The Undying Legion Read online

  The glare from a bull’s-eye lantern set between the handles controlling the front wheel of the steamcycle illuminated the narrow lane far ahead as the vehicle rumbled along. The fire roaring from the motor on the rear created a hellish glow as red cinders flew from the motor. Penny Carter sat straight astride the machine she had designed and built, grinning in the cold wind. Kate gripped tight to the rim of the small sidecarriage, not out of fear but anticipation of the evening’s work and beyond. Her mind already raced with possibilities, going over alchemical formulas and additives in her head.

  Kate pointed right to a narrow turnoff. Penny maneuvered the bulky, two-wheeled vehicle down the path and under a wrought-iron gate above which were fashioned letters spelling out Primrose Gardens. Though there were no sweet flowers in this garden. Only dried husks placed at the base of small, stone monuments. The cemetery was overgrown with rampant ivy and tall, desiccated stalks of grass. The deeper they drove, the more recent the stones appeared. Then the smell of newly turned earth reached their nostrils. Six plots, all fresh. Two large, four small. The ground was blanketed with a heavy mist that rolled slowly across the sorrowful sight.

  Kate’s heart tightened. She had heard of the tragedy on a nearby estate. One of the tenant families had perished in a fire, their house consumed in the dead of night before any could escape. The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate the grey stones gathered about them in the shadowy recesses, but they kept the lantern shining on the recent plots. In the beam, loamy white mushrooms covered the dark mounds of earth like small spirits dancing on the graves. Penny shut off the engine of the cycle and Kate climbed awkwardly from the small compartment.

  Penny threw a leg over the padded saddle of the vehicle. She was covered in mud from head to toe. In her current state and with her heavy leather pants and jacket, it was easy to think this was a man. However, Penny was a lovely young woman in her early twenties. Never as striking as Kate but with a carefree attitude that Kate often envied. Penny’s dirty blond hair had been tied down at the beginning of the trip but had escaped and run amok.

  “We’re in luck,” Kate said, and instantly felt a sting of regret that she could even for a moment think of these fresh graves as a boon. But they were. She reached back for a hemp satchel to carry her harvest. She watched Penny draw her coat collar tighter about her in the chilled air. “Cold?”

  “I work in front of a hot forge all day. It’s a bit nippy.” Penny laughed and pointed at the odd fungi. “So we just pick them?”

  “Yes. Exciting work, isn’t it?”

  “It could always be more exciting,” the engineer replied with a grin.

  “Simon wrote to you for silver armaments in case we have to …” Kate let her words trail off.

  “Yes. A note from Simon Archer is usually the beginning of an adventure of some sort. Luckily I had a few things left over from our to-do with Gretta. I’ll run up a few more tomorrow or the next day when I go back to London.”

  “Well, I’m glad you arrived at Hartley Hall today. Thank you for coming with me tonight. Simon was engrossed in his William Blake poetry, so I didn’t want to disturb him. He has so many tasks to accomplish. Not only is he looking into this murder in London, but he is still trying to figure out the key.”

  “Yes,” said Penny. “I’ve been looking at that too. Your father was an incredible engineer, I can tell you. That key he built with Simon’s father is a beautiful piece of work.”

  “And you and Simon have no idea how it works?”

  “Not a bit. But once we do, they claim we’ll have a device that will transport someone anywhere in the world instantly. That’s pretty keen.”

  Kate looked a bit crestfallen. “Then I’m sorry to drag you away from your work too.”

  “Oh please. You and I haven’t gotten to spend much time together, so when you offered late-night botanizing in a graveyard”—Penny jerked a thumb at her chest—“I’m your girl!”

  “You really enjoy all this, don’t you?” Kate knelt on the ground at the first grave, placing a hand of respect on the dirt. Then she focused on cutting the stems of the fungi known as ghostblooms.

  “Mushrooms?”

  “The danger. The running and shooting.”

  Penny shrugged. “It’s not boring. I love making things, but I do like seeing them used out in the field too. Nothing gives me more pleasure than the boom of a gun I built.”

  Kate chuckled at the young woman’s enthusiasm. “I can understand that.”

  Penny took one of the cut mushrooms and studied it. “Will this help our little werewolf?”

  “Yes. I hope. I’ll have to experiment a bit on the potency and the method. But it should help her manage her transformations and be more true to herself. Charlotte has a kind heart, we just need to allow her to follow it.”

  “Without the hairy side getting in the way.”

  “Exactly. I can’t seem to fix Imogen yet, but I at least I know how to help Charlotte.” Kate sliced roughly through a small mushroom, wielding her knife in mounting frustration.

  Penny knelt next to her and laid a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “You’ll find a way to do both. But not if you lop off a finger.”

  Kate’s frantic cutting stilled and she looked up, her gaze softening. “I wish I had your conviction. Every second Imogen is in that horrible form, the further she slips from me. She seems to hate me because I kept her alive on that table at Bedlam. All she does is sit and listen to that hellish recording of her voice hour after hour.”

  “It’s only been a couple of months. I hate to tell you but you may have a long path ahead of you.” Penny took a deep breath and added, “Kate, my brother Charles wasn’t born lame you know. He looked the wrong way crossing Oxford Street. That was all it took, a second. A carriage hit him. He almost died. He wanted to just quit, claimed he had nothing more to live for. Which was rot! It took all I had to convince him to keep going.” Penny’s blue eyes bore into Kate’s, glistening with memory but not with tears. “I had a plan, you see. While Charles lay on his sickbed and Mama cried herself to sleep, I stayed awake at night in the attic, welding metal struts, running out into the alley for any parts I could salvage. I even purloined a few things, whatever I had to.”

  “You made Charles’s auto-motive chair.”

  Penny nodded sharply. Her lips pressed tight together. She tucked a lock of her hair roughly into the strap of her goggles. “Things changed for him then. He saw a future suddenly and he took it.”

  “He was lucky to have you as a sister.”

  “I’d say the same for you and Imogen. You’ll make it happen, Kate. I mean, my God, you’re bloody brilliant.”

  Kate gave a low snort. “If I’m so bloody brilliant, why can’t I help her? Everyone seems to be helping her but me. Even Aethelred hardly leaves her side, sleeps outside her room as if he can sense she’s so afraid of the dark he might be needed to comfort her at any second. Meanwhile, I flail in my laboratory. I’m able to make all sorts of potions, and I hardly think about them. I even made Greek fire one night when I hit a blind alley with Imogen, but I’d trade it all for even a small clue as to how to fix my sister.”

  “You will. Wait. Did you say Greek fire?” Penny tilted her head in astonishment. “Actual Greek fire? You seem rather blasé about it.”

  “Some form of it.” Kate’s expression turned hard as they moved to the next mound. “I find myself thinking more and more of weapons. Instead of elixirs to heal or potions to protect, I want to make fire that never stops burning.”

  “That should come in handy.”

  Kate stood. “When it’s ready, it will burn the Devil himself.”

  Penny gave an admiring shake of her head. “So where did you learn your alchemy? Are there schools for that?”

  “There are, of a sort, but they’re all in dismal spots run by decrepit old alchemists half-mad from mercury poisoning.”

  “So Oxford then?”

  Kate laughed. “Not quite. I’m self-taught most
ly. You may not have noticed, but I’m not the most normal woman on the social register. Prior to Simon’s wrenching me out of my laboratory, I was content to spend most of my time staring at beakers and studying plants.”

  “You taught yourself all those marvelous things you create?”

  “Through trial and much error. And, honestly, my father had nearly unlimited resources so I don’t pretend to be any sort of romance heroine who struggles to feed her children while studying to become a nurse. I started with many benefits.” Kate’s smile was warm and genuine. “What about you? Is you’re engineering self-taught?”

  “I wish. I’m not like you. Ever hear of the Maddy Boys?”

  Kate shook her head.

  Penny arched a disappointed eyebrow. “They are a wild bunch of engineers and scientists at Cambridge. Britain’s finest. Being a woman, I couldn’t go to school, but our mother worked for a dear man named Professor Westgate, a scientist at Cambridge. He always thought Charles would rise in the world, but Charles had no scientific desires; he only wanted to help me because I had always been a tinkerer. Charles begged him to put me in touch with the Maddy Boys.”

  “So they accepted a woman?”

  “Not officially, but there were a few women who worked with them, in secret.” Penny’s chest puffed out in pride. “Just because we’re not allowed doesn’t mean we don’t. Right?”

  Kate grinned. “Right.”

  Penny returned the expression. “I stayed at Cambridge for near three years. Wrote home to Charles every day. At Christmas, I’d bring him some of the smaller things I made. That gave Charles the idea to start up our shop. His business sense was very astute. We were an instant success. Respectable gentlemen brought their family heirlooms for repair, and their equally respectable wives came to coo over adorable Charles and purchase his wonderful toys for their children.”

  “All made by you though.”

  Penny shrugged with humility. “We also got a reputation for crafting rare devices. And we acquired patrons of a unique nature such as Simon and Malcolm. If it weren’t for that shop, we would have been on the streets. I haven’t been able to make Charles walk, yet.” Penny grinned with a maker’s fire. “But he’s never been more alive and determined because he has hope. It will be the same for Imogen. She’ll find a way back to you.” Penny held open the hemp bag for Kate.

  For the first time in a long while, Kate felt rejuvenated. Her tread was lighter and her quick cuts at the ghostbloom stems weren’t from anger but with promise. The last ones were placed in the bag and the two women rose, dusting the dirt from their clothes. That’s when Kate noticed one of the surrounding shadows shift. Then another.

  “We have company,” she told Penny. Kate calmly undid one button on her jacket to reveal a military bandolier underneath that held an assortment of crystal vials. She plucked one out and held it tight in her hand. Penny quickly pulled a pistol.

  Inhuman yellow eyes stared through the veil of night. Seven dark shapes rose on animal hind legs so that they stood over eight feet tall. Their fur was matted and filthy. The low rumble of angry snarls and discontented grunting permeated the graveyard. They twitched and shuddered like opium eaters deprived of their lotus. Their features were wild with hunger and rage. They spread out around the two women.

  The largest of them stalked forward, its fur as dark as the night. “Where is she?” it ground out in a barely intelligible growl.

  Kate pulled another vial from her bandolier. “Where is who?”

  “The little one who betrayed us.” Bestial eyes darted left and right. “The one who fought against us.”

  Realization dawned on Kate. They were talking about Charlotte. This was a remnant of Gretta’s old pack, or what was left of them after Malcolm’s merciless hunting.

  “I don’t know who you mean.”

  “Give her to us.” The great nostrils flared. “I can smell her on you.”

  “If that’s the case, you should also smell my steadfast determination to oblige you nothing.”

  Penny stepped up behind Kate so their shoulders were near to touching, covering Kate’s back, her weapon trained on the other hulking shapes lurching through the tombstones.

  The black beast’s whole body twitched with a violent spasm, either rage or a seizure. The others in the pack whined, fighting off their own muscular tremors, and the leader growled at them until their complaining ceased. Then the dark werewolf’s molten gaze found Kate again.

  “This is your death sentence,” it snarled.

  “Or yours.” Kate flung a vial toward the leader. The glass shattered at its feet and it tried to run, but a gush of black liquid spread over the ground, also catching another of the pack that stood close. The black treacle held them fast, matting their fur with a glistening sheen.

  Penny shot a werewolf that leapt at her over a crooked monument. It tumbled dead to the ground.

  “Switch,” Kate shouted.

  Penny swapped places with her. Not needing to reload as her pistol was a small prototype of Malcolm’s quad-barrel Lancasters, her second shot took another werewolf in midbound.

  Kate tossed her second vial to a werewolf on her left. The vial smashed against its chest, a gaseous cloud settled on the beast, and it fell gasping on the ground, where Penny shot it. The pack broke apart in the confusion of the onslaught.

  Kate drew her other weapons. With a swift motion, a pistol swung to a werewolf rushing her and a lead ball struck it in the chest. It shuddered and swerved away, dropping to all fours in an effort to get past her. In her other hand flashed a steel blade and she stabbed deep with her short sword, slipping in between the ribs straight to the heart. It collapsed atop a grave.

  Penny’s hand now held a small silver sphere about the size of a cricket ball and she threw it straight into another werewolf. The ball exploded and silver dust draped over the beast, who howled and flung itself backward, clawed hands slapping its burning flesh.

  Penny stepped boldly forward and took aim at a crouching werewolf. The bullet shattered the tombstone beside its skull. Yellow eyes flashed in fear and it scrambled aside wildly before springing toward the young woman. It was twice her height. Wide claws extended, ready to rip into her. Penny didn’t flinch; she stood steady as stone against the charge and fired directly into the animal’s face. A shorn-off fang flew into the air, indicating a headshot. Penny tried to get out of the way as the beast fell to the ground and, carried by its momentum, rolled madly toward her. Kate grabbed Penny’s arm and yanked her aside as the monster tumbled past. The engineer came up on one knee, already breaking her pistol at the breech to reload.

  The leader, the last of the pack, wrenched free from the mire of tar and roared. Gathering itself, the werewolf barreled toward Kate. She turned with her bloody sword, tossing her spent pistol aside, auburn hair falling a bit over her face, eyes darting toward the beast. She threw a final vial. A hairy hand slapped the vial out of the air in an attempt to deflect it, but it smashed from the impact, spewing toxic gas. The monster held his breath and came on. Kate dodged a swipe of his massive clawed hand and shoved her sword into his shaggy breast. This enraged the maddened creature. Penny suddenly stepped up beside Kate and emptied her pistol into the great beast. The werewolf shuddered just as it was lunging one last time for Kate, and fell. Its great head flopped to the ground, its massive canines, each six inches long, drove into the dirt.

  Kate stood, chest heaving, waiting for new attacks. There were none, merely dead and quivering beasts lying around them. She brushed the hair from her eyes and glanced at Penny, who was turning in a slow circle with her pistol extended.

  Kate asked, “Are you loaded with silver shot?”

  “Damn right. We found too many werewolves a few months ago for me to go about without some killing silver on me ever again.”

  Kate pointed at the small four-barreled pistol that Penny carried. “Perhaps we should all have those as well.”

  “No. They’re temperamental. If you don’t ha
ndle them just right, they’ll blow up in your face. That’s why Malcolm is always fiddling with his.” Penny jammed the pistol in her holster. “However, when I get the chance, I can fix you up with cartridges so you don’t have to worry about reloading with powder and ball. Faster and more reliable.”

  “Always prepared. Just like an engineer. Just like father.” Kate dropped to her knee and wiped a sleeve across her perspiring forehead. “What were you saying about how it could always be more exciting?”

  Penny looked about at all the dead werewolves. “I need to keep my big trap shut.”

  Chapter 5

  “How are the zoas coming?” Kate asked from her worktable in her laboratory at Hartley Hall.

  “Oh, I’ve moved on from them.” With the gold key in his hand, Simon indicated the several sets of William Blake folios on the table next to where he sat near the window. The library had a surprisingly complete collection of Blake’s work, or perhaps not so surprising if the poet had some mystical nature. “I read the works Malcolm indicated, and despite his criticism, the language is quite lovely. However, it is difficult to pull much from them over the basic concept that this being Albion once existed and was rendered into four spirits, or zoas. And I think those zoas were, in turn, reflected by spirits called emanations. And perhaps, one day Albion will return. Resurrection myth. Every culture has one. Nothing terribly momentous.”

  “Do you think Blake was a practitioner?”

  “A true magician? I’ve never heard tell of it. I think he may have been a sensitive, from what little I know. The poet had visions, but that’s not terribly unique.” Aethelred was trying to convince Simon to play, and the man distractedly complied by balancing the book in his lap while holding one end of a piece of rope so the jaws of the large wolfhound could wrestle the other end.

  “What do his visions mean? And would they influence someone to kill?”