The Ghost Rebellion (26 page)

Yet looking at the destruction around them, she knew there was no time to dwell on that right now. Reinforcements would be here soon. Medical teams. Military units. Local law enforcement. All of them demanding answers. She had to get Wellington out.

“
Over there,” she said, gesturing with her head to the armoured vehicle.

“
Can you drive that?” Sophia asked.

“
We will find out, won’t we?”

They carried Wellington to the odd tank and opened the passenger door. Both women jumped slightly as another agent toppled out of it. Eliza prayed Wellington was not responsible for that death. Or for the death of Thorp.

They slid Wellington into the back across the metallic bench, pushing aside the odd scientific instruments jumbled together back there. They then loaded the other Ministry agents into the cabin, placing the corpses across the floorboard underneath Wellington. This macabre clean-up made Eliza slightly ill. She had dealt with dead bodies before, but this felt deceptive and improper somehow. She knew why; Eliza, with Sophia’s help, was attempting to remove their presence from this incident. She hoped Wellington left no survivors to tell tales, and that made her feel worse.

Sophia cast a wary look at the gore staining the passenger seat, but took it nonetheless. “This is new for you, isn’t it?”

She looked over the collection of gearshifts and gauges. The boilers, according to the readouts, were still stoked. Wellington or Thorp had never powered down this monster at any point. They could go whenever they were ready.

“
I’ve covered my tracks before. I’ve killed before. But not like this.” She pulled down a series of gearshifts. The engine rumbled to life.

The tank lurched backwards. Hardly what she intended, but it was fortuitous when their transport reversed out of the plaza as locals ran past them. Eliza manage to spin the transport around to face up a street she vaguely recognized. In the distance, one building rose over the low skyline of the city. Home. They rumbled off towards the office, sharing no more words, leaving behind quite a mess for the Army, Navy, and the Ministry to clean up.

Chapter Eleven

In Which Ghosts Take Form and a Poltergeist is Discovered

The buzzing in his ears was the first thing Wellington became aware of, that and the sensation of drowning in a sea of light. Its radiance filled him, and it was delicious at first. Better to be carried away by this primitive tide than face a world of pain, but then as he let himself float on it for a time, he began to recall the others he’d left behind. A pair of blue eyes, which challenged and loved him. Those were the things worth fighting for, and this ocean of emptiness suddenly felt less than welcoming.

The drone changed pitch and became intermittent. There was a rhythm. Words. This sound was now becoming discernable. Distant, like an echo, but he could hear someone talking. It was a woman, and she was concerned…

“
No, it is not as simple as that, sir.” That was the voice he dreamt of. From a land found at the edge of the Empire. It was voice of the woman with those challenging, loving blue eyes. “He was not in his right mind…”

He almost didn’t hear the respondent. Male, but there was something odd about his voice. “Agent Braun, are we in danger?”

“
Stuff it, Maulik, this is Wellington we are talking about!”

“
I know…”

Wellington struggled to reach this other world, swimming now instead of floating, climbing back to himself and her. The light was growing fainter.
Keep talking. I am almost there…
 

He woke up spluttering and thrashing in light, but not sunlight. This was man-made. He could see windows across from him, the world outside black as pitch. It was night. Eliza was leaning over him, her hair rumpled, her linen suit stained with soot, but it didn’t matter. He’d made it back. Just next to her, similarly dishevelled, was Vania Pujari.

Then Wellington’s muscles stiffened, and his head throbbed with the most painful of migraines. He managed a moan which, he was most grateful, did not lead to retching. However, a good vomit might have made him feel better.

“
Dear Lord,” Wellington finally uttered, “what happened to me?”

“
A question for the ages, Agent Books,” came a mechanical voice.

Wellington looked around and realised he had been laid out across a boardroom table. He was in Maulik’s office, so it was hardly a surprise to see the director himself wheel into view. The woman to one side of him, however...

“
You,” he gasped, sitting up and feeling about for a weapon of some kind.

Sophia del Morte, assassin and woman responsible for so much death and destruction, merely smiled. “A pleasure to see you again, as well.”

“
Calm down, Welly,” Eliza said, taking hold of his hands. “She’s the one that saved you...well, at least saved me from having to shoot you.”

“
What?” Wellington looked between the two women as if they had both run mad. “You were going to shoot me?”

“
He doesn’t remember.” Sophia tilted his head and examined Wellington in a clinical fashion, most unexpected from a killer of her calibre. She then looked down at Maulik. “Sometimes that happens. It might be a blessing…”

A chill of fear ran over Wellington as he looked around the office. There were four agents, both English and Indian, present along with Lieutenant O’Neil. All of them, save for Eliza and Sophia, were watching him intently. “What—” he cleared his throat, “—what did I do?”

“
That is what we are all trying to find out,” O’Neil said.

Was the clasp to his gun holster undone?

Eliza let out a long sigh. The fact that she had her back turned to the assassin was some kind of strange occurrence in itself. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“
An electroporter!” Wellington blurted out. “Eliza, Maulik, the Ghost Rebellion have an electroporter!”

“
Easy there, Books,” the director replied, slowly easing his wheelchair back. “We need to keep our wits about us.”

Wellington went to continue but then noticed Maulik was only one retreating. The other Ministry agents stood stock still. That was when he noticed they all held either Remington-Elliots or Bulldogs. Drawn. And primed.

“
Wellington, darling, we know about the electroporter,” Eliza said, her tone an attempt to soothe him. It was not working. “What happened after that?”

“
I recall the separatists, the Ghost Rebellion if you will, opening fire. I remember Agent Thorp doing the same. We were pinned down—Thorp, myself, and Agent Strickland. Thorp didn’t make it. Strickland and I were going to drive the Bug into the fray, try and reach a small squad pinned down by the rebels.” He paused as Eliza turned away to glare at O’Neil. The officer did not seem impressed in the slightest. “Then Strickland was shot, and then…” Wellington’s face contorted. His mind plummeted into an abyss. “Nothing.”

Eliza’s expression went from caring to cold and hard, as if he had done something wrong. “You did it again, Welly. You tapped into your particular skills again, but this time you lost control of it.”

“
I lost…control?” He was hoping against hope this was some kind of test.

“
You started attacking anyone near you,” O’Neil barked at him, causing him to nearly leap up from the table. “You took out the rebels, and then you opened fire on your own.”

“
That will do, Lieutenant,” warned Maulik.

The officer’s Bulldog slipped out of his holster with a whisper of leather, still echoing in Wellington’s ears as O’Neil pulled back the hammer. “Some of those men were friends of mine.”

Eliza’s pistols were out just as the Ministry agents turned their weapons on O’Neil. “Holster that sidearm, mate.”

Vania remained with Wellington, her own Remington-Elliot drawn and ready with two compressors showing green.

“
That will do,
everyone!”
Maulik snapped. He rolled his chair between Wellington and O’Neil. “Today’s events were a tragedy, to be sure, but Wellington’s condition not withstanding, we are all seeking justice for both this and Fort St Paul, now then…” He motioned to his Ministry agents, and their pistols lowered. “You too, Eliza.”

“
He goes first.”

“
Stand down, Agent Braun,” Maulik ordered gently. At least, it sounded gentle, but his intent was crystal clear.

Eliza’s pistol lowered with evident reluctance.

“
Do not make this any worse for yourself,” Maulik said to O’Neil.

“
On myself?” he asked, tightening the grip on his pistol.

“
You see, while we have been holding this standoff of Military versus Ministry, the formidable Miss del Morte has slipped right next to you. If you so much as flinch, I believe she will cut you with the blade she now holds.”

“
You will be dead before you hit the floor,” she warned in her usual charming manner.

Once O’Neil’s pistol retuned to his holster, Maulik let out a long breath. “So, Books, been keeping secrets, have you?”

“
It’s complicated. Usually, I can keep these talents under control.” Wellington looked over to Eliza. “All it takes is a focal point.”

“
Not today, love,” Eliza said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “You even turned on me.”

Sophia slipped her knife back into her sleeve as she spoke. “I had to use a knock-out dart I keep in my gauntlet.”

That was a bit shocking. “A
knock-out
dart? From you?” Wellington asked.

“
When I need to move incognito, I must leave fewer corpses in my wake.”

 “
Speaking of which,” Maulik said, turning his chair to face the Italian assassin, “Miss del Morte, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“
If I may?” she asked, motioning to the satchel hanging across her hip.

“
You’re amongst…well…” Maulik looked at Wellington and Eliza, then at his own agents, and continued with “…professional acquaintances.”

From the satchel came eight dossiers, all of them Wellington recognised as being from Usher on account of the raven seal seared into the leather. He slipped one of the folders out of the pile, and inspected its contents. Eliza did the same, a frown forming on her face.

“
Elizabeth Case,” Wellington read aloud from another dossier. “Did we tangle with an Usher agent named Beth Case?”

“
The name sounds familiar,” Eliza said, tapping her fingers on the folder.

“
That’s because,” Sophia said, offering Maulik a small box, the last item in the satchel from the looks of it, “she was close to you. A colleague.”

Maulik opened the box and pulled out the familiar wallet bearing the crest of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.

“
She was a double agent?” Vania whispered as if the mere idea of such a thing had never crossed her mind.

“
And apparently, this black widow for Usher was using Bruges as her web,” Sophia stated.

“
Hold on,” Maulik began, looking through the Ministry identification. “London Office received an æthermessage from her, stating that she had rendezvoused with Wellington and Eliza in Bruges. We immediately sent back in code that it had to be some elaborate operation to compromise her position.”

“
Ah, you mean,” and Sophia pulled from her pocket a small piece of paper which she unfurled and read. “Have a care, cousin. We last heard Wellington and Eliza were enjoying their stay at Uncle Allan’s. A safe guess things at the Hume estate are booming.”

Eliza shrugged. “Fantastic code, that is. Even I don’t know what it means.”

“
Allan Hume. One of the founders of the Indian National Congress,” Wellington said. “First meeting, 1855 in Bombay.”

“
Now you know how I found you,” Sophia said, handing the message to Maulik.

“
Lovely,” Maulik said. “As if this Ghost Rebellion was not enough to worry about, now we have to be on alert for double agents.”

Wellington pulled himself off the long table and, with Eliza offering support, he approached O’Neil. “You have no reason to trust me, but I implore you, sir. This Ghost Rebellion of yours now has access to an electroporter. It has its own limitations like an æthergate, but not the same risks. The only people who know about electroporters are myself, Miss Braun here, and those directly involved with them.”

O’Neil’s eyes narrowed. “When we met, you all were investigating Featherstone. He never mentioned to us anything called by that name.”

“
But Featherstone was answering to Jekyll,” Wellington said, pointing to a chair at the head of the grand table. Eliza helped him over to it, and he found the seat indeed as comfortable as it looked. “There has to be a connection between Featherstone, Jekyll, the æthergate, and the electroporter.” He looked up at the officer. “It may seem difficult to grasp, but I am a victim in this as well. Please, help us with this investigation.”

Not a word was spoken for a few moments.

“
If you even show a hint of turning on us,” O’Neil said, “I will end you with a bullet.”

“
Charming notion to carry into the fray,” Wellington said with a tilt of his head, “which brings to light a more pressing matter. We have managed to contain the incident at Fort St Paul. Yet now we have an attack on the headquarters of the British military in the heart of Bombay?”

“
Yes,” Maulik sighed, shaking his head. “It will be all the talk in the streets and across the headlines. Parliament and the House of Lords, and possibly the British people, will demand blood for blood.”

“
So much for borrowed time,” Eliza said, standing at Wellington’s side, her eyes never leaving O’Neil. “What do we know about this Ghost Rebellion?”