Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘Bonham, is that you?’

  ‘No,’ replied a dark voice. ‘It is the guardian of your blood.’

  18: Rumskin Ashmodai

  In the deep darkness where nothing could be seen, Tegatus shook himself like a large broody bird. There was no sound to be heard but the low rumble of the Thames as it roared through the narrowing of the stone arches.

  Agetta shuffled on the low stone seat that ran the length of the wall in the priest-hole as she listened for any sound from the bookshop. Strange thoughts invaded her senses, and a deep regret for allowing the angel to escape and sharing her journey with him. She felt as if she had been charmed, that some magic had taken control of her mind and made her help him. It was as if beneath the angelic smiles was the working of some hideous demon.

  In the blackness she thought of killing him, of finding some weapon with which to strike him dead. But even that brought a quandary of new visions: was it possible to kill an angel, and if so, by what means? Was there a special way? Did she have to use a silver knife or stitch his eyelids shut with golden thread? She edged further away from him. Did she have to know some magic word that would aid his death? Were angels just humans with wings?

  Agetta tried to picture his face. In the short time she had huddled in the priest-hole the darkness had robbed her memory. She tried to think of the first time she saw him. There had been something so powerful in his face, a hidden light that shone from his eyes, something so attractive that it had taken her breath. Now her mind had been changed, and she hated the day she first saw him.

  ‘How does the book speak to people?’ she whispered into the darkness, not sure if Tegatus was still there to hear her.

  ‘It allows you the freedom to think what you really want. It can take a harmless thought and magnify it so that it becomes the shout of a dying man. A word of hatred is transformed into a litany of spite and malice. It allows you to be fully human.’

  ‘So why do they all want it so badly?’ she asked as quietly as she could. The darkness made her feel she was speaking to herself, or to some god who could actually reply in a way she could understand.

  ‘They want the Nemorensis because it tells them secrets. That is the greatest human failing: wanting to always know that which is hidden. It was written by someone who has more power than she should.’

  ‘What of the boy, will he always be a ghost?’

  ‘Questions, you ask many questions of someone you harbour so much hatred for.’ There was a long silence as Tegatus allowed the words to permeate the barren soil of her mind. ‘I can feel what is going through your mind. Angels are like fish, we can sense the vibrations that come through the air. You speak far louder with your soul than you do with your mouth. Your seething will tell every spirit in the city that you are here.’

  ‘You changed my life,’ she snapped in reply. ‘If you had never been here then I would still be with my father and wouldn’t have stolen the book.’

  ‘You forget Yerzinia, Blake and everyone else who has influenced your actions. You are not so innocent, you knew what you were doing.’

  ‘So how come an angel can end up with his wings clipped and caught in a human menagerie?’

  ‘Because I fell from grace. That I cannot deny. I was a fool who allowed the way I felt to take over my mind and drag me away from that which was perfection. Love is a powerful thing and to be in love with the unlovable is the worst thing of all.’

  ‘Could we ask the book what will happen to us?’

  ‘It would lie to you, because it was written by the greatest liar of them all. The father of all lies scrawled on every page and has led the world a dance ever since.’ Tegatus pressed his hands against the stone wall. ‘You see, child, your kind is obsessed by secret knowledge because they think it brings the power to influence their lives. Give a man a secret, write it in some ancient language and bind it in an old book. Then tell him that it is from another world and if used in the right way will bring him wealth and power, and you have the Nemorensis. It is a book that loves to be loved, a book that thinks it’s a god. That’s why so many have died to find and keep it. With every turn of the page it demands a sacrifice, for every word read it demands payment and its wages are paid in death. Touch it and it will burn your hand, read it and it will burn your mind, and once read it will have you in its grip.’

  ‘Then what of Blake?’ Agetta asked, concerned for her old master.

  ‘Done for. Poisoned through the eyes and a man with a burning soul.’

  ‘Thaddeus said it was once his,’ she replied.

  ‘It is all he can think of. It has become his passion, with every waking moment it will cry out to him like the voice of a lost child. He would give everything he had and everyone he knew to have that one book.’ c stopped speaking and listened. ‘He would even sacrifice you.’

  Before she could speak he quickly put his hand over her mouth. From the bookshop came the clear, crisp sound of the Diakka scratching at the floor by the fireplace.

  ‘Dead rat,’ said a loud voice. ‘Come on, my beauty, there is no breakfast here.’ The words filled the priest-hole and echoed up the chimney. ‘No one here for you,’ the man said loudly as he pulled the beast away from the fireplace.

  The sound of the slamming door echoed through the shop, then all was quiet. Tegatus pulled at the back of the fireplace. It opened in once piece, flooding the room in the warm light of the holly fire.

  The spirit boy suddenly appeared by his side and smiled at him. ‘They have gone,’ he said. ‘We are alone.’

  Agetta heard the faint trembling of his voice and in the swirling smoke had a momentary glimpse of his face before he faded away. ‘Is it safe to leave?’ she asked, her face bathed in the orange glow of the fire. Tegatus listened intently to the sounds outside.

  ‘I’m not sure, there is something not quite right … but I know not what it is.’

  ‘They’ve gone, all gone, not here,’ the boy said, as if demanding Tegatus to follow him.

  Agetta heard him clearly and with each word he grew brighter, as if the passion of his anger made him visible. ‘We have to go with him,’ she said, pulling on the angel’s sleeve. ‘I want to get out of here to find Thaddeus, we have to find him.’

  Agetta pushed by Tegatus and squeezed herself through the narrow gap and into the large fireplace. The stones burnt red-hot against her back and the heat of the fire quickly dried her face to parchment. She stumbled into the room, followed by the boy, who walked through the flames as if they were not there.

  ‘I don’t want to come out,’ Tegatus said from inside the priest-hole. ‘You go if you want to but I will stay here.’

  ‘You have to come now,’ the boy said eagerly.

  ‘Let him stay if he wants to,’ said the man as the cellar door was pushed open by the Diakka. ‘I can always get my little friend to go in and get him. Angel meat is far more succulent than gnawing on the bones of young children.’

  ‘Tegatus!’ Agetta screamed as the Diakka crawled towards her, rasping its long claws into the floor. The man let go of the creature and it scurried to Agetta and with its monkey hands took hold of her by the collar, pulling her towards its face. The Diakka breathed on her with its warm stench-breath as it examined her through one of its murky green eyes. It sniffed at her skin through its fat squat nose, then slowly and carefully licked the beads of sweat from her face with its long blue tongue. Its face crinkled in a crooked smile as it turned its head to look at the master who held tightly to its long leather lead.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said in a tired voice as he brushed the dust from his frock coat and with one hand straightened the mask that covered his face. The creature sighed as it sniffed Agetta again, burying its face in her hair. The man pulled on the lead. ‘Enough, Rumskin. She is not for you, I have instructions to take her to see the Temple Master, maybe then you can take her bones.’ He looked at the fireplace. ‘The boy tells me there is someone else in the priest-hole, an angel if I remember rightly.’
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br />   ‘The spirit told you?’ Agetta asked.

  ‘He had to, couldn’t resist the temptation of knowing his name. As soon as we came into the bookshop he was waiting to tell us. We have Thaddeus and we also have his gathering of ghosts. My little bloodhound is good at catching ghosts.’ He laughed.

  ‘So why should he give us away to you so quickly? His name can’t be that important.’

  ‘My dear child, it is the only thing of value he has. With his name are all his memories of his true life. Now he stands twixt life and death with nowhere to go. His name was stripped from him when he was first enticed. With his name he can be released from this half-life and find whatever awaits him in the next.’

  ‘You hold him in death without a name?’ she asked.

  ‘Not I, but he who caught him at the point of death. All that is necessary is to charm him as the soul leaves the body or have some piece of bone or hair, and with the right words he can be kept for ever.’

  Agetta looked away from the Diakka as it continued to press its cold, clammy face against hers. She searched the room for any sign of the poltergeist that had betrayed them.

  ‘Rumskin likes you,’ the man said as he pulled back on the lead. ‘All we need is a priest and we could marry the pair of you.’

  ‘My father said that anyone who married me would have to be paid well,’ Agetta said as she tried to pull away from the beast.

  ‘Oh, he is paid well, he eats all he can and who he can. He is a creature of great appetites, some of which food will never fulfil.’ The man looked again at the fireplace. ‘Angel!’ he shouted. ‘Come from your tomb or you will rest there for eternity.’

  ‘Can you kill angels?’ Agetta asked.

  ‘They can be transformed, turned from glory into …’ He paused and looked at the Diakka. ‘Well, just look at Rumskin. He wasn’t always this beautiful.’ Rumskin shuddered and shook his wet fur. The creature held Agetta firmly in its grip. ‘The trouble with angels is that they soon begin to love themselves. Take them from heaven and the prying eyes of their master and like the rest of us they discover they too are not immune from desire.’ The man paused and looked at the Diakka. ‘Rumskin was once such a creature, as fine as any, but he was overtaken by his passions and transformed into my beautiful Diakka.’

  Rumskin jumped on to his hind legs and let out a ferocious scream that shook the building. He threw Agetta to the floor and twisted and pulled at the leash as he bared his white fangs, spitting drops of deep red blood across the room. The man pulled a wand of yew wood from the top of his boot and hit the beast across its back. Each beat sparked blue lightning across the room, making the Diakka twitch and writhe in pain. Then it settled to the floor, growling deeply like the rumbling purr of a large cat.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted the man. ‘We have work to do and a winkle to pick from its shell.’ He looked towards the fireplace. ‘Come out, little cherub,’ he mocked.

  Tegatus stepped from the priest-hole and into the bookshop. His face was sullen and drawn, his eyes filled with sadness. Agetta noticed how uncomfortable he looked in her father’s clothes. The funeral coat clung to him like a sod of wet earth.

  ‘An angel – how beautiful!’ the man said as the Diakka nervously jumped up and down like an anxious dog. ‘Will you do one thing for me?’ he asked. ‘Show me your wings.’

  Tegatus looked at Agetta. She could see the grief in his face as he screwed up his eyes and looked to the ceiling. ‘He has no wings,’ she said. ‘They were clipped so he couldn’t fly. My father wanted him for his menagerie so he took every feather from him.’

  ‘Your father will be a rich man. Angel feathers are nearly as rare as angel teeth, and how I would love to see Rumskin with a necklace of freshly pulled angel teeth.’ The Diakka growled at Tegatus, pulling on the leash. ‘I think he wants you to come with us. We have a carriage outside and there are people waiting to meet you.’

  Suddenly the boy stepped from out of the oak panel of a bookshelf, and for the first time his form was clearly visible in the light of the fire and the growing dawn that crept in through the thick glass of the window.

  ‘What of me?’ the child asked. ‘You promised me my name.’

  ‘I lied,’ the man replied coldly as he smirked at the boy. ‘You’ll be here for several more centuries and can haunt all those who are still to come. Play your games, child, but don’t get in our way.’

  The Diakka swiped at the boy with its arm, hitting his ghostly body as if it were completely solid and filled with substance. The boy spun across the floor, sliding through several bookshelves and vanishing from view. Rumskin looked gleefully at his master and grunted.

  ‘Now we leave,’ the man said. ‘I don’t think you will give me any trouble, but if you do I will allow Rumskin to chew on your bones and spit out the fat, understand?’

  He nodded, as if to tell them to walk to the door. Tegatus held out his hand towards Agetta. She looked at him and then to the floor as she turned and followed the man. The Diakka snapped at the angel as he walked by, then scurried behind him as they walked through the aisles to the front of the shop.

  Through the half-open shop door, Agetta could see the black carriage that waited for them, and could hear the stamping of the horses’ hooves as they scratched on the cobbles of the bridge. The thought of escape invaded her mind as Rumskin pulled at her coat and sniffed the air. Tegatus walked slowly behind her like a solitary mourner at a funeral, crestfallen and fatigued. In the front of the procession the man walked boldly on, the long leash draped casually over his shoulder.

  ‘Will my captor tell me what he is called, or is ignorance one of his virtues?’ Tegatus asked.

  The man stopped and turned and pulled the yew wand from his boot and gently tapped the side of the angel’s face. ‘My name should be of no consequence to you, but you may call me … Komos. Not my birth name, but good enough for an angel.’

  ‘A man with such a festive name and a raven-mask to cover his lies. Strange business, catching children and mastering a Diakka. You are obviously a man of other worlds.’ Tegatus looked up at a stack of books that teetered high above his head.

  ‘Taming creatures such as this comes as second nature to us. London is a place of many such beasts, and when you two have been disposed of and business here is done then Rumskin and I shall go to the country to catch sheep. And eat them.’

  As he spoke the final word the front door slammed shut. Above the man’s head the pile of thick volumes fell to the floor, knocking the leash from his hand and cascading over his back. He held his arms above his head to protect himself as books flew at him from every direction. Rumskin leapt angrily against the shelves, as if trying to catch some invisible mischief. Komos was beaten away from the door as every shelf emptied itself upon him.

  Agetta and Tegatus cowered by the door. They watched a thick hail of bound paper soar through the air. Flying from the vaulted ceiling a large, black book hit Komos in the chest, knocking him from his feet. There was a giggle of childish laughter. Komos looked around, his humourless face steely beneath the mask.

  ‘Rumskin!’ he shouted loudly. ‘Bring him to me!’

  For the first time he slipped Rumskin from his tether. The creature looked about the high shelves, searching the ceiling for a sign of the boy. His ears twitched to unheard sounds as his eyes followed something that appeared to walk unseen across the top shelf at the far side of the shop, just beneath the vaulted roof. The Diakka fixed its gaze and licked its lips as every muscle in its body twitched. Suddenly it leapt from its stillness and scrambled up the bookshelves.

  In several strides and leaps it crossed the room, then perched on the top of a bookshelf high above them. It looked around, stalking its unseen victim. Then it leapt to the floor, crashing into a shelf and sending all the books falling to the floor. It began to chase the ghost-boy as he ran in and out of the corridors of books, trying to escape. Komos jumped about and shouted to the beast to run faster, and from each aisle they could hear
the sound of the Diakka as it panted and growled in excitement.

  The ghost-boy ran through a shelf of books, appearing in front of Agetta and then disappearing into the wall. To her horror the Diakka did the same, keeping pace with the child as it too vanished through the shelves and into the stone wall.

  From the cellar came the noise of a struggle, and childish screams burst from beneath the floor. The boy exploded through the floorboards and into the shop as if blasted from the barrel of a cannon. He hung momentarily in the air, then fell to the floor as the Diakka burst through the door and into the shop, its white fangs bared for the kill. It leapt towards the ghost-boy, but the boy rolled and melted into a wooden shelf, vanishing completely and then appearing on the other side.

  Komos lashed out at the boy with the yew wand, striking him across the face. A blinding crack of thunder filled the room. The boy was frozen in time.

  ‘Leave him!’ shouted Agetta. ‘Hasn’t he suffered enough, what more can you do to him?’

  ‘He’ll be absorbed like his friends,’ Komos replied as he put Rumskin back on his leash. ‘That is all they are good for.’ He looked at her. ‘You may never understand, but he will not fulfil his life. There will be no paradise for this pest, no heaven, no hereafter. For him his time is done, annihilation is all his soul deserves.’ Komos turned to Tegatus. ‘Take the girl into the coach. I will be with you presently. Rumskin will see that you do not run away. After all, we don’t want to frighten the people of London Bridge. Who would believe the sight of an angel being chased by a demon?’

  19: Carriages and Comets

  ‘How do you walk into a house without a key?’ Blake demanded as he chewed on a crust of yellow cheese that crawled with mites. ‘I was alone, and Mrs Malakin didn’t let you in. You saw the look she gave you when she brought my breakfast.’