“I thought I was going to have to ask.” Phaeton dropped the satchel. She ran into his open arms and he held her tight—rocking her gently, never wishing to let her go. He kissed the small hairs at her temple. “You even smell like your mother.”
Gradually, they both arched away. He kissed tear-stained cheeks and stepped back to fish a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. “We call you the pea in the pod.” He patted her cheeks. “You’re in your mother’s belly right now.”
She blinked, eyes wide. “Mother never mentioned it.”
“Impossible, I know.” Phaeton grinned. “How could you be as little as a pea? When here you are, my fully grown, beautiful daughter!”
“And here you are, my young and handsome father.”
He held up the satchel. “Herein this bag lies the hope of our world and the Outremer—possibly even more planes of existence, but who’s counting? I have to find a safe place for this—until the battle is won or lost. A temporary guardian. An innocent personage, who is pure of heart, who will not be swayed by any cause personal or grandiose, which leaves most of us out.”
He grimaced. “I’m afraid the two worlds I move to and fro in are greatly troubled. I’ve left your mother with a band of skilled warriors but I must return shortly to help protect you both.” Phaeton moved to the gate. “Walk me to Chester Road?”
Her mother had taught her well. They jumped the gate together and took the wider foot path that angled over to the street.
He couldn’t hide a frown. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here in Highgate Cemetery alone in the dark?”
Luna smiled. “I could ask the same of you, you know.”
“Sassy, just like her mama.” He inhaled a deep sigh. “Good God!” He stopped in his tracks. “You’re not seeing any young man right now, are you?”
The dimple came out again. “No.” She rolled her eyes.
Phaeton reached out to squeeze her hand, but her image changed rapidly as she began to slip through passages of time. He called after her, “If it is in my power to do so I will return—take care of each other . . . ” A fleeting glimpse of Luna in braids with a tooth missing emerged from the mist and disappeared. His heart ached once again before she dissolved into the fog of space and time.
“. . . I love you both.” It was drizzling—at least his vision was blurred.
Phaeton managed to find the Duke’s Head and stumble inside. According to Tim this comfortable old pub was his exit portal. He ordered a dram and a pint and took a seat by a window street side. There was no use trying to fathom what he’d just experienced—but the event, the marvel of seeing his child fully grown, shook him to the very foundations of his being. He felt unnerved and euphoric and cruelly heartsick. He chased the whiskey with half a glass of bitters.
And try as he might, he couldn’t remember his inkling. If only he could remember the damn thing, he might have a chance to slip back in, grab hold of America, and make a dash for the Topaz. They’d up anchor and clear out of London. To hell with Victor’s unraveling world and Gaspar and the Nightshades, and . . .
“Father?”
He looked up. Nothing. Not a soul across the table. Something fluttered and then settled outside the window—a bird perhaps? No, the child with the missing tooth was standing on the sidewalk, her nose pressed to the glass pane. A sweet little voice whispered in his head.
Think back to when you were a little two-penny like me, Father. There has always been someone pure of heart with you.
Luna waved as she faded into the crush of pedestrians on the street.
Suddenly, Phaeton knew who he needed to find.
Chapter Thirty-two
THE FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION at the front entrance caused America’s hearing to cut out. In an eerie hush of silence, Jersey cracked open the door of Gaspar’s study only to shut it quickly and push everyone back. He mouthed words she could not hear. “They’ve got more explosives.” She shook her head and Jersey’s voice cut back in. “Someone get America under the table—now!” The high-pitched grind of a metal device rolling down the corridor proceeded the next explosion. Jersey dove away from the door, just as the blast demolished Gaspar’s study.
America coughed—wishing—hoping to see someone friendly through a haze of dust and debris. “Are you all right?” Gaspar tossed off chucks of lathe and plaster. He reached under the library table and America grabbed hold of his hand. Likewise, Jersey, who was covered in gray dust, helped the other Nightshades up.
“Any moment now, Reapers are going to start pouring in from the street level.” Jersey lined everyone up behind him near a giant hole in the wall. He drew his weapon as did all the Nightshades. Metal slipped against metal, like a knife being honed, all four devices unfolded to full length. “Cocks up,” she blurted out.
Jersey turned and raised a brow.
She swallowed. “The warrior phallus stiffens with resolve?” America mentally slapped herself for such Phaeton-like remarks, especially in such dire circumstances. She grimaced. “Sorry.”
Wait a moment—perhaps this was exactly what was needed to stop the terror and muster some courage. Phaeton had a kind of genius at doing just that. America grinned. “On second thought I don’t apologize.”
Jersey’s mouth twitched, “Let’s just get the hell out of here.” He dipped his head out of the smoldering hole in the wall. The narrow corridor was thick with dust and debris, but the dense cover would last only minutes. America stifled the urge to sneeze. “Who’s got the stone?” Jersey croaked, his throat raw from the chaff in the air.
Gaspar held up the satchel. “Right here.”
“Follow me—as silently as possible.” Jersey led them over and under wreckage until they reached the end of the passageway. Gaspar felt along the bottom of an ornate painting frame and pressed. The entire wall moved like a pocket door. Jersey motioned them through.
As America stepped across, a terrifying growl swept down the corridor followed by a number of shrieks and whipping noises. The tentacle-masked creatures were being attacked by something that had escaped confinement—one of those objects behind the mystery doors in the corridor. What strange sort of grotesque petting zoo was this, she wondered. Or was Pennyfields a sanctuary for creatures too unfortunate or too dangerous to live among the populace?
“I believe that was the dybbuk in possession of a griffin,” Gaspar spoke softly. “It isn’t like a demon to posses something more tortured and unfortunate than themselves, but it happens. Deadly murderous though.”
“Good news for us—hopefully it picks off a few Reapers,” Cutter rasped, urging them forward.
The narrow, dank passage seemed to go on and on, with the Nightshades’ swords providing their only illumination. Jersey held up a hand, the signal to halt. The silence was broken by the sound of her heartbeat and something else—the unworldly hissing and whipping noises. There could be no doubt what was up ahead. Jersey pointed a finger at Valentine, then forked two fingers forward. He wanted her up front with him, Cutter and Ruby would guard the rear.
“Put Cutter in front as well,” Gaspar advised. “We need to clear a path through the Reapers and get to the Underground tunnel before they close in behind us.”
“Ruby,” Jersey hissed. “Are you all right with that?”
She nodded. “Just get us out of here—where we have some room to fight.”
America suddenly understood. They could easily be hemmed in by the Reapers. “What’d wrong with their swords?” she asked. The glow from the blades appeared greatly subdued.
“They can’t use much charge,” Gaspar explained, “They must fight like Spartans—using short bursts of aether that won’t bring the walls down around us. In a narrow tunnel like this, their movement is limited.”
“In other words, all our options suck.” Cutter squeezed by them. “I learned that word in the Outremer, it means—”
“Things are starting to suck—now!” Jersey yelled.
Screaming like ban
shees, the first wave of Reapers attacked in full force. Jersey felled the first one and let Valentine take the next. Cutter leapt to one side of the tunnel, catapulted himself off the wall and dove into a thicket of Reapers. The three warriors slashed and thrust and prodded until a pile of the creatures lay dead or dying around them. Gaspar pushed America forward. She climbed over steaming, oozing bodies and leathery tentacles, still undulating with residual aether.
“Press on,” Gaspar urged his captain. “We’ve got to be near the Underground tunnel.”
Jersey nodded, “We’re going to advance farther ahead of you—follow on as quickly as you can.” The three Nightshades took off at a run—and were soon just footsteps in the dark.
Gaspar helped America over the last of the dead bodies. Something slashed and buzzed—the sound of a Nightshade’s sword. America glanced back. “Where’s Ruby?”
Gaspar shoved America forward. “I’ll find her.”
“You’ve got the stone, let me go back.” America turned just as Ruby emerged from the darkness, racing toward them. “Get a run on—they’re coming fast!”
Phaeton finished his pint and looked around the pub—a couple sitting nearby were supping on eel pie—a specialty of the pub. Eels, snakes, worms. He sat up straight. “They’re like worm holes,” is was what Tim Noggy had said about the slipstream between worlds. He caught a serving wench by the arm. “An eel pie and another pint, if you would, love.”
Before the young woman had a chance to blink he was sitting in the Duke’s Head pub—again. This time he sat across from an old sot with a row of empty pints in front of him. The bleary-eyed geezer squinted at him. “Where’d you come from?”
“You really care to know?”
“Name’s Homer McFee.” Homer wore that slightly indignant look drunks get when they insist they’re not drunk. “Three pint n’ some tonight—feeling a wee bit happy is all. Not bladdered enough to be imagining things. You just appeared before me very eyes, lad.”
“Newly arrived from a parallel London.” Phaeton looked about for Edvar. “I’ve been doing a great deal of traveling lately, to and from . . . London.” He rose from his chair and tipped his hat. “If you’ll excuse me, Homer.”
Phaeton jogged several blocks before he found a hansom for hire. Tossing the satchel on the seat beside him he settled in for the ride to Pennyfields. He heard a familiar snuffle, and smiled. “I never got a chance to thank you for staying with America after I was shanghaied. Things have been happening at a whip cracking pace, plenty of danger to go around as well.” Phaeton sighed. “Even now, I don’t have much time to explain, but I need two huge favors, Edvar.”
Large, golden eyes appeared beside him and blinked.
“I know you don’t care much for this Moonstone business, can’t say as I blame you, but I need you to stuff the stone away—somewhere safe, a place no one goes but you.” Phaeton glanced at the gray gargoyle, now fully formed and perched on the luggage. “Perhaps you could take it wherever you go when you disappear.”
Edvar shook his head vehemently, and bounced up and down on the satchel repeating a number of nuh-uh, nuh-uh, nuh-uh, nuh-uhs.
Phaeton lowered his chin and made soft eyes at the gray monster. “Please?”
Edvar ceased his bobbing and harrumphed. Phaeton brightened. A snuffle meant the gargoyle would think about it—that he might reconsider.
“The second favor is far more important. Whatever happens to me in these next few hours or days—or years—you must stay with America and the pea in the pod. Always.”
The gargoyle nuzzled against him. There were no clicks and rattles, no snorts this time, just a simple yuk-yuk and an affectionate rub.
Phaeton scratched behind Edvar’s ears—something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. “Tuck the Moonstone away for me, old friend? Just until things settle down over here.”
“Can’t we go around them? Blast a hole somewhere else?” America was nearly bug-eyed with fear and exasperation. The Reapers were determined not to let them break into the train tunnel, and a whole horde of them were closing in from behind. It seemed as though legions of snake-headed foe were lined up and coming at them one after another. The tunnel they were in narrowed even further at this point, which gave them a chance at survival. Even though there were many more Reapers, they had to attack the Nightshades single file.
Jersey fell back and dipped his sword into a slain Reaper to recharge his blade. Cutter and Valentine continued to fight, but each time they advanced they were shoved back by the hordes. “Not much fight in them, but there are so many.”
“Why not just bowl them down like ninepins?” America asked. “One big blast?”
Jersey wiped the sweat off his brow. He took a long look at her and exhaled, shook his head and then grinned, of all things. Apparently the man was only truly happy when engaged in battle. At the moment, a losing one.
He smiled even larger. “America wants a big blast? I think we should give it to her.”
Gaspar stepped up, concern written all over his face. “What are you going to do? What is your plan?”
“The first thing I’m going to do is stop taking orders from you, Gaspar. Then I’m going to line up all four swords and blast the Reapers down like ninepins.” He winked at America. “So we can get out of this small hole in the ground, and into a larger hole in the ground.”
“What if you collapse the walls around us?”
“Then we all die ten minutes earlier.” Jersey shook his head. “My people are exhausted, we’re not going to be able to hold them off much longer.”
“One more big push fore and aft,” Jersey shouted. “Then recharge your swords and give them to me. This has to happen fast, soldiers—I’ll have a few seconds.”
All four Nightshades jabbed and sliced and battled back the hordes pushing them back until they cleared a bit of breathing room. Then the Nightshades withdrew from each end, and dipped their blades into fallen Reapers. They each tossed Jersey their sword.
The Shades captain ran straight for the regrouping hordes. A fiery ball of aether-charged energy ripped down the corridor, flattening everything in its path. “Let’s get out of here,” Ruby yelled from the rear. Dodging a rain of debris and rock, they all ran after Jersey who led the way to the end of the tunnel, where he stopped.
They all crowded around him to get a look into the Underground tube. Nothing. Just darkness and the hiss and whip of a thousand, snake-headed creatures. Using one of the swords, Jersey shot a ball of phosphorescence into the air of the larger tunnel, which burst into smaller particles of light, haloing the abandoned tube. Hordes of Reapers as far as one could see. Stunned, they fell back to regroup.
“We are so fucked,” Cutter groaned.
Ruby stared at him. “More colorful use of language, courtesy of the Outremer?”
Cutter tilted his chin and stared back. “Proper word choices don’t matter much when one is fucked.”
Jersey shook his head. “I don’t think so—did you see them? Something else happening here. Like, why aren’t they up here frying our brains out?” Jersey handed back their weapons. “If you want to hang back, that’s fine—but I’m going out there.” He turned and descended into the larger tunnel.
“Wait!” America hurried to join him.
Chapter Thirty-three
PHAETON APPROACHED THE ENTRANCE to Lovecraft’s factory carefully. The iron doors looked as if they had been torn off and tossed to one side—run over by a swarm of Reapers, perhaps?
No wonder Edvar had steered him here—and not to Pennyfields. It appeared that Lovecraft had overestimated the alliance and underestimated Prospero’s greed. Phaeton kicked bits of debris out of the way, and the sound bounced from wall to wall of the passageway. He took a right turn, which he was almost sure led down to the factory floor. He hastened his pace, fearful he was too late—the battle was over, and the other side had already won.
Entering the vast cavern of the abandoned train station he could not hel
p but notice the imposing landship. Occasional bursts of steam made it appear as if the impressive engine was about to roll down what remained of the old Underground tracks. Phaeton listened to his footsteps echo off the paved parapet overlooking the facility. Other than a great deal of debris laying about, there didn’t appear to be any great damage done to either the landship or the manufacturing enterprise.
Phaeton scanned the abandoned factory floor and the platform above. His gaze settled on a rather rotund chap tied to one of the station pillars. He climbed over an upended cart and made his way to the old passenger platform. Tim Noggy rolled his eyes in relief when he saw who it was.
“I thought Lovecraft was in irons.” Phaeton removed the gag. “And weren’t you supposed to be watching him?”
“The mistake was coming here. The tables turned pretty quickly once a battalion of Reapers arrived.”
“And Lovecraft?”
Tim’s eyes shifted. “Watch out mate—he’s right behind you.”
Phaeton pivoted. The professor walked behind a wheelchair that appeared to be propelled by some sort of clockworks. The young man in the chair steered the vehicle by manipulating a large toggle switch.
“Mr. Phaeton Black, meet my son, Lieutenant Alexander Lindsay Lovecraft.” The professor’s face was a mass of lash marks and bruises. Even those watery bulbous eyes were swollen and near closed from the bashing Lovecraft had received at the hands of the Reapers. The two goggle eyes were back, though, perched above Lovecraft’s forehead.
Phaeton exhaled. At least one knew where to make eye contact.
The son leaned forward and offered him his good hand, all other limbs were mechanized. “Call me Lindsay.”
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