Kate laughed and made to turn back to the book. The curator coughed with embarrassment and walked away. When his steps vanished, Kate put her face in her hands.
“Oh God. I had forgotten how fond Thomas was of Imogen. I handled that terribly. He probably thinks I’m a lunatic or trying to keep him away from my sister.”
“Don’t worry, Kate.” Simon tapped the book. “For now let’s go to work. We’ll handle that when it becomes an issue.”
She sighed and nodded. Hours passed in near silence as they went through the material with only occasional questions or comments of interest. Endless letters about government approval and patronage. Notes about materials. Recommendations for craftsmen. Debates on designs, revisions, and more debates. Yet no mention of the four mysterious names. No discussion of Egyptian symbols.
Kate finally closed the last letterbook and pushed it aside. She rose with a groan of fatigue and took up the heavy rolls of plans. She flipped through them until she found long sheets with the drawings of St. George’s Bloomsbury.
“The altar has moved,” she said.
“What?”
“The altar. On the original drawings it’s in the east nave where the body was found. They must have moved the altar later and realigned the church.”
“Interesting. The killer knew that. Or simply knew to perform the killing at the point of greatest power.” Simon stood and came around to her shoulder. He inspected all the marks on the plans, as well as those of the other three churches where the mysterious names were carved.
Kate said, “I haven’t seen anything suspicious or illuminating.”
“Neither have I, but sometimes illumination is hidden.” Simon went to another table and fetched a pen and ink. He rolled out the sketches of Christ Church and anchored the corners. Bending over close, he began to write a series of precise runes across the bottom of the sheet. Then he passed his hand over them and spoke a word. The runes flared.
Green light rose from the paper. Hidden runic symbols appeared. The four mysterious names showed brightly, with lines anchoring them to the four cardinal points of the church. A string of hieroglyphs wrote themselves across the top of the plans. Simon recognized several of the symbols as those branded into the victims’ hearts.
Kate seized him by the shoulder with a cry of delight. “Is it what I think it is?”
Simon stared into the green aura. “Yes. This is Byron Pendragon’s work. He warded those four churches with Egyptian magic. The spells of that land are some of the most powerful ever written. From what I know, most scribes, if they used Egyptian sources, only used versions diluted by later changes, particularly by the Gnostics or Hermetics. Look here, he’s scrawled a note to Hawksmoor: Strengthen the stone or they will not be held. He was concerned about the ability of the construction materials to contain the magic. My God! And the fact that the note is mystically obscured shows that Hawksmoor was one of the craft.”
“Who will not be held?” Kate asked.
“That he doesn’t say.” Simon gestured over the glowing symbols and he watched the notations written by the hand of the greatest scribe in the history of the world vanish into invisibility again.
Chapter 13
From the hansom, Simon studied the dingy home that was the hive of the Red Orchid salon. It was a sprawling, wood frame two-story built in the era of the Restoration Stuarts. Sturdy to be sure, but hardly fresh, just like the decaying parish around it.
The Red Orchid was the shining light of London art. It had hardly been a year since Rowan Barnes rose from the faceless mezzotint mob to be the anointed new genius. His salon became the center for all those who sought to express themselves in paint or words or dance or song or declamation, or sought to have relationships with those who did.
“Not much to look at from the outside,” Simon said. “I should have made an appearance long ago.”
Malcolm snorted derisively.
“You, sir,” Simon explained cheerfully, with a deliberate flourish of his wrist, “don’t understand the burden of being a mysterious gentleman of leisure. I must appear.”
“Why?” Malcolm asked.
Simon looked at him and at Kate, who was inspecting vials in her bag. “Let me ask you both. Had you heard my name before you met me?”
“Yes,” they both answered.
“There you are. We weren’t acquainted. I did nothing important so far as you knew. But you had heard of me. That’s why I appear.”
The Scotsman shook his head. “I thought secrecy was vital to you sorcerers.”
“It is. No one knows I’m a sorcerer; they just know I’m a rich playboy with strange interests and a dark past. A rich playboy. Doors open. More importantly, mouths open.”
“The only mouth open is usually yours.” Malcolm swung out of the hansom. “Losh, let’s go in before Barnes’s art goes out of fashion.”
“Well done, Malcolm.” Simon laughed and handed Kate down. “Very snide. I’ll make a London gentleman out of you yet.”