She opened the door and stepped into the front hall. There were no unusually disturbing prints on the floor, but a curious silence gripped the entire house.
Another frisson of awareness shivered through her. It was still early in the day, she reminded herself. The women and girls of the streets did not usually drift in for their hot meals until mid-afternoon. Nevertheless, there should have been sounds from the kitchen. Mrs. Mallory was forever either preparing new pots of soup or cleaning up.
“Mrs. Mallory?” she called. “Are you here?”
It dawned on her that the woman might be outside in the kitchen garden collecting vegetables and herbs for the next meal.
Her senses still wide open, she walked into the kitchen. Shock swept through her at the sight of the dark, twisted dreamprints that radiated from the floor. Samuel Lodge had been in this room and not long ago.
“Mrs. Mallory,” she shouted. “Where are you? Please answer me.”
The front door slammed open. She heard Jed pounding down the hall. A few seconds later, he exploded into the kitchen, revolver in hand.
“I heard you call out,” he said. He swung the revolver in a wide arc that covered every inch of the room. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m fine. But Lodge was here. And Mrs. Mallory is gone.”
“Bloody hell,” Jed muttered. “The Boss isn’t going to like this.”
“I’m not exactly thrilled, myself. Caleb Jones assured us all that Lodge had fled to the Continent.”
Then she saw the folded sheet of paper on the kitchen table. It was stained with Lodge’s foul dreamprints.
53
“HE DISCOVERED THE LOCATION OF THE ACADEMY,” ADELAIDE whispered. She sank slowly down onto one of the kitchen chairs. Still a little numb, she stared at Griffin who was studying the note. “He probably frightened Mrs. Mallory into telling him the address. He has taken her and some of the girls hostage at my school.”
“I can read, my love.” Griffin did not look up from the note.
“He’s going to murder them one by one unless I give him the lamp and agree to work it for him. In the note he says I mustn’t tell anyone. If he finds out that I sent for you—”
“Calm yourself, Adelaide.” Griffin refolded the note. “No one saw me enter this place. My first talent does have its uses.”
His cold, casual confidence was oddly reassuring.
“Yes, of course.” She took a deep breath and got a firm grip on her nerves. “It’s just that the girls at the Academy are there because they trusted me, you see. They feel safe in the school. And they would have remained safe if not for me. I am the one responsible for bringing this monster down upon them.”
Griffin dropped the folded note into the pocket of his long, black coat. “You are not responsible for what Lodge has done. He alone must take the blame. And the consequences.”
“We have to rescue the students and Mrs. Mallory.”
“Certainly.”
“Do you think we should ask J-and-J for help?” she ventured.
“No. The risk is too great. We must assume that Lodge still has friends and connections at the highest levels of Arcane. If we take the time to contact Jones and Jones, someone may discover what has happened and send word to him.”
“You have a plan?”
“I always have a plan.”
In spite of her badly frayed nerves, she managed a small, albeit shaky smile. “You just discovered this disaster a few minutes ago. How could you have crafted a plan so quickly?”
“Plans for situations such as this all work off one core principle. It comes down to calculating the opposition’s weaknesses. It is obvious that Lodge’s obsession with the lamp is his Achilles’ heel. We will use that against him.”
“This is how you have lived your life all these years? Forever calculating weaknesses and vulnerabilities in yourself and others?”
“It’s in the blood,” he said.
54
ADELAIDE WALKED THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF THE ACADEMY three hours later. Behind her she heard the hired carriage rumble away down the street. Griffin had concluded that they could not risk using his private carriage or one of his men as a driver.
She wore her customary widow’s attire, a heavily veiled hat, a steel gray gown and a long black cloak. The Burning Lamp was concealed in a canvas bag that she carried in both hands.
A rough-looking young man met her in the front hall. He brandished a gun.
“About time ye got here,” he growled. “Mr. Smith is getting impatient. Already picked out the first girl he’s going to kill, just in case ye need some assurance that he means business.”
She looked at the enforcer’s dreamprints and was not surprised to see the dark energy of his currents. The disturbance in the iridescent tracks was still faint but it was visible. He was a talent of some kind and he had been employing one of Lodge’s crystal devices. The damage had already begun. It would only grow worse over time.
What did surprise her was that the prints were familiar.
“You’re the one who tried to kidnap me at the theater,” she said.
His face crunched in anger. “I would have had you, too, if some bastard hadn’t gotten in my way.”
“That bastard was the Director of the Consortium.”
“Nah. If that were true, I’d have disappeared by now.”
“It’s never too late,” she said. “You may still get the opportunity to disappear. Where is Lodge?”
“Lodge? Who are you talking about?”
“Never mind. Take me to Smith.”
“Upstairs in the schoolroom with the women.” The enforcer snorted, amused. “Bloody hell. Smith said you’d bring the relic but to tell you the truth, I didn’t believe him. You must be a proper fool. Why didn’t you run?”
“I doubt that you would understand.”
“Social reformers.” He shook his head. “You’re all mad.”
She went briskly up the staircase ahead of the armed man, the folds of her long black cloak billowing around her.
A moment later she swept into the schoolroom and stopped just inside the doorway. Miss Wickford, Mrs. Mallory and the students sat, tense and still, in two rows of chairs arranged at the far end of the room. They stared at her, varying degrees of shock and relief on their faces.
Two more young enforcers stood guard over them. One carried a pistol, the other a knife. But the slightly unstable currents of their dreamprints told Adelaide that they were also armed with crystals.
“Has anyone been hurt?” she demanded.
The women silently shook their heads.
Samuel Lodge was at the window. He turned quickly. An unwholesome excitement flared in his eyes and in the atmosphere around him.
“I knew you would come,” he said hoarsely. “After the way you fought to protect the driver of the carriage the other night, I knew that you would not allow even these whores to die if you thought that you could prevent it. Social reformers have no common sense.”
He clutched one of the ruby crystals in one hand. Blood-red light pulsed faintly, seeping between his fingers. His tracks were all over the floor, woven into a restless, agitated pattern that spoke more loudly than words. Lodge was a man on the edge of some psychical abyss.
“You do know that Jones and Jones is even now hunting for you, Mr. Lodge,” she said calmly. “Arcane will stop at nothing to track you down.”
“Once I have acquired the powers of the lamp, Arcane will cease to be a problem.” His gaze went to the canvas bag. “You brought it with you, I assume?”
“Of course.” She placed the bag on one of the desks.
Lodge hurried forward. The crimson stone in his hand brightened a little. Cold energy shivered in the atmosphere. The women in the chairs trembled in response. One girl started to weep silently.
“Take it out of the bag,” Lodge ordered.
“As you wish.” Adelaide opened the sack and removed the lamp. She set it on the desk. “I
admit that I am curious to know what makes you think that you can access the power of the artifact. According to the legend, only a man of the Winters bloodline can handle such a vast amount of psychical stimulation.”
“Or a man who studied the early work of Nicholas Winters and was able to successfully duplicate some of his first crystal experiments.” Lodge touched the lamp, his eyes feverish with excitement.
She sensed more icy energy. The crystal he held pulsed a little hotter. The room got colder.
“Well, that explains how you managed to forge the red focusing crystals,” she said. “How did you obtain one of Nicholas’s notebooks?”
“I discovered it decades ago in the course of my research in the old library at Arcane House. It took me five years to decipher the alchemical code, but once I cracked it I discovered that the secret of creating a crystal that can focus strong energy was astoundingly simple and quite straightforward.”
“Just because you learned one of Nicholas’s secrets does not mean that you will be able to control the energy of the lamp,” she warned.
Lodge grimaced, disgusted. “You are a dreamlight reader. You know nothing of the para-physics involved.”
“I may be a dreamlight reader, but even when I was barely fifteen years old I was able to put you into a very deep sleep.”
He rounded on her, molten fury heating his eyes. “Only because I was forced to expend so much energy getting rid of the brothel keeper.”
“And because you did not anticipate that a woman who could read dreamlight would be able to defend herself against a man of your nature.”
“You will not work your tricks on me a second time. If I sense that you are attempting to use your talent against me I will have my men start killing the whores.”
He meant it, she realized. The women seated in the chairs stiffened with dread.
“There is no need to hurt anyone,” she said, keeping her tone calm and subdued. “I have done as you asked. I have brought the lamp to you. You have certainly been a great mystery until recently, Mr. Lodge. I think most of the questions in this affair have been answered, but there is one that remains.”
“I am not here to answer your questions,” he muttered.
“Nevertheless, it is a question even Jones and Jones has not been able to answer,” she said.
He was clearly flattered.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I know how you found me the first time. You used the genealogical records of the Society. But I don’t know how you found me a few weeks ago, after I returned to England.”
“It was that bastard, Luttrell, who found you, not me. He concluded that someone was targeting his whorehouses. He tracked you down to that charity house in Elm Street and then had someone follow you back to your address in Lexford Square.”
“I see,” she murmured. “Well, Mr. Winters did warn me that if he could find me, Luttrell could also.”
“Luttrell recognized your name. Calling yourself Mrs. Pyne did not fool him for long. He remembered that I had once been willing to pay a fortune for you. He contacted me immediately to see if I was still in the market for a dreamlight reader. As it happened I was in need of a woman possessed of your talent.”
“Why? You did not have the lamp, nor did you know that I had it.”
“A few problems have developed with my focusing crystals.”
She suddenly understood. “Your crystals are based on dreamlight and you have noticed the ill effects they are having on your talent.”
His face tightened. “The difficulties I am having appear to be similar to those Nicholas Winters encountered. I hoped that a strong dreamlight reader could help me adjust the focusing powers of the crystals. I paid Luttrell another fortune for your address and had one of my men follow you to the theater that night. He tried to grab you but Winters got in the way.”
“You knew it was Winters your man had shot?”
“No, not at the time. But Luttrell soon discovered who took you that night. It was then that I understood the full extent of my good fortune.”
“You knew there was only one reason why Griffin Winters would risk his life for me. You realized that he had got hold of the Burning Lamp and needed me to work it for him. You went back to Luttrell because you knew you could not deal with the Director of the Consortium on your own.”
“He agreed to obtain both you and the lamp for me in exchange for a supply of my focusing crystals. I believe the bastard actually thought he could use me as a spy within Arcane. As if I would lower myself to providing information to a man of his sort. Regardless, in the end he failed to carry out his side of the bargain.”
“He is dead because he underestimated Mr. Winters. You are making the same mistake.”
“Once I have acquired the three powers Winters, like Arcane, will no longer be a problem. Let us get on with the business.”
“You want me to work the artifact here? In this room?”
“I have waited long enough for this moment, Adelaide Pyne.”
“Not to be indelicate,” she said, “but what of the physical connection with the dreamlight reader that is said to be required before a man can command the powers of the lamp? Surely you do not intend for us to fornicate here on the floor of the schoolroom in front of an audience?”
Lodge’s face went as red as the crystal he was holding. His outrage would have been humorous in other circumstances. It also struck her as an overreaction. Her intuition gave her a possible reason: He has become impotent in the past fifteen years, she thought. She wondered if it was another side effect of the crystals.
“I have concluded that a sexual encounter will not be necessary after all,” he grated. “All that is needed is for both of us to touch the lamp and each other.”
She had come to a similar conclusion after reading Nicholas’s journal. Her heart sank. Griffin had assumed that Lodge would attempt to bed her before she worked the lamp. It would have meant that, for a time, at least, she and Lodge would have been alone. That prospect had made for a very simple plan. Now things had become considerably more complicated.
“If a sexual connection is not required, why on earth did you go to the trouble of having me sold into a brothel all those years ago?” she asked, trying to buy some time.
“I had not yet mastered all of Nicholas’s secrets at that point,” Lodge replied. “I admit that in those days I still put some credence in that aspect of the legend.”
“What if the energy of the lamp proves too strong for you to control?” she asked.
“That is no longer a risk,” he said. He was shockingly self- confident. “My crystals will enable me to channel whatever energy is infused into the lamp.”
“If all your conclusions are true, why do you still need me? You have the lamp.”
“You stupid woman,” Lodge hissed. “I need you because it is clear from my research that part of the legend is true. Only a woman who can work dreamlight can manipulate the currents of the lamp so that they resonate properly with my own energy patterns.”
“I’m amazed that you would trust me to carry out such a delicate task. One false move on my part and all of your senses might well be permanently shattered.”
Lodge took a deep breath and made a visible effort to regain his control. “I have given orders to my men. If anything goes wrong, Adelaide Pyne, anything at all, your students, their instructor and the charity house social reformer will all die. Is that clear? The lives of all of these women are in your hands.”
She shuddered. “I cannot tell you how relieved I am to know that no contact of an intimate nature between us will be involved.”
“Believe me when I say that you cannot be any more relieved than I am. There is one thing I must know before we begin.”
“Yes?”
“What occurred when you worked the lamp for Griffin Winters?”
“Mr. Winters was not particularly taken with the notion of risking his senses and his sanity. He did not wish to become a Cerberus.
He asked me to employ the lamp to reverse the process. I did as he requested.”
Lodge nodded, satisfied. “Yes, I thought that must have been it.”
“Really? What led you to that conclusion?”
“The fact that Jones and Jones made no effort to kill Winters. The entire Jones family would have taken drastic measures if they had had any reason to believe that Winters was becoming a multitalent. The rumors of such an action would have spread throughout Arcane within hours.”
“Instead, the Joneses will now employ those drastic measures to get rid of you,” she said.
“Don’t you think I made plans for an eventuality such as this? J-and-J believes that I am in Italy. By the time the agency discovers the truth, I will have acquired the powers of the lamp. There will be nothing they can do to stop me. Come, let us get on with the business.”
“Very well,” she said.
Lodge studied the lamp, scowling in concentration. Somewhat gingerly he touched the rim.
“Put your hand on the artifact,” he ordered.
She rested her fingertips lightly on the rim. “Based on my experience with Mr. Winters I can tell you that the first step is for you to light the lamp. Once the energy has been ignited, I can proceed to make it resonate properly with the currents of your own dreamlight patterns.”
“According to my theory, the process of lighting the lamp should be similar to what occurs when I focus energy through my crystals.”
“Except that it requires an extremely powerful talent,” she said.
Lodge shot her a disdainful glance. “I have always been one of the most powerful men in Arcane. But the crystal devices have enhanced my talents beyond those of anyone else in the Society, including the members of the Jones family.”
“You are aware, though, that using the crystals all these years has disturbed your natural energy patterns.”
“A small price to pay considering how the crystals have strengthened my talent.”