The Angel of the Crows

by Katherine Addison

  He looked at us without interest when we came in, and barely batted an eyelash at Crow; then he looked at me a second time and said, possibly involuntarily, “Good God.”

  “Do you think you can fix it?” said Crow, who never noticed when he skipped over the social niceties. Perhaps he had decided, long ago, that they were not part of his dominion.

  “I don’t know,” said Thomas Oxborrow. He got up and came closer, but hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to get too close. “You have encountered one of the Fallen.”

  “In Afghanistan.”

  “And it touched you.”

  “Barely.”

  “Well, yes, or you wouldn’t be standing here talking about it.”

  “Is there anything that can be done?”

  He raised an eyebrow in appreciation of the distinction between Crow’s question and mine. “There’s certainly something that can be done, although I don’t know how much. But why have you come to me? Anyone who gave you my name would have told you I’m an opium addict.”

  “I’m…” This part was harder to say than all the rest of it put together, and not only because I was admitting to a felony. “I’m unregistered. The … the friend who recommended you did say you were an addict, but she also said you wouldn’t turn me in.”

  “Well, that’s true enough,” he said, almost reluctantly. “But I’m hardly the only one.”

  “We tried two others,” said Crow. “And our friend said you were the best of them anyway.”

  He blinked. “That encomium makes me doubt your friend’s judgment. But, well, you are here, and I’m not far gone enough yet to be incompetent. Let us have a talk about your spectral wound.” He gestured me to the only chair, while he sat on the bed. “Tell me what happened.”

  I did the best I could, although he unnerved me by asking detailed questions about the position of the sun and the prevailing wind, and we ended up using his cup, my watch, all the farthings and halfpennies in Crow’s pockets (and the Battley’s to represent the Fallen) to make a diagram of the attack. I could at least tell him the date, and he consulted a battered almanac to find the phase of the moon.

  He read my palm, although he did not say what he found there, and being given the date and hour of my birth, worked out my horoscopical information with the help of an even more battered set of astrologer’s tables that he dragged out from beneath the bed. Then he said, “I need to examine your aetheric aura in more detail.”

  “All right,” I said. “What does that entail?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “First, I need to assure you that nothing I discover will leave this room. I do not gossip and I do not trade in my clients’ secrets.”

  “That is good to hear,” said I. “I have trusted you this far. It would be foolish to cavil now.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and he did seem relieved. “Then if you will give me your hands and be patient—it generally takes between five and ten minutes.”

  I extended my hands and said, “I will curb my natural impatience.”

  His smile was hesitant and fleeting, as if he wasn’t sure whether I was making a joke or not. His grip on my hands was firm, surprisingly warm, not unpleasant. He bowed his head, and we were silent for a length of time sectioned off by the ticking of my watch. Behind me, Crow was as perfectly silent as a stone angel in a cemetery.

  After what felt like a very long time, Oxborrow spoke without raising his head: “It is a very ugly wound, and its effects are all through your aura. I cannot heal the wound itself, but I can free your aura of the darkness—of at least some of the darkness that is preventing the wound from healing.”

  “All right,” I said. “Can you do it now?”

  “No. It requires a fair amount of preparation, and you need to come to it fasting. If you will return tomorrow morning at six o’clock, having eaten nothing and drunk nothing but water since six o’clock this evening, I will do what I can. I must warn you that it will be painful.”

  “Thank you,” I said dryly. “And can I trust you with the preparations?”

  “Touché,” he said, and lifted his head to look at me, the pale eyes clear and determined. “You have given me a problem to wrestle with, and since I take opium in order to escape my thoughts, you have relieved me of much of the temptation. I know only a fool trusts the word of an addict, but I give you my word anyway: you can trust me to stay sober today.”

  I felt the barely there spark of his oath—he was right that the word of an addict was not to be trusted. “Then I will return at six o’clock tomorrow morning,” I said, and Oxborrow released my hands.

  * * *

  I fasted obediently that night, and in the morning, Oxborrow’s tiny room was covered in chalk symbols, red on the walls, white on the floor, and he himself was waiting for us, clear-eyed and apparently eager to work.

  “You’re not Nameless,” he said to Crow, as if it had taken him this long to notice what he was seeing.

  “No,” Crow said. “My name is Crow, and I am the Angel of London.”

  Oxborrow looked intensely puzzled—he was apparently one of those rare people who actually understood the nature of an angelic habitation well enough to know that London could not be one—but he made an actual gesture of pushing something to one side, and said, “Dr. Doyle, if you would remove your boots and stockings, I will show you where to stand.”

  The floor was cold against my bare feet, but at least it was clean. I positioned myself as Oxborrow showed me—quite alone in the middle of the room now that the table and chair were upside down on the bed—and nodded to show my understanding when he said, “It is very important not to smudge the diagrammata.” He put Crow in the bare half circle in front of the door and himself stood with his bare feet positioned one to either side of a smoothly curving line.

  My Latin was disgracefully rusty, so that I could not follow most of what he said, but I felt it, almost immediately, first in my femur, but swiftly in all the bones of my leg and hip, something like buzzing, something like heat, something like the sharp pain of breaking and the dull pain of healing. I inhaled hard, but kept my feet, and then set myself to endure.

  Oxborrow did not work as swiftly as a surgeon, but of course he did not have to worry about his patient bleeding to death before he finished. He did work steadily and without hesitation, which I thought was a better sign than speed, no matter how much I wished he’d hurry up.

  And then I felt … if shadows had weight, I would say I felt a shadow fall off me. I felt it so distinctly, I would almost have sworn I heard it hit the floor, like an Indian viper shot out of the thatch roof of a hut.

  I shuddered, and this time my knees did give out. I landed hard, but without any of the sick pain I expected.

  “Are you all right, Dr. Doyle?” said Oxborrow. “No, don’t try to get up, I’m almost done.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, and coughed, inwardly cursing my voice for skying like a boy’s.

  He was truthful about being almost done, for it was less than five minutes before he said, “There, that’s it,” and began using a dishcloth to erase his chalk symbols and equations.

  Crow came to help me up and said, “In layman’s terms, what did you do?”

  Oxborrow said, “In layman’s terms, I balanced Dr. Doyle’s aura so that it will rotate smoothly like the sublunary sphere that it is.”

  “Ah,” said Crow. “Doyle’s aura is much brighter now.”

  “Do you see auras?” I asked, although I didn’t know why I was surprised.

  “That’s most of what I do see,” he said, more than a trifle apologetically. “I have to concentrate to make out the details of a human being’s physical appearance.”

  “Is that why they say it’s impossible to hide from an angel?”

  “Well, first of all, it’s perfectly possible to hide from an angel, and that is an idiotic saying,” he said crossly. “But it’s much harder to hide from an angel who knows you are the person whom they seek. You could nev
er hide from me, Doyle.”

  “I hope I never have occasion to try,” I said. “Mr. Oxborrow, what is your fee?”

  “I generally charge a guinea for a balancing like this,” said Oxborrow.

  “A guinea?” I said. “Are you quite sure that’s enough?”

  He smiled in what looked like genuine amusement. “You’re a woefully bad hand at haggling, Dr. Doyle. Yes, I’m sure. Anything more will only be spent on opium anyway.”

  “All right,” I said, though dubiously, for I’d come expecting to pay at least twice that, and even then I suspected I would be underpaying. I felt, not only close to free from pain, but also immeasurably lighter and—no matter how much I told myself it was my imagination—cleaner, as if the aetheric darkness staining my wound had been truly physical.

  I paid him, and we gratefully left the tenement, which was clean only in Oxborrow’s room.

  The effect of his work was not miraculous, although it seemed very close. My leg still ached, and I would not be discarding my collection of sticks, but the feeling of brittleness was gone, a feeling that I now recognized as being aetheric rather than a sign that my leg was not healing properly. There was an article for The Lancet in that, if there had been any chance they would accept a contribution from me.

  “It seems as if it helped,” said Crow.

  “I think so, yes.” I sighed, but I knew I had to say it: “You were right.”

  He laughed. “You needn’t sound so disillusioned, Doyle. My job is drawing correct conclusions from data sets of varying completeness. Yours was quite tolerably complete. I just hope you don’t suffer any regression. From what I’ve read, people sometimes do.”

  “What a horrid thought,” I said.

  “I don’t know that it happens very often,” he said, with what I recognized as his own particular style of reassurance.

  “Then I will have to hope it misses me,” I said. “Come, I have a number of errands to accomplish if I am to leave for Dartmoor on Saturday. Will you accompany me?”

  “Of course,” said Crow.

  26

  Baskerville Hall

  I met Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer on the platform of the 10:30 train from Paddington. (The cerberus was being shipped separately and would arrive, the leasing company promised, on Monday.) They were both glad to see me—Sir Henry wrung my hand so effusively that I felt it for an hour afterward; they had had no further adventures or mysteries, but had both become a little jumpy, fight it though they obviously had.

  Crow came with me to the station, as full of advice as an anxious parent. He was particularly emphatic on the subject of my letters to him—or “reports” as he insisted on calling them. I was not to try to theorize, but only to report the facts as fully as I could.

  “What sort of facts?” I said irritably.

  “I’m quite interested in Sir Henry’s neighbors,” said Crow, “and what they think about the Hound. Any fresh details you can dredge up about Sir Charles’s death, and I should rather like to know what his neighbors thought of him. Obviously, you should be on the watch for men without bushy black beards.”

  He caught me with that one, and I burst into laughter, causing a passing matron to give me a most withering stare.

  “Also, of course, the servants at the Hall,” said Crow, “starting with the Barrymores—who may be entirely blameless—and then I believe there is also a groom. He, too, may have feelings about the Baskerville Course.”

  “Even the greatest fanatic would agree that’s hardly a reason for murder.”

  Crow shook his head. “If brooded over long enough, anything can be a reason for murder. I had a case once where a murder was committed over a birdcage. Merely keep an open mind and report all.”

  The whistle blew and I parted from him with one injunction of my own: “If you need me, send a wire. I’ll come at once.”

  “Stay close to Sir Henry!” he said in return, and I closed the compartment door.

  I looked back at the platform, when we had left it far behind, and saw Crow, his wings half spread as if for flight, standing motionless and looking after us.

  “You are good friends,” said Baskerville.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He hesitated, possibly on the brink of asking another question, but if so, he must have seen I would not answer it, for he said, “In Virginia, they say that a man who has an angel’s friendship has the Devil’s luck.”

  “Let us hope so,” I said lightly, “for I cannot help but feel we are going to need all the luck we can come by.”

  The journey was a swift and pleasant one. I spent it in becoming better acquainted with my two companions for, as Baskerville quite rightly said, it might all be nothing or we might be traipsing into considerable danger.

  Dr. Mortimer was able to provide particulars about all of Baskerville’s new neighbors, although he did not always notice things with the acuity that one might wish. He knew, for instance, that both Misses Tenby were prone to bronchial complaints, but could not remember whether Caroline or Marianne was the elder. He had had a great many interesting conversations with Mr. Stapleton, a naturalist living with his sister at Merripit House, but had no idea where the man was from. Himself being a keen courseman, he knew all the members of the Baskerville Course, although even there he was more likely to recognize the horse than the rider. “My wife would do better,” he said apologetically.

  “Does Mrs. Mortimer course?” asked Baskerville.

  “Yes, but more to the point, she’s a local girl, one of that old reprobate Frankland’s daughters, and herself a keen amateur historian. We must have you over soon so that she can fill you in on a hundred years of gossip.”

  “We should be delighted,” said Baskerville. “Now tell us about that ‘old reprobate Frankland.’ He sounds like a lively sort of neighbor to have.”

  Dr. Mortimer snorted. “Frankland could be a brilliant legal historian, except that he will keep putting his knowledge to practical use.”

  “Litigious?” I said.

  “Does not even begin to describe it,” said Dr. Mortimer, and told us stories of Frankland from there to our stop.

  There was no station at Grimpen or Coombe Tracey or any of the other hamlets surrounding the Hall. We disembarked at a small wayside station where it was immediately obvious everyone knew who Sir Henry was and had been waiting for him. He handled the situation quite gracefully—more gracefully than I would have expected of him, and I commended his Colonial mother for teaching him manners—but it was some time before he was able to climb into the waiting wagonette and say to the driver, “Take us home,” and then to me, “That feels better to say even than I had imagined.”

  As we started away from the station, Dr. Mortimer leaned forward and said, “Jernigan, why are there so many soldiers about?”

  “Escaped convict, sir,” said the driver. “Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”

  “Dear God,” said Dr. Mortimer. “Has anyone…”

  “Not so much as laid eyes on him,” said Jernigan.

  “None of the ladies…”

  “Safe as houses,” said Jernigan.

  “How long has he been free?” I asked.

  “It’s been a week,” said Jernigan grimly. “Princetown keeps sending more guards and all they do is stand around and not find him. Begging your pardon, sir, if I spoke too free.”

  “Not at all,” said Baskerville. “Who is this Selden, then? He must not have made the Colonial newspapers.”

  “He is a beast,” Dr. Mortimer said bluntly.

  Crow had followed the case with considerable interest. I said, “He murdered his common-law wife, mutilated and outraged the corpse, dismembered her, and was caught trying to throw her left arm in the Thames. He nearly killed a constable and it took four men to get handcuffs on him. His sentence was commuted because the examining doctors agreed that he was not at all sane. He’s only been in prison a matter of months.”

  “Quick work on losing him,” said
Baskerville.

  “He clubbed a guard with his manacles,” said Jernigan. “They say the poor man went down like a tree, and he may yet die of the skull fracture.”

  “And now that monster is out there on the moor,” said Dr. Mortimer.

  “Between ourselves, sir,” said Jernigan, “they don’t know how to search for him. There’s too many places to hide, and too many places where he could see anybody coming from miles off.”

  “The perfect place for an escaped beast,” I said.

  “Except for food,” said Baskerville. “The brute must be starving by now.”

  “They think someone’s helping him,” said Jernigan. “Maybe not of their own free will, as it were.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t,” said Baskerville, and we fell uneasily into silence.

  * * *

  Baskerville Hall proved to be exactly the sort of massive Elizabethan pile I had expected, with additions from several later monarchs.

  Baskerville whistled. “‘Home’ may have been a little presumptuous.”

  “You’ll grow used to it very quickly,” said Dr. Mortimer, in what I thought was meant to be a bracing tone.

  “I don’t blame my uncle for being fearful,” said Baskerville. “What this place needs is real electric lights.”

  “Your second act as the eighth baronet,” I said. “After restoring the coursing pack to their rightful home.”

  “You only think you’re joking,” said Baskerville, and gave me a sidelong grin.

  We were greeted by the infamous Barrymore, who was standing at the front door with a lantern. He was a tall man, quite handsome, and his beard, although black, was impeccably trimmed. “Welcome to Baskerville Hall!” he said. “Welcome, Sir Henry!”

  “Swann and Edison,” muttered Baskerville, still thinking about electric lights, and I kicked him. “What? Oh! Thank you, it’s good to be here. And you must be Barrymore.” He and I descended gratefully from the wagonette while Jernigan and Barrymore unloaded our luggage. Dr. Mortimer did not get out.

  “Won’t you stay for supper?” said Baskerville.