A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(91)

“So . . . the obvious thing would be to separate them,” Nan pointed out. But Holmes shook his head.

“If he can control them, all he needs to do is open one of those portals wherever they are, call them across, and make another anywhere he wants to put them,” Sherlock pointed out. “He doesn’t care if he drops them down on the Downs in midwinter and they die of exposure, as long as they invite him across before they drop dead.” He shook his head. “If we want any warning before he crosses, if we want any control over where he crosses, we need to have them together.” His lips compressed together into a tight line.

“Sherlock,” Nan said slowly, thinking about those terrible mobs of monsters that had nearly killed them all. “You are talking as if we have any chance at actually stopping them when they come over. We barely made it out of there alive, and we nearly lost Selim—and they weren’t trying to stop us, not really. That thing intended for some of us, at least, to escape; it said as much. So what are we supposed to oppose it with?”

“The White Lodge—” John began, then dropped his head in his hands. “—won’t be of much use. Not against an army. Except for Fire, and perhaps Earth, our Elementals are not well suited to combat.”

Sherlock got an odd expression on his face, one that Nan couldn’t read. “We keep saying ‘him’ and ‘it.’ What if that thing is . . . a queen?”

John blinked at him. “You mean like Her Majesty?” he asked, looking confused.

“No. Like a queen bee,” Holmes corrected. “Or an ant. That thing’s behavior—it seems to control all those creatures over there without any obvious means of communication. We are surmising it can control the girls as well. That it spoke of taking the ‘pure’ into a kind of hive mind suggests more queen-like behavior. Watson, what happens when a queen ant decides to take over another queen’s nest? Never mind, you probably don’t know. She sends in her warriors and kills the other queen, then enslaves the rest of the nest.” He paused. “So what do you think will happen when this queen discovers there is another queen on this island? I think we only saw a handful of the thing’s warrior ants tonight. And I suspect that queen can hatch out as many as she needs to. If she establishes a foothold here—the first thing she will do, as soon as she learns of a rival’s existence, will be to eliminate that rival.”

“She’s probably hatching out more monsters right now,” Mary Watson agreed, despondently. “She’s very close to making her invasion—and that might be why we weren’t overwhelmed by monsters as soon as we appeared. Why hatch out a hungry horde until you need them?”

“How in the name of God are we supposed to stop them?” Sarah asked.

“I . . . don’t know,” Sahib replied.

Gloom settled over the entire party. Neville crept out of his sable muff and into Nan’s lap, huddling there like a cat and making unhappy muttering noises while she stroked him. She glanced over at Sarah and saw that Grey was doing the same thing.

“I don’t suppose Lord Alderscroft would be of any use in acquiring a few troops and a Maxim gun or two, would he?” Sahib asked. “There will be a limit to how large a portal that thing can create. If we can destroy enough of them, we may be able to stop them until magicians can destroy the portal.”

“Until it moves the girls and makes a portal where we can’t find it,” Sarah pointed out, bleakly. “And if we . . . if we were to murder the girls, it would just create more of them where we can’t find them.”

John shook his head, though whether that was denying that the girls should be killed or at the impossibility of stopping the thing from creating more of the “Communion,” Nan could not tell. “Alderscroft is not the problem with getting Maxim guns and troops. Explain to me how we are to frame this for the government! How do we convince them this is a genuine threat? This is the greatest Empire on Earth, and our armies have faced vast hordes of enemies—now tell me how we convince them that a paltry couple of hundred monsters and a thing that can siphon souls away is any kind of a threat that the White Lodge cannot handle? Because I believe it is, down in my bones, but I am blamed if I can think of a way to convince anyone else!”

Nan petted Neville and tried to make her mind quiet while it persisted in running in frantic circles like a cornered mouse. But all she could think of was that John was right. She was sure they could convince Alderscroft, and he could summon the White Lodge, but the White Lodge was composed of magicians who normally set their powers against purely magical threats. When faced with a horde of those monsters pouring through a portal they could not close, what would they do?

She had the sinking feeling they would either try to stand their ground and be slaughtered, or flee and be slaughtered. If such formidable fighters as Selim, Agansing, Karamjit, and she had barely escaped with their lives when the creatures were not truly trying to kill them, a disorganized lot of gentlemen would be cut down out of hand.

“We need real fighters,” she said aloud. “With guns. I don’t think that thing has ever seen a gun. Didn’t you just suggest there is a limit on the size of a portal that can be made?” She looked over at Puck, who shrugged and spoke for the first time since they’d all sat down.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it does stand to reason. Making one takes a mort of power, and the bigger it is, the more power it takes. There has to be a limit.”