“It must be,” he told her in reply. “The only alternative we have is to live in hiding, and I have grown tired of it. We strike, and we strike now. The patronage of the House of Usher will give us everything we need.”
“We have never needed the help of those outside our coven,” the woman in the middle protested.
“It is a new world, Evanna,” Matthew conceded. “The Industrial Age is bringing upon us changes that we must understand, that we must exploit, before society does so. Then can we return to the true power we once held in this land.”
Victoria felt herself bristle at that. “Not very pleasant people, are they, Professor?”
“Your Majesty, please,” he whispered before placing a pudgy finger to his lips.
Her mouth opened with a reminder to whom he addressed, but the words caught in her throat on hearing the third woman in the clearing ask, “Did you hear that?”
The four faces turned in their direction, motionless save for the wind that tousled their cloaks. Victoria felt something in her stomach roil. Outlandish as it was, some instinct whispered to her that these four could hear her heartbeat.
It was Matthew that finally broke the silence, turning to the elder woman and assuring her, “Merely the Goddess, Miriam, whispering her approval through the trees. Nothing more.”
Victoria finally released the breath trapped inside and her muscles relaxed.
The chill suddenly kissed the back of her neck, raising goose flesh on the nape of it and down along her arms. The professor’s hand gently touched hers, and she saw him staring at her through his own goggles.
“The wind,” he whispered.
In her Starlights, the one called Miriam snapped her head back in their direction. She was sniffing the air.
“A man. And a woman. Over there. And…” Her voice trailed off. “Something metallic. I smell grease.”
“Right then,” Source muttered. “Time to leave.”
“Not just yet,” Victoria whispered. “You should give my guard a moment to intervene.”
“Your what?” And both the Professor and she returned their gaze to the four treasonous strangers.
Behind them, the shadows were taking forms of featureless grey men. The closer they drew, the more details appeared in their Starlights.
“You really didn’t think the Queen of England would go unattended to Avebury Circle in the middle of the night?” Victoria said with a toss of her head. “If you did, you really are mad.”
The four of them turned to the advancing soldiers. They had only taken three steps when the Queen’s guard stopped, shouldering their rifles, calling out, “Halt in the name of Queen Victoria!”
The four traitors kept walking. In the Starlights, Victoria watched them slip free of their robes, their pale skin giving them semblances of phantoms closing in on her loyal subjects.
“I command you to ha—”
That was the last utterance from the soldier as the man named Matthew disappeared, his form moulting, pieces of flesh peeling away from him as he walked, revealing something like a dog, or something that could have passed for a dog had it not sprouted bat-like wings and borne the posture of a small bear. The enormous size of the beast did not hinder its movement as it was on the soldier a moment later. There was no shot in defence, nor was there a scream.
It was all over in seconds.
“Your Majesty,” the professor said, tightening the strap of his Starlights, “whatever I tell you to do, do not question it. You must trust me. Secure your goggles. You will need them.”
Victoria gave her own straps a few sharp tugs, feeling the goggles press deeper into her face. They were going to make a run for it, a tactic she would be hard pressed to hold in question as she watched the three women shimmer in the same grotesque manner Matthew had. With their massive wings cutting through the air, the four creatures made quick work of Victoria’s elite, then looked back where they hid. Through her goggles she could see small voids, where, no doubt, amber eyes would have stared back at her, narrow on her. Around their monstrous snouts were dark patches of what Victoria deduced was fresh blood and gore, now smeared into their own sheer pelts. Their heads jerk upward ever so slightly, nostrils flaring as the wind carried her fear to them.
“Follow me. Stay close.”
Professor Source leapt free of their hiding place, running towards the beasts, setting quite the pace for such a rotund gentleman.
“Bloody hell,” Victoria hissed as she bounded into the night on the Professor’s heels.
The queen could hear their footsteps pounding against the grass, but her eyes were focused in front of them on the four beasts, muscles underneath their smooth, shiny pelts bending and rippling underneath folded wings as they closed the distance. In her Starlights, she watched details emerge with each step. The beasts’ breath appearing for only a moment before the night’s chill claimed its warmth. Long, thin mouths that could not completely conceal such protruding curved teeth.
Closer.
Closer.
The alpha male, Matthew, leapt upward, his wingspan extending fully to catch an invisible wind, causing his fantastic form to reach vertically into the night.
Victoria felt Source take her by the arm. He called out, “Slide.”
On feeling him tug, she followed his lead, repeating his command to herself as she tucked one leg underneath her and reached forward with the other. Their momentum and the evening’s moisture underfoot carried them onward, sending them underneath the flying monster and between those flanking him. Over the shrill, squeaking sounds of their bodies sliding on the wet grass, Victoria could also hear the dark beasts slipping and stumbling over themselves. Whatever precious seconds they had would be enough to stay ahead of them.
His grip tightened on her arm as they stood.
“Professor?” No need to whisper now. They were completely in sight.
“Your Majesty, you must trust me,” he said, pulling a small rod from his coat pocket. His other hand snaked inside his coat’s outer pocket, but his eyes never left the pack of four creatures regrouping before them. “Look above us—are the clouds parting?”
She looked behind them, and up. Much like a curtain rising to reveal Macready’s boy-king overlooking the field of Agincourt, the blanket of clouds were thinning, and suddenly they were awash in moonlight. She squinted from behind the Starlights, and then removed them all together. Victoria could now see the four beasts pacing slowly, sizing up their prey for a final attack, only a pale illumination cutting them free of the night’s canvas. She swallowed, and flinched at how dry and grating her throat felt.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Hold your ground with me,” Professor Source spoke over the packs’ low, undulating growl. He still kept his eyes on them, even as he affixed a perfectly clear crystal onto the end of what now Victoria could make out in his hand to be something like a brass spike.
The pack leader—Matthew, Victoria had no doubt—did not look to either of the three she-beasts. He did not bark a command, or even paw at the ground. He gave a snort, conjuring a veil of breath that concealed his head for a heartbeat. When the warm mist dissipated, Matthew leapt forward, his only sound being his panting. Even. Rhythmic. Controlled.
With a tiny click, the crystal locked into place.
Victoria could hear a quick, soft snarl accompanying each breath now. The creature’s eyes flared crimson in the full moonlight.
Then came the small explosion of steam from Professor Source. His hand was pressing a small button in the brass rod, and now the rod extended to the length of a quarterstaff. Source reared back, and drove the metal staff into the ground.
On entering the grass and earth underfoot, Victoria watched the other three beasts flinch and melt quickly back to their human forms, their naked bodies pale and ghostly under the moonlight. They were now on their knees, grabbing at their stomachs and chests, wailing in pain.
Matthew appeared far too determined to slow down, even though
his growl told Victoria he had been struck hard by something. It pushed on through whatever pain had stricken his followers, threatening to overtake them in a moment.
Victoria started back when the beam appeared. It was as brilliant as a noonday sun, only pure white in its colour. The blast lifted Matthew off the grass and held him in the air, suspending him in time and space. She was not certain how long the winged creature remained frozen above the ground; and in this grandeur, Victoria became aware of Matthew’s nightmarish form. He had still not reverted to a human shape like his companions. She watched him fall, but his body never hit the ground. The beam exploded out from its back, splitting in three to strike each of the wailing women. As it had been with Matthew, the women swayed back in a slow, languid manner, defying the natural way of things before winking out of existence with a sudden crack of thunder.
From above Victoria’s head, something popped and sizzled. She looked up to see the quartz obelisk at the tip of the staff emitting light wisps of smoke. It seemed to be glowing faintly, its colour reflecting the moon high above it.
His eyes betrayed nothing. The skin around them tightened for a moment, the only indication that he himself had not been frozen by whatever force he had conjured mere moments ago. A mist appeared under his flaring nostrils, and his grip on the brass staff in his hand tightened.
Victoria looked around her. Only mist and moonlight touched the grass of Avebury Circle. The stones remained standing as silent sentinel in the night.
“Your Majesty,” Professor Source spoke gently, “I believe we should return to the pub. Warm ourselves by the fire. And,” he chortled, managing a friendly grin, “perhaps indulge with a wee drop of sherry.”
Flames danced merrily in the hearth. Pint glasses of stout, ale, and bitter mimicked the overflowing conversation, a delightful mingling of mirth and laughter. From the kitchen came sweet, succulent smells of dishes far heartier than anything found in her royal kitchens. Victoria thought absently that perhaps, on nights when she craved something simpler, she should request from her cook a Shepard’s Pie. Any chef worth their salt would have a good recipe for Shepard’s Pie.
The diminutive glass of sherry was placed ever so gently before her. Two fingers then slid it closer to her hand. She picked it up, and that was when she noticed the tremble. She was no longer cold, but still shaking.
Victoria downed the sherry in one gulp, and groaned as the liquid burned its way down her throat. She much preferred her sherry sweet. She kept staring into the fire. She would not cry. She would not scream. She was Queen of the Empire, and would not falter.
The second sherry was placed next to her empty glass. “Do have a care, Victoria, and make this one last. I would loathe to have someone of your station in a state when I escort you home.”
“You are far too familiar, Professor,” Victoria seethed.
“Due to the rather crowded nature of the pub, I’m afraid necessity will out.” The professor settled back into the high back chair in front of her, interlacing his pudgy fingers across his rotund belly. His once hard, cold eyes now seemed to glow with warmth. “So, your questions?”
“Who were those—” She meant to say “people” but that was not quite right, was it? They were completely and utterly horrific. “—things?”
“Hellhounds,” he said quite factually. “Or I should say, a small coven of necromancers that, through some dark sorcery, possessed the ability to change themselves into hellhounds. I have been tracking them since stumbling on one of their ceremonies in West Yorkshire where I was on the trail of a cursed talisman, completely unrelated to them, I should add.”
“West Yorkshire? A far cry from Avebury Circle,” she chortled.
“I am tenacious in some things,” Source quipped. “Matters such as this, I hold as high priorities.”
“Matters?” Victoria asked. “You mean, there are more of those abominations out there?”
The professor smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling as the firelight softened his plump features. “Have another sip of sherry.” She did so, but her eyes never left him as he spoke. “This coven was, perhaps, one of a more darker nature. Wiccans prefer a more peaceful life, as would a Christian, a Hindu, or any other follower of a faith.” Source gave a slight sigh as he glanced out of the window, as if he were returning to the circle of stones just outside. “As it is in any faith, there are some that are forward thinking in their manifestos. They wish to enact peace by their religion through violence. A Holy War, as contradictory as the term Civil War.” He produced the quartz that had come to their aid, and placed it before her. “Another coven offered me this as a weapon against Matthew’s black magic. They call this Luna’s Prism. They entrusted me with it much in the same way you will, following this evening, entrust me with the means and resources to preserve the empire.”
Victoria knotted her brow at that bold conclusion. His smile never faltered.
“The coven who held on to Luna’s Prism, were in need of a special branch of Her Majesty’s Empire. They trusted me as I assured them such matters would no longer be dismissed by either Palace or Parliament after tonight.”
“And how were you so sure?”
Professor Source took a sip of his own sherry before motioning to the barkeep. The man gave a nod and produced from around his neck, a key. He disappeared for a moment in what could have been a corridor to the kitchens, or perhaps storage, Victoria could not be certain; but she concluded it was a private room of some sort when the publican emerged from the back of the pub again, the key was no longer in sight and the small case that the professor had upon his person at their palace appointment was now in the publican’s hands. Placing it at Source’s feet, he gave them both a tip of the hat and then returned to the bar.
There was still a good amount of conversation and din around them, but she started at the sound of the clasps flipping open. The professor slid the box closer to her and motioned to it. “If you would indulge me, Alexandrina.”
Feeling that it would be needed, Victoria took a long sip of her sherry, savouring it before she bent down and opened the box in front of her. Her eyes went wide for a moment, and then jumped back to the mysterious man opposite her. “Is this—?”
“If you have to ask me, then you already know the answer, don’t you?”
She shook her head, but it was no illusion. No mirage. It was real, and her fingertips resting gently on it, only confirmed as much. “How is this possible?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies,” he quoted. “When these things call for the attention of the Crown or threaten the preservation of the Empire, this is where and when your new ministry will step in and intervene.” From his coat’s inside pocket, he produced what appeared to be a modest proposal, perhaps five pages or so, folded neatly and held together by a deep blue ribbon. “A clandestine organization specialising in that which defies explanation. We will employ the brightest and most resourceful men and women representing every corner of the realm, dedicated to the preservation of the Queen, Her country, and the Empire.”
The queen looked up from the bound decree, whatever shock, fear, or confusion she felt festering within her now gone. “Just like that?”
Source cast his eyes to the open case, then back to the queen. “Do you need more proof?”
She hooked her foot under one of the case’s open lids and flipped it up. Both lids closed like a small creature clamping its leather-encased mouth around a snack. She gave the case a slight push and slid the box back over to Source.
“Yes, I could have simply presented this evidence to you in court, but I needed to know if you were the monarch that would undertake such a venture; and you did.” His eyes narrowed as he continued, “There are dark forces at play, and I will not rest until I return these villains to the shadows from where they were spawned.”
Victoria looked down to the proposal still unopened in her hand, then back to the professor. “I barely know you,
sir, but I believe you will.” She raised her sherry glass. “As decreed by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria of England and the British Empire, I raise a glass to your new charge…”
And then she paused. Her silence became a small chuckle of delight, and she raised her glass a fraction higher.
“A toast, to the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.”
On their glasses touching, just over the chatter and jocularity of their pub, a lone dog cried out in the night.
Our Agents
Jared Axelrod is an author, an illustrator, a puppeteer, a graphic designer, a sculptor, a costume designer, a podcaster and quite a few other things that he’s lost track of but will no doubt remember when the situation calls for it. He is the author of The Battle of Blood & Ink, a steampunk graphic novel published by Tor, as well as the writer, producer and main voice talent of the companion podcast Fables of the Flying City. Both of these works led to Jared’s nomination for the 2013 Philly Geek Awards for Comic Creator of the Year. He is writer and producer of the science-fiction podcasts The Voice Of Free Planet X and Aliens You Will Meet, a founding member of the groundbreaking daily flash-fiction website 365 Tomorrows, and his works has been published on the website I Should Be Writing, as well as the anthologies Have Blaster Will Travel, Gimmie Shelter, Podthology: The Pod Complex, and The Sovereign Era: Year One. He currently resides in Philadelphia with his immensely talented wife. He is not domestic, he is a luxury, and in that sense, necessary.
J.R. Blackwell is a writer of short fiction, appearing in the anthologies We Are Dust and By No Means Vulgar; and an ENnie award-winning game designer for her live-action zombie roleplaying game, Shelter in Place. J.R. is also an accomplished editor, her skills bringing together authors for highly-acclaimed collections such as Gimmie Shelter and The Lost. She is also a celebrated photographer, her works featured in the dark narrative Her Side by Mur Lafferty, and magazines, newspapers, journals, blogs, book covers and book-jackets across the country and around the world. You can find out more about her work at jrblackwell.com.
Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Page 29