The Osiris Curse Read online

  Published 2013 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  The Osiris Curse. Copyright © 2013 Paul Crilley. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover illustration © Cliff Nielsen

  Cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger

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  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Crilley, Paul, 1975-

  The Osiris curse / by Paul Crilley.

  pages cm. — (A Tweed & Nightingale adventure)

  ISBN 978-1-61614-857-7 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-61614-858-4 (ebook)

  [1. Science fiction. 2. Secret societies—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 5. London (England)—History—19th century—Fiction. 6. Great Britain—History—Victoria, 1837-1901—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C869276Os 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013022384

  Printed in the United States of America

  Thanks to Lou Anders for editorial support, Phil Athans for grammatical support, and everyone else at Pyr for general support.

  And thanks to all the bloggers and booksellers who spread the word about the first Tweed and Nightingale adventure. You guys rock.

  Death stalks the streets of London.

  The winter wind, sensing its presence and feeling some distant, ancient kinship, soars above the frozen city, tossing snowflakes through the oil-black sky as it searches for its location.

  The wind drops lower, gusting through the frosty streets. It skims along the pollution-scummed waters of the Thames, reaching beneath London Bridge to blacken the toes of the homeless huddled together in a pathetic attempt to escape its touch.

  It flies over the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, then along the Strand, where automatons with the souls of humans go about the work of their masters. It flicks the snow around, sending it in confused, whirling gusts as it searches for the death it can taste in the very air.

  There. The wind pauses, a lull in the freezing January night.

  Then is drops.

  An odd pair walk calmly through the streets. They are dressed in strange fashions, the man in a dark purple suit with a mustard yellow shirt, a white handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket. He carries a cane, which he swings out and around with every step. He is wearing a fedora hat pulled low over his face.

  And his face…

  Cold as the breath of winter herself, all angles and cruel bones, grey eyes so pale as to be almost white. It is only when he turns to check on his companion that any flicker of emotion is seen, a fire kindled behind the eyes, a fierce familial love.

  His companion is a woman, although her like has rarely been seen in London. No hint of subservience. No inkling of what men would call the weakness of the fairer sex. If anything, the hard lines of her face are even crueler than her brother's. She moves slowly, her eyes, so brown as to be almost black, scouring all with their gaze.

  She is also wearing a suit, and it is for this reason that she attracts so many hostile stares, stares that nervously flick away when she turns her dead eyes upon them. Her suit is a deep, dark crimson, the color of dried blood. She does not wear a hat. Her blond-white hair is scraped back from her head and tied with a piece of leather.

  The two move slowly along the Strand. The theaters are finishing up, the rich and the privileged huddled beneath fur coats and gentlemen's jackets while they wait for the automata to bring the hansom cabs along the slush-covered cobbles.

  They watch these crowds as they walk, staring at them with an intensity that few could miss. It is as if they are studying them, the people of London nothing but specimens in a laboratory.

  The two are passing a dark alley when three men step out of the shadows to confront them. One has a pistol, and the other two raise rusty knives. The men are wearing tattered clothes, their faces smeared with dirt.

  The wind swirls around the tableau, ruffling the greasy hair of the assailants, throwing snow up around their leaky, hob-nailed boots.

  “Give. Come on. Everythin’ in yer pockets,” says the man with the pistol.

  The man in the purple suit raises a delicate eyebrow. “Don't be absurd.”

  The three muggers look uneasily at each other. This isn't how it is supposed to go. The mark should hand over everything, usually begging for his life as he did so. He wasn't supposed to say no.

  The man licks his cracked lips and swings the gun to point at the woman. “Do it. Or the moll gets it in the head.”

  The man in the purple suit shakes his head sadly, making a tutting noise. “Silly man,” he says. He turns to the woman. “Sister?”

  “I'll handle it,” says the woman. And she licks her lips and smiles, showing odd, almost translucent teeth.

  The attackers wonder if they have perhaps bitten off more than they can chew. They raise their weapons all the same, but before they can do anything more the woman is moving, a blur of teeth and nails. She smacks the gun out of the way, driving her fingers into the man's throat. He coughs, gagging. Blood wells from his mouth as he drops to his knees. The woman whirls, her leg coming up. It connects with the second man's head. There is a loud crack, his head jerks to the side, and he slides to the ground, sightless eyes staring up at the brittle stars. The third lunges forward with his knife, but she easily bats it aside. She grabs him by the shoulders and drags him into the darkness of the alley. He screams, a terrible cry of pain and horror that fades to a wet gurgle before eventually stopping.

  A moment later the woman steps back into the light. She uses her pinky to wipe the blood from the side of her mouth, then straightens her suit and smiles brightly at the man. She holds her arm out.

  “Shall we, Brother?”

  “Indeed, Sister. Let us finish this.”

  They move away from the alley, stepping over the pools of blood now staining the freshly fallen snow. They turn onto Cromwell Street, moving through the dim light given off by snow-obscured Tesla globes. They stop outside the Natural History Museum, craning their heads back to take in the tall spires that flank the front entrance.

  “Inelegant,” says the woman.

  “Agreed. It will have to go.”

  There is movement from the shadows along the side of the building. A figure appears, wearing a dark cloak with the hood pulled low over its face. The figure approaches the siblings, then drops to his knees, the cloak billowing out in the snow around him like a pool of liquid.

  “Masters. The Hermetic Order of Osiris is here to serve. As ever it has been. As ever it will be.”

  The siblings exchange amused looks, but the kneeling figure does not see.

  “Rise, loyal one.”

  The figure in the cloak straightens.

  “The guards are dealt with?” asks the man.

  “All dead, Most High One.”

  “And he is here?”

  “He entered at five o’ clock this afternoon.”

  “Take us to him.”

  The acolyte bows and leads the siblings behind the museum. There are small huts and sheds scattered around the lot. The acolyte heads directly for one of them and holds the door open. Inside, the siblings
are confronted with a hidden door that has been propped open with the broken arm of a statue.

  “He is alone?” asks the woman.

  “He is.”

  “Follow us.”

  Beyond the hidden door is a set of stairs leading deep underground. The siblings follow them down, finally emerging into a huge, echoing factory. The ceiling is distant, the walls lost in shadow. There are half-constructed machines cast haphazardly around, some in the process of being dismantled, others in the process of construction. There is a high-pitched whining coming from somewhere up ahead, and a moment later a massive dome of electricity bursts from the roof and grounds itself in metal plates in the floor.

  The siblings walk forward, unconcerned, and after a moment can make out a man inside this dome of lightning. He is seated on a chair reading a newspaper.

  The lightning abruptly vanishes. The air tastes of tin. The man notices them for the first time and gets to his feet, angry.

  “Who are you? You cannot come in here!”

  The man in the purple suit draws a pistol. It is plated with silver, gleaming in the light. It has engravings of lizards on the barrel.

  “Sit down, Mr. Tesla.”

  Nikola Tesla looks nervously at the gun, then slumps back into his chair. He smoothes his mustache down. “What is it you want?”

  “Justice, Mr. Tesla. We want justice.”

  Tesla frowns, uncertain. “Justice? Have I wronged you in some way?”

  For the first time there is a slip of control in the siblings. Both of them stiffen, angry. No, furious.

  “Have you wronged us? Mr. Tesla you have wronged many, many thousands. My people are dying because of you.”

  Tesla is shocked. “What is this? I have done nothing!”

  The woman steps forward. “Nothing? You say you have done nothing, you whose inventions are responsible for so much pain! You are evil, Nikola Tesla.”

  “I am no such thing. What pain? What inventions are you talking about?”

  “All of them,” says the man, and he fires the gun.

  The bullet hits Tesla in the chest. He cries out and falls backward over his chair. After a moment, he pulls himself to his knees. He touches the blood on his chest with a trembling hand and looks accusingly at the siblings.

  “You…you shot me!”

  The man fires again. Tesla jerks backward and lands on his back. His sightless eyes stare up at the distant ceiling. The man puts the gun away and gestures for the acolyte to come forward.

  “Do it,” he says.

  The acolyte nods and hurries to the body. The man and the woman turn to face each other.

  “It is begun,” he says.

  “It is begun,” she repeats, satisfaction evident in her words.

  “Nothing's happening,” said Octavia Nightingale in a bored tone of voice.

  Tweed glanced up from the newspaper he was reading. “It will. It's statistically proven that more crimes are committed between two and three in the morning.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And on a Tuesday, strangely enough.”

  “Tweed, it's Thursday,” said Octavia in exasperation. “And it's after three. The only suspicious people lurking around in the dark are us. All the villains are in bed. Where it's warm. And dry.”

  Tweed sighed and pushed the muddy slush around with his boot. She had a point. He fished out his pocket watch and flicked the cover open.

  3:25.

  In the morning.

  In mid-January.

  Tweed slipped the watch back into his pocket. He'd give it another half hour then call it a night. By the time he got home and into bed it would be after five, and that meant he'd sleep most of the day away, which was a bonus. Loneliness tended to be worse during the day. Sitting alone in the house, listening to the huge grandfather clock in the hallway—that was when he started brooding, contemplating who he really was, how he had been created.

  He shied away from the thought, shivering and pulling his greatcoat tighter around his body. No. Much better to keep occupied. It kept the dark thoughts at bay.

  He tilted the newspaper toward the street light outside the alley. “Listen to the rubbish they print nowadays,” he said, hoping to distract Octavia. “‘The airship Albion, widely acknowledged to be a triumph of design and engineering, is due to make her maiden voyage this very Saturday. The Albion is a first of its kind, a luxury airship capable of carrying over a thousand guests. Kept afloat by one hundred sturdy gasbags and powered by Tesla Turbines, the mile-long airship was built in the factories of Dundee and towed to London by the Royal Navy's own airships.’”

  “What's wrong with that?” protested Octavia. “It gives background information.”

  “Ah, I see. Is that's what it does?” Tweed found his place again. “‘The launch of the Albion is the hottest event of the social season. Those who can afford the tickets will travel to Egypt, where they will rest for a few days in Tutankhamen's View, the controversial hotel built inside the refurbished Great Pyramid of Giza. The Albion will then tour Europe before returning to England, where a welcoming party will await the Albion's proud cresting of the chalky cliffs of Dover.’”

  Tweed glanced at Octavia. “Can an inanimate object be proud?”

  “Be quiet,” said Octavia.

  “I ask merely for information. As you're always so keen to point out, my education is sorely lacking. I just wondered, what with you being so clever and everything, whether I should write a letter to The Times and complain about one of their reporters taking such artistic license with the English language.” He frowned. “What is the reporter's name, anyway?” He squinted at the byline, then looked at Octavia in mock surprise. “Why, this journalist, this…butcherer of the English language, has the same name as you, Nightingale. You should sue.”

  A handful of slush hit him in the cheek. He spluttered and wiped it away, then grinned at her. “Bet you've already cut this out and framed it, haven't you?”

  Octavia said nothing.

  “Where is it? Above your bed? No—above your desk, yes?”

  “Possibly,” said Octavia reluctantly.

  Tweed tucked the newspaper into one of his voluminous pockets. For all his teasing, he really was proud of Octavia. Even if she was only a junior reporter given the task of rewriting press releases, she was still the youngest person ever to have that kind of job at The Times. He would keep the article himself as a memento.

  To remind myself how terrible I'm doing in comparison.

  The thought slid into his mind, dark and insidious. He tried to push it away, but it wouldn't budge. And why should it? It was the truth, after all. Octavia had a job, a life, proper friends. He had…well, he had nothing much, to be honest. An empty house that depressed him. A father who was never there. One friend who was so busy at work he only saw her when they trained together, which was only for a few hours every other day.

  He was wallowing in melancholy. Which was incredibly annoying. For himself and for others.

  More than that, he feared his melancholy was turning to depression. He spent most of his time sleeping, and when he woke up it was with a heavy ball of lead in his stomach that wouldn't shift no matter what he did. He found his thoughts turning to the future, a future where he wasn't sure he had a place. What could he do, after all? He had no real skills. No honest skills, anyway. A life spent running cons with his father had ill-prepared him for a life on this side of the law.

  Worse than all that, though, (and it was here his thoughts always led), he wasn't sure he was actually a real person.

  Well, he was. Technically. But the truth was, he had no soul of his own. His soul used to belong to Sherlock Holmes. Tweed, in fact, was Sherlock Holmes. The man's soul had been drawn from his body after he died at Reichenbach Falls and placed inside a nine-month-old clone of Holmes. That clone was Tweed. The insertion into so young a body wiped Holmes's memories, giving baby Tweed a clean slate, a fresh start.

  But Tweed couldn't avoid the fact. He wasn't his own person. He
was living in someone else's body with someone else's soul. A cuckoo who had raided someone else's nest to make his own life.

  What kind of existence was that? He didn't belong. He felt as if he hadn't earned his place in the world, that he hadn't earned his right to exist.

  “Just admit it, Tweed,” said Octavia, breaking into his thoughts. “You were wrong. If it was going to happen tonight it would have happ—”

  The wall of the building opposite them exploded outward, bricks and stones tumbling into the road. There was a metallic grinding noise, then a burst of steam that came from nowhere, mixing with the dust clouding the air. The sound of heavy, clanking footsteps stomped into the road and moved slowly away from them.

  The only problem was, there was nothing there.

  Tweed and Octavia stared. An empty street. A ragged hole in the wall. A slowly dissipating steam cloud, and grey dust settling into the snow. That was it.

  “That's…rather odd,” he said.

  More bricks flew suddenly out of the wall, and those already lying in the snow burst apart, reduced to rubble and powder seemingly of their own volition.

  Again, they heard the hissing of steam and the thunk thunk of heavy footsteps.

  “Look!” whispered Octavia.

  Tweed glanced along the street. Large footsteps were appearing in the muddy slush that coated the road. Two sets, moving away from their location.

  Tweed lifted his gaze higher and squinted. He could just make out a distortion, a portion of air that twisted slightly, bent and shivering, like light refracted through thick glass. He followed the outline of the anomaly, tracing it as it formed the shape of what he knew to be a rather large, rather dangerous automaton.

  Hah! He had been right after all.

  “They've got some kind of invisibility thing going on,” he said. “Like in Wells's book. Look how the air is distorted above the footprints.”

  “I can see,” said Octavia grumpily.

  Tweed grinned at her. “You owe me a florin.”

  “Not yet I don't. It might not be Harry Banks's constructs.”

  Over the past month or so there had been a series of bank robberies, crimes so filled with mayhem and destruction that Tweed had reckoned it couldn't be the work of a human. Even a gang of humans wouldn't be able to cause so much damage.