by Vivian Shaw
“Oh yes,” she said. “Barring any nasty reaction to the antibiotics, he’ll be fine. Kids get ear infections all the time, no matter what species they happen to be. Kree-akh will make sure his mother understands how often he’s to be given his medicine and painkillers.”
“That’s a very fetching garment he has on,” Ruthven said. “Kree-akh, I mean. The, ah. The rats’ tails really make a statement, don’t they.”
Greta had to laugh. “Yes, they say what a lot of rats went into making up this cloak. I didn’t know you were interested in ghoul fashion, Ruthven. You’re full of surprises.”
“I am,” he said. “More things in Heaven and Earth, et cetera. I’m still a little shocked that you got Sir Francis to do the shopping for us. There’s a surprise, if you like.”
“I didn’t get him to do anything,” Greta said. “He volunteered. Nobly, I might add. I think he rather wanted an excuse to get out of the house, to be honest, even if it meant driving your Volvo.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my Volvo,” he said. “Except the synchro on third is a bit temperamental.”
“And it’s hell to park. That reminds me,” said Greta, snapping her fingers, thinking of the neatly arranged surgical instrument tray he’d prepared for her. “Did you really drive ambulances in the Blitz?”
“I really did.” The kettle boiled, and he got up to make the tea. “And I can speak four languages fluently and a fifth and sixth extremely badly, darn socks, and dance the tango, not to mention all the excitingly dangerous neck biting—and the bat thing. Do not ask me about the bat thing. I cannot, however, fly a helicopter, play the piano, or compose lyric poetry, and don’t ask me to keep houseplants alive. Ah, here’s Sir Francis back from Sainsbury’s, in fact.”
Keys rattled in the lock, and Greta abandoned her attempt to picture Ruthven darning socks and went to help carry in the groceries.
CHAPTER 12
As it turned out, nobody had offered Sir Francis violence, religiously motivated or otherwise, and he’d apparently managed the Volvo’s intransigent gearbox without difficulty—Greta was quietly impressed—but the level of tension in the city had been very evident indeed from the attitudes of his fellow shoppers. Eleven murders and no end in sight, and the police could apparently do nothing.
“It’s getting worse,” he said, handing Greta a box of tea bags. “In the checkout line people were talking about getting out of London entirely, at least for now, going to stay with friends or relatives outside the city. Or sending their children away, if they could not go themselves, the way people did during the war.”
Greta blinked at him. The thought of Ruthven driving ambulances in wartime was still near the surface of her mind. She wondered briefly what Varney had been doing in the 1940s. “It’s that bad?” she said.
She didn’t spend a very great deal of time in what might be termed the real world, her days given over to a job that did not involve ordinary humans or their opinions or activities, and it was a little strange to realize that in fact the situation was almost as bad for the regular inhabitants of London, who did not know the things she knew.
“There isn’t … widespread panic,” Varney said, apparently in an attempt to reassure. “But people are certainly frightened. The smell is unmistakable.”
“The smell,” she repeated.
“Humans in fear give off a very particular scent,” Ruthven said over his shoulder, stacking tins in a cupboard. “It’s quite distinctive. Not exactly unpleasant, but sharp.”
Greta didn’t much like the thought of that, but let it go. “Nothing else has happened yet, though?”
“Not that I could ascertain,” said Varney. “There were no new murders in the papers I saw, and I only overheard mentions of the eleven victims, no further than that.”
“I wish I could believe there won’t be any more,” she said, and couldn’t help a shiver, frustrated all over again at the fact that she had no idea what to do.
They’d only just finished putting things away when Cranswell called down from the landing, for once not sounding particularly flippant. “Guys? You, uh, might wanna come up here. He’s awake and talking.”
The burned man was muttering and trying to sit up when Greta got there. She rearranged the pillows with brisk efficiency, propping him up. “Hey, easy, easy now. Relax. What is it? Have you remembered anything?”
She was aware of the others silently entering the room behind her, but her attention was focused on her patient. He seemed less vague and confused than he had the last time she had spoken with him, but not what she’d call totally lucid. At least he wasn’t talking in scripture, which she thought was probably a good sign.
“Trying,” he said. “I have … flashes. Bits. It’s not enough …”
“You want to tell us about it?” Cranswell asked, sounding legitimately surprised.
His unpleasant eyes closed, reopened, and he nodded slightly. “No … reason not to, now. Already … already damned. Cursed of God.”
Fastitocalon moved slightly, as if about to speak, but apparently decided against it. “Well, setting that aside for now,” Greta said, “I think we can help you remember the parts that are missing. Will you let one of us … hypnotize you?” That was as close as any other description for what she hoped Varney could do.
He reached for her hand, and again she could feel that sick heat thrumming in him, feel it in her skin the way she felt the glow of his blue eyes, and she remembered Fastitocalon saying, He’s not human. Not entirely human, anymore.
“Please,” he said, and that sounded very genuinely human. She could also still recall with vivid clarity that he’d tried to kill her—and glancing over her shoulder at Varney she was a little surprised by the expression on the vampyre’s face. There was anger there, yes, certainly, but there was also great weariness, and a sort of softening of the hard lines around his mouth that one might possibly call sympathy. It was not an expression she had ever pictured on those features.
“Sir Francis,” she said, glad her voice sounded normal; she gently freed her hand, stepping away from the bedside. “If you would?”
Varney even moved as if that weariness were almost too profound to bear; it hurt her looking at him. She had seen people whose remaining days were measured in single digits move like that, deliberate and slow and with a terrible, painful care.
He sat down beside the bed, and the monk’s blue eyes tracked down to meet his, and widened; the glow intensified for a moment. Greta read fear in the scarred face. Fear and fascination.
“Look at me,” Varney said, and his voice was softer and more beautiful than any of them had ever heard it—a voice all of them instinctively wanted to obey. “Look closely at me, and relax. I will help you remember.”
Watching, Greta shivered. Varney’s pupils began to expand and contract, expand and contract, the reflective irises appearing to grow and shrink in a slow, gentle rhythm. Even from the side, not caught by anywhere near the full force of his gaze, she could feel the room begin to drift away from her into a vague shimmery space like a roomful of mirrors, reflections repeating themselves away into infinity. This wasn’t at all like Ruthven’s thrall had ever been. It was much stronger, much more powerful, and as she floated in the center of a world of gently shining images of herself, nothing seemed to matter in the least. Nothing … at … all.
Fastitocalon’s hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, finding herself abruptly back in the room. Gravity seemed to have been turned back on. He had to steady her for a moment as her balance tottered.
Varney was still talking in that low, incredibly sweet voice, repeating himself. “You are quite safe,” he said. “No harm will come to you. Watch my eyes, and know that you are safe.”
If she kept her own eyes shut and just listened, or made a conscious effort to look the other way, Greta found she could pay attention without actually coming under his thrall herself. The faint, ragged voice of the monk, when it came, was a sharp contrast from Varney�
�s beautifully modulated tones. “Safe,” he said, and sighed, sounding very young.
“Where are you?” Varney asked.
“Embankment … house.”
“Who are you?”
“Excommunicate. Anathema.”
“What is your name?”
Slowly he turned his head from side to side on the pillows. Either he had no name, or he could not remember it, or he was not allowed to do so. Varney took a long breath before returning to his questions.
“Where have you come from?”
“Under … city. Underneath. Tunnels underneath, chambers.”
“Tell us about the place under the city,” said Varney, with no emphasis whatsoever. “What is down there?”
“Light of God.”
“What is the light of God? Tell us about it. Tell us everything you know about it.”
She could feel it when Varney stepped up the power somewhat, like turning up a rheostat. The faint, vague murmurs in response to his questions strengthened into something more like ordinary speech. “In the room marked Plant. It is … inside a metal cabinet with a dial on the door. It is made of glass and it hums, all the time, never changing, even when it speaks in the voice of God.” Abruptly he started to hum, a nasty whining sound, and beside her Ruthven sucked in his breath sharply. She was glad when the quiet catalog of information resumed.
“Inside the glass there is a spark, too bright to see clearly. It never stops moving. And it glows. It glows blue, and takes away our sight, our sins, our foulness. It burns away all that is … is worldly.”
“Who are ‘we’?” Varney asked.
“Brothers. Members of … holy Order, the Sword of Holiness, Gladius Sancti. Only those who have been purified by the light … may bear the blade.”
There was the faintest catch in Varney’s voice. “Tell us about the blades.”
“The crossblade. Anointed with chrism. There are ten … nine, now.”
“Where did they come from?”
“Don’t … know.” He turned his head on the pillows, eyes drifting shut for a moment. “Found. They were … found. Brother Johann says … the finding of the crossblade and the secret of the chrism are a sign, that there is wickedness in the world to be excised.”
“Was the Order formed before this discovery?” Varney asked.
“It was … above ground,” said the monk, sounding slightly puzzled at the memory. “In sunlight. In … Chelsea? With … people, more people, before the Light came.”
“Chelsea,” Varney repeated.
“Seminary,” he said, as if just catching the edge of the realization. “At seminary. Hall. Allen Hall. I … studied. Johann was there.”
He looked confused. “Johann was there, and then … I wasn’t a seminarian, I don’t … I don’t know how, but I was ordained. A brother.”
“You don’t remember joining the Order?”
“No,” he said, the confusion on his face deepening. “I have always been in the Order, there is nothing else, I was not before the Order, but … I was at seminary, I remember that.”
“It’s all right,” Varney said, gently, the beautiful voice very kind. “Never mind that now. Tell me about the Order. About the Sword of Holiness.”
“We were … in sunlight,” he said, again. “We met in the churches, but then Johann—Brother Johann—found the crossblade, and the sacred chrism, and after that there was no sunlight, no sunlight at all, no sky, but we did not need the sun for there was the light of God, the light that never dims or wavers or goes out, the endless light that burns underground. The true light, truer than day, that speaks to Brother Johann of the holy teachings.”
“What are the holy teachings?” There was a little urgency in Varney’s voice now, but only a little.
“That … we know we are of God, and … the whole world lieth in wickedness,” he said, and Greta recognized the change in tone that came with his memorized responses. “‘Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: Seek out his wickedness … till thou find none. Give them according to their deeds … and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: Give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.’ It is … our task … our burden … and our privilege. ‘There is no darkness, nor shadow of death … where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.’”
The last words of his recitation seemed to hang in the air of the room like curling smoke. Varney was silent; Greta ventured to open her eyes, and found that he looked more unbearably weary than she had ever seen him.
She didn’t even realize she was reaching out before her hand touched his shoulder. Varney jerked in shock at the contact, as if she were a live conductor. He twisted around to stare up at her, and the bright numbness of his thrall flooded through her for just a moment before he regained control of himself and returned his attention and gaze to the man in the bed.
Greta blinked hard, trying to get the edges of things back in focus—but she had not taken her hand away from Varney’s shoulder. All at once she had had enough of the blank blue stare, the rote-memorized phrases that didn’t sound as if the nameless man believed them even as he formed the words. Most of all, she had had enough of wondering what else was in there, with the owner of those eyes. What might be looking back at her. What had taken over these people—for they had been people, arguably slightly mad and bent on reenacting a kind of thirteenth-century human supremacist organization as some kind of cult, but people for all that—and turned them into this. Into monsters.
She was so tired of not understanding.
For Ruthven the worst aspect of this … possession … had seemed to be the manipulation of these people’s faith, the deliberate perversion of a deeply held belief. Greta couldn’t forget how cold his eyes had been, how clear and how cold, lit with a controlled anger that was somehow worse than open fury. Now, standing by Varney and feeling him trembling faintly beneath her hand, Greta’s own anger began to make itself known.
It wasn’t ice-cold like Ruthven’s; this felt more as if a small ball of metal in her chest were steadily being heated up by some invisible blowtorch, at first giving off just a sullen red glare and then a brighter and brighter glow, scarlet to red-orange to burning gold. Anger not so much at the fact that the thing had assumed the role of God for these people as that it had taken away their names, taken away who they were, rendered them mindless puppets of its design, rendered the world nonsensical. It had taken away their conscious identities, their will. That, to Greta, was worst of all: an insult to the very center of humanity. That this thing should dare seemed all at once unbearable. The heat behind her breastbone flared, gold to white.
She leaned forward, staring down at the ruined face on the pillows. “What is your name?” she asked, with deliberate clarity. “Who are you?”
The blue glow cut off, flickered, as he squeezed his eyes shut. “No …”
“It’s very deep,” Varney whispered. “He’s fighting quite hard, Greta, I don’t think—”
“Who are you?” she repeated, keeping her voice even with an effort, feeling as if the white-hot ball inside her should be giving off its own light, her skin glowing, her pupils hard dots of their own brilliance. “Where did you come from? Before you were in Chelsea at the seminary. Before this began.”
He shook his head, beginning to squirm under the covers, and gave the terrible mewing cry she had heard for the first time in the church. “Your name,” Greta pressed, her fingers digging into Varney’s shoulder, heedless of his stifled hiss of pain, the way he held perfectly still despite it. “What is your name?”
“Greta—” Varney said, something in his voice she couldn’t identify, but she leaned closer in, ignoring him. The anger roared with a blue-white flame now: How dare it, how dare it steal his name, his conscious identity, the very center of his mind? How dare it make all this happen, set the balance of the world swinging out of true?
He writhed helplessly on the bed, the blue light flaring irregularly now, jagged p
ulses of it blazing from beneath his half-closed eyelids. The room smelled like ozone, like thunderstorms. Even through her fury Greta could sense, almost see the struggle inside his mind, the effort of something battered and wounded and at the end of its strength still trying to pull itself free. The image was terrible and vivid: a point of white light, dim and wavering, in the grips of a poisonous blue brilliance. The blue spoke to her of ionized-air glow, the deadly shade of light given off at the moment of a prompt-critical burst; of the unearthly lambence of Cerenkov radiation, a cyan halo thrown by radioactive material underwater; of the killing endless blue of a desert sky at midday, vicious and inimical. It was so clear in her head that she wondered briefly if the contact with Varney were somehow lending her a little of what he might be seeing, with those odd reflective eyes.
But the struggles were still intensifying. Now the monk was no longer writhing but convulsing, huge clonic spasms, and his heart—already under terrible strain from his injuries—couldn’t stand much more of this. Greta let go of Varney, turning to reach for her bag and the syringes and vials locked inside, but as she did the man in the bed gave a horrible choked gasp. His whole body stiffened, his back rising free of the bed in a rigid tetanic arch. Around her the others jerked back in shock.
Greta, trained to observe, was the only one who accurately witnessed what happened in the next few seconds. Afterward she would describe seeing three tendrils of something like bright blue-glowing smoke uncoil from his eyes and open mouth, joined by two thinner wisps of light rising from his nostrils. The blue light flowed together into a cloud above his face, swirling angrily as if undecided. She had a very clear sensation that, whatever it was, it was watching her—it saw her very well, and marked her interference in the course of its affairs.
For a moment longer the glowing cloud hovered over his face; then something like a silent thunderclap shocked through the air of the room, and the light—and whatever it was that had made it—was gone.