Necropolis

by Christopher Nuttall

  A Charmer, she realised, numbly. Wonderful.

  “That was unwise,” the Charmer said, evenly. “There are dangerous currents in these waters, young lady. You would have been very lucky if your body was ever recovered.”

  There was no longer any magic in his voice, but Olivia cringed inwardly anyway. She hated Charmers. Very few people actually liked having such magicians who could influence their thoughts or compel someone to obey, anywhere near them. And some of the Charmers in training at Cavendish Hall loved playing tricks on their fellow students. All magicians seemed to have a sense of playfulness in common, but Charmers were often nasty rather than playful.

  “Now, listen,” he added. Magic ran through his voice, demanding her complete attention. “You will obey all orders I give you. You will remain calm at all times. You will remain in your cabin unless escorted by myself or one of my crew. You will not attempt to jump into the water again or to escape by any other means as long as you are on this vessel.”

  Olivia cursed inwardly as she felt the commands sinking into her mind. Ropes and chains were one thing – she had already escaped one set of ropes – but mental commands were quite another. There was no attempt to be subtle, no attempt to influence her thoughts without her being aware of the influence, yet it hardly mattered. The commands would last for days, perhaps weeks, before she finally managed to break free. And he would presumably renew them every few days. She was trapped, bound by her own mind, far more solidly than she would be by handcuffs or shackles.

  The Charmer leaned down until his dark eyes held hers firmly. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Olivia said. She felt helpless and weak, a feeling she hated ... but the anger was curiously muted, dampened by his magic. He knew that strong emotion would help her to break the spell and had taken steps to prevent her from getting angry. “I understand.”

  “Very good,” the Charmer said. He stood upright and smiled down at her, a glint of amusement in his cold eyes. “Stand.”

  Olivia felt her body obey at once. She tried to glare at him as she rose to her feet, but the numbness seemed to press down on her emotions, making it harder for her to do anything more than stand there like a damnable opium addict. The thought was terrifying; she’d seen men and women venture into the opium dens and slowly fade away into nothingness, hooked on the drug that was slowly destroying their lives. Even if she’d had the money, she liked to think she wouldn’t have walked into a den willingly ...

  But that wasn’t the worst of it, she knew. A Charmer’s influence could be almost as addictive as any drug. At some point, their victims moved from hating the compulsion to loving it and demanding to surrender their minds to the magician controlling them. She swore to herself that she would never let that happen, yet she knew it wouldn’t be easy to resist. Unscrupulous Charmers were among the worst of magicians. Their victims often ended up in Bedlams, unable even to care for themselves. And he would want her to be completely under his control.

  She found her voice. “What do you want from me?”

  The Charmer smiled. “What do you think?”

  Olivia swallowed. She had two things that were largely unique, as far as anyone knew. She was Lady Gwen’s daughter ... and she was a Necromancer. But anyone who wanted to kidnap her purely for the ransom wouldn’t have taken her out of Britain. No, they would have preferred to keep her somewhere she could be traded quickly for whatever ransom they demanded. Lady Gwen was a wealthy woman in her own right. They could have demanded a vast sum of money with the reasonable certainty that they would be paid.

  But if they wanted her because she was a Necromancer ...

  She felt sick as she remembered the final moments of the Battle of London. The shambling hordes of undead monsters advancing towards her, the eerie whispering running through her mind that had grown louder and louder as the undead had grown in strength ... and the moment she’d finally managed to stop their advance. They would have destroyed London, then the entire country if they hadn’t been stopped. She had saved Britain from a doom unleashed by one of her foremost defenders. And even that hadn’t been enough to save her from a death sentence, purely for being what she was. It had taken her adoption by Lady Gwen to convince the government to let her live.

  “You must never use your powers again, unless ordered to do so,” Gwen had said. Olivia hadn’t needed much convincing. Unlike the other forms of magic, even Charm, received wisdom claimed that Necromancy was impossible to use for any decent purpose. “And you must not even tell people what you are.”

  Olivia shuddered. Someone had clearly found out anyway – and kidnapped her.

  “You know,” the Charmer said. “Don’t you?”

  Her words came unwillingly to her lips. “You want me to raise the dead.”

  “Something like that,” the Charmer said. “Follow me.”

  He stood and strode back towards the hatch. Olivia followed him, unwillingly. She tried to struggle against the mental commands, but they were too strong to break. And yet, she knew that if she didn’t struggle, the commands would only sink further and further into her head until she would no longer be able to separate them from her own thoughts. He’d have her completely in his power when she thought she was serving him willingly.

  The cabin looked as unprepossessing as before, but this time she felt herself trapped the moment she stepped back inside. The Charmer nodded to the mattress, then smiled at her mischievously. Olivia glowered at him, then sat down with all the dignity she could muster in her underclothes. She should definitely have worn trousers.

  “You will be fed, of course,” the Charmer said. “You will eat and drink each day. You will not attempt to harm or kill yourself – or anyone else onboard this vessel.”

  He smirked at her expression. She hadn’t considered suicide, at least not as a serious possibility, but he was clearly moving ahead of her. Olivia knew the potential consequences of an outbreak of undead monsters far better than anyone who hadn’t witnessed one such occurrence – and the knowledge she could cause one was terrifying. Suicide might have seemed the only reasonable solution if escape wasn’t a possibility. But he’d already ensured she couldn’t end her own life.

  “Thank you,” she said, sourly.

  The Charmer nodded, then walked over to the door and stepped outside. He paused, then turned to face her. “I suggest you sleep,” he added. “We have quite a long journey ahead of us.”

  It wasn’t a command, but her mind insisted on interpreting it as one. Olivia felt her eyelids suddenly grow heavier. It was all she could do to lie down before her eyes closed and she plunged into darkness ...

  ... And, when she dreamed, she dreamed of the horror she knew was to come.

  Chapter Two

  Gwen could see smoke rising in the distance as the carriage raced towards Willingham Hall, the driver cracking the whip as if the hounds of hell were after them. The message had been urgent, and she knew it needed to be dealt with, but she also knew that Lord Mycroft had deliberately arranged for her to go in hopes of distracting her from her worries about Olivia. Where the hell was she?

  It had been a week since the attack on Cavendish Hall. No one, not even Mycroft’s brother, had managed to trace the kidnappers, which suggested that Olivia had been taken out of the country. The French seemed the most likely suspect – Britain had been on the brink of war with France for the last two weeks – but they wouldn’t say anything, she knew, if they had managed to kidnap her daughter. The last living Necromancer was a weapon, first and foremost. It was why Olivia had been permitted to live.

  The carriage rocked as it passed through the gates and headed up towards the hall. Gwen peered towards the towering building, admiring the strange mixture of styles that had been worked into the hall, from Indian and Chinese influences to good old-fashioned British concepts from the Elizabethan era. It was no fortress, she noted, but it showed off both the wealth and global reach of the Willingham Family. Lord Willingham and his family ha
d made their money through trade and, no matter how the older families might sneer, trade was the backbone of the British Empire. The least they deserved was to have any troubles they might encounter taken seriously by the government.

  She sucked in her breath as she saw the flames burning through the west wing of the giant house, flickering with an unearthly light. They weren’t natural flames – the horde of men carrying buckets of water towards the manor could have put them out by now if they’d been normal – but flames caused by magic. Gwen could feel the heat even from a short distance away, yet the flames didn’t seem to be interested in spreading further. A Blazer with a remarkable level of both power and control had damaged but not destroyed the building.

  “Your Ladyship?” the driver called. “Do you want me to wait here?”

  “Yes, please,” Gwen said, as she reached for her stick. “I’ll need you to take me back to London afterwards.”

  She jammed her top hat, a memento of Master Thomas, on her head, then opened the door and jumped lightly down to the ground, using magic to ensure she landed gently. The men fighting the fire barely even glanced at her, probably without realising that she was a girl, but the assembled womenfolk stared at her in silent disbelief. Gwen fought down the urge to smile in a most inappropriate fashion. In her top hat, male suit and carrying a cane, she defied all of the strictest ideas of what a woman should wear, particularly at her age. It was clear that no one at Willingham Hall had ever even heard of the trouser brigade.

  And to think that I am far from the only woman who wears trousers, she thought, as she looked around to see who was in charge. There was normally at least one intensely practical woman in charge of the female servants, if the Lady of the House wasn’t around or had suffered a fainting fit. She would be old enough to be a mother, old enough to command respect, but not old enough to be a grandmother.

  “Lady Gwen,” a voice said. It was intensely formal, so carefully aristocratic that Gwen just knew the speaker hadn’t been born an aristocrat, or at least not a very high-ranking noblewoman. “We thank you for coming.”

  Gwen turned to see an older woman making her way towards the carriage and sighed, inwardly. Lady Elizabeth Willingham was tall, alarmingly thin, with long dark hair that was slowly starting to go grey. The older woman glanced over Gwen’s appearance and shook her head, so minutely that a man might not have even noticed the slight motion of disapproval. If Gwen had been a normal girl in society, Lady Elizabeth’s disapproval would have been disastrous to her prospects. Instead, it was merely annoying. She just knew they weren’t going to get on.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, calmly. If there was one lesson she’d learned from her mother, it was how to be polite to someone she would much rather stab with a knife. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  “Lady Gwen,” another voice said. Gwen looked past Lady Elizabeth to see a younger woman, only five or six years older than Gwen, staggering towards them. She looked tired and worn – and deeply worried. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Gwen nodded, studying the younger woman. She would be Lady Fanny, if she recalled correctly, the wife of Lord Willingham. Lady Elizabeth would be her mother-in-law. Gwen felt a flicker of sympathy for Lady Fanny, who clearly looked harried. A mother-in-law who expected everything to be absolutely perfect would be an absolute nightmare. God knew Gwen’s own mother had been quite unbearable at times to Gwen’s sister-in-law. And there was little recourse when the men of the household weren’t expected to meddle in the female sphere.

  “It’s all right,” Gwen said, as comfortingly as she could. “Now, tell me what happened and –”

  “It isn’t a suitable story for your ears,” Lady Elizabeth said. “We thank you for coming ...”

  Lady Fanny gave her mother-in-law a look of absolute despair. Gwen felt nothing, but amused disbelief. There was a fire, clearly of magical origin, burning through the manor house, several people might well have been killed or badly hurt ... and Lady Elizabeth was clinging to her preconceptions about what young women should or should not hear! Like so many others Gwen had met, she was perfectly capable of denying reality if it suited her to do so. Even the unavoidable truths of female existence were simply ignored by the older women.

  “I will hear it,” Gwen said, purposely looking past the older woman. “Tell me what happened, please.”

  Lady Fanny looked as if she couldn’t quite believe what Gwen had done. This far from London, Lady Elizabeth’s will would reign supreme. If she wanted to ignore reality, there was no one who could tell her otherwise, particularly with her son out of the country. Indeed, from the notes Lord Mycroft had given her, Lady Elizabeth held some control over the property that wouldn’t relax until her death. Judging by the way she treated her daughter-in-law, Gwen wouldn’t be too surprised if her death came sooner rather than later.

  “I don’t quite know where to begin,” Lady Fanny said. “I was in the sewing room, knitting blankets for the troops, when there were cries of fire.”

  “And then the west wing started to burn,” Lady Elizabeth put in. “They dragged a body out of the flames before they became too intense to handle.”

  Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “A body? Just one body?”

  “Yes,” Lady Elizabeth confirmed. “The Governess.”

  Lady Fanny looked up, meeting Gwen’s eyes for the first time. “My daughter is missing,” she insisted, despite the look she received from Lady Elizabeth. “Where has she gone?”

  “You don’t need to make a fuss,” Lady Elizabeth said, tartly. “Your daughter will return to us, of that I am sure.”

  Gwen felt her temper start to fray. There were more important matters than maintaining the proper appearances and conduct at all times. If Lady Fanny’s daughter was missing, it was hard to blame her for being worried, just as Gwen herself was worried about Olivia. But older women tended to ensure that their children were brought up by governesses rather than doing the hard work of childrearing themselves. They preferred to maintain an emotional distance between themselves and their children, just in case the children died when they were very young.

  “You have given her too much freedom,” Lady Elizabeth continued, blithely. “She has no doubt run out into the forest where she will hide for a few hours, before returning to us.”

  Gwen looked over at Lady Fanny, purposefully ignoring the older woman. “Take me to the Governess,” she ordered. “I need to see the body.”

  “It isn’t a fit sight for a young woman,” Lady Elizabeth said, as Lady Fanny started forward. “I think it would be better if ...”

  “I have seen more bodies in the last year then most soldiers see in their entire lives,” Gwen snapped. She had no idea if that was actually true, but she had seen far too many dead bodies in her short career. Some of them had even reanimated and tried to kill her. “And you will hold your tongue or I will see to it that you are socially blacklisted everywhere in High Society.”

  Lady Elizabeth opened her mouth and shut it again with a loud snap. Gwen was the Royal Sorceress, Master Thomas’s designated heir ... and someone who had the ear of a great many important personages. And she was the person who had earned the eternal gratitude of most of High Society by destroying blackmail material that would otherwise be used against them ...

  “Stay here,” Gwen ordered. No doubt Lady Elizabeth would eventually convince herself that she hadn’t heard what she’d heard, but for the moment she’d stay quiet. Gwen looked over at Lady Fanny and winked. “Take me to the body.”

  She eyed the younger woman carefully as Lady Fanny led her away from the manor, towards a copse of trees where the female servants had gathered. Most of them were young, young enough to be easy to dominate, although a handful were clearly older and tougher. But Lady Fanny looked almost as beaten down as some of the younger servants, despite being a born aristocrat. It was clear that Lady Elizabeth had wasted no time imposing her authority on her new daughter-in-law.

  “You don’t have to put up
with her, you know,” Gwen said, softly. It was strange to realise that she might have ended up in the same boat, if she hadn’t been born with magic. Her marriage would have been arranged for best advantage and she would have been expected to simply accept whatever her father decided. “There are places to go.”

  “Not for me,” Lady Fanny said, so quietly that Gwen could barely hear her. “My family would never take me back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gwen said. The Swing had caused a number of changes in society, but there was still so much injustice and mistreatment at all levels. It was far from unknown for servants to be regularly beaten by their masters, even though it was technically illegal. And Lady Elizabeth could ensure that they never worked again, if they left her. “I’m truly sorry.”

  They stopped in front of a blanket covering a body. Gwen knelt down, ignoring the gasp from Lady Fanny, and drew the blanket back, revealing a woman she vaguely recognised. She was tall, almost skeletally thin, with a tart disapproving face and an expression that suggested she was permanently sucking on a lemon. Her hair was drawn back into a tight bun, so tight that Gwen knew she spent too much time each day pinning it firmly into place. And her right shoulder was missing completely, along with her arm and parts of her throat.

  “A Blazer did this,” Gwen muttered, as she examined the wound. The heat had been sufficient to seal the damage or the woman would have bled to death, although it was clearly immaterial. She doubted anyone could have survived such wounds long enough to reach a Healer, assuming there was one in the area. “Who is this woman?”