A Scandal in Battersea

by Mercedes Lackey

  Durwin darted out of the bird room, skidded to a halt at her feet, and saluted. “Yes, milady!” he replied. “I be ready! Gi’ me yer orders!”

  “Get to Robin Goodfellow immediately. I felt that—that presence that Amelia and I felt in her visions—hunting in the real world when we were in the theater. It vanished as soon as I sensed it, and I think it felt me and knew I had identified it. But I am sure it didn’t stop hunting for a little thing like that; I’m positive it just went somewhere else to hunt. Once you’ve informed Robin, tell Memsa’b the same, and that I am sure Amelia will need her tonight and that she must glean whatever information she can when Amelia has a vision. Then come back, quickly, especially if you have any messages.” Nan paused for breath, and before she could say anything else, Durwin saluted again.

  “Tell the Great One the monster is a-hunt in Londinium. Tell the Lady the same. Come back with messages,” he replied, as brisk as any Army messenger.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, and before she could say anything else, he vanished. She collapsed into a chair, feeling breathless and drained. A few moments later, Sarah came running up the stairs.

  “Durwin?” she asked, looking around as if she expected to see him still there.

  “Is gone. He’s . . .” Nan cast her hands in the air. “. . . amazing. One would think he’d been a messenger all his life. Now . . . I suppose we wait.”

  “That’s the hardest part,” Sarah replied and motioned to her to get up. “We might as well get out of our things and hang them up to dry.”

  Just as they’d done so, there was a tapping on the door, and Mrs. Horace called, “I’ve got your supper, if you’ve a mind to it. I ’eard you running up the stairs. Is everything all right?”

  Nan opened the door, and their landlady bought in a tray laden with covered dishes. “We just wanted to get in out of that snow and into the warmth, Mrs. Horace,” she lied. “We practically perished of cold in the cab. The play was terrible,” she added, by way of a distraction.

  “Oh, it’s no night fit for man nor beast,” Mrs. Horace agreed, setting the tray down. “I’ve more than half a mind to go to bed early where it’s warm and cozy, so I thought I’d bring up your supper as soon as I heard you come in.”

  “That was lovely of you, thank you,” Sarah told her. Somehow—Nan was not sure how—Sarah managed to chitchat with their landlady in an absolutely natural manner until Mrs. Horace was quite sure they were all right. When she had satisfied herself, Mrs. Horace beamed at them and took herself briskly out. Nan closed the door behind her with relief.

  “I don’t think I can eat a bite,” she fretted. “I—”

  “Durwin, reporting with messages, milady!” said a voice coming from behind her at about the level of her knee.

  She whirled. There he was, solemn-faced and earnest. She could have kissed him. To have him back—at least now she could be certain that anyone who could do anything about the situation was on alert.

  “What have you got for us, Durwin?” Sarah asked, before Nan could gather her wits.

  “The Great One’s been told, milady, and he’s rousing those who can bear Londinium to make search tonight. And the Lady of the Manor’s been told, and Roan as well. There’s more, that the Great One told me to tell ye. Just in case the thing might come a-calling, on account of the Seer being able to get a look into its realm and all, the Great One’s setting a guard on the Manor. All Four Elements are on the watch.” He peered up at Nan anxiously. “Do ye think it might come here? My sword’s yours, milady.” And to prove his point, he pulled a sword that was probably the size of a letter-opener out of a sheath at his belt.

  Nan shook her head. “I think it was anxious to escape notice,” she replied. “It’s powerful in its own realm, I don’t think it’s all that strong in ours yet. And in any case, it would be looking for me where I sensed it—at the theater. We’re quite far from there.”

  Durwin’s face wrinkled in an expression of deepest concern. “All the same, milady, if ye’ll take the word of a hob what’s seen a thing or two, ye shouldn’t attract its attention. It’s a magic thing, according to the Great One, and ye’ve got no magic. My sword’s yers, and I can call on more to help us at need.”

  Sarah gave Nan a look, as if to say And what did I tell you? Nan thought about objecting that they could take care of themselves, given that she and Neville could invoke the Celtic Warrior and her Protector . . . then remembered the horrid creature in the long-abandoned house in Berkeley Square. If it hadn’t been for the fact that everyone, John and Mary, Memsa’b and Sahib, Karamjit and Agansing and Selim as well as she, Sarah, Neville, and Grey, had all been working together, they would never have trapped it. What’s more, they hadn’t actually defeated it, they had only trapped it, and sent the trap to the Water Elementals to be buried in the deepest part of the ocean.

  The five of us have about as much chance of defeating this thing without the help of magicians as we have of flying to the moon and back. We’d better concentrate on making sure that if this thing decides to look for us, it can’t find us.

  “You’re right, Durwin,” she sighed as the birds came flying into the room to take their places on their stands. She gestured helplessly. “I hate this, but you’re right. It’s maddening to know something horrible is going to happen to some poor girl tonight and not be able to do anything about it.”

  Durwin sheathed his sword and took off his soft, pointed hat, scrunching it in his hands. “I know what you mean, milady. But this’s Londinium. There’s terrible things happening to girls all over this city tonight, there were terrible things happening last night, and there will be terrible things happening on the morrow. And to men, and little chillern, too. And ye can’t do anything about those, either. We can only do what’s in our strenth, don’t ye see? We just have to make sure we do what’s in our strenth.”

  “He’s got you there,” Sarah pointed out. “Come and eat, you’re not going to do anyone any good if you’re weak and irritable from hunger.”

  Her friend went over to the table and took the lid off the largest dish—a bowl, really—and the heavenly scent of Mrs. Horace’s Irish stew filled the room. Nan’s stomach growled involuntarily.

  And Durwin licked his lips, and looked longingly in the direction of the table. He was too small to see what was on the table, but he could certainly smell it as well as either of them.

  “Would it be against the rules for you to eat with us, Durwin?” Nan asked on impulse. “Just this once. Seeing as we have a sort of emergency and you might need to carry messages again, or help us in some other way.”

  Durwin’s face screwed up with concern for a moment, but then he relaxed. “Seeing as ye might need me. And seeing as ye’re special to the Great One. Why, ye’re honorary Folk, ye are! Haven’t ye been given leave to come and go and look and know?”

  “Yes we have,” Nan assured him. “Let me get some books for you to sit on.”

  She piled those huge, dull tomes that had proven so useless onto the seat of the chair Suki usually used when she was home, making a second seat for him so he could reach the table. At least now they’re of some use, she thought. Mrs. Horace had, of course, only brought plates for two, but with a bit of juggling and some creative use of what they had, everyone had something to eat out of. And even though moments before Nan had been certain she couldn’t eat a bite, by the time supper was over, everything was gone, and Durwin was contentedly sopping up the last of the gravy with the last of Mrs. Horace’s good fresh bread.

  Sarah went to the window while Nan gathered everything up on the tray and set it on the stand outside their door for the girl that helped Mrs. Horace to fetch in the morning. “The snow isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s going to be no treat to be out in it tonight,” she observed.

  “Maybe the snow will keep that thing from finding a victim,” she said, but without much hope. The f
irst girl had been taken at around dusk, but the second had been taken in broad daylight. . . .

  “. . . and was last seen with a man,” she said aloud, wanting to slap herself for being so stupid.

  “What?” Sarah asked, as Durwin stared at her in bewilderment.

  “The second victim was last seen with a man, a completely ordinary man,” Nan groaned. “What if this thing has a human partner? It would make sense. The thing picks out its victim, the human lures her away. Or the two overpower her in some way. I was hunting for a . . . a monster, when what I should have been looking for was the human that was working with it! I’m an idiot!”

  “Granny, don’t yew stay up all night watchin’ at th’ winder agin,” the querulous voice of Granny Toscin’s granddaughter Jilly followed her to the room she shared with the “baby,” who was now old enough to sleep through the night, as well as the baby’s three-year-old sister. “I won’t hev yew fallin’ asleep whin yer s’pposed t’be watchin’ baby. What if she goes off and pulls somethin’ down on herself?”

  Granny didn’t answer. Ungrateful chit. Didn’ I raise yew when my Caro died? Yew oughter be raisin’ yer own babbies, that’s what, an’ let me henjoy me old age. An’ if thet means I be lookin’ out winders at night, then thet’s none o’yer business.

  She wrapped herself up in three shawls and a blanket and sat herself right down beside the window that overlooked the street. She’d never liked that feller across the way. Him with his airs and his hoors. Oh, she’d seen the hoors goin’ in and outa that house, she had! And hadn’t he tossed one of ’em on Christmas Eve, no less, comin’ in, and gettin’ tossed out inter the snow! And he’d let her back in again! At least, she thought he’d let her back in; she’d gone to beat on the door, and gone through it instead. A hoor! He was fornicatin’! On Christmas Eve!

  She was watchin’ ’im, she was. ’E was up to no good, no good at all.

  She hadn’t seen him nor his “man” since nuncheon—such airs! “His man,” indeed. Their flat had been dark when she’d gone to get the bit of warm milk with a little rum in it that Jilly begrudged her, but now it wasn’t. There was light showing through gaps in the curtains. Granny had a feeling. He was up to no good again. This was a night she had best watch.

  Besides, it wasn’t that late. No more than an hour past full dark. The babbies wouldn’t be up till it was light anyways. Granny watched the flat, narrowing her eyes when the occasional shadow passed in front of a light, but as usual, unable to make anything out through the curtains. He had mortal thick curtains, he did. No one had curtains that thick unless they had something to hide.

  Snow . . . oh, snow was coming down so thick now. And frost-flowers were creeping up the window, and she had to keep breathing on a spot to melt them, rubbing a clear spot with the corner of a shawl so she could continue to watch. And still, nothing.

  She was about to give up and go to bed after all, when the front door opened, and out he came. And with a girl!

  Another of his hoors, no doubt! She rubbed the spot in the frost clear again and watched avidly as he led her down to the street, and right into the middle of the street, turned her so she was facing up it, and gave her a little push.

  Oooo, ’e’s gi’en ’er opium! I knewed it! I knewed it! She walked like a sleepwalker, paying no heed to anything around her, taking one plodding, mechanical step after another through the snow. ’E’s gi’en ’er opium, so’s ’e won’t haveta pay ’er! And, more likely than not, the poor hoor would fall down in the snow and die of the cold. And he knew that, and he was counting on it, and that was pure, cold-blooded murder! I knewed ’e weren’t up to no good!

  Jilly did for two or three bachelors along this street, which was why Granny had to watch her babbies, and she always brought home the papers from two days before, faithful as faithful. Granny knew how to read and write, and proud she was of it, and never mind that Jilly and her foolish man saw no need of anything of the sort. She’d be watching the papers for a girl froze to death in Battersea, oh, she would, and as soon as she saw it, she’d go straight to the perlice, and give her evidence, and there he’d go, with his high and mighty ways, and his man, and his fornicatin’ on Christmas Eve!

  She watched the girl until she was out of sight in the distance and the snow. He had gone back in almost immediately of course. When she could see nothing else, she got up—

  —and squinted a little in surprise. Had Jilly left the wardrobe door open? There was a black rectangle where the pale painted wood of the door should have been. That door needed to be kept closed, or the older babby would pull all the clothes down and make a nest in them.

  She detoured the three steps it took to get to the wardrobe and fumbled around, trying to find the edge of the door.

  She was still trying when black tentacles seized her, wrapping around her face and smothering her screams, and pulled her into the black void where the wardrobe door should have been.

  14

  ALF stopped shoving eggs and bacon into his mouth for a moment and looked at Alexandre from across the kitchen table. Alexandre’s mother and father would have dropped dead of shock if they had seen him eating in the kitchen like a servant—but Alexandre saw no reason not to. The food was piping hot, right off the stove or out of the oven, the kitchen was clean and tidy, and much more cheerful than the dining room. “Guv, Oi got an hideer,” Alf said, looking expectant.

  Alexandre looked blearily up from his newspaper. He’d had a restless night. He should have been relieved that the unpleasant task of rounding up the weekly pair of virgins was over, and he had been until he’d gone to bed. Yet somehow that relief had not translated over into sleep. He’d tossed and turned, and the eight-day clock had struck midnight before he’d been able to drop off.

  And even then, he hadn’t slept well, not well at all. He’d had disturbing dreams, and still remembered parts of them. It had put him in a bad mood, on which the fragrance of breakfast had not had its usual positive effect.

  He really wasn’t in the mood to listen to Alf’s suggestions for whores, a feast, or a visit to the music hall, the three things that Alf usually proposed over breakfast. Often, all three at once.

  But when he looked up at Alf’s expression—it didn’t look as if Alf was going to suggest any of those things. “Let’s hear it,” he said, instead of telling Alf he wasn’t feeling well (which was true) and that he was going to go back to bed with a sick headache (which was near enough to the truth).

  “Wut if we c’n git three’r more girls at once?” Alf asked. “Oi mean ter say, ye said the thing tol’ ye we got t’get four more pairs. But wut if we c’n get three or four at a time, ’stead’a two? Ye think th’ thing’ll be set? Give us wut we wants and go ’bout its bizness?”

  “I . . . don’t know,” he replied, struck by the question. “But how would we manage to acquire more than a pair at a time?”

  Alf grinned. “Oi ’appens t’ ’ave found out th’ ’irin’ ’all where yer fav’rite madame gits ’er virgins,” he said in triumph. “She gits country girls; she checks ’erself t’make sure they’re virgins. An’ ’ell, Oi c’n git as many boys as ye want. An’ we know, now, thet the thing’ll take boys fer feedin’. Hit’ll take money fer the girls,” he added, warningly. “Virgins ain’t cheap.”

  For a moment, the idea seemed a sound one. But then he remembered. . . .

  And he had to shake his head. “That won’t work,” he sighed. “I wish it would, but the entity told me that the girls all have to go to the same place. It seems the three we already took went to some private hospital, and without wealthy parents, anyone you got at a hiring hall would just be sent off to Bedlam.”

  “Mebbe. Lemme look inter hit, guv,” Alf urged. “Meantime, Oi c’n git boys easier’n girls from ’iring ’all. Oi c’n git a boy fer each girl we git, we c’n keep ’im nice’n’snug, till we needs ’im, then we c’n concentrate on them girl
s. But we needs t’be extree careful naow. Tha’s three girls we took, an’ coppers gonna take notice.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” Although this was the last thing he wanted to contemplate this morning—well, they were on the subject, and it was clear Alf was actively looking for solutions for him. And for all his lack of education, Alf was smart and clever. And while he himself was not a magician, as far as Alexandre was aware, he had a lot of practical experience in what a magician needed, and how a magician worked. “We can’t do another gallery. We can’t do the theater again.” He briefly thought about the bookstore . . . but no. Of all things, he should not take a victim from anywhere he himself was known to go. That would leave him open to being recognized and remembered with the victim in tow. He’d taken enough of a chance at the gallery; it was entirely likely he could have run into some of the people who knew him from artistic circles—although he had done his best to minimize that chance by picking a time and day that set was unlikely to come.

  “Church?” Alf asked, suddenly. “Lotsa good girls in church. An’ the thing don’t care wut they look loik.”

  “Too many people, most of whom know each other.” That would not be true for the vast majority of the parishioners in a London church, of course, but the anonymous herd would all be unsuitable—not wealthy enough. The wealthy patrons of any church in question would all know each other, and so would the resident clergy, and a wealthy newcomer would be spotted immediately, and more to the point, remembered. He’d have to keep going in order to throw suspicion off himself—