The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  Desai’s man fell into step with the policeman as soon as he left the theater’s main doors. He was, as all of the Indian’s attendants seemed to be, hugely tall and broad shouldered, with his dark hair swathed in a deep blue turban. As the policeman had expected, his escort had little to say, merely introducing himself as Satu.

  “Follow,” Satu said, and then he took off at a brisk pace to lead Thaddeus back east.

  What Thaddeus had not expected was to find himself on the path beside Regent’s Canal, heading toward Mile End. As they passed St Anne’s, a vague suspicion of just how they would enter the remains of Abernathy’s underworld began to occur to him.

  “Wait,” he said, pausing as a bridge loomed out of the darkness ahead. “I know where this is. We’re not — we can’t be . . .”

  Desai’s man turned to look at the policeman, smiling slightly. “Please,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in the darkness. “We are not far now.”

  Thaddeus began walking again, though reluctantly. He knew they weren’t far away, because he had traveled this route before. He’d been in the company of Desai’s men then, too, as well as Desai himself. Rémy had been there, wounded by a gunshot and a terrible fall, and J, too. They’d all been prisoners of Abernathy’s thugs, who had dragged them down into the darkness.

  As they reached the bridge, there was a rustle in the undergrowth to his left. Thaddeus started as two eyes blinked out at him, but Satu seemed unperturbed. He nodded silently to the watcher, who nodded back and melted back into the verge once again. A sentry, Thaddeus thought. One of Desai’s own.

  His escort pulled an ancient, heavy key from beneath his dark robes and fitted it to the rusted lock of an old door set in the side of the bridge. The door looked so old and disused that Thaddeus imagined most passers-by failed to even glance at it. But for those in the know . . .

  The key turned and the door swung inward. Beyond was an inky darkness that made Thaddeus shiver from the memory of the last time he’d been here. Desai’s man did not hesitate, stepping over the threshold and disappearing from view almost immediately. Thaddeus swallowed hard and then followed him, pushing the door shut and casting them both into pitch darkness.

  There was the sound of a match being struck. A second later a yellow flame bloomed as Satu lit two sturdy candles and handed one to Thaddeus.

  The dim candlelight revealed a set of wooden steps that twisted down and out of sight. With the door to the outside world shut fast, Thaddeus felt as if he’d been thrust into the dank belly of the earth itself. From somewhere there came the slow, incessant drip-drip-drip of moisture, and the air reeked thick with rot. They began to make their way down the stairs, one at a time, for they were slippery and as degenerate as the air around them. As they reached the bottom, his guide turned to him, his face sallow in the weak candlelight.

  “Be careful,” he said. “The way here is difficult. Watch your feet.”

  Satu was right. Thaddeus could feel slime beneath his shoes, and here the stink of old water was far worse than he remembered. The drip had become a modest trickle — a remnant, no doubt, of the flood that had burst the underground banks of London’s Black Ditch.

  The policeman was beginning to think that they would walk forever when Satu stopped abruptly. Desai’s man appeared to listen intently for a moment, and then turned to him.

  “Thaddeus Rec,” Satu said in a low voice. “You must trust me now. Place your hand here.” He turned his back to the policeman and patted his shoulder. When Thaddeus had done as instructed, Satu blew out his candle. “You, too, please.”

  Thaddeus hesitated for a moment, and then snuffed out their one remaining light. The darkness was instant and cloying, and he had to take a breath to steady himself. He felt Satu step forward, and followed — after all, the only alternative was to be left entirely alone in that dank passageway.

  His guide continued to walk, without light, for what felt like ages. They turned corners several times, which Satu did without hesitation. Thaddeus lost all sense of how far they had come and what direction they had taken. His initial bout of panic had subsided. He was just beginning to think that his eyes had adjusted to the incessant gloom when he realized that, in fact, there was a light somewhere far ahead of them. It was tinged greenish-blue, eerie and dim, but it was definitely a light.

  Satu stopped at the mouth of another turn. The light had grown strong enough that Thaddeus could see ahead now, and he dropped his hand from his guide’s shoulder.

  “You see?” Satu asked, nodding toward what lay ahead.

  Thaddeus did indeed see. Beyond the tunnel in which they stood, the passageway opened out, dropping several feet to form a wide, shallow cave. It was lit with torches that burned not with fire, but with a substance that gave off the strange green light that cast the place in peculiar, flickering shadows. Through this cavern cut a fast-running channel of water, formed with wide banks of stone on either side. It was what was in the water, though, that gave the policeman pause.

  “That’s one of Abernathy’s underwater boats,” he whispered, making sure that his voice didn’t carry.

  Satu nodded grimly. “It was found two nights ago. Whenever they salvage something like this, they bring it here. It is . . . a marketplace, of sorts.”

  Thaddeus rubbed his face, weary and worried. He’d only ever seen one of these machines before, but that had been enough to etch it into his memory. Its bottom half was almost like the normal hull of a boat, though it had been hammered from gleaming golden metal rather than wood.

  Above the level of what would have been the deck, however, the contraption was encased in glass, so that it looked a little like a supernaturally strong bubble. The entire machine could be submerged. Abernathy had built several of them as war machines, intending to attack London from below, via the city’s underground rivers.

  “It’s not in good shape,” Thaddeus observed. The machine’s glass was cracked. It’s once-shining metal was dented and dull. The policeman wondered what had happened to the men who had crewed it, but thought the answer was probably obvious. He shivered. Thaddeus had thought he was going to drown the night he’s last been in the caverns, and that had been bad enough, but to have been stuck inside one of those things . . .

  A noise echoed up from the cave, interrupting his dour thoughts. Satu crouched beside the wall, pulling Thaddeus down with him. Voices drifted up from below, along with the sound of echoing footsteps as a group of people entered the cavern.

  There were five of them, the leader a small, wiry man with ragged trousers and a dirty shirt. At his right hand was an individual who Thaddeus guessed was a bodyguard, for his size would be enough to make anyone considering violence think twice, let alone the large pistol he could see jammed into the man’s belt.

  These two were a pair of the kind Thaddeus had seen many times in the East End, but the remaining three were something different. He instantly recognized the first as the Comte de Cantal, who had mocked him so mercilessly at Sir Henry Strong’s table. Of course, Thaddeus thought. His name had even been on the list Desai had given him earlier — his full name, Comte Cantal de Saint-Cernin.

  The Comte was tall and stood straight, his chin raised, his figure exuding a swagger that had nothing to do with movement and everything to do with expectation. This man was used to being obeyed. The Comte was dressed in a richly tailored suit matched with a long, dark coat of fine wool. In one hand he held a thin walking stick, which Thaddeus had no doubt concealed a razor-sharp sword.

  The party stopped beside the wreck of Abernathy’s wondrous ship.

  “Well?” said the thin man who had led them in, whom Thaddeus assumed to be the seller. “Told you the truth, didn’t I? Didn’t I say I’d hit the jackpot this time?”

  The Comte regarded the contraption for a moment. He made a show of walking this way and that, looking it up and down.

  “It is damaged
,” he observed, in his cool French accent.

  “That ain’t my fault, is it?” said the seller. “Not my concern, neither.”

  After another moment, the Comte nodded slowly. “I will give you two thousand pounds for it.”

  Thaddeus couldn’t help drawing in a sharp breath. Two thousand pounds? That was more than he’d earn in years. It was an insane amount of money.

  But the seller simply laughed. “You must think I were born yesterday,” he said. “I won’t take a shilling less than four thousand.”

  The Comte de Cantal made a disgusted sound in his throat. “Obscene. I will give you two thousand five hundred, and you will be grateful for it.”

  The seller shook his head firmly. “This ain’t a negotiation, mister,” he said. “I got another buyer, ain’t I? And he’s already agreed to the four thousand, like I asked for. Problem is, he’s a bit far away, like, so I’d have to wait a few months for him to get to me with ’is payment. So if you stump up the cash sharpish, you can have it. If not, say toodle-pip to the find of a lifetime. Your call, yer lordship.”

  “Don’t call me that, you impertinent whelp,” said the Frenchman through gritted teeth. “I will get you the money.”

  “When?” the seller asked. “Cos I got fees, you know. I got expenses. I can’t be hanging around for the likes of you forever.”

  In a flash, the Comte had drawn his sword-stick and was holding it at the seller’s throat. He’d moved so quickly that the thick-necked bodyguard had had no time to react.

  “Listen to me, you low-bred scoundrel,” the Comte hissed, his angry voice echoing around the cave. “By rights I should not need to pay you at all. By rights, I should slit your throat and take this and everything else you have for nothing, for I have already paid. Paid, and paid, and paid. But, because I am a fair man, a good man, I will —”

  The sound of running footsteps interrupted the man’s flow. A boy, dressed all in black, entered the cave, out of breath and puffing hard. He went up to one of the Comte’s men, who bent down so that the child could whisper in his ear.

  “Well?” asked the Comte, his blade still at the man’s sweating throat. “What is it?”

  The boy vanished again, his footsteps echoing back the way he had come.

  “A message, sir.” He stepped forward and whispered in the Comte’s ear.

  There was a moment of silence. The Comte’s face changed, relaxing as it lost all hint of the fury that had dogged it just a moment before. Abruptly, he dropped his sword arm, releasing the seller to cough and splutter, supported by his useless bodyguard.

  “Well,” said the Comte, his voice soft and full of danger. “Well, well, well. How . . . unexpected.”

  He contemplated for another few moments, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Then he laughed coldly, the unexpected sound bouncing around the chamber.

  “It is your lucky day, it seems,” he said to the seller, who was still recovering. “How about this, eh? Five thousand. I will give you five thousand, payable in cash. But you must wait for a month. Understand? In one month, I will have the money. Perhaps sooner. But you will wait, yes? You. Will. Wait.”

  The seller nodded. “All right, mister. I’ll wait. But remember what we agreed on. Five thousand. We’ve got witnesses here, see?”

  The Comte laughed again, the sound grating against the stone walls like nails down a blackboard. He sheathed his sword-stick with a flourish. A moment later, he swept from the cave, the rest of them following in his wake.

  {Chapter 8}

  FLIGHT FROM LONDON

  Rémy hadn’t spent much time on boats, but she liked them. She liked the feel of something solid under her feet that could still move however it pleased. It wasn’t unlike being on the trapeze, but with less chance of falling. She stood at the boat’s stern, watching the white chalk cliffs of England fade into the low cloud and mist of early morning. Above the boat wheeled a flock of screeching, whooping gulls, a mocking fanfare chasing her home.

  Yannick was off somewhere, finding them something for breakfast. The crossing would take them a few hours and they wouldn’t reach the port of Calais before lunchtime. They were both already hungry, having forgone supper the night before. Rémy should have been feeling pleased that her plan had worked so smoothly — they’d caught the last train out of Waterloo station by the skin of their teeth and stepped off in Dover at about one in the morning. Then all they’d had to do was wait until the first boat left the harbor at six o’clock.

  At first it had been exciting — Rémy had spent all her life on the move, much of it in a mad dash to run away from the law — and fleeing so suddenly and without forethought had felt exhilarating and familiar. But now, as she stood watching the shores of England draw away from her, Rémy couldn’t escape the feeling that she was leaving something behind.

  That “something,” of course, was the family she’d built from the ruins of Abernathy’s lair — Thaddeus and J, and in some ways Desai, too. Rémy knew that it was unlikely that she’d ever see any of them again, and though she was accustomed to leaving places behind, she was used to taking the people she loved with her on the journey.

  Rémy pushed her melancholy thoughts away with a shrug. She just had to get over it. She had thought there was something for her in London — she had thought there was something for her with Thaddeus — but it had just turned out not to be the case, that was all. Rémy had given it a try and nothing had come of it — no harm in that. Now it was time to return to her real family, the circus, and to make sure that Claudette and Amélie were safe and sound.

  She took the sheaf of letters from her pocket — the ones that Claudette had sent her before her long and worrying silence — and was rereading them as Yannick returned.

  “There wasn’t much on offer, I’m afraid,” he said, holding up a cloth-wrapped loaf and two battered-looking apples.

  “It’s fine,” Rémy told him with a faint smile, taking one of the apples as he tore the bread in half.

  They sat on the deck with their backs against the rails, facing the distant shores of France with the wind whipping around them. “What have you got there?” Yannick asked around a mouthful of bread.

  “Claudette’s letters. I thought that maybe she’d said something I hadn’t noticed the first time, or that there might have been a hint that something was wrong, but . . .” Rémy shrugged and shook her head. “I can’t find anything.”

  Yannick patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, smiling at her. “Claudette always struck me as someone who could look after herself. Like you.”

  Rémy smiled at the compliment. “Thanks, though Claudette is about a million times smarter than I am.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” Yannick told her. “Although — there was always something . . . I don’t know, a little mysterious about Claudette, wasn’t there?”

  Rémy took a bite of her apple. “What do you mean?”

  Yannick shrugged. “She always seemed far too well-educated for the circus, for one thing, don’t you think? All those languages she could speak.” He waved at the bunch of papers in Rémy’s hand, “And how many of us can write the way she can? Apart from you, obviously — and that was only because she taught you, isn’t that right? Where did she learn all that?”

  Rémy shook her head. She couldn’t pretend she’d never wondered the same thing herself. Claudette was unusual for a circus woman, Yannick was right. It wasn’t just her knowledge of languages and history. It was the way she carried herself, her elegance and poise. Rémy had asked her about where she came from once, but Claudette had dodged the question with one of her quiet smiles. With a jolt, Rémy realized now that she didn’t even know where Claudette had been born, or anything about her parents. Were they also part of a circus somewhere?

  “What are you thinking about?” Yannick asked, watching Rémy’s face w
ith open curiosity. “Claudette?”

  “Yes,” Rémy said with a sigh.

  The magician nodded, moving to sit up slightly taller. “I have been too, you know. And the more I think about her, the more I think . . .”

  “What?” Rémy asked, frowning at the intense look on Yannick’s face.

  “Well,” he said. “You’re going to think I’m mad, but . . . All those strange things about her — all those things that make her different — they’d make sense if she were the Lost Comtesse. Wouldn’t they?”

  Rémy nearly choked on her bread. She laughed outright. “What — Claudette? My Claudette?”

  “Why is it such a funny idea, Rémy?” Yannick asked, leaning forward earnestly. “Think about it. What do we know about her, really, other than the fact that she’s educated far too highly for a circus brat? She’s always vague when you ask her about her parents . . .”

  “You asked her?” Rémy said in surprise. She hadn’t known Yannick and Claudette had been that close when he’d been with the circus as a child.

  Yannick shrugged, looking away. “A couple of times, you know, just in passing. A long time ago. Anyway, she never really answered. And you remember the story — wasn’t the old woman who raised the princess supposed to be a palm-reader? Well, Claudette’s a fortune-teller as well as a pickpocket, isn’t she? She could have learned that from the old woman — the woman she thought was her mother, but really wasn’t.”

  Rémy shook her head. “Claudette might have learned pickpocketing at the circus, but the fortune telling isn’t a trick. She can really do it. I’ve seen it happen. She sees things. No, I don’t mean see, really. It’s more as if she feels them. It’s part of her, not something she learned.”

  Yannick leaned back, looking up at the gathering dawn above them. “Ah, well. It was just an idea. Wishful thinking. It would be great to think that one of us lot was the Lost Comtesse, wouldn’t it? Just think of it — all that money, just waiting to be claimed . . .”