Hatshepsut's Collar (The Artifact Hunters #2)

by A. W. Exley

  “You don’t have to go.” Loki’s voice softened. “Leave it to the lads.”

  Resolve slid down her spine and wrapped around her vertebrae. The plan still stank of suicide, but if Nate took the long walk to the gallows, she was dead by the end of the week anyway. I definitely need to visit that jeweller for one last great hurrah.

  She shook her head. “If I’m going to die, I want to see it coming. I would rather be in the thick of it than pacing in Mayfair. So the plan is me, Miguel, and whatever route he has up his sleeve that goes under the Thames.” God, I hope there aren’t any water rats. They’re vicious buggers.

  A serious veil fell over Loki’s face for a moment. “How long has he got?”

  “Victoria gave him until the end of the week, and then he takes a short walk to Tower Green and the long drop.” Her heart constricted. Despite her anger, she still loved him right through to the marrow of her bones. She had been given too little time with him and she jealously demanded more, even if only to rage at him about his deceit.

  Loki breathed out a long sigh and squeezed her hand. “Three days left. Let’s make it tomorrow night, then.”

  The decision made, the lump took up permanent residence in Cara’s stomach. “There is also an important chest that needs to make its way to your airship. I’m honeymooning in Russia, once we liberate my errant husband, so I need to pack up my new wardrobe as well.”

  Jackson poured more beer, and they hammered out the finer details of how exactly to liberate Nate from the Tower and from under the noses of a thousand soldiers and Victoria’s finest airships.

  couple of hours later, full dark claimed the city with the exception of the dim yellow circles thrown by the street lamps. The carriage returned to the Mayfair house. Miguel excused himself and headed away with a slight sway to his steps.

  “I’ll go get changed,” Cara called to Jackson as she headed for the curved main staircase.

  “Don’t forget your little cap guns.” Jackson’s voice rang out. “Better safe than sorry.” He gave her a wink before disappearing down the hallway.

  Cara changed her clothes and descended the stairs to find Jackson waiting in the entranceway, lounging against the doorjamb. He had also changed, now clothed in black from head to foot and looking more criminal than usual. A shudder ran down her spine and she was glad they were both on the same side now.

  She just didn’t know what side they were on.

  Cara chose to dress in earthier tones with dark brown breeches and boots and a steel grey corset with a dark grey frock coat to keep out the chill. Her pistols were slung at her hip and under her armpit in their usual places. With her faithful friends Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson, she was ready to tackle whatever the evening brought.

  “No carriage,” Jackson said as he held open the heavy, metal front door for her. “Too noticeable.”

  They walked to the end of the driveway in silence, their boot heels loud on the cobbled drive, their breath curling from them on the chill autumn air. Shadows danced from the electric lights held aloft on wrought iron limbs. Once they hit the main street, Jackson hailed a small steam powered hansom cab. They rode in silence to within walking distance of the hangar when Jackson signalled the driver to halt. He tossed him a coin and ushered Cara down the pavement on foot. She shot him curious looks, but he remained tight lipped. She expected to head for the hangar, but he appeared oblivious to the Thames and the awaiting docks.

  Questions swirled in her brain, almost drowned out by the incessant curiosity clamouring to be satisfied. Yet again she remembered how little she knew about the true nature of Nate’s activities.

  They stopped before a row of plain terrace houses, separated from the docks and hangars by a wide road. Street lights were few and far between in this neighbourhood. They occupied the ends and middle of the road only. Darkness stretched between the ineffectual orbs of soft yellow light.

  The houses were tall, narrow, and made of dark stone. The buildings looked like elderly undertakers leaning on each other. Soldiers patrolled up and down the road, blocking their path to the hangar as they stopped all traffic heading onto the wharf.

  Jackson gave them a quick look, then took her elbow and steered her toward the end house. A climbing rose scrambled over the low brick wall, separating what was once a garden from the street. The rose stretched limbs in all directions, reaching out for attention, pruning, and sunlight. Clad in gloom, the front yard mainly held overgrown weeds crawling across the broken path to the front door. A few tall dahlias nodded their spent seed heads back into the grass next to scraggly lavenders frantically gesturing for long forgotten trims.

  “What are we doing?” Cara hissed, trying not to attract the attention of the bored soldiers exchanging small talk and cigarettes.

  Their laughter washed over them as one of the men told a raucous joke.

  “Do you want to explain what we’re doing to that lot?” he asked under his breath as he fished a small key out of his pants pocket. He unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold. He glanced left and right before waving for Cara to join him. She walked into a tiny entranceway with a steep set of stairs rearing up before her. A slim corridor ran along the side of the stairwell. The wallpaper was old stained stripes, and small holes showed where moths and mice tried to eke out a living in the sack lining of the wall. The only illumination came from the thin sliver of yellow from the street light, which rushed through the open door.

  “This way.” He closed the door and the small shaft of light crept back to the street. Cara had to rely on the memory burned into her brain of where stairs and corridor lay. Jackson’s footsteps echoed and vanished straight down the narrow hallway. She followed closely behind, listening to the henchman’s deep breathing to know how far ahead he walked. The footsteps halted and green flared before her eyes. Jackson held a luminescent tube, throwing a globe of ethereal light around them.

  “Stole them from the Enforcers,” he muttered to explain the light. He had shaken the vial to activate a chemical reaction that emitted the glow. He gave her a grin before taking a sharp right turn and another set of stairs appeared, leading down below street level.

  A long pine table dominated the kitchen, used as a place to eat and a work top. Jackson grabbed a lantern from the dusty surface and took a box of matches from by the range. He struck one on the cast iron exterior and lit the wick. Once burning, he closed the glass door and took up the handle.

  With the better light source, Cara could examine her surroundings. It looked like a family home. A child’s hand-carved high chair stood in one corner. Embroidered aprons hung on hooks by the old coal range. An empty vase sat in the middle of the table, waiting to be filled with wild flowers from the tiny garden visible through the grimy glass inlaid in the back door.

  “Now would be the time you explain what the hell we’re doing.”

  “Avoiding the soldiers, doll, they’re watching for us. Lyons has a back door to the hangar in here.” He turned to give her a wolfish grin.

  She narrowed her eyes, suspicion rearing its head. “You look like you know your way around.”

  The smile faltered. “This is my place. I used to live here before I moved to rooms in the big house.”

  Cara caught a ragged breath. Further questions died on her tongue as she watched the henchman move around the room.

  Jackson ran a finger over the tray of the highchair and brushed his hand over an apron covered in faded daisies. He placed a gentle kiss on the hem before he headed for the pantry door and flung it open.

  Her heart constricted at watching the private moment. She wondered what happened to the woman who embroidered the apron and the child who once waited for dinner.

  “Come on,” he called to her.

  Cara ventured into the pantry at his invitation.

  With a glance over his shoulder to ensure she followed, he pushed on the back wall. The room emitted a low groan before part of the wall moved inward to reveal a tunnel. Jackson disappeared int
o the Earth.

  The passage was high and narrow, enough to accommodate a tall and muscular man as though he walked unceasingly through a row made of upright caskets. The timbers holding the soil at bay were sturdy and steel beams bolstered the wood at regular intervals. Someone had put effort into the construction of this backdoor, ensuring it wouldn’t collapse under the weight of the traffic on the road above their heads.

  Cara kept numerous questions to herself and followed Jackson’s figure for long minutes, keeping her claustrophobia chained inside. It wasn’t being underground that rattled her. She simply liked to have a couple of directions to run in, if necessary. Despite the robustness of its design, her mind kept telling her a collapsed tunnel didn’t have many visible escape routes. She was loathe to show any kind of weakness to Nate or his men, not wanting to give them an opening to treat her like a proper lady. She took a deep breath of warm and stale air. The earth pressed around her, stealing down her throat and into her lungs.

  “Are we there yet?” She couldn’t see past Jackson and had no idea what lay in front of them.

  He halted. “Yip.”

  She peered around him at another doorway. This one made of metal with a tumbler lock. His fingers spun the numbers and she heard a click. Blessed fresh air wafted down the tunnel and she took several deep lungs’ full.

  Jackson gave her a wry look. “Don’t like being underground?”

  She snapped her eyes to him. “No, I don’t like the prospect of being squashed by my environment.”

  He gave a chuckle and stepped through the door. Cara looked around and realised they stood on the landing of the stairwell, leading down to the Pit. She had never noticed the door before, but then you weren’t supposed to be able to. Once closed, the other side blended into the wooden panelling of the surrounding walls, making it all but invisible to those on the stairs.

  Hidden doors behind hidden doors. I’ve stumbled into a labyrinth with no exit.

  They descended the last flight of stairs and entered the Pit. Deep under the hangar and lined with stone blocks, soft electric lights around the perimeter highlighted the walls of weapons and instruments of torture. The middle of the room contained a large, black mat for sparring. Cara spent a number of afternoons here, working off excess energy as she traded blows with Miguel or Nate.

  Jackson strode across the room, heading for the wall opposite the stairs. A double steel door with multiple rivets guarded whatever lay beyond. Large bolts at top and bottom held the two sides closed, each secured with a padlock. Cara’s vivid imagination had failed her at the door in the past. Part of her didn’t want to know what lay behind, but she was about to find out.

  “I guess the risk of full disclosure is finding out something you don’t want to know.” She shot a glance at her accomplice.

  Jackson reached into his pocket and extracted two shiny brass keys. He unlocked the padlocks and pulled them off the bolts, laying them on the ground next to the door. He drew back the heavy bolts and swung open the riveted doors.

  “After you.” He gave a sweeping gesture accompanied by a bow.

  She hesitated on the threshold, one foot raised, her eyes adjusting to the softer light in this part of the Pit before placing her foot on the other side and stepping within.

  The light was dimmer; only one small electric lamp attached to the wall by the door, casting a soft shadow down the short, wide corridor. Three small cells stood side by side. Heavy metal doors with tiny grates concealing who, or what, lay beyond. Cara’s skin prickled and goosebumps raced along. The air smelled different in here: metallic, acrid, sharp. Blood, sweat, and fear lay under the veneer of soap and water.

  She stepped toward the end cell when a cold hand gripped her heart in a tight squeeze. Drawing in a ragged breath, she took a step back, and the hand released its hold. No need to look to know what Nate concealed within that particular cell. Nefertiti’s Heart.

  She peered through the tiny window of the middle cell. Empty shackles hung from the end wall. A bright metal bucket sat in one corner. Questions without answers raced through her mind. Who occupied the cells? What happened down here in the silent earth?

  “Hotel Lyons is empty at the moment, luv.” Jackson spoke from behind her. “You know he’s no angel. How did you think he dealt with his enemies, by writing a letter or complaining to the Enforcers?”

  She turned and leaned her head against the cold metal of a door. “I knew. I just hadn’t acknowledged it.”

  The faintest frown passed over Jackson’s face. “Some of us walk a darker path, but it doesn’t make us any less honourable.”

  Cara moved to lay a hand on his sleeve. “I know. I have found more honour here than I ever found in the salons frequented by the ton.” She found greater safety amongst Nate’s men than she had with the Enforcers.

  He nodded, satisfied at her words.

  “Now let’s move this chest that Victoria wants so badly.”

  Jackson walked to the end of the row of cells and Cara laid her eyes on the object of so much grief and upheaval in her life.

  A tea chest. A simple, unassuming, tea chest.

  The object that could end hers and Nate’s lives, stood three feet long and a foot high, made of pale off cast wood with SHANGHAI stamped on the side. The little chest looked as out of place as a fish monger’s stall in the opera foyer.

  A sliver of tension eased out of her limbs. “Well, at least it’s not a coffin containing some Nosferatu super soldier.”

  “Unless we bent him in half.” Jackson shot her a wide grin, his somber mood gone.

  “Do you think you’re funny? Cause I could shoot you again. That would be hilarious.” He shrugged off their first encounter where she had earned a modicum of respect from him for her guts and aim. Her feet fixed to one spot, she eyed the box, trying to figure out if it truly could contain a person folded in half. “What’s in it?”

  Jackson shrugged. “Not my business to ask.”

  The lid was nailed down, so she couldn’t even have a quick peek. “Let’s get it out of here then.” If Nate didn’t get hung soon, pure curiosity would kill her.

  “It’s not heavy. I just need you to get the doors.”

  He stretched out his arms and picked the container up as though it weighed no more than a large pillow. Cara followed him back out into the Pit and shut the double metal doors behind them. Jackson waited while she replaced the bolts and padlocks. She led the way across the Pit, up the stairwell, holding the door open to the body of the hangar. The warehouse sat silent, the workers all gone for the evening.

  “Now what?”

  “We always have a shipment of tea waiting in case we have to move something. I’ll put this one with the other chests and put the word out for delivery.”

  She followed him down one of the many aisles, past the numerous boxes and crates that made her curiosity itch to know their mysterious origins. They stopped by the enormous doors that led out to the slipway down to the water. The metal shutters were closed, concealing them from the soldiers who patrolled outside. To one side, sat a pile of identical tea chests stacked six high and as many long and wide. Jackson pulled several out, inserted their chest to one side and restacked the pile around it.

  Cara chewed her lip, unsure if they should trust the valuable contents to such a simple disguise. If the queen was prepared to kill to obtain it, how could it be safe laying out in the open? “Will Customs examine it?”

  “The boy will look at a couple from around the sides, and one in the middle. Don’t worry, they won’t touch it.” He stood back to survey his handiwork.

  “What happens to it after that, though? What exactly is your process for getting something out? How do you ensure it’s not cracked open in some upmarket tea shop?”

  And the nosferatu unfolding itself and feasting on the delicate, aristocratic ladies. Or do we?

  She rubbed her arms, trying to dispel a chill. Nate languished in the Tower because of whatever lay in the small chest. How
could they leave it out in the main body of the hangar? Should she drag a chair from the office and curl up to watch over the container all night?

  “It’s not our first dance, love.” He gave her a wink. “This lot gets a nice stamp of approval, and then goes to another warehouse for distribution. Miguel will take a cart, grab our chest, and make sure it ends up on the Hellcat.”

  Trusting in Jackson’s plan, and satisfied they had done all they could, they retraced their steps back to the neglected terrace house.

  usk fell with an eerie sunset; blood red tendrils ripped through the clouds and disappeared over the horizon. Cara shuddered and hoped the sky was not a premonition of things to come. She and Miguel were clothed in dark grey and black. Cara had donned her pistols and then strapped a blade under her sleeve just in case. Watching him with an objective eye, she admitted he moved with a lethal grace, and he showed her several different knives hidden around his person, and out of view of the patrolling soldiers and Enforcers.

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “What exactly is your history?”

  He gave her a cheeky grin at odds with his somber attire. “I’m not saying a word; our agreed month isn’t up yet. You still have to wait a few days.”

  “I could pull rank you know.” If she stuck around after this, the chain of command needed sorting out. A few chains in particular needed a good yank.

  “You only need to know I can look after myself, and you, if it comes to it.”

  Cara chewed her lip. She was not satisfied, but she would save her interrogation for another day when he could not squirm out of it, like when trapped on an airship heading to Russia.

  Jackson dropped them as close to the hangar as he dared. They walked the road that ran parallel to the Thames, but behind the enormous airship warehouses. The patrols visibly increased; soldiers stopped everybody they encountered in the gloom, questioning their reason for being out after dark. The sparse street lights did little to illuminate who walked the cobbles. Cara breathed a sigh of relief when they slipped up the overgrown path to the end terrace house without attracting any attention.