A Scandal in Battersea Read online

  “Did you find any clues as to the perpetrator’s identity?” Watson asked, as if he was reading Nan’s mind.

  Holmes frowned again and momentarily stopped pacing. “What I found . . . was another thing that I cannot account for. All three of them had traces of . . . well, I would call it ‘soil’ under other circumstances . . . on the hems and other parts of their outer clothing, and on their gloves, as if they had all fallen to their hands and knees at some point. I assume this was during their captivity because I cannot imagine girls like these wearing dirty gloves. It is like no ‘soil’ I have ever taken a sample of, certainly no soil in London, and . . . soil, even in its wintry, frozen state, is still alive with insect eggs, spores, pollen, organic material, microscopic life. There was organic matter I could not identify, but this ‘soil’ was utterly sterile. I couldn’t even grow microbes from it.”

  John Watson blinked. “Is that even possible?”

  “Until this moment, I would have said no,” Holmes replied. “So once again, I am reduced to . . . conceding to the possibility that magic was involved.”

  “You are aware, good sir, of the theory of other worlds that lie alongside ours?” Puck spoke up for the first time, riveting Holmes’ attention on him. “That would be an explanation for the soil. If these young women had been flung through a door into a world parallel in time and space to ours. A sterile world from which life has been purged. . . .”

  “Are you suggesting that a passageway from our world to that was opened up, and these women were thrust through it? To—suffer whatever it was that turned them into mindless dolls, then be thrust back into our world?” Holmes demanded. “Once, perhaps, but six times?”

  “I am suggesting that, yes,” Puck agreed. “But I suggest also that it was by the agency of someone living in this world, and that it was done for some purpose we have not yet divined. Hence, six victims so far.”

  Holmes ran a hand through his hair, absently. “It sounds uncommonly as if you are describing a deal with the Devil.”

  “The Devil, no. A devil of sorts, perhaps. . . .” Puck shrugged. “It would take a great deal of effort to open such a doorway; even more effort than it takes to abduct six young women right off the open streets. Taken all together, it is clear that the perpetrator had enough to gain to make all this effort worth his while. You seldom make a misstep when you follow a path suggested by greed and gain.”

  “But what would this—putative devil have to gain?” Holmes demanded. “What could induce it to agree to this bargain?”

  “Presumably whatever it took that now means these young women are mindless.” Puck cocked his head to one side. “They once had something. Now they don’t. You may call that thing whatever you wish.”

  Holmes growled a little, then shrugged himself.

  “I am already accepting that someone opened a magical hole in the universe,” he admitted, begrudgingly. “I might as well accept that something purloined—what? Their souls?”

  “It’s enough to use for a premise, Holmes,” Mary Watson pointed out. “You can always discard whatever parts of it you discover don’t match the facts, but it does give us a place to start. A few moments ago we didn’t even have that.”

  Well, that’s not entirely true, Nan thought, because that is the premise that the rest of us had been operating on. But it was good that now Holmes was at least willing to consider it.

  “The student becomes the master,” Holmes replied, with a dry chuckle. “You are right to remind me of my own method. Very well then. What do we have?”

  “Battersea,” said Nan. “Every single one of these girls has been found in Battersea. That can’t be a coincidence. The perpetrator must be doing his work there, or on the outskirts of it.”

  “And he is clever enough to have taken his victims from places quite distant from it.” Holmes regarded a map they had attached to one of the bookcases, with red marks indicating roughly where the girls were from and blue where they had been found. “I suggest that the reason the three were found together in the park is that the park is the most public place in the borough that is also the most deserted on a winter evening. He had three to dispose of at once. For some reason, he wants them found. I cannot otherwise account for all three of them being taken to that spot, and a bonfire being set to draw attention to the very place where they were left standing.”

  “The other three showed signs that they had walked for quite some time before being discovered,” John Watson observed. “Their clothing and boots were caked with snow—and they kept walking when accosted until they were physically stopped. They probably could have kept walking for hours.”

  “So we can assume the first three were—wound up and let go in the direction of discovery, like clockwork toys,” Holmes agreed. “If he had not wanted them found, the Thames borders Battersea, and it would have been simple to point them in the direction of the shore and order them to walk.” He clasped his hands behind his back and pondered. Nan suspected that if he had been at home in his flat, there would have been more bullets decorating the area above the mantle. “We cannot search every blasted room, house, and flat in Battersea, however.”

  “I have had a search out for traces of magic where I know no magician lives,” Puck said. “I can narrow that search to Battersea, and it does not require physically searching each dwelling to look for such things.”

  “Then—” Holmes began, when Sarah shrieked.

  They all turned to see she was pointing at the door to the study and quickly looked in that direction, expecting something horrific to be coming in the door.

  But worse, she was pointing to where the door had been. Because the door was almost certainly gone now, and in its place was a door-shaped area of utter blackness, like the darkness of the void between the stars itself.

  Instinctively they all leapt to their feet and backed away from it. And just in time, for a moment later, the void erupted with tentacles, tentacles that flailed into the space where living humans had just been.

  In the next moment, Nan felt the Celtic Warrior Woman erupt from her slumber deep within her. Anger, rather than fear, filled her. She raised her head and screamed defiance at whatever was trying to reach them, unsurprised to discover her gown had turned into a short checkered tunic and leather trousers, that her feet and legs were wrapped in crude leather boots, and that there was a bronze sword in her hand. With a matching scream of defiance, Neville launched himself from his perch and landed on her shoulder, now the size of an eagle.

  Behind her Selim uttered a bloodcurdling war cry in which the name of Allah figured prominently; in the next moment he, Agansing, and Karamjit were beside her, their own swords in hand.

  As the tentacles continued to flail, the four of them charged.

  They could scarcely have missed if they had tried; there were plenty of targets, and the main concern Nan had—beneath the Warrior’s white-hot rage—was not to hit the other three by accident. With one stroke, she lopped off three squirming tentacles. She had braced herself, expecting some reaction, a hideous scream, mental or physical—but there was nothing. Just silence, and the amputated tentacles vanished into mist.

  Abruptly the rest of the monster, or monsters, withdrew, and the void began to shrink.

  That was when Puck leapt past her and thrust a green, glowing staff, sprouting vines and vividly emerald leaves, into the blackness. “I’ll hold the door!” he shouted. “Go! You’ll never get a better chance to cut this thing off at the root!”

  Nan didn’t hesitate, and neither did Selim. Side by side the two of them vaulted into the darkness, with Neville clinging to her shoulder.

  They emerged under a cold, starless sky, landing on ground that felt like ashes. Faint, sourceless light seemed to come from that sky; just enough to see by to keep from stumbling into things, not enough to see far, or clearly. With a glance at each other, they moved out of the way, jus
t in time for the rest to come through.

  And half of Puck. He planted his glowing staff in the barren soil; it lit up the night like a beacon. “I’ll have to stay here to hold the door,” he said, grimly. “This is not my world, and I have little power here. But I will stay as long as any of you remain.”

  Nan tore her eyes away from him and took in her surroundings—and recognized them in an instant. The shattered buildings—the skeletal trees—the cold wind moaning among the branches—

  “This is—” she exclaimed.

  “The same place as Amelia’s visions,” Memsa’b finished for her, grimly. “Well, now at least we know it is a real place, and not some presentiment of a diabolical future.”

  Memsa’b too had transformed; she sported a scandalously short Grecian tunic and carried a spear. Like Nan’s bronze sword, it gave off a faint light. Sahib had taken on the aspect of a medieval knight—Selim, Agansing, and Karamjit were all enhanced versions of their everyday selves, chiefly with more bits of armor. Sarah, Sherlock, John, and Mary remained as they had been, except that Grey was the size of a very large hawk.

  Sherlock stared at them all incredulously. But he did not permit their transformation to hold his attention for long. The first thing he did, once he tore his eyes away from them, was to stoop and scoop up a bit of the soil they were standing on, feeling it carefully, holding it to his nose and sniffing it, tasting it.

  “Is this what I think it is?” John Watson asked his friend.

  “Without making exact tests, I would say this earth is identical to that which I removed from the clothing of the latest victims, yes,” Holmes replied. “I wish I had a fighting stick, or my revolver.”

  “Come over here and lay your hand on my staff,” Puck ordered. Not even questioning him, Holmes did as he was told. A moment later one of the vines straightened, thickened, then broke off, dropping to Holmes’ feet. He bent and snatched it up. “This will do admirably,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “I’d like one of those,” John said. “And so would Mary and Sarah.” Soon everyone who wasn’t already armed at least had a weapon. Nan hoped, coming as they did from Puck’s staff, the sticks might also have some magic to them that would work against whatever lived here.

  “Sherlock, does this look like London to you?” Mary Watson asked. “It does to me.”

  “It looks enough like London to me,” John added, “Though I’ll be damned if I know where.”

  Nan looked around her at the broken buildings and shivered. Many of the buildings were without roofs. And the dim light coming in through the glassless windows made the broken walls look like stacks of gargantuan skulls.

  “I’m not surprised neither of you recognize this place,” Holmes replied. “You haven’t had much cause to visit the Royal Courts of Justice, or consult a barrister. It’s Temple. I fancy in our world we’re not far from the Blackfriar Bridge. I—” he coughed. “I suppose you magicians can create a light?”

  “Only two of us are magicians, Sherlock,” John chided him. “But yes, I can. I don’t think it advisable, however. A light will make us exceedingly visible to anything hunting in these ruins. Those tentacles came from something, and I would rather not attract the whole beast.”

  With a start, Nan glanced down at her glowing sword and, with a thought, extinguished the light. The others did the same—all but Puck, for obvious reasons. If they were going to venture into these ruins, they were going to need a beacon to guide them back to the door.

  “Whatever you mean to do, do it quickly,” Puck urged. “That thing might be back at any moment, and I doubt it’s going to ask me to tea.”

  “We should scout, Sahib,” Karamjit said. “But I do not believe we should separate.”

  “Holmes, there is a former patient of John’s who has been having visions of this place,” Nan said in a low voice, when Sherlock looked as if he disagreed with that idea. “With my ability to read minds, I was able to share in those visions. These ruins might look empty, but they hold things that were hunting human beings in the ones I saw. I think Karamjit is right. And I think there is no doubt that whatever is here is the thing that has been behind the abductions. I believe it somehow discovered we were getting closer to finding its agent in our world and chose to act, to attempt to finish us before we discovered anything else.”

  “Very well, then,” Sherlock agreed reluctantly. “We could cover twice the ground if we split up into two parties, but I will yield to your superior information. My only question to you is this—London is vast. Its counterpart is probably just as vast. Where do you propose we should look?”

  Nan stared at the others, who all mirrored her indecision. And they might have stood there for some time, had they not heard a heartrending cry, and the sound of snarls coming toward them. Instinctively, the ones with weapons formed a line of protection in front of the ones who had next to nothing—which, to his chagrin, included John Watson. They hadn’t time to do more than that when the quarry burst into view, scrambling over the rubble of a completely ruined building. Human, certainly. Moved by a joint humane impulse, Nan shouted, “Over here!” at the same time as John created a light over his head.

  The man was clutching his chest as he stumbled toward them, and the closer he got to them, the more it was apparent that this was a man from their world, an elderly man, gray-haired, dressed in the tattered remains of what had once been a conservative suit. He fell at their feet, exhausted and bleeding, just as his pursuers flung themselves over the top of the hill of rubble, stopped and stared at them, John’s light making their eyes reflect a hellish red.

  Or perhaps their eyes were glowing a hellish red.

  If one had crossed a pariah dog with a spider and covered the whole with mangy black fur, added a barbed tail, and inserted teeth that were so long they couldn’t actually close their mouths, that was something like the horrors that Nan saw all too clearly. There were ten to fifteen of them—they wove in and around each other, so it was hard to tell their exact number—and they snarled and slavered as they stared at their erstwhile victim.

  “Would that I had a torch,” Selim said, as John and Mary pulled the man behind the defensive line. “I would burn those unholy things until there was nothing but ash.”

  “I think we should remedy that, before we go a step further,” Sherlock said grimly. He looked about, and added, with a little more doubt, “If we can find something to burn, that is.”

  He was right. There was nothing like a branch or a piece of wood anywhere around them.

  As if their voices had awakened fear in the things, their heads came up and they turned tail and vanished, back over the hill of debris. So they were safe from attack. For now, anyway.

  Nan was not inclined to let her guard down, and the Celtic Warrior absolutely forbade the very idea, so she, Selim, and Karamjit kept a watchful eye, weapons out, while Agansing joined the others in tending to the stranger.

  “Escape . . . if you can,” he gasped, as John worked feverishly over him. “Do not tarry. This . . . place is a charnel house.”

  “Who are you?” Holmes asked urgently. “How did you come here?”

  “Fensworth,” the man replied faintly. “Arthur Fensworth. I . . . don’t know . . . how I came here.”

  Haltingly, a few words at a time, with his voice growing weaker by the moment, Arthur Fensworth told them what little of his story there was to tell. “I fell through my own door,” he croaked. “I found myself here. At first, I thought I must have suffered a fit, and was lying in the snow, hallucinating.”

  He had spent his first day wandering, and when he got desperately thirsty, drinking from water caught in little pockets in broken-down walls. He had recognized the area, being a solicitor. He had even found where the rooms of a barrister friend would have been and hid there, drinking stagnant water from a broken cistern, sleeping in the rubble inside the remains of a wardrob
e. He searched the ruins for food, growing ever more desperate. Then his hunger grew too great to bear.

  “And then . . . I heard the call,” he said. “It was the creature that rules this hell. I followed the call. It ended in the broken dome of St. Paul’s. There were others like me: women, children. Not many. The thing fed us, strips of meat in piles on the floor. We ate like dogs. I think . . .” He broke down then. “I think it might have been human flesh. I was hungry . . . so hungry . . .” He wept, then, meager tears etching their way through the dirt on his face, and Nan turned away, not wanting to stare at the poor old man in a moment of such terrible weakness. “Then it drove us out with its creatures. I swore not to eat again, but . . . I was so hungry . . .”

  He was silent for a moment, then began to cough wetly. Alarmed, Nan glanced back at him. There was a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. Then he coughed again, and brought up several great clots of blood, turning his head to cough it into the dust.

  She looked at John, who looked up at her, and sadly shook his head.

  Fensworth groaned in pain, coughed once more, gasped “Save yourselves. This place is death,” and died.

  John Watson laid the old man gently down, took out his handkerchief, and covered his face. He and Mary stood up; he brushed off his trousers and Mary shook out her skirts. Nan felt as if she ought to be sad, but she couldn’t seem to manage anything but rage or fear. Was this place meddling with their emotions? Or was it just that the poor man was a complete stranger and, right now, they were in a situation of great peril without a lot of emotion to spare for anyone else?

  Poor old man. What did he ever do to deserve a death like this?

  “Jolly old place this is, what?” John said sardonically. “Brilliant for holidays.”

  Sherlock looked about, trying to orient himself. “Unless I miss my guess, this version of St. Paul’s is over there.” He pointed. “The streets seem passable, barring opposition. We have four swords, a spear, and fighting sticks among us. Will you magicians be of any use?”