The Witch Watch (40 page)

Brooks stopped talking at this point, because his diaphragm had tightened on account of the bullet that had just passed through his guts. Also, the sharp crack of the pistol had startled him. He let out a cough.

Alice stood holding her pistol in her shaking hand. Her jaw was clenched tightly. Tears were in her eyes. For a moment nobody knew what to do. Some people in the back had pressed forward to see what had happened, while the ones who had been nearby were overcome with a desire to step back. The crowd was in murmuring confusion. There was simply no protocol for what to do when a host was shot in front of his own dinner-party.

Gilbert burst through the crowd; his hand on his sword-hilt. He looked around at the scene, trying to make sense of what had happened. Finally he turned to Alice, “I seem to remember you saying that we were not here to assassinate anyone.”

“Quiet!” she snapped.

“The memory is very vivid,” he added. “You said we weren't going to assassinate them in front of the most powerful men in Britain. Which you have just done.”

“So the abomination returns!” Brooks said in genuine surprise. He motioned for someone to bring him a chair. He winced was he sat. A great deal of blood had spoiled his suit, but he was a master at maintaining his composure. “I see you have bewitched him into your own service. That strikes me as being rather shockingly hypocritical.”

“I didn't... Gilbert is here of his own volition!” she protested. “He is working to restore Princess Sophie.”

“Very well,” Brooks said with an alarming smile. He coughed a few more times and pressed his hand into his side. He was playing the part of a perfect British gentleman – stoic and resolute in the face of personal hardship. His sheer willingness to continue to engage his assailant in dialog made him a hero in the eyes of his guests. He raised an eyebrow at Gilbert's sword-arm, until Gilbert released it and assumed a more neutral posture.

Several soldiers filed into the room. Brooks held up his hand to signal them to stand back. “I will accept your request, abomination. If you are truly earnest that your only wish is to return Sophie to her parents, then accompany these men. They will see to it. I will make other arrangements with Alice and young Simon. I would like to spare them the noose, if I can.”

“This is absurd!” she cried in anger. “That would only aid your cause. You would be able to present Sophie to her parents as if you had rescued her yourself.”

“My dear, I was only taking you at your word when you said that your abomination wanted to restore her. If you object for political reasons, then I can't be blamed for calling your motives into question.”

“We need to go,” Gilbert muttered. The three of them were standing together, surrounded by stunned guests. The soldiers had gradually encircled the group, and were now only waiting for the word from their master.

Alice looked around the room to see the crowd was against them. She was the villain, and Brooks was the wounded hero. She quickly tucked her pistol away. “Agreed,” she said reluctantly. “Although I don’t see how…”

Gilbert threw back his hood and let out a roar in the direction of the nearby guests. His otherworldly scream echoed off the walls. They saw his terrible face and the strange light in his eyes and were instantly terrified. They scattered, trampling the soldiers in the process. Gilbert brought out his sword and charged towards the door, holding the blade in front of him. The guests scrambled out of the way, leaving them a clear path to the exit.

As they passed the doors, Alice threw them shut. She pulled Gilbert's sword away from him and threaded it through the looping handles.

“We might need that!” he protested as she dragged him away from the doors, which were now thundering with blows from the other side.

“We might,” she agreed, “But we're less likely to need it now that we have cut off our pursuers.”

Even as she said this, they heard footsteps and shouting ahead. News was spreading around the house. Someone was ringing a bell, and others were beating on the doors of the ballroom, calling to be let out. Gilbert looked back at the sword, but Alice grabbed his arm and led them back into the caged room.

“Where are you taking us?” Gilbert demanded.

“Going out the way we came in would be impossible now,” she replied. “Let's see where this goes.”

They passed through the cell door that Alice had opened earlier and out the doorway on the other side.

“I don’t think we’ll find an exit in the cellar,” Gilbert said.

“No, we won’t,” she agreed. “I’d hoped this would lead outside, or to another part of the manor. You're welcome to charge the front doors, if this way is not to your liking.”

Simon pushed past her on the stairs and made his way down. There was light at the bottom of the steps, and he didn't like standing in the dark while the other two argued.

“They won't all be guarding the front door,” Gilbert pointed out. “There were only four at the entrance when we came in.”

“Yes. Many will be moving around the house. I expect you'll not be outnumbered by more than ten to one. Those are bad odds, even for you. Off you go.”

“My odds would be better if you hadn't used my weapon as a door-stop!” he growled as he followed Simon down the stairs.

The cellar was a maze of old stone. Naked electric lamps hung from the ceiling. Gilbert struck one of these with his head as he arrived, and the swinging shadows made Simon even more nervous. The air was dry and cold. The stone walls and floor reflected the slightest sound, and carried it far away to unseen corridors. At the bottom of the stairs was a coat-rack, were a heavy coat had been hung. A dirty pair of boots sat nearby. They were standing in a passage running perpendicular to the stairs. To the right the way was lit with evenly-spaced electric lamps. To the left was darkness.

“We shouldn’t be here!” Simon whispered as he eyed the items uneasily. “Obviously people come down here. Probably Brooks himself. We’re hiding in
his
hiding place!”

“He may come down here, but his men may not. They might not even know about it. In any case, they’re unlikely to look for us here, which is what matters,” Alice replied.

Simon flinched as a terrible thundering sound shook the wooden ceiling. Groups of men were running around the house conducting their search, and their heavy footfalls shook long-held dust from the beams above them.

“But what about the coat?” Simon protested once the sound had passed.

“The coat and the boots are obviously for wearing when one is working down here. Since they are put away, odds are favorable that we are alone.”

Simon relaxed slightly at this, but he still stood slightly bent with his eyes darting about, like a trapped animal. He struggled to control his breath. His eyes slammed shut as another storm of stomping boots rolled over them from above.

“Do you hear that?” he asked suddenly once the sound had passed.

“I’m not deaf,” Alice said flatly.

“Not them! The… sound. It’s like a vibration.”

Alice listened more closely. After a few moments she caught it. It was a low, steady murmur. She couldn’t really hear it so much as feel it in her feet.

“It’s a machine,” she said.

Gilbert returned. He had scouted ahead down the lit end of the passage. He was crouching low, to avoid running into any more of the lights.

“This place is likely not as secret as we thought,” he reported. “Just down there and around the corner are rooms where wine and fruit are being kept. There’s also a set of stairs, and I’d bet my sword on it leading to the kitchen, if I still had it.”

Alice sighed. “We should hurry. If the servants know about this place, then his guards know about it, which means they will look here before long.”

“I don’t want to leave through the kitchen,” Gilbert said with uncharacteristic timidity.

“You’re willing to fight a dozen men, but you’re afraid of the cook?” Alice asked.

Gilbert shook his head, “I don’t know. I don’t like this. Running around, soldiers everywhere, going through the kitchen. I guess it reminds me of the day I was killed.”

“Well, there is wisdom in avoiding the kitchen,” Alice said. “The staff likely congregates there. If we were to suddenly emerge from the basement, their screams would bring our foes.” Gilbert nodded vigorously at this.

“Do you mean we’re going to go charging off into the dark?” Simon asked, looking into the black passage and swallowing hard.

“No,” Alice said calmly. She took the coat-rack by the base and shook the coat onto the floor. “Stand back,” she said. Then she held up the coat rack and lit the crown with a handful of fire before they could do so. She held the fire out, and led them into the darkness.

Aside from being dark, this passage was rougher and dirtier than the other. The walls became crooked and the ceiling gradually lower. At last it abandoned all pretense of being a passage and was simply a tunnel in the dirt. The vibration became stronger as they went, until they could plainly hear the churning of some great engine. Gilbert tripped over something as they walked.

“Electrical cable,” Alice explained without looking back. She lowered her makeshift torch to illuminate the floor, giving them a better look at the thick black snake beneath their feet. It had been hastily buried, and parts of it were still exposed.

They came to a junction in the tunnel. She waved her light around, peering into the darkness. “Do we go right, or straight?” she asked herself.

“Straight,” Gilbert suggested.

Alice nodded, and turned right. At last they reached the end of the tunnel. The walls straightened up once again, and they found themselves looking at an iron door. Alice set the coat rack down. It was now standing just as she had found it, aside from the fire, which had grown quite vigorous.

“Is it locked?” Gilbert asked, peering over her shoulder.

“Poorly,” she said a moment later as the lock gave way.

The sound of machinery became a roar as the door swung open. They found themselves once again in something approximating a proper cellar with stone walls and a low wood ceiling. This room was large enough that the distant walls were lost in the darkness. Alice seemed to think that they were under the ballroom, and that this space was roughly the same size, although it wasn’t clear to the others how she came to that conclusion. The cable that had followed them down the passage emerged from the floor here and joined with several others, where they ran off towards the sound of the machine in the distance.

Alice’s light was not a proper torch. It was not wrapped in cloth or soaked in pitch, which meant there was nothing to discourage the fire from consuming the entire coat-rack, which it was now doing. Over the past several minutes it had transformed from a handy light source into a large bit of dangerously hot flaming wood, and Alice was now obliged to drop it.

Simon waved the smoke away from his face, “This noise is terrible. The furnace in the academy wasn’t nearly so loud.”

“That’s not a furnace,” she replied, raising her voice slightly in order to be heard. “It’s a generator. Did you notice that the other houses on this street are dark, or lit with candles? Brooks is making his own electricity. I would love to know where he’s sending the exhaust. I looked for signs of this machine when we were outside, but never saw any. I suppose he might send it up a chimney, although he would have to do it in an unpopular part of the house. The racket would be unpleasant. Or perhaps he uses underground pipes? But then he would need to guard against blockage.”

Alice poked around the room, muttering to herself in this way for a few more minutes. She discovered the coal chute and the tools used to feed the generator, but without a portable light she couldn’t venture far enough to inspect the machine itself. She considered making another torch from some of the wooden tools in the room, but was wary of starting a fire with so much coal dust coating everything and infusing the air itself.

Gilbert and Simon were not curious about the machine at all, and urged her several times to move on. Finally the coat rack began to burn low, and they were forced to hurry away before it died and left them in darkness.

On the far wall they could see a dim light, and Alice led them towards it. Gilbert twice struck his head on some tools or other mechanical objects hanging from the ceiling, and once caught his cloak on something sharp.

“Digging tools, I’m sure,” she explained in response to nobody in particular. “There’s dirt all over the floor here. I imagine some of these tunnels are new. Perhaps they plan to dig more.”

They reached the door and found themselves in a smaller room. Several electric lights had been hung together, and the combined light stung their eyes after spending so much time in the dark. Work clothes were hung just inside the doorway, along with a few tools. Footprints of dried mud meandered around the room before ascending the nearby staircase.

“So do we venture up these stairs, or go through the far door?” Alice asked.

“The stairs,” Gilbert said definitively. “The longer we run around down here, the more likely we are to get caught. This might lead outside.”

“And it might not,” she replied thoughtfully. “Those stairs go south, which should lead back to the heart of the manor.”

“How can you tell which way the stairs point?” Gilbert demanded. His tone was almost accusatory.