A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(92)

“So if we could convince someone that we need soldiers and guns . . . the thing can only send through so many at a time. Right?” Now she looked to Agansing and Karamjit.

“It would be like forcing our enemies to come through a narrow mountain pass,” Agansing agreed. “This is a good strategy. A very few men with guns have held off tremendous forces in this way before now.”

“And meanwhile, the White Lodge can be figuring out how to close and seal the portal?” Now she turned to John and Mary.

“I should think so,” John said slowly. “But . . . we need those soldiers and guns in the first place.”

But Sherlock had gotten a new expression of determination on his face. “If you can convince Alderscroft, I can virtually guarantee he has some way to get the assistance of conventional forces. And I will talk to my brother. The threat to Her Majesty will get his attention as nothing else will. John, Mary, I think you and I need to travel back to London, posthaste.”

“Nan!” Sarah said, suddenly. “I just thought of something! Surely Amelia can give us some warning if the thing is on the move!”

Nan wanted to hit herself in the head. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “I should think so, especially if Memsa’b and I work with her.”

“Alderscroft and I will have the girls moved to some place on the property where they will be safe, but which will also provide us with a more defensible position,” John said after a moment. “Damn shame it’s not summer—we could put them in a tent in the middle of a field somewhere.”

“If you move them too far, the thing might be able to tell,” Mary pointed out. “And then there is the chance it would abandon the group it has already created and start a new one.”

Holmes nodded. “We should not underestimate this thing. There is no harm in overestimating its cleverness, but—well, you see my point.”

“I’ll muster what I can,” Puck said, looking determined. “You have it right, John Watson; my folk are not warlike. But we will not surrender this island Logres! If this thing succeeds—well, it won’t, that’s all. It won’t.”

Agansing and Karamjit exchanged a look. “There are preparations we can make,” said Karamjit.

“Memsa’b and Sarah and I will work with Amelia,” Nan added. “We can telegraph Alderscroft if anything changes before you muster us all at the hospital.” Neville interrupted her with an imperious quork, and she looked down at him. “Or I can send Neville. That’s probably faster.”

“Right, then, I think we all have our tasks.” Sherlock rose, and the rest of them rose with him. His face was set in grim determination. “As our young friend has said, they shall not have our island. And there’s the end to it.”





17





ALEXANDRE dreamed. In his dreams lately, no matter what they were about, he was always cold. He had tried putting a warming brick in his bed, he had tried piling on more blankets, but he was always cold.

Most of the time, they were not easy dreams.

Tonight . . . while it was not an easy dream, at least it started out as being satisfying. He dreamed that he was beating his father with a riding crop, as he had so often longed to do, humiliating the man, chaining him to a doghouse in his best suit, and forcing him to eat out of a dish on the ground. “There!” he was shouting. “Call on Jesus, old man. Go ahead! Call on him! See if Jesus will save you!”

And then, just as the bastard broke into helpless tears, he sensed something behind him. A wave of the too-familiar cold washed over him. The sky turned dark, and the air became thin and hard to breathe—then he turned to see—It.

Behind him in the ground was that hole into nowhere. The deep, black void, which immediately became a pillar as soon as he turned, and as he stared at it in horror, it grew a hundred tentacles and seized him, and dragged him screaming toward it, and in his mind the words burned. Bring Us another! Bring it to Us now! Bring it! Bring it!

He started up out of his dream in a cold sweat, only to discover, to his continuing horror, that part of it, at least, was not a dream. It was somehow still here. The voice still echoed in his head. We need another! Now! Get it for Us now!

This isn’t possible. I just fed it! “You—you gave me seven days—” he objected, speaking into the chill darkness of his room, aware only that there was something horribly, terribly wrong with his bedroom door. It was . . . darker than it should be; there was just a black rectangle that soaked up all the light from the fire and reflected nothing. As if there wasn’t a door there anymore. “You can’t ask this!” he continued, his voice rising in panic. “You gave me seven days! For Godsake, I gave you six at once! You gave me seven days!”

And that has changed! We need the pure one and the food NOW!

And then the freezing temperatures of his bedroom abruptly warmed, the darkness where his bedroom door had been vanished, and the door returned. He found he was gasping for breath, his heart racing in panic.

And Alf was pounding on the closed bedroom door. “Guv! Guv! Yew oil roight?”

He was still too paralyzed with terror to move; fortunately, Alf was not. The doorknob rattled, as Alf tried it, then the door slammed open. “Guv! Oi ’eard yew yellin’, an’ th’ damn door wouldn’ open—”