The Ripper Affair (Bannon and Clare)

  It was small comfort that her opponent had, as well.

  Mikal paused, making certain the storm was past, then turned to glance down Whitehell Road. There was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing: clockhorse hooves and excited voices through the rapidly greying fog. “What next?”

  She took stock. She simply hated to be so dishevelled, but there was no help for it, and a few cleansing-charms would waste what limited strength of hers remained.

  “Next,” she said grimly, “we find Clare. And Aberline.” She took advantage of the moment to tuck a few more curls away under her veil, and blinked away fresh, welling hot salt water.

  “That sounds too easy.”

  Indeed it does. “It is only a first step, Mikal.”

  “And then?”

  “Then,” she continued, setting her chin and taking an experimental step, her heeled boot catching and grinding on broken tiles, “we return home to repair ourselves. Afterwards, I avail myself of every means necessary to track down this mad Prime and halt his insanity. I must confess, Shield, that I am more than peeved.” She took another step, leaning on his arm, and found she could walk. “I am downright vexed.”

  “Heaven save us all,” he muttered, and she let it pass, leashing her temper tightly.

  This mad Prime, whoever he was, had finally managed to anger her. She would teach him the error of such provocation soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In Sorcery, As In Science

  Clare wrapped his hands around the thick, glazed mug of fragrant tea. It was not a mannerly attitude to take, but he found he required the heat and the support to brace his shaking fingers. The ripples in the surface of the liquid could be blamed on the tension outside–and inside–Inspector Aberline’s office.

  Young Pico had settled himself, one hip on Aberline’s desk, and was glowering fiercely at him. “She’ll have my hide,” he kept muttering, between inspecting the sleeves of his torn jacket and his similarly injured waistcoat, at great length.

  Clare affected not to hear him, though he had been immensely glad to be found by the rufous lad, who bore all the marks of a rough passage through Whitchapel’s burning riots. The entire Eastron End was still heaving with unrest, the Metropoleans simply standing at every major ingress and egress to keep the disorder from spilling out. As soon as dawn was fully risen, no doubt the Crown would send Guard and sorcerers to quell whatever unrest remained, no doubt with a bludgeon or two to sweetly kiss the pates of anyone whose excitable nerves failed to settle.

  Fortunately, the riots did not seem to have been directed at the Yudics, despite the simmering in the more irresponsible dreadfuls and broadsheets. Clare was of the opinion that such uncivilised things as “pogroms” did not belong upon the Isle; however, uncivilised behaviours were piling upon his Englene with distressing regularity at the moment.

  It was probably best not to engage upon that line of thought, though.

  Inspector Aberline had left them to their own devices after calling for tea, and Clare was glad to be so neglected. For one thing, once Clare gave his report, he rather doubted Aberline would still be attached to the investigation of this affair, between Miss Bannon’s dislike of his person and the rather dangerous complexion Clare’s experience put on the whole chain of events. For another, Clare was bearing in mind–cowardly as it was to have such a consideration–that Miss Bannon, despite their differences, was far from the worst ally to have when faced with something of this nature.

  He all but shuddered, thinking of the wet, crunching sounds and the creature’s horrid, uncanny speed. Its… irrationality.

  Aberline had been gone more than a quarter of an hour, yet the trembling in Clare’s hands refused to settle. The Yard was alive with hurrying and excitement, but it was oddly peaceful in this half-buried room.

  A mannerly knock, and the door was flung open with quite unnecessary force. In stalked an incredibly dishevelled Miss Bannon. Her colour was dreadful, her skirts were tattered and crusted with blood, ombre petticoats underneath likewise rudely treated, and her veil torn. Her hair was a tumble-mess of dark curls, and despite Tideturn’s recent occurrence, her jewellery did not spark as it usually did when she cared to appear in high dudgeon. She was also coated with a peculiar pink dust Clare’s faculties identified as from broken roof tiles.

  Mikal, at her shoulder, was hardly in better form. His velvet coat was sadly misused, and the sight of flushed, newly healed knife-marks on his belly might have fascinated Clare had he not seen the knife and extra-jointed appendages responsible for such damage very recently. The Shield was coated in roof-tile dust as well, but underneath it was a layer of straw, dirt, and foul-smelling remainders of the organic sludge coating Whitchapel’s floor.

  Another shudder worked through Clare. His gaze held Miss Bannon’s for a short while that conversely seemed an eternity, and he was comforted to find he did not have to speak for her expression to change, as she instantly compassed–or deduced–some measure of events befalling him since his leaving Mayefair.

  She swayed, and Clare might have thought his own appearance was such as to discommode her. Mikal stepped forward, she took his arm with alacrity, and Clare realised the blood on her skirts had to be her own.

  He had already gained his feet. So had Pico, who was first off the mark.

  “It ent as bad as it looks, mum.” Did the lad actually sound abashed?

  “I certainly hope not.” Her tone was dry, and an immense relief. “Whitchapel?”

  “Limhoss first.” Pico shrugged when Clare glanced at him. “Not like she wouldn’t guess, squire.”

  “Ah.” She leaned heavily on Mikal’s arm. The Shield swept the door closed with a curious hooking motion of his foot, and the slam reverberated. “Aberline’s habits have not changed. Is that tea?”

  Pico hurried to the service, and her gaze returned to Clare’s. They studied each other for a long moment, again.

  “Good morning, Clare. Your arm…?” Even her lips were pale, and her childish mouth had lost its usual determined set.

  “Yes, ah–good morning, yes. A whip.” Another shudder worked through him, he denied it. “The creature is deuced unnatural.”

  “Ah.” She nodded, slightly, and Clare remembered his manners. He motioned her towards the huge leather chair. “It has been rather a trying night for both of us, it seems. Please, take the chair.”

  She chose instead the overstuffed hassock, and sank down with a slight grimace. Iron-straight, as usual–but something in the set of her shoulders told Clare she remained upright through will alone. He had rarely seen her in such a state before.

  Pico brought her another thick glazed mug of tea. “No cream, mum.”

  “It shall suffice, thank you. Have you had breakfast, Philip?”

  “No mum. Wasn’t time. Shall I?”

  “See what you can find us; I declare I could eat an entire barrowful of pasty, no matter how rancid.” She nodded, then turned her attention to Clare as Mikal handed the lad the requisite funds. “Did you find Aberline’s method of seeking connexions between crime and criminal enlightening?”

  “Was that what he was about?” The faint, poppy-hazed memory of Aberline’s lips moving, quite strangely, rose before him. “I confess I was rather busy with my own reflections at the time.”

  The door closed behind Pico, and Miss Bannon shut her eyes, inhaling the steam from her cup. She really was quite awfully pallid. Yet her dark gaze was as disconcertingly direct as ever when she reopened her lids. “I am about to tell you something which cannot leave this room, Archibald.”

  “I shall be discreet,” he returned, a trifle stiffly.

  “I do trust you shall, and yet I must make absolutely certain you understand the gravity of what I am about to say.” She inhaled deeply, for all the world as if steeling herself. “I believe we are facing a mad sorcerer.”

  “Again?” He could not help himself.

  She acknowledged the sally with a tiny, wan smile. “Who has m
anaged to find a means of creating a new genius of rule, draining the resources of Britannia in order to do so. He means to supplant the ruling spirit of Englene, Archibald.”

  He dropped into the chair. Its stuffing groaned in protest, and lukewarm tea slopped out of the rather rustic mug. He frankly stared, and Miss Bannon was too busy gazing into her own mug to notice.

  Mikal, near the door, was a statue with burning yellow irises.

  “And I very much think,” she continued, after taking a prim sip and grimacing slightly at the harshness of the reboiled tea, “that he has quite a chance of succeeding.”

  Whatever reply Clare might have uttered was lost in Mikal’s murmured warning. The Shield moved aside, the door opened with far less force this time, and Inspector Aberline hurried through, his jacket as torn as Pico’s but his sturdy shoes in much better order than they should have been.

  He noticed the two new occupants of his office and stopped short, his greeting dying somewhere in the region of his throat.

  “Dear God,” the inspector said. “You two look dreadful.”

  Clare expected Miss Bannon to give the inspector short shrift. Instead, she surprised both of them by giving Aberline the same news, preceded by the same dire warning of secrecy.

  His reaction was no less marked than Clare’s own. The man actually staggered; Mikal was at his shoulder in a heartbeat, holding him up.

  Miss Bannon took another sip of tea. “Take him to his desk, Mikal. The inspector thinks better in familiar surroundings.”

  It was, Clare supposed, rather a mark of Aberline’s intelligence that he did not waste time on superfluous questions or doubt. Instead, he settled himself behind his desk rather creakily, as if afflicted by old age. Mikal glided to the tea service, and poured two more mugs.

  Apparently the Shield required a cuppa for bracing as well.

  “This is extremely grave,” Miss Bannon continued. “If it becomes public knowledge–or even not-so-public knowledge–every sorcerer with enough ambition and corresponding lack of scruple shall attempt such a thing.”

  “How many, precisely, would that be?” Clare’s hands had steadied. “I am not attempting any merriment,” he added hurriedly. “I am very curious.”

  Miss Bannon’s weary shrug made her ripped veil tremble. She had tucked it aside, and her red-rimmed eyes seemed to be troubling her as they often did. “All it takes is one among sorcery’s children, in any country possessing a spirit of rule, to cause chaos. Strife will inevitably follow, and competing spirits may well tear the map of Europa asunder. Who knows what may happen in Chinois or the Indus? The New World may be safe enough, but the method of creating such a spirit can no doubt be adapted. In sorcery, as in science, the mere knowledge that such a thing is possible means sufficient determination will find a way.”

  “Bloody sorcerers,” Aberline muttered.

  “Quite.” Miss Bannon’s soft tone did not alter. “No doubt you are lucky to not be among their number, Inspector.”

  Aberline’s response was even more interesting. His throat and cheeks turned an ugly brick red. “And curse you too, you foul-skirted little—”

  “Inspector!” Clare had not meant to say it loudly. Nor had he meant to leap to his feet, whereupon he slopped lukewarm tea out of its mug again. “Mind yourself, sir!”

  Silence filled the office. Miss Bannon sighed, and slumped wearily. To see her posture crumble was shocking enough, but to see Mikal’s reaction–he dug his fingers into her delicate shoulder cruelly, hawk’s talons on a small soft piece of prey–was simply dreadful.

  She straightened, and took another mannerly sip of tea. “Much as I would dearly like to hold an accounting with you, Aberline, it serves much better to use your particular talents–including those you wish you possessed more than a pittance of–otherwise.”

  “And who are you serving?” Aberline’s colour had not faded. “Any sorcerer could do this, you say—”

  “It requires a Prime, not that such a distinction matters to you. Nevertheless, I shall overlook your rather base and certainly groundless accusation. I could retreat behind my walls and let this affair take its course. Indeed, I am rather tempted to. It does not matter to me, sir. To be perfectly frank, neither do you.”

  “Likewise,” Aberline managed, in a choked whisper.

  “Then we understand each other.” Miss Bannon did not look at him. She studied her tea as if it held a secret, and Clare began to feel faintly ridiculous, but unwilling to sink back into the chair. His foot had stopped throbbing, and he realised with a certain relief that he was finally free of the poppy’s effects.

  Make a note, Clare. It lingers for hours. Acceptable in some cases, but not in all. His faculties shivered inside his skull, and the irrationality of the creature in Mytre Square receded into a mental drawer for further study later, if necessary.

  His straightening and throat-clearing focused every gaze in the room upon him. “Such discussions do nothing to impede this madman,” he observed. “Miss Bannon, it appears you have a plan, or at least the glimmerings of one. Be so kind as to tell us our parts.”

  “And you will perform them without question or qualm?” The words quite lacked her accustomed crispness. She sounded rather as if she doubted the notion.

  “Yes,” Clare said, immediately. “And so will the good inspector, and I do not even have to wonder upon your Shield’s willingness. Each of us in this room is a loyal subject of Britannia. Besides, this affair is an affront to public order. One simply cannot have this… thing… running about, murdering as it pleases.”

  “And yet women die every night, in the Eastron End and elsewhere, under the lash and the knife.” Miss Bannon shook her head. “Forgive me, Clare. I am weary enough to be unnecessarily philosophical.”

  A curious tightness had built in his chest, as if he were suffering the angina again. “That is beyond my purview.” Stiffly, as if he were in the courtroom again, Valentinelli a silent presence in the crowd. “But at least we may halt this particular killer. I saw it–this spirit, I presume, that would replace Britannia–feasting upon the body of its victim, rather as would an animal.”

  A peculiar look drifted over Miss Bannon’s dirt-smudged, childlike, tear-streaked face. “Not so surprising… do sit, Archibald, and tell me everything.”

  “Glove, or Recall?” It was an old jest, and her shadow of a smile rewarded him. “I suggest we repair to our homes, Miss Bannon, and that you lift your ban upon Inspector Aberline at your dinner table. This rather has the earmarks of an extraordinary situation, and I assure you, for the moment Mr Finch is the last thing on Inspector Aberline’s capacious mind.”

  Aberline made a strangled sound, but his assent was clear.

  Miss Bannon studied Clare, over the rim of her mug.

  He suppressed the urge to cajole, settled instead for bare, dry fact. “We could all certainly use a spot of rest; we shall no doubt perform our parts better for it.” He paused, but she still wore that extraordinary expression. Thoughtful, certainly, her eyebrows arched and her head tilted slightly, bright interest in her gaze and her weariness put aside for the moment. “And we may discuss our next moves at your excellent table, where we are unlikely to be overheard or disturbed. It is the logical path to take.”

  “I am convinced, sir.” She handed her mug to Mikal, who had turned loose her shoulder and hooded his yellow eyes, whether from exhaustion or displeasure was difficult to measure. “Inspector. Present yourself at my door at half past five; I dine early and I believe we should discuss some aspects of this affair privately before we do so. The moment you treat Geoffrey Finch with anything less than complete courtesy, I shall learn the look of your blood.” She rose, arranging her torn skirts as smartly as possible. “Mikal? Two hansoms, please, engage one to wait upon Clare and Philip. Good morning, Inspector, and I wish you luck with clearing up this mess. Should you need to, invoke my name with Waring and he will prove slightly more amenable; I have already prepared the ground for you in t
hat regard.”

  Her timing, as usual, was impeccable, for at that moment Philip Pico flung the door wide without bothering to knock.

  He was loaded down with a burlap sack full of bulges Clare’s fastidious nose identified as sausage and cheese, filched from Heaven alone knew where. “Had a spot of luck, I did. You’ll have to use your own knife on the bangers, sir and madam–ah. We’re leaving, then?”

  “Quite.” She had retreated into her shell of calm precision, and swept towards Pico in the manner of a frigate swooping upon its prey. “Half past five, Inspector.”

  The lad hurried aside, Mikal shut the door behind his mistress, and Aberline let loose an oath Clare chose to ignore as Philip Pico’s eyebrows nested in his hairline.

  “And you feel emboldened to make a promise upon my behaviour, sir?” The good inspector was outright fuming, and had gained his feet with a speed that was, considering the night’s events, quite astonishing. “Why, I’ve a mind to—”

  “You use the poppy in the manner the Grecque oracles used laurel fumes, to amplify your small sorcerous talent in some manner.” Clare nodded. “Quite interesting. I must confess I was not taking notes, but Memory will serve me when I have a few moments to gather myself. Such a thing is not quite legal, sir.”

  The strength visibly left Aberline’s legs. He sat down again, heavily, and the choler had fled his cheeks.

  “I have,” Clare continued, “been acquainted with Miss Bannon for a very long time, despite certain… variances… in our natures. On one point, however, we are emphatically not at variance, and that is in our service to what I would once have called Crown and Empire, but am now forced to name a very odd brand of Justice.” He realised he was pontificating, cleared his throat again. The tea was dreadful, and cold now to boot. “I have noted that the lady in question does not, as a matter of habit, overstate her case. Quite the opposite. I believe we are facing a threat to the very foundations of Britannia, and you, sir, are a loyal son of the Isle. It is your duty to be pleasant and forthcoming while pursuing this matter under Miss Bannon’s direction, and should it become necessary, sir, we shall settle like gentlemen after its conclusion.” He fixed the inspector with what he hoped was a steely, quelling look. “I would be quite happy to meet you.”