Necropolis

by Wendy Saunders

  ‘He’s not here,’ she shook her head, fighting back a fresh wave of pain.

  ‘Where is he?’ he demanded, ‘where’s my brother?’

  ‘They took him.’

  ‘Who did?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Faraday,’ she shook her head. ‘The Veritas attacked our home, killed our friend and took Theo.’

  She swallowed tightly as her heart gave a slow and painful thud. She still hadn’t had time to grieve for Mac and she couldn’t afford to let herself think about it now, couldn’t allow herself to feel the anguish and loss, there was too much at stake. Somehow, she had to get home and find Theo.

  ‘Jonathan Faraday?’ he growled as his gaze snapped to hers.

  She nodded.

  ‘And they’ve taken Theo?’

  Olivia nodded again.

  ‘Although he still struggles to control it, he is an incredibly powerful seer.’

  ‘What does Faraday want with him?’

  ‘He needs him to complete your mother’s prophecy,’ she murmured quietly.

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘I know a great many things,’ she replied. ‘I know that it cost your friend Justin his life to help you steal back the prophecy from Faraday.’

  Elias closed his eyes painfully. ‘Where are they holding him?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she frowned. ‘It’s not a case of where they’re holding him, but when.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘God,’ she rubbed her forehead tiredly as two thin bands of tension began to tighten around her temples. ‘There’s so much you don’t know yet. I’m not from this time period as you may have guessed. Theo and I live a hundred and fifty years into the future. That’s where he is being held by the Veritas. You, I mean the future version of you took me to Faraday. I’m not really sure what happened but the next thing I knew Scarlett and I ended up here. Now we’re trapped with no way back to my present.’

  Elias watched her with dark, shadowed eyes.

  ‘I was told you could help me,’ she continued. ‘I need to find something called the Hourglass.’

  Standing abruptly, he slammed the glass down on the scarred table, and grabbed the remains of the whiskey bottle, his eyes flashing as his mouth tightened into a thin unforgiving line.

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘Elias,’ she reached for his hand as he stepped away from the table, ‘please.’

  ‘I can’t help you,’ he repeated through clenched teeth.

  ‘You mean you won’t help me,’ she replied angrily.

  ‘It amounts to the same thing. You’re on your own Olivia,’ his voice dropped to a pained whisper. ‘Don’t come looking for me again.’

  He turned away from her sharply and headed across the smoky, tightly packed room clutching his bottle of whiskey.

  ‘Hey there love, what’s the rush?’ a huge fat woman grabbed him as he knocked past her. ‘Pretty man like you, you lookin’ for some genteel company?’

  She rubbed herself up against him, her frizzled orange hair peeking out from beneath a faded green bonnet. The rancid scent of her unwashed body beneath her stained gown turned his stomach, forcing the bile to rise in his throat as she purred at him seductively. Her pock marked and pimpled cheeks were heavily rouged, her eyes small and watery as she grinned, revealing two missing front teeth.

  The sound of a tankard being slammed down on the battered wood bar had her turning around sharply. The landlord glared at her from behind the bar, his mouth set in a disapproving line beneath his bushy moustache.

  ‘Mary, I warned ya,’ he growled loudly. ‘Leave the customers be or y’ll be out on yer ear!’

  She released Elias, stumbling back as he shoved her out of the way and stormed out of the pub, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘MARY!’ The landlord warned as she pulled a face at him, making a lewd gesture as she cackled loudly, grabbing a glass of cheap watery beer from a low table and chugging it back without finesse.

  Throwing down a rag on the counter and setting down the glass he’d been cleaning next to it, he stalked out from behind the bar and grabbed her roughly.

  ‘OUT!’ As he swept by the table she’d been sitting at, he grabbed another woman by the arm and towed her along. ‘You too Nell.’

  ‘But I ain’t done nothin’,’ she protested with a shrill whine, ‘it was Mary!’

  He shoved them both unceremoniously out of the door and onto the snow-covered cobbles.

  ‘Now clear off the pair of ya,’ he warned. Ignoring the shrieking and rude gestures from them both he walked calmly back into his establishment and once again took his place behind the bar.

  Somewhere in the back of the bar a jolly man with glowing red cheeks struck up a chord on the piano and began to play a toe tapping rendition of ‘Lovely Mary Donnelly,’ his slurred voice bellowing throughout the room.

  ‘The dance o’last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before,

  No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;

  But Mary kept the belt o’love, and O but she was gay!

  She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away!’

  Several of the other bawdy patrons took up the song and raised their voices in an uproarious, dis-harmonic chorus.

  ‘From the look on your face I’m going to assume that didn’t go well,’ Scarlett stopped beside the booth Olivia was sitting in.

  Olivia stared down at the dirty, empty plates on the table in front of her and frowned. She was tired, weary right down to her bones and weighed down with frustration.

  Once they’d found Elias in the Lotus flower, they’d had to wait a good couple of hours until he was conscious enough to be moved. They’d hauled and dragged him out of the Opium den and headed toward Longbone Square, ending up at a pub called the Drunken Duck, hoping to get some food down him and help him straighten up, or at least wake up enough to hold a conversation.

  They’d helped him into the booth in which Olivia was currently sitting but he’d declined the food, and instead spent another hour snoring and drooling onto the battered wooden table. Meanwhile both Olivia and Scarlett had eaten a fairly decent meal which consisted of a chop, vegetables and bread, which wasn’t what Olivia was used to, but infinitely better than the thin, nauseating stew, she’d vomited up in Salem, so she counted her blessings.

  When Elias had finally come around enough to be coherent, the first thing he’d done was purchase a bottle of whiskey and proceeded to single handedly attempt to drink his way through it. Scarlett, sensing his mood had given them some space, hoping that with Olivia being somewhat familiar to him, she might have more luck getting him to open up if she spoke with him alone.

  Well, that hadn’t exactly worked out the way they’d hoped.

  ‘Don’t worry he won’t go far,’ Olivia murmured thoughtfully, ‘and if he thinks I’m giving up that easily, he’s sadly mistaken.’

  Scarlett nodded.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ she glanced around the rowdy pub. ‘There’s not much more we can achieve tonight. I’ve managed to get us a room.’

  ‘What… here?’ Olivia replied.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Scarlett stepped back so Olivia could climb out of the booth, which wasn’t easy in a full skirted, heavy gown she wasn’t used to. ‘It’s probably best if we try to get some sleep and then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do next, in the morning.’

  Olivia nodded in agreement and followed Scarlett as they passed by the landlord who nodded in their direction. Just behind the bar was a small unmarked door and on the other side a young woman waited.

  Once on the other side of the door, she closed it behind them with a quiet click and they found themselves in a long, narrow corridor, once again lit with the soft muted glow of the gas lights. A short distance from them they could see a winding staircase leading up.

  The girl didn’t speak she simply turned and hurried along the corridor, keeping her head down as if to keep from drawing any attentio
n to herself.

  Having seen some of the class of people who frequented the pub, Olivia didn’t blame her. They followed along behind her and as they reached the top of the creaky staircase there was a plain wooden door. The girl lifted the latch and led them inside.

  The furnishings were sparse, bare wooden floorboards and two small cots pushed against the wall. A rickety chair was propped in the corner, looking as if it were more suited to firewood than holding someone’s weight. The window was comprised of a crisscross of lead strips and small rectangular panes of glass. There was a small measly fireplace with barely enough sticks and twigs to warm the room. The cheapskate landlord obviously didn’t want to part with any of his precious coal, leaving the air in the room icy and unwelcoming.

  ‘Thank you,’ Scarlett turned to the girl. She rummaged in her purse and handed over a coin.

  The girl froze, staring at the coin laying in the palm of her grubby hand. Her fist closed around the metal and she held it tightly to her chest as her eyes rose, giving them both their first proper glimpse of her face.

  Not a girl, Olivia amended, a young woman, early twenties maybe. She couldn’t tell what color her hair was as it was pulled back tightly from her face and covered by a tatty headscarf, but it was her eyes that were truly startling. No wonder she kept her gaze pinned to the floor and her face down, with eyes of bright aquatic blue they would certainly draw unwanted attention from the more unsavory patrons of the Drunken Duck.

  From the way she held her tightened fist to her chest, clutching the coin as if it were going to be taken away from her, it was obvious the landlord didn’t pay his servants well, if at all. In fact, Olivia was willing to bet this was the first time the girl had actually been paid anything, with the landlord believing food and board was sufficient recompense for her services.

  The girl didn’t speak, but pressed her lips together and curtsied, before scurrying from the room.

  Scarlett crossed the room and closed the door. As the latch fell into place, she turned the key in the lock and turned to Olivia.

  ‘You might want to charm that door, or ward it, just to be on the safe side.’

  Olivia nodded and as she crossed the room, she threw a glance at the fireplace and it burst into intense flames, warming the room almost instantly. She placed her hands against the door, muttering under her breath as she felt the heat of her magic pooling in her fingertips. The door rippled and shimmered as she stepped back in satisfaction.

  ‘There, no one’s getting through that door without a magical battering ram,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’ve said it before,’ Scarlett sank down onto one of the sleeping cots carefully and with a slight wince, ‘you’re a handy person to have around.’

  ‘Are you in pain?’ Olivia frowned.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Scarlett rolled her shoulder.

  ‘It’s not nothing,’ Olivia admonished, ‘I can see it’s bothering you. Issac gave you strict instructions to exercise your wings every day to regain the strength and mobility. I bet you haven’t, have you?’

  ‘Haven’t exactly had the chance,’ Scarlett unbuttoned her heavy velvet jacket and winced again as she tried to pull it from her shoulders.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ Olivia crossed over to where Scarlett was sitting.

  ‘I can manage,’ she pulled away sharply and hissed as a piercing pain shot through her back and into her shoulder.

  Olivia sank down in front of her in a puddle of wide skirts and petticoats.

  ‘You don’t always have to do everything the hard way,’ she looked up at Scarlett. ‘Look,’ she let out a frustrated breath, ‘I realize we haven’t exactly had time to get to know each other and I know that you still don’t trust me. But we’re stuck here, for however long it takes to figure out a way back home. We’re both carrying baggage, and believe me, trust is hard for me too. But it’s just the two of us, all we have is each other.’

  Scarlett didn’t say a word, her smoky gaze locked on Olivia’s face in silence.

  Giving up with a disappointed sigh, Olivia pushed herself to her feet and crossed to the window, putting as much distance between them as the small room would allow. She stopped in front of the mismatched panes of glass which were already beginning to steam up as the room continued to heat up.

  She wiped one of the panes and stared down onto the street. She could still hear the drunken bellows and delighted cackles of the two women who’d been tossed out into the snow. From the inebriated hollers, Olivia had managed to ascertain that one was called Primrose Mary and the other Plump Nell. They were strange caricatures to match their names, almost not real, just like this pub, the Underside, this whole experience.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and wished that it was all some strange fevered dream. That she would wake up in her bed, in Mercy, in her house by the lake with Theo beside her, Beau stretched out comfortably across her feet and the sounds of her children giggling in their cribs in the next room.

  But it wasn’t a dream, this was her reality. She was trapped hundreds of miles from home, a century and a half into the past. Her only two allies were a drunken drug addict who refused to speak to her and a mistrustful angel, who spoke to her pleasantly enough but whose eyes were always filled with suspicion as if she expected you, at any moment, to turn around with a sharp knife and stab her in the back.

  She supposed she couldn’t blame her. Although Olivia didn’t know the full story, she knew enough of Scarlett’s past to understand why she found it so hard to trust. There was only one way she’d have a chance of trying to get through to the other woman and it meant that she would have to be the one to take the first step.

  Hades had warned her to stay away from Scarlett and she knew she was risking a lot. She couldn’t afford to be wrong about the exiled angel, but everything in her gut told her it was the right thing to do. That Scarlett was important to her somehow and that the only way she was going to get Scarlett to trust her was by revealing her own wounds, however much she wanted to shy away from it.

  ‘I never wanted this you know,’ Olivia began in a quiet voice as she watched the snow coming down harder outside the window. She didn’t turn around, but she hoped Scarlett was listening.

  ‘All of this, the Hell book, Infernum, being a Guardian. I haven’t even begun to define the limits of my power, if there even are any limits. I can feel it, every minute of every day, it never leaves me. It’s there under my skin, a relentless itch I can never satisfy. Sometimes it feels like my skin is going to split wide open, like it can’t contain such immense primordial magic. There are so many who would kill, who have killed to try and take what I have. All I wanted was to live in my house by the lake with my husband and raise our children. I know people look at me and think I’m sarcastic and arrogant, but do you want to know a secret?’

  Olivia turned around to find Scarlett watching her intently.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,’ she admitted slowly. It was the first time she’d ever voiced the admission out loud, to anyone. ‘I stand amongst Gods and Goddesses; I have all of this phenomenal power, but I literally have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I keep wanting to tell them they’ve got the wrong person.’

  Her eyes burned with frustrated tears as she blinked them back.

  ‘I’m nobody, just some witch from Massachusetts. My mom was a psychotic killer who murdered innocent people and was obsessed with power, my dad abandoned me… twice, because he can’t deal with my mom’s death, when ironically, he was the one trying to kill her. My husband has been kidnapped by a secret society hell bent on world domination and who killed one of my dearest friends and I don’t know what the hell is going on with my children.’

  She turned back to the window, her shoulder bowed with the weight of her misery and worry.

  ‘Sometimes, I feel like I’m on this terrifying, out of control carnival ride that I can’t get off,’ she whispered. ‘I wish it would all just stop,’ she closed her eyes, ‘just for a mo
ment, so I can catch my breath.’

  She stared at the window even though she could no longer see out into the darkness. The silence in the room was heavy and uncomfortable.

  ‘I don’t know who my father is,’ Scarlett’s quiet admission carried across the room, causing Olivia to turn slowly. ‘I was a bastard, born into a society that prized bloodlines above everything else, the product of an affair and my mother refused to disclose the identity of my father. So, you can imagine how my people felt about me from the start. I was little more than a mongrel.’

  Scarlett drew in a shaky breath.

  ‘My mother stole Heaven’s most prized possession and fled to earth where she hid it from the highest authorities and refused to hand it over. Even when they tortured her,’ her voice dropped to a painful whisper, filled with bitterness, ‘even when they made her children watch what they did to her.’

  ‘Scarlett,’ Olivia breathed heavily, the horror of what she had been forced to endure as a child washing over her.

  ‘My own brother tried to kill me… did kill me,’ Scarlett shook her head, correcting herself. ‘He looked me straight in the eyes as he stabbed me in the chest and watched me bleed to death. I was brought back by a loa, who told me a deal had been brokered for my soul and I have no idea by who or why. If all that wasn’t bad enough, the man I’m desperately in love with keeps abandoning me and has me so twisted up inside I have no idea whether he actually loves me or is only using me and I’m too stupid to see it.’

  Olivia crossed the room slowly and sank down onto the cot next to Scarlett. They sat quietly side by side for a moment until Olivia reached out and took Scarlett’s hand, their fingers entwining comfortingly.

  ‘We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Scarlett agreed. ‘Right at this minute I can’t decide which of us is the most pathetic.’

  ‘I’d say it was a tie,’ Olivia gave a tired smile.

  ‘Olivia.’

  She tilted her head to look at Scarlett.

  ‘My wings are killing me,’ she finally admitted. ‘Do you think…’ she hesitated, ‘can you help me?’