Scratcher held a hand out to the small stranger. She counted five small rectangles into his hand, each the size of a playing card. They glinted yellow in the light from the lantern Mouse had left in the workers’ niche.
‘Done,’ Scratcher said. He hurried off in the direction Mouse had gone, keeping to the narrow walkway alongside the drain.
Evadne was following Scratcher’s indistinct shape as the shadows closed in around him. For a moment Kingsley was worried that she was about to succumb to her need to protect lost children and dash off after them, but when she looked away he knew the moment had passed.
She caught him looking at her. She shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.
‘Children hurt your heart, no?’ The small figure opposite had her hands by her side but her eyes were inquisitive. Her voice was high and reedy. ‘You want to help them.’
Evadne held her hands out, palms up, and Kingsley wondered if she knew she were mirroring Mouse’s gesture. ‘They need our protection. They deserve our protection.’
‘Ah, they do. If we do not care for our young ones, what does that say about us?’ The small stranger moved both hands horizontally, as if pushing something aside, a clear indication she was changing the subject. ‘Please,’ she said. Kingsley knew straight away – from the stumbling elision of the p and the l – that English was not her first language. ‘The male. Walk a little, for Leetha to see.’ She pointed up the drain. ‘That way.’
Kingsley spoke to Evadne from the corner of his mouth. ‘You have your Swingeing Blow?’
‘All ready.’
Kingsley then did as he was bid. He strode away along the walkway. Halfway, he was suddenly conscious of being watched and when he wheeled about the small stranger’s eyes were bright.
‘Good,’ she announced once Kingsley had returned to his starting point.
‘Well walked,’ Evadne murmured. ‘Anyone would think you’ve been doing it all your life.’
‘The female, now, please.’
Evadne pursed her lips and took her hand from her pocket. As she walked off, Kingsley called after her. ‘Just one foot in front of the other. Don’t try anything fancy.’
Her sniff of disdain echoed from the bricks.
Kingsley watched the small stranger (Leetha?) as she studied Evadne. She bobbed her head in time with Evadne’s steps, her mouth open a little as if she were tasting the motion. She moved from foot to foot, almost miming, and Kingsley noticed that her feet were long for someone of her diminutive stature.
Evadne reached Kingsley’s side. Hardly thinking, he sought for her hand only to find hers looking for his. A brief, clumsy moment of embarrassment and they intertwined.
‘You are both dangerous,’ Leetha declared.
Kingsley blinked. ‘Well, we’re armed, if that’s what you mean.’
‘No.’ Leetha flapped a hand, making a motion like a butterfly. ‘You hunt, when you need to. You are powerful. You are strong. You can make others afraid. You are what we need.’
‘And you can tell all of that from a little bit of walking?’
A sharp hiss came from Leetha, and was repeated several times. Laughter. ‘In the jungle, you must judge quickly, or you become someone’s meal.’
‘A good point,’ Evadne said, and Kingsley filed away the jungle reference for later cogitation. ‘And now to business?’
Leetha held up a hand. ‘The male. He is a beast.’
‘Well,’ Evadne said, ‘he can be abrupt at times . . .’
Kingsley squeezed Evadne’s hand. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked the small stranger.
‘The animal inside you. The animal outside you. You are both. The female,’ Leetha said abruptly. ‘You are a storm.’
Evadne considered this. ‘Well, when all’s said and done, that’s not half bad.’ She eyed Kingsley. ‘I think I have the better option.’
Kingsley ignored her and spoke to Leetha. ‘If you mean she’s unpredictable and uncontrollable, then I want to talk to you about doing a spot of fortune telling at the next spring fair.’
More laughter, then the small stranger was abruptly solemn. ‘My people want to go home. I want you to help us.’
FIFTEEN
‘Home?’ Evadne said, ‘Mouse said you wanted help to destroy the Immortals.’
‘Yes. They have us captive,’ Leetha said. ‘Destroy them, and we shall be free.’
Kingsley considered pointing out that such things were more easily said than done, but instead asked: ‘How many of you are there?’
‘We are thirty. We are lost.’
‘Do you know where your home is?’ Evadne asked.
The small stranger was silent for a moment, her head cocked as if she were listening to a distant sound. Her movements were sharp and precise and Kingsley had the unsettling feeling that she was fully aware of her surroundings – and that if he took his eyes from her, she’d disappear. He could smell her – a faint cinnamon odour, not unpleasant. ‘I know where my home is, but I do not know how to get there. Those who work on us, for the Immortals, say it is in the East Indies. They call our island Flores.’
‘You are a long way from home, then,’ Kingsley said. ‘But you seem to have escaped. Why don’t the rest of your people just nip out the same way you did?’
A small smile. ‘One at a time and our keepers will not notice if we return before long. But even they will see something if we all leave at once.’
Evadne leaped on this. ‘That would suggest that the Immortals are based somewhere near here, if you can’t be away long.’
‘They are. Once I have your word that you will help me, I shall show you.’
‘You don’t have to convince us to help you,’ Evadne said, ‘we are sworn enemies of the Immortals.’
Kingsley raised an eyebrow. ‘“Sworn enemies?”’
‘What would you prefer: “on the outer with”? “loggerheaded”?’
‘Sworn enemies it is. I like the grandeur of it.’ He held out an open palm to Leetha. ‘What is the project the Immortals are working on?’
‘Project?’
‘They want to enslave humanity. How are they going about it?’
Leetha frowned. ‘They make us work with metal, with your electricity.’ She shrugged. ‘We do it or we are beaten.’
Evadne made a small sound, half-sigh, half-cry. ‘We shall help you.’
Kingsley put a hand on her shoulder in mute agreement.
‘I have gold,’ the small stranger said. ‘I shall give it to you.’
‘No need,’ Evadne said. ‘Wiping out the Immortals shall be a reward all of its own. How many children do they have imprisoned? We’ll have to free them, too.’
‘Ah. I have heard them, seen them, but do not know how many they have. Poor, poor things.’ Leetha looked up towards the manhole cover, stricken. ‘The Immortals are cruel.’
‘We want to end that cruelty,’ Evadne said. ‘Find the children. Help us free them. That is the price for our help.’
Kingsley covered his mouth. ‘Journal,’ he murmured.
Evadne caught this smoothly. ‘Do you know the Spawn?’ she said to Leetha. ‘They are magical slaves who do the bidding of the Immortals.’
‘The not-alive creatures? I have seen them.’
‘They have stolen something of ours. A book. We need it back.’
‘How will I know it?’
‘Can you read?’
‘I have learned. A little.’
Kingsley wasn’t convinced. He took out his notebook and wrote down the title of his father’s journal. He tore out the page. ‘Here. This is on the cover of the book. Just look for this word: Sanderson.’
Leetha took the slip of paper and studied it. ‘Children and a book.’ The small stranger unclasped her other hand and pointed at the gold in it. ‘You do not want this? Your people love it.’
‘Keep it,’ Evadne said. ‘You may need it when you’re free. For travel.’
The gold disappeared. ‘We are agreed?’<
br />
‘We are,’ Kingsley said. ‘Now, if you’ll show us the way.’
‘No.’ Leetha shook her head. ‘Only the head of the tribe can make an agreement that binds.’ She pointed to Evadne. ‘The head of the tribe is a female. Always.’
Evadne managed not to look smug, but Kingsley could tell it was taking a monumental effort. She took a small step forward, so she was right on the edge of the drain that separated them from the small stranger. ‘I am the head of the Extraordinaires tribe. I agree to your terms.’
‘You promise this?’
‘I promise. For both of us.’
‘Come with me.’ Leetha climbed the ladder. At the top, she panted with effort for some time, long enough for Kingsley to consider climbing the ladder to help her, but finally she was able to shift the cover. She disappeared.
‘What do you think?’ Kingsley asked Evadne when they stood at the foot of the ladder.
‘Peculiar,’ Evadne said, ‘but no more peculiar than a thousand things in the Demimonde, and half as peculiar as another thousand.’
Kingsley shaded his eyes at the disc of light above. ‘I suggest that we investigate first. We get some idea of location, the lie of the land, the disposition of the Immortals, then we report back to Christabel and the Agency. We can come back with numbers.’
‘An eminently sensible idea.’ Evadne’s gaze, too, was on the entrance to the shaft.
A nice sentiment, Kingsley thought, worried that Evadne may not be able to restrain herself if she came face to face with the Immortals, but it’s nothing like agreeing with my strategy. ‘We should inspect the place for entrances and exits as soon as we can, and find any access points to the Demimonde while we’re at it.’
‘Splendid,’ Evadne murmured. Her hand was in her pocket.
Kingsley took her shoulder and made sure she was looking at him. ‘Evadne. Listen. I don’t want you going off half-cocked.’
‘I know I have a tendency to go off half-cocked. But I decided, a long time ago, that whenever I went off half-cocked I’d go off fully half-cocked, so to speak.’
This did not reassure Kingsley at all. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do, but do you realise what you’re doing?’
‘Standing here wondering what you’re getting at?’
‘Besides that.’ Evadne glanced at the ladder. ‘I’m wondering if it’s your Inner Animal speaking.’
‘Now I’m completely lost. My Inner Animal?’
‘You call it your wild side, or your wildness, or half a dozen other names. Trying to avoid the issue, most likely. I call it your Inner Animal and right now I think it’s being protective of your other pack member.’
‘My other pack member?’
Evadne blushed her unique blush – a pinkening of her white skin like the inner petals of a rose. She cleared her throat a little and looked away. ‘That would be me, it seems.’
Kingsley actually swayed back on his heels, narrowly avoiding banging the back of his head on the brick wall of the tunnel. ‘I see. You and I are Extraordinaires. We belong to the same pack. I’m protecting you.’
She looked back at him with a steady, even gaze. ‘As a good wolf should protect other pack members.’
‘My Inner Animal at work.’
‘Since we’re so professional about our partnership, what other explanation could there be?’
Kingsley was spared any prevaricating by Leetha’s face appearing at the top of the ladder. ‘We are safe. It is time to come up now, please.’
Kingsley went first, gripping his cane in his teeth and tilting his head sideways, a thousand thoughts sky-rocketing around as he tried to look beyond Evadne’s words, beyond the nuance, to understand exactly what she meant.
This isn’t what I need right now, he thought as he pulled himself up and into the world. He stayed low and scanned the surroundings. I need to concentrate on the task at hand.
The lane was dingy in the feeble midday sun. Warehouses crowded in on either side, two and three storeys of shabby red brick. A cold wind whipped through it, and the grit it carried made Kingsley squint. He could smell hot oil and coal smoke.
‘Kingsley?’
Evadne looked up at him, her hand outstretched. He grasped it and with hardly any effort, lifted her straight out of the shaft, catching her around the waist to steady her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She wouldn’t meet his eyes and he cursed himself. He’d obviously missed the moment, or said something he shouldn’t, or not said something he should have.
Leetha interrupted his clatterfall of thoughts. ‘This way.’
She led them to a wooden door in the side of a red-brick edifice, a two-storey warehouse or factory. From the inside came an industrial clangour mixed with shouts and the whirring of engines – and the harsh ozone smell of electricity. A row of dirty windows looked down on them. A handful of uninterested pigeons did the same from the peak of the gable before taking flight in search of something more edible. The flurry of movement caught the attention of his wild side – or Inner Animal – and he barely stopped himself from leaping at them. Evadne noticed and put her hand on his arm.
Leetha paused. ‘We must be careful. Guards and keepers will be about, watching over my people as they work.’
The door was little-used, to judge from the formidable sound it made when Leetha edged it open. Kingsley’s heart almost took flight at the groaning, but he reasoned that this meant they’d be unlikely to encounter anyone just inside, and the noise of the nearby workshop was enough to obscure a thousand creaky doors.
And so it proved. Leetha brought them into a narrow, filthy corridor stacked on both sides with barrels, boxes and lengths of tarry rope. A slit window, equally filthy, admitted light begrudgingly. The walls quivered with the hammering that came from the workshop.
‘Stores,’ Leetha said as she led them through the narrow aisle the corridor had become. ‘Things we use to make what the Immortals need.’
‘Are there any more places like this?’ Evadne asked. She shifted the lid on a barrel and plucked out a handful of long brass screws. Automatically, she looped them from hand to hand before dumping them back.
‘Many, many,’ Leetha said. ‘I have explored them all.’
‘Can you show us? I might be able to deduce something about the whole from the parts.’
Over the next hour, Kingsley was glad they had the diminutive Leetha with them. As it was, his wild side was driven almost to howling by the number of times guards passed an instant after Leetha had found a hiding spot for them. At times, he became convinced that the small woman had abandoned them but she always reappeared just as he was about to cry foul.
In contrast, Evadne had entered a state of intense musing as they moved from store room to store room. Her brow was perpetually furrowed as she examined heavy machinery and tiny crystals alike. She muttered words like ‘transducer’ and ‘microphone diaphragm’ and she even produced a small brass gauge to measure wires and couplings.
Kingsley was very much aware that he was watching over her and, more than allowing him to do such, she was relying on him to. In the middle of the danger of discovery, in the noise and the acrid stink of burning rubber, he enjoyed the responsibility. Knowing that Evadne was concentrating, he refrained from interrupting her thinking. After Leetha had asked question after question, he advised the small woman to do the same, a request she acceded to with good grace.
When they found a room full of small glass vials betraying the presence of phlogiston – that half-mystical component of air capable of providing unparalleled power – Evadne merely nodded, as if she’d been expecting to find such a thing.
Eventually, they found a room full of large metal cylinders. ‘Ah.’ Evadne clapped her hands together. ‘This settles it. Compressed nitrogen, for the spark gap generators.’
‘Obviously,’ he said, understanding a response was needed. ‘Do go on.’
‘Wireless telegraphy,’ she said. ‘The Immortals are turning Hertzian waves to
their own ends, using phlogiston for power and efficacy.’ She shook her head. ‘They’d still need receivers, though. What am I missing?’
‘Hertzian waves – radio?’ Kingsley pointed his cane at the nitrogen cylinders. ‘The Immortals want to talk to the world? I know that Congreve-Knollys was convinced about this, but I’m not so sure.’
‘There must be more to it than that. Leetha, what about magic? Do you know of any magic the Immortals are using?’
The small woman shuddered. ‘They make the not-alive creatures, the Spawn, but they also do other things.’
Leetha took them through a wretched ceiling crawlspace until they reached the end of the building. After a moment, she led them across a cobbled laneway, over a wooden fence she scaled with no hesitation and into the rear of a large warehouse. Pigeons roosted in the rafters and narrow spears of light slashed down from holes in the roof. Stacked around the steel pillars were square bales almost as tall as Kingsley. ‘Wool? Cotton?’ he wondered aloud.
Evadne had her hands clasped in front of her. ‘Can we find out?’
Kingsley patted his pockets. ‘I thought everyone in my position carried a penknife,’ he muttered.
Leetha grinned and stepped up to the nearest bale. She shook her sleeve and a sliver of bright metal fell into her hand. ‘A blade? I have one.’
She slashed at the hessian cover, then jumped back with a small cry of alarm. Kingsley crouched and used his cane to prod at what had spilled from the bale. ‘It’s hair.’ Steeling himself, he scooped up a handful and sniffed. ‘Ordinary, brown human hair.’
He dropped the hair and wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘I’m at a loss.’
Evadne bit her lip, still thinking.
Leetha trotted some distance away and slashed at another bale. More hair tumbled out, glossy black this time. After four more samples, Kingsley was ready to admit that the Immortals had a warehouse full of human hair.
He remembered. ‘Buchanan said that barbers and wigmakers had been attacked. Perhaps this is the result.’
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