An Unpleasant Trick
Elspeth stood in the little study, gone quiet since the others left to wander the residence. A capable woman would be a fish out of water in this group, so after carefully considering her options, she thought it best if she remained with the growing collection of supplies. Left to her own devices, she began sorting items of use into piles... Even if it made her feel like a perfect idiot. A blanket hung between her pinched fingertips. She held it to the light and inspected it for holes or bugs. Judging it appropriate for their use, she laid it against her chest and folded it into neat squares. Its faint smells of wool and moths offended her nose.
While she worked, she kept an eye on the room. Shadows seemed to bulge from corners that looked normal upon closer inspection. One moment the air chilled her and rattled her teeth; in the next, it warmed until perspiration beaded on her nose. Was she coming down sick? Elspeth dismissed that as nonsense. She hardly ever caught cold.
A figure moved beyond the door. Laying a blanket across her arm, Elspeth rounded the desk and peered into the corridor. "Oh! Mr. Musgrave, it's you. May I speak with you?"
Alistair had made to follow those who had swiftly deserted the study, but paused as he thought a moment upon his situation. It had become clear that what he had seen to draw him there - or, rather, what he had thought he had seen - had been nothing more than some sort of illusion. How then could he trust anything else he was confronted with in the strange house? Stranded with an assortment of strangers, Alistair found himself drawn to familiarity above all. Mrs. Fry, as the others had called her, and the boy Fox were the only familiar faces in the crowd, and when Fox journeyed out into the corridors, Alistair stepped back towards the strange woman he had encountered in an East End charity ward.
"Certainly," he agreed, nodding. "Truth be told, I'd rather hoped to have a word with you, Mrs. Fry. We do seem to find ourselves in a rather strange situation. I thought you might have a bit more insight into such things...?"
Elspeth opened her mouth to speak. "I... well, yes, I suppose." A worry line dimpled her forehead. She gestured for him to follow her back into the study, where they might discuss the matter in relative privacy. Laying the blanket on a stack of cloths, which had been pulled from the furniture, she considered what she might say. "You didn't accept my invitation to speak at The Royal Oak," she said, not chastising him but needing to speak frankly under the circumstances. "I understand it can be intimidating to receive a missive with the Queen's insignia. Had you done so, you would be familiar with three other faces in this very house. It is an odd turn of events, but let me assure you, not one we planned or anticipated."
Alistair nodded. He had received the invitation, though common sense and the strangeness of it all had convinced him that it couldn't possibly be genuine. Having spent the better part of his adult life absorbed by his work and sequestered from London at large, it had only been in recent months, at the prodding of his housekeeper and his own need to care for his apprentice's sickly sibling, that he had begun venturing out and finding himself in the oddest situations.
Mrs. Fry and her measurements in the charity word, the midnight howling and curious stranger during a late carriage ride, and now this.
"Please understand that I mean no offense in saying this, Mrs. Fry, but when I received your invitation, I could hardly convince myself to take it at face value. I am learning, it seems, that London is a far more perplexing city than I'd ever imagined," he responded, choosing frank honesty over pandering to society's call for strict politeness. "I fear I've made quite an error in that decision."
"Well, there's no need to berate yourself for it," she said. "I would have thought mine a fake, too, had I not already seen a werewolf and stuck a silver fork in its neck." Why had she gone to stand behind the desk again? Elspeth's fingers pressed on the edge of it until turning white. On an impulse, she opened her bag and pulled out the little silver dagger, bottle of holy water, and cross. She thought twice about revealing the incendiary device, since it was a technology developed by the Inquisition and top secret, but he was an inventor, too. Was this not exactly how they hoped to employ Mr. Musgrave? She set it on the desk alongside the other things.
"There have been demon hunters for centuries," she said. "Most operated alone, particularly in Eastern Europe. The Queen's own society has existed for little more than a year." Elspeth watched him and kept an eye peeled for intruders at the door. "I confess that I've heard of many creatures, but I have no experience with a... with an aggressive house."
Alistair took a step back from where he stood across from her on the other side of the desk, eyes gone wide in surprise. Military, he had assumed. Perhaps even some strange advances in medicines. But werewolves? Real, live werewolves? And a house with enough cognizance as to be termed aggressive?
He gave a nervous laugh. "Not quite what I was expecting to hear, Mrs. Fry," he admitted, gaze drawn to a small gadget or sorts that had joined the other bits and bobs she had removed from her bag. Some of the items were folklore quality: silver, water that was surely blessed, and a cross. But the other, small and mechanical and very much part of the new world, was so far removed from the totems of ages past that it stood out to him. "That... little machine," he spoke up, questions and worries dying off as curiosity took over. "What is it?"
"It's an incendiary device," she said. Elspeth picked up the metal object, which was roughly the size of her palm. "It contains a chemical. If you wind up here, at this little knob, and place it on a body, it reacts with..." Here, she struggled with the proper terminology. "Ah...the... life energy around the person, or thing. It starts a fire, a very hot one. Within minutes, there's nothing but ash. Not even bone! It's one of the ways we hide creatures we have hunted. We have scientists, inventors such as yourself, coming up with marvels all the time. I don't have anything else on my person, as I hadn't expected to be here."
She saw how curious he was. "Here."
The small brass object was obviously intricately made, so far as Alistair could see. In a perfect world, he'd have time to reverse engineer it down to its main components, but the current situation would never allow for such a thing. Besides, Mrs. Fry had made mention of some strange chemical concoction being held inside; never anything near a scientist, Alistair had no desire to meddle with that which was unknown to him. Small and round, he lifted the device to eye level for a closer look once Mrs. Fry had been kind enough to offer it up for inspection. The chemical, he reasoned, must be particularly potent, for such a small amount to be able to do what the lady proclaimed.
"Fascinating!" he proclaimed after a long moment. The strange house and its propensity towards retaining its captives had been suddenly forgotten as the clockmaker found himself entranced by the wonder of the thing. "The rack and pinion used to open the thing must be small as a clockwork gear! And it contains a chemical, you say? Shouldn't it eat away at the brass, if its so destructive?"
Elspeth could only shrug. "I'm afraid I don't know how it works," she admitted. It was given to her by Mr. West and he understood as little of its workings as she. Neither of them possessed scientific minds or the sort of education to make good conjectures about chemical compounds. "Though I'm sure I do not look the part, I am primarily a hunter, Mr. Musgrave, and an investigator second. I merely use what they give me. Were you to join our society, perhaps someday I could use a device of your making."
A tiny sound, of metal scraping against wood, interrupted her. Elspeth searched the room for its source and could not see anything moving or having fallen. She frowned and dismissed it. Perhaps it was another of their party on the floor above them.
Alistair looked up, forcing himself to train his attention on Mrs. Fry rather than the strange object she had shown him. He set the device on the desk beside the other accoutrements of her trade. Imagining the woman as a part of some secret sect that dealt with the ungodly things on which she had spoken was one thing; imagining her as this self-proclaimed 'hunter' was another thing entirely! Still, it was something that Alistair could believe. His experience in the world had long ago taught him that a person, man or woman, could be capable of many things not keenly visible on the surface.
"I had thought I had lost any chance to join you in refusing your invitation," he responded, surprised.
"No," she admitted and tucked the disk, bottle, and dagger in her bag. Elspeth smoothed a strand of hair at her temple. "Though I wouldn't refuse the offer twice, if I had designs on eventually agreeing to it. In matters such as this, it does not pay to be fickle." She softened the words with a small smile. "I can have another of our membership speak with you, if you'd like, before you make a decision. Father Verdoux and Sir Henry Armitage belong to the society. Or I could send your advocate to begin the training process straightaway. It's your decision, Mr. Musgrave... Assuming we ever get out of this house!"
Elspeth reached for the silver cross. It slipped across the desk, as if tugged on a string, and halted just out of reach. "What?" Elspeth made a second grab, only for the object to begin spinning of its own accord. She snatched her fingers back and curled them to her collarbone. Around and around it went, until the four distinct ends blurred in the motion. "Do you see it?" She looked to Mr. Musgrave for confirmation.
The idea of joining Mrs. Fry's strange society had definitely begun to appeal to the clockmaker, particularly so if it would mean time spent working with such gadgets as the little disk Mrs. Fry had produced. All hesitation had drifted away at first sight of the gleaming brass instrument and the mechanical secrets it held. Alistair carried with him a constant hunger for machines and their components, and a strong desire to understand how things worked, and to improve upon them if possible.
The color drained from his face as he noted the religious artifact begin its crazed spinning; objects without a mechanical engine were simply not meant to move about of their own accord! And for something as sacred as a cross to be so possessed by an unseen power, it was rather unnerving.
Alistair swallowed hard. "Well," he said, eyebrows arched. "That certainly doesn't bode well, does it?"
Elspeth clutched at the fabric of her dress. "I don't understand." Vampires and werewolves and strange horned creatures were in a class quite separate from invisible entities that spun holy artifacts. They could be struck with weapons or set on fire! While they stared, it spun faster. Its ends weren't sharp, but if hurled with enough speed, it could do damage. She had a mental picture of it taking flight and lodging in her eye socket.
Looking around for assistance, she spotted a heavy ledger book. Elspeth picked it up and lifted it overhead. She inched forward. "Ohh! I hope to God this works..." She wet her lips and squinted her eyelids for protection. One, two, three... She swung the book down towards the cross.
Mind filled with visions of devils and demons, Alistair stared in abject horror at the swiftly rotating cross on the desk top. Whatever was causing the frantic motion wasn't visible to the naked eye, and that in itself was so far outside of the realm of what Alistair could consider even vaguely normal or real that all the man could do was stop and stare. Mrs. Fry, however surprised she may have been, seemed far more well-equipped to handle such a thing, and her quick wits in finding something to attempt a stop to the cross' motion made Alistair see her proclamation of herself as a hunter in a new light.
"I suppose this isn't... normal... for you?" he queried, watching as the heavy book she had lifted took aim and swung down.
Elspeth, with palms flat on the book cover, kept pushing down, as if she had squashed a giant bug. "Not in the least!" she assured him, though it wasn't much of a reassurance, was it? If the Queen's own society of demon hunters were flummoxed by a situation, what hope was there? "Where has Father Verdoux run off to?" she wondered, craning her neck to see the corridor. None of their party stood near it.
"What shall I do?" Nothing rattled underneath the book. "Shall I lift it?" Elspeth wasn't sure if she asked herself or her skittish companion. "Whatever it was, I doubt I've vanquished it with Mr. So-and-So's personal finances!"
"Perhaps just... erm... leave it in place," Alistair suggested, not wanting to find if the cross would continue its motion or move on to some new horror once the book was lifted. "Perhaps add a table lamp atop it, to be certain it won't move."
His gaze drifted towards the door where their fellow captives had spilled out some moments before. "It seems they've all gone off in search of supplies and whatnot," he told her. "Would you like me to go find one of your compatriots? The priest, you said?"
Unable to leave her post, Elspeth looked for an object close by to weigh the ledger down. "Ah...?" Behind her, rows of bookshelves held leather-bound books. She stretched her arm and leg out, leaned as far as she could reach, and stole few volumes. She plunked them down on top. Once she had taken a few breaths to calm herself, she released her hold on the stack. It didn't move. "No," she declared. "I won't trouble him until he returns. We have the situation," she wet her lips uncertainly, "Well in hand, I'd say!"
Alistair frowned. "I regretfully have no experience in phenomena such as this, Mrs. Fry, but I can lend a willing hand where necessary. You needn't overextend yourself, I could easily have supplied you with what you were reaching for." His chivalrous nature was mildly injured at the self-sufficient woman's action, in spite of the situation. "What could possibly do such a thing? I fear we've all fallen into some sort of trap, if this is the sort of madness we're to expect."
Elspeth frowned, too. Well! If Mr. Musgrave wanted to help, why did he not reach for a lamp or book? Must a lady ask for assistance? Attempting to disguise her minor huff in activity, she took up her reticule. "I suppose it could be a ghost," she said. "We have yet to discover what became of the family who lived here. Perhaps a spirit is not at rest." She looked at the ceiling, as if spirits floated in the eaves of buildings. "They may have lured us all inside, in hopes that we'll find their body stowed in a closet. Miss Cramwell did say she smelled something peculiar."
"That's... that's..." Alistair responded, trying to find just the right words to describe what he felt, without offending Mrs. Fry. "Quite frankly, that's a horrific thought, Mrs. Fry," he finally finished. Reaching for the nearby bookshelves, he retrieved a heavy brass sculpture of a horse that he placed atop the pile of books covering the animated cross, just in case.
"Should your priest take a greater interest in such things? Restless spirits, and the like," he went on, the fright of the moment having died away with the covering of the spinning cross. "Or perhaps a medium? I've heard tell of a great many such people having come to London as of late, it being in fashion, but I'd always assumed them to be frauds and charlatans. It seems I've been grossly inaccurate it my beliefs as of late."
As Elspeth came around the desk, her skirts made rushing sounds on the wood. She faced Mr. Musgrave, her ankles bones squeezed so tightly together that they stung. "I assure you that Father Verdoux takes sufficient interest," she said, "And I will speak to him of the incident when he returns to the study. As for mediums, there may be some who are capable of what they claim. Whether they can be trusted not to be in league with dark spirits is another question altogether, isn't it?" That said, she took up a few blankets and dust covers, intent upon making proper sleeping arrangements for the night.
Alistair frowned. "Perhaps I misspoke," he said, reddening as he realized he must have offended her. "I didn't mean to imply that the Father didn't take interest, Mrs. Fry, only questioned whether it was something left for his vein of expertise, as opposed to yours as a 'hunter', as you called it. Remember, I've no source of reference for any of this, or for your organization... from an outside vantage, I would simply guess that a priest would be called upon for more spiritual matters."
He sighed and reached for the blankets that had been left, hefting up what he could. "Please forgive me, Mrs. Fry. I often forget my clumsiness extends from my feet to my mouth at times."
Peeking around her pile of linens, Elspeth walked into the corridor and moved toward the staircase, confident that he followed behind her. "Your apology is accepted. I did not mean to imply I could manage it on my own..." She was careful in putting her foot on the first step. Once she figured out their placement, she hurried up the flight. "Simply that I would wait until he returned to broach the topic, rather than raising an alarm when the immediate danger had diminished. If we are involved in a scheme hatched by a ghost, perhaps he can put it at ease." She did not give voice to her fear that the devil himself might be behind the circumstances. Even Father Verdoux would find himself outmatched in that case.
"Quite a turn of luck, that yourself and your colleagues should be found among those of us caught," Alistair told her, trying to sound cheerful and confident. "Were I left alone, I'd be lost. Though I don't know much in regards to the others, save the young man. Friendly enough boy," he prattled on.
He had lifted the blankets and drop-cloths in a hurried and haphazard manner, and they slipped from his arms here and there, til they were a tangled mess that he struggled to control, pinning them as best as he could between his arms and holding them down with his chin as he followed.
"Which young man?" she asked, turning into the first bed chamber that she found, which seemed outfitted for children. "Mr. Alderdice or Mr. Cullen?" She put the armload of linens on a chest. "I have met both previous to this afternoon." She swept a piece of hair off her cheek and looked around the room, thinking that its decor might have been charming on another day, but under these circumstances, discarded dollies were not a comfort.
"Mr. Cullen," Alistair responded, placing his own load of linens beside that which Mrs. Fry had been carrying, narrowly avoiding wrapping his ankle in a dropped corner of an old sheet. The small stumble he took was quickly ended with a firm hand placed against a wall to steady himself, but it was enough to cause another rise of color to the clockmaker's face. Grace was by far not a virtue he could ever call his own. Glancing about the room, his embarrassment was quickly forgotten, replaced with the sorrowful thought of children disappeared under a darker influence. The mere idea of a child inhabiting a hellish place where a symbol of the Lord could be willfully tossed about by an unseen hand was enough to break the heart.
"He is employed at a workhouse where I frequently stop for a few days' extra hands in my workshop when required," he went on, voice quieted with the solemnity the room seemed to inspire.
Elspeth wandered about the room and picked up a trinket. The ceramic squirrel had been hand-painted in beautiful colors. "We got on well enough the first time we met, but I'm afraid we got onto a bad foot on the second occasion. I own that was my fault. I... I thought..." Well, the concoction in the punch gave her such thoughts, but allowing Mr. Musgrave to know that an Inquisitor had been drugged and duped into a mysterious house seemed like too much of an admission. "I thought he made an inappropriate pass, but I was mistaken." She set down the squirrel. "We all have our faults to overcome. I am afraid mine is that I presume, which would not be so bad, if I didn't do it poorly."
Alistair arched an eyebrow; it must, he assumed, have been something in line with Mrs. Fry's unique line of work that had led her to become acquainted with the boy Fox. Apart from the strange goings-on she seemed to participate in, he couldn't fathom a reason that the workhouse boy might meet with a fine gentlewoman. Of course, he reasoned, there were always extenuating circumstances. After all, Alistair himself had come upon the lady in a charity ward and a magician's show, places he himself might not usually be found.
"We do indeed," Alistair agreed, recalling his own bumbling nature. "Some more easily bested than others, I imagine," he added with a sigh.
Realization dawned on him quite suddenly, and his eyes grew wide and round at the thought. "The boy!" he said quickly, then paused to regain his decorum. "The child... from the charity ward... wild dogs, you'd said, and then later I'd heard a howling in the streets not far from... but the child, what was it? That hurt him. Did he live? The young girl I was looking after left the ward not long following our meeting there, and I don't know what's become of him."
"Oh." Elspeth picked at a piece of lint on her skirt. "I'm happy to say that it was not what I feared, in Benjamin's case. The tooth marks were from an ordinary dog, and not what you're wondering about... A werewolf." She brushed her palms across the skirt and looked up. "However, the howls you heard at the full moon? Those did belong to such creatures and, by our accounts, at least four people were killed that night. Another three who became wounded are under investigation."
Footsteps in an adjoining room reminded her of their environment.
She stole a glance at the door. "This isn't the best place to speak of this. Once we've found a way out and things are back to normal, you will learn all of it, if you choose, Mr. Musgrave. " She made progress towards the door. "Thank you for the help with the linens."