Dhillon repeated Graeme’s statement to Clare, facing her as he spoke. He stumbled frequently, trying to step over the loose ballast on the floor at the same time as shining the light on his face.
Clare placed her hand on his chest. “I can’t make sense of what you’re saying,” she said apologetically. “You’re moving too much and the light is all over the place. Let’s wait until we get to wherever it is we’re going.” Dhillon nodded and resumed his place at her side, with an arm around her to help her balance.
Convinced that no one followed them from the Tower, Viper joined Graeme at the front. “Clare’s safety vexes me. Marry, the girl is brave. Without the deftness of a fighter, for her deafness, she poses a significant target.” Viper kept her voice low.
“Yer nae wrong. She’s a braw lass, but she’ll need protecting during a scrap.”
“I hath no doubt that the queen’s men will come in search of the Mort Lake Glass I hath taken. The crystals activate John Dee’s mechanisms. Your queen will ne’er grant me freedom. She will use them, should she reclaim them.”
Graeme’s eyes darkened and his brow furrowed deeply. “Humans have evolved in many ways, Viper. I’m sad to say that freedom is a lovely ideal, which not everyone enjoys.” His steps sounded heavier in the ground rubble.
They traveled the rest of the way in contemplative silence.
Far beneath the underbelly of Aldgate station, the tunnel sloped downwards and narrowed until they could touch the walls with outstretched arms. The dank air didn’t stir. Graeme stopped at a sheet of metal riveted into the wall, not unlike several other sections they had already passed.
“Why do we cease walking?” Viper asked the Scotsman. “We hath not come upon a dead end.”
Graeme tapped his finger on the side of his nose, as if to tease Viper that he knew something she did not. He pressed his hand against the middle the wall. A thin blue light scanned his palm within a luminescent outline of his hand. The panel recessed and slid open with a whirr. Viper nodded her head in appreciation before she led them inside.
A wrought iron staircase spiraled to the lower level. Glazed ceramic tiles, pristine moss green and white, led to a small room at the bottom where wooden panelling and matching furniture greeted them. Viper stepped onto a plush, maroon carpet, on top of which were four upholstered benches. Highly polished Celtic knots snaked across every surface. The benches formed a semi-circle on the round rug, facing the staircase.
Graeme was the last to leave the steps. “Nae bad for a dead end, ye ken?” He moved to a secretarial desk at the far side of the seating area and lifted the lid. From inside, he flipped a switch and warm, fern green light bathed the room.
“This is it?” Clare said, with a hint of incredulity in her voice. “After the Gherkin, I was expecting a James Bond-y secret hideout.”
Graeme and Dhillon grinned in unison. Dhillon invited Clare to sit, then joined her. Viper stood nonplussed, arms crossed, facing the benches.
“Ye might want to sit for this part,” Graeme said. Viper refused, eyes wary. “Nae any bother to me. However, I’ll miss yer pretty head when we get going.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. Graeme pressed a button inside the console. Silver railings lifted from beneath the floor around the seating area. Dhillon held Clare close.
An electronic hum tickled Viper’s hyper-sensitive ears. The seating area rose with a jarring bump and became a floating dais. Clare’s hand flew to her mouth, then she laughed when she saw Dhillon’s amused smile. Viper had stopped herself from crying out with surprise.
Behind the benches, the wall divided, revealing a low-ceilinged tunnel bathed in the same green light. The hovering platform rotated, then shot into the passageway. Viper crouched instinctively. She realized the danger of bashing her head on the oncoming ceiling mere seconds before it was too late. She caught Graeme’s smug, good-natured, snicker and decided that she should heed him in the future.
“The Underground floods often,” Graeme explained after he stopped chuckling at Viper’s near decapitation. “Owain designed this baby to travel over water and land. Quadratic propulsion.” The same rectangular tiles as in the stairwell lined the tunnel walls. Inclusions in the glaze sparkled as the cart passed.
Viper reclined upon the armrest of the closest bench, clutching the railing to soothe her jitters. She hid her distress from the others behind her. Her world had changed so much over the past day and a half. The capacity of modern humans to overcome the forces of nature, and of her magic, astounded and frightened her. Technology elevated humans into indomitable adversaries. She wondered what possible chance had to reclaim the life that had been taken from her. Where could she exist peaceably if she did?
Dhillon had been explaining his arrival to London from Maidstone to Clare. “The Sisters’ murmuration of starlings carried us to London, on the far side of St. James’ Park,” he said, clearly pronouncing and pacing his words for Clare’s benefit.
“The flock practically wrecked a charity petting zoo of deer. In the chaos, we managed to head towards Buckingham Palace before people realized we had been inside the tornado of birds. That’s when we found Owain, or rather, when he found us. It was incredible! There were all these alarms going off at the palace, and loads of sirens tearing through the streets. Cops were everywhere! Graeme was freaking out about hiding his weapons.” Dhillon stopped when Graeme cleared his throat at him. “Well, he wasn’t really freaking out, but it wouldn’t be good for him to have a concealed gun during a bombing. That’s when, calm as anything, Owain shows up. ‘Hello, boys, where’ve you been?’ he’d said, like we were supposed to be meeting him in the park with calamity around us.”
“During the Victorian era, Owain built a safe house beneath what used to be St. Mary’s Underground station on the Hammersmith & City line,” Graeme offered. “In the Thirties, that’s the 1930s,” he said to Viper, “he orchestrated the closure of St. Mary’s station. Only Ivy and I knew of his safe house, until now.” His expression pinched at the mention of the woman’s name. Graeme nodded at the double arch the platform approached. “We’re coming up on the entrance.”
The platform locked into place in a cavernous room. Well below the demolished Underground stop, they may as well have traveled into another world.
They walked up glass steps illuminated red. The group looked like time-lost vagrants in a futuristic mansion. The space was more expansive than Viper would have expected for a subterranean dwelling, with diffusely lit, vaulted ceilings. Owain had decorated the room with the lightest colours and most reflective surfaces. Photos of London in simple frames adorned white walls so smooth that the immortal couldn’t discern structural seams. Across the empty, acrylic floor, scoop vinyl chairs grouped around a round, glass table. Viper fingered the tattered corners of her red tailcoat, conscious of her unkempt state.
On an elevated walkway made of glass, Owain had been working beneath an elongated bank of computer monitors. The CCTV-captured images of the Underground and London’s streets flickered in the reflective surfaces of the room like a phantom population.
Owain stood, applauded joyfully, then leaned heavily on a cane. “I’m so pleased they found you, Mistress. I’m afraid I underestimated our queen’s resources.” He wore a plaid sports coat in shades of blue and yellow, a pear-green buttoned shirt, and chestnut corduroy trousers that mismatched horribly. Viper wondered how he ever moved about the city unnoticed with such noticeable apparel. His deep bow and deeper smile warmed Viper’s heart.
Her Foundling negotiated the steps to the main level. He limped forward in haste and lurched precariously. Graeme caught his employer before Owain landed on the ground.
“I’m alright,” the older man said. “Don’t fret.”
It concerned Viper that Owain hadn’t relied upon a cane before. He straightened his glasses, patted Graeme’s arm and continued towards Viper. He hugged her tightly, his bright orange aeir likewise flowed around her.
Viper became aware that the others watche
d their reunion. Graeme grinned broadly with a dimple in his cheek that she hadn’t seen before. Clare had a hand to her mouth, smiling. Dhillon watched Viper with an unreadable expression.
The immortal stiffened and eased Owain away. Only Clare had seen Viper debilitated, first by Annys’ avatar, then crumpled in the cage at the Tower. Viper didn’t want the mortals to know how happy she was that her Foundling wasn’t harmed, for emotional attachment could be used against her. She had to be severe, to be dominant, if she had any hope of survival. However, she kept her hand on Owain’s shoulder as he moved closer to the monitors.
“How came you by the knowledge that the Second Elizabeth kept me prisoner?” Viper surveyed the vast quantity of digital images before her. “Did you use these monitoring tools, eyes like the queen’s eyes that can see through walls?”
“Yes, yes! You are a quick study, Mistress,” Owain replied. “You shall have answers. Well, some answers. First, indulge me for a moment longer.” He shuffled to the glass table and retrieved a plastic box. From it, he handed Clare a new pair of cochlear receivers. Owain waited until Clare attached the receivers to the magnets in her head. “How’s that, my dear?” Clare nodded with a grateful smile. “Dhillon told me what happened at the Medway. I don’t want you to miss out on the discussion. These new receivers aren’t waterproof, but they can take a big splash.”
“When did you get these?” Clare asked, her voice back to normal volume.
“I had extra bits and bobs made up for you, anticipating that you would be part of our team. Even if you go back to Longwood, or to your parents, you know the truth about the world, and your place in it.”
“I don’t ever want to leave,” the girl said, glancing to Viper and Owain in veneration.
Owain raised a finger in the air. “Now, on to pressing matters.” He pulled a remote from his pocket and pointed it at the screens. One image expanded until each monitor represented a different portion of a larger picture. “England stands at the precipice of paranoia.”
He showed them recorded coverage of the attack on Buckingham Palace yesterday. A woman with swept-up hair and conservatively painted lips spoke to the camera. The positive impact of her sunny scarf failed in the wet evening. Behind her, blue Police lights bounced off the palace’s facade.
“When I snuck into the queen’s home, neither she nor the Parhelion were there, although it looked like someone tried to break into the Grandfather clock where she often hides little treasures. As I left the palace, a bomb rocked its gates. I speculate it was a ruse to draw security to the front of the building and away from her offices.”
“Then that’s what I heard through the two-way receivers before the Merrows attacked us at Maidstone?”
“Indeed, Clare. You must have heard the shots the Queen's Guards fired at the unmanned car. I’m sorry for any difficulties overhearing that event caused you.”
Viper caught Dhillon staring with spite at her from the corner of her eye, obviously still sore at her decision not to help Owain in London, despite Owain’s obvious wellness. The screen’s image changed to footage of several deer running wild through St. James Park.
“That’s the petting zoo’s animals,” Dhillon said, turning to the replay after Viper glared back at him.
“Several of them haven’t been found,” Owain confirmed. “Between the cyclone of birds and the loose herd, animal control had their hands full.”
“At least it helped to hide our arrival,” said Graeme.
“And my departure from the palace,” Owain added.
The news displayed Smallpox in South London: Terrorism or Outbreak? on the bottom of the screen.
“Then, there’s this: the issue of the smallpox resurgence,” said Owain.
Viper recoiled. “The mark of Annys.”
“Yes, Mistress. That is my assessment as well. Several adults and children became afflicted over the last week, regardless of vaccination status. I’m afraid Annys moves ever closer to London. She will be upon us within a day, or less.”
“What about the Sisters?” Graeme asked. “I reckon they have the power over earth, wind, plants and animals. Can’t they stop her?”
“They will not stop her,” Viper said, dissatisfied. “I cannot explain their reluctance to intervene, except to say the Sisters serve only their own intentions.”
Pictures and amateur footage of the Sisters’ earthen bulwark and cyclones in Sunninghill interspersed between those of the washed out footbridge in Maidstone, and the clouds above Dugan’s Mound. “Newscasters report on these events like they are unrelated,” said Graeme with a snort. “They dinnae ken how wrong they are!”
“Nor will they,” Owain scolded quickly. “It’s best that people don’t make the connections between what they read and hear, and reality. The last time Britain underwent a fervent interest in the mysteries of the seelie wicht, I had to distract the empire by instigating the industrial revolution. Look at where that got us!”
“I don’t mind the modern world,” Clare remarked with a toothy smile. Her improved ability to participate in the conversation returned her youthful zest. The young woman’s aeir swirled with enhanced vigor. Her aeir momentarily touched Dhillon’s. A shimmer coursed through the both and the youths spontaneously beheld the other’s gaze with open attraction.
A protector and a lover, Viper heard in her head, unbidden.
“Something's troubling me,” Owain said, surveying the monitors and interrupting Viper’s train of thought. The British people continued in their daily routines, oblivious to the monsters plotting against them. “Why would Annys hire armed men to attack you on the road from Longwood, but send Merrows at Maidstone? With her magic, and an army of Merrows at her command, she could’ve captured Queen Elizabeth at any time on her Flotilla Parade instead of bombing Buckingham Palace.”
Viper considered Owain’s statement and ignored the distracting aeir of the youths. With Queen Elizabeth II as a new adversary, and Annys nearing London, Viper needed to pay heed to her own agenda and pay less attention to protecting the heart of the human girl. If Dhillon was the false lover, Clare would have to manage it on her own.
“These are trivialities that no longer render worriment,” Viper said, “for I hath the tools of Annys’ undoing. I hath John Dee’s Mort Lake Glass.”
“Who’s he?” asked Graeme.
“He was an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I,” said Dhillon, jumping in. “A master of astrology, astronomy, alchemy, geometry, the occult, basically everything to do with Elizabethan science. He spent hours scrying, or ascrying as it was known in Viper’s day, by staring into a highly polished obsidian stone, crystal ball, or a mirrored plate, trying to speak with beings from a higher plane.”
“So, he was a psychic?” Graeme asked, poorly hiding his mocking tone.
“No, he was a genius. Don’t forget, science, religion, and the occult were mixed up back then. Elizabeth relied on John Dee a great deal. What better way to rule a kingdom than by knowing the future? Dee coined the phrase The British Empire, formulated nautical maps for the queen’s adventurers to the new world, and he designed the Globe Theatre. He even wanted to create a new calendar, something to do the energy levels of the otherworldly beings he sought. Sadly, Elizabeth didn’t accept his proposition. Dee was a remarkable man, when you think of it.”
“He was the self-serving sage of Mort Lake.” Viper’s fury came too late to kill the man who had ensnared her with his devices.
“What happened to him?” Clare asked.
“By the early 1580s, Walsingham and Burghley didn’t trust him. They advised Elizabeth to dismiss him from Court. He fled to Poland with his medium, a man named Edward Kelley, and their wives. His home and workshop at Mort Lake were ransacked by Walsingham’s men. The plague killed his wife and most of his children. Dee died a pauper in 1603. One of his sons grew up into adulthood and trained as a doctor.”
“No doubt to continue his father’s ascrying studies.” A knot tightened in Viper’s stomac
h. “And do the descendants of his son live?” Her heartbeat quickened at the thought of finally having success in this modern world.
“Ye cannae be hot to go after his descendants?” Graeme interrupted Viper’s singular, vengeful thought to seek out the children born of John Dee’s lineage and eradicate his bloodline.
“Why should I not? The reach of his Mort Lake Glass extends beyond his grave, so should mine.”
“Because,” Graeme said, crossing his arms, “it’s not the right thing to do. We’ll help ye find the man’s equipment-“
“And his research,” Dhillon chimed in.
“Oh aye, and his books. If Dee or his son were a threat to ye before, that danger has faded by now. It’s been four hundred years. Any of Dee’s offspring who might have the same interests in yer kind has already popped their clogs.”
Viper wasn’t surprised that the humans defended their own. Nothing in this modern age proved to her that humans had truly changed. One false, one true. Her suspicions ran wild.
“Wait a sec,” Clare said, her face screwed up with confusion. “Are those Mort Lake things we took from the Tower crystals, stones, or glass?” She dashed to the floating dais where she had left the stones wrapped in the military coat.
Dhillon tapped himself on the forehead. “Of course! To the average person at the Elizabethan court, the words crystal and glass were synonymous. In the Old Saxon language, glas meant something that shines. Turning sand into glass has been part of human cultures before written history. An object made of glass was also identified as ‘glass’ because it reflects light.”
Clare walked over and held up a stone from the folded coat. “So, a polished crystal like this one would be ‘glass’ too?”
“It’s likely,” Dhillon said.
“Glass is also ubiquitous for vessel or container,” Owain said, rubbing his eyebrows in thought.
“Like the glass we drink from,” Graeme chimed in before Dhillon could offer another academic lecture.
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