Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  He opened the cupboard door fully. There was nothing to be found. The book had vanished. ‘Someone has stolen the Nemorensis!’ he shouted, and he ran to the passageway.

  Bonham grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him back into the room. ‘In the name of Hermes, calm down, Sabian.’

  ‘She stole it, I know she did!’ Blake shouted. ‘That thing found her when it came looking for me. It hasn’t eaten her – she ran off with my book. Knowing Lamian and his hell-child, they’ll cut it up and sell it as privy paper.’ Blake steamed in his anger, his face burning red with rage. ‘Give me your gun, Isaac, and I’ll save the hangman a job. She may be a child but for this she will die by the lead or the rope, it’ll be her choice.’

  ‘Agetta Lamian is a child, she knows no better.’

  ‘She is old enough to know that if you steal from your master then it is a capital offence. She has had enough from me over the years and I have turned a blind eye to her hand in my pocket and fleecing my guests, but for the Nemorensis she will pay with her life or be transported to the colonies.’ Blake spat his reply. In the Nemorensis, Bake believed he had found the answer to every question he could think of. It had predicted the comet and grown before his eyes. It was precious, magnificent and powerful. It had snared his imagination and taken hold of his soul.

  ‘Then we must find her and get back the book before the inmates of Newgate sample the softness of its pages,’ Bonham replied as he let go of Blake. ‘If we go now, we can be at the lodging house before she has time to destroy the book. Your creature will have to wait for its anatomisation.’ He took out a large red handkerchief from his pocket and covered the creature’s face. ‘I hate to see the eyes of the dead, they have a habit of staring at you …’

  Blake and Bonham stepped into the hallway. Bonham turned and looked momentarily at the Sekaris, and for a split second he was sure he saw the beast move. He looked again, convinced he had made a mistake, and after closing the door they walked to the scullery staircase.

  14: The Chimera

  The fog that filled Fleet Street was so impenetrable that the link-torches lighting the shops and houses failed to brighten the gloom. Agetta ran quickly through the mist, jumping over the rotting carcass of a slaughtered goat that had been thrown into the gutter outside the butcher’s shop on the corner of Chancery Lane. Its bones had been picked clean by dogs and men who had sucked and gnawed raw flesh in their hunger. The skinned head flopped to one side as if to bite at her heels as she speeded by. She looked down at the creature, expecting it to spring to life and give chase like some night dragon.

  As she kept a tight grip on the Nemorensis, she could feel the book becoming hotter. She stopped and wrapped the cover in her coat, to keep the heat from burning her hand. Then she noticed that the Nemorensis was getting heavier, pulling at her arms to let it go. Agetta sensed the book had the power of another world. Sudden, deep dread sent soul-blistering thoughts flashing through her mind: it was as if the book wanted her to stop running, and to fill each approaching face, shadow and alleyway with such terror as to frighten her to give it up to the gutter.

  The vision of the goat haunted her as she dashed across the cobbles towards the lodging house. It flashed through her mind’s eye time and time again, changing from goat to lion to dragon. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ she shouted as she ran by a crowd of old men gathered on the corner to drink gin. They laughed as she passed by, one man lunging at her dark flowing hair with his flaking hand. Agetta was sure the book was calling to everyone she saw to thwart her escape. The weight of the book grew with each pace and the heat scalded her flesh. One more step! One more step, she thought to herself, as she ran towards the door.

  Agetta jumped from the mud of the street to the freshly scrubbed steps of the lodging house. Suddenly the Nemorensis tripled in weight and pulled her to the floor. She crashed on to the step and crumpled against the wooden door as she spilled into the hallway. ‘Brigand!’ she shouted as she tried to get to her feet and lift the book again. No one came. ‘Father, help me!’ There was no reply. The house made no sound.

  Leaving the book by the fireplace, she ran into the kitchen. Cadmus Lamian was slumped in his chair by the remnants of the fire. The smell of roasting beef filled the room. Agetta ran to him, grabbing his shoulders to shake from him every ounce of sleep.

  ‘Wake up, father. I have something to show you,’ she said urgently.

  Cadmus snorted, grunting a low reply and brushing her hand from his face like a summer fly. Agetta saw the keys to the attic on his belt. She thought for a moment and then bent over and unhooked them, sliding them quickly into her pocket. ‘Will somebody please help me?’ she cried out.

  The door to the kitchen slammed shut. Agetta realised she was not alone. She turned around and there, sitting in the darkness in a rocking chair, was Dagda Sarapuk.

  ‘No one will help you, because no one can help you. They are all charmed. The whole house sleeps through my spell, and the Hand of Glory.’ Sarapuk pointed to a severed wax-covered hand that stood on the mantel over the fire. Each tallowed finger burnt with a faint blue flame. ‘This one is very old, cut from the body of a hanged man. Once I had the pair, both right and left, but I left the right with a dear friend. I am always surprised by its power; it has never let me down. Everyone will sleep until I blow out the light and then they will awake as if nothing has happened.’ Sarapuk rocked back and forth, quietly sniggering to himself.

  ‘So why don’t I fall for your charms?’ Agetta asked as she looked around the room for a way of escape.

  ‘You were not here when the spell was cast. I couldn’t check your room, and your father and I were busy upstairs with his guest.’

  ‘Tegatus! What have you done to him?’ Agetta shouted.

  ‘So you know of the angel? Don’t worry, for the moment he is still alive, but that may not be for long.’ Sarapuk kicked a large black sack by his feet, which appeared soft and light. ‘Feathers. He has been stripped, plucked, trussed like a Christmas turkey, and I shall sell each one, every strand of his golden hair, every lock and quill. They will make potions, mulls and quibdykes. Poultices for the young, sops for the blind, a cure-all that I shall have pleasure in selling.’ Sarapuk smiled at her. ‘Then I will grind his bones for angel dust and search his entrails for the origin of the soul, and if I can’t find it in an angel then what hope for us mortals?’

  ‘You’d kill him for that?’ Agetta asked as she looked for a weapon.

  ‘I would kill him for less. In all my years of robbing graves and dissecting the dead whilst I look for the human soul I have yearned – no, cried out – for such a creature.’ Sarapuk paused, his teeth chattering, and looked at her with a small smile that cracked his long, thin, white face. ‘Perhaps you would consider joining me in my quest? I have always needed an assistant and you are so pleasing to the eye.’

  ‘What would I gain from such a union?’ Agetta asked cautiously.

  ‘I would keep you as a lady and you would never need to work. You could have a servant of your own to order around the house. Doctor and Mrs Sarapuk could be at home to entertain …’ Sarapuk glowed with the idea that ached in his mind. ‘We could live in a new London. I have friends in high places who may soon be even higher.’

  ‘Strung from Tyburn gallows with a rope around their necks, that’s as high as your friends will get. You have mighty ideas for a tuppenny quack.’

  ‘Things will not always remain the same. A star is coming that will give us all a new future. London will be destroyed, my friends told me just last night. They are to build a new golden city, great, powerful and free from rats and ignorant people.’ Sarapuk rubbed his hands together. ‘I am part of their plans. Imagine that, old Doctor Sarapuk sharing a table with the likes of them!’

  ‘Your friends have bad taste. I wouldn’t let you eat from the same bowl as my dog,’ Agetta replied bitterly.

  Sarapuk rubbed his chin. ‘As for that creature, where is it?’

  Agetta thought b
efore she spoke. ‘He’s away. He goes away from time to time but always comes back,’ she replied anxiously, her face giving away her true feelings.

  ‘Well, if that is the case then I have nothing to fear. Your father is charmed, the dog has gone and I have you all to myself … without interruptions.’ Sarapuk got up from the chair and walked towards her.

  With all her strength Agetta suddenly lifted the table and tipped it towards Sarapuk, sending huge billows of white everywhere as the flour sack spilled on to the floor. Sarapuk dived for her across the upturned table, but Agetta hid behind her father and then pushed his chair on to Sarapuk as he tried to chase her across the kitchen. The unconscious body of Cadmus Lamian fell on to Sarapuk as he grovelled on the floor, pinning him with its dead weight to the cold stone. But as Agetta ran for the door, Sarapuk lashed out and grabbed her ankle. He held her with a sturdy grip, so powerfully that she could feel his icy fingers digging deep into the flesh.

  With one hand she managed to grab the bone door-handle and tried with all her strength to pull herself free from his grasp. Sarapuk held firm, gritting his teeth as he tried to free his other arm that was trapped beneath the gasping body of her father. ‘I won’t let you go,’ he panted, tightening his grip. ‘Give up now, girl. Give in to me now!’ Sarapuk pulled himself and her father closer to Agetta across the stone floor.

  As Sarapuk freed his other hand and clamped it around her leg, Agetta was forced to let go of the door handle. The double grip dug into her flesh. She grabbed a small brown bottle from the fire mantel and threw the liquid into his face. Sarapuk screamed as the strong vinegar burnt his eyes. He released Agetta and tried to wipe the liquid from his face as she ran to the door.

  ‘May you burn, Sarapuk, may you burn in hell for this!’ she shouted as she slammed the door shut and stood panting in the hallway. She reached to the top of the door and pulled the thick iron key from the wooden lintel. She locked the door and threw the key across the hall. It jangled as it slid and bounced across the stone floor, landing by a rat hole in the corner by the fire.

  The Nemorensis was in the hallway, sucking the last embers of heat from the fire. In two paces, Agetta crossed the hall and tried to prise the book from the floor. But the heat from the Nemorensis scalded her skin, it was too much to resist. From the other side of the kitchen door she could hear Sarapuk fighting with the sleeping body of her father. She looked into the refectory. Every chair was filled with a sleeping guest, some slumped in their food as if they had fallen into a deep sleep as they chewed on their supper, others curled up on the floor like fireside cats full of mice. Mister Manpurdi sat at the long table – the bandages that covered his stigmata were unravelled and had dropped to the floor in a heap of matted cloth. Agetta watched as a thick red drop of blood spilled from the hole on the back of his hand, dribbled across the skin and ran down his finger.

  In her anger she kicked the Nemorensis and then ran up the stairs. As she opened the bedroom door she could hear her mother snoring loudly – she too was fast asleep, either drunken or charmed. As Agetta turned and faced the stairs that led up to the attic, she was aware of a sudden, sharp drop in temperature that chilled her spine. She looked around for Blueskin Danby. Lying against the wall was a lodger wrapped in his coat, his dirty boots sticking out from underneath. She took the several paces to the stairs and slowly climbed until she stood by the door. She took the key and quickly turned the lock and stepped into the room.

  Tegatus sat in chains, his head shaved, his tunic covered in blood. His hands were held locked together, the blood dripping into his lap. Agetta could see what her father and Sarapuk had done.

  The angel looked up and tried to smile at her. ‘I heard you call for help, but somehow I couldn’t rouse myself to come. I didn’t think you would want to see me like this.’

  ‘I have seen Sarapuk, he told me what he will do with your hair and the feathers from your wings,’ Agetta said quietly.

  ‘He cut off my fingernails, so deep that they bleed. They laughed as they did this to me.’ He paused and looked at Agetta forlornly. ‘I fell from grace, a fallen angel. I am here because I wanted to be. I fell in love with the woman whose life I had been sent to save. I lost myself in her eyes and forgot who I was. What I didn’t realise was that she was lost for ever to a creature that seeks to destroy us all.’ Tegatus rattled the length of chain against the wooden floor. ‘I thought that angels were beyond his power, but even we can be caught in his snare.’

  Agetta spoke quickly. ‘I need you to be strong, Tegatus. I have found a book. I am taking it to my friend at London Bridge. I need you to help me.’

  ‘I can’t even help myself,’ the angel replied. He stopped and listened. ‘Mister Sarapuk is trying to get out of the kitchen, I can hear him smashing against the door.’

  Agetta ignored his reply. ‘I want you to come with me, to my friend Thaddeus, he is a man who will help us both.’ She took the keys from her pocket and offered them to Tegatus. ‘There must be one here that can undo those chains.’ She found a small bronze key covered in tiny chiselled letters in a language she couldn’t understand. Finding the Ormuz glass in her pocket, she looked at the lettering and read the words aloud: ‘The Angels who surrender their glory will be kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for the Day of Judgement.’ She looked at Tegatus. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It is a warning to me – that even if you release me from these mortal chains I will never escape. I will be bonded for ever until the Day of Judgement. I gave up everything and this is my reward.’

  ‘Is there no way out of this for you?’ she asked.

  ‘Only to go back and seek the blessing of exculpation, and I have gone too far for that.’ Tegatus stopped and looked at Agetta. He saw the crystal sparkle in her hand. ‘Where did you get the Ormuz glass? I have only ever seen one before.’

  ‘From Thaddeus,’ she said proudly. ‘He said it was a special gift just for me.’

  ‘Thaddeus is a clever man and someone I would love to meet.’

  ‘He asked me to get the book, and I found it,’ Agetta said. ‘“Bring me the Nemorensis and you will make Thaddeus a happy man.” That’s what he said and that’s what I want to do, make him happy.’

  ‘You like Thaddeus because he’s kind to you?’

  ‘He’s kind, quiet and thoughtful. He said he would make supper, a banquet he called it, and we’d watch the dawn together.’

  Agetta put the key in the lock and turned the hammers, which fell one by one. The manacles dropped away from his wrists – Tegatus was free.

  The angel got to his feet and stretched out his arms. ‘Sarapuk is breaking down the door,’ he said, as if he knew what was happening in the kitchen. ‘If you want to escape from here we had better leave now.’

  ‘Quickly,’ replied Agetta, grabbing him by the hand. ‘You’ll have to borrow my father’s clothes from his room, if you go into the street like that they’ll think you’re from Bedlam and have you back in the madhouse before we get down the street.’

  She had no fear of Blueskin Danby as she ran down the stairs, clutching Tegatus by the hand. It felt as if he was weightless, that the pull of the world had no hold on him.

  They got to her father’s room and Agetta bundled him through the door and waited outside. She had told him to take the best boots he could find, a frock coat and thick winter shirt. Cadmus kept these for special days, for the finer times when he would follow a coffin and celebrate the death of a friend. He loved a funeral with its fine horses and the long carriage with the weeping widow and a grieving hound to lead the way. Funerals were worth getting dressed up for.

  Tegatus changed quickly and came through the door looking every inch an English gentleman in his fine frock coat and ruffle shirt, French boots and wool breeches. Agetta smiled.

  As they entered the hall, Tegatus saw the Nemorensis on the floor by the fire, its pages steaming with the heat. Without hesitation he picked up the book with ease and held it firmly under hi
s arm. ‘It needs to be controlled,’ he said. ‘The Nemorensis can sense your mind and play on your fears. If you let it, the book will take control of you and play tricks with the imagination.’

  ‘It’s just pages in a book, isn’t it?’

  ‘The Nemorensis is the heart of magic, stolen from heaven, and to heaven it must be returned.’ Tegatus looked as if he had been strangely transformed. His emerald eyes shone with a passion that Agetta had not seen before, his steps had a purpose and his voice a new-found strength. ‘I want you to take me to see your friend,’ he said as he walked to the kitchen door. ‘Peace, be still, Mister Sarapuk. If you do not cease banging on the door I will come in there and rip your ears from your head and your tongue from its mouth. I suggest you sit and wait till the house is free from whatever charm you placed it under. Do you understand?’

  Sarapuk stopped banging against the door.

  ‘It’s done,’ Tegatus said, turning to Agetta. ‘To the street, and may the stars shine a blessing on us!’

  Together they left the house and turned towards the Fleet River. The fog was still thick and clung to the houses, blotting out the night sky. Behind them a carriage rattled to a halt outside the lodging house. Agetta and the angel hid in the doorway of a draper’s shop and watched as Blake and Bonham leapt from the carriage and ran through the swirling mist into the house.

  Tegatus looked at Agetta in the half-light. ‘I fear they are looking for you and this book. Did you steal it?’

  Agetta looked away in her guilt. For the first time in her life she felt ashamed. It was as if her lies were written across her face and nothing could be hidden. All that she had kept in darkness was now exposed to the light that shone from the angel’s life.

  ‘Who are they?’ Tegatus asked, sheltering her in his frock coat as they walked quickly towards London Bridge.

  ‘There was a creature tonight at my master’s house in Bloomsbury. It was like a man with a face of oak leaves and a skin like wet earth. It smelt of the forest and its eyes shone like fire. It tried to stop me taking the Nemorensis. They shot it and I ran away and I took the book, I had to.’