All is Fair (2 page)

He held out the pen and she took it, fantasising about plunging its nib into the back of his hand. She tried to promise she’d tell Will but even the act of opening her mouth to do so made her cough so hard she cried out in pain.

“Powerful, isn’t it?” Bennet’s smug grin made her feel murderous. “Just sign and I’ll leave you to rest.”

She considering bolting but she hadn’t been out of bed since the attack, and she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to walk out of the house. And she’d decided to stay and fight. Caving in to his demand didn’t feel like the first step in her new direction. She felt weak and scared and filled with a fury she was unable to express. She couldn’t even think of an insult so she clenched her teeth and signed.

He whipped the paper away into the folder and tucked it under his arm before she’d even had a chance to screw the cap back on the fountain pen.

He turned to go but paused when he reached the door. “I’ll be watching you, Mrs Iris. I would think twice before you speak to anyone in Society about the way the Agency conducts its business.” So he knew she’d told Margritte and Georgiana that the Agency was conning them. “I wish you a speedy recovery,” he said, all fake smiles and good manners again.

I wish you a slow and terrible death, she thought, exhausted. All that remained after he left was the faint scent of aniseed and a bitter rage that burned as much as the potion.

Derne led them down the corridor. Max brought the gargoyle with them, not wanting to leave it there to chat with the Agency directors and give something away.

They passed the main entrance of the building with front doors ten feet high, made of solid oak and reinforced with iron bracers with no arcane design. There were three different locks and a reinforcing crossbar. It seemed to be designed to repel invading hordes rather than Fae or Sorcerers.

There were no paintings and the decor was functionally minimal. Stone walls, flagstone floors with a narrow carpet runner to muffle footfalls, and nothing else. Max had been inside dozens of Nether properties and was used to matching architectural features on the inside with what he knew of the anchor building. Something wasn’t right about the proportions of the one he was walking through now. The windows in the main administrative room, the one in which he and the gargoyle had found the file on Miss Rainer and the rogue Rosas, had windows of Georgian proportions out of keeping with the thick medieval walls and relatively small footprint of the mundane foundations he’d found with the tracker.

The main staircase came into view, also made of stout oak. The banging and shouting from the staff trapped in their rooms echoed down the wide stairwell but less than when the building had been shaking. Max estimated there were about fifty staff that never left the building from day to day and another twenty who dealt directly with the puppets. He hadn’t been able to watch all the floors, though, and there were four storeys above them which could be filled with other staff for all he knew.

Derne walked past the staircase and down the corridor of the opposite wing until he reached a heavily fortified door with a sliding panel at eye height. He knocked three times rapidly, then added a fourth knock after three seconds. The panel slid open straight away.

“Mr Derne!” A male voice on the other side of the door accompanied a pair of eyes looking through the slot. “What happened? Is everything–”

“Let me in,” Derne said. “There are people with me… from outside. Switch off the secondary defences and don’t attack them.”

“Are you–”

“Just do it,” Derne snapped.

A scraping of bolts and the tumble of several large locks filled the hallway. The door opened and Derne beckoned them through. There was a narrow staircase leading down, lit by oil lanterns at regular intervals. The guard stood in the corner, holding the door open and watching them with wide eyes as they passed.

“What are the secondary defences?” Ekstrand asked as they descended the stone steps.

Derne pointed up with his index finger without looking. “See the holes in the ceiling? Darts tipped with curare are fired out of them if a person walks down these steps in the wrong way.”

“Blimey,” the gargoyle whispered.

Max looked at the holes and then watched Derne more closely. He was following a pattern of placing his foot on certain parts of each step. Max put a hand on Ekstrand’s shoulder to stop him. “Derne, you’re still walking like the defences are active.”

“Habit,” Derne replied but Max sent the gargoyle ahead as a precaution. No darts were fired and he released Ekstrand’s shoulder. Going down the stairs made his leg ache and he leaned more heavily on the walking stick but he eventually made it to the bottom without incident.

There was another fortified door and a similar conversation with another guard through a slot. The stone floor was less even and the walls were made of the same stones as the mundane foundations. They were in the only part of the building truly reflected in the Nether.

“Before we go in, I must ask you to be quiet. You’ll need to put on a hooded cloak and move slowly.” He frowned at the gargoyle. “That… thing can’t come in.”

“Best you stay out here and keep watch,” Max said to it. He didn’t want all of them to be on the other side of the doors, even though they were with Ekstrand. The Agency was using magic beyond sorcerous knowledge and there was every possibility Derne was leading them into a trap.

The gargoyle took up a position outside the door, sitting on its haunches and leaning forwards as if perched on top of a cathedral.

On the other side of the second door was a small chamber with several grey cloaks hung on a row of pegs, a table and chair for the guard, and another door, less fortified. The guard wore a holster with a semi-automatic pistol still tucked in it, something Max had never seen in the Nether. The puppets shunned modern weapons; for them anything more advanced than a flintlock was seen as uncouth. The guard held his hand a couple of inches above it.

“Don’t touch that,” Max said, and Ekstrand noticed the weapon.

“Or I’ll extract all the water from your body,” the Sorcerer added.

Whilst the threat did make the guard look nervous he didn’t stand down until he had a nod from Derne. They were well trained and loyal. They had to be, for the Agency to have stayed secret for so long. Max wondered how Derne elicited such loyalty.

Derne put on one of the grey cloaks and handed another to Ekstrand. He stared at Ekstrand’s top hat when the Sorcerer held it out to him and, not taking the hint, pointed at a hook on the wall. Max collected a cloak for himself and checked it inside and out before draping it around his shoulders. There was a hook-and-eye at the neck to hold it in place and a generous hood, not unlike that worn by mundane monks.

“Remember, move slowly, and once we’re through that door you mustn’t speak. No doubt you’ll have questions. Save them for when we’re back in this room.”

Ekstrand gave a curt nod and all three of them put up the hoods. The third door was opened and Max saw it was thick enough to be soundproof.

They were led into a large room with a low ceiling, a space Max suspected was once the cellars – and possibly dungeons – of the former castle but with all the dividing walls removed to make one space. The air was stuffy and thick with the scent of flowers that irritated the back of Max’s throat. There were thick columns of stones at intervals to bear the weight of the building above but little else Max saw made sense.

About fifty or so men and women were seated around the room, strapped into wooden chairs. They weren’t straining against the bonds, rather it looked like they were being held in, as all were slumped and slack faced. The chairs were positioned in small groups around tables brightly lit from above by lanterns which left the rest of the room in shadow. On the tables were models of different parts of the building. Some featured the whole structure, others individual floors. The people strapped into the chairs were staring at the models and nothing else.

A movement drew his attention to a person on the far side of the room, dressed in the same grey robes as they’d been given, moving very slowly towards one of the men in a nearby chair. Drool was wiped from the chin of the slack-faced man who didn’t seem to notice.

Ekstrand walked slowly around the room, inspecting the models and the seated people. Max saw three other people wearing robes, all tending to various needs. When he saw one lingering behind one of the chairs he too went further in and looked more closely at the nearest chair. Its high back also formed a sort of cupboard in which an IV bag was hung at the top and another bag lower down collected urine. The woman in the chair was so pale he wondered if she’d ever left the Nether since reaching adulthood.

The model on the table was a perfect replica of the exterior of the Nether building down to every detail, including slight imperfections in the individual stone blocks. Max stooped a little to try and get an idea of what the woman could see as she stared at it. When he straightened back up again he looked at the man seated opposite her. Something about his nose caught Max’s eye and he seemed familiar. He was thinner, paler and his hair had been shaved off, but Max was certain it was Horatio Gallica-Rosa, the one who’d tried to pass off Lavandula’s secret house as his own.

So that was what happened to the Roses.

Max had a sudden awareness of the gargoyle on the other side of the door, ready to pounce on the guard. It was time to leave. Ekstrand had seen enough too and they both headed for the door, Derne close behind the Sorcerer.

The gargoyle was staring at the guard, who was standing in front of the door and had to be pushed aside by Ekstrand. The gargoyle’s teeth were bared and its head was low and shoulders high. Derne closed the door and ushered them towards the exit but the gargoyle headed for Max.

“We have to go back in there,” it growled. “We have to stop this.”

“Not an option,” Max replied and took off the robe. “If the building collapsed or stopped existing it would kill all the people here or, at best, they’d be lost in the Nether.”

A low rumbling percolated in its throat. “We can’t ignore it.”

“We need to go, sir,” Max said to Ekstrand.

“Not yet, I have questions. Derne, those people in there,
they
are the anchors, aren’t they?”

Derne nodded, his eyes darting to the gargoyle and back to the Sorcerer. “Yes. It’s a form of wish magic altered for our purpose.” He glanced at the gargoyle again. “They collectively wish the building into existence in the Nether, and the mundane foundations are enough to hold it in place.”

“Ingenious,” Ekstrand commented.

“Ingenious!” The gargoyle focused on Ekstrand. “Are you–”

“I’ll take it upstairs,” Max said and headed for the door. “Come on,” he said to the gargoyle.

“I won’t be long,” Ekstrand said. “Now, tell me, how do they maintain their concentration?”

Max didn’t hear the answer as he started up the stairs. The gargoyle followed him, muttering to itself all the way. When they were back in the hallway upstairs it prowled up and down as they waited for Ekstrand.

“Wait till we get back to his house,” Max said when the gargoyle opened its mouth to speak. “Not here.”

Max leaned against the wall. He was tired and his leg ached. His thoughts kept returning to the sight of the Gallica-Rosa in the basement. He’d only seen him briefly in the ballroom after he’d rescued the Master of Ceremonies and hadn’t given any more thought to what had happened to the family other than where he could find them for interrogation.

“That code in his file must have something to do with it,” the gargoyle said. “We need to ask them what it all means.”

“They’ll tell us now,” Max replied.

“If I had a stomach I’d be throwing up,” the gargoyle added. “This is–”

“Wait until we get back,” Max said, and the gargoyle went back to its prowling.

Ekstrand took longer than he said he would but Max had anticipated that. He emerged from the doorway down to the basement with Derne. “That’s everything for now,” he said.

“Sir, there’s a code in Horatio Gallica-Rosa’s file,” Max said. “We need to know what it means.”

“Write that up, will you?” Ekstrand said to Derne. “Max will collect it soon.”

Derne sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils and then nodded.

Ekstrand moved to the edge of the carpet runner and tapped on the flagstone floor with the tip of his cane. “The doors will open again in one minute. I’m leaving now but remember, I’m watching you.”

“I doubt I can forget it,” Derne replied.

Ekstrand opened a way into the Nether and, when they stepped through, the building was a hundred yards away. Ekstrand looked at it for a few moments and then opened a Way to the hallway of his house. The moment they were through and the Way closed behind them, the gargoyle rounded on the Sorcerer.

“So when are you going to shut the Agency down?”

“Why in the Worlds would I do that?” Ekstrand asked as he took off his hat.

“Because of the people in the basement.”

“What about them?”

The gargoyle didn’t answer immediately; it just stared at Ekstrand with its stone marble eyes. “You don’t give a flying buttress about those poor bastards, do you?”

“Mr Ekstrand.” Petra’s voice cut cleanly through the gargoyle’s outrage. “I’ve finished the last autopsy and there’s something you need to know.”

Max glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning and she looked exhausted. “About the Sorcerer of Essex?” He knew Dante was the last one to be autopsied of the dead Sorcerers.

Petra nodded. “Yes, Dante. Sir, his heart was turned into stone too, just like the other Sorcerers and the people in the Bath Chapter. But Dante was different; that didn’t kill him.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ekstrand was now focused fully on her.

“His heart being turned to stone didn’t kill him because he was already dead.”

2

“This is it.”

Will peered out of the taxi window at the terraced mundane house. It lacked any of the beauty and majesty of Bath’s splendid architecture. He asked the driver to wait and got out. Although the prospect of enduring the terrible smell of the mundane car once again didn’t appeal, it was less troublesome than having to find another in the rain. The driver nodded and parked whilst opening a packet of crisps with his teeth at the same time. That explained the beefy tang to the taxi’s smell but not the odour of rotten eggs.