A Scandal in Battersea Page 31

  Alf snorted. “Jest a tap on th’ ’ead an’ ’e’ll be dreamin’. Leave th’ door open. Oi’ll be roight down.”

  The feeling of relief he experienced as he carried the girl down the stairs was the most profound emotion he had ever felt in his life. He was almost giddy with it, as he laid the girl down beside the void in the floor, and stepped back.

  Five minutes later, Alf joined him, and laid the boy down beside the girl. The boy looked to be another workhouse or hiring hall acquisition. Thin, poorly dressed, about thirteen. And probably he’d been guzzling beer and stuffing himself and dreaming of what he could steal from his “new employers.”

  “Oi’ll jest leave ye to it,” Alf said, and went back up the stairs.

  But he hadn’t gotten more than halfway up when the void suddenly erupted into a pillar, the pillar exploded with tentacles, and the tentacles seized the two victims and dragged them into the darkness. The pillar alone remained.

  Alexandre let out his breath. “Now . . . we wait.”

  18

  ALF had always considered himself a practical man, and one of the things about being a practical man was constantly weighing loyalty against . . . circumstances. So far, he had never had circumstances outweigh loyalty, but this situation might change all that.

  He sat in the kitchen, nursing brandies. He had fallen in with magicians quite by accident. One had plucked him out of the workhouse at the advanced age of eight, and at that moment, anything would have been better than the life of hard, unforgiving labor in the mills that he seemed to be destined for. He had learned the value of loyalty when his first master had generously rewarded it—and harshly punished disloyalty. A mere Elemental Magician, he had a benign relationship with his Elementals, if a criminal one. He was a professional gambler, and had a small flock of sylphs who thought it highly amusing to tilt dice in his favor,and whisper the cards in each of his opponents’ hands. He never used his own cards or dice, and thus, though he was often accused of cheating, nothing whatsoever could be proved. And the White Lodge either saw no reason to chastise him, or never knew about him—probably the latter.

  His first master retired—and old as he was, was probably dead by now—and his second master hired him. This one . . . was one where the weighing of loyalty began. Another mere “magician,” he was . . . a grifter. He always had a scheme going, and thanks to his magic, he generally pulled them off. But he had had a terrible weakness. Not content with visiting whorehouses, as Alf had learned to do, he had to use his powers to convince others to have sex with him: male, female, it didn’t matter. It was one thing when he “seduced” victims of the working class. It was quite another when he decided to set his gaze higher. That was how he had gotten into trouble and how he had found himself on a small smuggling ship being taken across the channel—the trip arranged by Alf. Luckily almost none of the victims remembered Alf, or loyalty would definitely have been outweighed by circumstance.

  As it was, he’d had his eye on Harcourt, who was in his then-current master’s circle of disreputable magicians, and who, in fact, had been one of his master’s chief protégés. So he had passed seamlessly from one good master to another who, like his first, rewarded loyalty very generously.

  But generosity was far outweighed by the possibility of being eaten by some mystical monster. If that was where this was going . . . Alf decided, between the second and third brandy, that it might be time to pack up his things and find someone new. And possibly go straight to the White Lodge and let them know about the “rum goings-on.”

  One hour passed. Then two. Then three. From time to time he went out to check on the horse, make sure it was still warm and comfortable under the blanket he’d thrown over it, make sure no one had noticed and meddled with the coach. And three hours were more than enough time to wait. Something should have happened by now. The last girls had been spit out by the monster within a quarter hour. And if something had gone wrong. . . .

  Alf made his way back down the stairs to find Alexandre still sitting, waiting, just out of reach of the pillar of darkness. “Somethin’ th’ matter, guv?” he asked, cautiously. In his opinion, Alexandre couldn’t hold a candle to his last two masters when it came to magic. It seemed to him that most of what had been happening was all due to sheer accident on Alexandre’s part, an accidental success that whatever lived on the other side of that blackness was only too happy to take advantage of.

  “I . . . don’t know,” Alexandre admitted. “It hasn’t rejected the girl, but it hasn’t sent her back, either.” Alexandre looked over his shoulder at Alf, and Alf could see that his face was pale and drawn with anxiety. He moved a step back up on the staircase.

  “Mebbe they was both virgins, an’ th’ thin’s tryin ter make up its mind.” Alf was beginning to get a very uneasy feeling about this. The same sort of uneasy feeling he’d had when his previous employer began engaging in riskier and riskier behavior. The same sort of uneasy feeling he’d had . . . well, many, many times in the past, when he’d escaped danger by the skin of his teeth. He backed his way further up the stairs, quietly, to the point where he could just see the young man. If this thing couldn’t see him, maybe it wouldn’t realize he was there.

  Then he heard it, and shuddered at the coldness of it. The voice in his head. Presumably Alexandre heard it too.

  Are you prepared for your reward? Are you prepared to become a part of the Great Masters?

  Alexandre bolted to his feet with excitement, while Alf’s nerves practically sizzled with the conviction that something was very, very wrong. Alexandre was about to make a terrible, terrible mistake. He wasn’t the one in control here. And Alf had the feeling that this was the culmination of a very carefully thought-out plan on the part of that—thing. “Yes!” he shouted. “Yes! I—”

  Then you shall have what you desire.

  And before Alf could move a muscle, the pillar erupted with those hideous, black, boneless tentacles, dozens of them. They seized Alexandre, and before he could even gasp, they dragged him into the pillar, quick as you could say “knife.”

  And then there was nothing left in the basement but the pillar. Alf froze, hoping the monster couldn’t “see” him. For two long, breathless minutes, nothing happened. Alf knew it was two minutes, because he counted the ticks of the clock in the flat above.

  And then the shape of the pillar changed a little. It bulged on Alf’s side. The girl staggered out of the bulge, and then dropped bonelessly to the floor.

  The pillar collapsed, as he had seen it do before. But this time, not into a dark hole in the middle of the basement floor. It collapsed, and kept collapsing, growing smaller and smaller until finally, there was nothing left. Not the void. Not the painted diagrams on the floor. Not the stone altar that had been there. Nothing but a scoured flagstone floor, an overturned chair, an oil lamp, and the breathing body of the mindless girl. Whatever the thing was . . . it was gone. Presumably it had what it wanted, and there was no more reason for it to keep a foothold here.

  Alf let out the breath he had been holding, and sat himself down on the staircase, thinking.

  The thing was gone. He knew his magic, and it wasn’t going to come back through the basement anymore. The patterns that Alexandre—probably now his late master—had painted on the floor were what had anchored its portal here, and since it had erased them as it left, it had no more use for this basement. Whatever it had wanted, it had gotten, and now it had decamped to elsewhere, taking Alexandre with it. Which technically left Alf without an employer, and homeless. . . .

  . . . except . . .

  He wasn’t homeless, not really. And he didn’t actually need an employer now. He’d been able to forge Alexandre’s name for years; he’d been practicing doing so on the chance that one day he might have to, the life of a magician being uncertain and all. For instance, what if Alexandre had gone and blinded himself? Or what if his hands were set on fire? Or w
hat if he was laid up in bed, unconscious, for a long time? Alf knew where the blank cheques were. He knew where the stash of banknotes and the stack of gold guineas were. Alexandre had no notion he knew all these things, of course, and had Alexandre remained the sane and generous employer he’d been, Alf would never have made any use of this talent for forgery or his knowledge of where the hidden money was.

  As for being able to pass the cheques, that was simple. He’d been taking cheques to the bank to cash for Alexandre for years. He could continue doing so, with the forged cheques, as long as he didn’t start exceeding proper expenses without a damn good reason. He could continue to pay for the horse and coach, the household expenses, and whatever entertainment he cared to have.

  The house was paid for. He could live here as long as he cared to, no one would know Alexandre wasn’t here.

  As for income, Alexandre’s monthly stipend would continue to be deposited every quarter, as regular as clockwork, and Alf could draw cheques on it. As he understood these things, Alexandre had actually been living on the interest of a much larger sum, and as long as that “principal sum” was not touched, no one at the bank or the solicitor would care. Expenses would, in fact, be halved. If—not likely, but if—the solicitors came to have a look ’round, he could say the guv was out, which would technically be true. And meanwhile, he could be tucking half the expense money in his drawer, just in case the day came he had to cut and run for it. Bloody hell, if he felt like it, he could pick up some odd work with that coach and horse for a little more ready.

  There was his old woman’s house of course. Papers would have to be signed in person by the guv if it was sold, and that could be a problem . . . all right, he’d go through Alexandre’s letters, and carefully copy out the right phrases suggesting to the solicitors that so valuable a property should be rented, not sold, and leave it to them to make the arrangements. Then there wouldn’t be papers to sign, and there would be more income, income he could draw on by slowly, gradually, increasing the size of the cheques he was writing.

  He felt a slow smile spreading over his face. This wasn’t bad. This wasn’t bad at all. Just one little inconvenient thing to be rid of, and then—well, then it would be time to celebrate his new independence and freedom.

  He went to the prone body of the mindless girl and got her to her feet and up the stairs. No point in that elaborate ruse to take her to the police station now—what would be the point of it? He just made sure she was warmly dressed, with a folded blanket draped over her by way of a coat or a shawl, secured in place with a few rough stitches in the front and under the arms, and led her out to the road in front of the house, pointing her the way she should go. “Start walkin’. An’ keep walkin’ until somebody stops yew,” he said, and obediently, she did just that. He was amazed that she didn’t shuffle along, like some of the loonies or lads full gone with drink he’d seen. She walked pretty normally, all things considered.

  He retreated to the front door immediately. Around him, all the houses were dark; it wasn’t likely anyone had noticed him sending her on her way. Then he went back inside the house, locked up, went out the back door, and headed for the coach. The uneasy feeling was quite, quite gone. Time to put the horse to bed. Time to get a ride to where he could get a cab. Time to celebrate his new freedom, wealth, and independence. He grinned, and kept grinning, all the way to the stable. He’d wondered what the guv’s posh bed felt like; he’d had to make do with an old straw tick on a foundation of rope, while the guv had a wool mattress, proper springs, and a featherbed over all, in a bed big enough for four.

  “There ye go, ol’ man,” he said aloud to the horse, as he drove it to its stable. “Thi’s ’ow bein’ loyal gits yew rewards. Nice ’ot mash fer yew, nice ’ot toddy an’ a even ’otter gel fer me.”

  The horse picked up its pace, which seemed to indicate it agreed with his sentiments.

  He chuckled, clinked the money in his pocket, and grinned all the way to the stable.

  Nan woke out of a fitful sleep to find that Amelia was shaking her arm. She came completely awake, immediately; habit from years of living with her slut of a mother, when being too slow to wake up could mean being slapped awake or worse. In the dim light from the coal fire, she saw Amelia was kneeling at the side of her bed. “Nan,” the girl said urgently. “I’m about to have a vision—”

  This might be the one we’re waiting for. But she couldn’t take the chance on Amelia being taken by the vision while she was sitting out there on the cold carpet. “Get into my bed,” Nan ordered, throwing back the covers and vacating her place so that Amelia could fill it. The girl obeyed her, and it was just as well that Nan had not wasted time trying to get her back to her proper place, because she was no sooner comfortable than she went rigid, her eyes got that fixed, entranced look about them, and Nan knew that a vision had overtaken her.

  Thoroughly used to this by now, Nan wrapped herself in a warm dressing gown, sat down on the edge of the bed, allowed herself to drop into a light trance with one hand on Amelia’s, and joined her mind to the girl’s. There was a moment of disorientation, and then she seemed to be falling through blackness until she emerged into a place that, unlike when she had been there in person, shone with a dim, spectral radiance outlining everything.

  That certainly would have been helpful when we were actually there.

  Amelia was already waiting for her there, in that world where darkness seemed to be eternal and everything was in ruins. It was the same, too-familiar, lifeless landscape: skeletal trees clawing at the starless sky, broken ruins, rubble-strewn road pocked with holes and studded with the shattered detritus of everyday living. Only this time the landscape was not unpopulated. Two of the spider-things were scuttling away, with something carried between them. It looked like the lifeless body of a male human, though man or boy, Nan couldn’t tell. Was it a new victim, dragged inside by those black tentacles when Amelia sensed the portal opening? Was it someone who had been here a while, who had finally lost his battle to survive?

  There was another change; an air of tense expectation. Something had changed, charging the very air with anticipation. Something new and different was about to happen. There were glimpses of more creatures in the distance, though what those creatures were, it was too dark and too distant to tell. Still there was more activity and more movement than Nan had ever seen in any of these visions before, and that suggested something had stirred the monsters of this world into activity.

  Then, abruptly, Nan felt the two of them ejected from the vision, without warning, and so forcefully that when she came to herself again, she was sitting on the floor beside the bed, rather than on the edge of it, as if the shock had made her lose her balance and fall. Amelia stirred, and met her eyes.

  “It has found the last victim it needed,” she said, softly, but with certainty. And she shivered with the cold that always overcame her after these episodes.

  “You stay where you are, get warm, and rest. I’ll send the messages. Roan!” she called, and the little hob literally appeared in front of the fire, popping into existence as if he had materialized himself. Though, it was entirely possible he had just become visible. She’d had the feeling he was following her around, mounting a guard over her and Amelia at night—if he’d been human, that would have been unsettling, but given he was an Elemental, the thought was actually comforting.

  “Tell the others at the hospital that we think the creature has gotten its seventh girl, please,” she said. Roan saluted without speaking, and vanished. Nan took a moment more to find her slippers and rewrap her dressing gown, and ran to the room Sahib and Memsa’b shared. She tapped urgently at the door.

  “A moment,” came Sahib’s muffled voice, and it really wasn’t more than a moment before the door opened and Sahib poked his head around the edge of it. He looked as if he had already guessed what brought her, and his words confirmed it.

  “It’s got
the last girl?” he asked, although it sounded more like a statement than a question. She nodded, and he closed the door again, wasting no words. They all knew their parts in this. They must have gone over the plan a dozen times before they separated, with Nan and Sarah and the birds staying at the school with Memsa’b and Sahib, and the rest basing their excursions out of the hospital. What the doctor made of all of this, she couldn’t say, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. A Royal Command was a Royal Command.

  She went back to her room to find Roan waiting on the hearth. “They’ve been told at the hospital. Yon big thinker was there, so he knows too. And I woke the Air and Water Masters and the Great Fire Master and told them.” He peered at her, anxiously. “There anything more I can do?”

  “Not tonight,” she assured him. “When you see us leave for the hospital in the morning. . . .” she paused, and then went down on her knees beside him. “Roan, you are a hob, and your kind are not made for fighting. You and Durwin are free now. Unless the Oldest Old One has orders for you, I don’t see any reason why you must stay where the danger is.”

  Roan drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. “And I see every reason, Daughter of Eve,” he replied, stoutly. “You lot be fighting to keep us safe from these beasties, as much as yourself. Unless the Oldest Old One sends us away or gives us a task, we’ll be there.” He clapped a hand on the hilt of a tiny sword he now wore at his waist. “You have my sword.”

  A number of impulses moved through her; she picked the one that would allow him the most dignity. “Then I accept, on behalf of all of us. When we go to battle, I will be honored to have you at my side.”

  He stood even straighter, gave her a salute he must have learned from the soldiers, and disappeared.