“I shall meet you tomorrow noon at Angel,” Marsden reminded me as we finished our plans. “Be sharpish.”
He had no idea how “sharpish” I felt already.
CHAPTER 44
After we’d agreed on our plan and used up all the water in the Morning Glory’s tanks trying to wash away the sense offilth that clung to us after our brush with Norrin, Michael and I slept on it and started out in the morning to see if Edward’s credit was any good outside of Clerkenwell. Marsden had taken off to tend to his own mysterious needs as we went shopping.
Michael had directed me on and off buses and now we were strolling along a section of Oxford Street I hadn’t seen on my last trip to the area, looking for a building called the Pantheon. Traffic was a little lighter due to the intermittent rain, but we still had to dodge a few unneeded umbrellas, and the pedestrians were grumpier to make up for their sparseness.
“Are you sure shopping with this guy’s credit card is safe?” Michael asked. “I mean. y’know. these guys are dangerous company.”
“Agreed, but it’s a simple test without much risk,” I replied. “They either accept the card or they don’t. And if the use gets reported, I don’t think we’re going to be mobbed by vampires in Marks and Spencer. If they don’t take the card, then I’ll know I was set up right from the start.”
Michael had been the one to suggest “Marks and Sparks” on the grounds that it had nearly everything we needed, but it wasn’t anything special—just a chain store, really, no matter how nice. Opulent Harrods, on the other hand, seemed far too likely to be observed by exactly the people we didn’t want to tangle with.
“Oh. You know, you—you don’t have to. do this. I could go to the cops.”
I didn’t stop walking down the sidewalk, which was gently speckled with rain and lined with tall, broad buildings—some older than my home state—but I did slow down a bit to match Michael’s suddenly dawdling stride. I glanced at him but didn’t stare; I could see he was wrestling with his thoughts.
“Do you want to?” I asked. “We can alter the plan if you’ve changed your mind.” I doubted that would work out well for the Novaks or myself, but I didn’t want to give Michael the impression I was pushing him. It seemed unfair after all the weirdness he’d had to endure that he should also be coerced by someone like me, someone he was inclined to trust, but probably shouldn’t even know. I was coercing him a bit and I knew it. I needed Alice dead in a permanent way and I had to get Will out of her clutches. I didn’t mention the difficulty of getting the police involved, or explaining the problem to them in a way that didn’t make Michael sound crazy. It wasn’t likely to happen that way. I let him argue himself out.
“We. could ask Sekhmet. ” Now, that was a pretty crazy suggestion. Suicidal even.
“Sekhmet? Where did you come up with that name?”
“You and Marsden talked about her. I know who she is—she’s the Egyptian goddess of war and justice and women.”
“Do you believe in goddesses now, Michael?”
He glanced away. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I believed in ghosts or vampires. or talking statues. But if she’s real. wouldn’t she be more powerful than we are? Couldn’t she just. fix it?”
“I wish. I don’t think that’s how she works, though. She’s kind of fierce and. well, I don’t think it would be a good idea to ask. She told me to go solve my own problems and do it right or she’d be angry. Angry goddesses are a lot of trouble. They usually break more than they fix.” And I didn’t want my heart to be dinner for Anubis.
Michael looked pensive, nodding. “Hm. Yeah. I guess she might not be a good choice.”
“Do you want to back out?”
“No. I guess not. I’m just worried. I mean. what’s going to happen.?” Michael looked small and scared.
“To you and Will?” I finished.
He nodded, mute and keeping his head down as he walked on.
“Once we’re out of this, I think you’re safe. Alice is the only person interested in hurting you two to get at me. One of us will not be walking away from this. I intend for it to be Alice.”
“I feel creepy when you say that. I mean. ” He dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “We’re talking about killing someone.”
“Yeah. It creeps me out, too.”
The buildings of stone and brick kept reeling by and it seemed surreal that we were having this conversation on a civilized street in London with a mist-fine rain touching our faces and dewing our hair with tiny lights and jewels. A dank bar in some abandoned, dark place would have been more appropriate. We walked for a while without speaking, our pace more normal, but our thoughts bleak.
“We’re going to do it. Aren’t we?”
“I’m going to do it,” I said. “Because I have to. You’re going to stay out of it, wait with the bikes, and then take Will and run like hell.”
“They’ll be waiting for you—they know you’ll come after my brother.”
“I’m counting on it. We’ve got a plan, remember? And if that doesn’t work, I’ll wing it.”
“Do you need ice cream for that, too?” He snorted a sudden laugh, breaking the uncomfortable tension with a blow of the improbable.
“I hope not. I barely fit in these pants as it is.”
We found the big department store and went inside to test the legitimacy of my job through retail therapy. In the end, the card worked like a magic wand and nothing bad happened. Knowing Edward hadn’t hung me out to dry was more reassuring than I’d expected, but I thought I’d better make the rest of my arrangements without getting back in contact with him, just in case. Michael split to drop off supplies and start moving the motorcycles. I watched him go and then doubled back to the ladies’ washroom to change into my new clothes before I went on about my end of the business.
A little restored and dressed in clean, inconspicuous clothes and practical shoes, I set out to do something about the key Purcell had given me. Marsden had identified it as a very old-fashioned safe-deposit box key—the sort banks had stopped using decades ago. But a few strange little companies still maintained private vaults the key would fit. He’d suggested the most likely one, given the age and financial connections in the case, and I headed there.
My destination proved to be one of four dozen near-identical shop fronts located in an elegant Georgian arcade—a sort of eighteenth-century shopping mall—behind a tragically grandiose facade from a much later era. Ironically, it wasn’t very far from Will’s flat, just north of Piccadilly Circus. The arcade was sandwiched between the Royal Academy and a red-and-white masonry building from the late Victorian era that might have been right at home in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.
A gentleman wearing a vest and a top hat decorated with gold braid asked, “May I assist you, madam?” as he saw me peering at my directions.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about being “madam,” but I wasn’t too proud to ask after the business Marsden had suggested. The long, sky-lighted row of shops was rather more upscale than I’d expected when Marsden had called the shop “an old silversmith’s,” and while I’m not easily intimidated, I know better than to stand out if I can avoid it. But the beadle, as he called himself—which I guessed was a kind of private policeman in a Victorian suit—didn’t mind. His accent was the kind of upper-grade working-class you’d expect of his job—not too posh for the position, but not too dirty, either.
“Ah,” he said, smiling a bit. “That would be down the other end, on the right as you go. The sign’s quite discreet, so you shall have to look sharpish just above the door, but you’ll know it by the silver angel in the window. Percy’s rather fond of that shop.” He gave the merest wink as he said it.
“Percy?” I asked.
“He’s our poltergeist. Don’t mind him and he won’t cause any bother.”
I had the impression that the beadle wasn’t entirely serious, but if he’d met some of the poltergeists I’ve known, he wouldn’t take it so lightly. I than
ked him and headed into Burlington Arcade, moving through a throng of ghostly shoppers dressed in clothes from the Regency to the modern. There was also a number of older ghosts doing somewhat less savory things, such as flinging garbage over the former garden wall against which the shops had been built. I imagined that the current row of shops was roofed over to put paid to that sort of shenanigans.
As I walked through the phantom crowd, something blinked and twinkled at me from the surfaces of glass panes and around the corners of doors. When I reached the silversmith’s I was looking for, my eye was drawn to the window where a silver figure about a foot high gleamed in the show lights. It was an angel standing on top of a box carved of cloudy crystal, its wings spread like a cape in the wind while streams of small, flat rectangles fell from its hands. I leaned closer, narrowing my eyes to study the odd figure, and saw that the wings were fletched in oblongs identical to the objects that fell from its hands. I tilted my head and got a better look at one: It was a letter, complete with a tiny chased stamp. The angel’s wings were made of letters. As I stared at it, the silver figure glimmered blue and gold and then turned its head and seemed to wink at me before returning to its normal state.
Something giggled.
“Percy, I presume,” I muttered, opening the shop door.
The interior glowed with light off the polished surfaces of hundreds of silver objects and sparkling glass cases under discreet white lights. A young woman in a stylish pantsuit turned to look at me as I entered. “Good morning,” she said. “How can I assist you today?” She sounded as if she saw me regularly and was delighted I’d dropped by. I was delighted myself to be talking to a perfectly ordinary human with nothing sinister in her energy corona and no otherworldly minions lurking about. I didn’t count Percy.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I have a key. ” I added, taking Purcell’s gift from my pocket and holding it up.
She blinked and looked a bit surprised. “Oh. The vault. You’ll want Mrs. Jabril, then. I’ll ring her. Which box?”
“Pardon me?”
“Which box did you come to open? I should let her know which key to fetch.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I have a power of attorney and a key, but I don’t know which box it opens.”
“Whose box is it, then?”
“It was kept by John Purcell for Edward Kammerling.”
“Ah. Right, then. I’ll ring Mrs. Jabril. She’ll know.”
She turned away and used an old-fashioned phone that sat on the counter. “Mrs. J, there’s someone here for Mr. Purcell’s vault.” She listened a moment and then replied. “No, it’s not the same fellow as last time. It’s a woman with legal papers.” Another pause to listen and then: “Yes, ma’am.”
She turned back to me. “Mrs. Jabril will be right down to help you. Would you care to look around while you wait or would you prefer a chair?”
I wanted to ask something else, but instead I said, “Could you tell me about your angel?”
“In the window? Everyone asks about him. He’s not for sale, I’m afraid—the first owner made him and he’s become a bit of a mascot. It’s the angel Gabriel. He’s a messenger, you know, which is why he has letters. Rather clever that, don’t you think?”
“Very,” I replied, not remarking that Gabriel is also thought by some to be the angel of death. So far, I’d found the silversmith’s to be an interesting choice for whatever Purcell had hidden.
A door opened at the back of the shop and a tiny, elderly woman in a restrained designer suit passed into the room. She was thin and her skin was brown and wrinkled like a mummy’s. Her round head was accentuated by a mass of frizzy amber curls that defied attempts to tame them into something more fashionable. Sharp, emerald eyes glittered in her hollowed face and sought me out like a hawk looking for mice. She stepped through a break in the counters and walked toward us with a firm tread, concentrating on me as if she could read my history and intentions by looking at my face. Her demeanor was no more disconcerting than her aura, which was pure gold and lay close to her shape as if she were gleaming with light borrowed from a roomful of bullion.
She stopped next to the clerk and folded her hands in front of herself—the left one was heavy with big brass keys. “Good morning,” she said, her vowels as round and dark as plums.
The shopgirl jumped as if she hadn’t noticed the other woman’s approach, though I didn’t know how anyone could have missed her. “Oh, Mrs. Jabril! You caught me unaware.”
Mrs. Jabril barely turned her head and gave her a cat smile. “Keep your wits about you, Ivy, or I may catch more than your ‘unaware’ someday.” She retrained her piercing gaze on me. “You have paperwork to prove you should have access to Mr. Purcell’s vault, miss?” She also pronounced it “PURSE-el” like Jakob had.
I offered her Edward’s limited power of attorney, which I took from my bag. “I’m Mr. Kammerling’s agent. Mr. Purcell gave me the key. He’s unable to come himself.”
She chuckled, and it sounded like the rolling of well-oiled but very old gears. “Of course he is.” She took the pages and read through them rapidly. “Have you identification proving you are Ms. Blaine?”
I handed her my passport, which she studied for a moment before looking up again. “This will do,” she added, returning the papers and passport to me. “I see you have the key with you. Come. We shall go down. Ivy, I shall let you know when we are done.”
“Yes, Mrs. Jabril,” the younger woman replied, relieved. I had the impression the older woman made her nervous.
Mrs. Jabril led me back the way she’d come, through the door and into a small office at the back of the building. An odd sort of platform lift formed the floor in one corner and we stepped onto it. My guide pulled a safety cage down around us, put one of her keys into a slot on the nearest upright, turned it, and trod on a button with her foot. The lift lurched and then sank smoothly below the floor. “There is only the one key and no other entrance,” she assured me. “Our vaults are very secure.”
“Why does a silversmith need a vault?” I asked as the platform continued down into a cold stone cellar.
“Before the rise of the great banks,” said Mrs. Jabril, pausing to raise the platform’s gates as we bumped to a halt, “goldsmiths were often the bankers and moneylenders of the day. But there was no place to store your valuables outside your own home or to get a small amount of cash for a short term. Silversmiths would occasionally act as. pawnbrokers of a sort to the gentry. It was not unusual for a bachelor to put the family silver into storage with a silversmith until he married and had a use for it again. If his pockets were to let, he might borrow against the weight value of the silver and pay it back when he was in brass again. The British pound sterling was tied to the value per weight of silver at the time, of course, so it was like you were trading commodities for cash. Not a word of gossip would attach to a gentleman, or lady, who paused on occasion to visit their family silversmith.”
She stepped down from the platform and made a directing wave at the stone-walled room and its ranks of metal-doored lockers of all sizes, lit by dim electric bulbs that were strung somewhat sloppily from the ceiling. “The first owner of the shop built these to store his patrons’ articles. Steel doors were fitted to replace the old iron ones in the nineteen thirties. They withstood the Blitz without so much as a buckle.”
“It’s impressive.”
“I shall not say it is as secure as the Bank of England, but unlike the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, we have never been robbed.” When she smiled, her teeth gleamed like sharp pearls.
I could see why any thief assaying this place might think twice. The stone walls supported a collection of mechanical contrivances that looked, at first glance, like a fantastic Rube Goldberg device for catching mice or fetching objects from the tops of the vaults. But as I studied the brass gears and levers and trails of tubes and wiring, the shape of the machine emerged as a gigantic, moving guillotine that could probably make a p
arty of robbers into hash in seconds—after securing all the vault doors with supplementary grids and bars, of course.
The rather grim mechanical marvel glinted with polish and oil, but even looking as deep into the Grey as I dared, I saw no sign it had ever fulfilled its deadly purpose. The vault was remarkably quiet in the Grey, except for the occasional flicker of Percy the poltergeist, though I supposed that shouldn’t have surprised me: Magic and technology have an uncomfortable relationship.
Mrs. Jabril smiled again as she saw me figure it out. “Mr. Jabril was fascinated with mechanics and clockworks. Had his father not been a silversmith, he would no doubt have become a watchmaker. Come along,” she added, walking forward into the stone embrace of the vaults.
I wondered exactly how distant was the relation between Mrs. Jabril and her mechanically inclined namesake. Given the sinister oddities I’d already encountered in London, I thought it might be healthier not to inquire.
“When was the last time anyone accessed this vault?” I asked as she stopped before one of the larger doors.
There was a tiny pause before she spoke again.
“You have all the right papers and you do not appear to be. malign in any way. You are not like Mr. Purcell and Mr. Kammerling, but I can see you are not. like other people.” She paused again before she added, “I shall answer your questions.”
She went still as she thought about my query, her eyes looking off to the side and I imagined—no, I was sure—I could hear the muted whirring of minuscule gears. “Just over three weeks ago, Mr. Purcell sent his assistant, Jakob, to place a few things in the vault. An unpleasant creature, that one. He also left a letter for me which asked that I open the vault for him later that week at half an hour before closing time. I did so. Mr. Purcell arrived exactly on time and replaced several objects as well as adding a box of papers and a letter that I believe is intended for you.”
Vanished g-4 Page 29