Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘It belongs to my master, Sabian Blake –’

  ‘It belongs to me!’ Thaddeus shouted back angrily. ‘It’s my book, always has been and always will be. Blake is a thief, he has no right.’ He smashed his hand against the side of the bleached oak desk like a spoilt child quarrelling over a broken toy.

  ‘I can get it back for you, and if it is yours by right then it wouldn’t be stealing,’ Agetta said as she stepped down to the floor. ‘I could try to bring it tonight.’ She had a sudden dark thought of Inigo Alley and the creature that had taken hold of her.

  ‘Would you do that for me? For Thaddeus?’ he said softly as he turned towards her.

  ‘I had to tell you, Mister Thaddeus. It has been a secret that I couldn’t contain any longer. So much has changed,’ she said.

  ‘A secret, and one that has brought such joy to your good friend. The Nemorensis is a special book and one too good for Doctor Sabian Blake. If you could get it back for me then you would be greatly rewarded.’

  ‘I’ll do it for our friendship and nothing else.’ Agetta started to step backwards towards the door, constantly looking around, thinking she was being watched. ‘If I can be back tonight I will. Leave the door unlocked and I will try to bring the book.’

  ‘And I will prepare supper. A banquet that you have never seen before. We will celebrate a golden dawn,’ Thaddeus said as he walked with her to the door. ‘This is a special day and you have made Thaddeus a happy man.’

  She stopped by the door and looked at him. ‘Do you believe the dead can come back and get you?’ she asked, her brow deeply furrowed.

  ‘I only fear the living,’ he replied. ‘The dead are dead. I have nothing to do with them or they with me.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’ she pressed him further.

  ‘I have seen many things, some very strange, but ghosts are stories to frighten children. Remember this, the mind can play tricks and the eyes will often join in the foolery. It would take someone to come back from the dead to make me believe.’

  Agetta turned and pulled on the door handle. The bell jangled and the morning air rushed in from London Bridge. She was confused, about to betray and break a promise, and yet it all felt so good.

  Agetta checked the bridge, and the crowd that was still huddled at the door of the coffee shop. There was no sign of the stranger in black, only a large, dead dog-rat with broken teeth, lying on its back in the long gutter that ran the length of the bridge. She stepped outside and waved to Thaddeus as he closed the door.

  He watched through the thick crinkled glass as she walked out of sight towards the city. A blind water-carrier with a small wooden barrel strapped to his back stumbled across the bridge behind her. A fat donkey that picked its way through the muck of the street led him on his way. Thaddeus checked he was alone and then turned the key in the shop door and pulled the shutter over the glass.

  ‘I think that should do it,’ he said proudly as he turned and walked to the cellar door. He descended the long flight of thick wooden stairs that creaked and moaned under his weight. The stairs took him deep into the bridge foot and further into the darkness. All around was the swirling sound of the tide as it beat against the thick stone pillars that held up the shops and houses clinging to the bridge high above the water.

  Thaddeus took the lamp from its stand and held it above his head. The soft, warm glow was consumed by the deep black chasm that opened up before him, the steps descending deeper and deeper. Finally, he came to a large wooden door studded with the heads of a hundred nails. On the outside hung the skull of a cat, tied to the door with a pink ribbon stolen from a child’s bonnet.

  He pushed against the door and it slid open, disappearing into the wall. Beyond the darkness and the shadows was a large stone-clad room. Green algae spewed from each crack in the wall. The ceiling dripped with the brown water of the Thames that trickled in long stream fingers across the floor.

  Thaddeus closed the door behind him and slid the three bolts into their keepers. All that was in the room was a large wooden chair, a tall brass candlestick and a thick iron ring pinned into the central stone and strong enough to hold a thousand horses. He slumped into the chair and looked around the room, smiling to himself. ‘Show yourself!’ he shouted as he brushed his hair with his fingers. ‘I haven’t got all day and we need to talk.’ There was no reply, just the rushing of water high above his head. ‘Do you always want to make me say those stupid words?’ he said loudly as he stamped his feet against the cold stone. ‘Hoc est corpus meum!’ he shouted, the words echoing from the damp walls. ‘Isn’t that enough to make you appear to me, you thane of wickedness?’

  In the corner of the room a blister of blue mist appeared on the stone floor. Thaddeus could make out the shape of a long white shoulder blade and three bloodstained ribs that appeared to float in mid air. ‘Hoc est corpus meum!’ he shouted again. ‘Don’t keep me waiting, I want to speak to you. Quickly!’ He stamped his feet like a spoilt brat.

  The spirit began to take form and substance as arms attached themselves to the trunk of a large muscular body covered in blue skin. The creature stooped as it was drawn together from the darkness and turned towards Thaddeus.

  ‘At last,’ he said, as the phantasm was complete. ‘I have work for you. There is a young girl. She has the Ormuz glass in her pocket so she will be visible to you. Follow her and make mischief for anyone who tries to stop her from bringing the Nemorensis to me. I need her here tonight so be careful that she is not caught. Do you understand, Blueskin?’

  Blueskin Danby looked back through his black, empty eye sockets. The snake swirled over his face and flicked through his mouth and out of his nostrils.

  ‘It will be a pleasure, Mister Thaddeus. And then can I kill her?’ he asked in his gruff, mournful voice.

  ‘Not yet, she is still of great use to me.’ He paused as he thought. ‘I take it you are the ghost she was asking me about?’

  ‘I had to see her, to be in that house again …’ He gasped as the snake slithered in and out of his face. ‘It was the last place I saw as a man, before …’ He paused, his skin darkening in colour with his anger. ‘Now I am cursed to walk this world as a spectre and Cadmus Lamian savours life to the full. One thing I know, she will never stare into the eyes of her hound again. It squealed like a puppy for its mother.’

  ‘And you are tied to me for ever by three teeth and a piece of your severed finger,’ Thaddeus replied. He took the velvet bag from his waistcoat pocket and jangled the bony contents before Danby’s ghost.

  ‘So when will you set me free?’ Danby said. ‘I have served you well for a year and a day and done your bidding in the afterlife.’

  ‘Spells are not meant to be broken, Mister Danby, and I promised you a body so you could live out the life the hanging cut short.’ Thaddeus folded the bone bag and put it neatly back into his pocket. ‘Wouldn’t it be droll to give you the body of Cadmus Lamian or Blake? You could choose what life you would want. The sweat of a London lodging house or the fine gentility of Bloomsbury Square. You could strut as a dandy with lip-paint and the taste of chocolate to coat your tongue. You could even keep the pet snake …’

  12: Widdershins

  The large brass chandelier glistened with the light from seventy candles that warmed the hallway of 6 Bloomsbury Square. Mrs Malakin lit the final wick before slowly waddling down the ladder like an over-fed ape and dipping the flaming taper in the fire bucket. In the morning room Blake paced up and down, biting his nails, while Isaac Bonham sat in the large armchair with his face in his hands.

  ‘It could be the end of me,’ Blake said as he stopped momentarily to check the curtain and glare out of the window to see if he was being watched. ‘I have no way of knowing what is the truth any more. As of last night my life is in the hands of someone who is quite mad, and if what I saw this morning is true then all my science is worth nothing, it does not answer the questions that I thought had already been answered.’ He banged his fist o
n the wall as he strutted around the room. ‘I am in a trap, Bonham. I am a fly caught in a web and the spider is about to suck my blood dry … And the trouble is Bonham, I don’t mind. She is so dazzling that I don’t care what happens to me. I could even agree with what they have planned, if only to sit at her feet and look into her eyes.’

  ‘You’re bewitched, man. Can’t you see that she has you in some kind of spell?’ Bonham asked.

  ‘I don’t care, Isaac. Whatever happened in that room has changed the way I feel about life. I have cared for all the wrong things,’ he said, looking at the eye-shaped wound in his hand. ‘For years I searched the Cabala for the truth, an answer for the problems of the world, a chance to do some good. I neglected one thing – me! Now I want to live for myself.’ Blake held out his hand for Bonham to see. ‘Look, man. This is what Lady Flamberg left me with. Shot me through like fire racing through every muscle. I feel more alive than I have ever felt before and the memory of her face fills my mind.’

  ‘A scald, a trick, a hidden electrometer to jolt some sense into you,’ Bonham said, quickly slipping his own hand into his coat pocket. ‘Hezrin Flamberg is a strange woman at the best of times, but a witch?’ Bonham stopped and looked at the open door. ‘This house has ears,’ he said quietly, ‘and Mrs Malakin is known for her slack jaw.’ He rubbed the palm of his hand against the thick cotton sleeve of his jacket pocket as the seeds of jealousy began to grow.

  ‘So what did happen last night that has changed your life?’ Bonham asked, almost choking on the thought of Blake sharing a precious moment with Lady Flamberg.

  ‘That’s the point. I don’t know.’ Blake stopped pacing the room and stood by the fire. ‘I can’t remember a thing. All I know is that I was engulfed in a ball of pure white light that shone through me so I could see the bones in my hands, then all was complete blackness. I woke up in a grave with a dead dog and …’ He stared at his palm. ‘That man, the one who has been following me. He found me, lifted me from the grave, and that’s not all,’ Blake said excitedly. ‘I saw him bring a man back to life, a dandy, shot dead in a duel by a vulgar fellow from the north. Back to life – blood, sweat and tears.’

  ‘Are you sure he was dead?’

  ‘As dead as the dog that I shared the grave with. And he was brought back to life, as alive as you are – a magic, the power of which I have never seen before. That’s not all.’ Blake gently closed the large oak door. ‘The man who had been following me gave his name as Abram Rickards, and he implied there was something in this house that I should be afraid of.’

  ‘You’ve lived here since it was built and know every stone, the man’s a fool.’

  ‘He may be many things but a fool is not one of them. I am beginning to think the man is right. He is coming back in the morning to talk again, he says he can answer a question that has been burning in my heart.’

  ‘We all have questions. He is a jester who plays with your vivid imagination. He is coming tomorrow to steal all your silver and then vanish into the night. Such a man is not to be trusted.’

  ‘I trusted Lord Flamberg, but he is hell-bent on creating a new Jerusalem, a London rid of every vagrant, buttock and poor man. From what he’s said I am sure that his friends were the cause of the Great Fire.’ He paused and looked at Bonham. ‘I don’t just think it was the rats they wanted to kill. The comet will do his work for him – he wants the people to die and for London to be destroyed. And then he and his friends can do what they like.’

  ‘Surely you realised all that before,’ Bonham said wearily. ‘This city is controlled by Flamberg and his friends. You don’t believe it’s the King and Parliament who run our country? Our lives are in the hands of Flamberg, and the King dances to his tune, the madman isn’t even invited to their gatherings.’

  ‘I had heard such a rumour, but I thought it was the talk of the coffee shop,’ Blake replied.

  ‘Coffee shop it may be, but the truth is that they have our daily lives in their hands, from the price of corn to what we read in the London Chronicle. They have more power than all your magical science. Flamberg, that fat fiend, is the real king and Hezrin his queen.’

  Bonham stood up from the chair and crossed the room and peered through the chink in the curtains. He looked around the square. ‘Well, you are not being watched today,’ he said, turning to Blake. ‘Not yet.’

  *

  Five stone pillars marked the tip of each point of the star that had been carved out of the dry stone floor of the chamber. The vaulted roof was studded with tiny points of light, and at the highest point of the stone cavern a ball of oiled cloth burnt in a metal brazier suspended on a thick gold chain, sending flickering shadows across the high ceiling.

  Far below, four masked figures, each with the face of a different creature, sat at the points of the star, with one empty chair at the southern point. Joining each point was a thick gold circle, at the centre of which was a tall clay figure of a creature with webbed hands that clutched its side and a face made of layered oak leaves.

  ‘We cannot wait for him any longer,’ the man in the fox mask said as he pulled the hood of his cloak from covering his head. ‘The moon is rising and what we have to do shall be done tonight.’

  ‘We are only four points of the star,’ the soft voice of the tiger mask replied, shuffling uncomfortably in the chair. ‘Do we have the power to work such magic tonight?’

  ‘There is only one way to find out,’ wheezed the old voice of the stoat’s head. ‘If we cast the charm and it works then we have bespelled the creature – we shall see it with our own eyes, here and now.’

  ‘Then let us begin.’ The owl head spoke in harsh tones.

  Fox-mask slowly got up from his chair and walked to the clay figure. In his hand he clutched a small silver tin with a pearl lid. As he walked he twisted the lid, swirled the cloak over his shoulder and put the lid in his coat pocket. He picked out several pieces of human fingernails and carefully embedded them into the fingers of the clay figure. ‘With his bone he gives you life,’ he said, stepping to the side of the creature and placing his hand on its cold, damp shoulder.

  Stoat-mask got up from his seat and stepped towards the creature at the same time as the owl and the tiger. They encircled it, walking round and round against the direction of the sun, reaching out and touching its head and face with each passing.

  The stoat reached into a small leather bag that he carried around his neck and brought out two gold coins. He stopped and faced the creature and placed one coin in each of its eye sockets. ‘Guilt money, stolen from his pocket. Conjured by alchemists and now the element that will give you sight,’ the stoat said, his hand trembling.

  Now tiger-mask stopped in her turn. She took off her cloak and swung it around her head, covering herself and the creature in a thick shroud of velvet. It was as if she did not want to be seen by the others, that her gift to the creature had to be a secret even from them.

  ‘I give you life, my breath shall be your breath, my blood shall be your blood. See for me, love me with all your heart, do always what I say …’ She placed her mouth over the oak lips of the creature and gave a soft kiss as she breathed into it. ‘Sekaris, creature of the earth, listen to me.’ She slapped her hands against the side of its face. The cloak slipped quickly to the floor. Her mask was tainted in green mud, her lips smudged with paint. ‘My blood shall be your blood!’ With that she slipped a small silver knife from her pocket and cut the tip of her finger. Blood splattered the floor and spurted in pulses from the wound on to the creature. ‘You shall have life, Sekaris, and walk the dreams of humankind and inhabit the dark places of the mind.’ And she chanted:

  ‘Mud, blood and bone.

  Breath of the fallen one to bring life to stone,

  Chanting the name under a waxing moon,

  Sekaris, Sekaris, do what’s to be done …’

  As one, they all stepped away from the creature and sat at the points of the star and waited. High above them the fireball spun
on its golden chain, swirling the sooty light around the chamber. From all around came the call of jackdaws that pitched and fell through the air swirling and choking the light with their blackness. In the centre of the circle the Sekaris didn’t move.

  Fox-mask looked at the points to the star. ‘The creature is dead, we need the serpent to be with us in this magic,’ he said.

  ‘Wait,’ replied tiger-mask. ‘Wait for him to breathe, listen to the blackbirds, hear them calling for his soul to come to him.’ From high above them jackdaws swooped around the creature as if they brought with them a silver thread that would bring life to the statue of mud.

  ‘Look!’ cried owl-mask. ‘It moves!’

  In the faint light of the chamber the arm of the creature began slowly to move, each finger of its webbed hand taking on life with every passing second. A silver glow covered the creature like a thick sea mist growing from its feet and rising up over its body stiffening the mud skin and turning it to hard, green flesh. The chiselled oak leaves that covered its face changed from clay to a vibrant mask of living foliage with two golden eyes staring into the darkness that surrounded the circle. Ruby lips glistened with fresh dew as the Sekaris sniffed at the atmosphere and slowly opened its mouth to take in a long deep breath of the smoked-filled air.

  ‘Sekaris,’ said tiger-mask in her gentle voice, ‘listen to me. I named you, brought you forth as my own child. It was my hands that formed your body, my breath that gave you life. Listen to my call. Go from this place and do my bidding, destroy the one whose nails you now carry. Let the night be your garment, go and find him and wait until the perfect time. Let no one stop you.’

  The Sekaris shuddered with the new feelings of his living flesh. He twitched his shoulders and stretched his back as he bent forward and ran his rough hands over his body. He felt his face and rustled the leaves that covered his head with his thin fingers. A smile came to his dewy lips that glistened in the light of the fireball.