Barbara Hambly - Magistrates of Hell

It had been, Asher reflected, as neat a piece of tactics on Ogata’s part as one could hope for, and the only way the two men left outside the tunnel could neutralize eleven well-armed enemies. The bodyguard knew the men in the mine had maps, to get them through the tunnels to the main entrance. At this very moment, he suspected Ogata and Hirato were riding hell for leather along those overgrown paths, to reach Sergeant Tamayo at the main entrance and tell him, Don’t detonate until they arrive . . .

Which would make sense , Asher reflected, if there were no reason not to delay detonation past fall of darkness.

And if rats were the worst thing we’re likely to meet in the mine .

Yellowish light smeared the dust-choked darkness behind him; he heard Karlebach’s gasping cough. ‘Is everyone all right?’ Asher called out. ‘Rabbi?’

‘This depends,’ croaked the old scholar, ‘upon how one defines the words “all right”.’

‘We live,’ Mizukami said. ‘Ashu Sensei, the man cannot have known about Madame Ashu.’

‘He can.’ Asher coughed and spat up dust. ‘We have forty minutes of safety to get to the front entrance of the mine – if Ogata can make it around the shoulder of the mountain that quickly. And if Tamayo and the others at the front aren’t attacked—’

A gunshot cracked in the blackness, the bullet whining off the rock by his head. Dimly, in what seemed like a wall of solid dust, Asher saw the glint of catlike eyes.

T’uan can see in the darkness . . .

IT can see in the darkness .

The thing that used to be T’uan.

Of course it survived.

He answered the shot with a blast from his flame-thrower, then turned and thrust Karlebach and Mizukami ahead of him along the cross-cut. ‘Go, forward! There should be a gallery ahead—’

Another shot. The air grew clearer as they plunged into the long chamber that ran before an ancient coalface. Asher uncovered his lantern again and stumbled toward the yellow gleam of someone else’s; only by the height of the dim figure did he see it was Karlebach. The old man staggered, groped for the wall, and Asher caught his elbow, pulled him along. ‘He can see in the dark! Don’t close the lanterns!’ The tiny glow showed huge heaps of waste rock all along the gallery walls, and they ducked behind the nearest one; Asher made a swift count of his companions, motioned for all to take hands, then signed for darkness.

It was pitchy, utter, and unspeakable, the silence horrible. Under the choke of dust, Asher smelled rats, heard them skittering among the loose rock of the slag heaps.

From the direction of the tunnel, nothing.

There was water on the floor. Could T’uan – and any of his men who might have survived the explosion – come near without sound? Or fool their perceptions, so as to remain unheard?

Beside him he felt Mizukami bend down a trifle, to reach the puddles . . . Washing his eyeglasses , Asher realized. The little nobleman had been stumbling along almost blind.

How sharp is their hearing? They were cousins to vampires, who could detect differences in the rhythm of breath in a crowded room . . .

He pressed his hand to his side, trying to will away the pain.

How far along is T’uan in his transformation to yao-kuei? How much did those ‘herbs’ affect the process? How much of his mind is left, and how long will that last?

Or would, in fact, the medicines allow the young man to retain enough of his human mind to command the yao-kuei – like figures on a chessboard?

We have your wife . . .

His heart screamed that’s impossible! but the long-time field agent in him asked, How did they do it, and where would they take her ?

Beside him Asher heard one of the soldiers jerk and gasp, and then the squeal of a rat as it was knocked to the floor.

Silence again.

At last he slipped the lantern cover a millimeter. ‘Let’s go.’

TWENTY-SIX

British Legation, Peking

Tuesday, November 12, 1912

Mrs Asher,

Might I beg the favor of five minutes of your time? I would not dream of troubling you, save the matter is an urgent one, and of utmost importance .

Ever your servant ,

Edmund Woodreave

‘Please, ma’am.’ Mrs Pilley clasped her hands over Lydia’s, when Lydia would have torn up the note. ‘The poor man looked so desperate when he stopped me in the lobby just now. I’m sure he wouldn’t have waited half the morning here for you, just for foolishness.’

‘Are you?’ Lydia turned the note over in her black-gloved fingers. It sounded to her exactly like the sort of thing her most persistent suitor would do. She thought she’d glimpsed that tall, pot-bellied, awkward form scrambling up out of an armchair as she, Ellen, and Mrs Pilley had crossed the lobby with Miranda, after a morning spent walking with Madame Hautecoeur on the Tatar City’s walls. At the sight of him she had quickened her steps to the stair.

The effort to keep her mind from what she knew had to be taking place in the Western Hills – from the thought of Jamie tangling with the Others, who might or might not be asleep; from the knowledge that Simon would be sealed into the mine with them – had exhausted her. Annette Hautecoeur, for all her gossipy slyness, had maintained a gentle flow of harmless commonplace as they’d looked out across that eerily impressive sea of gray and green and crimson roofs, and had made no comment about Lydia’s distraction and silences.

A new-made widow, Lydia was finding, could get away with a lot.

Such forbearance would definitely not be encountered in Edmund Woodreave’s company.

‘Please.’ The little nurse’s voice almost had tears in it. ‘He has a faithful heart, ma’am, and loves you so much.’

‘He has debts of over five hundred pounds to his club, his tailor, his wine merchant, and Hoby’s in London where he orders his boots,’ returned Lydia astringently. ‘And he loves so much the thought of an independent income which would put him in line for promotion.’

Mrs Pilley’s face crumpled a little, her eyes pleading. Her own fondness for the clerk, she knew, would forever go unconsummated – without a marriage portion of some kind neither he nor anyone else could afford to look at her . . .

Unless , thought Lydia, with a sudden pang of mingled suspicion and pity, he’s courted her a little in order to get her help in delivering this.

Another look at the nurse’s face confirmed her thought. Of course he has .

She sighed, feeling a little sick, and inspected herself in the parlor mirror. She retreated to the bedroom and repaired the ravages wrought by an hour’s sedate stroll under the protection of enough veiling to tent the grounds of New College – touches of rice powder, the tiniest refreshment of mascaro on the lids of her eyes ( I may be in mourning but there’s no reason to look frightful . . .), smoothing and readjustment of her coiffure . . . Then she tucked her spectacles back into their silver case, put on her gloves again, and made her way down to the lobby, steeled to be grief-stricken and polite.

Simon . . .

He’ll find a way out somehow . . .

Woodreave was pacing the lobby outside the door of the smallest of the private parlors when Lydia came down the stairs. She noticed in passing a Chinese workman deep in argument with the manager at the desk and three laborers standing next to a number of rolled-up carpets nearby. Woodreave came forward and took her arm with a reverence that almost concealed the pre-emptory anxiety of the gesture. ‘Madame – Mrs Asher – thank you for coming down! Truly I’m – I’m sorry for disturbing you this way, but I really had no choice . . .’