of spoiled meat, and Gallowglass covered her mouth and nose with a sleeve. Baphomet barreled forward and swept her up. Before she could plunge her knife into it, the demon sent her flying into a bookshelf, hard enough to cause the shelf itself to crack and fall forward.
St. Cyprian felt his heart seize in his chest, and then he was moving forward, anger lending him speed. He began to speak with machine-gun like rapidity, the ancient syllables tearing their way from his lips to ripple through the air. The prayer had been old when Babylon was young, and it hurt his throat to say, but he had seen Carnacki employ it once, in a similar situation, and he could but hope that it would prove as effective for him as it had his mentor. He held up the prayer stone, and his voice grew louder. Baphomet turned towards him, and spoke again.
St. Cyprian felt a wash of stinking heat roll over him. The stone grew hot in his hand, and he spoke faster. Baphomet flinched back, clawing at the air about it, as if it were afflicted with stinging flies. Even as he completed the prayer, Baphomet had turned and was scrambling back up the chimney with a boneless liquidity that caused his stomach to churn, leaving behind only a foul smell. The stone in his hand began to cool and he dropped it as he immediately went to the fallen bookcase and heaved it up.
Gallowglass looked up at him. “What took you so long?”
“I’m sorry, I had a demon to send packing,” he said, as she scrambled out from under the bookcase. She didn’t appear hurt, aside from a bruise forming on her cheek. Still, she was favoring her side, where she’d been slashed the night before.
“Where’d it go?” she asked, knife at the ready.
“Back the way it came,” he said. He turned. Ghale was helping Melion into his chair. “It’s time to end this, I think. Fleece knows more than he’s telling, and this time I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
“When do we leave?” Gallowglass said.
“We don’t,” he said. “You’re staying with William. There’s no guarantee that our cloven-footed friend won’t be back, and surlier than before.” He scooped up the prayer stone and tossed it to her. “I’ll talk to Fleece alone. Even if he’s not behind this, it’s clear that he knows something about it. Why else would he call, just before Baphomet’s attack?”
“Charles, I—I’m sorry,” Melion coughed, as Ghale patted his back. His dressing gown had come open, exposing one shoulder, and St. Cyprian saw ragged scars there. “If I’d had any idea that this was going to happen, I never would have involved you.”
“It’s not your fault, William. And, the way this is going, I think we would have become involved one way or another. This Royal Occultist business is a bit of a sticky wicket at times.” St. Cyprian smiled sadly. “Can’t have these secret society chappies thinking they can run roughshod over the Queen’s Conjurer, and summon demons and elementals and what not and sic ’em on His Majesty’s subjects, what?” He grabbed Melion’s shoulder. The other man winced. “You might have brought us into this William, but don’t blame yourself too much. If they want a fight, I’m obliged to give them one.” His smile faded.
“Even if I’d really rather not.”
15.
Mayfair, City of Westminster, London
The door of Fleece’s home wasn’t locked when St. Cyprian arrived. That alone would have been enough to set alarm bells to ringing in his head, but when no one responded to his call, he knew at once that something was amiss. His hand found his coat pocket, where the blunt shape of his Webley Bulldog rested. He’d reluctantly retrieved the revolver from the glove compartment of the Crossley, where it normally rested. There was no telling what awaited him in his confrontation with Fleece, but having a weapon couldn’t hurt.
Gallowglass hadn’t been happy about being left behind, but she hadn’t argued. She knew as well as he that it was entirely likely that whoever was behind the theft was tying up loose ends. The thieves were dead, and attempts had been made on he and Gallowglass’ lives; Melion was the last thread to be pulled. And his prayer, effective as it had been, had only been a momentary impediment to the demon. If Fleece were pulling its strings, or knew who was, then St. Cyprian only had a
short window in which to bring things to an end before the demon returned from wherever it had fled.
As he climbed the stairs, alert for any noise or attack, he let all that they had learned turn over in his mind. The pieces, such as they were, were falling into place. Wendy-Smythe had been a distraction thrown across his trail by design and circumstance. He’d had the right scent all along, but had allowed himself to be led off the path out of—what?—some ragged shred of nostalgic loyalty to old acquaintances?
St. Cyprian twitched his chin in annoyance. Nervousness as well, perhaps. He didn’t want the fight that was shaping up before him. The Order of the Cosmic Ram was old and powerful in its way, with members in the Yard, Whitehall and even the Royal Family, if rumors were to believed. It was a long, tough thread woven through the tapestry of British history, even as the office of the Royal Occultist was. A thread which was imperialistic, ruthless and not at all worried about any collateral damage which might accrue.
If the Order were making a move of some sort, he would have no choice but to meet them head on. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the sort of conflict one survived. Then, few, if any, Royal Occultists lived to collect a pension.
There were other questions that needed to be addressed, as well—what was so important about the body of a long-dead Chinese sage? And what sort of illness did Melion have that he needed to go digging around in tombs for a solution? He thought of the scars he’d seen on Melion’s shoulder, and felt a nagging sense of unease. Something about those wounds disturbed him, but he couldn’t say why.
When he reached Fleece’s study, the door was ajar. He pushed it open with his foot, and stuffed his hand into his coat pocket, ready to snatch out his pistol if necessary. The study was as he remembered it, save for the body on the floor behind the desk, head resting in a wine dark puddle. He’d seen enough dead men in the war to know one on sight, even without the obvious and quite evident indicators. He moved quickly to the new addition, and as he crouched there beside it, his heart sank. He recognized the features of the corpse, despite the slackness produced by death, and the bullet hole occupying the space between the now glazed eyes. He rocked back on his heels. “Well, that’s torn it,” he muttered.
The Jade Suit of Death (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist Book 2) Page 14
