A Conspiracy of Alchemists Page 3

  Elle climbed into the cab. Marsh followed and suddenly she found herself very close to him on the black leather seat. She lowered her lashes and sat back as primly as she could.

  “Oh, there is no need for that. Your virtue is quite safe with me, madam. For the moment at least.” His mouth quirked with arrogant amusement. Then slowly and quite deliberately he leaned over her to wedge the broken carriage door shut. She caught the faint scent of sandalwood that drifted off his skin as he brushed past her. The deliberateness of it set her teeth on edge.

  Marsh sat back in his seat and banged on the driver’s window. Patrice nodded and let go of the brake. The cab lurched though the backstreets toward the Jardin du Luxembourg airfield, where a small air freighter known as the Water Lily waited.

  CHAPTER 3

  In a shaded alley, not far from where the cab with the broken door had disappeared around the corner, another carriage waited. No driver held the reins of the dripping black horse harnessed before it. Rivulets of water ran down the creature’s sleek body and over the knobbly bits of water grass tangled in its mane.

  The poet stepped out from the doorway, where he had materialized a few moments before, and brushed the yellow dust off his lapels. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the transporter compound. He hated the smell of alchemist sulfur. It made him itch.

  He eyed the horse warily. It stared back at him with a mixture of hatred and anguish. Definitely none too pleased about being so far from the river. Open cuts along its neck turned the water pink as it trickled down its legs and pooled around the black hooves. The poet’s master had been at work. He could tell.

  He edged along the wall to ensure that there was as much distance between the horse and himself as possible and climbed into the carriage.

  “Nice horse,” the poet said as he sat down.

  “Indeed.” The occupant was hidden in the gloom of the interior. “She was trying to lure some sailors into the water near the docks when I caught her. The thought of owning one amused me. She’s proven to be wonderfully submissive under my hand. I shall miss her when her spirit breaks.” He paused for a moment. “Well, Feathers, did you get it?”

  Feathers broke out of his reverie about beautiful naked river women who turned into horses. “I have it.” He held up Elle’s holdall. “Mr. Chunk was waiting in the cab and picked the lady up just as you ordered. It’s a good thing I followed them from the café. Lucky I knew the way he was going or else Mr. Chunk might’ve lost them.” He pulled the box from the holdall and handed it into the shadows. “Sir Eustace, may I present the box. George Feathers at your service.”

  Sir Eustace Abercrombie reached out and took it from him with a gloved hand. “Oh, it is something, isn’t it? Well done, Feathers. Well done indeed.”

  Feathers watched his master turn the box over and examine the brass edging.

  “Did you get the key?”

  “Key?” Feathers blanched. “With respect, sir, you never said nothing about a key.”

  Without warning, Abercrombie struck Feathers in the face. The ferocity of the blow was barely contained within the confined space and the carriage rocked briefly on its springs. Feathers felt his eyes fill with water and he did his best to remain impassive. The seat was also not helping his aching groin, but he held firm. It was the mark of a good henchman to show no pain. It would do him no favors if he showed weakness.

  “The key,” Abercrombie growled. “How do you propose we open this?” He leaned forward and shook the box.

  Feathers averted his gaze. He had never quite managed to become accustomed to his master’s face. Abercrombie was clean-shaven—right to the very hair on his head. When the light touched him in a certain way , it was as if a series of dark runes and glyphs moved underneath the skin that covered his face and skull. The marks of the Sacred Guild of Alchemists. And right now Abercrombie was so livid that the runes seemed to have a life all of their own.

  “Don’t be such a fool. The box will only open if it is in contact with the key.” Abercrombie spat. “Give me that.” He grabbed the leather holdall from Feathers and started rummaging through it. “Nothing. Do you even know who has it?”

  “The girl must have it. Mr. Chunk was supposed to take her to the temple in the cab, like you ordered, but things didn’t quite work out as planned.” Feathers proffered the excuse timidly. She’d had a lovely throat though. It was slender and the skin was smooth like milk. He loved the feel of ladies’ throats under his fingers. The sound they made when he squeezed.

  “What have we here?” Abercrombie drew a bundle of papers out of the holdall. A sliver of light appeared and illuminated the inside of the carriage. His master held the papers up to the light. “The British Imperial Flight Company. Scheduled flight to London. Takes off at six. Pilot: Miss E. Chance. Cargo: To Be Confirmed. Now, that is an interesting development.”

  The light went out and Feathers blinked in the gloom.

  “I think that you should be the one to go after them, seeing as you were the one who let them escape. Now, don’t you, Mr. Feathers?” He could feel Abercrombie’s stare reaching out to him from the gloom. “All the way to London and beyond, if need be.”

  “Yes, sir,” Feathers bit his tongue. London was not his favorite place on account of the fact that they would hang him if they ever caught him there. Too many ways to get into trouble in London Town. What he wanted was to stay in Paris and work on his poems, but the odds of being caught and hanged in London were still more attractive than risking the wrath of his master. Sir Eustace’s penchant for inflicting pain made his own proclivities pale by comparison. There were few things in the world that brought his master more satisfaction than binding those who served him into submission. Feathers had seen with his own eyes the elaborate chains and straps his master maintained for such purpose. The plight of the water horse suddenly came to mind.

  “Bring me the girl alive. Without delay.”

  “Yes, sir.” Feathers inclined his head as far forward as he dared within the small space.

  “Now get out. I need to speak to the Guild. And our friend on the other side of the Channel after that. There is much that has to be done and little time to do it.”

  Abercrombie lifted his hands and motioned in the air as if he was taking hold of a set of reins. The horse raised her head and snorted in response.

  Feathers opened the carriage door and got out.

  “And Feathers, do not fail me this time.” Abercrombie’s voice followed him from the carriage.

  “Yes, sir,” Feathers turned to say, but the carriage had already moved down the alley.

  CHAPTER 4

  Inside the cab with the broken door, Elle waited with Marsh and Patrice for the afternoon to pass into evening. She watched two electromancers dressed in gray habits as they strolled down the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Behind them, the streetlights blinked on one by one as the little hermits ignited the glass-covered spark cores on top of the lampposts. Paris was readying herself for the night.

  A gaggle of prostitutes cackled and called out to the electromancers in guttural tones as they passed them by. Their crude words echoed against the buildings. Horrified at the lewdness of the women, the little monks shuffled on. A horse clop-clopped as it made its way up the road to the Sorbonne.

  The bracelet was safely tucked away under her shirt cuff. She squeezed her coat sleeve at the wrist and felt it dig into her skin with a reassuring hardness. She knew a jeweler just off Fleet Street who specialized in jewels and pendants from the Shadow side. He would certainly know how to exorcise a fairy and undo a clasp spell for sure. She would go there tomorrow without delay. In the meantime, she only hoped none of the Shadow magic rubbed off on her. Absinthe fairies were creatures to be treated with the utmost circumspection.

  Patrice chewed on the decidedly soggy-looking end of his cigar stub. It had gone out some time before—a small mercy in the stuffy warmth of the cab. Marsh pulled his pocket watch out and flipped it open. It was the seventh time he
had done that in the last hour.

  Elle studied his hands as he snapped the front of the watch shut and then flicked it open again. Mr. Marsh had the long elegant fingers of a confidence trickster. She wondered how many shady characters the viscount had in his employ. She was one of them now, she realized.

  “I think it’s time to go,” Marsh said.

  They left the cab where it stood in the alley and crossed the road to reach the airfield behind its neat black railing fence.

  “I don’t have a departure permit, and the docking papers were in my holdall,” Elle said as they entered the ornate side gate.

  Marsh felt inside his waistcoat and pulled out a bill folder. He handed a few notes to Patrice. “See if you can persuade someone to give us papers with that.”

  Patrice nodded and walked over to the row of buildings that housed the administrative offices.

  Outside the departure pagoda, passengers milled amongst leather-clad steamer trunks. A small gray poodle yapped at a man with extraordinarily hairy ears, who looked very much like he was a werewolf. A clutch of children escaped from their governess and disappeared amongst the crates and trunks. Here, in this public place, the worlds of Shadow and Light merged in harmony.

  Two dove-chested ladies in large hats trimmed with feathers passed them. Behind them, a valet grunted as he lumbered under a mountain of luggage. The ladies gave Elle’s jodhpurs and riding boots a disdainful look as they passed. Elle dismissed them with a matching stare. Let them think she was one of Monsieur de Toulouse-Lautrec’s kissing-ladies as much as they wished. Women dressed as men might be daring and sometimes scandalous, but there was no arguing the fact that trousers were far more comfortable and practical than the petticoats and stays she wore when she wasn’t flying.

  Marsh touched the rim of his hat and smiled at them. The ladies tittered at each other and cast long glances at him from behind their lace gloves as they made their way to the row of ornate passenger dirigibles that sat urging against their moorings in the fading light.

  “Do try not to attract too much attention to yourself, Mr. Marsh,” Elle said.

  “Easier said than done,” he responded without taking his eyes off the ladies.

  Elle took a deep breath to dispel her annoyance.

  “Now, while no one is looking, if I might tear you away for a moment?”

  “I’m at your service, madam.” Marsh touched the rim of his hat and they strode across the lawn to the other side of the airfield, where the Water Lily waited. Elle inhaled the smell of river and hot metal mixed with the scent of freshly cut grass. She loved the way Paris smelled.

  To her relief, they reached the airship without anyone paying them much heed. In a practiced motion, she climbed the rope ladder and hoisted herself into the cockpit. The Water Lily was nowhere near as big as the cathedral-sized passenger dirigibles that crossed oceans. She was a 40-footer, with double thrusters, which made her fast and maneuverable. The cockpit windows ran in elegant lines from halfway up the hull to the ceiling, allowing the pilot a panoramic view. At the corners of the windowpanes were pink and white water lilies inlaid into the glass. Elle loved those lilies. Wire grate doors designed to protect the pilot from flying cargo in rough weather separated the cockpit from the freight hold. Elle ran her hand over the varnished woodwork and the brass railing of the interior. The Water Lily was beautiful even if she was only a freighter.

  “The freight area has no seats, so you are going to have to take the co-pilot seat,” she said as Marsh appeared through the hatch.

  Marsh winced slightly as he settled against the russet leather seat.

  “I have some bandages in the back, if you need one,” Elle said.

  “It’s just a bruise.” He waved her off. “He caught me in the ribs. A lucky shot, I dare say.”

  She leaned over and pulled a half jack of brandy from one of the cubbyholes. “Um … thank you.” She uncorked the bottle and handed it to him.

  “For what?”

  “Well, you did chase away that Warlock who attacked me earlier. And I wanted to say that I am grateful for that.”

  He took a swig from the bottle. “That was no Warlock.” He swallowed and grimaced.

  “How can you tell?” she said.

  He took a smaller, more cautious sip from the bottle and handed it back to her. “I just can. Whatever he used, it wasn’t Warlock magic.”

  She snorted. “Even to me, the most uninformed of people, that blast looked lethal.” She raised her eyebrow at him. “Come to think of it, why aren’t you dead?”

  Marsh sat up. “Thanks be to the Shadow, I’m generally more blast-proof than most, which comes in rather handy sometimes.”

  “So you’re an occultist?” Elle snorted. “You’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Marsh, but if you ask me, all the hullabaloo about the great divide and the two realms is a load of nonsense. Now stop pretending to be all noble and let’s see if you’re hurt.” She leaned forward to look at him.

  “Thank you, but that really is not necessary.” He studied her for a moment. “But tell me, are you really a non-believer? Surely you must believe in the electromancers. They are after all the ones who produce the spark that powers the machines of the Light side of the world?”

  “Electromancers can be explained by science. As for the rest, I could be called a skeptic at best,” she said. “I don’t deny the existence of the Shadow realm, but I do believe that people should not be dabbling in things they have no business with.” She fiddled with the door catch of the cubbyhole. “The organized occult has been the root of the most atrocious evil in the world and so I cannot abide it. Just look at what happened with the Emperor Napoleon and the wars. Not to mention the awful wars in Africa. One only has to open the papers for it to be plain,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, but she could see his jaw muscles move as he clenched it. “One should never say never, Miss Chance,” he said softly.

  What a strange man he was.

  The clock embedded in the flight console pinged. Five minutes to six. Time to go.

  She knocked the cork back into the brandy bottle and put it away. “And so to conclude our eventful afternoon, I think we should make ready for takeoff.” She climbed into the pilot seat and pushed forward the lever switch that controlled the ship’s spark reactor.

  The glass dome over it glowed blue-green as the reactor hummed to life. They listened to the boiler tick as hot water boiled and turned to steam. A light blinked on in the flight console. With both hands, Elle grabbed hold of the porcelain-handled crank that turned over the engine. It spluttered into life and the hull creaked as steam filled the tank that fed the thrusters. Pressure gauges thrummed and needles quivered, moving slowly upward to the proper levels needed for takeoff.

  Elle unfurled the signal flag to show the ground crew that the ship was ready.

  The moment the flag went up, men in white coveralls appeared below them. They unpegged the ropes that held the Water Lily to the ground.

  “Where is Patrice?” Marsh sounded irritated.

  “He’d better be here soon if he wants to go to London tonight,” Elle said.

  A shrill whistle pierced the air and they both looked up.

  “Stop! Cease takeoff immediately. You are ordered to stop and stay where you are!”

  There was a commotion on the ground. Docking crewmen scattered before a group of policemen who were running across the field. The constable at the back was the source of the whistle. He was shouting orders though a brass speaking-trumpet.

  “Perhaps we should see what the police want,” Elle said.

  Just then, a figure stepped out from behind the constable. Even in the fading afternoon light, there was no mistaking his meaty frame. It was the poet from the café. Elle stared at him, transfixed. “It’s the man who attacked me … the poet,” she said.

  “We have to leave. Before they reach the ship.” Marsh was next to her at the window.

  A whistle sounded in the cockpit, signaling optim
al pressure had been reached in the chambers.

  “What about Patrice?” Elle asked.

  Marsh peered out of the window in the direction of the docking office. “I’m sorry, but we have to leave him behind. He can take care of himself.”

  “Wait!” Elle pointed at the ground. Patrice was charging across the grass like an angry rhinoceros, dodging passengers and policemen as he went.

  “Cast off!” Elle yelled out through the communication tube to the ground crew, who were all looking around in confusion. “Cast off now! That’s an order!”

  To her relief one of the crewmen started lifting the tether ropes off their pegs. Elle held the thruster-controls to keep the ship steady as the ropes were released one by one.

  “He’s too slow. We are going to crash.” The ship lunged and veered dangerously close to the ground as it was dragged off balance. Elle looked out of the window and almost swore aloud. The last straining tether rope was tangled in a mooring trellis. A few of the ground crewmen were tugging at the rope to free it. “Leave it! You’ll lose a hand on that!” she shouted into the communication tube.

  She opened the throttle and the ship lurched in the opposite direction. The Water Lily groaned and strained as she tried to break free from the bonds that held her to the ground. Elle heard the crack of a splitting trellis and then, suddenly, the Water Lily was floating free. She started rising up gently as the billowing canvas balloon took the weight of the hull.

  Elle grabbed hold of both thruster-controls and dragged them into reverse to keep the ship from launching. The ship bobbed out of her berth and across the field, toward the departure pagoda. Tether ropes trailed behind her like the tentacles of an ocean creature. A woman shrieked as a flailing rope nearly hit her. Two policemen tried to grab it, but they collided with each other instead and crashed to the ground.

  “Open the cargo doors. It’s that lever to the left. I can’t hold her for much longer,” Elle called to Marsh.