The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (41 page)

His eyes widened. “You just punched the leader of the British Empire!”

“I’m certain the del Morte family could find a place for you, Miss Braun,” Sophia offered with an arched eyebrow.

At least
someone
appreciated her efforts.

The scream, a strange marriage of malice and mechanation, echoed through St. Paul’s. Kicking aside the dead as if they were wayward autumn leaves was the Maestro, his scarlet ocular so bright that wisps of smoke trailed from it as he lumbered towards them.

“Get moving,” Maulik said evenly, motioning to the now-prone Queen with his head. “If Her Majesty is having a reaction to the tranquiliser, she needs a physician straightaway.”

“No, Maulik,” Eliza began. This was Bombay all over again, but on that mission she and Maulik had had far better ground support. “You cannot—”

“I’m fighting Queensbury Rules,” he said, hefting his cannon. “While we can’t say who will walk away, we can rest assured it will buy you time.” He then shouted,
“Go!”
just before charging at the Maestro.

Wellington hefted Victoria across his shoulders as Eliza and Sophia took point, crossing through the sanctuary to the doors leading to the various offices and libraries of St. Paul’s while Maulik’s gun and the Maestro’s curses erupted in the cathedral.

Doorways led to corridors, the maze of offices and hallways all appearing as some surreal dream as what should have been a serene place of peace now reverberated with combat in God’s House. They did not stop in their escape until Maulik’s Gatling went silent.

“Maulik?” Eliza asked, her voice destroying the false serenity as if it were a stone hurled at a pane of glass.

“We must move on,” Sophia urged.

With a quick glance to the assassin, Eliza pushed on, leading the four of them deeper into St. Paul’s.

“I will give the mad doctor one praise,” Wellington said, huffing ever so slightly at the royal burden he now bore. “Returning Victoria to her youth did make her much easier to carry.”

“Little blessings,” Eliza said, drawing one of her pounamu pistols. “Through this door and we should be in the alcove where the children were supposed to gain us access to—”

Eliza stopped on seeing the broken body. His face and chest appeared singed by powder burns. Explosives? Where had he gotten this suit from? From the unnatural way his head and neck were bent, the fall had assuredly killed him; but his body also showed signs of deformity. Areas just visible around his waist had skin which had been stretched far and beyond what nature would have allowed.

She had failed him.

“Callum?” she whispered, falling to her knees, the pistol clattering out of her hand.

“He did it,” Sophia whispered. “That devil of a man actually did it.”

Eliza wanted to cradle the boy—for even though he was twelve, he was still just a boy. Crumpled in a heap at the bottom of this spiral stairwell, he seemed so very fragile. If she attempted to pick him up, Eliza feared he would crumble in her embrace.

“I am so sorry,” the woman behind her whispered gently.

The
plures ornamentum
shot outward, knocking Sophia back to the wall. Eliza was on her feet, her pounamu pistol in her grasp, the hammer pulled back.

“You could have gotten him out of there,” Eliza insisted. “Goddammit, he was just a child!”

“I was a prisoner, just as he was,” Sophia snapped in return.

Even in the depth of her rage, a small part of Eliza admired the assassin’s bravery. Right to the end. “You could come and go as you please, you bitch. Don’t try and gain any sympathy from me.”

“I could do nothing for the boy.”

“His name was Callum!”

“Agent Braun!”
echoed Wellington’s voice.
“Stand down!”

Eliza’s gun wavered in her hand. “I’ll be along, Welly. Just one last detail to sort.”

“Agent Braun,” he insisted, “we are on a mission.”

Eliza briefly turned the gun on Wellington. “Stuff the mission, Books! He was just a boy, and she could have saved him from that monster.”

“Agent Braun,” Wellington said, his hazel eyes hard and cold, “I carry on my back the Queen of the Empire. This mission is our priority, and we will lose more of our friends and comrades if you do not pull yourself together and stand down.”

The mission. As if she cared anymore. Eliza returned to Sophia, her pistol still ready to bring justice for Callum, a boy who’d had a life ahead of him, or at least a better chance at one under her protection.

What about the other children? They had done it. And Callum? He was in league with Jekyll. Were any of the children up there hurt, or worse—dead? Had Callum tried to hurt them?

She returned the hammer gently to its safe position, then
holstered her pistol; only then did she hold her hand out to Sophia.

“Lead the way,” Eliza managed, her voice trembling.

“We will mourn our dead later,” Wellington offered.

“Just—”
Eliza began. “Please, just be quiet. Focus on the mission.”

The sky outside was decorated with dark clouds, but in their alleyway all appeared clear for the moment. She and Sophia unfurled the tarp to reveal the other objective of the Ministry Seven’s orders: delivery of the
Ares
. Having seen her lover’s motorcar in action in San Francisco, Eliza was more than happy to throw the Queen of England into it. They just had to get Victoria away from here, and hopefully she could be brought back to her senses to help sort this whole sorry mess out.

Wellington leapt into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“Going somewhere?” The amplified voice was chillingly familiar, and Eliza felt her heart begin to race even faster than it was already when the tall shape of the Maestro appeared at the end of the alleyway. His armour had been dented, no doubt by numerous rounds from Maulik’s Queensbury Rules. However, Eliza could not tell how much of the blood splattered across the armour belonged to the Maestro, or to Maulik.

Then Eliza’s gaze narrowed on the man-machine blocking their escape. “Does he look—”

“Bigger?” Wellington’s hand clenched on the steering wheel. “I am afraid so.”

As the Maestro stood there, saliva dripping slowly from his mouth, a small man limped from behind their armoured foe and disappeared around the corner.

“That was Jekyll,” hissed Sophia. “He must have administered to the Maestro more of his formula.”

“Should we run him down?” Eliza knew that if they didn’t get the Queen free of the area there was no hope of anything being normal ever again.

The engine let out excited puffs of steam, but Wellington made no effort to open the throttle. “Eliza, the man has a Gatling gun for an arm.”

“Well put, Welly. Well put.”

“I think,” the Maestro said, walking towards them as his cannon arm began to spin, “that we need a little discussion about your interference in my Jubilee celebrations. It really has to stop.”

The venting of his breathing apparatus suggested he was really rather angry. The moans of the Queen in the tumble seat became louder, and Eliza realised there was no getting away from it. They were going to have to deal with the Privy Councillor under all that technology.

Wherein Sussex and the Maestro Make a Point

W
ellington knew a tight spot when he saw one. Just outside this alleyway the world was going mad, he had a queen in the backseat who might or might not die unless a proper physician saw to her immediately, and the behemoth of a man striding towards them was intending to make life very messy.

Their primary objective: keep the Queen alive. The Empire would fall to chaos if they lost their sovereign. Wellington wrung his hands against the steering wheel of his car. He was determined to see this mission through.

But how?

Eliza stood in the passenger seat and drew both her signature pistols, firing each one in succession. Wellington saw some of her bullets hitting the Maestro’s elaborate costume. A few struck flesh, the sickening sound barely discernible over the hullabaloo of the crowd in the streets beyond. Also barely discernible—the effect of Eliza’s attack on the Maestro. He took a great breath and flexed grotesquely muscular arms. If the bullets had done anything, they had merely agitated the man.

“I’m going to smear you all over London.”
The Maestro’s
gun had now spun up to speed. “Then I am going to kill the Queen.”

“Not if we kill you first,” Sophia shouted, shouldering the Lee-Metford-Tesla.

The electroblast blinded Wellington for a second, but when his vision returned, the Maestro was pulling himself back to his feet as bright blue tendrils of energy danced along his metallic arms and mask. Whatever Jekyll had fed him with before absconding made him immune to pain it seemed.

“All right then,” Wellington said as the Maestro seemed to inflate like a terrifying balloon, “any recommendations?”

“Yes,” Sophia said flatly, “anything more powerful than this rifle.”

Eliza flipped a few switches on the dashboard. “Like this?” she asked, pressing the yellow buttons.

A pair of rockets soared out from underneath the grill of their motorcar, exploding against the monster of metal and muscle. Wellington held himself upright against the car as a wave of heat swept past him. Over the thunder of the explosion, he heard a wail that turned into a wild growl. When the Maestro stepped out of the flames and smoke, his clothes were torn and tattered while soot stained his once pristine armour.

“Damn,” Sophia swore.

“Quite the understatement,” Eliza said to her.

The Maestro took a few more steps forwards. The smile on his face was one too macabre, too hellish to find any mirth within its nature. The corners of his mouth stretched from ear to ear, his eyepieces flaring angrily as he looked at them.

“I thank you, all, for joining me on this merry escapade, but I fear that our time together has come to an end.” The Maestro thrust his great Gatling arm forwards. “Signorina, our arrangement is at an end. For your service, you have my eternal gratitude.”

The cannon began to spin, faster and faster, until the whir turned into a grating grind. The grind then became a loud screaming of metal against metal until the cannon jammed and locked tight, its sudden stop throwing the Maestro’s arm away from his body.

His body began to tremble the longer he stared at the Gatling. First, it was as if he could not fathom why his cannon
no longer functioned. The nightmarish smile was now replaced by a dark scowl that only deepened as he pointed the gun at the three of them.

“No,” the monster whimpered. “No, I . . . I need this. This must work . . .”

The Maestro’s head looked to the other arm, to another Gatling that ran along the underside of it. It was far smaller than his suit’s primary Gatling, but it could still kill them all.

That was when Sophia thrust her hand outward. A pair of steel cogs shot out from her concealed gauntlet and lodged deep in the mechanism of the gun. The scream of machinery was silenced with a grinding howl.

“Never say Sophia del Morte doesn’t contribute,” she said with an arched eyebrow.

The howl that the Maestro let out was almost a sob, as he slumped forwards on his knees. He was certainly having a rather bad day, but Wellington was happy to make it a little worse.

He took the Lee-Metford-Tesla from Eliza. She frowned. “Welly, I’ve burned through the battery.”

He held up his hand. “It’s just what I need to get the job done,” he said before getting out of the car.

Over San Francisco he recalled the Maestro’s reaction to losing his helmet. At this stage it almost seemed a mercy. The closer Wellington came to the Maestro, the larger he seemed; but he would not be denied. He would not fail the Ministry, or the Crown. The archivist leaned back and swung the butt of the rifle like a cricket bat. He repeated the swing again, and again, the Maestro’s wails sounding as if Wellington were preforming some terrible surgery on him.

When finally the mask came free, and the tormented face of Peter Lawson, Duke of Sussex, was revealed, he went silent. His grotesquely swollen fingertips touched his own face. Wellington stumbled back when the Maestro howled, lurched to his feet, and ran from the alleyway.

Wellington felt his shoulders slump as he looked back to the ladies in the motorcar. “Really?” he said with a sigh. “A foot chase?”

Sophia smiled at him. “It’s not a foot chase when you know where they are going.”

Eliza looked askance at their unexpected ally. “You’ve got us this far; if you have any idea where Lawson is going . . .”

It turned out the assassin did indeed. With the Queen of England tied up next to her, Sophia gave Wellington directions as their motorcar rumbled through the deserted streets of London, the bulk of the city still huddled around St. Paul’s Cathedral, still trying to understand what had happened on what was to be the happiest day the Empire would have ever known.

She led them to the leafy streets where bedlam had never dared to venture. This was where the wealthy and aristocratic lived, and the silence was absolute.

The contrast to what they had left behind on the East End should have soothed Wellington, but the goose flesh rose in his skin. His senses had never felt more heightened. This stillness was born of a malice he did not know and had never encountered.

Each white stone building was as perfect and serene as the next. Except for one, which had its door smashed in. The Maestro as always was leaving a trail of destruction.

Carefully, Sophia, Eliza, and Wellington picked their way over it. He hadn’t made it far. The battle armour was strewn across the fine marble floor of this fine town house, scattered before a door that had been torn free of its hinges.

The weak mortal flesh that had once been within it hadn’t gotten much farther. Wellington started to feel the first real twinges of sadness for the duke, when they found him propped up in what had once been the front parlour for this home.

“So dusty,” Sophia complained, waving her hand before her, and she was right. This room appeared to have been locked up for years.

Sussex was leaning against a mahogany cupboard door. His skin was grey, his eyes bloodshot.

“Everything’s gone,” he murmured. His hand trembled up to fix the remains of his mask, as if it were a bowler in need of a milliner’s attention. “My sweet Ivy is gone.”

“Eliza,” Wellington spoke softly, “check the house.”

Sophia clicked her tongue. “That will not be necessary.”

He fixed the assassin with a hard look, and then said to Eliza, “See if we are alone.”

The Duke of Sussex did not notice Eliza leaving the
neglected parlour. His other hand continued to clutch the photograph close to his breast, the memory seeming to wear heavy on him. His breaths were deep and ragged. Whatever the serum had granted him, Wellington ventured, was now determined to collect a due from the duke.

“My lord?” Wellington asked. “My lord, is this a picture of your family?”

The duke looked at Wellington and gave a dry, cold laugh as he nodded. “Oh yes, yes, my beautiful family. Ivy, and my boys. We were visiting Europe last spring.”

“Were you now?” Wellington asked, smiling warmly.

“Such a lovely time,” the duke said, adjusting the mask once again. Wellington dared not remove the remnants of his alter ego, in case it were to spark a resurrection of the Maestro. “But Ivy . . . she’s gone. My sweet Ivy has left me.”

Behind him, Wellington heard the footsteps of Eliza returning from her search of the rooms. “Welly, there were signs of someone being here, but whoever they were, they are long gone now.” She leaned in closer and added, “Along with any valuables not nailed down.”

“My Ivy.” The duke smiled, holding the picture up to the two of them.

Eliza’s brow furrowed. “Welly, I went into the lady’s room. That’s
not
the same woman.”

“That is what I was trying to tell you.” Sophia glanced warily at the duke, and then beckoned Wellington and Eliza to a corner of the room far from the duke. “The woman posing as Ivy was one of Jekyll’s patients. She received treatments in exchange for her charade as the duke’s woman.”

“Where is the real Ivy Lawson then?” Eliza asked.

“That I do not know,” Sophia said.

“My Ivy is gone . . .” Sussex then looked over to a cupboard under what would have been the main staircase. “. . . but my boys are still here.”

Wellington followed the duke’s gaze to the cupboard. Swallowing back the knot growing in his throat, he flipped the latch and opened the small door.

The smell threatened to knock him over. Sophia’s posture straightened ever so slightly as Eliza’s hands went to her mouth, the small gasp echoing in the confined cupboard.

“My boys, John and George,” Sussex wheezed, a tone of pride still present in his voice. “They had been bad boys so I had to punish them, but they learned their lesson. I’m so proud of them.”

The two corpses were in a process of natural mummification and were holding on to one another. Considering the comforts of the duke’s home, it was more out of security. Had he forgotten about the children, or had something happened? Something so traumatic that it had pushed him over the precipice, into the “care” of Jekyll?

“My boys,” Sussex gasped. His breaths were laboured even more now. “How proud you both have made me.”

He drew in another shuddering breath. Then one more again.

The duke’s body sagged, his eyes full of pride now emptying as his breath softly, gently joined the stillness of the parlour.

Slowly Wellington leaned over and touched his fingertips to the duke’s neck. Nothing moved under them. Peter Lawson was dead, and so was the Maestro.

“And with that,” Sophia said suddenly, causing them both to jump, “I believe our business is concluded.”

Eliza stiffened. “You really are a charmer, aren’t you?”

“If you endured what I had when he was the Maestro, believe me”—she scowled—“you would hardly feel pity for him.”

Wellington touched Eliza’s arm gently. “Ladies, please,” he whispered, motioning with a nod to Sussex. Silently they stepped out of the old parlour and continued out to the front of the house. “Sophia is correct, Eliza,” he said, the fresh air seeming to clear his mind already. “Our business is done here.”

“And don’t you have a queen to deliver?” Sophia smiled sweetly.

“We do.” Eliza went to interrupt but Wellington held up a solitary finger, keeping her thoughts at bay for the time being. “And I’m sure Doctor Sound would have offered you some sort of compensation for your sterling service to Her Majesty.”

“I have no doubt,” she agreed.

“But,” Wellington said, “he is not here.”

Sophia’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

He turned to Eliza, shrugged, and said, “Snap decision in the field. We decide what must be done with you, and if you believe one good deed—”

“
One
good deed?!” Sophia protested.

“So, Miss del Morte, our business is concluded,” Wellington said. “Best be on your way.”

Sophia looked at them both. Wellington could just see Eliza in the corner of his eye. She seemed to understand what he was offering her.

“May I—?” and Sophia motioned to his motorcar.

“Don’t even finish that ridiculous notion,” Wellington interjected.

“We’re giving you a head start,” Eliza stated, “because considering all that has happened, we owe you something.”

“A day’s head start?” Sophia asked, tilting her chin up.

“We don’t owe you that much,” Eliza stated. “Try two hours’ head start. You might be able to get pretty far in that time.”

Once again, the assassin considered the pair of them and then nodded. “Two hours to choose my fate? I accept.” She walked to the gate of the Sussex manor and paused. “I must say, working with you was hardly a pleasure, but it was most worthwhile.” She kissed her fingertips in Wellington’s direction. “Arrivederci!”

With that, she turned on her heel and proceeded down the city block. Her pace was hardly frantic or even hurried. If she had been dressed as a proper woman, she would have appeared to be enjoying the streets of London’s upper-class district.

Wellington flipped the cover of his pocket watch open. “Two hours? You really do like her.”

“We get the Queen to a physician and then we get on her trail.” Eliza looked up at him. She really did have the loveliest blue eyes he had ever known. “Thirty minutes tops.”