The Blood Debt Chronicles
The Case of the Missing Mummy
Chapter the Fifteenth or How Dravan Found Cat in the Sewers
Lady MacNeal knelt beside Mr. Taurus in the street, dabbing his head with a cool cloth and calling his name as she tried to bring him back to wakefulness. She glanced around, trying carefully to not look at the mangled bodies and saw a street rat loitering nearby. She beckoned to him.
She held out a shilling, “I want you to bring a message to my brother Dravan.”
The coin disappeared. “The boat mage? The one that helps all the whores?” The boy raised his eyebrow.
I didn’t realize he had made quite a name for himself. She thought with a mental sigh. “Yes, that would be the one. Tell him that his sister Adeline requests his assistance immediately.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “What if he turns me into a toad?”
It was something she could imagine him threatening when his research was interrupted. “Then tell the message to the woman that lives with him. Sarah.”
The boy nodded once and ran off into the night. Not for the first time, Adeline pretended she did not know what Sarah had been or possibly, was. It would not do for people to know that she knew. A lady wasn’t supposed to know prostitutes existed. Prostitutes are like ghouls. A rumor. Except that, prostitutes are actually real.
Mr. Taurus sat up. His eyes were unfocused and a small stream of blood ran from his nose. He blinked a few times before his eyes focused on Lady MacNeal, “I’m sorry. I tried to stop them.”
Blood and gore oozed across the cobblestones.
She patted his hand, “It’s all right, you did what you could.”
Lord Farcical came over to them; there was swagger in his step. “I wish I knew the direction the bastards fled in; I’d give them a taste of hot lead!” He brandished his pistol suggestively.
“Now, John,” Adeline said familiarly, “There is no need to get excited. I’ve just sent a lad to get Dravan; I imagine he’ll be here in a bit.”
“The trail will be long cold by then!”
Mr. Taurus struggled to his hooves, “Cat must have gone after them.”
“Oh?” Lady MacNeal said, her voice strained.
“Well, the bloke isn’t around and you didn’t send him to tell Dravan. So the boy is: either burned to death in the house or chasing the villains. I prefer to think he’s on the chase.”
The blood from the humans and beastmen Mr. Taurus had taken care of with his shotgun met the symbol Cat had drawn on the cobbles. Flames shot straight up as the blood reacted with the symbol before flames shot down the street. The fire extinguished itself before anyone could react, let alone follow.
“You are probably right.” Adeline said dryly. She hadn’t known Cat had magic. Perhaps it was a charm the child had picked up, but she had been around magic users long enough to know untamed magic when she saw it.
Lady MacNeal looked back toward the flaming house. The servants had made a chain carrying buckets from the water spigot to the house. Although the undercook was there, the cook was nowhere to be seen. The butler was organizing the servants, barking orders and maintaining calm. In the distance, police and fire wagon bells could be heard ringing.
The doctor was crouching next to one guest and then the next, checking them for burns or any other fire or smoke related illness. Adeline looked away, “Either we should be helping to put out the fire, collecting evidence or chasing the villains. Since we are waiting on Dravan to give chase, that leaves the other two options.”
Mr. Taurus grunted and went to grab a bucket. Lord Farcical sighed and joined him. Not for the first time, Adeline felt herself chafe under society’s expectations of a lady. She sighed and joined the nobility in their gossiping. Lord Longfellow looked up from his wife and excused himself before joining Lord Farcical on the bucket line.
Most of the guests were wringing their hands, having the vapors or generally panicking. There were a few notable exceptions to this. Lady Dubshire watched the whole affair with disgust, while her son looked on with barely concealed amusement. Professor Omar seemed to be intrigued by everything and seemed for a moment, tempted to sneak off, but upon seeing some of the nobles assist the servants, he too joined them. Seemingly unaware of the irony, Mr. Robert lit his pipe immediately upon exiting the burning building. While Captain Carrington, one hand firmly clenched around a glass of whiskey and the other holding a pistol, shouted for the men to gather together for a “bloody hunt”.
Adeline couldn’t resist asking Lady Scarlet about Captain Carrington’s whiskey, “Did he pour himself a tumbler of whiskey before leaving the burning building?”
Scarlet’s laughter was musical and enchanting, “It appears so. We certainly weren’t served whiskey at dinner.”
“I should hope not! Whiskey would have been most inappropriate!” Mrs. Eleanor Robert exclaimed.
Scarlet laughed again, “At least he is a man who knows what he wants and goes for it.”
Dravan arrived with Sarah in a hired cab. He went to his sister and interrupted her conversation, “You requested me? This had better be good. I was in the middle of important research.”
The women around her gasped, with the exception of Lady Scarlet who had known Dravan before becoming Lady Scarlet. Adeline smiled winningly. “Dear brother, when have I ever called you away for something less than the utmost importance?”
Dravan scowled, “Never. Which is why I am here. How can I solve your problem so I can return to solving mine?”
Adeline’s glowing smile did not falter, even though her heart did. Dravan was never that short with her. He always complained about being pulled away from his research, of course, but he adored his little sister and would do anything for her. What could be so important? And why hasn’t he shared it with me? “Cat is chasing the criminals that broke into the Pickering’s home and stole some valuable artifacts. Can you track him?”
The fire was largely extinguished by this point, so Mr. Taurus and Lord Farcical were returning to Lady MacNeal’s side.
Dravan snorted. “Of course, I can.” Dravan glanced to the house when there was a small explosion inside; he calmly pulled out a knife and cut his arm before throwing the blood into the air with a shout. The bubble that the Pickering’s had hired some other mage to cast around the house collapsed and every fire inside the house was extinguished. Blood continued to dribble down his arm. He flicked his hand again with another shout. An air filtration spell surrounded the entire house, the grounds and well into the street. When his sister raised an eyebrow at him he shrugged, “The sounds of the fire were distracting and it would be impolite to leave their house without air protections after I used them to put out the fires.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Adeline thought that Lady Dubshire had gone very pale indeed. Her son was no longer smiling, his lips pursed in a tight line.
“So you can track Cat?” Anya had wandered over. Everyone was generally smoke stained and disheveled, but she seemed to have rolled in something. Her dress was in such ruins that nothing could be done with the costly fabric except to tear it up and use it as cleaning rags.
Dravan eyed the napiform with disgust. He tried to hide his distaste from his sister, but his emotions were written across his face.
Adeline looked between the Halfling and her brother, What has been going on? He hates her.
Dravan took out a mechanical cat. It was the size of his thumb. He breathed on it before setting it onto the ground. The mechanical cat grew to be the size of a hunting hound before it began trotting off. “Yes.” He started following it before looking back, “Anyone else coming?”
Mr. Taurus, Lord Farcical, Professor Kassam Omar and a somewhat stunned Lord Longfellow followed him. Captain Carrington had passed out on the lawn. Adeline’s eyes followed her brother. I wish I could go. Anya, heedless of her dress or propriety followed after the men. I will need to find her a position somewhere she cannot continue to harm my reputation. She glanced over at Mr. Tweddle; Perhaps there is a place at the museum…
Dravan followed the mechanical cat. His short legs pumping to keep up with it. He was puffing slightly before he thought to cast a few spells to help himself. One for endurance, one for speed, and one to help his lungs pull more oxygen from the air. He didn’t think to cast on any of the others. With the exception of Anya, who shouldn’t have been there anyway, they were longer legged than he was.
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Dravan noticed the black mark singed into the cobblestones. It coincided curiously with the direction the cat was running. They began to find the bodies. The corpses were bloated from venom, their bones twisted in unnatural angles from their falls from the wagon.
Dravan pointed to one of the corpses. “That would be cobra venom. I’ve seen the effects before when one of my students was trying to use it in a potion. Fool had an open wound, we all do in the academy most times, but he got some of the venom in it. Boy almost lost his arm. Fool.” He spat with disgust. “A mage should always know what they are working with.”
The mechanical cat circled the open sewer and meowed. It was an odd clockwork sound. It reminded Mr. Taurus of a bird chirping rather than a cats meow.
Lord Farcical looked at the sewer dubiously. “Do we… go in?”
Dravan raised an eyebrow at the noble, “Well… that depends. If you want to find the child, then yes, we will have to go in.”
Lord Farcical began to climb into the sewer.
Dravan continued, “But if you want to get out alive and untainted you will let me enchant you first.”
Lord Farcical quickly got off the ladder to wait on the gnome. “What could kill us down there?”
Dravan didn’t need any concentration to cast these protection spells. “There are many things that could kill in the sewers. For one, the air. The air above the sewer is so poisonous it can kill an unborn child. If you don’t believe me, ask my sister’s children.”
Mr. Taurus raised a bushy eyebrow, “You only had the one nephew.”
Dravan glared at the minotaur sharply, “Exactly.” Dravan continued, “The miasma[1]in the sewers has concentrated doses of the toxins we find above, combine that with the methane and other gases that come from the breakdowns of waste and you could find yourself dead rather quickly. Or incapacitated and then dead.
Dravan continued, “Then, of course, there is the illegal dumping that the companies do. Queen Victoria has banned some things, but no one is really enforcing any of the bans. Who knows what chemicals they are washing down there, and before you ask why it matters, remember that simply by burning the right composition of coal we have experienced multiple occasions of acidic rain.”
The people surrounding Dravan nodded, they had all experienced it to one degree or another. Lord Longfellow nodded vigorously. The acidic rain had injured his favorite hunting hounds twice. Foolish dogs wanted to play in the water.
“Then, you also have the magical dumping. Students, professors, mages that haven’t been taught properly… all these dumping their ‘experiments’ into the sewers.”
Anya spoke up, “They wouldn’t do that. That would be unethical.”
Dravan snorted. “I’m going to pretend you aren’t being a naive idiot and are instead being facetious. Just like medical students ‘don’t dig up corpses’ or ‘pay for corpses to be delivered to them’, students of the Academy ‘don’t use banned components’ or ‘dump those failures into the sewers’.”
Anya glared at him. “I do not appreciate your tone.”
“I don’t appreciate your acerebral[2]behavior in the best of times, however when your belligerent ignorance will cause suffering to those under my charge, I would appreciate it if you would listen to those wiser than yourself or go home where your foolishness harms only yourself.” His eyes narrowed dangerously, “I told you all that when I fired you. Your continued deliberate disregard for critical thinking worries me.”
Anya huffed, but kept silent while Dravan finished explaining the dangers.
“Of course, you can’t forget the ghouls.”
Lord Farcical, to the amazement of Mr. Taurus, commented, “Ghouls are like prostitutes. They aren’t real.”
Lord Jonathan Longfellow, who had married a courtesan and who had so much money and influence that he didn’t give a damn who knew, laughed aloud. Professor Omar looked at Lord Longfellow with horror on his face. In the Professor’s homeland, prostitutes were stoned if caught and men did not remember their time in such places.
Dravan smirked. “Right. Although they are similar to prostitutes in a variety of ways, I assure you. I would rather meet a lady of the night in a dark alley than a ghoul and they are just as real.” He waved the cat in a shooing motion, “We are ready to enter the sewers. Please try not to fall into the river of slime, that would be most disagreeable for everyone.”
Even with Dravan’s protections, which filtered out anything that could cause them harm, there were so many smells it was over whelming. Anya particularly was affected. As a Halfling, she was gifted with an impeccable sense of smell. It allowed her to remember a scent for years and to distinguish between many scents to track a particular scent.
If she had thought to, she could have tracked Cat on her scent alone. Unfortunately, Anya was constantly trying to shed any remembrance that she was a Halfling. They were almost never able to rise above the lower class because they universally loved good foods and good smells… and an unfortunately large number of them had been caught attempting to steal interesting smelling things.
The stones were slick, the plant life uliginous[3], the way was convoluted, but the cat brought them unerringly. They saw the cobra pinned to the wall by the bolt and it gave them all pause.
“Who set that trap up?”
“Hopefully, they triggered everything.”
They came to the spot where Cat had been surrounded by the cobras, but there was no hint of any altercation. It was an unremarkable place that they passed through quickly. After some time, the stones seemed to slant upward. The tunnel, though it maintained its uncomfortable humidity, became dryer. The walls became a yellow sandy stone that seemed out of place in the cold land of England.
The mechanical cat walked up to Cat and bumped its head against the child’s leg. Cat was lounging against the stone. The clear white light of Dravan’s witch light illuminated the grime that was streaked across her clothes.
She stood up, rubbing the mechanical cat’s head. “Took you guys long enough.” She surveyed the group, “I was kinda hoping you would bring the coppers. There is some kind of magic mumbo-jumbo going on. Sets my teeth on edge.”
“Does it…” Dravan murmured to himself. Then looked at Mr. Taurus, “Taurus, how long did you last in the worst fight you’ve ever been in?”
Mr. Taurus eyed him oddly, “At least a minute against twenty men with whips, chains and knives. No guns though.”
“We’ll be fine then. I only need a few seconds unmolested to resolve any problems we might encounter.” Dravan drew himself to his full height, which remained significantly shorter than Mr. Taurus’ five feet. “Unless it’s a greater demon. Then you’ll want to run… quickly.”
Lord Farcical and Anya both had small pistols drawn. Lord Farcical, at least, looked competent with a firearm. Anya just looked eager. Lord Longfellow had a cane, which seemed a strange weapon. The professor was unarmed.
Wouldn’t it normally be pipes, chains and knives? What was Mr. Taurus involved in that people had whips? Cat wondered. If Dravan said he could handle anything, Cat believed him. But whips were certainly a strange weapon to mention. Cat wondered about it as she led them into the sandstone tunnels, careful to disarm any traps she came across.
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[1]noxious atmosphere or emanations
[2]brainless
[3]growing in muddy, oozy, or swampy places