Eterna and Omega Read online

  “One is in Bedlam after what happened,” Grange replied. “The other, found dead.”

  Spire’s resulting sigh sounded more like a growl. “I’ll make Black tell me something.”

  “We need to know how to protect the men on your interrogation list. Otherwise we’ve no incriminating evidence to plumb.”

  “Our job is supposed to be fighting crime and arresting criminals, not keeping criminals safe. The world has become an inverted joke,” Spire spat before taking that long draught, slamming down an empty glass. “I’m sorry for all this.”

  “You have prided yourself on doing your job,” Grange replied. “As have I. But we’re now being told how to do it by those who do it worse or don’t care. I’ve had it, Harold. Tell me you’ve a plan,” Grange begged. “And resources. We need men we can trust.” His expression shifted suddenly, something of softer concern. “Speaking of trust, how is Miss Everhart?”

  Spire paused a moment. “Fine … why?”

  “The fall, the incident at the carriage.” Grange downed the last of his pint. “She’s an asset, that Everhart, credit to her sex, and I hate that she was a target. It was so strange, that whole business. I’ve had nightmares about it, to tell you the truth.”

  Grange had always been a bit too sensitive for his own good. Though, Spire reminded himself, Grange was a good man who had never faced personal tragedy. It was kind of him to ask after Miss Everhart, and it made Spire wonder if he should have given her more thought and care himself. Maybe Grange had fallen for Everhart. Suddenly that notion made him even more uncomfortable. He felt the lines of his own scowl deepen.

  “This impasse can’t last,” Grange murmured finally.

  “We’ll find ways around it. We always do.” Spire rallied, but his voice sounded hollow to his own ears. He’d lost his innocence long ago, when he’d seen his mother’s blood spilled onto the parlor floor, but he’d have liked to have kept the ability to inspire. The men drank another round, toasting to earlier days, simpler days, finer days, when the morality of the world didn’t seem so precarious. When they had seen fewer dead bodies and unsolved crimes. When they believed they both were doing true good for the world and that the righteous outnumbered the wicked.

  Spire had little sense anymore of what he was doing for whom, and toward what end. But before he engaged in another ritual—a long, brisk walk—the friends toasted last to rebuking limitation.

  When he took to the streets like this, in a circuitous route, it was generally to purge himself of mental images of his mother’s death. But since his discoveries of the ritualistic deaths in Tourney’s cellars, images of those fresh horrors were superimposed upon the older ones. When his next allotment of funds arrived, he would invest in a hearty new pair of shoes. His sanity would need them.

  By the time he reached the Omega offices, the exsanguinated corpses in his mind’s eye had been replaced by more mundane sights: bustling, clattering London in all its vast splendor and squalor.

  Their Millbank headquarters loomed before him, the onetime factory turned into spacious offices. It was a grand building but nondescript enough for Spire to feel confident in the covert nature within. He climbed the front stairs, and before he could insert his key into the hefty lock, the door was flung open with a distinct wrenching and then popping sound—but revealed no one.

  Spire placed a hand on his breast pocket where a small pistol was a large comfort. The wide and empty foyer of brick and metal beams revealed no clue as to the door’s automation.

  However, there were sounds from the floors above that were distinct to his keen ears: metal on metal, small squeaks and pops. Was there some sort of mill or factory starting back up in this old industrial space? Slowly he stepped across the threshold onto the wide landing. The door closed behind him, accompanied by a little buzz. Spire whirled around and spotted an odd lever at the top of the thick door, with a wired contraption above that sported a clock and small roll of paper. An automatic door? Was that wise or necessary? He shuddered to think the man to whom he directly reported had so little care for security.

  A moment after the door had swung closed behind him, there was a tapping noise and a tab of the paper rolled out. Spire reached out and viewed the protruding slip:

  2pm entry—77kg

  After this marking of time and weight, there was a small carbon imprint, a silhouette, his silhouette framed in the door, somehow. Likely that strange pop indicated an exposure that took in the door frame as if it were a crude light-sensitive imprint, just a silhouette, but enough for certain particulars, his hatless head, windblown hair, and the cut of his frock coat and trousers. Spire was conflicted—impressed and perturbed equally.

  Spire followed the noise to the top floor. He opened the plain white door opposite Black’s closed office door and, within, discovered that his circus had become a madhouse.

  Guns lined the walls and a number of the members of Omega were examining them.

  Across the room, Blakely, the short, nervous, excitable chemist and magician, was taking a rifle apart. That Blakely knew how to take a rifle apart and perhaps put it together again was a concept that awed and utterly terrified Spire, who deemed him too flighty for bullets.

  The Wilsons, in their simple Cipher uniforms of black tunics, hoods, and leggings, were rappelling up and down the high-ceilinged wall in tandem; the wire attached to the harnesses they wore over their costumes was so fine as to be nearly invisible.

  From various points horizontal to the floor, the smaller-framed of the two otherwise neutrally clad bodies, Adira Wilson, paused mid-rappel to throw an impressive sequence of small silver blades at a target on the far wall. The speed and precision were incredible, and Spire was reminded that the Wilsons were infamous as international spies—and as an epic cross-cultural love story—long before they’d turned sour to foreign affairs, feigned their deaths, and took on this odd, off-the-books employ thanks to Mr. Wilson’s orphanage mate Mr. Blakely. Spire surmised the Wilsons had talents he might not even want to know, though he warmed to the idea of utilizing Mrs. Wilson as a bodyguard.

  Even Miss Everhart held an odd contraption, an electrical device of some kind, judging by the thin thread of lightning sparking around the ball that was cupped in her hands. A Tesla coil, if Spire remembered correctly. Where her hair wasn’t pinned in place, it was standing up around her head.

  Miss Knight, their resident flamboyant clairvoyant, who was very fond of women, fondled a small pistol of a make Spire had never seen as if it were a piece of fine jewelry. Spire noted her utter, elegant assurance with the weapon, and he uncomfortably realized his own biases about femininity and the machinery of warfare and murder. So much of what Spire had thought true of the world was upended by Omega.

  What Lord Black hoped to accomplish with all of these trappings was anyone’s guess. Spire remembered Everhart saying Black fancied himself a spy, an espionage enthusiast who would take Spire’s job if he could—oh, if only he would—

  Was that a coffin in the corner? Spire thought with disdain. Yes—upright against the wall, a red curtain partially hiding it, stood a black casket with an ostentatious golden pyramid sporting an eye painted in the center, a Masonic symbol, of course, which made Spire roll his eyes at the theatrical mysticism heaped upon those ancient ranks.

  No one noticed Spire for a good few minutes, making him newly skeptical of their abilities as spies and assassins. Where, also, was Black?

  “Welcome to my war room!” Black declared, jumping out of the coffin as if on cue. Spire did not start, though his eye twitched a bit.

  “Oh. I didn’t scare you? That always scared everyone at parties,” Black pouted. “You see, I used to have all of this in my home. But I am a generous man, and you fine talents shall benefit!” he declared triumphantly. “Peephole in the eye.” Black grinned, tapping the golden pyramid. “That’s how you surprise your prey…”

  At the word “prey,” Spire’s eye twitched again, remembering how he’d been the butt o
f a circus act for Black’s delight. “But not you, Mr. Spire!” the lord cried. “Steeled, Spire. That’s why you’re the man for the job!”

  Spire’s knees itched to dart back out onto the streets for a calming walk again, seeing as though he’d paced miles only to be harangued.

  “I’ll be steeled in my offices should anyone wish to join me,” he replied.

  Storming down the flights to his own office floor bright-lit by midday sun streaming through wide arched, curtained windows, his footsteps echoed through the otherwise silent space—until the rest of his team burst in behind him in a stream, chattering away.

  Spire stalked to the circular central table. The others gathered around, and he started right in, eager to get something useful done. Lord Black brought up the rear of the group, and once the nobleman was within earshot, Spire launched into orders.

  “In orchestrating the recovery of British bodies and arranging for you to question New York’s Eterna Commission on the act, in addition to investigating the electrical oddity Lord Black added to the plate, I aim to remain in England while sending you operatives forth.”

  Instantly there was a murmuring outcry from everyone except, predictably, Rose Everhart. The Blakelys seemed offended and the Wilsons seemed baffled.

  “Who shall lead the group if you stay behind, Mr. Spire?” Mr. Wilson asked finally.

  “I’m not going, Spire.” Lord Black waved a languid hand, leaning against a nearby table filled with various bottles from Blakely’s alchemical arsenal. “So if you’re not either, well…”

  “I’ve no desire to abandon responsibility,” Spire stated. “I’m better suited here.” Here in London, Spire thought to himself, where ghastly murders await a prescribed list of victims and nothing of “immortality” is rational or more important. “The dead scientists are dead,” he added. “I personally would like to be sure a future crop remain protected.”

  “Your Metropolitan men have been trustworthy,” Black countered. “Have a detail assigned.”

  “They are overtaxed with the Tourney affair.” Spire leaned in Black’s direction to remind the aristocrat. “Who is dead, you recall, by mysterious, gruesome circumstances not to be ignored.”

  “Let’s have a word about all this,” Black said, his war room delight having clearly sobered. Spire made for his door. “Not your office, mine,” Black countered and stalked off toward the threshold, gesturing for Spire to follow. “Mine has far better liquor.”

  Spire turned to his team. “While none of you can announce a destination or purpose of your travel to anyone, do make sure no one goes looking for you and that all family and associates are summarily taken care of.”

  The rest of the team looked on in curiosity but did not press, instead moseyed to their desks, and Miss Everhart immediately to the telegraph machine. Spire shut the department door behind him before ascending the reverberate iron stairs behind Black, who held the door for Spire and closed it behind him.

  “Speak freely, Mr. Spire,” Black offered, gesturing for him to sit. Black moved to a sideboard to pour two helpings of what was likely bourbon worth Spire’s whole salary. The nobleman slid the crystal snifter across the smooth, elaborately lacquered mahogany desk.

  “I am torn between directives, and I do not wish my team to see hesitancy,” Spire stated.

  “Omega is your only directive. I thought that had been entirely clear from day one, when you met with the queen.”

  “The most gruesome sights and crimes of the age are not to be set aside,” Spire insisted. “Your leads in the Tourney investigation secured his arrest.” Spire leaned toward Black across his desk. “Why force me to stop now?”

  “If you can prove Omega and Tourney have direct commonality,” Black replied, “I can convince the queen to allow you broader scope. As it stands, I am directed to keep you very focused.”

  “I believe Francis Tourney had holdings in the Apex Corporation, the company that shipped the bodies of our scientists to New York.”

  “Well then, there you go!”

  “Thank you, sir. Finally. That shouldn’t have been hard, you know.”

  “I know, Mr. Spire,” Black murmured. There came a distinct shift in him. The grand presence was suddenly just a tired man in a striped satin frock coat, seated at an overlarge desk.

  “Lord Black,” Spire pressed quietly, “Her Majesty hides aspects of Omega. I’ve been unable to visit the estate where the previous scientists had been living prior to being abducted. And though I am charged with their protection, I’ve not met any candidates for a new team save for the doctor, if you can call him that, Zhavia. Whether you, Lord Black, are complicit in this obfuscation, I cannot tell.”

  Black sighed. Spire was discomfited. Every time he and Lord Black had been together, the nobleman had been the picture of joy, mischief, and confidence. He was notoriously a charming dandy, the sort of personality that by all accounts should constantly grate on Spire’s nerves. But, damn the man, he was insufferably likable.

  It was clear, however, that today something was wearing upon this effervescent presence. Black took great care in responding.

  “Obfuscation, no, not to my knowledge,” he replied finally. “But things are afoot, Mr. Spire. I do confess I’ve bad news about the new scientists, my good man, and why you haven’t met them.”

  Spire set his jaw. “Don’t tell me we’ve lost more men?”

  “I don’t know,” Black said wearily. “Possibly. There was supposed to be a fresh crop and I intended to bring them here to our Millbank offices as you requested, it prudent indeed to have them under your watch. I have been overruled.”

  “By?”

  “Her Majesty. Before you ask, no, she gave no reason.” Black offered a strained, ironic smile. “The new scientists are to be kept in the same manor the others disappeared from in the first place.”

  Spire blinked. “Lovely. That seems … wholly imprudent.”

  “I agree. But I was not given the opportunity to argue that point.”

  “Lovely. If neither of us is listened to—”

  Lord Black held up a hand, his expression weary—the look of a man tired of being unheard. Spire knew the feeling well. For someone of such position and privilege to feel as helpless as Spire himself … the last of any remaining antagonism toward the lord vanished.

  “Tell me, then, share with me what I can do,” Spire said with a gentleness usually foreign to his nature. The extreme personalities that surrounded his new position had driven him to adopt varying tactics that taxed the range of his admittedly limited sentiments. “Give me leave and resources. I am driven to better this city. For Queen and Country. That is, truly, what I was born to do. But I can do nothing for any of those noble purposes under clouds of obfuscation and dangerous measures.”

  Spire feared that all the inefficiency stemmed from Her Majesty herself. If so, then he’d have to find a way—somehow—to be shifted back into his old position at the Metropolitan. And quickly, before the unfinished business of the Tourney case was cold as stone.

  Spire shuddered as he thought about what the queen was after. Eternal life. He’d yet to meet a single soul in higher office he’d want to stay in for a next term, let alone forever … The true horror of “Eterna Pax Victoria” dawned on him in a sour ray of jaundiced light.

  There was a soft click of shining leather boots upon the slate floor as Lord Black paced to and fro. The nobleman approached Spire, took his snifter, and refilled both glasses at the mahogany console table littered with various objects that by their appearance had likely been ferreted away from pyramids. Black returned Spire’s snifter to him before taking a seat in his vast leather throne of a chair.

  “I do worry about the Crown,” Black murmured. “I know it’s treasonous to say so.”

  Spire hesitated a moment longer, then dove in. “Treason is entirely contextual, sir. It camouflages to suit the surroundings. Good and evil are not so changeable. You hired me because you thought I did a good job in
the Metropolitan Police. I was able to do so because I acted only with comprehensive information. I’ll not risk my life or those placed under my purview carelessly or for a questionable cause. There has to be morality beneath it all. I will not pursue immortality or anything associated with it if there is not morality at the core. Nor should you, milord. Do not be persuaded to do anything but that which keeps mankind from regressing to animals.”

  This had an impact on Black.

  “You’re a good man, Spire,” he said. “We’re lucky—I am lucky—to have you. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure this office is on the right side of what it was built for. You have my word, for what that’s worth.”

  “A great deal, milord, and thank you,” Spire said with a rare earnestness.

  “I’d like to offer you proof of my word,” Black added with a familiarly jovial grin, “but I fear you’ll question the means.”

  Spire looked at him quizzically.

  “That day at Buck House, I had you tested by a man who can gaze at the aura of a person and tell if he’s doing right by humankind or ill. Whether he’s on the side of the angels or the devils, let’s say.”

  Spire recalled that horrid day, the day he’d gone from Tourney’s cellar of nightmare to the splendor of Buckingham Palace. So that’s what had been happening while he’d been stuck in that tiny room—his “aura” had been spied upon. Lovely.

  “Whether you believe it or not, he deemed you right and honorable, Mr. Spire,” Black said with a chuckle. “I’ll have Lord Denbury keep a good eye on all of us, to make sure we remain so.”

  “By whose bias?” Spire countered.

  “By that sweet, kind man’s estimation,” the nobleman said with an unmistakable fondness. “I am certain his bias is that of the godly. You’ll see what I mean soon enough; I’m drawing him into our confidences. There’s a parade Saturday, and I’ll have him at our box when the queen passes by.”

  An aura reader to add to Omega’s circus. Spire held back a sigh. But, he thought with some surprise, if Black had suspicions of the Crown itself, and that’s why Denbury’s eye was being called upon, this all could be labeled treason indeed. A new weight shifted in Spire’s stomach.