Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire Read online

  Anger.

  She continued holding Will down, even as the men left the room and the footsteps faded down the hall. Until she was confident nobody was left behind and that it wasn’t a ruse to draw her out.

  “I told you they were serious,” she said, taking her hand away from Will’s mouth.

  A shadow appeared overhead and for a long, terrifying moment Sam thought she’d missed something. That Agent Smith was now preparing to pull his trigger and put a bullet in her head, as he’d wanted to do ever since they’d met.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” Jess hissed.

  Sam looked up to see her sister’s red, oxygen-starved face move quickly from fury to incandescent rage.

  “What?” Sam protested innocently.

  “Next time you get the coffin and I get to sit on…” Jess paused as she looked at Will and her cheeks reddened further. “I mean, I go with Will, okay?”

  Sam got off her sister’s boyfriend, climbed out of their hiding place and feigned a shrug. “I panicked.”

  Jess shoved her out the way as Will emerged from the tomb looking like a ghost, his already gaunt face draining further when he saw the body of his assistant near the door.

  His mouth opened and closed several times, unsure of what to say.

  Jessica pulled him close and clutched his hand in hers as she turned to her sister. “I think it’s clear we need to find the Hall of Records before them, Sam.” She gestured to the assistant, blood seeping from the back of his head onto the white, marble floor. “If they’re willing to do that, who knows what they’ll do with what they find in there. All those secrets. All that knowledge. All that power. You said it yourself only a few minutes ago.”

  “I didn’t mean...”

  But Sam let her voice trail off, as she realised Jess had a point.

  She looked at the woman her sister had become, then to the dead man, feeling all hope of simply getting them out of harm’s way fading quickly. The weariness grew heavy on her shoulders in that moment, even as her sister’s eyes lit up knowing that she was about to cave.

  “I… have an old friend who knew something of the legend,” she sighed at last. “He will know more about this amulet. I can’t promise anything, OK? But at the very least he can hide us until we decide what to do with it.”

  Will jumped as he heard another gunshot in the distance. His eyes darted between Sam, the window, and the still open door. “And where is this friend? Where can we possibly hide from a government who would do something like that to one of its own citizens?”

  Sam looked through the window. In the distance she could see the fading beams of torchlight as the agents made their way outside to search the park.

  “Un lieu d’amour et de choses perdues, Docteur Sandford,” she replied, beckoning the pair to follow her back into the main museum.

  A place of love and lost things.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Place of Love and Lost Things

  In any other city it might have been considered late.

  Not Paris.

  As the four figures stood outside the tall townhouse in the centre of the city, soft light permeating though its wisteria-framed shutters, Sam remembered just what she loved about this place.

  Time here stood still. There was no concept of late or early. There was only light and dark, each of which imbued the ancient streets and its beautiful inhabitants with a kaleidoscope of moods. Romance blossomed in the bricks and cobbles. Adventure called from the bars and clubs. And that fierce French pride could still be heard, untarnished by recent horrors, as a drunken rendition of La Marseillaise drifted from a nearby café.

  If ever there were a place to come calling on an old friend at one o’clock in the morning, this was it. So when Sam knocked on the old, oak door, she was not surprised to see it open almost instantly, revealing a short, middle-aged man with olive skin, a greying beard, and a glass of scotch clutched gently in his fingers.

  ”Samantha Moxley, sweet girl!” Professor Teddy Ascher exclaimed in his quirky, stilted German accent, beaming warmly. “I’d say it has been far too long, but that much is obvious, is it not?” He stood back, looking her up and down, before raising his drink to her. “I take it back. Sweet girl no longer – you’ve grown up! Oh how time has surely flown, as we once did. How can that be?”

  Sam found herself briefly enveloped in a small but very powerful hug.

  “It’s good to see you too, Teddy,” she replied, before he excitedly cast her aside to get to Jess.

  “And, oh boy, do I see the family resemblance here! This must be the sister I used to hear so much about. Miss Jessica Moxley herself, it is such a great honour to finally meet you. And a fellow archaeologist too, I believe?”

  He grabbed the shocked Jess by her arms, kissed each cheek with vigour, then gave her an even bigger hug. She offered a muffled greeting into his shoulder as her wide blue eyes sought out her sister with a modicum of alarm.

  Sam gave her a grin. It was rather fun to see her all-grown-up-and-confident sister a little out of her comfort zone. Although it was even more entertaining to see Will try to bury himself in the shadows of the Parisian night to avoid being next in line for a warm greeting.

  “Everyone,” she said proudly, putting her arm around her old acquaintance. “This is my good friend, Professor Edward Ascher. Although he prefers Teddy and he will make you call him that, whether you like it or not. Teddy, yes this is my sister Jess. And, behind her, is young Willy. You’ll like him, he’s a bit of an archaeologist too.”

  Will quickly stuck his hand out to prevent the hug, but was pulled into the Professor’s embrace anyway and received two loud, wet kisses on each cheek for his trouble.

  “It’s Dr William Sandford of the New York Metropolitan Museum, actually,” Will mumbled, as Teddy released him, only to pump his hand enthusiastically. “Er, charmed to make your acquaintance?”

  “Splendid,” Teddy replied, paying little attention as he went back to gather Jess up and usher them all inside the house. “Come, come. My home is your home this wonderful night.”

  Will frowned at Sam, but – ever the gentleman – gestured for her to go first. She playfully pinched his cheek as she followed the others down the long corridor.

  “So, why’d you haul out of Cairo,” she asked Teddy. “You always told me it was your dream to live in the land of your mother’s family. I thought you were settled for life.”

  “Oh, Samantha. We had seven children, my friend. Seven! You cannot believe how my wife Aya and I have aged. Now they are all grown and flown far, far away and we decided to go into hiding so they can’t come back!” He patted Jess’s arm and laughed. “I am joking, of course. My children are my life.” He turned over his other shoulder and whispered to Sam. “I think of this as my afterlife. As soon as the youngest moved out, we came to Paris.”

  “And there was me thinking you were a family man.”

  “Ah yes,” he replied, his good mood faltering momentarily. “Speaking of which… Harry is already here. He arrived a few days ago by plane. He is not very happy.”

  Sam sighed. “Dad never is.”

  The kitchen they entered was traditional and cosy, with a checkered red and white tiled floor, and curtains for cupboards. In the centre of the room was a round country dining table, resplendent with bread, cheeses, stew, and mismatched wine glasses.

  Two people sat eating.

  Aya, Teddy’s wife, smiled widely as she saw Sam and rushed over to greet them even more enthusiastically than her husband had. “Visitors!” she cried, kissing and hugging each one in turn. “Such a lovely surprise. Come! Sit! Eat!”

  The other person at the table had their back to them. His shoulders seemed to slump as he heard them enter, though Sam wasn’t sure if it was with relief or dread of the fight they were about to have.

  Harry Moxley gently put down his knife and fork, pushed himself back from the table in his wheelchair, and regarded his daughters over his glasses. His eyes wer
e pale. His cheeks unshaven for at least a couple of days. He looked beat.

  “Hi, Dad,” Sam said, kissing him on his forehead. “Sorry we’re late.”

  “There’s a good chance you will be, Sammy. Unless a bloody good explanation is forthcoming.”

  The venom in his voice took her by surprise.

  “You know I don’t like you calling me that…”

  “You’re worried about names?” he interrupted. “You disappeared from the house for a week, then called me up out of the blue and told me to buy a ticket to meet you on the other side of the world. That’s the second time you’ve done that and, honestly, that’s two times too many in one old man’s life if you ask me. You can’t keep packing me up and sending me around the globe you know. I’m not a bloody suitcase.”

  Will smirked from behind the relative safety of Aya.

  “Dad–”

  “No. No excuses this time, Sammy. What in God’s name is going on? Why are we here?”

  “You… always told me you wanted to see Paris?” she fumbled.

  “Well, yes, I might have, maybe once upon a time,” he tripped over his words angrily, “but not like this. Fourteen hours alone on an aeroplane and you don’t even have the courtesy to be in the country when I arrive.”

  He pulled himself back to the table again and took a huge gulp of wine. Thinking it best to keep him happy, Aya quickly topped it up again before the empty glass hit the table.

  “It was a difficult few days, Dad. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through.”

  “No excuses, I said.”

  “But there was a whole thing in New York with a seaplane.”

  “I said–”

  “–and a couple of dragon…”

  Her eyes dropped quickly to the table.

  “A couple of what?”

  No. There was no point in finishing that sentence. He’d never understand.

  “Nothing, Dad, forget I said anything. You’re right, no excuses. I’m sorry.”

  Teddy shot her a sympathetic look, even as he quietly beckoned Aya and Will to follow him out of the kitchen into the reception room.

  Jess began to shuffle after them, but Harry raised his hand.

  “And where do you think you’re going, young lady? Sit down and eat. Your sister probably hasn’t even fed you, has she?”

  “I’m… twenty-two?”

  But he wasn’t prepared to listen. He grabbed a ladle of stew from the cooking pot in the centre of the table and lashed it down onto one of the waiting plates like a splodge of a full stop to their argument.

  They hadn’t done this for such a long time, but it was strangely comforting to Sam – and a little irritating – how quickly they slipped back into these familiar roles like actors on a well-worn stage. So when Jess looked to her, Sam could only offer an apologetic shrug back. No way was she going to argue against Dad like this. She might be capable of fighting her way across the world, but family dinners were a whole other battle.

  Jess sat down to eat with a huff.

  “So go on, Sammy,” Harry continued. “What’s going on? Why are we here? And why are you so late in arriving?”

  Sam broke off a piece of crusty baguette and dipped it in the central bowl. It broke the surface of the cooling stew, releasing a thick waft of salted potatoes, carrots and gravy that made her mouth water. “We got held up and had to come by boat to avoid some old friends. You need to give out too much information to fly these days, so we would have been marked as soon as we collected our tickets.” She shoved the stew-soaked bread into her mouth, even as she continued talking. “The illusion… of freedom… isn’t what it used to be.”

  “So you had to take precautions, but you left me to fly?”

  Jess blew on her food, hiding a smirk. “You’re too old for them to worry about, Dad.”

  “Old?” His lips thinned beneath his salt and pepper stubble. “Right, well that explains the tardiness, but not why we’re sitting in this admittedly lovely kitchen in the middle of Paris. Which brings us to the big question. Who have you two annoyed this time?”

  “The United States Government,” Sam admitted.

  The look of weariness that crossed her father’s face in that moment would have been amusing, had it not also been heartbreaking. Sam knew what the old man had gone through in recent years. And that she’d had a big part to play in that. “Wasn’t the war enough for you, Sammy? I thought by letting you go off and fight you’d at least get it out of your system. Why are you still determined to seek out trouble?”

  She bit her tongue at that. As if he’d let her go off to fight. She’d had to sneak out of the house just to sign up to the bloody ATA. The fighting part had come later and he hadn’t known about it for months.

  “If you must know, it’s because I had to go looking for Jess. I thought they’d kidnapped her. Which I still maintain they might have done, but I beat them to it.”

  His face crinkled in confusion. “So you kidnapped her instead?”

  “Wait, no–”

  He waved away her protest. “If you thought she was in trouble, why didn’t you tell me first?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  Her father pushed his half-eaten dinner away and picked up his wine. “You’ll be relieved to know that I wouldn’t have. Jessica called me on the telephone from New York just after you left, told me she was staying with a friend for a while.”

  Sam blinked and switched her attention to Jess, who was very intently pretending to be focused on her stew. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I… didn’t want you to worry?” her sister said, quickly shoving a spoonful of stew into her mouth so she couldn’t be questioned further.

  Sam pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment, feeling the storm clouds of a headache forming behind her eyes. The image of Charlie falling from the plane replayed over in her mind. Could she have done things differently? No, perhaps not. The Nine would still have reached Jessica and Will before her. But none of this was helping set aside the guilt that was churning her up.

  “Fine,” she said, too exhausted to argue anymore. “But did Jess tell you that her ‘friend’ is a handsome, charming doctor of archaeology who whisked her off to South America to recover some relic? That she was in over her head. Is still in over her head… and we have to get her out of it?”

  “Just like you got me and Dad out of England?” Jess said, waving her spoon in Sam’s direction. “When you made your deal with the Americans to pull me away from my friends, leaving them all at home to fight for our country while you hid us halfway around the world. Like cowards.”

  “You were fifteen for Christ’s sake! What did you want me to do? Leave you for the bombs?”

  “We were in the Peak District, Sam! They weren’t bombing us so much there. Manchester, sure, we saw the smoke from time to time. But never where we were – you know full well there was nothing but sheep and hills and reservoirs. We were doing just fine before you went and played your mothering card. Right, Dad?”

  Harry looked uncomfortable at that. He rolled his chair back a moment as if trying to get a bit more distance between himself and the question.

  “The country was suffering, Jessica. The cities were getting hit pretty hard and there was always the risk of invasion. None of us knew how it was going to play out and Sammy just wanted us to be safe.”

  “Just as I want you to be safe now,” Sam said, relieved that at least someone had noted what she’d done. “Seriously, Jess, you have to learn to be more careful. You can’t just up and disappear adventuring to dangerous places like that. Anything could have happened out there and we’d never have known. Why would you put us through that?”

  “Says the woman who spent the past few years with her agent pals off chasing long lost things that go bump in the night.”

  Harry nodded firmly at that. “You think we didn’t worry all those years you were doing exactly the same thing for the people you’re now running from? That’s
what family does, Sammy, we look after each other when we can, and we worry when we can’t.” He gave a long, weary sigh and took another gulp of wine. “Which, I’m afraid, is pretty much all the time with you two. I’ve seen off two world wars, yet still can’t seem to settle down and bloody well enjoy life. Your mother would be incandescent with rage. Because, seriously, what the hell kind of family did I raise here? I had less trouble in the trenches and that’s what dumped me in this thing!”

  He slammed his glass down and wheeled himself around the table, pausing only to give Jessica’s shoulder a gentle, paternal, squeeze.

  “Just face it, Sammy,” he said. “Jessica’s only problem right now is that she’s becoming you.”

  He left the room, leaving the two women alone to frown at each other.

  “He says that like it’s a bad thing?” Sam said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Plan

  By two in the morning, Sam had drowned most of her family resentment in half a bottle of whiskey. She sat with Teddy at a table in the drawing room, the crackle of his wireless and the music of Nat King Cole, Glenn Miller and Ella Fitzgerald drifting in the background. Behind them, Jess and Will had cosied up on the couch. Aya sat by the fire, knitting, and Harry seemed to be asleep in his wheelchair, a shiny new book – with a dapper gentleman in a bow tie on the back of the dust jacket and something about Martians written on the front – resting open on his lap.

  Teddy necked his third shot of the warm liquid and placed the glass upside down on the table top. His eyes gleamed. “So now that pleasantries are out of the way, and our bellies are fuelled with flames, shall we get down to business?”

  She smiled and refilled her glass. Her mind was pleasantly foggy, but there was always room for improvement.

  “Perhaps just a little more fire?”

  He laughed, low and hearty. “It has been such a long time since we last saw one another my flighty young friend. But I admit I am intrigued as to the nature of your visit. What exactly has brought you here tonight?”