xp_logs | Plot - Sing Me a Prayer: Chapter III

Where The Turkish Vampires Appear and The Robots Are Magical.

"You know, for once, Farouk in danger worked out for us." The
Sultanahmet was one of the most fashionable districts in Istanbul;
home to the luxurious Ottoman Imperial hotel. It was the fusion
of Middle Eastern oil money, European demand for resort like
accommodations inside the city,and best of all, American business
investment in the region that demanded the very best.

Father Connelly's information had at least given them a rough idea of
what Farouk might have been working on, and finally one of Kane's
messages to Jane Hampshire had scored a hit. Her reply had been
reservations at the hotel and the notice of a representative coming to
meet them. Wanda had gone out, citing local contacts she wanted to
connect with, leaving them sitting in a richly appointed suite. The
room service had delivered a side bar with enough food to feed a
football team, and Kane was enjoying a terribly expensive
complimentary cigar out on the massive balcony.

Amanda, never to turn down a free meal, was picking at the food, a
large vodka and orange juice washing it down. The alcohol was acting
as a counteragent to the energy of Istanbul, fizzing in her blood and
making her restless. When the knock came at the door, she nearly
jumped out of her skin.

"Got it!" she called to Garrison, crossing the large room, bare feet
sinking into the carpet.

The door opened to reveal a diminutive red-faced man in a uniform of a
Turkish infantry colonel. "Hello. You are Amanda. My name is not
Abdul, but you will call me that. You will invite me inside now,
please."

Amanda's eyebrow rose and she had to choke back a retort along the
lines of the Hellfire Club apparently hiring vampires. "Please, come
in," she replied, gesturing for him to walk past her, her accent
shifting to BBC standard. "I take it you're the representative we were
told to expect?"

"I somehow doubt room service sent him for erotic massage." Kane said
quietly as he stepped in. He wasn't exactly sure what kind of play
this was, but it didn't surprise him that it left him confused.

Not-Abdul stared at Kane flatly, clearly missing the joke and
instinctively retreating into his bureaucratic mask. "I have been
dispatched here by our mutual friend, yes. The city is unsafe. The
local chapter of the Club is in turmoil. There were two attempts on
her life. Extra safety protocols had to be employed. You understand,
yes?"

"Like taking us to the person that is currently being targeted by
unknown assailants. Great." He shook his head and turned to Amanda.
"Remember what I mentioned about the fact that I am going to get shot
sometime during all of this? This is where it starts. Right here."

She patted him on the arm soothingly. "There, there. I'll make you
your own bubble to keep you safe if you want?" She switched her
attention to their escort. "These extra protocols don't involve
blindfolds and being driven to secret locations at your mercy, do
they? Because if they do, Her Ladyship will just have to be
disappointed. She's not the only one who's had attempts on her life
recently."

Not-Abdul's eyebrow rose fractionally in shocked realisation that
Amanda blithely equated the value of her own life to that of the Red
Rook. "You misunderstand. The precautions are not for her, but for
you. She's perfectly safe, at the moment." His chest puffed out
slightly. "Our friend did me great honor to accept the hospitality of
my regiment. She's is staying at the base. The helicopter will be
arriving to the roof momentarily. I would prefer to leave before the
word reaches unfriendly ears."

"I'll just get my shoes, then," was the witch's unruffled reply.
And give Wanda a head's up that things aren't exactly safe for
Westerners wandering around loose, she thought to herself. "If you
gentlemen will just excuse me for a minute?"

"In most women's case, it's not a choice." Kane folded his arms and
leaned back against the wall to wait, looking Not-Abdul up and down.
"So Hampshire is staying at a Turkish military base? Why would your
military want to do that?"

The little colonel visibly debated answering at all, but, at length,
the uncertainty over their relationship with Hampshire played out in
Kane's favor. "The things in Istanbul are... fluid at the moment. She
was dispatched here to investigate the rumors that the local branch of
her organisation has become subject to the same tensions that are
currently plaguing my country. She concluded that the rumors had been
correct."

Garrison translated this to mean that the power struggle between the
AKP and the army had somehow spilled over into local chapter of HFC's
internal machinations, and the faction backing the government had
taken Hampshire's attempts to purge them in less than good grace.

Kane suppressed a groan. More world building by the HFC in the process
of back firing. No doubt the locals made the mistake of being too
obvious in their greed and pissed off some of the other powerful
greedy people who wanted a piece of the pie.

Amanda reappeared, shoes on and headscarf covering her hair. "Shall
we, then?" she asked brightly. "We don't want to keep anyone waiting,
do we?"

***

The helicopter flew swiftly above the city, seemingly calm beneath the
deep blue sky. Looks can be deceiving, Amanda thought as she
looked below. Even several hundred feet above Istanbul, she could feel
the city's tension. What the fuck has Farouk gotten us into this
time? She looked over at Garrison, glad he was there. She would
have been even happier if Wanda had made this trip too, but there
hadn't been time. "How far is this base of yours?" she asked their
guide over the sound of the engine.

"On the border, "The colonel explained vaguely. "Very pretty country."
He added reassuringly as the sudden vision of getting caught into a
three sided border skirmish between the Turks, the Kurds and the
Iraqis reflected itself in the eyes of his passengers.

"And only occasionally under the threat of a border war." Garrison
looked over the landscape, thinking about yet another turn of
circumstances that had him out of his depth and sending him into
hostile lands entirely unprepared for the nuances to be found there.

"Brilliant." Amanda sighed. "I swear, if we wind up having to stop
another war, I am so kicking some arses." She nudged Garrison's foot
with her own. "So, what's the deal with Farouk and this Hampshire
bird? They're not... you know... are they?"

"Oh god, there's an image I did not need. Hampshire is the Red Rook of
the London Hellfire Club. I don't really know what she is to him, or
vice versa. She just kind of inserted herself into the whole affair
with Calysee Neramani and just sort of stayed on."

"I would have felt better if they were. Fucking Hellfire Club
games..." Amanda shook her head in disgust.

The colonel shifted, visibly uncomfortable with the trend of the
conversation. "I assure you the frontier has been quite peaceful of
late." The attempt to redirect the topic of discussion away from
Hampshire's sexual history and/or shortcomings of the Hellfire Club
patently transparent. "I can practically guarantee your personal
safety for the duration of your visit."

"No. You can't." Kane said flatly, tired of being carted around
without proper explanations. He knew he was being rude, but couldn't
help himself. "Maybe you can guarantee that none of your own people
won't shoot at us, but that's about it."

Not-Abdul's demeanour shifted quickly from annoyance back to serene
indifference; a flicker that Garrison might have missed if he hadn't
been looking for it. There was something else going on - not just the
usual slow burning war against the Kurds or political machinations
with the army. Something that they needed Hampshire for specifically,
even if that meant dealing with a couple of idiot Westerners who asked
the right questions to find her.

"Welcome to the Middle East, Mr. Kane. Here we have long ago learned to be grateful
for the small mercies and the fleeting bright spots of this vale of
tears we call life. Sometimes my men not shooting at me is a mark of
an excellent day."

"I think I would hate your life, Colonel. I-"

"If I had known that all I had to do was call for delivery, I would
have ordered you a long time ago, Agent Kane." A bright, bell like
voice exclaimed behind him, her accent high born and highly educated.
Kane closed his eyes and sighed.

"Amanda Sefton, meet Jane Hampshire, the Red Rook of the London Hellfire Club.

Amanda was less than thrilled at the new arrival - like all Hellfire
people, she was a snooty bitch, by all accounts - but she knew how
important it was to play nice if they wanted to get out of this with
their skins, let alone with Farouk. "Pleased to meet you," she replied
in her "posh" accent, giving the woman a nod but not much else.

Hampshire gave her a slight wave. Covered head to toe with dust and
mud was hardly the expected look from a member of the London Hellfire
Club's Inner Court, but she seems to wear it naturally. "Pleasure.
Well, come on. No time to waste. Come look at it." She said, and
started to stride down the compound towards an open field. Without
another option, they loped after her, until she came to a small dig
site.

"Looks like Farouk was right, somehow." She stopped at a heavy wooden
table, where a sculpture of a hand sat. Looking closer, the 'hand' was
actually sheets of bronze that had been wrapped around a hand shaped
frame. Through the cracks, they could see interlocking clockwork under
the frame. "Ta-da."

"Right about what, exactly?" Amanda asked, then drew in her breath as
she saw what was on the table. To her magical senses, it was thrumming
with power. "Woah. That is... wow."

"What am I seeing that is supposed to be impressive?" Garrison prodded
the hand with one finger and Jane shooed him away.

"That is Archytas automntos. The legend is that Tarentum
enjoyed a golden period when Archytas built one hundred of these
living statues, powered by clockwork, that protected the city from all
enemies. Untrue, obviously, since a steam powered independently
operated robot is virtually impossible. But a number of researchers
believed there to be a kernal of truth in the story. Believed lost
writings of Menaechmus talked about a linear progression towards a
common end that could be calculated through-" Hampshire rattled off a
few sentences in Greek and translated. "- the not-man vessel of the
sky machine'. His theory was that Archytas had built his
automntos essentially as walking protective casings for the
Antikythera, so they wouldn't be lost. Magic was obviously a factor in
the construction - look at the minute gear assembly in the finger."

Holding her hand above the device - but not touching it - Amanda
nodded. "A steampunk golem, more or less. There's definitely power
here," she said, voice still slightly awed. "Really old power. There's
not a lot left since it's in pieces, but at one time, this thing was
pretty up there in terms of magical energy." She glanced over at
Hampshire. "And Farouk led you to where it was buried?"

"Farouk had an... idea, yes." Jane said, tapping her upper lip and ignoring the grime that covered her. "That's the only thing that we were able to salvage. It looks like it had been most carefully battered to scrap by very large rocks, and then buried under them. Obviously quite powerful in its time."

"Question? What does it have to do with- well, anything?" Kane asked, and Jane laughed delightfully.

"Oh darling, you're so fortunate that you're pretty. Don't you think so, Amanda?" Kane flushed, annoyed.

"That he's pretty? Definitely." Amanda seemed distracted, eyes fixed on the magical remnant. "If someone took all that trouble to destroy it and bury it, it was obviously important. Or dangerous." The golem hand had turned up just as the automntos had disappeared, which might have been a coincidence, but in Amanda's world, coincidences usually didn't happen. "Two ancient artifacts, and a missing Farouk. Bugger."

"They are connected. Farouk would not have given me the location if they weren't. Even with Alamut gone, the Assassins only give up their secrets grudgingly." She swept the artifact into a foam lined briefcase and locked it. "Colonel, I'm done here. Be a dear and arrange for the helicopter." She smiled as she turned back to the both of them. "We have a date in Jerusalum."