Unnatural Issue (36 page)

Alderscroft sat at the head, of course. Down the right side were Peter and Maya Scott, Lord Dumbarton, Lord Owlswick. Down the left were Doctor O’Reilly, a fellow in a working-class coat that Peter didn’t recognize, and an empty seat, clearly meant for him.

“I’m just here to organize transportation, old man,” Owlswick said as Peter’s eyes lit on him. “I’m no bloody good at combative magic, and that’s a fact, but I have a shielded private railway carriage that can be put on the express at any time, and I can have shielded carriages waiting for you at the nearest station to—” He paused and gave Peter an interrogative look.

“Whitestone Hall,” Peter said. “Might as well start the hunt where the scent is strongest.

“Good-oh.” Owlswick scribbled a note and handed it to the footman behind him, who handed it out to the attendant at the door.

“I’m sorry it took this long, Almsley,” Alderscroft said apologetically, “But we’re a bit shorthanded. I sent a number of our people across the Channel just before this blew up, and, to be frank, the count of those who have ever put down necromancers is pretty low.”

“Yes, well,” Peter said, taking his seat, “Whitestone himself used to be chief of that number, so we’re already under a handicap.”

He couldn’t help but feel a certain satisfaction as he looked around the table. The inclusion of the working-class fellow in the group would have been cause for a revolution a few years ago, and never mind the presence of a female at the War Room table. Yet here they were: a female who was
,
oh horrors, so unnatural a creature as to also be a physician, and a fellow who clearly worked with his hands, and, lastly, Maya’s husband, Peter Scott, a tradesman.

Then again, they were monstrously shorthanded. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand had turned the Balkans into a pot about to boil over, and Peter had no idea what was going to get splashed when it did. England would almost certainly get involved. The king had far too many relatives among the Germans and Austrians. And alliances on the Continent were far too tangled.

Alderscroft himself interrupted Peter’s ruminations. “Ah, I’m remiss. Peter, this gentleman is Andrew Kent. He is our newest member, a Fire Master from the East End. Andrew, Lord Peter Almsley.” Alderscroft made the introduction without even a hint of condescension or distaste. “I found Andrew myself quite recently. He came here from Newcastle in search of work and brought with him a letter of introduction. He’s been employed as my agent under the guise of being a common-hauler ever since.
His
mentor was the late Farnsworth Benning-Tate.”

“You’re old Bunny’s apprentice?” Peter said, with astonishment. “I didn’t even know he had one! Jolly good thing he did, though; we’re shorthanded in the Fire department. Most of ’em went over to the Continent, along with the Airs.”

“So Lord Farnsworth told me, m’lord,” Andrew replied with a nod of respect. “I hope to be a credit to his teachin’.”

“I can’t imagine Bunny turnin’ out a squib,” Peter replied. “And it’s just Peter. This is the War Room. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”

He turned to Alderscroft. “So, other than Owlswick, this is the Huntin’ Party? Two Fire, two Water, one Earth, and one Air?”

“Air to feed the Fire, mostly,” Dumbarton said. “Given your report of the attack, we are going to have to assume he will have another army of walking dead, and Fire is the best method of dealing with them.”

“I’ll be reading the ground and talking to the Elementals to track him, and standing by as a physician,” Maya Scott said serenely. “I rather expect that Doctor O’Reilly will be too busy incinerating things to attend to injuries.”

Alderscroft gave Peter a deferential nod. “You’ll be in charge, Almsley. You are the most experienced, and you weathered his first overt attack,” the Old Lion said. “The Hunting Party is in your hands.”

Over the course of the next several hours, they planned in exhaustive detail. Owlswick scribbled several notes and handed them out, and Peter’s estimation of the man crept very much higher when he realized what the apparently ineffectual Owlswick was doing and why he was here. It seemed Owlswick had a knack for organization . . .

And that guess was borne out when they emerged to find a carriage waiting to take them to the station; at the station were Garrick and a heap of luggage being put into a private car. From the feel of the beautifully crafted, wooden-sided passenger car, it had been shielded to a fare-thee-well. Richard Whitestone would definitely not know they were coming.

They were no sooner settled—and advised by Garrick to remain seated for a few moments—when there was a bit of a
bang
and a lurch. They all knew what that meant; they were being added to the Express. A moment more, and they were on their way. Now there was nothing more that they could do but prepare themselves. At the worst, they were about to go tramping across the moor in an exhausting wild-goose chase. At the best—

“I’ve investigated the car, m’lord, gentlemen, lady,” said Garrick diffidently as he offered drinks. “There is a chamber with beds on the other side of the front wall of this one. If you would care to take advantage of those beds, I shall be pleased to turn them down for you.”

“I will meditate out here, thank you, Garrick,” Maya Scott said, with a smile for her husband. “But the rest of you should sleep while you can.”

Peter was only too happy to do just that, and when the others saw how quickly he got up and headed for the chamber in question, they followed.

Thanks to Maya Scott, who had the wisdom of the Indian subcontinent at her fingertips, he had a number of useful techniques at his disposal that would make it possible to sleep no matter how keyed up he was. So while the others were still muttering and tossing restlessly, he employed those techniques and drifted off into slumber.

 

There had been no one on guard at the gates to Whitestone Hall, which had made them all suspicious. After a hasty conference, they had decided to proceed as if they were unaware of the attack on the Kerridge estate; after all, Richard Whitestone had no way of telling who was in the carriage or even how many of them were in there until they all got out.

But when their driver pulled up to the front entrance, there was no one to greet them. Nor was there anyone in the public rooms of the Hall. But Peter had thought he heard faint noises from the kitchen, so that was where they had headed—only to be stopped dead by what they found there.

“Good God,” Peter choked out.

Whitestone Hall was indeed deserted by anything living—but that was not what was making Peter swear and Maya run out to the garden to be sick.

It was the servants, here in the kitchen.

Patiently, dumbly, they were working at their ordinary household tasks, without seeming to notice the presence of the Elemental Masters. There was only one small problem.

They were all dead.

From the look of things, they were mechanically doing the last task they’d been set to when Richard Whitestone left.

They were all very bluish, with bulging eyes and a ghastly rictus.

O’Reilly was extremely pale but otherwise controlled. “Poison,” he said. “Looks like the bloody bastard poisoned ’em all. Convenient for him—I assume he could do some sort of wholesale bindin’ on the lot.”

Richard Whitestone had evidently left them without regard to their condition, which was awful and getting worse by the moment. Necromantic revival did not halt decomposition, and nothing had been done to preserve these poor murdered creatures.

The air was alive with flies.

Oh, this was worse than bad, because O’Reilly was right, there were spirits imprisoned in their bodies; Whitestone had murdered them all and then immediately caught the souls and bound them to the dead carcasses before they could escape to whatever afterlife they anticipated. Peter could feel their torment.

The stench that assailed their nostrils, pent as it was in the kitchen and accented with those clouds of fat flies, was worse than appalling.

Dumbarton was the next to lose control. He clapped both hands over his mouth and nose and followed Maya. Doctor O’Reilly and Andrew looked at one another, and then at Peter.

“Do ye reckon the colleen’ll be carin’ about th’ furnishin’ of this place?” O’Reilly asked Peter. “D’ye think she’d mind havin’ t’rebuild the kitchen?”

Peter shook his head. “Do you have something in mind? We are going to have to give the locals some sort of story about how and why these people died.”

“Tragic kitchen fire,” Andrew grunted around clenched teeth. “Paraffin explosion, terrible accident—we’ll let the constables work out what happened. Right, Doctor?”

“Terrible thing,” O’Reilly replied. “Clear out, you Peters. We’ll need salamanders for this.”

Peter was not at all averse to following their orders, nor was his “twin.” As they explained to Maya and Dumbarton what the two Fire Masters had in mind, there was a sound like a dull explosion, and when he looked back over his shoulder, the windows of the kitchen were incandescent with flame.

When the Fire Masters called them all back, it was over. Anything in the kitchen that could burn, had; the walking dead were reduced to charred bones, which O’Reilly and Andrew were salting. It looked as if this wasn’t the first round of saltings, either.

“Do you remember how many servants the girl said her father had?” asked Maya.

“Six, not including her.” Peter counted, and came up even. “We got them all.”

“Thanks to the gods,” Maya replied fervently.

Just to be certain, they all prowled every inch of the Hall, but they found nothing. When they gathered again in the withered garden, Maya frowned. “I am going to seek a better place to call and question the earth creatures,” she said. They won’t come near—this.”

“And rightly,” Dumbarton replied.

“Scott, go with her; I don’t want anyone out here alone,” Peter ordered. He went back to the shielded carriage that had brought them all and returned with a shotgun and blessed-salt loads. He handed that to Peter Scott, who took it with a grim nod.

Dumbarton was standing very still, his eyes closed, head tilted in a “listening” posture. If Peter concentrated very hard, he could
almost
make out a wavering in the air, like heat-shimmers, but in the form of a human. It was whispering in Dumbarton’s ear.

“Sylphs say Whitestone hasn’t been back,” Dumbarton said, finally. “Not here and not on the moor. And they’ve been watching for him. All this—” he waved his hand “—it’s an affront to every Elemental.”

Peter went to look at the stable and see if there was anything to be learned. There was: There had been a horse and a cart kept here until recently. Now they were gone.

So Whitestone had fled by a faster means than afoot and less traceable than by rail. That was useful to know, but not all that useful. He could be anywhere by now.

The others gathered with pretty much the same information. Whitestone had taken out the cart and horse, leading a group of walking dead. He had, at least according to the sylphs, then “resurrected” more for his army from every deserted churchyard or potter’s field he passed—which explained how he had gotten so many, though not where he got the power to raise them. And then he had crossed the moor and attacked and—

And then passed out of the knowledge of any of the Elementals here or at Branwell. Which meant he had either created some powerful shields, or he had escaped via human contrivance.

“Do you think he left Branwell by train?” Peter Scott asked, finally.

“It seems logical. It would take only some money to escape undetected by train,” Dumbarton pointed out. “It would take a great deal of power and effort to do so anywhere that Elementals might spy on him if he kept to his cart.” The man shrugged, but Peter could see he was angry and frustrated. “He could be anywhere. We won’t know until he acts again.”

“And if the situation on the Continent explodes, we won’t have the leisure to hunt for him anyway,” Peter said sourly. “Damn and blast!”

“He won’t escape, Peter,” O’Reilly said soothingly. “Everyone is alerted now. The least whiff of necromantic goings-on, and we’ll have him. All we can do is wait and watch.”

“I hate waitin’ and watchin’,” Peter grumbled. Peter Scott chuckled, despite the gravity of the situation.

Dumbarton shrugged again. “Right, then. Do we report the tragic fire as folks who came to visit and found the place deserted, or do we slip away and let the locals discover it?”

Peter felt sick at the idea of having to deal with strangers who were frantic about the loss of their relatives here. There had been at least two young girls there, who presumably had families. “Call me a coward, but—”

“No, I agree,” Maya put in unexpectedly. “We can do nothing to help the relatives, we have done our best by the victims, and we certainly cannot afford to be pent up here when we are sorely needed in London.” She looked earnestly at all of them and got nods—mostly relieved—from her fellow Huntsmen. “If we report it, there will be many questions—why we were coming, when Whitestone is a known recluse who never sees anyone, for instance. But other than the fire—and these people know nothing of magic—there is nothing to show that we have been here. No one in the village knew where we were going. Let us get in the carriages and move on to the next village, where there is a telegraph. We can arrange to rendezvous with the private car from there, and send Alderscroft a brief missive. Once on the car, you gents with the salamanders can contact Alderscroft for a more detailed explanation.”

Peter gave her an appreciative look. “You have a knack for sifting through chaff, Doctor,” he told her.

She shrugged. “When one works at a charity clinic, one becomes accustomed to knowing when one should confront the unpleasant and deal with it directly, and when avoidance is the best course of action. Shall we?”