Angels of Music (48 page)

‘I wish she were awake,’ said Kate, nodding at the witch.

‘Do you?’ asked Irene. ‘Unorna is one of
them
too. Look at her face. You’d swear she was nineteen… but she was an Angel twenty-five years ago. With her, it’ll be sorcery or alchemy. Face cream made from the fat of unbaptised babies. Baths of virgins’ blood.’

Kate was doubtful.

‘Unorna’s not the only one in the Agency,’ Irene continued. ‘There’s Olympia too. She
can’t
change. If her face wore out or fell off, it could be repainted. She can be touched up like a picture.’

‘Erik is supposed to keep spry with a potion stolen from the Shah of Persia,’ said Kate.

When young and gay and foolish, Irene seldom thought about getting old. She’d heard the whispers that Erik could thwart the years but not pressed for details. Now, it was too late.

‘The Lord of Strange Deaths is unageing,’ said Kate. ‘He has a philtre, too. Dr Nikola has been chasing the secret for a long time.’

More damned masterminds.

‘There are others,’ Kate continued, warming to the subject. ‘Over a dozen different people have made convincing claims to be the Wandering Jew, tarrying till the Second Coming. Countess de Cagliostro is supposed to have been a lover of Saint-Germain, who swore he reached the age of five hundred by subsisting on a diet of sour milk, chicken breasts and gold flake…’

‘At this point, I couldn’t afford the chicken breasts.’

‘There’s the blue flame of Kôr, a lost city in the heart of Africa. Bathing in it apparently confers immortality, though it burns rarely… and I’m not sure how one goes about bathing in a fire. It’s like drying yourself with a bucket of water. Féodor Dimitrius, a society doctor, charges handsome fees to reinvigorate rich old duffers with simian gland transplants. I wouldn’t pay a quack to cut me open and sew in a slice of monkey-meat.’

Irene couldn’t tell whether Kate Reed had made a special study or was just well-informed on curious matters which fell into the purview of the Diogenes Club. Possibly, the Irish woman was chattering to keep her spirits up.

‘And vampires, of course, survive the centuries. They drink blood.’

‘Didn’t Falke use some sort of mechanical sponge in his vampire murders?’

‘That doesn’t prove there aren’t vampires. The Diogenes Club have files on Mircalla Karnstein, Lord Ruthven and Count de Ville.’

‘I’m sure they have a file on me too. Don’t believe everything you read in it.’

Kate laughed, which struck Irene as peculiar even for her.

‘Cough it up. What’s funny, Katie?’

‘Your Diogenes Club file. No one
reads
it. They look at the pictures.’

Irene knew which pictures she meant.

‘They wouldn’t be so eager if I posed for those studies now,’ she said.

‘Oh, I don’t know… I’d say you were well-preserved.’

‘Pickled, you mean. Like herring.’

Kate giggled now, less hysterically.

‘Seriously, Irene – why does getting older burn you so much? Would you really wish to be like
them
? Antinea, Erik, Olympia, Countess de Cagliostro… even Unorna. Or Alraune, who’s as strange a flower as the rest of them. They may not wither, but they’re only half-alive – if that. Olympia’s a
doll
, for Heaven’s sake! If you had to wear a mask all your life, would you care if people thought you young or old?’

‘I’d like to have the choice, Katie.’

Unorna turned over in her sleep. She was stirring, as if coming out of the spell. But didn’t wake.

‘Do you think she’ll kill us?’ Kate asked. ‘Antinea?’

‘No doubt about it,’ said Irene. ‘She’s one of our
old friends
, like your General Assolant and Unorna’s Doctor Falke – chewing over defeats for decades. If I held a grudge the way these jaspers do there’d be a sight fewer opera critics, crowned heads, great detectives and diabolical masterminds. I reckon we’ll be the opening act for her coronation. At least we won’t be burned at the stake. It’ll be a water-themed death, for sure. Tied up in a slowly filling tank… weighted down and dropped in the Seine… or just chucked into that maelstrom where they were digging the Métro and sucked under. There are seven of us to get out of the way… eight, if they catch Erik.’

‘
Can
Olympia drown?’

‘Ever dropped a watch in a bowl of water? Olympia can
stop
.’

‘Mrs Eynsford Hill can hold her breath a long time. All those exercises of the diaphragm. Alraune might be able to thrive in water like a lily. I think she photosynthesises.’

Now, Kate was being larkish.

‘They’ll have thought of all that,’ said Irene. ‘Look how elaborate this is. Antinea’s Ascent has been a long time coming. She laid her plans and recruited her army and waited for rain. It’s not about us… or even Erik. We’re “other business”. You know what they say: “We pass this way but once so if there’s anyone you want to die a lingering death don’t miss an opportunity to do them in.”’

‘Who says that?’

‘Awful people like Jo Balsamo. Gack, how did it come to this? Is this what you expected when you turned Angel?’

‘I’m not sure I really count. I wasn’t with the Agency long.’

‘Me neither, but I don’t think that matters. Balsamo is making a Herodian point by wiping the lot of us out – the ones she knows and hates personally and the ones who came along and wore the wings after us.’

‘I think that’s why the Persian was murdered – to bring us together, as many of us as could get here easily.’

‘That’s how masterminds think. Sneaky and petty. Wasted cleverness.’

‘After we’re gone, she’ll try to collect the rest – the ones who couldn’t be here. She’ll send assassins. If it’s any comfort, I expect Lady Yuki will cut her head off for her. She’s the Angel of the Sword.’

‘I’m not ready to be avenged yet.’

Irene looked about the cell for any tools. She remembered Colonel Moran – Number Two to the late, unlamented Professor Moriarty – elaborating on the subject of getting out of tricky spots like this: ‘If you’re clapped in a cell, don’t bother trying to pick the lock. Spoilsports who build jails always put time and effort into locks. You usually don’t have a keyhole on your side of the door you can shove your stickpin into and scratch the tumblers. No, go for the
hinges
. No blighter ever bothers with hinges. Hit ’em with a hammer or handiest hammer substitute and they pop off. It don’t matter how locked the door is, ’cause you can open it the other way. So much the better if you’ve been imprisoned by conscientious housekeepers who oil their hinges properly.’

A soggy
papier-mâché
elephant didn’t seem a likely hammer substitute. And the hinges looked sturdy and unoiled.

‘I’m the Angel of Truth,’ Kate declared. ‘I became a reporter because I saw we were surrounded by lies… or, worse, mysteries. I wanted to tell the truth, to expose the liars and solve the mysteries. Hard experience taught me it wasn’t always possible or even advisable. Sometimes the truth won’t be believed or would drive people mad or hurt the innocent. But I was addicted, by then… addicted to
finding out
. That’s what brought me to the Diogenes Club, and the Opera Ghost Agency. If you find out a truth you can’t in all conscience share, there’s an obligation to do something about it. I won’t be drowned like an unwanted kitten.’

Kate’s little Irish face shone in the gloom. Irene wished she’d known her better – she could have used an Angel of Truth.

‘Erik called me the Angel of Larceny,’ she said. ‘He was being facetious. Have you noticed how few people notice he’s funny? Those pranks against the pompous. Cutting witticisms on black-edged paper. He was born with a smile, after all.’

‘He ran away from the circus so he wouldn’t be a clown,’ said Kate. ‘And came here in high seriousness. He could have haunted the Opéra Comique.’

Irene wondered about herself. What had Erik seen in her?

‘After all, was I just a thief? I didn’t think of it that way. I was what they used to call an “adventuress”… I wasn’t a good enough singer not to be. And I certainly wasn’t staying in New Jersey and marrying a civil engineer.’

‘Didn’t you marry a lawyer?’

‘We don’t mention him… the way we don’t mention you not marrying Mr Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club.’

Kate goggled at her.

‘Yes, Angel of Truth, I know the scores too.’

‘Charles was married,’ said Kate.

‘Widowed,’ corrected Irene.

‘I knew his wife. Pamela. I wouldn’t want to replace her.’

‘Godfrey Norton replaced
me
.’

Irene had never acknowledged that in public. She hadn’t mentioned her husband in years. Former husband.

God. She really had called him that.

The Persian and Erik had helped her make up her mind about him. No, her mind was already made up… they helped her settle on a course of action.

Desertion, it was called. That was what a truth-teller like Kate Reed would say instead of ‘course of action’.

Godfrey Norton was happier without her. He
must
be. Everyone else was. The crowned heads of Europe paid her no mind any more. Great detectives and master criminals had fresher fish to fry. Once, she had been
the
woman… now, she was barely
a
woman. She was a thief after all. She had stolen her own life.

‘I don’t think we’re supposed to get married,’ said Kate. ‘We are not wives and mothers.’

‘We?’

‘Angels. Adventuresses. Whatever you care to call us.’

‘Christine got married – to a Count, too. They have grown-up kids who wish they’d hurry up and die so they can squabble about the family loot. A brood of de Chagny grand-brats run about too. Sophy Kratides, Angel of Vengeance, has a fatherless daughter. Moria Kratides – dangerous little minx. Elizabeth
is
married, though she tries not to be in the same country as Freddy Eynsford Hill. Ayda Heidari, Angel of Blood, married a Scotsman called Ferguson and settled down in Sussex. Thi Minh is engaged to Jacques d’Athys, the explorer who fetched her back from Indochina as if she were a gewgaw picked up from a market stall. I suppose he might die from tropic fever before he gets her to the altar.’

‘Unorna had a lover, Israel Kafka,’ said Kate. ‘
He
died. Still, look at her… as you say, she’s beautiful. She must have had suitors.’

‘I don’t know, Katie. You try being called the Witch of Somewhere and see how easy it is to get a boyfriend.’

‘Alraune has many admirers…’

‘And they all fade away or are ruined,’ said Irene. ‘Like the enemies she mentioned. I think she gets her lovers and her enemies confused. That happens more than you’d think.’

‘Not to me.’

‘No, Katie. Not to you. You have found the perfect husband and, by some strange circumstance, have managed not to marry him.’

‘That’s a needlessly cruel observation.’

‘You’re Angel of Truth, remember. That quality is often needlessly cruel.’

‘So, this –
adventuring
– is something we do
before
settling down in Twickenham to sew antimacassars and argue with nurse about baby’s colic? Or
instead of
.’

‘Or
after
. Erik has taken on widows over the years – Madame Lachaille and Madame Calhoun.’

‘The Angel of Love and the Angel of Light.’

‘Yes, them. I met Madame Calhoun. She wasn’t an
official
widow. Her husband did the decent thing and disappeared from the face of the earth. One of those famous unsolved mysteries everyone lets lie. Before she tried settling down in her equivalent of Twickenham, Calhoun was La Marmoset, the greatest detective of either sex in Europe. Mistress of disguise. Never showed the same face twice. Escapologist, too. Pity she isn’t with the Agency these days. She’d have those hinges off with a hairpin.’

She should have paid more attention to La Marmoset. The sleuth tried to tell her something and she wouldn’t listen. Irene had a blind spot. Great Detectives put her back up. Preconceptions and prejudices could be fatal for those who lived as she had, flitting from caper to con and seduction to scheme.

‘I’m an aunt,’ said Kate, quietly. ‘I
had
aunts and now I am one.’

‘Aunts do not have adventures. If you are an aunt, it is incidental. You are an Angel.’

‘I might have liked children,’ said Kate.

‘You might have not liked them too. Plenty don’t…’

‘Irene, do
you
have children?’

Unorna sat up straight, eyes wide open. And the subject changed, not too soon for Irene.

‘Antinea is here,’ Unorna announced.

‘Slightly late with that announcement,’ said Irene.

The witch was disoriented and unfocused. Irene offered her a nip from her flask, but Unorna said she wasn’t thirsty.

Kate gave Unorna a précis of what had happened since she conked out.

The witch wasn’t happy about it. She was intent on saying something.

‘
One of us is not to be trusted. One of us is not who she seems.
’

That just hung there, annoying and ominous.

‘You can’t say that and not give names,’ said Irene. ‘Otherwise, it’s worse than useless.’

‘
One of us is not to be trusted. One of us is not who she seems.
’

‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ Kate rattled off. ‘I hope we shall be the best of friends.’

Unorna did sound like Olympia. Expressionless. A speaking box, not a person.

‘None of us are to be trusted and none of us are who we seem,’ said Irene. ‘That’s who we are. It doesn’t mean we can’t trust
each other
.’

Kate was dubious. ‘Unorna, what does that mean?’

The witch was still disoriented. ‘I’ve walked pathways in dark,’ she said, speaking for herself again. ‘I walked for… a long time.’

‘It’s only been hours since you… fell asleep,’ said Kate.

‘For you. I’ve been to… well, somewhere in the dark. Somewhere purple. I’ve spoken with the shades of the departed. I was told…
one of us is
…’

‘…not to be trusted, not who she seems,’ said Irene. ‘We got the wire.’

‘Which shade? The Persian?’

Unorna shook her head. ‘Pretty girl,’ she said. ‘Wore a man’s hat.’