The Queen's Viper Page 9

  The immortal had returned to the Gherkin at dawn, wearing a man’s red velvet Regency frock coat, double breasted with long tails. Silver buttons and black piping lined the oversized cuffs and both sides of the front opening. Viper chose black denim trousers slashed horizontally from the thighs to the top of her boots. Beneath the coat, a tank top printed with an urbanized Union Jack hugged Viper’s firm, athletic breasts.

  “In honour of your queen,” she had said to Ivy upon her return, with a deep, mocking curtsy. Ivy had rolled her eyes in disgust. Graeme’s deep belly laugh had rebounded off the glass walls of Mouse’s office. Dhillon had blushed. Before the group set out to Longwood House, he had marvelled at how fast Viper moved, given that the Camden market was at least an hour’s walk away by human standards.

  “I let no man’s tongue speak for me,” Viper said after banging the seat. “Ask of me thy question directly.”

  “Very well,” Ivy responded, undeterred. “Why won’t you sit inside the car? You’ll fit if you stretch out lengthwise.”

  Viper squatted, knees wide, and narrowed her eyes menacingly at Ivy in the rear view mirror. Ivy avoided making eye contact.

  “A lounging lioness does not kill,” Viper said. She didn’t care to answer truthfully. With her arms extended and the car at full speed, Viper felt like she was flying, and it thrilled her.

  “It will not be long till we reach Longwood.” Mouse’s tone pleaded for neutrality. “Shall we make the best of it?” He directed his last words at Ivy.

  Viper blew a kiss at the woman. Ivy’s face drained and she tightened her grip.

  “Mouse,” Viper said, “tell me of this person whom you seek.”

  “Her name is Clare Hainstock,” he replied, eyes distant. “As Owain Henry, I arrange business meetings at large high society functions. Ivy presents herself on my behalf and I monitor negotiations through a camera hidden on her lapel or in a broach. Otherwise, people would notice that I do not age as do they.” Mouse chuckled. “Your magic both warps and fixes my body, Mistress, but I did not have your elldyr creft to hand, until now. I did not ask for this gift of long life, but I would not live without it.”

  Viper opened her mouth to apologize, then changed her mind. Her imprisonment was not her fault.

  “I dress up as Ivy’s chauffeur and the wealthy ignore me,” Owain continued. “My investors do not complain about Owain being a recluse, as long as their entertainment is on his dime and he makes them bucket loads of money. Eleven years ago, I met a rather unique eight year old at Royal Ascot, a horse racing event.”

  “That was my first assignment as your stand-in, wasn’t it Owain?” Ivy added with a confident smile. Viper knew Ivy said it to highlight the blonde woman’s unique involvement with Owain’s life.

  “Yes, Ivy, you’re right,” he replied. “Turns out, it was a good thing too. When you were inside, I watched the girl show sketches to people going through the V.I.P. entrance. The lass was smartly dressed and very polite. People glanced at her pictures and moved on. They treated her like a pedlar flogging junk. One man bowled her over as he rushed past and knocked her drawings on the ground. I went over to help her pick them up.

  “She introduced herself without any fear of strangers. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her eyes. They showed such depth and poignancy, that I was quite captivated. Clare has heterochromia. One of her eyes is brown and the other is green; both were remarkable. Then, I saw Clare’s pictures. The figures she drew had black eyes. I asked her about it and she said, ‘Mum and Dad say it’s wrong to make the eyes black, but I can’t stop myself.’ I wanted to press Clare further, however her brother, a youth of fourteen or fifteen, stormed over. I imagine that he was gulping pints with his friends because his breath reeked of beer. First, he yelled at me, ‘Piss off back to your car, you paedo!’ Then, he grabbed Clare’s arm and dragged her back inside.” Mouse sighed. Viper studied her Foundling, caught in his memories.

  Ivy placed a gentle hand on his arm. “That’s the girl whose pictures you had me purchase?”

  Viper’s stomach turned. Mouse should have shared that pinnacle moment with his Mistress rather than his employee.

  “Yes. I believed the black eyes revealed that Clare had some connection to my Mistress. As such, I’ve kept a watch on her and protected her welfare. Sadly,” Owain added as the cars turned into the entryway for Longwood House, “that also meant giving her someplace safe to live when her parents wanted to institutionalize her. Longwood was a Georgian estate house I have owned under a pseudonym since I paid for its construction in the Long Wood Forest in the early 19th Century. Thankfully, it didn’t take much for me to turn it into a private care facility.”

  Ivy stopped alongside the intercom outside Longwood’s massive iron gates. Impatient, Viper leapt out of the vehicle and scaled the fence. When she landed, the immortal faced the group, expectant hands on her hips. Ivy’s jaw gaped open.

  With the others still waiting in their cars for entry, Viper strode up the pebbled drive until she reached a small, grey granite building. Pink rhododendrons surrounded the grounds of the rectangular house. Bricks of alternating grey and brown stone bordered the front windows, five on the upper storey and four on the lower. Pairs of windows flagged the front door. Viper investigated the rear of the building for threats. The backside mirrored the front, except for the plywood over the upper window, second from the right. The back entrance opened onto a patio and well-tended garden.

  Viper heard Mouse’s cars pull up. She doubled back to him in time to see a woman in casual clothes emerge from the front door.

  The brown-skinned woman unknowingly walked past Viper, her hand extended in greeting to Mouse. “Dr. Thorton,” she said, “we weren’t expecting you so early. Our clients are still asleep. Everything alright?”

  Viper’s body twitched as she beheld the woman’s cobalt blue aeir. “Do you understand, Foundling, that I crave the aeir of every person in this building?” she said before Mouse answered the attendant.

  Mouse clasped the nurse’s hand. “Perfectly,” he responded in a Yorkshire accent to both his Mistress and the woman. He used a cane, a prop to complete his transformation.

  “Then be quick about your business and give unto me no cause to make this humaine see me,” Viper snapped. Her elldyr creft snaked for the lady’s body.

  Mouse cleared his throat. “As I said on t’phone, Rupinder, Clare’s parents have requested a family therapy session prior to her 19th birthday.” He handed the nurse his tablet with the forged documentation. As Rupinder read, Mouse pleaded silently with Viper to keep her distance. Viper growled with haughty pride as she complied.

  “I’ll be meeting wi’ them at t’office later today. I wanted to have a private word wi’ t’girl first. I’m afraid traffic was lighter than expected and we’re here rather early.”

  Rupinder nodded slowly, peering over his shoulder. “And these people are?”

  “My sister, Anne, a doctor at Royal London Hospital,” he said of Ivy. “Over there is my son-in-law, Brian. Their son is studying at Imperial, just around t’corner. Wi’ your permission, I’d like to show my nephew t’success of our model of care. His parents are generous investors in t’facility.”

  “I suppose that’ll be fine.” Rupinder gestured towards the house. “I’ll have to get the girls’ consent first, of course. We’re quite protective of our residents, especially Clare. Of the girls, she’s our peacekeeper.”

  Viper stepped through the door, unseen, ahead of the others and entered the kitchen immediately on her right. The empty room lacked the hanging herbs and large fireplace of the kitchens she remembered. She moved to the staircase at the back without an invitation. Just before the stairwell, a framed painting of a landscape caught her attention. A cluster of beech trees with thick, pollarded stumps sat atop a grassy hill. Large standing stones occupied spaces between the cropped trees. She made out a red megalith at the centre, visible between the outer stones. “Clare” scrolled in the botto
m right corner identified the artist.

  Rupinder and the group of humans came in from outside. “Longwood functions like a home rather than a hospital,” she explained. “The girls live here, have chores, and go to lessons, that sort of thing. My colleague is waking them up right now. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  Viper started for the upper level. Mouse put his hand over hers on the bannister. She grit her teeth, regretting that she had promised Mouse and his team to see through her glamour at all times.

  “No,” Mouse said to Rupinder, with words meant for Viper, “no need. We’ll just wait here for Clare.”

  A woman’s alarmed shout for help coming from upstairs changed his plans.

  Viper ignored her Foundling and dashed up the steps to the upper hallway. She paused before the row of closed bedroom doors.

  “Clare! Oh my God!” The desperate voice came from the open door at the end of the hall.

  Viper bounded through the hall past the opening bedroom doors, except the second last one on the right, which stayed closed. She avoided the subsequent collision of bodies as Rupinder, Mouse and the others rushed from the stairwell into the curious residents.

  Still invisible, the immortal reached Clare’s room before anyone else. The dark-haired nurse who had raised the alarm knelt beside Clare, her back to the hall. She propped the too-pale girl against the bed like a child’s ragdoll at a tea party.

  A long, incision bisected old, horizontal scars along Clare’s inner left arm. Uneven slashes ran across her left palm and fingers. The wound on her arm exposed underlying subcutaneous tissue, narrowly missing sinew and bone. Dark red blood painted the top of the plush white carpet. A bloodied corkscrew lay on the ground beyond Clare’s right hand.

  Viper squatted at Clare’s feet without touching the sanguine mess. The other nurse’s flushed face resembled a sunset over her pressed white shirt. She tapped Clare’s shoulder and repeated her name in an effort to rouse her.

  The immortal placed her right hand on the floor beside Clare, without revealing herself. She leaned forwards and held her left hand over Clare’s heart. The muscular organ chorused louder than the human struggling to waken its owner. Clare’s aquamarine aeir held fast. The girl wouldn’t die from her injuries. Viper rested on her haunches and, with the flick of her hand, cast the kitchen tool across the room with her elldyr. The corkscrew smashed into the wall as Rupinder reached the door frame.

  “Demona,” Rupinder addressed the distraught nurse after she tugged the object from beside the entryway, “what the Hell are you doing?”

  “It wasn’t… I didn’t…” Demona stammered. She stared past the growing crowd at the entryway, her eyes fixated on the splintered frame. “When I came in, Clare was cutting herself with the corkscrew. Then she fainted. I managed to catch her before she fell. As for the corkscrew, it, well… after I sat her up, it flew from the ground all by itself.”

  Standing behind Rupinder, Mouse regarded Viper questioningly. She raised her right shoulder and eyebrow at the same time in a dismissive answer, then retreated to the window. Mouse and Rupinder swept into the room. Rupinder firmly guided Demona out of the way.

  “Get the smelling salts and the first aid kit,” Rupinder said, pushing up her sleeves. Demona didn’t respond. “Now! And the rest of you,” she said over her shoulder to her curious girls crowding the doorway, “follow Demona to the kitchen. Breakfast will be delayed.”

  “Let me give you a hand,” Graeme said. He entered the room after Demona ushered the gawking girls to the lower level. He held a bath towel bearing an image of clean-shaven young men and the words “One Direction” that had been hanging on the back of the door. “For the bleeding,” he said. Viper wondered why modern humans used a broad cloth with boys’ faces on it for personal cleansing.

  “Right. First, let’s treat her shock,” Rupinder urged. “She’s breathing fine, but she hasn’t come round. We have to lay her on her back, then roll her onto her side. I don’t want her tongue to obstruct her airway.”

  They were about to place Clare in a recovery position, when a monumental crash of pots and pans made Rupinder startle so much, she almost lost her grip on Clare.

  “Now what?” Rupinder’s exasperation melted her previously steely eyes into pools of liquid panic. Her eyes raced back and forth from the door to Clare as the chaos below increased.

  “Nurse, let us take care of t’girl.” Mouse coached Rupinder with an air of professionalism. He nodded to Graeme who lowered Clare to the ground and expertly applied pressure through the towel to Clare’s wounds. “See to t’others. I have a well-stocked first aid kit in t’car.” Rupinder protested and he waived her off. “Anne,” he said to Ivy, “would you grab t’kit for me, please?” After Ivy followed Rupinder downstairs, Mouse morphed from the self-assured Dr. Thorton back into Viper’s dutiful Foundling. “Mistress, oh, Mistress! Please use your elldyr creft and heal her.”

  “Why?” Viper replied, one foot cocked up in the windowsill. “In so doing, I will bear her injuries. The girl will yet live without my intervention. Surgeons exist in this age, do they not?”

  Mouse placed the unnecessary cane on a nearby desk. “Yes, you are correct. Her wounds are not serious. However, I wish her to be healed to her fullest potential. You see, beloved Mistress, Clare is left-handed, an artist sinister, and that is where her most serious wounds lie.”

  “Artists hath I seen aplenty. Only one did make upon me a lasting impression.”

  “True, true. However, none created this.” He retrieved a large artist’s pad from the desk beside the bed and handed it to Viper. She saw herself on every page. “She has seen your face her entire life, Mistress. That is why I have followed her, taken care of her, and led you to her.” Mouse opened the door to the dim adjoining room, took Viper’s arm and led her inside. Graeme remained behind instructing Dhillon in the first aid needed to care for Clare.

  Mouse flipped on the light. A thousand faces greeted Viper. Her image layered the walls, the closed door to the hall and the boarded up window. The green in Viper’s eyes faded to fragile wisps as she traced pairs of black eyes with her fingertips. Each picture expressed every emotion she had ever known. They entreated her, judged her, and celebrated her. Some pitied her. Standing before these eyes, Viper felt diminutive and alone. Viper steadied herself with Mouse’s shoulder.

  “When I found Clare, she proved the conjecture I held for so long. You survived somewhere that I could not reach you.” The pining in his voice resonated in Viper’s heart. “Her gift means something. We need her, Mistress.” Viper followed his gaze to the unconscious girl on the carpet. “You need her.”

  Viper disentangled herself and straightened to her full height. “I heal not by your command, Mouse.”

  Mouse clasped his hands together. “I do not command, Mistress, only urgently appeal. If the nurses dial emergency services, other humans will arrive. There will be too many questions, too much risk. Your search for Annys will be further delayed.”

  Her Foundling had hit upon Viper’s pain point.

  She studied Clare. The girl’s long, wavy, chestnut hair matted with sweat. The colour had returned to her cheeks. She had small rings through her left nostril and eyebrow, one of them beaded. Viper moved to Clare’s side in a few strides and budged Graham out of the way. Mouse shifted nervously behind his Mistress, hands twisting together.

  Dhillon watched from the end of the bed. “Is she going to be alright? That’s a lot of blood.” His hand clutched the top of his shirt.

  Viper shushed him. “Typical. You humaines only see the blood afore thee, not the life within thee. She could bleed five times this amount and not be a-threatened.”

  “Let’s give Viper some P and Q, shall we?” Graeme offered. Dhillon procrastinated until Mouse and Graeme directed him into the room full of Clare’s art.

  Viper removed her coat. She extended her arms over the girl like a priest offering a blessing. Waves of violet elldyr creft ebbed over Clare’s body. The
runes on Viper’s arms shone brilliant white. Each one projected outwards and interlaced into a three dimensional lattice over Clare’s midline. Clare’s aeir spun into tiny vortices, into which a mirage-like shimmer flowed from Viper’s interlocked runes. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Clare’s lacerations glowed silver-red from within. A red haze left her injuries, then melded into the lattice until it glowed crimson. Her skin regenerated from the bottom up. When Clare’s body revived, each rune disconnected and fused back into Viper’s forearms. The scars resumed their nascent white.

  Clare moaned as she came to. She raised a hand to her head, her eyes closed tight.

  “Last night,” she murmured as if to herself, “I dreamt of a tree buried upside down. It had roots exposed, surrounded by water. A man pulled it up with one hand. When I woke, I sensed someone coming for me… Something terrible is going to happen.” Clare’s voice sounded slightly muffled, with soft nasal consonants. Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted at Viper. “I’m glad it’s you who came. I didn’t want her, the one with blue eyes, to find me.” She reached for Viper’s facial ridges like a blind woman meeting a stranger. Viper’s breathing quickened and she turned her head away.

  “How can thou know me, child?” Viper couldn’t face the dichromatic eyes that reminded her of a man for whom she held affection, although she never told him when he was alive.

  “Hang on a sec. I need my cochlear implants.” From the corner of her eye, Viper saw Clare reach overhead for two round devices attached to molded plugs on the bedside table. She put the molded end in each ear and attached the circular part on her skull, behind her ears.