“Be quiet, Henry,” Charlotte snapped.
“Mrs. Branwell,” Mortmain said. He sounded dreadfully cheerful. “Please do not concern yourself. I already know everything about your kind, you see. You’re Charlotte Branwell, aren’t you? And this is your husband, Henry Branwell. You run the London Institute from the site of what was once the church of All-Hallows-the-Less. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know who you were? Especially once you tried to glamour my footman? He can’t bear being glamoured, you know. Gives him a rash.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “And how have you come by all this information?”
Mortmain leaned forward eagerly, templing his hands. “I am a student of the occult. Since my time in India as a young man, when I first learned of them, I have been fascinated with the shadow realms. For a man in my position, with sufficient funds and more than sufficient time, many doors are open. There are books one may purchase, information that can be paid for. Your knowledge is not as secret as you might think.”
“Perhaps,” said Henry, looking deeply unhappy, “but—It is dangerous, you know. Killing demons—it’s not like shooting tigers. They can hunt you as well as you can hunt them.”
Mortmain chuckled. “My boy, I have no intention of racing out to fight demons bare-handed. Of course this sort of information is dangerous in the hands of the flighty and the hotheaded, but mine is a careful and sensible mind. I seek only an expansion of my knowledge of the world, nothing more.” He looked about the room. “I must say, I’ve never had the honor of talking to Nephilim before. Of course, mention of you is frequent in the literature, but to read about something and to truly experience it are two very different things, I’m sure you’ll agree. There is so very much you could teach me—”
“That,” Charlotte said in a freezing tone, “will be quite enough of that.”
Mortmain looked at her, puzzled. “Pardon me?”
“Since you seem to know so much about Nephilim, Mr. Mortmain, might I ask if you know what our mandate is?”
Mortmain looked smug. “To destroy demons. To protect humans—mundanes, as I understand you call us.”
“Yes,” said Charlotte, “and a great deal of the time what we are protecting humans from is their own very foolish selves. I see that you are no exception to this rule.”
At that, Mortmain looked actually astonished. His glance went to Henry. Charlotte knew that look. It was a look only exchanged between men, a look that said, Can you not control your wife, sir? A look, she knew, that was quite wasted on Henry, who seemed to be trying to read the upside-down blueprints on Mortmain’s desk and was paying very little attention to the conversation.
“You think the occult knowledge you have acquired makes you very clever,” said Charlotte. “But I have seen my share of dead mundanes, Mr. Mortmain. I cannot count the times we have attended to the remains of some human who fancied himself expert in magical practices. I remember, when I was a girl, being summoned to the home of a barrister. He belonged to some silly circle of men who believed themselves to be magicians. They spent their time chanting and wearing robes and drawing pentagrams on the ground. One evening he determined that his skill was sufficient to attempt the raising of a demon.”
“And was it?”
“It was,” Charlotte said. “He raised the demon Marax. It proceeded to slaughter him, and all of his family.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “We found most of them hanging headless, upside down in the carriage house. The youngest of his children was roasting on a spit over the fire. We never did find Marax.”
Mortmain had paled, but retained his composure. “There are always those who overreach their abilities,” he said. “But I—”
“But you would never be so foolish,” Charlotte said. “Save that you are, at this very moment, being that foolish. You look at Henry and myself and you are not afraid of us. You are amused! A fairy tale come to life!” She slammed her hand down hard on the edge of his desk, making him jump. “The might of the Clave stands behind us,” she said, in as cold a tone as she could muster. “Our mandate is to protect humans. Such as Nathaniel Gray. He has vanished, and something occult is clearly behind that vanishing. And here we find his erstwhile employer, clearly steeped in matters of the occult. It beggars belief that the two facts are not connected.”
“I—He—Mr. Gray has vanished?” Mortmain stammered.
“He has. His sister came to us, searching for him; she had been informed by a pair of warlocks that he was in grave danger. While you, sir, are amusing yourself, he may be dying. And the Clave does not look kindly on those who stand in the way of its mandate.”
Mortmain passed a hand over his face. When he emerged from behind it, he looked gray. “I shall, of course,” he said, “tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Excellent.” Charlotte’s heart was beating fast, but her voice betrayed no anxiety.
“I used to know his father. Nathaniel’s father. I employed him almost twenty years ago when Mortmain’s was mainly a shipping concern. I had offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin—” He broke off as Charlotte tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk. “Richard Gray worked for me here in London. He was my head clerk, a kind and clever man. I was sorry to lose him when he moved his family to America. When Nathaniel wrote to me and told me who he was, I offered him a job on the spot.”
“Mr. Mortmain.” Charlotte’s voice was steely. “This is not germane—”
“Oh, but it is,” the small man insisted. “You see, my knowledge of the occult has always been of assistance to me in business matters. Some years ago, for instance, a well-known Lombard Street bank collapsed—destroyed dozens of large companies. My acquaintance with a warlock helped me avoid disaster. I was able to withdraw my funds before the bank dissolved, and that saved my company. But it raised Richard’s suspicions. He must have investigated, for eventually he confronted me with his knowledge of the Pandemonium Club.”
“You are a member, then,” Charlotte murmured. “Of course.”
“I offered Richard membership in the club—even took him to a meeting or two—but he was uninterested. Shortly after that he moved his family to America.” Mortmain spread his hands wide. “The Pandemonium Club is not for everyone. Traveling widely as I have, I heard stories of similar organizations in many cities, groups of men who know of the Shadow World and wish to share their knowledge and advantages, but one pays the heavy price of secrecy for membership.”
“One pays a heavier price than that.”
“It isn’t an evil organization,” Mortmain said. He sounded almost wounded. “There were many great advancements, many great inventions. I saw a warlock create a silver ring that could transport the wearer to another location whenever he twisted one around his finger. Or a doorway that could bring you anywhere in the world you wanted to go. I’ve seen men brought back from the brink of death—”
“I’m aware of magic and what it can do, Mr. Mortmain.” Charlotte glanced at Henry, who was examining a blueprint for some sort of mechanical gadget, mounted on a wall. “There is one question that concerns me. The warlocks who appear to have kidnapped Mr. Gray are somehow associated with the club. I have always heard it called a club for mundanes. Why would there be Downworlders in it?”
Mortmain’s forehead creased. “Downworlders? You mean the supernatural folk—warlocks and lycanthropes and the like? There are levels and levels of membership, Mrs. Branwell. A mundane such as myself can become a member of the club. But the chairmen—those who run the enterprise—they are Downworlders. Warlocks, lycanthropes, and vampires. The Fair Folk shun us, though. Too many captains of industry—railroads, factories, and the like—for them. They hate such things.” He shook his head. “Lovely creatures, faeries, but I do fear progress will be the death of them.”
Charlotte was uninterested in Mortmain’s thoughts on faeries; her mind was whirling. “Let me guess. You introduced Nathaniel Gray to the club, exactly as you had introduced his father.”
Mortmain
, who had seemed to be regaining a bit of his old confidence, wilted again. “Nathaniel had worked in my office in London for only a few days before he confronted me. I gathered he had learned of his father’s experience at the club, and it had given him a fierce desire to know more. I couldn’t refuse. I brought him to a meeting and thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.” He shook his head. “Nathaniel took to the club like a duck to water. A few weeks after that first meeting, he was gone from his lodging house. He sent a letter for me, terminating his employment and saying he was going to work for another Pandemonium Club member, someone who apparently was willing to pay him enough to sustain his gambling habits.” He sighed. “Needless to say, he left no forwarding address.”
“And that’s all?” Charlotte’s voice rose in disbelief. “You didn’t try to look for him? Find out where he had gone? Who his new employer was?”
“A man can take employment where he likes,” Mortmain said, blustering. “There was no reason to think—”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No. I told you—”
Charlotte cut him off. “You say he took to the Pandemonium Club like a duck to water, yet you haven’t seen him at a single meeting since he left your employment?”
A look of panic flickered in Mortmain’s eyes. “I . . . I have not been to a meeting since then myself. Work has kept me extremely busy.”
Charlotte looked hard at Axel Mortmain across his massive desk. She was a good judge of character, she had always thought. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t come across men like Mortmain before. Bluff, genial, confident men, men who believed that their success in business or some other worldly pursuit meant that they would have the same success should they choose to pursue the magical arts. She thought of the barrister again, the walls of his Knightsbridge house painted scarlet with the blood of his family. She thought what his terror might have been like, in those last moments of his life. She could see the beginnings of a similar fear in Axel Mortmain’s eyes.
“Mr. Mortmain,” she said, “I am not a fool. I know there is something you are concealing from me.” She took from her reticule one of the cogs that Will had retrieved from the Dark Sisters’ house, and set it on the desk. “This looks like something your factories might produce.”
With a distracted look Mortmain glanced down at the small piece of metal on his desk. “Yes—yes, that’s one of my cogs. What of it?”
“Two warlocks calling themselves the Dark Sisters—both members of the Pandemonium Club—they’ve been murdering humans. Young girls. Barely more than children. And we found this in the cellar of their home.”
“I’ve nothing to do with any murders!” Mortmain exclaimed. “I never—I thought—” He had begun to sweat.
“What did you think?” Charlotte’s voice was soft.
Mortmain picked up the cog in shaking fingers. “You can’t imagine . . .” His voice trailed off. “A few months ago one of the club’s board members—a Downworlder, and very old and powerful—came to me and asked me to sell him some mechanical equipment cheaply. Cogs and cams and the like. I didn’t ask what it was for—why would I? There seemed nothing remarkable about the request.”
“By any chance,” Charlotte said, “was this the same man whose employment Nathaniel joined after he left yours?”
Mortmain dropped the cog. As it rolled across the table, he slammed his hand down on top of it, halting its progress. Though he said nothing, Charlotte could tell by the flicker of fear in his eyes that her guess was correct. A tingle of triumph ran through her nerves.
“His name,” she said. “Tell me his name.”
Mortmain was staring at the desk. “It would be worth my life to tell you.”
“What about Nathaniel Gray’s life?” said Charlotte.
Without meeting her eyes Mortmain shook his head. “You’ve no idea how powerful this man is. How dangerous.”
Charlotte straightened up. “Henry,” she said. “Henry, bring me the Summoner.”
Henry turned away from the wall and blinked at her in confusion. “But, darling—”
“Bring me the device!” Charlotte snapped. She loathed snapping at Henry; it was like kicking a puppy. But sometimes it had to be done.
The look of confusion didn’t leave Henry’s face as he joined his wife before Mortmain’s desk, and drew something from his jacket pocket. It was a dark metal oblong, with a series of peculiar-looking dials across the face of it. Charlotte took it and brandished it at Mortmain.
“This is a Summoner,” she told him. “It will allow me to summon the Clave. Inside of three minutes they will surround your house. Nephilim will drag you from this room, screaming and kicking. They will perform upon you the most exquisite tortures until you are forced to speak. Do you know what happens to a man when demon blood is dripped into his eyes?”
Mortmain gave her a ghastly look, but said nothing.
“Please don’t test me, Mr. Mortmain.” The device in Charlotte’s hand was slippery with sweat, but her voice was even. “I would hate to watch you die.”
“Good Lord, man, tell her!” Henry burst out. “Really, there’s no need for this, Mr. Mortmain. You’re only making it harder on yourself.”
Mortmain covered his face with his hands. He had always wanted to meet real Shadowhunters, Charlotte thought, looking at him. And now he had.
“De Quincey,” he said. “I don’t know his first name. Just de Quincey.”
By the Angel. Charlotte exhaled slowly, lowering the device to her side. “De Quincey? It can’t be . . .”
“You know who he is?” Mortmain’s voice was dull. “Well, I suppose you would.”
“He’s the head of a powerful London vampire clan,” Charlotte said almost reluctantly, “a very influential Downworlder, and an ally of the Clave. I can’t imagine that he would—”
“He’s the head of the club,” said Mortmain. He looked exhausted, and a little gray. “Everyone else answers to him.”
“The head of the club. Has he a title?”
Mortmain looked faintly surprised to be asked. “The Magister.”
With a hand that shook only slightly, Charlotte slipped the device she had been holding into her sleeve. “Thank you, Mr. Mortmain. You’ve been most helpful.”
Mortmain looked at her with a sort of drained resentment. “De Quincey will find out that I’ve told you. He’ll have me killed.”
“The Clave will see that he does not. And we will keep your name out of this. He shall never know you spoke to us.”
“You would do that?” Mortmain said softly. “For what was it—a foolish mundane?”
“I have hopes for you, Mr. Mortmain. You seem to have realized your own folly. The Clave will be watching you—not only for your own protection, but to see that you stay away from the Pandemonium Club and organizations like it. For your own sake, I hope you will regard our meeting as a warning.”
Mortmain nodded. Charlotte moved to the door, Henry behind her; she already had it open and was standing on the threshold when Mortmain spoke again. “They were only cogs,” he said softly. “Only gears. Harmless.”
It was Henry, to Charlotte’s surprise, who replied, without turning, “Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.”
Mortmain was silent as the two Shadowhunters left the room. A few moments later they were out in the square, breathing fresh air—as fresh as the air of London ever was. It might be thick with coal smoke and dust, Charlotte thought, but at least it was free of the fear and desperation that had hung like a haze in Mortmain’s study.
Drawing the device from her sleeve, Charlotte offered it to her husband. “I suppose I ought to ask you,” she said as he received it with a grave expression, “what is that object, Henry?”
“Something I’ve been working on.” Henry looked at it fondly. “A device that can sense demon energies. I was going to call it a Sensor. I haven’t got it working yet, but
when I do!”
“I’m sure it will be splendid.”
Henry transferred his fond expression from the device to his wife, a rare occurrence. “What pure genius, Charlotte. Pretending you could summon the Clave on the spot, just to frighten that man! But how did you know I’d have a device you could put to your uses?”
“Well, you did, darling,” said Charlotte. “Didn’t you?”
Henry looked sheepish. “You are as terrifying as you are wonderful, my dear.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
The ride back to the Institute was a silent one; Jessamine stared out the window of the cab at the snarling London traffic and refused to say a word. She held her parasol across her lap, seemingly indifferent to the fact that the blood on its edges was staining her taffeta jacket. When they reached the churchyard, she let Thomas help her down from the carriage before reaching to grip Tessa’s hand.
Surprised at the contact, Tessa could only stare. Jessamine’s fingers in hers were icy. “Come along,” Jessamine snapped impatiently, and pulled her companion toward the Institute doors, leaving Thomas staring after them.
Tessa let the other girl draw her up the stairs, into the Institute proper, and down a long corridor, this one almost identical to the one outside Tessa’s bedroom. Jessamine located a door, pushed Tessa through it, and followed, shutting the door behind them. “I want to show you something,” she said.
Tessa looked around. It was another of the large bedrooms of which the Institute seemed to have an infinite number. Jessamine’s, though, had been decorated somewhat to her taste. Above the wooden wainscoting the walls were papered in rose silk, and the coverlet on the bed was printed with flowers. There was a white vanity table too, its surface covered with an expensive-looking dressing table set: a ring stand, a bottle of flower water, and a silver-backed hairbrush and mirror.
“Your room is lovely,” Tessa said, more in hopes of calming Jessamine’s evident hysteria than because she meant it.
“It’s much too small,” Jessamine said. “But come—over here.” And flinging the bloodied parasol down onto her bed, she marched across the room to a corner by the window. Tessa followed with some puzzlement. There was nothing in the corner but a high table, and on the table was a dollhouse. Not the sort of two-room cardboard Dolly’s Playhouse that Tessa had had as a child. This was a beautiful miniature reproduction of a real London town house, and when Jessamine touched it, Tessa saw that the front of it swung open on tiny hinges.
The Infernal Devices Series Page 13