The Ice House

by Tim Clare

  It was over. Arthur had lied.

  An almighty thunderclap. Everything went white.

  CHAPTER 23

  REUNION

  Father raised his head and looked directly at her. His eyes widened. His mouth fell partly open.

  The floor seemed to tip. Reality washed through her.

  He lifted a hand, reaching for her.

  The bloodied man turned and drove the sword through Father’s throat. Father jerked to the side. The blade emerged from the other side of his neck, steaming. He convulsed, transfixed, and the man beside him began to laugh.

  Delphine decided in her heart and her body took over. She broke cover. She sprinted across open ground, closing the distance between her and the target. Black strands were curling from her father, rushing into the old woman. Delphine swung the muzzle up, keeping her arms loose. She felt the sweet spot as a warmth in her belly.

  She squeezed.

  A kick-bang. The slug punched through the bloodied stranger’s skull, tossing him backwards in a spray of dark blood. His legs bucked and he backflipped as he fell, skidding across the floor, arms splayed, until he came to rest at the foot of the sarcophagus.

  Delphine chambered another round and ran down the steps. She swung her shotgun about, hunting for targets. Everything was still. The candles burned with a soft fluxing light. She heard a yell from behind her and ignored it. She ran towards Father, who stood clutching at the sword blade, moaning softly.

  As soon as she got within twenty feet of him the heat rose sharply. She slowed down, out of breath. It was him. Her father. Daddy. Oh God.

  Her vision blurred with tears. Jesus. Her hand was shaking so hard she could barely wipe her eyes.

  Come on now. She punched herself in the leg. Come on.

  She stepped up, heat washing over her face, drying her tears. She grabbed the sabre by its chain grip and pulled it out. She felt a pain as her palm blistered, but it was nothing, a vague sensation in the background. The blade clanged to the floor. Father swayed on his bare feet.

  ‘Daddy. It’s me.’

  His eyes were closed. Blood bubbled through the hole in his neck, boiling away, leaving a black sticky resin.

  ‘Daddy. It’s Delphine.’

  His eyelids flickered, just slightly.

  Hands pulling her back. She twisted, struggled.

  ‘Easy. Easy.’ Alice’s voice in her ear. ‘You’re too close. We don’t know he’s safe.’

  ‘He’s my father!’ She wrenched her arm free. ‘Daddy! Can you hear me?’

  Butler was there. ‘Venner, what the hell was that? What did I say? What did I say?’

  ‘Oh my God.’ The third voice was Patience’s. ‘Hagar.’

  A concussion shook the chamber. Candles toppled. Something dropped from the ceiling.

  Patience shot out a rigid canopy of skin and spines, shielding them all. Delphine ducked. Glass and debris shattered just above their heads.

  Patience retracted her angel-arm. The pulverised remnants of a stone arch lay around them. Father was standing just as he had been, flesh smouldering softly.

  ‘What the bloody hell was that?’ said Butler.

  A series of aftershocks made the floor shudder; dust fell in crackling showers.

  ‘Someone just bombed the esplanade.’ The white-haired woman in the grey dress walked towards the fallen child, limping. ‘Many people are hurt.’ She blinked, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  She knelt beside the girl, who Delphine now saw was Hagar Ingery. The girl’s eyes were open, her face ashen beneath the cuts and bruises, a dark wet stain coating her chest.

  There was something unsettling about the old woman. Delphine felt as if she knew her, and yet they had only just met. The face was eerily familiar.

  Another surge of vertigo. This was Anwen and Cox’s daughter. This was Sarai. Delphine had established a strange intimacy with these features as a child, spying on her in Alderberen Hall. Back then, she had studied them in fascinated horror – but here they were animated. The body was out of bed, moving around. No longer an invalid. Full of vigour.

  Delphine approached her father. ‘Daddy?’ Did he even remember her? It had been more than seventy years. Everything was bright and unreal. ‘Daddy, it’s Delphy.’

  Father opened his eyes. He looked around, then looked straight at her.

  Her legs were weak. Her sight was failing. Her hands trembled. She had never felt so young.

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  Father gritted his teeth, squinted. He shook his head.

  ‘No.’ His voice was so gentle. He screwed his face up. ‘Sarai. I’m seeing her again.’

  ‘One moment, Gideon.’ Sarai rolled back Hagar’s jacket sleeve. Attached to Hagar’s wrist was a bloated tick the size of a tennis ball. It was shrivelled and dead, its thorax imploded in a crust of black blood. A substance like honey wept down her arm.

  Sarai gripped the tick and pulled it out of Hagar’s arm. A barbed stylet curved from its leathery head, several inches long and bloody. Sarai stood with some difficulty.

  Grey filaments were forming in the air round her head – smoky threads which she drew into her eyes, nose and ears. Another detonation shook the chamber. The grey threads thickened to braids. Delphine staggered. A huge section of stained-glass window struck the floor just feet away with a crash.

  ‘We need to leave,’ said Butler.

  Sarai gazed at the tick in her hand. The dark amber fluid leaking out of it abruptly sucked back into the cracks, which sealed up.

  The bloodied man sat up.

  Sarai brushed her hair back and looked at Delphine. One of her pupils was obscured by a nacreous sheen.

  ‘The world is very evil,’ she said. ‘Look after him.’

  The air pressure dropped. Delphine smelt ozone. Sarai raised an arm. The space around her buckled like a ripple on a pond. Cobalt light enveloped her limbs.

  A mass of dark thorns tore from the floor, snagging the man’s arms and throat, hoisting him to his feet. Sarai bounded towards him and drove the tick’s stylet into the centre of his chest.

  A wake of blue energy bore her backwards. She stumbled, dropped to one knee beside Hagar. Sarai raised a palm, and beckoned to him. The tick’s thorax began to pump.

  It was like someone squeezing maggots out of a dog. His back arched. All over his face and hands, his skin was beading with black fluid. Godstuff welled in his eyes, ran as tears down his sallow cheeks. It streamed from his ears, flowed thickly from his nostrils. He coughed up throatfuls of dark liquid.

  Delphine smelled that familiar hoppy, tarry, resinous stink. His cloak burst at the throat. Beneath, a great pullulating tumour was splitting and collapsing. Pale grubs dropped from the disintegrating flesh, writhing on the floor, smoking and gnarling.

  Droplets of godstuff melded into a vinyl-black river, pulling away from him, flowing through the air. Like a liquid briar it began helixing up Sarai’s arm.

  It traced the curve of her throat, her jaw, her cheekbone, curled round her eye socket, then lifted away from the skin, snaking round on itself, before striking her in the centre of the forehead.

  She stiffened. Godstuff poured into her. The front of her dress browned and rotted away. From her breastbone quested a silver cord, rounded at the tip.

  The cord shot upwards, plaited over and around itself in a shining knot, then with a sudden hunger drove down into Hagar’s skull.

  Hagar’s body bucked and convulsed. Sarai had fallen onto her hands and knees, her face contorting. Where the godstuff was entering her forehead, the skin was scarring and blistering in a radiating spiral, her white hair dropping out in clumps. Where the silver stream emerged, a blue-black necrosis was spreading outwards.

  The channelled godstuff was eating her alive.

  Delphine ran at her. An arm locked round Delphine’s throat, dragging her back.

  ‘Keep away,’ hissed Butler in her ear. ‘It’ll kill you too.’

  Sarai dropped to her knees
. Godstuff poured into her, through her, alchemising, consuming.

  A whipping black tail lashed from the bloodied man and sluiced through her body before it poured into Hagar.

  Sarai slumped. A moment later the brambles holding the man crumbled and he dropped to the floor.

  Delphine ran to her. Sarai’s chest had a bullseye-shaped imprint of blue, mottled skin.

  A foul, cloying smell struck Delphine’s nostrils. She clamped a hand over her mouth. The front of Sarai’s dress had completely disintegrated.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ said Butler. He touched two fingers to the back of his ear. Neither Hagar nor the bloodied man appeared to be breathing. ‘I think she just deposed the Grand-Duc.’

  A tremor made dirt trickle from the balconies.

  Delphine looked to Father. He was shaking his head, pulling pained expressions.

  ‘Daddy. Father.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Gideon.’

  He twitched.

  ‘Gideon. We need to go.’

  He shook his head vigorously. ‘I don’t feel right. It’s dreaming of me.’

  Delphine looked to Patience and Butler to help her. ‘Please, Gideon. It’s dangerous here.’

  He opened his eyes, casting around anxiously. ‘Where’s Sarai?’

  ‘She’s just here.’ Delphine glanced at Sarai’s slumped body. ‘We’re going to take her somewhere she’ll be safe. Will you come with us too?’ She just had to get him out of here. Then he would know her. Then she could help him.

  Flames broke out along his arm and he moaned, flailing. ‘Ice! Salt water!’

  ‘Of course, Gideon.’ Patience spoke in a loud, confident voice. ‘We’ll take you there now. Everyone’s waiting. Come on. This way.’

  She signalled to Butler, who hoisted Sarai’s lifeless body onto his shoulder and began leading them back towards the steps. Delphine followed, watching Father stumble in a groggy, semi-oblivious trance. She would save him. He would recover, just like Alice. She would take away his pain.

  Martha was waiting by the big doors, standing watch. Her antennae were performing rapid, quivering sweeps. Her eyes had turned a delirious sunset red. Butler click-chirruped at her, and they had a quick exchange.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Delphine.

  ‘Heaven knows,’ said Butler. ‘She says someone’s . . .’ He circled his hand. ‘Present? Aware? It doesn’t translate exactly.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘She doesn’t know.’ He peered round the door, popping, range-finding. ‘Not outside, apparently.’

  ‘It’s not another of your intuitions, is it?’

  She bopped her fist once for yes.

  ‘Please, Martha!’ Delphine found herself making a fist. ‘Would you just . . .’ She stopped, took a couple of deep breaths.

  Alice knelt and laid a hand on Martha’s back. ‘We’ll stay alert. Tell us if you feel anything else.’

  Delphine was about to say something – Father was beginning to worry at his scalp with his fingernails – but Alice flashed her a look. Come on, now. Keep your head, Venner.

  Butler nodded towards the door. He slipped outside, and Alice followed.

  Before she left, Delphine threw a final glance across the pavilion. The candles were distant lights in windows. Dust was falling in shining sheets, like snow.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE SECOND DEATH

  HATH NO POWER

  Hagar Ingery blinked and opened her eyes. Mitta was gazing down upon her, diademed with light. She felt an extraordinary ecstasy.

  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.

  No pain in her shoulder. No pain in her heart. Just a hot, rushing sensation, the quickening spirit.

  She thought, for a wild, delirious instant, that she was in paradise. Then she felt the gap in her teeth, the blood turning tacky in her palm.

  She placed a hand on the tiles and attempted to stand. She did so easily. Incredible.

  All around her, an unearthly quiet, as if the pavilion were holding its breath. She felt an expansive calm. The slightest tilt of her head, the turn of her wrist, felt like the execution of a command, an expression of deep axiom.

  At her feet lay Kenner, curled up like a child.

  Hagar felt an unexpected sorrow. She was acutely aware she had destroyed something of beauty, one of God’s creations. All those times he’d warned her to leave the city. Perhaps he had been trying to save her. She found herself wishing she could hug him, and tell him she loved him.

  She knelt. She was used to the smells of death, and though she did not find them pleasant exactly, there was something in the sweet, ripe scent that felt like home. She ran her thumb over his fingertips. Still warm.

  She looked around the sunken pool. Candles lay in burning pools of wax. Chunks of masonry had buried themselves in the floor. Flames backlit the red mound of his corpse.

  All this sadness was the very reason she had set out upon this journey. To end it. To break the cage.

  A few yards away, Morgellon lay on his side.

  ‘Uncle.’

  He stirred, mumbling, grinding his shoulder in the dirt. His fine cloak and breeches were torn and soiled; one of his silver buckles had torn loose and hung by a length of fabric. He looked as if he had been on one of his revels. She cleared her throat. He snapped awake.

  ‘Wha, ah . . . uh . . .’ His chest rose and fell.

  ‘Uncle. Get up.’

  Morgellon looked around, his eyes wide. ‘What . . . what’s happened to . . .’

  ‘Uncle. Get up.’

  It felt rather like drawing a noose tight. She sensed his mind, weak and jittery, and she simply closed her will around it. She did not see through his eyes, nor did she think specific instructions – it was more intuitive, a gentle exercise in resolve. She was able to think and breathe and adjust her own hat, while simultaneously directing him to stand, take his shortsword from the floor, and approach her with his head lowered.

  She had him hand her the sword, then, with the slight reluctance one feels when tossing a fish back into the ocean, she relinquished control. No sooner had she done so then Morgellon hurled himself at her.

  He threw a right hook at her jaw. His fist connected. Both their heads snapped sideways. Hagar let the momentum spin her, then she threw a leg out behind her as counterbalance and pirouetted to a crunching stop.

  Morgellon staggered back and fell. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling.

  Hagar stroked her cheek, full of wonder. She had felt his fist strike her face, had felt the flesh compress under his knuckles, could even feel a faint warmth where her cheek was swelling, but of pain she knew nothing.

  A soft rumble passed through the chamber. A few candles toppled.

  ‘Shh, shh, shh.’ Hagar walked to his side. She bored into his mind and made his muscles go slack. His head lolled to one side. She made him take some slow, deep breaths, feeling his will struggle beneath hers, the way the horse in Lesang’s slaughterhouse had kicked after its throat had been slit. At last, she felt him yield. She gave him control of his head and throat, allowed him to breathe by himself. ‘Now. How are you feeling?’

  He stared up, eyes bloodshot, teeth chattering. ‘What’s . . . happening to me?’

  ‘Pain.’

  His face contorted. Tears trickled down either side of his steep nose.

  ‘Oh. Oh, Hagar. Please help. Something’s happened. Something’s gone wrong.’ He clutched at his curly hair, screwing his eyes shut. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t feel right. Please help me, bichette. Help your uncle.’ He used the Low Thelusian oomkah, investing the first syllable with a plaintive moan.

  She hiked up her sleeve. Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

  Turning his sword’s serrated edge downwards, she began sawing through her wrist.

  It was a fascinating sensation. She watched the curved teeth drag across the skin, rippin
g its stitches, revealing the red muscle beneath. She was not numb – she could feel it, it just didn’t hurt. Morgellon howled. She willed him to stay in place, granting him his voice and nothing more. She worked the blade back and forth, gnawing through arteries. Her fingers convulsed as she slit the tendons. She felt the blade resist as it met bone. She lost sensation in her fingers. Blood pumped to the rhythm of her heart, splattering the tiles. So this was what had lain hidden all these years. How few knew themselves with such splendid intimacy.

  The hand fell and hung swinging by a flap of skin. She tossed the sword to the floor and ripped her hand off.

  Morgellon writhed and gaped. His voice was hoarse from screaming. Her severed hand was clammy, pale fingers drooping like a dead spider. She tossed it down in front of him.

  His eyes were closed. He whimpered and rocked.

  ‘You said you liked me to suffer,’ she said. ‘You said it was good for me. That you were teaching me.’ She put on the haughty, pedagogical voice he used to use with her. ‘For what is more injurious to the obedient spirit than self-love? What is more proper than mortification of the flesh?’ She picked up the sword with her remaining hand. ‘I’m returning your kindness, Morgellon. I’m educating you.’

  ‘Oh bichette . . .’ he gasped, ‘. . . I always did . . . what I thought . . . was best. Always. If I seemed cruel . . . it was because the world . . . was cruel to me. I . . . saved you. Aren’t . . . you . . . grateful?’

  Hagar turned the sword around so it was pointing at her stomach. She stabbed herself, again and again.

  ‘Thank you, Uncle. Thank you, Uncle. Thank you, Uncle.’

  His screams rang off the pillars.

  She did not stop. ‘Where’s your clipper?’

  He howled.

  It was very peculiar, feeling the sword inside her, the busy, tingling sensation of her stomach wall closing up. The blade snagged on white fat and she had to yank it to get it out. ‘Come on now. You must have some plan for getting away. If you expected war you wouldn’t drop anchor in the bay.’