The Conquering Dark: Crown

by Clay Griffith Susan Griffith

  Simon put out a cautious hand, his voice even. “Stop, Malcolm. Do you hear me?”

  Malcolm waited for a long minute, gasping for air, tasting blood and smelling charred flesh. He looked back at the figure of Ferghus, who lay helpless in a pool of red. Malcolm’s arms dropped to his sides. He managed to gasp out, “Charlotte,” but his voice didn’t even sound like his own. It sounded older.

  Beyond Simon, Penny was quickly dousing the fire in the room with a canister of Kate’s oily flame retardant. Under the coating of goo, the walls and shelves and floors were charred.

  Then Malcolm caught sight of Charlotte’s burnt body on the floor and it wiped all the rage from him. He pulled away from Simon and ran toward her, dropping to his knees. Kate was already at the girl’s side and slathering a salve on the worst of her injuries. She pushed the container into Malcolm’s hands, which were wet with Ferghus’s blood.

  “Smear this over the burns. All of them.” It was a command and he took Charlotte’s scalded frame onto his lap. He dug his fingers into the cooling gel and began to wipe it on the back of the little girl. When she wasn’t a beast, she was so small.

  Kate left to check on Imogen, who stood helplessly nearby, shaking. Imogen stared at Charlotte with panic etched on her bloodless features. Kate approached her gently. She touched the burnt fabric of Imogen’s tattered dress. “You did all you could. Are you hurt?”

  Imogen shook her head.

  “Let me look.” To Kate’s relief, Imogen didn’t fight her, and she was telling the truth. Her pale skin was only slightly red, as if she had stayed too long out in the sun. Perhaps she had her own remarkable healing ability or she was just plain lucky.

  “She should have let go,” Imogen said, her eyes never leaving Charlotte’s still form. “Why didn’t she let go?”

  Kate shook her head. “She was protecting us. Nothing stops her.”

  Malcolm rubbed salve over Charlotte’s blistered raw cheek. His hands were shaking. They had never done that before. Her burns looked horrific. His breath rasped in and out as he held the panting girl.

  Kate lifted his chin, forcing his face to turn to her. “All right. I’ll take her now. Go and help Simon with Ferghus.”

  Malcolm slowly nodded, easing Charlotte down onto a pillow that Penny brought. He stood over her. He wiped his hands then along the length of his pants, but couldn’t remove the blood or the gel. Finally, he went over to Simon, who was kneeling low over Ferghus. Malcolm focused on the bloody froth bubbling from the Irishman’s lips and immediately started to seethe. “How is he? Dead?”

  Simon looked up. The line of his jaw was set hard. “Not quite, but not far.”

  The Scotsman took Simon’s reaction for anger, and rage burst in him. “I’m glad. You didn’t see what he did to Charlotte and to Imogen. And Barnaby is downstairs, burned to death. Don’t you dare say anything to me about that filth.”

  “Thank God you were here,” was all Simon replied. He stood up and shook his head with an accepting sigh.

  “Yes, well done, Mr. MacFarlane,” said a delicate voice from the doorway.

  Grace North.

  “Put your foot on his throat,” she said with a faint smile, “and I can assure you the Crown will be grateful.”

  Malcolm looked down at the man he had brutalized, and at his own ragged knuckles. He felt no sympathy for the monster, only regret he failed to beat him senseless before harm came to Charlotte and Imogen.

  A sickening realization hit Malcolm hard in the gut. “God. I’m my father. A mindless thug. It didn’t take me long to fall into that role, did it? After years of running, I found him.”

  “Mrs. North, it’s rather dangerous in here.” Simon moved rapidly to Grace and firmly pressured her back out into the hall. “I’d hate for the ceiling to cave in on top of you. Ah, here’s Hogarth. Would you escort Mrs. North back to her carriage, thank you so much. Good day to you, Mrs. North.” Outrage marred her pretty face as Hogarth appeared, but he brooked no argument with nothing more than a polite nod up the hallway. Simon shut the blackened door in her face.

  “Malcolm, you idiot.” Simon turned to the Scotsman with a softening demeanor. “You aren’t becoming your father. You’re becoming a father.” He pointed at the two girls.

  Malcolm saw Kate cradling Charlotte. Imogen stood over them and Penny looked up at Malcolm with a reassuring smile. She nodded as if to say that everything would be fine. Charlotte’s chest rose and fell. Malcolm watched the lass breathe slowly in and out. Her blistered face was relaxed.

  For the first time, Malcolm truly understood what Simon was about. Simon would do anything to protect those he loved. Incredibly, so would Malcolm. These people had crawled their way into his heart and he cared about all of them. Even Simon.

  The pain in Malcolm’s heart changed.

  Chapter 10

  It was the next evening and Kate’s laboratory was in a state of organized chaos. Separate experiments bubbled furiously in different corners of the room. Wulfsyl was brewing on one table near the back. More black treacle and her special elixir vitae were being processed on a bench by the door. She allowed herself small burners because Ferghus was comatose, and even if he was not, they were sure to be more careful to prevent him washing off the flame-retardant gel.

  Imogen sat in a chair nearby, fiddling with the wrist of her sleeve, having given yet another sample of her blood for the never-ending tests. Kate watched her curiously. Normally, Imogen would suffer through the bleeding with impatience, then depart as soon as Kate released her. This evening, she lingered, staring at bottles and vials without real interest, looking into the darkness outside. She yawned and held herself with the stiff posture of someone who was overly tired, but refusing to yield.

  Imogen’s odd behavior might have come from her distress over Charlotte, but the young girl was healing with remarkable facility. The burns still covered much of Charlotte’s body, and she was clearly in pain, but she was already able to talk and move about. Her werewolf physiology was amazing, and Imogen knew that Charlotte would heal with time.

  “You should go to bed, dear.” Kate tried to sound conversational as she labeled tubes of her sister’s blood.

  “I’m not tired.” Imogen stared at the two lanterns on Kate’s table glowing with the eldritch light of brownies. She yawned again.

  “You seem very tired.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Kate then realized the dilemma as she watched her sister’s head droop. Imogen had taken such strides forward since Bedlam that Kate had almost forgotten. “Imogen, you may take one of the lanterns.”

  Imogen straightened and spun. Her nearly featureless face shone in the stark light. She protested, “I’m not afraid of the dark. Perhaps I was once, but not now.”

  Kate nodded. “I know you’re not, dear. But the house is very dangerous. There is a great deal of wreckage. I’d feel better if you had a lantern.”

  The tension in Imogen’s features faded. “Are you sure? Don’t you need them for your work?”

  “One will do nicely. Please, take it.”

  A pale hand lifted the lantern and she went to the door. When she stepped out into the black hallway, the light threw off a bit of comfort around her. She regarded Kate with a look of gratitude that didn’t need explanation.

  “Good night, Imogen.”

  “Good night.” Imogen’s voice was relieved. She shut the door behind her, leaving Kate alone in the laboratory.

  Kate sighed and slipped the blood vials into a rack. She thought of Imogen who was walking the dark house on her own. They should all be so brave. And then she turned to her desk where the current challenge to her own bravery rested.

  Ash’s blood scroll.

  Flasks and a few dusty tomes that held the only references she could find relating to the magic within the spell held down the corners of the ancient parchment. The apparatus before her held what had been a sample of her own blood. It had been transformed by the spell into a s
tate she no longer recognized as blood. It had turned a lighter color and thicker, like honey. It almost mimicked the current state of Imogen’s blood. Kate assumed that Ash used such new blood from her victims to preserve her youth and power. She probably bathed in it and her necromancy would allow her to absorb the vitality from it. This must have been how Ash returned to power after her brush with Ra. However, Kate found that the altered blood quickly turned black, rendering it inert and useless. This was a spell that clearly required precise timing. It also needed a vast amount of fresh blood, meaning murder and exsanguination.

  The dark spell both thrilled and terrified her. It held secrets she was determined to unlock, and not just for Simon’s sake. Hope welled up inside Kate like a hot geyser that couldn’t be capped. She hadn’t told her sister about it. She couldn’t bear Imogen’s disappointment if she failed.

  But she wouldn’t fail! Not with both Simon and Imogen at stake.

  Kate scrubbed at her face to push away the grit in her eyes. She had been at it all day and very deep into the night. Forcing her burning eyes to scrutinize the spell again, she looked for some element she could seize and conform to her personal use. It was a matter of separating the components of the spell into their unique forms and functions. A portion here regarding the blood of the heart. A fragment there describing the drawing of the aether. She scribbled a new base formula. Crossed it out and tried again. If only she could find a way to reduce the amount of blood needed as well as increase the life span of its transformation.

  It was possible there was no way to use the spell to restore magical power without giving up her life. After all she had preached to Simon about the selfishness of sacrifice, that would be ironic to say the least. The stakes were higher though. Was self-sacrifice ever the final recourse? To save the lives of those she loved? To save countless millions?

  Perhaps that was how Ash justified her actions using the blood of innocents to achieve immortality. Ash believed it was her right as an ancient guardian, or whatever the hell she believed she was. This was magic that was tainted by the very act of the user. It was a dark art when used for dark purposes.

  Kate knew she could never use a blood spell in its true form. Not to save Britain, not even to save Simon or Imogen. Perhaps she might have once, she might have been enticed by the intellectual challenge, but that already felt like eons ago. However, this blood spell showed her that the impossible was possible. That was the key to magic. With an exhausted sigh, Kate returned to her books and to what seemed to be a library full of blank walls.

  The next thing Kate knew, it was hours later and the door opened. In surged Penny, wearing a thick leather apron and smelling of soot and smoke. She appeared even more excited than was usual when in the process of inventing.

  “I need you to look at something.”

  “Of course.” Kate leaned back from her papers. She wasn’t even surprised that Penny was still awake too. “What do you have?”

  “You know, I’ve been trying to forge a new key. So I’ve been studying the original hoping to discover its creation mechanism. I found something odd in the key’s makeup. Some strange substance.”

  Kate’s curiosity rose as Penny brought the gold key to Kate’s microscope on the opposite table. The young engineer adjusted the settings on the device and made room for Kate.

  “Here, look. Tell me what this is.”

  Kate pressed her eye to the lens. She gasped. “I can’t believe I missed this.”

  Penny blushed sheepishly. “Well, it’s not really obvious until you chip away a bit of the gold. I had to in order to test the density. I had no idea the core of it was that.”

  Kate retrieved some liquid from a shelf and proceeded to test the substance under the microscope. After several minutes of painstaking work, she proved what she suspected. She sat back in astonishment.

  “Well, what is it?” Penny asked, unable to stand the suspense.

  “If I’m not mistaken, that substance is similar to something ancient magi called a spirit stone. A conglomeration, that when properly treated by an alchemist, absorbs the spirits of the dead.”

  “Eww,” was Penny’s reaction. “That doesn’t sound good. Why is it in our key?”

  Kate looked through the microscope again. “This conglomeration isn’t a true spirit stone. It’s similar but different. This harnesses another mystical substance, namely aether. Do you know what this means? An alchemist was also involved in the forging of the key!” Kate felt closer to her father than ever before. The wonder of it made her reel. “Everything makes sense suddenly. This component is what brought the key back even after Ra’s power drained it. The alchemy in the key continued to work and slowly allowed the metal to be infused with aether again.”

  “Can you make such a thing?”

  “Perhaps.” Kate glanced back at the scroll and her mountain of notes. Possibilities yawned wide before her. The formula began to make more sense. She knew what she needed to do. She had the mechanism right here in her hand. Impulsively she hugged a surprised Penny.

  “So this is a good thing?”

  “It’s a bloody fantastic thing, Penny! The conglomeration is the piece that we’ve been missing. With that, we can bring Simon’s aether back to him.”

  “Are you serious?” Penny gaped.

  “Very!”

  “So we don’t need to use that revolting blood spell then?”

  “Only parts of it. I will adapt the blood spell with my alchemy. The basic transformational principle should combine with the absorption properties of the conglomeration.”

  “I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying, but if it brings Simon’s aether back, I’m excited.”

  “It will.” The confidence in Kate’s voice surprised even her, but she saw it all so clearly.

  There was a thump outside the door to the laboratory. Both Kate and Penny turned.

  “Maybe it’s Simon,” the engineer remarked. “We can tell him the good news.”

  Then something scratched at the door. “Sounds more like Aethelred,” Kate said with a grin, caught up in her elation. “He likes to lie by the grate while I work.” She opened the door to let the wolfhound inside.

  A tall shadow filled the doorway. A blackened cadaver lunged into the room. There was a flash of a knife. Kate grabbed the arm before it struck. Her hands wrapped around dry, leathery flesh that cracked and broke away under her pressure. She stared at the gruesome face, whose teeth were split in a rictus grin. Then she recognized it.

  “Barnaby!”

  Penny didn’t care who it was, but rushed forward to pull the dead man off Kate. Where the living man had been weak, his dead counterpart was immensely strong.

  Kate’s back bent over the table behind her. She forced herself to look up at Barnaby’s charred blank face as the knife hovered over her heart. His eyes were drenched in horror as if he knew what he was doing but couldn’t help himself. “Barnaby! Stop!”

  Penny pulled something from her pocket and swept it open with a twist of her wrist. It was a fan.

  “Really?” Kate grunted as she struggled to shove an elbow in the servant’s face.

  Penny made a quick adjustment on the delicate accouterment and sharpened steel blades poked out. She raised the fan over her head and swept it down along the arm holding the knife. The limb separated from Barnaby’s torso, and Kate let it drop to the floor.

  Kate smashed her free fist into Barnaby’s jaw. Flakes of desiccated flesh came off and his head wrenched to the side. He still would not relinquish his hold. He lurched forward with his deadweight, pressing Kate down so she lay under him. His teeth bared to tear at her neck.

  Kate fumbled across the top of the bench until she snatched up something hard and slammed it into Barnaby’s face. Glass shattered and cut into her hand, but the blow did little to her opponent. The contents of the flask filled the inside of his mouth with black treacle. It dripped onto Kate as well, serving to lock her together with Barnaby in the sticky mess. At
least it covered his jaw, preventing him from closing his teeth around her throat.

  Penny swung with her fan and sliced deep through his neck. The cadaver’s head lolled to the side. Penny struck again, ripping through the remaining tendons. The severed head parted from the body but remained attached to Kate’s hand by the treacle.

  “The white jar on that shelf.” Kate kicked Barnaby’s decapitated torso away. It continued to thrash without direction, slamming into tables and bookcases. It dropped to the hard floor and shook uncontrollably. “Pour it over my hand.”

  Penny did so and soon Barnaby’s head fell to the floor. Kate poured more treacle over the corpse’s limbs, pinning it to the stone floor. It squirmed, but it was rendered harmless.

  “What the hell was that about?” Penny pointed at the charred body.

  “Ash,” Kate snarled, leaning down to stare at Barnaby’s face. “Are you still in there, Ash? What did you think? Kill me and present Simon with a fait accompli and a vat of my blood. You disgusting creature.” It took all her control not to slap Barnaby’s face, but she knew Ash wouldn’t feel it, and it wasn’t right for Barnaby.

  “Simon would never!” Penny said in outrage. “Doesn’t Ash know that?”

  “She thought to force his hand. I’d be dead, and in order for my death to have any meaning, Simon would be compelled to use my blood to regain his powers and defeat Gaios.” Kate regarded the dead eye staring at her boldly. “No doubt you thought he’d come to you to work the spell.”

  “That scheming little bitch!” The engineer growled.

  “You failed, Ash. Are you so afraid of Gaios? You think you can manipulate Simon as easily as you manipulated Pendragon? You’re wrong. You don’t know Simon at all.”

  Barnaby’s lips stretched back into a gaping black grin. Then the muscles abruptly slackened and the expression stilled again in death.

  “Is she gone?” Penny asked.

  “I think so.” Kate pulled a heavy cloth off a table and laid it over the head of the butler. “Poor Barnaby. He didn’t deserve this indignity.”