Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘It was not yours to take, and neither was it his to keep. The Nemorensis is a book of prophecy; it is not for the eyes of mankind, the secrets that it holds are beyond their imaginings.’

  ‘I know it speaks of a comet coming to the earth. I heard Blake talking of it after the sky-quake. It’s here, high above us.’ Agetta pointed up through the fog.

  ‘Did he give the comet a name?’ Tegatus asked anxiously.

  ‘Wormwood … He said it was called Wormwood.’ As she spoke her lips faltered.

  ‘Then we have very little time. Each hour seals our fate. As the sky dragon draws near so we will see a madness taking over the earth and air, and forces will be released that the world has not seen since the beginning of time. I pray that your friend Thaddeus will be a man who can help us.’

  15: Timeo Daemones et Donna Ferentes

  Sarapuk stuffed the Hand of Glory into his coat pocket and then thrust himself on to the floor of the kitchen as Cadmus woke fitfully from his charmed sleep. A loud crashing in the hallway brought him quickly to his senses as doors slammed and lodgers were roused from their reverie. Mister Manpurdi awoke in a pool of blood. Throughout the house the spell was broken.

  Blake smashed his gloved fist against the kitchen door and, seeing it was locked, kicked at the wood. He was watched by a small crowd of tired and bedraggled spectators who had spilled out of the refectory.

  ‘Hold them back, Isaac!’ Blake shouted as he kicked, trying to batter down the door. ‘If any of that menagerie even move, shoot them like the dogs they are.’

  ‘Help us,’ cried Sarapuk in the feeblest voice he could find. ‘She’s gone mad, attacked her own father in his sleep and made off into the night!’ Sarapuk then swooned and moaned, hoping that his performance would not go unnoticed and that the door would be broken down before he had to repeat his act.

  A tall, fat, wallowing man covered in a thick mat of black hair with gigantic hands and long dirty fingernails pushed his way from the refectory into the hall. He quickly eyed the scene, and upon hearing Sarapuk’s dying eulogy ran the three paces across the stone floor, pushing Bonham and Blake out of the way and smashing into the door like a huge ox.

  The door bent in the frame, then sprang back into shape. The man stared at the door, screwing up his eyes and furrowing his brow. He towered over the gathering that waited expectantly for him to strike the door again. He was a giant, orphaned at birth, who now entertained the gentry in Vauxhall Gardens. In his first week of life he was named after the flowers that filled the wicker basket in which he was found and now Campion, the Human Bear, was known for his large size, profuse hair and teeth that he had filed into a row of sharp brown fangs.

  ‘Do it again!’ shouted Blake to Campion.

  ‘I have the …’ whined Manpurdi quietly, fumbling with his bandages.

  ‘By Hermes,’ interrupted Bonham, ‘knock the thing down, man.’

  ‘… key,’ said Manpurdi, in a way that he knew no one was listening.

  Campion growled from the depths of his enormous stomach. His whole frame vibrated as the long moan echoed off the plaster walls. He rushed at the door, jumping the last pace and landing against the wood with a heavy crash. The door shot from its hinges, falling back into the kitchen and crashing against the wooden table.

  Sarapuk lay on the floor, entwined around Cadmus like some large snake about to engulf its prey. He moaned and squawked, writhing in false agony. ‘Look what she has done,’ he cried. ‘She’s gone mad, attacked her father and tried to kill me. She’s eloped, run off with the stranger from the attic.’

  ‘What?’ Cadmus mumbled half to himself. ‘She’s what?’

  ‘Run off! Attacked you and locked us in and run off with the brute from the attic.’ Sarapuk nodded to the gathered crowd. Manpurdi stood in the corner of the room, listening intently and holding the key in his hand.

  ‘Who did she run off with?’ Blake asked as he pressed his way through the crowd and lifted Sarapuk from the floor by the front of his coat. ‘Tell me, man, before I throttle you.’

  ‘Agetta has run off with the man from the attic, Tegatus, a lodger from …’ He paused and looked at Cadmus, hoping that he would help with the word he struggled for.

  ‘The man was from … Italy!’ Cadmus said. ‘Tegatus – pretended to have wings, part of my menagerie. A new acquisition.’

  ‘So, Sarapuk, are you telling me that this Tegatus has run off with Agetta into the night?’ Blake demanded, holding fast to his collar.

  ‘I am, Mister Blake. He’s a thief, completely no good.’

  ‘Did she have a book with her when you saw her?’

  ‘Book?’

  ‘Yes, man, a book. Large, with thick pages, engraved cover.’ Blake let go as Sarapuk slumped to the floor.

  ‘Ah, that book. Yes, she did. She said it was hers to sell,’ Sarapuk lied, hoping to bring felony to Agetta’s door.

  ‘Cadmus Lamian, your daughter is a thief,’ Blake protested over the mutters of the crowd that now filled the kitchen. ‘She has stolen something precious from me and I want it back. It was entrusted to me and has a value beyond what the world could give. I will see you and your daughter hanged if it’s not returned.’

  ‘She has stolen from me!’ Cadmus replied. ‘She tried to murder me and Sarapuk as we slept.’

  ‘I am disappointed that she failed in her task,’ Blake said bluntly. ‘I’ll search London for her and if I find her I have a mind to save her from the gallows and drown her in the Thames.’ Blake’s feelings flashed with anger. The loss of the Nemorensis burnt in his heart, and a boiling desire for vengeance crept through his soul.

  ‘I can’t control her, Mister Blake. She is a woman now, takes after her mother. You can’t hold me responsible for what she has done. Look at me – I am a victim of a ruthless child, an innocent party in the bitter twist of life.’ Cadmus scrunched up his shoulders and held out the empty palms of his hands.

  ‘You can’t even stand by your own child. You’re a feckless halfwit who only thinks of himself,’ Blake snapped in reply.

  ‘Feckless and half-witted I may be, Mister Blake, but she has stolen from me again and again, and others too.’ Cadmus scrabbled in the deep pockets of his frock coat, bringing out a handful of silver coins. ‘Look at this! I found these in her room. Sadly I think they are stolen from you. See, Mister Blake, she even steals your bread.’ Cadmus tipped the coins into Blake’s hand.

  ‘Paying me off, Lamian? Hoping I save you from the gallows with thirty pieces of silver?’

  ‘Just giving you what is yours, Mister Blake. I am an honest man and have been hard done to by my own child.’ Cadmus lowered his head and stared at the floor. ‘If you catch her I will happily testify for you at the Bailey.’

  ‘Then you can take her bread as she rots in Newgate Gaol before the hangman ties her thumbs together and watch as the trap drops.’ Blake turned to walk out of the door.

  ‘What must be, Mister Blake, what must be …’ Cadmus replied slowly. The picture of Agetta hanging limply from Triple Tree haunted his mind.

  Blake and Bonham pushed through the crowd and into the fog-filled street. The lodgers stood in silence, looking at Cadmus. The Great Bear furrowed his brow even deeper as he took the door key from Manpurdi. Sarapuk smiled to himself, his face reflecting the glimmering red embers of the fire.

  ‘Get out, get out!’ shouted Cadmus as he ushered all but Sarapuk from the room. Campion hauled his huge frame through the door, stooping under the lintel and into the hall, and Mister Manpurdi bled his way out of the kitchen. Sarapuk picked up the broken door and propped it across the doorway to shield them from inquisitive ears.

  ‘What have you done, Sarapuk?’ asked Cadmus, his face filled with anger. ‘If Blake catches Agetta she’ll hang, and if the truth is out then you and I will swing with her. I have committed too many wrongs that could surely bring me ruin. I like my neck the length it is, and the thought of Erasmus Duvall getting to strip me of my clothes and sell t
hem for gin leaves me cold.’ Cadmus coughed nervously, his face twitching. He could see the grubby fingers of Duvall, the Newgate hangman, picking off the buttons of his shirt and clipping a lock of his hair to sell to the charm widows who made talismans to ward off the pox. ‘Once you’re dead he nails you through the heart with a bolt of holly to make sure you don’t rise again.’

  ‘You should have done that to Blueskin Danby, then you wouldn’t fear him troubling you again,’ Sarapuk muttered.

  ‘I had nothing to do with his death. He hung himself.’

  ‘Strange how you can hang yourself with a bludgeon wound on the back of your head and your hands tied together,’ Sarapuk replied slowly.

  ‘Rumours, all rumours,’ Cadmus protested.

  ‘Just look upon it as doing society an act of kindness, ridding the world of a nuisance, cutting a carbuncle from the big toe of life.’ Sarapuk dribbled with excitement. ‘He was a soulless man, a thief and a rascal. Who would miss such a creature as that? Sired by the devil and born of a donkey.’

  ‘I won’t have you speak ill of Blueskin. He was a good friend, even though we had our differences.’

  ‘Differences that meant he met with an unfortunate … accident,’ Sarapuk said, smoothing the palms of his hands. He leant closer to Cadmus and spoke to him in a hushed voice. ‘I’ve been thinking, Cadmus. We have been friends for a long time, but our business has now faltered. The angel has flown away and will be hard to find. I have been privy to some information that lathers my thoughts on life and London. I will be leaving soon and moving to the north. The air is better for the spirit.’ He looked around the room as if listening to another voice. ‘It is time for us each to go our own way, my dear friend, but I will always think of you.’

  ‘We had plans,’ Cadmus replied angrily. ‘We had such great plans to build a hospital, to make wealth out of sickness. Can it all change because of what your friends have told you?’

  Sarapuk thought, his face racked with indecision. He held a secret that broke his heart and scarred his mind, which he had sworn he would share with no one. ‘Oh, if only the stones would speak,’ he cried out. ‘If only I could tell you what the future held for you and everyone else who inhabits this dung heap then my heart would be lighter.’ He looked solemnly at Cadmus. ‘London has done you no good, you need a change of air. Leave as soon as you can, I tell you this as a friend. A time is coming when these very stones will speak out agony and death.’

  ‘The laudanum speaks through your veins, Sarapuk. Have you gone mad?’

  ‘If only I had,’ he said, holding his face in his hands. ‘If it were someone else I wouldn’t care, but for you and your daughter, my little Pisces …’

  Then a sudden swirling of dust blew around the kitchen like a windstorm, spiralling and twisting, knocking the furniture out of place and sending the rocking chair spinning across the room. Pewter plates crashed from the side table and half-burnt candles and vinegar pots crashed to the stone slabs.

  Cadmus jumped back in fright as the table shuddered and shook its way towards the door, pushed by unseen hands. Sarapuk leapt out of the way as it shot past him and wedged itself against the door, blocking their escape. Pans torn from hooks on the ceiling rained down upon them and the slop bucket was thrown across the room, blasted like shot from a French cannon.

  ‘What is it, man?’ Sarapuk asked feverishly.

  ‘It’s another sky-quake, the whole world is groaning like it’s strapped in the birthing chair,’ Cadmus replied as a soup ladle flew across the room and hit him in the chest. To his side the knife drawer began to rattle, and then the front of the drawer was violently ripped apart and thrown into the fire, sending bright, exploding red embers scattering across the floor. Sharp, flat blades flew from the felt-lined case, just missing Cadmus and sticking in the wall above his head as he ducked to the floor and cowered behind the washtub.

  ‘It wants to kill me, Sarapuk,’ Cadmus shouted. ‘This is no sky-quake, it’s a creature from hell.’

  Sarapuk hid by the table as Cadmus leapt upon it and tried to pull it away from the door to make his escape. He prised his fingers between the door and the frame and pulled as hard as he could. Slowly the wooden door began to give way and he could see a chink of light streaming into the darkened room from the hall.

  ‘Campion, we’re trapped!’ Cadmus shouted for help as he squeezed his hand into the widening crack. There was a sudden loud snap as the table jumped back, then sped forwards at an unthinkable speed. Cadmus screamed from the depths of his soul. His legs gave way and he hung by one hand, pinned to the wall by the door and frame.

  There was an eerie silence. A cold breeze swirled under the kitchen door and picked up the dust from the stone floor. It moulded particle upon particle, slowly taking the shape of a man. First the outline of his coat, then his feet and finally the blurred face and head. Sarapuk saw the phantasm and pressed himself against the wall. He pulled a small stiletto knife from his pocket and clutched a dried henbane sprig with his other hand. He muttered the oath to the dead over and over again, calling upon the saints to protect him.

  The table juddered away from the door and Cadmus dropped to the floor in a crumpled heap. He lifted his head and stared disbelievingly at the vision before him.

  Sarapuk held out his knife to the ghost and swished the henbane sprig back and forth. ‘Go, creature, back to the world of darkness, leave this place,’ he shouted, hopping nervously from one foot to the other. ‘I command you in the name of Saint Venerious to go!’

  The phantasm sucked all the particles of light from the room as it took form and substance. The spirit stood before them, its face veiled by a dark mist that hung in the air. It shuddered and twitched as it gained form. Finally, the features of its face became clear.

  Cadmus recognised the spectre by the taint of its blue skin and the living tattoo that crept over its flesh. His heart pounded as he waited for the ghost to speak. Cadmus knew that the apparition was Blueskin Danby, and the mere thought of his resurrection chilled him to the bone. He could feel the strength bleeding from each sinew of his body as the creature stared at him through lifeless eyes. It was as if Danby could not yet see him, as if he searched the room but saw it in another time.

  Sarapuk, cowering by the table, broke the silence. ‘It’s not me you want but him,’ he shouted to the phantasm, which now looked eagerly around the room. The serpent swirled over his flesh, parting his dead hair and sliding between his thin lavender lips as it slithered back and forth over his head.

  ‘I can hear you, foul fiend, but see you not,’ Danby said as he peered into the darkness. ‘Your voice is known to me, but from what time I am unsure, and from what place I cannot recall.’

  ‘It’s Sarapuk, Doctor Sarapuk. I was your doctor.’

  ‘Sarapuk … Yes, I remember Sarapuk. Always drunk, never a penny of your own and killed more people than you cured. Arsenic and laudanum with a cabbage cake, a pound of quicksilver to a pint of ale shall take away a winter chill. That was Sarapuk.’

  ‘Yes, and it did take away the chill,’ Sarapuk interrupted.

  ‘And killed the poor woman that drank it. I remember her well, Helen Fury, the Black Lion, Drury Lane, Michaelmas Eve. Watched her choke to death the next day and you were too drunk to help her.’

  ‘It’s not me that you visit, Blueskin, I never meant you any harm,’ Sarapuk whined.

  ‘I watched you anatomise me. I gripped the old life and refused to let go. I had been spelled, caught by a magician in the Stygian world. As in life, so in death I hung between health and damnation.’

  ‘It’s me you want, Blueskin.’ Cadmus got to his feet as he confronted the ghost. ‘I’ll play no games with you. I never hid from you in life so why should I fear you in death?’

  ‘How sweet the sound of your voice. You have been blinded from me by death and now I hear you again.’

  ‘What do you want of me Blueskin? Let us not jest.’

  ‘I bring you a gift. Though my hands
are too feeble to carry it, I can tell you where it lies. You killed me for it but never found it. You see, Cadmus, I suspected what you were doing was a trap so I dug up the gold and hid it in a bookshop. Trapped under the bottom shelf and entombed by a volume of Micrographia, there you’ll find it. I have no use for the gold, there are no pockets in this shroud.’ Blueskin let out a deep mournful sigh.

  ‘You bring gifts and not vengeance … why?’ Cadmus asked.

  ‘Death treats you to many virtues, I cannot hold on to bitterness. There is no place in my heart for human schemes. I would give everything for a year and a day in human form, to have the sun touch my skin and the taste of gin on my lips. That would be paradise regained. The pleasure of the flesh is all I know and it was stolen from me.’ He looked to where Cadmus stood. ‘The years have been good to you, Cadmus. Take my gift and use it, for as I am now so soon you’ll be.’

  From all around came the faint sound of children screaming in the distance, as if tormented in play. Their voices grew nearer. ‘My guardians come for me,’ Blueskin said as he began to turn to dust. ‘See that you heed my words, Cadmus. You wanted the money in life, now have it in my death.’

  Three small dark figures walked through the wooden door as if it did not exist and encircled Danby, joining hands and dancing around him. They had no features, just the small shape of young children lost to death like running shadows. The grey, lithe spirits danced faster and faster, round and round to the beat of a silent drum. Danby began to fade, and the spiral of wind came again to shatter its way through the dark kitchen and rattle the pans across the floor, scraping the table to the centre of the room.

  Sarapuk shook with fear as the creatures joined as one, growing into a ball of pure white light that sparkled and fizzed in the centre of the kitchen. The blinding light etched his face in long, dark shadows and he covered his head with his hands. Cadmus endured the light as long as he could before shielding his eyes from its glare. In an instant it was gone, and the room wallowed in thick blackness, lit only by the fire and a soft chink of candlelight that crept into the room through the door crack.