Chapter 10
Ten
Not too far from the British Museum and the office where Stephen had first encountered Mina, down several little side streets, one came to an ordinary-looking house.
Like its neighbors, it was three stories of neat red brick, secure behind an iron fence and a tidy yard.
Nothing was remarkable; everything was respectable.
At night, light and noise stole from behind the drapes, out the windows, and off into the spring air.
That, too, was little different from other houses nearby.
Some of the neighbors did say that the lights were odd colors at times and that the sounds were almost inhuman.
Other, more skeptical sorts said that the first group of people were drunk or dreaming or seeing what they’d thought they’d see.
After all, London had heard rumors about Mrs. O’Keefe for years, and the Society of the Emerald Star was no real secret. Too many of its members were too fond of notoriety for that.
Secret or not, the Society did employ a butler who never spoke and who looked as if he could have given Stephen some serious trouble, even in his draconic form.
The man looked over Stephen, his card, and the letter of introduction he offered, all without moving a single muscle in his face.
Then he retired to the inner sanctum, consulted with someone inside, and returned to gesture Stephen through the door.
Not only a door, as it turned out, but a set of red, gauzy curtains that clung to Stephen’s evening wear and knocked his top hat briefly askew. He straightened it, took a breath of air that was redolent with both incense and opium, and turned to face the woman approaching him.
Selina O’Keefe was tall, pale, and willowy, with large gray eyes and a heavy mass of raven-black hair, which she was currently letting tumble down her back to match the gown she was wearing: flowing gold silk and lace, as unstructured as it was impractical.
Gems gleamed on every finger and dangled from her ears, catching the light from many shaded lamps.
Her walk was airy and she gave Stephen her hand as if she was Cleopatra bestowing a favor, yet there was something in her eyes and in the set of her chin that suggested more practicality than the dozen or so similarly dressed women, or their smoking-jacketed companions, who currently disported themselves around the room.
“Welcome, Lord MacAlasdair,” she said quietly but in a voice that made the simple statement a theatrical pronouncement. “In what way might our Society aid you?”
If she mentioned anything about him being king hereafter, Stephen thought, he would leap out a window posthaste.
“I’m looking for a man,” he said. “Can we talk somewhere a bit more private?”
“There’s a couch near the window,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, and put a hand lightly on his arm. The butler had disappeared somewhere. “I’m afraid I can’t leave my guests alone just now.”
As they walked toward the couch, Stephen understood why.
He’d expected the lolling figures on other couches even before he’d smelled the opium.
He hadn’t expected the woman with snakes winding around her wrists, like living ribbons of bright green and gold, or the man who stood near her casting bone runes onto a velvet cloth.
Near them, a tall, lithe man with coppery hair was staring into the fire.
As Stephen passed, the man looked up with eyes that seemed to hold the flame themselves for a moment, and the angles of his face were inhuman.
Charlatans made up most of the Society. Hedonists. Harmless, if scandalous, degenerates. But a few were different—and Ward, if he was still interested in occult power, would have wanted to contact those few.
They reached a red plush sofa with a high back in a corner that afforded a good view of the room while still a fair distance away from most of Mrs. O’Keefe’s guests.
She took a seat, arranging her miles of skirts around her, and Stephen sat down at the other end of the sofa.
Mrs. O’Keefe eyed the space between them, glanced up at Stephen’s face, and then gave him a humorous, rueful smile—Can’t blame a girl for hoping, it said—that looked much better on her than her former dramatic pose.
Then she said a few words in Latin to the group, and the noise from the rest of the room died away. “What sort of man are you looking for, Lord MacAlasdair?”
“His real name is Ward, though he might have been using an alias. He’s a tall fellow and skinny, with blue eyes sort of wide-set and blond hair, though it’s probably gray by now.
” Stephen sighed. This wouldn’t help, not really.
There were thousands of tall, skinny men in London, and Ward could have dyed his hair as easily as not.
“Has anyone been coming in asking a lot of questions? Anyone other than me, that is—asking about spells, perhaps, or magical trinkets or books?”
“Many people seek such wisdom as we possess,” said Mrs. O’Keefe with a graceful gesture of one hand. “But,” she added in a much more worldly voice, “there was one particularly insistent gentleman. He came in…oh, a month ago? My memory for these things drifts sometimes. One moment.”
She rang a tiny silver bell, and the enormous butler drifted over, moving with astonishing silence.
“Saunders—”
Saunders, thought Stephen. For that hulk.
He managed to keep control of his face. Mina, he thought suddenly, would be biting the inside of her cheek about now, her blue eyes dancing in that way they had when she was trying to stay solemn and proper and having the devil’s own time of it.
Just as well she wasn’t here; he’d have never kept his countenance.
“Saunders,” Mrs. O’Keefe continued, “how long ago did you have to, er, escort that gentleman out?”
“Six weeks past, madam,” said the butler in a melodious tenor voice. “The incident, if you’ll recall, was just after the occasion of Sir Cartland’s epic recitation.”
Stephen cleared his throat. “You had to throw him out, then?”
Mrs. O’Keefe sighed. “He impressed me as an unfortunate character from the first. He was quite incredulous that I was the head of the Society—well, one does get men like that.” She shrugged, languid and indifferent.
“But he was rather insistent on being admitted to the inner circles very quickly and on obtaining certain information that we were unwilling or unable to give.”
“Were you now?”
“Lord MacAlasdair,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, “contrary to the world’s opinion—and I know full well what that is—we do have ethics here.
There are lines we will not cross, and summoning certain creatures is one of them.
Even if the risks were not surpassingly great, the price is far greater than I would allow. ”
Certain pages of certain books had burned themselves deeply into Stephen’s memory. He grimaced and nodded agreement—and relief.
Ward, after all, was no footpad and no brawler.
Getting inside locked houses or past watchmen would have been difficult for him, and he’d already known that Stephen had an inhuman resistance to injury.
If he’d hoped to ruin Stephen, either through physical damage or by exposure, without risking his own person, he probably would have had to deal with some very nasty forces.
For that matter, he would probably have called on those forces to kill Moore. That would also have been safer for him.
“I’m guessing he wasn’t pleased about your refusal,” said Stephen.
“Anything but. He made a number of threats against me, but…” She spread her hands, gems catching the light, as Stephen was sure she’d intended. “I have protections enough.”
And you’re not his main target.
Stephen didn’t know the full strength of Ward’s arsenal, whether magical or financial. But from what he’d experienced and from Moore’s death, he doubted the Society would survive very long if Ward made its members the sole focus of his wrath.
“Is there anyone else he could have gone to?” Stephen asked.
Mrs. O’Keefe started to lift her shoulders and spread her hands again, and Stephen was certain that the next words out of her mouth would be something about how the city was crawling with dubious occultists.
“Anyone in particular that you know of?”
“A few,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, and reached for a sheet of paper and a pen.
Many such objects were lying about on tables, Stephen noticed, presumably in case one of the Society members was struck with poetic inspiration.
She wrote quickly in a graceful, flowing hand.
“Of these, I think Reynolds is most likely to give your man Ward what he wants. He was a member of this society once, but his…tastes”—she almost hissed the word—“were profoundly unacceptable. Unfortunately, he has powerful allies now. Another thing your quarry would seek, from the sound of it.”
“You’re thinking your visitor was Ward, then?” Stephen asked. He’d have followed the trail anyhow since it was the only one he had, but he wanted to be sure before he got hopeful. “Another might have asked for the same information.”
“He looked like you describe. The hair was darker—not blond or gray—but such things are easy enough to manage. I wouldn’t have said he was particularly thin, either. But the eyes were the same, and he was tall.”
Age could add a few inches to any man’s waistline. The description was close enough.
“I’m very much obliged to you,” said Stephen, getting to his feet. “Good day, Mrs. O’Keefe.”
“Good luck, Lord MacAlasdair,” she said.
***
Earlier that evening, Mina had set aside the last of Professor Carter’s correspondence and made a decision.
If she was going to stay in MacAlasdair’s house for some unknown length of time, she was by God going to stay in the house and not skulk around in the attics.
MacAlasdair and his servants could like it or not as it pleased them.
So, after a glance in the mirror to replace a hairpin or two and make sure she didn’t have ink spots on her nose, Mina had descended all three flights of stairs with her head high and made her way toward the library.
The servants were back by then—the stars had been out for quite a while—and Baldwin had intercepted her on the way. His expression managed to be both polite and forbidding. “Laird MacAlasdair’s out for the evening,” he said. “If it’s him you were looking for, Miss Seymour.”
“Actually,” Mina had said, even as she briefly wondered where MacAlasdair had gone and why, “I was just going to find a book.” She didn’t explain that MacAlasdair had given her permission to look around the house.
That would have been admitting that she needed permission. “There’s quite a library here.”
“It’s verra large, yes,” said Baldwin. “A bit disorganized, though. Will you be wanting anything in particular?”
“I thought I’d see what I could find,” said Mina. She’d risked a smile. In return, she’d gotten a slight softening of Baldwin’s heavily whiskered face. It was something, at least. “Could someone make a fire in the drawing room and bring me a cup of tea?”
Training had kept Baldwin from looking surprised at her request. He’d hesitated only an instant before saying, “Of course. I’ll see it done.”
Flush with minor triumph, Mina had proceeded into the library, managed to find a small subset of Dickens in the shelves’ jumbled contents, and was curled up on the couch with The Pickwick Papers when the door opened again and MacAlasdair, dressed in spotless evening clothes, walked into the room.
“Owens said you’d come in here for the evening,” he said, looking from Mina to the fire and back. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
It’s your house was the first response that came to Mina’s mind. What she said, as she hastily straightened up, was “No, not at all.”
It was true. The extent to which it was true was no more surprising than the thrill that had run up her spine when MacAlasdair walked in. Both were unnerving.
He did look good in evening clothes. That might have had something to do with it.
The close-fitting coat and trousers showed off both his broad shoulders and the firm lines of his waist and thighs, while the white shirt made his hair look almost garnet-colored and his eyes even brighter.
Somehow, unlike most men Mina had seen, he looked more powerful in evening dress.
She resisted the urge to shift in her seat or to moisten her lips, although they’d suddenly gone dry. Thank goodness for tea.
“You’ve been out,” she said, in a truly amazing feat of stating the obvious. “Er, Baldwin said you were. But not where.” She kicked herself mentally for sounding like a prying wife, and then kicked herself twice for caring. “Somewhere fancy, I’d guess.”
“You could say as much,” said MacAlasdair, his mouth curling sardonically around the words. “There are a number of…clubs…around London that take an interest in mysticism. I thought some of them might be able to put me onto Ward’s track.”
“Ah,” said Mina. “And did they?”
“Perhaps. There are a few hints I might pursue. The Emerald Star, for instance—” MacAlasdair stopped. “But telling you all of it could take some time.”
“Time I’ve got,” said Mina. “And I want to know.”
“Very well, then,” said MacAlasdair. He settled into a seat near the fire, leaned back, and began.