Extraordinaires 1 (22 page)

He touched his ribs. They were hurting, even though he couldn't remember actually being struck there. Most of his muscles were trembling. His stomach was hollow, a gaping void inside him. The square was strewn with Neanderthals and Kingsley dully noted how Evadne had taken care of those he'd inconvenienced. With more interest, he noted how each of them, underneath their workaday jacket, was wearing an unlikely broad belt that sparkled as if sequin-strewn.

Adjusting the phlogiston satchel over her shoulder, she came to him, put a hand on his shoulder and peered into his face. Her hair was wet, her eyes concerned. ‘Are you hurt?'

‘Not seriously. Bruised ribs.'

‘You did well.'

‘Thanks. So did you.'

Evadne was looking at him over the top of her blue-tinted spectacles. ‘Do you remember that secret you were going to tell me? I don't think you really have to spell it out for me.'

Kingsley looked down, looked up, looked around, looked anywhere but at this remarkable young woman who was still there, despite having seen –
knowing!
– the secret Kingsley had inside him.

‘Perhaps,' he mumbled. Then he straightened. ‘Which puts me at a disadvantage in our secret-sharing pact.'

‘Don't worry. I don't intend to renege. A pact is a pact.'

Kingsley was spared from responding when the patrons of the inn began to creep out from where they'd been hiding. The first, the most curious, was a short man, even shorter than those behind him. He was young, with awkwardly cropped hair and a jacket that looked as if had seen better days a century or so ago. ‘You beat the ogres,' he said, eyes wide, staring at the Neanderthals, then at Kingsley and Evadne. ‘You and the ghost beat the monsters.'

At first, Kingsley had trouble understanding. The vowels were long and thick, the words stretched, but he put the sense together. ‘She's not a ghost.'

The curious one and his friends – several with tankards in hand – chose to differ. ‘White skin, hair. Ghost.'

Arguing wasn't likely to get them anywhere. Without thinking, Kingsley took her hand. ‘The ogres will wake up soon. They eat people.'

Kingsley and Evadne crossed the square while the patrons of the inn tried to see who could run the fastest in the opposite direction.

A
fter spending the night in two small but clean rooms that Evadne found at another Demimonde establishment, it had been Kingsley's turn to lead the way. At the Royal Dockyards, he negotiated passage with a boatman who was more interested in Kingsley's silver coins than in his strange way of speaking and even stranger garb.

For a moment, as the boat neared Greenwich, Kingsley was convinced that they had been brought to the wrong place. The riverbanks were crowded with people. They clustered in small groups, on wharfs and along the water's grassy edge, looking upriver to the horror that was London ablaze, but it wasn't that which so disconcerted Kingsley. The entire shape of the park and its environs threw him akilter because the most familiar buildings weren't there. The palace renovations that would eventually become the beginnings of the massive Naval College were under way. The rest of the rambling old palace took up much of the bank, a tower was where the observatory should be, and the park itself was much more higgledy-piggledy than the one he knew – the one he'd seen only the night before.

The night before and two hundred and fifty years from now
, he reminded himself.

Kingsley pushed through the crowd on the dock, while Evadne kept her head down, shielding her memorable face. The people displayed an odd mixture of attitudes. Many were that most recognisable of types: the ghoulish onlooker, the sort that Kingsley imagined had been on the outskirts of human disasters forever, probably standing near the ruins of Troy and commenting on the size of that horse. Others were praying for deliverance, either mumbling and downcast or wildly imploring the heavens. One wild-eyed fellow, bearded and surprisingly sprightly, was doing his best to convince everyone that this was the beginning of the Day of Judgement, it being the devilish year of 1666, so they'd be better off preparing themselves than gawking.

Kingsley shivered at his words, which were delivered with a chilling, matter-of-fact voice, as if the man were recommending a particular cut of beef for dinner. No beseecher, him.

Evadne gripped his arm. Standing at the back of the crowd was a tall, cadaverous figure in robes. It was by itself, a gap having opened around it as if it were blighted.

Spawn.

Kingsley had to steel himself to keep walking and not run. The Spawn couldn't be looking for them – Evadne and he didn't exist in this time, so to speak.

He needn't have worried. The creature didn't stir as they walked past, nor notice the way Evadne's hand tightened on the sabre under her coat. Its attention was on the distant flames.

They found a path leading up from the river between two garden beds alive with hollyhocks, foxgloves and masses of daisies. ‘They'll observe and report, no doubt.' Evadne's voice was flat and deadly. ‘The Immortals will want to know what's happening in the city.'

‘At least we have confirmation that the Immortals are here, after all.'

‘Mm.' Evadne's eyes tracked the Spawn. ‘Let's not lose it.'

They skirted the Queen's House. It was new, to their eyes, and magnificent – and looked decidedly lived in. Smoke came from the chimneys and the grounds on the east side included what was most definitely a kitchen garden.

They lingered a moment at a low brick wall before they broached the Giant Steps that joined the upper and lower parts of the park. In the distance to the east, Kingsley was charmed to see a herd of deer cropping the grass in front of the woods.

On top of the hill was a dismal sight. As they drew closer, Kingsley could see that the tower was derelict. Weeds, rampant and lank, infested the area. The battlements were uneven where stones had fallen and not been replaced – or had been stolen.

Kingsley leaned against a useful fir tree. ‘So the observatory must be built in the future?'

‘Their future,' Evadne said. She rested a hand on her satchel. ‘Our past.'

The observatory wasn't the only thing missing. The Conduit House that provided the entrance to the tunnel leading to the Hall of the Immortals wasn't there either. Evadne stalked about, her hands on her hips, glancing up at the unfamiliar buildings on the summit of the hill. ‘Where's the entrance to the Immortals' lair?'

Kingsley gestured towards the remains of the tower. ‘I'd be tempted to look around there. I'm sure a ruin would be a fine place to hide a secret entrance, aren't you?'

As fortresses went, Kingsley decided, the structure on the top of the hill would have been modest, even in its heyday. The property wasn't extensive, ranging barely over the summit of the humble hill. Even so, the walls of the two towers were still impressively thick. Kingsley ran his hand over the stone, damp from the recent rain, and imagined the long-ago stonemasons at work, levelling and settling the huge blocks with the barest of tools.

A gate lodge just outside the towers was in an awful state. The roof had collapsed and a fire had taken most of the timbers, leaving a skeleton of stone. Some of the outbuildings showed signs of recent habitation, with rubbish piles and rough cooking places.

The fortress still commanded a superb view over the surroundings – including a view of the inferno the city had become. Kingsley and Evadne stood for a time, helpless. In a trick of perspective, it was almost as if the angry black clouds above were reaching down to the city to smite it, so thick was the smoke.

People were gathered about the lower reaches of the hill, looking towards the city. Kingsley had been puzzled as to why they weren't seeking the better outlook of the summit – or even from the tower itself, but when Evadne and he had pushed through their ranks, their expressions had plainly told him that they were afraid of the hill.

Three heavy, iron-bound doors in what must have been the cellar of one of the towers all promised access to the lower reaches. Each of them yielded to Kingsley's lock-picking skills while Evadne kept watch. When the areas under the cellars surrendered nothing promising, mostly having collapsed, Kingsley drummed the stone wall with a fist in frustration.

He looked for Evadne and found her brooding. She was using her sabre to scratch the ground in an aimless but deadly looking manner.

The passion she'd shown when talking to the Retrievers had diminished and Kingsley was concerned that her crusade was oppressing her. He started towards her, aiming to cheer her out of her brown study, but he pulled himself up short. He had a notion that good-natured jollying wasn't the sort of thing to work on Evadne Stephens. Anything that smacked of condescension could result in physical harm – something he was prepared to risk, as long as whatever provoked it had a chance of success, which he doubted condescension did.

However . . .

‘When is a door not a door?' Kingsley asked aloud after he'd relocked the third of the doors. The walled courtyard had only two of the walls remaining. It was open to the sky that, directly above, was remarkably blue and innocent.

Evadne looked over the top of her spectacles. ‘Are you saying we should be looking for a jar?'

Kingsley was pleased to hear some lightness in Evadne's voice. ‘Not exactly a jar, but something that doesn't look like a door.'

She found a convenient block of stone and sat on it cross-legged, instantly resembling a classical monument as she put elbow on knee and chin in hand. ‘Many things don't look like a door. Most things don't, if you think about it.'

‘True, but many things function like a door, in principle. They allow access.'

‘You mean like windows?'

Kingsley wanted to cheer. As he'd hoped, the puzzle had brought Evadne to herself. An intellectual challenge was her cup of tea. ‘Yes, and chimneys, and hatches and all sorts of things like that. But what doesn't function in that way?'

‘We've reduced the possibilities from millions to slightly fewer millions.'

‘True.' Kingsley looked up at the sky. ‘Do you know the very first Basic Principle of Escapology?'

‘Please excuse my rudeness, but sometimes I feel as if you're making these up as you go along.'

‘I won't deign to dignify that remark with a denial.'

‘Ah, I see.'

He ploughed on. ‘The First and Fundamental Principle of Escapology states: There exists a universal key to all traps and escapes.'

‘I sense that I'm meant to ask what it is.'

‘Thinking. Thinking is the key to every trap. And I've just had a thought.'

She pursed her lips. ‘While I'm trying to articulate an adequate expression of my derision, why don't you tell me what your thought is?'

‘I'm wondering how long those Spawn are going to watch before they report.'

Evadne raised an eyebrow. ‘That is brilliant.'

‘I'm just doing my best to keep up with you.'

She looked at him oddly. ‘And that's the sort of remark that wouldn't be out of place at court. I'm sure you'd have the ladies swooning at your feet after such neat phrasing, if they weren't already.'

‘The prospect of bundles of swooned ladies around my feet sounds positively alarming.'

‘And now Normal Kingsley has returned.'

‘I should hope so.'

‘Never mind.' She tilted her head a little, studying him with that disconcerting, spectacled gaze. ‘Doesn't it worry you to be seen with a female who's smarter than you?'

‘Why should it?'

‘It worries most males. Something about the natural order of things, they say.'

‘What a load of rubbish.'

‘I'm glad you agree. We'll make you into a suffragist next.' She took his hand. ‘Come on. Let's play Spot a Spawn.'

The prophet of doom was still on the dock when Kingsley and Evadne made their way back there. He greeted Evadne with a wave of a finger, as if they were clerks who regularly met at a station before going to the office. He wasn't fazed by Evadne's appearance, and Kingsley wondered if the man saw equally extraordinary sights every day in his visions.

An hour later, Kingsley touched Evadne on the shoulder. A Spawn, almost identical to the one that hadn't moved from its position at the rear of the mob, was striding down the hill. Its long, black wool robes swirled about its bare feet. When it reached its colleague, not a word was spoken. For a moment they stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the distance, then the first spun on its heel and marched away.

The Spawn showed no uneasiness, no indication that it even contemplated being followed. It trudged across the grass, ignoring the paths and the steps, making a straight line towards the hilltop fortress. Kingsley's uneasiness at the dreadful creature increased as it went. He had trouble putting his finger on the source of this until he realised that the Spawn's arms and legs were not moving in time. Instead of its right leg and left arm swinging together, with left leg working with the right arm, its limbs moved independently, jerkily, with no rhythm or connection.

Kingsley shuddered, but despite its lack of coordination, the Spawn's progress was powerful. It had the crude unstoppability of a sledge hammer on its way down.