by Joel Jenkins
“She loves him,” Curzon said after a minute, expelling the words amidst a cloud of smoke.
“So she does,” St. Cyprian said. “A good enough reason, one supposes. Have no fear, Lord Curzon. If your lad is a-straying, we shall have him back on the straight and narrow directly.”
“I have no doubt. A mutual friend speaks highly of you,” Curzon said. “He said you handled a rather delicate affair in Whitechapel back in January, and that disturbance at the Voyager’s Club last week. And then, of course, there was that rather nasty business in Persia, in the last year of the war.” He said that last bit hesitantly. “With those...people. You recall?”
“Yes,” St. Cyprian said after a moment. He felt the itch of old scars, but resisted the urge to scratch. “I was Carnacki’s assistant then. One of our last cases together before...” He trailed off, and took a drag on his cigarette. Memories of that last day at Ypres, never buried far beneath the surface of his thoughts, surfaced sourly, if briefly, and for a moment, his nose was again filled with the stink of mud, blood and explosions. He blinked, banishing the memories back to their black corner and took a shudder-y breath.
“He was a good chap, was Thomas,” Curzon said softly, after a moment. “He was an honest man, and I always appreciated that about him.” He expelled a cloud of smoke and said, “Did he ever tell you about that business in Bombay, in 1904?”
“No,” St. Cyprian said. He waited for Curzon to go on, but instead, the older man abruptly stood.
“You’ll see to it then?”
St. Cyprian rose to his feet. “I will,” he said simply. Curzon didn’t offer to shake hands, and St. Cyprian would have been surprised if he had. He saw the Foreign Secretary out and back into the custody of his protective flock of policemen. As he closed the door on his guest, he thought about the Strix Society. What he knew was mostly rumour and innuendo, but none of it was particularly pleasant.
In the War, he’d been able to feel an artillery barrage before it hit. Like hearing thunder in your bones, or feeling rain in your joints. He had that same feeling now, closing in from all sides. There was a storm gathering, somewhere out there. He’d felt it for weeks, and when Curzon had come to him; he’d realized what it must be.
He’d made it a point, upon taking up his duties, that he’d only investigate where and when absolutely necessary. Previous incumbents had tried, more than once, to drive the money-changers out of the temple so to speak, but St. Cyprian had lived through a mundane war and found he had no taste for the occult variety. It was bad enough dealing with isolated practitioners whose knowledge of the invisible far out-stripped his own; going up against the Sisterhood of Rats or the Si-Fan when, by and large, they adequately policed themselves, was not something he looked forward to. If Scotland Yard could look the other way, so could he. If some bunch of amateur, fifth form demonologists in Surrey wanted to summon Mephistopheles without considering the consequences, on their heads be it.
But sometimes…sometimes it spilled over. Sometimes the Devil’s rain fell on the unjust and the just alike. And that was where the Royal Occultist came in. In a way, Curzon had given him the excuse he needed to poke and pry into what was otherwise none of his business.
“Lucky me,” he murmured. As the words left his mouth, he heard the scuff of a worn down shoe on the floor behind him. He spun, and found himself looking down the barrel of a Webley-Fosbery revolver. He swatted the barrel of the pistol aside and snapped, “Oh put it away, would you? I’m in no mood for your games.”
Ebe Gallowglass grinned like a cat who had just fallen into a vat of cream and stowed her pistol in the holster hanging beneath her arm. She was dark and thin and slightly feral looking, with black hair cut in a razor-edged bob, and a battered man’s flat cap resting high on her head. She wore a man’s clothes as well, beneath her convoy coat. “So, who was that then?” she asked, as she took off the latter.
“Lord Curzon, if you can believe it,” he said.
“Cor, really?” she said. Then, “Who’s Lord Curzon?”
St. Cyprian stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head slowly. “Someone who’s asked us to look into something. You’re back early, by the by. And distinctly unspifflicated.” He detected a draft, and knew she’d come in by the back door and, as usual, not bothered to close it.
“So are you,” she retorted.
“Never went out, more like.” St. Cyprian frowned. “But I intend to rectify that.” He smiled at her and extended his elbow. “Care to accompany me?”
She glowered at him. “I just got back.”
He lowered his arm. “Fine. Stay here. Don’t touch the gin in the cabinet. That’s for guests. And it’s expensive. I won’t have you guzzling it like you did the brandy.”
“I’m a guest. And what did that Curzon bloke want?” she asked, following him back into the sitting room.
He stubbed out his still smoldering cigarette and picked up his coat from where he’d tossed it. “You’ve been squatting in the second bedroom for a year now; you’re a tenant, not a guest. And he wants me…”
“Us,” Gallowglass interjected.
St. Cyprian looked at her, a half-smile on his face. “Decided to accompany me then,Miss Gallowglass?”
“Someone has to make sure you don’t get coshed in an alley, don’t they?” she said, pulling on her coat. “Finish what you were saying.”
“Lord Curzon asked that we look into the doings of the Strix Society. And since my evening schedule is now clear, we might as well make a go of it soonest, what?” He slipped on his coat and headed for the door. Gallowglass hurried after him.
“Where are we going, then?”
“To see about wrangling an invitation, of course. We’ll take the Crossley.”
The black Crossley 20/25 had carried them from one end of the country to the other, at various times. The car was the same make and model used by the Flying Squad of the London Metropolitan Police and had been, at various times, crushed, burned, submerged, frozen and dropped from an impressive height. Nonetheless, it continued to trundle on as dutifully as the day he’d bought it, give or take a dent or six.
The night wasn’t especially pleasant. The canvas roof wobbled and rustled with a steady drizzle of rain, and thin squirming of water poured down the windscreen. St. Cyprian hunched forward in the driver’s seat, peering ahead at the houses to either side of the street as they headed deeper into darkest Westminster. As he related what Curzon had told him to Gallowglass, he aimed the car towards the West End and Piccadilly Circus.
He knew little else regarding the Strix Society than what he’d shared with Curzon. But what he did know was that they’d made the bawdier bits of the West End their hunting ground for the past few weeks, shifting themselves from one soiree and bottle party to the next like a school of social piranha. “Helen Strix,” he said, finally.
“What’s that when it’s at home?” Gallowglass sat slumped in her seat, arms crossed, head bowed, and feet pressed to the windscreen.
“What do you know about her?” he asked sternly.
Gallowglass sucked on her teeth for a moment and then said, “Foreign, ain’t she? Got money though. Supposed to be a knockout, innit?”
“So one hears,” he said, pleased. In their line, it paid to know who was getting up to what sort of mischief where and when. Normally, such things held little interest for his assistant. But for once, she’d been paying attention. There might be some hope for her yet.
Some Royal Occultists retired, but most died. By accident or by design, they died and were replaced by royal edict, like stripped out cogs plucked from a machine, lest they damage the mechanism. Given that such was the case, it made sense to have the next cog standing by, ready to be slotted in. Gallowglass, however, still had quite a ways to go before she was fit for purpose. She was far too inclined to unlimber the artillery for his taste; while shooting things was sometimes the way of it, there were other times where not shooting something was equally important. Un
til she figured out which was which, he supposed he would have to try and not get killed.
“She’s rarely seen out and about,” he continued. “But the society that’s taken her name have been all too visible lately. They’ve swooped down on every party and shindig that’s worth the name, leeching guests and reputedly taking them back to a house in Seven Dials for a proper knees-up, hosted by the Strix Society.”
“Why?”
“No bloody idea,” he said cheerfully. “I suspect we shall find out directly, what?” He gestured to the windshield, where the rain-blurred reflections of the electric signs of Piccadilly Circus where visible. Incandescent light bulbs flickered and steamed in the rain as they struggled to illuminate the benefits of Bovril and Schweppes Ginger Ale to passers-by below. Loud music and raucous laughter floated on the damp air, echoing into Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street from the well-lit interiors of nightclubs. The streets were crowded, despite the rain, as lorries, automobiles and omnibuses caught the curve of the roundabout and perambulated through the circuitous confines of the Circus. The pavement too was packed with pedestrians, hurrying here and there, seeking shelter from the weather in nightclubs, theatres and pubs.
St. Cyprian guided the Crossley onto Coventry Street, and parked near the J. Lyons and Co. Corner House. Gallowglass swung her feet down and sat up. “Where to now?”
“Where the music is the loudest and the crowd drunkest, I should think.” He pulled up the collar of his battered ‘British Warm,’ an officer’s greatcoat, and swung out into the rain. Gallowglass followed him.
“How will we recognize them?” she asked, hurrying after him, her shoulders hunched against the chill. “Not like they’re wearing signs.”
“Oh, they’re easy enough to spot,” he said. “They have a fondness for red, and in garish quantities. We see a flock of red, we cast our net.”
“And just how are we going to get an invitation to one of these parties of theirs?”
“That, I’m afraid, we’ll have to figure out on the fly.” He stopped and looked at her. “It may take several nights worth of carousing, I fear. Are you up to it?”
“Sounds like berries to me,” she said, grinning.
“I rather thought it might.”
For the next few hours, they wandered from nightclub to bottle party, moving through a sea of bright young things engaged in enthusiastic excess, eyes peeled for a splash of red in the sea of furs, dinner jackets and baggy trousers. Alcohol flowed freely, and group of fancy dress revelers stumbled through traffic on scavenger hunts. Several times he ran into familiar faces, staggering along. It was said that if one stayed in Piccadilly Circus long enough, one would eventually bump into everyone one knew.
For St. Cyprian it was familiar territory. In the months after the War, he’d tried to lose himself in the welcoming haze of parties and drink. He’d snatched policemen’s helmets with the Wooster crowd and gone swimming in the Trafalgar fountains with the Runcible set. He hadn’t quite put all of that behind him…he still enjoyed the occasional bout of auto-polo…but he’d come to see it for what it was. The parties, the indulgence, all of it was an attempt to forget how close things had come to tipping over entirely during the war. God alone knew what would happen if there were another blow-up.
He forced the thought aside as the clock face above the Saqui & Lawrence across the street struck midnight. The rain had stopped at last, and neon puddles covered the bumpy surface of the street. Gallowglass had pinched a bottle of something from somewhere and swigging it down with gusto.
A flash of red caught his eye, and he felt a familiar rumble in his bones. He sought out the red dress, too bright, too vibrant to be entirely fashionable, as it weaved through the crowd around the statue of Eros on its fountain-plinth, and started after it. “I do believe that the game’s afoot,Miss Gallowglass,” he said, as she fell into step beside him.
“How can you tell?” she asked, slapping the nearly empty bottle into the hands of a startled pedestrian.
“The nose knows,” he said, tapping his.
“Knows what? She smells bad?”
“It was a figure of speech,” St. Cyprian said. They crossed the street amidst a flurry of horns, using a crowd of party-goers for cover. “I’ve got a sense for these things, you know.” Gallowglass’ reply was inelegant and unladylike. As they reached the fountain, St. Cyprian hopped up onto it to get a better view of his surroundings. He caught sight of the red dress again, as it made its way towards Regent Street and the boarded over windows of Swan & Edgar Ltd. The department store had been hit in the last zeppelin raid of 1917, and had been closed to the public ever since. As he watched, the boards were moved aside and a small crowd of people began to filter in, their trespass unobserved in the general hubbub of the evening. “There!” he said, hopping down.
He and Gallowglass hurried in pursuit of their quarry. As they reached the boarded over storefront, St. Cyprian caught the strain of music coming from within. Gallowglass pried one of the boards away, and slithered inside before St. Cyprian could caution her. He squirmed after her, cursing under his breath as his overcoat caught on the boards.
Even nearly three years after the fact, the inside of the store still stank of the fire that had erupted after it had been struck by enemy ordinance. It was in the midst of a long overdue refurbishment, the display counters were empty and the walls still caked with ash. The music echoed out of the rear of the store, and they followed it behind a heavy curtain and into a large room, packed with party-goers. A display case had been pressed into service as a bar, and a stage had been improvised from scaffolding and tarpaulin. A band was hard at it, playing something boisterous and American, as the party-goers danced with less rhythm than enthusiasm.
St. Cyprian let his gaze roam across the crowded room. Men and women in red circulated like blood vessels through the crowd, mingling in ad hoc fashion. More display cases had made over into temporary tables, and everything was lit by a combination of candles and electric lanterns. Under other circumstances, he might have taken a table and settled in to enjoy himself. “What I want to know is why they wear red,” Gallowglass muttered as she looked around.
“Certain colors have certain significances,” he said. As he scanned the room, he saw a familiar face. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Mosley is here tonight. Over there, in the red waistcoat.” He gestured surreptitiously towards a tall, thin young man near the stage who was leaning over a makeshift table, speaking quietly to a giggling trio of young women.
Mosley looked like a well-fed fox; sleek and smooth. His hair was slicked back tight to his skull and his moustache quirked pompously at the ends. He wore evening wear, and the only dash of color was his waistcoat. As St. Cyprian watched, Mosley smoothed his moustache with the tip of a finger, in a gesture he probably thought was rather dashing, but which, from a distance, merely looked vulgar.
“Who…the git with the curly mustache?” Gallowglass said. “He’s not wearing all red.”
“Yes, quite,” St. Cyprian said. “And Curzon said he wasn’t a member yet.” He glanced around, noting others who bore similar splashes of crimson like the proverbial mark of Cain moving here and there through the crowd. “Maybe this is an initiation of some kind...” he trailed off and shook his head, “No matter. Our course is clear.”
“What I want to know is why they wear red?”
“Right. We planning to snatch him?”
“No. Tonight is about the soft approach, I think. I get Mosley alone, and have a quiet chat. Who knows, he might be a reasonable sort. He is an ambitious little peacock. If I put the risk of his current associations to him plain enough, he may well cut ties voluntarily.”
Gallowglass snorted. “Be a bloody wonder,” she muttered.
“Cynicism does not become you, Miss Gallowglass.”
“And what if he likes his new friends just fine?” she asked as they began to make their way through the crowd. “If this is an initiation, he might not be keen on cutting
it short.”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we should come to it. If this can be resolved without causing an incident, so much the better. Now, go hobnob and try not to cause a scene. I need you to keep an eye on Mosley’s crimson-clad companions, what? Make sure no one takes an undue interest in our confab, what?”
“I’ll have you know I can hob with the best of nobs,” she said. She tossed off a two-fingered salute and eeled her way into the crowd. There was enough fancy dress on display that he wasn’t worried about her standing out too much, if anyone noticed her, which he doubted. Gallowglass was a master of the art of the unobtrusive sidle, and a champion creeper. She was practically an alley cat in a flat cap.
He looked around the room and his senses, both physical and otherwise, reached out, taking the pulse of the crowd and the building both as he moved in a roundabout way towards Mosley. There was a pall over everything and he was put in mind of what a hare must feel, as the fox closes in. Something was coming, something vast and terrible and he had no idea where it was coming from or what form it would take and that made him very nervous indeed.
He could feel it, whatever it was, flitting at the edges of his conscious mind, and as he watched red suits and dresses mingle with the crowd, he thought he could detect a hint of forced laughter and strained ribaldry amidst the cacophony wherever they passed. Men and women were singled out and encircled, plucked from their cliques like stags separated from the herd. There was no rhyme or reason to those who were chosen; or at least none that he could discern.
Feeling the urge to investigate further, he traced the sacred shape of the Voorish Sign in the air with a finger and let his inner eye flicker open. The spirit-eye, Carnacki had called it, though St. Cyprian’s acquaintances in the Society for Psychical Research insisted that it was merely a very focused form of extrasensory perception. Whatever it was, it had taken him several years to learn how to utilize it safely.
The inability of the human mind to correlate all of its perceptions was one of humanity’s built-in defences against the many, many predatory malignancies that swam through the outer void. But sometimes you were forced to shuck those evolutionary blinders first thing, lest the sharks snap you up all unawares.
