The Conquering Dark: Crown Read online

  Simon was clearly weakening, his movement slowing, his sword point lower. He grew vulnerable to the Baroness’s untiring machine power. A gauntleted hand grabbed the wires connecting one of the right forearms to the biceps and yanked. Her arm bent awkwardly in a shower of sparks, eliciting a scream from her. She grabbed Simon’s shoulder and jerked him forward into her knee. Simon gasped for breath as his unprotected abdomen took the blow. He fell backward over Malcolm.

  The Scotsman heard Simon say an ancient word in desperation. No aether came to bear and frustration washed over the powerless magician. Simon cursed in English and dropped his sword to the stone floor. He lunged up awkwardly at the Baroness, just ducking a blow from the mechanical arm with its spinning blades, which seemed to have repaired themselves. With one hand, Simon pulled a lever on the other gauntlet. He brought his hands close together and a fierce arc of electricity formed between them, making his hair stand nearly on end. His hands came in contact with a mechanical arm and the Baroness’s body locked in a rictus seizure as the current coursed through her. Smoke rose from her metal arms. Simon screamed in pain but was unable to let go.

  Malcolm threw himself at Simon, bearing him to the ground. The connection broke, but Simon still writhed in agony. From the floor, Malcolm shouted, “Penny! Blow them to hell!”

  At the same time, the sound of tramping feet came from the front of the Abbey. More soldiers approached through the smoke. Some stopped and raised muskets, loosing a thunderous volley. Ferghus ducked and cursed. More soldiers leveled their guns. The Irishman flung the senseless Baroness over his shoulder and ran for the north transept past the body of the dead gorilla.

  “Stop them,” Simon gasped. Malcolm rose only to hear Penny shout.

  “Everybody down!”

  “Bloody hell!” Malcolm threw himself over Simon as another boom sounded and the north transept exploded with a mix of fire and black smoke.

  When the dust cleared, the alcove was empty. Penny had missed. The two villains had slipped out of the abbey. Malcolm staggered toward the exit. As he came out, he dodged a huge meaty fist and ducked back inside. By the time he spun back around the corner, the mechanical ape was gone. He heard screams and saw a disruption in the crowd including a few bodies flying into the air. Malcolm fought his way into the chaos, shoving and pushing as best he could with his flagging strength. He gasped for breath as he ran, finally reaching the river where he saw the great ape leap from a jetty onto a strange steam launch with paddle wheels amidships. The boat’s funnel belched greenish smoke, similar to the hue of aether that Malcolm had witnessed in the past. On the deck, he saw Ferghus kneeling next to the Baroness. The behemoth ape used its foot to cast off with enough force to put the boat a good distance from the dock. The paddle wheels roared with amazing speed and the launch churned out onto the river, throwing up an admirable wake.

  Malcolm returned to Westminster through the tumultuous and bloody aftermath. Soldiers were trying to restore some order, but it was futile. Once inside the Abbey, Malcolm found Penny yanking the gauntlets from Simon’s hands. The flesh underneath was burned, but he was able to move his fingers. Kate stood next to him with a small bottle ready.

  Simon turned to face Malcolm for a report, but when he saw the Scotsman staring at his seared skin, he lowered his hands, hiding the pain. “What happened?”

  “They got away,” Malcolm said simply. “Boat waiting on the river.”

  Simon grimaced as Kate massaged ointment into his burnt hands. He surveyed the church. “Unfortunate, but at least they didn’t get what they came for.”

  “Yes, King William is safe, right?” Penny asked.

  “He is.” Kate tried not to wince at Simon’s seared flesh.

  Simon smiled at her. “Thank you, Kate. But His Majesty wasn’t the target.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “Well if they wanted to destroy the abbey, they did a brilliant job of it.” The church smoldered in many places, and other sections were a broken ruin.

  “I think that was mainly me,” Penny admitted sheepishly.

  “Not to be helped,” Simon assured her. “Churches can be rebuilt. Lives cannot. We’re fortunate to be alive, but we did well against two very formidable foes. Without your gauntlets to match that woman’s mechanical terrors, I would be lying dead now. Well done, everyone.”

  Penny puffed with satisfaction and cavalierly shouldered her stovepipe blunderbuss. However she pointed at Simon’s damaged hands. “They hurt you as much as they hurt her. I’m sorry, Simon.”

  “Don’t be silly. They worked like a …” Simon winced in pain. “… a charm.”

  “What were they after then,” Malcolm demanded to know, “if not the king?”

  Simon’s gaze swept to the overturned Seat of King Edward and the greyish lump of heavy stone resting beneath it. The rock seemed unexceptional, a few feet across and maybe a foot high. “Something a bit more mythical, I think.”

  Chapter 3

  The Devil’s Loom was an old haunt of Simon’s. It was a down-and-out public house in the St. Giles Parish of London on the edge of the disreputable area of poverty and misery known as the Rookery. Simon kept a town house not far away to the west between Crown Road and Soho Square in a little-known alley called Gaunt Lane.

  Simon and Kate sat with Malcolm and Penny in a back booth. The pub was hot with summer damp and crowded with late-night gatherers. Even here among the working class, the conversation was largely the disaster at the king’s coronation yesterday. The speculation about the event ranged from an attack by radicals to a battle between demons and angels. The general tone was one of support for King William, who was mostly popular with the common people.

  A stout barmaid with dyed red hair shoved through the clutches of arguing drinkers and approached with three new ales and a whiskey. She spared an interested look at Malcolm and hardly contained a sour glance at Kate. Then she leaned close to Simon, noting the bandages that covered his hands.

  “You don’t come around no more,” she said with playful sadness. “Haven’t seen you hardly half a dozen times since last autumn. And Nick not at all. Have you gone off from London?”

  Simon closed his small notebook around a pencil and laid a hand on her red dry fingers. “I spend more time in the country now, Rebecca.”

  The barmaid reared up reproachfully. “Oh, is that it? You’re a squire now.” She quickly glanced at Kate again. “And Nick? Is he with you?”

  Simon tried to keep the smile on his face, but failed. “No. Nick has gone off.”

  Now Rebecca had a truly regretful expression. “Oh dear. I’m sorry. You two were such lads.”

  “Good times.” Simon raised the ale to her, signaling that he had to return to his companions. She patted his cheek, picked up several rounds of empty glasses, and went away.

  “Seems you and Barker were popular with the locals here,” Malcolm observed.

  “Simon and Nick were prodigious drinkers,” Kate said.

  “We did our part.” Simon sat back with a sad smile.

  Penny raised her glass and said with a baronial huff, “That’s all England can expect.”

  Kate caught another embittered glance directed at her from the barmaid across the room. “Your friend, Rebecca, is still glaring at me.”

  “Not surprising. She was very fond of me.”

  “You must have been more attentive in those days.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You virtually sent that woman away just now. She clearly has an interest and wanted a bit of fun from you. You gave her no lascivious repartee. No charming banter. Not even a hint of repressed desire. I keep hearing that you were something of a rake in your former life. But so far it’s all hearsay. I’ve never seen more than a glimpse of it.”

  Simon stared at Kate with surprise. “Do you want to see it?”

  “Perhaps. Every so often.” Kate grinned. “I’ve heard tales about that Simon Archer. He must’ve been quite interesting.”

  “If
you like that sort of man.” He laughed. “Battling with werewolves and demigods and fire elementals doesn’t usually call for that sort of skill.”

  Kate gave him a wry glance, one eyebrow lifting. “We aren’t dealing with werewolves and elementals every day, are we?”

  “Seems like it.”

  Her fingers played over his as they rested on the table. “If you don’t make time, there won’t be time.”

  Simon stared at Kate. He studied the small flecks of orange in the green of her eyes. The fire behind them made his body flare with a warmth that had little to do with the temperature in the pub or the alcohol he had consumed. The challenge in her expression didn’t waver.

  It took a great deal of concentration not to give her the demonstration she wanted in a public place. Though it would serve her right. With a wry smile, he opened the notebook and fumbled with the pencil in his bandaged hands. Without looking away from Kate, he began to sketch a rather bawdy picture of her. Kate’s eyes finally glanced down and gasped with shock. She shoved his hand away and flipped a page to cover it before anyone else, especially Malcolm and Penny, could see it.

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “How charmingly lewd.”

  “I can still manage it just.”

  The two of them laughed. Penny guffawed also as she pulled a cigar from one of her many pockets. She offered it to Malcolm, who seemed uninterested by the banter and waved a hand in refusal. She shrugged and proceeded to light it up herself.

  Simon returned to sketching, but this time he switched to runes. His little journal was filled with a variety of mystic symbols derived from many traditions. There were also countless sketches of keys with runic phrases etched along their surfaces. Page after page was covered with rough pencil drawings of keys and runes. This was something Simon had been doing for months, often without even noticing.

  He ignored the fact that writing was causing slight pain to vibrate through his burnt hands. Kate’s alchemical balm would heal it soon enough, but the bandages reminded him again of his vulnerability without magic. The cuts and burns and bruises of his companions caused Simon even more distress than any pain he felt himself. A sense of dismay came over him which he had struggled to banish over the months since his magic was ripped from him by the horrific demigod Ra. He had spent the first few months after the terrible event waiting for the spark of aether to return with that familiar surge of excitement that he relished. Every morning when he opened his eyes, his heart throbbed with the expectation that he would see the wisps of eldritch green slipping through the air around him, unseen by all except magicians such as himself who had intimate ties to the aether realm.

  The air stayed empty. Morning after morning he saw nothing but the ceiling. Weeks passed. Months turned to seasons. The wonder that he had known for most of his life was gone. And he had begun to accept that it might—no, that it would—never return. All these runes he drew absently were nothing more than strange art. He could never use them to create magic again.

  “You’re right, of course, Kate. We’ll have time enough. I promise.” Simon looked away from her because he didn’t want to see her reaction when he said, “An excellent job at Westminster, all. Malcolm, your months of scouting for hints of Gaios in the fringes of the arcane world paid off handsomely. Your hunch that his agents would make an attack on the coronation was impeccable.”

  Malcolm barely nodded, his glance flicking to Kate quickly, then away. He was content with the success of his efforts but quietly grateful for the praise.

  Simon continued, “And thank you, Penny, for your masterful accouterment that helped balance my lack of magic.”

  Kate turned from Simon with pursed lips of disappointment but brightened when she looked at the young engineer. “The crossbow you designed for hurling my alchemical solutions worked like a charm and should prevent my right arm bulking up more than my left with all the throwing I was doing. Thank you. Now, if you could make it so small I could carry it on my person around town without attracting attention, that would be lovely.”

  “Oh, good idea, Kate.” Penny nodded her thanks to both, puffing away on her cigar.

  Simon continued, “We managed to accomplish our primary goals. Kate, what do you have on our fencing partners at Westminster?”

  Penny leaned forward onto her elbows. “Yes, I want to hear about this Baroness woman. I looked at her gorillas and noted her engineering mark. It’s been tainting most everything we’ve come across from the sextant at the Mansfields’ house to even Dr. White’s homunculus.”

  Kate’s mouth tightened as she regarded the engineer. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yes. Her mark is pretty unmistakable.” Penny poured some salt on the table and drew the odd symbol in the grains. “That and her blatant cruelty to animals.”

  Simon gave a wan smile. “She did seem to enjoy pain. Mine at least.”

  Kate opened a book she had retrieved from her home at Hartley Hall when she accompanied Imogen and Charlotte back there after the battle at Westminster. “Our new enemies. Ferghus O’Malley and Baroness Conrad. Both of them formerly imprisoned by Byron Pendragon in the Bastille and therefore servants of Gaios now, just as Gretta Aldfather and Dr. White and Nephthys before them. My father’s old journals have a bit of information.” She turned the book so Simon could see it. “Baroness Conrad. Born Minerva Clark, to unexceptional parents, in the eighteenth century. She connived her way into Magdelene College Society of Supraphysical Design and Special Engineering, Cambridge. Isn’t that your old outfit, Penny?”

  Penny gave a yelp of surprise. “Oh my God. The Maddy Boys. Yes. I knew there had been a few other women before me, but I can’t believe they’d train that monster.” She stared at the passage in Kate’s book, but there was nothing more about the Maddy Boys or Cambridge where she had perfected her own engineering skills.

  Kate said soothingly, “The Baroness was there nearly a century before you. Let’s see. She married Baron William Conrad, who was on the court of directors of the East India Company. They went to India to his tea plantation. After Baron Conrad disappeared mysteriously, the entire operation passed to his wife. It was then that she embarked on her career of experimentation on animals and humans, creating biomechanical wonders and horrors. At some point, she turned her experiments on herself, grafting mechanical arms onto her torso. According to my father, she had a terrible fear of weakness so she re-formed her own body into a machine. There was an uprising of workers on the plantation which evoked a response from the Baroness, who slaughtered a good portion of the district. That brought her to the attention of Byron Pendragon, who traveled to India, seized her, and delivered her into bondage in the Bastille, where she remained until the Revolution. After her escape, we have no idea of her movements.”

  “Africa, at least, unless she had someone procure those unfortunate apes for her.” Simon flipped a few more pages. “Your father spent time in India. Do you think he ever encountered her personally?”

  “He traveled to India in 1815, but he left no journal of that trip. All I know is that very few survived including his old hunting companion, Emmett Walker. He never talked about that expedition; not to me, in any case.”

  “What do we know about the fellow who shoots fire?” Penny reached out for the book.

  “We can hope he’s an Oxford man.” Simon laughed and handed her the journal so she could reread the passage about the Baroness. “His name is Ferghus O’Malley. Irish. Fire elemental. He didn’t show up frequently in the grimoires or histories like some of the more flamboyant Bastille Bastards did. Kept to himself, apparently. It’s said that he was responsible for the Great Fire of London in 1666, and that’s why Pendragon clapped him in the Bastille.”

  Malcolm grunted with interest. “Why did he try to burn London?”

  “I’m not sure. In any case, we must stop him and the Baroness now.”

  “Stop them so your king can put his arse on the Scottish rock again?” Malcolm retorted.

  Simon grinned at
the Scotsman. “He’s your king too, Malcolm. And yes, I rather suspect the two villains were after the Stone of Scone. I’ve no idea for what purpose, but it is an immensely powerful artifact. Druids and magicians have worshipped and respected that stone for centuries. It’s a lodestone, magically tied to these islands.”

  “Immensely powerful Scottish artifact.” Malcolm downed his whiskey and grimaced at its mediocre quality.

  “Point taken.” Simon was careful not to mock Malcolm’s rarely displayed but always present national pride. “Its power is the very reason we English stole the Stone from you Scots in the first place. Of course, there is that whole legend about how the loss of the Stone will result in the fall of the realm. And all legends have a grain of truth in them.”

  Malcolm scowled. “It would be a shame if that happened.”

  “We must formulate a plan to find those two creatures before they go after the Stone again. I dread to think of such an object in the hands of Gaios.”

  “If it’s the Stone of Scone they’re after,” Malcolm said, “why don’t we hide it? Back in Scotland, for instance.”

  “The Stone is as safe as can be,” Simon answered. “It’s kept in a vault beneath the Abbey, warded by Byron Pendragon himself ages ago, and only brought out for coronations. That’s why they struck when they did. But since it won’t come out again until there’s a new monarch, we don’t want them to do something rash to good King William. We want to keep London safe.”

  “Murder!” a voice shot through the hum of the crowd.

  Simon and his companions were on their feet immediately. A distraught woman stood at the tavern’s open door. Her eyes were wide and she turned her head, looking for immediate help.

  “Murder!” she called again. “Oh Lord! They’re killing some poor man. Won’t someone come?”

  Malcolm parted the crowd, reaching for a pistol under his coat. “It appears London remains as safe as ever.”