14

ALF stopped shoving eggs and bacon into his mouth for a moment and looked at Alexandre from across the kitchen table. Alexandre’s mother and father would have dropped dead of shock if they had seen him eating in the kitchen like a servant—but Alexandre saw no reason not to. The food was piping hot, right off the stove or out of the oven, the kitchen was clean and tidy, and much more cheerful than the dining room. “Guv, Oi got an hideer,” Alf said, looking expectant.

Alexandre looked blearily up from his newspaper. He’d had a restless night. He should have been relieved that the unpleasant task of rounding up the weekly pair of virgins was over, and he had been until he’d gone to bed. Yet somehow that relief had not translated over into sleep. He’d tossed and turned, and the eight-day clock had struck midnight before he’d been able to drop off.

And even then, he hadn’t slept well, not well at all. He’d had disturbing dreams, and still remembered parts of them. It had put him in a bad mood, on which the fragrance of breakfast had not had its usual positive effect.

He really wasn’t in the mood to listen to Alf’s suggestions for whores, a feast, or a visit to the music hall, the three things that Alf usually proposed over breakfast. Often, all three at once.

But when he looked up at Alf’s expression—it didn’t look as if Alf was going to suggest any of those things. “Let’s hear it,” he said, instead of telling Alf he wasn’t feeling well (which was true) and that he was going to go back to bed with a sick headache (which was near enough to the truth).

“Wut if we c’n git three’r more girls at once?” Alf asked. “Oi mean ter say, ye said the thing tol’ ye we got t’get four more pairs. But wut if we c’n get three or four at a time, ’stead’a two? Ye think th’ thing’ll be set? Give us wut we wants and go ’bout its bizness?”

“I . . . don’t know,” he replied, struck by the question. “But how would we manage to acquire more than a pair at a time?”

Alf grinned. “Oi ’appens t’ ’ave found out th’ ’irin’ ’all where yer fav’rite madame gits ’er virgins,” he said in triumph. “She gits country girls; she checks ’erself t’make sure they’re virgins. An’ ’ell, Oi c’n git as many boys as ye want. An’ we know, now, thet the thing’ll take boys fer feedin’. Hit’ll take money fer the girls,” he added, warningly. “Virgins ain’t cheap.”

For a moment, the idea seemed a sound one. But then he remembered. . . .

And he had to shake his head. “That won’t work,” he sighed. “I wish it would, but the entity told me that the girls all have to go to the same place. It seems the three we already took went to some private hospital, and without wealthy parents, anyone you got at a hiring hall would just be sent off to Bedlam.”

“Mebbe. Lemme look inter hit, guv,” Alf urged. “Meantime, Oi c’n git boys easier’n girls from ’iring ’all. Oi c’n git a boy fer each girl we git, we c’n keep ’im nice’n’snug, till we needs ’im, then we c’n concentrate on them girls. But we needs t’be extree careful naow. Tha’s three girls we took, an’ coppers gonna take notice.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Although this was the last thing he wanted to contemplate this morning—well, they were on the subject, and it was clear Alf was actively looking for solutions for him. And for all his lack of education, Alf was smart and clever. And while he himself was not a magician, as far as Alexandre was aware, he had a lot of practical experience in what a magician needed, and how a magician worked. “We can’t do another gallery. We can’t do the theater again.” He briefly thought about the bookstore . . . but no. Of all things, he should not take a victim from anywhere he himself was known to go. That would leave him open to being recognized and remembered with the victim in tow. He’d taken enough of a chance at the gallery; it was entirely likely he could have run into some of the people who knew him from artistic circles—although he had done his best to minimize that chance by picking a time and day that set was unlikely to come.

“Church?” Alf asked, suddenly. “Lotsa good girls in church. An’ the thing don’t care wut they look loik.”

“Too many people, most of whom know each other.” That would not be true for the vast majority of the parishioners in a London church, of course, but the anonymous herd would all be unsuitable—not wealthy enough. The wealthy patrons of any church in question would all know each other, and so would the resident clergy, and a wealthy newcomer would be spotted immediately, and more to the point, remembered. He’d have to keep going in order to throw suspicion off himself—

“Too bad yew cain’t drive a cab,” Alf observed. “Yew’d hev yer pick, an’ they’d jest walk right inter yer open harms.”

Now, that was true. Impossible, of course, since all the cabbies knew each other, and a newcomer would be watched like a hawk by all the other cabdrivers. Not even in the rush at a train station would he be able to get away with impersonating a cabbie.

Nowadays only the very rich, the kind who could still afford stabling or carriage houses behind their townhouses, kept private carriages in London. Even many of the merely well-to-do used cabs instead of relying on their private carriages these days. Especially those who were staying in their clubs, or hotels—

“Hotels!” he exclaimed aloud. “Americans!”

Alf looked at him oddly, puzzled by his outburst. “Wutcher mean, ’Muricans, guv?”

“Wealthy Americans stay in hotels. Their daughters are very . . . bold,” he explained. “The girls are accustomed to being allowed to go where they want without chaperonage to a far greater extent than English girls are. They’ll be ever so much easier to acquire than English girls. And when the girl turns up witless, the parents will want ‘the best care in London,’ and the best care in London is exactly where we want her to go.” He pondered this again. “If we work fast, and we have good luck, we might be able to get two or even three in a single day.”

“Oi c’n get eight boys in a single day, guv, betwixt takin’ ’em off street an gettin’ ’em at ’iring ’all,” Alf chuckled. “Oi think we got a plan.”

“Not quite. We need to be precise about this,” he cautioned. “This will have to be by daylight, and we’ll have to be fast. We need a very detailed map of the area around each of the best hotels. We’ll need to have a secure spot for the coach near each hotel where you won’t be bothered, and where no one will see us putting the girls into it. And we’ll need one more thing.” Because while getting the girls was a difficult proposition . . .

“Wut’s thet, guv?”

“We’ll need to find a secure place to get rid of them from out of the coach. Once the entity spits them out, we’ll need to load them back into the coach, and take them somewhere else to drop them. I can’t just turn three girls out into the street in front of the flat all at once, and I can’t turn them out an hour apart, either. Someone is almost certainly going to be able to backtrack them if I do that. And it will have to be a safe place for them.” It did him no good at all with regards to the entity’s demands if some enterprising fellow reabducted them to use as prostitutes.

“Roight. Yew c’n leave thet part t’me. An’ th’ mappin’. But yew need ter talk t’thet thing in basement, an’ foind out if it c’n ’andle more’n a pair, an if it loike’s th’ ideer.” Alf tapped the side of his nose with a finger. “Be jest our luck fer us t’nobble three girls an’ three boys, an’ hev it turn up its nose, eh?”

Although going down into the basement this morning was the very last thing he wanted to do, Alexandre sighed, and nodded. “Let me get dressed, first,” he told his man. “I don’t fancy shuffling down there in slippers and a dressing gown.” He had no more appetite for breakfast, so he got up from the table and went to his room.

Rather than lingering over his morning preparations, he hurried them, skipping shaving, doing little more than a splash of water over his face, and putting on yesterday’s clothing. The sense of dread he felt at facing that thing only grew in him as he dressed; he wanted to get it all over with as soon as he could.

A mere half an hour later saw him treading the basement stairs, lantern in hand, peering anxiously at the void in the middle of the floor. He was pretty certain he knew what it was, now. It was a passageway to some other . . . existence. Like a door into a world populated by nightmares. Some of the magic books in his collection—and a great deal of fantastic fiction—hinted at, or outright described such things. And it was the only thing that made sense; how else could half the victims have been spit back out again? The entity wasn’t “eating” them as such; it was pulling them into its world, keeping one, stripping the mind of the other, and throwing that one back into this world. Whatever had happened to them over there, it had rendered the ones that returned mindless and malleable—and the thing had created some sort of mystical link to them, or it wouldn’t be able to use them once they were back here.

Though, of course, he still didn’t know what the thing was going to use them for. He only knew it wanted them all together to do it.

He hung the lantern up and stood as far away from the void in the floor as he could. He thought he was out of tentacle reach, but . . . how could he know for sure? In the silence of the basement he cleared his throat, hoping the entity would notice him if he made a slight noise.

Nothing. Tension grew in him. And so did dread.

“Ah, oh Great One? I have a question?” He realized he was trembling at this point, and he wasn’t in the least ashamed of doing so. Anyone who wouldn’t have been quaking in his boots in this situation would have been an oblivious blithering idiot, and deserved to be eaten.

He stood there uncertainly for what seemed like hours. He could hear a very few sounds from the flat above—the creak of floorboards as Alf moved about, a faint clink of china and silver. And then, just as he was getting ready to leave, the temperature plummeted; one moment, he was mildly uncomfortable; normal in a basement in winter. The next, he was freezing, he could see his own breath, and it had gone completely silent. Not a single sound penetrated from outside the room.

What do you want? The void remained the same. Thank God. If it had suddenly reared up into the pillar-shape, he might have gone too witless to ask his question.

He swallowed. “I was wondering if it would be acceptable to bring more than one pair of offerings at the same time,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering.

Acceptable, said the entity.

And the next moment, the temperature in the basement abruptly rose and he could hear the sounds in his flat again.

He grabbed the lantern, rushed up the stairs two at a time, and nearly ran into Alf, who had been waiting at the basement door. “Jeezus, guv!” the man exclaimed in shock. “Yer white’s that snow out there!” He took the lantern from Alexandre’s nerveless fingers. “An’ yer ’bout as cold!” He all but shoved Alexandre into the study, the warmest room in the flat, hurried out, and came back with a blanket folded in two, which he wrapped around Alexandre’s shoulders before pushing him down into a chair in front of the fire.

“It said we can bring more than one pair at a time,” he got out around his still-clenched teeth, holding his hands out to the fire. It felt as if he was never going to get warm again.

Alf nodded with satisfaction. “Well, tha’s good, hain’t it? We c’n get this thin’ satisfied, an’ get on wi’ henjoyin’ oursel’s.”

Maybe. And maybe it’s only going to demand more of us.

“Yes, but . . . now I can’t help wondering what this thing wants all these girls for,” Alexandre said slowly. “It called them witnesses, but what it is they are supposed to witness, I have no idea, since they’re presumably locked up in a London hospital and not witnessing anything but the four walls of their room. And it wants seven of them, which suggests it has some manner of magic planned to use them for.”

Alf shrugged, incurious. “Don’t matter to us, do it? If they be locked up in ’ospital, that’ll be far ’way from ’ere, so whatever it’s up to, it hain’t gonna ’appen ’ere.”

“I suppose not.” Once again, Alexandre thought about going to Lord Alderscroft and his White Lodge. But he was in too deep now. There was no way he’d escape punishment for the girls he had sacrificed to this thing’s needs. And there was no way he could play ignorant; they’d have it out of him, or they’d smell the thing’s dark power on him. No, the only way out of this was through.

Alf didn’t go so far as to slap his shoulder like a boon companion, nor tell him to “buck up,” but it was clear that now that they knew the thing could and would take multiples of the victims, he wanted to get it all over with as quickly as possible. “Look, guv, once yew warm up, yew get yersel’ outside’a th’ best part uv a bottle an’ go t’bed. Oi’ll go nose about. Foind th’ ’otels with ’Muricans in ’em. Foind places fer th’ coach. Thet’ll take me one, mebbe two days. Soon’s Oi can, Oi’ll get us three lads, an’ ’ide ’em in th’ upstairs flat.”

“How do you propose to keep them quiet?” That concerned him. If he knew anything about boys . . . keeping them tied up for more than a few hours was going to be a problem. They’d have to eat, eliminate . . . and there was only himself and Alf to keep watch over them. You couldn’t leave them alone, they’d find a way to get out of their bonds. . . .

But Alf laughed. “Fust, Oi’m pickin’ skinny, meek’uns, all bone. Second, Oi’m tellin’ ’em th’ Marster’s away, an’ wants ’em fit t’work when ’e comes ’ome, an’ they has leave t’eat an’ drink an’ rest so’s they are. Third, Oi leave ’em wi’ a full pantry an’ plenty o’ beer an’ gin. So, they’ll be inna place fulla food ’n drink, plenty coal fer a fire, an’ th’ last think they gonna wanta do is look thet gift ’orse in ’is mouth. If Oi know boys, an’ Oi do, they’ll stuff thesselves an drink till they fall over, an’ wake up t’do it summore.”

“And by that time, we’ll have the girls.” It seemed a sound plan. He’d had a look at the flat upstairs; it was on the same plan as this one, and furnished in a rudimentary fashion, with one big bed in the room that corresponded to his, and two smaller beds in what would have been Alf’s room and his study. “You take the coach out before we do all this and pick up a few kitchen things, and lots of blankets. And curtains. We should make sure the windows have curtains over them. You’ll know better than me what the boys will need to keep them satisfied.”

Alf nodded. “Once I git ’em, we c’n make a try next day fer three girls. If we on’y get one, we’ll give th’ thing the girl an’ one uv the lads. Oi’ll tell th’ one Oi pick Oi’m takin’ ’im t’Marster’s ’ouse.” Alf certainly seemed to have taken the bit between his teeth on this, and Alexandre was disinclined to discourage him.

“I . . . think that’s a good plan, Alf,” he said, finally. “If we can take the third girl before the first and second are discovered to be missing—that will make it all immensely easier.” He considered the times he had run into American girls in the shops and dressmakers around the hotels they frequented. They were often alone. They were bold. They were fearless—never having learned to fear anything. All that would work against them. Yes, this might work. This might well work.

And meanwhile, he wanted to take Alf’s prescription of getting as much of a bottle of brandy inside him as possible and then going back to bed.

“Wait,” he said, and fumbled a nice packet of folded banknotes out of his pocket. “You’ll need money; you’ll be doing a lot of moving around, and later, you’ll have to buy those things for the flat upstairs. While you are scouting, you should take cabs or ’buses if you need them. We shouldn’t let the coach be seen before the day. Someone might recognize it—a doorman, or a shopgirl. And you’ll want luncheon, tea, dinner, and beer at least.”

“Roight yew are, guv,” Alf saluted him with two fingers to his forehead. Then he bustled out, and a few minutes later, the front door closed and the flat was silent.

After a while, Alexandre got up and went to the kitchen. He found it cleaned up with not so much as a dirty saucer in the sink. Alf had already tidied everything away—it occurred to him that for a fellow with such a low background, he was surprisingly fastidious.

Or maybe it’s because of the low background. Maybe he was sick of living in squalor by the time he was old enough to leave home. He already knew from tidbits that Alf had dropped that his father was a drunk and his mother a slattern. Not a whore—but someone who literally never swept anything so the floors of the single rooms in which they lived consisted of dirt and bits of trash pounded down by feet into layers of grime.

Alexandre found the half-open bottle of brandy in the pantry with the rest of the liquor, cut himself two thick slices of bread, buttered them well, and ate them. Long experience had taught him that if he was going to drink to get drunk, he needed to cushion his stomach first. Then, with the blanket still draped over his shoulders, he took a glass and the bottle and sought his room.

The fire was going well; he put coal on it to make sure it kept going while he slept.

But before he got ready to climb into bed, he opened the drawer full of magical supplies in his bureau and got The Book. Because right now . . . he didn’t want to sleep unless he had some protection.

I don’t think my standard protective magic is going to work against that . . . thing. But written after the summoning spell in The Book . . . he thought he remembered some sort of protective spell. Which would make sense; whoever had written the book out surely had a way of protecting himself from the thing he had summoned. I was just in so much of a hurry for power . . . I never even considered what I woke up might pose any danger to me.

Half averting his eyes, he flipped past the summoning spell, and then when he reached the next section, he began to read, carefully. And with a feeling of hope, he knew he had found what he was looking for. Yes! Here it is.

It was, as such things went, fairly standard, with just a couple of small tweaks to it—tweaks, he suspected, that had to do with this particular entity. Normally such things used holy water, or at least water the magician himself had blessed. This used heavily salted water, red paint into which a couple of herbs, ground fine, had been mixed, and a couple of precious oils. And he had everything he needed in that drawer, because after he’d made his first copy of The Book, he’d gone out and bought every last ingredient listed in it. Now he was inexpressibly glad he had done so.

He pulled the head of the bed a little farther away from the wall so he could make a circle all the way around it, picked up the rugs for the same reason, and went to work. He washed down the floor with the salted water and let it dry, made the circle in the red paint, an inner circle in the two oils, and painted certain glyphs in the four cardinal points of the compass, and more on the door to his room, on the hearth, and on the windowsills. Fortunately the paint was a quick-drying variety, and quite permanent—he’d consulted one of his artist friends on such things a very long time ago, and now his caution was paying off handsomely. Only when he was finished did he undress, get back into his nightshirt, and step over the still-drying circle to climb into bed.

It might have been all in his mind, but once he was in the circle he felt a sense of profound relief. As his body warmed up in the bed and the brandy he was sipping gradually relaxed his muscles, he felt the tension draining out of him. Finally he felt . . . not safe, precisely, but at least safer.

When he found himself starting to nod off, he put the bottle on his bedside table, drained the last of the brandy in the glass, filled it with water and drank that, and slid down into his bed. And finally slept.

When he woke again, it was late afternoon, and he could tell by the chill in the air and the silence in the flat that Alf wasn’t back yet. That was fine, actually. It meant Alf really was taking this with the deathly seriousness it required, and was being as thorough as only Alf could be.

The paint was quite dry by this time, so according to The Book, his protections were now complete and solid. He got out of bed just long enough to build up the fires in his bedroom, the study, and Alf’s bedroom. When he had washed off the coal dust in the kitchen, he made himself some cold ham sandwiches and took them and a bottle of beer back to the safety of his bed. He lit the oil lamp next to his bed and climbed in. Once there, he read more in The Book—trying to figure out just what it was that the entity wanted, and what it was going to do when he satisfied its need for victims.

He didn’t find much. Only one passage. He who serves the Master faithfully and well shall himself become the Master.

But nothing more than that. No indication of what that meant, if the “Master” was the entity, or if it was a classical Master of the Elemental sort and the “he who serves” would be an apprentice, or . . . well, it wasn’t clear what was meant, exactly. The Book did seem to assume you were at least an Elemental Magician, because it gave specific means of excluding creatures of all four Elements from the area of the conjuration. And it said this was to keep “spies” away.

Obviously whoever had written The Book knew very well what the entity was going to ask for, and that this sort of thing was likely to bring a White Lodge or the equivalent down on the caster’s head.

He’d followed those instructions to the letter, and had taken pains of his own to make sure there weren’t any snoops around. When he’d set up the magic chamber in the basement in the first place, long before he’d found The Book, he’d sealed it against intruders. The last thing he’d wanted, even back then, was for the local Masters to find out some of the things he’d been up to. He’d played about a bit with sex magic and performed some animal sacrifices, and both those things were frowned on by the prudish White Lodge. Now he was glad he had taken those precautions. He doubted that even the most powerful of the Masters would be able to sense what was going on past all the shields and barriers he’d layered, one over the other. The outermost one was a very clever thing he’d learned from Alf’s former employer—a shield that made it look quite literally as if there was nothing there, hiding all the other shields beneath it.

It was well past dark when Alf came in; by that time, he was up and dressed again, and had moved his researches to his study, which was the first place Alf went to look for him.

“One more day o’ scoutin’ guv,” Alf said with satisfaction, “Oi’ll take th’ coach out t’ pick up wut we needs fer th’ upstairs flat i’ th’ mornin’.”

“Then you deserve a fine supper, old man,” he replied with great satisfaction. It was amazing what a change in attitude a decent sleep could give you. “Let’s raid those hampers.”

Alf all but licked his chops.

It was just after luncheon. Alf had “hired” five boys, all of them now sleeping away in the upstairs flat, after having stuffed themselves with food, none of them inclined to poke their noses out the door. Alf had told them, in the darkest of warning tones, that this was a test by their new Master—that if they didn’t stay in the flat until they were called for, they’d be dismissed on the spot and thrown straight out the door into the snow. None of them wanted to risk it. This was probably the first time any of them had been able to eat until they were full in years. It was definitely the first time they’d slept warm since last summer. The condemned do get a last hearty meal, he reminded himself with grim humor.

“Although what we are going to do with five boys, I have no idea,” he told the mirror as he dressed for his foray into American abduction.

I do.

His hands froze in the process of tying his bowtie. He glanced frantically down at his feet—sure enough, he was standing outside the circle of protection on the floor. And now, it seemed the entity could reach out of the basement to read his mind as well as speak to him whenever it choice. This . . . was . . . terrifying.

But he swallowed his fear, and instead asked aloud, “What do you want us to do with the two extras?”

Bring them downstairs to me now. Then I will be able to help you control the three witnesses as you take them.

“Right,” he gulped, and finished his preparations in a hurry.

Alf was waiting in the kitchen, dressed in his coachman’s “uniform,” which consisted of a top hat and a black frock coat. He looked up and immediately read trouble in Alexandre’s expression.

But before he could ask what was wrong, Alexandre told him, in hushed, tense tones.

“The thing in the basement wants two of the boys right now. It says if we give them to it, it will be able to help us control the girls.”

He had expected Alf to be alarmed, or annoyed, or a combination of both, but Alf stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So. The thing c’n talk t’ye hupstairs. An’ hit sez hit c’n ’elp yew control th’ girls, all three uv ’em. Tha’s new, too. So we feeds hit, hit gets stronger.”

“So it would seem,” Alexandre replied, resisting the urge to pluck at his tie or his sleeves out of sheer nerves.

“Look, guv, th’ big prollem wit’ th’ plan terday was keepin’ the girls we got unner control. An naow th’ thing says hit c’n take care’a that.” He nodded. “I don’ see a prollem. In fact that solves our prollem.”

Bring me two of the five. I will hold the three. The mage merely needs to meet their eyes.

Alf’s eyes widened for a moment. “Did yew ’ear that?”

Alexandre nodded.

Alf let out a puff of breath. “Huh.” Then he stood up. “Guess Oi better fetch them boys.”

Ten minutes later, they were on their way, Alexandre in the coach and Alf on the box. Alf had handled the boys himself; he told the other three that the Master had come to take the two strongest to his country house. They’d been too sleep-fuddled, all of them, to do anything other than take the words in as Alf roused the two oldest and strongest and led them down the outside stair to the back door. By the time he got them to the basement door, they had figured out that something wasn’t right, but at that point, his iron grip on their upper arms prevented them from escaping, and once the heavy basement door swung shut, no one could have heard their cursing. And, being boys, they didn’t think to shout for help; instead, they tried to kick him.

When one of them connected with Alf’s shin, they were about halfway down the stairs. With a curse of his own, Alf had thrown them both down the stairs. They landed within two feet of the void in the floor, and before either of them could scramble to his feet, the temperature in the basement dropped, the void had become a pillar, and the pillar had grown tentacles and pulled them in.

They didn’t even get a chance to scream.

And that was that. Alf and Alexandre headed for the coach. If the other boys gathered enough of their wits to look outside, they would have seen the two men heading for the vehicle, and they’d have assumed their erstwhile companions were already in the coach. They were probably too ignorant to be aware that servants would never have been permitted to ride inside—or if they actually did somehow know that, they’d think that being allowed inside was a mark of their new Master’s “softness,” all of a piece with the warm, comfortable beds, plenty of coal for the fires, the abundant food, and the run of a six-room flat that included an indoor bathroom.

He knew what to look for, having observed Americans, and their women in particular, in the past. He didn’t want the extremely wealthy, the ones who had brought daughters over looking for husbands with important titles and large estates. He wanted the ones who were the equivalent of the English girls he’d been taking—wealthy parvenus. And he knew exactly what they looked like, or more accurately, dressed like. In clothing that was visibly expensive, at least marginally in bad taste . . . and visibly a copy of something out of a ladies’ magazine, made by a local American seamstress. That was partly why they came here—for new wardrobes.

The hotels that Alexandre had chosen were each at a considerable distance from one another. Should one of the girls’ families realize she was gone and raise a hue and cry, he wanted to be sure the other two hotels were far enough away that the alarm did not reach to that neighborhood.

The first hotel he had selected was the Langham, a block or so from Regent’s Park. There were plenty of exclusive shops on Oxford Street nearby, and American girls, he was told, were accustomed to walking miles in the course of the day. And, of course, Liberty of London was a mere three-tenths of a mile from the door of the hotel. Unlike the truly wealthy girls, who came back to London as often as every year for their new wardrobes, these girls got one trip to London, Rome, and Paris. After that, they would have to depend on their local seamstresses again to copy their London and Paris gowns. So a trip to Liberty of London was a necessity—they would travel home with a steamer trunk full of the laces, ribbons and trims they couldn’t get in San Francisco, or Kansas City, or Chicago.

And as it happened, he was able to use that little tidbit almost immediately. From the lobby of the Langham, he picked out a lively looking young lady, marked the overabundant profusion of pink ostrich plumes on her hat, and followed the plumes to Oxford Street. Once there, he window-shopped, keeping an eye on her as she made several purchases, then followed her into a haberdashery, just in time to hear a clerk say “. . . but the best place for that is Liberty’s.”

“Liberty’s? I’ve heard of that, and I need to go visit,” she said in somewhat nasal tones and that curiously flat American accent. “How can I get there?”

Before the clerk could reply, he sidled up to her. “Beg pardon for intruding, miss, but my carriage is just around the corner, and I myself was planning on shopping at Liberty’s. I would be happy to offer you a ride there and back, if you feel comfortable accepting one from a stranger.”

And the moment she looked into his face, he felt it. The cold, quiet hand of the entity, reaching out through him, as it had outside the theater.

“I’d be delighted,” she said, and blinked in surprise, as if that had not been what she intended to say at all. But it was too late; he extended his arm, she took it, and the entity assumed complete control of her. They strolled to the lane where Alf had parked the coach; he assisted her inside and into the rear-facing seat.

And there she stayed. As still as if she was already one of those mindless dolls the entity called a “witness.” I have her. Obtain the next, the thing said in his head.

The Berkeley was the next hotel, in Knightsbridge, just off Hyde Park. This one was even easier. He followed a horsey-looking young woman who was clearly on her way for a walk in the Park. “Pardon me, miss, but I think you dropped this,” he called out, extending a filmy, lacy handkerchief to her—she met his eyes, and took the handkerchief, and his arm, and they walked mere feet to the coach, where she joined the first, who was sitting like a statue on the far side of the seat. The new girl took a seat next to her, and sat there, still as a stone. Except for her eyes, which were full of terror. He glanced at the first girl. Her eyes, too were wide with fear. He couldn’t help but smile. This was going splendidly.

The last hotel was the farthest from the other two, the Great Eastern. Once again, he waited in the lobby, perusing a newspaper, until he heard a very loud young lady asking the desk clerk if there were “. . . any interesting old churches around.” The clerk directed her to the nearby St. Botolph’s and off she went, with an impressive and athletic stride.

He followed, and arrived just in time to be witness to her voluble disappointment. “Say!” she was telling the rector, “This’s no nicer than the First Presbyterian in Denver! I thought England was supposed to be thick with fancy churches!”

He strolled up to the two as the ancient rector sputtered a little in indignation, plainly at a loss for words. “If I might be so bold, young miss, my carriage is nearby and I was just on my way to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’m sure you must have heard of that—”

“Say!” she replied, turning to him. “You just bet I have!”

“Then allow me to offer you the comfort of my carriage, so you need not avail yourself of a hansom,” he said warmly, meeting her eyes.

And before the rector could interject anything, she had all but seized his arm and was hauling him out the door, chattering loudly about how nice English gentlemen were. Or she chattered until she was well outside, at which point she shut up in the middle of her sentence. He had never been more grateful for silence in all his life. Within five minutes, she was on the seat next to him, as statue-like as the other two girls.

“We’ll have to drive around until it gets dark,” he said aloud, when they were well away from the hotel, getting further from the possibility of discovery with every passing minute.

I am aware, the thing said in his mind. This will be of no difficulty.

Following Alf’s plan, they crossed the Thames on Tower Bridge and, now well out of any range of hue and cry, joined the slow-moving traffic as they headed toward Battersea. It had been about teatime when he had acquired the third girl, and by the time they arrived in the lane behind the flat, it was dusk.

He and Alf hurried all three of them inside and down into the basement, and arranged them in a circle around the void in the floor. Then he and Alf brought the three remaining boys down as far as the kitchen. Once there, Alf fed them brandy mixed with cherry juice until they were tipsy, then half led, half carried them down into the basement, arranging them with the girls. They couldn’t even stand up at that point, and sat on the floor, staring about them with bemusement, while the girls wept silently, tears pouring down their otherwise expressionless faces.

The entity did something different this time; the void became a pillar of darkness, as usual, but the pillar suddenly expanded outward, engulfing them all at once, and contracted just as suddenly, leaving only a single pink ostrich plume on the floor.

Alexandre waited patiently; he’d left his heavy winter coat on, but it didn’t help much; the basement was so cold that by the time the three girls came shuffling out of the pillar, one after another, he could scarcely feel his toes. He glanced at Alf.

“Naow back in th’ coach,” Alf said, “Quick, afore someone notices hit’s been standin’ there awhile.”

They had to physically guide each of the girls, leaving one in the kitchen while they took the first two out to the coach. And Alf had a good plan; a flawless plan, in fact.

They drove into Battersea Park; the road was heavily used, even in winter, and even in winter there was enough activity around the bandstand that it would be impossible for anyone to tell their tracks from anyone else’s. They left the three girls standing passively inside the shelter of the bandstand. Then Alf brought the things he’d piled on top of the coach while Alexandre had been inside waiting for the entity to finish what it was doing—a huge amount of wood, a tin of paraffin oil, and a lot of rags. He and Alexandre made a bonfire with paraffin-soaked rags in the center, then he left a long wick leading into the rags and lit it. They ran for the coach. They were well away, and actually out in traffic, when the flame finally met the rags, and there was soon a bonfire merrily ablaze, attracting attention from all over.

And, of course, rather than drive away, they did what everyone else was doing—drove toward the bonfire. They were by no means the first people there—and the first to arrive soon discovered the three girls standing there like wax dolls. By the time Alexandre got out of the carriage and approached the bandstand, police had arrived.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and got several confused answers. Some people thought the girls had made the fire “as a lark.” Others were sure the girls had boyfriends or brothers waiting in hiding who had started it. Seeing the police taking the three away only cemented this in the minds of the onlookers. Alexandre went back to the coach, in time to be intercepted by a constable.

“’Scuze me, sir,” the man said diffidently. “Is there any chance you saw anyone larking about here before we arrived?”

“I’m afraid not,” Alexandre replied, apologetically. “My man and I were on Battersea Park Road when we saw the flames. By the time we were in the park, there was—” he gestured at the crowd, “—all this. I wish I could help, but we really didn’t see anything, not even someone running away.”

The constable sighed, and pulled on the rim of his helmet. “Thenkew very much, sir. That’ll be all.”

Alexandre didn’t look at Alf; he knew he’d be unable to suppress a snicker if he did. Instead he swung back up into his seat. “’Ome?” asked Alf.

“Definitely. It has been a long day for both of us,” he replied. “You, especially.”

“Yew c’n say that agin, guv,” Alf sighed, and touched the whip to the horse, who moved off, leaving behind the chaos and mystery that they and they alone had the key to.