Griggs never again contacted the team during the week following his heated argument with James. The spying upon the Flameists’ ceremony that the M.I. mages were to undertake would happen without further help from their informant. He had imparted what he would.
Myra was annoyed at him as much as with James. Julius could have at least bothered to forward some sort of apology, coded within another missive for her. But nothing came. Not even a veiled wishing of luck, or good fortune, or whatever one said to agents embarking on a mission.
Such encouragement would have helped quell her jangling nerves as Myra sat in Grafford House’s carriage on a Friday evening, working her invisibility spells and squished between thin air and nothing. Well, not nothing. James and Aidan sat on either side of her, performing the same spells, shoulder to cramped shoulder within the tight space. To feel pressed upon and yet have no evidence for one’s eyes—it made Myra slightly queasy.
Equally off-putting? Robert’s studied ignoring of his companions. With the windows open to passersby, Myra figured the illusion complete: Mr. Grafford, heading to his club, as was his habit of a weekend’s eve. There he would disembark, contriving some delay in shutting the carriage door behind him, thus providing his invisible cohorts opportunity to slip out unobserved.
The only problem would be one of balance. Three people exiting a carriage in close, hurried succession without causing the coach to creak or list under the weight would be a trick. It being an M.I.—former M.I.—conveyance, they did have engineering on their side. Said Grafford House vehicle was equipped with the means to withstand the more gentle of disembarkations without signaling the shift in weight. Griggs’ developments were to be thanked for this. Contributions from “the time before,” to quote Robert.
But Myra wouldn’t be thanking Julius just yet. Atop all her other worries, she simply didn’t think she could be as light-footed and graceful as required when leaving the coach. They had practiced the maneuver in the mews with a tray of water perched atop the carriage. She had spilled it every time. If only she could use magic for something other than invisibility. A Kinetic’s abilities were looking more and more desirous to her.
The carriage stopped. Myra looked out the window, laughing at how she did not have to move much to get the vantage point to see. And good thing, too, cramped as we are.
Another traffic snarl. Shouting and a horse’s shrill whinny. A discordant group of expensive hats coming together and then dispersing. People being people. The carriage lurched onward.
I’m probably looking right through Aidan’s skull. The thought was less entertaining than one might believe. Myra turned her eyes back to Robert, trying to quash the prickly feeling that rose in her chest.
The carriage stopped again. This time, anticipation colored the air for Myra’s Empathic sensibilities. Robert harrumphed and shifted, inching forward on his bench. The door opened, and he stepped down a moment later, dropping his cane as he did so.
“I got it. I got it,” he huffed at the attendant. Robert bent ponderously to claim the cane from where it had fallen against the step.
James. Aidan. Their presence cleared out in the space of a breath. She could almost imagine them half-stepping, half-leaping over Robert’s outreached hand. The carriage barely moved as each disembarked, grace rendering their motions as invisible as they. And quick. Myra wished she could see them at work. But, no, that would invite comparison to her own clunky movements.
Myra sucked in her breath. Her turn. James and Aidan stood waiting. She could feel them close, ready to help her in the event that she faltered. Motions smooth, every limb in perfect harmony and balance, she used her training to exit without swaying the carriage . . . much. She glanced back in alarm, as the coach creaked its protest over her less-than-graceful exit. The man up top made a show of shifting about, resetting the reins and generally giving visible excuse for Myra’s error.
“Well done,” Aidan whispered at her side.
Well done, driver. Myra wanted to correct him. She didn’t. No time. Already Robert had gained the steps of his club. Myra and her two cohorts needed to make themselves scarce before they were tripped over or bumped into.
The house where the Order was meeting was but an eighth of a mile away. The M.I. agents were, of course, not to take the main thoroughfares. Too many people, animals, and carriages to dodge.
It was alleyways and mews for them. The going slow. And icky. Here, just as in Myra’s initial training in the early morning hours with James, the tracks of their passing could be marked in the mud and worse that caked the lesser-traveled paths. Theirs were just several footprints amongst many. And with the deepening gloom of evening coming on, the invisible trio passed through the unfashionable part of the fashionable side of town undetected.
The door to the home was open when they arrived. The butcher’s boy they had paid off to make such an arrangement was nowhere in sight, leaving no clue as to how he had accomplished this feat. Myra was pretty sure she was better off not knowing. The kitchens were similarly vacated, save for a tabby sitting where he likely was not allowed, industriously washing one paw. It gave Myra the shivers that the feline looked right at the trio of invisible wizards, its piercing green gaze seeming to follow them as they picked their way towards the cellar door. It was enough to prompt her to double-check that her own spell was holding. It was.
Cats. Creepy. A sigh of relief snaked out of Myra’s lungs as the cellar door swung shut behind them. Relief and anticipation. She was in it now.
The inconsistent chattering sounds of a social hour drifted up towards the three M.I. mages as they crept down into the cellar, rubber-soled shoes marking no evidence of their passing. Only Myra’s hold on her gift informed her of her companions’ presence ahead of and behind her on the narrow stair.
In contrast to Grafford House, this home had an oft-used cellar with clean stone walls and a wholesome air. Though, like Grafford House, the illumination was much the same. Gas light instead of electric. A lucky boon for the M.I. team.
A dozen or more gentlemen and ladies huddled together in small groups, chatting. Small glasses in gloved hands, the idle smell of pipe smoke, the Order’s gathering had more of social hour than sorcery about it, more front parlor whispering than witchcraft.
James called Myra back with a gentle touch upon her arm. A tidy group of barrels sat in a darkened corner. The space behind gave the trio a cunning hiding spot. The cellar still functioned as a cellar, then. They ducked in, settling into their observations and letting slide their spells a touch so that, bereft of Laurel’s expert Mind Speech, they might better communicate in silence.
Names and titles, whispered close in Myra’s ear by James, flitted in and out of her head. It confirmed why MI2 did not wish to interfere with the operations of the Order of the Holy Flame. Men and women of import, lords, dames, magistrates, police, bankers and solicitors, even close relations to members of Parliament were affiliates of the Order and thus untouchable. And oh, how they talked! And of nothing!
Thus crouched between Aidan and James, Myra waited and watched as sociable knots of the Order’s faithful tied and unwound, London’s finest talking and drinking themselves into an unsteady quiet. She had begun to think that her legs might never again straighten properly, cramped as they had become, when a hush descended upon the room.
A middle-aged man entered. He had the look of a servant about him, all phlegmatic boredom and expertly reined judgment. He passed robes to the gathered Flameists and made himself scarce. His exit took him close by the hidden audience as he went back up the stairs leading to the kitchens. Myra thought she saw a slight smirk on his face and couldn’t blame him.
Fine and fashionable clothing disappeared beneath shapeless robes of black. Coifed hair and impressive mustaches hid themselves beneath wide hoods. Ladies and gentlemen made indistinguishable from the caricature of a wizard. Such theatrics.
“ ’Tis a good thing we managed to arrive before they covered up,” Aidan murmured, drawing a nod from James.
Positions were taken up, a careful and tidy separating of persons into concentric circles. Staves were passed into reverent hands. And swords. And cups. Myra guessed that coins would be next and rolled her eyes. Someone—man or woman, within the robes it was hard to tell—moved to turn down the lamps. Shadows and darkness, what light there was caught on the arcane artifacts and gave good effect to the scene. Eyes glittered deep within their hoods.
James was right. The ords had no magic.
Why are we here, again? Myra glanced at her companions and then looked back to the assembled Flameists. A low hum began amongst the would-be wizards. The circles began to move. One clockwise, the other counter. The Flameists moved along their tangents, a curious, shuffling sort of step. The motions felt embarrassed, apologetic even, to Myra’s eyes.
A basket was passed about. There was the coin, then. Donations. The jingle of various coinage mingled with the soft hiss of paper. Ah, the glory of having a well-off patronage. The basket filled in no time at all.
Somewhere out of sight a man’s deep voice intoned to those assembled. Myra caught something about a gate and its subsequent opening and shutting, a flow without beginning or end. Bogus it might be but Myra found it mesmerizing.
The dance picked up its pace, growing in confidence. Wands, cups, swords, and coin were raised. The humming increased. Now the man in charge had to shout to be heard above the din. Something about the elect who were to be Called Up during the night’s ceremony.
That’s how Myra heard it. Called Up rather than called up. The emphasis was unmistakable. It drew her from her stupor. Myra exchanged a look with Aidan and James. Called Up. What’s that?
Their faces were equally puzzled. So nobody knows. Okay.
Myra turned her attention back on the ceremony, surprised to note that a new leader had come into the center of the whirling circles. His robe was different from the rest, emblazoned on the edges with arcane symbols that flashed dully. Gold on black. He knelt, fiddling with some sort of apparatus on the floor. What he was doing, specifically, Myra could not tell. For the movement of those around him concealed much and seemed to make the whole scene waver in the gaslight.
The Flameists slowed to a halt, facing inward. At Myra’s side, James and Aidan’s magic flickered and died. Her alarm was reflected in each of their eyes. Aidan gave vent to a soft curse.
“There.” James seized Myra’s arm. The unknown item that had accompanied the Order’s priest into the center of the circles lay in state, whirring and crackling away. Barren, naked electricity danced over the device, illuminating its brass and rubber casing.
Before Myra and her companions could much ponder its purpose, the small machine was obscured from view by a scuffle. Two members of the Order were seized and bound, stripped of their robes and wrapped in what appeared to be burial shrouds.
The elect. The struggle appeared to be merely symbolic for one, he having ceased his resistance almost immediately. He lay as though dead, his arms crossed upon his chest, supine upon the ground. The other, too, had ceased her fighting with her brethren but continued to suffer from rather obvious fearful anticipation, most especially when the burial cloths reached her face. Together they lay, heads together on the ground, aligned with the hissing, spitting electrical machine. One calm, the other distressed, they waited.
For long moments, nobody moved—excepting the small movements of the one elect yet unresigned to her fate. The pause gave Myra opportunity to really wonder how it was they were to get out of there, what with James and Aidan’s powers useless at present. What was the recharge time to their gift after such an encounter? Would the Flameists extinguish their machine soon enough for the M.I. agents to effect their planned escape before such time that someone thought to check the dark corner behind the barrels? And what was the machine for? Defense against the likes of James and Aidan? Or something to do with the Calling Up?
A door opened to the cellars, ushering in a thin stream of illumination from the upstairs living space. Like lightning, like God’s own finger, it jabbed into the midst of the gathered Flameists. A man’s stretched and wavering silhouette descended within that column of brightness. The stairs creaked his arrival, even as the door swung shut on ill-oiled hinges, snuffing out the light.
The newcomer wore no concealing robes, carried no arcane symbol of occultist’s fancy. Bald but with the barest of mustaches to indicate that he had once sported blonde hair as a younger man, the gentleman was clad in a trim black suit. Remarkably similar to what James preferred, in fact. He had a kind face. Empathetic eyes. A statesman; a politician; a learned man.
Myra glanced to James and in doing so, caught him in the act of recognition. Fury. Blind hatred, as well as a generous helping of fear, crashed through his face, leaving a blasted destruction in their wake. Myra was perversely glad of his current disablement of gift, else she would have fallen straight into his emotional storm. She could feel it pulling at her even now and had to use every bit of her training to fight it.
“And in his own skin, too,” Aidan murmured. Myra risked a look at the Maester of Triewes. He was managing far better than James, but a similar tumble of emotions was having its way with him.
“Silas,” James hissed the name. For a moment, Myra feared that James would draw his wand and dart out into the midst of the assembly to wreak his vengeance. But no, he had no powers at present. And, with this many loyal dogs—many of them armed with their symbolic but deadly swords . . . No, such a demonstration would not get very far. Thankfully, James seemed to recognize this, hunching down to better conceal their presence. “Myra, you are our eyes and ears now . . .”
She nodded invisibly, checking her spells to make sure that such a claim was, indeed, true. They held. Myra stood up for a better look.
“You’ve heard my story. I know why you are here. They are one and the same, you understand,” Dr. Silas Addair began. “You know why the fairies leave rings upon the forest floor and grassy meadow; you know how to follow the will-o'-the-wisp in and back out of the bog. But what you don’t know—”
A puffball of light appeared in Addair’s left hand, eerily purple and tearing at the eyes with its brightness. “What you cannot, yourselves, grasp . . . is magic itself.”
He snuffed out the spell, rounding on his adoring worshipers, “But you can. You can, I tell you! These two. What makes them special? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. What makes them my elect? Because I say it is so. After this night, they are to be numbered amongst the chosen, my Children.”
He paused, kneeling beside one of the bound elect. The hand that had held the purple light now clasped a thin knife. Silvery-white, it seemed to glow with an illumination all its own. Addair asked, “Why do you suppose it is that God made man?”
Without waiting for answer, he plunged the weapon down into the burial cloths of the woman at whose side he knelt. Even from where she crouched, even in the half-light of the lowered gas lamps, Myra could see the red stain blossom over the white wrappings, and she had to press her hands to her mouth to stifle a scream.
James yanked Myra back down out of sight lest she lose her grip on her spell and expose them all. “I’m okay,” she mouthed to him, moving to rise again. As eyes for the team and with Silas present, she dare not miss seeing something important.
“God made man . . . to pursue the Devil.” Addair’s knife flashed again. Another cut. Another red stain. The woman’s attempts to quell her screams were further muffled by the burial cloths, rendering it all the more terrifying.
“And man made good that promise.” Addair sat back on his heels, reaching for the knobs on the machine and prompting more sparks. He nodded to his robed master of ceremonies, the man moving forward. And subsequently into Myra’s view. A moment later both men had moved to the other side to repeat their actions on the other of the elect. In their wake, wires ran from machine to shrouded woman. Addair and his man held close conference, manipulating settings on the machine and then stepping back.
Silas threw wide his arms. “Behold, God makes man.”
The machine gave off one, two, three wild pulses, drawing similar trembles from the two Flameists attached to it. Burial cloths were shaken from limbs, scorched and burned. They pooled on the floor around the elect, mingling with the spilt blood, a birthing. Electricity crackled and arced, purple as the mage’s power had been. Above it all leered Dr. Silas Addair. The room held its breath.
A snap, a flash of light—blinding bright and pure white—and then they were gone. The elect. The purple electric arcing power. Addair. The machine alone whirred happily away in the center of the remaining Flameists.
Myra swore, surprising even herself.
But it was not the abrupt disappearance of M.I.’s infamous enemy—along with the evidence of his evildoings—that had Myra losing her grip on her spell of invisibility. Nor was it the two figures rising from a grate in the floor at the far end of the room. Nor was it even the terrible chaos into which the assembled fell as said two individuals opened fire with pistols, twin furies loosed upon the not-so-innocent.
No, it was the fact that one of the figures looked fully into Myra’s eyes—a lucky happenstance rather than intended meeting. It was Stephen. Alive.