Morris found the predictability of the long-dead to be a source of comfort. He liked when things did what they were supposed to. Egg-shaped and dressed in civil servant greys and browns, colors that made his doughy features look even more so, Morris liked to think of himself as an example of new and better species of civil servant. He was a bureaucrat, and good at it. He was also not afraid to get down in the muck with the proles, when necessary. Dirty fingernails and mud on the cuffs and all that. It looked good on a report. And the Ministry was all about reports.
The Ministry of Esoteric Observation was a nondescript building near Whitehall, with quotas, allocations and stuffy offices filled with mouldering paperwork. It was a model of modern efficiency, and the men who worked for it prided themselves on their political and scientific acumen. Some said that it was where magic went to die, and in his quieter moments, Morris thought that it couldn’t do so soon enough.
Magic was nasty. It was disorderly and foul and vicious. It upended the sky and threw the earth to the stars, crumbling foundations and traditions which had protected England and it ancillaries for centuries. Magic needed to die, so that mankind might flourish, free of its slippery shadows and benighted superstitions. Napoleon had known that. Morris liked to think of himself as a Napoleon for a new age, only English rather than Corsican and not in the habit of invading Russia on a belligerent whim.
Granted, perhaps that was hubris talking. Nonetheless, occasionally one was forced to bolster one’s reputation as an able man and invade Egypt. Or, as in this case, act quickly and decisively on information given through back-channels, in order to thwart a dangerous, and not to mention potentially embarrassing, plot.
He leaned back in his chair and fished out his pocket watch. He opened it and squinted, trying to make out the time in the torchlight reflected on the face. There was only torch, and it was across the cell he sat in, mounted near the door.
The cell was small; the better to be hidden from prying eyes. There were a number like it, scattered throughout the Tower’s length, each with its own unique occupant, and each specifically designed to hold said occupant. The doors to these cells were accessible only to those who had the wit to see them, and their warders never slept. But that did not make them impenetrable, sadly.
Morris shifted his weight, as he sat in the dark, trying to get comfortable. It would have been nigh-impossible, even under better circumstances. This cell in particular was unpleasant, and its occupant even more so. He glanced at the flat, slightly raised stone that marked the oubliette in the cell’s centre. Signs both strange and familiar had been chiselled onto its surface—crosses, pentacles, and other, more esoteric things. All to keep the bones within safely at rest. There were other sigils marked on the walls and floor and ceiling…wards and sigils meant to keep things out, and one thing in particular in.
He heard a rustle of cloth and shivered. He was not alone in the cell. He took his Webley out of his coat pocket and checked it over with brisk efficiency. It was more to keep himself occupied, than out of any fear that the weapon might misfire. “Are you certain that it’s to be tonight?” he asked softly.
There was no answer. He shook his head. “This is highly irregular. Surely the warders will see to any intrusive elements…”
“Which warders did you mean? The living men…or the other ones?” It was a woman’s voice, silky, but lacking in warmth. He could not see her in the dark of the cell, but that wasn’t a surprise given her unique talents.
“Either,” he said.
“Neither will serve tonight. This time, they know what to expect.”
They, Morris thought, wondering who ‘they’ was. What he said was, “Knowing and being able to do anything about it are two different things.”
“Tell me, Morris, do you honestly think that your lot are alone in their capacity to understand and use the black arts for banal purposes?”
Morris grimaced. “We do not use the black arts.”
“Then what would you call this cell, with its hastily scrawled adornments?” Another rustle of cloth. He twitched as something that might have been a finger traced itself along the back of his scalp. He didn’t turn around. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“A precaution,” he said. “A prison cell, designed to hold a very special prisoner.” He glanced at the oubliette again, and then hurriedly looked away. “Using tried and tested methods, honed and perfected according to scientific process.”
A trill of laughter made him flush. Angry, he nearly rose to his feet. He squashed the feeling with a strength born of experience. Before he could formulate a reply, he heard the sound of someone approaching the cell from the outside. He hunched forward in his chair, every nerve twitching, every sense alert.
Outside, something moaned. The sound sent a thrill of repulsion through him. Then, he heard a mumbled voice, and there was a sound like wind swirling in a tunnel, and a foul smell filled the air. From behind him, his companion murmured, “I told you so.”
“Quiet,” he hissed.
There was a rattle from the door’s lock, and it swung open silently. A man stepped in, illuminated by an ugly glow; he was dressed like a second-story man or a safecracker, in a flat cap and battered duffel coat. Charms and holy symbols dangled in bunches from his neck and pockets, and he held a withered human hand out before him like a lantern. It was from the hand that the glow originated—or, rather, from the burning wicks mounted on each stiffened finger.
Morris felt ill, as he watched the glow approach. He knew what the hand was; he’d read Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends, and knew a hand of glory when he saw one. The hand of a hanged man, coated in wax to make a tool for a thief. He could feel its power seeping into him, making his limbs as heavy as lead, and dulling his senses. It was said that a hand of glory could open any lock, enable its bearer to pass through doors and walls like a ghost, and inflict a malevolent somnolence on those who saw its light.
Thus, it was with some relief that Morris watched as the thief snuffed the flames on the fingers of the hand, and then carefully stowed it in the satchel slung over his shoulder. That too Morris understood. A hand of glory was powerful, but untrustworthy. Bad things were said to happen, if the fingers were left alight for too long. More than just the walls of houses grew thin, when that happened. He felt nervous energy flood through him, as the glow faded, and the thief approached the oubliette, pulling a pry-bar out of his satchel.
“That’s far enough,” Morris said. He pushed himself out of his seat. “Hands up, if you please.” The would-be thief spun on the balls of his feet, moving quicker than Morris had thought possible. He held something inelegant and German in his hand—a Bergmann semi-automatic pistol, Morris thought, even as he tried to raise his own stubby little Webley to meet the threat. Too slow, he knew. Then there was a flash of red cloth and pale flesh, and the man was toppling backwards, both hands pressed to his throat. He hit the floor a moment after the Bergmann, and thrashed for a moment as blood spurted from between his slackening fingers.
His attacked straightened from her crouched position, and turned, smiling slightly. Her teeth were thin and long. “You see, Morris? I did say,” the pale woman murmured, as she smoothed the folds of her dress. She wasn’t tall, but even so, gave the impression of height. She was the color of milk, with a flapper’s bob that was of similar hue. Besides her dress, and the blood on her fingers, the only spot of color on her was in her eyes, which peered out of her face like rubies set in marble. “When has the Westenra Fund ever been amiss, when it comes to our particular…interest?”
“Obsession, Miss Harker,” Morris corrected petulantly. He eyed the dead man with distaste. “Did you really have to—to rip his throat out?”
“No,” Harker said, holding her reddened fingers up to the light. “But I wished to do so. And so I did. You can always have one of your pet necromancers root around in his guts for confirmation of what I’ve told you.”
Morris made a face. In truth haruspicy, in this
case, was not necessary. The cell was a spirit-box as much as anything else, designed to trap most non-corporeal manifestations. The soul of their unfortunate thief would still be here, bewildered and frightened, when the Ministry’s specialists came to collect him. “Yes,” he muttered, dropping his pistol back into his coat pocket. He plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at his face and jowls. “Still, dashed unpleasant. There’s blood everywhere.”
“Not everywhere,” Harker said, gesturing towards the oubliette. “Wouldn’t want any getting on him, now would we?”
“No?” Morris asked, nastily. “No lingering traces of filial affection, Miss Harker?”
The woman looked at him steadily, her red eyes shining in the torchlight. Her gaze flickered to the oubliette, for just a moment. “No,” she said after a long moment. She looked at him, fixing him with her eyes. “And you should know better than to ask, Mr. Morris.”
He shivered and inclined his head. “You are correct, of course. Do forgive me; bad case of mouth, foot and insertion, yes?” He looked down at the body. “It’s troubling that he got so far, given how much effort we’ve put into protecting the whereabouts of the Bloody Baron.”
“Count, surely,” Harker murmured.
“Neither, in fact,” Morris sniffed. He took off his spectacles and began to rub them furiously with his handkerchief. “Voivode, perhaps is a better term. Means warlord or some such rot…”
“I know what it means, Morris,” Harker said. She reached down and grabbed the body by one ankle. She dragged it away from the oubliette with little apparent effort. “As you yourself pointed out, I am intimately familiar with the occupant of that square of stone. He would have referred to himself as ‘king’, I think. That was how he thought of himself, I’m told. A king among horrors, a king vampire of the undead.”
“Well…pride goes before a fall, they say,” Morris sniffed. He smiled down at the oubliette. “King or no, he’s now just a pile of slightly singed bones. And I intend to see that he stays that way. But…” He hesitated.
Harker smiled. “But this is the fourth such attempt to steal his mortal remains in as many weeks,” she said. “And the Ministry is worried about a fifth, and a sixth and so on.”
Morris stared at her. He licked his lips. “How did you know?”
“Obsession, Morris,” she said, “Remember?”
He frowned. “Yes, well, that aside you are right,” he said, turning away. “The Tower is, contrary to popular belief, not impregnable. It is as good as, for our purposes, but sadly, that no longer seems to be the case where our Wallachian guest is concerned.” He flapped a hand at the oubliette. “Perhaps it is time we returned him to those with an abiding, and well-documented interest in seeing to his captivity.”
Harker looked at him. “Other than us, you mean?”
Morris gestured dismissively. “There are others with prior claim. And they have not been shy about stating such.” He smiled. “Perhaps, now is the time, eh? A rapprochement, of sorts, an olive branch to our opposite numbers in foreign lands, with whom our relationship might have, of late, grown particularly strained.” He nodded. “Yes…yes, I think that is just what the situation calls for.”
He laughed. “And I think I know just the chap to see to it.”
2.
The Strand, City of Westminster, London
St. Cyprian handed his coat and hat to the coat-check girl and took in the dining lounge of the Savoy Hotel. As ever, it was full to bursting of bright young things, movers, shakers, and everyone in between. On the stage, Archibald Griffiths Dance Band was in full swing—trombones, saxophones, violins, the works. It was a raw and lively sound, and the dance floor, newly introduced by the Savoy’s owner, Rupert Carte, was full of the best and brightest of St. Cyprian’s generation not currently mouldering in a field in Flanders.
He caught sight of Morris’ bald, egg-shell scalp amongst the pomade and cloche hats, and wound his way towards the man from the Ministry. Morris almost choked on a mouthful of beef when St. Cyprian slapped him jocularly on the back before sitting down. As the little man coughed and gasped, St. Cyprian shook his head. ‘Morris, I know you were a scholarship boy, but I assume you were taught proper table manners at Cambridge. Chew, man, don’t inhale.’
Morris swallowed and glared at him. ‘You’re late.’
‘And you’re gnawing on your food like it was trench rations. The Savoy employs one of the finest chefs this side of the Channel. Slow down and enjoy it.’
‘Needs salt,’ Morris grunted.
St. Cyprian shook his head ruefully, and signalled a waiter. “The finer things in life are wasted on you, I fear.” He murmured his order to the attentive waiter, who poured him a drink, and turned his attentions to the dance floor. He tapped his fingers in time to the music, until Morris made a disapproving noise. St. Cyprian looked at him. “What?”
“Must you?”
“It’s a delightful tune, Morris. Take the broom out,” St. Cyprian said.
Morris grimaced. “If you’re going to be vulgar, I’m not going to be able to finish my meal,” he said. He pointed his fork at St. Cyprian. “Watch your tone.”
“Morris, you wouldn’t have invited me, if you weren’t looking to woo me to some effort or other. And I must warn you, right out of the gate, that I am quite simply exhausted. It has been a hell of a few weeks, and frankly, I’m looking forward to some much needed relaxation,” St. Cyprian said, turning his attention back to the dancers.
“Yes, I’d heard about your little confrontation at a certain auction house. Jolly good show, that, I must admit. The Creeping Man is gone for good, I trust?”
St. Cyprian shrugged. “Who can say, Morris? He’s come back before.” He took a sip of his drink and said, “Speaking of which…I’m told that—ah—package I turned over to the Ministry has been duly logged and inhumed somewhere safe?”
“Package?” Morris blinked owlishly. “Ah, yes, our Chinese visitor. Yes, we’ve taken all precautions with that one.” He gestured pointedly with his butter-knife. “It cost quite a bit to craft a sarcophagus entirely from jade, you know. Are you quite certain it’ll hold him?”
“I believe so,” St. Cyprian said. “Has he acted up at all?”
Morris frowned. “No, thankfully. I’d like to ship the bloody beast back to China, frankly. Let them deal with him.” He sighed. “Still, probably safer to hold onto him for the time being. Who knows what sort of mischief he could get into, if he got loose.” He cocked his head. “Quite virulent, that sort of thing, I’m given to understand.”
“Sometimes,” St. Cyprian said. “Werewolfery is hardly a well-trod path of inquiry.”
Morris made a face. “Still…for all that I find the late, unlamented Miss Fleece’s intentions reprehensible, I can see where such an idea might have seemed strategically sound. Imagine it, a tide of slavering beasts, their numbers increasing exponentially as they grind the enemy under through sheer, berserk attrition.” He sounded almost wistful. “Under the proper circumstances, with the proper oversight, why, they’d be a weapon to put poison gas to shame. A plague, to be unleashed upon the enemies of our empire…”
“Until they inevitably slipped whatever leash you’d put on them, and became, like the Satan of scripture, as lions seeking whom they might devour,” St. Cyprian said firmly. He frowned. He could practically hear the gears turning in Morris’ devious little brain. Show a bureaucrat like Morris a horror out of space and time, and they immediately began to calculate how it might be put to a more patriotic use. “Which is why I’ll be adding an irregular pilgrimage to wherever you’ve stashed him to my annual itinerary. Just to be sure that the wards and bindings I wove about his desiccated carcass have not been breached.”
“Your mistrust wounds me, Charles. And after I let your Miss Andraste slip away to New York uncontested,” Morris said primly, pushing at his peas with the tip of his knife. He smiled unpleasantly at St. Cyprian’s expression. “Really now, did you think
I wouldn’t see through that little ruse with the bodies?”
“Regardless of what I might have thought, she’s gone and safely out of your pudgy grip, Morris old thing,” St. Cyprian said, after a moment. He’d known better than to hope that he could keep the wool pulled over Morris’ eyes permanently.
Aife Andraste’s face swam to the surface of his thoughts, summoned by Morris’ words—dark, and just this side of exotic looking—and he twitched, banishing the images before they had a chance to settle on the surface of his mind. Thinking of her, pleasant as it was, brought with it memories of the Ripper which he was in no hurry to experience again.
A powerful medium, Andraste had been forced by a group of amateur demonologists calling themselves the Whitechapel Club to make contact with the Outer Void for reasons he was still unclear of. Regardless of their intentions, something wholly malign and monstrous had responded, and used the unfortunate Miss Andraste as a conduit into reality. The Ripper, as it had named itself, had carved a red trail of slaughter across London’s East End before he and Gallowglass had managed to send it fleeing back to where it hailed from, its metaphorical tail between its legs. In the aftermath, Andraste had made for New York, where he hoped she’d stay out of trouble, and out of the clutches of the Ministry.
To men like Morris, Andraste wasn’t a person. She was a tool, to be employed or disposed of, for the good of the Empire. She deserved better than that, St. Cyprian thought. Morris smirked, as if he were reading St. Cyprian’s thoughts, and the latter coughed and leaned back. “Morris, I would rather not discuss business over dinner. Bad for the digestion, what? So why not cut to the chase? Lovely as it is to see you, and be treated to dinner on the Ministry’s tab, let’s get to the point, shall we?”
“Weren’t you the one telling me to slow down and enjoy myself a moment ago?” Morris asked, his smile slipping into a sneer. “Impatience is not an indulgence one can afford in our line, Charles. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”
The Jade Suit of Death (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist Book 2) Page 21