Vanished g-4

by Kat Richardson

  I broke his mood by scoffing. “You’re saying we’re immortal?” “Not a bit. We age and we die, but time does what it pleases round us and we’ve very little say in it. More I don’t know, but I know that bloody well.”

  I thought a moment. “You said you were gifted with premonition—”

  “Cursed with it. No sort of bloody gift. All me life. When it began to get worse—when it all started coming clear rather than hintin’ and dreamin’ and disappearin’ when I reached for it—that’s when the worst started.”

  “That’s a function of time, though, isn’t it? Premonition? A glimpse forward.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And you have a way with the temporaclines that I certainly don’t. Maybe it’s the same thing. Maybe your. curse isn’t premonition, but something to do with time in the Grey. That’s why you look. seventy or so, not however old you really are.”

  He grunted and walked on. Michael shot a curious glance at me and started to say something. I put a finger over my lips, shook my head, and caught up to Marsden again.

  “I take it back,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You might actually be clever enough to trip up that white-scaled bastard.”

  “Who?” I wasn’t on board the same train of thought, apparently.

  “Wygan. You might do very well after all.”

  “So you’re glad you didn’t shove me into that tree?”

  “We’ll have to see. You’re still too naive by half. Still. ” he added, but said no more, shrugging one shoulder and continuing in silence.

  Now I got it: Marsden was as bad at saying he was sorry as I was. The food and this odd admission were as close to an apology as I was likely to get. I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted him, though it might have been a bit more than I had the night before.

  I could tell Michael wanted to ask what was going on, what we’d been talking about, but he took a good look at my face and kept his mouth shut. He was dealing with these inflections of strangeness much better than his brother ever had. I hoped Will was all right, wherever he was. And Quinton, too. My sense of impending crisis was growing.

  We crossed a road and passed by a large terra-cotta-colored building that turned out to be part of the British Library, according to the sign. It wasn’t what I’d have expected, except for a glimpse of a much older building through the straight angles of the gate and the big red building. A little farther on, we crossed the large street we’d been following that ran from King’s Cross past Euston Station. I could see the big war memorials and remains of the first train station’s driveway just across the road as Marsden came to a stop in front of a wrought iron fence that stretched the whole block. A discreet sign mounted on the fence noted that the building’s architectural details were under renovation, and thanked some public trust and a list of donors in the name of the St. Pancras parish for their generosity. I guessed this must be the new St. Pancras church, though it certainly wasn’t less than two hundred years old to my eyes.

  “Here they are.” Marsden waved at the soot-streaked building on the other side of the fence. A long, tall wall of once-white stone pushed up from the lawn around the building. Greek revival and very Georgian in design. A couple of bright red doors punctuated the wall. The nearest was just in front of us in a jutting corner under a sort of porch roof that was held up by three Grecian-style statues and one lump swathed in white Tyvek instead of pillars.

  “The caryatids?” Michael squeaked.

  Marsden humphed. “My Greek sisters. Or at least they look it. Very popular, the Greek look, when they was installed. Bit too short, mind—cut ’em off in the middle so they’d fit. Just mouthpieces, though. Not a decent thought in any of their own heads. They mostly let the dead speak through them, but they do have some personality of their own. You’d best be nice to ’em or they won’t say nowt.”

  “But they’re statues!”

  “Empty iron pillars, actually. The statue part’s just clay. But y’see, the pillars reach down into the crypt. What the dead know, they know.”

  It sounded as likely as anything I’d encountered in the Grey, though it had to sound crazy to most people. I wasn’t going to recount my conversation with Sekhmet to Michael, who was still staring in frustration at the rank of caryatids, so I only said, “Things are often more than they seem. Especially old things that have been hanging around a while.”

  “Most especially old things what have been hanging about over a crypt and across the road from a train station. We should go inside the fence so we don’t have to yell at ’em,” Marsden suggested.

  Bewildered, Michael followed us around the corner and into the church’s entryway. We started up the stairs so we could jump down into the small side yard but got no farther as a woman emerged from the church and called out to us.

  We all turned.

  She was a round, middle-aged woman with muddy red hair, dressed in a bland, conservative dress and low-heeled shoes. “Hullo! Come to see the church?”

  Michael was the quickest of us. He turned to face the woman, nodding. “Hi! I’m at university down the street,” he said, pointing south. “We wanted to take a look at the caryatids.”

  “Oh. The one’s under renovation, I’m afraid. Would you prefer the south porch? They’re all four there.”

  Michael cast a querying glance at us, and Marsden shook his head. “No. It’s the renovations we’re interested in.”

  “Can’t see much with the shroud on her,” the woman said in doubtful tones. “Should be much more interesting once they’ve got the work further along.”

  “That’s all right—we want to see the contrast. Y’know. Track the progress over time. Is it all right if we go look at them a little closer? Take some sketches and photos, make some notes about the progress?”

  “Oh. Well. Of course. Yes. You can’t get up to the porch at the moment to take a really good look—ladder’s away for the weekend to discourage children from climbing about—but if you’re satisfied looking from the ground. ”

  “That’ll be fine. Thanks!” Michael added, waving the woman away with a smile. It was the same sort of reassuring blather his brother used with nervous customers, and hearing Michael do it made me sad and roused my worry over Will anew.

  We hopped down and hurried around the building out of the woman’s sight.

  “Nice work,” I said.

  Michael grinned and took the lead to the crypt. Once in front of its red door, Marsden resumed command.

  “That was cleverly done, boy. Care to be the lookout while we see who’s home?”

  “Lookout for what?”

  “Anyone as might think it odd that we’re talking to statues.”

  Michael nodded and agreed to keep his eyes peeled. Marsden told me to lean back against the fence so I could keep an eye on the three uncovered statues while he tried to get their attention.

  I put my weight on the fence and looked up. The three statues were identical except that one was the mirror image of the other two. They were all long-haired women wearing some kind of Grecian dress—not a toga, since I knew only men wore those—and each had an extinguished torch of reeds resting on the ground in one hand and a jug dangling from the other hand. They looked rather odd from my angle; like their legs were too long and heavy for their bodies. And the faces and hair didn’t seem like the ones I’d seen in museums; they were somehow more Western and smooth than I remembered.

  Marsden spoke quietly. “Good morning. Anyone care to talk? We’re in need of some help.” I wouldn’t have expected such a deferential tone from him, but I suppose when you’re dealing with a potential cryptful of ghosts, you don’t start out by pissing them off.

  Nothing happened for a while. The air around the crypt seemed a bit brighter than the air farther away, but it didn’t seem particularly energized and there was no sign of specific ghosts, only a single hot line of blue energy that struck through the crypt from the
east side. Then something pale white seeped up from the dirty stones and wreathed around the three statues. The plastic sheeting billowed in opposition to the prevailing wind of passing traffic. A second flush of colored mist and spiderweb light crept up the figures and played over their faces, casting shadows that made them seem alive.

  “Go away,” one of the statues moaned.

  “It’s much too early to get up,” another groused. “Can’t you come back later?”

  A girl giggled, a slightly cracked sound like someone on the verge of a breakdown, while the covered one muttered unintelligible word gravel.

  None of them were actually moving at all, yet the voices seemed to come from them into my ears, not straight into my head the way some ghosts did. Michael was staring at them with eyes wider than the church doors. I motioned him to get back to his job. If he could make out the presence of whatever animated the caryatids, it was a safe bet others might, too, and that wouldn’t do.

  “Mornin’, my dears,” Marsden said.

  A muffled voice spoke from somewhere inside the crypt, rising upward, “Is that my Peter?”

  “Of course it’s Peter. No one else bothers to come talk to us.”

  “I can’t see him. Could you move aside, please?”

  Someone scoffed, and the Grey pall over the second caryatid from the left rippled and turned pink, giving the statue a startling semblance of life. The eyes of the statue seemed to blink and the shadow of a smile played across the mouth. The caryatid next to it frowned.

  “Good morning, Peter,” the pink one trilled in a voice so excessively sweet it could have given diabetes to abstemious sheep. “It’s so lovely to see you again. It’s been a very long time since you visited.”

  “Gad,” the darker one in the middle muttered in a surprisingly deep voice. “I may be unwell if she keeps on.”

  “Don’t be snippy,” the one on the far end chastised. “We don’t get so many visitors who actually listen anymore.”

  “But do we have to put up with that for it?”

  “Do they have to be so loud?” I asked, casting a glance at the passersby on the sidewalk.

  “I ’spect it’s the iron column inside ’em,” Marsden said in a low voice. “Resonates.” He turned back to the pink caryatid. “Good morning, Hope, and you, too, Temperance, Prudence.” I guessed that was the dark, grumpy one and the pale, cautious one, in order.

  The Tyvek rattled and deflated.

  “What are you doing?” the statue in the middle snapped—Temperance, I thought.

  “I can’t see anything—there’s a bag on my head!” a new voice whined.

  “Chastity!” Prudence, the one at the open end, called. “Come over here and share with me. Leave Tempe alone. You know how she gets.”

  The fourth voice muttered something that might have been “old bat,” and moved to the far end, making the shape and visage of the caryatid’s face blur and ripple.

  They were like the caricatures of their names. “Don’t tell me,” I muttered. “The four on the south side are the other virtues: Faith, Justice, Fortitude, and Charity.”

  “No idea. Them four don’t talk.” Marsden turned back to the masonry sisters. “I am havin’ a problem, so naturally I come to you for help.”

  “Oh? What sort of problem?” Prudence asked.

  “Something unsavory, I’ve no doubt,” Temperance added with a sniff.

  “Do you suppose it’s very unsavory?” Chastity’s voice asked, giggling a little.

  “Oh, I’m sure not!” Hope twittered. “And of course we’ll help. Of course we will!”

  “Let us hear what it is he wants first, Hope,” Prudence cautioned. “Don’t be so, so. ”

  “Intemperate?” Temperance supplied.

  “Well. yes. What is it that you want of us, Peter?”

  “You see the lad there? He’s lost his brother—taken away by the vampires and their kin. This. young woman is lookin’ for him, but we don’t know which of the clans might have taken the fella or where.”

  “It might have something to do with some amphorae—or not,” I added.

  “You mean the jars. with the blood?” Chastity asked with a hint of avidity.

  “Ewww!” Hope squealed.

  Marsden turned his eyeless face toward me. I shrugged. “They keep coming up. Jakob and Purcell were connected to them and Sekhmet wasn’t happy about them. They were kept at Sotheby’s for a while, which is the last place anyone seems to have seen Will. Whoever has the amphorae knows something about all this.”

  He grunted.

  “They’ve been broken,” Chastity mourned.

  “Good,” said Temperance. “They sound entirely unsavory.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Barnaby told me.”

  I glanced at Marsden again. He hadn’t turned his face away and seemed to know I was looking at him. “Probably one of the dead in the crypt,” he said.

  I turned my attention back to the caryatids. “How would Barnaby know anything about them? How do you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “How indeed!” Prudence declared, rippling a bit as if she were trying to glare at the other spirit sharing her statue.

  “Barnaby Smith is a drunkard and a liar for all that he kept the church records at St. James’s,” Tempe stated. “You should consider his every word with suspicion.”

  “I like him!” Chastity flared, turning the statue she shared with Prudence shocking red. “He’s not a prig like you!”

  “Oh, Chassy, please!” Hope twittered.

  “My dears, we’ve no time for this,” Marsden cut in. “There’s a fella gone missing and the longer he’s among their kind. Well, you know what might happen.”

  The arguing statues fell silent.

  Marsden waved at me to continue.

  “Chastity, how did you know about the amphorae?” I asked.

  “They passed this way in the Underground. I was just. I was bored. I just thought I’d take a look in the tunnel. There’s so many funny little bits of tunnel and sometimes I can catch someone staring at me. It’s fun to see their faces! Oo! A haunt!” She giggled the same slightly unbalanced laugh I’d heard when we arrived. Time was not being easy on her.

  “Who had them and what were they doing with them?”

  “Oh. Some lot of Red Guard. But they didn’t notice me. Dull old duffers, the lot of them—no fun at all. They just wanted to carry their boxes off, never mind me. They were taking them toward Islington. I could smell that the jars had blood in them and it was so wonderfully gothic—just like a novel! — and I so wanted to know what they were going to do. Some kind of ritual or something, I thought. But no. They just carried them off and broke them, Barnaby said.” The disappointment of her ghoulish hopes was palpable as a settling green fog around the farthest caryatid.

  I hid my disgust. “How did Barnaby know?” I inquired.

  “Oh. I asked him and some of the others if they’d go a-haunting for me, keep an eye out and all. And Barnaby said he’d seen the jars down under the old priory and then they were all smashed up the next night. It was so disappointing.”

  “Which priory was that?”

  She sighed as if she thought me very stupid. “The priory of St. John, of course, in the parish of St. James Clerkenwell. Barnaby used to keep the parish records at St. James’s. And since St. James’s is near one of the Underground stops, I thought he might be able to watch for me. I asked some of the others, but they didn’t see anything.”

  All roads lead to Clerkenwell, I thought. “Why didn’t you go yourself?”

  “I can’t go far from the church here, can I?” she snapped. “I’m not a proper ghost at all. It’s so unfair!”

  “There’s no need for that sort of histrionics, my girl,” Temperance chided. “Things could be quite a bit worse for you.”

  “Worse! You haven’t got a bag over your head day and night!”

  “Chastity, really. It’s just temporary,” said Prudenc
e.

  Hope chimed in. “And you’ll be the prettiest of us all when they’re done!”

  Chastity made a dismissive noise. “Phooey.”

  “Chastity,” I interrupted. “Could I talk to Barnaby for a few minutes?”

  “No,” she replied in a petulant tone. “I would have to go fetch him and who knows what I’d miss?”

  “I promise we won’t say anything while you’re gone. Would you please fetch Barnaby?”

  “Don’t be contrary,” Prudence said.

  “Well. I shall, but only if the handsome one asks me to.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That lad you brought. He hasn’t even looked at me. I want him to ask me.”

  “Chastity, don’t be such a goose. The lad doesn’t even know you’re here,” Prudence said.

  “He is rather nice-looking, though,” Hope added.

  “I shall be decidedly ill if this continues,” Temperance muttered.

  Nothing like playing matchmaker to a ghost—or not-quite-ghost. I turned and tapped Michael on the shoulder.

  “Hey, I need a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Have you been following any of this?”

  “Only you and creepy-face.”

  Marsden snorted.

  “OK, a little, but not much,” Michael admitted. “Why?”

  “This is nuts. ” I said.

  “Well, yeah. It’s all been pretty nuts for a while. What nutty thing are we doing now?”

  “There’s this. spirit here in one of the caryatids. We need her to go get another ghost named Barnaby for us to talk to. But she says she wants you to ask her. She thinks you’re cute.”