by KJ Charles
The spout jerked abruptly. It straightened again, steadied, then lurched sideways once more, and streaks of red shone bright through the dirty brown. Monk, standing like a puppet with loose strings, jerked too, lifting his head. The spout began to spasm, more violently, whipping from side to side, its rhythm breaking and restabilising and breaking again. Xan’s ghost gave a terrible keening howl and dug impalpable claws into Crane’s mind, but he could feel the other pull now. It was rushing through his veins in a storm of black and white wings, and from somewhere deep inside, he welcomed it, reached out, let the birds take over.
I am the Magpie Lord, he insisted to himself, through Xan’s screams. We are the Magpie Lord. Let them fly, Stephen, fly with them, and get this monster out of my mind!
Xan’s talons dug into him with a desperate effort. Crane yelled aloud, a cry of pain and defiance that was echoed by the shrieks of birds that weren’t there, the sharp stabbing of beaks, the thunder of invisible wings beating around and through him.
The bowl exploded. Shards of earthenware went flying across the room, and the blood sprayed into a bright red cloud, in which hung, for just a fraction of a second, the image of a bird, before the spray dissipated into nothing. The creature in Crane’s body was ripped away, howling. Crane gasped for breath, head stabbing with sudden agony. Monk began to scream in earnest. And the thick wooden door burst inwards as though punched by a giant’s fist.
Stephen came in running, ducking through the splinters, Esther Gold just behind him. He threw out a hand as he ran, sending Monk tumbling backwards, and sprinted towards Crane, eyes blazing gold and black in his white face. Town cried out in rage and pulled a pistol, and an urchin boy—no, it was Jenny Saint in trousers and a cap—ran at him, up through the air, as if mounting invisible steps, and kicked him ferociously in the face. Town fell, and she landed on him hard and booted his hand, sending the gun skittering across the floor.
Janossi, Merrick and Leonora were in now. Merrick saw his master, swore with gusto and ran forward. Leonora followed, pausing to kick Town in the balls with force and accuracy. Stephen turned away from Monk, looking up at Crane, starting to speak, but Crane only had eyes for Monk’s slumped body. His old friend looked like himself once more with no alien consciousness there, and Crane gathered every scrap of strength he had left to bellow, “Rats!”
There was a fractional moment of total stillness. Then the rats came.
They flooded in from every corner and crevice. Not the few that had almost killed Leo, but hundreds, tumbling over one another, growing as he watched, flinging themselves forward with snarls like dogs. They met a wave of power from Esther and Stephen which flung them over and over backwards, and bounced up and came on again, with a dreadful shrill squealing and a scrape and dry rustle of claws on earth and stone.
“Get him free!” Stephen yelled at Merrick, as Esther shoved Leonora behind her. The four justiciars formed a semicircle in front of Crane, shoulder to shoulder, hurling power. A rat leapt at Esther and its skull exploded like a rotten orange. Behind them, Merrick hopped up onto the table with his pocketknife in his hand, and began to saw at the thick ropes that pinioned Crane.
“Hoi!” he shouted at Leonora. “Up here, give me a hand.” He pulled out another knife. “And you, Vaudrey, on your feet.”
“You try,” slurred Crane, stiffening his legs under him as best he could to stop his body slumping.
“Shit.” Merrick was working furiously. “The fuck did they do to you?”
“Put that thing in me. Shaman ghost.”
“Fuck.”
“S’alright.”
“It’s not,” said Leo grimly, sawing at his other wrist.
Crane looked round her. The rats were filling the room now, in their hundreds, clambering over each other, with savage, single-minded killing determination. The four justiciars were holding their ground, somehow keeping a corridor of space in front of themselves, but there were so many rats that the pile of dead was two feet deep already and the creatures kept on coming. A rat leapt over the top, over their heads, its limbs spread wide in attack. Saint rose high in the air to punch it away, and the other three all cried, “Hold the line!”, swaying back in unison.
Crane glanced to his left and yelled, “Janossi!”
The man had good reflexes, which saved his life. He didn’t look at Crane but to his other side, and that meant he was able to twist away from Town’s attack so that the blade aimed at his heart scraped off ribs and stabbed the flesh below his shoulder.
Janossi bellowed with pain and released a bolt of power that sent Town flying back into the wall, and as he did so, the rats surged in.
“Hold the damned line!” Stephen screamed. “Resonance three over eight and go.”
All four justiciars hissed indrawn breaths in violent unison. A terrible high-pitched vibration filled Crane’s head. Leonora clapped her free hand to one ear, twisting her neck in a fruitless effort to turn away from the sound. The pitch rose slightly higher and became a feeling, a buzzing in the teeth and eyeballs. The rats hauled back, hesitating, squealing in confusion, and Saint gave a savage cry of triumph as the justiciars pushed forward at a command from Esther, sending rat parts flying, but the creatures turned again in a smoothly coordinated wave and reattacked with as much savagery as before.
“Will you cut that blasted rope!” Stephen shouted.
“Nearly there, sir,” called Merrick, sawing patiently away with the knife.
Knife.
Town had held the knife competently, a man who knew how to stab someone to death…
“Why did they kill Willetts?” Crane asked aloud.
“Who gives a fuck?” grunted Merrick. “Yes.” The thick rope parted, the last strands breaking as he and Crane wrenched at it. Merrick immediately moved to help Leo with the other rope.
“He doesn’t need a spell, look at him.” He was Xan; Crane was not going to speak that name aloud. “And he doesn’t need an amulet to control the rats, either. So why kill Willetts? What did Willetts know?”
“The story?”
“The ending,” Crane said, with sudden certainty. “The real ending. The girl, the vessel of the Red Tide. Of course.”
He glanced at Stephen, but the justiciars were fighting for their lives now, no time to talk. Janossi fell to one knee and Esther hauled him up, but it cost her a step back.
“Fuck.” Crane wrenched at his pinioned hand but it wasn’t even close to free, so he made a decision, gave the order.
“Merrick. Kill Mr. Humphris. Strangle him. No blood.”
Merrick stopped sawing at the rope. He met Crane’s eyes, his face emotionless.
“Now,” Crane said.
Merrick folded his pocketknife and put it in Crane’s free hand. “Anyone got a bit of string?”
“There’s a handkerchief in my pocket.”
“Here.” Leonora kicked off her shoe and dragged off a torn silk stocking. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Merrick took the stocking and jumped down from the table, pulling a pencil from one of his pockets. He went to Monk where he lay by the wall and pulled the recumbent man to a kneeling posture. He slipped the stocking round his neck with the pencil inside the loop, and began to tighten the makeshift garrotte, face remote and calm.
“Oh God, Lucien,” Leonora whispered.
“Keep cutting.” Crane’s own hand was shaking so hard he’d be in danger of slicing an artery if he tried to help.
Monk seemed unconscious, but as Merrick tightened the rope he began to jerk and struggle, as if by instinct. Every rat in the room froze, suddenly stiff. And then, as one, they all poured towards Merrick.
“Sodding hell!” said Saint, who was at that side of the room, and staggered backwards under the huge weight of rodent fury, the invisible shields bowing under the pressure. Esther and Stephen both hurled themselves sid
eways towards her, Janossi a fraction later, and now all four justiciars were jumbled in front of Merrick, and the corridor of protective space between them and the rats was down to inches and bending backwards as the rats piled three, four feet high. Claws and teeth scrabbled savagely as the rats screamed their rage. Monk kicked and spasmed, eyes bulging, face blackening, and the justiciars were all shouting, and Crane’s other hand came free. He fell forward, chest hitting the table in front of him, and lay over it gasping for breath.
Monk’s tongue protruded, face suffused, eyes popping, and from the jerking of his body, Crane knew his feet were drumming on the floor. Quite suddenly, he went limp.
The rats all screamed at once. It rang through Crane’s bones and his eyes and his hair, a wrenching agony, and then, abruptly, it stopped, and the rats were tumbling away, retreating, shrinking.
“Jesus.” Crane slid off the table and onto the floor. He saw the live rats fleeing through holes in the walls, the dead ones deflating like pricked bladders.
“Lucien!” There was a scrape as Stephen shoved the table out of the way. He looked grey with exhaustion. “Lucien, are you all right?”
“Fine. Well, not fine. Alive.”
Stephen dropped to his knees in front of him and took his chin in a gentle hand. Crane leaned slightly forward to turn the touch to a hold, aware of the others, but needing the comfort, and felt Stephen cup his face tenderly even as he turned it from side to side, examining Crane’s eyes.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to be horribly killed. I’m sure you said that.”
“I said I wasn’t going to be horribly killed by rats. I never promised not to have my soul eaten by a demented ghost.” Crane was trying for humour but his voice cracked betrayingly. “God. I’ve never wanted to see anyone so much in my life.”
“I’m glad we were here in time.” Stephen spoke mildly, but the tightness of his grip belied the calm of his words.
Crane looked around. Merrick was watching, unharmed. He gave Crane a nod as their eyes met. The dead rats were in piles, shrinking, not as fast as the live ones had. He abruptly became aware of the choking stench of their foul bodies, sewer filth and rodent piss. Janossi was slumped on the floor with Leo holding a handkerchief to his wound; Saint was vomiting noisily in a corner. Esther sat back on her heels, looking lined and drained.
“Is it over?” said Crane.
“It is for them,” Esther said. “Tell me, Mr. Merrick, why did you kill him?” She jerked her head over in Monk’s direction.
“Is that a problem, madam?” enquired Merrick without inflection.
“No, it’s a question. How did you know what to do?”
“I told him to do it,” Crane said. “My responsibility.” His ankles were still pinioned, he realised. He sat back, shifted his legs forward and started to saw at the rope with the pocketknife. Stephen silently took it from his hand and bent to the work.
“And?”
Crane cautiously flexed a shoulder. His throat was horribly dry. “Willetts. You speculated he was killed by someone needing the chant or the amulet. But clearly the shaman, that thing, didn’t need them. So why kill him? I concluded he was stabbed to shut him up. Not about the story, everyone already knew that, but for the thing he knew and nobody else did. The real ending.”
His voice cracked. Merrick threw him a hip flask, and he took a gulp of raw brandy. “Christ! Steal the good stuff next time, you know where it is.” He handed it on to Stephen. “When we first heard the story, it all ended when the vessel of the Red Tide was strangled. No blood. I thought perhaps that was what they wanted to hide. The ghost needed blood to move into me. And if its host body was killed without bloodshed—well, Town said Xan couldn’t live in a corpse.”
“I see.” Esther took the flask from Stephen and swigged. “That’s a devil of a deductive leap. How were you sure your version of the ending was the true one?”
“I wasn’t. That was a calculated risk.”
She threw back her head with a sudden crack of laughter. “Magnificent. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Lord Crane.”
Crane forced himself to control his voice. “The man I just had killed was named Paul Humphris. Monk, we called him. He had no part in this. Town trapped him for that damned creature’s use. He tried to warn me to run, before that thing took him over. He was a friend.”
Stephen paused in his work to put a hand on his arm, warning. Esther said soberly, “I’m sorry. But you should know, you didn’t kill him. The possession destroyed his mind, and his body wouldn’t have survived long after it. Your friend was already gone.”
“I saw him earlier today,” Crane said obstinately. “He was himself. He spoke to me.”
Stephen gave his arm a gentle stroke. “Things like that can squat in the mind, almost unnoticed, almost harmless, for a very long time. Like a toad, or a cancer. I’d imagine that it simply roosted in Mr. Humphris when it wasn’t controlling the rats. It’s only when they take over the body that they destroy the original inhabitant, root out the brain and the soul and the nerves and replace them. There’s no coming back from that.”
Crane recalled Monk’s body, the ugly jerking. “It was moving him like a puppet. A meat puppet. It was going to do that to me, wasn’t it?”
“Not on my time.” Stephen cut through the last few strands of the rope, dropped the knife, and brushed his hands over Crane’s abused ankles with a gesture that looked professional and felt anything but. “You are, I think, fine. No damage done. Mr. Merrick, were you hurt?”
“No, sir.”
“Joss?”
“Flesh wound.”
“Bleeding wound,” Stephen said. “You’d have been next up for possession, because you let yourself get stabbed. You have to pay more attention.”
“Sir.”
“And while I’m on the subject of attention, when I say three over eight I mean three over eight, and not somewhere between three and a half and four,” Stephen added. “I’ve never heard such a racket. Do we need to go over resonance again, Saint?”
“We was a bit busy,” Saint muttered.
“You’ll always be busy. And then you’ll be dead because you can’t get a simple resonance right. Both of you go to Mr. Maupert tomorrow, and don’t come back till you can give me three over eight for five minutes, understood?”
“Sir,” mumbled the two juniors in chorus. Saint went on, “But Mrs. Gold doesn’t—”
“When you can do what Mrs. Gold does, you can decide for yourself what’s important,” Stephen said. “In the meantime, resonance.”
“Enliven your lessons by meditating on the words hold the line,” Esther added. “That was shambolic, Saint. Otherwise, though, not bad work, you two. We would still have had our backsides kicked without Lord Crane, of course.”
“The reverse is significantly more the case,” Crane said. “I’m indebted to you all.”
“So am I,” said Leonora quietly. “This was my fault, Tom’s fault. I’m sorry.”
That was greeted with silence, because there wasn’t much to say to it. Crane looked round. “Town?”
“Dead,” Esther said.
“What? How?”
“Poison. He seems to have taken something very unpleasant and very fast acting. No blood. I don’t think he wanted to be Xan’s next host.”
“Jesus. What are we going to do about him?” Crane asked. “About all this mess?”
Stephen opened his mouth, but Esther interrupted him firmly. “That’s my decision. Mr. Merrick, I need an able-bodied man. Can I call on you?”
“By all means, madam.”
“Good. Joss, take Mrs. Hart to the surgery. You can wash there and borrow another dress,” she told Leonora. “While she changes, Joss, get yourself stitched up, then escort her home. But send for Inspector Rickaby first and have him directed here. Got it? Good.
Steph, I want to be sure Lord Crane’s free of that thing. Get him home and keep an eye on him overnight, please. Saint, you, me and Mr. Merrick will tidy up here.”
“How’s that fair?” grumbled Saint.
“At what point did I promise you fair? You have your jobs, go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Stephen was wearing one of his blander expressions.
Merrick came over and offered Crane a hand, pulling him to his feet. “You alright?”
“Yes. You?”
“Course.”
Crane nodded, gripping Merrick’s hand for a second’s silent connection. The manservant patted him on the arm. “Off you go now, my lord. All done here.”
Chapter Sixteen
They emerged up a flight of stairs, through a clean but bare house, and out into the late-afternoon light together. Crane had had no idea where he was or how long he had been in the cellar, but now he looked around with a frown. “Are we in Holborn?”
“Not far off. Can you walk home? It would be better if you could, to get your body feeling more normal. Exercise will be good for it,” Stephen added demurely. “Joss, take Mrs. Hart in a cab. At least—Lord Crane…”
Crane found a couple of shillings in his pocket. “Here you go. Be good, Leo. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are you all right, Lucien?” she demanded. “You look dreadful.”
“Thank you, adai. I’ll be fine once I get into bed.”
“I’m sure you will.” She flashed him a little smile. “Tomorrow, then.”