The Serpent's Shadow

Lord Peter came forward, his hand extended; Maya swiveled in her chair and accepted it. She half expected him to kiss it in the Continental manner, but he just gave it a firm shake, with a mock suggestion of clicking his heels together.

'Might one ask what you meant by slighting Miss Corelli?' she asked, as he dropped into one of the armchairs. She had the impression of a high-strung greyhound pausing only long enough to see if it was truly wanted. 'Not that I'm any great admirer of her work.'

'Only that Miss Corelli has damned dull ideas of what women should do with their lives—which makes for damned dull women,' Lord Peter said cheerfully. 'Shall I join you, or would you twain prefer to condemn me to the outer hells of the member's dining room to eat my crust in woeful solitude?'

'Join us, by all means!' Peter Scott exclaimed, when Maya nodded her agreement. Maya had been disposed to like this man before she had ever met him. Scott had told her something of this young lord-ling, the most important fact of which was that he was another Water Master. Now that she'd seen him, she decided that he was worth knowing, and worth counting as a friend. And it occurred to her if she was going to have to lock horns in combat with Simon Parkening, it would be no bad thing to have someone with Lord Peter's money, title, and influence behind her.

Peter Scott rang for the waiter a second time; the man appeared, left a third whiskey glass, took Almsley's order, and vanished again.

'I assume it isn't pleasure that urges you to seek the company of my Twin, here,' Almsley said, taking over the conversation with a natural arrogance that was both slightly irritating and very charming. 'Not,' he added, 'that the company of a woman who was likely to incur the frowns of Marie Corelli isn't exactly what he needs in his life, but your expression leads me to think that this is not a mere social call.'

Peter Scott actually blushed; Maya refused to allow this enchanting young rascal to get any kind of a rise in temper out of her. She had the notion that he was inclined to prick people at first in order to see what they were made of. 'Actually, that is correct, it is not precisely a social call,' she replied. 'Though if it had not been for certain inferences on the part of my patient, I wouldn't have thought of consulting him—but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.'

She began the short tale of Simon Parkening and Paul Jenner, pausing only when the waiter entered with their meals, and taking it up again as soon as he left. She made her story as detailed as possible, so that she only just finished as the meal did. The waiter came and cleared away the remains, lighting the lamps and the gas fire, and set up liqueurs on the sideboard before he left. Peter poured himself a brandy and Maya accepted a liqueur in lieu of dessert, but Almsley retired to the sofa under the open window, lounging there with a cigarette, while Maya and Peter sat by the fire in the armchairs. By this time, the sun had set, and the street noises outside had subsided. Almsley's cigarette smoke drifted out the open window into the blue dusk.

'And so it occurred to me that there might be other ways of tracing Jenner to my clinic than the use of private agents,' she concluded. 'I don't know how one could employ magical creatures to spy, but I presume that a Master could do so. Furthermore, it occurred to me that there might be some danger to my patients, my clinic staff, and Mr. Jenner himself associated with those—other ways.'

'Quite right,' Peter Scott agreed, and looked to Almsley, who nodded.

'I don't much care for the acquaintances this Parkening fellow has made,' Almsley said at last, after a thoughtful silence. 'I admire Annie Besant when it comes to everything but her metaphysical notions. On that note, she and the Blavatsky crowd are harmless enough, for folk who are utterly deluded about their mystical powers. But when it comes to Uncle Aleister and his ilk, well, Jenner was right to get the wind up about some of them. And you are right to worry about Parkening tracing him to your clinic.'

'What I don't like is that Parkening has been hanging about the hospital,' Peter Scott interjected darkly. 'Given what Jenner's said about him. Hmm? Gives him a far darker reason to linger than just his failed ambitions to be a doctor, or his uncle's position as Head.'

'Oho! Good point, Twin,' Almsley said, sitting bolt upright, his cigarette dangling forgotten from his fingers. 'There's a lot of suffering around a hospital. No offense, Doctor, I know it's your job to relieve suffering, but—'

'No offense taken, Lord Peter,' Maya replied, her brow furrowed with thought. 'It hadn't occurred to me that the hospital could be a—a reservoir of—'

'Of the drink the Dark Powers savor most,' Peter Scott said grimly. 'If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the hospital holds no charms for Parkening as a place of healing, but he finds it immensely useful as a source of power.'

Maya nodded, but her mind had gone on to other possibilities. The movement of patients in and out of the hospital was not that strictly controlled; they'd had patients get up and walk out as soon as they were able before this. What if some of them hadn't gone off of their own accord?

No, surely not. He wouldn't dare kidnap sick and injured people to—to torture them! Would he? She wondered.

Parkening had dropped broad hints that he wouldn't be displeased if Jenner died, and those hints had been heeded and acted upon. How many other times had he hinted the same thing? And to what dark end had he done so?

'What do you say to a visit to your clinic, Doctor?' Almsley asked suddenly, interrupting her dire thoughts. 'I'd