A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(71)

“What?” Sarah asked urgently, as Nan cursed under her breath and sent her mind skimming through all the others in the theater, hoping to find a glimmer of what had summoned the thing.

“I thought I felt that . . . intelligence behind Amelia’s visions,” she whispered back. “It’s gone now, but . . . I wonder if I felt it hunting?”

“The places it has hunted before were a mostly deserted decent street, a gallery . . . all places where a girl should feel perfectly safe. So a theater matinee would be another place a respectable young woman could go without a second thought,” Sarah replied, now sounding quite as concerned as Nan felt. “I don’t think you’re being alarmist. Did you get any sense of direction, where it was, or who it was looking at?”

Nan shook her head, regretfully. “No, nothing. But if it’s hunting, I might get another brush of it, if I keep my inner eye open. And I will,” she added grimly, and settled down in her seat, closing her eyes. So much for Hamlet.

Indeed, she was so intent on sniffing out the least little hint of that presence that she was scarcely aware of a word of the second or third act. If that thing was still lurking about, she didn’t want to leave her own mind open to it, so she had to skulk behind her shields. Which made her able to sense things only obliquely, and see nothing of the thoughts of those beyond her immediate area. Certainly she couldn’t read the thoughts of anyone in the first balcony, much less the second. But then, it was nothing human she was looking for; the icy alienness of it should shout out to her without her needing to be able to read thoughts.

The audience responded only tepidly when the curtain came down, so there was only one curtain call, during which Nan made a last scan for the cold aura of the hunter and found nothing. She was both frustrated and angry as they made their way to the street. Frustrated, because of her lack of success. Angry—well at herself. If that had been a hint of whatever had been preying on those girls, she had let it get away. I should have found a way to track it! Damn and blast it all!

They fetched their cloaks and shuffled out with the rest of the crowd into the late afternoon gloom—it was overcast, and the snow that had been threatening was coming down in earnest. If it kept up like this, there’d be several inches on the ground by morning.

Sarah hailed a cab, and Nan was not disposed to object, both because snow was coming down quite thickly, and because there would be no chance to talk in private in a ’bus. Despite the crush of other people wanting to get out of the snow as well, Sarah managed to catch the eye of a young fellow, who grinned at her and beckoned them over, waving off several other would-be riders.

When they were both tucked into the hansom and the doors were closed, Sarah turned to her with concern. “I know that look on your face, Nan, and you are not to blame yourself!”

“And why not?” she said, tightly. “I sensed the damn thing, and now we know it’s out there hunting, if it hasn’t already found a victim. I sensed it, and I wasn’t fast enough; I couldn’t keep track of it!” she snapped.

“Because it’s magic. I’m sure of it! And what do we know of magic, really?” Sarah countered forcefully. “Only what we’ve seen others doing! Frankly I think you’re lucky you sensed it at all. It probably wasn’t aware that you—or anyone—could. It either withdrew quickly, or hid itself in a way you couldn’t possibly hope to penetrate. Being angry at yourself for losing it makes as much sense as being angry that you can’t track a tiger like Karamjit can. We can’t do everything, Nan, no one can.”

For once, Sarah’s admonishments got to her. She nodded.

Seeing that her words were having an impact, Sarah’s tone softened. “Now what we can do is what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop at John and Mary’s and leave a message for them, then we’re going home and tell Durwin to tell Robin we think the thing was on the hunt today and may have already found a victim. Nan, be sensible! Would you try wrestling with a fire hose if you saw a house on fire and there were already firemen about? The smart thing, the only thing to do is make sure people who can do something are on the alert.”

Nan sighed, and some more of the anger at herself ran out. Though not the frustration. “When you put it that way . . . no.”

“Then see if you have a pencil in your purse. I know I have paper, but I didn’t bring a pencil with me,” Sarah said, with great practicality.

Nan hunted among the pennies and odd buttons and a peppermint or two at the bottom of her purse and did come up with the stub of a pencil. Armed with these, when the cab reached 221 Baker Street, Sarah popped out of the cab and ran in. She was gone longer than it would have taken to write a note, so Nan surmised she’d found one or both of the Elemental Masters in.

When she finally emerged, she paused long enough to give some instructions to the cabby and flung herself into the cab precipitously. She didn’t even have a chance to get the door shut before the cab lurched off. She and Nan both had to lean out together and pull the door shut with a slam.

“I told him there was a florin in it if he got us home as fast as the traffic and his horse could take us,” she told Nan, as they both settled back into the seat. “John is at his surgery, Mary was in. I explained what you had sensed to her. She agrees there is great cause for alarm. She’s going to get John and they are going straight to Lord Alderscroft. They are going to convene as many of the White Lodge tonight as they can, in hopes of finding something, or even stopping this thing.”