Jack peered across the mêlée, trying to see what was going on in the low light. At least one of the wolves lay motionless on the ground, and one of the men was howling in agony, blood cascading down from parallel slashes on his chest.
She grabbed Callum by the shoulders and shook him. “The hunt isn’t important,” she said, urgently. “We gave you the mixture Thomazine created for Amyas. The potion has healed you. It’s the ritual that turns you into one of them, not the potion. You have to fight the instinct to hunt.”
Another scream, cut off, as a wolf was injured, and she closed her eyes for a second in grief. But the message seemed to have reached Callum and he stepped closer. “I don’t want to be like them.”
“Then go.” She launched herself from the shelter of the trees and cannoned into the biggest of them, whom she recognized by his height as Sir Henry. His face, a mask of blood and teeth, was more animal than human. The Taser had discharged but it still had a hefty stun left, and direct contact with his naked chest sent him yelping away. She called to the wolves in her mind and, with a long howl, raced after Callum over the scrub and fallen bodies near the gate. She wrenched open the bolt, the big female wolf scratching at the wire before she flung it open. For a moment she felt exhilaration as two of the wolves raced free, followed by a third, limping on three legs. They disappeared into the forest on one side of the path, and Jack passed the chain through the opening, bodged a knot in it and tugged on it with all her weight. One of the wolf-men smashed into the gate, reaching for Jack as she pulled away. She loped along the forest ride at the back of the woods.
She could hear something running to meet her and the adrenaline made her run even faster. As she reached the road, she could feel her energy starting to flag, and turned to confront her attacker. The follower staggered to a breathless halt. It was Callum, still wild-eyed but more conscious of his nakedness, covering his genitals with cupped hands.
“I couldn’t make the phone work at the cabin. I’ll go back to the house—they won’t hurt me.”
“No. Get over the fence and follow this path toward Grizedale. Tell the guy in the car there to meet me at the front of the castle.”
“Are you going back for Sadie?”
A pain like a spear arced through Jack as she remembered. “Sadie is probably—”
“We couldn’t get her. But she was weak, she may have fallen by now. She was in a tree—” But his words were already fading as Jack hit the road and started running toward Knowle Castle.
Chapter 43
Once a Disease has entered the Bodie, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a Disease might mean thyre common Death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the Disease with whatever aid she can gather.
—PARACELSUS (1536), Grosse Wundartzney, annotated translation by John Dee, held in private collection on loan to the British Library
It was our good fortune to ride but half a day before we heard a party of men upon the road, and recognized them as wearing the scarlet and blue sash of Marinello. He was there also, upon a horse of such temperament that it needed his great strength to keep its hooves upon the road.
“Master Kelley, well met!” he cried, his eyes all on my companion, as he swept his hat off his head and bowed. “My lady!”
I was swaying in the saddle, sick with fever and pain, and was soon escorted to a new inn, this a large prosperous place where the countess’s own agent waited. He was soon closeted with his lady, and I was half carried into a chamber and left to the mercies of a doctor. In vain did I mention the name of Paracelsus. The doctor scraped my wound with a hot knife, poulticed it with pungent herbs and bound it so tight I fair swooned with the pain. Then he forced me to drink some vile brew mixed in wine, and I fell into a stupor upon a mattress set up within Marinello’s chamber.
No one awoke me during the night and in the morning I found myself alone save his servant, who snored on another pallet at the foot of Marinello’s bed. I examined the wound, to my relief much drier and eased somewhat in pain, and relieved my swollen bladder in the piss-bucket. Then I pulled on my boots, checked the sketch was still within my clothes, and stepped into the airy hallway. Servants were everywhere carrying buckets and wood, the smell of browning fish and meat drawing me by my nose into the kitchens, in a separate building behind the inn.
There the servants bowed low, chivvied me onto a seat in a pleasant herb garden, and brought me food. I found I was hungry and ate heartily, somewhat comforted to be in the company of a friend. Even though I feared Lord Marinello was under the spell of the countess, I knew she wished me alive, and he: well, he liked me.
When I returned to my lord’s chamber I found him naked, washing in a pail scented with rosemary. His servant dashed about him offering herbs, towels and fresh clothes, while my lord threw the scented water about his person.
“Ah, Master Kelley.” He grinned and tipped some of the water over his hair, shaking it like a rough dog, all over the floor. His man scurried about mopping it up. “I hear you saved my lady.”
T’was she who saved me, I thought, but I bowed low. Then I turned my back upon his nakedness and took a tray from the hands of a serving woman at the door. Better to make myself useful.
I turned and he half smiled again at me.
He was a beautiful creature, if one can see a man as a sculpture. His great tallness ran not to fat but muscles, ropes of sinew moving under skin the color of cream. By contrast, his face and hands were burnished like oak. A scar, like a white rope, traversed his body from one shoulder to the other hip, much puckered at the lowest point. It was as if someone had tried to hack him in two. His smile turned into a frown and I looked away in haste, lest I had offended him.
“I was in Cyprus when the sultan’s forces attacked.” He spoke as if it were nothing. “At Nicosia with my mother. They landed and attacked the town. For two months we resisted them, but eventually they took the citadel.”
I knew of it. I also knew that the invaders killed every man, sparing the women and children only as slaves. I turned to stare at him.
He touched the scar. “I tried to defend my mother. I was ten years old, fortunately not well grown. Her women healed me, and I survived as a slave. As I grew stronger and taller, I was placed in the house of a seafaring pasha. My father’s fleet captured his ship, and I was restored to him.” He started to dress, sitting on the side of the bed to draw on his stockings.
“Your father was also a sea captain?” I said, placing the tray upon a table.
“An admiral. He led the rescue of the refugees from Famugusta, before it fell to the Turks.”
To think of such a fate for a boy. A slave within the Ottoman world was the death of most.
“I was one of the lucky ones,” he continued, waving a shirt away and pointing to another. “I was not castrated, a fate which fell to many of my fellows. The pasha hoped to get a ransom for me.”
He said something in his own tongue to the servant, who bowed, shot me a look of dislike, and closed the door behind himself. I waited for him to speak.
“The countess,” he said, fumbling with his laces. I stepped to him, and tutted at the knot he was working. Pushing his fingers away, I untangled the threads while he continued. “She says you and she are old friends?”
“But since last year, my lord. I worked for the countess. My friend and I were taken to her castle when she was deathly ill, to try to save her.” Better that I gave no details. I laced up the shirt quickly, being used to doing my own.
He slid the sleeve up to his elbow, and turned it to my eye. A bandage, reddened with blood, covered the vein. He unwrapped it to show me a slash, a clean wound still oozing, the edges dark. “This,” he mused. “This was done to me.”
“She put her mouth on you?” I shook my head. “No rapture is worth it, my lord. She is death.” I clamped my mouth shut, sorry I had spoken such words to her infatuated lover.
“What do you mean?” He did not seem angry, but
curious.
“Do you know of the priest, Father Konrad, of the Inquisition?” He let me rebandage the wound, though it looked unclean. “He has spoken of such a wound, from such a woman.”
“I have met him, yes.” He tucked the sleeve over the bandage. “He asked many questions of your travels, and when I said you had gone to the palazzo of the Contarinis, was angry. He said you were in danger, so I came here to find you. I discover you have rescued yourself and are alone in the company of that beautiful creature.” He tapped my shoulder with his good hand. “Beware my jealousy, my little scholar.”
“No need for jealousy, my lord.” My answer was a little prim; I was not flattered to be thought of as a man of loose morals. “I am a married man.”
“Well, my friend, so am I, but it does not stop me mounting a few mistresses.” He walked across to the tray, and selected a morsel. Speaking around it, he said, “Although, this woman intoxicates me.”
I clutched at his arm. “My lord,” I said, with urgency. “Do not trust her sorceries. She can make one think she is gentle and sweet…but she is not a mortal woman, she is evil, contrary to God’s design.”
I had gone too far. He shook me off, and I stepped back immediately. “I shall overlook your rudeness, and put such lies down to your fever. I shall forgive it, because you saved my lady’s life yesterday.” He stepped into his plain hose in a somber brown, ideal for riding. “But today, I think it best that you come back to Venice and heal your wounds.” He put on his doublet, also plain but of wonderfully woven cloth. I began to lace it, and he spoke soft that only I should hear it. “And I shall worry about my wounds. The greater of which will be to my heart if she come to any harm.”
Chapter 44
PRESENT DAY: KNOWLE CASTLE, LAKE DISTRICT
Blood drains into the ground, the living energy in it dissipating as it transfers to the land below. It doesn’t care but it knows, as it suckles the rubied soil for the blood of the witch.
Jack found the remains of a body beneath the tree where she’d left Sadie. For a long moment, she couldn’t look, couldn’t see if it was Sadie. She leaned forward, braced her hands on her knees to try to get her breath back. God, no. Callum had to be right.
“Sadie?” It came out more wobbly than she had intended, and shot into the silence, making her jump. “Sadie, where are you?”
At first, nothing, then she let her senses explore the silence. Only it wasn’t completely quiet. The trees whispered in the light breeze, the grass sighed and lambs called, far away.
“Jack?” The voice sounded sleepy, weak, as if Sadie were a long way away.
Jack scanned the tree, looking up. The beginning of a glow in the east showed a thickened area of trunk that slowly morphed as her eyes adjusted. Sadie, clinging to the trunk maybe fifteen feet up, surrounded by a network of branches.
“Sadie, thank God. Are you OK? They didn’t hurt you?”
“I’m cold—I’m so cold.” The slurred voice reached Jack but the girl sounded semiconscious.
Jack stood under the tree. “Try to climb down. If you fall, I’ll catch you.”
“I’m too high,” Sadie said, her voice fading. “I’ll hurt you.”
“If you fall from there you’ll probably hurt us both, but if you can come down a bit—”
Sadie didn’t answer, just leaned her head into the tree. “I can’t.” She started sobbing. “I’m so tired.”
“Please, Sadie. I can’t…” Lose you now. She cleared her throat. “I’ll come up.”
“No!” Sadie looked down at Jack, her face pale in what remained of the moonlight. Jack realized she must be frozen, the grass was tipped with frost. “Wait a minute.”
There was a sound of rustling some way off, as if the hunters were returning through the forest. A single deer broke from the trees across the lawn, and zigzagged across, its eyes rimmed with white.
“Sadie—”
The ground under Jack’s feet shuddered, and she fell back a step. The earth felt spongy, and soft, and she stepped back again in case it dragged her down like it had the body in the garden.
The sound of Sadie’s movements brushing the twigs around her made Jack look up.
The girl stood in the dawn light, balanced with only a hand on the trunk, shaking. As Jack watched, heart suddenly jerking in her chest, the girl slid a foot farther along the branch. A tiny snapping sound started all over the tree, and as Jack watched dozens of buds broke, tiny leaves unfurling.
“Get out of the way,” the girl said, her voice dreamy. She took another small step along the bough, just her fingertips brushing a limb above for balance.
Jack stepped away, her attention claimed by the sound of sticks snapping somewhere behind them.
Sadie let go of the overhead branch, and crouched to grip the one she was standing on. As Jack watched, aware of the approach of something coming fast, Sadie sat on the limb, wobbled a bit, then inched forward to drop the last twelve feet.
The thud was unexpectedly dull, and quiet, and when Jack reached Sadie she realized the girl was half embedded in soft, damp soil.
“Ow.” Sadie reached up a hand, and Jack heaved to get her out of the depression between tree roots. Sadie was shaking, her arms wrapped around herself. “Cold.”
Jack shucked off her jacket and wrapped it around Sadie, even as she looked around. In the new light she saw the first naked shape emerge from the forest.
The sound of a car and a crash some way away down the gravel carriage drive suggested someone hadn’t worried about the main gate not being open.
“It’s Felix,” breathed Jack, lifting Sadie up. “He’s coming. Hang on.”
She dragged the stiletto out of her boot and roughly carved a circle around them in the grass, cutting into the soil. She dribbled the silver solution along the line.
“Are you drawing the sigils?” Sadie slumped onto the grass and hugged her knees.
“No, I’m trying to keep them out.”
The circle was a long shot, but she hoped all the legends about silver and werewolves had some truth in it. She drew a symbol in the middle of the circle and placed her hand on it, charging it up, trying to find a focus. After a moment, Sadie’s hand wavered to cover her fingers.
“How can I help?”
The approaching creatures must have seen them, a cacophony of calls around, whoops, yells, screams, more human now but just as aggressive.
“Just think about focusing power on the symbol, drawing it into the middle. I’ll try to direct it at them.” The energy bolt needed contact, and she didn’t know if the circle would hold them back for more than a few moments. She just hoped she got Sir Henry. Her anger made her fingers start to tingle.
Sadie started to murmur something and for a second Jack thought she was praying. Then she heard Sadie pleading with someone, something. “Do it again, look after us—”
The force Jack had been building started to leach into the soil. Too slow, the silhouettes were maybe two hundred yards away, sprinting. She focused, trying to hold the symbol in her head, trying to trace them in her imagination on the circle on the ground. There—the smallest twist of a breeze flattening a few grass blades as she stood up.
The first two figures didn’t even pause. They hit the circle at full speed, the momentum diverted back onto them. The energy they were generating fed the spell, immobilizing every muscle in the attackers instantaneously. The energy rolled both toward the rest, who managed to abort their charge. Jack winced at the sight of the lead man’s wrists, both broken by the look of it. The other, a shorter woman, had landed full on her face, the fresh blood bright and red against the dried blood that covered her body.
The next attack carried the remaining pack, five of them, over the edges of the circle, one the tall blonde Jack realized must have been Callum’s mother, although her features seemed barely human. Jack held out one hand in a defensive posture and the woman ran straight onto it. The other hand on the symbol, Jack could feel the energy flowing aroun
d her, over her skin, concentrating down onto the fingers and discharging into the woman. She screamed, arched her back as if she had been Tasered and fell onto the grass, shuddering. The others fell back for a second.
Jack reached for her knife and crouched over the almost depleted circle. “Come on, you bastards,” she shouted. “What are you waiting for?” She could feel her rage start to charge the symbol again slowly, and hoped her bravado would frighten them off.
Sadie slowly placed her cold fingers over Jack’s and something happened. It was as if Sadie realigned Jack in some way, because fresh energy poured into her, not the heat she expected but some cold, wordless rumble.
This time Jack could let go of the symbol and bury her hands in the turf, charging up the circle again until she could see it glowing faintly around them. The group fell back, dragging its wounded members and setting them on their feet.
Sir Henry Dannick, naked, covered with mud and blood, stepped forward. “You cannot stop us.” His voice was thick, as if words were difficult. “I could go to the house and get a shotgun and it’s all over.”
Finally, she could see Felix’s car bouncing over the perfect lawn, cutting parallel lines in it and spraying mud behind. The car stopped and Felix wrenched open the door.
He marched forward, then brought up his hand—with the dead man’s gun gleaming in it, she realized. “Leave them alone.”
The four creatures who still posed a threat turned to Felix, the growl starting as if by instinct.
“Stay back,” Jack warned. She could see Callum in the backseat. She wondered when Felix had cleaned the gun.
Maggie got out of the car, a strange look in her eyes. “Don’t try to touch them until the circle is discharged,” she called to Felix, and walked forward.
“Maggie!” Jack didn’t know what she was doing, but the pack regrouped, their focus on the older woman.
The Secrets of Blood and Bone Page 30