Eterna and Omega Read online

  “I’ve orders to give,” Spire said, once the strained silence had grown uncomfortable. “If you’ll excuse me, sir.” He rose and bowed.

  Black nodded and got to his feet, his exhaustion plain once more. “Lead on, my good man.”

  With Black on his heels, Spire opened his department door.

  He heard a little thwinging sound that ended in a soft pop, then felt a distinct sting upon his forehead.

  “Bull’s-eye!” cried Mr. Blakely, theatrical ringmaster and chemical tinkerer, the arms of his aquamarine velvet frock coat flapping as if he were a tall, spindly waterfowl.

  Spire stood stock-still and reached up to touch whatever it was that had landed upon his brow. Before he could remove the projectile, there was a cracking sound, followed by smoke that burst around Spire’s face in an instant, gray and acrid. He doubled over, coughing, then spun around and went right back out, seeking clean air. He snatched the arrow-like object from his forehead and peered at it, crumpled in his shaking palm: a piece of broken balsa wood with little capsules attached.

  “Really, Mr. Blakely, wouldn’t the wall have been a wiser test subject than your superior?” Everhart said sharply from her post at the telegraph machine just inside the second-floor threshold.

  Still gasping, Spire returned to the office as Blakely replied earnestly, “I need to know that it works on human skin in motion! The operative does have to have good aim, and I haven’t yet accounted for wind—”

  “You will account, Mr. Blakely,” Spire hissed, after clearing his throat several times—acrid particles still clung to the inside of his nostrils and made his eyes water—for not coming within many feet of me, for the sanctity of your facial features, until you’ve proved that blasted thing of vital importance.”

  “Oh, rest assured, mon capitane, I’ll—”

  “Shut up, Blakely, and prepare to travel to New York City. Your steamer leaves tomorrow. And dress less … dramatically. I can hear that coat from across the room, it’s so loud. Spies, Blakely, do not wear turquoise—”

  Blakely gasped, utterly aghast. “It is a-qua-ma-rine, thank you very much!”

  “We are here,” Spire growled, “if any of you have the capacity to recall, to examine a plan of recovery of the bodies of our late scientists, learn what we can of Eterna’s commission, and seize the man of electrical aberration known as Mosley.” He squared his shoulders and took charge.

  “Since you are a circus, I’m using you as such. Set yourself up as a small fair, tent and all, in whatever downtown space you can manage. If it’s close to a governmental area, all the better. Present a Cipher invitation to your ‘show’ directly to the Eterna offices. We know from intelligence that Senator Bishop and Miss Templeton spend part of their time investigating sham spiritualism and outrageous divination. Your performance should be irresistible to them.”

  He turned to Miss Knight, who nodded with a smile of understanding.

  “Find out, by whatever clever discussion necessary, what they want and have done with our scientists. They may not be in possession of the dead bodies, but we need to rule them out. Be careful, as I don’t know if they will seek retaliation for Brinkman’s unconventional interrogation.

  “As well, see what you can do to lure out Mr. Mosley. I’ll wire every contact point for Brinkman I have, so he may make himself useful to you for a change.”

  “Apex, Mr. Spire,” Miss Everhart prompted.

  “Indeed. Keep all ears tuned for the Apex Corporation or ties to the Master’s Society. Apex is the company responsible for shipping the bodies, which puts them on our watch list. The Master’s Society precedes them and may be the inspiration, or directly responsible.”

  Spire turned to Black. “Now, have I your permission to send them all away and remain here in peace?”

  “You do,” Black said, hiding a chuckle.

  “Might that be extended to me as well?” Everhart asked with careful nonchalance. “Do you really want to hear the PM whining if I’m entirely absent from Westminster?”

  Lord Black shuddered. “God, no. Stay, Everhart.”

  “Thank you, milord.”

  For the first time all day, Spire took a calm breath and was able to relax his shoulders.

  His respite was short-lived as an intruder appeared on the threshold of the offices—a petite red-blond woman wearing a deep red riding habit. Her sharp features and imperious air made her seem twice her size. She surveyed the room and its inhabitants, gave a single nod, as if they had passed inspection, then turned away and strode up the metal stairs to Black’s top floor. “Let’s see what all these offices look like, shall we?” she stated.

  “Excuse me, miss?” Spire called after the newcomer as he stepped out onto the landing. “Who are you and how did you get in?”

  “Why, hello there! Don’t mind me, I’ve a way with doors,” she replied, turning to stare down at him from the landing above. Out of the corner of his eye, Spire saw that Lord Black and Miss Everhart had come up close behind him at the second-floor landing.

  “This is a restricted-access building, miss, you can’t be here,” Spire stated. “Can I help you?”

  She offered the three who stood a landing below her a prim smile. Her small, sensible hat was cocked at a slight angle that was opposite from the tilt of her curious, scrutinizing gaze. “This is the Omega department, is it not?” Her accent was of good London breeding, but there was something a bit odd about it, as if it echoed.

  Spire looked at Lord Black and didn’t say another word. He’d let the man who said to defer insistent queries about the department take it from here. Spire knew the upper-class imperious type and he would let the gentry deal with it.

  “No it isn’t…” Lord Black said, rather unconvincingly.

  “Oh, shut up, yes it is.” The woman frowned, folding her arms. Black’s mouth dropped open.

  Spire wanted to put his face in his hands at what was supposed to be kept a government secret. Instead, he just scowled, watching the intruder as she descended again toward them, returning to the second floor to address them eye to eye.

  “You are?” Black prompted.

  The woman took a deep breath and replied on bit of a tear, her voice low, crisp, authoritative, and oddly echoing for so small a frame, and held their company in a bit of a thrall.

  “I’ve many names, and to some I’m just a visitor, but you may call me Lizzie Marlowe of the Marlowe Trust. That should ring a bell with you, Lord Black. Seeing as you’re a member of the House of Lords, you would know my family, and if I do recall, your uncle was set to do mine some favors that never arrived, and while I’m not here to call upon those at present, I am here to see what this department begins as. Taking notes, really, as what Omega could become if you’re not very, very careful is very, very important.”

  With that, she swept down again to the front door.

  Her bright eyes narrowed, as if she were a hawk that suddenly spied a mouse in a field, but in reverse, looking up rather than down at her prey. She pointed suddenly at Miss Everhart.

  “You. It’ll be up to you, my dear. You and Templeton, to keep the departments honest. Keep sharp. And do go to New York, will you?”

  And with that, Lizzie Marlowe turned to the door, peered at the latches, clicked the lever so that it would lock upon her exit, and was gone.

  Spire noticed with great discomfort that there was no read upon the paper ticker above the door that had been installed to track the time, weight, and silhouette of any visitor. The black paper read as if no one had been there at all.

  Everyone was dumbstruck for a moment. The rest of the team had filed in silently behind Miss Everhart, and they were all looking at her expectantly.

  After a long moment, a baffled Lord Black broke the silence. “Actually, I don’t know any Marlowes at all. Aside from, you know, the playwright. And the Blacks don’t owe them any favors … What in the world…” He stared at Miss Everhart, who had grown more pale than when the day began.

&
nbsp; “Don’t look at me,” Everhart replied uneasily. “I haven’t a clue. But she said Templeton. Clara? She must be referring to Clara Templeton of New York’s commission.”

  “Well, find out what she meant. We may need you in New York after all, Miss Everhart,” Black stated.

  Spire and Everhart sighed in unison.

  Miss Knight was staring at the door with wide-eyed fascination. “I could not, for the life of me, get a read on that woman. And I’m fairly good with reading women if I do say so myself,” she said, with a bit of entendre. “She reads almost as if she’s a ghost, but far too corporeal. It isn’t that she doesn’t exist … but as if she exists too much … Whatever she is, she’s not normal.”

  “Add her to our growing list of abnormal,” Spire said through clenched teeth. “If you haven’t noticed, Lord Black, your contraption there to register entrances and visitors is already broken. It recorded nothing, just then, and we all saw and heard that woman, so this wasn’t a case for your secret ghostly department, but do something about the door.”

  “Go on,” Black said to everyone else, shooing them away. “You leave at the crack of dawn. Carriages will be sent for each of you, be ready. Miss Everhart, I’ll be sure there’s a nurse sent to watch over your ill cousin until you are safely returned.”

  “Thank you, milord,” Rose said, trying not to show her disappointment with this change.

  “I’ll be sure everyone’s ticket envelopes have the address of the British safe house you’ll be using in downtown Manhattan.”

  Black turned to Spire. “After the upcoming parade, perhaps we might corner Her Majesty at the palace and request audience.” He spoke pointedly and earnestly. “To address your valid concerns. What do you say?”

  Spire nodded. “Thank you, sir, for the effort.”

  * * *

  “Is tonight the night, O’Rourke?” His Majesty, Beauregard Moriel, asked softly.

  “It is, Majesty,” the tall, scarred guard replied in a rumbling Irish lilt.

  “Is my double chosen?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. The night watchman we’ve selected is roughly your proportions.”

  The dank, dark cell in the Royal Courts of Justice that no one knew existed held one small man, balding and beady-eyed, a person generally thought to be long dead by royal decree. He was wearing a fine deep burgundy suit that he’d had smuggled in to mark the auspicious occasion of his secret release.

  “The man will likely scream quite like a pig, so we will have to account for that,” Moriel stated.

  “It is taken care of, Majesty,” the guard assured him. “Chemicals were administered to the guards, so our path will be clear, and operatives are stationed near the exit for additional security. We’re exiting via a rear alley and heading straight to Vieuxhelles, which has been prepared for you—all the wires, all the machinery. All tertiary operations can now continue from the estate, as Apex has shipped the appropriate products for each of the three ventures.”

  “O’Rourke, I am so pleased with you,” Moriel cooed, reaching through the iron bars to clasp the man’s wide palms. “Now. Are you ready to see how I summon my assistants?”

  “Yes, Majesty,” the guard replied earnestly, then continued warily, “provided the Summoned know I am your ally and don’t think me the double. Can you promise me that?”

  “Of course they won’t mistake the wrong man,” Moriel said. “My Summoned engage only upon my command, as it’s my blood spilled that calls them. Blood is such a precious thing, and the Summoned love nothing more than wasting that which is precious. As my blood is most precious of all, they regard my sacrifice highly. The Summoned are diligent and loyal to me, considering the sustenance I’ve given them in the past and will give again as our world order nears.”

  Moriel turned to the wall, where he’d etched a distinct rectangular groove by diligent application of the end of a spoon through the months of his imprisonment.

  “O’Rourke, my dear, do you happen to have a sharp knife?” Moriel asked nonchalantly. “I’ve a dull implement that will do, but I’d prefer not to be in quite so much pain when activating the corridor.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” the man said, handing the blade between the bars.

  Without a wince or a moment’s hesitation, Moriel slashed his forearm. Blood burbled from the wound. A breath hissed between O’Rourke’s teeth, but the Majesty remained unmoved. Drawing forth the Summoned was commonplace, as revealed by his forearm, which was scarred with cuts in varying lengths and stages of healing.

  “The Summoned walk the dark path, O’Rourke. Some might call them demons, others use other words depending on their own traditions. As I believe in no God but Myself, all I know is that the Summoned are terribly useful and will be critical in reordering the world back into the old ways.”

  He used a finger to fill the rectangle he had carved into the wall with his blood. He caressed the top line, whispering to the stone, bidding the shadows and the darkest of matters to come forth, in tones a familiar paramour might use to call into a locked chamber where a sweetheart lay sleeping. This was not a courtship of rite and ritual but already an established marriage.

  The wall rippled slightly as if it were liquid.

  Two black silhouettes, forms of human spark and living energy in abject reverse, slipped from the spiritual halls of human choice and capacity. Moriel did not understand the exact properties of where the forces he summoned lived, if that’s what their existence could be called, but it seemed they stepped out from between the world’s moments, leaching from the corridors of time, where the soul in all its possibility moved between hope and misery. By the demons’ influence in these corridors between life and death, black despair was bid to step into this imperfect world from the ranges of all that might be summoned, kind or malevolent. The vacuous forms turned to Moriel, as if listening.

  “A man will take my place, here,” Moriel murmured, “and, my dear friends, I need you to do the same to him as was done to our poor, devoted Mr. Tourney. Nothing left. Limb from limb. He’s meant to be me, as I’m sure you realize. So be as thorough as you did in taking Tourney for your cause and turn these dank gray walls red. I love red. You’ll have to come do up my estate once I’m finally home again! As always, thank you for your service, my devoted compatriots!”

  Moriel turned to see O’Rourke shudder as he looked into the blackness that was those forms. O’Rourke, seeing that his reaction had been noted, made move to apologize, but Moriel held up a bloodstained hand.

  “It is a particular absence, one that chills the soul if gazed upon too long,” he said gently. “Even I have my limits. Now, my darling boy, set me free!”

  O’Rourke took the key and began unwinding the chains that sealed the door of the makeshift cell. As he worked, he kept glancing at the figures; each time he did, the chains clattered a bit too loudly and the key rattled too tellingly in the lock. Finally, the gate swung open.

  “After you, my friend.” Moriel gestured the large man ahead, but O’Rourke bowed his head and retreated a step, gesturing in turn.

  “Oh, no, no, after you, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing lower without taking his eyes off the hovering ink-black forms. “Your kingdom awaits.”

  After a slightly awkward pause, Moriel emerged from the cell. He paused on the threshold to look over his shoulder and give a little wave to the duet of coalesced malevolent mass within his erstwhile prison. Straightening his small frame, he strode confidently down the dark, dank hall, head held high, past two other guards. One was unconscious; the other looked dazed—evidence of the chemicals O’Rourke had mentioned.

  The Majesty smiled, then stepped slightly to the side as a pair of men—one his own height and build, one much larger—passed through the corridor, heading for the cell Moriel had so recently abandoned. The smaller man was only half conscious, stumbling along and struggling in the other’s grip. The taller guard bobbed his head to his master, and Moriel’s smile grew when he saw the dark eyes of
the possessed staring at him.

  Not all the Summoned would take on a bodily possession to do their work, but many did, and it ensured greater service than shorter-term supplications and persuasions.

  Moriel turned to watch the double enter the cell. As the door closed behind the pair, the Majesty heard a dim protest—apparently the man was rousing to his fate—then sounds of a struggle, punctuated by expletives.

  The former captive began to walk away, listening with anticipation to what was happening behind him.

  There came the most ungodly scream that ever man had rent.

  The sound of crunching bones and the entirety of a body’s fluids exploding outward, painting three cell walls and splashing through the bars to coat the corridor beyond.

  O’Rourke clearly tried to hide a wave of panic and nausea, but Moriel noticed.

  “Ah, the beautiful perfume of human fear,” he said, breathing deep.

  The guard and his protected charge stopped, just before opening the exterior gate. He glanced behind him, as if to make sure no Summoned silhouette had followed.

  “Before we go any farther, it’s been quite an experience with you, sir, and … but … I’d like some assurance, Mr. Moriel,” O’Rourke stated. “Your Majesty,” he added with deference. “… that all I have done, directed, and managed, which has been, please recall, a great deal, will be rewarded.”

  “Would I had money on my person, I would pay you handsomely,” Moriel said with a sibilant sweetness.

  “The pocket watch is quite nice,” O’Rourke said. He placed another key to the next lock in the iron pad of the external gate but did not turn it, just stared at him.

  Moriel assumed this man was desperate, for something, someone, some greed; men like him usually were and could easily be bought. Moriel’s jaw tightened only slightly as he handed over the gold implement he’d had ferreted in along with his robes of release.

  “I’m sorry if it has sentimental value, sir,” the guard fumbled. “It’s just…”