The Transference Engine

by Julia Verne St. John

  “You have no choice, child. ’Tis the law,” the Fury replied.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be. The requirement of attending Church of England services weekly outlived its usefulness with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the crushing of invasion plans from Catholic monarchs in Europe.”

  “Don’t you dare preach to me, young lady!” Mrs. Carr quivered in indignation. If she’d had an ounce of fat on her tall and spare frame, it would surely flap and wave as if a flag in a strong wind. “Constant diligence in faith and repentant prayer are the only defenses against demonic powers. You must go to Mass to have the purity to fight off the minions of yo . . . of the Devil.”

  She’d been about to say “your father,” meaning Lord Byron, a demon of a necromancer.

  “Religion is nothing more than superstitious nonsense that appeals to the emotional excess of poets and dreamers with nothing better to do with their lives.” Oh, my girl knew the right words to make her mother see her point of view. At the age of twelve she knew how to manipulate and maneuver her mother as well as her tutors. She and I had no need for such histrionics.

  But Mrs. Carr had a point. I just had never seen proof that piety could fend off a necromancer.

  However, she had no authority in this household to order me, or Miss Ada, to go anywhere or do anything.

  But Lady Byron had taken to her bed last night with a slight sniffle. She declared she needed a week of solitude and bland food.

  I thought she needed less wine and heavy sweets with her dinner and then more of the same upon retiring for the night. But ’twasn’t my place to criticize the woman.

  “Miss Ada, please keep your voice down,” I admonished her. I’d dressed soberly for the ritual of walking in the family procession to the tiny chapel between the manor and the village.

  “Christianity is little more than death worship designed to control the masses out of fear.”

  Mrs. Carr froze.

  And so did I. Was organized religion any different from necromancy? Yes, it had to be different. Our priests didn’t demand human sacrifice. Now.

  The Crusades came to mind.

  “Blasphemy,” Mrs. Carr gasped as she waved her handkerchief in front of her face. “Next you will imitate your father by taking a lov . . .”

  “She will not!” I stepped between my charge and her erstwhile protector. “Miss Ada is much too logical to consider anything but the most practical and sensible course. I believe her time today will best be spent reading inspirational sermons to her mother.” I grasped Ada’s shoulders, turned her around, and marched her up the stairs to her own rooms on the third floor. The Furies had usurped her suite on the second.

  “I think I should like to open my father’s tomb and study his skull. Do you think, Miss Elise, that it will differ greatly from, say the skull of the gardener who died last year?”

  Mrs. Carr staggered into the parlor, commanding tea from the servants.

  “You didn’t really have to say that,” I whispered to Ada as we retreated upstairs. “It will upset your mother terribly. Not to mention bringing down the wrath of Father Huntley.”

  “I know.” Ada sighed and looked chagrined. For about three heartbeats. “Do you suppose a study of skulls might reveal differences in intelligence and creative genius?”

  “I have no idea. But such study is best left to medical scientists.”

  “None of my tutors are well versed in medicine. Perhaps we should expand my education.”

  “Something to discuss with your mother, after she rises from her sickbed.”

  “In the meantime, I presume I do not have to attend Mass?”

  “Not today. Today, after you read a sermon to your mother, you shall write an essay on the necessity of mandatory attendance at Church of England services. This essay will be at least five pages long and must meet approval from both your mother and Father Huntley.”

  “I’d rather calculate logarithms.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I SAY, there’s been this curious black hot air balloon hovering over the West End of late,” one of the artists said, by way of nothing.

  “Yes, yes, I’ve seen it. The children say it’s a dragon that spits green flames,” another chimed in.

  “And I’d swear that when it dipped low, as if checking something on the ground, I saw Sir Andrew at the controls and Ruthven guiding him,” the first artist continued.

  Chills ran through me at the thought of Drew spending time with Lord Ruthven who was even more fascinated with skulls than Ada was. She at least gave up the idea as soon as she realized that her mother and friends were shocked. She wanted to shock, not study at that point.

  How deeply involved in the hideous cult of necromancy had Drew become? Maybe he only wanted the adventure of flying the balloon himself.

  A part of me truly wanted to believe that, but I knew him. He’d done that already. He sought a different adventure this time.

  My desire for Drew’s return to my life and my bed waned. Not if he had blood on his soul from nefarious attempts at powerful magic. Not if he lightly took the lives of innocents to fuel that magic.

  I had more questions for Jeremy. Before I could voice them, his face turned ghostly pale and he swallowed convulsively. “I must go. I regret troubling you with my sordid activities with Dr. Ruthven.” He almost bolted from his chair and raced for the door to the back stair.

  Ish looked up from his conversation with the painters. He looked to me for explanation. I shook my head, not truly knowing if a discussion of necromancy had upset our young friend, or if it had to do with too many sweets and wine on an empty stomach.

  The party lost some of its vivacity with Jeremy’s departure. I did not encourage the others to linger as, one by one, they finished their wine and departed, seeking other salons with more life than mine. Not unusual for salon participants to wander from gathering to gathering over the course of the evening. I did not regret their leaving.

  “I should go as well,” Ish said quietly, as he leaned toward me, taking my hand in departure. He glanced around the room at the few lingerers and whispered, “May I return later, my dear? Not too late, though.”

  “Of course.”

  He exited as hastily as his colleague had.

  The last artist had just descended the stairs when Ish returned, interrupting my quiet contemplation of whitewash and cleanliness in dairies as well as magical workshops.

  Hours later, with the languor of sleep tugging at my limbs, I forced myself to ask the questions of him I’d been seeking answers to for days. “I took a ride in a hot air balloon.”

  “A marvelous trip, I hope?” he asked while tirelessly nibbling my ear and cheek down to my shoulder.

  Marvelous and indefatigable. But I needed answers and then sleep.

  “While hovering over London I saw another balloon all in black. The pilot had a small cannon that shot light from the bottom corner of the black-painted wicker basket. Had the conveyance been left its natural color, I might not have seen the light.”

  Ish sat up in bed, revealing his honed torso. Alas, I was too tired to indulge myself in more than looking. I began breathing deeply, as he had taught me. The influx of air postponed my need to close my eyes and drift into pleasurable dreams.

  “Purpose?” Ish asked, staring into the darkness, as if seeing the ominous contraption.

  “I do not know. It looked as if he aimed for the statue above Trafalgar Square. However, Inspector Witherspoon of the Bow Street Runners is chasing rumors of an assassination attempt at the coronation.”

  “Practicing his aim?”

  I shrugged.

  “Color?”

  “Of the light?”

  He nodded as he threw off the sheet and fumbled for his hastily discarded clothing. A pleasant enough view
, but clearly he had other things on his mind than a return to our earlier activities.

  “Yes, yes. He’d need concentrated fuel and a focus. Did the light burn anything? What was the color?” he demanded, turning back to me wearing only his trousers.

  “Green light, I think. But the next day I heard a report of red light. He had a burner to refresh the balloon; that could account for the giant red eye of the black dragon. I saw only a circular hole in the basket near the bottom, about this big.” I held up my two hands, making a circle of both thumbs and middle fingers. About eight inches. “All the workings were hidden, only the tip of the muzzle fit up against the hole.” Any smaller and I’d not have seen the hole at all from the distance between us, even with magnification.

  “The muzzle could have been thick—to prevent light dissipation—leaving an actual opening of only an inch or two. That would be best. Yes, a tight focus. But it must be magnified . . .” He continued with his musings in terms I did not understand. Waves and prisms and such. More than a few Hindi words crept into his verbal thoughts.

  “Can you explain in normal English?”

  “Have you ever held a magnifying glass over a piece of dried grass on a sunny day?”

  “I watched the Romany light a fire that way when they had no lucifers to strike.”

  “The glass focused and concentrated the broad swath of sunlight into a tiny pinpoint of light, hot enough to ignite a fire.”

  I nodded, beginning to see where his thoughts led him.

  “To make a weapon, your villain would need a bright light source—say the fire within his burner—the blue-white light at the core, not the dissipated red flames. He’d have to open a window within the fire box and set a glass . . . or a crystal before it. As the light passes through the crystal, it would refract into the barrel of his gun. All in close proximity. But a normal fire and fuel source would not be bright enough to keep the shaft of light closely concentrated once it leaves the barrel.”

  “It is possible, then? Given the right fuel, crystal, and light source? I didn’t imagine it?”

  “Possible, not probable according to accepted science. I have seen many stranger things. I must think on this.” He dropped a light kiss on my cheek and let himself out.

  Morning came too early. I awoke to the smell of baking flour and sugar, and freshly brewed coffee.

  Ah, Lucy and Emily had begun my work for me. Briefly, I wondered if Mickey was still about, or if he had gone back to his feral ways. I didn’t think he would once he discovered the enticement of money, and warmth, and a regularly full tummy. Best he stayed close and away from kidnappers who walked the streets.

  The only way to find out, and make sure my girls got their recipes correct was to climb out of my comfortable bed that stilled smelled deliciously of Ish.

  “It be wicked out there,” a ragged girl of about fourteen with lank and tangled hair that might have been auburn but was too dirty to be certain, said quietly. She hung her head over the fragrant cup of coffee Mickey placed before her.

  Something about the uptilt of the end of her nose looked remarkably like Mickey’s. They might be related.

  His hands were cleaner than I’d ever seen them. So was his face. And I swear he’d grown another inch just this last week. Time to either accept him as part of the household or find him an apprenticeship.

  As things were going, he seemed to have slid into place as my apprentice without me noticing.

  But the girl was new. One way to start the cleanup process was to assign her the chores of washing dishes.

  “What is your name, dear?” I asked kindly, accepting my own coffee and a flakey puff pastry filled with marmalade from Lucy. And, wonder of wonders, a rasher of bacon appeared on a plate in the center of the table. I grabbed a piece before the others could devour the rare treat.

  Emily took the plate of pastry from my hand and thrust a bowl of oatmeal into my grasping fingers. “Me mum always said, best to start the day with something that will stick to your ribs.” She flounced back to the oven and peered in to watch a batch of scones turn a delicate brown.

  What was happening? The kitchen wasn’t mine anymore!

  Part of me smiled in satisfaction at how well my girls, and Mickey, had flourished under my tutelage. Part of me screamed defiance that the kitchen was mine and only I could dictate who ate what and when.

  “Philippa,” the lump of rags at the counter mumbled.

  “That’s a nice name,” I said. “I think we had a queen with that name in olden times.”

  No response. She didn’t even sip her coffee. From the limpness of her arms and the sag of her neck, I had the impression that she was too tired—or too frightened—to eat.

  Mickey hovered nearby, twisting his fingers in anxiety.

  “Philippa, what is so wicked out there, on the streets?” I prodded.

  “More girls gone missing, Missus,” Mickey answered for her. “Found this one hiding in the shadows of a dustbin, shaking all over, like. Heard some noises down the alley—thumps and bumps and squelched screams—I did.”

  “Street girls that have no home and no one will miss,” Emily said. A cloud of indignation seemed to set her hair to frizzing. I’d seen the like once at a lecture of a philosophical society in Germany. The showman—I wouldn’t grace him with the title of scientist, not like Ish, or even Drew, for lack of education at school or through his own resources—had rubbed a chunk of amber with raw wool and touched the stone to his own hair making it stand on end. In the dim light he’d actually glowed a bit. I’d seen a tiny spark leap from the amber to his hair. Electricity. The spark of life. Each of us held some of the ethereal substance within our bodies.

  Dr. Polidari, for all of his negligent worthlessness, had proved that to me.

  Call it a soul if you like. Lights and souls. The two were aligned. I just did not know how yet.

  “Any reports of boys or men gone missing?” I asked. If the kidnappers continued to take new victims, then hope of recovering Violet and Toby alive dimmed.

  Philippa shook her head. Mickey shrugged. “Only Toby,” he said.

  I had to shake my head and body to rid myself of the glum mood.

  “Well, then, Philippa, what do you want from me?”

  “To be safe,” she whispered, finally slurping a big drink of her cooling coffee.

  “And what are you willing to do in exchange for safety?” I sat at the worktable and sampled a tiny morsel of oatmeal from the tip of my spoon. It instantly brought back memories of my childhood home, on the farm near Lake Geneva. Home had always been safe, if boring. Not like my life at the villa rented by Lord Byron that year without a summer.

  “I’ll . . . I’ll work for my keep, Missus. Work hard so’s I don’t have to sleep out there alone. I’ll work so’s I don’t have to favor men for a bit o’ coin just to buy enough food to survive.”

  She looked as if a strong wind would blow her away, thin sticks for arms and big hollows in her cheeks.

  “Then work you will. After you eat some of this excellent oatmeal and clean up a bit. Emily, help her find something less dirty to wear and show her how to wash pots and the cutlery.” I’d not trust her with breakable china until she’d proven she could handle it. “I’ll be out front if you need me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  A LOUD RAP ON the window beside the front door startled me out of sorting clean cutlery and counting serviettes. The wavy glass revealed a bulky gentleman pacing impatiently on the stoop an hour before official opening. Something about the set of the shoulders and slapping a riding crop across his hand shouted military. The shape of the hat looked familiar.

  I unlatched the door, leaving the chain on. “Inspector Witherspoon, how can I help you?” I peered out, noting two uniformed men behind him. Caution stiffened my posture and set one of my large feet against the door panel to block any untowar
d push.

  “Madame Magdala, I must speak to you immediately. A situation of utmost urgency has come to my attention.”

  “And how does that concern me?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mickey slip from the kitchen, my stout walking stick in his hand. I usually only carried the device when I patrolled the city in my old woman disguise. As good a weapon as any sword or pistol in the right hands.

  Frantically, I gestured for Mickey to hand me the stick. He slapped it into my hand and melted into the nearest shadow as if he’d never been there.

  “Just open the dam . . . the door so we don’t have to inform the entire neighborhood.” The inspector scanned right and left and behind him. His two soldiers—enlisted men by the lack of ornamentation on their uniforms—stood at parade rest, equally vigilant.

  “Very well. A moment.” Slowly and making as much clumsy noise as I could, I released the chain and stood back, leaning heavily on the stick.

  “Are you injured?” Inspector Witherspoon asked, pausing just inside the door.

  “A trifle,” I dismissed his concern while keeping the stick close. I limped a bit as I moved back into the café. “Mickey, will you bring the inspector a cup of coffee? Or would you prefer tea, Inspector?”

  “Nothing.” He stayed close behind me. Too close for politeness.

  “Madame Magdala, if that is your real name . . .”

  I whirled to face him, too fast for the injury I mimicked. But I managed to shift my grip on the stick to defend myself.

  “No defense?” he asked with an ugly sneer on his lips.

  I met him with silence.

  “Madame Magdala, you have Gypsy friends.” An accusation more than a statement.

  “We no longer live in medieval times when being Romany was illegal.”

  “True. But they are not welcome or trusted anywhere.”

  “Make your point, Inspector.”

  “I could arrest you and hold you in Newgate for your association with criminal elements.”