Extraordinaires 1

by Michael Pryor

  ‘We found the books you wanted.’ Rolf shrugged. ‘All is good.’

  ‘You should have brought them the first time. When you took the man.’ She sniffed. ‘I can smell the blood on you.’

  ‘What blood?’ Magnus said. ‘I washed it all off!’

  His brother rolled his eyes. ‘An old woman.’ Rolf shrugged. ‘She screamed and Magnus stopped her.’

  Magnus looked at his feet. ‘I didn’t know that the Invaders were so puny.’

  ‘The boy wasn’t,’ Rolf said. ‘He had muscle.’

  ‘Boy?’ Damona massaged her knee. ‘What boy?’

  ‘We were collecting the books,’ Magnus said. ‘He came. He was different.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He was afraid, at first,’ Rolf said slowly. ‘Then he changed. He wanted my throat.’

  ‘Ah.’ Damona knuckled the side of her head, thinking. A witness could be dangerous but the boy could be useful. If he was who she thought he was.

  She rubbed her cheeks with both hands. She was weary of it all. ‘The books?’

  ‘We brought them, all the ones you asked for,’ Rolf said. ‘We left them near the prisoner’s cell.’

  ‘I have news for you, Eldest,’ Magnus said, eager to please to make up for his blunder. ‘News from the Demimonde.’

  Damona could never resist such an offer. Information was power. ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘The Spawn are about.’

  Damona chewed on this and tried not to show fear. ‘It’s long since they’ve been abroad. Spread the word. Look out for them.’ She clapped her hands. ‘And send scouts to look for this boy, the one you saw.’

  Damona waited for them to leave. She climbed to her feet. Every joint in her body ached. She had no choice, though. She had to go out into the Demimonde. Her plans required many materials, much purchasing. Some copper, to start with. Then, a great deal of rubber. And she’d send a message to the Soames creature. He may know something about this boy.

  She paused. Smiled. First, however, she’d go and talk to the prisoner again. The boy’s father, Dr Malcolm Ward, the Invader who could help her wipe out the Invaders.

  The Immortals had been among Soames’s customers for a dozen years, but always at a comfortable distance. Their letters arrived from India, demanding one hard-to-find item or another, and Soames arranged procurement and delivery. Books, quite often, unusual and ghastly inside. A few owners had cause to regret their reluctance to part with them. Soames had also supplied materials that some people would call unholy, if they ever had the chance to confront them.

  A fine and profitable enterprise.

  On the one hand, Soames never had any difficulty with extracting payment from the Immortals, unlike many of his other clients. On the other hand, they terrified him like few other Demimonders did. Having them back in England wasn’t Soames’s notion of an improved working arrangement. No, he was quite happy with the Immortals being on the other side of the globe.

  Fear wasn’t one of Soames’s more common emotions. He’d long ago become inured to most of that which would send ordinary people insane. He attributed it to a disciplined mind, even though a small, secret voice suggested that greed allowed him to overcome just about every remnant of finer emotion. Gold was a great balm to Jabez Soames.

  Uncharacteristically, Soames dithered after he read the summons from the Immortals. According to the information he’d gathered about them – a standard procedure that Soames undertook with all his clients – the Immortals had little patience and their displeasure was meted out in spectacular, if dispassionate, ways. Yet he shuffled about his office, assembling his thoughts and sifting through options, until it was early morning, just as the city was rousing from its rest.

  Jabez, he thought, with an unaccustomed tremor, perhaps they’ve found out.

  It was impossible, but what if the Immortals had divined his plan to usurp them?

  Of all his clients, the Immortals were the richest and, if his clandestine research was accurate, by far the most powerful. While dealing with them was lucrative, lately Soames had found his mind turning to something altogether more ambitious. It may have simply been a function of growing older, but he had begun to ask why he should settle for mundane and earthly riches if he could supplant the undying sorcerers. One life, after all, couldn’t be enough for Jabez Soames. Not when he could inveigle his way into the Immortals’ good graces, learn their secrets, betray and replace them. A simple plan, well suited to Soames’s innumerable talents for duplicity, mendacity and treachery.

  In a drawer of his desk – second from the bottom – he found his trusty British Bulldog and slipped it into his jacket pocket, adjusting it so the lines of the jacket weren’t spoiled. The little snub-nosed pistol had served him well for years and the thought of using it again made him quite nostalgic.

  Fortified, he took his bowler from the hatstand and spent a moment or two settling the brim before he acknowledged to himself that he was procrastinating.

  The long mirror beside the door wasn’t for procrastinating. It gave Soames a last chance to check an appearance that was important to him. Neat, straight and organised, he stepped through the door to find someone waiting for him in the corridor.

  Even though Soames would never permit himself to feel frightened by an underling, the unexpectedness of the appearance of the Spawn took him aback so much that he collided quite painfully with the door frame. ‘I say,’ he exclaimed, rubbing his elbow. ‘Why don’t you creatures announce yourself like a decent fellow would?’

  The Immortals, eternally suspicious as they were, had difficulty trusting underlings unless they were totally under their thrall – like the Thuggees in India, if Soames’s intelligence was accurate. This would have made their lot impossible if it weren’t for the Spawn, their constant, ever-biddable minions. The Immortals kept a few in London while they were in India, attending to the upkeep of their lair and other sundry – and unpleasant – tasks. This one had the appearance of a City banker, right down to the bowler hat, striped trousers and umbrella, but anyone looking closely would soon see that the creature lacked even that animation granted to financial workers.

  People loathed Spawn almost instinctively, Soames knew, which made them extremely useful as agents of fear. He’d studied them as much as he was able. The horror they inspired came from the innumerable ways they were like humans, but lacking. Despite coming in a range of shapes and sizes, whenever they aped humanity, they betrayed their origins in a number of ways. The eyes, for instance, were consistently flat and without lustre; the eyes of the dead. They never blinked and the Spawn had a disconcerting habit of moving their heads to look about them instead of moving their eyes.

  Unless they were concentrating, they often forgot to move their arms while they walked. They smelled of something that, if it wasn’t corruption, Soames didn’t want to know what it was.

  What set Soames’s teeth most on edge, however, was their skin. It, too, lacked vitality. It was dull and lifeless. Grey underneath the nominal pinkness.

  ‘Come with me,’ the Spawn said in a tone as dead as the air in a mausoleum.

  ‘I was already on my way.’ Soames fumbled with his keys to hide his discomfiture and only faced the Spawn when he’d locked the door. ‘I don’t see why I need a custodian.’

  ‘Come with me,’ it repeated. Soames didn’t want to give it a chance to speak again in that dusty voice. He set off down the corridor.

  Soames endured the journey to Greenwich with as much stoicism as he could summon. People on the Underground looked at him with unseemly directness. They were unwilling to look at his travelling companion, who sat far too close, and far too still, so he bore the brunt of their unease. At the pier, the steamer captain cast off as soon as they were aboard, flinching at the sight of the Spawn and shouting at his crew in compensation for h
is fright.

  Soames had often wondered, with the curiosity that was deeply embedded in the perpetually greedy, about the Immortals’ choice in locating their lair. Several hundred feet beneath the Royal Observatory didn’t strike him as the most desirable address. With their riches – which Soames knew to be immense – they could afford a mansion in Mayfair, or a whole hotel in Kensington, so he assumed that their subterranean Greenwich location must have some other allure. Perhaps it had something to do with it being directly beneath the Prime Meridian, zero degrees longitude, the place from which all locations across the earth were measured, but he’d heard stories that the Immortals had been there before the building of the Royal Observatory and well before the fixing of the meridian.

  When they reached Greenwich, the Spawn led the way. Its mere presence in the park made the few people about on the wet Friday morning scurry off and find something more interesting to look at. Much to Soames’s irritation, the Spawn abandoned the path. Soames’s shoes were soon soaking from the wet grass as they approached the dumpy brick Conduit House. Not one of Hawksmoor’s more inspired creations, Soames thought, but then again, perhaps the architect’s heart hadn’t been in it. Designing a building just to hide the pipes and outlets leading into an underground reservoir? He probably gave the task to an apprentice as punishment.

  Behind the Conduit House, the Spawn stood still, facing up the hill. Soames waited patiently. Even if it didn’t appear to be taking in its surroundings, the Spawn was either waiting for a signal conveyed in some arcane manner, or simply waiting until it was sure they were unobserved. When it moved, without warning, Soames was ready. The lock on the Conduit House was easily bypassed and they were inside within seconds. The Spawn then found the iron manhole cover and lifted it with immensely strong fingers.

  Soames went first, climbing down the ladder and flinching at the boom as the Spawn reseated the manhole cover and then came down after him. It was only a few yards to the underground reservoir and the Spawn stopped there for its lantern. The match it struck revealed the two-hundred-year-old space to be in reasonable shape. The brickwork had allowed some stubborn roots to gain access, but, with its gently arched roof and supporting columns, it was still remarkable.

  The Spawn slogged through a slurry of mud and water in the bottom of the reservoir, but Soames kept to the relatively dry edges. In the fifth of the eight chambers, each separated by a decorative brick arch, the Spawn dragged itself out of the muck and stood in front of a blank wall. Then it reached up and hammered on a brick well above the height Soames could reach.

  A rectangular section of the wall swung in and they were on their way to the Hall of the Immortals.

  Don’t slouch, Jabez, he told himself, hold your head up high and look them in the eye. After all, they’re lucky to have you.

  Soames couldn’t help but be impressed. He knew that part of the purpose of the immense chamber was just that, but he was helpless not to feel daunted when he stepped alone through the final doorway.

  Pentagons. Pentagons everywhere. Dazed, Soames decided that the Immortals must have had a liking for the five-sided figure, for the whole colossal space was composed of them. The floor was a vast pentagon made of dull black stone. Marble? Granite? The ceiling was the same. Five pentagons leaned away from the floor and were joined by five more slanting down from the ceiling.

  The ceiling must have been three hundred feet above the floor.

  It was the most extraordinary construction Soames had ever seen. In the Demimonde, he had seen some outlandish structures and encountered much uncanny magic, but this colossal, arrogant building was the clearest display of cosmic sorcery he knew. He looked down at the floor. The polished surface threw soft and distorted reflections that Soames didn’t like to study too closely.

  Jabez, remember your mathematics. A dodecahedron, isn’t it?

  He nodded, satisfied. Giving a name to the unlikely space went some way to making it less disturbing.

  A large pentagonal alcove was carved into each of the lower walls. Three were empty. Two contained objects that rotated slowly in midair – a triangular pyramid and a cube, each three or four feet in diameter.

  The Spawn at his side directed Soames towards the centre of the chamber. As he neared, he saw he was approaching a long golden bench with a high back. It had three separate seats, complete with armrests, and the entire piece was covered with carvings, most of which were obscured by brightly coloured cushions. It quivered a little, like a barely restrained guard dog. It shone with the sort of lustre that spoke of regular attention – and also defined the difference between gilt and gold.

  He walked the entire way with his hat in hand, not happy about being placed in the position of a beggar. He was a businessman, damn it, not some terrified ruffian!

  The Immortals sat on the throne. They looked like three six-year-old children playing at grown-ups. Three chubby faces glared at Soames, two male, one female. Their clothes were rich and archaic. Their eyes were flat, but their expressions could never be mistaken for those of children. No child could produce such looks of disdain, boredom and hunger. These could only come about after years of experience, as long as the experiences were full of depravity and venality.

  Their feet didn’t touch the ground.

  ‘You are Soames?’ the female asked. Her voice was squeaky, but as far from comic as it was possible to be. She was clad in a long scarlet robe, silk, with wide sleeves and lapels. One of her companions wore a robe as well, but it was in the Roman style, dyed the purple of kings. The other was the odd one out. He had furs strapped onto his body with leather belts. He wore leather boots on his dangling feet instead of expensive-looking slippers. He pouted.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I am Jia,’ the female said. ‘This is Augustus.’ The Roman. ‘And Forkbeard.’ Fur.

  Soames essayed a polite, interested expression, his normal approach to a new and possibly lucrative engagement. Briefly, he wondered why the creature had adopted the name ‘Augustus’. Then he had a moment of unaccustomed unease when he considered the alternative – that the name belonged to him. ‘I’m pleased to finally meet you.’

  ‘You’re not,’ Augustus said. His voice, too, was squeaky, but Soames could hear a hundred lifetimes’ experience in giving orders. ‘No-one is pleased to see us.’

  ‘With reason,’ Forkbeard said. He shifted in his seat and looked away, over his shoulder. ‘Finish with him quickly. I’m hungry.’

  Soames’s gaze went to the extremities of the Immortals. Forkbeard’s hands were wrapped in bandages, gauze-swathed mittens on the end of his arms.

  Years ago, when he had first been contacted by the Immortals to arrange shipping of various exotic items to them in India, Soames had made discreet enquiries in the Demimonde, as was his habit. The more he knew about his clients, the better off he was. The most reliable rumour suggested that the Immortals used their magic to create the Spawn from lopped-off pieces of their own bodies. The notion was a novel one, with a significant disadvantage that Soames was quick to realise. If one wanted a minion horde, one would soon run out of body parts. Soames had uncovered a blind, half-mad collector of magical documents who revealed, after some persuasion, the secret to the Immortals’ immortality and why the loss of body parts was only a minor nuisance.

  The Immortals had perfected the transference of souls. After hundreds of years – perhaps thousands – they no longer occupied the bodies into which they had been born. They had passed through a succession. As each body wore out, sickened or weakened in any way, the Immortals migrated their essence to a new one. Unfortunately for the owner of the new body, their essence was extinguished in the process . . .

  Over time, however, the essence of each of the Immortals had become rich with accumulated decadence, steeped in the horror of their existence. This putrid essence tended to corrupt each new body, wearing it out all the
faster. Much as acid would eat away at an iron vessel until it gave way, the soul of an Immortal was too much for an ordinary human body to bear for long.

  The younger the body, however, the more resilient it was. Perhaps it was due to the freshness, or to the innocence, or to some other factor about humanity, but the Immortals had worked their way through host bodies, younger and younger, until they now occupied the bodies of children.

  Foul, ancient beings dwelling inside the bodies of children gave Soames pause, but mostly to consider that if the Immortals were back in London, they would be needing a supply of hosts.

  Jabez, he thought, the Immortals are lucky, lucky clients with you to attend to their needs!

  Jia hissed between her teeth and threw a glare Forkbeard’s way. Then she speared Soames with a look. ‘Shipping,’ she squeaked. ‘You can make arrangements?’

  ‘As I have in the past. Efficiently, discreetly and inexpensively.’

  A look of puzzlement so brief that Soames doubted that he’d actually seen it crossed Jia’s face. Augustus glanced at her and cleared his throat. ‘Of course you have. This time we need you to bring something from India, rather than ship it the other way.’

  ‘Something you’ve left behind?’

  Forkbeard jerked his head around. ‘Do not ask questions unless you value your hide at naught!’

  Soames rocked back on his heels at the force of the creature’s fury, but as soon as Forkbeard had spoken, he looked away again, muttering, Soames forgotten.

  Augustus went on as if Forkbeard hadn’t said a word. ‘The Spawn will give you details.’

  Soames was still taken aback by Forkbeard’s abrupt anger, but he couldn’t help wondering why the Immortals had asked to see him if the Spawn could have communicated such. Taking his courage in his hands, he asked: ‘Is there anything else?’

  Jia barked a laugh. ‘Of course! You are ours, now, Soames! Once you work for the Immortals, you are bound to us!’