The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul) (33 page)

“Go on back upstairs and pick something else out of the guest room boudoir. I
cannot
be seen with you if you’re in an evening gown before noon.”

I smiled and did what I was told. At some point Mrs. Northe must have had a few dresses tailored for me, because she was too tall for me to fit into them naturally. I glanced down at the hems that had been taken up, and my heart swelled at how amazingly I had been provided for by this worthy second mother who did so many things without any acclaim or fanfare, just quiet, subtle, thorough, thoughtful care.

Just as I put the final clasp on a lovely green tea gown that stirringly evoked the emerald of my eyes, there was a knock at the downstairs door, and as I descended to the parlor, I heard a brief discussion with the maid who answered and then soon came into the parlor, bobbing to us as she did so.

“A Sergeant Patt to see you, ma’am. Shall I send him in or would you prefer to see him another day? He was rather insistent. And very contrite…”

Mrs. Northe pursed her lips. “Oh, is he? Well. Send him in.”

After a moment, in walked a tall, burly, mustachioed man with thinning blonde hair who didn’t fit well into his tweed suit. He looked at Mrs. Northe and blushed.

“I’ve an apology to make, Mrs. Northe. And a request.” The man then turned to me, noticing I was in the room. He cocked his head a bit, as if trying to place me. “I don’t suppose you’re a Miss Natalie Stewart, are you?’

“For the moment, I am,” I replied. “I’ll be married soon. Why do you ask?”

“Well, my sincere congratulations.” He cleared his throat. “I have something that belongs to you, miss.” He looked up again at Mrs. Northe. “I don’t suppose you’d have a moment to come to the station?”

“Why?” Mrs. Northe said coolly. “Have you finally taken initiative upon my advice?”

“I’ve seen some mighty strange things these days,” Patt said wearily. “Things I never thought I’d believe. Things I
can’t
believe.”

“And yet, we wake up the very next day needing to live a life we can make sense of, do we not, Mister Patt?” Mrs. Northe said gently, smiling, rising and gesturing for me to do the same.

“That we do, madame. That we do.” Somehow that simple platitude seemed to mean a lot to him, as if he was forgiven his doubt, and he seemed grateful for Mrs. Northe’s gentleness in the face of having being ignored.

“To your precinct, sergeant?” she said brightly.

“If you don’t mind. And then, also if you don’t mind, there’s something else I’d like you to see.”

A few blocks walk, we moved in silence, as the sergeant’s awkwardness around women was rather painful, and there wasn’t any small talk to fix that. I assumed this was heightened by the fact he didn’t seem to like apologizing to women, either. I had to keep myself from grinning. Mrs. Northe had gone to the police, was not believed, and now, the truth would out, unbelievable as it was.

We first went up the stoop to the precinct front door, but he gestured next door, where there were a few men in police uniforms blocking the entrance of a simple Federal-style building and speaking in frightened, hushed tones.

“That’s next,” Patt said. But first he led us into a modest office with a deal of file cabinets, chairs, and a few ceramic mugs that had been left on worn desks. The mug nearest me had dark fluid of indiscernible contents. Likely crude coffee. Perhaps dashed with alcohol.

Patt withdrew sets of deeds from a wooden file cabinet. He handed them to Mrs. Northe.

“These are the addresses you suggested,” he stated. “All along Park Avenue, down to Grand Central depot. Every one of them belonging to a company. I assume you recognize the seal.”

I saw the red and gold crest of dragons, the seal of the Master’s Society. But only now did I truly see the great irony of the crest.

I had thought upon first glance that the dragon’s tails were entwined in a show of strength. But upon a closer look, I noticed the sharp point of each dragon’s tail was piercing the other in the heart. It was, simply, a crest of powerful beings killing one another. It was a hopeless crest. Somehow in hopelessness Moriel saw power. And in that moment, all I could do was pity him, even after all he’d put us through. For I simply couldn’t understand the lack of conscience, of empathy, of humanity. The vacant and cruel look in his eyes was indeed the most horrible thing, even despite all the bloodshed and victims. I couldn’t bear the idea of such an unconscionable look spreading. I would rest better at night once that pit of despair had been executed so that such an example could never more be set.

Patt then reached into a drawer and pulled out something thick that was covered by a yellow file folder. He plucked a leather-bound journal out of the folder, a few pieces of paper bordering the book. A book I knew quite well indeed. I bit my lip.

“I believe this belongs to you, Miss Stewart.”

He handed me my diary; the pages that had chronicled the whole of meeting Jonathon, falling in love with him, and saving his life. Pages that spoke of befriending Maggie and her first descent into the madness she so bravely sacrificed herself to make up for.

Tears came to my eyes as I took it and held it close. “Thank you.”

“I’d like to show you one of the addresses, right out the door,” Patt said, gesturing us out again. “My men found relatively the same thing in each of the apartments or offices along the avenue.” The tone of his voice indicated he was still shaken by what he’d seen. “How…large is this ‘Society’ network, do you believe?” he asked quietly.

“We have no idea,” Mrs. Northe replied. “Lord Denbury and his associates tried to trap as many of the leaders in England as possible, but that was only three. They are in custody and will be awaiting trial. Those I spoke with there hope to flush out as many conspirators as possible. They do have operatives here, clearly, to do something of this scale, though I think all the financing began in England.”

“There are international ties,” I added. “At least, I know one of the “Majesties” was foreign, possibly Italian. Another French. Old, forgotten aristocratic lines.”

“The financing has its fingers here, too, to have pulled off these kinds of buried leads and various payoffs,” Patt stated. “And those frequenting Wall Street have increasingly big pockets, our recent depression notwithstanding. The rich still seem to stay rich even in decline. We will be keeping an eye on any connections.”

“Good,” Mrs. Northe replied. “Very good.”

“Are there any other operative names you can give us from your experiences?” he asked, taking out a notebook to write down anything she mentioned.

“Doctor Preston was killed by his own reanimate creation,” Mrs. Northe began, speaking nonchalantly. “Mister Crenfall, the original broker of the Denbury portrait, lost his mind. Though an eye should be kept on him as it was his numerics that gave us these addresses. The mentally ill still have plenty to offer the world in information and perspective. And then, of course, there are the demon-possessed lackeys and servants. They’ve a certain look about them. Glassy and animal-like around the eyes. Their movement is often a bit stilted.”

“Right,” he said, writing down words haltingly in the pad, as if trying to make that seem like a normal detail of a normal case.

“If I see any, I’ll be sure to alert you,” Mrs. Northe assured. “Though I do think we’ve struck to the heart of the matter. If you have further concerns, as I am hoping our
personal
involvement in these matters is at a blessed end”—she included me in her gaze, and I nodded agreement—”please contact Senator Bishop. The senator has a…particular investment in investigating any sorts of occurrence that is…out of the ordinary.”

“Indeed, I’ve already spoken with him. His clerk, oh, pardon me, his…
Chief Inspector
”—he said that with a grimace, as if the word didn’t quite fit, almost as if it were blasphemous—”Miss Templeton is already down the block, seeing for herself.”

Ah, yes, of course. A
chief
most certainly couldn’t be female. Were the police actually employing women? I’d heard of a matron in one of the precincts; that was a sensation in and of itself. Women had always served in one way or another, but to be at the head of anything was unprecedented indeed. Exciting. It must be a very special branch.

“Oh, good.” Mrs. Northe beamed. “I’ve not seen
nearly
enough of Clara these days.”

“You two know each—of course you’d know each other...” Patt grumbled.

Sergeant Patt led us up the nearby stairs of what appeared to be—or have been—a law office. He waved the uniformed patrolmen at the door to the side of the landing.

“
More
ladies?” one officer murmured to another at the door. “What does the sarge think he’s doing? Ladies shouldn’t be exposed to this sort of devilry.”

Mrs. Northe turned and smiled, making the officer blush under his cap for having been overheard. “But when we
are
exposed to such horrors, as the devil plagues men and women alike and equally, it’s then up to us to help prevent it from spreading. Don’t shelter us, officers. Listen to us. Respect our knowledge and expertise, which is why we are here. If you did so without judgment, your force would be far better informed.”

They simply bowed their head, and I held back a smile of triumph as we entered the building. My smile soon was wiped from my face as I beheld the devil’s laboratory.

One of the large rugs was pulled back to reveal a sprawling mess of symbols and quotes painted upon the floor in a dark, brownish-red, thick substance. Blood. Some in thick tar. There were the familiar runes as used to carve into the flesh of possessed bodies and of the reanimate dead. There were the numbers in their reversed golden ratio. There were quotes from arcane black lore that did not sound like books anyone, lady or gentleman, should read. Symbols of all faiths were inverted and turned on their side, shifted, askew, repurposed for the inverse of love and guidance, instead fostering misery and misleading woe.

It was all very similar to the floorboards of the Rosecrest dining room. This was the ground work for a portal to one of the ‘”devils’ walks’” the Society opened in Rosecrest.

What I didn’t see at first, due to the pocket doors having been closed in the entryway, was perhaps the most actively alarming thing of all. The evidence of an all-out strategic attack…

The sergeant returned us to the front of the building, to a main office with a lovely bay window which was closed, facing the busy Park Avenue. By the window was a device that looked like a propeller, attached to a bellows that was then fitted to a steam pipe that went to another area of the building. Before the propeller was set a metal trough filled with dark red powder. The chemical horror. What the Society so sickly called “The Cure.”

Next to the device stood an elegant woman, older than me but younger than Mrs. Northe, in a matching linen jacket and dress trimmed in elaborate black detailing, a white lace blouse with a large cameo at her throat and full skirt; the full ensemble of dark green accented bright, nearly yellow eyes framed with dark blonde curls kept neatly beneath a green felt hat with a bit of a black veil. She was scribbling with a golden fountain pen into a notebook cupped in her palm.

“Miss Templeton,” Patt said quietly. She looked up, and her pretty face lit. She greeted Mrs. Northe with a dazzling smile and kisses on both cheeks.

“Hello, Evelyn, it’s so good to see you! Though I wish under better circumstances. Rupert told me you were instrumental in bringing this “Society” to the attention of the authorities. Thank you. I know the city will never appreciate you as it should, but I always do.” She turned to me. “And you are, young lady?”

“Miss Natalie Stewart,” I replied. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Templeton. I’ve met Senator Bishop at dinner. He seems very wise and kind.”

Her golden eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes. He is. And oh, yes, I’ve heard of you.”

I furrowed my brow. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or worried.”

Miss Templeton winked at me.

“Scenes just like this, ladies,” Patt interrupted, irritated by ladies’ niceties, “were found at all the addresses I shared with you. Similar disturbing things scrawled on the floors and walls with only God knows what as paint. Generally a body starting to stink somewhere under the floorboards. Don’t know if the bodies were sacrifices or just someone in the way at the time, we’re trying to determine the links. Maybe they were storing them for that…reanimation you were talking about. Hell if I know.” He grimaced and gestured to the contraption before us. “And
all
of the properties were fitted with a device poised to blow that powder out unto the New York City streets.”

“You’d have had endless riots on your hands,” Mrs. Northe said in a horrified murmur. “Any further holdings must be brought to light, though I do fear what’s already fled underground. I am glad to hear you put Stevens in custody. If you hadn’t? I have a feeling these fans would have started to blow and you’d have a volatile mess. All the way downtown.”

“The city in chaos,” Patt agreed, his round face ashen. “So I suppose that’s what the Society wanted?”

Mrs. Northe nodded. “And in that chaos, gain assets, seize properties, make new disciples, and begin to influence leaders. That’s my belief, though someone would have to ask the devils directly for confirmation.”