When he sat back in the cab and looked back once at her standing on the dock, he smiled. His days in the Romani camp had taught him many things, not the least of which was how to carefully pick a pocket. It came in handy in his magic act and equally so now. He unfolded the paper he had filched from her small jacket pocket and flattened it on his thigh.
He gasped. It wasn’t Waldhar’s crest at the top of the page, but that of the queen’s. No, not the queen’s. The queen’s consort, Prince Albert. Prince Albert who gave her glowing recommendations for Mingli’s “discreet service to the crown.” But Prince Albert was also German and his ties to Waldhar’s dirigible empire were said to be very strong indeed. And after his near fatal brush with pneumonia, the queen was said to give him anything he desired. It did nothing to ease Leopold’s anxiety.
* * *
WITH ICE WRAPPED in a flannel applied to his head, Leopold shuffled to his fire to check on the hot water for his tea when the bell at the front door sounded.
He set the kettle back on its trivet, removed the pack from his head, and hid it behind his back before he shuffled to the parlor to open the door.
Von Spiegel, fidgeting with his watch fob, stood on the threshold, a large roll of paper tucked under his arm. “I hoped you would be in, Mr. Kazsmer.”
“I don’t recall giving you this address, Herr Professor. Weren’t we to meet in Whitechapel? …Oh, but that was days ago. And I had quite forgotten. Forgive me.”
The old man nodded and moved inside when Leopold stepped back. “I am most adept at finding information, Mr. Kazsmer. And you will recall, we are rather pressed for time.”
Leopold tucked the ice pack in his umbrella stand. “Yes. Good grief. How many days was it? You said there was an alignment of planets…”
“We have only seven days, Mr. Kazsmer.”
“Please. Sit down, Herr Professor. I was about to make some tea.”
“That would be very nice, thank you.”
Von Spiegel sat, moving the rolled paper to his lap while he looked up curiously over his pince-nez. “I was distressed to hear about your friend. I read it in the paper, you see. I understand why you failed to turn up for our consultation three days ago, but when I didn’t hear from you again…”
Leopold poured the hot water into his readied tea pot, swirled it around, and set it back on its tray along with the sugar bowl and milk jug. He collected another cup, saucer, and spoon from a cupboard, and set that on the tray before bringing it forth and setting it on the table between von Spiegel’s chair and another. Ordinarily, he might have called upon the landlady for these duties, but he feared to expose his secrets.
He sat, waiting for the tea to steep. “As you might imagine, I was preoccupied.”
“Of course, of course.”
Leopold pointed toward the rolled paper in the old man’s lap. “I couldn’t help but notice the, er…”
“Oh yes!” Von Spiegel rose and spread out the paper onto his dining table under the window. “These are the plans for the Lock.”
Leopold rose and followed him, gazing down as the light from the window stretched across the curious writing and sigils on the page.
“Are you adept at reading runic script, Mr. Kazsmer?”
“Some. This is very curious. I see that some of these plans include incantations and some…a shopping list.”
“Yes, the supplies you will need. And here…” He unrolled the paper further. “The actual plans. It is simple, as you see, but the incantations require much study and we haven’t much time.”
“Yes.” Leopold was instantly transported by the challenge, the intricacies. “Yes, I think I can do this.”
“In the allotted time? And we have wasted three days…”
“Yes, Herr Professor,” he said curtly. His friend was dead. He didn’t consider his mourning period wasted time, but German expediency left no room for such niceties, or so it seemed.
“Your particular magic,” said von Spiegel, “will compensate I’m certain.”
Leopold looked the page over a few seconds more before he remembered the tea. He poured for them both and they sat in thoughtful silence, consuming the hot beverage. After a time, Leopold turned toward von Spiegel who was looking at him expectantly.
“Herr Professor, I wonder if you have ever heard of…a colleague of mine.”
“Yes?”
“She is a most unusual woman. Mingli Zhao.”
The old man’s eyes widened a fraction before he lowered them to the tea cup on his lap. “Hmm,” he said.
“Surely you would remember her. Not shy at all in the manner of most Orientals. She said she spent some time in Germany. In research laboratories.”
“Of course, I recall her. She is a difficult lady to forget.” He raised his cup to his lips. It trembled slightly before he took a sip and returned the delicate china to the saucer.
“What was her purpose there?”
“I do not know. I was only vaguely acquainted with her.”
“Did she work for Waldhar?”
“Ah! That is your interest. I see. Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but I have no knowledge whether she was employed by him or not. She was a very discreet young woman, for all her brashness.”
Blast. “Ah, a pity.”
“She…is here now? In London?”
“Yes, but she is only a minor distraction. I shall not let her interfere with our work.”
“I am most happy to hear that, Mr. Kazsmer.” He slipped his watch from his waistcoat pocket and rose, setting the saucer and cup aside. “I am afraid I have another appointment. If you will please excuse me.”
“Of course.” Leopold rose to see him to the door.
Von Spiegel opened the door but turned at the threshold. “You will begin work on the Lock, Mr. Kazsmer, will you not? It is of the utmost importance.”
“Indeed I shall, Herr Professor. If you need me, I shall be at the lockup in Whitechapel.”
“I need not warn you, Mr. Kazsmer, that you must not, under any circumstances, share this work with anyone. Especially this Miss Zhao. You don’t know who you can trust.”
“You have my assurances, Professor.”
Von Spiegel tipped his hat, put his cane to the step, and moved carefully down the stairs. When he closed the door, Leopold looked back at the plans laid out on his table. The urgency was palpable but the challenge excited his senses. He whipped off his dressing gown and pulled his jacket from its place by the fire. It felt dry enough now. He slipped it on and buttoned it. Taking the poker and covering the coals in his hearth with ash, he quickly rolled up the paper, tucked it under his arm, and hurried out the door. He was most anxious to see what Raj could make of it.
* * *
WHEN HE OPENED the door to the lockup, the lamp was already lit and Raj was laying out the Tarot onto his table. “Ah, Leopold. I expected you some time ago. Are you all right?”
He gestured toward the cards. “What did they tell you?”
“That you were in grave danger but that it has now passed.”
“It was rather a shame I didn’t have that warning several hours earlier,” he said, removing his hat carefully and still feeling the pain from the bump, though he had taken his tinctures to help reduce the swelling.
“There are more readings.”
“Were you bored?”
“The books are still packed away where I cannot reach them.”
“I’m so sorry, old friend. I will unpack them for you as soon as I can.”
“Curiously, the cards also told me that there is a woman in your life.”
The rush of blood to his cheeks seemed uncalled for. But perhaps it was the way Raj said it. “And…did your cards tell you anything about her?”
“Only that you should use caution. There were undercurrents of danger, but the cards were unclear. Who is she?”
“A special inspector to Scotland Yard. Mingli Zhao.”
He could not raise his painted brows, but by the angle of
his head, Leopold surmised that if he could have, he would have. “Mingli Zhao?”
“Yes. Inscrutable as the name suggests. Why is it that Orientals must be so indecipherable?”
“I beg your pardon. And just how many Orientals do you know, Leo?”
Leopold winced at his sharp tone. “Oh…er…my apologies, Raj. I…dash it all! Why did it have to be a woman!”
“Ah, so that is the problem.”
“What? No! Of course not!”
“No, of course not,” he said with a chuckle under his breath. “It is her Oriental nature then. Who is she?”
“I don’t know. But I suspect she is the agent of Manfried Waldhar.”
“Hmm.” Raj turned over a few more cards before slamming his hand down on the table with a hiss of pistons. “The cards tell me nothing! Only that the danger still lingers about you. That you are about to make choices that will go against you. And I can do nothing to help.”
“Well, we have been in similar straits before.”
“Perhaps,” muttered Raj, unconvinced.
“Well this will put you in a better mood.” He swept Raj’s cards aside and unrolled the plans in front of him and began to explain von Spiegel and the Daemon Device.
Raj said nothing as he listened, putting a hand on one side of the paper as he studied it. “Your tale is incredible. You must be very careful, Leopold. I understand Waldhar is a very powerful man.”
“I do not fear him,” he said with perhaps too much puffery.
“You should.”
He pulled up a cane chair, scooting it close to Raj’s table. “Nevertheless, I will need your help if I am to accomplish this in the allotted time. I will need a few supplies. Can you decipher some of these runes and sigils?”
“You will need to unearth your Sørensen’s Runic Curses and Wards. I can’t do this by memory.”
“Of course, of course. And Forrester’s Alignment Lines of Celtic England.”
“Yes. This is the ‘Lock’ your Professor von Spiegel spoke of. Unusual.”
“I’ve never seen the like.”
“And for you, that is saying something.”
He smiled at Raj who could not quite do the same in return. Leopold took off his topcoat and pried open the second crate, digging inside for his cache of books and old volumes. He set the needed books next to Raj—along with an assortment of novels—and retrieved pen, ink, and paper. “I must make a copy of this list. Some of these items might be difficult to obtain.”
“But not impossible for you, my friend. Ah, how I wish my maker could have given me legs.”
“It still would not have been possible for you to go about London, Raj. I believe your…er…workings would have still caused unwanted attention to you.”
“No doubt, no doubt.” Raj flipped quietly through a book before looking up. “This woman. This special inspector. Do you truly believe she is working for Manfried Waldhar?”
“I have my suspicions. She arrived conveniently. And has the patronage of the Prince Consort.”
“Indeed. Curious. Does not Manfried Waldhar have lodgings in town?”
Leopold looked up from his writing. “Yes. In Belgravia, I believe.”
“Would it not be prudent to…well. Talk to him?”
Leopold sat back, pen still poised in his hand. “Talk to him? Go to him?”
“If he is as dangerous as you surmise—and if our friend von Spiegel is so afraid of him—might it not be in your best interests to confront him?”
“Go into the belly of the beast? And give the game away?”
“Well, if it is as you suspect, if you believe this Inspector Zhao is in league with him, then he already knows about you.”
“Just as she seemed to,” he muttered. He eyed Raj. “What did the cards say?”
“That surprises awaited.”
“Why are those blasted cards not more specific?”
“It is the way of it. In the realm of mysticism, my friend, the future is not yet written and can be changed. One must always be cautious and brave. You have always been both. But take a weapon.”
Leopold reached out for the tingle of magic, but it had long ago dissipated. He thought of summoning Eurynomos just to get a renewal but he rubbed his arm in the remembrance of the pain that was becoming sharper with each summoning. He decided against it. The revolver would do this time.
He rummaged in his crate again, in the trunks within it, and found the Webley. He snapped it open, finding all the live cartridges in the cylinder, and snapped it shut. He often used it for the bullet catch trick, but also used it just as often for protection.
He tucked it in his inner coat pocket, slid the list in an outer pocket, and donned his hat once more. “I will return later this evening, Raj.”
“See that you do, Leo. I have no wish to rot alone in this place for the rest of eternity.”
“Thanks very much,” he muttered but smiled anyway. “See what you can make of those plans.” With a creak and the whirr of a spinning wire, Raj lifted an arm in salute.
* * *
IT WAS A decent hansom ride to Belgravia. Leopold had the cabby drop him off several houses down from the stately Georgian mansion that was Waldhar’s British residence. The man owned many homes in many different countries. Leopold wanted a chance to look the place over from a discreet distance. Most of the other homes on the lane looked to be one continuous bank of houses, curving away along the road. But Waldhar’s stood alone as its own imposing and solitary sentinel at the top of the slight rise.
He straightened his hat and coat. No one else appeared along the avenue. The rain had stopped, but there was now a gusty wind swirling the leaves and ruffling his trousers as he approached. He walked up the stairs and turned the bell handle, listening to the faint sound of the bell below in the servants’ quarters.
As he waited, he tried to peer through the windows, but all were dark, covered in drapery. Even in the servants’ hall.
At length, the door opened and a callow man in a morning coat with black slicked-down hair answered, glaring at him. “Was wollen Sie?” he asked.
“My German is a bit rusty, old chap. I’m looking for Manfried Waldhar. Is he at home?”
“Wer bissen Sie?”
“Sorry?”
“Wer. Bissen. Sie?” he said louder and slower, but Leopold got the gist of it.
He touched his hat. “I am Leopold Kazsmer, the Great Enchanter.” He lifted his gloved hand, closed his fingers, and snapped them opened again. In his palm between two fingers appeared his calling card, which he presented with much flourish.
The footman stared at it before taking it. He did not look at it as he lowered his arm to his side.
“I take it your master is not at home.”
“Wenn Sie nicht einen Termin zu haben, wird er nicht sehen.”
The man said it forcefully and seemed disinclined to offer more. “I say, that sounds rather final, doesn’t it?”
The man said nothing.
“I say, old chap. This is England. Don’t you speak the Queen’s English?”
He looked Leopold over once more, glanced perfunctorily at his card, and shut the door in his face.
“Teutonic hospitality,” he muttered. Looking up the colonnade to the pediment and up higher to the dark windows, he gave it up, and trotted down the steps.
He strolled down the avenue, glancing back toward the dark house, maudlin in the gray mist. He made the curve of the road where the house just began to disappear when something made him pause. He positioned himself behind a tree and looked back.
It wasn’t long until the butler, now in outercoat and hat, trundled along, holding his hat against the strong gusts. He hurried past Leopold, not seeing him, and out to the main street.
But instead of hailing a cab, he disappeared as he turned the corner. Leopold scrambled to catch up. At the corner, Leopold carefully peered around the edge, looking for the man, and hurried after.
He kept behind at a discreet
distance. The man never looked over his shoulder, but kept his head down and his direction straight ahead.
The traffic on the pavement was picking up as the day passed into late midday. The number of carriages and wagons seemed to increase as well, as did the sellers of flowers, board men and others plying their trade by walking back and forth along the pavement.
He skirted past them all, keeping that dark head with the somber hat in view. Finally, the butler turned down another corner and headed toward a shadier neighborhood, one rife with long rows of brick warehouses. Leopold stayed in the shadows, following the servant until the man ducked into a particularly unsavory abandoned factory, where most of the windows were boarded up.
Waiting long moments for it to be safe to follow him in, Leopold moved forward, extracting his Webley from his coat.
He approached the door. Its paint was peeling and flaking. He made to grab the knob but the door whined opened on its own. Webley held high, he pushed it opened the rest of the way and aimed the revolver into the darkness. Nothing. An empty room—perhaps it used to be an office—that opened into the greater room. Some of the windows weren’t boarded and they were broken, their mullions holding nothing in their grids and opened to the gray sky without. Yet there was no broken glass on the floor, no debris as he surmised there should be in such an abandoned structure. He listened.
There was no sound, at least to his ears. An iron staircase to his right beckoned and he climbed, one hand holding up the Webley, the other skimming across the railing. He surmounted the top and found a door. Slowly, he opened it revealing a catwalk and another large room below it. But it wasn’t empty. There were men gathered, talking in hushed whispers. He was assailed by a smell, something caustic and sharp but with the undercurrent of the sickly-sweet scent of death.
Men in long white coats, goggles, and strange white caps drawn low over their ears milled about in a white room of tiled floors and shimmering electric lights. It looked like an operating theatre in a university, except that all the pupils had gathered round instead of sitting in tiered seats. And, of course, the rafters of the warehouse rose above it all, secreting the strange room in the midst of crumbling walls.
The Daemon Device Page 9