The Daemon Device

by Jeri Westerson

  “Blood!” said Thacker, rising.

  Leopold’s gaze rose to Yanko’s and his uncle was studying him. “Where did you find it, Uncle?”

  “At the edge of the fair. As if it were thrown there, discarded. The trinkets and coins were gone.”

  Thacker examined the splintered end. “She was robbed, then?”

  Yanko shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think the items were stolen after the tray was discarded.”

  “And the blood?” asked Thacker.

  Yanko shook his head again, but this time with a solemn expression, lips a tight line.

  Leopold looked the tray over one last time before setting it aside. “Perhaps we should take a look around the exhibition grounds, Inspector.”

  Thacker nodded and rose, affixing his bowler atop his head properly. “Aye. It’s not too far from here, near the railway station.”

  They abandoned the idea of taking the carriage since after pulling on his coat and worn hat, Yanko started trudging toward the exhibition into the underbrush on a well-worn path. Leopold lit his lamp again and closed the caravan door after him, trotting to catch up to his uncle. Yanko’s pace was amazingly strident for a man of his age.

  The damp night lay heavy around them. A rustle in the thickets made Thacker, strictly a city man, jump at each sound, but Leopold glanced carefully over his shoulder, wishing he had put on his spectacles. He had the feeling—with a shiver across his shoulders—that it was not animals that skittered along the path, pacing them in the underbrush.

  A faint glow over a rise told them they had reached the exhibition, and when they stood on the hill looking down, Leopold scanned the tents and damp banners that covered the fairgrounds. Some large tents flanked by smaller ones dotted the countryside, with the morose shapes of moored airships louring over the avenues between, like beached whales. Most of the electric lights had been extinguished, but there were a few large floodlights that were poised by the biggest tent, aiming their white beams high into the sky.

  Yanko hadn’t stopped and Leopold and Thacker had to trot to catch up. But when he got to the wooden guard house with its barrier, he paused. Thacker moved forward as the man in the guard house struck a match and lit his lantern. “Who’s there?” said the guard, blinding Leopold with his light.

  “Inspector Thacker from Scotland Yard,” said Thacker imperiously. “And I’ll thank you to get that bloody light out of my face.”

  The lamp lowered and the guard squinted. “Eh? Whatcha want, Inspector? It’s late.”

  Thacker tugged at his Ulster coat that he had failed to button. “I need to inspect the grounds.”

  “Oh! I’ll…I’ll go with you, shall I?”

  “No need,” said Thacker, sweeping by him with a wave.

  When Leopold looked back at the man in the guard house, he was staring after them, but he grabbed what looked like a telephone receiver and cranked it.

  Leopold aimed his lamp ahead of them. Under the cover of darkness, he plunged his hand into his coat and pulled out his spectacles, placing them on his nose. He flipped the filters, eyes scanning under the different colors. His wrist tattoo itched madly now.

  The trio stomped down each avenue, searching. Leopold flipped his lenses distractedly, sensing they were close to…something. He felt drawn to the larger tents and shuddered at the presence of the silent dirigibles hovering overhead. They seemed faintly menacing, but of course, they were nothing of the kind on their own. They bobbed gently with the breeze, their rounded fish bellies only glanced by scattered light. Yet no matter how benign they might be, their massive presence couldn’t help but unnerve.

  He made a conscious effort to ignore them. He turned his spectacles toward the lamplight, swiveling his head and following his instincts. They rounded a corner to the largest tent, and Leopold stopped.

  Footprints of an imp and a Cloven-Hoofed One ran riot over the side of the tent and all around in the mud. He flipped the filtered lenses away just to check and they disappeared as expected.

  “Here,” he said, whipping his spectacles off his face.

  Thacker turned to him quizzically, but the man had long since learned not to question Leopold about his instincts. He turned to the tent, looked it up and down, and put his hands into his hips. “I’ll go have a look around front, shall I? You two, stay here.”

  Thacker hiked up his trousers’ waistband and stalked away around the corner into the darkness. Leopold heaved a breath and found himself staring into his uncle’s face.

  “This rozzer is your friend?” asked Yanko.

  Leopold raised a brow, and in his poshest accent answered, “Yes.”

  Yanko snorted and muttered in Hungarian.

  “He’s been a good friend to me. Loyal.”

  “Oh, I see. But he has not housed you, fed you, clothed you. He is loyal. Well then!”

  “Mock it if you will, but he has never judged me.”

  Yanko leaned forward, his gin breath on Leopold’s face. “He doesn’t know you! Not like I know you.” He pointed a finger at his own eye. “Not like I know.”

  A chill rippled up Leopold’s back. Did Yanko truly know? Did he suspect? Did he even know about the Jewish daemons that lurked beneath his own veiled understanding of his Christian faith?

  He couldn’t know, Leopold decided, but rubbed at the irritating itch at his wrist nonetheless.

  “If you will excuse me, Uncle, I need to take a look around.”

  Yanko leaned back against a post, crossing his arms over his chest. “Suit yourself, Nephew.”

  You always have, was unspoken, though Leopold heard it anyway. He shook it off and reached into his waistcoat for his spectacles again. He slipped them on and walked along the tent’s perimeter, scouring the tent with his filtered eyes. Footprints, auras, fine scents of all too familiar origins. There was too much Otherworld activity in the vicinity, this he knew. He followed the trail around the corner of the vast tent, aware that the darkness around him made such focused scrutiny dangerous. His lamp was useless when he used the spectacles, which was certainly why he did not see the men until he thumped into them.

  He snatched the spectacles from his face and deftly returned it to his waistcoat pocket.

  “You’re a little off the path, ain’t ya, guv’nor?” said one man in a gruff cockney. The other rubbed one closed fist into his palm, like a billiard player chalking the stick.

  “Certainly not. I am in the company of a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  The men made a show of looking past Leopold’s shoulder to the dark and empty void.

  “He ain’t here now, is he?” said the first man again.

  Leopold grasped his jacket’s lapel with his free hand while turning his lamplight on the men. “Not at the moment. You haven’t seen anything of a Gypsy girl hereabouts, have you? Either of you?”

  He looked innocently from one to the other. It had taken many years of cultivated self-control but he had learned a proper accent and the righteous attitude of a posh Londoner. He used it now, with a lilt to his brow, lifting his nose slightly, and standing his ground.

  But as he sized up the men before him, he realized that they weren’t intimidated by a dandy in a frock coat.

  A heartbeat.

  They lunged. Leopold dropped his lantern as one man swung his arm in a wide arc, trying to connect his fist with Leopold’s jaw, but Leopold was able to duck away and block the strike with his forearm. The other man made a move toward him but Leopold held up his hand and, remarkably, he stopped. “Perhaps a magic trick!”

  They both halted, staring at him.

  Leopold reached into his coat and removed his wand. “You will observe. A simple instrument. Made of wood.” He tapped it on the head of his first adversary.

  “Oi!” he cried.

  “No holes,” Leopold went on. “Solid. Now watch.”

  Both sets of eyes followed the graceful movement of his hand as it swished back and forth, back and forth. Professor Mesmer would
have been proud, he thought.

  He drew it back the length of his arm, and while they watched his wand hand, his other punched into the first man’s jaw, sending his head knocking into the second man’s like two coconuts. Down they went, and Leopold brandished the wand again. “Now that’s a magic trick!” he said, before sprinting away into the darkness, grabbing the darkened lamp as he ran.

  He heard them recover and stomp after, albeit without as much vigor, but he had already run down several aisles of tents and soon lost them in the dark. He shook out his stinging hand and replaced the wand back into his coat pocket. He could almost feel the tingle of magic in the air, almost draw it from the depths and perform it, but without knowing from whom he was stealing it, he could never count on its success or strength. If Eurynomos was near, he could trust that magic.

  At any rate, the feeling was fading, but it had been strongest near that large tent. There was no doubt that supernatural events had taken place there, and recently.

  Listening for his pursuers, he breathed again, unable to detect them nearby. He swiveled to proceed farther when he tripped over something and stumbled, looking down.

  “My God,” he gasped. Even without the lamp, the traces of moonlight lit the torn open body of a woman, the splattered blood, and the look of horror on her frozen face.

  Chapter Five

  JAELLE WAS COVERED with a sheet. Yanko said nothing, but by the set of his jaw, Leopold read all the emotions running through him, not the least of which was anger.

  Thacker had used the telephone at the front gate to call the coroner, and it was not long thereafter that he began shouting that the fair was to be shut down until further notice. This brought the management running, several Germanic men with white whiskers and fur-collared coats, waving walking sticks about.

  The two ruffians who had accosted Leopold lurked in the shadows just outside the lamplight, but didn’t dare come nearer, especially when Leopold kept them under his unwavering glare.

  Once several policemen arrived, the closing of the fair was inevitable. Early rising workmen with coats open and braces visible over their striped work shirts, stood around, arms folded. Some chewed on the ends of empty clay smoking pipes. Some bit down on the squat ends of cheap cigars, their harsh smoke feathering around their faces. But none dared challenge the coppers.

  It was many hours later, just after sunup, that Yanko and Leopold finally trudged alone back to the Romani camp, neither speaking. The wet grass dampened Leopold’s trouser legs as he slogged through the fields, and the tip of his nose was red with cold. He tugged his coat closed at the neck, and kept his head down, thoughts to himself.

  When they reached the encampment, some of the women were already up and about, carrying water, getting the fires going under cooking pots and laundry cauldrons. A scraggly puppy, a Jack Russell and Scottie mix, trotted bow-legged from one fire to the next, whimpering for scraps.

  Yanko, hands in pockets, walked up to one woman, leaned toward her, and whispered in her ear. She nodded and hurried to knock on caravan doors, awakening the sleepers. Exhausted, Leopold slumped onto a damp chair sitting near one of the smoky fires. Someone thrust a metal cup of hot tea into his hand. He blinked up at the stranger, a man with soot on his nose, who touched the brim of his cap lightly, before wandering away.

  He drank the hot, weak tea—sweetened with a bit of sugar and milk—and felt a glint of life spark in him. All he wanted was his bed. Would he have to make the long walk back to London? The carriage was long gone. He reached for his watch in his waistcoat and flipped open the cover. Six AM. A train whistle hooted out of the far pasture right on the dot. Battersea station. He could hoof it across the hinterlands and catch a train to Piccadilly and maybe grab some rest. Maybe.

  But visions of blood, death…and a distinctive smell from an unnamed place lingering like a corpse, a smell he had never wanted to smell again—made him wrap both hands around the cup of tea like a lifeline—and shiver.

  Yanko had trudged back to the area where most of the caravans were positioned. Sleepy Romani, with shawls or coats wrapped around their bodies, gathered around him, shaking off sleep with droopy eyes and chaotic hair.

  “My friends,” Yanko began, and then spoke the rest in Hungarian. All understood, even those with the thickest Cockney accents, and when he spoke of Jaelle, a cry welled up from the crowd. Women burst into tears…and Leopold noticed a wet-faced young man or two. He listened, head bowed as Yanko told it, and when he had finished, Leopold was appalled by the utter silence. A Romani camp was never silent. Even in the dead of night, someone was always snoring, or making love, or muttering, or the guards were telling quiet tales to one another to keep awake. The silence was overwhelming, and he finally looked up.

  They were staring at him.

  He straightened. Why was it every time he came to this camp he felt that he was twelve years old again?

  A man shoved his way from the crowd and stopped in the no-man’s-land between the Romani and Leopold. His hand trembled when he lifted it. Leopold thought he remembered him. He thought the man’s name was György. “Leopold,” he said with Cockney tones. “You remember me, mate?”

  “I remember you used to call me didikko and threw stones at me,” he said in a roughened voice. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He liked to think that now he was more cultivated he used his words and his wrath more sparingly. It seemed that spending one minute in a Romani camp utterly destroyed that resolve.

  György gave him a show of teeth that might have been a smirk as easily as a grimace. “That was a long time ago. Look at you now. That’s a far cry from the chavvy you used to be.”

  “Yes.” He lowered his face, embarrassed by his discourtesy.

  “Yanko says…he says you’ll help the rozzers investigate. That you’ll find the ones who did this to Jaelle.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “Well. That’s all right, then. I…I’m sorry for what I used to call you, Leopold. You are one of us.”

  There was an empty place inside him with that pronouncement, as empty as Raj’s metal skeleton. He was not one of them, he told himself. He’d been telling himself that for the last thirteen years. Except that today…with the split-open and decidedly dead body of the kind and gentle girl he had known as Jaelle, broken and bloodied on the ground, he suddenly did feel like one of them again. And the feeling stabbed him hard in the gut.

  He winced as he rose.

  “I will find her killer. I will.” But he doubted very much that he could bring him to justice. There was no justice in the realm of Men from the denizens of Sitra Achra.

  He cast them all a weighty glance, searching all the anxious dirty faces, gave them one final nod, and turned on his heel. He couldn’t help but mutter out the Romani farewell of, “Kushti bok.” No one in a Romani camp ever said “good-bye.” They always said “good luck” instead.

  He set out for the pasture and toward the train station in the distance. He heard steps behind him following, but it wasn’t long before they fell back and stopped all together.

  * * *

  HIS FLAT WAS cold when he got there. The charwoman had not laid the fire in the grate in his drawing room nor in his bedchamber. Perhaps she hadn’t been in at all. He had been gone all day and all night. He was too weary to do anything about it. Instead, he cast off his outer coat and be damned where it landed. When he trudged into his bedroom the heavy curtains were still drawn. Good. He wanted some rest and the sun was decidedly up.

  Peeling off his clothes, he couldn’t simply discard them as he had his top coat. A habit he had built over some years had him folding them and leaving them on a nearby settee. When he was in nothing but his drawers he crawled under the blankets and dug his head into his pillow.

  He could have sworn that he had only laid his head down for but a moment, yet when he suddenly sat bolt upright, the strange dream fading almost instantly from his memory, he glanced toward the curtains and saw that it was dusk.


  The clock told him it was 6:20. “Good grief.” He scrubbed at his face and climbed out of bed.

  The fire, at least, was laid this time, and the room was pleasant as he padded across the cold wood floor to his washstand. There was water in the jug and he poured it into the ewer, dipped in his hands, and washed his face and chest properly with a soap cake. He looked at himself in the mirror. Pale skin, though when he was a child it had been a deep bronze from his days in the sun. His dark hair drooped over his forehead and his mustache was in want of a trim. He wondered if he had time. And then he looked into his eyes. Haunted, rimmed with shadows. He couldn’t help but flick a glance at his marked wrist, stark against his pale skin.

  The mark was just as dark and precise as if he had gotten it yesterday. The overpowering urge to turn it over, to look at the ghastly eye at his pulse point could not be denied. Was it his imagination or was the eye wider, more glaring?

  He swallowed. He could use a cup of tea, but he needed answers more. The knife on his chest of drawers beckoned and he grasped it in his right hand. Before he could talk himself out of it, he jabbed it into the flesh below his wrist and drew it up along his inner arm. The pain was deep and brutal and he nearly dropped the knife. But the blood welled and spilled into the ewer. He threw his head back and cried, “Titgale befanai shed afel!”

  The blood, dripping in cloudy furls into the water, suddenly gathered and swirled in a spiral that quickened. The vortex created by its movement opened a hole in the basin’s pink water and a beam of white light shot upward toward the ceiling in a pillar of fire. Out stepped Eurynomos from the pillar, and he deftly climbed down from the washstand and stood with bare feet and sharp claws on Leopold’s Persian rug.