by Anne Renwick
“Two tickets for Fay O’Fire,” Jack requested.
Judging from a flier pinned to the wall, the play was a romantic opera wrapped about the legend of a ghost.
“The production is already well underway,” the man in the ticket booth objected, correctly sizing up their wild and unkempt appearance as trouble. The twitch of his nose and the faint curl of his lip suggested he was eager to turn them away. Good instincts. “Perhaps another night?”
Jack frowned.
“We promised to view my friend’s performance and do not wish to offend her with our absence,” Cait lied smoothly. “Tonight.”
“Friend?” the man’s eyebrows rose.
“Miss Tempest.” She’d found the name off the flier, choosing one of the leading ladies.
Adoration lit the man’s face. “A rising star, isn’t she?”
“Let me make our presence more palatable.” Jack dropped a number of gold sovereigns upon the counter. Far, far more than necessary. Enough that the ticket-seller could pocket the majority. “A private box, so that we do not disturb the other attendees?”
Relieved to be handed a mutually beneficial solution, the starry-eyed man swept the gold away and pushed two tickets toward them. “Miss Tempest is a true leading lady with a long and brilliant career before her. Enjoy the show.”
An usher led them to their plush, velvet seats, then disappeared behind the fall of a curtain.
The stage before them currently supported a lugubrious gentleman plaintively bleating out a dismal song about water—of which the audience loudly disapproved. She eyed the curve of three tiers holding the booing spectators aloft—such manners!—but had little time to take in the beauty of the theater before Jack tugged at her sleeve and tipped his head toward the hallway.
It was time to locate Helena’s former colleagues.
They dropped down flight after flight of steep stairs, at last ducking through an unmarked door and into a narrow hallway lined with stage props.
She fell against a wall, gasping. “A moment.”
“Is it the asp’s bite?” Jack’s face scrunched with worry.
She shook her head. “No. It’s my boned corset, tightly laced. Suitable only for a leisurely stroll. Not the active pursuit of suspects.”
He laughed.
“Excuse me.” An indignant man dressed as a demon stomped forward. “You can’t be here.” He pointed at the door, ordering their exit.
“Many apologies.” Jack flashed his holstered weapon. “But we need to speak with Miss Helena. Immediately.”
The demon’s lips pursed. “Rather popular, tonight, Helena. But the she-devil and her sisters left our theater company several months ago.” He pointed again at the door. “Please go. We don’t want any trouble.”
“Not an actual denial of her presence.” Cait narrowed her eyes. “She’s here. Where?”
The demon sighed.
“Listen,” she pressed. “We’re not here to partake of the substance she peddles, nor to have a polite conversation.” She tapped her own TTX weapon. “We’re here to remove her from the theater’s premises on a permanent basis.”
“And what of the lordling?” The demon planted red-painted, taloned hands on his hips. “He promised them a home, but she refuses to vacate the undercroft.”
“Lordling?” Jack asked, his focus knife-sharp. “Might his name be Carruthers?”
The demon’s lips stretched, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth. “You know of him. Excellent.”
“He’s here?” Jack crowded the actor. “At this very minute?”
“He is. Thorn in my side, that gentleman, always pining after her. These past months, we’d hoped we were well rid of him. But he’s back, and madness has stolen his mind. He burst into Helena’s old dressing room and all but scared Marie to death.” His talons pointed a new direction. “I expect you’ll find him wandering the vaults, howling her name.”
“Vaults?” Cait frowned.
“The Opera Comique replaced an old, medieval pile. An Inn of Chancery.”
“Lyon’s Inn,” Jack said.
The demon snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. They knocked it down and hauled most of it away, but left its underbelly behind as foundations. The undercroft—a number of vaulted chambers—is suitable only for the storage of things one wishes to forget. Or lose.” The demon’s eyes gleamed. “The three sisters had a habit of wandering its passages. Men who followed them never returned.”
“Save Carruthers,” Cait stated.
“None but him,” the demon confirmed.
“What makes him special?”
“Besides his longevity?” He shrugged. “If you search the vaults, perhaps you’ll find out. Try not to get lost in there. No one will come looking for you.” He pointed. “End of the hallway, down a flight of stairs on your right.”
A fairy, a revenant, and a whole chorus of young ballet dancers popped in and out of dressing rooms as they passed, shooting them disapproving or curious gazes as they rushed past.
“Have you seen a man by the name of Carruthers?” Cait asked the fairy.
She frowned and shook her head.
But two women recalled him.
“Had a habit of pinching your are if your back was turned,” one grumbled.
“If you’re referring to the lordling obsessed with the witches,” her friend said, tipping her head. “He headed into the vaults.”
“When?” Jack asked.
A half shrug. “Before curtain call?”
An hour past, perhaps more.
A matron clapped her hands, and the entire ensemble rushed to take their positions on the stage while the orchestra struck up a new melody.
Leaving them entirely alone.
At the far end of the hall, beyond the bright lights and chaotic backstage tumble of props and costumes, a dusty, stone archway where modern red brickwork met Medieval mortared stone.
Cait reached into a pouch at her waist and pulled out a handful of TTX darts.
“Stolen from your brother’s pockets?”
“Pickpocketing numbers among my many skills.” She grinned. “Quite handy.”
They refilled the chambers of their weapons, then Jack shook his decilamp to life, ready to light the way. “Ladies first?”
“I’m not a lady.” Cait eyeballed the stairs descending before them. “So long as your brother is alive. As he is, by now, in the hands of talented Lister physicians, I’ve no expectation of answering to anything other than Mrs. Tagert.”
“For Aubrey, death by misadventure will always be a possibility.” Jack snorted, not bothering to suppress an amused smirk. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few spiders?”
“Not afraid.” She wrinkled her nose. “But who in their right mind enjoys the presence of multi-legged creatures that scurry so very quickly?”
One was bad enough. Clouds of cobwebs filled with them? Well, that pricked the hairs on the back of her neck in dreaded anticipation. Arachnids had a nasty habit of dropping with uncommon speed, swinging from those ghastly threads they spun and landing where you least wanted them.
But traces of pain threaded through the amusement that illuminated Jack’s face. His headache was clearly asserting itself, and they couldn’t chance a misfire brought about by double vision.
No choice but for her to take the lead.
She rolled her shoulders and adjusted the grip of her TTX pistol. Dropping Carruthers to his knees would be her reward for tolerating the eight-legged beasties. She plunged forward. “Not at all.”
At the bottom of the stairs, they found nothing save the long-forgotten props of past plays. Before them stretched the undercroft. They entered a forest of thick wooden columns, an ancient beauty of arched timber. Still, she was wary of what might lie in the shadows. Jack was quick to search its corners, but found nothing of interest.
“If I didn’t know better,” Jack murmured beside her, flicking blue-white light into the dark, empty chambers on their right, th
en left, “I’d expect to stumble across three dirt-filled coffins.”
“And the drained husks of their victims tossed into dark crevices?”
“Precisely.”
Thankfully, not a single long-lost corpse presented itself.
On they moved. With only one decilamp between them, the dark quickly settled back into place behind them.
An entire team of agents would need hours to scour the vast space of the vaults, but with Helena and Carruthers on the run, time wasn’t on their side.
Onward they stalked, with one room bleeding into the next and spawning an ever-growing number of storage chambers and passageways.
They were in a labyrinth hunting a monster without a ball of string.
The space was ancient and timeworn. Yet above, they could hear the tap-tap of shoe leather. Were they beneath the stalls? The orchestra? Impossible to know. Modern London’s floors covered medieval London’s cellars. Old atop the new.
She turned a corner and almost stumbled over the sudden unevenness of the ground beneath her feet. A humid, damp smell rose to mingle with the scent of earth.
Aether, how deep into London clay had they descended?
They turned yet another corner.
She froze.
Before them, the warm glow of lantern light seeped forth from a side chamber. Had they found the lamia’s lair?
Jack flicked off his decilamp and drew his weapon. On tiptoes, they crept closer. Cait nudged the door. Not a single squeak issued from its hinges, and the mingled scent of sex and perfume that hung in the air suggested they’d found their quarry. She pushed it open further.
Yes, indeed, they’d found their troublesome lord if not a murderous lamia.
Once again, Carruthers was naked and lounging beneath sheets upon a bed. A pallet upon the floor, in this particular instance, for all that it was covered with silks and satins in a riot of colors. Scattered across the floor were hand-knotted rugs in beautiful geometric patterns, low stools and tables. Overhead, light flickered through the punched holes of ornate lanterns that hung from loops of brass chain.
Much as one might imagine the room of a harem.
Carruthers didn’t so much as stir. Asleep then. Or unconscious. A fact likely explained by the empty vial upon a bedside table, one last spotted tucked between Helena’s breasts. An empty hypodermic syringe lay beside the vial.
Had they missed Helena by mere minutes?
“Eww,” Cait breathed. “That was the extract from your—”
“Stop,” Jack interrupted her. “I’m begging you.”
A few steps down the hallway, another arched doorway emitted faint light.
“Shall we?” Jack whispered.
She nodded.
They tiptoed away from the insensate lordling and toward the next chamber and peeked carefully inside.
Though neither humans nor lamiae were present, it held a lost treasure.
“Amazing,” she whispered and stepped into a space lost to London’s skies some five hundred years ago.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lanterns hanging from iron hooks driven into the wall cast a flickering dance of shadow and light throughout the austere chamber. Thick timbers weathered with age arched upward to support a wooden ceiling above the smooth expanse of stone below. Stacks of old, cracked barrels lined one wall, long forgotten. A tall cabinet stood beside a broad table. Amongst other items upon its surface—pen, paper, a curved blade and a scattering of herbs—was a carpet bag and a familiar carry case that spoke of an imminent and planned departure.
But the focus of the room was a mysterious pool of water that lay in the center of its stone-paved floor, a remnant of ancient Londinium. Its natural margins lost long ago to the carved stone that edged the pool, framing water so dark its depth was beyond sight.
Two feet? Twenty? Two hundred? Impossible to guess.
As was its source.
Was it fed by the River Fleet or did it well up through a fault in the London clay from low-lying chalk?
Impossible to know. Regardless, this must be one of Holywell Street’s forgotten springs.
Of more recent origin was a low altar beside the well.
An iron-framed glass box rested upon its surface, surrounded by a scattering of flowers.
Liquid filled the entirety of the vessel. An aquarium with a lid, though nothing alive moved within. Instead, a single, unmoving object floated—alcohol acting as a preservative?
They stepped closer.
“Aether,” Cait breathed at his side. “Any explanation for that will require your expertise in cryptobiology.”
He closed one eye to compensate for his annoyingly persistent double vision and squinted. “It’s a dead—” What did one call such a creature?
“Infant?” Cait suggested, the doubt in her voice justified.
“Well, yes, but…” From the waist upward, the child was undeniably human. A newborn who looked as if it had not survived much past delivery. Possibly because its coiled lower half was a long, scale-covered tail.
“How very ghoulish,” she whispered. “One of Dr. Thrakos’ creations, do you think? Or is this Helena’s child, the one Lady Saltwell belittled as her ‘biological failing’?”
He bent closer, then shook his head. “I see no sign of stitching, no other indications that this… child was not born exactly so. Though an autopsy would be required to confirm such a statement.”
“But… how?”
“There’s a condition known as sirenomelia, a congenital deformity in which the legs fuse during development to varying degrees, a condition some believe supports myths of mermaids. Alas, it’s associated with multiple internal abnormalities that are incompatible with life.”
“This is more than mere leg fusion.” Cait straightened. “And the serpent-like tail suggests fangs, not gills. As befits our lamia.”
“Agreed. If, as I suspect, surgical manipulation played no role and, instead, a biological process generated this child, then an extreme deviation from the normal course of human development occurred.”
“Do you think she intends to take the infant with her?” Cait pointed at the refrigerated carry case upon the desk. “A quick visit to the zoo to snag the mad scientist’s case and acquire a few reproductive ingredients for a final tryst with her lover?”
“Followed by a swift departure from our shores?” He nodded. “Quite likely.”
“But where is the… found it!” Triumphant, she pulled a familiar canvas sack from inside the carpet bag, tugging at its drawstring and reaching for its contents with a smile. “It’s the pituitary extractor! In pieces, true, but this means…”
Her comment broke his fixation upon the remains of the lamia’s child. He looked up, watched as her smile faded and the spark in her eyes dulled, as momentary celebration renewed their awareness that any attempt to remove his tumor courted widowhood.
But to not try, however, would bring about a different kind of end to their partnership.
“There’s no rush.” He drew her against his side with one arm, hoping he spoke the truth but fearing he uttered a lie. “We’ll discuss steps later.”
She nodded. “We should go. It’s not safe here.” Her rigid form resisted comfort. His throat grew dry as the insecurity of his future loomed before them, but what could he possibly say that would raise her spirits? “Haul in Carruthers, send in agents to examine the scene more closely.” She pulled away. “Your vision is worrying, and we need to deliver this contraption directly into the hands of—”
“Very well. We’ll take the infant with us, head straight to Lister.” He turned her about to face the carved, wooden cabinet. “But not before we look inside.” He threw open the doors and let out a low whistle.
“Aether,” she breathed. “There were so very many.”
Each shelf held a row of glass jars. Each alcohol-filled receptacle held a single specimen. Miniature faces. Eyes closed, lips gently parted. Arms, hands, fingers formed without distortions. But at
the hips, the torsos became serpent tails.
Many conceptions, many failed pregnancies.
Had any been live births?
“All transformed in exactly the same manner,” he commented softly. “Insofar as can be determined by superficial examination. We may learn more at autopsy.”
“You trespass,” Helena hissed from the doorway, her arm about a certain lord.
Zwing. Thwack.
The moment the lamia spoke, Cait had dropped the bag and the extractor, lined up her shot, and fired.
But Helena moved with superhuman speed. She’d twisted, pulling her lover in front of her—and the dart had passed though the sleeve of a dressing gown embedding in the thick flesh of Carruthers’ upper arm.
He howled, eyes full of aggrieved resentment. “How dare you! This is sacred space.” Already there was a slight slur to his words, a buckle to his knees as muscles succumbed to tetrodotoxin.
Not a loss, really, but the lamia’s lover wasn’t their primary target.
Cait kept her weapon at the ready.
“A lord of the land who aligns himself with a murderess will find himself hunted.” Jack pulled back his shoulders, keeping his own TTX pistol pointed in Helena’s direction. “A woman was killed in your townhome today, a gland extracted from her skull. She was stuffed inside your wife’s wardrobe. Your wife, your nanny and your mistress have all fled. You covered for them, then followed.” He shook his head. “Yet you expect privacy?”
“Murder?” Carruthers sneered. “Not Helena. You have the wrong woman.”
“Would you accuse your wife instead? Or perhaps your nanny?” Jack turned his attention to the lamia. “Care to enlighten us, Helena?”
“I regret nothing,” Helena sneered. “The humane approach failed.” Her gaze welled with sadness as it fell upon the daughter resting beside the holy well. “My sisters were wrong, mistakes were made.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “The old ways demand respect. When necessary, sacrifices must be made.”
“Five men, three women,” Jack stated. “At last count. I expect there are more.”
Cait all but vibrated beside him, but his extended hand forestalled another dart. Answers. Confessions. He wanted—needed—to know the why behind her actions.