The Friday Society (24 page)

41

What Cora Did . . .

T
HE POST OFFICE
seemed to be the only crowded place left in London. Cora hoped that tapping her foot might be a not-too-subtle hint that she had been waiting for quite some time now. Not complaining, not making a fuss, certainly not like the other customers in the place, all panic and frenzy, dropping books of stamps as they rushed out of the door and holding their hands over their heads like they were caught in a rainstorm. Yeah, as if that would protect a person from someone blowing up the city.

Finally, the round woman who’d disappeared into the back and, for all intents and purposes, it seemed, into another dimension, returned and beckoned Cora to join her behind her desk and take a seat.

“Right, love, got the records right here. What was the address again?”

For the fifth time, Cora repeated Lord White’s address, and the woman gave her a pleasant smile, licked her forefinger, and began turning the pages. One at a time. As if her book of records was on par with Shakespeare’s First Folio and required the same kind of delicate respect.

Do take as much time as you want, no rush or anything . . .

“Sorry about the wait,” said the woman as she turned the third page. “It’s a bit chaotic here, as you can see. Ever since the threat, people want to contact their loved ones . . . and it don’t help that everyone’s in a panic, not thinking straight.”

“You don’t seem particularly panicked yourself, though.” A little panic wouldn’t go amiss right about now.

“Gotta set a good example. But . . .” The woman stopped flipping and leaned in toward Cora. “But I’m right scared. Still, as a government employee, I gotta believe that they’ve got everything in hand.”

Cora thought back to the image of the Members of the House yelling and throwing things at one another, and decided that this was one of those moments in which honesty wasn’t the best policy. “I’m sure they do,” she said, and placed a comforting hand on the woman’s. The woman smiled appreciatively and returned to flipping through the book.

“Ah! There we go. Two delivery times.”

“Who placed the first delivery?”

The woman shook her head. “Don’t know. Signature’s hard to read. Let me call Lucy over. She was on duty that day. She might remember. Lucy!”

A thin, plain-looking girl, her face completely drained of color, ran over with wide, frightened eyes. “Yes, Winnie? Is everything okay?”

“It’s all fine, Lucy. Do you remember when this order was placed?” Winnie pointed to the page.

Lucy leaned over and had a look. She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I remember this one. It was a Chinese man. He didn’t speak a word of English, just handed me a note with the address on it and the package. And the money, of course. I think . . . I think I might still have the note.”

Lucy disappeared into the back of the room, pushing her way through a thick, new crowd of customers who buzzed with fearful energy. She returned a moment later with a neatly folded piece of paper. She passed it over to Cora, who unfolded it. The note was plain, with little more than Lord White’s address written on it, but the symbol embossed at the top was familiar.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cora said.

“Not kidding, that’s the paper. I like to collect interesting stationery,” explained Lucy.

Cora rose. “Thank you both very much. Here.” She passed back the piece of paper to Lucy and quickly left the post office for the empty street. It was quite a relief to be outside in deserted London once more, and Cora hailed a cab easily. Even though there was no one to use their services, London cabbies were evidently a devoted lot.

What a waste of time this trip had been. She should have just gone with Nellie in the first place. Now she had spent time looking into something she already suspected was the case, only to discover that her suspicions were accurate.
From now on, Cora, trust your instincts.

She arrived at the Medical and Scientific Institute ten minutes later and stared at the dark, looming, Gothic building before her. It was pitch-black from soot, and clearly no one had ever attempted to give it a cleaning. Nonetheless, she could see the large carving of a slender bird with a long neck perched in an oval at the top. The same symbol as the one embossed on the note.

She entered the building and approached a woman who was making her way toward the doors Cora had just passed through.

“I’m looking for a girl. Blond. She probably arrived around three-quarters of an hour ago,” said Cora, stopping the woman.

She was met with a foul look. “Yes, I saw her.”

“She was looking for Mr. Staunch and Mr. Proper.”

“She was.”

“Is she still here?”

“No. She left with those two maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“She did?”

“They were down in the theater together. She must have fainted seeing the body on the table. They had to carry her out.”

That didn’t sound remotely like Nellie.

“Where did they take her?” she asked.

“They hailed a cab and drove off.” The woman removed her glasses.

“All three of them?”

“Yes.” Cora thought hard for a moment. “Is there anything I can help you with exactly?” asked the woman, an edge to her voice.

“Give me a moment to think,” replied Cora, matching her tone. There was no doubt in Cora’s mind that Nellie had been kidnapped. And it was hard for her to problem-solve when she was starting to panic.
Calm down. Calm down.
She could only think of one thing: “Where do Mr. Staunch and Mr. Proper get their . . . goods?”

There was a moment in which the woman was clearly deciding between pretending she had no idea what Cora was talking about and just answering the question. Finally, she let out a sigh and said, “Graveyards, obviously.”

“Obviously. Do they have a particular . . . haunt?” The choice of the word had been unintentional, but was actually rather appropriate.

The woman thought some more. Then she smiled slightly and sighed again. “The Hammersmith Cemetery.”

“Thank you.” Cora practically ran out of the building. She didn’t know what was going on exactly, but she knew that time was of the essence.

42

Graves and Eyes

N
ELLIE COULDN’T ESCAPE
her nightmare. The walls were high and black; she couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak.
Wake up, Nellie, wake up. No. Yes.
She was awake . . . she was . . . she flipped herself onto her back, onto her hands, which were tied tightly behind her. She saw sky. Sky up high, far away, farther away than usual. And getting darker, fading into night. She wanted to scream out, but something was in her mouth—shoved into her mouth and tied tightly at the nape of her neck. Her feet and knees were bound together as well.
Help me. Someone help me. Help me before he comes and kills me.

* * *

I
T WAS DUSK
when Cora arrived at the Hammersmith Cemetery. She’d decided on the District Railway as her means of transportation. After all, it was much faster than taking a cab, and all she had to do was get off at Barons Court and she’d be right around the corner from the graveyard.

She approached the low wall and the gates, which still hung open, and stepped onto the path. It felt as though she were leaving one world and crossing through a portal into another. Instantly the sounds of the city were extinguished behind her, and all that remained were the creak of branches above her and the occasional flapping wings of a startled bird taking flight.

Cora knew enough of her city’s history to understand why this would be a cemetery of choice for grave robbers. It was only a few decades old, so there would be fewer layers of human remains to contend with. Furthermore, it was very highly populated, with several burials a day taking place. It also helped that the cemetery was rather isolated from the city, though the land in the area was slowly being developed.

Coming this far west was unusual for her. Aside from the odd trip with Lord White, she was a Central London kind of girl. Funny thought, that. She’d once been so proud of being an East Ender.

She thought briefly then of his lordship, wondering whether he was at all concerned about her whereabouts, whether he’d even noticed she had left.

Another flapping of wings. And then a quiet squawk.

And then she was attacked.

Okay, she wasn’t actually being attacked, but when something lands on your shoulder totally unexpectedly, it can feel like an attack. Cora jumped and instinctively made a swipe at her shoulder. Scheherazade flew off for a moment and then landed for a second time. She and Cora made eye contact, and Cora finally surrendered to having the parrot sit there.

“Death,” whispered the bird.

“I know,” replied Cora. If her bird was here, then Nellie was, too. But if her bird wasn’t
with
Nellie, then there was trouble ahead.

She made her way as quietly as she could through the darkening cemetery and turned onto the wide main path. She stopped and had a good look around. If there was ever a day to test her newly finished goggles, this would be it. Pity she didn’t have them with her.

Cora noticed the two figures almost entirely hidden in the shadow of the wall. They were lounging, it seemed, leaning against the red brick, having a quiet conversation. Whether or not they had noticed her yet remained to be seen. The good thing about cemeteries was there were plenty of ways to hide yourself.

In a flash Cora was down on the ground, crawling to the nearest tombstone, the parrot hopping along behind her. As she got close enough to see the features of each of the men, she noticed the open grave next to them. Shovel lying to the side. Freshly dug. Scheherazade made a doglike whimper, and Cora surmised that Nellie was probably down there.

“What are you doing?” asked a quiet voice.

Cora turned and looked up as the parrot flew into the air and out of sight. A bald man, no hat on his head, his long black coat undone and a ragged scarf hanging around his neck, watched the bird fly off and then looked down at Cora.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked, standing up and brushing her skirt free of dirt. “I was trying to sneak up on those two men over there, the ones who are standing up now. Clearly you caught me. What are
you
doing?”

The man looked at her closely and then glanced over her shoulder. “Mr. Proper, do you know who this is?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” replied a thick East End accent. “Mr. Staunch, do you know who it is?”

“I do not,” said the other man.

Three tall men standing around her looking confused, and one girl feeling very scared.

“You think maybe the magic girl knows her?” asked Mr. Proper.

The bald man seemed to think about it, then nodded. He leaned in close, almost as if he was examining Cora. He took her chin in his hand and twisted her head hard to one side. “This one has good bits, too. Let’s use this one as well.”

Whatever that meant, Cora was pretty sure it wasn’t something that was likely to turn out well for her. So she punched the man in the jaw. Grabbed from behind, she stomped on a foot, turned, and punched the face that belonged to the foot, knocking the man’s dark glasses clean off.

“Oh my God,” she said, and stopped mid-windup. She’d expected to be making eye contact with Mr. Proper, but instead she found herself staring into two red lights glowing in the center of a round glass orb where the eyes should have been. Tiny gears inside the orb rotated at that moment to make the light smaller, more focused on her. “What are you?”

“Men,” said the quiet bald man in her ear. “Normal everyday men.”

“You don’t seem ordinary,” replied Cora.

“Well, you lose a leg, you replace it with a peg. You lose an eye, or two . . .”

Cora glanced at Mr. Staunch, who readjusted his glasses as he noticed her looking at him.

“Can they see? Can you see?”

Mr. Proper nodded. “Couldn’t before. Got sick, see, went blind. And Staunch there had a pretty bad fall as a lad. But Dr. Mantis changed that. Gave us each a pair of these. I owe ’im. We both owe ’im.”

“They don’t see quite like we do. They see using infrared. You heard about that?” asked Dr. Mantis, coming around to face her.

Cora nodded. Yes, she knew about that, it was key in how she’d developed her special see-in-the-dark goggles. She also knew that with the distraction courtesy of their current conversation, she was free to take a few steps backward.

“They can see heat or lack of it. It’s a completely different color spectrum to what we’re used to,” continued Dr. Mantis.

“How do they dig up dead bodies?” Just keep him talking. Besides, it was all pretty fascinating.

“They can see when it’s cold, just not as bright. Also . . .” He turned and gave Mr. Proper a nod. The fellow retrieved an oddly shaped gun from inside his coat and aimed at the ground just before Cora. Fire shot out in a roar and singed the earth black. “They can warm things up when they need to.”

“Holy shit.”

“That ain’t a ladylike thing to say,” said Mr. Staunch.

Cora produced her pistol and aimed it at him. “I’m no lady.”

“Whatcha gonna do, then?” asked Mr. Proper. “There’s three of us, one of you. Jus’ fair warnin’.”

“I’ll just have to incapacitate you one at a time then.”

“Let me make it a bit easier for you.” At that moment a shovel suddenly appeared from behind Mr. Staunch’s head, and with one swift swipe, he was out cold. Standing in his place was Nellie, covered in dirt, yet somehow totally looking great. Mr. Proper only had a moment to react before Scheherazade landed on his face, pecking at his “eyes.” There was a struggle, until Cora saw the eyes start to spark. Then the red light at their center went out and the whirring sound that accompanied it died. Nellie gave him a good whack with the shovel, too, and he was down for the count as well.

“Stupid bird! It’ll take me weeks to make a new pair of eyes, and he’ll be utterly useless till then,” said Dr. Mantis, flailing his arms wildly as Scheherazade flew around his head. Cora took aim at the ground right in front of Dr. Mantis and fired. He stumbled backward in shock and Nellie did her shovel thing for a third time.

“You know, that’s actually rather dangerous. You could give them serious brain damage, even kill them like that,” said Cora as she watched Dr. Mantis fall to the side.

“They were gonna kill me the second he showed up. And I heard him say he had the same goal in mind for you. I’m not too fussed about brain damage, if I’m honest.”

Scheherazade chose that moment to land on Nellie’s shoulder, and Nellie gave the parrot a very hearty scratch under the chin.

“Are you okay, Nellie?” asked Cora, noticing the girl’s expression.

Nellie shook her head. “No. I’m really not. That was all too close. It’s a damn fine thing I’ve got experience gettin’ out of tight situations. You can’t tie me down.”

“You constantly impress me, Nellie. Come on. Let’s meet up with Michiko.”

Nellie put down the shovel and came over to her. “We’ll meet up, but that’s it. Count me out.”

“What do you mean?” Cora felt hollow inside, stunned, and almost . . . a little betrayed.

“I’m out, Cora. I’m not riskin’ everythin’ for this. I’m done.”