Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

The cows were drifting toward the enclosure, clearly feeling it was time to be milked. Evelina squinted, trying to reconcile what she knew of the place with the pastoral view. This looked more like a source of clotted cream than the infamous laboratories.

The only way to find out for sure was to ask. Evelina stripped off her gloves and pressed her hands to the earth, feeling for the energy of the land. She could touch most places with little effort, but the moors were not shy. The presence of the place rose up to meet her with the force of a blow. She rocked back on her haunches with a gasp, but held on. The vibrancy of the earth and untamed nature churned through her like a fast-running stream, but beneath that was something foul. The land didn’t like it, wishing it could flick it off the way a dog shakes its coat dry. All at once, Evelina understood Miss Barnes’s plan.

She shifted her power, seeking the other members of the Parapsychological Institute. They came to her inner sight as fuzzy points of light, all bright—although some were green, or white, or a friendly yellow. There were a dozen strewn in a loose circle around the moor. Some, like Leonidas Wood, she recognized. Most she did not—which was both a comfort and a concern. She wanted to know with whom she was working, but she wasn’t so sure—after years of hiding her talents—that she was as comfortable with them knowing her. Besides, none had the dark quality of Evelina’s power. She was like a crow among a flock of doves.

Evelina let the power go, taking three deep breaths to steady herself before checking the position of the sun. It was time to get started. She abandoned her gorse bush and began skidding down the slope of the hill, wishing her boots had better treads. Her dress was dark, so she kept to the shadows, doing her best to stay invisible. Once the ground leveled out, she began trotting toward the cows. A few of the massive beasts turned and stared, their short curved horns looking particularly sharp. Distracted by the herd, she forgot to watch where she was walking and stepped into a rut, her foot sliding in the mud and wrenching her ankle. She went down on one knee, sliming her skirts. Oh, brilliant . She scrambled back to her feet, dirty and limping, but carried on, using a red and white cow for cover.

Now she could see the guards posted at regular intervals, one just within sight of the next. She edged along the side of the long dairy barn, hearing the hiss of steam-operated milking machines and the clatter of milk buckets over the incessant lowing of the cows. There was a boy outside with a stick, urging them inside with shouts and swats, and a black and white collie pup bouncing in circles around his feet. The guards paid no attention to the boy or the cattle, but instead scanned the yard right where Evelina wanted to go.

She caught movement to her left and saw an old, bent man carrying a bundle of straw across his shoulders. Uncle Sherlock, in one of his disguises. He jerked his head and she changed course, following him deeper into the shadows and finally breaking into a trot. The twilight was deepening. They had to move quickly before they lost all the light.

“There is a door right beside that fellow there,” Holmes said as she drew near. “I can pick the lock if we can get past him.”

Evelina thought a moment. “Won’t the other guards notice he’s gone?”

“In this light, all they need to see is someone in uniform holding a gun. I can take his place. The problem will be rendering him unconscious without making a noise.”

Evelina bit her lip. “Leave that to me.”

Holmes gave her a curious look, but dropped his bundle and pushed an apron into her hands. “You are a dairy maid, I am your grandfather, and I require medical attention.”

He thought of everything. Evelina looped the strap of the bib over her head and quickly tied the strings. A moment later, she was helping her staggering elder across the gravel-strewn yard. “Please, please sir, we need a doctor!”

The guard poked at her with the butt of his rife. “Go on, you know you don’t get inside. Send one of your own down to the village. You’re not our concern.”

“But please!” She abandoned Holmes and reached for the guard, putting one hand to the side of the man’s head. Then she loosed a quick jolt of power. The man’s eyes rolled up, and he fell back against the wall.

“You must tell me someday how you do that,” her uncle muttered.

“Maybe.” It was a trick she’d learned from Magnus, and not one she was particularly proud of—but like all the sorcerer’s lessons, it was useful. That was what had made his instruction in the dark arts so tempting. “He’ll be out for at least an hour.”

She leaned in, trapping the guard against the wall long enough for Holmes to take the man’s cap and rifle. No one would see anything but a girl entreating the soldier a little too enthusiastically. Once they’d lowered the guard to the ground, they took his jacket, too. In the growing dark, Holmes had effectively changed places with him. In another moment, no one would see the extra body at all.

Then he bent and, with a pair of slim tools, set to work on the lock while Evelina searched the guard for a sidearm. She’d just found a knife and a pistol when she heard the telltale click of success. “Good luck,” whispered Holmes. “I’m giving you two minutes before I come looking.”

“Give me ten,” she whispered back.

“Five.”

And she was in. The door opened into a stillroom, probably once a kitchen but now it was filled with glass-stoppered jars labeled with specimen numbers and cryptic lettering. The next door was unlocked and led into a corridor. A glance told her that what looked on the outside like a string of adjoined cottages was actually one large structure with a smooth stone floor. The corridor where she stood ran end to end, one side disappearing into the laboratory proper. The nose-wrinkling smell of antiseptics made her skin pebble with dread.

Evelina wrestled her nerves under control. Though the mission was dangerous, her goal was strictly reconnaissance. She was there to find anyone who, like Nellie Reynolds, might be able to escape. And according to the sketch the actress had made, the holding cells were to her left. Evelina hauled in a breath, turning her steps toward the row of tiny doorways.

The dampening fields that Miss Barnes had warned her about descended like a hot, wet cloak. She could feel them weighing down her power, drowning it in a soggy haze. So much for the immunity of dark magic. No, they work on me just like everyone else .

She fished in her pocket for the glass vial that Moriarty had given her. She’d read about salt of sorrows on the train. Holding up the vial, she could see the salts were clinging to the sides of the glass, attracted to the ambient energy in the room. I’m in an active dampening field, all right . But the interesting thing about antimagic devices was that balancing the magic and its counteragent was key. If the balance was even slightly off, the dampening field would collapse and magic would force its way through.

Based on that principle, Evelina had formed a theory that all she had to do was double up the antimagic charge, and it would cancel itself out. Then her power would be free.

She popped the top off the vial and shook the salt into the palm of her hand, having to pound a little to get it free of the container. When she was done, there was barely a pinch of the compound to work with. Nevertheless, the powerful substance began to itch as soon as it touched her flesh. Carefully, she tucked half the salt under each bracelet, pushing the silver rings up onto her forearms to hold the salt tight against her skin, where the compound could react to her Blood. It was a primitive solution, but if she had calculated correctly, even with her bracelets deactivated, the combined charge of the salt inside the bracelet and beneath it should tip the balance of the energy fields and render them useless. Providing, of course, that her theory was correct.