Unnatural Issue (38 page)

He rolled back the carpet and exposed the diagram he had painted on the floor. He was going to need a great deal of ready money.

And there was nothing like a troll for “finding” money.

“Incroyable,”
Uncle Paul kept muttering as he leafed through the paper. They sat side by side on a bench in front of the tiny cottage they had leased, a flood of golden sunshine pouring over them and a breeze heavy with the scent of drying hay moving over the fields.

The bucolic scene was rather spoiled by the columns of uniformed men marching up the road to the border.

Susanne didn’t blame Uncle Paul for his reaction. The headlines seemed a bad joke. The Belgians had not stopped the Germans, even a little. Oh, Antwerp was holding out under a heavy siege, but it could not do so for much longer, and the Germans had just swept around them anyway. The Germans were approaching the French border.

You could not get passage across the Channel now for any amount of money. Their last three letters and a precious telegram to Peter had gone unanswered.

The press of heavily armed men had made calling on the Earth Elementals absolutely impossible. All that iron and steel repelled them as effectively as a fence. Neither Susanne nor Paul had been able to call in so much as a brownie since the troops started moving through here.

The last of the men in this column marched past, leaving behind an enormous dust-cloud hanging in the air over the road.

At least Susanne had managed to get a magically assisted course in French from one of the little house spirits when they first took over the cottage. She could understand most of what was being said around her now, even if she couldn’t read anything. Unfortunately, the house spirits were illiterate.

Just as unfortunately, that had been the last she had seen of any Elemental at all.

“Do you think we should try calling them again, Uncle Paul?” she asked dubiously, as the clatter of hooves in the distance, and an even larger dust-cloud, heralded the arrival of a troupe of cavalry.

“No,” Uncle Paul replied. “They are frightened. Such will only frighten them more.” He put the paper aside and stared morosely down at his feet.

It all was so hideously
wrong.
It was a wonderful summer day with scarcely a cloud in the sky. When the sounds of nature weren’t totally drowned out by the advancing army, birds sang softly in the eaves of the cottage.

There was nothing to indicate the slaughter going on to the north and west.

Finally Uncle Paul sighed. “It is of no use. We are trapped here, chérie. And I do not know what to do.”

Susanne smiled wanly. “In that case, Uncle Paul, we will do what we can. And I will try to find a little creature that is braver than the rest.”

The elegant little room with its spindly Baroque furniture looked far too dainty for the man sitting at the writing desk. To be fair, Peter’s commanding officer really would not look at home anywhere but a campaign tent or the Exeter Club.

“Permission to hunt for my relatives, General,” Peter Almsley said, with a crisp salute for General Smythe-Hastings. He and four other Elemental Masters under the general comprised a very special force indeed, and one whose existence was extremely hush-hush, for all sorts of reasons. Most people—well, those that were even aware of them at all—were convinced they were assigned to MI1 or SIS and supposed they were some sort of code-breaking wizards, and not of the magical bent.

In fact, they were their own arm of Military Intelligence, the never-mentioned MI13, the department that officially did not exist. They were, in fact a sort of scaled-down version of Alderscroft’s Hunting Lodge, and right now Peter desperately wished he had some of the folks from that larger organization right here. From all that he and the others could tell, the Germans and Austrians were not using magic in combat. He wasn’t sure why, nor was he sure if this meant because they were using it for espionage.

That was probably the Old Lion’s thinking as well. When Peter had last spoken to him, he was actively recruiting. People who would never have been considered for the Lodge were getting invitations. Alderscroft’s plan was to cover all of the British Isles with members or allies of the London Lodge so if the Germans
did
get up to any chicanery, it could be detected and snuffed out quickly. There was also some thought of trying to get the selkies to guard the coastline . . . if they could be persuaded. That, Peter wished to stay out of. It would take a much better diplomat than he.

The British Expeditionary Force had arrived in France three days ago, and MI13 with them. France had officially declared war on Austria-Hungary today, and Britain would probably do so in the next couple of days just as a kind of ironic final flourish to the mess. Both, of course, had already declared war on Germany. The Germans had declared war on just about everyone but Austria-Hungary and were making hash of Belgium, and there hadn’t been any time at all for Peter to look for Susanne and his great-uncle. Affairs were rapidly avalanching out of control.

“Scout or scry?” the general rumbled, without looking up from his paperwork.

“Scout, sir,” Peter replied politely. Meaning that he would send his Elementals out to look for the pair, rather than look for them directly himself.

Mary had gotten safely across the Channel, and the first thing she had done was to let Peter know that in the event of the Germans getting too close, Uncle Paul and Susanne were leaving his farm and planning to settle in near Mons in anticipation of a quick victory. He hoped that was where they were. Things were not looking very sanguine for the Ardennes region.

“Good. We can’t take the chance that the Germans will detect scrying and follow it back to us. Permission granted.” The general nodded. “I’ll have a word with my opposite number in the French army. He might have some conventional means of finding a stray. I shan’t need you for an hour or two, Almsley. Dismissed.”

Peter saluted, and—while he actually had a few moments’ breathing room—took to his room in the borrowed chateau that Military Intelligence was using as headquarters. It was one of the guest chambers, and the furnishings looked a bit sturdier than the mannered stuff in the public rooms. Locking the door, he cast his protections and called up the local undines in his water bowl. The bowl filled with a mist that then cleared away to reveal four lovely—if rather green and entirely nude—women, who appeared to be miniatures, swimming languidly in the bowl. All illusion of course. Undines were as tall as humans.

“Bonjour,”
they chorused musically.

Fortunately, he spoke excellent French. Just as fortunately, he had been in this part of the country before and knew what to expect of them.

These undines were . . . very French.

Despite the gravity of the situation, and the real horrors being perpetrated by the invaders, the undines seemed to feel it their bounden duty to flirt outrageously with him before taking his request and going off to hunt. “Ah, M’sieur Master,” purred one, batting long green lashes at him. “What a pity you have no time to visit our spring! We would give you a welcome of delight.”

“I remember the welcome of delight you gave me the last time I was in these parts, Ma’mselle,” he replied. “It was not an experience I will ever forget.”
Nor will I ever forget the locals are sisters to the legendary Melusine.
“However, needs must. I have two requests for you, and I hope you will be kind enough to fill them.”

“We hope the first is not that we spy on the foul boche army.” The undine actually spit the word “boche.” All four of them looked sour. “They have taken countermeasures against magic. It would be very dangerous, probably fatal, for us to attempt such a thing.”

Peter nodded. A disappointment, but not unexpected; if the Germans weren’t
using
magic, they weren’t stupid. They knew to protect themselves. “Well, if you can locate those countermeasures, we might be able to do something about them. The other favor is that you hunt for my Uncle. He seems to have packed up and gone missing.”

“Paul Delacroix has left the Ardennes? Then he would not be aware that you are here, now. It would be a pleasure,” the undine replied, and the others in the bowl nodded, undulating in and out of his vision. “If he is to be found, we will find him.”

“Bless you. Anythin’ more you can tell me about the boche?” he asked, because although the undines couldn’t get near, they still might have observed something from a distance, and if you didn’t ask, they likely would forget all about it.

The undine who seemed to have appointed herself as spokes-creature frowned. “There are . . . rumors,” she said, finally. “You understand we have not been able to speak with our German or Austrian sisters.”

I’m not sure I’d want you to,
Peter thought soberly, knowing very well that their “sisters” were the deadly Lorelei. Oh, they wouldn’t be a hazard to another Water Elemental, but—well, if any Elemental were to be working with the Germans it would be the Lorelei. “The second favor is if you could somehow tell Paul Delacroix where I am. There is a young lady, an Earth Master, with him.”

“You are sure they have left the Ardennes?” The undines began swimming in rapid circles in agitation. “It is beyond dangerous there! The boche spare no one, not the old, not children, not women—”

“They’ve fled,” Peter assured them, making little calming motions with his hands. “It’s all right. That’s why I need your help. I need to find them.”

“They have?” The undines went back to drifting. “That is good. We will look for them. We will tell them where to find you.”

“Merci.
That is a great relief,” Peter said sincerely, just as he heard someone in the hallway bellowing his name. His free hour must be over. “I hate to summon and run,” he said uncomfortably, “but—”

“Go, you are needed,” the chief undine said, and all four of them vanished, leaving only the bowl of clear water.

He cleaned everything up just as the general’s orderly reached the door.

He checked his watch as he trotted back to the office. Already eight. It was going to be another long night.

Everyone was saying that now that the British were here, things would be wrapped up before Christmas. Everyone was certain that the Germans would retreat even from Belgium. Even the Water Elementals did not seem
terribly
worried; yes, it was true that the Germans were indulging in horrific behavior in Belgium, but . . . well, the Elementals were not human, and very few had much sympathy for humans. Humans were ruining their Element, humans inflicted atrocities on each other, and even the most kindly inclined Elementals probably felt that fewer humans in the world would mean a better world.

Besides, if they were not killed outright, they lived virtually forever. They’d seen plenty of atrocities in the Thirty Years War. This probably wasn’t even a ripple in their pools.

So everyone, or nearly, seemed to be convinced it would all be over soon. Everyone except General Smythe-Hastings.

And, if Susanne was to be believed, the Puck.

If it had only been the general, Peter might have concluded the old man was worrying too much. But combine General Smythe-Hastings’ military acumen with Robin Goodfellow’s kind regard for humanity
and
his way of knowing what was likely to happen in the world of men . . .

Peter was planning for the absolute worst. If one could plan for the absolute worst when one simply did not know how bad the “worst” could be. He’d sent detailed instructions back, not only to his grandmother but also to his older brother, about setting up the estate to be run without men, citing the general’s grim predictions. Thank heaven, for once his brother had listened to him.
Plan for doing without men, without horses, without fuel for farm equipment. You have time to geld some cattle and turn them into oxen to work in the fields. You have time to mobilize the unmarried girls, and the children, by appealing to their patriotism. Think about alternate sources of meat, if the army takes the beef and mutton. You have time for all of this before things truly become bad.