The Shadow Revolution: Crown & Key Read online

  Simon’s small victory was short-lived. Malcolm leapt on him and they crashed against the counter. A heavy weight bashed Simon’s face into the wood. He struggled to right himself, but the muscles in his arms felt like lead weights.

  Simon flashed on his mother crying as she told him of the night his father died. The anger flared bright once more. He shoved Malcolm off; it wasn’t clear how. He didn’t think he used magic, although he couldn’t swear to it.

  The Scotsman stumbled to his feet again like a dark wraith, seizing some strange metallic contraption off a bookshelf and brandishing it. Simon heard Penny shout in alarm, although it was more out of alarm for her work than a warning to Simon. His strong arm blocked Malcolm’s blow, and with a wild shout, slammed his forehead into the other man’s head. Simon roundhoused Malcolm in the jaw. The Scotsman crumpled in a flurry of arms and legs. The startled expression on his face spoke clearly that he hadn’t expected to lose this fight.

  Too bad.

  To his hardheaded credit, Malcolm tried to push himself up yet again, but from the looks of it, he wasn’t sure of his surroundings. The Scotsman shook his head, unsure why he was still on the floor.

  “Your services are no longer needed here,” Simon snapped. “You’re to leave London as soon as you pick your sorry carcass up from the floor.”

  Malcolm spat blood and drew the back of his hand across his mouth. “I’ll leave when I’m ready, and not before. Not for you nor any man.”

  A splash of cold water hit both men in a drenching wave, bringing them to a sputtering silence.

  “Out! Both of you!” Penny roared, holding an empty bucket.

  “Bloody hell, woman!” the dark Scotsman bellowed, wiping at his dripping face. “The fight was already over!”

  Penny’s fist balled on her hip. “Good thing, then, or I would have shot the both of you.”

  “What about my pistols?” muttered Malcolm.

  “Come back for ’em when you regain your senses.” Penny shook her head. “That’s the last time I try to introduce friends.”

  Simon stiffened and extracted his damp wallet, laying a considerable amount of currency on the counter. “My apologies, Miss Carter.”

  Under the engineer’s stern glare, the two drenched men slogged from the shop much to the curiosity of those on the street. They retreated into an alley around the corner and faced one another.

  “You’re wrong, Archer,” Malcolm muttered through clenched teeth, meeting Simon’s haunted eyes. “On my honor, you are.”

  “Your honor,” Simon hissed, but something in the Scotsman’s forlorn acceptance made him let go of his rage. Maybe it was the pain in Malcolm’s eyes that matched his own. With a face like stone, he held the man’s gaze, debating what he should do.

  Malcolm’s hand rested again on his blade. His body was tense with muscles coiled. “Let’s get this over with if you demand it.”

  “Still ready to defend your father’s name then?” Simon retorted icily.

  “I’ve long since stopped trying.”

  “Tell me why I should believe John MacFarlane didn’t kill my father when I’ve always known he did.”

  “I know the story of that night, and it’s nothing to be proud of for my part. My father was ordered to kill a man named Edward Cavendish, but he drank so much he wouldn’t have been able to stab a dead goat. He couldn’t go through with it.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “He told me.”

  “Why should I believe that?”

  Malcolm’s eyes flared angrily. “The MacFarlanes aren’t adverse to killing, as is well-known. My father would have admitted to the deed if he had done it. It would be better to be a killer than a coward.”

  Simon’s body was rigid. “So then, who murdered my father that night in Scotland?”

  Malcolm’s shoulders slumped in sympathy. “I don’t know. My father never knew. My father never rose above the bottle again. He died in a puddle of his own making.”

  Simon studied the Scotsman, watching every twitch of his muscles, every turn of his lips. This man, regardless of what his father had or had not done, believed that his father was innocent of this one crime at least.

  Malcolm’s face struggled not to reveal any emotion. “If I had the answer, Archer, I’d give it to you.”

  “Lucky for you, Mr. MacFarlane,” Simon said with a sad smile. “I won’t hold the son responsible for the sins of the father.” He clasped his hands behind his rigid back and walked away, leaving the hunter standing alone.

  The interior of St. Giles was flickering in the candlelight. Drafts made the flames shudder, creating a disturbing pattern of moving shadows around the space. Two thick candles in heavy stands were posted on both ends of the casket.

  Simon sat in the front pew. He leaned forward, his hands resting on the handle of his walking stick. His mother’s gold key dangled from his fingers like a rosary. He watched the coffin in which the body of Beatrice rested.

  He could recall spring afternoons when he had been boyishly content that he would spend his life with her. The pinpricks of light reflecting in her eyes the first night she blew out the lamp in her bedchamber. Her gentle touch warming his neck. He remembered the smoothness of her thighs under his palms. She laughed constantly. She loved poetry and would often cry when reading aloud. He had taught her the proper pronunciation of runic spells.

  Simon heard the sound of a man clearing his throat and shuffling his feet. He glanced up to see the sexton in the darkness near the altar. The man bobbed from foot to foot, eager to be on his way but still respectfully silent.

  Simon took a breath and rose. He laid a hand on the rough wooden top of Beatrice’s coffin. He lifted the lid a few inches and slipped a few clippings of newsprint inside. The articles she had saved as evidence of his advancement in the mystic arts. He closed the casket, unwilling to look at her in the winding sheet. He preferred to remember her from that spring night long ago. The sexton came forward with a credible look of sorrow and comfort. The man raised a finger to his forehead in deference.

  Simon reached into his pocket and pulled half a crown. “I’d take it as a great kindness if you’d see her settled well.”

  The sexton’s unshaven visage locked on the coin. “Well, sir, I don’t know if the vicar will have it.” He looked up in alarm. “Given what she…who she was, sir. You understand, it’s not my thoughts, sir.”

  Simon pulled a second coin and held both of them out. “I’d take it as a great kindness.”

  The man took the money with a comforting nod. “Very good, sir. I’ll do well by her. You may trust me.”

  “Thank you. And I will provide a grave marker. You’ll help me place it when the time comes?”

  “Yes, sir. I will. God bless you, sir. She must’ve meant something to you.”

  Simon regarded the sexton. Then he touched the casket again before turning and striding from the otherwise empty church.

  —

  St. Giles was no more than a ten-minute walk from Simon’s town house in fading fashionable Mayfair, but he had no wish to return home. He preferred to stay in the shadows tonight, so he made his way to the Devil’s Loom. A drinking establishment had existed on this spot since the reign of Edward III. It was nearby the Resurrection Gate, where condemned prisoners were given a last pint before being hustled to the scaffold at Tyburn.

  Simon found a spot in a nearly hidden corner of the pub. He slouched in a seat with his long legs up in a chair and stared through the thinning crowd into the far wall. He tapped the gold key idly on the tabletop. His jacket was gone and his white shirt was wrinkled and open at the collar, hanging loose at the cuffs. He threw back a gin and set the glass down, no longer calling for another. Another came just the same, as the previous ten had come.

  Beatrice would be in the ground by now. His father had been in the ground for nearly thirty years. Simon had seen to Beatrice’s killer. However, John MacFarlane hadn’t killed his father. It was as if he had buried
one and exhumed another.

  He scrubbed at his face, trying to keep his thoughts coherent. He didn’t want to give up any of his long-cherished beliefs passed on by his mother, including the tale of his father’s murder. There was only one problem—he believed Malcolm MacFarlane. The sooty eyes of the Scotsman were true like steel. Hard and unmovable. Malcolm was what he said and nothing more.

  Malcolm MacFarlane was an honest man.

  Over the years, Simon had come to terms with the fact that his father had been murdered. There was nothing Simon could do about it. He had honored his father by continuing in his role as a scribe. He studied magic. When his mother died eight years ago, Simon had come to London to live. His intention was to immerse himself in his magical studies and become a scribe.

  However, he found city society beguiling and distracting. Despite the fact that his questionable parentage would always set him apart from complete propriety, he still navigated it with ease. Simon came to perfect his own roguish personality, which put him inside the drawing rooms and even boudoirs of London. Everyone knew he was the son of Elizabeth Archer and an unknown father. The persona of a charming rake was a necessary construct to make himself appealing at all levels of society, because otherwise, he was just a rich bastard.

  “Well, well,” came a voice, “so this is where all the gin has gone.”

  Simon looked up with fierce annoyance to see Nick standing at the table. He slumped deeper into his seat.

  “Oh, thank you,” Nick said, pulling a chair from under Simon’s feet. “Don’t mind a drink myself.”

  Simon growled. “Damn it, Nick. I want to be alone if you don’t mind.”

  Nick signaled for a pint. “You nearly are alone, old boy. The place should’ve shut hours ago and you look very drunk.”

  The barman brought the pint grudgingly, and said with emphasis, “Time, gentlemen.”

  Simon finished his gin and held up the empty glass. “Another, please!”

  “You’re not getting another.” Nick hooked an arm over the chair. “Let’s head off home, shall we?”

  “You go if you’re tired.” Simon studied his watch, holding it upside down. He scowled at it. “It isn’t late at all. If they won’t serve me here, I’ll go to the club.”

  “The club? Which club would that be? You’ll find no doors open to you at this hour except your own.”

  “I can drink at home in the morning. I’ve got to celebrate tonight.”

  “What are you celebrating?”

  “I have acquired a new outlook on life.”

  “Have you? What became of your old outlook?”

  “It has been rudely torn away.” Simon waved a hand and leaned over to pat Nick on the chest. “But no matter. You will have a role to play in it because you are my friend.”

  “Gratified to hear it. Would you care to share, or is it a secret?”

  “Everything’s a secret to someone.” Simon put a finger to his lips. “The Order of the Oak killed my father.”

  “What?” Nick stared hard at his friend. “Your father? You’ve never mentioned your father before. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Simon held the empty glass to his mouth and drained the final drops of alcohol. “My father was a member of the old Order of the Oak in the days when it was a true guild of magicians, before the collapse during the French Revolution and the purges. The new Order decided that his loyalties to the previous management were annoying, so they dispatched a man named John MacFarlane.”

  Nick flinched with surprise. “How do you know this? The Order was nothing if not secretive.”

  “My mother. The night my father was killed, he knew MacFarlane was coming, so he sent my mother away for her safety. At the time, she was with child.” Simon touched his chest. “My mother never saw my father alive again.”

  “I’m sorry, Simon.” Nick swirled beer in his glass, staring deeply into the amber liquid. “When did your father die?”

  “He was murdered late in 1802, and I was born early the next year. He never saw me, nor I him.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Edward Cavendish. He was a scribe, as I am. Did you ever meet him in your travels and wide circles of acquaintances?”

  Nick shook his head. “No.”

  “He was Byron Pendragon’s right hand during the last days of the Order, in the days when they were a wall between humanity and darkness.”

  “Pendragon?” Nick now looked doubtful. “Your father was Byron Pendragon’s right hand? Did your mother tell you this too?”

  “Yes!” Simon sat forward with eyes alight. “After Pendragon was betrayed and killed by one or both of his compatriots, Ash and Gaios, they also killed my father for defying them.”

  Nick drained his pint and set it down. “Aside from the fact that you have no idea who really killed Byron Pendragon, you’re telling me that your father knew Pendragon, Ash, and Gaios?”

  Simon glared at the doubt in his friend’s voice. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you anything if you’re merely going to mock me.”

  “You have to credit my doubts, Simon. You’re talking about the three nearly mythological figures who founded the Order of the Oak centuries past. Now you tell me your father knew them, and was killed for it. It’s a bit like saying you’re family friends with Robin Hood and King Arthur.”

  Simon stood unsteadily, flushing with anger, remembering the tears his mother shed telling him the story of the night his father died. “You don’t have to believe me.”

  “Wait, wait.” Nick smiled and urged his friend to resume his seat. “I never said I didn’t believe you. I’m just trying to understand what you’re telling me.”

  “Then allow me to spell it out for you. Since I was a boy, I believed that my father was murdered by John MacFarlane on the instructions of someone high in the Order of the Oak. I now know that to be wrong.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That man we met the night Beatrice died, the Scotsman, his name is Malcolm MacFarlane. He is John MacFarlane’s son. And he told me that his father did not commit that crime.”

  Nick sat waiting, then when he realized that was the end of the story, he shook his head in disbelief. “He said his father didn’t do it? That’s it? Why would you believe him? Of course he would lie about it. And don’t you think it’s a bit convenient that you happened to run into him out of the blue?”

  Simon tightened his hands on the glass. “Yes, it is convenient because now I know the truth.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I know it!” Simon shouted. “I don’t know how. Or why. But I believe him. Damn him. And so I must search for the man who killed my father. I must say good-bye to you.”

  Nick slammed his glass down. “You drunken idiot! What about everything you talked about the other night about the purpose of your power? You’re just coming into your own. You’re finally a half-decent scribe now.”

  Simon put a hand to his forehead. “Plans change.”

  “Oh shut it. You sicken me. That courtesan was right about you. You’ll never stick to anything. You’re petty.”

  Simon snarled through gritted teeth. “How dare you speak to me in that way.”

  “I’m the only one who will. Before you wander off into some misguided personal vendetta, you had best listen to me for a moment. I’ve lived a long time, Simon, a very long time. I’ve had my share of quests for vengeance. And I wasted an enormous amount of life doing it.”

  “Are you telling me to forget my father?” Simon’s voice was slurred with gin.

  “If you’d shut up and listen to me, you’ll hear what I’m telling you. The trail for his murderer is long cold. Don’t forget it, surely, but don’t let it consume you. Move forward with your life. Learn to be a scribe. Use your abilities to help those like your Beatrice. Let that be your tribute to him. To her. That is a better way to remember them both.”

  Simon gazed again into his empty glass. “A man should do something if hi
s father is killed.”

  “You’re doing something. Look, Simon, the years after Pendragon were chaos. A lot of scores were settled in the shadows. And most of the good members of the Order played it smart and kept their heads down. If you wander off into that darkness now, you’ll never find the path again. You will be acting for the benefit of no one but yourself.”

  Simon slowly shook his head in confusion.

  Nick continued, “You said yourself that something is growing in the dark. If you leave now, who will stand in its way? Your father waited this long for vengeance. He knows what you’re about, and I’m sure he approves.”

  Simon sat still for a long moment. “I’ll do you the courtesy of considering what you’ve said. However, to do so I need another drink, but this place has obviously dried up.” He stood and reached for a jacket that wasn’t there. He tugged on his unfastened shirt cuffs. He did a credible job walking, only bumping into two tables and three chairs on the path to the door, where he paused. “I bid you good evening, Mr. Barker.”

  “That isn’t your hat.”

  “Good.” Simon replaced a soft hat on the rack. “I was distraught at my taste when I thought it was.”

  The two men stumbled together out into the cold and stood underneath the pub’s sign, which featured a cloven-hooved goat man weaving what appeared to be a human shape on a fantastical loom. Simon immediately went to turn up his nonexistent coat collar. He tried several times before acting as if he was suddenly warmer. He studied the street in one direction, then the other.

  “Now,” Simon said, “would you direct me to the Pall Mall Club? Or the Mayfair.”

  Nick settled against the brick wall. “You’re unfit.”

  Simon glowered. “Do you mind showing some good manners? Is the Cagliostro Club in this neighborhood?”

  “It moves. I believe it’s in Greenwich for the winter.”

  “Excellent. I’ll find it.” Simon staggered off to the north, not toward Greenwich at all.

  Nick caught Simon by the arm and steered him in a homeward direction. The pair walked in silence for a while, with Simon leaning heavily on Nick.

  “I’ve decided you’re right, Nick,” the scribe said suddenly. “I trust you.”