The Pyramids of London

by Andrea K Höst

  And over the past few decades, half the world had started powering their lamps with them.

  Even looking beyond Egypt's reaction, if the world now knew how to make fulgite, what would happen? None of the experiments in replicating fulgite's ability to store and release fulquus had come anywhere close to creating a battery of similar capacity. None of the alternatives, old or new, could begin to compare to fulgite's efficiency.

  "I begin to see why the Nesweth sent the Huntresses," Rian said, and Gustav ceased to be amused.

  "No, it is impossible," he said. "They could not have known, and could hold no hope to hide this now." He looked around, then recovered his cheer. "Rome, it is about to enjoy a war, I think."

  "None of these are Dem Blair, my prince," said the driver, Ishi.

  "That is good. Let us find the Lyle."

  "There were several exits, one of them blocked by a heavy, close-fitting door, and two others that proved to lead to partially filled shafts—not, in Rian's estimation, beneath the Black Pyramid, but perhaps one of the smaller pyramids used by the Thoth-den. They soon returned to examine the heavy door.

  "They ran, and sealed it behind," Prince Gustav said. "Do the vampire parts of you feel them near, Keeper of Albion?"

  Rian had been trying to gauge that very thing, hoping to select a direction, and finding it not an easy process. "There's no-one close," she said.

  "Then we make noise again," he said, and did so, this time shattering the stone door into flying fragments.

  Beyond, the tunnel divided, and Gustav chose left without preamble. Rian paused to check her pocket watch. Makepeace would surely be on the move by now, perhaps even able to enter the south-facing pyramid.

  "Someone alive ahead," she said, catching Prince Gustav up. "And others, further away."

  "Good, good. But not so good."

  They were in a straight section, and Ishi's torch had picked out another door, and the uneven lines of a rock fall scattered around a man's body. Lyle.

  "The rats have teeth," Prince Gustav said, as they moved quickly to uncover the fallen Alban. Beyond the door was a clanging, mechanical digging noise.

  "Heartbeat is strong," Rian said, then winced as the Swedish prince employed some rough-and-ready methods to encourage Lyle to consciousness.

  "...Highness?"

  "Today I am the aide, yes?" Gustav said, with a note of genuine relief. "You make the bad show, Lyle. It is a poor warrior that adventures without weapons."

  "Lynsey had—Lynsey!" Lyle attempted to bolt upright, and reeled.

  "She's alive," Rian said quickly. "Evelyn's taking care of her."

  Further discussion was forestalled by additional banging, as if a horse was trying to kick down a stable door.

  "Is it that they run?" Prince Gustav wondered.

  "What happened, Lyle?" Rian asked. "How did you end up here?"

  Lyle was holding his head, investigating lumps, and spoke haltingly.

  "There was something I guessed...but you must know it, if you've been through that first room. I wanted to check the tombs...the tombs for any sign of damage, so we took a tour, and dropped off the back. We found one that looked freshly painted...didn't make sense. Then a piece of the paving lifted up. Did they know the timing of the...? We hid, and watched as they worked on the freshly-painted tomb, making the inscription look older. Then..."

  He trailed off, face creased with confusion, and then flinched as another round of banging came from beyond the door.

  "Why did we follow them? We must have followed. We were—I remember standing outside that room's entrance, watching them. They were making preparations to seal tunnels, to fully erase any sign that they had ever been—ever been... Did someone come up behind us?"

  He stopped, bewildered.

  "Enough for you this day, my Alban," Prince Gustav said. "There are no bones broken, yes? The Keeper, she will lend you a shoulder."

  "There's at least eight people in there," Rian said, since the prince was clearly contemplating going through the door. "And...I'm not sure it's them making that noise. We can't be sure it's the Huntresses that killed those people."

  "It is the stomach of milk that would not find out!" Gustav said cheerfully, and bent to help Lyle up, and out of the way.

  "Your Highness," Lyle said, clearly horrified. "The risk..."

  But axe haft was already meeting door, and Rian decided she would really rather not see what the thing would do to people.

  "Let's get you out of here, Lyle."

  "Do you know what the Swedes will do to Alba if he gets himself killed?" Lyle staggered toward Gustav.

  Rian rather thought Sweden would exact a blood price and send a new Lord Protector, but forbore to comment, moving to join the Alban man as he followed Gustav through the door.

  Beyond was a siege.

  A makeshift barrier, a jumbled combination of mining spoil and metal plates, sectioned off part of the room. In the very corner an upward ramp had been cut into the wall, and two men using noisy machines were breaking into a wall of stone blocks exposed near the ceiling, while most of the remaining Romans struggled to ward off a now-familiar hulking creature.

  The bull-bear was smeared with dirt and covered in gashes. From the condition of the rest of the room, it looked as if the creature, like Lyle, had been brought down by a rock fall, though one that had involved collapsing an entire tunnel. Perhaps the Romans had believed themselves safe from it, and turned their attention to opening an escape route until it had dug its way free.

  Gustav, of course, bounded directly for the thing, and it turned to throw itself at him. The Swedish prince met the bull-bear's attack with competence, if not ease, while his driver drew a gun of his own, and circled so that he had a clear shot if it became necessary.

  The Romans' response to sudden assistance was to redouble their efforts to break through the wall above. As they moved, Rian stiffened, spotting two people she had missed at first glance because they were kneeling on the floor. A middle-aged woman and an older man, hands pressed together, lips moving in silent chant. Strangers to her, but familiar thanks to Eleri's precise sketchwork. The Mendacii.

  Obvious what they were doing. The most logical response to a god-touched creature like the bull-bear was a god-touched counter. And the thing that had chased the children had been monstrously powerful.

  Rian shot the man first. She had a good angle on him, and the bullet struck him in the temple, but the woman flinched away as he fell, and Rian's second bullet pinged off the far wall.

  And she had acted too late. The whispers came from every corner, words not quite strong enough to be audible, skittering around the cramped room. Rian's spine crawled, and she moved to try for a clearer line of sight, but the Romans were using their barrier to block her now, and she had to dash quickly for an overturned table when two produced guns, and fired back.

  Lyle gasped, and she thought that he'd been hit, but it was worse. Greenish-grey hands had reached up from the uneven floor, and were pulling him down. Before Rian even understood what was happening, he had vanished to his knees.

  "Ishi!" Prince Gustav shouted imperatively, landing a creditable blow on the bull-bear.

  Gustav's driver had already acted, joining Rian's attempt to bring down the shooters, or the remaining Mendacium. Rian took the chance and grabbed Lyle's hand, then dragged the fallen table to him, as if it was a life buoy that might keep him afloat. He had sunk to his waist, and Rian struggled to hold him without coming into contact with the reaching spectral hands. Her efforts seemed to make no difference.

  "Arianne, I..." Lyle's eyes were wide, his panic and horror beating at her.

  But then that blast of emotion calmed, his features firmed, and, gaze fixed on her...he pulled her toward him.

  Thirty

  Rian gasped, and flung herself away, a chill finger brushing her arm. A more natural hand caught her ankle, and Lyle's smile was quietly pleased as he vanished underneath a clutching grey-green tide, pulling R
ian behind him.

  She kicked, and caught at the shielding table, but the power of the thing was beyond human strength. The hands were icy, and it felt like they were dragging her into ancient, wet mud, the kind that sent a knife of chill straight to the bone.

  Twisting, she tried to spot the remaining Mendacium. No sign, so she snapped off two shots at one of the Romans she could see, grazing his shoulder. But no, she had to conserve her bullets. Somehow choke the horror down, and work for a chance, and that was not a thing that was easy to do when bitter hands clutched at her thighs. How many bullets did she have left? And why, why had Lyle—?

  Rian pushed that question away. Why did not matter at this moment. Only a woman, over there behind the barrier. A woman who had called death, and whom Rian must answer with death. The Mendacium had been kneeling, and that one man was in the way, and that at least was an easy shot, and Rian took it.

  There. The proudly handsome face, in profile, barely visible through a gap in the barrier. How many bullets left? One? Or was it none? Again, that was not a thing to think about, not yet, because cold hands had Rian's waist, and her grip on the table was making little difference, and this was as difficult a shot as Rian had ever tried, after years of training diligently because a Prytennian woman travelling took care to be prepared.

  A red flower bloomed.

  Rian's hand shook so much at this success that she dropped her pistol. Taking great gasping breaths she hauled at the table. It seemed in her desperation that perhaps the grip of the hands had loosened, but the Sea of Lies had not fallen with the ones who had called it, and she scrabbled with no care for dignity at unhelpful wood, until she noticed that her efforts were observed by a black hare, running silently in place.

  Rian could have wept at the sight of it, a conflation of her sole memento of her mother and someone who had begun to dominate her thoughts, but most of all a sudden and real hope for survival.

  The Night Breezes swirled around her, a vortex of mouse and hare and hound dragging her upward. But the Sea of Lies did not release its grip, and Rian cried out in pain.

  An arm across her back, solid and human, brought a sudden end to the wrenching tug-of-war. The grasping, spectral hands vanished, driven from existence by a stronger power, and Rian was lifted to the withers of the three-tailed mare. The Crown Princess was dressed very much for combat, and made a formidable armful, but that and royal protocol did not keep Rian from abandoning resolution and embracing her with the whole of her heart.

  "Thank you," she said, in a choked fragment of a voice.

  Aerinndís, Sulevia Sceadu, let out her breath. For a moment, one single moment, she touched Rian's shoulder. But then she straightened, and that movement brought Rian to her senses, and she allowed her arms drop, gathering what little remained of her self-composure.

  The fight had been summarily concluded, the few surviving Romans helpless in a whirl of transparent hounds, though from the crashing noise out in the corridor it seemed the bull-bear had run, and was being hotly pursued.

  Prince Gustav, a little clawed about the edges, strode over as the three-tailed mare dissipated.

  "The Lyle?" he said, but he'd already seen, and raised his axe to the ceiling in grave salute. "This, no-one deserves."

  Rian, remembering a hand around her ankle, looked down and away, and spotted Makepeace striding into the room. He had been thoroughly clawed, his shirt tattered, and the flesh beneath furrowed.

  "Lost the thing," he said to Princess Aerinndís. "And the winds seem to have trouble keeping hold of it."

  "There was not, this time, an immediate vanishment," the Crown Princess said, watching dispassionately as Makepeace's exposed wounds began to stitch themselves together. "They still have it in sight."

  "You know of this animal?" Prince Gustav asked, brightly interested. "Not a thing of Rome or of Prytennia."

  Makepeace started to speak, then stopped, grimaced, and said: "And now an excess of cats."

  The noise that came close on the heels of this statement was rough, grating, and very loud. The roar of a lioness. The power and fury caught up in that sound would surely echo across the world. Prince Gustav, looking appreciative, headed toward it, Ishi at his heels.

  "Comfrey, Dama Seaforth is out of her depth," Princess Aerinndís said. "Return her to Forest House, and then find me."

  "Highness," Makepeace said, then added: "Don't dawdle Wednesday."

  He followed the two royals toward the roaring, giving no indication that he'd noticed the flush so hot it left Rian dizzy. True enough, perhaps, given she was surrounded by those with considerably more power, but Rian had thought her conduct creditable enough in the situation. She had needed rescue, true, but…

  Or had Princess Aerinndís' order been meant as a rebuke for an unwanted embrace? Rian examined that thought, then lifted her chin and walked after Makepeace with all the poise she could muster. Whatever else, this was certainly not the moment to wallow.

  A single hand of the Huntresses crowded among the bodies and damning evidence of the first room, three of them in lion form and still roaring, the other two likely the Pakhet and Bastet members of the hand, small women whose current silence did nothing to distract from their fury.

  The noise was considerable, threat palpable, and yet Aerinndís Gwyn Lynn spoke with no more or less than her usual grave formality, while Prince Gustav looked on with all the appreciation of someone who would gain from these events, at only the small cost of one aide. Makepeace walked through without pause, and brushed past the handful of police and pyramid staff that had ventured so far as the room entrance before wisely deciding to wait.

  People moved aside without looking at Makepeace—or Rian—or even asking questions. They did seem to be marginally aware of him, enough to get out of his way, but reacted without any interest. Given Makepeace's still-healing injuries, this was quite an achievement. The power to control minds: not only the minds of vampires, but any who did not have sufficient god-touched resistance to prevent it.

  A crowd had gathered out in the deepening dusk. The Huntresses, particularly the Sekhmet vampires, could not storm through London's heart without comment. Here, Rian did see occasional reactions to the advent of a man in a shredded shirt with nearly-closed rents in his skin, but even the people who looked frowned and blinked as if they had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the unreal, and then went back to gazing avidly at the pyramid's entrance.

  Makepeace was moving toward one of the squares of trees that could be found all over London, but once they were past the crowd Rian spoke up.

  "I'm going to go check on Lynsey. You don't have to escort me back—I'll take a taxi."

  "Interesting thought," Makepeace said, not breaking pace. "But this night has only started, and you are still bright and shiny bait, even if someone else was the one to be eaten. That tedious creature—Wrack or Wrack's servant—was there, where you were intended to go. Her Highness will track it wherever it runs, unless it somehow vanishes again, and we will hunt as soon as Her Highness can diplomatically shovel this Roman mess into Hildy's lap. Wrack must know the Sulevia Sceadu's abilities, know the only way to escape will be to avoid her until dawn, or flee over the border. If the fulgite really is so important to it, it's barely possible it may make one last attempt. The best place for you is Forest House."

  "Did you guess? What fulgite was?"

  He didn't answer immediately. It was not until they were walking toward the centre of the pocket-sized parkland that he said: "Most ba would have moved on long ago. None of the fulgite I've ever handled felt like more than rock to me, bar that piece your brats have been hauling about. Something so small could not possibly house a ba, and they usually would never waste their energy trying to communicate with this world even when intact—it would be enormously difficult, and greatly impact their ability to reach the Field of Rushes. When I touched that piece, I guessed that there was a living creature involved in the production, but hadn't taken the next step. I wonder if who
ever is buying back the stolen fulgite is specifically seeking that where the ba still has some connection to the shattered form."

  Rian waited until he had taken her into the Great Forest, then told him, as unemotionally as she could manage, all that had happened before he and Princess Aerinndís had arrived.

  "Double-souled?" Makepeace mused. "Or is this Wrack one of the Hungry Dead, eating a living host from within? Surely I would have felt that?"

  "The woman called Min said Dane had changed since meeting the Alban," Rian pointed out.

  "True. Not likely to be one of the Hungry Dead, then. They use up their host before hopping to another. Unless it's multiple..." He shook his head. "Either way, the hunt's up. We'll see what we have when we bring the bull-bear down."

  Since she had rarely felt less happy in herself, Rian was struggling to see her own best course. But there was something logical and obvious, and the fact that she very much didn't want to do it should make no difference. Especially when whatever had driven Lyle had apparently attempted to kill her out of pure spite.

  "You weren't strong enough to hold it before," she said.

  "That's one of the reasons we've involved Hildy. It's a rare creature that is resistant to both the Night Breezes and the triskelion."

  "I thought she was going to be dealing with a lap full of Huntresses." Rian took a slow breath, then made herself say: "You're injured and my blood and ka, by all accounts, will make you stronger."

  He shot her an annoyed glance. "Oh, very noble, Wednesday. Yes, I so want a meal of the terror and revulsion radiating off you right now. Marvellous thought."