“Fen’ka!” Magdalena whispered in amazement, recognizing the woman at the stake.
The colors in the candle’s flame shimmered and shifted again, resolving again into the Old Town Square, but this time a small group of people was emerging from beside the Tyn church into the square. She could see the Astronomical Clock as well, and the Hus memorial built over the place where Fen’ka had been tied to the stake in the first vision. Magdalena leaned forward and peered as close as she could into the flame. She saw the academics approach the Astronomical Clock. One of them seemed to be sprinkling something onto the cobblestones.
Without taking her eyes from the fire, she reached with one hand for the pile of stalks and petals on the table. Clutching one, she pulled it from the pile and held it out. The bent and crumpled leaves of the stalk shriveled as it sucked darkness into itself from the candle’s wick. A thin line of smoke curled into the air. Then Magdalena dropped what she realized was a dandelion across the candle wick, where the fire ballooned out around the stalk only to then rush in and consume the plant offering. Ash coalesced where the stalk had been consumed, wrapped around the candle’s wick, and then either fluttered away or dropped onto the table. Magdalena wasn’t sure. She only knew that the dandelion was gone.
Continuing to peer into the fire and seeing the small figures slowly making their way toward the Astronomical Clock, Magdalena reached again toward the botanicals plucked from the garden. She found a few sprigs of woodruff between her fingertips and set them carefully in the soft wax atop the candle. Immediately, they caught fire and shriveled in the flame. A sweet fragrance hovered momentarily in the air to tickle Magdalena’s nose and then faded away.
George sat at the desk in his hotel room, congratulating himself again on how easily he had beguiled Magdalena and calmed her fears. But the news she had brought him was disturbing. Sophia had survived Elizabeth’s attack. Additional academics had gathered to thwart him and his plans. He left his drink unfinished on the dresser and went down to the front desk to ask the clerk for a small candle or votive light.
“I am sorry, sir,” the young, pimple-faced clerk on duty answered. “No candles are allowed in the rooms due to the threat of fire. The streets here in the Little Town are narrow and fire trucks would have a difficult time reaching us if a fire were to break out. Perhaps you heard of the fire in Lisbon that destroyed the Chiado, the medieval quarter of the city, in 1988? The entire area burned because no fire trucks could navigate the narrow, twisting streets. Surely you can appreciate our difficulty.”
George shook his head at the clerk, who was hardly more than an adolescent. “I can appreciate the difficulty, but surely you can appreciate my difficulty as well. I am a Jesuit, after all, as you may recall from seeing me in my collar earlier. I still must read my evening prayers and I find a candle burning in front of my crucifix a necessary aid to my concentration. Surely you could find one small candle?”
“Well, yes, Father… I can appreciate the aid of a candle in your prayers,” the clerk stammered. “But I am not sure where I would find one… We do not keep such items at the front desk.” The young man bit his lip. His eyes darted around the lobby behind George.
The clerk snapped his fingers. “I know, Father!” he exclaimed. “I know just where to find a candle for you!” He bolted from the front desk into the darkened breakfast room across the lobby. He returned a moment later with a tea light, which he placed in George’s outstretched palm.
“The kitchen staff always set them out beneath the aluminum trays in the evening when they prepare the dining room for breakfast,” the clerk explained, winking. “That way they only need to put the eggs and sausage in the trays and light the tea lights to keep the food warm. They will never miss one!”
Back in his room, the tea light burned on the desktop. He traced a small circle around the candle and set out the prescription vials filled with herbs associated with malevolent magic that Elizabeth had seen him use the night before during their preparations to poison the magic of the Charles Bridge.
George sat quietly, breathing slowly and deeply, staring into the candle flame. He saw images and colors shift and dip, curl and twist, resolving into figures and then unraveling again. He saw Magdalena staring into the candle in her kitchen and he saw the people in the Old Town Square that she saw in her own candle’s flame. He saw her take the botanicals she had gathered from her garden and burn them in the flame.
“Ah, she cannot hope to accomplish this on her own,” he muttered. “Good that she wants to strike back, to defend her city—she thinks!—and avenge Elizabeth. But she does not have the skill needed to do this.” As he shaped the words with his lips, he reached for one of the bottles of herbs without taking his eyes from the vision in the candlelight. He dipped his tiny spoon into the vial of pennyroyal oil and then dripped the oil into the tea light, next to the burning wick. In a moment, the oil, associated with fire by the medieval alchemists, had been consumed by the fire and its magic added to that Magdalena was attempting in her kitchen.
The path of the Royal Road led across the Old Town Square. In the center of the Old Town, Victoria and the academics moved toward the Astronomical Clock opposite them, which marked the continuation of the Royal Road out of the square as it made its way toward the castle on the opposite side of the river. The clock also marked their recent encounter with Magdalena and the Dearg-due. Magdalena had been sent away with the chalice and the rabbi’s staff by the Dearg-due, but the Irish undead had seemingly been returned to her grave in Ireland just as she had been about to kill them all. Even so, she had killed one of their small group, and Wilcox’s mangled corpse still lay in the shadows of the alleyway across from the Clock.
Sophia, pouring the salt from the canister, paused and looked around the dark square that had once served as the most important market of Central Europe.
“Something is wrong,” she announced to the others. “Something is very wrong. I can feel it. Do you feel it?”
Victoria, Sean, Theo, and Fr. Dmitri all stopped as well and examined the dark square.
“Something does seem amiss,” Theo agreed. “Everything seems calm and still, but…”
“You mean, everything except for poor Wilcox over there?” Sean nodded toward the body of their friend. “We should do this part quickly before someone else comes along and discovers the body. If an alarm is raised and we are anywhere in the vicinity, the authorities will want to know why we did not raise the alarm ourselves.”
“Sean is right,” Fr. Dmitri agreed. “At the very least, the authorities could ask difficult questions about why we are all here in the middle of the night and did nothing. Or they may suspect us of… harming Wilcox ourselves. We must hurry.”
“Wilcox would have wanted us to do so,” Theo agreed. “We should burn the next card here and move along.” He pointed to a spot on the cobblestones a few steps ahead of them.
“Wait,” Victoria objected. “What is that smell?” A pungent, sweet smell suddenly engulfed them. “Is this something more about the Dearg-due?” she wanted to know. “Is there more mischief she can still cause us?”
Magdalena, eager to see what would happen now to the figures in the fire, saw that they had paused midway across the square. She pursed her lips and slowly exhaled, causing the candle flame to dance wildly.
The smell hung in the air around them in the Old Town Square.
“Is this something more about the Dearg-due?” Sean repeated Victoria’s question. “I do not know. I don’t think so. If the cairn was erected atop her grave in Waterford, I do not see how she could manage to harm us here again. But…”
“Look!” Sophia pointed toward the Hus memorial across the square. “The memorial! Do you see it?”
Victoria turned with the others.
“See what?” Theo asked. “I don’t see…”
Before he could finish his sentence, a blue spectral fire burst from the base of the Jan Hus memorial. It roared and rose around the memorial as if to
consume the statuary in the conflagration. Shades of blue and white rippled through the ghostly fire. The flames swirled and danced, rising higher and roaring louder. Heat radiated across the square and they all stumbled back as the heat collided with them.
“What caused that? Where did it come from?” Victoria cried. “What can we do now?”
No one answered her as they stared in fascination at the roaring bonfire.
Without warning, the fire swept out in a line across the square, much as earthly fire might ignite a trail of gunpowder. It rushed toward the three academics, who all scattered away from its reach. The sheet of flames divided into several rivulets of fire, each taller than a man and snaking after them, as if each were a living thing hunting each of the professors.
Sophia threw the canister of salt in her hand at the fire, but the fire only licked it up and continued undaunted. Victoria grabbed Sophia by the hand and pulled the priest’s wife away from the racing flames. The women screamed as they ran, not watching where they were going. They only knew they wanted to get away from the pursuit of the fire. They could feel the unendurable heat of the fire bearing down on them.
Magdalena, in her kitchen, saw the blue ghost-fire erupt across the square and chase down the scattered academics. She stared in fascination at what she must have caused.
Fr. Dmitri did not know which way to run. The fire whipped across the square so quickly it was nearly upon him before he had a chance to move. Where had the others gone? Were they safe? Was his wife safe? He could hear the women screaming but did not know what that meant.
Magdalena exhaled another long, slow breath as she sat at her table, examining her thoughts and wishes. The candle flame dipped and swayed.
“I caused the ghost-fire?” she asked herself. “Do I want them hurt by the fire? Or did I only want them stopped?” she wondered. “But they hurt Elizabeth. They killed her again, just as her husband beat her to death three hundred years ago! Is hurting them the only way to stop them? Is that what I want?”
Theo found himself running toward the Astronomical Clock. The sheet of flame pursuing him swept around as if to encircle him and he veered toward the body of Wilcox, managing to dart through a gap in the blue-white flames before the circle closed him in entirely.
He glanced at the torn and bloody body of his friend as he ran, gasping for breath.
“Now is the time, old friend,” he whispered to the corpse. “If there is anything you can do from the other side, do it now!”
In his hotel room, George saw the ghostly fire as well and knew he had caused it, not Magdalena. A sly grin crept across his face. “It is not enough for them to be frightened.” He chuckled. The chuckle became a quiet snarl. “They must be stopped!”
He reached for another prescription bottle and extracted a few tendrils that he added to his tea light, careful to hold his breath as the fire reduced the slivers of poisonous mushroom to ash.
Theo tripped on a cobblestone and fell, knocking his chin against a manhole cover. The salt canisters in the shopping bag he carried spilled across the alleyway. His lungs felt as if they were on fire. He rolled onto his back, ready to kick at the approaching flames, as if that might stop them. The fire paused and wavered, as if searching for him, and then, seemingly picking up his scent, it raced toward him again.
The fire touched Wilcox’s body and suddenly Wilcox was there, standing beside his own corpse. The standing Wilcox seemed to be wounded in the same way the corpse had been wounded, but he was standing nevertheless.
“Wilcox?” croaked Theo. “Is that you?”
Wilcox looked at Theo still sprawled on his back and nodded.
Then he was gone.
Sean found himself trapped in the arcades along the façade of Our Lady of Tyn. The flames swept along the length of the façade and around each end of the series of vaulted arches, enclosing the Dublin professor in a tunnel of stone and fire.
Sweat drenched his clothes. The heat was suffocating. He looked from one end of the arcade to the other. “Dare I try to run through?” he asked himself. “Might it part around me if I clutch the Infant of Prague medal in my fist?” He had seen Sophia throw the salt at it to no effect, so the shopping bag of salt canisters he grasped in one hand would be of no use. He searched his pockets with his other hand, trying to find the religious medal that had shown them the real Dearg-due beneath the mask of Elizabeth’s face.
The heat became more intense. It was difficult to breathe. He had to get out.
“Is it waiting for me?” He looked all along the wall of fire, crackling and roaring. “It seems so… conscious, somehow. Should I chance it even without the medal and try to run through?” He bit his lip to steel himself for his attempt at escape.
“Five, four, three,” he counted down under his breath, rocking from foot to foot like an Olympic runner. “Two…”
The fire rushed towards him and Sean cried out, dropping the shopping bag and throwing up his hands as he fell back against the centuries’ old stone wall behind him. Then Wilcox was in front of him, facing the fire with his own arms spread wide.
The fire fell upon Wilcox, and Sean wasn’t sure if the roar in his ears was the fire or Wilcox crying out. The heat was unbearable. Sean gasped for breath and his lungs felt as if they were being seared by the hot air he was gulping. Wilcox kept standing with his arms open, as though he could embrace all the flames as they bore down on Sean. Even though the fire produced no smoke, it was hard for Sean to see. His eyes filled with tears.
“The heat, the heat…” he whimpered. “Wilcox, you’ve been killed! What are you doing here?”
Wilcox either didn’t hear him or was ignoring him. Leaning forward, he did seem to be struggling to contain the flames and hug them to himself. The fire kept pouring in through the arcade at Sean and Wilcox. It kept coming and Wilcox kept struggling to embrace it, absorb it, contain it within his arms.
Sean felt his knees buckle. He was dizzy with the heat and lack of air to breathe.
Wilcox was still there, fighting to crush the fire into his chest. Then his arms collapsed around his torso and the fire winked out.
Sean fell to his side, gasping and choking, gulping in the cool, fresh air of the night.
As quickly as Wilcox had vanished, he was again standing over Theo as the fire lunged at the Englishman down on his back. The fire howled and crackled, sparks popping and flying as the lash of fire hurtled into Wilcox’s open palms. He held the fire as if it were a large swirling beach ball, the flaming sphere growing larger and hotter and brighter as the mass of flames threw themselves at the dead professor. Theo saw Wilcox fighting to press his palms together as if to crush the fire between them. He could hear Wilcox grunt and gasp and struggle to keep the fire from exploding from between his fingers.
Then with one last, great effort, Wilcox pressed his palms together and both he and the fire were gone.
George couldn’t believe what he was seeing in the flame-vision of his candle. Something—he couldn’t see what—was extinguishing each arm of the ghostly fire as it bore down on each of the academics.
“I have to stop whatever assistance they have called,” he realized. “What can best reinforce the power of the fire?” He glanced at his yellow vials on the desktop. Picking one, he extracted a few crumbs of oleander leaves and petals, which he fed to the candle flame.
Fr. Dmitri ran as quickly as he could, certain the fire would catch him before he could find refuge near the Saint Nicholas’ Church across the square. Looking down, he realized he was treading on the mosaic crosses that marked the execution site of the Protestant nobility along one side of the Old Town Hall. The fire swept up behind and around him and he was caught against the wall of the Old Town Hall, the fire pausing in a ring around the outermost of the mosaic crosses.
“Bogoroditsa, spasi nas!” the priest gasped, crossing himself.
Then a man stood there, his back to Fr. Dmitri as he faced the fire with outstretched arms.
“Wi
lcox?” The priest was not sure he could trust his eyes. He raised his hands to shield his face from the blistering heat.
There was a roar and crackle as the fire leaped higher, the heat rippling across the priest’s body. It felt unbearable. He crossed himself again and sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands.
The flames popped and crackled. He could hear a man grunting and wheezing, gasping for breath as if in the midst of a great physical struggle. He did not dare take his hands away from his face and thought his knuckles must be blistering in the inferno. His lungs felt seared.
“Get down!” a distant voice cried in some corner of the priest’s mind. He had dim memories of a fire drill in his grade school, when the students had been instructed to keep their faces near the floor if trapped in a fire because that was where the cooler air could be found.
Fr. Dmitri fell forward and held his breath, pressing his face against the mosaic crosses and cobblestones. Tarot cards tumbled from his pockets and scattered around him. The rough stones scraped his cheek and knuckles. He wanted to weep but bit his lip, afraid to take the deep breath that was inevitable if he started to cry. Was the air really any cooler or safer to breathe here next to the cobblestones?
Unable to hold his breath any longer, he gasped and feared for the worst. The nightmarish heat surged into his lungs but even as it did so, it also surged over and across his back and up the wall behind him and was gone.
Did he dare lift his head? He tilted his face just a bit and peered through his fingers.
The wild conflagration and the man who might have been the dead Wilcox had both vanished.
Sophia and Victoria, hand in hand, were running as quickly as they could away from the flames. Their screams gave way to labored breathing and panting. Afraid to pause and look around, Sophia was unsure if they were running back down the Royal Road they had just come from or down some other lane leading away from the Old Town Square. The heat on her back was intolerable. Blue and white flickered on the edges of her vision, ghostly firelight reflected in the store windows as they passed.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 96