Lye Street

by Alan Campbell

  988-1: Jailed for sixty days for urinating against a monument to Ulcis in Seven Chain Square. Subject deemed unsuitable for tempering due to arthritis in hands.

  Other:

  980-7: Suspected of withholding tax. Unproved.

  990-6: Accused of murder. Unproved.

  1012-3: Suspected of smuggling heathen totems. Investigation suspended, pending additional funds.

  Scrimlock pursed his lips. So this was Carnival's next intended victim? This foul-mouthed criminal and blasphemer from the Warrens was the direct descendant of Henry Bucklestrappe? The presbyter set down the scroll, and smiled to himself. He ought to be able to kill two birds with one vigorous explosion.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ruby's dressing room abutted the study. It was a small chamber with one window, shuttered to keep out the night, and it was empty of furniture except for a stool, a tin basin, and a white dresser with an oval mirror.

  She filled the basin with hot water and washed the angel's hair.

  Carnival endured Ruby's ministrations with closed eyes and a thumping heart. She crouched over the basin, trembling each time the old lady's fingers touched her scalp, shivering when warm water sluiced over her neck.

  Ruby hummed as she worked, and made occasional comments: "That's much better, dear," and, "You have such lovely hair under all that grime."

  There was a lot of grime. The witch changed the water three times before she was satisfied.

  Next the old lady took a brush from her dresser and teased the knots from the angel's wet hair. This took some time, for there were a lot of knots. After she had finished, she stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  "That will do, I think. Now let's see about those scars."

  Carnival's fear and confusion returned. Hair dripping, she backed away towards the door.

  Ruby gave her a tut-tut of disapproval. "If only your poor mother could see what a mess you've made of your pretty face," she said primly. "Still, a little liquid smoke and make-up conceals all manner of sins."

  Carnival swallowed. "You knew her?" she said in a cracked voice.

  "Your mother, dear, was my sister, which makes you my niece and me your aunt."

  Carnival didn't know what to say. Her thoughts spun. She had family among these mortals, among those she preyed upon? A wave of distress rose within her. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. The scrawled messages came back to her.

  LYE STREET. LIE STREET.

  "You look just as shocked every time I tell you," said Ruby. "And why should you be? Why shouldn't your mother be a mortal woman? Mortal women bear the temple archons, after all."

  "And my father?"

  Ruby glanced away. "Well..." she said. "Let's not concern ourselves with him right now. All in good time, dear." She opened a dresser drawer and took out a number of small pots, jars and colourful sticks, fussing over them nervously. "Clean hair is all very well, but if you're going to look like a proper noblewoman's daughter, I'll have to work a miracle. Sit down, for goodness' sake."

  She chose a pale powder which she said was made from Hollowhill lead, wood ashes, ox fat, and a handful of secret ingredients. She applied it to the scars on Carnival's face and arms with a small pad. And Carnival allowed her to. All manner of strange feelings tumbled through the angel's heart, but she sat quietly on the stool and let the witch work her miracle.

  "Now, a little red for your lips," said Ruby. "Do try not to lick it; it's made from ox blood." She smeared the stuff all over Carnival's lips.

  Carnival waited while Ruby applied further powders, fragrant talcum and scents. She permitted the old lady to daub her eyelids with shades of umber, then trim her nails with small silver scissors and paint them deep red.

  Finally the witch stepped back again. She studied Carnival for long moment, and then smiled. "You look almost human. Well... not human, of course; but, my goodness what a difference a little face paint and eye shadow makes. I think we're seeing the real you at last. No, no, stay where you are. Don't get up and look in the mirror just yet. I have one last gift for you. My master stroke."

  She hurried back into the study.

  Carnival sat alone on her stool, waiting. She looked at her hands and wrists, so pale and unmarred, the cracked nails hidden under a shiny red veneer, the scars disguised by powder. She wondered about the human mother she could not remember. Did she resemble that woman? Who would she see when she looked in the mirror? Her heart trembled with nervous excitement.

  She heard a click.

  A heavy metal grate crashed down over the door. It must have been hidden inside the walls of the townhouse. Now it blocked her escape from the room. Carnival leapt from her stool. She grabbed the bars and heaved at them. They would not shift. She turned sideways, tried to squeeze between two bars, but her wings prevented her from passing through such a narrow gap.

  "Such a slender little thing," Ruby said wistfully from the study. "Had you been a normal girl, you might just have managed that."

  Carnival rushed back across the room and threw open the shutters. There was nothing there: no window, just a plain brick wall. She smashed a fist against it, again and again.

  "Temper tantrums won't change a thing, dear. You're trapped."

  Carnival returned to the grate. The old lady stood on the other side, clutching a coil of red ribbon in one hand and a fist of white flowers in the other.

  "I had intended you to have these," she said. "Your mother always wore flowers and ribbons in her hair. But I think you look enough of a fool without them, don't you?"

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mina had put the demon Basilis in her pram and smothered him with doll's blankets and frilly bows and her family of painted wooden ducks. Then she had announced that she was taking Mr Bangles and the ducks for a walk, and pushed the little vehicle out of the day room on its squeaky wheels.

  Sal Greene could hear his granddaughter singing in the hall outside. The dog had its teeth back, but it was still a pup. When it had tried to bite Mina, she'd only got cross and hit it with a spoon.

  "What does the sword do?" he said.

  Ravencrag had insisted they return Lye Street. Greene suspected this was because the phantasmacists was worried that his colleagues at the club would start to ask questions about Cope. Ellie had made them breakfast and then retired to her room to let the three men speak in private. Now they reclined in comfortable chairs before the hearth.

  The thaumaturge inspected the weapon. "It is a mystery," he said. "With the branch I had only to peer into it to be shown wonders through my master's eyes. Yet this appears to be a normal blade."

  "Maybe it's unbreakable," said Greene.

  "Your brutish actions in the Forest of Teeth have shown that it is not, Mr Greene. See where the metal beneath the pommel was sheared by your boot."

  Ravencrag lit his pipe. "I bet it drinks souls," he said. "And sends them screaming into the demon's veins."

  "A novel supposition, Mr Ravencrag," said Cope. "Why do you suppose the blade drinks souls?"

  The phantasmacist exhaled a cloud of smoke. "It's a magic sword," he said. "That's the sort of thing they do."

  "Have you wielded a magic sword before?"

  Ravencrag grunted. "That's between me and my ex-wife."

  Cope studied the sword, turning it over in his hands. "I fear you are mistaken, Mr Ravencrag. I sense nothing of my master's thirst in this steel. In fact, I can discern little of him except his grim determination to kill and maim, the predilection you felt expressed by the gale in the Forest of Teeth."

  "Maybe that's it," said Greene. "The blade gives the wielder some sort of unnatural skill at swordplay? Or heightened aggression?"

  "Hmm." Cope looked doubtful. "I do not feel overly aggressive. But at least we can test this theory without bloodshed. Which of you will spar with me?"

  "Fling it over," said Greene. "I swung a sword in my youth. I was never much good at it, mind you, but I'll fight you if you promise not to go for my bloody knees, and stop when
I yell."

  "If you don't mind, I'd rather hold on to it," said Cope. He unsheathed the gut-sticker from his walking stick and presented it to the other man. "Will this weapon suffice?"

  "As you like," said Greene.

  The two men faced each other in the centre of the day room. Greene lunged first. Cope parried and retorted. The sound of clashing steel continued for several minutes, until it became clear that neither man possessed a greater degree of skill than the other. They were both mediocre swordsmen.

  Breathless, Greene returned to his seat. "Maybe it's just a plain sword," he said. "Or maybe it has some use in the next forest."

  Cope looked up suddenly. "Of course!" he said. "The branch led us to the sword, but we lacked the means to free the weapon without violence. Basilis has now gifted us with a blade. We must journey at once to the Forest of War."

  "What?" snapped Ravencrag. "Now?"

  "Why not?" said the thaumaturge. "I see no sense in delaying."

  But Greene objected. "Before we go cavorting through another one of these forests," he said, "I want to get a few things settled. I hired you to kill an angel, but now it seems to me that we've been sidetracked. What started as a ritual to speak to your master has become a quest to set him free.

  "Now... you've already made it cleat that Basilis hates me, for pulling out a few of his eyes and so on." He made a dismissive gesture. "So I want some kind of reassurance that the pair of you are going to do what you're supposed to do. I want the angel dead. I've got my family to think of."

  "I am a man of honour, Mr Greene," said Cope. "And I have no intention of reneging on our deal. Basilis's imminent release is merely an unexpected bonus. In fact, I have already used my master's vision to work on your problem."

  "You have?”

  Cope nodded. He slipped the branch from the Forest of Eyes from one of his deep pockets. The branch blinked in places, and its gazes travelled the room from floor to ceiling. "Basilis has shown me much through this," he said. "Carnival is a tormented creature."

  Ravencrag snorted. "You needed a magic branch to tell you that?"

  Cope went on, "She does not know who she is and she cannot accept what she is. Each Scar Night her thirst overcomes her, driving her to kill. However, this darkmoon is different because we know who the victim is likely to be." He paused. "The Church has also learned of her vendetta against your family, Mr Greene, and the presbyter is planning to use it to his advantage."

  "It won't help," said Greene. "She cuts through Spine assassins like a scythe through wheat. And I've never seen eye to eye with that cassocked fool or his priests in the temple. God-botherers, the lot of them. That's why I looked you up in the first place. The Church never saved my father, or his father before him."

  "The angel does not recall those murders," said Cope. "And yet some part of her psyche remembers Henry Bucklestrappe's crime five hundred years ago. This dark element of Carnival's personality attempts to communicate with the angel by leaving messages in places she frequents. Carnival is unaware that she is writing the messages herself."

  "You're saying she's mad, then?" asked Ravencrag

  "Perhaps," said Cope. "Her amnesia is probably the result of an overwhelming need to suppress some trauma in her own past. Her vendetta threatens to expose this same trauma. She fears the messages and flees from them, but they will inevitably lead her to Mr Greene, and eventually to his descendants."

  "How do we stop her?" asked Greene.

  Cope leaned back in his chair. "I think I have given you enough, Mr Greene. We have the means to locate Carnival when the time comes, and a weapon which may prove useful against her. Now all that remains is to release the sword's owner." He took the skull of the last hound from his travel bag and set it on his lap. "Let us begin, gentlemen."

  Chapter Seventeen

  "My birds gave me the idea," said Ruby. "For the make-up, I mean. I thought the charade might appeal to you."

  Carnival's fists tightened around the bars of her prison. Dawn had come outside her cell; she could feel it in her howling blood, in the creaking chains around the house. The coming night would be the last before darkmoon.

  "But you never submitted until tonight," the witch went on. "You always fled before I could tempt you into my cage." She toyed with the ribbon in her hand. "Year after year after year, you'd come whenever the wind made my crystal garden sing, but you wouldn't stay." She gave a small shrug. "Over the centuries I've gotten to know you quite well, dear, although you never did remember me."

  "Liar."

  "Tush. A couple of half truths here and there, perhaps. My only real lie was the claim that I could make you beautiful." Her violet eyes were smiling. "Not even I can do that, child."

  Carnival said nothing.

  "Shall we have that tea now?" Ruby said cheerfully.

  She placed the kettle over the fire, then left the room while it warmed, returning a few minutes later with a porcelain pot and two cups on a tray. She moved out of sight.

  Carnival slumped to the ground.

  The witch was fussing about at her desk, humming to herself, clinking crockery. "You brought such shame upon our family. Upon Him! The Church can ignore a witch when it suits them... but you? No, you can't be tolerated. Not even by yourself." She appeared before the bars again, stirring her tea with a small black key. "Would you like a cup, dear?"

  Carnival wondered if it would be poisoned.

  Ruby said, "I nearly caught you in... When was it? The sixth century. That's right... when you weren't quite so inhuman. You asked me your mother's name." She took a sip of tea. "But it would have been improper to tell you. Some part of that scarred brain of yours might remember, and I believe we should retain a little of our dead, not just from God, but from demons too. Are you sure you won't have a cup?"

  The angel studied the bars of her prison – too thick to bend, perhaps, and certainly too narrow for her wings to pass through the gaps between. She wandered around the cell, looking at the floor, ceiling and walls.

  All brick.

  The witch sipped her tea again. "I think you ought to look at yourself in the mirror," she said. "You might be pleasantly surprised."

  Carnival could feel her scars throbbing under the make-up on her face, her blood tearing through her veins. The dressing table stood to one side of the grate, the mirror angled away from her.

  She turned it towards her.

  The face which looked back was a mask of waxy paint, as white as a Spine assassin's, or a skull. It had dark, murderous eyes outlined by vulgar smears of brown paint, which had run and made streaks across its cheeks. The lips were blood-coloured and thickly distorted, the corners blurred into a hideous, lunatic grimace.

  She let out a wail of anguish.

  "My my," said Ruby.

  The angel smashed the mirror with her fist. She kicked the dressing table savagely, reducing it to shards of wood. She fell to her knees and beat at the broken pieces with both clenched hands.

  Ruby set down her cup. "I'll leave you now," she said, "and let you ponder all of this."

  Carnival threw herself at the grate, clawing at the air through the bars, but the witch just smiled and said, "Let me know when you're ready for some tea, dear."

  Carnival slunk back, hissing. She twisted round and round. And then she punched the wall, hard. Crumbs of brickwork fell to the floor. She gnashed her teeth, flexed her shoulders, and flung open her wings. Again she drove her fist into the wall, and again and again and again. More fragments of brick crumbled.

  Ruby's violet eyes shone with amusement.

  The angel paused, sucking air through her teeth, summoning every fibre of her hatred and rage, letting it twist inside her.

  Then she attacked her prison. She pummelled and clawed at the brickwork. Her nails broke. She saw flashes of blood, dust, grit. Her knuckles and fingers shattered, but she ignored the pain – the bones in her hands would heal soon enough. Fury crowded everything from her sight but the bricks before her and the fren
zied blur of her fists.

  Through the choking air she glimpsed sunlight.

  She had made an opening.

  She pushed a hand through, grabbed the edge of a brick and heaved. Rubble crashed to the floor, billowing out thicker clouds of dust. The hole had widened. Carnival kicked at the surrounding bricks. A window-sized section of the wall fell away. Sunshine flooded in, blinding her.

  The witch coughed. "Dear me," she said, nonchalantly.

  For a moment Carnival could see nothing but a blaze of white light streaming through the dust. She screwed her eyes shut and reached through the hole in the wall she'd made. Her fingers closed around a metal bar.

  The room had been built inside a cage.

  Ruby was still coughing. "I'm sorry, dear," she said. "But I became aware of your penchant for demolition a long time ago. The temple sappers were kind enough to reinforce my dressing room for me. Both the cage and its locks are made of sapperbane, quite strong enough to hold you for all eternity."

  Through her black rage, Carnival sought the source of the voice. She couldn't see anything through the roiling clouds, yet the witch sounded nearer than she had been a moment before.

  How close was Ruby to the cell door?

  Not close enough. Carnival could not hope to reach through the bars and grab her. Unless...

  The angel held her breath, and then reached around behind her own shoulder. Her fingers touched hard muscle, tendons, feathers. She felt for the place where her wing sprouted from her back. Then she gripped the bone and broke it.

  Blind and snarling, she charged at the place where the voice had been. Her shoulders slammed against metal. The grate? She cried out in pain. Twisting, she forced herself between the bars, her broken wing hanging loosely behind her back. Agony tore through her chest. She felt her ribs snap. She pushed harder. Lacking the strength to break her cage, she broke herself instead.