The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (28 page)

“The Maestro believes Sound is here,” Sophia ordered. “Move carefully.”

“I don’t understand,” she heard from the landing now above her. She could hear a newfound rage flaring in his voice behind her, the Gatlings still spinning, anxious to unleash their death. “The shelves should contain fifty years of investigations. Many of them are empty.”

Something managed to cut through the whine of weaponry and the low thrum of unseen generators: the soft chatter of voices. Multiple voices.

“There!” Sophia called out, bringing her pistols around.

Gunfire rang out from shelving units deep in the Archives, but Sophia could tell from muzzle flashes that the gunman was at least ten rows in from where they stood. The Ghosts scattered, one slinking off to the left while another slipped off to the right. Sophia, however, sprinted for the partners desk. Unlike the shelving units, the desk was solid, and she instantly ascertained it was the best cover.

Then she heard the whine of the Maestro’s Gatlings turn into a scream as he came down the stairs towards them, and she realised that nowhere was truly safe.

Sophia covered her ears as his cannons roared to life. The shelving units were torn apart, creating debris that became projectiles in their own right. She pressed herself as close to the cool stone floor as she was able, while chunks of wood scattered across and down her back. She was blind, deaf, and pinned down by her lord and master.

The madness of the Maestro’s wrath abruptly ended, and Sophia could now hear reinforcements, more of the Maestro’s Grey Ghosts, clattering down the stairs. She glanced up to see him motioning to either side of the shelving units. A repeat of the flanking manoeuvre would hopefully yield better results with more men in play.

Two shots rang out and two soldiers fell just in front of her while another two shots quickly followed. Something told Sophia they were now down by four.

“If you value your men,” came a familiar voice, “I recommend you call them back.”

Wellington Thornhill Books. The archivist. He had returned.

Something inside her went cold. She recognised it as the same dread she felt up in the director’s office. They had soldiers, weapons, and the blessing of Her Majesty, and the archivist had dared to return.

This was not madness. There was a stunning logic to this devotion. These Archives belonged to him. This was his domain, and the Maestro was invading it.

“You are hardly in a position of authority at present, Mr. Books, I believe?” the Maestro called, holding up his arms with the still-smoking Gatlings.

“Be that as it may,” Books replied, his voice steady and unconcerned, “you will not take the Archives.”

Another gunshot thundered in the cavernous Archives. “I would stand down, mate, if it’s all the same to you.”

The colonial. Suddenly, Sophia felt as if she were trapped in the spider’s web with its master and mistress at its centre.

The Gatlings spun up again, and Sophia could have sworn she heard the Maestro scream,
“I will not be denied!”
before he unleashed another maelstrom of bullets. Did he not know she was still here by the desk, pinned down by his gunfire? Or did he know and simply not care?

Sophia knew that she should be firing back, adding her
bullets to those of the Maestro and his army, but something held her back. It wasn’t just fear of injury or death. If it had been that, she would never have taken up her mother’s profession.

Raising her hand to her cheek, she felt blood there from where a stray piece of shrapnel had cut her. It was a physical representation of his disdain for her life. Once, before all of this, she wouldn’t have cared what a client thought of her, but this was different; she had hitched her fate to his. That, she now saw, had been a terrible mistake.

The Archives were now a killing field unless you stood behind the Maestro. She was certain that, along with artefacts that had been lost forever, men who had pledged their loyalty to the Maestro were lying dead or dying among the shelves. None of that mattered to him.

When the Gatlings finally powered down, the Maestro’s voice echoed around her. “You are outgunned, so you might as well face your fate standing in defiance of me, not cowering in the darkness.”

“I am addressing the Maestro, yes?” A new voice signalled a new piece in this bloody chess game.

“Sound?” the Maestro roared, his voice almost delighted.

“You have me at a disadvantage.” Someone was moving through the smoke. “You know of me, but I have not enjoyed the pleasure of being introduced.”

“Sir,” came Books’ panicked voice, “what are you doing?”

“Surrendering, man,” came the assured reply. From the haze emerged a kindly looking gentleman, his expression tired and worn. “We are pinned down. I, for one, would rather not be mowed down like wheat under the scythe in a mad dash for escape.”

“Wellington?” Eliza asked from her concealment.

“He’s right,” the archivist spoke up, and then came the clatter of a weapon hitting the stone floor. “We must end this.”

As two more silhouettes stepped into the dim light, the remaining men of the Maestro’s breach team flanked them on either side. They were, at least on a glance, unarmed but she knew full well the colonial woman would not surrender so willingly.

Sophia slowly got to her feet, taking a moment to look at the desk she had hidden behind. Another attack from the
Maestro’s Gatlings and the men standing with him, and she too would have been part of the collateral damage.

“Glad to see you have come to your senses,” the Maestro stated, his armour gleaming under the remaining gaslights. “Better an honourable death than a fool’s errand.”

“Yes,” Sound said, slipping what appeared to be a pocket watch into his waistcoat. “Speaking of fools and their errands, exactly what is it you want from us? As your men will no doubt report, our lockdown was more than thorough.”

“An impressive feat, but what concerns me is neither upstairs in your fine offices nor even on these meagre shelves.” The Maestro dared two steps forwards, allowing more light to spill on him. “My prize today, Doctor Sound, is the Restricted Area, and all of its many secrets.”

No, hardly an empty boast. They had won. What seemed to be the last bastion of the Ministry had surrendered to the Maestro, but Sophia felt no cause for celebration. The dread consumed her, and her instincts were all ablaze with alarm.

Why,
she asked herself without giving voice to the thought,
was Doctor Sound checking the time?

Then it all crashed down upon her, threatening to pull the world from underneath her. The madness she had seen after San Francisco. That boy’s face as he lay on Jekyll’s table. Her own worth to the Maestro.

There are always options,
H. H. Holmes had said to her.

The trick was going to be convincing them not to shoot her before she could speak to them.

“Maestro,” Sophia called out. From the set of his jaw, he was surprised to find her standing there, alive. Sophia turned her own gaze to the Ministry agents. “The director, you need. What of the archivist and his woman?”

The colonial narrowed her gaze on Sophia. No woman of this age wanted to be considered a mere appendage. Good. She wanted this bitch incensed.

“The archivist still holds value. Agent Braun, while skilled I have no doubt, has a rather rambunctious reputation.” His tanks gave a soft hiss, causing Sophia to look over her shoulder to her lord and master. “Kill her.”

Sophia gripped both pistols tightly and fixed her eyes on Eliza. If the colonial did have any concealed weapons, they
would be in the open in a matter of steps. Braun would be cut down by the Maestro’s men without fail, but that would rob Sophia of what would be a most satisfying kill.

Stopping only five paces short of the woman, Sophia sized Eliza up, just as she did at the opera house on their first meeting.

“We are both professionals, yes?” Sophia asked.

“Of course,” Eliza replied, her posture relaxed, but the assassin was not fooled—that only meant she was capable of striking in any direction.

Sophia kept her eyes on her target, but said, “Wellington—so you know—I am very sorry.”

Her gun came up, mere inches from Eliza’s head, but then her hand opened wide, the pistol seeming to float for an instant in front of her adversary. Sophia pivoted and dropped to one knee. She would only have time to aim and open fire on the first thing she would see. The ocular would have made for a lovely target, but the extra second or two she would need to make that shot would cost her.

Thankfully, the Maestro had stepped into the light, and the large, serpentine pipes that worked their way throughout his mechanical arms were practically glowing. Confusion was a situation Sophia favoured, and rupturing the Maestro’s hydraulics offered a glimmer of hope as well as an excellent distraction. From behind her, two bullets fired, dispatching the two closest soldiers. No one knew where to look or concentrate attention—the ailing leader surrounded in a cloud of steam and sparks, or the three Ministry agents retreating from where they came.

Over the screams of the Maestro and the gunfire, Sophia heard Doctor Sound shout, “Fall back to the Restricted Area!”

She had no way of escaping her defection now. The die was cast, for the Maestro would never believe her, whatever story she spun. Her fate was now bound with the agents and their director.

From her waist Sophia pulled one of the devices she had inherited from her mother. The small, dull grey, metallic ball was an old clockwork piece but still very useful, easily fitting into her hand.

After giving the clockwork cricket ball a quick, sharp
twist, Sophia rolled it across the floor away from her, making sure the solitary red arrow carved on the top pointed away from her. A space of five seconds followed, which she counted under her breath, until the distraction device began to let out the echoing sound of feet running—away from her in the direction of the arrow.

The effect was immediate, and gunfire from across the Archives focused in that direction. With the Maestro’s screams and misdirected munitions as her cover, Sophia slipped into the smoke and shadows behind her.

Through the smoke and debris she followed the three agents, the surrounding shelving units all in various stages of distress. Her eyes caught sight of a crate cracked open by one of the Maestro’s attacks. It was leaking some odd, viscous material that cast a scarlet glow at where it pooled. Another item, a mirror of some fashion, was shattered on the ground; but Sophia paused as she caught her reflection in three of the shards. The reflection was silently screaming at her.

She could just make out her unexpected allies disappearing behind a thick iron hatch, and suddenly she recalled what the Prince of Wales had told her in San Francisco.
The beginning and end of all things. Alpha and Omega.

Had he been right? Was this what she was about to see? For the first time in a very long time Sophia did not have a thought about the Maestro. Instead she was consumed by curiosity.

That curiosity turned into a desire for survival when she heard the sound of a single Gatling gun spinning up.

“Get down!” Sophia screamed as she pumped her legs harder against the stone underfoot.

A hand grabbed Sophia’s arm and pulled her behind the open door leading to what appeared to be an airlock. The roar of the Maestro’s Gatling was now joined by the metallic patter of bullets slamming into the heavy hatch.

Sophia’s eyes darted around her. It looked as if they were in a submersible. A disappointment welled up in her.
This is it, the famed Restricted Area?

A muscle in Braun’s jaw tightened as she stared at Sophia.

“Director, what do you want me to do?” she asked over the assault.

“Nothing.” Sound remained absolutely still, the rotund
man taking stock of her much in the same manner that Sophia had of Eliza. “I have a feeling that Miss Sophia del Morte here has something more than surrender on her mind. Amnesty?”

The assassin was shocked. How could he possibly know what was on her mind?

“He does that often,” Wellington said. Sophia blinked when she looked at him. “I recognise that look from Eliza’s and my own face when he knows what you’re thinking.”

The attack abruptly ended. From the tenor of the screams she heard, Sophia wagered the Maestro just ran out of bullets. When Sophia turned about, she saw Eliza toss her pistol to Wellington, who, in a motion that was far too fluid to be human, pulled back the hammer and pointed it between her eyes. It was rude enough to see right down the barrel of a pistol, but inexcusable that it was her own weapon. Wellington Books’ eyes were steady on her, and she observed nothing in that instant that reminded her of the fumbling archivist she had once seduced. This was a man who would shoot her in the forehead with not a moment’s consideration. She admired that in him.

It was apparent that Sophia had to say whatever was needed in the next few moments. “I offer information,” she said in a low voice. “The Maestro is mad and I want out.”

The archivist and the agent exchanged a look, and she waited for him to pull the trigger, but it was the director who spoke. “Then I suggest we make our escape”—Sound glanced at his pocket watch again—“because, as you know, time is rather limited.”

“How much time?” Eliza asked.

“Five minutes.”

Eliza drew two pistols from her back and stepped out of the airlock. She peeked around the door, only to jerk back as bullets ricocheted off the iron hatch.

“They’re making a push,” she grumbled.

“We can’t last five minutes?” Wellington asked.

Eliza glanced at Sophia. “You, I don’t mind putting in harm’s way.” The pistols twirled in her hands and extended themselves to Sophia. The balance of the ivory-handled sidearms stole the assassin’s breath away. “I’ve got four shots between them. Make them count.”

“Eliza?”
Wellington gasped.

“Get ready to close that hatch,” she said to Wellington, drawing a throwing knife from her boot. Her eyes shifted to Sophia. “Ready?”

Sophia nodded and then stepped out from the cover, firing as she did. On the fourth and final shot, she heard the sound of a knife cutting through the air. The blade struck what appeared to be a small tin can of some sort secured into the brick wall.