Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  Tegatus said nothing; it was if he didn’t need to see what was going on, as if he had some deep insight into these hidden things. ‘My feather trimmer,’ he whispered to Agetta. ‘Come to steal the book.’

  Suddenly Sarapuk stopped and raised his head, looking around the large vaulted room to see what had made the noise. Agetta saw the urchin appear high above his head, edging towards a pile of books that perched on the very top shelf. Agetta wanted to shout out, to tell her to stop, knowing that the ghoul would make the books fall. There was a sudden tremor of the shelf above his head and Sarapuk looked up as three thick, black Bibles fell one by one like a shower of truth. They clattered against his skin and fell to the floor. Sarapuk dropped to his knees with the final blow, and a shrill echo of glee danced high above his head as the urchin danced across the rows of books.

  Sarapuk screwed up his eyes and looked around the room before putting his hand in his coat pocket and pulling out a pair of gold spectacles with deep blue lenses. Agetta gasped – they were the same as the man wore who had been following her. Sensing her unease, Tegatus pushed her roughly to one side and peered through the tiny slit.

  ‘My Chezzed eyeglass,’ he said in a whisper, stepping back from the spy-hole. ‘Your father took them from me when he bought me as a trinket in his menagerie.’

  ‘The man who was here the other day, the one who was following me, he had some just the same,’ Agetta said.

  ‘He had eyeglasses just like those?’

  ‘Exactly the same – thick blue glass that masked his eyes and hung from his nose.’

  ‘Then I am not the only angel abroad in London, and I fear even more the reason why one should be stalking you,’ Tegatus whispered. ‘Through them he will see things that human vision was not meant to behold.’

  Tegatus watched as Sarapuk ran his hand along the spines of the books on the shelf where the angel had hidden the Nemorensis. He stopped, his finger poised on the cover of the book. His body shuddered and twitched as if he had been suddenly charged with electricity. The eyeglasses dropped from his nose, landing on the floor, and he shivered with shock and backed away from the tome. His hand darted out again to grab the spine; again it was jolted back by a blue arc that flashed in the darkness. Sarapuk giggled like a small child with a new toy as he plunged his hand back and forth and blue sparks shimmered.

  ‘The Nemorensis has found him,’ the angel said as he peered down.

  Sarapuk played on, his hand jumping as each spark stung his fingers. But suddenly his eyes fell upon the gold leaf that encrusted the next book on the packed shelf. ‘Micrographica!’ he shouted, springing to his feet and realising that he had found what he was looking for. ‘Blueskin Danby didn’t lie, his truth is here for me to behold.’

  As Sarapuk grabbed the small panel of wood beneath it, the book slid from the shelf, revealing a void that vanished into blackness. Sarapuk tried to peer into the depths, but could see nothing. In his frustration he thrust one arm deep into the hole, squashing his head against the bookcase and pressing his long thin nose against the wood. With the tips of his fingers he could feel the soft touch of a velvet bag. He strained to get his fingers deeper into the void, and the cord of the bag tantalisingly slipped across his hand several times. Sarapuk kicked against the far wall and pushed himself deeper, the urge for gold driving him on.

  ‘At last,’ he said as he finally took hold of the bag and pulled as hard as he could. The bag moved three inches and then stopped, as if caught by some hidden obstruction or ghostly hand not wishing to let it go. ‘What stops me?’ Sarapuk shouted angrily. ‘Don’t play games with me now, Danby.’ His words echoed around the darkening room as he let go of the heavy bag and tried to squeeze his hand another inch deeper.

  Blindly, his fingers fumbled across the smooth, cold marble that lined the hole. He thought of the gold and imagined counting the thick yellow coins and dropping them one by one into his pocket. He gave a quiet chuckle to himself as he recalled Cadmus looking like a frightened pig at the sight of Blueskin Danby. What was a friend, he thought, but someone to be cheated when the opportunity came to pass?

  With this fleeting thought he ran his fingers over a small, sharp catch that held the bag to the bottom of the hole. With a flick of his little finger he freed the bag, and in that instant Sarapuk felt one side of the chamber spring open, as if he had flicked the switch to the entrance of some hidden compartment. His eyes widened with anticipation, and a rush of lust choked his throat. ‘What joy!’ he murmured, sliding his hand into the long narrow hole that opened to one side. ‘The bag of gold, and now erstwhile treasures to behold! Soon, soon, soon,’ he sang to himself.

  As Tegatus spied on him, suddenly Sarapuk went rigid. He jumped from the floor, pulling his hand from the hole and looking down at his clenched fist.

  In between his fingers a scorpion twisted and turned, pushing its way between his finger and thumb. Sarapuk turned his hand to look closely, and the creature’s long spiked tail twitched and arched around his fingers. Then it flexed back and struck several sharp blows to the back of his hand.

  Sarapuk’s hand flashed open like a sprung trap and the scorpion was thrown into the air, landing at his feet unharmed and snapping its pincers as it scurried towards him. Sarapuk began to hop from foot to foot as he tried to crush the creature. He grasped his right hand at the wrist as the venom inched its way through his veins, and his brow gushed with droplets of thick white sweat. The scorpion danced around his feet as he attempted to squash its thick brown shell, screaming as he jumped about. And then the poison pulsed into his heart and he stood bolt upright and clutched his chest. In two seconds his face drained of its colour as the skin tightened and stretched across his sallow cheeks. Sarapuk struggled to speak, opening his mouth and gawping like a fish as he sucked the air into his frothing lungs.

  There was a swirling of the dust on the floor. Slowly the phantasm of Blueskin Danby began to appear, sucking all the particles of light from the room as it took form and substance. The snake slithered through Danby’s empty eye socket and darted at Sarapuk, wrapping itself around his long, thin, white neck. With a flick of its tail it anchored itself around his shoulder and began slowly to squeeze the breath from his body.

  ‘Wonderful thing, this snake,’ Danby said, half-laughing. ‘Given to me at my demise as a token for the afterlife, a skin-picture come to life, and now it will herald your death.’

  All Sarapuk could see through his venom haze was the bleary outline of Blueskin Danby. The rushing of blood filled his ears and made Danby’s words but a faint murmur in a faraway world.

  ‘What’s the matter? Snake got your tongue?’ Danby joshed the man as he choked and spluttered. ‘I thought it would be Lamian who came for the money, but greed got the better of you. I see you found the surprise. It was my last action in life, setting that trap.’ He looked around the room. ‘Strange, really. I never thought I would see it work, but death has been kind to me. I bought the scorpion from the docks; it had been kept in a silver cage. Would have pawned the silver, given half a chance, but the rope got in the way with my sudden misfortune.’

  Sarapuk struggled to free himself of the living noose around his neck that coiled itself tighter and tighter. Death was inching its way through every fibre of his body as Danby walked slowly around his victim, taunting him as he savoured his downfall. ‘Tell me, Sarapuk. What do you expect will happen?’ He stroked the long black snake that hissed loudly. ‘Come on, man, you hang on to life like a frightened child. Give in and join me, then we can embrace as damned brothers.’

  Holding out his hand like a blind man, Sarapuk grabbed the bookshelf by his side. His hand had swollen sevenfold and throbbed with the final pulsing of his weakening heart. With one last, final effort he dug his nails into the soft wood, hoping against hope that he could hang on to life. Like a drowning man he gasped his frantic breaths, snorting against the rising waters of death.

  ‘Come on, man,’ shouted Danby as his snake slithered an
d coiled itself over Sarapuk’s face. ‘Come to me and we can take our revenge together …’

  In one last effort of life, Sarapuk grasped the snake and pulled it from his face, his eyes searching the high wall as if he knew where Tegatus was hiding. With his final breath he shouted out his last words: ‘You never helped me … never … Hell.’ The words stuck in his throat as he dropped to his knees and then on to his face with a hollow thud.

  Danby stared down at the corpse, then picked up the adder by its tail, stretching its body until it became completely rigid like a long thick staff. With the head of the creature he tapped Sarapuk on the back three times. ‘Wake up, sleeper, and rise from the dead,’ he said softly, waving the snake-rod over the body and snatching a clump of hair from the back of Sarapuk’s head. ‘Mine be the spirit, mine be the death.’

  Sarapuk’s ghost slowly got up from his body and looked around the room. High above him, on every bookcase stood the child spectres. Turning slowly he came face to face with Blueskin Danby, who smiled softly.

  ‘I have waited a time and half a time for this and your death does not seem as sweet as I once thought it would,’ he said. He twisted the head of the snake to break its trance and return its litheness. Then he held out the tattered lock of Sarapuk’s hair. ‘You join me in Styx, and with this mark of your flesh I take your name …’

  With deep desperation, the ghost of Sarapuk tried to form the familiar word that he had carried since childhood, but it was as if it had been stolen from his thoughts and hidden from memory. He was nameless.

  The ghost of Sarapuk looked around him. The grey drabbery of death veiled all he saw. He could no longer feel the heat of the fire that embered brightly with its spitting logs. Everything was drained of colour, tainted with half-light. The scorpion scuttled across the wooden floor, snapping its claws as it scurried along the side of the bookcase, and disappeared into the mouse-hole in the corner.

  Danby chuckled to himself. ‘People will call your name and you will not know that they speak to you. I am your father in hell and I give you the name Kashal.’ He touched him on the shoulder. ‘We have work to do and my soul to regain.’

  Danby began to disappear, melting into the spirit of Kashal, who suddenly looked up to the spy-hole as fragments of his flesh fell away and turned into particles of light before vanishing completely.

  Tegatus didn’t speak. He had seen this fate before, far away on the banks of the Great River. The body of Dagda Sarapuk lay face-down on the wooden floor, its spirit gone. The angel turned and sat in the darkness of the chamber and now knew what he had to do. He yearned to stretch his shaven wings and fly home. But these hope-filled thoughts blistered with despair as he realised how far he had fallen from grace. He had left all charm behind, squandered in the pursuit of one he could never embrace.

  In the cold, silent blackness of the place where no mortal eye could behold or ear understand he spoke the words of his birth. Penitent tears gouged acid sores across his cheeks.

  ‘Ga-al et ha-shamayim,’ he said, again and again, each word growing on his tongue. His voice faltered but then grew stronger with each utterance, resonating around the dark chamber.

  ‘It is time,’ he said to Agetta. But there was no reply, just the hushed sound of the girl sleeping.

  25: Seidkona

  Agetta stood in her dream outside a large mansion house at the top of a long flight of marbled steps, unsure of how she had arrived at such a place. Her last memory was looking up at the dark shadow of Tegatus as he stared down through the spy-hole and into the shop. She had felt the power of the Nemorensis once more as it twisted her mind, stirring resentment and anger for everything and everyone. Then voices called her to sleep and the vision appeared, stealing upon her like a thief in the night.

  There, surrounded by a blinding light, was the figure of a girl not much older than herself and dressed in fine purple. She had held out her thin white hands to Agetta, who felt she was being dragged from her body, and that with the coming of her birthing-day she now had the right to wander and leave behind the frailty and decay of flesh and explore other lands of perception. With trepidation she had reached out to the girl and stared into her deep green eyes. Then there was a sudden crack of thunder, the girl had gone and Agetta was outside a mansion house, staring at the chipped wood of the door.

  The sky was darkening and two bright gargoyle lamps, topped with the heads of helmeted snakes, guarded the door of the house. A footman dressed in gold braid and scarlet jacket stood to one side, looking across the square. Agetta smiled at the man, wondering if he might know why she was here and what had called her to this place. She looked around. The familiar sight of Conduit Fields stretched out to the north, and across the newly-laid gardens were the tall houses of Queens Square with their neat iron railings and polished steps. She waited to be challenged by the footman, to be tossed down the stairs and into the mud like some guttersnipe. The footman turned suddenly and Agetta tried to step out of his way – but then, to her amazement, he stepped straight through her. She convulsed as the man strode boldly into her chest and then out of her back, as if she did not exist or was now some ghost. She screamed, but the footman didn’t turn or even notice as he scurried down a flight of steps that led to the basement. Across the square an old man turned and stared at the house, unsure if he had heard a shout, but could see nothing.

  In the half-light of the torches, Agetta noticed that the mark on her hand burnt blood-red and that the small letters that surrounded the scar had now been turned to a deep gold. They appeared to rotate against the direction of the sun. She watched, entranced, as the words spun and danced on her palm, then stopped. Before her eyes the words Ga-al et ha-shamayim hovered around the edge of the burning skin.

  Agetta felt as if she was being dragged backwards, as if she were hooked like a flounder pulled from the sea. In the centre of the large oak door was a gold tapping-handle in the form of a dragon, forged from a single piece of iron. Its thick ribbed wings and green jewelled eyes shone in the lamplight. Agetta grabbed for the handle, but her hand slipped through as if it didn’t exist. Turning her head, she saw her reflection in the glass of a side window. Stretching from her back and away into the blackness was a thin silver cord embossed with glinting diamonds. With every second the cord grew tighter, pulling her from her feet as she slid across the marble step.

  Just as she was about to be dragged back into the darkness a white hand pierced the door and grabbed her firmly by the wrist. Another broke effortlessly through the wood to take hold of her arm. Then she saw the girl, her piercing green eyes shining as bright as the lamplight, snake-like and charming. The girl pulled Agetta towards her as she stepped backwards through the closed door and into the hallway of the house, dragging Agetta with her. She shuddered as she passed through the wood, and tiny blue sparks flashed from her skin. She gasped with an overwhelming delight that surpassed any sensation she had ever felt before.

  ‘I enjoy it too,’ the girl said, her eyes glinting in the light of the hallway. ‘You can never get over the first feeling of utter joy that shudders your body.’ She spoke in a low voice and smiled as she led Agetta onwards.

  Agetta noticed the long silver thread trailing behind the girl that snaked up the long stairway until it vanished through a door encrusted in gold leaf.

  ‘You don’t know where you are, do you?’ the girl said as she led Agetta through the hallway of the house and into a large room. Agetta was speechless as she tried to comprehend all that was happening to her. This was more than a dream – there was a tangible, lucid presence that made her feel as if it were all real, as if she were some ghostly spectator looking in on reality from another aspect. Agetta passed a large mirror and was startled that she had no reflection.

  The girl laughed. ‘You will never see yourself in the glass, but you are not dreaming. Come and see.’

  In the dining room a finely dressed man chomped like a starving pig on the thin tendons of a monkey bone. Thick grease smo
thered his face as he sucked every drop of marrow from the thin femur. He never looked up, staring contentedly into the long thin bone shaft.

  ‘We are bound only by time. We cannot see the future, nor can we go to the past, but here we can do what we wish and when we are finished we can return to our bodies and take these memories with us.’ The girl pointed to the man with her long white fingers. ‘He can’t see us or hear us. But sometimes it is as if we are seen as phantasms caught in the corner of the eye as we pass by.’

  ‘Am I a ghost?’ Agetta asked as she tried to touch the winged chair on which the man was sitting.

  ‘It’s your spirit that walks whilst you sleep. You are joined to your body by the life cord. This is only broken at death. But beware, if it is severed at the spine then you will never return to your body.’

  ‘How should that happen?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘This is not a place where we humans should tread. You are here through desire. When we sleep we stay with our bodies, but tonight you were liberated from mortal reverie and brought here.’

  ‘Is this your home?’ Agetta asked. ‘Why didn’t you leave London when everyone fled?’

  ‘I am a servant to Lord and Lady Flamberg. She taught me this secret, she would visit me by night and play tricks upon me. I am sleeping in the room upstairs and walk the corridors at night and listen to their conversations … When the stones fell from the sky we hid in the cellar. We will be safe from whatever devastation it brings.’ There was a glint of excitement in her eyes as she spoke. ‘There are others here who can do this, they knew you were coming and wait upstairs.’