A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(68)

“Ankles, knees, hands, elbows,” Alexandre replied. “I think he’s probably a kicker, so be careful when you take him up. Or no, wait—” He felt for the sponge and the chloroform, and gave the brat a good dose. When he went limp, he grunted with satisfaction. “He won’t give you any trouble now.”

“Proper,” Alf said with satisfaction, and heaved the boy up and over his shoulder.

Alexandre gave a more measured dose to the girl; when Alf came back they took her up between them and carried her down to the basement. The boy was already lying beside the pool of darkness; they put the girl down beside him. Alf went out and came back with the bag with the sponge and chloroform, materials for gags, and the extra rope. For one thing, it was just a good idea not to leave anything in the coach that could be stolen. For another, it was a good idea not to leave anything in the coach that could be connected with abductions. When they had begun this, Alf had laid out a set of what he called “sensible rules,” and they had been just that, eminently sensible, and Alexandre had not a single quibble with any of them.

Alf clearly had done this before.

Lastly, Alf came and went with the things that had been in the boot, purchases they had made earlier in the day, and the excuse they would use if anyone noticed activity out in the lane. Finally he heard Alf shout from the kitchen, “I’m orf, guv!” and the kitchen door closed for the last time. When Alf returned, he would use the front door.

The entity had not yet made a move. Nor had it spoken in Alexandre’s head. Now he was planning what he would do if the entity rejected the boy. Try to bargain, of course. Promise to come back with something more suitable tomorrow. If the victims simply had to be presented in pairs, he could hide the girl in the empty flat upstairs and—

The girl was waking up; he could see her eyelids fluttering. A moment later, her eyes opened, and she looked about herself in confusion and terror.

She couldn’t see Alexandre; he sat with the light behind him so she wouldn’t be able to see his face. The gag kept her from talking. He didn’t say a word.

Her eyes went from the unconscious boy beside her to the apparently bottomless pool of blackness to him and back again. None of this made any sense, of course . . . unless she was the kind given to reading sensational novels, like The Monk or Varney the Vampire. He didn’t think she was; she had sounded like a proper bluestocking.

The boy’s face was black and blue, one eye swollen. Alexandre smiled a little to see that; it made up for the condition of his ribs.

The girl did look like a terrified rabbit now. See, now, if you’d just stayed at home where you belong, you wouldn’t be in my basement about to be devoured by an eldritch horror, he thought spitefully at her. It’s your own fault you’re here.

He kept silent, however. He was waiting for the entity to “speak,” or at least put in its appear—

—the void in the center of the basement suddenly thrust up into a pillar of darkness. The temperature dropped so quickly that between one breath and the next, frost rimed on all the exposed surfaces. The girl tried to scream, but through the gag, it came out like the pathetic squeal of the rabbit she so resembled. The boy woke up in that same instant, and stared, petrified, at the thing looming over him.

It pondered them both, for so long that Alexandre went from anxious, to uncomfortable, to terrified. Surely the entity wouldn’t take him instead? He was anything but “pure!”

The offerings are . . . unusual, but acceptable, the entity said finally. And the pillar swelled preparing to engulf its victims.

“Wait a moment,” Alexandre croaked. “How many more are you going to need?”

Four pairs, it said shortly, and enveloped its prey.

“And what do you do with them?” he bleated, although he was trying very hard to sound forceful.

One I make into my witness. The other I hunt on my own ground. I feed on their terror and despair. And when they are too weak to despair, I feed. You have seven days.

Alexandre waited for the inevitable. And within ten minutes the pillar disgorged the rabbit-girl, her face an utter blank.

He untied her bonds and removed her gag and ordered her upstairs, out into the street and on her way. Then he went back into the house and stood in front of the stove in the kitchen, trying to warm up.

Perhaps ten minutes after that, he heard the key in the lock, and the sound of feet stamping on the mat. Alf, of course; and moments later, Alf came into the kitchen, looking for him.

“All’s well?” he asked, turning his grizzled head to one side in inquiry.

“It took both of them. It did seem to study them for a while, but it was pleased enough,” Alexandre told him. “It told me we’ll need four more pairs.”

“So . . . magic seven.” Alf pondered that. “Oi t’ink we’ll need t’ change our pattern, aye? Perlice are gonna go crazy. This’s nummer three, and lummy, even if Ma an’ Pa try t’keep it quiet . . .”

Alexandre nodded. “The papers will be on to it soon. I was thinking the same thing earlier today. But the thing is absolutely firm that we take girls that are going to be kept together, and that means girls whose families have money or rank, and I don’t know how we’re going to manage that for much longer.”

“Lemme poke about fer a couple days, see wut I c’n learn,” Alf replied. “Yer missed somethin’. Wut the thin’ said, or wut hit kinda said.”