The Infernal Express Read online

  “Yes, she was rather dour for a young woman soon to be at loose on the continent,” St. Cyprian said. “Still, no affair of ours. We have our own business to attend to, and no more time for pleasant diversions.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it? What would that Andraste bird say, if she could hear you?” Gallowglass said, leering at him in a most unbecoming fashion. She nodded in the direction that Elizabeth and Sarah had gone. “And her a grandmother. For shame.”

  “Hardly a grandmother.” St. Cyprian glared at her. “And…this again? How many times must I say it? Aife Andraste was merely a person in need, like all of the others we’ve helped since. I’m no more interested in her than I am you, you felonious little pict.”

  “Oi!” Gallowglass snapped. “I ain’t either felonious! And what’s a pict?”

  “Something small, dark and savage, according to a chap called Dyson,” St. Cyprian said, looking down his nose at her. “Fits you, I’d say.”

  “I’ll fit you,” Gallowglass growled, swatting at him. He swatted back at her, and soon they were slapping awkwardly at one another, as disembarking passengers gave them a wide berth, muttering about crazy Englishmen. Gallowglass snatched his hand out of the air as he sought to pull her cap down over her eyes.

  “Oi, wait—look. Someone’s waving,” Gallowglass said, shoving him back and stooping to heft the valise and her duffel. She straightened and poked him in the chest. “And don’t touch my cap or I’ll break your fingers.”

  “That’ll be—yes, it is. Andre!” St. Cyprian said, loudly, motioning to the thin, narrow faced man striding towards them across the platform. He navigated the crowd with ease, and swiftly. He was dressed in well-tailored black, and wore a coat of similar hue. He wore a leather glove on one hand, and old-but-vibrant scars marred one side of his handsome face.

  “Ah, bon soir, my friend,” the man said, spreading his arms and clapping his hands to St. Cyprian’s shoulders. He pulled the latter close and kissed his cheek. As he did so, he murmured, “Do not look now, but there are eyes upon us.”

  “Have been since Dover, I’m afraid, and more besides, Andre,” St. Cyprian said, softly. “We had a bit of a set-to, on the Channel.”

  “So I am informed,” Andre said. He tapped his lips with a finger. “We’ll speak no more of it, until we are safely before my fire, oui?” Andre turned to Gallowglass, then glanced at St. Cyprian and made an irritated noise.

  St. Cyprian rolled his eyes. “Ebe Gallowglass, Andre du Nord. Andre, this is Ebe Gallowglass, my assistant. Keep your hands to yourself, or she’ll break them off.”

  “Andre du Nord, mademoiselle, at your service, now and evermore,” Andre said, bowing shallowly. He reached for her hand as if to kiss it, hesitated and then straightened. He smiled crookedly, his scars drawing tight, and swept his hand out. “I brought the motor car, if you’re up for a ride.”

  “As long as your driving has improved,” St. Cyprian said, picking up his luggage.

  “My driving was never the issue. If you hadn’t grabbed the wheel, we would have cleared that patisserie,” Andre said, as he led them off of the platform and out of the station.

  “It came out of nowhere,” St. Cyprian protested.

  “It had been there for sixty years at least, before we barrelled through it!”

  “Like a leopard, leaping from a tree,” St. Cyprian insisted. “Still, we took seventeenth place. Not bad, all things considered.”

  “I was picking dough out of my clothes for days afterward,” Andre said, looking at Gallowglass. “And my car was wrecked.”

  “If you’re looking for sympathy, you’re looking in the wrong place. Gallowglass has totalled the Crossley three times in the past year,” St. Cyprian said.

  “It got fixed,” Gallowglass said, defensively.

  “But…three times?” Andre said. They left the bustle of the station behind them, and stepped out onto the street. Paris rose up around them, as loud as London, in its way. The streets were full of carriages and motor cars, and electric lights flickered to life, revealing the avenues and streets beyond.

  “Rammed the earthly manifestation of a Celtic pig-god with it,” St. Cyprian said. He clapped his hands together. “Bam! Right into his bristly snozz.”

  “Did it work?” Andre asked.

  “Mostly,” Gallowglass said.

  Andre clapped his hands and spread them, as if to indicate the low-slung shape of the motor car awaiting them. “Ah, there she is—look at her, Charles.”

  St. Cyprian examined the car. It was a Renault, that much was obvious from the saloon shape. He glanced at Andre. “Is that a Torpedo?”

  Andre nodded and tapped his fingers on the roof. “Renault Torpedo GS. New this year. A bit pricey, I admit, but worth it. What do you think? Is she not a thing of beauty?”

  “As lovely as a flower in spring, Andre. The engine?”

  “2.1 litre, though I’ve made my little modifications,” Andre said slyly.

  “Naturally,” St. Cyprian said. They climbed in. The car started up with smooth rumble, and Andre made a satisfied noise in response. As they pulled away from the station, he glanced back at Gallowglass, sitting in the back. She had the valise on her lap.

  “Is that it?” Andre asked.

  “It’s something,” St. Cyprian said. “I need your help to determine exactly what.”

  Andre shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Same old Charles. You only visit when you need something.”

  “So, you’re one of our lot then?” Gallowglass asked, leaning over the back of the seat. She waggled her fingers. “Le sorcier?”

  “Hardly a sorcerer,” St. Cyprian said mildly.

  Andre laughed. “Oh, there’s one or two of those hiding in the branches of my family tree. We have ever had one foot in twilight, as the saying goes. Then, our ancestral lands in Averoigne have long been werewolf-haunted and devil-infested, according to local legend. Meteorites, sorcerers, plagues of frogs…our legends are as thick as flies.”

  “Carnacki and I were stationed in Vyones for a brief period in 1918,” St. Cyprian said, glancing at Gallowglass. “The local legends didn’t quite do it justice.” He shivered. “Ylourgne, in particular, is quite unpleasant.”

  “And so it has ever been, and so it will ever be,” Andre said, making a peculiar gesture as he did so. “I think of myself more as a…consultant, truth be told.” He laughed again. “A consulting occultist. God knows France has enough of the other kind.”

  Gallowglass looked puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “France has never wanted for bureaucracy, and we have always been more…open-minded than the English, when it comes to spooks and spectres. There are many offices with, shall we say, competing responsibilities?” Andre said, with a slight smile. “The Directory of Occult Affairs, for instance.”

  St. Cyprian snorted. “Is that ass, Gravelle, still in charge?”

  “For the moment,” Andre said. “I myself work for the Surete. There are others, several of which Napoleon himself organized. Bureaus, directories, national agencies, one layer of bureaucracy atop another.”

  “Sounds like they don’t half get in each other’s way,” Gallowglass said.

  “Quite often, yes. Other times, well…more hands make for light work, no?” He shrugged. “I get by, in any event. What man can ask for more?”

  St. Cyprian smiled. Andre played at being humble, but he was as conceited as a cat. The du Nord’s had ever been masters of the mystic arts, since the time of their forebear, Gaspard du Nord, who had first learned his arts at the crooked feet of the necromancer Nathaire. Gaspard had, by and large, used his magics in defense of Vyones, Averoigne and France in general, and his family had maintained the tradition. They were not alone, of course. There were any number of sorcerous lineages in France—the families of de Marigny, and the d’Erlettes in particular—and while many had been extinguished during the Revolution, some still survived. Even today, France was, as the saying went,
lousy with occultists of all stripes.

  Andre aimed the Renault south, towards the Pont au Change. There was little traffic, despite the congestion they’d seen around the station. “Still living in the Latin Quarter, Andre?” St. Cyprian asked. They drove through the wide open space of the Place de Chatelet, as they approached the bridge, and passed the Fontaine du Palmier, with its gilded statue of the goddess Victory, laurel wreaths in hand.

  “I’ve moved, actually. Found a delightful little house in the Rue d’Auseil,” Andre said. “Not very scenic, but the price was right, as they say.”

  “Free?” Gallowglass asked.

  Andre laughed. “Even so! The owner was being haunted by a rather malign spirit which lived on water and milk. Nasty little thing, not quite a vampire, but close…and I’m rather afraid it isn’t the only one loose in Paris. Still, that’s a problem for a later day.” He pointed. “Ah, the Seine. Goddess, muse and threshold, all in one.”

  “Steady on, old man,” St. Cyprian said, smiling slightly. “One body of water is much the same as another.”

  Andre glared at him. “The Seine is no mere body of water, my friend. She is the lifeblood of Paris itself. In her depths lurk the remnants of Rome, of the great temples of the druids of Gaul, of…” he trailed off.

  St. Cyprian looked at him. “What? What is it?”

  “We’re being followed,” Andre said.

  Gallowglass turned in her seat and cursed. “He’s right. Two cars, coming in fast.”

  “They were waiting until we reached the bridge. Nowhere to turn around,” Andre said. The Renault growled as he pressed down on the accelerator. “If we can reach the other side before…”

  “I don’t think they’re going to give us that chance,” Gallowglass barked. A moment later, a black motor car surged up on their left, engine rumbling. Andre cursed and jerked the wheel as the interloper drifted towards them. St. Cyprian gritted his teeth as the two cars slammed together briefly. The Renault shuddered, and he caught sight of the passenger of the other car pointing a shotgun out of the open window.

  “Andre,” St. Cyprian shouted, grabbing his friend’s collar and jerking him down as the shotgun roared, peppering the side of the Renault. Broken glass peppered over the two occultists as Andre lost control of the car. The Renault swerved wildly, and he fought to regain control, cursing all the while. St. Cyprian reached into his Gladstone and dug around for his Webley Bulldog. As he did so, he snarled, “Gallowglass!”

  “Right,” she said, her Webley-Fosbery already in hand. The second car sped towards them, and its front bumper struck their rear. Gallowglass thrust her lean frame out of the open window and took aim, using both hands to hold the revolver steady. She fired, emptying the pistol, and gave a whoop. “That’ll teach you to get too close, you bastards.” She slid back into her seat, dumping the spent brass from the Webley’s cylinder onto the floor of the Renault. As she began to reload, St. Cyprian found his own revolver and sat up.

  The first car drifted towards the Renault again. Metal groaned and tires squealed, as the front of the Renault began to skid towards the bridge-rail. “They’re trying to send us into the drink,” St. Cyprian said.

  “As ever, your grasp of the obvious astounds me, Charles,” Andre growled, fighting the wheel. He let it glide through his fingers. “Dissuade them, would you?”

  “I’ll deliver a stern missive, never fear,” St. Cyprian said. He shoved himself backwards through the window on his side, perching himself on the edge and taking aim over the Renault’s roof. There wasn’t much chance of him hitting anything, but in situations like this, it was the thought that counted. The other car crashed into the Renault again, and he nearly lost his balance. For a moment, the dark length of the Seine seemed to reach up towards him, the reflected lights of the banks like the eyes of some strange creature, and then he caught himself and fired wildly.

  The back window of the other car shattered. He fired again and again, and Gallowglass joined him. The black car sidled away, windows ruined, passengers huddling away from the fusillade. The second car sped up again, but Andre was ready for them this time. He spun the wheel and sent the Renault arrowing towards the first car. As the Renault shoved the black car towards the opposite side of the bridge, the second vehicle shot past and struck the rail in a screech of crumpling metal.

  Andre jerked the wheel back in the opposite direction, pulling away from their remaining attacker, causing the black car to slew about, steam rising from its front grill. The Renault sped away, leaving both cars behind them.

  St. Cyprian pulled himself back into the motor car. “Well, that was a fine how-do-you-do, eh Andre?” he said, quickly reloading his Bulldog.

  “Not the word I would use,” Andre said. He glanced at St. Cyprian. “Let’s say we get to safety, and then find out just what it is that these fellows want so badly.”

  7.

  Rue d’Auseil, 5th Arrondissement, Paris

  The house was nice. The street…not so much. Ebe Gallowglass prided herself on possessing a certain degree of environmental awareness, and she knew a bad place when she saw it. The Rue d’Auseil was narrow and steep, and more than once she’d thought du Nord’s car would lose its grip on the cobbles and slide backwards into the Seine. The houses were all tall, peak-roofed and incredibly old. They leaned in all directions, casting ragged, irregular shadows across the street. There were a few overhead bridges which stretched between the upper storeys and rooftops, and blocked sight of the sky.

  The whole street felt off-kilter, not just in the architectural sense, and du Nord’s home was no different. Du Nord’s flat was a peaky three level, crouched between two larger, less well-tended buildings. From the garret, one could probably see the whole of northern Paris, stretching out from the Seine. Its proportions were all slightly off, the rooms full of awkward angles and stuffed with foreign bric-a-brac.

  In a way, it reminded her of their own place, on Cheyne Walk. It had a similar predatory air to it, as if the house were just waiting for you to make a wrong turn, so it could swallow you whole. Gallowglass wondered if all occultists had houses like that. Regardless, St. Cyprian seemed right at home.

  They’d wasted no time with tea and small talk. The incident on the bridge had put the wind in his sails, and now the two men were making preparations to examine the valise and its grisly contents in du Nord’s study. Gallowglass had helped some, moving a desk and kicking aside piles of old books while the other two busied themselves rolling away the Turkish carpet and drawing a protective circle on the dull wood of the floor.

  St. Cyprian and du Nord chattered away in French as they worked, thick as thieves. Gallowglass felt a twinge of annoyance as she watched them, but she stamped it down ruthlessly. Du Nord wasn’t a bad sort. But she didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, except St. Cyprian, and not even him, at first.

  He knew what he was doing though, whatever her concerns. It would be just like that gasbag Morris to make them the bait in a trap. Gallowglass made a face, as she turned away from the ongoing preparations. Morris’ distaste for them wasn’t a secret. The little man didn’t like anything he didn’t control, and he wasn’t above using them to do his dirty work. He had before, more than once, and would again.

  That is, if we survive this one, she thought. Her eyes strayed, flickering across the room. It had been extended, so that it connected to a conservatory that looked out over a tidy garden, full of statuary. Du Nord had a taste for the Hellenic, and the pale marble statues looked like ghosts in the dark. The rest of the room was taken up by his study—bookshelves and rugs and odds and ends from every corner of the Earth.

  Including a very familiar statue. It stood in a nave at the end of the room, away from the garden and the moonlight. It stood no more than three feet in height, but was mounted on a pedestal, so that it was eyelevel with Gallowglass, though she refused to meet its blind, staring gaze. She couldn’t help but draw close to it, despite the warnings which pealed in the depths of
her mind. She’d never been able to resist the pull of the goddess.

  She traced the curve of the statue’s features with her fingers, following the path the carver’s chisel had taken, in the dim dusty reaches of the past. The statue was old, older than anything else in du Nord’s home, but she recognized it well enough. It was smaller than her mother’s, but that didn’t make it any friendlier looking.

  Then, a woman with the head of a cat wasn’t going to look anything but unfriendly, as far as Gallowglass was concerned. ‘Which one are you supposed to be?’ she murmured, ‘Bast? Ubaste? Baset? Maybe even Sekhmet, innit?’ The statue didn’t answer, for which she was thankful. They were all one and the same, anyway, no matter what Herodotus said. She closed her eyes, fingers still pressed to the statue’s muzzle.

  She could almost smell the spices and incense of the ancient tunnels beneath Bubastis, where she’d been born and raised, before the War had driven them to Cairo, and the safety of its teeming streets. Too, she could smell the acrid stink of cats and worse things, creeping through the ill-lit depths, on four legs as well as two. She could hear the clash of cymbals and the high, thin whine of reed flutes as shadowy shapes capered beneath the ambivalent gazes of Wadjet-Bast and her sister-consort, Sekhmet, the Lady of Slaughter. Cats had no king, despite the folktale. Only queens. A queen might have many toms, but a tom, only one queen.

  Her fingers stopped moving. The statue felt warm to the touch, and the smells grew stronger, as if she were there once more in the incense-choked corridors that wound beneath the House of Bast. She heard the rustle of the deep rivers that carved eternal roads in the groaning body of Geb, hidden from the cosmic judgement of Neuth, and the creak of the festival barges which prowled the sea of night. She felt the rough rasp of tongues and the caress of the basalt talons of Maahes, as the Scarlet Lord gave her his blessing, as kinsman, uncle and tutor. Her free hand reached up, touching the place where he’d marked her, and she could still feel the pain of his gentle touch.