The Conquering Dark: Crown (17 page)

“You're sober,” Nick chided softly.

Ferghus managed a weak grin. “The drink only lessened the pain, quieted the voices.”

“I wish I could help you.”

Ferghus tried to shrug.

Nick looked at the wall rather than the elemental. “I need to ask you something.”

Ferghus didn't react; he simply waited.

Nick said, “Tell me about Gaios.”

“He's sorry he killed you, Byron. He says it all the time.”

“That's a comfort.”

“He wants to hurt Ash.”

“He's going to destroy Britain, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is. Because Ash loves it.” Ferghus choked on a strangled laugh. “She's not even English. She's German. She only loves England because you love it. But he's going to take it all.”

Nick's posture changed to reveal more of himself. He lost the imperious Pendragon carriage, and slipped into his usual casual stance. “You think he can manage it?”

Ferghus breathed quietly for a moment and tried to lick his lips. Nick wiped them again with the wet cloth. The Irishman tried to swallow. His voice was still a hoarse whisper. “He's using the Stone of Scone. It's bound to Britain.”

“I know, but even the Stone can't drop Britain into the sea.”

Ferghus winced. “He's Gaios. Once he puts his gnarled old hands on the Stone, he's going to saturate it. He can open the way to the aether and seize all he wishes.”

“How?”

“Lightning.” Ferghus looked annoyed. “Lightning slits the barrier between our world and the aether. All elementals can do it, but lightning is stronger. I could've done it with fire, but he found a spark that would rip it wide open.”

“A spark? A true lightning elemental?”

“Aye. Some mousy girl. Hardly has any sense. Dumb as a post. Always reading the Bible. Gaios says she'll be more powerful once he's trained her.” The Irishman shook his head once and let out a long breath. He let his cheek press into his pillow. “I don't care.”

Nick leaned close to the elemental's face. He heard only faint breath. “Ferghus. Stay here.”

“Thank you for coming, Byron.” The Irishman squeezed Nick's hand but it was feeble like an old man. “I'm dying, ain't I?”

“Afraid so.”

The Irishman shook his head slowly. “No less than I deserve. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Everything. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I tried. I know you had to put me away. An addle-minded man like me should've never been given so much power.”

“Don't fret that.”

“I didn't want to hurt anyone. Do you understand? I'm sorry.” Ferghus could barely be heard now. “I'm sorry.”

The lordly Pendragon vanished and Nick Barker slumped in his shabby coat, holding the dying man's hand. “I know, Ferghus. We're all sorry, but there's nothing we can do.”

“Nick Barker?” The light in the Irishman's eyes was nearly faded.

“How are you, lad?”

Ferghus gave an exhausted smile. “Where's Byron?”

“He stepped away.”

“It's cold.” Ferghus looked up at Nick with grimacing effort. “Are you cold?”

“Freezing.”

“I don't want to die cold. I need to be warm. Just one last time. Help a mate out.”

“Right you are.” Nick used the wet towel to gently wipe Ferghus's palm clean of the gel. A gentle flame rose from the center of Nick's hand.

Ferghus smiled and his weak fingers fumbled for the tiny flicker of fire. He drew it into the palm of his hand and sighed. Nick rose to his feet and backed away. Ferghus placed the ember in his mouth. Simon yelled from the door. He started toward the bed, but Nick held him back, shaking his head. Ferghus erupted into flame, his body lost in the blaze. This was no controlled elemental fire; it was a white-hot consuming rush of light and heat. Simon fell back, throwing his arms before his face.

After a moment, Nick stepped up to the flames and took hold of Ferghus's charred hand. He drew the fire up onto his own arm and extinguished it. He stood, still holding the blackened smoking hand of Ferghus.

Kate jabbed a finger at him, livid. “What did you do? You murdered him!”

Nick ignored her, staring at the smoldering body.

“God damn it, Barker!” Malcolm towered over Nick. “We needed more than that! He could've told us where Gaios is.”

“His choice,” Nick muttered. The man dropped to his knees beside the bed, hanging his head in exhaustion. “He wanted to go. I only helped him.”

“Easy, Malcolm.” Simon stepped between Nick and the Scotsman as if protecting his old friend from the group's accusations. “I've got an idea what Gaios is about. I'm not sure what he meant about the lightning elemental, but even so, we can move forward.”

“I know what he meant.” Malcolm leaned against the wall. He looked stricken, as if he had just gotten unexpected tragic news. “I have something I need to tell you about a woman I met in London last year.”

It was the night after Ferghus's death and Malcolm stared out the window of a carriage as it rumbled through London. It had been a difficult discussion with Simon about his encounter with Jane Somerset last year, and his decision to keep her a secret. It had been Jane's wish, and he had to honor it. In the end, Simon understood, and refused to accuse Malcolm of endangering either Jane or their own group. Simon didn't have to reprimand him because Malcolm knew well enough the peril he had unleashed by his silence. This was particularly true because they now had two pressing goals, and Simon was forced to split the group. While Kate, Nick, Hogarth, and Simon went through a portal to northern India in search of the Stone, Malcolm was tasked to find Jane Somerset.

The heavy stink of London crowding his nostrils always reminded him why he detested cities. Even the smell of the burnt Hartley Hall was preferable. Across from him, Charlotte fidgeted, shifting from side to side. Her hand rubbed furiously at her leg.

“Stop scratching,” Malcolm told her.

“I can't! Everything itches!” She wore a petite green frock that boasted lace at the collar and sleeves.

“Because your skin is healing. But not if you keep scratching at it.”

Imogen, who sat next to her, grabbed Charlotte's hand with boneless fingers wrapping around her friend. Sighing, Charlotte conceded, slumping back in her seat. Smoothing a ruffle on Imogen's black dress, she leaned against her friend.

Penny glanced away from the lanky Scotsman, trying to hide a chuckle and failing.

Malcolm afforded her a cantankerous glance. “What?”

She bit her lip to still the smile and failed again. “You remind me of my mum.”

Malcolm slouched back in his seat and sighed. “I was aiming for something a bit more masculine than your mother.”

“What do you mean?” Charlotte stopped fidgeting to regard them across the seat.

“I mean I'm yelling at you like I was your da,” Malcolm muttered.

Charlotte's jaw opened and her eyes widened. She sat back, exchanging an elated grin at Imogen. They both beamed at Malcolm, their faces full of wonder and delight. He felt flushed and glanced away.

Penny propped a foot up on the coach's doorframe. “So what's the story with this Jane woman?”

“Jane Somerset. I saved her from a cook.”

Penny fought the muscles in her lips. “A cook?”

“Aye, a dead one.” Malcolm practically growled at her. “An undead one.”

Penny nodded, but then remarked candidly. “I'm not surprised.”

“What does that mean?” Malcolm scowled at her, expecting her to make some sort of jest like Simon would.

“You risk your life for everyone. You like to play loner, but you're just a decent bloke with a great huge heart. So tell me about her.”

Malcolm studied the grey city outside. He took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably. “She's a God-fearing woman. Believes her elementalism is a curse. I should've protected her, even from herself. She needed help with her magic. I should've brought her to Hartley Hall. That would've solved everything. Now she's with Gaios and Lord knows what he's done to her.” He had said more than he wished, exactly as he'd feared.

Penny leaned on her arm, watching him through the flicking bands of light from passing gas lamps. “So why didn't you?”

“She asked me to keep her secret. And I said I would.”

The engineer shrugged with acceptance. “Oh. There you are then.”

Malcolm shook his head, tamping down the anger at himself. “It's not so simple. It should be, but it isn't. I knew she needed a great deal of help even after she saved my life.”

“Wait, she saved
your
life? I thought you said—”

“It was a bit of both.”

Penny laughed. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Malcolm realized Penny harbored no blame for his actions with Jane. He valued her straightforward support. For Penny, everything was about solving the problem as it existed, not worrying about how it might have been a different problem. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I spoke with her the night before the row at St. Mary Woolnoth. A few weeks after that, I went by the soup kitchen and her home, but she wasn't there.” Malcolm pulled a grey wool scarf from his coat pocket and gave a slight smile. “She made this and gave it to me the first time she saw me at her soup kitchen. Thought I was a bedraggled thing needing care.”

Penny raised an eyebrow, allowing herself a winsome huff of laughter.

Malcolm folded the scarf and slipped it back in his pocket. “Her housekeeper said she had taken her sick father to a spa for treatment and wouldn't likely be back for a year or more. I checked on the soup kitchen a few times after. Never thought much of it because the kitchen kept running. If something had happened to Jane, I assumed it would close up.”

“Do you think the housekeeper was lying?”

Malcolm looked grim. “That's what we're going to find out.”

The carriage pulled up in a neighborhood that was in a state of decay that would be long and agonizing. Malcolm led the way to a door of a row house and knocked loudly on the brass plate. After several attempts, no one answered the summons. Malcolm's brow furrowed deeper. He stepped back and studied the house. It seemed normal enough. The windows were unbroken. Glancing down the quiet street, Malcolm pulled out a small set of slim tools and bent at the lock.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte leaned over him.

“We're housebreaking,” Penny informed her.

“Oh!” The girl bounced excitedly on her toes. Imogen, with her veil now in place, turned to keep a lookout in case someone came strolling by.

It took less than a minute and they were inside. The interior was dark. Not a single room was lit. The floor was littered with refuse. Papers. Leaves. Dirt. It was as if the house had not been cleaned for months. There were also empty liquor bottles and open pails that had carried beer.

Charlotte sniffed the air and peered into the empty sitting room off the foyer. “Everything smells rotten.”

Malcolm drew a line with his finger in the thick layer of dust on one of the tables. He turned toward the kitchen in the back of the home. The others trailed after him.

The kitchen was dead. No fire warmed the hearth, not even yesterday's banked coals. Cooking pots lay about with dried remnants of food. Insects crawled over the counters.

Penny picked up a spoon from the table. “It appears Miss Somerset isn't here, nor anyone else now.”

“Someone's been living here.” Malcolm sniffed a pot of moldy food. Some dishes appeared to have been used in the last few days.

“No sign of a fight.” Imogen's deep voice observed from the other side of the room.

“Look around,” Malcolm said. “We need to see if we can determine where she's been taken.”

The girls complied and began rooting through the rooms for clues. Malcolm moved toward a pantry. It was unlocked and when he opened it, he gasped in surprise. The housekeeper sat there, her head bowed.

“Mrs. Cummings,” Malcolm said quietly. Perhaps she had taken refuge inside the closet when she had heard intruders enter the house. Or maybe she was injured or worse.

The old woman lifted her head toward the voice and her eyes opened. She rose abruptly to her feet. She wore her service clothes and apron, but they were caked with dirt and old food as if the woman hadn't bathed or laundered for weeks.

“Do you remember me, Mrs. Cummings? I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm a friend of Miss Somerset's.”

“She's not here!”

“I can see that, missus. Might you know where she's gone?”

The girls heard the commotion and came back into the kitchen. Imogen carried a tattered sheet of paper in her more human hand. A growl started low in Charlotte's chest.

Malcolm cast her a quick glance. “Charlotte, stop. The woman's frightened enough.”

“Maybe she's not.” Charlotte's voice was a low whisper. “She smells of oil and smoke.”

It took a second before Malcolm understood what the girl meant, which was time enough for Mrs. Cummings to grab him up with her meaty fist. His feet came off the floor. He clutched at the hand around his throat while he pulled a pistol. Mrs. Cummings slapped the gun away with a powerful blow.

Charlotte was in midtransformation when Mrs. Cummings threw Malcolm at her. The two collided and careened over the kitchen table in a tumble of arms and legs.

Imogen yanked up her sleeve. She flexed her forearm and quills flew at the housekeeper. Each one struck the woman's chest with a faint pinging sound.

“She's half-machine!” Penny shouted.

“Dismantle her!” Malcolm clambered to his feet over the hairy limbs of Charlotte just as Penny fired a sonic blast from her pistol. The whine blossomed in his ears as everything around them started to shake. Dishes and bric-a-brac fell to the floor and shattered.

Smoke leaked from under Mrs. Cummings's dress and apron, her metal joints feeling the pressure. Every movement of her limbs sounded like breaking twigs as she came out into the center of the kitchen floor. The housekeeper seized a table in desperation and tossed it like a bag of laundry at Penny. The nimble engineer ducked out into the hall just under the shattering oaken table, but the attack stopped the pulsations.

Imogen thrust another volley of quills. Mrs. Cummings held her right arm up to cover her face. One quill stuck in the housekeeper's bare hand.

Charlotte leapt over Malcolm onto Mrs. Cummings's plump figure. Instead of being crushed to the floor, the housekeeper stood rooted in place. Charlotte's claws tore into the woman. The rips in the thick cloth of her tunic revealed shiny metal underneath. Mrs. Cummings scruffed Charlotte and dragged her off, shoving her to the ground. She lifted a foot to slam down on the wiggling werewolf, but a barrage from Malcolm's pistol pushed her backward.

Mrs. Cummings reached for the iron stove, but her fingers suddenly unclenched and her right hand hung from her wrist like it had been broken. Imogen's toxin was finally working. For a heavyset woman, Mrs. Cummings was spry. She leapt behind the stove and shoved it one-handed at Malcolm. It tore from the walls with a geyser of black coal dust and rushed toward him like a rampaging wagon. He backed away, but Charlotte streaked across the kitchen and carried him through the door into the hall. The iron stove smashed, wedged into the doorway behind them.

Penny took advantage of the distraction and powered up her wee pistol once more. Mrs. Cummings turned, glaring at the engineer. Penny aimed as best she could as the pistol moved with a mind of its own. The discharge swept through the room and shoved Penny back five feet, tumbling her on top of Imogen. Black smoke poured from the housekeeper's chest. Her movements were chaotic and jerky.

“Get down! She's going to blow apart!” Penny tried to herd Imogen over the upturned stove and out the door.

Caught up in the fever of battle, Imogen shook her off and turned to snap off more quills. One struck the woman's cheek, sticking to her skin like a stray whisker. The girl grinned in triumph. Malcolm leapt back into the kitchen, tackling Imogen to the floor just as Mrs. Cummings exploded. Metal and flesh hit everywhere, coating the town house with black oil and bloody smears.

“Losh!” Charlotte exclaimed from the hall in a near-perfect imitation of Malcolm.

Penny popped up. She looked for the Scotsman and a flash of relief washed over her when she saw he and Imogen were all right. Then a crooked grimace took its place. “Your friend won't like how we redecorated.”

Malcolm assisted Imogen to her feet. The girl hung her head apologetically at him. At least she knew she had done something foolish.

Penny plucked a piece of Mrs. Cummings from the floor. To Malcolm's relief, it was metallic. The piece twisted and turned in her hands as she examined every wire and nook and gear. “This is the Baroness's work. Same as we came across with Dr. White.” She tossed it to the side. “She's really starting to annoy me.”

“She won't much longer.”

Penny toed another metal chunk of housekeeper. “She's actually quite brilliant.”

“So are you.”

“I know, but …”

“You're much younger, and you're already a genius.”

“Genius?” Penny puffed with pride, but the brief interlude didn't last as she remembered their purpose and the implication of the debris on the floor. “I guess this proves your friend is with Gaios.”

Malcolm gritted his teeth. Gaios had already had the infernal housekeeper in place, watching Jane last year, and Malcolm had realized nothing. A steady ache of shame built in his chest, fearing he had unwittingly left Jane to be swept up by evil.

“I found this before. I saw several of them.” Imogen held up the ragged sheet of paper she had been holding. Malcolm took it from her.

Charlotte's snout towered over him. “That's not something a lady has in the house. Even I know that.”

She was right. It was a broadsheet for a bawdy tavern at the waterfront called the Hanged Mermaid. A bare-breasted mermaid was posing, offering sailors more than just a free drink.

Charlotte reverted to her human shape. Penny didn't think twice but reached into her rucksack and pulled out a cloak for the nearly naked girl. They had several changes of clothes for her in the carriage; it was a necessity with the young werewolf.

“We're heading for the waterfront.” Malcolm shoved the paper into his pocket.

Charlotte started bouncing up and down. “Are we going to find some pirates now?”

“Pirates?” Malcolm sucked in a calming breath. “You two will stay in the coach.”

Immediately Charlotte's smile faded. Her arms crossed dejectedly.

Imogen leaned over. “At least we're going with them.”

Charlotte brightened and leapt into the carriage. “Aye, matey!”