22 July, 1870

This morning we learned that Schmidt has found us and was attempting to break through the Seal of Soloman. According to the garden fairies, who have been very helpful, he paid particular attention to both Miss Whitnell's room and Mr. Inspector MacGreggor's room.

The news prompted a heated debate about how the league should proceed. Everyone seemed very upset by the end of the conversation, though they all seemed to agree with Miss Whitnell's plan to have the fairies deliver a note to the Order of St. Jerome to consult on where to set a trap for Schmidt.

I was somewhat surprised with Sir Cosmo came to me and said he was going to deliver the note himself, and was I willing to drive the carriage. Of course I said 'yes!' Then he swore me to secrecy as he gathered a small band. Mr. Ramsay, Mr. O'Flaherty, and Mr. MacGreggor were asked to accompany us, and all agreed. Salmalin was informed of our plan, and instructed to protect the rest of the household while we were gone.

We gathered at the side entrance, where Mr. Shaw, the butler, had a carriage ready for us. Sir Cosmo gave Mr. Shaw two notes, one address to Edward, the other the Miss Chigwidgion, and instructed him not to deliver the notes until we had disappeared around the corner down the street.

He insisted on riding on the driving seat beside me. I told him I would be fine up there, but he said "That just means I'll be fine as well, won't it?" Then he activated something inside his walking stick. It wasn't one of us usual sticks. I had already noticed it's unusual design with much more brass and silver than his others, and less wood. When he twisted the copper ring near the head, it began humming in that distinctive sound of the Etheric Pulse Gun.

When the weapon started humming, Mr. MacGreggor asked whether it was likely to explode, and Sir Cosmo said that it probably wouldn't. Then he had to explain what the weapon was. Mr. MacGreggor has fit in so nicely with the household, I keep forgetting that he wasn't around when the League defeated my old master.

One of the garden fairies, I believe her name is Birdseye, appeared just then and asked Mr. Ramsay where the letter was that she had promised to deliver. Ramsay explained that they had decided to deliver it themselves. He thanked her for her kind attention to the errand and said her services would not be needed.

She vanished then, but I recognized that look on her face (I have seen it many times on Wilhelmina's face, after all!). So it was no surprise to me when I sensed her presence still with us when we set off down the road.

We arrived at the St. Jerome Chapterhouse without incident. The message was delivered and the situation discussed with the leaders there. Miss Magda's teacher, Prof. Crimena, was there, as well as the leader of the chapterhouse, the Abbot de Margny. Mr. Ramsay asked after the the artifacts of Monsier Ladeau, the insane sorcerer Wilhelmina and the others captured in the church tower. The men who were sent to search the house reported that they had found the evil book and destroyed it.

This news seemed to concern everyone. The Abbot asked the man several more questions, then dismissed him. He, Prof. Crimena, and Mr. Ramsay immediately began discussing faerie glamours. They then explained to us that the team had been instructed to bring back any artifacts and books for study before destroying them, and it appeared that something was wrong with their auras.

They decided to perform one of their magick rituals to see what had happened. They set up a silver bowl full of water and a number of candles, then chanted for a few minutes. When they finished, they explained that they had seen the team being met at Ladeau's house by Schmidt and his human partner, Herr Tot, then everything that happened without the house was cloaked from their view by powerful demonic magicks. After the team returned to the Chapterhouse, they threw a perfectly ordinary book into a fireplace, apparently believing that they had brought back the "Book of the Night."

By this time Miss Magda had joined us, and she wished to go immediately to the house to deal with Schmidt and the others. The Abbot thought it would be best if Miss Magda joined forces with the League. Sir Cosmo agreed and suggested we return to the consulate to alert the others. Prof. Crimena and Miss Magda would join us at the consulate shortly, then we could proceed together.

So, with Ramsey, O'Flaherty, and MacGreggor back in the carriage, and Sir Cosmo on the top seat with me, we went back to the consulate.

Schmidt attacked us on the way.

He landed on the carriage behind me, solidified, and grabbed my head. I see now how the driver in Antwerp was killed so swiftly. He is quite fast and strong. However, I knew that was how he had attacked before, so as soon as I sensed his presence, I started to move. I tried to call out a warning, though I barely had a word out before he had grabbed my head. No matter how violently an opponent twists your head, if your body is moving in the same direction as fast or nearly so, he will not break your neck.

It was quite obvious that Schmidt was never trained by Master Tandu.

Not to say that I wasn't worried. He was more than strong enough to break my skull. I could feel my jaw cracking in his grasp. But I grabbed one of his arms and concentrated on the Seed of Energy Mantra, to keep him solid. At the same time, I swung my legs up and over that arm and kicked him in the face.

At the same time, Mr. O'Flaherty and Mr. MacGreggor were climbing out of the carriage. Mr. O'Flaherty knocked Schmidt's legs out from under him at about the same time I kicked Schmidt's head. This sent Schmidt tumbling off the back of the carriage. Since both he and I still had firm grips on each other, that sent me falling, as well.

He apparently could tell that my mantra was preventing him from becoming ephemeral, because he bashed his head into mine. Unfortunately it worked. I lost my concentration for a moment, and very nearly lost consciousness, and that was all he needed.

Suddenly I was falling freely through the air as he slipped away. I twisted and rolled, managing not to break any bones when I hit the street.

I came to me feet just in time Schmidt transform into a giant. I learned later the Mr. O'Flaherty had landed a second blow on Schmidt while I was recovering, and had knocked him into a building hard enough to knock some bricks loose. Schmidt dissolved into an enormous cloud of smoke which re-solidified into an enormous bronze statue.

Sir Cosmo shot the giant, and the weapon clearly hurt him, temporarily dissolving him again. We charged him. Mr. O'Flaherty, with his long strides, was well in the lead. Unfortunately the giant Schmidt seemed to be even stronger than the normal-sized Schmidt. He smashed Mr. O'Flaherty into the cobbles with one blow of his fist. Mr. MacGreggor jammed an iron knife into Schmidt's flesh, and Schmidt grabbed him, lifting him as if he were a mouse, and squeezing.

I had almost reached Schmidt myself, but Cosmo called out for me to jump aside.

He fired the Etheric Pulse Gun again.

I could see the lightning engulf Schmidt and MacGreggor. I threw a brick toward the giant's face, screaming as loudly as I could, hoping he might let MacGreggor drop so I could attempt to catch him. At the same time, Birdseye made herself visible right in front of Schmidt's left eye, brandishing a tiny sword.

Schmidt seemed to hesitate. I'm not certain he considered me much of a threat, but he did seem confused as to whether Birdseye or Sir Cosmo was who he should swat next.

The hesitation was enough. The Etheric Pulse Gun was charged and Sir Cosmo fired again. At the same moment, I felt a surge of magic come from the carriage. I had almost forgotten about Mr. Ramsay. I should have realized that he had been chanting and gathering power to cast a spell.

Schmidt exploded.

When the air cleared, Schmidt was nowhere to be seen. I looked around with dread, fulling expecting to see MacGreggor laying dead on the street. He was still in midair floating down very gently. Birdseye had hold of his belt. You'd never think those tiny little wings could hold up that much weight, but she lowered him safely to the ground.

Both MacGreggor and Mr. O'Flaherty were still breathing. Birdseye said that she couldn't sense Schmidt anywhere nearby. Mr. Ramsay said it would probably take Schmidt an hour to recover from the exorcism, but we shouldn't take any chances. Sir Cosmo agreed. We loaded our wounded into the carriage as quickly as we could, then finished the trip at a gallop.

Everyone was quite excited at our return. Mrs. Cuthbert was quite busy with Mr. O'Flaherty and Mr. MacGreggor. I kept telling everyone that I was fine, but Edward finally showed me my face in a mirror. No wonder they were making a fuss, my head was covered in bruises.

It took many minutes to explain what had happened. Miss Chigwidgeon scolded Sir Cosmo for leaving her behind. Mr. MacGreggor and Mr. O'Flaherty regained consciousness, and we had to tell the story again, to let them know what had happened after they were knocked out. Mr. O'Flaherty was quite annoyed about Schmidt's transformation. "I could have taken him!" he insisted. Mrs. Cuthbert wanted us all to spend some minutes resting.

Sir Cosmo explained that the Slayer and others from the Order of St. Jerome would be joining us soon. That was when we were told that Miss Whitnell and Mr. Hassan were upstairs doing another spell, contacting one of the guardian spirits.

During all the clean up and recovering, Mr. MacGreggor found a letter in his pocket which had been placed there by Schmidt, somehow. It was addressed to Miss Whitnell. Miss Sinclair took it up to Miss Whitnell.

Everyone gathered in the parlour, again. Miss Whitnell and Mr. Hassan had a plan. Apparently Miss Whitnell had sent a message to Schmidt, giving him a chance to surrender. The note in MacGreggor's pocket was apparently supposed to be an answer, though it wasn't much of an answer. He wasn't willing to discuss a possible truce under Miss Whitnell's conditions, and he said she wouldn't want to meet under his conditions. Then he said if we insisted on discussing a truce, we could find him in the Shattered Eye of Eternity. No one knew for sure where that was. Mr. Hassan and Mrs. Cuthbert both knew of something in Egyptian mythology about a goddess's eye that was called the Eye of Eternity, but no one knew what the Shattered part referred to.

Clearly Schmidt had no intention of calling a truce, since he had attacked us so dramatically. In any case, Miss Whitnell and Mr. Hassan had learned the true names of Schmidt's parents. His faery parent was part of some group that owes fealty to the King of the Faeries, and therefore Schmidt would be bound by something Mr. Hassan kept referring to as The Compact. The Compact forbids faeries from making war on humans -- not attacking specific individuals, but from fullscale war.

Mr. Hassan thought that Schmidt's actions on behalf of the King of Prussia might possibly interpretted in violation of the Compact. So he and Miss Whitnell wanted to attempt to mystically contact the faery parent and see if he might deliver an appeal to the King of Faeries.

It was decided to attempt this. Miss Whitnell and several of the others set up a room for the summoning. The rest of us were gathering weapons and preparing to go the the Ladeau mansion. While the conference was commencing, Miss Magda, Prof. Crimena, and the Abbot arrived.

The mystics came out of the conference feeling hopeful. Schmidt's father had agreed to take the proof we had of Schmidt attempting to assassinate the French Emporer to the Faery King. He could not promise the King would chose to intervene on our behalf.

We loaded up into several carriages and made our way to Ladeau's house. The manor itself was quiet and dark. Sir Cosmo had several of us, myself, Edward, Salmalin, and Miss Magda were allowed to scout around the perimeter of the building first. It appeared completely desserted. There should have been a full staff of servants, somewhere.

There was some hesitation about entering the house. Miss Magda is even less patient with such objections than Wilhelmina and Miss Chigwidgeon combined. She strode through the door with her sword drawn. The rest of us followed quickly.

A tea service lay shattered on the floor. Mr. Frasier examined the service, and said that a young woman had been grabbed from behind and dragged deeper into the house not more than three hours before we had arrived. The drag marks led into a library, and it took only a moment to find the door behind the bookcase. The room behind the bookcase hummed with dark sorcery.

Everything was painted black. There was a stone statue of a sphinx in the center of the room. An altar in front of the statue was covered in blood that was still not wholly congealed. Mr. Ramsay explained then that the Egytian goddess Nephthys is sometimes represented as a sphinx. She was the goddess associated with an Eye of Eternity. But the idol had no eyes. It had no face at all.

Edward tied out of his ropes to the large desk in the library, then wrapped the other end around his waist. We proceeded into the room. While I and Miss Bertilde examined the walls for hidden doors, Mr. Frazer examined the altar and announced that the blood was not human. He was convinced that a sheep had been sacrificed, not a person.

Edward and Miss Chigwidgeon found a hidden cabinet in the pedestal of the idol. When the door open, a glittering light flooded the room. The cupboard contained a jewel, a milky white moonstone bigger than my head. The gem was cracked. Hundreds of cracks covered it's surface, making it seem almost facetted.

Edward announced that he could see Schmidt in the gem. Schmidt and Tot were in a room with all the servants tied up in chairs. Miss Chigwidgeon said that she could also see Schmidt, but he wasn't with Tot or the servants, he was in some kind of lab with Dr. Jeffers and Miss Jeffers.

Miss Whitnell warned everyone not to touch the gem. Edward said it looked as if Tot were preparing to torture the servants. Edward moved closer. And then he seemed to be drawn right into the gem, even though he had not touched it.

The rope remained taut from the desk, and appeared to go straight into the stone. I rushed forward, but Miss Magda, Miss Sinclair, and Miss Chigwidgeon were closer. They each grabbed the rope and leaped forward, vanishing into the gem. There was a bit of jostling as we all queued up to grab the rope and follow. When I leapt, I found myself suddenly in a vast darkness. I seemed to be floating as if in water, but could feel no cold nor hear any sound. And then just as suddenly, the darkness fled and I was in a small room. There was a terrific fight in progress already.

There were Schmidts everywhere! He had somehow multiplied himself. Several of him were already dead when I arrived, unfortunately it looked as if several of my companions were equally in danger. Edward had Sir Cosmo's Etheric Pulse Cane and was standing guard over Miss Sinclair, who appeared to be severely wounded. Mr. Frazer was administering first aid. Mr. O'Flaherty was laying unconscious on the floor. The servants were in a corner. Tot lay dying on the floor. Miss Chigwidgeon lay unconscious in Sir Cosmo's arms. Everywhere someone seemed to be fighting one of the Schmidts.

I leaped at one of the Schmidts. And he dissolved. All of them dissolved, even the dead ones. They were all sucked into the center of the room. Not just the more than a dozen laying dead on the floor, nor the dozen that had been fighting my companions, but scores of other Schmidts all seemed to be drawn from every direction, flying through the walls into the room, all coalescing in the center in one Schmidt.

A sputtering rocket launched in the ceiling blew up at just that moment. It was one of Wilhelmina's iron filing bombs. It coated him with hot iron filings and embers. I learned later that Miss Whitnell and cast a binding spell.

Even though he was battered and burning, Schmidt leaped forward, grabbed the rope still tied to Edward, and broke it like a thread. The other end of the rope, still anchored back in reality, vanished. He proclaimed that we could not escape without him.

Miss Whitnell threw a bottle of her silver solution on him. He taunted her. She drew her sword. The rest of us circled, weapons draw, ready to finish him.

Mr. Hassan had been in the room and already chanting when I arrived. He held a small brass bottle out toward Schmidt, and Schmidt was drawn into the tiny bottle. Mr. Hassan corked the bottom, then sat down, still chanting, pulled some wax and some safety matches from his pockets, and sealed the bottle with wax.

Mrs. Cuthbert had been seeing to the wounded. The rest of us searched for an exit. There were no doors visible. Edward, somehow, found a door and opened it. When he did, at the opposite wall a duplicate door opened, and Edward peaked in. He turned around and waved at himself. I could see two Edwards, right there, one in our room, looking out the door into a room that appeared to be just like around room and occupied by us, and another, looking into our room, with several of us visible behind us.

Mr. Hassan finished his ritual, and said that he believe he could take us all home, by summoning the lion's fiery chariot. It would require carrying us out five or six at a time. He stood up, grasped his cloak clasp, and called out something in his native tonuge. The fiery chariot appeared a moment later. We loaded the wounded and Mrs. Cuthbert onto the chariot first. Mr. Hassan and the chariot flew out, disappearing into the wall. Minutes later he returned.

When we arrived back in the alter room, we found Miss Metzger sitting in the center of a circle of candles. She had stayed behind, gripping the rope and chanting, hoping to keep a connection to us all. She had been joined by Miss Mitzi and some of the French agents. One of the agents is Mitzi's nephew. We were getting the rescued servants and the wounded sorted out, when someone suggested that more hostages were still inside the gem. Mr. Hassan performed one of his rituals, then went back in, accompanied by Dr. Wilson and Mr. O'Flaherty, to rescue Dr. Jeffers and Miss Jeffers. Mr. Hassan said that there were others trapped inside, but they were dark sorcerers who seemed to have been trapped for many years, and it would be best to leave them there for now.

Before we could leave the mansion, a strange wind blew through the hall, and suddenly a whole group of faeries appeared. Not just tiny garden faeries like the ones we have met most recently, but human sized beings. One of them was half-naked, wearing fur leggings and a gold circlet on his head. Apparently he was the King of Faeries. Many of those accompanying him were dressed in similar primtive furs. Some had ticks and leaves tangled in their hair. A few were dressed in more European style clothing. One, who bore an unmistakeable resemblance to Schmidt and Mitzi, wore a breeches, waistcoat, tailcoat, and lace-sleeved shirt that would not have been out of place in one of those pictures from of fancy balls in the last century.

Everyone curtsied or bowed, following the lead from Sir Cosmo and Miss Whitnell. The King asked for Schmidt. Mr. Hassan present him with the brass bottle. The King seemed some what disappointed that we had already captured Schmidt for him. He said something about a Hell-tithe, which Wilhelmina told me later is something she read about in faery tales. At certain intervals the King of the Faeries has to turn over some of his people to Hell. Apparently Schmidt will be sent there next.

The King shook the bottle once with a very cruel smile on his face. He thanked us for bringing the problem to his attention. And then they all vanished.

The French agents wanted a full report. They offered some information in exchange. Earlier in the day another faerie, one we had never met, but one who had been recruited by Schmidt, attempt to attack the Emporer, specifically to wound him with elfshot, which would have given the Emporer a wasting disease. Miss Mitzi's nephew and some of the other agents were able to foil the plan and kill the assassin.

Miss Mitzi had come to France to "sort out the quarrel between Rene and Max." Wilhelmina told me, later, that Rene is Admiral LeCoq's first name, and Max is Schmidt's first name. But by the time she arrived, Manfred, LeCoq's son, was already embroiled in the fight with the other faerie. And we had cornered Schmidt in the Eye.

The Order of St. Jerome took the Eye of Eternity, the gem, into custody. We all returned to the consulate. Miss Mitzi was invited to return with us, but she said she's already settled in at the Citadel. She offered to come to tea tomorrow to "catch up on the gossip."

Proceed to A satisfying explosion

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