The Scotsman continued to stare without great expectation.
“Brace yourself,” Simon said with grave importance. “It seems there is a second werewolf in London after all.”
Malcolm raised a tired eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.
Simon feigned extreme distress. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you to sleep with that news.”
“Brace yourself. There is an army of werewolves in London. And they are under the command of one of the vilest monsters to ever walk our Earth: Gretta Aldfather.”
Blood drained from Simon’s face and cold seeped into his limbs. Even Kate gave a sharp gasp of recognition. He cleared his throat to recover his voice. “How do you know this?”
“I had been tracking one of the beasts in the Rookery and found a den where twenty or so of the creatures were holed up.”
“Twenty!” Simon exclaimed. “Werewolves? Together? Are you sure?”
Malcolm ignored the incredulity in the man’s voice. “I could tell many of them were fresh to their condition. Wulvers, they’re called. They don’t have firm control of their transformations, and they’re not at full strength. Still, in a pack they’re dangerous enough for all that, and I thought it alarming. Until I saw Gretta; then I knew it was so much worse. I saw her once in Russia years ago. It’s her without question. The only positive about her being here is that she may kill off the other primes. I saw her kill one and a few of his allies. There can only be one leader, and she is it.”
“Jesus God.” Simon leaned on the hearth, seeking Nick’s experienced gaze for support. “What do you think we should do?”
“Do?” Nick held out his hand to the fire. “Nothing. If we fight Gretta Aldfather, we’re dead. Everyone else has been.”
“That’s hardly inspiring stuff.”
“I’m only trying to inspire you to not fight her.” A mix of anger and fear crossed Nick’s features.
Kate clutched her hands together, standing alone in the middle of the room. “Is this the monster who was after Imogen?”
Simon straightened and forced the worry off his face. “Hibbert may have been stupidly involved with Gretta, and she killed him. We can hope that Imogen was just a bystander who was lucky enough to escape.”
“But we don’t know that,” Kate pressed. “She could’ve been involved in something she didn’t understand. After all, the homunculus was here for a reason. And it seemed to be Imogen. It could all come back to this Gretta Aldfather, yes?”
Simon took a deep breath. “Yes.”
The sound of bones creaking was audible as Kate squeezed her hands together. Her face was drawn, her mouth a slit of terror. Simon regarded her with sympathy.
Nick glowered at Simon. “This is exactly the sort of idiocy I was trying to avoid. It’s all well and good to wander around the city doing little magical chores. But we know the atmosphere has been growing more poisonous out there. We’ve been sensing it. There’s dark magic everywhere. And here it is writ as large and dark as possible. This is Gretta Aldfather and a pack of werewolves like no one has seen before. There is absolutely no reason to be involved in this, Simon. I told you we should stay in the shadows. Hungry sharks swim these waters and we’re bleeding like stuck fish out here! We’ve already done enough. This is far too big for us.” He pointed at Kate. “Who are these people to us?”
Simon remained calm even though he had never seen Nick so furious. “On the contrary, this is exactly the sort of thing we should be dealing with. This is why we’ve learned magic. Nick, we can’t turn our backs now. It isn’t just Miss Anstruther. All of London is at risk.” Simon offered his friend a questioning glance. “Once, I might have followed you into the shadows and left the work for others more capable. But not now. And that’s partly owing to what I’ve learned from you.”
“You never learned this sort of stupidity from me.” Nick fumed silently for a few moments, then said, “You’re not going to fight Gretta, are you?”
“Yes, I am,” Simon replied.
Malcolm crossed his arms. “Good.”
“Werewolves are savagely territorial.” Simon poured wine for Kate but looked at Malcolm, who sat at his right. The dining room was closed and the servants sent away. The meal was simple and the setting spartan. “How can they be together in such quantities?”
Malcolm ate like a starving man, seemingly disengaged from the conversation. He glanced up, chewing a chop. “From what I observed, Gretta has control of a sizeable store of wulfsyl.” He began gnawing the bone.
Kate set down her silverware. “Is she an alchemist? Even the best authorities have only limited understanding of wulfsyl.”
“I’ve no idea where she gets it, but I don’t take her for having such knowledge.” Malcolm tossed the bare bone onto his plate and scoured the serving trays for more food. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and his jacket was hung on the back of his chair as if this were a communal meal at a coaching inn.
Kate said, “So wulfsyl allows the lycanthrope to control their transformation?”
“Hard to say.” Malcolm pointed for Nick to pass a plate of cheese. “I think they gain some control of their transformations as they age. I tend to believe they use wulfsyl to retain some sort of rational thought while they’re in beast form.”
Simon said, “That way they can remember what they did as an animal. What fun is slaughtering if you can’t recall the slaughter?”
Malcolm shrugged in agreement while spearing a hunk of cheese with his large dagger. “That’s why Gretta is so dangerous. She’s hundreds of years old, and she handles her berserker rages better than any other. She’s both brutal and rational.”
Nick shook his head. “She’s so hard to control that the Order of the Oak threw her in the Bastille a hundred years ago.” He grunted a laugh. “Bloody peasants stormed the place not knowing they were destroying the magic wards on the prison.”
Simon regarded Kate. “You are familiar with that story? Byron Pendragon, who was a scribe and one of the founders of the Order of the Oak, built the Bastille during the Middle Ages to be a sorcerous prison. It was intended to be the eternal home for the most dangerous magicians and creatures on Earth. When it finally fell, there were still a few remaining mystical prisoners there, including Gretta. We know some of the others. There was Ferghus O’Malley, the fire elemental who caused the Great Fire of London. Nephthys, the Egyptian demon mistress whose monstrous armies were so horrifying, Arabs and Crusaders united against her. The Baroness Conrad, half woman and half machine, who ruled huge swathes of India. There was a man, or a woman, with no real name who used alchemy to change his shape and his or her identity each time he wished to murder innocents. And, of course, Gaios the Mad, the earth elemental who reportedly caused Vesuvius to erupt. There were likely other things locked in that prison that we don’t know about. However, we do know that all those monsters escaped into the chaos of the Revolution. In the aftermath of the escape, Byron Pendragon was killed and the Order fell.”
She replied, “I knew some of it. But it’s so terribly real now. Not a book or journal or scary story told by candlelight.”
“This whole affair may be some echo of the old Order of the Oak,” Simon said. “My father was a member, and a close associate of Pendragon’s. I suspect Sir Roland was affiliated in some fashion as well.”
Kate merely nodded in thought. “If this beast woman is looking to settle some old score through Imogen, she’s picking the wrong fight. My father isn’t even about. He disappeared years ago. Where is yours?”
Simon breathed out. “Shortly before my birth he was murdered by Pendragon’s enemies.”
Kate impulsively took Simon’s hand. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry you’ve had to live with that.” Simon didn’t move his hand out from under hers, and his eyes remained riveted on Malcolm. She sat back, and asked, “Mr. MacFarlane, have you any connection to the Order of the Oak?”
The Scotsman pursed his lips. “It’s a long story, Miss Anstruther.” He m
erely sat back, staring at the candles. The silence dragged on with no evidence of his speaking further.
Simon gave a smirk. “And you tell it so well.”
Malcolm colored and his nose creased in anger. “What would you have, Archer? Shall I repeat the tale of my father’s wasted days and besotted death? Would that make you feel better?”
“It might.” Simon gripped his knife and glared in Malcolm’s eyes.
“I leave it to you to tell it then so you may enjoy it all the more.”
Kate slapped her hand on the table, rattling the dishes. “For God’s sake! There are monsters at large. And my sister is in mortal danger every second we don’t deal with it. I don’t know what’s between you two, but please engage in a match of smugness later.”
“Right,” Nick muttered, pouring more wine for himself. “Although there won’t be a later for us.”
Kate pointed at Simon. “I know you somewhat and trust you. And you vouch for your pessimistic friend there. But do you trust, Mr. MacFarlane? Otherwise, we’ll have him out and settle this affair ourselves.”
The Scotsman rose from the table with indignation. “Here! Who are you to—”
“Shut up!” Kate jabbed her finger at him. “And sit down until I give you leave to go.”
Malcolm fumed in silence but resumed his seat.
“Now”—Kate regained a professional demeanor—“Mr. Archer, what say you about Mr. MacFarlane?”
Simon nearly started to laugh. He studied Kate’s commanding face in the candlelight. She had a refreshing way of coming directly to the point. He found her attitude very alluring. He glanced quickly at Nick, who rolled his eyes with clear recognition of Simon’s interest in the woman.
“I trust him,” Simon said without looking at the Scotsman.
Kate nodded with acceptance. “Very well. Mr. MacFarlane, what say you? Will you join us?”
The Scotsman sat contemplating various answers, stringing out his silence until Kate began to draw herself up in annoyance. He quickly said, “That’s why I’m here.”
Simon stood up immediately and regarded the company. “Now, with that foolishness settled thanks to Miss Anstruther, let’s talk about wulfsyl because that is our Trojan horse to strike inside the enemy camp.”
“Yes,” Kate said vigorously. “If we can find their store and destroy it, might they go mad, and might they even turn on Gretta and rip her to pieces?”
“But then we would have lunatic werewolves running loose in London,” Simon said. “I’m thinking of something a bit more surreptitious. It’s common to poison vermin, I believe.”
Malcolm grunted in dismissal. “Not possible. I once laced a cadaver with enough Prussian blue to kill every wolf in the Carpathians, and it did nothing to the werewolf that ate it.”
Simon replied, “I suspect we can do a bit better than cyanide. We do have the finest alchemist in England.” He turned to Kate.
She grinned with a dark eagerness.
Kate took up residence in her laboratory. She had spent years cross-indexing her source material so she could lay hands on the proper sources, and she soon surrounded herself with books and journals that involved lycanthropy and wulfsyl. The alchemical masters rarely mentioned the fabled concoction, but she had developed the skill of working between sources, pulling one bit of information from one place and a different snippet from another.
Under her left hand was a text about lycanthropy in thirteenth-century French, and under her right an Italian source on mysterious alchemy. Both authors mentioned that werewolves often sought certain substances to enhance their bestiality or their humanity, depending on which source she chose to believe. The French authority claimed that the beasts scoured the forests for particular mushrooms under the full moon. The Italian, on the other hand, believed that werewolves imbibed some strange potion during certain seasons of the year or particular times of the month. However, it mentioned that one of the primary ingredients of the potion was a mysterious mushroom that was rare and precious. A helpful sketch of the most likely mushroom sent Kate to a massive Flemish source on materia medica, which led her to identify the ghostbloom mushroom. And then she pulled an old scroll from Denmark called Plants of the Dead. She found the Danish version of the ghostbloom, which assured her that the misshapen white fungus rose only on freshly turned graves under the light of the moon.
So much was mere speculation. Kate dropped her head in her hands with a heavy sigh. So much work to do. So much depended on her. Imogen was upstairs sleeping, innocent, apparently unaware of the dangers around her. Kate had to protect her sister; she had done such a poor job so far. Every time she thought of it, her chest constricted.
If only her father had been here.
But he wasn’t. Would he be proud of her or would he be disappointed in the way she had handled the estate and the family? The effort of holding the weight of his legacy upon her shoulders was like a lodestone, but she had borne it willingly, an undying hope that the family would one day be whole again. Only everything was flying apart.
Kate heard a scuffling sound behind her. She straightened quickly, wiping the emotion from her face, and turned to see Simon in the doorway holding a serving tray. He seemed concerned, so she pushed back her shoulders, smiled, and raised a jaunty eyebrow.
He stepped forward. “Pardon my interruption, but you’ve been at it for hours. The staff were concerned that you ignored the call for dinner.”
Kate glanced at the clock and noted with alarm that it was nearly 2:00 a.m.
“No doubt you were too distracted to eat,” Simon continued smoothly. “I know all too well. I have a distinct habit of disappearing in my own library. Ask Nick.”
Kate sat back stiffly in the leather chair and stretched her neck and arms. Simon settled the tray in front of her pointedly, whisking off the cover of a meal of chicken and figs. Kate was blind to all but one thing.
“Tea! Splendid!” She reached for the cup.
“I debated something stronger but settled on this.”
“Stronger later. This now.” She rubbed one of her shoulders and groaned.
Simon moved behind her. “If I may, a shaman showed me a miraculous method of relieving kinks in one’s muscles.”
Kate nodded cautiously. He took up a spot behind her and laid hands on her shoulders. She froze and her breath stilled as his fingers began to knead. Her eyes closed. His thumbs caressed up her spine, along her neck, to the back of her head. His hands were warm and soothing. She could feel their heat through her blouse and believed that if they touched her bare skin, they would sear her. “You say a shaman showed you this?”
His hands swept back to her shoulders and began to work their magic there. It was scandalous but felt like heaven. Kate’s head dropped back limply and struck the hard muscles of his abdomen. Her breath escaped her. She suddenly sat up straight, reaching for the many tomes before her.
Kate coughed to clear her throat. “Um. I’ve run down a few leads on how wulfsyl is created.”
“Good. Where does that take us?” Simon’s voice rumbled in her ear like a jaguar prowling through the dark jungle. He stretched past her to remove the sugar bowl from her reach and she realized that she had spooned copious amounts of sugar into her tea.
She sipped the horribly sweet liquid, gathering her thoughts. “If I can determine how it’s made, I can figure out a way to adulterate it.”
Simon removed the hand that had lingered on her shoulder and came around to face her. His gaze was intense. “Miss Anstruther … Kate, this may be beyond my purview to say, but I’m bound to say it.”
“Please do.” All the relief brought by his brief massage fled in a new rush of tension.
Simon pondered for a moment. “People such as you and I live in a frightening world.”
“I’m not afraid of this fight.”
“No, it’s quite clear you aren’t. You may be a bit too unafraid, but that’s neither here nor there. My point is that in our world, decisions over l
ife and death are ours alone. Faced with threats to humanity like Gretta, the police or the courts or the Church can be no help to us. We must face the challenges, and that is our greatest risk.”
“Yes?”
“However, there is also no one to judge us on our actions. And that is our greatest threat.”
“Do you have doubts about what we’re planning?”
“Not a bit.” Simon continued to stare at her with green eyes that seemed to shine despite the shadowy room. “There is nothing we could do to these beasts that I would find too brutal. However, you must consider yourself too. There are certain lines that, once crossed, there is no going back.”
“I don’t understand you. What line could there be here? These things are monsters. We are required by decency to destroy them when we find them.”
Simon held up his hand. “Yes, I agree with that. I’m merely offering you a final chance to reconsider. They are monsters, but they are also humans, of a sort. Plus, we are not striking the enemy in the heat of battle. We are slipping into their beds and dripping poison in their ears. There are some who might find that troubling.”
“I’m not one of them. They’re animals.”
He nodded at her, apparently satisfied. His stern appearance lightened, and the issue was gone. Moral quandaries were vanquished. Kate couldn’t draw her eyes away from him as leaned forward and laid a warm hand on her chilled fingers, the contrast of which made her heart pound harder. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but then his face turned serious. He took a step back, sliding the plate in front of her.
Kate took a deep breath, faced with the juxtaposition of a simple meal sitting on top of journals filled with notes on lycanthropy. She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. “You amaze me, Mr. Archer. I knew you were a man of great conscience. Your sympathy extends even to those monsters you hunt.”
The Shadow Revolution Page 15