A Fever of the Blood

by Oscar de Muriel

  I had not bothered inspecting the place. We might well be burning frozen potatoes, but I would take no risks; I did not want anybody scavenging for potion ingredients.

  Constable McNair was still throwing lashings of fuel oil on to the heap, for the foliage had been terribly cold and damp, and now the plants singed and crackled, their woody shapes slowly shrinking: a mesmerizing sight. As I watched I felt a little like the subjects of James I, burning whatever I could not understand.

  The fate of that house was uncertain. Elizabeth Greenwood had left no will, and her daughter, just like Oakley and little Primrose, might never be seen again. I assumed that after a few months the property would go to auction.

  I wrapped my fur-trimmed overcoat more tightly around myself. I had indulged in a new one, and as I sniffed the odd scents of the burning herbs I thought of the terrible ordeal I had gone through.

  More than the things I’d seen, I was haunted by the little pieces, the oddities that had lurked in the background during that black week.

  I could not tell how Madame Katerina had foreseen my being poisoned – not only that, but she had also foretold the very remedy that could have mitigated my symptoms. I also remembered her more ominous words when touching Amy’s writing: the most powerful of them can turn into animals, birds and balls of fire. And they hide in every nook and cranny, everywhere in the land. Beware of them, my dear.

  Nine-Nails had at some point nagged me about Redfern’s escape from Lancaster’s tallest tower, right after setting the bells on fire. We had followed her there, seen the flames erupt, and then thoroughly searched the scantest surface where any person could have stood. I remembered the instant we both crouched, protecting our faces from the fire. Redfern could have used those seconds to rush away. Nevertheless, I could not prove it, and Nine-Nails clung to that fact.

  Even though I’d never think of the witches as actually magical, I could not deny – or underestimate – the extent of their secret wisdom, the ancient lore they’d kept to themselves for centuries, and which was unlikely to die out because of our little intervention. Their two leaders had perished and their main coven had been discovered (and half of Cobden Hall had been consumed by the fire McGray started), but I knew it was just a matter of time before they regrouped, recovered and perhaps decided to strike back – with redoubled efforts.

  Those grim thoughts were interrupted by a cab’s creaking wheels. I looked up and saw a one-seater coach halt by the front door, next to my own rented cab. The door opened and down came Nine-Nails. One of the many things that still upset him was his dead horse. We were at the very spot where Joel had shot the poor animal, and McGray had so far refused to purchase a new mount. Philippa, my very expensive Bavarian mare, had almost been lost too. Amazingly, the good Dr Clouston had saved her. He’d recognized her after dropping us at Caledonian Station, while McGray and I hopped on to that infamous train. My poor mare had been trotting about, terribly scared, on the road by the station – Joel had probably jumped from her back and left her to her own devices – and Clouston’s brawny driver, Tom, had managed to calm her and take her to the asylum’s stables. I’d been elated when the tall man knocked at McGray’s door and handed her back. Nine-Nails, however, could not share my enthusiasm; he’d only snorted and scowled in a way that very much resembled the sad expression he wore now.

  He approached with weary steps, his square shoulders hunched dejectedly, which had become the norm ever since we’d returned. He had finally bought another overcoat, the old one having been used to fake his fall from the roof of Cobden Hall. The new garment was of a ludicrous cut and rough material, yet an immense improvement on the tatty bundle of moth-eaten crust he used to wear. Although, if he could have somehow retrieved his old coat from the corpse, I have no doubt that he would still be wearing it. I told him as much, but he was in no mood for jokes.

  Nine-Nails had been left in a ghastly state. Utterly spent, he had sat as silent as the grave in the carriages and trains back to Edinburgh, his eyes wide, his stare lost in the distance as the countryside passed us by.

  We greeted each other with a brief nod. I was expecting him to say something, but he just stood beside me, silently, watching the garden burn. With a shudder, I realized how much this posture resembled that of his mad sister.

  Part of me felt truly sorry for him. I understood his despair, how galling it must have been to be so close to the prospect of his sister’s condition improving, only to see it snatched away from him in a blink. Amy had not spoken again, despite Dr Clouston’s best efforts, and with Joel now dead, any hope Nine-Nails might have held – of elucidating the nature of Pansy’s condition, or even the possibility of her recovery – seemed gone.

  ‘Did you go to the asylum?’ I asked. He nodded, but I had to press for more information. ‘Did you find everything in order?’

  ‘Nothing new,’ he said, kicking a few dry stems into the fire. ‘We found nothing. No charms, no onions, no amulets … Joel did say he left protection for her. Ye were there, he did say it!’

  I sighed and spoke as tactfully as possible. ‘Yes, he said that. Nevertheless, he was dying. He might have been delirious.’

  McGray bit his lip. He knew that. I could tell he was more aware of harsh reality than his wayward actions might suggest – and it was tearing him apart.

  ‘If he said he left protection,’ he muttered after a while, ‘it might be that the witches also drove Pansy mad.’

  I frowned. I had contemplated that possibility, but I thought I’d wait for McGray to be a little more recovered before we discussed it. However, there was something I did need to ask: ‘Do you think the witches will come after her?’

  McGray rubbed the back of his neck, visibly tired. ‘Cannae tell. Marigold gave the order to Redfern, and both of them are dead. They could well have snuffed it before giving the order to someone else.’

  He was not convinced though, and neither was I. What burning uncertainty now must haunt him. One more burden added to his weary load.

  ‘I might bring Pansy to the house,’ he said. ‘So that only my most trusted folk look after her. At least for a while.’

  I knew that Dr Clouston would strongly disagree, but that was another issue I did not want to discuss right then.

  ‘Did ye talk to Campbell?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I grunted. ‘What a colossal waste of time.’

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘He did manage to get a report from the Lancashire constabulary. It looks like the legal owner of the witches’ warehouse was Pimblett, and now that he is dead it will go to auction. They searched the place while we were around, but only to verify nobody was there. After that they “locked” it. They waited five bloody days before deciding to inventory the blasted contents! Naturally, when they went back the place was completely empty.’

  ‘The witches still pulling strings?’

  ‘Perhaps. They could as soon have rolled out a red carpet, or hired the hags a bloody freighter to ship their contraband out of the country. And Judge Spotson was found dead, but a few days after we left Lancaster. It was a stroke, apparently. Not at all unusual for someone his age –’

  ‘Yet too convenient.’

  McNair was picking up his shovel and pick. ‘All done, Inspectors.’

  ‘Good job, McNair,’ said Nine-Nails. ‘Ye can go now. Ye look shattered.’

  And he did. The young man had sweated profusely digging up the shrubs; some of their roots had been more than three feet deep.

  ‘Did ye see Lady Glass?’ McGray asked next.

  ‘I did. She was home alone and still quite distressed. She said that Miss Ardglass had gone on a long trip. The girl intends to spend most of her time on the Continent. Bertha will chaperone her.’

  ‘Doesn’t want to spend too much time with her grannie after all she’s done.’

  ‘That is one factor, but Caroline also fears – understandably – that the witches might come after her.’ I shook my head, thinking that Caroline’s life st
ory was becoming eerily similar to her father’s; the curse perpetuating itself. ‘I believe they will. They may wait years; they are a patient lot. But yes, I do not think they will leave Miss Ardglass alone. Or even us.’

  McGray raised a hand. He was too weary to discuss those matters. However, he had one more question.

  ‘Did ye tell Campbell about the prime minister’s son?’

  I chuckled bitterly. ‘Of course I did. I even put in writing every detail I could remember about Lord William Cecil’s meeting with Marigold. I typed it all out and gave Campbell a carbon copy … which he burned in his office hearth right in front of me. He said I should not open – in his very words – a can of royal worms.’

  McGray assented. ‘Typical Campbell. I want the other copy in my files.’

  ‘Why, I am so flattered,’ I mocked. ‘I will have my contribution immortalized in your library of the occult.’

  He turned away, in no state to refute my sarcasm. ‘Just leave the damn thing on my desk.’

  I saw him walk away slowly, dragging his boots, exuding misery but also provoking a spark of anger – which I understood all too well.

  Just as part of me felt his tragedy, deep in the back of my mind I still could not forgive him. He’d led us into the worst dangers in the most reckless, selfish of ways. He had taken his beating, but so had I, because of a matter only vaguely connected to me. Now I was in as delicate a position as him and the Ardglass clan; I’d played a part in a daring strike against the witches’ web, and as Oakley had said, they were anything but forgiving.

  I am not one to kick a beaten man, so I would not make a great fuss about it any time soon, but I was sure my resentment would eventually come to the fore. Sooner or later I would explode against Nine-Nails, and I feared it might not happen at the best moment.

  As his coach drove away I saw a lonely raven hovering above the gardens, so low I could see its fleeting plumage and glittering eyes. In old folklore it was thought terribly unlucky to kill a raven – now I suspected that the superstition might have been deliberately instigated by the witches.

  I walked away, and as I breathed the cleaner air of the road I also rejoiced in my freshly applied cologne and the warmth of thicker clothes. For the past few days I’d appreciated cleanliness, good food, good drink and rest like never before, and I intended to continue to do so in the weeks to come. Once in the cab I lounged back in my seat, already savouring the prospect of a long sleep in a warm bed, Joan’s best roast and a large brandy. I remembered I also had to visit Elgie, who’d been sending me daily messages about his progress at the Edinburgh Lyceum Theatre orchestra. I might even attend one of his upcoming rehearsals. He said they were performing ‘the Scottish Play’ …

  I let myself doze as the blissful concerns of everyday life slowly managed to trickle back into my head. I passed out just as the carriage rode along Arthur’s Seat, the ragged mount all covered in pristine snow. The last thing I saw was a thin, sharp ray of sunlight finding its way through the menacing clouds, as if promising a nice, quiet spring. Even that blasted winter would pass, and we would all live through it.

  What a pleasant thought before falling asleep.

  Author’s Note

  The subject matter of this book comes as no surprise: I lived within walking distance of Pendle Hill for two amazing years, which included the coldest March in half a century.

  A lot has been written about the Lancashire witches (I’d particularly recommend the fantastic book by William Harrison Ainsworth), and I’ve tried to contribute something new. The witches I have described are partly based on the women sentenced during the seventeenth-century trials, but with a sprinkling of Latin-American lore and much of my Chemistry PhD background added in.

  Fire always was going to be a key element. According to my late grandparents, witches appeared on the roads as balls of fire, and came at night to steal children. People said the best protection was to carry any metallic object shaped like a cross – even open scissors!

  As regular fires did not feel supernatural enough, the many flame experiments from my university years proved very handy: copper salts are widely used in fireworks and produce my favourite shade of green. Some seventeenth-century texts also mention witches carrying fir torches with blue flames, which they coloured with a secret combination of saps and oils. Those witches might have been using methanol (also known as wood alcohol), a substance already produced in ancient Egypt for embalming corpses.

  These thoughts evolved into my witches’ ‘visual Morse code’, which in Victorian times would have allowed them to converse across the country faster than anybody else.

  Only well after establishing these communication rules, while looking for names for the witches’ pre-eminent clientele, did I come across the very real stories about Lord William Cecil. He was the second son of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the then prime minister, and led a much quieter life as a vicar. However, he was well known for his eccentricities: many a guest saw him throw copper sulphate powder into his fireplaces in order to turn the flames green, claiming he was simply fond of the colour. I could not believe my eyes when I read that! Furthermore, Lord William’s eldest son, Randle William, would have been conceived not two months after the events in this book take place – Randle and two of his three younger brothers met untimely deaths during the First World War.

  The hummingbird charm, entirely fictional, was very entertaining to create. Hummingbirds are sacred in Aztec mythology, but here the bird would have been used merely as a showy carrier: the very fine plumage could be easily impregnated with hallucinogenic spores (as mentioned by Frey, the possible sources are countless; there are thousands of species of ‘magic’ mushrooms spread throughout the world), which would be released through clothes and inhaled whenever the person moved. The slice of cactus attached to it was peyote, a powerful psychedelic plant native to the north of Mexico and southern Texas. The witches’ underground trade would have originated to procure exotic and powerful ingredients such as these. I also hinted at the hummingbird containing toxic mercury salts (mercuric arsenate, hence the red sparks Frey sees in the fire), which can be inhaled as well as absorbed through the skin. These would account for McGray’s impaired vision and weakness, and would have eventually killed him.

  The Grimorium code was mentioned to me by a Wicca practitioner whose name I’m not allowed to reveal, and although I could not find any reliable references in literature, the idea makes perfect sense. The word grimoire only became associated with magical texts when the witch hunts were at their peak and possessing such knowledge would have been dangerous. In French, Grimorium’s root language, grimoire has also come to mean enigma or riddle.

  The scatological contents of the witch bottle (my apologies) and their use for house protection are described verbatim from a medieval text.

  The explosive bottle comes from childhood reminiscences: around Christmastime, back in the days preceding rigorous health and safety regulations, almost every Mexican child would play with these little gunpowder beads that look like chickpeas; you throw them hard on to the floor and they ignite. Curiously, they are called brujitas (little witches).

  Finally, in Mexican folklore, marigolds (Tagetes erecta) are the flowers of the dead.

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  First published 2016

  Copyright © Oscar de Muriel, 2016

  Cover illustrations by Martin Schmetzer

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-718-17985-4