The Transference Engine (14 page)

Five minutes later, a young cleric with a snowy cravat, a properly brushed beaver flat-crowned hat, and a fine-fitting suit approached the center carousel requesting the same book.

I'd seen him before, I knew it, but could not place his eyes or his accent.

“You'll have to wait for it,” I replied. “I'm surprised your church library does not contain a copy.”

He looked right and left as if expecting eavesdroppers. “Madame, may I suggest that it would not be politic for me to be seen reading my lord archbishop's questions on the validity of the reforms . . .” False questions, logical questions, written to appease a blackmailer rather than solidify the archbishop's stance.

I knew too much and not enough.

“I see.” But I didn't. “While you await the availability of the book, perhaps a different account of the reforms might interest you.” I led him to where Archbishop Howley's account usually resided. On the same shelf I found a compilation of the newspaper accounts on the debate in the House of Lords, much cleansed and edited, though.

The cleric raised an eyebrow at the title. “Is this accurate?”

“Perhaps less biased,” I murmured.

He raised his eyebrow again, but he took possession of the book and retreated to the same table as the scholar. At the last moment before seating himself, he turned back to me. “Perhaps a cup of tea and a scone?”

“Lucy will serve you in just a moment.” I half smiled at the idea of Lucy turning her flirtatious nature upon the young man. Unless he was a truly committed celibate priest—and those were rare in modern times, even those who preferred male company usually married to avoid scandal—he'd not think too hard about his reading material. With a few whispered words, I suggested she question him about why he needed to read about the reform acts.

Chapter Thirteen

T
WO DAYS LATER, I still had not heard from Drew. For reasons I could not fully define, his absence left me uneasy.

Ish reported from his lodgings in Oxford that he had begun experiments with light passing through crystals and the resulting strength of the prisms. He said nothing about his companion Dr. Jeremy Badenough. Neither did Dr. Jeremy Badenough have the courtesy to write a thank you note for my hospitality at my salon.

I fretted over Badenough's silence almost as much as I did Drew's. We had discussed many important aspects of necromancy that touched upon my concerns about Lord Byron and Lord Ruthven. I could well imagine Lord Ruthven digging up Byron's bones (if his bones did indeed reside beneath his gravestone) and building an arcane spell around them. Either lord seemed capable of kidnapping young women for either bizarre sexual rituals or . . . horrors . . . to fuel a different kind of magic spell: one that required the power of death.

Inspector Witherspoon visited the café twice daily. He ordered coffee only and sipped it cautiously.

“Do you fear I will poison you?” I asked him on the third morning.

“I did threaten to arrest you and throw you into Newgate,” he replied, setting aside his cup and making a grimace.

“But you did not.” I glared at the discarded cup as if it offended me. “Is the brew not satisfactory? Perhaps too much cream? Or is the turibano sugar not to your liking?”

“The plots I chase offend my stomach. I have drunk far too much of the brew of late. No, I came to quiz you about your network of guttersnipe spies and what they report.”

“Nothing for certain, only tales of two men dressed all in black, wearing black masks beneath hooded black cloaks. They take young girls who work the streets by force, into a black coach pulled by two black mechanical beasts wearing the black feathered head stall of hearse horses.”

“Funereal,” he muttered staring at his undrunk coffee.

The golden-brown mixture drew my attention as well. It nearly begged me to stir it out of its sluggish stillness into the life of a whirlpool. The compulsion grew stronger. For once, I indulged my need to heed the maelstrom of sights.

I drew a circle inside the discarded cup with a silver spoon. My vision centered on the swirls of coffee and cream, here and there, now and then, probable and impossible. Another flick of the spoon and another.

The room closed in on my peripheral vision. Sounds faded from my awareness. The word “funereal” echoed over and over inside my head.

The whirlpool deepened, sending its vortex well beyond the confines of a small china cup. The darkness of the abyss swarmed up. Black on red, red on black. Flames that shed no light in a dark cavern. But whitewash brightened the scene without strong light.

Cavern. A whitewashed cave where the screams of the dying burst forth with extreme anger but were swallowed by unforgiving stone walls.

Then a blaze of white nearly blinded me—physically and metaphorically.

I had to sit, groping blindly for the nearest chair.

Gentle hands guided me. “Nice performance, Madame Magdala. Care to share what your urchins have reported? Without the dramatic fainting spell,” Inspector Witherspoon said blandly before I could think on my own.

I repeated my vision, not caring if he believed the source. The information was more important than the source. I found no new details in the memory. Then my eyes cleared, but my hands shook and my stomach trembled.

“Here, drink this,” the inspector said reaching for his nearly untouched cup of coffee. “A frightening scenario. I wonder which of your spies followed the abductors and reported back to you.”

“Not that cup. 'Tis tainted now.” I could still taste the ashes of death in my vision.

He raised a hand and summoned Lucy. The girl, my good girl, assessed my situation in one glance and promptly returned with hot, barely-brewed tea, sweetened heavily.

My head cleared and my hands steadied, but my belly still quivered in fear of what was to come.

“So you seek a cavern. A deep one. You'll not find it locally,” Inspector Witherspoon said. “But not too far away or your informant would not have been able to travel there and back without assistance. One of the Gypsies perhaps? The one who flies a cloud-gray hot air balloon?”

“More likely the black balloon,” I insisted.

We stared at each other a long moment, both insisting on our own point of view. I broke the standoff. “A crypt, perhaps. An ancient one.” I swallowed back my revulsion at the protests of the dead and dying. Let Witherspoon believe what he wanted; I
knew
what we sought. “Death feeds on death.”

“Do you think I might find the Norwynd girl there?” Witherspoon mused.

“More than likely. And many more. Many, many more.” The dying screams of thousands of victims still echoed in my mind.

“Let me ponder this over maps.” The inspector stepped away from the table.

“A moment, sir.” Witherspoon paused while I gathered my thoughts into coherence once more. “You did not question the source of my information.”

“You are the bastard daughter of a Gypsy king. You made your reputation with such performances. I have my informants. You have a wider and more accurate network. Dispense the clues as you must to preserve what you have built.”

I nodded graciously and gulped my tea. “If I were known to be merely a farmer's daughter from the shores of Lake Geneva, no one would believe me and seek my counsel.”

“True. Nor would they attend your salons and consider an invitation a privilege. You are what you are, no matter your origins. If anyone asks, to me you are indeed a widow with shadowy beginnings among your friends the Romany.” He bowed respectfully and exited.

“Look for a recently whitewashed building with very old cellars. Ancientness need not be a church crypt in the heart of the old city.” Where had that detail come from?

The blinding white light.

Jeremy had said the Persian book on necromancy had insisted upon meticulous cleanliness from whitewash in the work area. I pondered that for many long moments in absolute stillness.

I had resources. Possibly better resources than Inspector Witherspoon. I performed a search on the library engine. The few customers—including a new scholar perusing the reform act literature, original and derivative—who remained during the noon lull, watched with avid enthusiasm. The shelves shifted and rotated, clanging gears and levers—must remember to oil them soon—moved noisily through their dance, pushing books and shelves about. At last, sound and movement ceased with a jerk, then a whoosh of compressed air exited the chute just before an oversized tome of ancient maps thunked into my hands. Applause erupted all around me. I curtsied in acknowledgment of the machine's ability to find and select the right book based upon my calculations encoded into the brass key.

I dropped the key into a basket—once a week a foundry worker collected the used ones and recast them for new cuttings—and I swept up the broad staircase to my private parlor.

The first page was a redrawing of a map of London from Roman times. My eyes nearly crossed trying to read the antique script. While not part of my linguistic repertoire, Latin bore enough resemblance to French and Italian to be discernible. I found seven landmarks where I knew more modern buildings now rested upon original foundations. I marked them on a separate sheet of paper and moved on.

The next five maps showed other parts of Britain during the same period. The sixth brought me back to London at the time of the Normans. Three of the buildings I'd marked remained unchanged on this chart, but I noted several newer ones built at that time, beyond the ancient city walls, that held possibilities.

At each successive stage, my list of buildings both expanded and shrank until the most modern, charted ten years before. One of the original seven, a church dedicated to an obscure saint of Turkish descent was now a warehouse near the Strand, its sidewall might have been part of the city defenses at the time of the Magna Carta. It had gone through many changes of purpose and ownerships, but it looked to have original cellars with possible access to the Thames through a water gate similar to the one at the Tower.

Time for an investigative journey. What disguise was best for this expedition? Did the owner operate the warehouse for a legitimate business, or did he lease the place? Much property in London belonged to landlords who kept to their fine houses outside the city and never set foot on their other properties. A woman alone, no matter how fashionable, could not approach the place.

I needed help. Or a better disguise than the old beggar woman.

To Ada, Lady Lovelace,

Please accept my regrets that I cannot attend your most excellent dinner party this evening at eight of the clock. Other business requires my urgent attention. If you would be so kind as to lend me the services of a stout footman of the utmost discretion, loyalty, and bravery, I would be most grateful.

Your most obedient servant,

Madame Magdala.

Eight of the clock that evening and the sun dropped beneath the smoky cloud cover long enough to send long, distorting shadows and bright streaks of gold, orange, and crimson light along the Thames. A stout country lad, broad of shoulder and long of leg, from Lord William of Lovelace's stable steadily rowed a small, hired boat downstream beyond the Tower. He and I wore similar garb of black knee breeches, tall boots, and dark jerseys beneath our short coats. His two-day stubble darkened his face naturally. I'd resorted to soot from my coal fire to keep any light from reflecting off my fair skin.

We skimmed along close to the embankment. I hoped that the side light from the westering sun would reveal any imperfections in the seawall. We passed several rusty iron gates with solid barriers of bricks behind them. The mortar looked reasonably old with brighter patches in odd places. Clearly, new work shoring up the old.

“There! Angle in close,” I instructed my coconspirator.

He obeyed wordlessly, expertly handling the oars. When the hull brushed against the stonework, I grabbed the iron bars. Thankfully, I wore sturdy leather work gloves, for the rust broke off in large flakes. New iron, smooth and recently from the foundry, showed beneath the cloak of false rust, more like ruddy paint sloppily applied. Behind the bars, my fingers brushed against a wooden panel, cunningly painted to look like old brick, match to so many of the previous outlets. A wonderful triumph of
trompe l'oeil
. I wanted to salute the artist for his mastery. At the same time, I cursed the evil it might hide.

“Can you see what building sits above us?” I whispered to the nameless lad.

He shook his head.

Frustrated, I pushed hard against the barrier. It gave a bit, but remained firmly latched from the other side. Forcing it would alert any watchmen here or in adjacent facilities to our illicit entry. The gate held firm on well-oiled hinges and a stout padlock, also inside. I hadn't enough light or leverage to pick the lock.

“Can you move toward the center of the river without drifting too far downstream?”

The lad nodded and did so. In the last of the glaring red light from the sun, I marked the location of the Tower to our left and the squat shape of the warehouse above.

Good enough. Time to return the boat upstream. From there, I must venture on my own. Something about the rounded shape of the gate I sought reminded me of the Romany Bardo, their homes on four wheels pulled by sturdy ponies.

It also appeared larger than normal, of a size to ease a body through and into an awaiting boat—or to be washed out to sea with an outgoing tide.

Jimmy Porto and his family made locks and knew how to work around any one of them in absolute silence while leaving no trace of their manipulations.

I wondered if I had time enough on this night to find my friends, return to the warehouse, and scout the interior before dawn in the scant hours of darkness this close to the solstice.