Property of a Lady Faire: A Secret Histories Novel

  I looked at her. “How much luck?”

  “Well . . . We would be jumping blind. I’m pretty sure I can arrange for us to materialise in an open space . . .”

  “Hold it!” I said. “I’ve got a better idea! The Merlin Glass! That’s our way in!”

  “Why didn’t you think of that before?” said Molly. “We could have used it back at the Gateway, and avoided this bloody walk!”

  “I got distracted,” I said.

  “Ah,” said Molly. “Of course you did.”

  I eased my free hand through my armoured side, and reached for the hand mirror, but the damned thing avoided my grasp again, refusing to cooperate. Presumably because it didn’t want to be exposed to the cold of Ultima Thule. I could understand that. I chased the Merlin Glass around my pocket for a while, just on general principles, and then gave up. I removed my empty hand, and Molly shook her head sadly.

  “Not again . . .”

  “Once this increasingly infuriating mission is over,” I said, “I am going to have a very firm talk with the Merlin Glass. In fact, once everything’s been sorted out, and I have reestablished communications with my family . . . I think I’ll take the Glass down to the Armoury and let the lab assistants play with it. That should frighten it.”

  “Shall I try my teleport spell now?” Molly said sweetly.

  “How accurate can you be, working blind?” I said. “We don’t want to materialise inside the furniture. Something like that can be very hard to explain.”

  “Trust me,” said Molly. “That hardly ever happens. I have an instinct for these things. If I tap into the existing teleport stream and follow that, we should be perfectly safe.”

  “Should?”

  “Look, do you want the truth, or a comforting lie?”

  “Guess.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine!” said Molly.

  We appeared inside a very small room. So small we were standing face-to-face, surrounded by all kinds of objects pressing in on us.

  “We’re inside a broom closet, aren’t we?” I said.

  “It was the best I could do!” said Molly. “It was the only enclosed space next to the teleport station.”

  “It’s a broom closet!”

  “I know! It was either this or the toilets!”

  I scrabbled along the wall with my free hand, found the light switch, and turned it on. Flat yellow light from a bare hanging bulb illuminated a space just big enough to contain the two of us and assorted cleaning products. I suppose even a Winter Palace needs janitorial staff. I armoured down, and Molly appeared before me. She smiled at me brightly, gave my hand one last squeeze, and reached for the door. I stopped her quickly.

  “Hold it,” I said. “Better check out who’s outside first. Might look a bit odd for the two of us to just walk out of a broom closet.”

  “Not at the Lady Faire’s Ball,” said Molly. “I’ll bet there are all kinds of furtive assignations going on here, in all sorts of places.”

  “I’ll go first,” I said. “Remember, no magics.”

  “Bet I get to the Lazarus Stone before you do,” said Molly.

  “Yell if you do,” I said. “And then I’ll race you to the teleport station.”

  “What if the station’s locked down?” said Molly. “I got us in here, but there’s no guarantee I can get us back to the real world.”

  “One problem at a time,” I said.

  I squeezed past her, eased open the broom closet door, and peered cautiously through the gap. All kinds of people were hurrying past, but they all seemed intent on their own business, and didn’t even glance at the broom closet. And after all, why should they? I looked back at Molly.

  “Okay, I am out of here. Give me a minute, and then it’s your turn. Try not to kill anyone you don’t absolutely have to, there’s a dear.”

  “Teach your grandmother to suck . . .”

  I slipped out into the corridor and closed the door firmly behind me.

  • • •

  The interior of the Winter Palace could have been any first-class, extremely expensive and very elite hotel, anywhere in the world. Lots of wide-open space, richly polished wood, gleaming marble, and deep-pile carpeting. Every conceivable luxury out on display. And well-dressed, very important people hurrying back and forth on their own very important business. No windows anywhere, though. It was comfortably warm, for which I was very grateful. I’d had more than enough of the cold of Ultima Thule. I could feel the last of the bitter chill seeping out of my bones, and out of my soul, as I strode quickly through the wide corridors of the Winter Palace.

  I acted as though I belonged there, as though I had every right to be there, so everyone just assumed I did. It helped that as a field agent, I had been trained to have one of those faces that everyone thinks they half recognise. Just a familiar kind of chap, the kind you see every day, everywhere. I smiled and nodded easily to everyone I passed, and they nodded and smiled easily back. Because that was what you did in places like this. Where everyone was bound to be someone, and you were bound to have met them somewhere before . . . It never occurred to any of them that I might be an outsider, or an intruder, because they knew the only way to get in was through the teleport station. And for that, you needed an invitation.

  There seemed to be a great many corridors, heading off in every direction. There were any number of signs and helpful directions on the walls, in all kinds of languages, but not one pointing to the Ballroom. Maybe the directions were on the invitation . . . I couldn’t just walk up to the reception desk and ask, without giving myself away. And I couldn’t ask any of the guests. So I walked up and down, and back and forth, peering in through all sorts of doors, until it started to feel like I was walking in circles. I stopped, and looked thoughtfully about me.

  In and among the many fine guests, in their formal attire and peacock displays, their designer dresses and fashion abominations, were a lot of people who were quite obviously not guests. They wore formal uniforms, neat and efficient with gleaming buttons, all of them topped with stylised white full-face masks, revealing only the eyes. Security people, hotel staff, all the rank and file you need to keep a place the size of the Winter Palace running smoothly. And all of them coming and going completely unchallenged, because if you were wearing a uniform you must be staff. And no guest would lower himself to notice mere functionaries. I looked the staff over carefully.

  It was easy enough to spot the security people, in their sharp white leather uniforms. Something in the way they moved, in the way they held themselves, suggested they were used to taking care of problems. And the blank white masks had distinct possibilities . . . I was reminded for a moment of the masked blood-red men on the Trans-Siberian Express, but these were all quite definitely different people.

  I picked one at random, followed him at a cautious distance, and watched closely as he reported to the Head of Security. Who fortunately wore much the same uniform and mask as everyone else. Presumably a style thing. I followed the Head of Security through the bustling corridors, and he didn’t even notice, he was so caught up in his own duties and responsibilities and in looking important. He had a bulky comm unit stuck in one ear, and was constantly talking loudly to somebody about something. I waited, choosing my moment carefully, and when he finally made the mistake of pausing in a deserted side corridor, I eased quietly in behind him and seized the back of his neck in a nerve pinch. His head lolled back, his eyes rolled up, and I caught hold of his collapsing body before it hit the floor. I slung one of his arms across my shoulders, and looked quickly around for somewhere handy to dump him. A well-dressed couple paused at the entrance to the side corridor, looking dubiously at me and the Head of Security. I gave them a cheerful smile.

  “I’d give the shellfish a miss, if I were you.”

  The couple moved on. I found a convenient cupboard, hauled the door open, and bundled the unconscious Head of Security inside. There was just room enough in the cupboard for me to join him. I clo
sed the door carefully. I was getting really tired of huddling inside small rooms. I changed clothes with the Head of Security, banging my elbows repeatedly in the confined space. Fortunately the Head was a rather larger person than me, so I could get into the uniform without straining. Though I did have to pull his belt right in to keep my trousers up. The stylised face mask peeled off easily, and slapped itself onto my face the moment I brought it close enough. Some kind of static cling deal. I wished briefly for a mirror. The uniform felt like it was flapping about me, and only fitted where it touched. Hopefully people would pay more attention to the uniform than to the man inside it.

  I stuck the comm unit in my ear, and immediately a rush of overlapping conversations filled my head as everyone tried to talk to me at once, asking why I’d gone quiet for so long. Apparently they were used to being micro-managed. I growled something about maintaining security, and told them all to shut the hell up until I told them they could talk again. Everyone went quiet. Clearly the Head of Security ran a tight ship. I rummaged through my new pockets and came up with a small laminated ID pass, labeled Burke Tallman. I had to smirk. With a name like that, he pretty much had to go into the security business, if only in self-defence. I lowered my voice again, and growled into the comm unit.

  “I want this channel kept clear until further notice, for emergency purposes. No one says anything until I say otherwise. Got it?”

  There was a quick rush of hurried agreements, and then the earpiece went quiet. I shook my head. What kind of security force didn’t even recognise their own Head’s voice? They just assumed it had to be Tallman, because I was speaking on his channel. You’d never get away with that at Drood Hall. Still, it was good to know Tallman’s staff was used to obeying orders they didn’t necessarily understand. I should be able to take advantage of that.

  I stepped out of the cupboard and closed the door carefully behind me. A few people walking down the side corridor looked at me curiously. I glared right back at them, and they hurried past. I went strolling through the corridors of the Winter Palace, and people fell back on all sides to give me plenty of room. No one messes with a Head of Security, be they guests or staff. The odds were that few of them knew Tallman by sight; they were just reacting to the uniform and the attitude. So long as I played the part and barked out orders with confidence, no one short of the Lady Faire was going to challenge me. I stopped the next security man I met, stuck my mask into his, and demanded directions to the Ball. He looked at me hesitantly.

  “But don’t you know? Sir?”

  “Of course I know,” I growled. “I’m just checking that you do! Now give me the directions, and be succinct! And do up those buttons!”

  He quickly did so, then gave me detailed instructions on how to get to the Ballroom. I dismissed him with a look, and he hurried off, not looking back, eager to escape before I decided to quiz him on something he might not know. I smiled behind my mask. And went to the Ball.

  • • •

  The Ballroom of the Winter Palace turned out to be absolutely huge, overwhelmingly impressive, and almost obscenely opulent. It had been fitted out to look like a massive ice cavern, gleaming and shimmering, complete with stalactites hanging down from the arching ceiling and stalagmites rising up from the mirrored floor. Even the various fixtures and fittings gave every appearance of being made from snow and ice. All of it entirely artificial, of course. It might look convincing, but the whole place was more than comfortably warm, from some hidden heating system. And nothing was melting.

  There were long tables with every kind of sophisticated buffet food, and tall towers of champagne glasses, the booze running down them like bubbling waterfalls. What looked like entirely authentic furs had been scattered across the floor, mostly polar bears and pandas. King-sized penguins waddled back and forth like miniature waiters, only revealing themselves to be automatons when they spoke to the guests. And there were guests everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them, crowding the Ballroom and filling it from wall to wall. Who knew the Lady Faire had . . . got about so much? I moved easily among the packed guests, and no one challenged my right to be there. Just having the Head of Security present made everyone feel that much safer, and protected.

  It was hard to believe one person could have had this many lovers in one lifetime. Even if she wasn’t, strictly speaking, a person at all, being a ladything. There were men and women, gods and monsters, and at least three aliens. Plus a whole bunch of famous names and faces, from all across the world. Politicians and celebrities, movers and shakers, and not a few Names that wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone outside the hidden world. If they really were all past lovers of the Lady Faire, she must have been very busy down her extended lifetime.

  Everyone seemed to be getting on well enough, chatting politely and even pleasantly with one another. Drinking fine wines and comparing party nibbles, acquired absently from waiters and waitresses carrying them around on silver platters. The waiters looked like butlers, and the waitresses looked like French maids.

  The Ball boasted a wide and varied selection of Very Important Personages, who would have been at each other’s throats anywhere else. But they all came together companionably enough to discuss the one thing they had in common. Their memories of the Lady Faire.

  Music came from a small orchestra on a raised stage at the far end of the Ballroom. Fronted by a French singing sensation so famous even I’d heard of her—the inimitable Rossignol. She was singing some obscure French torch song, leaning heavily on the vowels and hitting the r sounds for all they were worth when I entered. But she broke off abruptly as a member of the hotel staff hurried onto the raised stage and murmured in her ear. She had a quick conference with the musicians, and then they launched into the old Petula Clark hit “Downtown.” Followed by “Always Something There to Remind Me.” Either it was Sixties Night at the Winter Palace or these were some of the Lady Faire’s favourites. Nothing comforts an old soul like the popular music of one’s youth. I knew the songs because Uncle Jack was always playing Sixties compilations in the Armoury.

  I moved off to one side and put my back to a wall, the better to observe the guests. Some of them I knew immediately, because they knew me. As Shaman Bond, or Eddie Drood, or both.

  Dead Boy was there, of course, imposing his appalling personality on anyone foolish enough to come within reach and not run away fast enough. He lurked beside a much-depleted buffet table, standing tall and Byronically dissolute in his deep purple greatcoat, with the usual black rose at the lapel. He always left the greatcoat hanging open at the front, so he could show off his autopsy scar. Apparently he saw it as a conversation piece.

  For a returned soul possessing his own dead body, Dead Boy was a cheerful enough sort. And for a quite definitely deceased person, he was putting away a hell of a lot of party food, stuffing his mouth with one hand, and stuffing his coat pockets with the other, for later. A waitress passed by, bearing a tray of champagne glasses. Dead Boy took the tray away from her and drank the lot, one glass at a time.

  Not far enough away, the Vodyanoi Brothers were putting on their usual obnoxious show. Two very large Russian gentlemen, in matching expensive black leather jackets and trousers, with shaven heads and nasty grins. Kicked out of the Moscow Mafiosi, for crimes far too unpleasant to discuss in civilised company, they travelled the world, hiring themselves out as shock troops and enforcers. They were werewolves, and complete arseholes. People stared at them in open disgust and repulsion, as the Vodyanoi Brothers did their best to command everyone’s attention.

  “Greetings, everybody!” said Gregor, the older brother. “We are being Vodyanoi Brothers! Pirates and adventurers, and very dangerous people! Oh yes! Show them how dangerous, Sergei!”

  The younger Vodyanoi Brother turned abruptly into a huge humanoid wolf, with silver grey fur and massive muscles bulging under his thick pelt. Guests fell back, coughing at the sudden rank, musky scent on the air. The wolf grinned widely, the better to show off his vic
ious yellow fangs.

  “Highly dangerous, I think you will agree!” said Gregor, smiling a smile with no humour in it at all.

  None of the other guests seemed particularly impressed. It took more than a simple shape-change to impress someone who’d slept with a ladything. Most of the guests’ expressions suggested that the Lady Faire must really have been slumming it when she lowered herself to sleep with those two. Or at the very least, in the mood for some seriously rough trade. Sergei noticed that being a really big wolf just wasn’t cutting it, and so he shrank back to human shape again. He glared sullenly about him, and then spotted Dead Boy.

  He strode right up to Dead Boy, and started to say something aggressive, only to break off as Dead Boy grabbed him by the throat with one pale hand, pulled him close till they were face-to-face, and then bit off Sergei’s nose. The werewolf howled, struggled free of Dead Boy’s grip, and fell back several steps, both hands clasped over the part of his face where his nose used to be. Blood pumped thickly between his fingers. Dead Boy chewed carefully, considering the taste, and then smiled slowly. Sergei regarded him with wide eyes, and then lowered his hands to reveal a regrown nose. Dead Boy looked at him thoughtfully, and Sergei ran back to his big brother. Gregor growled at Dead Boy, who smiled happily back.

  “I love Russian food!” he said loudly.

  The Vodyanoi Brothers huddled together, and then fell back, disappearing into the crowd. Dead Boy picked something out of his teeth. I didn’t stay to see what. I moved on before he could spot me.

  Jimmy Thunder, God for Hire, was trying to impress an elven princess with the size of his hammer, Mjolnir, and getting nowhere. Jimmy was a genuine descendent of the old Norse Gods, at a great many removes and on the wrong side of many blankets. A huge figure, with a great mane and beard of fiery red hair, he had a voice so low it seemed to rumble up from somewhere deep in his chest. He wore much-used biker leathers, with gleaming steel studs and hanging chains, and heavy boots with steel toe-caps. He had a chest like a barrel, and shoulders so broad he often had to turn sideways to get through a door. The elven princess turned up her nose at him and stalked away, and Jimmy fastened Mjolnir back on his belt. Just as well. The hammer had been a famous weapon in its day, but it was well past its prime now, and getting senile. Word was, Jimmy never threw the hammer any more, because he couldn’t be sure it would remember who it was supposed to come back to.