I hoped my gulp wasn’t audible. I lowered my eyes as my head wobbled on weakening neck muscles.
The freshly bandaged man took a minute step toward Primrose. I felt, more than saw, her stiffen next to me.
“I do believe House Harbinger owes us a debt.” The wrapped man tilted his head in a contemplative way, but the message of menace in his words was clear. The magical pulse trembling out from him quickened.
Prim released a held breath. “I no longer belong to the Harbinger Clan, but I acknowledge the debt…and will pay it.”
I’d just met Prim. I didn’t know a thing about her, except that she was a controlled type of person. So, when her veneer of confidence cracked, fear trickled down my spine. I swayed as the room began to spin. I was sliding into the hypnagogic state.
No. No. No.
The floor shifted, but thankfully no one reached out to steady me. A touch hallucination in this place would be worse than usual. I tried to fight the waves of REM stage sleep as they rolled toward me, but the invasion had been put off too long. Without a full night of rest, I was at the mercy of my narcoleptic brain.
I turned as the winking white flowers next to me whispered a celestial secret. I tried to understand their jasmine gibberish, but it coiled through my mind like vines instead of words. I turned back to Prim, and my mouth fell open.
A roiling nebula of colors spread out from Prim’s back in the shape of two giant wings. I stumbled away from the pressing gravity of the rainbow feathers as they stretched and sparked in the dim light.
“Stay close,” Prim ordered, but when she turned to me, her hazel eyes were gone. Yawning orifices of blackness blinked at me. I nodded numbly. She turned back to the mummified man, and I was glad to feel the weight of those twin voids slip from me.
Slowly, Prim lowered to one knee and a blanket of silence fell across the room. The muffling suspension of sound rolled out through the doors and over the plaza. Everything in its path must have slowed to a stop because it sounded as if every soul in the marketplace had turned to listen.
“When evening comes,” the tinny reverberating sound of Prim’s voice shook the very cells in my body, “on the day next.” A sunset blazed across her wings only to be eaten by a depthless blue veil sprinkled with stars. “Old enemies will walk the Bishop’s Way.” Prim paused as the merciless night sky spread to the farthest tips of every feather and the stone bridge at the entrance to the Thieves Market sketched itself onto the vaporous feathers. She fanned her wings, and they ran red with blood. Three bandaged figures appeared on the amorphous wings—two on her left side and one on her right. It was a portrait of the mummified men standing before us minus the bandaged man who’d guided us through the market. “One will bargain. One will lie. One will die.” Her empty eyes scanned the three gauzy figures in front of us and the one to my side. Her wings folded inward. Their swathed faces oozed with hidden emotion. Sound returned to the market outside as the paralyzing experience released them. I could move again too.
“One will die? One will die! One will die!” They whispered to themselves and then shouted to each other in a scraping song of exultation. The rapturous glee over Prim’s dire message set my skin crawling. I drove my fingernails into my palms and fought free of the hypnagogia before the sensation could trigger a hallucination. I blinked at the tableau around me. The flowers fell silent, and Prim’s wings disappeared. She turned hazel eyes to me and reached for my wrist.
“Payment for services,” Prim politely reminded them. She pulled my arm forward, interrupting their celebration. Their eyes focused on me, then the sparkling cuff.
“Yes,” the mummy hissed. “The spell.” If I could have seen his face, I imagined it was still awash with delight.
A stiff hand reached toward me, and I could no longer fight the urge to lean away. Bone-thin fingers hovered over the strange circular clasp as Prim held my wrist in place.
“A spell of compulsion,” the Thief Lord whispered. He inclined his head, and the tiny gold pieces began to whir and click. “I can break it, little dead girl, but they will know you no longer wear it.”
I nodded and then realized I needed to speak. “Okay.”
“They will come for it,” one of his companions rasped.
“Let them come,” he answered blithely.
“Let them come,” they echoed cheerfully. “Let them come. Let them come.”
A string of venomous vowel sounds sifted through his bandages, and the clasp fell apart. The bracelet dropped into waiting hands. The ties of Prim’s pants unlaced up her legs like slithering snakes. She grabbed them before they could fall off. The hook and eye of my halter top broke apart behind my neck. I clutched the fabric that stretched over my breasts before it could peel away. The undoing rippled out, unfastening bandages and unlocking bird cages. The wide room filled with the slapping of the freed birds’ wings.
“Go,” the Thief Lords of the White Sea commanded, and we tumbled toward the exit. We crowded out the double doors and stumbled into the bustling market.
I didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Weight of Old Magic
Grayford
I fell through the dark water until my boots met a slimy bottom. The well was less than a meter deeper than I was tall. I pushed against the silty stone beneath my feet and broke the surface. My gasp for breath echoed in the small chamber. Light filtered through stained glass windows. I looked around at the pool in which I’d fallen. Its dank water stole what little warmth I’d gained from crossing the Belinus Line.
Voices called from somewhere outside the pool’s enclosure. I turned to see an altar and cross behind me, but there was no room for pews. It seemed a chapel had been built around the pool and the only way to worship would be to enter the pool.
I whirled as a small door crashed open and I was torn away.
The sluggish energy of the Canterbury Line dragged compared to the frenetic St. Michael’s Line. The thinner conduit sagged with the weight of old magic. It creaked in my bones as the line towed me toward the southern shoreline. The dry, coppery taste of ancient blood brushed against my tongue. Canterbury’s corrupted energy clung to me like an unforgiven sin.
I wiped at my face and arms as I bounced along the twisting ley line. With a jarring crack, I crashed into a crowded space and fell to my knees. The stench of death rode the water at the bottom of the roughly one-meter-wide cylinder. I reached around in the darkness and discovered a lid just above me. It was a very shallow well or a cistern of some kind. Thankfully, the crumbling water-catch was only a quarter of the way full.
I took a shallow breath of foul air as voices mumbled all about me. The blackness of the compartment crept over my skin. Chilled fingers followed. They slithered over me like blind snakes. Their probing touches turned swiftly to desperate grasps. The dank tomb was filled with forgotten souls from somewhere in history.
“Please, sir. Do you know the way out?” a young man called from the blighted air next to me. I sloshed to my feet and hit my head on the low ceiling. Spirit streams whirled in the small space. Too many. Their oozing essences seeped from the rocks of the well. Fear, misery, outrage, it dripped like slime into the contaminated water. No wonder this was a one-way well.
Moans turned to screams. Desperation, fury, hopelessness, every tone of agony rang inside the buried well in a symphony of horror.
I pushed their voices from my mind and ran my hand along the ceiling until I found the seams of the lid. The corroding edges bit at my skin. I was sealed in. There was no resident nature spirit in that festering place. There was no way back. The Canterbury ley line was a one-way trip into a grave.
“Hello,” I shouted as panic got the better of me. I pounded my fists against the solid metal above me. I braced my feet and pushed with my shoulders. I bent my knees, locked my arms then pushed again, this time using everything I had. The seal didn’t budge.
I leaned against the circular wall and took a deep, calming breath
. I couldn’t lose control in an enclosed place like this. The magic might be able to break the seal, but it might break me as well.
Think, William.
I needed a plan, that was all. I needed to define my goal, recognize my obstacles, then formulate my list of tools. The rote, emotionless process calmed me. I checked my possessions. Beyond my boots, socks, trousers, and borrowed shirt, I hadn’t much. I’d lost my belt in the fight with the ghoul. That left two coins that had survived my fall from the cargo plane. Other than that, I had my skin and bones.
I thought to search the stagnant water circling my shins. It was the prudent thing to do, but I decided to leave that as a last resort.
I turned in a circle, passing my hands over the decaying walls of the cistern. Spirits howled from the cracks. Hands pulled at my legs from the bottom of the well. I tried not to think about the clutter of bones at my feet and did my best to leave the remains undisturbed. This well was indeed desecrated. It must have been used as a cell or an oubliette. Why a cathedral would need such a place was beyond me.
I fetched a coin from my pocket. With trembling hands, I gripped it between my fingers and scraped the metal along the circular edge of the lid. Bits of rust and disintegrating stone dusted the air as I worked at the groove.
I pushed at the lid with my shoulders, but it moved not an inch. I wedged the coin to pry at another spot, and I heard it.
Footfalls. Above me.
“Hello!”
No one answered, but the ghosts.
“Please. I am in need of assistance.”
I heard a creak, followed by more footsteps.
“Hush!” I scolded the spirits railing in my ears.
I pressed my face close to the edge of the cap and listened. Several sets of feet scraped across the floor, but no one spoke.
“Can you hear me?” I called again and banged my fists against the metal. “Can you not open the lid?”
At last, the sound of voices muttered above me. I could not make out their urgent words until something rang against the metal with a deafening blow.
“We call upon the forces of day, of sun and growing vine.”
Something clanged above me again.
“Hello.” I clamped the coin tightly and rapped it against the seal.
“We call upon the forces of night, of stars and winging owl.”
I covered my head as the lid rang again. There were several voices and pairs of feet. If I could hear them, then certainly, they could hear me. Why were they not responding?
Several objects thudded above me in unison and the chanting continued.
“Breathe forth your ether upon these feral souls and lock them from the world of the living.”
A blanket of energy settled over me in the suffocating closeness of the well. A fresh wick of fear burst into flame inside me. The pressing weight forced me to my knees. It bent me down to the surface of the putrid water.
The pounding above me shook the well as the shroud of power sought to drown me and add my bones to the well’s collection.
“No.” If I was to die in that dark, forgotten place, I would die fighting. I dug down to that fiery place inside me that squirmed and whipped and seethed, and I invited it forth. I opened the channel inside me that would deliver destruction. I didn’t resist its raging command. I made no attempt to alter its blazing course. I aimed it at the cap that sealed the well and let loose the raw tumult of its fury. It would either match the cascading magic grinding me out of existence, or it would tear me apart. Either way, it was my choice.
The gleaming, razor-sharp moment stretched in perpetuity. This was life. This was what I’d forgotten about the living. They were moving always between one slicing, serrated moment to the next, ever aware of their precious and fragile mortality.
Power ripped from my throat in a cannon, crashing into the metal lid. Bolts tore from stone. Cement cracked. The heavy cover launched into the wash of light and dust above me. I blinked stinging eyes at the sudden brightness. Voices shouted and feet shuffled. I sprang from the water and braced my arms on the edge of the well. A blur of moving bodies surrounded me as I kicked free of the enclosure.
“Stop!” I commanded, and power rode the word. It threaded through my voice, seeking minds to obey it.
“Unclean spirit,” someone shouted, and a staff swung toward my head. I rolled to avoid the impact. The wooden tip slammed into the stone floor, just missing me.
“I am of the living!”
A coiled stillness settled over the riot of dust and faces. Five bearded men locked eyes on me, their hands gripping wooden staffs of different shapes and sizes.
“I seek the Order of Druids.”
Their gaze shot to one another, then back to me.
“You’ve found them,” a gruff voice sounded from behind me. I turned to face a man in a simple brown robe and a chest-length gray beard. A long white mustache frothed over the beard and became one with the tangle of his whiskers. He didn’t carry a staff. Instead, his empty hands glowed with a golden light. “Usually, people enter through the door.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
How could anything be worse than a pestilent den of curse-dripping, mummified thieves?
Melisande
We tried to relace Prim’s pants and fasten my halter top, but they wouldn’t stay. Thankfully, Prim had enough euros stowed in her cleavage to buy herself a new pair of pants and me a new top. We changed behind a tent. My gaze bounced over the food cart next to us. The peanut encrusted clumps of meat on skewers and cups of shrimp cocktail embedded in ice called to me. My stomach growled again as we snaked our way toward the archway and the world outside.
“I’ve got food at my place,” Primrose informed me and picked up the pace. Everything looked delicious, but I could wait. Putting some distance between us and the Thieves Market was top priority, no matter how hungry I might be.
We plunged into the darkness under the archway and, a few steps later, we emerged beneath the Bishop’s Walk. Prim found a deep doorway just before the opening to the alley where the little old woman sat. We scuttled in and slid to the ground.
“Thank you.” I had so many questions, but conveying my appreciation was more important.
“You’re welcome.”
We listened to our heaving breaths for a moment, while we rested in a corner of the recessed entryway. A row of weakly lit buzzers glowed next to a shabby list of peeling names. From the looks of it, at least six people had an apartment right off the Thieves Market. I crossed myself in the darkness and prayed they wouldn’t be home tomorrow just after sunset.
“So, you’re a Doomsayer?”
She nodded.
“Like I said, if it’s bad, I can see it coming.”
I nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re a little dead girl?”
I shrugged.
“Some of my synaptic pathways are dead.” I pointed to my head. “It helps me talk to ghosts.”
Her eyebrows raised.
I lifted my hands in the shadows and icy chains crawled from my palms. Prim tentatively touched a fingertip to one of the hissing, frost-wrapped manifestations.
“Ouch.” She yanked her finger away. “Does that hurt your hands?”
“Sometimes it burns a little. It depends on how much will I use. The stronger the chain the colder they are.” I crushed the chains in my fists, and they vanished into vapor. “They only work on ghosts. To humans, they’re just ice.”
“Is this why the vampires want you?”
“The vampires,” it felt weird to say the word, “didn’t explain exactly what they wanted from me. Just what I told you before.”
“I’m sorry to say it, but even with the bracelet gone, there’s still an aura of tragedy around you.”
I hugged my knees to my chest and rocked a few times.
“Does that mean I’m going to die?” I couldn’t believe I’d asked that. I could be a little morose from time to time, but no one wanted to know if they were
going to die—except for thieving mummies. I thought to clap my hands over my ears or sing the theme song to one of my favorite childhood television shows really loudly so I couldn’t hear her answer, but what was the point? If I was going to die without seeing Grayford or my parents or my sister again, at least the foreknowledge would allow me the chance to tell them how much they meant to me. How full my life was, even though I was dying young. If I couldn’t make a call, I could write a letter and give it to Prim.
My companion opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.
“So, were they…mummies?” I chuckled at the word.
“No.”
“Do they have leprosy?”
“No.”
“Then, why are they wrapped up like that? Why are they…rotting?”
“Los Ledrones are cursed. It is a spell they can’t break. They’ve spent centuries trying. That’s why they are so good at breaking other spells.”
“Is the spell killing them?”
“No. That’s the problem. The story I’ve heard is that they robbed a sorceress long ago, and she could not live without the item they took. It’s her death curse that animates them. They’ve tried to kill themselves many times, but the magic holds them to their withering flesh.”
“Well, that’s awful.”
“They run the thieves guild in Barcelona. They use their magic to help the pickpockets who bring in the goods and money. It’s a whole thing.” She pulled a hair tie from her wrist and gathered her spirals into a black, brown, and beige puffball above her head. “They keep themselves bandaged not just to protect what’s left of their bodies, but to stop the curse from leaking out and infecting others.”
“That’s nice of them,” I said slowly. I compulsively wiped my hands on my pants.
She giggled.
“So, what now? Will the vampires be waiting for me at the airport?” I asked Prim as if she had a copy of their itinerary.
“Let’s get you some food and then we’ll figure out the next step.”
I started to get up, but she put her hand out.
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