The Lazarus Gate (38 page)

Was this my James Denny? Had he been one of them all along, like Ambrose? If so, could I kill him if I had to? I tried to push these thoughts aside; if I could only subdue him, I would have the answers I craved.

I cast a glance down and saw his free hand scrabbling about for the gun. I pulled harder at his arm, but though my technique had proven efficacious, my wounded state had left me too weak to maintain the hold for long, and as I faded he came on again with remarkable tenacity. Pushing himself into a crouching position with his legs, he reached further and further until his fingers grasped the barrel of the pistol. Seeing that my choke-hold had failed, and that Jim was on the verge of arming himself once more, I had no choice but to break off and reengage on more advantageous terms. I untangled myself from him, keeping hold of his hand, and sent a kick with my heel into the side of his head. That caused him to cry out in agony, and I quickly rolled onto my feet and sprang towards the gun. We both had a hand on it, and we rolled and grappled in a deadly wrestling match, each trying to wrest the weapon from the other.

He cast a glance at my shoulder. Partially dressed as I was, the strapping over my wound was visible, and this belied my Achilles heel. He risked letting go of the gun with one hand, and punched my shoulder repeatedly, until the pain was more than I could bear. My instincts betrayed me and I let go of the gun in order to defend myself. With a sneer of triumph he took a proper hold of the gun, and tried to stagger to his feet in order to carry out the execution. I turned flat on my back, and delivered a two-footed kick to his midriff as hard as I could. He scrabbled backwards and, to my utter good fortune, slipped on the mud and fell over once more.

I was sluggish getting to my feet this time, and he was quicker. Again, Jim snatched the gun up from the floor, and he had almost trained it on me when I leapt forwards and delivered a fist to his jaw. A left hand to his stomach took the wind out of him, and I grabbed the gun yet again. His grip was still vice-like, but he had shown me so far that he had not seen much action—my experience was telling despite his superior strength. He clawed at my wounded shoulder desperately, but this time I set myself against the pain, and risked everything on one wild swing of my right arm, ramming my elbow into his nose, which submitted to the impact with a satisfying crack. The gun was mine, and I stumbled forwards, throwing myself away from the man in order to give myself time and space to take aim.

Jim was still on his feet, but doubled over, wiping the blood from his face as the rain poured off him in dark red rivulets. He held his other hand out straight, as if to indicate that he wanted no more.

‘How many more?’ I shouted above the lashing rain. ‘How many more of you are coming from that portal?’

He gave no answer.

‘Answer me, damn you!’ I demanded.

Quick as a flash, the man had another gun in his hand—a derringer. He had a mechanism up his sleeve, much like Boggis had when he’d attacked Tsun Pen. But there was no time to reflect on what that coincidence might mean. We each pulled the trigger of our guns at the same time. The pistol, which looked very much like the service revolvers I was used to, did not make a loud report, nor did I feel the recoil that I had braced myself for. Instead, the moment my finger touched the trigger the muzzle glowed as red as hot coals; there was a soft click, followed by a loud fizzing noise and a brilliant flash of blue light. No bullet projected forth from the barrel of the gun, but rather an arc of brilliant electricity, like lightning, which struck Jim Denny square in the chest. In an instant I saw a patch of embers glowing near the agent’s heart as his waistcoat caught fire, and his entire body was engulfed in a coruscating filigree of light. He convulsed and then, as the light flickered away, dropped to the sodden earth, seemingly lifeless.

I was so stunned by the sight that I was unaware if I had even been hit or not. He had certainly got his shot away, from a more conventional cartridge pistol. I felt a sharp pain at my right ear, and checked myself instantly, discovering that he had just nicked me. There was barely any blood that I could see—I had been lucky.

The high-pitched drone began almost immediately, emanating quite clearly from the body. That confirmed it to me—he was quite dead, and the Othersiders were reclaiming the body by means of their fell technology. I did not know whether or not to grieve, but I knew that I had to search him whilst I still could. I positioned myself so that I could see the portal, which still rippled and convulsed with power, whilst I crouched down and went through the man’s pockets. I availed myself of the spring-loaded derringer and the few cartridges that he had on his person, and found a black leather wallet in his inner jacket pocket. Even as I rifled his other pockets, the droning noise grew louder and his body seemed to fade away before my eyes, becoming a sort of dull amber light which at first shone through his eyes, nostrils and mouth, and then seemed to take hold of him. Each atom of his body began to glow and fade in turn, and as it did so it apparently ceased to exist in our world. James Denny faded away layer by layer, until only nothingness remained.

Dumbfounded, I knelt in the mud as the rain washed away any trace that my mysterious assailant had ever been there at all. I stared intently at the garden gate portal, training my gun on it, terrified that more Othersiders could come through at any moment. I saw my own reflection once more, and wondered if the mirrored surface of the gateway was an indicator of sorts—could it be that one could see through a portal if it was safe to pass through, as William James had done when he had spied that mysterious ‘window’ into another world? I was on the ‘wrong’ side of the portal, and thus saw only myself reflected. That is how Jim had surprised me, I speculated—he could see me, but I could not see him. If there were others, then they could see me still.

When the blood stopped pounding in my ears and calm was restored, I realised many minutes must have passed, and I was alone in the garden, with only the sound of the torrential rain hitting the mud-slicked lawn and weed-filled beds for company. I staggered back to my feet, trying to think of my next course of action beyond catching my death. That thought hit me hard—it was how my sister had come by the ailment that had killed her all those years ago. It was through this very gate that my father had carried her after she had wandered off through the meadow. Lily had been ill and feverish for weeks, but we thought she would mend. Then one fateful night something had caused her to sleepwalk out of the house in the driving rain. My father had found her half a mile away, sick with exposure from which she never recovered. I had dreamed it earlier, for the first time since I was a boy.

With a grim aspect coming over me as I remembered those troubled times—memories that I had locked away deep inside for many years—I marched to the gleaming portal and slammed the gate shut upon it, drawing the bolt across. I did not know how to dissipate the energies of the portal, but I remembered Sir Arthur Furnival’s theory that a portal must be contained in an actual doorway—I resolved therefore to break down the wall and remove the physical archway altogether as soon as I could locate the means.

It was then that I heard a cry of alarm, and my name being called. At once I snapped back to the here and now, recognising the shout as Rosanna’s. With the strange gun and the derringer in my hands, I raced into the house. Rosanna was already hurrying down the narrow staircase, and we near collided with each other. She looked frightened when she saw me in my wild state, but checked herself.

‘Rosanna, are you hurt?’

‘Hurt?’ she replied, confused. ‘John… what has happened to you?’

‘I heard you cry out,’ I persisted. I was gravely aware that the threat might not be over, and that other agents could be nearby.

‘I… I had a terrible vision, John, in my dreams. My sisters are in danger, I know it. We must return to them at once.’

‘Your sisters…’ I parroted, my mind full to bursting.

‘John, tell me what happened!’ she cried, pulling me back to my senses.

‘We are not safe here,’ I told her. ‘Go and get some clothes for us both, and we will go back to the camp. Now.’

Uncharacteristically, she obeyed without another word, and ran back upstairs. I was shivering, wet through, covered in mud and weary. I struck a match and lit a candle, using the weak light to see by as I opened the wallet that I had found on my attacker’s body. There was a good deal of money in it—fifteen guineas in notes in a silver money clip, and a few coins—it looked exactly like our own currency, emblazoned with the head of Victoria, not Albert, probably for infiltration purposes. There was also a neatly folded piece of paper, and half a dozen calling cards. Cards which revealed the man’s identity and made a lump form in my throat that I found hard to swallow. They were small ivory cards, with neat copperplate print which read:

CMDR JAMES P. DENNY
The Apollonian Club
Pall Mall, London

I could barely fathom it at first. Could it really be that the club—and thus the Order of Apollo—was active on both sides of the veil? Could it be that the agents I faced were members of an alternate version of Apollo Lycea? Or had they actually infiltrated the Apollonian in our own world and simply bore cards to mask their identity? But then I was struck by a mixture of relief and anxiety. It seemed to me unlikely that this ‘Commander Denny’ was the man I knew back in London, unless things had moved on most unexpectedly in my absence. But at the same time, the Artist had given me pause to believe that I could trust no one, and indeed I was still unsure whether or not any of members of the order I had met so far could be trusted at all. Ambrose Hanlocke had seen to that. But this… The card I held in my hands was a vital clue; a clue that suggested there was at least one man in London I could trust. If Captain James Denny still served at Horse Guards, then he was the genuine article, for his malevolent doppelgänger was now dead by my own hand. If he did not, then I had lost another friend, and on that I did not wish to dwell.

Still pondering this as I heard Rosanna’s footfall on the stairs once more, I unfolded the piece of paper. It was as I had suspected—a list of coordinates next to, presumably, the names of assassination targets, written in Myanmar. It was hard to make out—I was by no means fluent in the written language—but it was not the same as the copy book I had examined previously. The coordinates were longer, and there were multiple rows of them next to each name. Many of the names were the same, and I recognised one of the written characters from my time in prison in Burma—it was often seen on the doors of cells of unidentified prisoners who were unable or unwilling to reveal their true identities. I reasoned that Rosanna’s vision about her sisters provided the key. Though I did not understand every word I was reading, logic dictated that the targets moved around a lot, and the long list of coordinates were known refuges or last known addresses. Also, the names of the targets were not certain; in some cases perhaps only a first name was known to the Otherside agents, in other cases only the sex of the target. It seemed reasonable to assume that they were hunting nomads—they were looking for Rosanna and her sisters, ‘witches’ and ‘seers’ all. All of this, however, was speculation; without the other book, which I had used as a cipher and which should now, I hoped, be in the hands of the real Jim Denny, I could not be completely certain.

Rosanna appeared with a towel that she had found, wrapped it around my shoulders, and fussed at me to clean myself up quickly and get ready to go. She was most anxious to return to the camp, and I did not blame her. It was then that we both heard a commotion outside—the sound of bolts being drawn, of whinnying horses and of gravel crunching beneath hooves.

‘The horses!’ I cried, and raced to the front of the house. Flinging the door open, I watched from the porch as two figures in black disappeared round the hedges at the end of the gravel drive, atop our horses.

‘Confound it all!’ I shouted, brandishing the gun impotently in the direction they had travelled.

‘John—who were they?’

‘Soldiers. Assassins. Whichever they purport to be, they are the enemy of us all. Get dressed; I’ll explain on the way.’

* * *

The house was little over a mile away from the Ship Inn, which thankfully was still in business after all these years, although as expected it was closed for the night. The walk there in the dark, along winding, pitted lanes and in pouring rain was a challenge, and tested my memory and sense of direction to their limits. I had an old kit-bag from the farmhouse attic slung over my left shoulder, filled with anything useful we could find at the house before departing—I had made it clear that we were heading into danger, and should not do so unprepared, no matter the urgency. We had held a blanket over our heads as we walked, though it did not protect us fully from the elements, and by the time we reached the doors of the inn we were thoroughly soggy and miserable.

I pounded hard on the front door, waited in vain for a response, and then pounded again. It must have been almost three in the morning, and no one was up. However, my persistence paid off—a window slid open above us, and a gruff voice called out.

‘What the bloody ’ell’s goin’ on out there? Who’s this calling at this hour?’

I pulled the blanket back and looked up, being careful to leave Rosanna’s face obscured so as not to court unfavourable reactions to her race.

‘Sir—we are in dire need of horses, and perhaps a gig,’ I called up. ‘We are on an errand of some urgency, and our horses have been stolen.’

The man was tough-looking, middle-aged, with thinning hair and a furrowed brow. As soon as I said the word ‘stolen’ he looked suspicious, and must have wondered if we were thieves ourselves, come to rob him in the night.

‘Stolen? Round here? I think you ought to clear off. I don’t know you, and I don’t trust people who come a-calling at such an hour.’

‘Please, good sir,’ I insisted, and I pulled the blanket away from myself, and removed my hat so that he could see me. ‘I am Captain John Hardwick, recently returned from fighting in the East. I own the farmhouse up the road there—Bluebell Cottage—you might remember my father, Brigadier Hardwick?’