‘Evie Frye,’ chided Jacob, ‘where do you get it from?’
‘Same place as you, Jacob,’ she said, and they exchanged a glance, that preternatural meeting of eyes in which they both remembered and honoured their mother and father. The knowledge that all they had now was each other.
‘Have fun,’ said Jacob. They were nearing the ironworks on tracks that threaded through dark industrial buildings and chimney stacks pouring out choking smoke, and Jacob rolled his top hat from his head, collapsed it and secreted it within his robes in one well-practised move as he raised his hood. Evie pulled her own cowl over her head. They were ready.
‘Don’t die,’ she told her brother, and then watched, heart in mouth despite herself, as he crouched, hands either side of him on the train roof, fingers splayed. As the train pulled level with the ironworks and the forbidding dark brickwork rushed towards them as the carriage leaned and the train tilted on the rails, Jacob leapt – another perfectly executed jump that took him to a sill on the first floor of the ironworks. A second later and he’d be inside.
She watched him recede. The next time she heard anything of him it would be via the thump of an explosion as he escaped the ironworks spattered with the blood of Rupert Ferris. For the time being, however, she went to one knee, gloved hands on the roof of the carriage, wind whipping her cowl as the train cut its way through the outskirts of Croydon and on to the shipping yard further along the line. Here, according to the plans sent to them by George, was the laboratory where the artefact was stored; where, providing the information was correct, Sir David Brewster was working on it. What did she know about it? There was information gleaned from ancient scrolls, of course, but scrolls tended to be a little ambiguous. However, her father had actually seen it in action. He had talked of how it would glow, seeming to feed off some inner energy of the user, transferring something dark and primal into an actual destructive energy.
‘Take that look off your face, Evie,’ he had added a little crossly. ‘This is not an object to admire or covert. It is to be treated with the utmost caution, as a weapon of war that cannot be allowed to remain in the hands of the enemy.’
‘Yes, Father,’ she said obediently. But if she was honest with herself the object’s attraction outweighed its possible danger. Yes, it was something to be feared, to be treated with respect. But even so.
The shipping yard to which the train was heading began to loom ever larger on the immediate horizon, so she turned and crabbed along the train roof until she came to a hatch. Fingers prised it open and moments later Evie dropped into the carriage below. She pulled back her cowl, blew hair away from her face and took stock of her surroundings.
She was among crates, all of them marked STARRICK INDUSTRIES.
Crawford Starrick. The mere utterance of his name had sent her father into a painful reverie. He was the Templar Grand Master, the man she and Jacob had pledged to topple. No matter what George said. No matter what the Council were to approve or not, the twins had decided their father’s legacy was best observed by removing Crawford Starrick from his position; recovering the artefact, taking out his lieutenants, disrupting his business practices – all these were steps on a path that led to the death and dishonour of Crawford Starrick.
Just then, the door to the carriage opened, and Evie took cover. A man entered: just a shape in the darkness, framed unsteadily in the open door. A burly man, she thought, and the impression was confirmed when there came the flare of tinder and he lifted a lamp to see in the gloom.
‘Where is it?’ he said over his shoulder, addressing some unseen comrades. ‘Where’s Brewster’s supplies?’
Now there was a name she recognized. Brewster. She crouched in the shadows, waiting. This man would be her first. Her first live kill, and she flexed her wrist, feeling the reassuring weight of the gauntlet mechanism along her forearm, its individual sections moving easily and silently. She reminded herself that she was trained for this. At the same time she recalled what her father had always told her – that no amount of training could prepare you for taking a man’s life. ‘Taking from him everything he ever was and everything he ever will be, to leave his family grieving, to begin a wave of sadness and sorrow and possible revenge and recrimination that might ripple throughout the ages.’
Her father knew that there was ready and then there was ready.
And Evie was ready, but was she really ready?
She had to be. She had no choice.
The man was cursing his mate for a coward. Behind a crate Evie used two hands to raise her cowl, letting the fabric settle over her head, taking strength and comfort from the symbolism of it, and then activated her blade.
Ready now, she gave a low whistle.
‘Who’s there?’ said the visitor, raising his lantern a little and moving into the carriage two more steps. He drew level with Evie’s position and she held her breath, awaiting her moment. Her eyes went from her blade to the spot just behind the guard’s ear where it would penetrate, slicing up into the skull cavity, into the brain. Instant painless death …
But death all the same. She was on the balls of her feet now, the heels of her boots raised off the boards of the carriage, one hand steadying herself on the floor and her blade hand brought to bear. He was her enemy, she reminded herself. A man who stood alongside those who planned to persecute and tyrannize any who did not share their aims.
And possibly he did not deserve to die. But die he would, in service to a cause that was greater than them both.
And with that thought uppermost she struck from her hiding place behind the crate and her blade found its mark and her victim made a tiny almost imperceptible noise, a final croak, and then she was helping him to collapse silently to the dirty floor of the carriage.
She held him as he died, this stranger. You were my first, she thought, and silently honoured him, closing his eyes.
‘It’s never personal,’ was what Father had said. But then he’d stopped himself. ‘It’s rarely personal.’
She laid the man down and left him there. It wasn’t personal.
Now, she thought, as the train pulled into the laboratory facility, what I need is a diversion. If only she could uncouple the carriages …
Outside the carriage stood the first strongarm’s mate. He had been dozing and she took him out easily. Father had always said it became easier and he was right; she barely gave her next target a second thought. She didn’t bother closing his eyes and wishing him well; she left him where he fell and moved on up towards the locomotive. In the next carriage she pressed herself into hiding to avoid a pair of gossiping guards.
‘How’s Sir David and Miss Thorne getting on?’ one of them was saying.
‘She’s turned up like a bad penny, ain’t she?’ replied his mate. ‘I’ll put five bob on things not being to her liking.’
‘Ain’t lookin’ too good for old Sir David then.’
Lucy Thorne. Evie had heard the name of course. Was she with Brewster then?
She let the guards pass then moved quickly through the final carriage and to the coupling between the locomotive and the carriage. She didn’t have long now; they would discover the bodies of the men she had killed, and she was glad of her gloves as she planted her feet apart and reached for the ring of the coupling pin. As the wind rushed and the train tracks passed beneath her feet, she gave a grunt of effort and wrenched it free.
Smartly she stepped on to the locomotive, watching the carriages pull away. From around her came shouts as the men of the yard wondered why the carriages had become detached and came running to in
vestigate. Meanwhile, she clambered to the roof of the locomotive, trying to take stock of her surroundings as the train ground to a halt in the yard with a screech of brakes and complaining metal. To one side of her, the water of the Thames inlet glittered darkly, to the other was the tumult of the shipyard, with its cranes and railways sidings and row upon row of office buildings and …
Something very interesting indeed.
Flattening herself into almost invisibility, the first thing she saw were two figures she recognized: Sir David Brewster and Lucy Thorne. The two of them had been surveying the sudden chaos around them before turning to continue their progress towards a carriage and coachman stationed close to the entrance gate.
Evie jumped from the locomotive, pleased her diversion had been so diverting, not to mention glad of the smoke that hung like a permanent funeral shroud over the site. Industrialization has its benefits, she thought, as she followed the pair, staying in the shadows of the perimeter, getting a good look at her quarry.
Lucy Thorne wore black. A black hat, long black gloves and a black crinoline and bustle gown buttoned high on the throat. She was young, with attractive looks offset by a scowl that matched her dark ensemble, and as she walked, disturbing layers of smoke that hung like a ship’s hammocks in the dimly lit yard, it was with the quality of a shadow. As though she were darkness repelling light.
Scuttling beside her, Sir David Brewster was maybe three times her age, with a fretful face and long side whiskers. Older than Lucy Thorne, he nevertheless seemed cowed, subsumed by the darkness of her. This was a man who was recognized as the inventor of the kaleidoscope and something Evie knew only as the ‘lenticular stereoscope’, whatever one of those was. A nervous man, or nervous now at least, overawed by the presence of Lucy Thorne, he struggled to keep up with her, and speaking in a whining Scottish accent he said, ‘I need two more weeks with the device.’
Angry, Lucy Thorne retorted, ‘Your questionable practices are beginning to draw unwanted attention. You have been given more than enough time to achieve results, Sir David.’
‘I was unaware that you expected me to perform like a cocker spaniel.’
‘Permit me to remind you of your obligations to the Order.’
Brewster made an exasperated noise. ‘Miss Thorne, you ride me like a racehorse.’
As they reached the carriage, the coachman doffed a three-cornered hat, bowed low and opened the door for Lucy Thorne, who acknowledged him with an imperious nod as she took her seat and arranged her skirts, before leaning from the open door to address Brewster a final time. ‘Sir David, I will return tomorrow. If you have not unlocked the device’s secret, forget your dogs and your horses. I will leave you to the wolves. Good day.’
And with that the Templar cultist indicated to the coachman, who closed the door, tipped Brewster an impertinent wink and resumed his place on the board to drive the horses and remove Lucy Thorne from the chaos of the shipyard.
As it drove off, Evie watched Brewster let out a flabbergasted noise before his attention was drawn to a group of men nearby. Evie’s gaze went there too, and what she saw was several guards escorting a flamboyantly attired man across the yard, the man in custody protesting loudly. ‘I was merely promised a tour of the premises, m’lords.’
‘Who sent you?’ demanded one of the Templar men.
Another chimed in. ‘He’s one of Green’s spies.’
But Brewster was already calling over to them. ‘Get that man to interrogation. Then I want him brought to the lab.’
Evie watched him still. Then her gaze went to the sky overhead. By now the canopy was black with gathering clouds, and the air had a crackle and tension about it that made a storm more of a certainty than ever. She could see that Brewster thought so too; he had spun on his heel and moved over to something she hadn’t spotted before. A metal pole fixed into the dirt of the yard. Some kind of lightning conductor, perhaps? With another look up to the gathering clouds, Brewster broke into a sprightly run and disappeared into a door of the building, leaving the uproar of the facility behind him. The first drops of rain were beginning to fall; the men were still attempting to re-couple locomotives and carriages, while simultaneously conducting an inquest into how the two had become detached.
Evie, the agent of chaos, merely smiled as she slipped through the door behind Brewster, and just as she did so came the first crack of thunder and the sky was lit in a flash of blinding white light.
Once inside, she clung to the wall, staying wide of the lamps’ illumination and engaging her blade at the same time. Her eyes moved as she had always been taught: section by section around any given space, identifying hostiles, pinpointing areas of vulnerability, thinking like the fully fledged Assassin she was.
However, what greeted her wasn’t quite what she expected.
61
She had anticipated a laboratory. According to George Westhouse’s plans – the selfsame plans that she had pored over at home in Crawley – where she stood now, at this very point – should have been the laboratory.
But it wasn’t. Instead she was in a roundhouse, some kind of antechamber, and there was no sign of laboratory equipment. There were no hostiles. There were no points of vulnerability.
There was nothing at all.
No, what was that? There came a shout from a door opposite and, with a quick glance back to the yard outside, where rain was falling hard now and the men still shouted and cursed one another, Evie closed the door to the outside and crossed the floor to the second door, this one ajar.
There she stood, controlling her breathing as she peered cautiously through it. The scene that greeted her was just what Brewster had ordered: an interrogation. The Templar men had bound their dandily dressed captor to a chair and the questioning had begun.
Perhaps the man had expected to be brought before a gentleman of high social standing, who would apologize profusely for the rough treatment he had received at the hands of the guards and offer him brandy and cigars in the back office prior to a round of punitive sackings. No such luck. He’d been tossed in a chair and trussed up for burly security to fire questions at him.
‘I ask you, m’lord,’ he was saying, ‘can’t a gentleman wander the tracks?’
‘How did you break into the laboratory? The entrance is hidden,’ growled one of the men. He had his back to Evie but she could see he was pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. The prisoner’s eyes went from the gloves to the face of his inquisitor, but if he was looking for signs of mercy or compassion then he was looking in the wrong place.
‘What do you wish me to elaborate upon, m’lord?’
There was a wheedling tone to his voice now, an unmistakable note of foreboding.
‘Who sent you?’ demanded the inquisitor. He flexed his fingers in the gloves. Evie heard another unseen man chortle with anticipation of the great show to come.
‘Why, I did, m’lord. I came on my own two feet.’
Now the second thug moved into view, the two of them crowding the man from Evie’s view. ‘Let me put his fingers through the mangle –’
‘Not yet.’ The first man stopped his mate. ‘Not yet.’ He turned his attention back to the prisoner. ‘Was it Green?’
‘Neither green, nor black nor brown,’ said the man in the chair.
‘Henry Green,’ said a man Evie couldn’t see.
‘Ah, Henry Green … who’s he?’
Threatening now, the unseen man said, ‘Your very soul hangs in the balance … Confess or my sharp friend here will have his way. You shall return empty-handed.’
&
nbsp; Evie heard the distinctive sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath.
And, of course, she couldn’t allow it to be used. She flexed the fingers of her gauntlet, engaged her blade and then moved into the room to confront the men.
There were three of them. This mission was turning into quite a test of her skills. This time? Multiple opponents.
She weighed up, she assessed and then struck, dancing in towards a grinning thug on the right but at the last second unexpectedly ducking and swiping her blade up and across the chest of a man in the middle. She rolled and came up with the blade foremost, jamming it through the breastplate of a Templar goon on the right. The remaining inquisitor, the slowest, had barely drawn his sword when Evie drew back her knee and delivered a high kick with the reinforced edge of her boot.
Damn, she thought, watching as her opponent staggered back. The coat had impeded the height of her strike, and instead of finishing him off she’d merely unbalanced him. At the same time he’d recovered enough presence of mind to draw his weapon and even as she steadied herself to meet his attack he was coming forward, demonstrating a little more guile and cunning then she had originally given him credit for.
Stupid. Stupid amateur. Evie turned her head in time to avoid the steel making contact with her face. She checked back quickly and at the same time tapped her left hand on the forearm of her right to retract the blade. Next she turned into his outstretched arm, a movement that was half dance step, half embrace but wholly deadly as she ended it with a jab to the face from her gauntlet and then engaged her blade into his eye socket.
Blood, brain and eye-fluid sluiced down his slackening cheek as he slumped to the floor. She shook blood from the blade and sheathed it, and then turned to the man in the chair, who was giving her a bemused but otherwise good-humoured look.
‘Ah, thank you kindly,’ he said. ‘I was in ever such a squeaky fix, when – what do you know? – you rescue me.’
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