Eterna and Omega Read online

  Clara felt the atmosphere of the room change as the senator began to exert his mesmeric qualities. The parliamentary rabble quieted the moment he opened his mouth. Just as in Congress, the reaction to his speech was magical. The men leaned in, a wave of murmuring creaks of leather seats and a sea of shifting frock coats.

  “Gentlemen, there is a great threat at work in your city. I lead a commission that has been dealing with strange, paranormal matters.”

  The word “paranormal” broke Bishop’s thrall and generated another round of boos and hisses. Undaunted, Bishop continued, and his eyes—his very presence—exerted complete authority over them and all fell silent. Clara caught Black’s and Spire’s looks of amazement, clearly never having seen such an effect before.

  “I don’t care whether you believe me or not, hell is coming home to roost on your banks, London,” Bishop proclaimed. “Now you can either stand with us as we give you an antidote for a weapon that may be at any moment deployed upon you, or you can suffer the consequences of a mind-altering, recklessly endangering compound and vulnerability to dark forces.

  “Take heart, whether you believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits, reanimated dead, or the power to transform a mind with a mere powder, this is not unfamiliar to us. In my city of New York we have already encountered and dealt with these pending threats. Take part in preventative care and we’ll be a united front. If any doubt this, I’m sure you recall the Master’s Society, and one Beauregard Moriel, one of your own citizens, the madman behind the plots our countries face. His work lives on. Join me here in protecting yourself. I will be the first to do so.”

  Bishop turned to Clara. She handed him an additional vial with a small bit of the powder, to which she’d added water to make it drinkable. Their team, including Black, Spire, and Rose, had all ingested the antidote the moment it was unloaded from the carriage outside. He downed it in a swig and worked not to grimace at the taste.

  While it was hoped that Brinkman would wait until the MPs could make a choice to take the antidote willingly before charging in to detonate the drama, he did not heed anything but his own timetable. There was a flurry of movement at a mezzanine door, and Clara’s nerves ratcheted to a new height, but as there were no spirits present, she was in no danger of seizing. She was nervous and alert, but in control.

  All in black, collar and shirtsleeves undone, frock coat billowing, either the picture of a careless revolutionary or Mr. Rochester after one too many drinks, Brinkman burst into the room with antiquated blunderbuss of a gun.

  “For the old ways and blood rights!” he cried, and the American team had just enough time to cover their own mouths with their kerchiefs—none wanted the offending substance in their lungs regardless of having ingested the antidote—before Brinkman fired the chamber, releasing a cloud of red powder into the air.

  “Cover your noses and mouths, gentlemen,” Bishop cried. “Don’t breathe in, that’s the very toxin itself! We have the treatment, keep the faith and hold on!”

  The assembled MPs reacted to this in a variety of ways. Some did exactly as Bishop instructed and came right to him. Some panicked and went toward the doors, only to find them blocked from the outside. Clara wasn’t sure who was responsible for that. Some just sat in the benches, stunned. Many turned toward Black and the rest of them and began shouting accusations of treachery, as if this were staged to hurt them.

  They weren’t entirely wrong.

  For those who happened to take in a lungful of the offending agent, the change was nearly instantaneous—hideous and thorough. Bodies seized and hunched over, cries turned guttural and bestial, and the desire toward rage and violence was palpable.

  Men lunged for one another like fighting bulls. Fists were thrown, insults from the most puerile parts of the mind were lobbed in unfolding volleys, and some just thrashed around on the benches where they had been sitting or where they collapsed. It was a terrible display of devolution.

  At these first transformation signs, the Metropolitan Police deployed their designated response. They strode in files from the upper seats down to the Commons floor and pried apart members who were at each other like fighting dogs in a pit. Whatever Spire had said to these men had prepared them well. None looked daunted, some seemed surprised, and most, carefully dispersed among the throng, were perfectly able to keep these men from hurting themselves, others, or the parliamentary grounds itself as they flailed, wailed, and wrenched at their subduing officers.

  The fits subsided eventually. Members who were overcome slumped to their knees and then to the floor, or over the green leather seats. Those who had taken the cue of the officers and the Omega and Eterna teams, and tied a kerchief or lengthened a cravat or ascot over their mouth and nose, had kept their wits together and looked on in wide-eyed horror at the scene unfolding. Some turned to stare at Lord Black as if he were either a savior or directly responsible.

  Rose took to the House of Commons desks and rails with moist rags and began wiping up the dense powder residue. Thankfully, the stuff had weight to it so as not to be a continuously airborne threat. A few of the most sober of the MPs assisted her. Clara was busy tending to those who were horrified as they came up to her for an antidote, whether they had been affected or not. Her reassuring smile seemed to calm them.

  Rousing those who had gone unconscious during the throes took about fifteen minutes, and as they came to, they stared around the Commons floor as the vague, hazy memory of their “fits” came back to them.

  Clara grimaced. Even though a lot of these men were stubborn and arrogant, she empathized with what it was like to come to after being overcome, wondering what kind of scene one may have made. She knew that all too well from her condition.

  Lord Black no longer had to shout to get anyone’s attention; he merely spoke quietly into the murmuring throng. “Well, gentlemen, I’m sorry it came to that. I had word of an attack and thought we’d have time to better protect you. But we still can. Please comply with Senator Rupert Bishop of the great state of New York. Thank you.”

  Everyone turned sheepishly to Bishop as he stood, climbing atop the clerk’s desk for better effect.

  “My English friends,” Bishop began, “if you do not work to protect yourself, all of London, perhaps the country, will fall. We are here to help you. Believe me or not, you are lucky that what just happened was not infinitely worse.

  “If any of you are involved with the Master’s Society, if Beauregard Moriel or Francis Tourney was an associate of yours, you will be found out,” he stated.

  Clara was not surprised to see Spire studying the lawmakers as Bishop spoke, taking note of who looked nervous. He was very good at picking up subtle clues and cues. While she could make an interrogation list based on clairvoyance and sensitivity, his abilities came from thorough study of human behavior.

  “If you are guilty of such associations, come forward now and protect yourself. The longer you wait, the greater the likelihood your supposed allies will destroy you. You will be torn limb from limb and your body exsanguinated, as if the room in which you die has become a canvas for your blood. I wish that were an exaggeration, but it has happened with those involved in the Society that have invited in the purest evils. If you have aided or abetted them in any way, there is yet hope for your eternal soul to escape the jaws of hell.

  “We are working on Wards that can protect you. We bid you to Ward each of your representative districts. Be cooperative with Lord Black and all will be given you. The Wards will be vitally important in the coming days, so please be amenable to them at Lord Black and Mr. Spire’s distribution. If you have not already received the antidote for this toxin, please see my associate, Miss Templeton.”

  Terrified, quiet, affected men lined up soberly before Clara at the desk of the clerk. Vial by vial, she administered the antidote to each contrite member, if it hadn’t been done already, bid them drink the contents, and collected the vials in the wooden boxes that carried the tubes as pegs in holes fi
t for their circumference. For the Wards, many MPs were discussing with Lord Black how to access and distribute them.

  “Last,” Bishop cried out to the room, in perhaps his most persuasive of reverberate tones. His powers of thrall still had the room by its throat. “Lord Black will give an account of these proceedings to local papers, on our terms and serving our purposes only. If any of you are involved and expect to report to Master’s Society operatives about this little display, do so, but say only that dark aims gained a success today. Say nothing of intervention. That is for us to know. Is this entirely clear?”

  There were murmurs and nods.

  “People of the British Parliament, is your cooperation entirely clear?” The senator had raised up his arms, as if collectively holding the room.

  A rousing “yea” shook the floor.

  He lowered his arms slowly. Clara’s senses allowed for the pull of his magnetism to shift and wane, his field returning to that of a mere enigmatic presence, not a whole dynamo in and of himself. He turned to find her gaze, and she was glad she was there waiting for it, so she could beam at him. He allowed himself a pleased smile in return and stepped down from the height upon which he had stood.

  The next moment, she felt a presence next to her and turned to see the familiar face of Ephigenia Bixby. At the sight of her friend, she routed the remaining men to Miss Everhart, who was serving the line on the opposite side of the House dais.

  “Effie!” she cried with a hug. “I’m so glad you received our wires. Did they give you hell trying to get in here today? Women don’t seem to be much welcome.”

  “Mr. Spire saw me poking about outside as he gathered his men and showed me in, via Miss Everhart’s secret passages,” she said with half a smile.

  “Tell me everything and help me prioritize what I need to know and do, and in what order,” Clara begged.

  “I’ve amassed a fairly good list, thanks to the help of Evelyn’s friend Mr. Knowles. Apex took over the old Society offices in Earl’s Court, as if nothing ever happened, evil begetting evil under new names. The Master’s Society crest went out of vogue when Moriel was first arrested and Apex replaced all. I wired the offices not long ago with any American property holdings I could find listed here.”

  “Good, Franklin needs to be kept abreast of every detail.”

  “It’s bad, Clara,” Effie murmured.

  Clara noted the dark circles under the woman’s sharp eyes. “You’ve not had an easy time of it, have you?” she asked quietly.

  “No, and when I return home, I think I’ll be resigning.”

  “Why? What have we done?” Clara said, aghast.

  “Not you, Clara. I just…” She stared at the still milling members of the House. “Today, when a company I was inquiring about said of one of its workers who fell to his death that ‘it didn’t matter, because his skin color was brown’ … I just … I can’t do what I’ve been doing in the manner in which I have been.” Effie stared at Clara with unmasked pain on her pale brown skin. Silently, Bishop had joined them and Effie folded him into the conversation. “What good is passing in your world if it’s only adding more numbers to those who feel they’ve the right to visit injustices time and again on those arbitrarily considered lesser? I think Fred and I, once all of this is resolved, will move back to the Tenderloin.”

  Her anguished gaze found Bishop. “There, at home, if blood runs in the streets, our blood, not just that of the pigs and cattle, some seem unable to distinguish from human, at least it is blood I’m no longer pretending isn’t of a lineage it is.”

  Bishop replied calmly, “I will support you and your family in whatever decisions you make. Just let me know how I may help facilitate, if at all.”

  Perhaps Effie had imagined Bishop would put some barrier in her way, for she seemed relieved at his response. Clara saw tension leach from her friend’s body.

  “Ah, one of yours, then, I see,” Harold Spire said, approaching Clara and nodding at Effie. “This crafty young woman has a penchant for tracking me. First, when Lord Black and I attended the queen’s parade, where she witnessed a rather unfortunate near assassination. I don’t like such embarrassments to go by without making friends out of them,” he stated. He leaned in. “I’m glad you found Everhart’s passages earlier. I couldn’t bear you skulking around outside any longer.” Effie returned Spire’s partial half smile.

  “Effie Bixby, Mr. Spire,” Clara introduced before turning to Spire. “Sir, your presence here today has been exemplary, and I hold you and Lord Black in high regard for trying to control this government, allowing ours to help and advise yours. A brave, bold step.”

  “I don’t really have much choice,” Spire stated, addressing both women. “None of this is as I, a mere policeman and detective, would have planned, believed, or hoped. But I appreciate friends above foes.”

  “I would like to consider you a friend indeed,” Clara said, “and I hope our offices will continue to coordinate in a manner as effective as this.”

  “Whether it is effective is yet to be proved, but yes,” Spire conceded.

  At that moment, Spire’s Metropolitan colleague Captain Grange, approached him.

  “Sir, which of the MPs would you like taken in for questioning and possible arrest?”

  Spire made a few subtle gestures around the stately room toward any he had deemed suspect during the proceedings. “And, while you’re at it, Grange, ask Mrs. Northe-Stewart if she agrees. She’s got … good instincts.”

  Clara smiled. The king of skeptics couldn’t call it clairvoyance, but Clara didn’t care. “Instinct” was a fine word for it if ability itself was respected and valued.

  The kind-faced redhead named Grange nodded and approached Lord Black, who was consulting with Evelyn, likely advising him on the same suspects. Within the next few moments, with mere nods from Lord Black, policemen quietly led out several representatives. The redhead returned, bobbing his head to his superior. “Thank you, my friend. Now make sure there’s an increased presence around Westminster as a whole,” Spire instructed.

  “Grange, my good man,” Lord Black added, “can you be the one to give an account to local papers? The Society will want to think their plan a success, but don’t terrify the populace. Nothing sensational, but give a tale colorful enough to be pleasing to those wanting such news, and nothing of the antidote or our future distribution of Wards.”

  “Of course, sir, as the senator suggested, it shall be done.” And the man was off with determination.

  Effie handed several sheets of paper to Spire, at which point their company was joined by Miss Everhart. “These are the businesses’ moving materials and properties from Master’s Society to Apex locations, which your MPs and police forces will have to watch and Ward,” Effie stated. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go get some rest, I’ve not slept in days.”

  “Noted, Miss Bixby, please do so, and thank you, this is exactly what I’ve wanted to get hold of,” Spire stated with a bow of his head. Effie nodded, reached out to squeeze Clara’s hand, and vanished into the vaulted Gothic arched shadows of an exit corridor.

  Spire turned to address Clara and Rose together. “I am … uncomfortable with a … Warding process; I don’t understand it. But I have seen what the toxin does, and I do believe in this antidote. I hope you can prove the Ward to me similarly, though I’m not sure I want to see another ‘test’ to do so.”

  “The next days will undoubtedly give us a chance, Mr. Spire,” Clara stated. He set his jaw grimly in response.

  Clara felt comfortable in the Omega team as a balanced initiative. Every team needed a skeptic, and Spire did his department no disservice in this.

  Eventually, the teams filed out onto the green and into a waiting carriage belonging to Black, who insisted on hosting the group at his home. There was a second fine carriage beside Black’s, Lord Denbury having arrived to rendezvous with them, the young man pacing in the courtyard, awaiting them. Evelyn volunteered to fill the lord in on
the parliamentary proceedings, and the caravan proceeded en route to Knightsbridge, leaving Clara, Bishop, Spire, Rose, and Black to the larger cab.

  It was only once the carriages hurtled past Lord Black’s residence that they realized there was a problem. They tried to unlatch the cab doors, but they were jammed shut from the outside. There was no other explanation than that they were all being abducted.

  “Sweet Lord, not again,” Clara murmured under her breath.

  “Lord Black,” Spire asked, staring at every seam of the carriage construction, “did you notice anything different about your footmen today?”

  “I confess, my friend, I didn’t look up at them. I didn’t notice,” Black said mordantly. “That’s the horror of how the Society seems to work its way into things, through those whom our positions of privilege have trained us not to see.…”

  Spire noticed that one of the windows was slightly ajar but before he could attempt to widen the gap, a black-gloved hand appeared and dropped a tiny open bottle into the cab. Smoke was issuing from it, and the air in the confined space quickly filled with noxious fumes. Coughing and gagging, the members of the Eterna Commission and the Omega department faded into unconsciousness. When they came to, sore and ill, they were in Greenwich.

  The carriages stopped abruptly. The doors were thrown open and the passengers roughly yanked out and deposited onto the stone walkway of a grand estate.

  “Of course,” Black said bitterly, looking at the vast Gothic edifice looming before them. He explained to the others, “Welcome to Rosecrest, the Denbury estate. I assume it has fallen again into the dread hands of the Master’s Society.”

  The group was herded up the walk by the burly, possessed guards. A separate envoy of two scarred men in besmeared workmen’s clothes, their eyes sparkling dark and vacant with the tell of the possessed, dragged Lord Denbury and Evelyn up the walk, insult to injury, this disrespect on the young lord’s own rightful property. He was fighting them tooth and nail, his fury entirely palpable, but with a third possessed body called up to help contain him, he was overcome.