I’ll get a cat, he thought. He laced his hands on his chest. Maybe two.
Soames liked cats. He understood the self-absorbed, clinical killers. Their complete selfishness appealed to him. Feed them, let them in and out, and they’d cooperate. Cross them, and watch out.
A plan that was clear, simple, straightforward. He liked it.
Soames stood, shook out his trouser creases, and went looking for signs of rats.
An hour later and Soames was puzzled. He couldn’t find any signs of rats. No holes, no chewed books or furniture, no nasty droppings. He’d inspected the small room, the library, a dozen rooms in between and all their corridors as well.
Nothing.
He returned to the small room and shrugged. It may be a puzzle, but it was a small one.
Then he heard the noise again.
Plink, it went. Then plink again.
Soames exited the small room. He found the main hall and stood just inside one of the five-sided doors.
Plink. Plink.
This wasn’t rats. Soames rubbed his hands together. His gaze darted about the vast chamber. No, nothing rodental about this noise, but he had no idea what it was.
Jabez, he thought, this is a mystery of an unpleasant sort.
Soames retied the laces on his shoes, then flicked a speck of mud from the toe of his left. He straightened, shook out the creases in his trousers, unbuttoned and rebuttoned his waistcoat, and made sure it was even.
Unexplained noises in what had been the lair of mysterious magicians. No, this didn’t augur well at all. He was rapidly revising his plans to move his entire base of operations to the subterranean Greenwich warren. He might be called overly suspicious, but he’d learned that such an attitude paid useful dividends in the Demimonde.
Plink. Ka-plink.
In the morning of the following day, after a sleepless night caused by the irregular but remorseless noise, a red-eyed Soames made a cup of tea in the small room. He found a slightly stale digestive biscuit and ate it for breakfast. For a moment, he’d enjoyed the unexpected rush of memories – young Soames in his nursery – then he heard the noise.
Plink.
Soames jerked. The tea soaked his sleeve and he jerked again before flinging the cup away from him in disgust. It shattered on the sink. He uttered an oath that he thought coarse when others resorted to it.
He dabbed at his sleeve with his handkerchief, pursed his lips at the stain on his cuff and promised himself that he’d get Mrs Tollemache’s Steam Laundry to go to work on it. Then he plucked his trusty Bulldog from his pocket, determined that this time he’d find who was intruding on his domain.
He edged out into the hall.
Ka-plink.
Soames stiffened then swivelled on the spot, taking in the whole chamber.
Ka-plink-plink.
He swept his Bulldog over the pentagonal floor. Nothing stirred in any of the alcoves apart from the two gently rotating manipulators. This time, he had it.
The sound came from below.
Soames’s experience with the Demimonde had led him into much contact with magic. As a result, he rarely wasted time puzzling over the uncanny. It simply was, as the weather was, or hunger was, or destiny was. He’d seen enough to realise that the sounds leaking up from the nether reaches of the Immortals’ complex were likely to be dangerous, but he also knew that he’d never be comfortable in the place until he’d investigated. Besides, in his quest to understand the Immortals’ methods, he couldn’t overlook anything. The smallest device or the tiniest phenomenon might be the key to unlocking their secrets.
His descent took him past cell after cell, all empty.
At first, Soames was horrified by the lack of parapet or guardrail, but after passing a hundred cells or more he became accustomed to the dizzying drop on his left. He smiled as he heard, repeated at long intervals, the ka-plink sound or its cousins, confident that he had an inkling or two as to its origin. Eventually, he found it a homely, reassuring sound, like glasses touching after a toast. He even amused himself by imagining a banquet in his honour, with kings and queens pleading for him to speak.
The final ladder led to the floor, a featureless black disc that Soames had no intention of setting foot on. It was ten or fifteen yards across, as black as any soul that Soames had met. He had the disturbing notion that it would eat him if he touched it, so he put his hand on his chin, balanced his elbow on the back of his other hand, and waited.
Some time later – he blinked when he realised he hadn’t looked at his watch – he felt the sound rather more than heard it.
Ka-plink.
A glass vial hung in the air over – as far as Soames could judge – the centre of the black disc. It glowed with a light that Soames recognised and lusted after, as would anyone who did business in the Demimonde.
Phlogiston.
Soames reached for the glowing vial, almost before he realised it, but pulled back suddenly at the impression of overwhelming eagerness from the black disc. The vial shot upward, blurring with speed, leaving a trail that shimmered in Soames’s vision, lingering red before reluctantly fading.
Soames waited, his excellent watch in his hand this time, to find that it was twelve minutes before the next glowing vial appeared. Seventeen minutes later, two vials appeared at once with a double-clink, shooting off like paired comets.
While waiting for the next vial to appear, Soames was doing some rough calculations. He was helpless not to, and the result suggested that at this rate, with this much phlogiston, he could be richer than the dreams of avarice, except that, in this one particular field, he was a very fine dreamer indeed.
He looked up when the most recent vial flew up. Overhead was nearly as black as the hungry black disc near his feet.
All he had to do now was find out where the flying vials were going.
Kingsley stretched as they left the inn. ‘Rested? he asked Evadne.
Her face was mournful. ‘I enjoy my sleep. It’s going to take more than a few hours to make up for what I’ve lost.’
‘I’m just glad you found somewhere to take us.’
‘Some inns like catering to the Demimonde.’ She fitted a finger behind her spectacles and rubbed her eye. ‘And the silver helped the negotiation.’
‘Sixpence goes a long way here,’ Kingsley said. In this case, it had extended to two rooms for the afternoon and a rough meal of what was either a thick vegetable soup or a thin vegetable stew. Regardless, it satisfied what had become a yawning void inside him.
He cast a look back at the inn, tucked away as it was in a street running south from the river. The inn was the epitome of inconspicuousness. He was sure he would have walked past it a dozen times without noticing it if it were not for Evadne.
‘The innkeeper was so grateful for that sixpence that he was happy to answer a few questions,’ Evadne said. ‘He confirmed that some of the anti-Immortalists are about here and now and gave me a few suggestions as to where we could find them.’ She adjusted the hood of the cloak she’d bought from the innkeeper. It hid her face, something that Kingsley thought a shame, but he understood the good sense behind it. While the panic and tumult of the fire may have allowed Evadne to go relatively unnoticed so far, there was no point in risking someone pointing at her because of her unusual appearance and blaming the whole disaster on her. A crowd was a fickle thing and dangerous when roused.
‘So we’re going to collar some of these anti-Immortalists and demand they tell us where these sorcerers are?’
‘Nothing as crude as that. Let me think about it.’
It was barely a moment later, near the Pickle Herring Stairs on the river, that Kingsley saw the Neanderthals. Neanderthals in the open. Neanderthals among normal humans. Neanderthals dressed in garments from 1908.
Kingsley acte
d quickly and dragged Evadne behind a wall. She was startled, but didn’t cry out. Her eyes widened when she followed his gesture and saw the reason for the precipitous action.
‘I still have my dart gun,’ Evadne breathed in Kingsley’s ear, creating all number of extraordinary sensations.
‘Hold onto it,’ he whispered back and wiped his streaming eyes. The air on this side of the river was still abominable.
The Neanderthals were pushing through the crowd on the embankment and probably enjoying the sensation of being taller than those around them. They were also probably enjoying – if that were the word – the fact that their appearance wasn’t causing alarm; the ordinary Londoners were no doubt expecting demons to cavort down the street at any moment, so a few broad-browed, thickset people were hardly cause for alarm.
The Neanderthals disappeared through a stone arch. Kingsley watched them go, fully aware that the dangerous surroundings had suddenly become even more dangerous.
On the southern bank of the Thames, with the theatres, bull and bear baiting, riotous taverns and eating houses, there was a general atmosphere of lawlessness that was only made worse by the End of Days scene on the other side of the river. Kingsley thought it was as if a bit of the Demimonde had given up trying to hide and simply lumped itself out in plain sight.
As they pushed through crowds that were both despairing and celebratory, sometimes at the same time, Evadne confirmed his suspicions. Holding tightly to his arm, she had to shout into his ear. ‘The walls are thin here, between the Demimonde and the ordinary world! That’s why I’m hoping to find our allies!’
‘You’re calling them allies already?’ Kingsley danced them both around a man who was sitting the middle of the road, weeping. He held a puppet in his lap.
‘I’m full of hope!’ She smiled, and Kingsley was pleased to find no brittleness.
Evadne brought them to a gaunt edifice overlooking the uproar of Southwark and the fire on the other side of the river like a disapproving aunt. The church that would one day be Southwark Cathedral was now filled with worshippers obviously inspired – or frightened to death – by the catastrophe to the north.
Evadne pushed against the flow of worshippers, however, and they made their way to the rear of the church and out to the old priory buildings. Most of these were disused and in desperate need of repair, but Kingsley was intrigued to see people at glassless windows watching the milling crowd and leaning precariously to catch sight of the far bank and the fire.
Evadne led them down what may have been a narrow lane, but was more like a gap where two of the priory buildings had leaned away from each other. A drain had seized the opportunity, as drains tend to, and ran through the middle of it. Evadne moved nimbly along one side, but Kingsley had to straddle the horrible gutter. The stench made his ears ring.
‘Here.’
Kingsley would have walked straight past the door. Not because it was hard to see, or obscured, or hidden in any way. It was remarkably ordinary, a wooden door set into bricks with no identifying features, but perhaps its ordinariness made the eye skate over it, kept the observer moving, because of its outstanding lack of interest.
Evadne pushed the door open and they were confronted with a grimy room only a few feet square, with no window but a set of stairs leading upward. A stool with only two legs was the sole thing in the neglected place.
The lean of the building became more apparent as they mounted the stairs. Kingsley had to steady himself against the wall as they came to the first floor landing. Two rooms, only one with a door.
‘This is the place?’ he asked Evadne. He kept his voice low.
‘So I’m led to believe.’ She kept a hand in her pocket. She pushed back her hood, reached out with the other hand and rapped sharply. ‘A Demimonde location for a Demimonde group.’
The door swung back. A woman studied them with no trace of surprise. She was small, with dark eyes, and she wore a coarse smock. Her feet were bare. ‘What do you want?’
‘You are the Retrievers?’
The woman cast a look over her shoulder. Kingsley heard movement. He glanced around him, searching for the best way out, as his wild side threatened to rouse.
Evadne put a hand on the door. ‘Please. We understand you search for lost children.’
‘And find them, when we can.’ The woman’s voice was thick, her vowels strained. ‘We bring them home.’
‘From the Immortals?’
The woman shivered. ‘Aye. From them, or their agents, when we can.’
‘We want to help.’
The woman swung back the door. As she did, Kingsley’s eyes widened.
She was missing her little finger.
Three men and another woman were in the tiny room. A single shuttered window let light through in streaks. A rough table, two benches and a raft of suspicion greeted Kingsley and Evadne when they entered.
‘Who are they?’ one of the men whispered. He wore richer clothes than the others – a velvet jacket with lace collar and cuffs. His voice was hoarse. Both his hands were under the table.
‘We’re from your future,’ Evadne said. ‘We need to find the Immortals’ lair to use their magic so we can go home again.’
‘Ah.’ The man put his hands on the table. One held a wicked bone-handled knife. The other had only four fingers. ‘So it is help you want?’
‘We can pay,’ Evadne said. ‘Silver.’
Kingsley rocked on his heels. ‘I’m sorry, but wait a moment.’ He tugged on Evadne’s sleeve. ‘You simply came out and told them? Just like that?’
She shrugged. ‘We’re in the Demimonde. I’m sure they’ve heard more outlandish tales.’
The woman closed the door. ‘People from the future? You are strange enough.’ She gestured. ‘Your garments. Your talk.’
The hoarse man glanced at the others. ‘Besides, silver overcomes disbelief. Most readily.’
‘Sit.’ The woman said. ‘Tell us what you want.’
Kingsley had accepted that his clothes were already a lost cause, with the smoke, cinders and general dirt, so the encrusted bench was hardly an obstacle. He sat next to Evadne, who hesitated not at all. ‘You are few,’ she said.
The hoarse man shrugged. ‘We were more. The magicians kill us when they find us.’
‘Yet you continue your work.’
‘How could we not?’ the woman said. ‘They take children and they use them most foully. Who would not rise to defend the innocent?’
Evadne’s face was hard. ‘Many.’
‘But not you?’
‘No. I want to stop them. If I can find them, I will do them harm.’
Kingsley put his hand on Evadne’s. ‘We want their magic to send us home.’
Evadne grimaced. ‘Yes. Of course.’ She took a deep breath. ‘They have something in their lair that could help us.’
‘When you go home, you will do them harm?’ the woman asked, her eyes on Evadne.
‘Oh yes,’ Evadne breathed. ‘Certes.’
The woman looked at Hoarse Voice. He nodded. The others followed, some more slowly than the rest. ‘They are building a lair under Greenwich. Near the palace.’
Evadne stood and distributed the silver. The woman rose, went to the door and opened it. She saw the direction of Kingsley’s gaze. ‘We do it to ourselves,’ she said, holding up her hand, ‘to remind us of the foulness of the magicians.’
Hoarse Voice rapped on the table and held up his four-fingered hand as well. ‘They do it to themselves for their magic. We do it so we will never forget.’
At the doorway, Evadne paused. ‘You have all lost a child to them, have you not?’
The woman cast her gaze down. ‘My daughter. Only eleven years, she had, but she was bonny.’
Hoarse Voice stood. ‘We all have. H
arm them for us. We will watch, do what we can.’
‘And we will remember,’ the woman said.
The door closed.
Just as evening exchanged places with night, the Neanderthals ambushed them in Deptford.
Kingsley was eying the inn on one side of the square. He could smell food and decided another tub of turnips and beans would hit the spot nicely.
Much to the consternation of the few passers-by, Evadne was up on the market cross, ignoring the rain and trying to spy out the surroundings, her satchel over her shoulder, her sabre on her hip. ‘Everything looks different,’ she called to Kingsley at the base of the monument, where he stood hands in pocket, his thoughts full of turnips and beans.
‘A few hundred years of urban development will change a city,’ he pointed out.
Evadne rolled her eyes and leaned to the east, but cried out just as Kingsley was admiring her agility. ‘Kingsley! Neanderthals!’
Half a dozen of the brutish figures tumbled through a gap between the half-timbered buildings. They were led by one taller and even broader shouldered than his comrades – and with a bristling black beard to boot – while more were bowling out of a lane on the other side of the square.
Immediately and instinctively, Kingsley looked for avenues of escape around the muddy and puddle-strewn square, but they came too fast – and Evadne was trapped on the market cross.
Traps come in many sizes and shapes, he thought. The brutes pounded towards them and he had to admit they were all in the ‘big and muscular’ category. No weaklings here, no candidates for Professor Blumenthal’s Physical Academy, which was a pity.
He bounced on his toes. He licked lips that were suddenly dry. They must have a weakness, he thought while his heart accelerated its beating. It’s just a matter of finding it.
The first and most eager of the Neanderthals lunged. Kingsley caught him on the side of the jaw with a right hook that had all of his strength behind it – and immediately regretted it. It was like punching leather-covered stone. He let out a sharp oath and backed away rapidly, each step an adventure on the uneven, muddy cobbles.
Extraordinaires 1 Page 19
