“So,” Sadie started, “Charley’s a weather guru, and you’ve got your witch genes. What’s Jack’s superpower?”
“Well, we know she’s a fighter, a warrior, for one thing. And she’s amazing with animals.”
Sadie shrugged herself further into her sweater. “That just leaves me.”
Maggie sat next to her. “I think you may have a superpower too.”
Sadie started, then smiled. “How do you know that?”
“The garden does. It reacts differently to each of us. It recognizes you.”
Jack pulled Ches’s ears gently through her fingers, his eyes half closed in pleasure. “Sadie said something about the garden when we first got here.”
“Well, it’s watching us, isn’t it? I mean, it’s creeping up the walls, it comes in when we open a window.” Sadie closed her notebook. “It sort of—hums.”
“That’s what I sense, too.” Maggie smiled. “Let’s try it out. Do you have a coat, Sadie? It’s cold out, especially at the end of the afternoon.”
Sadie jumped up, and steadied herself on the end of the sofa. “Sorry, my legs are half asleep,” she joked, but Jack had seen her wobble more and more recently.
“I’ll get your boots,” she offered, going out to the car drawn up on the verge outside the house. She looked out, across the wild hedge behind a slumped stone wall, and behind that to the hillside. The afternoon sun touched the landscape with a golden light that touched the bare rock of the fell, raw scars between the close-cropped grass and swaths of heather. She got Sadie’s garden boots from the back of the car. The girl’s choice had been a floral pattern on a turquoise background. She looked back at the house, at the unmortared stone blocks that made up the front in various shades of dark gray and rust. The windows were lit with a fiery glow from the low sun, echoing the blaze that had taken the old woman. Around both sides of the house loomed elder bushes, threaded with brambles that felt along the front of the house as if going for the windows, like fingers reaching for eyes. For a moment, Jack felt a sting of fear, quickly suppressed. “Chainsaw,” she muttered to herself. “Weed-killer.” The foliage seemed to shudder, but she ignored it.
Sadie needed to lean on Jack’s shoulder to pull on her boots. Maggie drew back the now oiled bolt and the door bounced inward a few inches. She opened it right up and half a dozen vines unfolded onto the floor.
Maggie stood in front of the wall of greenery and faced it, the stems draped across her boots. She gently stroked the larger leaves in front of her. “It doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, it’s trying to protect the cottage and the people who live here. It just needs to understand there’s a new witch in the cottage.”
Sadie touched her finger to a larger bramble to stop it falling through the doorway onto her, and flinched back. “Ow!”
“It’s OK.” Maggie took her hand, and Jack could see blood welling up on Sadie’s skin. “It’s tasting you. It can’t help being covered in spikes. It will recognize you quickly now.”
“Enough tree hugging,” said Jack. “How do we get rid of all the weeds?”
“The garden needs more space, and the plants all need pruning. In the open, deer and rabbits naturally keep plants trimmed back but the wall keeps them out.” Maggie frowned at Jack. “Plants, not weeds,” she added. “Ellen had a fantastic collection of rare herbs, and they are all out there somewhere.”
“Well, while you make friends with the plants, I’m going to take Ches out for a walk up the hill. Keep the fire lit. It’s freezing out there.”
—
Jack strode up the footpath toward the hillside. The ground underfoot was littered with stones too big to be gravel, just large enough to turn a boot. Ches bounded ahead of her, enjoying the freedom after weeks confined to walking on a lead with Maggie or Charley.
The grass was short, as if mowed by the wind itself; there were no sheep or rabbit droppings on the ground. She walked briskly, only slowing when the gradient increased enough to bring Ches’s tongue out and his flanks heaved with effort.
She felt good. After years of increasing weakness and cold, she was enjoying new energy—in fact, supernatural energy, from one mouthful of blood. She felt as if she could fly up the path and leave Ches behind, if she needed to. The one conundrum she couldn’t solve, even with the new clarity and life racing through her, was Felix.
It made her uncomfortable that Sadie was in regular contact with him, and that they often talked about Jack. She wouldn’t speak to him. He was safer hundreds of miles away in his city town house, surrounded by his books and students, or on his travels in America. They had shared a connection through Sadie. They had both risked their lives for the girl, there was a bond. Damn it, she had given up what was left of her humanity for the man. Still, part of her had started to long for his arms, his scent, and the look in his eyes when they turned to her. Another part of her still yearned to bite into the smooth skin of the inside of his forearm, and drink his hot, salty blood. She shook the feelings off and turned into the wind.
She increased her pace, the dog trotting beside her, his head constantly swaying to catch the scents of the hillside. Used to the lusher landscapes of Devon, he rarely had the freedom to run so far. He stopped ahead of her, abruptly enough for her to bump into him, and then raised his head. Before she could distract him, or stop him, he filled the evening sky with a full-on wolf howl, the eerie note echoing for miles. He followed up with a second, then a third, then stopped, listening.
Jack had spent the last nine years telling the world Ches was a “Tamaskan sled dog,” until she had half forgotten his origins herself. Born to a captive wolf–dog hybrid and a wild wolf, Ches’s only concessions to his dog genes were his gray eyes and his partly trained attitude to sheep. He howled again, his initial note dropping four times, falling more than an octave, each phrase echoing differently in the stony valley below. Again, he waited, then trotted on, along the wall beside the path. The light was going fast, a slight mist making the valley and the lake below look disconnected from the sharp lines of the fell. Clouds took on a purple depth as if they were solid, building up across the sky, jostling each other as they scudded east. Even with her new energy, Jack wound her scarf into the gap between her hair and her coat and shoved her hands in her pockets.
When they came out on the peak, the wall ended, and the view was staggering. The red burn in the west cast an orange glow onto some planes, and dropped others into purple shade, as if a giant child had visited with a paint box. The light warmed the gray rocks, and the sky shaded from pinks on one side to violet overhead. Ches, standing on a small pile of rocks that marked the peak, let loose again with a howl, this time letting his eerie notes flow in all directions. Then he sat, panting, the white guard hairs bristling through his gray pelt. He waited, and Jack stood beside him, letting the sights and the wind flow into her.
Far off, another howl answered.
Ches jumped up, threw back his head and called again, this time a rising note.
There was a long pause, maybe several minutes, while Ches waited and Jack grew colder in the wind. Then, with the first stars sparkling on the eastern horizon, the call came back, not one howl but several, twining together into a proper pack call. Jack was suddenly chilled, remembering her first encounters with wolves in Alaska, some ten years before. Ches whimpered, whether from fear or excitement, Jack couldn’t be certain.
She called him, but his eyes were fixed on a distant point in the north.
“Ches. Here, boy.”
Finally, he dragged his head around to look at her, the reds of the sunset gleaming in his eyes. There was almost no recognition for a moment, then the wolf faded and he thumped his tail, once.
“Come on, stupid dog. I got you a real bone. Come and see Sadie.” At the name, he turned and trotted at her side as she retraced her steps back to the car.
Chapter 16
PRESENT DAY: NEW ORLEANS, APRIL 28
Felix read Sadie’s rambling e-mail. The girl had a lively
writing style, and he wondered how she would do in higher education. She was bright enough. The e-mail had a dozen pictures attached.
This is Jack’s new room, you can see she hasn’t painted it yet…Jack, her face serious as she concentrated, fixing skirting to drying walls.
This is Ches in the new front room. We moved out of the one where the old lady was incinerated. Jack’s going to make it the dining room. The dog, asleep against a new sofa, half on Jack’s feet.
This is the kitchen. Mike and Ari did the plastering, and Jack did all the tiling and put the cupboards in. I helped.
Jack. Jackdaw. The teenager knew how he felt about her. And when he looked at Jack’s profile, concentrating on her work, he knew too. His heart lurched in a way Gina could never make him do, even though he was attracted to her. But Jack—Jack was worth waiting for, fighting for.
A simple text from Gina had suggested that they meet for coffee at one of her favorite restaurants.
He put his laptop away and ordered a taxi. When he got to the place a few blocks away, she was sitting at a table in the restaurant garden. She looked up at him.
“So, I suppose you have to go back to England?”
He nodded, and waved to a waiter, ordering a pot of tea. “I have work.” It was partly true. “It’s been a very informative fortnight. But my students have final year exams coming up.”
She picked at a slice of cake with a tiny fork. “Did you learn what you wanted from your visit?”
“It’s a difficult area to understand. I’m hoping to follow up a few leads. Julian has kindly arranged an introduction to one of the so-called ‘ascended’ who is based in Paris. I hope to see her on the way back.” He had spent a lot of time with Julian Prudhomme, and his understanding of the magical beliefs of disseminated cultures had thrown up more questions than answers.
She pushed a little more cake around her plate. She seemed quietly subdued. “I was hoping to see a bit more of you.” She smiled, as if trying to make light of it. “I’ve really enjoyed our weeks together.”
“I—” He looked down at his cup, his thirst suddenly gone.
“She must be very special.”
“She?” Felix looked up, staring into her eyes. “She is, but we aren’t in a relationship.”
Gina pushed her plate away with a sigh. “The thing is, I have a personal reason of my own for knowing more about these people. Which is why I’ve been doing my research.”
“Oh?”
“And when the orisha chose me, I knew you could probably help.” She looked at the tables around them, and dropped her voice. “I would like—no, I need to understand the process by which one becomes a revenant, what you call a borrowed timer.”
“Why?” Even as he said the word, he started to understand. “You are ill.”
“I got sick two years ago, leukemia. Chemo, radiotherapy, I had it all. The university doesn’t pay well but the medical insurance is excellent.” She sipped her drink, her lashes fanning over her cheeks. “It came back a few weeks ago. I feel fine, but I won’t for long.”
“And becoming a borrowed timer is the only solution?”
“I wasn’t sure until the bembé.” She turned a ring on her finger around. “I didn’t expect anything like that, I was just an observer. But listening to you talking about it—”
“I knew you were interested in the ritual. I just wish you had said something.” He didn’t know what else to say. “If you’ve finished your cake, shall we walk? It’s a beautiful day.”
She finished her coffee and stood, gesturing to the waiter for the bill.
“Oh, I—”
She cut him off, waving a credit card. “My treat.”
The streets were more vividly alive than the restaurant. Music eased out of open doorways and windows, the smells of cooking permeated everything, people chatted and looked in windows, stood in groups talking, laughing. Couples seemed to be everywhere, arms around each other, hands clasped, kisses shared.
Gina slipped a hand onto his arm. “Come on, it’s not that bad. We’re both single; we both had a good time.”
Felix felt a crooked smile crease his face. “A very good time. But that wasn’t what I was thinking about.”
“I’ve made my peace with whatever happens next, but if there’s a chance for a cure—I want that opportunity, Felix.”
He stalled for a second, making a man behind him mutter and walk around them. “I understand. But when Jack drank blood, it changed her.”
“Changed her, how?” They crossed the road to a small park with tall railings.
“She said she craved more blood. I spoke to an expert on revenants, who said once they drink blood they become driven by it, obsessed. He’s part of an organization that works against revenants. It’s part of the Inquisition—”
“Works against?” She smiled. “We’ve heard rumors of extreme views in the Catholic Church but surely they are part of the past.
“The Inquisition is still very active. This is a project they have been working on for centuries.” He could remember the look on the face of the four-hundred-year-old revenant, Elizabeth Báthory, as she started to drain the life out of Sadie. The same greedy expression that he had seen, momentarily, on Jack’s face as she had drunk his blood.
“It’s not just the cravings, she’s different. She’s more aggressive, more assertive. Even more self-centerd. The Jack I knew before would risk her life without thinking to save a child she hardly knew.”
She took a deep breath, and he could see her face tighten. “When the orisha came into me, I got the impression you’d already made contact with some spirit, as if it were warning me. Something to do with this Jack of yours, I think.”
“Do you know what the connection is? Between this entity and the person?”
He could feel her shrug, her shoulder tight against his arm as a group of young men walked around them. “I got the impression that it was saying that one of them was affecting or inhabiting this person. A sort of…overshadowing.”
They walked on as he tried to think back to the little information the inquisitor McNamara had given him. Jack had taken blood and now craved it like a drug, so much that she didn’t want to be around him. But there was something else bothering him.
“Tell me.” She looked at him in the yellow light bleeding from a restaurant doorway.
“I didn’t know Jack very long before she had to drink blood. My blood.” A vivid memory flooded his, of her warm lips against his, her hand clutching his shirt, her body pressed against his. “She changed in so many ways. There were moments when she almost seemed like someone else.”
“But you said you didn’t know her well, before.” She started walking across the grass to a vacant seat and sat down. “I don’t see how an infusion of energy could change who a person is fundamentally.”
“Maybe that’s just part of it.” His mind raced, and he almost stumbled over the words. “Maybe taking blood made her more open to being influenced by other beings, your orisha, for example.”
“Maybe.” She slipped her hand down to his, her fingers warm and slim in his. “Perhaps there are risks in taking blood, but what alternatives do I have? I still need to pursue it. Can I come with you, to Paris, to find out more?”
For a long moment he stared down into her dark eyes, seeing the strain there, the fear.
“Of course.”
Chapter 17
It was said in Europe that Venice was as far from Roman dominance as Protestant England. It gave courtesy and shelter to all, Catholic, Protestant, Jew and Moslem alike. Yet it also gave a welcome to the Inquisition and its most loyal soldiers.
—EDWARD KELLEY, 1586, Venice
I was woken up on the next morning with the news that a visitor from Rome awaited me downstairs. I dressed quickly, wondering whether to call Marinello for my protection, but thinking what harm could come to me within his house, surrounded by his servants? I called upon Bartolomeo to wait upon us, and asked that a couple of hall m
en be on alert to defend me if needed.
I chose my most sober and unornamented suit, being filled with repentance for saving the countess. I also slipped a blade, normally concealed within the binding of one of my books, inside my belt, for one can never be certain of the Inquisition.
I bowed upon entering, and saw Konrad in a plain scarlet robe and simple crucifix. When he offered me his hand I bent to kiss his ring. Indeed, he had some kindness for me from our Transylvanian days, and his very presence, though it brought me closer to the Inquisition, also made me feel closer to God.
I waited until he was seated beside the fire, the mornings still being cold early in the year, then took a seat upon a stool on the other side of the fireplace.
“You have made an interesting friend in Marinello.” Konrad’s mouth smiled but seemed short of humor. “A pirate captain, who has sometimes harried ships from Rome and even some from England, for whoever will pay for a quiet passage.”
“He has been kind to me.” I waited, reluctant to say aught that could condemn me.
After a long silence, Konrad turned to look upon me again. “I find myself in need of an ally in Venice, and had thought that Contarini was a strong choice,” he said. “Yet I have doubts about the man, made stronger by finding him associating with a known sorcerer.”
“I hoped to find in Contarini an ally,” I quipped, “until I found him associating with the Inquisition.”
Doubts assailed me immediately, and I regretted my insolence. After a long moment of silence while he stared at me, Konrad suddenly threw back his head and laughed, a great bellow of real amusement that made me smile in company.
“So,” he said, still smiling. “What do you want with Contarini, I wonder?”
“I have a commission to fulfill, from a lord back in England,” I said. “I attended university with Lord Dannick’s son, and he has entrusted me with a task,” I found myself explaining. “It is a scholarly request about a piece of art, no more.”
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