“Me? What? She what? OK, that is absolutely the biggest chunk in the fruitcake so far. She wants me to ask her to get this Barnaby?”
“Because she thinks you’re handsome,” I added, nodding.
He raised his eyebrows and blew a silent whistle. “Well. all right. ”
I pointed him toward the right statue. “Her name’s Chastity,” I whispered.
Michael turned pink and looked up at the statue. He tried to smile, but it was a nervous grimace. “Umm. Chastity. would you please—oh, man this is so freakin’ weird.” He cleared his throat and restarted. “Chastity, would you please get Barnaby for us? Umm. please?”
He looked at me, wrinkling his face into an unspoken question.
I put up a finger to tell him to wait while I listened for the caryatid’s response.
“He doesn’t seem very sincere,” Chastity complained.
“Give over, my girl! Surely you’re satisfied that the lad’s made the effort at all? Gad, he probably can’t even hear you! I say take what you’ve got and be happy with it, you silly little chit!”
“Tempe!” Hope gasped.
“Oh, dear. ” sighed Prudence.
“Oh. all right! He is very pretty. And he did ask. Though I wish he’d cut his hair so I could see his eyes. ”
“What’s going on?” Michael murmured, looking uncomfortable.
“They’re arguing about how well you did. And if you should cut your hair,” I said.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Michael stared back up at the caryatids. “Please, you guys, just help us out! Harper says she needs to talk to Barnaby so we can find my brother. Please get Barnaby. Please? I just want my brother back. ”
Temperance sniffed, no doubt put off by Michael’s taking the Lord’s name in vain, but Prudence and Hope both glittered and smiled.
The changeable shadow of Chastity wavered. “Oh. all right,” she said. “I’ll fetch him.” She flickered away, drawing down into the crypt.
CHAPTER 36
“She’s going,” I whispered to Michael as Chastity slipped away into the crypt.
He breathed a sigh of relief. “I hate this.”
“None of us are thrilled, believe me.”
“I wish I could hear them or see them or something. All I get is mumbling and flashes of light in the corners of my eyes. This is. I don’t know. It’s crazy. I mean, maybe they aren’t there at all and you and Marsden are just—”
“We’re not. I swear there are ghosts and vampires and we are doing what we can with one to stop the other and get Will back. I know you don’t have a good reason to trust me, but try. I do care what happens to your brother and I’m not messing with you.”
His shoulders slumped. “It’s just so crazy. ”
“I know.” I’d have said more, but a misty figure pushed its way out of the crypt through the red doors so it stood on the grass with us.
He was a tall man who stooped horribly and had a small potbelly, so he looked like a numeral six. His hair had thinned into a monk’s tonsure and the bags under his eyes were heavier than those in an industrial laundry. Even pale in death, his nose, cheeks, and ears were reddened by the spiderweb veins of alcohol abuse. He shifted back and forth, as if constantly shuffling his feet.
He addressed himself to Marsden. “I am. I am Barnaby Smith. Of. umm. St. James’s in Clerkenwell. Miss Chastity said you wished to. talk to me?” His voice rose to a squeak at the end.
No wonder he’d been a drunk: The world scared him senseless.
Marsden pointed at me. “She’ll ask the questions.”
“Oh. I. well. All right. I’m at your service Miss. umm. Miss.?”
“Blaine,” I said.
“Blaine? Are you by chance related to Anselm Blaine of Peartree Court?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” I replied.
“Oh. Pity. I always thought him a fine fellow. I. you must pardon me; I find it rather hard to hear you.”
I shifted a little closer to the Grey, watching the colors of the grid and the shapes of ghostly things grow brighter and more solid. Smith looked a bit more like a person in the mist-world, but not so much that I could forget he was long dead. “Is that better?”
“Oh, yes! Quite improved. Thank you.”
This was going to take forever at this rate. I kept my impatience under control and turned my gaze full on Barnaby Smith.
“Mr. Smith, Chastity said you’d seen some Greek amphorae under St. John’s priory. Can you tell me more about them and when you saw them last?”
“Oh. Those. Umm. well. Nasty business. They contained blood and body parts—gruesome, to say the least. I did see them in the old catacomb. That’s under the current crypt—very old, quite probably part of the original foundations from the twelfth century. Terrible condition. Terrible.”
I gave him a stern glance.
“Oh! I am sorry. I—Oh. Ha-ha,” he laughed nervously. “Yes, not to the point. I am sorry. Umm. I’m not sure what they were up to, but the Red Guard who brought them left them for a. ah. a sorcerer,” he whispered. “And some of the Red Brothers—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. I don’t know who you mean. Could you fill me in?”
He blinked at me. “Oh! I just assumed. You’re with. him. I thought you knew.”
“I don’t. I’m not from the area. I don’t know all the players.”
“ ‘ Players.’ Ah, that is a fine description. But, oh my. if you don’t know—”
“I assume they’re vampires, but what else?”
“Oh! Yes, you do know! What a relief. I found my life a nightmare when I realized—Oh, but that’s not what you want to know.”
“Yes. I need to know about the amphorae, who had them, what happened to them, and if you know anything about a man called William Novak. Or John Purcell.”
“Purcell!” He raised a silvery hand and pressed it to his chest. “My—my stars. Mr. Purcell. I believe he’s a prisoner! I can’t say I have much pity for them, but it’s cruel to see what they do to one another. They don’t die easily, you know. Would that I had been a stronger man in life—but no. I suppose it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
He noticed me crinkling my brow.
“Oh. I do apologize. Here, let me explain.”
“Go right ahead,” I invited. I knew he’d dither less if allowed to tell his tale his own way and I sat on my impatience as he did.
CHAPTER 37
“I really had no idea,” Smith began, “when I came to St. James’s of what a horror was below the surface of our fine parish. It’s a very old parish, you know. The well and the baths I had been there a very long time and it had been quite the pastoral spa once—where the gentry would go to escape the city. There was always some friction between priory and parish. But I didn’t know that. among our parishioners there were so many. of them.”
“Them?” I asked.
“The. vampires,” Smith whispered, and it came out on a cold breath that chilled the warm summer morning. Even Michael shivered, though he plainly hadn’t heard a word. “Once I realized what they were, I was shocked! I was outraged. I–I told the vicar, the rector, the prior. They all laughed at me. Well, in our modern age, who wouldn’t? But the word got out. They knew that I knew and they took delight in tormenting me with the powerlessness of my position. I was just a lay clerk; not a priest or even an assistant curate who could go to the bishop. Oh, my. ”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh. I. I find it distressing still. I’m afraid. I took to drink. Weakness. Terrible weakness.” He shook his head for such a long time I thought he’d given up until he said, “I suppose, in its way, the drink saved me. I lost my position and was asked to leave the parish. I could have stayed in Clerkenwell—even a bishop can’t really force you to leave your home—but I ran from it. Oh, not far. This pleasant green here is not too far removed in miles, but a world away to me.
“I made a pleasant life for myself. I married a widow who had a small bi
t of money and we were not unhappy. But I could not forget what I saw. It haunted me. And. I suppose, that is why. I still feel drawn there.”
I looked expectantly at him, waiting for the rest of the story.
“The. uh. Red Brothers—that is what they termed themselves—had come from the priory originally. I don’t know how they came into being, they were just. there, but there was a falling-out among them. A bloody thing, played out beneath the streets in secret places carved out by the old rivers and the Romans long before the priory was raised there. The slaughter was immense among the servants of the Brothers. The Brothers themselves were too hard to kill, and most escaped unscathed. When they had done with their battle, they broke into two parties and mockingly named themselves after the houses of God below which they had rampaged. They still call themselves St. James and St. John—the Red Brotherhood of St. James or St. John, as they please. The others, the white creatures from the docks, they had no part of it—or none I could see.”
Marsden leaned close to my ear and murmured, “He means the asetem. The docks and south of the river is their haunt.”
“Then what happened recently?” I asked Smith.
“Oh. I. I didn’t see it all. It began a month ago or so. I think. Time. is so hard to tell now. The white ones started showing up and the strife between the Jameses and Johns increased—I feared there might be bloodletting again. But they quieted. Until the Greek jars arrived. I hadn’t paid them much attention at first—I didn’t want to know what they might contain. But I had to investigate when Miss Chastity asked it of me. I can hardly say no to a charming lady.”
He gave me a quick, nervous smile before lowering his head to watch his invisible feet a moment.
“So, you went to see what had happened. ” I prompted.
“Oh, yes. I went back to where I’d first seen the amphorae. It was very hard as it was the same place beneath the priory where so much carnage had been wreaked during my time. But the jars had been broken already and it seemed something must have happened of which I could not guess. And then Mr. Purcell appeared in that place. The Red Brothers were very cruel to him and they taunted him horribly. About what I couldn’t understand. I never have figured it out. But from what they said, this I believe to be true: The creature that was in the amphorae was taken out and reassembled into. whatever it was, and it is still there, somewhere.”
That was startling. Sekhmet hadn’t mentioned anything in the jars except blood, magic, and corruption. “A creature?” I questioned. Maybe that had been the corruption. “What sort?”
“I have no idea, nor do I want one! Please, don’t ask it of me. It was chopped into pieces and reassembled from those horrible jars. When I saw what they were doing, their sorcerer making it whole again. I–I am not a brave man and I could not bear to look. ”
I nodded. “I understand.” But I didn’t understand it all. A sorcerer? What had it made from the parts? Did the vampires have a spellbinder working with them? Or was it one of the asetem? Of the vampires I knew, only Carlos had any magical powers. Edward had told me most of them didn’t, but maybe that wasn’t true for the Egyptians. Or maybe there was another player in the mix.
By his quivering and translucence, I knew I couldn’t press Smith any further on that. It was frustrating, but it would do me no good to let it show, so I changed tack and hoped I wouldn’t regret my noble ignorance later. “Which of the factions has Purcell?” I asked. “St. James or St. John?”
“St. James. I don’t know why they chose to store the jars beneath the priory of St. John—perhaps to work some magic against their enemies? I don’t know. I feel for Mr. Purcell—I knew him in my time. He. was like a. go-between. He did business for both parties and they agreed to let him alone. But now the Jameses do him great harm. He is. not a good man—he is not a man, indeed—but none deserve the tortures to which they put him, poor soulless thing.”
“What about William Novak? Do you know anything about him?”
“Who? I don’t know the name. ”
“He’s the missing man, this young man’s brother,” I clarified, waving my hand toward Michael, who was holding back with an anxious frown on his face. “He’s a young man, too, but he has white hair, like an old man. He’s very tall and thin. Have you seen—”
“Oh! That one! Oh. no.” His voice was freighted with dread.
I restrained an urge to lean forward, to grab for the dithering ghost and shake information out of him, but with Michael looking on, I didn’t dare make a move that might upset the boy. I didn’t know how much he was picking up but he was observant and smart, and if I acted distressed just after using Will’s name, he’d know something bad was in the works.
“Go on.”
“I have seen him. I have. But they move him about. And. they. they torment him most horribly. He cries—Oh, my soul. It’s too much to bear,” the ghost said, covering his face with his hand.
“Please,” I asked. “Could you tell me where he is right now?”
“I don’t know that. As I said, they move him.”
“Could you go look?”
“No! No. I. I couldn’t. I can’t. I—No. No, no, no,” Smith whispered, aghast.
Barnaby Smith stepped back from us, staring at each of us in turn as if we would leap on him and rend him to bits in a moment. He gasped, clasping his hands over his heart as he backed away. “I’m sorry. I cannot. I cannot. ” And he vanished back through the red crypt doors.
“What appalling manners,” Temperance muttered from above.
“I think he’s distraught,” said Prudence. “Poor fellow. He must have seen something truly nasty down there.”
“But don’t you think he’ll reconsider and come back?” Hope asked. “Really, it would be the right thing to do. ”
“Which is why he won’t,” Tempe said.
“Oh, Tempe. ”
“Do use what little brain Inwood gave you, my girl.”
“Tempe!” Prudence gasped.
“Oh, you’re just horrid!” Hope shouted, and vanished with the sound of a lightbulb exploding, leaving her statue blank and cold.
“Whatever is the matter with the chit?” Tempe grumbled. “It’s true. Mr. Inwood wasn’t overly generous in what he gave us. He even cut us short in the middle!”
“And you are not overly generous in anything,” Prudence retorted. “Now I shall have to go after her. Oh, dear.” Her statue also went dark.
“I hope you got what you were after, Peter. I doubt they’ll any of them come back.”
“It will do or we’ll make do,” Marsden replied.
“Yes. Well,” Temperance said. “I shall go and look after them. Mr. Smith is an upsetting presence. It’s quite a pity his wife, Rosemary, has left him on his own, but I suppose one can’t grumble about another’s passing on. Now I must go. Good luck to you, Peter—and your friends.”
Given the inflection she gave to “friends,” I was pretty sure she didn’t care for me and Michael. I wasn’t entirely sure she liked Marsden, either. Temperance’s caryatid also went dark, leaving us alone between the crypt and the iron fence.
We waited a few minutes in case Chastity returned, but didn’t get lucky. Marsden and I gave up. I stepped back from the Grey to what passes for normal to me and turned toward Michael. He looked everywhere but at me.
“Michael. Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied too quickly.
I hadn’t had a chance to prep him for what happened when I submerged into the Grey and got a bit see-through in the normal, and he’d said he saw and heard a little. Anyone would find such things disconcerting; for a kid who’d been through what he had in the past day, it must have been staggering.
“Michael—” I started, turning up one hand and reaching for him.
He waved me off. “No. I’m fine. Just. Fine.”
It was better than his brother’s reaction, but it still left me frustrated. Doing my job had always caused problems for
someone, and it had gotten worse after I become a Greywalker. I didn’t have the luxury of making other people comfortable about what I did or how I did it most of the time. Usually, I didn’t have to worry about people seeing me do something strange; most people ignore the majority of what goes on around them, especially when it’s weird or upsetting. But Michael had had this dumped on him with no mitigation or preparation. I felt rotten about it, but what was I supposed to do? If I went at it with kid gloves, what was already bad would have turned worse—if it hadn’t already, and I feared it had.
“Time for tea and discussion,” Marsden stated. “Keep up, you two.”
He headed off through the church gates, cane out in front and confident that we were trailing him like ducklings.
I made a rueful face at Michael.
He gave a self-conscious shrug and took off after the blind Greywalker.
CHAPTER 38
“St. James’s,” Marsden said over tea. “Very odd, that.”
Marsden had led us to a grubby little shop on a side street near the British Museum, which turned out to serve good, cheap tea and sandwiches that had no resemblance to delicate bits of thin bread and water-cress. We’d spent a quarter of an hour bringing Michael up to speed, though he was thinking and watching more than talking while Marsden and I tried to make a plan. Michael seemed to getting his mind around it, though.
“What’s so odd? I mean, aside from ghosts and vampires and talking statues. ” he snarked, swallowing a mouthful of bread and meat.
“What’s odd, boy, is that the Red Brothers of St. James is the faction what Harper’s employer used to run with. Purcell was his man of business. But he doesn’t know what’s happened to Purcell, so the conclusion I draw is that either the rift is mended between the Brotherhoods—which I doubt—or someone’s suborned the whole lot. That would be a rather good trick. And if it’s done, it’s the asetem what have done it. That could be worse, but not a whole bloody lot.”
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