The Demon Redcoat

by C. C. Finlay

  “You a free woman,” John yelled at Lydia. “You want to go your own way, you come find me.”

  “He’s right,” Proctor said under his breath. “You are already free.”

  “Am I?” she said. “If I’m so free, why everybody got to tell me about it?”

  Proctor came to a stop hundreds of feet from the stage because pushing through the dense mob was futile. He was going to respond to Lydia’s question but a wave of silence rolled through the crowd, and he turned to see what had caused it.

  Lord Gordon had appeared. Even from hundreds of feet away, his appearance was unmistakable. The dark velvet jacket contrasted with the red plaid pants. Light glinted off the glass in his spectacles. His long, lank hair spilled over his shoulders.

  He stepped to the front of the platform, looked over the assembled mass from one side to the other, and threw his arms into the air.

  The crowd roared so loud that Proctor tensed.

  People started shouting, “Gordon, Gordon, Gordon!”

  Gordon let the chant build to a crescendo, then he held out his hands for silence, and the crowd fell silent. “Hello, London!” Gordon said. “Hello, my fellow Protestants! Hello, friends!”

  The crowd exploded in a roar of approval. Proctor looked at Lydia and wondered if his jaw dangled open just like hers. Gordon’s voice carried across the field so that they could hear him as clearly as if he stood a few feet away.

  He was using the cockades as a focus.

  “Can everyone bow your heads with me and begin in prayer?” Gordon said.

  Proctor heard Gordon speaking, but he didn’t notice the words. Power flowed through the crowd like a roar of fire. Maybe only one person in a hundred had the latent spark of talent, but if so there were still five hundred or a thousand witches present. Uniting a crowd this size, drawing on their power, it was like scattering fire in dry grass. Even those without a talent responded to the power. People crushed Proctor on every side, stepping on his feet, bumping against him as they tried to get closer to the platform.

  For the first time, Proctor could see why the Covenant wanted to unite people with a single focus. Drawing on this kind of power, spread all around the world, anything would be possible.

  But the power was random, bouncing all over the place. Gordon could rouse men’s passions, bring them to action, but could he channel those actions?

  “Let me start by discussing the wicked designs of men who mean harm to our beloved England,” Gordon said. Though Gordon spoke to the crowd about the papists, Proctor chose to hear it as a warning against the Covenant. As Gordon went on about protecting England and the English Crown, the crowd fell silent when Gordon spoke, cheered when he made a point, and hung on his every word. Proctor paid close attention, as much to the reactions of the crowd as to Gordon’s words. The pieces of Gordon’s speech, taken individually, were a muddle of raving with no logical progression or clarity of argument.

  But as a piece of magic, the speech was brilliant.

  Every phrase was a focus. Men might not remember what was said, but they would remember their feelings. Their passion for this cause. The images and phrases would be branded on their memories. A great speaker might inspire people the same way. But a skilled witch could do so much more.

  “… for the good of Britain, we must get out of pointless wars,” Gordon said, pausing to let the crowd cheer. “For the good of Britain, we must oppose the secret plans of evil cabals.”

  Proctor had seen the evil the Covenant was capable of doing. The circle of sickness that killed so many during the siege of Boston. The curse that plagued the American army throughout the final months of ’76.

  He decided to trust Gordon.

  He closed his eyes and drew power from the crowd around him, focusing it back toward Gordon. It was like trying to force a millstream through a kitchen funnel. It shot out like water forced through a pump, and spilled over the sides at the same time.

  On the platform, Gordon stopped in mid-word, stumbled back a step, then found Proctor in the crowd and smiled.

  Proctor was trembling with the power. It was like gulping strong wine. He felt light-headed, almost light-bodied—as if he could float.

  Gordon held up the petition containing over a hundred thousand signatures, and even more power circled through Proctor.

  He called for the crowd to form columns and march on Parliament behind three flags, and the power increased again. Proctor felt Lydia shaking him, speaking to him, but he was too far away in the throes of the magic to reply. Everything that he felt, he sent through him, saying a spell to let it work to Gordon’s purpose. With this much power, they could destroy the Covenant completely.

  The crowd started to march. Lydia shook him again, but this was the most delicate part of his spell, taking the power from the crowd and pouring it through Gordon back into the crowd again.

  He heard the stomping of feet like a heartbeat.

  He felt the movement of the crowd like a team of horses pulling a carriage.

  He gripped the reins of power and tried to direct the crowd.

  And he felt the reins pulled out of his hands.

  One second he was channeling more magical power than he had ever imagined, and the next it was all gone. He felt as if he had stepped off the top of a very tall building and had nothing below him but air.

  He hit the ground hard, smacking his head.

  When he came to, it was dark outside and he was seated alone in Gordon’s carriage. He was nauseous so he pushed open the carriage door and emptied his stomach in the street. The carriage rolled to a stop while he wretched. When he was done, he looked up.

  Fires marked the London skyline as houses burned. Gunshots echoed through the narrow streets from close and far away. The smell of smoke and gunpowder filled the air. Angry shouts and screams sounded from a few blocks away.

  “What happened?” Proctor asked.

  Grueby stared down at him from the top of the carriage seat. “That’s exactly what His Lordship wants to ask you.”

  Chapter 17

  Proctor felt like he had been falling sick from magic ever since he left America. First in Spain, then after the demon’s attack on The Farm when Deborah summoned him, and now this. Grueby returned with him to Gordon’s house on Welbeck Street and helped him into a bed that held him with its big puffy arms and bound him with its sheets and blankets. The passage of time was marked by fever and weakness, the attentions of Grueby, who was curiously calm and gentle for such a big man, and the wheel of light and dark. Far away, doors opened and slammed and men yelled at one another. Close to hand, faces appeared out of the light to hurl questions at him while a face in the dark deflected his questions in turn.

  The face in the dark was Deborah’s. Where was she? What had happened to her and Maggie? Could she forgive him?

  He woke in the early hours of the morning, when sun and the day seemed to be on just the other side of a single diaphanous curtain made of fading night. His fever had broken, and he felt like clear thoughts were similarly on the other side of a single drapery waiting to be pulled aside.

  When the door opened, he rolled to the edge of his bed and tried to rise.

  “How are you feeling today?” asked Digges’s familiar voice, pitched soft enough that it wouldn’t wake a deeply sleeping man.

  “Where’s Lydia?” croaked Proctor.

  “I still don’t know,” Digges said.

  “I’ve asked before?”

  “Are you lucid?”

  “I don’t know,” Proctor said. “But I’m definitely thirsty.”

  “There’s a cup beside the bed.”

  Proctor sniffed it before he sipped to make sure the medicine was nothing stronger than water, and then he swallowed the whole cup. He had just set it down again when Gordon appeared at the door beside Digges.

  “I thought I heard voices,” Gordon said.

  Proctor pushed himself to unsteady feet, intending to launch himself across the room. Digges stepp
ed in the way and either caught him or stopped him. Even Proctor wasn’t sure.

  “What did you do?” Proctor shouted at Gordon.

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” Gordon asked. “Why did you steal the crowd away from me?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Gordon reached around Digges and grabbed a fistful of Proctor’s shirt. “That’s what you would have me believe—”

  “Hey, let’s not be enemies here,” Digges said, pushing them apart. “Our other enemies are real enough.”

  Proctor reached around Digges and closed his fist on Gordon’s shirt. “What did you do to that crowd?” Proctor asked. “And where’s Lydia?”

  Both men began to shove each other around Digges, who screamed in frustration and pushed them apart. Gordon thumped into the wall and Proctor fell backward on the floor. His shoulder smacked the frame of the bed. Grueby appeared in the doorway.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  Gordon straightened himself, smoothing his hair back behind either ear. “I let my temper get the best of me,” he said. He shook his head firmly. “It won’t ever happen again. Our guest is awake.”

  Grueby received this news with the same indifference that characterized all his actions. “It’s morning—what should we do with the great smoldering pile out in the street?”

  “Have it cleaned away,” Gordon said.

  “What’s been going on?” Proctor asked.

  “The protesters didn’t just march on Parliament, they attacked it,” Digges said. “When they couldn’t get satisfaction there, they burned and looted half the Catholic chapels in London. All the embassies were savaged.”

  “The Sardinian Chapel,” Gordon said. “Sir George Savile’s house in Leicester Fields.”

  “That’s his furniture what they burned in the street,” Grueby offered.

  Outside, a bell pealed, followed a second later by other bells echoing all across the city. As Proctor turned to the window to see what was the matter, cannons thundered. Closer by, other guns cracked.

  “Is the city still on fire? What’s happening?” he asked.

  “It’s His Majesty’s birthday,” Gordon said, staring at Proctor peculiarly. “Today was to be the culmination of the march, a celebration of triumph, country and king protected once again. Instead we have riots and the loss of rule.”

  Proctor’s hand thrust deep in one pocket then jumped to the other. He found a rumpled cockade, pulled from his hat, and left it in his pocket. “I had something on me, a lock of hair.” He had reached for it as a focus when he thought they might be under attack, and then panicked when he couldn’t find it.

  “It’s on the table by the bed,” Gordon said.

  Proctor snatched it up, examining it to be sure it was hers. It still had the ribbon that the Countess Cagliostro had tied around it, and the same slick texture as before. He held it to his nose and tried to breathe in any faint scent of Deborah that remained.

  “That’s very important to you, isn’t it?” Gordon said.

  “Yes, it’s a lock of Deborah’s—my wife’s—hair. It is the only keepsake I have of her. Thank you for leaving it by my side.” Proctor held it tight in his fist and immediately felt calmer. “How was your spell supposed to work? The one that culminated today on the king’s birthday.”

  “Not in the manner that developed under the circumstances, I assure you,” Gordon said. “I’ve issued a circular calling for calm and denying the involvement of the Protestant Association.” He touched the side of his head. “I even removed the blue cockade, and not only to appease Colonel Herbert in the house. But I’ve lost all ability to direct the mob or draw on their power.”

  “So if it wasn’t you who drew the power away from me, then who took it from the both of us?” Proctor asked.

  “I think we can guess who,” Gordon said. He took a step toward the door. “I don’t have time to talk about it now. But I’m glad to see you up and around again. Mister Grueby?”

  “Sir?”

  “Please continue to see to Mister Brown.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  See to him? Proctor didn’t like the sound of that. Digges started to follow Gordon out of the room, but Proctor grabbed his sleeve. “Wait.”

  Digges had a puzzled and worried expression on his face. Proctor, dizzy again, sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m so tired of this,” he said.

  “Of what?

  “Being tired. Every time I encounter a bigger prayer than—”

  “Prayer?”

  “Spell,” Proctor said. “Every time I encounter something bigger—spirit travel, collecting the sparks from Gordon’s crowd—it debilitates me.”

  “Like when you were recovering at the Maypole Inn,” Digges suggested.

  “Exactly,” Proctor said. “In the past six months I’ve encountered more power, and more dangerous power, than I’ve ever experienced before.”

  “Like a large fire in a wood-frame house,” Digges said.

  “I hope not exactly like that,” Proctor replied.

  “Recent events suggested the comparison.”

  Proctor swallowed the last few drops of water from the cup on the bedside stand. “What happened?” he asked. “Why wouldn’t Gordon answer my questions?”

  “I think … I think he’s not sure himself,” Digges said. “What the two of you were doing with that crowd—what you were doing—Gordon has the talent to make people listen, to make them feel. I think he thought he could use that to make a shield of some type for the king, a kind of blessing to protect him from … prayers … made with ill intent. I was standing thirty feet from him when you started directing the power of the crowd, and I could see it rattled him. He wasn’t prepared.” He stroked his delicate beard. “How did you do that? It was as if I, I and your companion Lydia, were of no aid at all.”

  Proctor rose and padded over to the window. Workmen were clearing the charred contents of someone’s house from the road. Little clouds of ash rose as they swept up the debris. “I’m so used to working with Deborah, to accepting prayer from her, to sending it back, that it was easy—I could feel the spark in the crowd, magnified by Gordon’s talents. What do you think happened to Lydia?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Digges said. “You asked after Deborah and Maggie a lot in your fever, and I had no idea who they were. But you asked after Lydia too, and I asked Grueby. He said he saw her with a group of black men, but had no idea what happened to her.”

  “She wants to be free,” Proctor said.

  “I thought she was,” Digges answered.

  “Freedom is a habit that only those of us privileged with it may take for granted,” Proctor replied. “Deborah is my wife, and Maggie is my daughter.”

  “Ah,” Digges said. “I thought you might enjoy the company of the ladies as much as Gordon does.”

  “One of them is all that I can handle,” Proctor said. “And sometimes more. I’m worried that Lydia was carried away with the crowd when they marched. I remember her tugging on me, as if she was trying to keep from being separated. But I couldn’t hold on. How do we find her?”

  “Let’s wait another day to see if the city settles down,” Digges said. “The magistrates will read the Riot Act and call out troops and all shall be returned to order. It will be safer to go looking for her then.”

  But it did not come to pass as Digges suggested. Proctor ate and rested, then rose and watched at the windows late in the day while another mob gathered in the street outside Gordon’s house to cheer his name and call on him to lead them. He wasn’t home, but meeting privately elsewhere with members of Parliament to discuss the best ways to restore order. As though Gordon had any idea. Proctor tried not to feel contempt for him, but it was hard to avoid: his great plan was to inflame the passions of a large mob and then give three cheers for the king, huzzah, to create a protective spell. It was more of a plan than Proctor had started with, but at least he’d had the sense to know that his plan needed work.
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  Digges stood at the window with Proctor, pulling the curtain wide open so he could peer out. The crowd spied Proctor at the window, still dressed in Gordon’s clothes—no others were to be found. At the sight of the plaid and black velvet, they cheered.

  “Look, it’s Gordon!”

  “He’ll save the country!”

  “No popery!”

  They started pumping their fists in the air and chanting Gordon’s name. Digges let the curtain fall shut and tipped his wine bottle back for another swallow. “I don’t dare go home,” he said. “I keep a small room down by the Thames docks. If the city goes up in flames, I would burn in that warren of firetraps.”

  “It’s not worth the risk—don’t go back.” Proctor had been caught in New York City when it had burned in ’76 and he still shivered every time he remembered the smoke and heat as he and Deborah tried to escape the flames.

  Outside, people continued to flow into the street. They joined the crowd in front of Gordon’s house like bits of quicksilver drawn to one another. Proctor shivered again and felt the natural pull of the crowd, a strong urge to be part of it instead of in its way. When the mob had grown into hundreds, it moved suddenly as though it had one will and headed off in a new direction.

  “I do not think the worst is over,” Proctor said.

  “No,” Digges admitted. “Did you feel it?”

  “What?”

  “The pull—the urge to join it.”

  “I thought it was just me,” Proctor said.

  “I think it’s part of the spell. I’ve felt it ever since the power was snatched from you at St. George’s Fields.”

  Proctor reached into his pocket and pulled out the cockade, crushed like a forgotten flower blossom. He flung it across the room. “Do you think that’s how they’re reaching everyone? I saw some on the hats outside.”

  “I don’t know,” Digges said. But he patted his pockets until he found one too. He retrieved Proctor’s and then tossed them both into the fireplace. He stared at the hearth, as if waiting for a fire to appear. Then he offered Proctor the wine bottle. Proctor refused—the last thing he wanted to do was dull his senses with drink. Digges gulped the rest of it.