“If it doesn’t work, we’ll all be dead,” I said easily.
“We’ll hit the ravens tomorrow,” Big Aus said forcefully, rubbing his big hands together. “We go in early, like Shaman said. Five a.m. Straight in, do the necessary, and straight out. No messing. And don’t be late getting there, any of you, or we’ll start without you.”
And just like that, we were committed to the crime of the century.
I got there first, of course. To check out the lay of the land and make sure no one else was planning any surprises. You can’t be too careful, in this game. So I was there on the open causeway by Traitor’s Gate at three a.m., two good hours in advance. I stood alone on the great gray flagstones, hidden behind my torc’s glamour, invisible to all. Hopefully including the ghosts. You can never tell with the dead; they follow their own rules. I hunched my shoulders inside my long duster coat and folded my arms tightly to keep out the cold wind blowing steadily off the River Thames.
It was only a short walk from the Tower Hill tube station through mostly empty streets. No one about but the usual revellers, old gods, and self-made monsters on their way to the next party. Things flapping high up in the sky, and voices declaiming long-forgotten languages in ancient tunnels deep under the earth. The usual. I looked the Towers over carefully with my Sight, and the whole place blazed with dazzling arcane energies. Layer upon layer of old magics and deadly protections, such as proximity mines floating unseen in midair, just waiting to hit you with all kinds of nasty medicine if you were dumb enough to approach the Towers with bad thoughts in mind. The shaped curses under the flagstones were harder to spot, lying in wait like trap-door spiders. The huge old walls containing the Towers were solid in more than three dimensions, and the Towers themselves were half-buried under spells like so much crawling ivy. There were bright lights and terrible sounds, and the whole place stank of blood and horror and despair.
That was the ghosts, of course. I couldn’t See them without dropping more of my defences than I was comfortable with, but I could feel them the same way a fish knows when there’s a shark in the water.
I turned my back on the castle complex and stood looking out over the Thames. Old river, dark river, with its own sad secrets. Boats came and went, not meant for everyday eyes. Undines ploughed through choppy waters, darting in and out of dim memories of all the vessels that had travelled up and down the mighty Thames in their day. Everything from Roman triremes to a flower-bedecked barge bearing a young Queen Elizabeth I. She looked over at the Bloody Tower, and I swear for a moment she looked right at me. I bowed to her anyway, just in case, and when I looked up she was smiling at me. A young woman with all her life ahead of her. Dust and less than dust, for centuries now. And then she looked away and was lost in the past again.
There were mists on the water, and lights in buildings like beacons against the dark, and always the sound of distant traffic. I could see Tower Bridge, which so many tourists confuse with London Bridge, and the lights of planes flying low above the city. It was three o’clock in the morning, the hour that tries men’s souls, and I still had two hours to kill. I stamped my feet to drive out the cold and did the Times’ crossword in my head. Cheating just a bit when necessary.
I watched the sun come up over the city, long strands of crimson bleeding across the dull gray lowering sky. I thought about the ravens. They might not be as important as Big Aus thought, but I couldn’t let anything happen to them. So how far should I let this caper go before I interfered? Pretty far; no way was this just about ravens. Big Aus was planning something more, had to be. Raving republican or not, no one fronts this kind of money just to kill a few birds and embarrass England and the monarchy.
So what was Big Aus up to? There were all kinds of treasures, objects of power and dangerous secrets, tucked safely away in all of the Towers, but they were all very well guarded. Including the Crown Jewels. No one steals what is England’s. Least of all poor old Colonel Blood, who took a long hard time dying only to find that death was no release after all. His spirit was still here, damned to guard the very treasure he tried to steal. Never a good idea to piss off English royalty. They have a nasty sense of humour.
I stuck my hands deep into my coat pockets and let my fingers close over the useful devices the family Armourer had rushed to me just for this operation. I’m a great believer in having a few aces hidden away in useful places. The best defence against other people’s surprises is to have some of your own ready to go at a moment’s notice.
As five o’clock drew nearer, one by one the others appeared out of the early-morning mists to join me as I lowered my torc’s invisibility. Coffin Jobe, peering about him with his sad, preoccupied eyes. The Dancing Fool, big and scowling. Strange Chloe, glaring about her as though the morning cold and gloom was a personal insult. And Big Aus, wearing a very expensive overcoat and grinning broadly.
“It’s cold and damp and dark and bloody cold,” said Strange Chloe, glaring at me like it was all my fault. “I hate being up this early. It’s not natural.”
“Savour your anger, Chloe,” said Big Aus, rubbing his big hands together briskly. “Nurse it in your heart and hold it ready for when it’s needed. I want to see feathers flying in every direction. Are we all ready to go?”
“Why did we have to be here so early?” said the Dancing Fool, his hairy legs shaking visibly beneath his kilt. “Tourists won’t be around for hours yet.”
“Because it’s so much more dramatic!” said Big Aus, still grinning. “If you’re going to commit the crime of the century, you have to do it with style! History expects it of us! Great affairs must be conducted in a great manner. Someday this could all be a major motion picture . . . Besides, ghosts are always at their weakest around the dawn, when the night is busy becoming day. Everyone knows that.”
“I didn’t know that,” said the Dancing Fool. He looked at me. “Did you know that, Shaman?”
“Of course,” I said. “But then, I know everything. Unfortunately . . .”
“I just knew he was going to say that,” Coffin Jobe said quietly. “Didn’t you all know he was going to say that?”
“Unfortunately, this is the Tower of London,” I said. “And these are not your everyday ghosts.” I looked at Big Aus. “Great affairs? Hollywood? Crime of the century? What’s so great about killing a few birds?”
Before anybody could say anything, Coffin Jobe dropped down dead. No warning. His eyes just rolled up in his head, he stopped breathing, and he collapsed, his long body folding up with practiced ease so that he hardly made a sound when he hit the flagstones.
“You prick!” said Strange Chloe.
“He does pick his moments,” the Dancing Fool agreed.
We all gathered around the dead body and looked at each other. The first-aid manual doesn’t cover situations like this. I did wonder whether we should try slapping his cheeks, or calling his name, or pounding on his chest with a fist, but you only had to look at Coffin Jobe to know he was dead and beyond all such encouragements. I’ve buried people who looked less dead than he did. And then Coffin Jobe sucked in a harsh rattling breath, his long arms and legs twitched spasmodically, and his eyes snapped open. He sat up cautiously, shook his head a few times just a bit gingerly, as though he half expected something to rattle, and then he rose to his feet, avoiding all offers of help.
“Wow,” he said, smiling gently. “What a rush . . .”
“You get off on being dead!” said Strange Chloe. “Oh, please, Jobe; teach me how to do that!”
“It isn’t the dying,” he said. “It’s the coming back to life. Oh, yes!” He realised we were all watching him and smiled just a little shamefacedly. “Ah. Sorry about that. So embarrassing.”
“Are you going to do that again?” said Big Aus.
“Almost certainly.”
“I meant, during the job!”
“Oh, no; I shouldn’t think so. I think it’s all based on stress . . . Are we ready to start now? I’m ready to start
.”
“Damn right,” said the Dancing Fool, scowling unhappily about him. “I feel naked, standing out here in public. I prefer to work from the shadows. I am one with the shadows and the dark.”
“Never knew an assassin who wasn’t,” I said. “Relax, everyone. You’ve all been covered by my newly acquired device since you got here. No one can see us anymore; not the living, the dead, or the Towers’ defences. We should be able to walk right through them.”
“Should?” said Strange Chloe. “I really don’t think I am at all comfortable with that word, under the circumstances. I want to hear you being a lot more confident about this before I take one step closer to Traitor’s Gate.”
“We learn by doing,” I said cheerfully.
“And if you’re wrong about this?” said the Dancing Fool.
“Then you get to say I told you so in the few seconds before we are all killed suddenly and horribly in violent ways.”
“I’ve never liked your sense of humour, Shaman,” said Coffin Jobe.
“You wound me,” I said. “Come along, children. Destiny awaits. Maybe they’ll get Johnny Depp to play me. The ravens are all inside, tucked up snugly in their lodging house. The Yeomen Warders are on their rounds and at this point are as far from the lodging house as they ever get. Jobe: front and centre. You’re on. Can you See the ghosts?”
He looked mournfully at Traitor’s Gate, his eyes very big behind the heavy lenses. His gaze moved slowly along the great stone wall rising up before us, he started to say something, and then he suddenly fell down dead again. The Dancing Fool swore loudly, Big Aus made a frustrated sound, and Strange Chloe kicked Coffin Jobe in the ribs.
“I don’t believe it!” she said. “He’s done it again!”
“Stop kicking the dead man, Chloe,” said Big Aus. “Major bad karma. It isn’t really his fault, after all.”
Strange Chloe sniffed. “Makes me feel better.”
We gathered around Coffin Jobe’s body again, and waited and waited, but he didn’t come back. We finally did kneel down beside him and tried slapping his cheeks and calling his name, but there was no response. All the colour had dropped out of his face, and his open eyes were fixed and staring. Finally everyone looked at me, because I’m supposed to be the one with all the answers. So, very reluctantly, I pushed my Sight all the way open and Saw ghosts.
They were everywhere, hundreds of them, men and women and even children, walking on the ground and in the air, stumbling and gliding out of Traitor’s Gate, most still carrying the memories of their death wounds on their insubstantial bodies. Some had heads; some didn’t. The horrible trauma of their violent deaths had carried over into how they thought of their bodies. Some were still bleeding from wounds that would never heal, while others bore the torture marks of rack and wheel and fire. Traitors all, condemned to suffer long after their deaths.
They were screaming and howling and crying out, ghostly voices from far away, thick with rage and despair and horror at what had been done to them. And some wept, never to be comforted, troubled forever by their crimes and betrayals. They burst out of the high stone wall like maggots from a wound and crawled headfirst down the cracked gray stone like shimmering lizards.
Half a dozen of them had grabbed hold of Coffin Jobe’s soul and were preventing it from returning to his body. Jobe looked quite different in spirit: a large, even muscular form. The man he remembered being before his affliction ate away at him. He fought the ghosts fiercely, his soul blazing brightly on the night, stronger than it had any right to be, but still he was no match for the ghostly defenders of the Towers of London. They seemed more like beasts than men, tearing at his soul with hands like claws. And more ghosts were coming. Coffin Jobe looked right at me and cried out for help, and then the ghosts Saw me too.
A great astral shout went up as the ghosts all looked in my direction and Saw me Seeing them. The closest ones surged right for me, mouthing ancient curses, though their voices seemed to echo from miles or years away. Their eyes burned with more than human hatred and misery, their horrid forms radiating menace. I stood my ground and reached into my coat pocket for the weapon the Armourer had provided for just such a situation. I took the jade amulet out and showed it to the ghosts, and another great shout went up. They knew what it was.
I said the activating Word in a loud carrying voice, and the mellow bomb detonated in my hand. And for fifty feet straight ahead of me, the world was full of happy thoughts, good intentions, and positive emotions. Enforced mellowness saturating the night. I was immune, of course, but it hit the ghosts like a hurricane, driving them back. They just couldn’t stand the happiness. They fled, shrieking horribly. Some were crying. Even the ones holding on to Coffin Jobe fled back to the safety of the Towers, and he looked at me, smiled briefly, and then dropped back into his body. I shut down my Sight, slamming all my mental barriers back into place. I’d Seen enough for one night.
I bent down over Coffin Jobe as he started breathing again and surreptitiously hit him with a nerve pinch. He’d sleep for a good hour or more now. I smiled inwardly. One down, more or less unhurt. Three to go. I shut down the mellow bomb and slipped it back into my coat pocket.
“Well, at least he’s breathing again,” said the Dancing Fool just a bit dubiously. “I suppose that’s an improvement.”
“What, rather than not being even a little bit alive?” said Strange Chloe. “Yes, I’d say so. But he’s no use to us like that. Maybe I should . . .”
“No, you shouldn’t,” Big Aus said quickly. “Kicking the hell out of him does not help.”
“It helps me.”
“I didn’t hear that,” Big Aus said determinedly.
“I said, It helps me!”
“Can we hold back on the whole shouting thing?” I said. “My device is keeping us unseen and unheard, but only as long as you don’t push it. There’s no need to panic; just leave him here. I can See well enough to get us inside.”
The Dancing Fool looked at me suspiciously. “And you never mentioned this before, because?”
“Because we had Coffin Jobe,” I said. “And you know I don’t like to reveal my secrets unless I have to.”
Big Aus looked down at the unconscious Coffin Jobe. “I’m not sure I like the idea of just leaving him here . . .”
“We can pick him up again on the way out,” I said. “And besides, what’s the worst that could happen to him? Someone might kill him? I think he’s pretty used to that by now. So, are we going in or not?”
“We go in,” said Big Aus. “No way are we giving up, not when we’re so close. Show us the way, Shaman.”
I led them towards Traitor’s Gate, indicating which flagstones they should avoid treading on. We had to approach the gate by a slow, indirect route to avoid the protective magics floating unseen in the air. I made the others hop on one foot, crouch down and rise up, and even walk backwards. Mostly for my own amusement, but occasionally because there were real traps to be avoided. Coffin Jobe would never have been able to get them in. There were wards present that would have fried his mind just for looking at them and places where only knowledge of the right passWords kept us all alive. But eventually we came to Traitor’s Gate, and I led the way through the great stone maw that was the only entrance into the castle complex. A gateway into horror, death, and worse than death for all too many people. I kept my Sight strictly focused so I wouldn’t have to See things I didn’t want to, but even so my skin crawled all the way. It’s not easy walking through a place you know can kill you horribly in a hundred ways if you let your concentration drop.
I could still feel the screams, even if I couldn’t hear them.
Once through the gate and into the enclosed cobbled courtyard, it was all calm and quiet. The ghosts were outside, the Yeomen Warder patrols couldn’t see or hear us, and all that stood between us and the ravens was the locked door of their lodging house. I froze as I heard approaching footsteps and gestured urgently for the others to stand still and sil
ent. Half a dozen Yeomen Warders came walking out of the shadows, chatting quietly. I cursed them silently. Dealing with the ghosts had taken longer than I’d thought, and the patrol had come around again. The bright red and gold uniforms looked quaintly old-fashioned, but the men inside them looked hard and competent and experienced. One of them had a raven perched on his shoulder and was feeding it grapes that looked very much like eyeballs.
“That’s a raven?” Strange Chloe said quietly. “That’s it? I was expecting something a bit more special. Not just an oversized crow!”
“Don’t show your ignorance,” I said firmly. “Ravens are the Rolls-Royce of the crow family.”
“Are you sure they can’t see or hear us?” said the Dancing Fool, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot.
“Are they rushing towards us, yelling terrible oaths and shooting at us with great big shooty things?” I said. “Then no, they can’t see or hear us.”
“Let the Yeomen open the lodging house for us,” said Big Aus. “And then we kill them all.”
“Ravens, or Yeomen Warders?” said the Dancing Fool.
“Just the ravens,” I said quickly. “Spill human blood in this place, and you’ll set off every alarm they’ve got.”
“No,” Big Aus said flatly. “Kill them all, ravens and men, and anyone else who gets in our way.”
I decided that this had gone far enough. I would have liked more time to take care of my friends before I had to take down Big Aus, but the secret of a field agent is to be flexible. So I pulled my concealing glamour back into my torc and let the others suddenly appear in the courtyard. The Yeomen Warders reacted immediately, producing really big guns out of nowhere and yelling for us to surrender. The Dancing Fool howled an ancient Scottish battle cry and charged the guards, moving so quickly I could barely follow him. He was in and among them in a moment, somehow never where their guns were pointing. With déjà fu, he could actually dodge bullets. I’d seen him do it.
At close combat, the Yeomen Warders never stood a chance.
The Spy Who Haunted Me sh-3 Page 4