“Shhh.”
Regina shot Hargreaves an exasperated look. If he didn’t stop moving, he was going to give them away. A single scuff of his boot and he risked drawing the attention of the gathered crowd.
In response, he frowned, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and returned to peering down through a gap in the wooden railing at the scene unfolding below.
She, too, was growing stiff, and she rubbed at her aching back where the metal wrench had been pressing uncomfortably for the last hour, tucked into the waistband of her culottes. Absently, she hoped she hadn’t got bloodstains on her blouse.
After leaving the cottage, they’d emerged into the drawing room of a country estate, still furnished in the trappings of the previous century, but left to molder and decay. The once-plush sofas were now infested with rodents, their white stuffing scatted over the dusty floorboards like so much dirty snow. They’d passed through a library that smelled of festering damp and into a dining room, the table of which was still set for a dinner that had never happened, a ghostly imprint of a time now lost, a path that had never been trodden.
Here, they’d encountered not only a choice of two marked doors through which to continue their bizarre journey, but a hooded Russian, who had recognized them immediately as trespassers and set about raising the alarm. Regina was the quickest off the mark, battering him across the side of the head with the wrench, resulting in a harrowing crack of splintering bone and a sudden gush of vivid red blood. He’d gone down instantly, his jaw still working soundlessly as she’d stood over him and put him out of his misery with a second determined blow.
Hargreaves had watched with a mixture of admiration and abject horror as she’d wiped the weapon on the dead man’s robes, before telling him to hurry up and select which door to open as the next portal.
She knew that, when all of this was over and she was once again sitting alone in her living room, she’d be haunted by the expression on that young man’s face: the appalled realization that it was already too late, the pleading look in his eyes as he’d searched her face for the slightest hint of mercy. A death like that—it was brutal and personal. You had to look your victim in the eye. She’d killed people before—more than she cared to remember—but it had always been at one remove, with a gun; the sudden punch of the recoil, the jerk of the victim, and then go. That was how she’d been trained to do it. Quick and efficient, then move on before you were seen—or before you had time to think about what you’d just done. This, though… she was going to remember this.
Hargreaves had chosen the door on the left, and with fingers still oily with spilled blood, she’d traced the runic symbols and caused the circle to ignite.
The door had exited onto a cobbled lane, slick with rainwater, somewhere—she’d been certain—in the outskirts of London. Here, the sky had been a brooding canopy of gray, smudged clouds divesting themselves upon the rooftops of the city. Hargreaves had suggested they quit while they were ahead—to make a run for it, find their way back to Absalom and report in. Regina, on the other hand, had argued that they had to press on, to keep opening doors until they found some answers.
They hadn’t yet established the purpose of the network of doors, or been able to find out anything more about the Russians’ plans in London. These men had evidently been moving unseen throughout London—and farther afield—for some time, co-opting abandoned properties, and establishing a series of temporary bases. Yet only now had they had shown their hand, brazenly attacking the van the previous night, demonstrating their considerable power, and perhaps even more telling, allowing survivors to flee the scene. That suggested their plans were in motion, and perhaps even close to completion—and so Regina had convinced Hargreaves to continue.
They’d found another marked door in the alleyway, ostensibly the rear entrance to a baker’s shop, and had passed through, finding themselves here, in a small chapel in what looked, to Regina, to be somewhere deep in the remote Scottish highlands.
Now, they were crouched upon a small balcony above the main vestry, peering down at an assembly of men—and, to a lesser extent, women—in hooded robes. Regina had counted eighteen of them, standing in a circle around a large table, which was covered in an array of technical documents and blueprints. As far as she’d been able to ascertain from her slightly dubious vantage point, they all appeared to relate to the London Underground system. There were maps of the tunnels and schematics of the stations, and they looked as if they’d been heavily annotated in a scrawl that was illegible from this distance. Although she suspected that, even with a pair of binoculars, she wouldn’t have been able to make much sense of the documents—neither engineering nor the Russian language had ever been particular strong points for her.
Hargreaves was shifting again, trying to discern the faces of the people below. They’d clearly stumbled upon a meeting of the Russian coven, and below, a bearded man appeared to be in the process of disseminating his plan to his followers. She’d been able to understand little save for the occasional word, but she was certain that whatever they had in mind, it involved some sort of takeover of the Underground, using the tunnels and stations for a malign purpose which was, as yet, not entirely clear.
Not for the first time, she wondered if these people were state sanctioned. Could the Tsarina really be plotting to move against the Queen? It seemed unconscionable that two such mighty nations would risk all-out war, but then the British Empire was not what it once was under Victoria, and Alberta had a habit of making enemies abroad. Perhaps the Tsarina had seen her opportunity and sent these agents in to attempt to weaken the Queen’s position, in advance of an all-out assault.
Or perhaps it was simply another cult, armed with esoteric rites and arcane knowledge, come to destroy the world in order to give rise to their new order. She’d dealt with plenty of those in her time, too. The one thing they’d all had in common, however, is that they were small, and disorganized, and too reliant on their faith. This, on the other hand, appeared to be something else entirely. This was organized, efficient, and dangerous.
The Underground was the heart of London’s transport system, a warren of deep tunnels beneath the city that served as arteries connecting all the major hubs, right across the city. If the Russians were planning to bring it to a standstill, there’d be pandemonium. Worse, if they were planning to somehow sabotage the tunnel system itself—a distinct possibility, given the extensive blueprints they’d acquired—then there was a chance they could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, causing the tunnel system to collapse, and bringing much of London down on top of it.
She considered their options. They had one handgun and a wrench. There was no way they could take down eighteen men and women, even if they weren’t highly trained and capable of performing unnatural feats. Additionally, there was no way of knowing if the people below represented just one cell of the wider Russian operation—a situation she considered likely, given the size and scale of their network, and the sheer number of combatants they’d faced the previous night. Worse, there was every chance that one of them would get away, disappearing through a marked door or conjuring up one of their iridescent portals, in order to warn the others. If she and Hargreaves were to make a move now, they risked hastening the Russians’ plans. Not to mention the fact they’d most likely end up dead.
No, the better option was to move on, find a way back to London and warn Absalom. Now that they had something to go on, the Service could deploy agents to all of the Underground stations, make preparations against a suspected attack, and begin raiding the Russian safe houses she and Hargreaves had already uncovered.
She beckoned to Hargreaves, indicating the stairwell at the end of the balcony. They’d come this way earlier, and knew that it led to a small antechamber off the main hall. From here, they could find another of the marked doors and make good their escape.
Hargreaves nodded his assent, and together, inching painfully slowly on their hands and knees, the two of them crossed to the mouth of the stairwell. Below, a Russian voice continued to drone on in deep baritone, punctuated only by the occasional murmur of consensus from his audience.
Regina got to her feet, drew the wrench from the back of her culottes and slowly descended the spiral steps, keeping her back to the wall as she did so. Hargreaves followed behind, weapon still drawn.
The chamber at the bottom was empty, but they were now only a few yards away from the proceedings they’d been observing from above. She could see the hooded figures from where she was standing. If any one of them turned around now…
She edged a little further along the wall toward the door.
Directly opposite was another chamber of similar size and shape. The door was hanging open, and inside she could see two other doors on the far wall, both of them marked with the symbols that would allow her to open another portal.
The only problem was that they’d have to cross in the open to get to it. It was only about three steps, but all it would take was one of the hooded figures to spot them, and the game would be up. She glanced at Hargreaves, and she could see from the uncertain expression on his face that he’d come to the same realization. They had no choice. They had to make a break for it.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. She could feel sweat beading on her brow. She swallowed, took one final glance at Hargreaves, and then lurched out into the open.
One step.
She tried to remain focused on the goal. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t even look at the Russians only a few feet away from her.
Two steps.
She was in the shadow of the doorway now. If only she could make the next step…
Three steps.
She ducked inside the chamber and fell back against the wall in relief, gasping for air. No one had raised the alarm. She hadn’t been seen.
She caught her breath. Now it was Hargreaves’s turn.
She peered across at him. He was standing just inside the doorway, gun raised, looking flustered. He was watching the Russians, waiting for his window of opportunity.
She risked a glance. The meeting appeared to be coming to an end. The leader had finished speaking, and now the others were beginning to mill about, conversing. They had only moments before they were discovered, and Hargreaves still had to make it across unseen.
She glanced back, and he met her eye. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. Was he considering something drastic? He had a determined look in his eye. Surely he wasn’t going to open fire? He seemed to be tightening his grip on his gun.
Time was running out. She could hear the Russians laughing and joking. It was now or never.
“Now,” she mouthed, waving for him to make a run for it. All he had to do was make it across. Even if they saw him, there was every chance she could open the portal in time for them to escape.
Hargreaves worked his jaw. She saw him swallow. And then suddenly he was running, charging toward her, head down.
The seconds seemed to stretch as he lurched toward her. She expected the cry of alarm at any moment.
And then he was in the room with her, panting for breath, red-faced and anxious.
Out in the hall, the Russians were still laughing. She allowed herself a brief sigh of relief.
While Hargreaves covered the doorway she approached the marked door on the right, tracing the now familiar pattern with the tip of her index finger. As before, the sigils began to crackle with power, fizzing and sparking with unnatural light.
She opened the door and stepped forward, right into the path of a hooded figure bearing a flame gun.
For a moment, the man simply stared at her, eyes wide with shock. He was lean and wiry beneath his robes, with a pale face and startling red beard. He frowned, and then blinked, and fumbled with his weapon. It was just like the one she’d encountered during the ambush, and she knew instantly if he managed to arm it, she’d be disintegrated by the strange, rippling flame.
She moved, her instincts taking over. With a sudden guttural roar, she dived at the man, lurching forward and catching him by the shoulders, throwing her whole weight into him, so that—caught off-balance—he went over backwards, crashing to the ground. She went down on top of him, slamming her elbow against the floor and feeling the muzzle of his weapon jab her hard beneath her ribs. The wind went out of her lungs, and she rolled, gasping for breath. She had no sense of where they were, or what might be happening around them. All she knew was that she had to stop the man from powering up his gun.
He was fumbling now, trying to untangle himself from beneath her, hands straying for the whorls and symbols on the barrel of the weapon. He mumbled something in Russian that sounded like a curse.
Suddenly, she was breathing again. She dragged the air into her lungs. She’d lost her wrench in the fall, and she could see it now, about three feet away across the other side of the room. She cast around, but there was nothing she could use as a weapon. Nothing but her fists.
The Russian had managed to get one of the whorls on his gun glowing, and was dragging himself away from her, using his heels to push himself across the carpeted floor while he traced his finger around a second set of symbols.
Regina wasn’t about to let it end like this. With a gargantuan effort, she threw herself at the man, trying to grab him by the head. He squirmed, unwilling to release his grip on the weapon, as she caught hold of his beard in her left fist, while bringing the right around in a roundhouse blow that caught him hard in the left temple.
He groaned, trying to shake her off, jabbing the muzzle of the gun at her like a baton. She absorbed the blow to her gut, gripping harder, forcing his head down by yanking on his beard. She came at him with another blow, and then a third, hammering as hard as she could across the side of his head.
He rocked, groggily, and his hood slipped back, revealing a young man in his early twenties. His cheeks were scarred with crude circular patterns that echoed those on the doors and the barrel of his gun—the strange language of his order.
He was determined, though, still trying desperately to activate his weapon, clutching it as if it were a sort of talisman; the only thing that might protect him against this terrible, relentless onslaught.
As she pulled back for another blow, his fingers slipped across the barrel, completing the orbit of the second whorl. Arcane light fizzed, and, emboldened, he swung out his elbow, catching her hard in the chest.
He rocked, trying to bring the gun around to bear, but she grabbed for the barrel, forcing it up and away from her, so that the muzzle was pointing to the ceiling. The Russian grunted as he fought against her, one hand on the trigger, the other on the top of the barrel, trying to force it back down. He met her gaze, his eyes filled with hatred and fury.
She knew then that he was never going to give in. Pure, unadulterated hatred was driving him, lending him strength. And her muscles were already starting to burn with the strain. Unless she could think of something, she had only moments left to live.
Behind her, through the still-open door, she could hear the barking report of gunshots being fired. Hargreaves wasn’t coming to save her.
She fixed the man with a glare, gritting her teeth. And then, without warning, she stopped pushing.
The man, caught off guard by the sudden lack of resistance, rocked forward, dipping the muzzle of the gun. She saw his eyes widen in realization—the gun was pointing directly at her belly—and his finger began to tighten on the trigger.
The moment seemed to stretch. Regina knew she was playing a dangerous gambit. As the trigger slowly depressed, she threw all of her strength into pushing the gun back up again, away from her, and toward him.
This time, the man wasn’t expecting it, and his arms were forced up and back with the sudden violence of her action, until the muzzle was pointing directly at his face.
He screamed, but it was too late.
Crackling, silvery flame burst from the end of the gun in a brilliant stream of twisting, liquid light, fizzing and popping with ethereal energy. All she could hear was the whoosh of the escaping energy, the burbling end of his scream, and the vague notion of whispering voices somewhere far off in the distance.
The stream caught the man directly beneath his chin, and as Regina held on desperately to the gun, she watched with horror as his face began to dissolve before her. His flesh seemed to wither and crumble, decaying before her eyes; first the skin and muscles of his cheeks bubbled away from the skull, billowing away like so much dust, and then his eyes, too, putrefied and sloughed away. Within seconds his jaw had utterly disintegrated, and then even the uppermost half of the skull began to cave in and collapse, until all that was left was a horrific, ragged stump of flesh and bone where his head had once been.
The body twitched, and the finger released the trigger. The stream from the gun ceased, and the room was plunged into an awful, deafening silence. Slowly, the remains of the man toppled backwards, thudding to the floor, dust spilling from the headless stump across the pale blue carpet.
Regina was still holding the gun. She wanted to scream, to somehow exorcise the horrific thing she had just witnessed—that she had just done—but her body was running on pure adrenaline now, her training taking over, and she lurched to her feet, finally taking in her surroundings.
She was standing in a small, rectangular room, in what appeared to be another house. There were no furnishings, aside from drapes at the window. A further, unmarked door led out into what she assumed would be a hallway.
Behind her, through the open portal, she could still hear shouting and the rapid report of gunshots. That meant Hargreaves was still alive.
She hefted the gun warily. It was like no weapon she’d ever seen. There was no fuel tank or ammunition housing; no moving parts at all, aside from the trigger. Just a long, fluted barrel engraved with swirling patterns and symbols, and a stubby handle, still slick with the sweat of the previous owner.
Cautiously, she ran the tip of her finger around the sigils, just as she had with the doors. As expected, the symbols sprang to vivid life, imbued with the same twisting, fizzing energy. She could feel the weapon humming in her grip, demanding to be fired.
She had two options: make a run for it and try to get word to Rutherford and Absalom, or step back through the portal to assist Hargreaves. Protocol demanded the former, but today, she was done with protocol. Besides, no one would believe her story if she didn’t have Hargreaves to back her up.
Steeling herself, she hurried through the door.
The scene on the other side was utter carnage. Hargreaves was crouched behind the door in the small chamber, hurriedly attempting to reload his gun. Four hooded figures were slumped dead in the doorway, and as she ran for cover on the other side of the door, she glimpsed at least two more in the hallway outside, bleeding out onto the flagstones.
The air crackled with the discharge of the Russian’s bizarre magic. Gouts of translucent flame, in the form of small, swooping birds, dived through the opening, splashing across the stone floor like puddles of burning oil.
She slammed her back against the wall. Hargreaves shot her a look.
“I guess they saw you, then,” she said.
“Where have you been?”
“Busy,” she said.
He slammed his pistol shut, now fully reloaded.
“So…?”
“So cover me,” she said.
Hargreaves gave a brief nod, braced himself, and then ducked into the mouth of the opening, his gun spitting round after round into the gathered crowd of Russians. As he strafed across the opening, the elemental bombardment temporarily ceased, as the enemy either ducked for cover, or collapsed to the flagstones, clutching their wounds.
Regina saw her opportunity, and took it. She lurched out of Hargreaves’s way, coming around behind him to stand fully in the opening, facing the surviving Russians. She didn’t have time to count them—didn’t want to know how many of them were still standing—as she squeezed the trigger of the flame gun, unleashing a cone of broiling death into their midst.
Her ears filled with the roar of chattering voices—not, she realized, from the dying Russians, but from someplace else; somewhere unseen, and unknowable.
The Russians caught in the blast began to wither and crumble, aged obscenely to dust, while those unaffected dived for cover, rolling behind the altar, or the font, or a wooden pew. She adjusted the angle of her attack, searching them out, wracked with nausea as she watched them crumble to nothing, caught in the searing light of their own diabolical weapon. She couldn’t allow any of them to survive. Their bodies—or what remained of them—would be discovered soon enough, of course, but Regina hoped that would give her and Hargreaves time to get away, to spread word of what they were planning.
She sensed Hargreaves by her side.
“They’re all dead now,” he called. It took a moment for his words to register. “Regina? I said, they’re all dead. You can stop now.”
She released the trigger, allowing the stream of death to peter out to nothing.
Where there had once been a heap of bodies, there was now nothing but swirling dust, stirred by the air currents to spiral through the air, picked out in the light streaming in through the church windows. All that remained of eighteen men and women. She felt sick.
“Where did you get that thing?” said Hargreaves. He was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. There was a burn across his left temple, and blood was trickling down his lower lip.
“Through there,” she said, indicating the still-open portal with a nod of her head.
“Well, thanks for coming back for me.” He was grinning, happy to be alive. She supposed she might feel the same, later, but for now, she didn’t feel very much like celebrating. “We make a good team.”
She nodded. “Come on. There’s another house through there. Maybe we can find a way out.”
On the other side of the door, the corpse of the young Russian was just where she’d left it, decayed skull spread like fine powder across the carpet where it had fallen.
She glanced quickly through the window, down at the street below. They were on the first floor of a large house, and the street outside looked vaguely familiar. “We’re in London,” she said. “Close to St. Paul’s. We need to find a way out of here.”
“You won’t hear any argument from me,” said Hargreaves. He crossed to the unmarked door, opened it a fraction—wincing as the hinges squealed—and peered out. “I think we’re clear.”
“Let’s go. Straight onto the landing, down the stairs, and out the front door,” she said. “Then we split up, in case they come after us. You go to Absalom, I’ll find Rutherford.”
Hargreaves frowned. “How are you going to do that?”
“Start with the American,” she said.
“Alright.” He opened the door a little wider, ready to step through.
“And if you see anyone,” she said, “shoot them and keep moving. We have to get word out about what they’re planning, and the location of this and any other buildings linked to their network.”
Hargreaves nodded, and slipped out. Cautiously, she followed behind.
The landing was nondescript—just like the upper hallway of any number of high-end residential properties in London with a series of bedroom doors, all unmarked, stemming off from it. There was no one else in evidence.
They hurried to the top of the stairs. Here, too, it was mercifully quiet, and together they crept down to the entrance hall, Hargreaves covering the front, Regina the rear.
“Regina,” said Hargreaves, just as he reached the bottom few steps. “Have you seen this?”
She turned on the spot, half expecting to see an array of hooded figures awaiting them, but instead, she found herself utterly surrounded by doors.
She blinked, disorientated, trying to take it all in. It was almost as if her eyes were having difficulty focusing. They were standing in a large, open hallway, roughly square, of the relative size and shape she’d expect to find in a large terraced property in this area of London.
The walls, however, were covered in doors.
Doors where there should never have been any doors, regimented lines of them, covering every available inch of wall, defying all sense of geometry. Just looking at them left her feeling giddy. Even more bizarre was the fact that many of them also appeared to be freestanding; doorways into nothingness, hanging suspended in thin air. It was as if she could have wound her way between them all, circling them each in turn. There must have been fifty or more, each of them marked with the now-familiar sigils. Every single one of them was a portal.
All save for one: directly across the hall from them was the main entrance to the house, and beyond that, the relative safety of London.
“It’s some kind of central hub,” she said, hurrying down the last few stairs. “This must be the heart of their network.”
“Can we destroy it?” said Hargreaves. “If we can disrupt their network, we might be able to prevent them from carrying out their plans. Maybe there’s a way.”
Regina shook her head. “Not alone. Look at this place. Think about the power needed to sustain it. And besides, we know they have designs on the Underground. We have to go for help.”
“Okay, you’re right,” said Hargreaves. “Come on.”
They crossed the hall, wary of any emergent threat from the doors. Thankfully, though, none was forthcoming.
Hargreaves turned the latch on the door, and suddenly they were standing outside in the fading afternoon light. Around them, London bustled as it always had—as if everything they’d seen, everything they’d done, was simply some bizarre dream from which they’d now woken. But Hargreaves still wore the scorch across his face, and Regina’s ribs still ached from the battering she’d taken during the fight with the young Russian. It had all been terrifyingly real.
She tucked the flame gun into the back of her culottes—now filthy with grime and dust—and pulled the door shut behind them. “You’ll go directly to Absalom, right? Tell him everything.”
Hargreaves nodded. “Of course. I’ll tell him to get word to the police, have them man all the Underground stations.”
“Good.”
“And you’re still going after Rutherford and the American?”
“Yes. He needs to know what we’ve found. We can compare notes; try to figure out a plan to stop them. He’s been working this case for months. He knows it better than any of us.”
Hargreaves put a hand on her shoulder. “Just make sure you look after yourself,” he said.
“And you.”
She watched as he turned away and hurried off down the street. Then, deciding the Savoy was as good a place as any to make a start in her search for the American, she set off at a run, keen to put as much distance between herself and the Russians as possible.