Phoenix Rising (33 page)

No.
She told herself.
Don't think about Harry—not yet.

Wellington adjusted his shirt collar and looked at her in the mirror with some evident suspicion. Then he went to the gramophone and put on some early-morning music to mask their pending argument. Of course it had to be an argument regardless if the refrain of “The Moon Has Risen Her Lamp Above” served as their score.

“I'm sorry about last night, Miss Braun.” He coloured slightly. “Training never covered that sort of situation.”

Her lips twitched. “It's all right—one's first orgy is always a bit of a challenge.”

Should she tell him that was her first too? Eliza had been in plenty of interesting situations, but never one of such . . . breadth. If it had been Harry at her side—well, things might have been different. The spasm of pain, of lost possibilities and choices made, went deep at that thought. Life had taught Eliza Braun about loss, but apparently its sting was not lessened at all by experience.

He cleared his throat. “I was concerned about that Devane chap. He was practically slavering to . . .” He paused to find a civilized word for it. “Well, I just didn't think it was necessary for you to go through that. Our good Queen would not demand that of a lady.”

Indeed, the idea of that pervert's hands on her made Eliza feel ill—luckily Devane had been too busy with his wife's niece. Still it would have been educational to see Wellington Books unleashed. In the midst of passion often the true nature of a person was revealed.

It would have to remain another mystery for another day. Slipping out of bed, she padded to the window and looked out. A beautiful clear day—perfect for all sorts of nefarious activities. With a series of stretches, which once again Books avoided looking directly at, Eliza prepared herself for the day. The bruises from previous adventures in London were fading, but she realistically expected them to be replaced with new ones before the end of the weekend.

“This had better work,” she said moving behind the screen in deference to his sensibilities. “I had a rather nice offer of dinner at the Ritz for tonight.”

“Who with?”

“No one you know, Welly. Some of us do have lives outside the Ministry.” She poured a chilly bowl of water from the pitcher and washed herself quickly. She stepped into short petticoats and then into a light corset. Eliza backed away from the screens, towards Wellington. “Now be a dear and do me up?”

This time he did not hesitate. “It seems to me you are taking some enjoyment in getting me to act as your lady's maid,” he said tartly, while pulling her stays firmly.

“You have promise,” Eliza replied. “But you will have to best Alice in a knife fight to take her place.”

Despite the situation, Wellington Books chuckled. “I will leave it to her then—I think your maid is too formidable for me.”

She remained silent on her earlier observations. Wellington had his own inner grit that she believed, would indeed give her fearsome young Alice a run for her money.

“Right then,” she slipped on a long green wool skirt over the top of her petticoats and buttoned on a cotton shirt and tailored jacket. “Let's just start anew and do our best to fit in.”

Eliza produced from underneath their bed one of their suitcases, pulled from it a long leather satchel, and then unfurled said satchel as one would a tablecloth. Displayed before them in all their glory and menace were the weapons she'd brought with her. Trusting their hosts with supplying them firearms would have been a very foolish move and perhaps a fatal one. A gun could be rigged to misfire at an important moment. She cleaned and checked the pair of hunting rifles with as much precision as one born to the task would. Wellington did not help or offer to—which she admired. Most men would have been emasculated by her proficiency, but he was content to keep clear of something he knew nothing about.

Once she was done with her inventory check, Eliza turned to him. “What you have here are two Sharpe 92s. What every gentleman will be shooting next year—that ought to impress. However, they are not our only armaments.” With a smooth gesture, she flipped up the long tweed jacket she wore to show him the
pounamu
-handled pistols. In hunting attire there was far more room to conceal them than in a damned evening dress. They fitted neatly in the small of her back, and as long as Bartholomew kept his hands to himself, there would be no reason why anyone would suspect anything.

And yet—she should not be the only one armed. After all, if they got separated, the Archivist needed some chance of defending himself. He couldn't know how hard it was for her, but she flicked out one of her treasured pistols and offered it to him.

He looked at her. “I have explained my position on guns, Miss Braun.”

Damn stubborn man!
Swallowing her anger, she reholstered the weapon and with another flick of her hand, she pulled out two stilettos from the inside lining of her jacket. These were not as fine as the two she had lost at the opera but were sturdier. She prided herself on learning from her lessons. She was also generous.

“Then this should be more your speed, Welly.” He looked down at the offered knife as if she were presenting him with a rabbit that had been run over by a carriage wheel and sat by the side of the road for days. Eliza was mildly offended, but somehow not surprised.

“I don't think so.”

Now he was being completely foolish. “Come on, Welly!” She fixed him with her most steely gaze. “You need to be able to take care of yourself. This is not a stroll through Hyde Park on a crisp spring day. We're in amongst tigers here. Think of what they did to Harry.”

His lips pursed a little as he sized up her determination, and then he took one of the knives. It slipped from his fingers and would have hit the floor if Eliza hadn't caught it. Wellington smiled, but she wasn't letting him off that easy. Fishing out a sheath from her open suitcase, she slipped the knife within it and handed the now safer blade back to him.

“I confess, Miss Braun. The last time I used a knife it was on a goose at Christmas. And even then I cut myself.”

Eliza patted his arm. “Then let us regard this token as an emergency plan—one we hope you never have to use. Now then”—she shoved one of the rifles into his hands—“have you ever been hunting before?” Wellington would at least have to pretend to know how to fire.

The look he shot her over the top of his glasses was amused as he examined the gun—and most definitely now was not the time for him to be amused.

“I see how this is,” Eliza snatched the rifle out of his hands. “Leave it to me.”

“And if . . .”—the Archivist cleared his throat—“If a similar situation to last night's occurs again?”

With a squeeze of his arm, she looked him straight in the eye. “This time, neither of us can flinch. Neither of us!”

His curt nod was the only answer she would accept. Yet, they could not afford to be grim. As they walked downstairs, past the gilt-framed pictures and hanging heads of animals mounted to the wall, Eliza readjusted her face into a pleasing smile.

“Come on, Welly,” she hissed to him, giving his arm a yank. “Try not to look like you're going to the gallows.”

The smile he plastered on would have put the actors of Drury Lane to shame.
Again with those talents of yours, Wellington
, Eliza thought to herself, and immediately was reminded of Harry.

No, she would
not
make those same mistakes again.

INTERLUDE
In Which Doctor Sound Investigates
His Employees' Work Habits
and Indulges in His Own Pursuits

T
ick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . .

A simple thing, a clock. Granted, take such a simple thing apart—be it a fob from a waistcoat or Big Ben itself—and, it is not nearly so simple. Gears. Cogs. Springs. So many elements that come together, fit into place, and then the element of Time is broken down to measurements of seconds, minutes, and hours. Amazing, and yet so futile to try and keep track of it.

Doctor Basil Sound unlaced his fingers and turned his attention to the calendar on the wall. Days. Months. Years. He smiled as he fixed his gaze on the current date, and then the compulsion, once again, struck him. The creak of the chair reminded him that he was no longer the man of this particular age. Not anymore. The prime he knew in his twenties and thirties was in the past, after all. Now he had the gait and the sparse hairstyle of experience, wisdom, and knowledge.

That was the perception, anyway.

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . .

Damnable clock
, he thought. What was the fascination Man nursed to track Time, to reduce something so incredible to measurements that children learnt in school?

Doctor Sound removed his pocket watch and popped open the cover. His eyes went back and forth between the fob and the mantelpiece.
It's running slow
, he thought, crossing the room to remedy the inaccuracy. After opening the glass pane protecting the timepiece's face. Doctor Sound moved the minute hand forward by two minutes. If only it were true that Time could slow down, that with a gesture its current could be easily altered. Currents carried power, and Time's power was unmistakable. No, Time's current could not be manipulated so, but it was still a current like water; and those currents could be channeled, their power focused and applied to situations at hand. That was after all how the Ministry was powered.

Double-checking that the timepieces were calibrated properly, Doctor Sound gathered his satchel and, with one final look at its contents, fastened its latches tight. A last glance at the day on the calendar confirmed that indeed it was Saturday, meaning he had the entire office to himself. The lift would be as it was this morning: his.

He closed the lift's gate tight and brought its Chadburn all the way to “Archives” which began the descent. The motors and winches slowly eased him to the very bottom of the building, the gate revealing a tiny stone corridor that ended at a heavy iron hatch. After a long, low groan from the door, the silence accompanying Doctor Sound was peppered by the perpetual hum of the Ministry's generators and his own footfalls.

He paused on the stone staircase. Both agents were absent, and then he chided himself for expecting them to be present as it was the weekend. He searched his mind on when he last talked to them, a discussion that he meant to follow up, but failed to do so on account of his own agenda for today.

He thought back to the previous day's news—most of it about a terrible production of Verdi's
Macbeth
which he had not bothered to skim. Like Eliza Braun he had no love of caterwauling of Italian divas so reading the critics' venom over a night at the opera hardly interested him. What he was looking for, much to his relief, was notably absent. No unexplained riots in the streets. No buildings decimated. Nothing in the papers to implicate them. Their own desks, though, looked as they had when he had prodded them about the shenanigans in Charing Cross.

He continued down the steps, his eyes studying the shared desk. Everything appeared to be exactly as they—

“No-no-no, Agent Braun,” a familiar voice echoed. “You're cataloguing by name, when you need to start with the date first.”

Another familiar voice chimed in with, “Very well, Agent Books, would you please be so kind as to explain it to me, once again?”

Considering the hollow sound of their voices, the conversation originated from the far end of the Archives. Tightening his grip on the satchel, Doctor Sound crept forward. If they were to see him, his agenda would have to dramatically change.
Perhaps
, he thought,
I could always address the Charing Cross matter again. That would explain why I chose to come in on a Saturday.

“Once again,” came Books' voice, “we deduce the unsolved case's year and group it by year. Once we have grouped the years, we will then go back and group them by individual dates of that particular year, and finally, we will alphabetise them based on the month they appear in the case header.”

From the top of the stone staircase, Doctor Sound could make out a pair of shimmering shadows moving back and forth within the Archives' crypt.

“To think I am giving you a weekend for all this,” Braun huffed.

“Miss Braun, look at the amount of cases here. Do you really think it will be tended to in just
one
weekend?”

Admirable
, Doctor Sound thought with a smile.
Also, the best of distractions for Agent Braun.

Turning away from the stone stairwell leading to the forgotten cases, Doctor Sound reached into his coat and pulled out the pair of keys needed for this hatch. He slipped each key into its respective hole and then simultaneously turned them towards each other. He then spun the massive wheel to the left until it locked. The dull
thunk
boomed through the Archives, making him freeze. Doctor Sound held his breath and looked over his shoulder.

“Welly?” she asked.

“Miss Braun, please!”

“Sorry, Agent Books. Now,
Welly
, where does this trinket go?”

“They do teach reading in the colonies, yes?” Doctor Sound managed to stifle a laugh. He was impressed that Books was managing to hold his own against the feisty lass. “What does the tag say?”

With a soft exhale, Doctor Sound turned the keys away from each other. The hatch's lock released with a hiss that made him pause again—just in case his hardworking employees heard it. He watched as the sapphire luminescence from the Restricted Area reached past him, extending his shadow even further. Still, Books and Braun worked diligently in the depths of the Archives, far from the glow and the undulating hum, which now greeted him. He looked into the light for a moment and then back in the direction of his agents. They were still talking. Or was it bickering?

“Why yes, you've got it!” Books laughed. “By George, I think you've got it.”

“Books”—and that warning made even Doctor Sound pause—“if you ever say
You've got it. By George, I think you've got it
to me again, I promise you all the fires of hell and the tortures of Beelzebub will pale in comparison to five minutes with me and a teaspoon. Are we clear?”

Doctor Sound realised he was holding his breath again. He needed them to break this silence.

“Crystal, Agent Braun.”

Talking. Bickering. So long as they are not listening
, he thought. Doctor Sound removed the two keys from the hatch and placed his satchel on the other side of the threshold. He gave one final look towards the crypt, slipped the keys back into his pocket, and then stepped through the hatch.

He turned back to secure it behind him, and that was when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand.

Movement. He was sure of it. Someone else—not Agents Books or Braun—was down here in the Archives.

He narrowed his eyes, peering into the stacks. Perhaps his more-than-overactive, fertile imagination was playing tricks with him again. Having Books and Braun so close must have unnerved him more than he cared to admit. It was Saturday, after all. Why were they not elsewhere? He was surprised Agent Braun, for one, was not enjoying a weekend's retreat in the country somewhere with some dapper, handsome beau. Maybe Wellington Books was blunting that edge of hers. A bit.

“And now?”

“Now, we go alphabetical,” Books answered. “One step at a time, Miss Braun. That's the way.”

Again, Doctor Sound leaned toward the Archives. He waited, but all was still. Apart from the Archivists in the crypt, the Director was alone.

Time to go.

His hand touched the breast of his coat, where he had returned the keys. Assured, Doctor Sound gave the valves inside the entrance several turns. With a steady hiss the heavy iron hatch slowly closed, devouring him with the low hum, the warm blue light, and what remained locked within the Ministry's Restricted Area.