The Transference Engine

by Julia Verne St. John

  “Nothing more to drink, for now. This worthless rag . . .” He slapped a newspaper from Madras on the bar. “Claims the discovery of a never before seen by humans temple ruin in the mountain forests.”

  I did not ask, I swear I only thought it: How could it have been never before seen by humans? Someone built it, for a reason. Someone worshipped there.

  He frowned at me deeply, as if I’d spoken aloud the heresy of thinking brown denizens of the subcontinent might be human.

  “I haven’t read the paper yet. It only arrived by express dirigible this morning,” I prompted him.

  “The reporter goes on to say that the temple was dedicated to some wicked goddess who demanded assassination as a form of worship.”

  “Kali,” I replied, drawing on vague memories imparted by the Hindu scholar. Hmm, that was twice this morning I’d thought of him, and wondered if the vision within the coffee cup was part of that cycle.

  “Something like that, yes,” the man continued. “Do you have any texts about this goddess and her cult? With the coronation scheduled for just three weeks from now, there are many important people in town. I have heard rumors of . . . I cannot say what just yet. How likely is it that these . . . these . . .” He peered at the paper. “These Thuggees have migrated to England?”

  Another connection to death and magic, maybe to a black balloon hovering over the city shooting strange rays of light. Rumors of death at the coronation. He didn’t need to say the words. I’d been following my own trail of innuendo and instinct.

  “That will require a search,” I said, holding out my hand for the one shilling and two pence.

  He slapped the coins into my palm, grudgingly.

  I led him to the carousel. He tried to follow me into the circular enclosure, but I pushed him out and latched the swinging gate. Then I began the involved process of cutting a key. Following guidelines I’d memorized long ago, I punched codes for India, history, old gods, assassination, Kali, and Thuggees. The last two had to follow an alphabetical code rather than short cuts. Then I pulled a lever.

  Everyone in the room looked up as the steam engine in the cellar hissed, gears whirled, and a lathe ground the brass key. An awed silence surrounded the mysteries of the machine. Even the investigator, Inspector Witherspoon (his name tickled my memory like raven feathers brushing by) watched in amazement. Drew had seen this operation many times and still watched in fascination.

  After several moments, I took the key, again making certain the inspector didn’t enter the carousel, and shoved it into a special lock behind the coffee bar. I twisted it half a turn and pulled a lever. Gears engaged. Another twist and drawing down the lever made steam whistle from the boiler in an adjacent cellar—so the steam wouldn’t harm the books—a clang as gear cogs engaged and set levers to pushing bookshelves around. A third time, since this was a rather exotic search. Shelves of books rotated up and sideways, down and sideways again. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baking pastries gave way to the acrid scent of burning coal.

  More shifts up and around sent my senses spinning. I had to hold the lever to keep from reeling. Darkness tugged at my vision. This was a giant version of the whirlpool in a cup of coffee. A true maelstrom. This could produce a vision of massive importance.

  Shiny jet beads in a long string separated by tarnished silver filigree every tenth bead. The strand circled the room along the top row of shelves, pulling closer and tighter. I thought of a rosary and dismissed it. No one carried rosaries anymore unless they were Catholic, and most of those kept them hidden.

  No, this was symbolic. Was the Roman Church behind Witherspoon’s conspiracy theories?

  I doubted that, too. Part of the Great Reform Act of 1832 brought tolerance to the persecuted religion. Long overdue.

  A clunk followed by a thump shattered my vision of choking black-and-silver beads. Two books had slid down the chute in response to the search.

  My balance teetered, and I was lost in twirling dancers robed in shimmering black akin to jet beads, carrying silvered vorpal blades tarnished black, closing in on me, my café, and . . . and . . . Lady Ada.

  Senses still reeling, I choked out the urgent words that still swirled around the edges of my vision. “Lady Ada. I have to save my girl.”

  Sir Drew’s strong arms restrained me. I flailed at his grip around my waist with limp hands. “They’re coming for her,” I wailed.

  “Who, Madame?” Inspector Witherspoon demanded, plying me with a cup of black coffee.

  The pungent aroma of stale, cold, burnt coffee righted my balance and focus without having to taste the vile dregs. “Your Thuggees, Inspector, or their like.” Were the fanatic necromantic followers of Byron any different than Indian assassins? “They are seeking Lady Ada Byron King, Countess Lovelace.” Quickly, I wrenched free of Drew before his bracing grip could turn into an embrace. “I must go to her.”

  “Magdala, you can’t go alone. It’s too dangerous,” Drew protested, following me toward the kitchen.

  Helen sat on a high stool, drinking a cup of tea while she waited for the last batch of fresh cream scones to finish baking. She’d left dirty dishes where she’d discarded them. Sifted flour coated nearly every surface. Batter drips stuck to the floor. Yet her apron looked pristine.

  “I don’t have time to deal with this!” I screamed, aiming for the back door where my hat and wrap hung on hooks to the side.

  “Not my job, Missus,” Helen said calmly. “I’m paid to cook, not to clean.”

  “Violet did everything before she went missing. We ran the entire business together,” I mumbled, torn between running to Ada’s side and dealing with my business.

  “Then she probably found a better job where she didn’t have to clean, and got some credit and more than paltry wages for doing your work,” Helen said, draining her cup. She set it aside and checked the scones in the oven.

  While she occupied herself with transferring the pastry to cooling racks, I ripped off my apron and exchanged it for my hat and shawl.

  “Magdala, you can’t just leave,” Drew reminded me. “You have customers.”

  I gnashed my teeth. He was right. I could not afford to abandon my business even for my girl. A note would have to do.

  Before I could find paper, pen, and ink in the key carousel, a liveried servant strode through the café and tipped his hat to me. “Madame, Lady Ada, Countess of Lovelace bids me deliver this note to you directly,” he said in a monotone common to those who serve the nobility and are thus superior to those who do not.

  “Thank you. Please wait a moment to see if I need to reply.”

  “Very good, madam.” He kept staring at me as if I’d forgotten something . . . like a tip or his right to read the note over my shoulder. I’d used the belowstairs network of observation and gossip for my own purposes. This time I chose not to add to it.

  I turned my back and fumbled in a drawer where I should find writing implements and a letter opener. It came readily to hand where a pen would not. Deftly I slid the dull blade beneath the thick wax seal impressed with Lady Ada’s personal and secret seal, an eight-pointed star indicative of safe haven in Romany symbolism. Or information.

  Inside, Lady Ada had written in her precise printing, all sharp angles with no extra flourishes in keeping with her mathematical mind:

  Dearest Elise,

  Violet’s mother reports that her daughter never arrived home.

  No signature. But then, I did not need one.

  Violet missing. Toby missing. A compelling vision of men in black robes wielding blackened vorpal blades endangering Ada. And a café beginning to fill with customers needing a bit of respite from their busy days.

  Which needed my attention most?

  Time to do what I do best. I turned back to the liveried footman and held three shillings enticingly out of his reach. “I have three serving gir
ls who live nearby. One coin for each of the girls you bring back here ready to work.”

  His eyes grew big, then cold and calculating.

  “And a good word to your mistress, who is wealthier than I, for your assistance.”

  He nodded sharply. I gave him one of the coins and directions to the flat above the green grocer two blocks over.

  “Inspector Witherspoon, if you please, take a note of warning to Lovelace House. While you are there, feel free to engage Lady Byron, the countess’ mother, in conversation about black-robed assassins who wield curved blades that might be black, or tarnished silver with vorpal edging.” That formidable lady had made a study of the followers of the poet king’s work. Some were merely romantically inclined would-be poets. Others embraced his way of life with true fanaticism—free love, sadism, and murder for necromantic experiments. They hailed from all over Europe and spread to India and China. If anyone knew how to thwart the Thuggees better than I, ’twas Lady Byron. I had other things to do.

  Witherspoon’s eyes lost focus for half a heartbeat and then his gaze sharpened keenly on me. He grabbed the books from the chute. I scribbled a hasty note to Ada that I had received her information and to heed the inspector’s warning. He took it and made rapid tracks out the door.

  “Magdala, I know that look in your eye. You are about to do something adventurous and probably stupid,” Drew said.

  “Foolish, perhaps, but never stupid.” I set about brewing fresh pots of coffee and bringing pastry from the kitchen to the bar for easier serving, all the while praying that Lucy, Emily, and Jane would welcome the extra wages and return to work swiftly.

  “Magdala, I can safely venture where you may not. Let me help you find Violet.”

  “You might have the right of that. That will leave me free to seek out Toby.”

  “The moon-faced boy? Magdala, I know you value your tribe of street urchins, but surely that one is perhaps better off . . . He has no hope of a future other than scrubbing your stoop, and I hardly call that satisfying.”

  “Don’t you dare say that!” I rounded on him, raised butter knife in hand. “Toby is special. And he is more useful than you can even imagine. And I’m worried sick about him.”

  “Then turn the tribe of urchins loose to seek him out. I do not like to think of you endangering yourself for . . .” He paused while I glared at him. “For any reason.”

  “Certainly you may venture where I may not into the kinds of places that see young women as valuable for other than honest work.” However, I could easily disguise myself as a man and seek out those establishments.

  “There are others than the pimps and brothels of Southwark, who value young women,” he returned.

  I chilled. “Wh . . . what do you mean?”

  “Necromancy.”

  My heart and lungs ceased to work for a long agonizing moment.

  “Do . . . do you know these people?” I knew he was fascinated with magic and the chemistry of harnessing occult powers to augment new inventions.

  “I have heard of a few, and read more.” His expression closed down, not allowing me to read his emotions.

  “And what do necromancers seek? Death is all around us, from disease, accident, even old age. Why do they have to kill more people?”

  “They seek power. Power beyond the ability of normal people to harness.”

  I gulped, and my fingers itched to find in my library the texts that fascinated him. I knew he’d borrowed some. Had he ever returned them?

  Had he found the secret books penned by Byron after his “death”?

  “There is a fleeting moment of explosive energy when a person transitions from life to death. That energy encompasses many realms, the mundane one we live in, the heavenly where God awaits us, and many in between where all is possible, requiring only a thought to manifest.” His eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He licked his lips, looking eager to jump to the forefront of these studies.

  “What might one do if one can capture that energy, control the moment of death, and trap it?” Now he stared off at something I could not see, his eyes glazed and his lips barely moving.

  Did I truly want to know? Had he merely read of this in theory? Or, heaven help me, had he actually participated in this ghastly ritual?

  “Light a fire with a snap of your fingers, send objects flying from here to there. Look upon the face of God and garner the wisdom of the ages. Imagine if you will, needing a stack of clean plates to serve your confections. With a thought, you can bring them to hand. No need to walk all the way to the kitchen for them.”

  “Presuming someone has washed them for you,” I scoffed. “And right now, no one is washing up in my kitchen.” I made to move past him.

  He grabbed my arm as if to press home his point of the value of necromancy. “Washing up, another simple chore managed with your thoughts rather than employing people or wasting your own energy on such a demeaning task.”

  “Honest work is not demeaning. Do what you have to for Violet. I’ll take care of Toby.” This time I managed to brush him aside and walk down to my kitchen, which was still a mess from Helen’s baking.

  Emily arrived within moments. A robust blonde, as decorative as she was hardworking, she set to cleaning the kitchen. Helen departed the moment the last tray of shortbread biscuits came out of the oven. Breathless and windblown, Lucy slipped through the back door as the grumbling cook departed. Willowy, with the delicate coloring of a strawberry blonde, she donned an apron and began serving the first rush of late afternoon customers.

  “Where’s Jane?” I asked the girls about my third helper.

  “Walked out with her beau, I guess,” Emily said with a touch of pride. Apparently, their flatmate had caught the attention of someone of better station or finances than they’d hoped for. A good connection for one of them might bring brighter opportunities to the other two.

  Jane’s petite frame and ruddy Welsh coloring attracted many men. Violet had similar attractions though she had Irish-pale skin and green eyes.

  Violet had worked in the Byron household as a scullery maid before Lady Ada’s marriage. That thought reminded me of the near constant fear we lived under that Lord Byron—if he managed to reconstruct his soul transference engine—would return from the dead in a new body. In life, he preferred young, petite women with dark hair.

  “If Mickey shows up, or any of the other boys, have them keep an eye out for Jane. We don’t want her to get into trouble.”

  “But her beau is most respectable,” Lucy protested. “Son of the barrister that lives two streets over. He’s reading over at the Inns of Court.”

  “A respectable profession. But does the man match his career?”

  That left me free to search for Toby. Normally I would change out of serviceable black or dark blue serge to a fashionable gown in a vibrant jewel tone before leaving. Not today. Instead of deep ruches of lace on emerald-green Egyptian cotton and a bonnet decorated with long feathers and broad ribbons, I dug out a threadbare and much mended skirt and jacket meant to fit me during the years of wandering Europe with my first mistress, Mary Godwin Dessins. Lean years when I went to bed hungry more often than not. Now I strained to keep buttons from popping and seams from splitting. I laced my bulletproof corset in the front as tightly as I could. Damn Violet for leaving without warning. (I still hoped she’d eloped with her drayman since a different one had delivered supplies this morning) The bloodstain across the bodice and down one side of the skirt was hopeless. The Transylvanian Count who’d shed that blood whilst I defended myself from his unwanted advances would still bear the scar on his face and neck.

  His livid curses in an ancient language I barely understood remained in my mind, as insoluble as his blood.

  A small chip straw hat trimmed in faded red cloth daisies and a tattered black shawl completed my ensemble. Twenty steps from my back door I hunched
my back, pushed my right leg inward to affect a limp, and smudged my clear and pale skin with charcoal dust. Only Lady Ada, who knew this disguise, would recognize me. I could pass through any crowd off the main thoroughfares unnoticed or easily ignored. If I had to speak, I had a dozen uneducated accents at the tip of my tongue.

  And I had a cudgel, a stout and twisted tree branch as tall as I with convenient handholds in the curves. In my hands, it was as much a weapon as a piece of the disguise.

  Slowly, painfully, I limped my way along alleys and mews. Every time I encountered a group of people, servants mostly, I slowed my pace and held out a tin cup. If they pointedly looked the other way, I rattled the single farthing in the cup, like any respectful beggar. A skinny young groom, probably only recently employed and fed regularly, parted with a ha’ penny and tipped his hat to me.

  “God’s blessing on you, boy,” I whispered in growly tones as if I found it painful to speak around a deep obstruction. Then I coughed to add credence to my status. I stood, nearly bent double (damn the tight lacing I needed just to keep the clothes on) listening to the gossip of the footmen who lounged against the same back wall as my lovely groom.

  “No new uniforms for us for the coronation,” the tall and muscular man pushing thirty said on a spit.

  His gob almost landed on my scuffed boot and I had to back away a bit too quickly for my disguise. The groom looked at me oddly but said nothing.

  “Master says Parliamentary reform,” he pronounced those words too carefully, like they were a foreign language, “will be the fine-an-cee-al ruin of us all. Lost the three seats in Commons was his due. Can’t sell ’em to rich upstarts with more gold than respect for their place in the world, he says.”

  “Master’s uncle also says next the bloody archbishop will say those with land and villages to support cain’t sell the living off’n their parishes neither.”

  This was the second time this day I’d heard Willliam Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, mentioned in reference to the reform bill of 1832.