A Fever of the Blood

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘I know you both!’ I cried, pointing my weapon alternately at each of them. I recognized the tight blonde curls of the maid at Spotson’s house. ‘So it was you who has been poisoning the old man!’ My eyes then went to the other girl. ‘And you washed McGray’s clothes! You planted that accursed bird in his coat!’

  ‘These witches get everywhere,’ Joel snapped. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  ‘We’re saying nothing,’ the woman said; ‘she’ll be dead soon,’ and then she hollered her lungs out, in a voice so deep and powerful my ears ached. ‘Ardglass is here!’

  Joel struck her in the face with one of the guns, the woman fell backwards and the girl ran like the wind, shouting ‘Ardglass’ again and again. Joel shot at her but missed, the bullet hitting the wall as the slender figure fled; he looked down at the plump woman. She was pressing a hand to her cheekbone, blood trickling through her fingers.

  ‘Speak!’

  The woman spat at him, and I knew that Joel was going to shoot her. I pushed his arm and the bullet hit the floor.

  ‘Damn it, boy!’

  ‘I will not stand by and watch you slaughter people!’

  I saw that uncontrollable rage in him again, the blood rushing into his face as he slowly directed the gun towards me. The woman began to rise and this time I aimed at her.

  ‘I did not say you could move!’

  ‘These whores deserve no –’

  I punched him right on the nose, so hard I heard his septum crack, and so unexpectedly I sent him tumbling against the wall.

  ‘I am sick of you all!’ I was incandescent. ‘You and fucking Nine-Nails. If you threaten to – I said you could not bloody move!’

  As I shouted I plunged my hand into Joel’s bag, pulled out the jar of black widows and made to throw it at the portly witch.

  ‘There they are!’ someone yelled.

  Three gigantic men came running from the direction the girl had fled, followed by another young witch, and instinctively I threw the jar at them. The glass shattered on the first one’s massive chest, shards and spiders flying in all directions, and the ruffians lost all their bravery. One dropped his gun and another one shrieked, as they all retreated, trying to bat the black widows away.

  I caught but a glimpse of that, for Joel and I turned and ran, this time taking a different turn and finding a narrow flight of stairs.

  In the distance, even through the thick walls, the voice of Mrs Marigold could be heard, howling about both Joel and McGray being at large in the manor. She mentioned Caroline and then Joel halted, listening.

  ‘Did she say “bring her down”?’

  Those had been the words. In fact, she sounded too close for my liking.

  Joel ascended, skipping steps and panting, breathless and reckless. I saw that same frenzy, that irrational drive I’d seen in McGray and Caroline. Joel was not even deterred when the steps, voices and even the cats’ meowing could be heard but yards from where we were.

  We reached the top of the stairs, which opened into a long, wide corridor. To our left there were wide windows with pointed arches, overlooking the manor’s front lawns and letting in weak rays of moonlight; to our right there were thick oak doors, at least a dozen of them.

  The place was deserted, but the voices sounded awfully near; they must all be behind one of the closer doors. The nearest one, though, was ajar, just enough to show that behind it was a broom cupboard.

  My heart leaped when a chink of light began to show around the second nearest door. I scarcely had time to tug at Joel, so desperately that in one swift movement I managed to thrust both him and myself into the small cupboard, exactly as that other room opened.

  Joel pulled the cupboard’s door to, but the strap of his bag got caught, leaving a gap which exposed us to the hallway.

  It was too late to do anything about it. Witches and guards were rushing down the stairs, each woman carrying a fir branch, and each man carrying either a pistol or a rifle.

  We held our breath. We could even smell the herby scent of the witches’ clothes and the stinking sweat of their protectors.

  Marigold came out too, escorted by four particularly large men.

  ‘And Redfern,’ Marigold was saying. ‘Where the hell is Redfern? Tell her to bring the Ardglass girl down! I want her in the courtyard as soon as the pyre is ready.’

  A sound came from the floor, so faint yet so damning. It was a soft scratching at the door, and looking down I found a black cat, its paws on the wood, trying to poke its little nose and whiskers into the cupboard.

  Joel was about to kick it but I stopped him. All we could do was stand still as a dozen armed men marched past mere inches away from us, and pray they were too busy to look at that blasted feline.

  Each person’s step, each ruffle of their clothes resounded in my ears like a physical torture, and so did every scratch from those tiny paws.

  And so we waited. Their numbers waned, until one last straggler, a teenage girl, ran awkwardly after the main crowd.

  I had time to take a blissfully deep breath, and then Joel kicked the door open, sending the hissing cat into the air. The animal landed on its feet and ran to the stairs.

  Through the windows, a few sparks caught our attention.

  The sky had cleared, with only thin strips of cloud glimmering under the crescent moon. There was a very faint glow on the horizon, a line of indigo announcing that the sun would soon rise. In the middle of the courtyard there towered a post, already surrounded by a huge pile of logs and straw, dark against the silver snow, and there were men and women throwing more and more fuel on to it. There was a circle of witches around the pyre, each holding in her left hand a bushy branch of fir. They were lighting them up, passing the flames from torch to torch, blue balls of fire appearing all over the courtyard.

  ‘Just when we needed a heavy snow,’ Joel said, glaring at the skies. There was no chance whatsoever of a miraculous storm smothering the bonfire.

  ‘We cannot stay here,’ I urged, prodding his arm. In all honesty, I did not have the foggiest idea as to where we should go, or what we should do.

  As I ran behind Joel despair began to set in my mind. How could we possibly save Caroline? Or find McGray? Or even just get out alive for that matter?

  We crossed the corridor and entered a large room, which must have been the end of the wing, for it had wide windows on three of its four walls. The stone arches and stained glass had obviously been salvaged from a church or cathedral, but the imposing structures housed a stark, empty room. The wooden floorboards bore marks of heavy furniture removed a while ago – most likely by Lady Anne, trying to squeeze profit out of the residence before being chased away.

  ‘We should go back,’ I said, feeling alarmingly exposed in that bare room. ‘If one of those thugs finds us here, there is no place to –’

  I was interrupted by shooting. It came from the storeys above us: a succession of blasts, echoing like thunderclaps and followed by a female shriek. There was a collective cry from the grounds and Joel and I ran to the windows.

  Through the stained glass – a fragmented piece which must have been part of the Virgin Mary’s robes – I saw the coven in turmoil: the witches’ faces were lit by the blue flames, and they were all looking up, pointing and shouting in fear.

  There was another shot, and then, mere inches from the glass I was pressing my nose against, a body fell.

  I saw barely a blur, but the glimpse of a dark-haired head stuck in my mind. The body hit the ground, and even under the dim moonlight and the glimmer of the torches, the splatter of blood seemed intensely red.

  It was a man’s body. A tall man, wearing a familiar overcoat.

  From above, from where the shots had come from, a woman bellowed in a voice that sounded like the cry of an eagle: ‘The Scotchman’s dead!’

  My blood ran cold.

  ‘That cannot be,’ I mumbled.

  The witches cheered and someone shot the burst cadaver for good measure, but t
he noises came to my ears like distant echoes, as if someone had just knocked me on the head.

  Why did he not listen? I thought, shock and anger clutching at my throat, my mind racing. He’d brought it all upon himself: the trip to Lancaster, the obsession with the occult, the lonely years of being avoided and mocked by everyone … all out of devotion to the young sister whose cure he’d never found.

  I had a strange feeling I had not expected; a cold void seemed to creep from within, as I realized that Adolphus McGray had destroyed himself, and now his sad life would see no redemption.

  ‘He did not deserve to end like this,’ I found myself saying, my face frozen in front of the glass.

  Marigold was coming out then, easily recognizable as she carried her winged pet on her shoulders, making her look far taller and scarier than she would on her own – all part of her sense of theatre. She walked past McGray’s body, spat on it and then went on towards the pyre. She raised her wrinkled hand and waved at her coven, and they all began to dance around the stack of logs and straw. Their fir branch fires drew circles in the air, as the witches sang a macabre hymn in unison; their sharp staccato high notes were like stabs in the air, as unsettling as Mozart’s most chilling requiem.

  One of the guards came out carrying Caroline, which sent the women into an otherworldly ecstasy. The girl was still sedated, her limbs dangling limply as the man carried her towards the pyre.

  ‘Not my daughter!’ Joel shouted, punching the window and turning around. He sprinted across the empty room, so resolutely a bullet could not have stopped him.

  It took me a moment to react, for my mind was still struggling to take in the image of McGray’s dead body on the snow; my eyes were still fixed on him and the horrible splatter around his head. It must have only been a few seconds, but they felt like an eternity. Then something, and I still fail to tell what, pulled me out of the shock and I saw the guard climbing the mound of logs with Caroline in his arms, to tie her to the central post.

  I ran after Joel, back into the long corridor, where I found him subdued by an enormous guard. The man held him by the torso with one arm, and with the other he clenched Joel’s neck so tightly that Joel was gagging and I heard both guns thump to the floor.

  I ran over to them, and with the butt of my gun and all my strength I struck the giant’s temple.

  The blow barely disturbed him, his grip on Joel weakening only a little. I had to strike him again, and then a third time before he let go of Joel, who was already stretching out his arms towards the dropped weapons.

  The man swung his thick fist, a blow I dodged by sheer luck, and then Joel did what I’d tried to avoid: he shot the man in the back, and I had to jump backwards or his hefty body would have crushed me as it fell.

  The unfortunate guard writhed and screamed, for the bullet had hit him right in the spine. I could not help feeling sorry for him, but before I could say anything Joel shouted, ‘Damn!’

  And again he ran off. Through the arched windows I saw that the pyre was beginning to catch fire. The witches were dancing around it, then bending down to rub their coloured torches against the logs. Over the blue glow I could see Caroline’s black cape. She was still unconscious; her chin lay slack on her chest.

  I stumbled down the stairs, the echoes of the chanting becoming louder as I descended, drumming in my ears. Real, tangible horrors were happening out there. The fire about to melt Caroline’s body, McGray’s corpse, Joel’s shattered life – these were no vague, distant legends. I had spent all this time trying to persuade Nine-Nails that such things did not exist outside his occult books, only to find that the folktales had been masking something far, far worse. These people were monsters, not empowered by magic or mystic charms but by their twisted minds, by their poisons, their organization and their secret knowledge. After a wrong turn I found myself in a corridor I did not recognize, and Joel was nowhere to be seen. I was lost. Lost and alone, for McGray was dead, Caroline would soon follow, and her enraged father was running recklessly around that blasted manor.

  I felt the urge to go out there and do something, but what could we do, even if we got to the fire in time? We were outnumbered; they would shoot us before we took three steps, and then perhaps throw us into the fire too. Should I flee? Should I try to at least save myself?

  If I could find a way out, I might have a chance. I decided to follow the chanting, going down a corridor and around a corner, and as the singing grew louder the rooms became colder. I was on the right track.

  Finally I made it to a wide entrance hall, the place scoured by wintry draughts and lit by the fire outside. To the right I could see the broad arch of the main gate; its oak doors were open wide to the snowy field.

  A dark figure came out of a nearby door. I gasped, but it was only Joel. I ran to him and managed to intercept him a few steps from the main entrance.

  ‘Let me go!’ he roared, punching and kicking out, a man possessed like none I’ve ever seen.

  As he pummelled me I tried to talk some sense into him, but then a shot silenced us both.

  For an instant I thought a bullet had hit him, but then I heard a familiar voice. Female.

  ‘Stay where you are!’

  We slowly turned to the hall’s main staircase, and saw Oakley coming down. She was wielding a large gun, and even from that distance I recognized the weapon that Nettle had given us, the weapon McGray had once held.

  Joel spat in rage. ‘You little bitch! We had an agreement. My daughter for your life and your child’s.’

  Oakley looked sickly pale; her hair was dishevelled, her eyes sunken and framed by dark rings.

  ‘I’m doing what I have to,’ she hissed.

  I could not contain myself either. ‘You killed McGray!’

  ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to bring my child back.’ She came closer, gnashing her teeth before she concluded, ‘Cheat, lie, steal or kill.’

  All of a sudden the glow outside became brighter. We could not help but turn to see the blazing pole and the crowd of men and witches around it. As the fire caught hold Mrs Marigold’s bat became startled and spread its wings, the translucent skin spanning more than two yards, and the animal opened its rat-like muzzle as if to roar, showing off its long fangs.

  The flames now burned furiously, spiralling and throwing smoke and green sparks up to the sky. Then, brought to us on the icy wind, came a tormented cry: a long, piercing howl that filled the air, louder than any chanting.

  Caroline had awoken, and her body, dwarfed amidst the fire, now twisted and contorted in agony. The witches cheered, filling the air with an infernal racket.

  An uncontrollable chill ran through my body, and I could not do anything to stop Joel, who hurled himself forwards in a reckless sprint.

  ‘Stay here!’ Oakley snarled, pressing the gun against my back. ‘If you know what’s best for you.’

  I hardly registered her words, my eyes fixed on Joel. He ran to his daughter, and what a disturbing image that was: his black outline against the green and blue fire, shooting coldly at the heads of anyone before him – and beyond him, atop the seven-foot pyre, his beloved daughter burning alive. I could see the flames curling up her clothes and crawling swiftly towards her head, still wrapped in that jute pouch. It must have been soaked in oil, for it caught fire in an instant.

  At once the eerie cheers became shrieks of panic, shooting came from everywhere and Caroline’s cries became agonized, as men and witches alike fell to the ground.

  I heard Marigold roaring an unintelligible order, but before she could even complete the phrase the guard closest to her came to her rescue. The tall man grabbed her by the arm and neck, huge leather-gloved hands grasping the pale, leathery skin. The witch choked as her man pulled her aside, and he threw her towards a quartet of guards who surrounded her like a protecting wall.

  Joel did not get far. A shot hit him in the shoulder, and I saw a spray of blood. He did not stop, but almost instantly a second bullet caught him in the s
tomach, and then a third in the leg. He fell flat on the snow as a multitude of women ran to him, all of them wielding daggers, ready to rip him apart.

  Marigold’s protector approached as well, his boots sinking deep into the snow. They looked like a colony of black vultures about to peck and dismember a dying animal.

  Behind them, Caroline let out one last, tearing scream, and then her head fell forwards as the fire engulfed the cloth bag around it.

  Then Marigold roared in victory. ‘The Ardglass clan is de–’

  A choke.

  Then a hacking cough.

  The witches halted, looking up, and then the guards opened their flanks to let everyone see what was happening to the most feared witch in the country.

  She was gagging, a hand around her neck and the other stretched out, as her stout body slowly sank to the ground. The bat flapped its wings madly, until Marigold in her distress slapped it away.

  The witches dropped their knives and ran to her aid. All chanting had ended. Joel’s shaking body lay on the ground, quite forgotten by all hands except one. The tall guard who had just approached stood by him, then leaned down, grabbed one of Joel’s arms and dragged him into the manor.

  As the witches and guards gathered around the choking Marigold, this man strode up to us quite impassively.

  He pulled back his black hood, but I already knew who it was. Nine-Nails opened his hand and, horribly smeared into his leather glove, I saw a tiny, shiny dead frog.

  ‘Run, lassies,’ he said, ‘or we stay here for ever.’

  40

  McGray took off his poisoned glove, tossed it away along with the ghastly yellow frog and picked up the injured Joel. Flabbergasted, I trotted along behind him and Oakley.

  ‘How did you do that?’ I spluttered, as Oakley led us through the now familiar corridors. ‘How did you get out there?’

  They did not have time to answer. We could hear the enraged shouting of men coming back into the manor, their thumping footsteps ever closer. They’d been fooled for a precious few seconds, but now we had to flee.

  ‘My girl,’ Joel whispered, his mouth tainted with a trickle of blood.