A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(77)

“How do you propose to keep them quiet?” That concerned him. If he knew anything about boys . . . keeping them tied up for more than a few hours was going to be a problem. They’d have to eat, eliminate . . . and there was only himself and Alf to keep watch over them. You couldn’t leave them alone, they’d find a way to get out of their bonds. . . .

But Alf laughed. “Fust, Oi’m pickin’ skinny, meek’uns, all bone. Second, Oi’m tellin’ ’em th’ Marster’s away, an’ wants ’em fit t’work when ’e comes ’ome, an’ they has leave t’eat an’ drink an’ rest so’s they are. Third, Oi leave ’em wi’ a full pantry an’ plenty o’ beer an’ gin. So, they’ll be inna place fulla food ’n drink, plenty coal fer a fire, an’ th’ last think they gonna wanta do is look thet gift ’orse in ’is mouth. If Oi know boys, an’ Oi do, they’ll stuff thesselves an drink till they fall over, an’ wake up t’do it summore.”

“And by that time, we’ll have the girls.” It seemed a sound plan. He’d had a look at the flat upstairs; it was on the same plan as this one, and furnished in a rudimentary fashion, with one big bed in the room that corresponded to his, and two smaller beds in what would have been Alf’s room and his study. “You take the coach out before we do all this and pick up a few kitchen things, and lots of blankets. And curtains. We should make sure the windows have curtains over them. You’ll know better than me what the boys will need to keep them satisfied.”

Alf nodded. “Once I git ’em, we c’n make a try next day fer three girls. If we on’y get one, we’ll give th’ thing the girl an’ one uv the lads. Oi’ll tell th’ one Oi pick Oi’m takin’ ’im t’Marster’s ’ouse.” Alf certainly seemed to have taken the bit between his teeth on this, and Alexandre was disinclined to discourage him.

“I . . . think that’s a good plan, Alf,” he said, finally. “If we can take the third girl before the first and second are discovered to be missing—that will make it all immensely easier.” He considered the times he had run into American girls in the shops and dressmakers around the hotels they frequented. They were often alone. They were bold. They were fearless—never having learned to fear anything. All that would work against them. Yes, this might work. This might well work.

And meanwhile, he wanted to take Alf’s prescription of getting as much of a bottle of brandy inside him as possible and then going back to bed.

“Wait,” he said, and fumbled a nice packet of folded banknotes out of his pocket. “You’ll need money; you’ll be doing a lot of moving around, and later, you’ll have to buy those things for the flat upstairs. While you are scouting, you should take cabs or ’buses if you need them. We shouldn’t let the coach be seen before the day. Someone might recognize it—a doorman, or a shopgirl. And you’ll want luncheon, tea, dinner, and beer at least.”

“Roight yew are, guv,” Alf saluted him with two fingers to his forehead. Then he bustled out, and a few minutes later, the front door closed and the flat was silent.

After a while, Alexandre got up and went to the kitchen. He found it cleaned up with not so much as a dirty saucer in the sink. Alf had already tidied everything away—it occurred to him that for a fellow with such a low background, he was surprisingly fastidious.

Or maybe it’s because of the low background. Maybe he was sick of living in squalor by the time he was old enough to leave home. He already knew from tidbits that Alf had dropped that his father was a drunk and his mother a slattern. Not a whore—but someone who literally never swept anything so the floors of the single rooms in which they lived consisted of dirt and bits of trash pounded down by feet into layers of grime.

Alexandre found the half-open bottle of brandy in the pantry with the rest of the liquor, cut himself two thick slices of bread, buttered them well, and ate them. Long experience had taught him that if he was going to drink to get drunk, he needed to cushion his stomach first. Then, with the blanket still draped over his shoulders, he took a glass and the bottle and sought his room.

The fire was going well; he put coal on it to make sure it kept going while he slept.

But before he got ready to climb into bed, he opened the drawer full of magical supplies in his bureau and got The Book. Because right now . . . he didn’t want to sleep unless he had some protection.

I don’t think my standard protective magic is going to work against that . . . thing. But written after the summoning spell in The Book . . . he thought he remembered some sort of protective spell. Which would make sense; whoever had written the book out surely had a way of protecting himself from the thing he had summoned. I was just in so much of a hurry for power . . . I never even considered what I woke up might pose any danger to me.

Half averting his eyes, he flipped past the summoning spell, and then when he reached the next section, he began to read, carefully. And with a feeling of hope, he knew he had found what he was looking for. Yes! Here it is.

It was, as such things went, fairly standard, with just a couple of small tweaks to it—tweaks, he suspected, that had to do with this particular entity. Normally such things used holy water, or at least water the magician himself had blessed. This used heavily salted water, red paint into which a couple of herbs, ground fine, had been mixed, and a couple of precious oils. And he had everything he needed in that drawer, because after he’d made his first copy of The Book, he’d gone out and bought every last ingredient listed in it. Now he was inexpressibly glad he had done so.