Eterna and Omega

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  She tried to think of their route as a chance to see London in ways no tourist would. Recent events had truly inured her, and this present trip seemed more a stroll through a royal park than a descent into discomfort. She’d take rats over the horrors of that Greenwich estate any day. Her tolerance for the terrible had reached unprecedented thresholds.

  At a particularly dark turn in the tunnels, Louis wafted to Clara’s side in a flicker of gray and a breeze of chill.

  “Steel yourself, Clara, darling, shield yourself from the effects and atmosphere of any Society building as they affect you. Stay close to Rose. I’ll be with you.”

  Clara nodded and pressed the talisman he’d given her during their courtship in appreciation. He knew it was her habit to wear it beneath her layers and smiled at the gesture. He allowed her to keep silent, not wishing to make conversation for Spire’s sake, speaking with the dead an additional discomfort to their unpleasant trek.

  Miss Knight cursed quietly but colorfully as a sailor at each sighting of vermin. Spire and Adira Wilson were at the fore; the widow had donned a skirt that was actually split-leg-like trousers for more sensible movement. Blakely was at the rear, walking sideways so he could see if anyone or anything was creeping up from the shadows behind. Rose kept quiet pace at Clara’s side, her presence helping her body not tense up amid recovery, a woman as undeterred from duty as she.

  Spire finally led them up a ladder to an underground platform, turning to help the ladies, whose skirts and heeled boots were inconvenient on a ladder. It was Rose’s turn to curse and swear that she’d come to work only in athletic costumes from now on.

  Knight chuckled as she was helped onto the passenger platform. “I make no such promise to practicality in dress reform; my heart remains too devoted to fashion.”

  The lantern Mr. Blakely raised illuminated tiled walls of the station. Other than themselves, the platform was entirely devoid of light and persons and decidedly eerie in the swinging, shifting light of their several lanterns.

  Spire gestured them out the gates, then into the black corridor of a service exit that he unlocked via the most impressive-looking skeleton key Clara had ever seen.

  The warehouse that was their destination sat a shadowed alley away from the exit. They crept forward quietly.

  “Give me five minutes,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Wait here.” She was off before Spire could give orders otherwise.

  The group huddled in the shadows opposite the building while the lithe Mrs. Wilson hopped onto the sill of a first-floor window and launched her thin form through a gap in the hinged panes, disappearing for what was, indeed, five minutes. Then, with a groan on weighty hinges, a door ahead opened for them and they quickly filed in, Mrs. Wilson staring out at the alley behind them before closing and bolting the door.

  “Good God,” Spire muttered at the revelation within.

  From floor to ceiling, the warehouse space was filled with rows and columns of glass jars filled with red powder. The maddening, expressive agent had indeed been mass-produced, with enough quantity before their eyes to poison all of London and the surrounding environs.

  At the center of the floor was an elaborate, carefully positioned display of various horrors. If what the New York team had been construing was “Wards”—this was the antithesis—an obvious enticement of evil.

  There were the same kinds of carvings Clara recognized well—texts from many different faiths, inverted, reversed, perverted from their once benign or hopeful messages into the grossest, basest apocalyptic threats, all lined in blood and tar. Numbers were carved in sequences that seemed to have no rhyme or reason until she thought of them as going forward, rather than backward. It was the golden ratio, used in paintings and ancient math, a divine sequence here done backward. Every negative opposite of a positive notion.

  There was a fully disarticulated human skeleton with blood and gore still on its bones, which had been placed at four equidistant points within a circle, the scrawled words at the base of the dreadful display confirming the parallel to directional points on a compass.

  THE SHADOWS COME FROM

  ALL DIRECTIONS

  ALL POINTS OF COMPASS POINT TO DIVINE RIGHT

  ROYALS FEED FROM SUBJECT SUPPLY

  LIFT THY LIFE TO THE RULING RITE

  The matter inside the jaws of the skeleton was the pulp of a heart.

  The stench of death was pervasive, and soon everyone had put a kerchief to their nose. Miss Knight fished into an embroidered drawstring bag attached to the double layer of her skirts and pulled out the small vial of incense oil she used in her readings; she offered to dab some on everyone’s handkerchief. The men, save Blakely, were stoic and refused; the women universally accepted.

  Rose, speaking past the linen square she’d bundled at her nose, gestured to the specimen jars. “I take it this is the bulk store of the chemical madness agent? One of the three tenets of Society destruction Mrs. Northe-Stewart outlined for us?”

  “Yes,” Clara replied. “Soul splitting, reanimation, and this, the toxin.” She gestured to the floor, where everyone else’s gaze was fixed in varying degrees of disgust, fascination, and horror. “What you see here in the center of the floor must be an escalation of what is known as their final phase, Moriel’s dread revolution, as it were.”

  Rose noticed that Spire was not, in fact, transfixed by the implements of magic before them. Instead, he was surveying the larger space.

  “What I want to know,” Spire began, with careful caution in his tone, “is if this place is important to the plan, why in the world is it not being heavily guarded?”

  “It was,” Mrs. Wilson replied with cool nonchalance, taking Blakely’s lantern and lifting it toward the north wall to reveal a row of four dead bodies with small knives squarely in the heads.

  “Brilliant, Mrs. Wilson,” Spire murmured. “You are absolutely brilliant.” This caused the first smile out of her since her husband’s senseless death.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll have, so…” She gestured they take stock of what they could.

  “I assume everything in this warehouse is meant to be carried along via the nearby rails,” Clara stated. “Considering the cut and cover architecture of the underground, the particles would become airborne. This building is likely meant to be ‘detonated,’ as similar buildings were set up to be in New York, though that order, at the time, thankfully never came. In this case I believe Moriel would wish to send this airborne during his professed procession. Thankfully, Stevens tells me these compounds become inert after being flooded or burned.”

  “Finally some good news,” Spire said. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a box of matches.

  “It’s going to take far more than logistics, you realize,” Clara said. “More than burning or flooding buildings. He’ll soon have all three wings of his army and capabilities at his side,” she clarified. “We need spiritual weaponry as much as you need your physicality.”

  Her eye turned again to the bold declamations on the floor. The Society thrived on inversion, on taking sacred principles and turning them in on themselves. The compass struck her. She’d foreseen the concept in her dreams. Perhaps they could invert what Moriel considered sacred.…

  “What is it?” Spire asked, studying Clara.

  “I think I know the key here, taking localized magic to a new step and turning Moriel’s tables against him,” Clara began excitedly. “I’ve been musing about this since I woke, wondering why we have been brought together.

  “Blood can be chosen,” Clara said softly to Rose, reaching out to boldly take her hand. “I choose you, sister.” She smiled, despite the pain it caused her bruised face, the seizure having taken its toll over her whole body. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Rose murmured, offering a squeeze of her palm. The women nodded to one another.

  “This little session of bolstering is … warming my chilled heart and all,” Spire said, pursing his lips between clipped words,
“but would you get to the metaphysical point of whatever it is you ladies plan to do?”

  “Not just the ladies,” Clara said. “Right, Louis?” She turned to the disruption in the air that was her former love. Clara’s eyes were focused on the team before her with a bright intensity. “Localized magic. It isn’t just about the Wards, but also about the people. Together, we are the four corners of a compass.” She pointed to the “directions” and “compass” proclamations on the floor. “More, we span between worlds. Ours is a bond that the Society’s ilk, in their detached misery, can’t possibly comprehend. We must combat horror with a more comprehensive humanity. Not science, magic, or faith, but life. That, perhaps, is the weapon of Eterna after all. Life.”

  “But I’m dead, Clara,” Louis murmured, his floating form bobbing near her.

  “You are vital, Louis,” she countered, “for your connection to life. It helps bolster the cause. We’ll have to make sure Andre is with us as well. We must create something living and vital, the exact opposite of this travesty.” She gestured to the sick corpse before them. “The Society loves turning the sacred into sacrilege, so we’ll right what they’ve upturned. That’s how we disrupt the forces around Moriel. He hasn’t accounted for the dead fighting against him or the living harnessing their own invisible defenses.

  “Ghosts helped us at Rosecrest. Louis taught me the value of tactile, talismanic, and personal magic. We must make a living conduit for that power, as if it was an electrical current. Just as that odd man Mosley untethered the ghosts with a charge, so must we disrupt evil’s flow with the bonds among us. And we’ll do so, right in the middle of his damnable parade.…”

  “In your twin souls, all four of you, a unique capability, a unique chemistry,” Miss Knight said, nodding in agreement and enthusiasm. “Two pairs of twin souls, too, all tied together through each other. Two brothers, raised together, parted by death but yet connected. Two sisters, separated in time and space, yet knowing each other as sisters the moment they met. And both pairs united across the worlds by the love between one sister and one brother, one living and one dead.”

  “Precisely,” Clara agreed. “From the start it’s been about the inversion of all we hold beautiful and meaningful. These forces derive power from ripping souls out from bodies, from disconnecting.”

  “So connecting, then,” Mrs. Wilson said softly, “is the sole truth.”

  “The souls’ truth,” Blakely added. “Well done, Miss Templeton. Brilliant.”

  “I don’t suppose any of you clairvoyants have a time for Moriel’s obscene display?” Spire asked, clearly not as impressed by Clara’s divination as the rest. “We know he wants his demons to disassemble Parliament, but at what hour?”

  “Astrologically, I’d say two days from now,” Miss Knight stated. “The stars enter a particularly volatile phase, it is the time of Ares, god of war, and the moon will be full.” Clara nodded her agreement.

  “Well, then, let’s be sure all our operatives are agreed, and prepare,” Spire said. “Now. For something practical.”

  He moved to where several oil lanterns sat on shelves and tables and threw them strategically across the room, shattering and spilling their contents across the floor and shelves. “Everybody out,” he ordered, “back the way we came.”

  His tone was final and they hurried out. He brought up the rear, following with a lantern upended and a trail of oil out the warehouse door.

  Without looking behind him, he lit several matches at once and dropped them over his shoulder and kept walking.

  When the first small explosion sounded, he smiled. For the first time Clara noted genuine satisfaction on his oft sour face.

  Returning to the tunnel entrance, the company turned as a group to watch for a moment as a second fire burst roared and the insidious outpost grew well and truly consumed. Thankfully, the building was not directly adjacent to others and the ground around it wet. Its toxins were disarmed without threatening the entire sector. If firemen were called, they would not be in jeopardy, the substance now inert, no one the wiser until word eventually get back to Moriel. They needed to get to safety well before that moment came.

  * * *

  Reconvening at Lord Black’s residence, they were greeted warmly at the arched wooden door by the nobleman himself.

  “You’re back victorious, I hope?” he asked.

  “If I need an arsonist, now I know whom to call upon,” Rose offered with a chuckle. “Mr. Spire quite admirably set the horrific place ablaze.”

  “It would seem this work requires us all to … expand our repertoire,” Spire replied and shared his colleague’s smile.

  “Well, then, good work, I say. You’ll be happy to note nearly everyone is on hand tonight,” Black continued, “save for Miss Bixby, who insisted she continue on her own beat, trying to persuade anyone she could find under Apex employ to quit, even if trying to convince desperate and hungry folk is futile.”

  Stepping into the gaslight of the front hall was a tired, unshaven, but neatly dressed Andre Dupris, who explained, “I’m here to update you on the status of the Wards.”

  “Good,” Clara replied. Out the back garden window she watched Lord Denbury pacing in the dimming light.

  “And there’s someone else to see you all,” Black said reluctantly, sliding back one of the carved wooden pocket doors of the parlor.

  The moment Spire took one look at double agent Brinkman sitting in the pleasant white room, in the same all-black ensemble as he wore in the Parliament attack, Spire shook his head, pointing toward the door, crossing past brocade and lacquered furnishings to round upon the man with a heated demand.

  “I want him out, Lord Black,” Spire spat. “Can’t possibly be trusted. Surely he would have known about our abduction and did nothing to help us—”

  “Yes, actually, I did,” Brinkman countered through clenched teeth, rising angrily to his feet, “and I have covered for and made ‘assurances of’ your deaths.” Both men strode to stand nearly nose to nose, and if Clara wasn’t mistaken, Spire was about to throw a considerable punch.

  The tension shifted when Francis the butler drew a small silver pistol on Brinkman. Spire withdrew a step. Lord Black placed a supportive hand on his lover’s back.

  “Sit,” Spire barked at the spy. “Say what you came here to say and get out.”

  “I’m here to help you plan your attack,” Brinkman growled.

  “No, you’ll tell us where Vieuxhelles is for an appropriate raid,” Spire countered. “You’ll tell us what Moriel has there, what of his plans we can immediately disrupt, and then you’ll leave. We can’t suffer the slightest chance that you could undermine our plans, even accidentally under duress or to save your son.”

  “Out with it, Gabriel,” Lord Black urged.

  The spy sighed. “Machines to power reanimate corpses are being built inside Vieuxhelles, he’ll use them in the procession. There are three times as many paintings on the walls of Vieuxhelles, all holding captive souls in their canvases. You must allow for two of his three prongs of evil to go forward, lest he cancel what he has devised. I know you’ve been to the warehouse storing the mood toxin. That I can cover for, but you cannot descend on Vieuxhelles too soon.”

  “Why let anything go forward?” Spire asked. “Why can we not round on him now, kill him in his lair, and destroy everything at once? Why indulge him and such risk?”

  “He has too thick a magic built up around that manor to attack it or him in it directly,” Brinkman said wearily, reaching into his pocket and procuring a piece of paper that bore the old Society crest upon it, a gold and bloodstained seal with dragons on either side. He held out his hand. Black placed a pen in it. Brinkman wrote an address and cursory directions as he elaborated. “Any attempts on his life there—and there have been a few from possessed guards that came back to themselves after the destruction of Rosecrest’s paintings—only feeds the evil. I’ve seen bullets and knives repelled by the very air around him when he
stands within those walls, it’s mad.

  “By all means torch the blasted place when you can, but take care. Mere fire won’t solve a thing, and you have to do so when he’s not present. He’s too powerful there. Let him go into the city, let him try to tear Parliament down brick by brick in an ungodly show. In doing so, you can plan your counterattacks, place your Wards, more broadly bid the city protect itself, and allow for his vulnerabilities to be struck down when his armor is more widely spread and therein find the chinks.”

  “Has Moriel corrupted any of the local law enforcement within riding distance of Vieuxhelles?” Spire asked.

  “Most of them, yes. I have only one contact who is any good,” Brinkman replied, “but I’d rather have him arrive to a smoldering ruin than his department interrupt any attempts at sabotage. So you’re on your own if you plan to attack the estate. I’ll do what I can, and I’ll see you amid the madness. For my part, during the procession, I will be trying to get close enough to Moriel to kill him with my own hands. Don’t stop me,” Brinkman declared and rose.

  “Best of luck, ladies and gentlemen,” he offered. “If we fail, see you in hell.”

  Francis followed him out, the pistol trained upon him until the front door boomed shut and the butler returned to the room in silence.

  Spire had drawn a rough sketch of Victoria Embankment, ending in Parliament, and set it on the wide lacquered table that sat roughly at the center of their assembled company.

  “Should we invite Lord Denbury inside to join us?” Clara asked.

  Evelyn shook her head. “He’s not well,” she replied. The haunted young man was still pacing, as if trying to escape something unshakable. “He’ll do his part and help, of course, but let’s let him be for now.…”

  No one questioned the medium’s gentle advice. All eyes were on Spire.

  “I have to think Moriel isn’t so blind as to think he won’t meet resistance in the Westminster precinct,” Spire stated. “I’ll have battalions make sure nothing gets past the bridge here.” He pointed to the mouth of Westminster Bridge, under the shadow of parliament’s great tower. “We’ll create an outpost at Cleopatra’s Needle,” Spire instructed, putting a thumb at a square on his makeshift map a few meters east. He turned to Mrs. Wilson. “That will give you height for surveillance. We’ll feign the obelisk is under construction.”