A Study In Ashes Part 56

Alice screamed in shock as one of the rebels flew backward, chest imploding as one of the fearsome rifles blasted through him. Blood and bone splattered the street. Tobias thrust Alice inside the nearest Steamer, wanting steel around her. "Lie down!"

He fumbled for his own weapon, using his left hand. His father scrambled to his side. "Where did Edgerton go?"

Tobias scanned the scene. There was no sign of his friend. "d.a.m.ned if I know."

Then just as quickly Edgerton was back. "They think Keating's gone, headed south. He got out when the wall blew."

"d.a.m.nation!" Tobias cursed. So much for Edgerton's men not making mistakes.

"Go after him!" his father ordered. "I'll stay here. If they're wrong, I've got it covered."

Tobias scrambled for the Steamer as more rebels bore down on the house. The engine of the vehicle was already hot, so Tobias released the brake, jumped the curb, and sped the puffing vehicle through the park across the street, barely managing the job with just one hand.

The jolting brought Alice out of her crouch in the backseat. "Where are we going?"

"Your father's fled south."

She swore under her breath-something Tobias had rarely heard her do. "He's been ambushed. I know him. He's going to hide in earnest. It's going to be next to impossible to get him into the open again."

"Not if we can catch him first. Where would he go?"

She was silent for a few seconds as she climbed awkwardly into the front seat. "How many men does he have with him?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe none."

"He might go to Hilliard House," she said, her voice shaking. "He could take hostages there."

Tobias b.u.mped the vehicle back onto proper road and dialed up the steam. The vehicle shot forward. When he spoke, his voice was tense but reasonable. "I don't think so. He'll try to run to his own men first. This was a nasty surprise, but it's hardly an endgame. Gold still has a good chance of winning this war."

"Then he'll go underground," Alice said with a sudden lift of her head. "Some of his properties have a way out beneath the streets."

Tobias blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Only he knew about it. I don't think he even told his streetkeepers. The only reason I know is because I used to follow him sometimes."

Tobias looked at her in surprise. She had a way of making him do that. "Do you think he took Jeremy down there?"

"Not for long-they're nothing but tunnels," Alice replied. "They're a way to move around, not to stay. But he could make it back to his army unseen."

"Are you sure?" asked Tobias. "We've already looked at all his properties. He's not there, and the rebels have spies on all of them. There aren't many places he could go, even inside his own territory."

"But there was Uncle Harriman's old warehouse. Almost no one knows it's even there."

"Where's that?" Tobias asked.

"A little way off Bond Street," Alice said, and then quirked a smile utterly lacking in mirth. "You may not have been there, but surely you remember it. There was a gold-smithing workshop beneath it for a while."

THEY LEFT THE Steamer on Bond Street-although it was hard to believe it was the same street he knew. Every one of the businesses was closed and many of the windows were boarded over. A Yellowback with a rifle turned to look as they walked away from the vehicle. Tobias held his breath, but nothing happened. He took Alice's hand. "Where do we go now?"

She led him down a narrow side alley that led to a number of storage buildings. He'd walked past that section of Bond Street a thousand times, with the bakery and the draper's shop, but he'd never realized any of this was behind the tidy storefronts.

Alice approached a run-down wood structure with a rusted automaton parked outside the door. They went first to a side door, but when she rattled the handle, it was secure. "How are you at picking locks?" she asked.

He couldn't hold back a smile. "You've been too much in Poppy's company."

She looked up at him, her face set and determined. "I wish I had her bold spirit to see me through this."

Her mouth set, she marched around to the front where the automaton stood motionless. If there was any doubt that it was defunct, the amount of bird dung on its head said the boilers had been inactive for a long time. Alice shot it a contemptuous look as she approached to examine the wide double doors.

"I think you're blessed with more than enough spirit," Tobias said, and then his breath caught as a wave of pain ran through him. He tried to hide it, but he wasn't quick enough.

"Tobias?" Alice asked softly. "What's wrong?"

"A bilious attack. Nothing more."

"This is more than a stomachache. You're ill. You've been ill since you went to Dartmoor."

Dread filled him. He didn't want to tell Alice what was wrong. She had too much to shoulder already. "Let's worry about Jeremy first."

Alice tilted her head up to him, the light turning her hair to molten fire. Fine wisps of it curled around her ears, drawing the eye to the fine arch of her cheekbones. He was transfixed by the light dusting of freckles he found there. She was as exquisite as a fine porcelain vase, every line in perfect proportion.

Her brow furrowed. "I'm worried about you, too."

"Alice," he said, sounding plaintive in his own ears. "Please. This isn't the time."

"It never is with you." She pressed her lips together, then thrust out her hand. "Give me your gun."

Chagrined, he surrendered it. Then she took careful aim at the lock of the warehouse door, and fired. The padlock jumped and then fell in pieces to the ground.

"My father was finally right about something," Tobias said after a pause.

"What?" she asked, freeing the last sc.r.a.ps of metal from the hasp.

"I should never underestimate you."

INSIDE THE WAREHOUSE, THERE WAS NOTHING BUT EMPTY crates and half-forgotten secrets. The trapdoor beneath the floor creaked open with the smell of mildew and old blood, and Tobias was faced with his first view of the world beneath the streets. A narrow flight of steps led down to a derelict workshop, where worktables and equipment lay under a blanket of dust. He raised the old candle-lantern he'd taken from a table upstairs and held it high, letting the feeble beam beat against the murk. So this is where it all happened-the forgery scheme to steal the gold from Keating's artifacts. There had been six perpetrators, including Keating's cousin and the owner of this warehouse, John Harriman. But Bancroft had been the mastermind, and so he was the one the Gold King had blamed.

When Holmes had uncovered the crime, events had fallen like dominoes. Keating had been prepared to ruin Bancroft and his family, which had led to Tobias agreeing to work for the Gold King, which had led to him standing here. It felt as if he'd closed an insidious loop.

The memory of Holmes brought Tobias back to the present, and he thought to look down. The blanket of dust had proved a perfect medium to capture a single set of footprints leading straight ahead. So he came in the first door we tried, got in with a key, and came down here. He'll have no idea that he's being followed.

"Look." Alice had followed him down the stairs and now she pointed to the far shadows. Tobias could just make out the faint gleam of old cages, decorated with bra.s.s scrollwork like some forgotten menagerie. "I heard they kept the goldsmiths locked away down here. In the end, they were killed and thrown into the river."

Her voice was soft in the still shadows, raising the fine hairs down his neck. There had been thirteen bodies in the end, and those had only been the ones involved in this part of the crime. There had been the maidservant, Grace, and more. He wanted to love his father, but so much made it difficult. "Let's go."

One side of the underground room opened up into a cavern, and they walked toward it, huddled in the lantern light like children from a folktale wandering into the woods. Tension wound up Tobias's spine. He knew little of the Black Kingdom, but he knew enough to be sure that this was their domain. His eyes flicked from shadow to shadow, knowing that what he wanted-or perhaps feared-to see was just beyond the faint bloom of the candle's glow.

"How does your father cross beneath the streets? This isn't his territory," he asked quietly.

"Perhaps he obtained permission."

It wasn't the most satisfying of answers, and he couldn't help looking around for he knew not what. The dark was oppressive, for all the rough rock of the cavern ceiling stretched high above. "If your father knew about this place, how could Harriman hide the goldsmiths down here?"

"But he didn't," Alice frowned. "It was only after, when they gave this place a proper search, that he discovered this pa.s.sage."

The cavern they were in reached another, vaster hole. The ground was strewn with pebbles, making walking relatively easy, but there was more than one way to go. After a moment of decision, Alice turned right.

"Maybe there is a clue that he came this way?" Tobias began searching the ground and wis.h.i.+ng Holmes were there. The detective would find a mote of dust disturbed, or a thumbprint, or-Tobias squinted at a pebble wondering if it looked recently scuffed. He flicked it with his boot and noticed the underside was a paler hue. That's odd. He brought the light closer. "Is there water nearby?"

"There is a river. Once Father said it was the Tyburn, I think. I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention at the time."

Tobias set down the lantern, touching the earth. Having only one working hand made the simplest actions awkward. "The ground is damp here, but this pebble was wet-side up. Something turned it over very recently."

"Then that proves Father came this way."

The admiration in her voice made him ridiculously proud. He didn't bother to point out the stone might have been disturbed by someone else. "Where does this lead?"

"There's a building near Manchester Square."

He rose, feeling pain in every joint. If this was the effect of the poison with Dr. Watson's remedy to counteract it, he didn't want to contemplate the alternative. "Then let's go."

They set off, seeing more signs of the river as they went-a patch of dark water moving within the caverns, and sometimes he could hear the rush of it slipping over stone. There were signs of human habitation as well-brick vaults marking an entrance or exit to the world above. A few were recent, but most were centuries old. Many had been sealed off, some neatly, some with a hodgepodge of brick and stone obviously mortared in haste. Those doorways made Tobias uneasy. What was down here that they had wanted so desperately to contain?

In a few places, the cavern narrowed to pa.s.sages so thin that they had to pa.s.s one at a time. Many of these seemed to angle downward, but after the last such pa.s.sage, the caverns lost all traces of human engineering. To Tobias, they looked almost like sea caves he'd seen once near Torquay, with stone dribbling from the ceilings in long points like teeth.

Alice's feet slowed, then stopped. "I don't remember this."

Tobias leaned against the cavern wall, conserving his strength. If we're lost down here, there will be no finding our way out. Anger bubbled up, but he quashed it. Alice's face was pinched with concentration, her eyes flicking to each landmark in turn. She will solve this before I do. He busied himself with fumbling in his pocket for one of their spare candles, lighting it, and squis.h.i.+ng it down in place of the one guttering in the lantern. Fresh light bloomed, widening their range of visibility.

"There should be a bridge," she said, pointing. "Ah, look, there it is. We came to this part of the tunnel a little early, that's all."

Relief pushed back his paranoia. "Clever Alice."

Dark smudges shadowed her eyes, but she managed a smile. The sweetness of it brought an ache to his chest, knowing how much it cost her. She had reined herself in with iron self-control, but she was still a mother who had lost her child-and that didn't begin to touch the question of her father, or the war. Her strength staggered him.

He stood, leaving the lantern at his feet. He brushed her cheek with his fingertips. "You amaze me."

Her lips parted, as if in reply, but he kissed her before she could speak. The taste sang through him, muddling in his senses with the still, heavy darkness and the distant sound of water. He deepened the embrace, exploring the sweet warmth of her. He had never embraced the magical, but the moment was ripe with significance, as if they had been stripped down to the bare essentials of themselves.

"Do you think there will be anything left of London when we get back to the sun?" she whispered, as if the question were too dreadful to be spoken aloud.

He wished he could keep her there, and trade the world above for a bed with her in it and all the time to prove himself the husband he'd always wanted to be. But he made himself smile instead. "That depends. I'll probably be out of a job, at any rate."

She wound her arms around his neck. "I want to see what you can do without my father breathing down your neck."

His heart quickened, awakening the pain in his stomach again, but he swallowed it down and let himself dream for an instant, turning the pages of the future like a storybook. "I might be a disaster and land us in poverty. I'm not particularly practical."

She narrowed her eyes. "Leave the money to me. I know my way around a patent application. I'm not entirely ignorant of my father's business, even if he doesn't know it."

You would have been the perfect wife. But he stepped back, out of her arms, because otherwise he would shatter. "Then let's cross that bridge and get this little task out of the way."

The look she gave him promised much, but he tried not to see that promise, picking up the lantern and letting her lead the way. His head was spinning slightly, emotion combining with the close atmosphere.

They approached the bridge, and his heart lurched. It was a slab of stone about four feet wide, with no railings. Both edges sloped down, giving it a slight ridge all the way across, though there was plenty of room to walk. It was the chasm underneath that gave Tobias pause. It was around twenty feet across and-at least as far as his eye could perceive-a bottomless rip in the earth.

"Are you sure this is the way?" he asked.

Alice gave a slight, unhappy laugh. "One doesn't forget something like this. The only way to cross it is to just start walking and not look down."

If Keating had crossed, he would do no less. "Then lead on, my lady."

She did, her slight form confident as she began the crossing. But Tobias had gone about six steps when another fit of wet, desperate coughing hit him. Eyes blurred with tears, he pulled out his pocket handkerchief and fought for air, forcing himself not to move his feet as he doubled over. He felt Alice's touch. No, you should be halfway across by now. Don't risk coming back for me! But of course, he couldn't speak a word.

"Tobias?" she asked gently once he had finally quieted.

"Just go," he gasped. "I'm all right." And he hid the bloodstains on the handkerchief.

This time, her expression was accusing. But she turned and went, which was what he wanted. He followed after, drained by the fit. It was a mental effort to put one foot before the other, but slowly they progressed across the yawning gap below. When they were three-quarters of the way across, he saw movement on the other side of the bridge. Tired as he was, at first he thought it was just a trick of his eyes.

He was wrong. It was torchlight. His first impression was of a band of ragged, dark figures with hoods drawn over their faces. Dread shot through him. He'd never seen these creatures, but he'd heard of them. Wraiths. They were the soldiers of the Black Kingdom, and they carried an aura of something fearful, like the knowledge of injury just before the strike of pain. Around their knees swarmed a crowd of something-eyeless faces, twisted limbs, and headless things melted into a shadowy pool.

They'd attracted the wrong kind of attention. "Alice!" he said, hoping to warn her.

She saw them the moment he spoke. The sight of the spectral figures startled her enough that she scampered back a few paces, and in doing that she lost her footing on the sloping bridge. She fell backward, skidded, and began to slide toward the edge.

Tobias lunged for her, throwing himself down to stop her fall. He clung to her, all too aware of her heart fluttering beneath his chest. Her gaze met his, wide with alarm, and a protective warmth surged through him, clogging his throat until speech was impossible. He was aware of everything-the hard, sandy surface of the rock beneath them, the soft tickle of her hair against his skin.

"I have you," he said. As long as there is breath in my body, I'll keep you safe. "I love you."

And then he felt the pressure of a gun barrel against the back of his head.

EVELINA, NICK, AND PRINCE EDMOND WALKED WITH THEIR escorts in silence. The creatures kept their weapons drawn, moving with a whisper of mechanical joints that made Evelina's skin crawl. Her unease was compounded as the air grew stale. She could feel the tunnel dipping, and the sense of the magnetic power of the place increased.

"May I ask how it is that you came to be down here?" the prince finally asked the group's leader. She seemed to be the only one willing to talk.

"Those of us who wished it were made welcome in the underground. At least," she gave an odd shrug that didn't quite move the way it should, "those of us who are mostly sane. All of us sacrificed pieces of our flesh in the laboratories, but some of us gave more."

"Why weren't you in the battle aboveground?" the prince asked.

She turned pale eyes on him. They might have been blue, but in the poor light they looked almost without color at all. "That was the intention of our so-called masters, but there were too many opportunities to escape."

"You could have fought the steam barons."

"Your rebels do not care for us any more than the rest." She held up the hand that was still made of flesh. "Perhaps you yourself do not recoil from our kind, or perhaps you simply cover your disgust well. But not everything changes because of one battle. Win or lose, we are condemned to hide."

The prince looked about to argue, so Evelina jumped in. "I thought the laboratories were there to discover what made magic work. And yet what I saw there looked like experimentation of all kinds." She'd meant to smooth over the conversation, but a low snarl rippled through the entire group.

The woman waved them to silence. "It is a fair question. The barons learned enough to destroy our abilities, but never to replicate them. Lack of progress prompted them to try other things. After all, they had a steady supply of subjects for their testing." She gave Evelina a curious look. "When were you there?"