Ether & Elephants (30 page)

“You…you!” Now she was shouting. “You used your magick on me?”

“I didn’t have to. It’s all right there in your eyes.”

“Shut up.” This time she sang.

Tom’s mouth opened and closed, as he discovered he couldn’t speak.

She didn’t expect him to tackle her and kiss her senseless. Once her concentration wavered, the moment their lips touched, the spell broke.

“Now that was cheating. But I’ll allow it this once.” He kissed her again. “Do it again and I’ll tie you to the bed. I’m told some women enjoy that.”

Nell just shook her head, dumbfounded. Tom kissed her on the forehead and stroked her hair. “Marry me, Nell. The magick between us is too precious to throw away. I swear, I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life proving that I’ll never hurt you again.”

“No.” It seemed almost cruel to have to keep repeating herself—cruel to both of them. “I’m not going to marry you. This was just a space out of time. Nothing more.”

“As you wish.” Tom kissed her one final time and slipped away to his own room. “I love you,” he whispered from the door.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, but only after the door had shut.

She lay there, her body limp and content, her heart shattered, until she remembered what was in store for the following day. The pleasure slipped away, leaving a cold knot of fear in its wake.

Chapter Twelve

Tom couldn’t help watching Nell’s face for any hint of pain or any clue as to what she was thinking. He sat next to her in the front seat of Jonathan’s steam car, which they’d co-opted for the day. Two soldiers, sent by the viceroy, rode in the rear. Up ahead, just far enough that they weren’t breathing the dust cloud, Sir Vivek drove his own car, along with another pair of soldiers and his own most trusted servant. Jonathan and Vidya had been left behind for the day.

“How did you get a tropical wardrobe in the two days before we came to India?” She’d dressed simply for this outing, in a tropical riding suit of the lightest khaki, with the voluminous folds of her split skirt tucked into calf-high boots that would protect her from snakebites. The ultimate effect was not too different from a pair of Turkish trousers. A short veil covered her pith helmet and a froth of lace showed at the neckline of her jacket. Tom, on the other hand, was clad in English summer riding clothes and boots, with a borrowed helmet, which meant he was already coated in sweat.

“Remember Amy and Kendall went to Morocco last year?” Nell adjusted her gloves. “Amy and I are close to the same size, and in these boots, you can’t see that the skirt is an inch too short. What other alterations were needed, Eileen has accomplished on the airship and since we’ve been here.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Tom admitted. Not that any of Kendall’s clothes would have fit him, even if he’d brought a tailor along. Tom was four inches taller, but only half as broad. “But then you’ve always been clever.”

“Well, in this case, it was the dowager’s idea. She sent them over.” While Tom was a bundle of nerves, Nell appeared remarkably calm and collected. Her lips were a little puffy from the night before, and she walked with just a touch of stiffness, but her gaze was bright and focused. She frowned and said, “We have to get to the site and find the ruby before they do. But I’ve been wondering… What would a Buddha be doing at a temple to Jagganesh?”

“I don’t know, but that may be the reason it hasn’t been found.” Tom had been over this with both Sir Vivek and the viceroy.

“With respect,” said one of the soldiers, dark enough to be native, or at least half-caste, “something some people forget is that Bengal has changed hands many times. As new conquerors came in, temples were sometimes built right on top of old ones. What might have been a temple to one god in the middle ages might have been dedicated to another by the time the English came to India.”

Tom and Nell shared a glance and Tom said to the soldier, “Excellent information, Sergeant.”

The man dipped his head. “O’Malley, sir. Lived right here in Calcutta all my life. Another thing you should know is that the Eye of the Buddha is also called the Eye of Wisdom sometimes. So it might be some kind of symbol thing, not an actual eye.”

“Which might mean they’ve been looking in the wrong places,” Nell mused. “And they can’t find it. Maybe that’s why they took Charlie. He finds things.” Her lip quivered and her eyes were wide and misty.

Tom caught her hand. “And that means they might have had a good reason to keep him alive, more than just using him as another experimental subject. Hold on to that hope, darling.”

“I have been. I just didn’t know why.” She leaned over and gave him an impulsive hug.

The soldiers both smiled and looked away.

Tom pulled out the brief the viceroy had sent with the soldiers and began to read. “Listen to this:Reports in the area of missing persons, of all castes except Brahmin. Several small holdings have been overrun, slaughtered, even burned. One man who survived a massacre described the bandits as having a soulless gaze, looking neither right nor left, responding to no cries, nor even injuries, just marching mindlessly onward, slaughtering everyone in sight.”

Nell shuddered. “That sounds familiar, like something I’ve read about from the Americas. Voodoo, I believe it’s called. They claim to resurrect the dead as mindless servants called zombies.”

Tom had heard of voodoo and zombies, but how had Nell? He cast her a sideways look.

“I read a book for Charlie,” she told him. “Like so many small boys, he’s interested in everything spooky.”

“Or he had some idea of what his parents were up to.” Tom hated that he couldn’t discount the idea. Young or not, Charlie might have been a willing participant, and that would break Nell’s heart.

She snickered. “I think we’re safe on that count. He also wants to read every book I can find on vampyres, werewolves, trolls, elves, goblins, spacemen and sea monsters.”

“So just a normal boy in that respect.” Tom hadn’t had a chance to be that kind of child—the streets of Wapping held no room for whimsy—but he’d watched it with Will and other Order offspring.

“Exactly.” Nell wrinkled her nose. “If only more of those books were in Braille, so he could read them himself, I wouldn’t have to.”

“Talk to Wink about that,” Tom said. “I’m sure she can come up with a way for her analytical engines to print out books in Braille.”

Nell beamed. “Brilliant.”

Beyond the dust cloud of the car ahead, they saw the looming walls of a fortress.

“Good grief, is that Shanku?” Nell gaped at the expanse of the palace, surrounded by heavily fortified walls.

“It is, miss.” Private Cortland, the other soldier, said. “I was barracked here for a while during the mutiny. Nice place, though I’d have killed for a good steak.”

Tom gave the soldier a wry grin. “Better off in Calcutta, eh?” The English enclave was big enough to have cattle production without using workers from among the native population.

Cortland piped in. “Aye. You get used to curry after a while, but the viceroy likes his beefsteak, and we benefit.”

“My father lives
here
?” The closer they drew, the more impressive it became, with high, white marble walls and tiled rooflines.

“Aye, miss. You’re a princess here.” O’Malley might have understood Nell’s situation better than she did herself. “You’d want for nothing inside that palace.”

“Except a steak,” Cortland muttered.

“Except that,” Nell agreed.

Tom remembered the first time he’d seen Stonechase, the Devere family home which was now his. He hadn’t believed it, hadn’t understood how something so vast and beautiful could belong to one man, let alone that it would one day be his. While Nell wasn’t Vivek’s heir, she must be feeling something along those lines.

They stopped inside the gates, since there was no road to the ruined temple. Tom and the soldiers would go ahead on some of Vivek’s fastest horses, while Nell and her father would double back to the train station to meet Pritchard and his investors, presumably the Alchemist and Polly, and if there was a God, Charlie as well.

When they climbed out of the steam cars, two of Vivek’s servants ran to greet them.

“More of the villagers are missing,” said one, after bowing to greet the nawab. “And one of the outlying plantations burned last night.”

“Mount as many men as we can, on horseback or elephant.” Vivek switched to Bengali, barking orders as he strode into the palace, keep, or hall, or whatever the gleaming, onion-domed central building was called. Nell, Tom and the viceroy’s soldiers followed closely at his heels.

Vivek’s demeanor hardened. His ramrod posture and commanding expression reminded Tom that Nell’s father was more than a tame landowner, but a powerful warlord in his own right.

“Of course I want the cannons,” Vivek muttered in English to Tom. “Have you all grown soft and stupid since the rebellion? We are fighting for the lives of our own. Hook up the bloody guns!”

Apparently his servants understood English, because they ran scurrying.

Vivek paced the great hall of his palace. “We are not on the telephone here, I’m afraid. I can telegraph the viceroy, but we may not get help here in time if the bandit army is as big as my villagers are claiming.”

“How many men do you have?” Tom considered his own ability to cast spells, but never before had he so wished for another Knight or two at his back.

Vivek calculated, his lips moving. “Perhaps fifty altogether in the fortress. Another fifty or so from the villages we pass through. Most of them have fought before, in ’57. We have three cannons and twenty horses, plus ten to twelve elephants.”

“You said you had an airship,” Nell said. “We could really use Wink right about now.”

“A small one.” Vivek shot Tom a look. “Can you fly it? Jagganesh is the only one here who knows how.”

Tom sighed. “I can manage,” he said. “It isn’t my specialty, but our sister Wink has taught me the basics.”

“I can as well, sirs.” Private Cortland lifted one hand. “I’ve been in training to transfer to the Air Corps.”

“Then you two drop me at the station,” Nell said. “I’m going to try to separate Charlie from his parents and run for it. I don’t want him anywhere near the temple.”

“And I don’t want you anywhere near it, either.” Vivek glared down at Nell, hands on his hips. “You are to remain right here in the palace, young lady.”

Tom stifled a snort. Nell’s father was about to learn a lot about the woman he called daughter.

Nell drew herself up to her full five foot four inches and tapped the pointed toe of her boot. “Charlie is
my
student and someday my foster son, when both his so-called parents hang or go to prison. I will not abandon him to strangers.”

“Think about it. There’s going to be a battle, possibly a big one. You don’t want to be there, Nelly.” Tom weighed the options. “I know, you don’t want the boy there, either, so here’s our plan.
We
go to the station, grab the boy, and bring him back here by airship. If we happen to capture Polly and the Alchemist, all the better, as we won’t have to deal with them while we fight their minions. Then I leave you and Charlie here to hold the fort, literally in this case, because the bandits could circle around and attack here, while Cortland and I take the airship down to the temple site.” His magick, flowing more freely than ever since he and Nell had become intimate, told him it was unlikely, but not out of the question.

After a moment of pondering, Nell conceded. “Very well. Don’t forget Pritchard. We don’t know whether he’s one of them, or simply a dupe.”

Tom turned to Vivek. “How many will your airship hold?”

“No more than six men, although I think Nell and the boy will only count as one.” Vivek’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He turned to Nell. “Can you shoot?”

Nell choked out a laugh. “Better than some professional soldiers. And don’t worry, I have my own pistol.” She patted the pocket of her trousers, showing a heavy shape strapped to her thigh. “My pocket and petticoats have a slit so I can draw it easily.”

“Amy’s clothes, you said?” Tom rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” Of course the wife of a Knight would have access to a weapon in her adventuring gear.

“Take Aadi and Rajit as well,” Vivek instructed. “They can hire horses or elephants at the station and ride to the temple if you bring back prisoners.”

Both the butler and the captain of the guard bowed. “We will protect the princess with our lives,” the butler told his lord.

While Vivek and the others prepared the horses and elephants, Nell, Tom, the two servants and the two soldiers prepared the airship, O’Malley having decided he was sticking with his team. Surely the six of them would be able to overpower three villains and rescue a boy.

Within the half hour, they were in the ether.

* * *

Pritchard’s train was due just shortly after Nell and the others arrived at the station. They managed to hide the small airship behind a nearby barn, but only just. Finally, the soldiers made arrangements to hire elephants, then took various places around the platform, with some reading newspapers and the two servants playing dice. Nell and Tom waited in plain sight, prudently keeping their backs to the wall of the station.

At precisely noon, the whistle of a train heralded the arrival of the massive steam engine pulling a half-dozen cars, one for passengers, the others freight.

As Tom and Nell watched, six people stepped off the train. One elderly couple wandered off arm in arm, and a single man in a Western business suit with a newspaper tucked under his arm scurried off toward a parked steam car.

That left Pritchard, a portly man of perhaps fifty and a woman about Tom’s age, with brassy yellow hair and a haggard expression.

“Damn, but Polly has aged,” Tom whispered, his breath warm on Nell’s ear.

“And the man—is that her supposed father?” There was no sign of Charlie and her heart filled with fear.

Tom grunted. “Aye.”

“Get the boy out here,” Polly called. “Professor Pritchard, won’t you introduce us to your friends?”