Darkness Divined (Dark Devices)

by Gregory House

  Francis returned to his inquiry. “Tell me mistress, have there been any other strangers calling here, perhaps one with patterns all over his hands and arms?”

  “No Sir, upon my soul none, just the usual gentlemen we’s entertain.” Once more the mistress seemed to exude the solid air of honesty.

  Francis smiled, beckoned Richard closer and whispered into his ear. “Go through the house and check every room.”

  He received a nod and a wry grin as reply and Francis returned to the problem before them. The friar said the Moor came from here and Bottoph swore on the soul of his dead mother that Friar Frevill, though ranker than a boatful of turds, knew every dark conniver, nip and foister from London Bridge to Charing Cross. Now Mistress Phoebe sat before him and also pledged her hope of redemption. Honest was a tricky and elusive beast to trap and his studies at the university had honed his skill at reason and debate, though perhaps the tales of his father about the court bench evasions were of more practical help. He’d always said watch the eyes, for they were the window to the soul. How was he to divine the truth of this matter—a dead girl and a raiser of demons? His fallen angel had a few suggestions, but no, it was stepping ahead of itself in anticipation and hunger. They couldn’t both be right, which left him with a conundrum.

  At this point his questioning was interrupted by a rapid knocking at the door. Agryppa’s livery man stood there pale and gulping. “My…my master asks that yea attend him sir. Now sir if’n yea please.”

  Francis suppressed a frown at the interruption and leaving both the bawdy house mistress and the watchful Mistress Athyney with a simple nod, followed the servant. The fellow looked pale and glanced nervously around led the way up the narrow stairway to the second floor and then along a corridor towards an opened door. Agryppa was standing there lantern in hand with a grimace of distaste on his face.

  “What do we have, doctor?”

  Without a word the master of devices moved aside and waved him towards the entrance. Francis stepped in and halted. His fallen angel may delight in many strange desires, but not this. At a quick glance it wailed and hid in the darker recesses of his soul. The room was the usual for The Three Sparrows, narrow with one bed that took up a significant part of it. A small locked chest stood at the foot and no doubt held the Gwen’s few personal effects. All as it should be and expected, but only if the girl was a devotee of the dark blood soaked rites of ancient Hecate. The walls were covered in strange patterns and script and Francis didn’t need a degree in physick to recognize blood, both dried and fresh. He clenched his jaw to halt the urge to puke. This was worse that the Spitalfield Shambles. As for the bed it was so soaked in blood the iron tang of it clawed up his nostrils.

  Francis stepped back shocked and pale at the sight. “This would be the work of the Moor?”

  Agryppa nodded still silent. In a strange way Francis felt a sudden kinship with him. That this scene disturbed the master of Arcanum was reassuring. After this night he’d had more than a few doubts about his ally. Perhaps they could work together after all.

  While they maintained a silent appraisal of the room’s décor Richard quickly strode along the corridor, his boots thumping loudly on the floor in his haste. In the low light of the tallow rushes his long face was even more morose that usual. “Ach, there’s a half a dozen o’ corpses in the shed ut’ back o’ the house. One’s still warm.”

  Halting Richard joined them in peering into the room before jerking back, a hand over his mouth. “Jesu, it must hae been like slaughtering pigs in here. Why did nae one hear it?”

  That was when the facts started to tick over in Francis’s mind. Annise had said each raising of the demon required a life and as Richard said, they’d found several bodies, but now he thought it over the attempts to slay him had been less. So what was the latest for? As for the sounds, Richard was right. This may be a bawdy house, but only the worst of dens over in Southwark wouldn’t notice several murders. Here though there were too many gentlemen for that kind of ruckus. So how and why? Turning his back on the blood drenched room Francis headed back to the private parlor. Without instruction both Agryppa and Richard readily followed.

  Francis had stilled his whirling thoughts and shoved into the darker recesses his remembrance of the room. Rage, anger and fear wouldn’t help. Mistress Phoebe smiled pleasantly as he took up his seat. This was well past strange. “Mistress, one of our retainers found several bodies in the yard of this house. What can you tell us?”

  “Bodies? Oh you mean the pigs we had slaughtered for salting?”

  Francis lent back and covered his mouth. Pigs? What was this?

  Mistress Athyney stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Master Bryan, if you would allow me?”

  Francis wasn’t used to interruptions but he raised his head looking her full in the face, demoness though she was. Yes the deep entrancing sparkle was still glowing in her eyes tugging at him. Now something else deeper, darker, out of his understanding surfaced. Francis shivered at the import. This was arcane dealing and his early baiting of Agryppa came back to him. Let the hounds scent the quarry. Abruptly he stood and bowed her into his chair.

  Mistress Athyney smiled her thanks and removed the ruby pendant from her neck, looping it around a hand where it glittered and sparkled in the candle light. Slowly it turned and spun sending off bright darting shards of red light that played across the face of the bawdy house mistress. Then she began to speak slowly and quietly to her.

  Francis stood next to Richard watching the performance. Slowly the woman’s face relaxed and her eyes drooped shut. If this was magick then it was the gentlest he’d seen to date. Signaling silently the demoness gained Agryppa’s attention and had him play the light of his lantern over the sleeping woman’s face. Francis’ jaw tightened as the familiar dark splotches showed up across the forehead and around the neck, the mark of the Moor. So they had an answer of sorts. Now how were they going to phrase the questions?

  ***

  Chapter 20: Fleete of Foote—Fleet Street to Bridewell

  Cursed skirts! Annise gathered the escaping skirt and tucked it back into her belt. This was one of the stupid problems with these modern dresses. Running wasn’t just undignified it was almost impossible. As for platens for keeping your shoes out the street mud, they’d been discarded by the end of Shoe Lane in the race to Bridewell Palace. Annise steadied her breathing. Without having the skirts to trip her up she’d have been ahead of Richard and Francis. As for Agryppa the old fool was probably still staggering down towards Fleete Street, moaning and complaining at every step. Still it didn’t change the fact that she was currently running down the centre of the road, bare legs flashing up to the thigh. Thank St Mary it was hours past the midnight chimes. Thus far in her journey the audience consisted of a pair of huddled beggars, a urinating dog and an appreciative dung carter who cheered her passage. She ignored all that and concentrated on not tripping over the ruts in the road.

  Curse Marissa. This was all her fault! Bondage to a bumbling fool who didn’t have the sense to set up a protective shield, muckle brained idiot, muckle brained idiot, muckle brained idiot…

  Annise repeated that words over and over as her shoes splashed through the mud and worse. She had to be faster. She had to get there first. Only the mother of all could know what’d happen otherwise. Richard may be fine. For all his moaning and dour faces, he knew how to fight sorcerers. Between them they’d put down more than a few—tricky bastards all, always with a last play tucked up the sleeve. But Francis Bryan, for all his gathered and harnessed rage, he was but an ordinary mortal unshielded from the perils of the arcane. Damn it, that preening fool of a physician was still too far back to be of use, prick pated fool!

  Casually she leapt over a horse trough at the corner of Fleete and Bridewell Lane. The sound of sundered cloth had her gritting her teeth. Did that long–bearded fool know how hard it was to repair the best scarlet cloth, and as for the silk brocade, well…? Argh, this kirt
le was worth four pounds and would Agryppa recompense her for the damage? Damn they’d be singing psalms in Jerusalem first!

  It was concern for her reputation that was it. Concern only drove her on, not anything else. Oh yes and Marissa, that flint hearted eastern slut! Normally she wouldn’t care. So what if some sorcerer was meddling with the arcane for their advantage. This folly by the arrogant wasn’t new—stupid men keen to poke the beehive to see what would stir. Well they got stung, big surprise. What was it to her if mortals died? It happened every day. This time thought it was different. If this assignment went the way it was heading then she’d think herself lucky only to wind up in chilly Moskow. Snow, more snow, wolves and endless, endless cold. Annise shivered recalling d’Cardelhac’s threat—she hated cold. Those years in the Norge lands with Volund had been bad enough. At least he’d been entertaining company and he was always engaged in some curiously improbable scheme or other. Yes, life had never been boring with Volund, scary and exhilarating mostly, but never dull.

  Now today was interesting in all the wrong ways, ambushes, magickal surprises, demon possessed corpses, and of course death, yes death—there’d been a lot of that lately. The last one might actually have been her fault and she hadn’t even intended it. Life could be so unfair sometimes, and in failure Marissa was so vindictive and…and Moskow so cursed cold!

  In mid stride she leapt upwards, grabbed hold of an over–hanging pole and swung up and over the stationary cart. In front a dung man looked up as she sailing by overhead, and cursing tripped over a broken paving stone, spilling the contents of his piss buckets. Annise ignored him not even taking the time to chuckle at the sight and sped on. Curse Agryppa for a clumsy fool. He should have taken precautions. Did she have to spell it out to him on a child’s horn book?

  The questioning had been going fine. The bawdy house mistress was relaxed and freed from the restrictions of the magicks set up by the Moor. They’d found out that Gwen had a close friend who shared her room and the name ‘Jenny’. That part had been easy. Then Master Bryan had her slip in a question about visitors and thus by vaguest description they had the Moor. He’d been there three weeks, paying in silver. He’d stayed in a personal room on the second floor, two down from Gwen, even coughing up extra for privacy. No, he didn’t keep to his room often but slipped out most nights. Once or twice he’d had a caller, a heavily cloaked and hooded man, a Londoner by accent was all she could tell. Then she slowly moved onto other darker matters such as the pile of bodies. From what Annise could tell the tattooed marks had exerted a kind of glamour over the bawdy house mistress’s view of events. One part that she recalled was the Moor suggesting that they take Christian charity and feed some vagabonds in the kitchens. Annise didn’t try deeper enquiry because even at that the woman’s face crumpled and her hands unconsciously knotted themselves.

  If she’d kept control of the process it all would have flowed on simple and quiet. But no, that supreme worm–pizzled Agryppa had to interfere! He must have been feeling ignored because he pushed her aside and asked his own stupid question. That’s when it happened. Mistress Phoebe’s eyes snapped open and flooded with such a look of fear and terror that Annise flinched. The dark splotches highlighted by Agryppa’s lantern rippled and swirled, then flowed down her face and circled the woman’s neck in a dark band. The bawdy house mistress gave a choking cry and her hands reached up clutched at her throat as if at a hangman’s noose. Francis had immediately leapt to her aid and caught the woman before she fell to the floor.

  Annise had jumped to her feet and clearing her mind began walking a circle around the writhing body. She could feel the battle and staggered as the dark magicks sought to stop the completion of the warding. It was if she waded through thick mud up to her thighs, and on the edge of her hearing arose the steady murmur of chanting. It sounded like Arabic. Black shadows had swirled out the corner of her vision but Annise concentrated on an image of blue flame and traced the symbol of the Thurz rune with her upraised fingers. In her mind’s eye it sparked and glowed bright. Then she drew the Áss rune. The darkness had recoiled and the circle had snapped shut. Though maybe too late for Mistress Phoebe. Her face was red and blotchy with wide staring eyes…and she wasn’t breathing. Francis had then stood up looking very much like her former master, Volund, when his shadow distorted by the warping surge of the Bersarkr spirit. The courtier had said one phrase, ‘Bridewell Palace’, and the race had begun.

  Another burst of speed put her within sight of the gate and the two men before her. They were standing under the gate lantern arguing with a guard holding a pole-arm. Disdaining discussion Francis hit him and as the fellow crumpled to the ground ran inside. Annise cursed. She was still a dozen yards behind and even she was beginning to flag at the pace. On the very limit of her consciousness she could feel the steady pulse of a magicker drawing in power. They were running out of time and those idiots were too close.

  Closing her eyes Annise focused on the source. It was ahead some fifty yards and it hovered up there pulling in twisting threads of inky black. Her bare feet slapped loudly on the timber floor as Annise aimed for the stairway to her left. Damn, she must have lost her shoes in the mud. Richard and Francis were several paces ahead—she was almost there—then as they paused at a door to draw their swords she had them.

  Annise didn’t worry about niceties of rank or precedence. Instead she bounced off the opposite wall and slammed into the door with her shoulder, knocking the two men aside.

  Then time slowed for an instant and as Annise burst into the private room she saw it all in one long extended moment, the crumpled figures by the door, the open curtains of the tester bed, the cluster of cloaked figures bending over it and the wan light of the moon throwing a weak shaft of light onto the moaning body on the bed. And the Moor turned towards her, his hands the centre of a web of iridescent black threads. Annise drew in a deep breath and lunged forward.

  ***

  Chapter 21: Darkness Illuminated—Bridewell Palace

  Thwack!

  His vision cleared the instant his body slammed into the door jamb, shaking loose the rage of his fallen angel that’d been driving him in the race to Bridewell Palace. By St Anthony’s fucking arm bone, what was that? Before his rational mind could sort through the disparate images—those of a bare legged woman, flashing eyes that glowed of blood red fire, and what could have been a bestial snarl containing a pair of long pointy teeth. He was confused. He had to… Instinct snapped in before his rational mind could sort out the whys and wherefores and Francis found that his legs had kicked him back from the now open portal. His hearing caught up with events. It noted the splintering slap and thrumming vibration of a short javelin clipping the timber post by his nose and burying itself in the hallway paneling. Then it came back in a sudden surge like being caught in the flood race of London Bridge at the flush of the tide. Oh by Christ, Mistress Phoebe! The strangling darkness…the damn Moor and his murders…the sudden illumination of threat at the palace.

  Francis tightened his grip on his dagger and sword, and then threw himself into the room about a foot off the floor. The flicker of a javelin passing above him told him his instincts rather than his reason were correct. Tucking his head and arms in, Francis rolled in a simple tumble to the left of the doorway taking advantage of the limited cover offered by a table that’d been knocked over.

  “Where y’ been Bryan?” It was already occupied by the hunched shape of Richard, Annise’s minion.

  One more steel and wood dart punched through the table top and Francis edged back. He was more than prepared to take on any foe in the fray but being spitted like a chicken held little allure. “Can’t you distract the Moor’s men with those glass toys of yours?”

  “Nay lad, I’ve only got one left an’ I’ve nay liking ta hit Annise by mistook.”

  Some more of the reality of the past thirty seconds came back to Francis. That woman who knocked them aside was Mistress Athyney, the…the demoness. For a flashi
ng instant his soul was full of turmoil. That first javelin, if he’d burst in as planned it’d have pinned him like a heron did a fish. She’d saved him! At the prodding of his fallen angel that it wasn’t the best time for an airing of his amazement, or lust, Francis recovered his perception of the here and now. Tilting his head he snapped a quick view of the room. One more of those probing darts zipped past.

  The scene stood thus. A bracket of candles fastened to the wall cast a warm but dim radiance about the room. Two figures were slumped on the floor five feet past the doorway—whether they were alive or dead was difficult to ascertain from here. Further into the room towards the bed stood a pair of heavy cloaked men, both with a short dart in each hand. One was edging left with the intention to outflank their cover of the table.

  As for the Moor, he was standing beside the large tester bed, a curved dagger in hand, muttering a low chant in some heathen language and facing him across the bed was the stiff still figure of Annise, one arm out thrust holding a small poniard. At her feet another body lay crumpled. This one had a spill of long blonde hair trailing out across the floor. Francis’s memory of the questioning at The Three Sparrows brought up a name, Jenny, Gwen’s pallet mate. Even from that quick glance he remembered her other assets—a pert smile, pallid blue eyes and the most attractive conical pink nipples. His fallen angel expressed that hope that she was still alive. It had fond recollections of a night or two in the girl’s company.

  As for the situation it teetered on the cusp of stalemate and to Francis’ understanding every minute that slid by allowed the Moor further opportunity for tricks or dominion over the figure on the bed. Francis gritted his teeth. He couldn’t afford the chance of that man awaking in thrall to the Moor. His career at court not to mention his life would be at an end. So some tactic or ploy must be found, or else disaster was at hand.