The Serpent's Shadow (47 page)

Gupta's words were on Maya's mind as she finished her breakfast, and the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.

She lost her appetite, poked at the cooling remains of breakfast for a moment, then gave up.
I
have done nothing, she decided.
It has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with her. And I doubt that after all this time anything is going to make a difference in what
she thinks. She took up her tea and drank it down, forcing it past the angry knot in her throat. She felt curiously adrift as well as angry; she didn't even know what this woman looked like! She wanted to hate her, but how did one hate someone who was faceless?

Oh, to the devil with it, and with her!
she decided, all but slamming her cup down on the saucer—in fact, she “put it down” so hard that it cracked.
Curse it all!
She has
killed
—
what
?—a dozen people thus far? Maybe more? She wants to kill me,
and
maybe
all
my people into the bargain!
She's a
vicious
animal
and
I
will not let her drive me into
a hole to
cower like
a
rabbit!

She got up abruptly, shook her skirt out, and headed for her office. She packed her medical bag, putting everything else out of her mind. She owed it to her patients not to be distracted by this.

Or at least, she had to try.

She put on her hat, took her bag in hand, and went out into the street, pausing to close the door of the house behind her. It was a slightly overcast morning. Blue sky showed between the slatey clouds, and there was a hint of damp in the air. She took a deep breath of cool air to steady herself.

Somehow nothing had changed, not here. Not in this calm and peaceful street, narrow and shabby, but now become home through some strange alchemy of time and circumstance. And the ordinary, homely sights of men on their way to work, women sweeping their steps before going on to their own tasks either here or elsewhere, and all the other bits of everyday life somehow steadied her as nothing else had. She even smiled at an old apple seller who approached her with a matching smile on her wrinkled face.

The woman looked like a withered old apple herself; shrunk and bent beneath her layers of skirts, smocks, and shawls. Maya had seen her sort a thousand times in this street—and hundreds of times in the Fleet, poor things. But this one looked in good health, moving spryly enough. She wouldn't be showing up in the Fleet any time soon.

With hair as silver as a new-minted coin under her shabby little black hat, the woman was obviously old. Maya wondered what it was that made her so healthy that her stride had the bounce of a much younger woman. Perhaps she wasn't really a Londoner. Perhaps she came in from the country just outside the city. Maya had heard it claimed that people of country stock were hardier.

And perhaps it is just that she is the best customer for her own apples. They do say that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,”
she thought, with better humor than she had felt since Gupta approached her this morning.

The old woman continued smiling at her as they neared one another. Maya smiled back, and felt in her skirt pocket for some change. No doubt the dear old thing expected her to buy an apple or two—and why not? They'd make a nice little present for Nurse Sarah.

But just as the old woman came even with her, the poor thing suddenly seemed to lose her balance. She stumbled, the apples tumbling out of her tray, and she fell heavily into Maya.

The woman was much heavier than she looked. She clutched desperately at Maya, clung to her, and pulled her off her own feet. And as she did so, Maya felt a sudden sharp pain in her side.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, in surprise as much as in pain, and her legs gave way under her. She landed heavily on her knees and hands. But the impact of landing hurt quite as much as that odd pain, and drove it right out of her mind. A scattering of street urchins appeared from out of nowhere and began snatching up the rolling fruit, shouting with glee and greed.

“Curse it!” she swore, and looked up. Somehow the old lady had managed to remain—or struggle—upright, probably because it was Maya who had taken the brunt of the collision.

The old woman shook her head, looking remorseful, and made a helpless gesture with both hands.

“Oh, dear—are you mute?” Maya asked, mouthing the words carefully so that the old woman might be able to make out what she was saying if she was also deaf. The old woman nodded sadly.

“I'm sorry. It's all right, dear, it wasn't your fault. Here, let me help you—” She groaned a little for her bruises as she levered herself up off the street, then stooped to help the old lady gather up the scattered fruit and replace it in her tray. They weren't able to gather anywhere near as much as had fallen—the little brats had stolen half of them and carried them off.

“Here you are—and here, dear, this is for the apples that were run off with—” Maya said, giving her a handful of random coins. The old lady nodded, and patted her hand, then turned to go back the way she had come.

Sudden dizziness overcame her, and she put one hand against the wall to steady herself. A second wave, more powerful than the first, struck her, and she had to cling to the wall with both hands.

What
—

The old woman turned around and looked back at her—and smiled—and held up a syringe filled with red, filling her sight, red, filling her mind with red—

Then black, black, black came up and filled mind and eyes and everything, and she slid down the wall and knew nothing more.

20

I
T was a dull day; no one had come in at all this morning, and Peter moved restlessly about the shop, dusting off his curios even though they didn't need dusting, moving them fractions of an inch to display them better. He couldn't feel settled, somehow. He was ill-at-ease and fretful.

For one thing, he couldn't stop worrying about Maya. He hadn't slept much last night, thinking about her, worrying over the increased danger she might be in. Unfortunately, the future was as opaque to him as a block of stone. Prescience was not a gift often given to Masters of any sort. Perhaps the Greater Powers felt that Masters had gifts enough without being able to see into the future as well. He could easily be worrying about nothing, and that was the problem, he just didn't
know.

If only he could find a way to persuade the White Lodge to help protect her! He'd bearded old Alderscroft again in his den last night, to no avail. “Let the foreigners contend among themselves,” the Old Man had rumbled. “We have no reason to embroil ourselves in their quarrels.”

No matter how much Peter tried to persuade him, to the Old Man, Maya was an Outsider, and never mind that half of her was as English as the Old Man. The White Lodge had enough on its plate, he said, trying to defeat this mysterious killer-by-night—which might, or might not, be Shivani, according to the Old Man—and now Alderscroft was not
entirely
certain they should even do that, not without investigating the past lives of all those who had been killed! The Old Man had actually voiced the thought that if these men
had
committed a crime against Indians worthy of the punishment, it would be better to let the vengeful entity sate itself, for the victims had brought their punishment on themselves!

Sophistry—and an excuse for doing nothing—if ever he had heard one! Perhaps his distaste had shown itself in his expression, for the Old Man had quickly retracted the doubtful argument, and gone back to insisting that the White Lodge had all it could do to try and stop the killer in its tracks.

But he did hint that Maya
herself
wouldn't be in danger if she had simply reconciled with her aunt. Peter had been hard-put to hold down his anger. If she
was my wife, he wouldn't have a choice,
Peter reflected sourly.
He'd
have to help protect
her—or
risk
alienating three quarters of the Lodge—for if he wouldn't move to protect my wife, how could he be depended upon to order the protection of the wives and children of anyone else?

Then it hit him, with the sudden impact of a thun-derbolt.
Dear God, if You put that into my head, thank
You! he thought, mood turning abruptly from anxiety to elation.
I'll marry her! By heaven, I'll shut up the shop right now and get hold of Almsley; he can get a Special License in two hours with his connections. If I put it to her that it's for her protection, surely, surely—
Oh, of course she'd consent! And put so sensibly, she would not think the proposal amiss, or too sudden, or too forward, or too
anything!

And as an excuse to get past his own cowardice over proposing to her—

Damn it, I love her, and she loves me, I know it. Make it only the excuse to marry
now,
the excuse to Almsley to get us a Special License, you fool!
Yes, he'd go to Almsley, get the license, then go right to Maya and throw himself at her feet—

He turned, tossing the duster aside—

And a burst of light before his face nearly blinded him.

An aureole of brilliance, rainbowed at the edges, but electric white at the center, blossomed no more than three feet from him. It screamed
magic
to all his senses, overwhelming all other impressions; he threw his arm up instinctively, sheltering his face against the glare.

Out of the center of the light flew a small green parrot, screaming like a terrified banshee. It shrieked in Urdu—he could only make out a few things in his confusion.
Murder. Serpent. Help.

Maya's name.

It was only there a moment, then it turned and flew back into the light, which collapsed and vanished behind it, leaving his eyes dazzled and ears buzzing in the silence.

But he didn't need an interpreter to know that something terrible had happened to Maya.

He didn't stop to think, didn't pause for anything, not for a hat, not even to lock up the shop. He ran out into the street, waving wildly at a hansom cab just up the block. The driver looked vaguely familiar—was it the one that often brought Maya home at night? At any rate, he knew a desperate man when he saw one; he pulled up his horse long enough for Peter to fling himself inside, waited only to hear the address before shouting at his beast and giving the reins a mighty shake to send it into a headlong gallop, cracking his whip over its head to urge it on. The cab lurched as the horse surged forward into the traces so eagerly it might have been a racehorse or a cavalry mount that had only been waiting for the opportunity to launch into a full-out charge. Peter clung to the inside of the cab like grim death; either the driver had guessed at the level of emergency from his face, or he was hoping for a handsome tip—which he
would
get—or both.

Probably both.

Hansoms were two-wheeled vehicles; this one not only bounced over the cobbles but occasionally went airborne for a moment as it hit a particularly large bump. People flung themselves out of their path as they careened headlong down the street, but they needn't have bothered; the driver
and
his horse showed a level of skill at judging the traffic ahead and the places that they could squeeze through that was positively supernatural. The horse was soon drenched in sweat, drops of foam and sweat flying from its mouth and neck as it pounded around a corner, yet it showed no sign of wanting to slacken its pace, and the driver never again touched his whip, which remained in its socket up beside him.

The torture of each hard bump and landing was nothing compared to the torture of his heart. His gut clenched; his heart was a cold lump of icy terror. The cab swayed wildly from side to side as the driver swerved around slower-moving vehicles. Mindful that he might need the man's services immediately after he got to Maya's home, Peter let go of one side of the cab and pulled out his notecase, extracting a tenner which he stuck in his breast pocket. He stuffed the pocketbook back in his coat, grabbing the side of the cab again as they cut around a corner on one wheel. A tenner was more than double the proper fare; the man and his horse weren't going to suffer for this.

At last the cab clattered down Maya's street, and pulled up to the door, the horse actually going down on its haunches and skidding to a halt. Peter thrust the money up at the cabby as he leaped out, then had a second thought, and called “Wait a moment!”

He pulled out his notecase again, and scribbled a note to Almsley. At this hour, his Twin would still be sleeping the sleep of the idle rich in his Piccadilly apartment. He extracted another note and thrust it and the note with Peter's address on it at the cabby.

“Give this to Lord Almsley's man,” he said, already turning away. “Tell him it's an emergency.”

“Roight yew are, guv‘nor!” the cabby said, and before Peter had even touched the door, was off, his horse again at the gallop, drawing on reserves of strength and stamina that Peter would never have expected.

The door flew open as he turned back around; it was Gupta, who uttered an inarticulate groan, and gestured him inside. Peter pushed past him.

He didn't have to ask “where”—there was a small crowd crammed into Maya's office and spilling out into the corridor. It was all of Maya's own household, neighbors—

The sight of one of them, a girl in shabby satins, triggered another brainstorm. He knew her only from Maya's description, but he had no doubt who she was, and he grabbed her by the elbow. She rounded on him, fist pulled back and clenched to strike, eyes red, hair disheveled, and face streaked with dirt and tears.