“I say,” he began. She spun and nearly stabbed him in the nose with a stiffened finger.
“Do me a favor and don’t, Charles,” she hissed. “Don’t say a single bloody word, or so help me I will strangle you with that gauche excuse for a necktie.” She led him down the stairs.
“This style of necktie is quite the rage in Berlin I’ll have you know,” he protested. Gallowglass was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, her legs extended in front of her as if she were at the seaside, rather than lounging in a foyer. Fleece’s men watched her warily, where they sat nursing their bruises. One of them, a big, muscular man dressed several societal notches above the rest, started up the stairs, glowering.
“Sadie, is everything all right?” he asked.
“Everything is well in hand, Albert darling. Charles was just leaving,” Sadie said. “Weren’t you, Charles?”
St. Cyprian didn’t reply. He looked Albert up and down. Then he looked at Sadie. “Bit—ah—meatier than your usual beau, Sadie, I must say.”
“Change is good,” Sadie said. “And what you think of anyone is no concern of mine, I assure you.”
St. Cyprian was about to reply, when Albert grabbed his arm. The big man had a strong grip. St. Cyprian looked down at the fingers curled around his bicep, and then at their owner. “Sadie was never one for the social niceties. Charles St. Cyprian, and you are…?”
“Shepherd,” Albert said, “Albert Shepherd, of the Southwick Shepherds.”
“That’s hardly your fault, old man. No need to apologize.” St. Cyprian grabbed Shepherd’s fingers and pried them loose from his arm. Shepherd balled his fists as St. Cyprian turned to face him.
“Albert—heel,” Sadie said. She stepped between them. St. Cyprian moved back. “Father had nothing to do with whatever you’re accusing him of, Charles,” she continued, stabbing the air with a finger for emphasis. He looked at her.
“You heard?”
“Almost everything.” She looked at him sternly. “Really Charles, to accuse my father—MY father—of theft and—and demonology is simply ludicrous. He’s a good man, not some common ruffian or back alley occultist.” She glanced pointedly at Gallowglass, as she looked up at them. Gallowglass blinked, and made to reply, but St. Cyprian silenced her with a gesture.
“Then I’ll apologize,” he said.
Sadie tossed her head and laughed. “You—apologize? That I’d like to see.”
“Not until I’m certain as you are that he didn’t do it,” St. Cyprian said. “And since you seem so sure, I’d wager that you’d know of who in the Order might be interested in stolen Chinese antiquities. Because someone carrying the mark of your order tried his hand at a bit of theft and got a knife in the guts for his trouble.” He knew that while Sadie Fleece might resemble an air-headed debutante, she was anything but. He’d spent enough time with her to know that the elder Fleece had raised his daughter in the strictest traditions of his order of utterly barmy militant occultists, and she’d taken to it like a duck to water.
Then, Sadie had always had a distressing obsession with order and place, in the few months he’d swanned about with her on his arm. It was as if she had an idea for how the world was supposed to be, and she intended to thump it until it fit. That said idea had been shaped by the Order’s ideals—ideals which made the Victorians look like the Georgians and the Georgians look like Picts—only made her all the more intimidating.
Sadie made a face. She shook her head. “Same old Charley. If you think I’m going to cast suspicion on a member of our Order, just to save my father a bit of annoyance, you need to think again. I…” she trailed off. Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, you’re certain that the man had our sign?”
“Oh yes, he was one of yours. Just like Gladstone was,” St. Cyprian said.
“That’s what I’m getting at—I’m sure that father told you that Gladstone wasn’t acting on our behalf, not in any sanctioned manner. He was deluded.” She hesitated. Then, with a frown, she said, “There are many in the Order who are unhappy with my father’s…perceived hesitancy in certain matters. They want more done, and faster.” Her eyes slid away, staring up at the oil portraits of the former leaders of the Order, and the Fleece family, which lined the hall and then, after the barest hesitation, towards Shepherd. St. Cyprian noted the look. Sadie had always been more than capable of subtlety, when she was so inclined. “Gladstone was one such. He was ousted from the Order weeks before he went on his little…tantrum.”
“He murdered two men. I’d hardly call that a tantrum,” St. Cyprian said.
“Be that as it may, he wasn’t the only one ousted recently,” she snapped.
St. Cyprian’s eyes narrowed. “You have a name in mind, then.” He didn’t look at Shepherd, who glowered down at him, his heavy features twisted in an expression of sour petulance.
“Wendy-Smythe,” she said. “Philip Wendy-Smythe. A fatuous, fat-headed fool. He lives in Kensington. Edwardes Square, I think.” She smirked. “He’s nothing but a dilettante, Charles, but I’d bet he’s your boffin. He’s got more money than sense, and he’s potty for antiquities of all shapes, sizes and pedigrees. He could very easily have used what few contacts he made before we gave him the boot to arrange such a robbery. Especially if the men in question were unaware of his ousting.”
“And the demon?” St. Cyprian said softly.
Sadie swallowed thickly. She reached up and touched the locket that dangled from around her neck and said, “He’s a dilettante, as I said, but a knowledgeable one. That’s why we allowed him to join in the first place.”
“Adding to the pool of wisdom, what?” St. Cyprian said. “I know how that goes.”
“You don’t have to stand in our path, Charles,” Sadie said intently. “We—I—would have gladly welcomed you into our ranks as full brother in our Great Endeavour.” Her face twisted into a frown. “But you had to be stubborn about it, like the conceited twit you are.”
“We are but as God made us,” St. Cyprian said.
“Then he has a lot to answer for,” Shepherd muttered.
St. Cyprian ignored him. He looked at Sadie. “Thank you, Sadie. I appreciate your help.”
“Do stop cluttering up my foyer, Charles. I really can’t stand the sight of you,” Sadie said, before turning on her heel and stalking back up the stairs, her shoulders straight and her spine ramrod stiff. Shepherd trotted after her, pausing at the top of the stairs to deliver one last parting glare before he followed her out of sight. Fleece’s men, recovered from their beating, moved forward slowly as if to usher them out, but not quite as threateningly as before. Gallowglass eyed them, and her hand strayed towards the pistol under her coat. They froze, staring at her. St. Cyprian strode towards the door.
“Come along, Ms. Gallowglass. I have a Wendy-Smythe to catch.”
“What about me?” Gallowglass asked as she trotted after him.
“Limehouse, Ms. Gallowglass.” He glanced at her. “I want you to find me a ghost.”
7.
Fleece watched through the window as St. Cyprian and his assistant moved off down the street. When they had been lost to sight, hidden within the throng of pedestrians, he let the curtain drop and turned. His eyes briefly scanned his desk, taking in the ephemera that had occupied his life for so many months. Ever since he’d made his damnable bargain with William Melion. He leaned back against the wall, suddenly light-headed. He pressed his fingertips to his brow. His skin was slick with sweat, despite the chill in the air.
Was it true, then? He’d never known Charles for a liar. Though the boy had all too many faults, a tendency towards fabrication wasn’t one of them. But if he were right…no. He couldn’t be. Such a thing was impossible.
Baphomet was safely locked away in a cell in a Hebridean monastery, chained by blessed mortar and iron bars forged by the hands of St. Dunstan, the devil-breaker himself. Melion had devised the binding incantations himself, with a bit of help from a third party of their mutual acquaintance
. But if Charles were right, if Baphomet were free…he felt his heart clench painfully in his chest at the thought.
They had spent much to capture the wily old devil. He did not like to think that all of their efforts had been for nothing. And if the creature were out and running wild in the world, there was no telling what sort of evil it might perpetrate. He had to find out. Better safe than sorry; that was the ideal that the Order of the Cosmic Ram lived by these days. He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and mopped at his face.
“Father? Are you well?”
Fleece opened his eyes. “Sadie,” he said, as his daughter came back into the office. She sounded worried. He pushed himself erect and stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Thank you. Your intervention was timely. That young fool has always had an uncanny knack for driving me to the edge of apoplexy.”
“You’re not alone in that, Sir Hermes,” Shepherd said, as he joined Sadie. The big man closed the door behind him. Fleece’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t care for Albert Shepherd. The man was a brute and a bully, for all that he was a believer. And while some had accused Fleece himself of similar habits, Shepherd seemed to indulge the baser aspects of his nature more readily, and with more enthusiasm than was entirely appropriate.
Why Sadie had seen fit to take up with him, Fleece couldn’t say. He could’ve asked her, but that had never been his way. His daughter knew her own mind even as her mother had, God rest her soul. In time, he hoped she would marry, and that her husband would lead the Order into the next century with her help. Once upon a time, he’d hoped that husband would have been Charles. Now, he’d settled for hoping it wouldn’t be Shepherd.
“Yes, well,” Fleece grunted, shrugging. He strode to his desk, his moment of weakness already receding into memory. “He brought me disturbing news, amidst the bluster.”
“So he said,” Sadie murmured. She glanced at Shepherd, and then added, “I put him on Wendy-Smythe’s trail, for the nonce. I thought it best to keep him occupied, until we can suss out the particulars of his claims.”
Fleece sat down. “Did you? Well, you know him better than I.” Shepherd flinched as he said it, and he restrained a smile. Sadie took the seat across from him.
“I do, and I know that he won’t give up, father. Especially if he thinks we’re involved in…whatever this is.” She smiled faintly. “Charles is one for grudges, you’ll recall.”
“In this case, it might be justified,” Fleece sighed. He leaned forward. “Someone is playing foul, my dear. One of our own is sitting on a slab in Limehouse, and Charles was going on about a demon.” He closed his eyes. He could almost smell it, though he knew it was far from here. It wasn’t the sort of odor that one forgot. The stink of hell itself, which clung to both air and memory with equal strength.
Memories rose like sand caught in a desert wind. He saw the ancient corpse-road from Damascus, broken before the time of Baibars, and stretching into the trackless wastes of the Syrian Desert towards cities and principalities long since lost to the ages. He felt the heat and the rough caress of rock and sand. He heard the clatter of hooves on stone, in ruins as the firelight flickered, and Melion’s rough voice, bellowing incantations as men screamed and died. Good men. Loyal soldiers of the Order.
Melion hadn’t been hard to convince, not after Fleece had offered the Order’s resources in helping him with his affliction. Fleece felt a moment of shame, as he thought about his last meeting with the other man. It hadn’t gone well. He’d offered to help Melion, but what Melion wanted was far too dangerous for Fleece to allow. The thing he wanted found was better left buried, and he’d told Melion so. The other man hadn’t taken it well. Fleece couldn’t blame him. Melion had risked much in Syria, on their behalf.
“But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and hairy ones shall dance there,” he murmured. Isaiah 13:21 had always been one of the more disturbing passages in the Bible. It referred to sinful Babylon, but was not every fallen city Babylon, in one way or another.
Like London, Babylon had grown past the borders of walls and territories, stretching out into the minds and souls of its people. It existed still, for all that it was only ruins and faint trails through the wilderness. The ghost of a once-towering metropolis, looming in the orange light of dusk. Fleece had seen it, and heard the wails of its long-dead populace, put to the sword by the soldiers of Cyrus the Great.
Babylon had its share of devils, and London as well, but none quite like the thing they’d dragged howling out of the Syrian sands, with Melion’s help. It had spat black truths at them, as well as twisted prophecies and wheedling promises, from its leaden box. He had not listened then, though he knew would eventually. It was a weapon. A tool to be employed, in divining future endeavors. Both on his behalf, as well as that of others—Melion had wrung the location of the object of his search from the devil. But it was only useful so long as it was controlled; contained in its cell, bound by wholesome magics and watched by the good brothers of that lonely, nameless monastery until the proper moment.
There was a time and a place for such things, and for this occasion, he’d chosen the vernal equinox, when the Cosmic Ram dominated the heavens and the fortunes of the Order were at their peak. The Order would come together at Wayebury, on the ancestral Fleece estates in Wiltshire, the place of its founding, and the demon would be put to the question there. The Order would learn what it must do to ensure the survival of the British Empire in the coming decades of turbulence their divinations had foretold.
“What was that, father? Something about dancing?” Sadie said, watching him. He blinked and shuddered, his memories sinking back and away. He looked at Shepherd. He had been in charge of seeing the devil to its new home in the Hebrides, away from the eyes of any save the members of the Order of the Cosmic Ram.
“What of our…Syrian friend?” he asked, voice hoarse. “You saw him to his new accommodations?”
Shepherd tensed. Then, he nodded tersely. “Quite. He complained vociferously, but he’s bound in stone and iron, and not likely to be out causing the kind of mischief St. Cyprian was yapping about.” He sounded as if he considered the question insulting. Good, Fleece thought, I’ll put a few holes in that air-bladder of an ego of yours, my lad. For all his faults, Charles had never been arrogant. Too impressed with his own cleverness, perhaps, but never arrogant.
“There are other demons in the aether, father.” Sadie spoke calmly. She showed none of the nervousness that characterized either of the two men in the room her father noted, with some pride. She clapped her hands together and pushed herself to her feet. “Still, it will be easy enough to check. Shepherd shall contact our man in the Hebrides, and I shall have a chinwag with our chaps in the Limehouse constabulary.”
Fleece didn’t reply. Instead, he picked up one of the books on his desk and hefted it. “Had you been in here earlier, my dear? Only I found these out of their accustomed places. As well as the maps of our Wiltshire holdings. Were you researching something in particular?” He was careful to let no hint of accusation creep into his voice. Sadie was as sensitive as her mother had been, and took umbrage where none was intended. He didn’t feel up to an argument today.
“Merely educating myself as a lady ought, father,” Sadie said, as she strode towards the door. Fleece watched she and Shepherd go, the book still in his hand.
“Well, isn’t this a bit of a blithering honker?” Sadie Fleece said, as soon as they were out of earshot of her father’s office. She whirled and stabbed a finger into Shepherd’s broad chest. “I told you that we shouldn’t have trusted Arbuthnot and that coterie of scapegraces to do things properly.”
“Darling, we weren’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to such fellows,” Shepherd whispered. “I did warn you. And what was the idea of sending…it? We can’t afford to—”
“We,” Sadie repeated, drawing the word out past its recommended length. Shepherd twit
ched, as if she’d struck him. She contemplated doing just that, but settled for patting his cheek. “Oh Albert, you’re lucky you’re so good looking, because otherwise you’re a bit of a flat tire.”
“Steady on,” Shepherd said. He made to grab her hand, and she jerked it out of reach. “And what was with that look you shared with that ass, St. Cyprian? A bit too steamy for my tastes, what?”
“Oh dash it all. Give a chap a bit of a fumble and he thinks he owns you,” Sadie said. “There is no ‘we’ here, Albert. Just me. You are my henchman. My dogsbody, if you will. The Launce to my Proteus, the Mardian to my Cleopatra, the Peter to my Petruchio.”
“Just like that poor fool Gladstone?” he said.
Sadie glared at him. Then she flicked his nose sharply. He flinched back. “No, Albert. Gladstone was, at best, an extra in the great show that is life. Now stop being a sap. Charles is smarter than he looks, unlike you. And it won’t take him long to realize that he’s being led down the primrose path. We need to act quickly. We need to move our new acquisition.”
“Your father is suspicious as well,” Shepherd said, frowning. “Did you see the way the old codger was glowering at me?”
“He always looks at you like that,” Sadie said. “But you’re right.” She shook her head. “I left the books out. Stupid mistake. Don’t know why I did it…”
“I do,” Shepherd said, flatly.
Sadie looked at him. “Don’t start, Albert.”
“I warned you, Sadie. That…thing is dangerous. It crawls into your head, like a rat into a cellar, and scratches around. I felt it pawing at my thoughts all the way back from Syria, and your father felt it as well. The only one of us who didn’t seem bothered by it was that boisterous fool, Melion.”
“Melion has enough demons to contend with, to hear father tell it,” Sadie said. She led Shepherd back down the stairs and out into the back garden. Flower grew in neat boxes which lined tidily maintained brick walls. The garden was orderly, like everything else she had a hand in. From chaos, order, she thought.
The Jade Suit of Death (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist Book 2) Page 6