by David Graham
The Queen winced as Dr Jones commenced separating her hands, starting with the base of the thumbs. Dai held his breath, his senses ready to be assaulted by the sight and smell of burnt flesh. He, too, shared memories of burnt and blackened bodies.
“Good heavens!” Dr Jones said, her jaw dropping in amazement.
The exposed palms revealed the extent of the damage. The silver surround of the broach had melted, but the stone remained attached to a pentacle design in the centre of the jewellery. Dr Jones lifted the broach cautiously from the Queen’s fragile skin. Her right palm bore the shape of the broach, but otherwise looked entirely healthy. In fact, neither hand seemed burnt. The red stone, on the other hand, lacked the usual lustre of a gem and the edges of the facets were blunted and chipped. It looked as if it had been to hell and back, and not by the scenic route.
The Queen ran a finger over the stone. “The Dulled Ruby of Hallowed Life,” she said reverently.
Dai and Dr Jones looked at each other, as if to say, “Eh?”
“Of course we were not sure it would still work after all these years,” the Queen said. “But we still had to try.”
“You knew something would happen?” Dai asked, shaking his head.
The Queen allowed herself a wry smile. “Unlike your American friend, we wouldn’t say we knew, but we did think it might prove too good an opportunity to pass up. Sadly, we have become something of a target for extremists.”
Dai guessed she was referring to the spy placed in Buckingham Palace by MI5’s double-dealing Major Chisholm. His former boss was rumoured to be tending his roses under house arrest while the government decided what to do with him.
“So, Ma’am, what exactly is the ‘Dulled Ruby of Hallowed Life’?” Dr Jones asked.
The Queen smiled. “It’s what some people describe as an amulet. The pentacle is said to be particularly powerful against, er, fiery hexes. And the ruby – ”
“Works like a laser in reverse?”
The Queen nodded sagely. “That is the theory, Dr Jones. But one still has to expel the transmuted energy somehow.” She looked at Dai. “And that’s when we recalled our little experiment at Balmoral.” Her eyes twinkled in a grandmotherly way. “Although we have to admit we got a little confused between tunnels and funnels. One of those ‘senior moments’, we suppose.”
“Wow!” Dai said, staring at the Queen. “So, you imagined a funnel to get rid of the energy?”
“Of course, David,” said the Queen. “And how clever of you to think of it in Welsh slate. Impervious to flame, it would seem.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, Ma’am, you really are a wily old bird!” Dr Jones said.
The Queen looked surprised. “Well, thank you, Dr Jones. We do believe that is the nicest thing anyone has said to us for a very long time.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got CCTV here, have you?” MI5’s Deborah Jenkins asked rather optimistically given the distinctly lo-tech environment of the vestry.
The rector fingered his damp vestments with the disdain of the precious touching the leprous. “CCTV? Oh, you mean video. Yes, of course. We’ve got Wi-Fi, too.” He caught himself. “Sorry, my mistake. We had Wi-Fi.”
The three of them watched the monitor as the video played back. The screen was small, but the image was crisp and in colour.
“Good Lord!” the rector said as they observed the orb forming from the streams of energy.
“Jesus!” Deborah said. She checked nervously behind her on hearing the door creak open. Dr Jones and Dai were escorting the bedraggled figure of the Queen into the vestry. “So, what the hell was that?” she said, turning back to the video monitor.
“A triple-headed obliteration hex,” the Queen said, as she was lowered gently onto a chair. “Highly dangerous and last used in 1872, if my memory serves me correctly.”
Deborah and the rector looked at each other. “A hex? You mean, as in witchcraft?” he asked, incredulity spreading all over his face. “Ma’am,” he added, lowering his head, his ruddy complexion deepening.
“Ms Jenkins, would you get us some water, please?” the Queen said, before turning to her questioner. “We believe the term these days is ‘witchery’, Rector. Witches regard their ability as a calling rather than a craft. Rather like a surgeon practicing surgery, we would imagine. And they have no need to dress up to practise what they preach.”
Deborah heard a harrumph from the priest as she filled a plastic cup with water from a cracked sink in the corner. If he hadn’t been wearing gold, he probably wouldn’t have been struck by the energy from the orb. She sniffed. There was a smell of something scorched with an undertone of damp animal. Perhaps he wore a hair shirt for penance.
“Apologies, Ma’am. It was the only thing I could find,” Deborah said. The Queen viewed the water suspiciously but drank from the polystyrene cup of life nonetheless.
“Now what about the wedding?” the Queen, her eyes glinting in amusement. “Should we let a bit of foolish witchery ruin their day or continue what we started?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Who would have believed that she’d be having tea at Buckingham Palace? It certainly beat afternoon tea at The Ritz, not that Sandra Williams née Evans had ever been to that fine establishment. It was the Queen’s idea to have their wedding reception at the Palace. Her Majesty had said it was the least she could offer after the near conflagration of the congregation in the church. MI5 hadn’t been too pleased on the Queen’s insistence that the wedding should continue, but they’d capitulated when the rector offered to perform an abbreviated version of the service in the vestry.
Sandra glanced around the room. Staff outnumbered guests by two to one and they were seated at a table that seemed intended for state banquets, judging by its football-pitch length. Sandra felt as if she’d tumbled into a rabbit hole and happened across the Mad Hatter’s tea party in full swing. She half-expected Alice to come running through the door, with Tweedledum and Tweedledee wobbling behind, in pursuit of high calorie sustenance. They wouldn’t have been at all impressed by the glassy tiers of dainty sandwiches and bite-size gateaux.
Still, the tea flowed freely and there was a champagne toast to look forward to. She wished she wasn’t pregnant, as she wouldn’t mind getting a little drunk. Perhaps she would anyway. ‘Rat-arsed’ is how her father would have put it. She recalled drinking cola and pretending it was champagne when Dai came to her room in The Manor for the first time. A smile crossed her lips. She noticed the Queen looking at her quizzically. What had she just given away? This could be a Diana moment. She had the sneaking feeling that the Queen might jump up from the table at any moment and screech, “Off with her head!” or push her down the stairs.
“You have been very quiet, my dear,” the Queen said a little too searchingly. There was that unmistakeable glint in her eye that Dai had warned her about. The Queen had loosened her tongue on a previous occasion, but there was fat chance of her doing the same thing this time. Too many people were looking at her. She had a choice between smiling sweetly, grunting noncommittedly or sending an apt riposte. So, she opted to do all three, which was no small feat for someone trained by MI5 to shout inside someone’s head with a complete lack of empathy.
“I was thinking in private,” Sandra conveyed telepathically, accompanied by a grunt and a grin.
“Aha,” the Queen said, communicating in kind, although without the additions. “That is something of a luxury these days, Ms Evans – ” she tittered into her hand, realising her error, “ – er, Lady Williams.”
Sandra bobbed her head.“I use thought boxes, Ma’am.”
“We know, my dear.”
“I know you know, Ma’am.”
“Of course you do, Sandra. David told me.”
That came as a fist in the guts although she didn’t show it. Her baby had felt it, too, and was kicking to get out. Sandra had to know more about the witches. Why did they want to attack herself and Dai? She would have to leave questionable
allegiances until later. She shouldn’t have been surprised that skull digging and skulduggery were quite so enmeshed where the Royal Household was concerned. But Dai, too? She noticed the Queen and her new husband share a look.“I’m sorry, darling. I had no choice,” she heard inside her head. Dai was doing his best to appear suitably contrite. She smiled to keep them all happy, but inwardly she was seething. What else had he shared?
“We should talk,” the Queen said. She moved her handbag to the right side of the table. Sandra saw one of the footmen take his cue and scoot the dogs out of the room. The rest of the waiting staff extracted earplugs from their liveried jackets and inserted them in their ears. They stood to attention to await further instructions.
The Queen cleared her throat and looked across the table. “My great great grandmother ... Queen Victoria – ” she smiled as if enjoying some memory, “ – was unusually interested in magick. So much so that she kept a journal in which she recorded what she believed were instances of witchery. Her husband, Prince Albert, bought Balmoral Castle principally for her to observe what our Scottish friends were getting up to. Unfortunately, he died after they attended a performance of Macbeth. She believed that was because of a Welsh actress dabbling in the dark arts. His death spurred her on to use Ynyshir Hall in Wales in a similar fashion to Balmoral, and it subsequently became the Wooden Torch Institute.”
Sandra noticed that one of the American detectives looked puzzled. He’d been introduced as Steve Abrams. He was far too handsome to be a police officer. “Sorry, Ma’am, but don’t you mean Torchwood?” he asked.
“Oh no, young man,” the Queen said. “The Wooden Torch Institute is far more real than Torchwood ever was.” Her expression softened. “Actually, we suggested the title for the television series. We thought it might be useful to help light the way.” She smiled at her play on words.
“And then the Wooden Torch Institute moved to a Jacobean manor house in Oxfordshire,” Dai said, “with stone lions called Patience and Fortitude guarding the entrance.”
“Indeed,” the Queen said. “Princess Margaret and I discovered Queen Victoria’s journal in the drawer of a locked bureau. We found it to be most interesting reading. Queen Victoria was greatly concerned by the enmity between the various factions of witches and she feared it might tear the Empire apart. Her monitoring stations allowed her to keep a check on their activities. Unfortunately, her ghillie John Brown was in alliance with Scottish witches and very nearly eradicated their Welsh counterparts.”
“By burning the effigy of Siandi Da’aan every year at Balmoral, you mean?” Dai said.
“Exactly,” the Queen said. “It was crude, but it proved to be an effective form of population control. Fire has long been a way of eliminating witches and burning the effigy destroyed the foetus in the witch’s womb.”
Sandra had been feeling increasingly uneasy and all the talk about killing babies only made her feel worse. There was something about what the Queen had said that struck home, but she didn’t yet know why. “And so where do I fit into all of this?” She chided herself for omitting the ‘Ma’am’ again. She knew she was acting like a spoilt child.
The Queen smiled gently. “Sandra has just asked me how this might concern her. Would anyone care to hazard a guess?”
Sandra observed blank faces. Even her husband was keeping strangely quiet.
The Queen extended her hand to touch Sandra’s fingers. Sandra felt a tingle course its way up her arm. She tried to move her hand away, but her brain was refusing to connect with her extremities. “You must have been most upset by your mother’s death, my dear,” the Queen said. “We seem to recall that it was a car accident.”
Sandra nodded glumly. She didn’t understand why the Queen was raking over the same old ground. She’d been through it countless times with Major Chisholm. The bastard had never let her forget it.
“And we gather you blamed yourself.” the Queen said.
Sandra inclined her head. Tears still welled up far too easily. She felt hideously exposed in the over-decorated ballroom with its stuffed antique chairs and even stuffier footmen. Her legs shook under the table. Some wedding reception this was turning out to be. Why the hell had Dai agreed to it? They could have been off on their honeymoon weekend by now.
“You were not to blame, you know,” the Queen said softly, but still far too audibly in the huge, and far from private, space.
This is getting ridiculous, Sandra thought to herself, I’m walking out of here. She pushed her chair back and made to get up. Dai was looking daggers at her. She didn’t want to hear what he’d say when they got home. She was angry with him, she was furious with herself and she was hopping-mad with the Queen. How could the bitch say such a thing?
“We understand,” the Queen said, patting her hand. “In fact, it was your father. He made you believe you tampered with the brakes. Unfortunately, the silly man misdirected the hex and got into the affected car with your mother.” She tut-tutted. “Such a dreadful undoing for all concerned.”
Sandra couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The stuff about witches and hexes was pure mumbo-jumbo. The guests around the table were as open-mouthed as she was. They didn’t believe the Queen, either. Of course she was to blame. She remembered cutting the brake cable as clearly as yesterday – not to mention the look on her mother’s face as she stared out of the car window at her murderous daughter. So, why the fuck was her husband telling her, “Yes, it’s all true.”?
Sandra rocked in her seat, her eyes shut to the stares of hate she knew she was getting. She felt warm, protective hands around her – hands that she didn’t deserve. She was a monster. She’d killed her parents. She deserved to be locked up for good and her baby taken away from her. “No, you’re wrong,” she said softly but clearly. Her voice seemed to echo around the room, the words taunting her with the flat denial. Dai held her tighter. She only half-registered that she’d got her voice back.
“Your father was a witch who then became a warlock,” the Queen said. “He meddled in the darker side of magick. Unfortunately, young girls were involved. Your mother found out and threatened to expose him.” She raised her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “It was as simple as that.”
Something seemed to have changed in the ballroom. It was almost imperceptible, but the motes of dust seemed more at ease and the sunlight streaming through the endlessly tall windows was a little warmer.
“And me?” Sandra said, looking first into Dai’s eyes and then back at the Queen.
“You are not a witch, my dear,” the Queen said. Sandra thought she detected relief in her voice. “You are someone with a paranormal ability, which makes you far more of a threat to witches. They are helpless without their potions, cauldrons and wooden torches. You can do it all with your mind.”
Sandra nodded. She’d probably known it all along. Perhaps it was something ingrained in the walls of The Manor that had encouraged its reluctant visitors to accept the truth about themselves. Discovering her voice was unexpected, but it had happened once before in the Queen’s presence when she and Dai went to Balmoral Castle. Apart from that, she’d been silent for years. She was relieved, but it wasn’t enough to prevent her from shivering.
“And then, of course, there is your husband, who must be of huge concern for witches with limited abilities,” the Queen said. “So, when it came to your wedding, it was an ideal opportunity for someone to settle a score or two.”
It was a lot to take in. Sandra was still reeling at her father’s duplicity. Rediscovering her voice seemed almost an irrelevance.
“But there is more, my dear,” the Queen said. The glint in her eyes had returned. “Although David isn’t a witch – ” Sandra saw him silently mouth, ‘Phew!’, “ – his great grandmother, Elizabeth Williams, was probably the greatest witch ever. So, given that your father had the calling, it is highly likely that your child will inherit from both.”
Sandra realised that it was she who was openmouthed now. “My baby
, a witch?” she asked.
“With paranormal powers,” Dai said. “A supersuperbaby, in other words. She might even be able to ping.” He’d have had to tell Sandra sooner or later.
Sandra nodded. She was dumbstruck, but in a good way. It was finally all making sense. Even what her father did to her seemed to be fading into the past. She looked around the room at the other guests, trying to imagine what they’d made of the story. Dale and Steve had seemed totally engrossed. Did they have witches and warlocks in Kansas City? Perhaps there was a grain of truth in the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, after all.
“So, Your Majesty, what actually happened in the church yesterday?” Dale said, eager to break the silence. He could see that Sandra was still struggling with the Queen’s revelations. Jeez, they all were! “I mean, I’ve seen fires, but that was sure unlike any fire-setting I’ve ever witnessed before.”
“Put simply, Lieutenant,” the Queen said, “David was used as a Trojan horse. During his period of incarceration, a witch we believe to be Elspeth Brown – a descendant of Mr Brown – found his Achilles heel and introduced a fire-setting hex into his body. The hex obliterates organic matter but leaves inorganic material untouched. So, when the fire brigade arrived, they would have found piles of clothes, but no bodies.”
“Clever, Ma’am,” Dale said. “But Deborah Jenkins mentioned seeing three streams of energy on the church’s video. I guess that means there were three Trojan horses in all.”
The Queen sighed deeply. “That is a highly pertinent comment, Lieutenant. We believe that Elspeth Brown included David’s niece and also herself as vessels for the attack, thereby completing the triple-headed obliteration hex. Of course, self-sacrifice amongst witches has a special significance and may actually enhance their powers.”
Dale whistled through his teeth. “Hot diggity, Ma’am! That’s some MO. And to think all I brought to the party was knowing there’d be a fire.”