The Serpent's Shadow

It seemed such a coward's portion. And when he stopped pursuing Maya, who could, after all. defend herself and had powerful friends like Lord Almsley, who would he choose to pursue next? With a man like Parkening, there would always be a 'next' victim.

I’ll worry about it after he resurfaces, she decided. With any luck at all, Parkening would be made much of, and the attention would distract him from making the lives of others miserable.

And if I'm really, truly lucky, came the nasty little thought, just as she drifted off to sleep, something terrible has happened to him and I'll never have to worry about him again.

She paid for that nasty little thought with dreams of being pursued through the fog by some nameless, faceless menace. She woke just after dawn with an aching head and a strong disinclination to go out until the sun had burned that fog away. It lay in thick swaths all around the block, and it seemed that Maya's reluctance was shared by everyone else in the neighborhood, for there was nothing stirring out on the streets.

With the first touch of the rays of the sun, however, the stuff vanished like her dreams, and she packed up her bag as usual to see to her patients at the Fleet. A boy was selling papers on the corner, crying headlines that had something to do with politics in Europe. She bought one for the ride to the clinic. The omnibus was usually empty and she took full advantage of the fact to put her bag on the bench beside her and open the paper.

The headlines on the front page might have been about Balkan unrest, but the first 'screamer' inside struck her with the news that social lion Simon Parkening was still missing, and foul play was no longer suspected, but a certainty.

Lord Alderscroft contemplated the saddle of mutton before him with gloom, while Peter Scott waited for the apology he already knew was forthcoming. Finally the peer raised his eyes and looked straight into Peter's face.

'I asked you here for luncheon so that I could apologize to you, Scott,' Alderscroft said manfully. 'I've taken down the Great Shield; it's utterly useless, and the power wasted on it can be put to more productive efforts. You were right about this India business, and I was wrong. There were more deaths last night, and all the signs point to that missing man being mixed in with it somehow. He's probably dead, too,' Alderscroft added glumly, as an afterthought.

'If it's any consolation to you, I know something about the fellow, myself,' Peter replied. 'He is—or was— more than a bit of a rotter. I doubt he'll be mourned or missed by anyone but his own family, and possibly not even by them much.'

'Personal information, Scott?' Alderscroft looked at him keenly from under his shaggy brows. 'From that little Hindu doctor of yours?'

Peter coughed. 'Well, yes, actually. The man had a habit of making a nuisance of himself around her hospital.'

Alderscroft helped himself to mutton, chewed thoughtfully, then replied, 'I don't suppose the doctor-gel could be mixed up in this. . . .' But then to Peter's relief, he shook his head, and answered his own question. 'No, not likely. We know her, we've had our eyes on her, and not only has she no connection whatsoever to the men who were murdered— well, bar the rotter—but there's been nothing from her quarter but the shields and defenses and a trifling bit of healing magic.'

'I am a bit concerned that she might be a target of this—' he ventured. 'My lord, I really do think we ought to invite her into the White Lodge, not only because she is becoming a formidable Earth Master, but for her protection. As long as she must function alone, she will be in danger, if not from this menace, than from others who will wish to gather her into their fold.'

Alderscroft's brows contracted together in a frown, and he stabbed at an inoffensive piece of mutton savagely. 'A woman? And a foreigner to boot? Out of the question! East is East and West is West, my boy— we don't mix our magic with Eastern magic, that only brings trouble. Well, look at the messes that Blavatsky woman got herself into, and the Besant girl is no better nor saner!'

'Yes, but—' Peter began just as stubbornly.

'But me no buts. There never has been a woman in the Exeter Club, nor a foreigner, and there never will be.' Alderscroft stared at Peter as though daring him to attempt a contradiction, but Peter was not about to fight a battle against a windmill, and changed the subject.

'How many victims were there last night?' he asked.

'Eh?' Alderscroft said, surprised. Clearly he'd expected an argument, and when Peter had declined to give him one, was taken a little aback. 'Ah—seven, I believe. At least that's the count this morning. All of 'em, bar the missing one, retired Army. None mages. All smothered, the breath squeezed out of 'em.' He shook his head. 'Can't link the missing man in with that set, but Owlswick swears he's getting the same sort of taint on the fellow when he tries to scry out what's happened to him, and I suppose he could be linked into Hindus in some other way—' his gaze sharpened, '—if he offered some insult to that Hindu doctor of yours. Did he?'

'I gather that he made some improper advances, yes,' Peter said reluctantly. When Alderscroft pinned a person with that direct gaze, it was damnably hard not to give him what he wanted out of you.