Changing Nature (The Immortal Descendants Book 3) Page 5
“It will be when we can get Ringo out.”
“You have your daggers?”
“I think I’d feel naked without them.”
He grinned at me, his eyes glinting dangerously in the moonlight. “And now I have that image to torture me tonight. Thank you.”
My mom had opened the garden door and was waiting for me to join her. “I’ll time our return trip so we still have some night.”
He kissed me. “Just be safe, Saira. And bring him with you.” His fingers found the braid I’d tucked down the back of the coat. “The trousers suit you, by the way.”
“Thanks.” I blew him a kiss, and my mom closed the garden door behind us.
The spiral was carved into the stone wall overhung with vines at the back of the garden. I hadn’t known it was there until I Clocked back here with my mom when she was dying from blood loss. I hadn’t used it since then.
I swept the vines to the side as Mom put the clock necklace on. It was an older, choker style, and it suited her long Victorian dress. She exhaled, then looked at me. “Shall we?”
I had never been to the Descendants’ Council room and my mom had, so she was the one directing our travel. I let her trace the spirals while I held her other hand. The edges of the spiral began to glow, and the hum that went with the feeling of being stretched like a rubber band was somehow diluted through my mom instead of centered in my own head. When we finally slipped between, it was as though the nothingness echoed around me instead of focusing through me, and except for the nausea, I didn’t have any of the weakness I normally felt when someone else hitched a ride. When we got to the other side, though, my mom was wrecked.
She dropped to her knees, gasping for air, and I gripped her hand. “Mom? Are you okay?”
Eyes clenched shut, breathing heavy, pulse slamming in her throat. She finally looked at me. “It’s only been like that once before.” The words seemed hard to speak. “When you were born.”
“It gets worse the more people who hitch a ride.”
She shuddered. “I don’t want to do that again.”
“You don’t have to. I can get us home from here.”
I helped her to her feet and then looked around the room we’d Clocked into. It was a big space with elaborately carved decorations in unexpected niches, adorning columns, and hiding in the plaster moldings. All the chiseled shapes were simple and almost tribal, with strong angles and sweeping swirls. It was beautiful and austere, and the room looked like it belonged in a temple in ancient Greece rather than in a public court building in the middle of London. A massive piece of veined black marble, roughly round but with unfinished edges, sat on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Twenty people could easily have sat around the stone table, and might have, if there had been any chairs. I looked behind me and realized the wall was divided into five panels. The center one was carved with a Clocker spiral, and the others had simple shapes that I realized had been echoed in the decorative carvings around the room: an oak tree, a trident, a stylized sword and shield, and an eye.
“What is this place?”
My mom had caught her breath and sounded more normal. “We’re under Old Bailey. Most people have forgotten this room even exists, and those who know guard our secrets with their lives.”
“This is where the council meets?”
Mom studied the room. “I don’t believe they’ve used it since … that night.” Her voice caught on the last two words, and I reached out to squeeze her hand. “Anyway, this room is gone. They rebuilt Old Bailey near the turn of the century, and the new council room is much less ornate.”
“How do we get upstairs?”
She showed me a door I hadn’t seen at first. It led out to a small, dark staircase and another door, equally well concealed, under a staircase, which we climbed. We exited into a corridor behind one of the long galleries, and I could see a court in session in a room nearby.
Mom walked straight up to a guard and said in her best posh accent, “In which room is Timothy Dalby the clerk?”
“Courtroom two, ma’am.”
“And that is …?”
“Straight down the gallery and to yer left, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
I was impressed with her confidence, and then I realized this was her time. These were her people, and they spoke in her accent. I had fallen a step behind and quickly caught up to her.
“I love when you get all bossy, Mom.”
She smiled up at me. “I’ll remind you of that sometime.”
We had arrived at courtroom two and tucked into the back to listen. It seemed to be a petty crimes court, and the judge was determined to teach every one of them -- from the old man who skipped out on his bar tab, to the little kid caught stealing jam from the fruit cart-- that crime does not pay. Faces fell and groans of horror echoed through the room every time he sentenced someone to Newgate Prison. A guy about Ringo’s age was “remanded to Newgate immediately” for striking his employer, and I whispered into my mom’s ear that I’d be right back.
I slipped out of the courtroom and leaned against the wall of the gallery as the bailiffs marched the guy out of the room, one on each side, holding his arms. When they turned a corner I raced to follow them, and caught a glimpse just as they led the condemned man through a door and down a different staircase than the one that led to the Descendants’ Council room. I waited a breath, and then trailed them down the stairs. The bailiffs were talking amongst themselves about what they’d be ordering for dinner at the pub as if the guy wasn’t being marched to his grim fate between them, and their voices took on a hollow echo as they traveled farther away from where I stood hidden.
It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the steps that I could see the full length of the tunnel they’d gone down. It must cross the road between Old Bailey and Newgate Prison, and instead of a solid roof, it had what looked like a heavy metal grate overhead. The whole effect was like being led through an underground birdcage, and I knew there was no way Ringo and I could get out of there if he got this far.
Whatever I did had to happen in the courtroom.
I made it back into my seat next to Mom just as they were bringing in the next round of defendants. The fourth one in line was Ringo.
He looked tired, and skinnier than I’d last seen him. His clothes were torn and filthy, which made him look guilty just because he was such a mess. But unlike everyone else he came in with, his eyes were alive, and he started scanning the room the minute he walked in.
When he found what he was looking for his face lit up in a bright smile, and I strained to see who had captured his attention like that.
Charlie stood with her back against the wall near the other entrance, and her worried gaze was locked onto Ringo’s happy one. He gave her a wink along with the grin, and it relaxed her just a fraction, until her gaze traveled to the bailiff at the front of the line. Her whole body tensed up, and I followed the direction her eyes had gone.
The bailiff was taller than the average man in the courtroom and beefy across the chest. His face was in profile, but I could see a hawkish nose and sharp eyes under his hat. I’d been feeling slightly sick since we entered the big room full of people and figured there were Mongers among them, but based on Charlie’s reaction, I’d bet money the bailiff was something not of this world.
Charlie was an Otherworld seer, a skill that might have had something to do with the little bit of Clocker blood in her, but maybe not. Miss Simpson said she knew of one other person who could see through the human disguises Otherworlders used to get by, but this was a rare skill among Immortal Descendants.
So, Charlie was here, and based on Ringo’s reaction to seeing her, I didn’t think he’d be too willing to leave her behind. He also hadn’t seen me yet, so I was going to have to trust that he’d know why I was here when he did. The group of accused w
as seated in a separate area that reminded me of a jury box in modern courtrooms. There was a low railing running around them, with a bailiff posted on each side. The hawkish Otherworld bailiff was on the side between Ringo and the door, which I mentally added to the obstacle list along with bailiffs at every exit and the courtroom crowded with onlookers. Above the plaintiff box was a second floor gallery for even more observers that ran all the way around the room. It gave the big space a theater-in-the-round vibe, with the judges and lawyers center stage. But the thing that started the wheels spinning in my head were three big metal chandeliers hanging from long chains down past the upper gallery to light up the room below.
Hawk called the court to order with a graveled voice that boomed over the sound of the rabble. I quickly turned to my mom and outlined a bare plan. I didn’t give her too many details about my part in things, but I pointed out Charlie, and she nodded her agreement to her role and then quickly left the courtroom. A moment later she slipped in the other door and drew next to Charlie. They almost looked like they could be related, with the same ash-colored hair, slight build, and delicate features. The long dresses may have had something to do with their similarities, but I thought another look at Archer’s genealogy could be interesting. My mom leaned close to Charlie’s ear and whispered. Charlie jerked back instinctively, her eyes widening in surprise. But then she got a closer look at my mom. She might have remembered her from before, or it might just have been what she said, but soon Charlie was nodding seriously.
The judge called his first case, and Hawk stepped up to shove the prisoner to the front of the box. Okay, useful information. And it meant I had only two more prisoners to make my move. I stood to leave the courtroom and caught Charlie’s eye. She smiled shyly at me, and I gave her a quick grin back. Mom tugged her arm, and Charlie shot Ringo a last look before they slipped out of the courtroom.
The stairs to the second level gallery weren’t in this room, but between the railings and the wall panels, there were good hand-holds all the way up.
The first prisoner was sentenced to five years in Newgate Prison and a collective rumble went up around the court. Hawk stepped forward to escort him to two bailiffs who waited to walk him down to the birdcage tunnel. I tensed, and the moment the two extra bailiffs left the room, I leapt.
My jump to the top of the gallery railing inspired a gasp from people seated around me. Going up the wall was the winner though - that move caused a couple of screams from the gallery, and suddenly I had the room’s attention.
The only eyes I cared about, though, were Ringo’s.
And the look on his face was like a floodlight had just been flipped on behind his grin. I jerked my head toward the door and then concentrated on the climb. The gasps and shrieks of the onlookers had drawn the attention of Hawk and the other bailiffs, and two of them were trying to climb after me. Silly rabbits, tricks are for kids. I hauled myself up over the second floor railing, and people went flying backwards to escape me. Hawk was still in the prisoners’ box barking orders at the other bailiffs, and Ringo was edging around behind him out of sight. Good. Just one more big attention-grabber and he could get out.
I climbed up to the top of the upper level railing and counted on the fact that everyone behind me had fled and I wouldn’t get pushed off. Then I took a deep breath, and jumped.
The bottom of the curving metal on the heavy chandelier was just like monkey bars, and I hit it perfectly. Screams below me had reached fire-in-a-theater pitch, and I saw Ringo dart behind Hawk and run for the courtroom door. People were fleeing the room as if I were explosive, which was making it tough for him to escape, but I knew he’d get there. He was scrappy like that.
I was going to have to revise my own escape plan, since the two exits I knew about were jammed.
One of the bailiffs had hauled himself up to the second floor railing, and I allowed myself one second of admiration for his skill before I focused on my next target. Chandelier number two.
With one extra kick I was able to get enough trajectory to let go and grab for the second chandelier, though I fumbled a little, and it took a second to get both hands firmly locked on the curved metal arm. This was the biggest chandelier, so my lower body swings had to be huge. I felt like a trapeze artist and knew the only way I was going to hit chandelier number three was with the stomach muscles of a wrestler. The upper galleries were filling back in with onlookers, and the one I was aiming for was beginning to look too crowded to land.
Except two of the guys on the other side were young-ish and dressed not so nicely as the rest of the crowd in the courtroom. They seemed to be encouraging my progress across the chandeliers, and when I managed to hit chandelier number three, they let out a cheer.
Well, okay then. I might have allies.
Hawk had organized the bailiffs to cover the downstairs exits, and two of them had joined the upstairs gallery throng, one on either side of the room. Which meant there were doors up there, too. I kicked hard and swung my body back in a big arc. My arms were getting tired, and I knew I had one shot to hit the railing on the other side. And then one bailiff to contend with before the others figured out where I was headed. The two young ruffians ahead of me were shouting encouragement and waving me in, and I hoped they were of the catching variety rather than the throwing sort. The third chandelier swung straight with the weight of my body, and I pulled my legs up to jackknife toward the far railing – then let go.
I actually felt graceful as I hung in the air, and time seemed to suspend. Even the crowd held its breath.
But I wasn’t going to make it. I’d lost too much momentum between the three chandeliers, and didn’t have enough swing to reach the railing. My hands were outstretched, but I could already tell I’d miss it by about a foot.
Crap.
I caught a glimpse below me and saw Hawk grinning like a feral predator, waiting for me to crash to the ground. Something red gleamed in his eyes and I shut my own, waiting for an impact.
That never came.
Strong hands grabbed my arm, and the instinct to clutch them gave me the grip I needed. The two ruffians held whatever parts of me they could reach, and then hauled me up and over the railing to the collective gasp and a little applause from down below.
The lone bailiff on our side of the gallery elbowed forward and tried to grab me, but my foot caught him squarely in the chest and sent him backwards. I stumbled with the force of the kick, and one of my ruffian friends caught me before I could hit the ground.
“Ye all righ’ then, mate?”
I grinned at them both. “Never better. Thanks for the help.”
“Twern’t nothin’. Most fun we’ve ‘ad at court in, well, ever, I s’pose.”
The bailiff was struggling to his feet behind my new friends, and Hawk was shouting orders at the ones downstairs in a way that was going to be bad for my health if I didn’t bolt. “Do you mind?” I grabbed the ratty looking cap from the head of the smaller guy and tossed him my own, much newer one. Then I threw my head at the bailiff, and the ruffian grinned in a way that reminded me of Ringo.
“Not to worry, mate. Yer off.”
I tossed them a wave and ran for the door. Two more bailiffs had nearly reached the top of the stairs, so I vaulted the stair rail and hit the landing about ten feet down. That earned another couple of cheers from the ruffians who watched from the top of the stairs and some growls from the bailiffs I’d just avoided. I shoved the ruffian’s cap on my head and hunched down in a feeble attempt at height-reduction. The gallery outside the courtroom was still teeming with people who had escaped the pandemonium I’d caused inside, and I slid down the rest of the bannister and slipped into the crowd.
I spotted Hawk a moment later, scanning the masses for signs of me. He was actually looking too, as if he’d memorized something about me and would find that troublemaker no matter what. I ducked behind a column and decided to try a very risky move.
I yanked the cap off my head and quickly unbraided m
y hair. Then my topcoat came off and I turned it inside out so the silk lining showed instead of dark blue wool. I ripped off my tie and unbuttoned the top button of my white shirt, then tied the topcoat around my waist in a weak impersonation of a skirt. With my hair down, maybe, just maybe, I’d be mistaken for a girl in the throngs of people that milled about in the gallery.
When I stepped out from behind the column, I felt Hawk’s gaze slide over me and I shivered, but I turned and walked toward the opposite hallway where the stairs down to the Descendants’ Council room were hidden. I moved with purpose, but without urgency, and I hoped long hair and the flash of silk from the jacket would keep me anonymously female in the crowd.
I shot one last look over my shoulder before stepping into the hallway off the gallery. Hawk was still scanning the crowd, and the expression on his face had lost almost all of its humanity. There was something definitely murderous in his eyes, and I felt myself duck as I slipped out of sight of him.
Hands grabbed me and I almost punched, until Ringo whispered in my ear. “Took ye long enough.”
I grinned at him in the dim hall light. “Shut it, Urchin.” Then I hugged him. Hard. His hug back was just as hard, but he let me go abruptly.
“Come on, Clocker. Yer ma’s waitin’ fer us down below.”
We made it to the hidden door and down the stairs and didn’t speak again until we entered the Descendants’ Council room. Ringo looked around with something like awe. “Didn’t know such places existed in London. Thought I’d found all the best hidin’ spots, I did.”
Charlie stepped out from the shadows at the edge of the room, and her voice was quiet when she spoke. “Ringo. Yer safe.”
He spun to her, and within two strides was in front of her. I thought he was going to throw his arms around her, or maybe even kiss her, but he visibly restrained himself and instead, picked up her hand and held it in both of his.
“I told ye they couldn’t keep me from ye.”
A light burned in her eyes, but everything else was tied up in the same restraint Ringo had. Her gaze flicked over to me. “And now ye’ll be goin’ anyway.” It wasn’t a question, and Ringo seemed about to answer, but then lost his voice.