by P. N. Elrod
“If it had, you’d be dead by now.”
“Why not yourself?”
“They need me to be able to come through. None safer from them than I.”
When Brook had removed lantern far enough down the hall, she took Fingate’s trembling hand and guided him toward the chair. The room was perilously black, her eyes creating phantom shadows where the mirrors stood. Or were they truly imagined?
“Are there more of those creatures in the mirrors?”
“They’re beyond them, not in them—there’s a world of the damned things. They bring them through, but with care. They pick only young ones, train them.”
She kept her voice calm, the same as she would for a Reading interview, but the possibility of more such things running loose made her blood run cold. “Who does? Who might ‘they’ be?”
“Who might you be?” he returned.
“My name is Pendlebury and I serve in Her Majesty’s Psychic Service. I thought I might break some mirrors. Any objection?”
“Er—not at all. But it will take time, whereas killing me would only take an instant and put an end to the whole issue.”
“I’m going to make noise and there will be flying glass. Keep your eyes closed. You too, Fingate. Ready?”
Alex inched her way around the creature’s body, slipping once on what she presumed to be blood, and felt for the mirror next in line on that wall. She put the gun muzzle between the bars and fired, the flash blinding, the sound making her ears ring.
Would that light and the noise bring more of the beasts?
The curtains must have been closed for a reason; she methodically made a full circuit and draped the things back again. Then one by one she returned the same way, shooting through the velvet. She reloaded twice, and a third time when the work was done. Her ears hurt and the pale pungent smoke clogged the air, making her cough.
Alex had a sudden urge to see the destruction, but held it in check. She felt her way toward the door.
“All done, Mr. Brook.”
He did not reply.
The lantern was well down the hall, and Brook wasn’t with it. His walking stick was propped against the bricks.
Not good.
She hurried forward, calling his name. Loudly. If the row in the mirror room hadn’t brought anyone, then neither would shouting.
What had drawn him away?
Had another of those beasts taken him silently from behind?
She opened her senses again. Brook’s emotional spoor hung lightly in the area by the lantern. He’d been alert and worried, but nothing problematic lingered. She’d have to trust that he’d left for a good reason and would catch them up. Her responsibility now was to get Benedict and Fingate to safety. She took the lantern.
Fingate had defeated the last lock and was helping the prisoner from the chair. The man was stiff and unsteady, but willing. This time he had no objections to light.
“Brave girl, taking on eighty-four years of bad luck,” said Benedict. He staggered and Fingate supported him. Their reflections wavered in the glittering glass shards scattered wide over the floor.
She took a quick look at the dead beast. It was different from the one she’d killed earlier, far larger and naked, its rough flesh gray in the faint light. However, it was identical in regard to being a hole in the air. She sensed no emotional or psychical trace from it.
Her one instinct had been to kill the thing on sight. Granted, when faced with something so monstrous that was a normal reaction, but was it not more normal to flee in terror? That hadn’t happened earlier with the flying squad. They’d gone after it like a pack of hounds trying to bring down a bear. None had hesitated.
“Can more of those creatures come through?” she asked.
“This gate’s closed for now,” said Benedict. “It will set them back; they won’t be pleased with you. If you’d just shoot me it would end things for them.”
“I’d rather shoot them.”
Benedict paused his progress, smiling. “Oh! I like you! What an excellent idea.”
His manner was all too similar to Sybil’s. Would he start babbling strange predictions, too?
She helped get him into the hall, going back the way they’d come. “Who are they, Benedict? The men behind this? Have you names?”
“Only what I call ’em, which is not fit for a lady’s ears. You think a carpenter gives his name away to his box of tools? I’m an instrument they use.” His legs were stiff and dragged. “Ohhh, pins and needles, needles and pins, ’tis a happy man that grins.”
“They’ve not taken good care of you.” She took the walking stick as they passed and gave it to Benedict. Had Brook known they’d need it? Where the devil was he?
“The level of service in this establishment has dropped considerably in the last month. Maybe they found another me.”
“Another Seer?”
“I’m not a Seer. I’m a Conduit.”
“Conduit, then.” Whatever that might be. “Like you?”
“No, silly girl, another me. There must be dozens of us out there. Poor fellows.”
Fingate glanced uneasily at the man, then asked, “Where’s Mr. Brook?”
“I don’t know. We’re on our own. Let’s go back to the opium room. I’ve an idea. Benedict, what are those beasts? How many are there?”
“That’s a good question. A positively gargantuan question. If there’s dozens of me running about then there could be hundreds of them.”
Dealing with mad people was not a topic covered in her Service training. It seemed to call for constant improvisation for half-understood subjects. “How many have been brought through in that room?”
“I couldn’t say. They’d render me asleep for it. Otherwise I’d scream a lot and they didn’t like that.”
“The beasts or your captors?”
“Both, I expect.”
“How many times were you rendered asleep?”
“Every night, of course. A man needs his rest. Whether they put me in the chair every night, I don’t know. Whether they brought small ones through every time, I don’t know. It’s a bit like fishing, but you want a tiddler, not a monster.”
“What are they called?”
“Ask me something I do know! And ask later, I’m bloody tired. I should be in bed. A lovely dreamless bed. With a nice cup of cocoa. Hallo, there’s an odd smell. Who’s burning rope?”
The inhabitants of the opium chamber were not disturbed by their second intrusion. A man smoking from a water pipe seemed amused, but only in a distant way.
Just as well.
“That one, Fingate.” She marked out a likely fellow who’d fully succumbed to the narcotic. He’d slipped from a bench to the floor, eyes closed, mouth slack.
“What about him, my lady?”
“Get his clothes off. Mr. Benedict can’t go about in just a robe and slippers.”
Undressing an unconscious man proved to be a two-person job. She attacked the buttons; Fingate did the lifting and pulling. Benedict balked at removing his dressing gown in front of a female, and she had to promise not to look while he changed.
Though evening clothes often had the extraordinary effect of improving the looks of any man whatever his state or station, Benedict’s transformation was not entirely convincing. His tangled hair and untrimmed beard set him apart from the mob. Fingate found a discarded hat that almost fit, and Alex filched a white silk scarf from its oblivious owner along with a half mask. When they’d finished, Benedict was as anonymous as they could make him, given the circumstances.
She was wobbly-headed from the hemp smoke and glad to quit the place, but halted short in the hall: the drumming had stopped. It seemed unlikely the revelry had ended. Out east, once such festivals got under way, it could be days before the celebrants yielded to exhausted satiation.
Alex held the reticule close, her other hand on the Webley inside. Benedict was steadier on his feet, but winded from the unaccustomed exertion, leaning on Fingate.
> A troupe of servants with their arms full of empty wine bottles blocked the way out. Alex and the others were obliged to wedge against the wall to avoid them. As the men pushed past, a sudden brutal scrambling took place. Her reticule was torn from her hands, and two men seized her arms.
She instantly launched against them, kicking out as Master Shan had taught. Her skirts were a hindrance, but she caught one with a heel and he released his grip, cursing. Alex ducked and drove for a knuckle strike to paralyze the other man’s arm, but he twisted and dodged, still hanging on. Two more men grabbed her, and she was suddenly smothering as they whipped a serving towel around her head. Blinded and short of breath from the damned corset, they easily pressed her face-first to the floor and tied her hands behind her. She kicked until they tied her legs as well.
“There now,” said a not unkindly voice she did not know. “Ye’ve been rumbled. Take it like a lady.”
Alex heard the sounds of the others struggling, but Fingate and Benedict had no chance against such numbers.
“Up with ’em,” said the man in charge, and she found herself carried ignominiously along like a roll of carpet. “Those to the cupboard, ’er to the meetin’.”
The trip was short, with few turnings and no stairs, so they were still far below the street. Though the drumming had stopped, the carousing continued. Drunken voices and laughter echoed unevenly in this brick-lined antechamber to hell.
Then a heavy door slammed and most of the noise ceased. In the comparative quiet Alex heard murmuring voices, all male, and shuffling as they moved around. She was pushed down on a chair.
“No need to be uncivilized,” said a man. “Untie the lady. She can do us no harm.”
“Beg pardon, your lordship, but you don’t know ’er.”
“As it happens, I do. See to it.”
Her bonds were removed, and she tore the towel away herself. Her eyes adjusted to the brighter environs of a room crowded with men in evening dress all wearing full masks, all focused on her, and all silent. Along the edge of the crowd were a number of other mask-wearing men swathed in hooded cloaks.
She rejected their collective intimidation. After facing and killing another of those hideous beasts, mere men were nothing.
“The Order of the Black Sun, I presume,” she said in the clearest voice she could muster.
No one moved. She picked up a thread of unease. Perhaps they expected her to weep with terror. They could wait till doomsday. She was far too incensed.
Her gaze fell on the one standing directly in front. “I’m deeply disappointed in you, sir. Deeply disappointed. What would Lady Lindsey say?”
The eyes behind the mask flickered, giving Alex the understanding that her ladyship was ignorant of her husband’s activities.
Lord Hollifield slowly removed his mask and put it on the long table that took up the middle of the chamber.
Alex continued, “I took you to be a friend.”
“I am grateful for that friendship, Alex.”
“How can you be a part of this indecent flummery?”
“I’ve no need for flummery. Everyone knows everyone else, and I always thought that this lacked dignity. Gentlemen?”
Some hesitated and remained incognito, but a few followed his example. She recognized several faces, matching them to sketches and engravings that had appeared in newspapers. These were indeed men of power, both in politics and business. One didn’t have to be a Reader to interpret what lay behind their cold eyes. She was to suffer the same fate as her father.
“Gentlemen, our cause is just, so we need have no fear. If you quail before a young woman such as this, how can you expect to prevail against more desperate foes?”
“Who might those be?” Alex asked in a reasonable tone.
His lordship responded in kind. “The misguided, the beguiled, the ignorant. You’ll learn all about it once you’re settled.”
“Settled?”
“Out of respect for your station and service to the realm, you’ll be taken to a quiet place in the country for a well-deserved rest. When matters are resolved elsewhere, you’ll be released to live life in a much better, freer England.”
“England for the English?”
“We’re taking back our sacred realm.”
A rumble of agreement went around the room. She looked for, but did not see Fingate or Benedict, and God knew what had happened to Brook. “Where are my friends?”
“Don’t worry about them, they’ll be treated well enough for their station.”
Apparently no one had recognized Benedict. “You plan to use air guns and those revolting beasts to aid in your treason?”
“It is not treason. We’re all loyal to our good queen, God save her, but it has become necessary to remove undesirables from our shores. Anyone who is not a true Englishman is to be transported out.”
“What’s a true Englishman? We’re all descended from invaders. Where do you start? The Norman Conquest? If so, then we’re mostly French.”
“Don’t be a silly girl. We’re getting rid of the riffraff and vermin. Send them back to their own countries or they can go to America. Let them worry about foreign revolutionaries trying to usurp the lawful government.”
“You are yourself betraying it.”
“No, this is the deepest loyalty. There will be initial opposition, hence the need for armed men and certain special allies—I’d like to know how you know about those. But once the scum are removed, there will be work again for our own people and they’ll be grateful to have it.”
“Have you ever read history?”
“Dear girl, my family makes it.” This brought forth a ripple of chuckles from the others.
There was no point arguing. He and the rest were fully convinced of the rightness of their cause; logic and historical precedent wouldn’t shift them. She’d met their sort before, but never so many together.
“Tell me one thing,” she said. “Why did you order the murder of my father?”
Hollifield’s eyes flickered again. “Lord Pendlebury’s dead?”
“As of early this morning. In my function as a Reader I was called to the scene of a questionable death by Scotland Yard.”
“But he’s been out of the country for years. How—”
“You knew him as Dr. Kemp.”
“I’ve never met anyone called Kemp. I know your father, a change of name wouldn’t change his face.”
She’d opened enough to Read him. He was truthful. “Then someone in your group is ordering murders. I wonder who that could be?” Alex couldn’t hope to pick out any single reaction, but a few exuded uncertainty. “Which of you sent one of those trained beasts to break into Dr. Kemp’s home in Harley Street? Which of you told it to overwhelm him with ether and then hang him to make it look like suicide?”
“Alex, you’re mistaken—”
“Then why else am I here? One of you murdered Lord Gerard Pendlebury. One of you, perhaps more, has acted out of turn. There is dissention in your ranks, Lord Hollifield. Have you a policy for traitors within?”
“We are men of honor. None here would do such a thing.”
“You’re certain of that? On your life are you absolutely certain? Everyone lies, sir. Whether telling one’s wife that a hat suits her face or denying the worst of crimes, everyone lies. You are lying every day to your own brother and to our queen.” She raised her voice. “Which of you cowards murdered my father?”
“There are no cowards or murderers here.”
“Prove it. Let me do my work and Read them one by one. You can hide your faces, but no one can hide their guilt from a Reader. I’ve already Read you—you had no part in it, you’re at least innocent of that crime. But as for the rest—can your ‘honorable’ group endure a lying murderer in their midst? Your lives and fortunes depend on trusting one another, trusting that the man next to you won’t arrange to sink a knife in your back should you become inconvenient.”
She felt a shift in the emotional air. Doubt
and suspicion—never far from such minds as these—quickly spread through their ranks.
Hollifield hesitated, then cast his eye over the crowd. “It would seem that we must face yet another evil necessity. The girl has raised doubts and those must be removed. We cannot be divided in our purpose. The innocent have nothing to fear.”
“How will we know she will be truthful?” asked a man still anonymous behind his mask.
“Trust, gentlemen,” she said, “trust that more than anything I want to look my father’s killer in the eye and demand why. Who of you would do less?”
None replied.
She broke the thick silence. “While we’re asking difficult questions, which of you ordered the assassination of Lord Richard Desmond?”
Lord Hollifield was clearly shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s dead, too. Just hours after my father. I was there when a pack of your hooded swine cut him down with air guns. He was unarmed. Who gave them those orders? Which of you will be next?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Alex pressed forward. “Who of you ordered the attack on the Psychic Service? Bullets flying within steps of Downing Street? But you lost a dozen soldiers in that assault. Lord Hollifield will confirm I brought a captured air gun to him to ask if he knew who had made it. I assumed his shock was from seeing something new. But then with a smiling face he sent me and a companion straight into a death trap.”
“I did not!” he snapped. “My orders were for you to be captured unharmed.”
“Obviously that did not happen. To whom did you give those orders? That apish brute that murdered Father? I think not. Someone else arranged that, using the beast as a tool. Make no mistake, the traitor is here. Did he present a report on his crimes? Or is he keeping secrets? From you of all people, is he keeping secrets?”
These were men practiced at holding their thoughts and feelings hidden while looking for weaknesses in others, but she could sense her shots were hitting true. Hollifield’s bluff features were grim.
“I am a Reader in Her Majesty’s Psychic Service,” she stated. “No one can lie to me. Have these ‘honorable’ gentlemen present themselves one at a time and I’ll tell you who is exceeding his authority—but you already know him, sir.”
