A Scandal in Battersea Page 10

  “Respected?” he asked. “The likes of me, by him?” He drew in a long, careful breath. “Ah well, then . . .” He made a little grasping gesture with his hands, and the milk and scone vanished. “A feast for a favor, done.” He looked at them both, expectantly.

  Nan sucked on her lower lip. Could Robin Goodfellow read? She’d have to chance it.

  “Let me write a note,” she said, feeling in her reticule for some paper and a pencil.

  “Oh, that would be a grand thing, mistress,” the brownie replied, looking relieved. “Better if I don’t have to remember. Because . . . if I do go standing before him, I think all my memories will drain right out my ears, I truly do.”

  She was getting so used to this story she was able to condense it down into two pages of closely written notepaper, which she folded and sealed with a blob of candle-wax, and handed to the little man. He stowed the packet inside his smock and waited patiently again.

  While Nan had been writing, Beatrice had been making little motions with what could only be a wand. Nan had never seen anyone use a wand before . . . the Elemental Masters she’d seen in action all used their hands, not wands.

  Beatrice was making tiny circles with the tip of the wand pointed at Nan, eyes narrowed in concentration. Nan thought she saw little transparent, glowing wisps of something collecting on the end of it, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Eventually, she held out the tip of her wand to the brownie who cupped his hands around it and apparently pulled an invisible ball of something off it. “There you go, pet,” Beatrice said easily. “That will show him who you’re from. Favor for a feast. Tell him Miss Nan will meet him, if he can come, in Kensington Garden the day after the Eve.” She looked at Nan. “Don’t worry about finding him, he’ll find you.”

  That was a good choice, Nan realized. On Christmas Day Kensington Garden would be practically empty.

  “Thenkee, mistress,” said the little man, who bobbed an awkward bow, then faded away.

  “Well,” Nan said after a long pause. “That’s done.”

  “’Tis,” Beatrice replied. “And I would take it kindly if you’d help me up and back to my chair!”

  6

  THE coal fire on the grate kept the sitting room warm, and supplied most of the light. Alexandre waited, somewhat impatiently, for Alf to return with the last component of the magic work he was about to attempt. He had spent the last two days carefully going over the ritual he had copied from The Book, making sure he clearly understood each and every word of the incantations, and that, barring mistakes in The Book itself, he could pronounce everything perfectly. He didn’t want to take a chance on this going wrong, because if it did, he couldn’t try again for another year. And even then . . . this would be the most effective Eve for quite some time. Everything would be perfect right now, but only if Alf could get him that one final, and all-important, thing.

  But if anyone could, Alf could.

  He paced the floor of his sitting room, eager to start, even though midnight was three hours away. He planned to take his time and move slowly and methodically, but the longer it took for Alf to get back here was less time for him to use. Time wasn’t critical . . . yet. But if Alf took much longer, it would be.

  He thought he knew now why The Book had found its way into his hands. Most of the people who frequented the bookstore were interested in the erotica, not the esoterica, and the few who had any interest at all in the occult had not, at least to his eyes, shown any signs of real power. Like the proprietor, they could not tell trash from treasure. And he was certain now that, like many such items of power, The Book had a certain level of sentience, and had deliberately bent the mind of the owner to show it to him.

  Or . . . no, that was not quite correct. It was not The Book itself that was sentient. It was that there was a power behind The Book that had been seeking for the proper person to find The Book. Now, its ability to interact with the material world was thin and feeble, and the best it could do was dimly influence minds to get The Book to someone that could use it. Once he set it free . . .

  That would take some time; six months and as many moon-dark major rituals, in fact, with additional minor rituals as he got the components and time to do them.

  The clock on the mantle ticked loudly, one second for every step he took. It was exactly eight steps across his sitting room in front of the fireplace. He thought by now he must have measured out several miles. What could be keeping the man?

  But then he heard footfalls on the steps, and ran to open the door. “Did you—”

  Alf held up a basket. Alexandre frowned. “But that—”

  “Ye said a virgin, an’ Oi thought, on’y way to be sure is t’get one too young t’hev been interfered with.” Alf pushed past him and headed for the cellar stairs. “Le’s get down afore it wakes up and starts cryin’. Oi give it some whiskey-milk t’shut it up, but Oi dunno how long thet’ll last.”

  Alf hurried down the stairs ahead of him; Alexandre made sure the heavy cellar door was firmly closed. Now he was worried. It wasn’t that he objected to sacrificing a baby—but would the entity accept a baby?

  By the time he got downstairs, Alf had already put the baby, closed basket and all, on the altar stone in the middle of the basement floor. Fortunately the altar stone he was already using had been acceptable according to The Book. It was just a good thing he knew so many artists. It hadn’t been that difficult for him to get hold of a proper sized piece of black marble, and the way he kept enthusing about the bust of Prince Albert he was going to make it into had kept the workmen who brought it here properly incurious. Getting the top polished had been the hardest work he’d ever done in his life.

  “It’s awfully quiet in that basket,” he said, doubtfully, as he descended the last couple of stairs. “Is it even still alive?”

  Alf looked in the basket. “Jes’ sleepin’.” He turned to his master. “Look, ye tol’ me it was most important fer it t’be a virgin. There hain’t a lot of virgins on the market, not ones with gar-an-tees, an’ Oi figgered if it was thet important for it t’be a virgin, there was a damn good reason. We didn’ ’ave a lot uv time t’get one, neither. Them as goes about buyin’ virgins gets attention, an’ Oi reckoned ye didn’ want that.”

  Well, all that was true. That just hadn’t occurred to him, and it probably should have; would have, if he hadn’t been concentrating so hard on The Book. Still . . .

  The Book didn’t specify age, or even sex, he reminded himself. Just that it be a virgin.

  But that brought up another question. How on earth had Alf gotten a baby? Had he bought it? Wasn’t buying a baby likely to bring questions? A new set of anxieties assailed him, “Where did you get it?” he asked.

  Alf chuckled. “Roight orf th’ steps uv a Foundlin’ ’Ome. Oi’d reckoned t’see if I could slip in an’ take one, but there was a girl leavin’ one jest as Oi gets there. Oi nips in an’ snatches the basket an Oi’m ’round th’ corner afore anyone comes t’answer th’bell.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Oi dunno if ye’ve iver seed th’ inside uv one uv them ’Omes, guv. Nobody minds th’ back door, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ t’steal. Babies is all in one big room, loik, all wrapped up like sausages, six, eight uv ’em to a bed. Nobody comes if they cries, so they gets useta not cryin’, cause it don’t get ’em nothin’. Mebbe one nurse t’the room, an she’s likely drunk. If babies die i’ th’ night, they jest put ’em in a shed ’til ground thaws, an’ buries ’em wholesale. Ain’t nobody gonna notice if one goes missin’. If this works, I c’n get more, easy-peasy.”

  Alexandre nodded, mollified. “Damn good work, Alf,” he said, and fished out the gold sovereigns he’d put in his vest pocket. “Here,” he said, tossing all three of them to Alf, who caught them out of the air, deftly. “Get us some girls so we can celebrate after, and keep the rest for yourself. Is there anything I should do
about—” he nodded at the basket.

  Alf looked in again, and shook his head. “Nay. ’S warm enuff, sleepin’ hard, an’ Oi reckon th’ whiskey’ll keep it quiet till midnight. Anythin’ more, guv?”

  Alexandre shook his head. Alf grinned.

  “Oi’ll get me somethin’ t’eat then, an’ get them girls. Ye ain’t gonna need ’em till arter midnight?”

  “I’m sure you can find something to keep you, and them, occupied until then,” he replied dryly. Alf grinned again, tugged at his cap, and went back up the stairs, closing the door firmly behind him.

  And Alexandre got to work.

  He’d removed every trace of magical work he had done here before, scouring the room down to the stone floor and walls. For now, he needed light, and plenty of it, so he lit the lamps he had hung from the beams of the ceiling and got his paint and brush and, of course, The Book.

  Using a stiff, fine brush, he painted a circle around the altar stone, then a larger one outside of that. With The Book in one hand and the brush in the other, using the paint that had been made of very specific ingredients—none of them, oddly, blood—he wrote words in a language he had been completely unable to identify. When they were painted, starting in the north, he walked three times counterclockwise, slowly, intoning a sequence of syllables that had been very carefully denoted in The Book.

  When he ended, chanting and walking both, he got back down on his hands and knees and painted another pair of circles, and another set of words, and repeated the walking and chanting.

  He did this for a total of nine circles. And when he was finished, with tiny dots of paint, he marked north, northeast, east, south east, south, southwest, west, and northwest, with absolute precision. And in each of these positions he left an object. In the north, a piece of meteorite. In the northeast, a small fossil. In the east, a piece of fulgurite, the glass formed when lightning strikes sand. In the southeast, a tiny cube of electrum. In the south, a pyramid of black jade. In the southwest, a saucer of mercury. In the west, a dodecahedron of obsidian. And in the northwest, a crystal skull. That last, he had found as the pommel of an expensive walking stick.

  He set incense of dragon’s blood burning and placed lit black candles behind each of the objects. The incense fumed and filled the air with its pungent and peculiar aroma. He licked his lips, and tasted it, lingering resinously on his tongue.

  Then, with his watch out in one hand, The Book in the other, and a lantern behind him to illuminate the words clearly, he began a long, sonorous chant, of which he only understood about half the words. As nearly as he could tell, it included the names of gods so old they were ancient even to the Egyptians, but what the sense of it was, he could not tell.

  And he ended the chant precisely as the bells in the churches around him and the watch in his hand chimed midnight.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then, slowly, all the light drained out of the room, and the lamps hanging from the ceiling went out, leaving only the eight candles on the floor, flickering with dim, blue flames.

  The temperature in the room dropped until it was so cold his face hurt. And then, all the darkness was sucked toward the altar stone, shrouding it and the basket atop it, a pillar of darkness he could not see into. He shivered all over and his teeth chattered . . . but not just because of the cold. There was something about that pillar of darkness that sent all the hair on his head standing straight up, and evoked a primal and bone-deep fear.

  “The offering is inadequate.”

  The voice did not seem to come from anywhere. Rather, it seemed to echo within his own mind. Alexandre went rigid all over, his words freezing in his throat. Even his teeth stopped chattering. What was he supposed to do now? The Book hadn’t said anything about “inadequate” offerings, only “acceptable” and “unacceptable” ones. “Acceptable” meant he . . . well, would have anything he wanted. “Unacceptable” would mean the door would slam and he’d have to wait until next year to try again. But . . . “inadequate”?

  “The offering is inadequate,” the voice repeated; emotionless, expressionless, as dead as Alexandre’s father. “But the offering is accepted.” He sighed in relief.

  Too soon.

  “You must do more. You must bring Us more.”

  “Now?” he bleated, frantic, unable to imagine where he was going to find a virgin anything on Christmas Eve, or—maybe Alf hadn’t left yet, maybe they could go back to the Foundling Home and steal more babies. How many babies would equal a virgin girl? Four? Six? How soon could they do that?

  And now his mind was running in frantic circles as question after question about how to do this impossible task made him dizzy. How would they steal six babies at once? How would they carry them all? They couldn’t get a cab! How would they explain toting around six babies on Christmas Eve? Alf had used a basket . . . could they use baskets? Could they fit three babies each to a basket? What if they woke up? What if they cried?

  “The offering has opened the door, but We are not strengthened. You will strengthen Us. Come in three days time, and We will instruct you. Now go.”

  The pillar of darkness collapsed into a pool of darkness on the floor. There was no sign of the altar stone, or the basket that had been on it. A wind out of that pool swept around the room, blowing out the candles—and, somehow, the lamps, all but the one behind Alexandre.

  He shivered in every limb as he stared into the darkness, and felt the darkness staring back at him, reaching into his soul. He had to get out of here before whatever he had called changed its mind and decided it wanted him. He finally made his arm reach for the lantern without taking his eyes off the pool of blackness; his body seemed to move with glacial slowness.

  Is that thing in the floor the door? Alexandre wondered, as he took the lantern and backed slowly away from what looked like a bottomless hole in the floor. He wanted to run away, screaming, and it was all he could do to move slowly, cautiously, trying not to attract that . . . thing’s . . . attention any further. He inched his way up the steps, and only when the cellar door was shut and his back was to it did he finally breathe, wiping his sweating face with his handkerchief. His body flushed, went cold again, flushed and went cold. Nervous sweat plastered his hair to his skull.

  Mustn’t let Alf see me like this, he thought, dazedly after a moment, only now remembering Alf had promised to bring back girls. He made his way to his bedroom, still carrying the lantern, and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey from the decanter there, and when that seemed inadequate, another. Then he stripped off coat, vest, and shirt, put on a clean shirt, toweled his hair dry with the old shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for the whiskey to soothe his nerves.

  After a moment he realized he was still clutching his copy of The Book. He must have put it down to change . . . but he didn’t remember picking it back up again. In fact . . . he didn’t remember putting it down, either. He stared at it. So innocuous, just a plain copybook with cloth covers, the kind anyone could buy at a stationers.

  It’s not too late to end all this now, whispered a voice in his mind. You know people who know Lord Alderscroft. You could go to them in the morning. You could tell them you were trying out something and it went wrong and you need their help. One look at what’s in the cellar, and they’ll go straight to Alderscroft and he’ll summon his whole damn White Lodge to deal with it. The worst you’ll get is a tongue-lashing for dabbling in things you don’t understand. They won’t think you sacrificed anything more than a cat or a dog. No one knows about the baby, and it’s gone now, without a trace. Alf certainly won’t tell them. If you never show them The Book, if you never mention the baby, no one will ever know what you were really up to. This can all be over in a day, perhaps two, long before that thing in the darkness can . . . instruct you.

  But that would mean giving up everything The Book promised. . . .

  These things neve
r end well, the voice whispered. These things always end in the sorcerer screaming, and blood spattered all over the ceiling, and neighbors saying afterward, “But he was so quiet and well-mannered . . .”

  He listened to that voice for a moment, then violently shook his head. That wasn’t the voice of reason, that was the voice of cowardice, the same voice that had told him to be a good boy, go to church, obey his father like a little mindless slave. That voice had led him to undergo years of misery before he’d found his first magic book. He knew better. That voice wanted him to be weak, not strong. These are tales told to keep the bold from triumphing, he told the voice, and downed a third tumbler of whiskey. All those stories of “deals with the devil” never ending well had been written by people who had a vested interest in making sure things stayed exactly the way they were—that no “unauthorized” individuals dared to reach for power. People like his father! People who wanted to keep people like him under their thumb. It was always that way! People like Alderscroft and his precious Lodge would rather that everyone believed that if you took an unorthodox approach to magic, terrible things happened to you.

  Courage rose in him once again. Look what he’d accomplished! Even the entity that he had summoned had recognized boldness and greatness in him! It had said the offering was “inadequate,” and yet—It had still taken the offering. It must know he was ready for the kind of power It could offer him.

  Nothing terrible had happened in the cellar. In fact, the outcome had almost been better than if he’d had the “proper” sacrifice; in three days he would know exactly what the entity wanted, rather than guessing. He took a long, deep breath. In every single one of those “cautionary tales,” when an offering was not exactly what the entity demanded, it was the summoner who paid. But all the entity he had called had said was that he would have to strengthen it. Things were good. In fact, tonight was a triumph.

  He realized he was still holding The Book, and carefully put it away in the locked drawer of his dresser. Not that he actually needed to lock it up, but it made him feel better to know it, and the original, were under lock and key.