Twincy Quinn and the Eye of Horus Part One (14 page)

If a general
feeling of malaise and doom had haunted me for the past several
months, it now owned me, body and soul.

Twincy
Quinn

I had made it
home. Quickly. Silently, and with far more care than I usually
had.

I had pushed
out with my superior senses, I had used the devices the doctor had
grafted onto my body.

Only when I
knew there was no one around, no beating heart, no panting breath,
had I jumped up on to the rooftops. Then I had made my silent and
careful way back to my abandoned factory and back to my strange
family.

I didn't dare
breathe a word of this to Vanessa. Instead I briefly checked on the
children then went straight to my bedroom, closed the door, and
hunkered down for the rest of the night.

This abandoned
factory was a hodgepodge of a building. It had been extended and
changed and rebuilt, and sections of it had been knocked down over
the years.

My room was up
near the attic. A strange poky little place that had a window
staring out over London, it offered a great position for me to
clamber out and get onto the roof whenever I pleased.

It had a bed,
if you could call it that. I preferred to give the children the
proper mattresses. I slept on a rocking chair. It didn't even have
a cushion or a blanket. Just a position for me to sit down and
close my eyes whenever I needed to. Behind me was a table and over
it was scattered my various clothes, boots, and shawls. I didn't
have a wardrobe or a chest of drawers, and I hardly cared.

The only other
thing in my room was a mirror. A small hand-held mirror with a
silver surround and beautiful, floral etching.

It had
belonged to my mother.

At least that
was what I told myself.

I could not
remember my parents. My memories began and ended with being a
street urchin and fending for myself. But this mirror, it had been
with me always, and I took it with me wherever I went.

It sat on my
rocking chair when I didn't, and when I did, it sat on my lap.

Right now I
pushed myself back and forth, rocking gently, the sound of the
chair moving over the floorboards sending a soft, rhythmic creaking
noise through the room.

I faced the
window. If you could call it a window. It was pretty much a hole in
the wall. There was no glass, and it came down almost as low as the
floor. Sections of the wood surround had rotted, and had fallen
away over the years.

Yet at least
it offered a view. Somewhere for me to rest my attention on as I
rocked back and forth and thought and thought and thought.

No matter how
hard I tried, I couldn't get one image out of my mind. That man. As
I had turned to face him, when I had finally and belatedly realised
he was behind me, I had caught a glimpse of his expression.

Concentration,
fear, expectation, surprise, alarm—everything had been crumpled
into that handsome face as he had stared my way.

A confusing
mix.

I was used to enemies like the
suitables
. And their expressions were
of the simple kind—either slack-jawed, open-eyed malevolence, or
dead-eyed mechanical ease.

The man, on
the other hand, had been alive, intelligent, and frightened.

And it was the
fright that got to me.

It seemed at
odds with the wickedness I usually dealt with.

Realising I
was overthinking things, I put a hand up and tapped the nape of my
neck, letting my eyes blink closed gently.

There was too
much going on for me to concentrate solely on this. I could not
forget what Vanessa had told me. Not only had Lord Ridley decided
to spread my details, appearance, and name around town, but he was
planning an exhibition.

No matter what
happened, I knew I had to find out what he was bringing into the
country. Vanessa had mumbled something about objects from ancient
Egypt, and the mere mention of it had sent a shiver down my spine.
Clearly he was importing things for the doctor. Yet likely it went
deeper than that. The two of them always schemed and planned, and
had multiple uses for everything they did. While Lord Ridley was
undoubtedly importing objects, perhaps he was up to more than that.
Perhaps he was going to use the exhibition to reveal more of the
doctor’s devices, or perhaps he had an even more nefarious
plan.

I had to find
out.

That had to be
my priority.

Strange men
watching me from the roof was one thing, Lord Ridley was
another.

As I closed my
eyes more firmly now, I promised myself that tomorrow I would begin
to investigate. I would not stop until I knew exactly what Lord
Ridley had planned.

Which meant
tomorrow I would have to be careful, canny, and hidden.

I rocked back
and forth one last time before I deliberately stilled my breath and
decided it was time to catch a few precious minutes of repose.

Michael F.
Stanford

I should not
be here, I knew that. There was so many other things I had to do
right now. Other things that were far, far more important than
this. Yet the inspector had demanded, and I simply had to
follow.

Trying not to
grumble, I took another step into the preposterously extravagant
building around me.

I wasn't
impressed.

Oh, it was
most certainly nicer than my tiny apartment. Yet its wealth was on
such a scale that is served to do one thing and one thing only: it
highlighted in my mind that Lord Ridley must have made other people
very poor by taking all of their silver and gold and marble and
artefacts and money and food to build and maintain this monstrosity
of a palace.

Walking with
my hands clasped behind me, as I often did, I ground my thumbs into
each other, hoping the movement would distract me.

I had polished
my shoes that morning, yet as I walked over the ridiculously
polished marble, they were pale in comparison.

As the
inspector had requested, I was dressed in my finest. My best suit,
my best jacket, and I hopefully wore my best expression, though of
course it was one the inspector would not agree with.

I was
following a butler, and if the place around me looked expensive,
then I could bet this guy knew it. He had looked down his nose at
me. Which was an entirely easy move, considering how pronounced it
was.

‘
You will have to wait until Lord Ridley is ready to see you,’
the butler said again.

Of course I
would. I had been called over for an appointment early in the
morning and I had been told in no uncertain terms to be punctual.
Well I had, I had showed up at the door at 7:30 AM sharp. Yet it
seemed that Lord Ridley was not ready to see me. Then perhaps Lord
Ridley should have changed the goddam appointment.

Not breathing
a word of this, I followed the butler up a grand staircase until he
led me to a fine leather chair outside of an enormous set of
doors.

Everything in
this house, if you could call it that, was extravagant beyond
sense. The artwork on the walls, the statues and urns and vases
lining the corridors, even the door-handles seemed gilded.

Lord Ridley
was one of the wealthiest men in the country, and one had to wonder
what you could do with so much wealth. When you were as rich as
this, what was the point of trying to acquire more? What did you
spend it on? More gold door-handles?

I didn't need
anyone to answer that, I knew.

Lord Ridley
funded things. And the things he funded were things that led
directly to augmenting his power and influence.

Lord Ridley
had designs, designs to rule.

Of course the
majority of London would not agree with my assessment, and I had,
perhaps, only formed it of recent months. For as I had been delving
more and more into the new devices of London, and that wave of
modernity that kept on washing us forward with every second, his
name had come up time and time again.

Along with
Doctor Elliot Esquire, Lord Ridley seemed to be the main force
behind this new phenomena.

‘
I will come and get you when the lord is ready to see you. Do
you require refreshment?’ the butler asked as he gestured to me to
sit, glaring at me as I took my time in seating myself.

Pinching the
bridge of my nose and peering out at him from behind my fingers, I
shook my head. ‘I shall just wait, shall I?’

The butler
shot me a look, turned on his incredibly shiny shoes, and walked
off.

The man was
pompous, and while that irritated me on some level, I couldn't
blame him.

It was part of
his job to be pompous. His employer expected him to uphold a
certain hierarchy amongst the staff.

Lord Ridley,
on the other hand, I could blame. It was men like Lord Ridley that
made London into the city it was. A city of sharp distinctions. The
hyper rich and the hyper poor. The hyper advantaged and the hyper
disadvantaged. Now that wasn't class. That didn't make the people
at the top any better than the people at the bottom; in many ways
it made them worse. I was aware from the brief biology I had
studied of the concept of a parasite. Well London's elite were
nothing more than a God dammed parasite.

They took, and
in doing so others did not have.

Feeling
terribly melancholic and downright introspective as I sat there, it
was not long until my thoughts returned to my night’s perilous
adventure.

That
woman.

I shifted my
elbow up until it was rested on the arm of the leather chair, then
I let my fingers sprawl out as they supported my cheek and jaw.
With wide open, unblinking eyes, I stared at a section of floor,
and I thought and I thought and I thought.

Did I need any
more information to conclude that this Twincy Quinn woman existed?
For I had seen a woman running around confidently on the rooftops,
and more than that, so much more, I had seen her somehow survive an
indisputably fatal fall.

As I continued
to think, my frown became deeper and deeper until finally I heard
the door before me creak open.

I looked up
sharply to see a man. A man I recognised. The man I had come here
to see.

Lord
Ridley.

Middle-aged,
with silvering black hair, he was statuesque. He had the clean,
sharp features of a Roman, and the haughty edge of his expression
went beyond simple class.

Lord Ridley
didn't just look down on you; Lord Ridley didn't want to look at
you at all.

Yet right now
he did me the courtesy of nodding my way, opening the door beside
him with a sharp shove, and ticking his head forward as if I were
nothing but a mere dog he expected to follow.

Holding my
tongue, I pushed up from my chair, straightened my jacket, and
walked in.

‘
I suppose the inspector sent you,’ Lord Ridley began as he
walked forward through the enormous room before us.

If the halls
had been stupendously extravagant, this place was a cut above. It
was littered with what you could plainly call treasure. In the
corner was a gilded blue, gold, and black sarcophagus. There were
tribal masks from Africa, and enormous tusks of ivory carved with
the most delicate of strokes. There were large bookshelves, covered
and filled with neat rows of books and small jewelled objects and
other finery.

There were
several desks, a leather chaise longue, a few chairs, and an
enormous, comfortable-looking seat just behind the master desk.

A beautiful
set of windows filled the room on one side. Rather long, they
reached from the floor to the ceiling.

They offered a
stunning view.

Though Lord
Ridley's house was a little outside of central London, you could
still see it off in the distance. It sprawled out like a picture,
framed by those marvellous windows.

On any other
day, I would have liked to take a moment to enjoy the view.

Yet this was
far from an ordinary day.

Ridley walked
around and quickly sat.

He leaned
back, with a peeved look on his face, brought his elbows up, and
pressed his fingers together.

I walked
several steps in front of the desk, though did not come too close.
Then I stood to attention.

‘
Your insipid Inspector has sent you here, correct?’

I barely
responded.

It wasn't a
surprise to me for Ridley to refer to the inspector as insipid. For
one, the inspector was insipid, and for another, men like Lord
Ridley trampled over whomever they pleased. Ridley was in such a
position of power that it didn't matter whose toes he stood on. If
I ever bothered to tell the inspector what Ridley had just said,
the inspector would shrug it off automatically. In fact, quite
possibly the inspector would be touched for Lord Ridley to even
mention him, let alone insult him in such a way.

The Lord
looked at me slowly, then, with several seconds of a tensioned
pause, he leaned forward and rested one hand flat onto the edge of
his desk. He looked at me keenly, with highly observant eyes, and a
quick tip of his head as he shifted his angle to apparently look at
me from yet another direction.

Yesterday the
inspector had tried a similar trick.

It hadn't
worked.

Today, it
did.

Lord Ridley
clearly knew how to intimidate men, because Lord Ridley did it
every single day of his life. He also had the bites to back up his
bark.

I controlled
myself though. I steeled my nerves with thoughts of how much I
hated men like Ridley and how much I begrudged the fact that I was
here dealing with him instead of trying to solve the many mysteries
that had fallen in my lap recently.

‘
Let me get one thing clear from the outset,’ Ridley
straightened up, showing his full height, regardless of the fact he
was still sitting down. He had a powerful build, and I knew very
well from Miss Elizabeth Stanton's friends, that he was considered
somewhat of a charmer amongst the women of London. He was married,
and had been so for 10 years, but apparently that did not
matter.