Ghosts of Albion: Accursed

Chapter Five

Troubled by the demon's words, William descended the stairs carrying a tray that bore the remains of his father's breakfast. Oblis's breakfast. It irked him terribly that the demon could so easily unsettle him. But the fiend's suggestion that he bring Sophia into that room-into the presence of such evil-festered in his mind, no doubt as Oblis had intended.
Yet what of his other ravings? What of that supposed conversation with William's father? And his intimations that some new breed of darkness was on the rise.
William decided to discuss his concerns with Tamara, and straightaway. The demon was, in all likelihood, only toying with him, but if there was any truth to what Oblis had said, it was their duty to seek out this nascent evil, and quash it before it could present a real threat to Albion.
In the beginning, he had tried to shirk the duty he and Tamara shared, and return to the normal life he had mapped out for himself. In time, though, he had come to realize that the responsibility could not be ignored. Evil was afoot in the world, and just as Maurice Swift had once chosen his nephew Ludlow, so had their grandfather chosen them to take up the fight. Now William looked on their commission with pride, and he knew that Tamara felt the same.
He sighed as his foot touched the last stair and he moved toward the kitchen. What a strange dichotomy their relationship had become. First he would discuss with Tamara his concerns about the things Oblis had said-the dread that had blossomed within him, even worse than the tremor that was always there in the demon's presence. Then he would plead with her to forgo the tryst she had set with John Haversham for this evening. Sparks would fly, but there could be only one outcome. She simply had to listen to reason.
In the back of his mind, there lingered a third conversation he knew he could not escape. But there was no easy way to broach the subject of his invitation to the Algernon Club tomorrow night . . . an invitation that had not been extended to her. An ordinary girl would understand that it was a gentlemen's club, and therefore off-limits to the fairer sex. But Tamara was no ordinary girl.
This girl loved a good fight.
"Excuse me, Master William-"
Farris had stepped through a door from one of the side rooms, and his large, callused hands were anxiously twisting together. Since William still held the breakfast dish in his hands, Farris took it immediately.
"I'll take this to the kitchen, sir."
Yet he made no move to proceed. Instead he cleared his throat and stared down at his feet.
"What is it, Farris?"
"It's something with the mistress, sir. She's had some bad news, I'm afraid. She's in a right state-"
The man was saved from having to explain further when the sitting room door swung violently open and Sophia emerged. Relief washed across her face when she saw him. William heard sobbing, and was momentarily confused, thinking it came from Sophia herself, that she might be unwell.
Then he realized his mistake, rushed to the door, and saw Tamara standing by the window. One hand covered her mouth, and her face was flushed with emotion.
"Tamara, what is it-" he began, rushing to her. She fell against him, and her whole body was shaking.
"It's Helena, Will, she's . . . she's taken her own life."
The words tumbled from Tamara's lips. William stiffened, then he looked up at Sophia, who nodded, her eyes large and wide.
"But . . . that's impossible," William stammered. Helena had been a friend of Tamara's from time immemorial.
"I'm afraid it is the truth. As much as I regret to give it credence."
The voice was soft and masculine, with a hint of grief floating underneath the calm surface. William had been so overwhelmed by his sister's agony that he hadn't even noticed the presence of another in the room. Now he turned and saw the man whom he knew must be the courier of this horrid news. Helena's half brother, Frederick Martin.
THE ATMOSPHERE IN the sitting room did not feel real. Everything seemed transparent, as if shimmering in the morning light. Like a dream. Tamara put her hand to her own cheek. The feeling of soft skin under her fingertips wasn't enough to pull her back to reality. Even if she had pinched herself, she didn't think that it would have proved that this was the waking world.
When Frederick had first told her the news, she had refused to believe him. Her dear friend had absolutely no reason to take her own life, as far as Tamara knew. Helena lived in a world of her own creation, a place that was fueled with charcoal and paper and paint. What urgency could issue from that place, such that it would cause her to kill herself?
"I, myself, took dinner with her," Frederick recounted. "She seemed . . . how should I phrase this? Out of sorts, not herself." His words were low and melodious in her ear. It struck Tamara that his attitude was odd for someone who was dealing with so horrifying a discovery. Indeed, grief did strange things to people.
"It wasn't until this morning," Frederick continued, "that a passing charwoman found her body on the sidewalk below Father's study. She must have thrown herself from one of the windows during the night-"
The door to the sitting room opened, and Martha came in bearing a tea tray and some sandwiches. Thus interrupted, Frederick waited until the maid had finished her duties and departed before continuing.
Tamara had placed herself in one of the armchairs, so that she could be alone. It also had the added comfort of smelling faintly like the tobacco her grandfather had loved to smoke in the evenings.
Oh, how she wished that her grandfather were here now. He would know exactly what to say to make her feel better. Tears pricked the inside of her eyes, but she blinked, defying them.
She looked to where Sophia and William had taken up residence on the love seat. She noted how closely they sat together. Hypocrite, she thought. He went on and on about her lack of propriety, but he refused to see how improperly he behaved with Sophia. And she encourages it. Even as Tamara watched, Sophia's fingers snaked toward William's, between the seat cushions.
Tamara gnawed her lower lip. She didn't really care how her brother conducted himself, save that he held her to a different standard. It was more that she so disliked Sophia. And that this morning-just this morning-she so wished that she could have William to herself.
Helena was . . . she could scarcely credit it, but nor could she deny it . . . her dear friend was dead. Gone. Tamara wanted to sit with her brother and mourn. She didn't feel like competing with Sophia for her brother's attention.
Martha gave her a gentle nod, eyes full of concern. The pity that infused Martha's gaze made Tamara's heart hurt. She realized that Farris must have told their housekeeper the awful news.
When Martha had gone, Frederick once again took up his tale.
"I've sent a message to Father at Oxford. He and Mother will return as soon as it can be arranged, I expect."
Tamara watched him closely now, as he spoke. There was grief in his voice, but his eyes . . . his eyes said something else. He was upset that Helena was gone, that much seemed clear, but there was something strange in his gaze. Something wrong.
Granted, he and Helena weren't as close as she and William, but most likely that was because they hadn't spent as much time together. Still, she had sensed genuine affection between them.
What, then, was this?
Frederick stood to inherit everything upon his father's death. Helena had her dowry, but that wouldn't interfere with the bulk of the moneys.
Even so, suspicion lingered in her. There was an air about him that she could not dismiss. She was glad that her housecoat covered her arms so that Frederick could not see the goose bumps that rose instinctively in his presence.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that William's gaze was fixed on her. Did he sense it, as well? She turned and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask that very question, and William replied with the slightest of nods.
So he felt it, too. This made Tamara even more nervous. She felt horribly underdressed in her housecoat. She grabbed the robe's ties and pulled them taut around her middle.
Poor, sweet Helena. She did not deserve this death.
A shudder ran through her as she began to weep softly once more. Tamara wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, hoping no one would notice. Oddly, it was Sophia who offered her a handkerchief. She took the piece of dainty silk and dabbed at her eyes.
Something broke inside her then. She could barely see the room around her as tears clouded her vision into a muddled blur.
JOHN HAVERSHAM STOOD in his dressing gown, watching life pass by on Brook Street beneath his second-story window. He had decided that tea was best taken with a view. He had returned home fairly late the previous night, and wasn't quite awake as he watched an older gentleman in a double-breasted frock coat try to navigate his way against the flow of pedestrian traffic. He wondered where the old man was going in such a hurry.
His observations were interrupted by entrance of his valet, Colin Thompson. Colin was in his early thirties, but carried himself like a man of much greater maturity. He rarely spoke, but when he did, John listened carefully. Colin was crafty and wise beyond his years, with a hint of Machiavelli in him. They met when he had come to John's aid once during a bar brawl in Bowmore, and ever since he had been John's man.
Colin was dressed in his signature black waistcoat. He eschewed color whenever possible, preferring the severity of black. Only if they were spending the evening by the docks would he stoop to put on clothing of dirty brown.
His light blond hair was shellacked to his egg-shaped head, and his blue eyes were rimmed with red, tired from the drunken evening they had shared the night before.
"I've made arrangements for a carriage to fetch Tamara Swift at her home this evening," Colin said. His voice was low and even.
John nodded, pleased that everything was as it should be.
"Thank you, Colin."
The valet bowed and left the room. John watched him go, then settled into the high-backed dressing table chair he had pulled over to the window and returned to his morning tea.
He had set up residence at Mivart's less than a year before, but already he felt more at home in these accommodations than he ever had at his childhood residence in Edinburgh. In Scotland, he had lived under the rule of his overbearing father, Weatherly Haversham-a self-made entrepreneur who owned a dozen whiskey distilleries. Even at the University of Edinburgh-where he had studied the classics-his father's notoriety had made it impossible for him to exist on his own terms.
Then, after university, just when he had thought himself free of his father's rule, he had foolishly allowed himself to be railroaded into running one of the man's floundering distilleries on Islay. Five years later, when the establishment was finally turning a profit, he had left Scotland, a husk of his former self, hungry for independence and the chance to write.
He had realized then that in all his life, he had never truly been himself. When he sought his fortune in London, it had opened his mind and soul, finally allowing him to be free. There was no one here to tell him what to do, and that suited him very well, indeed.
The rooms he kept weren't extensive, but they were quite comfortable, even for a man who had been raised as a child of privilege. He took such pleasure in maintaining his own lodgings that sometimes he found himself staying inside until late in the afternoon, using the hours to write extensively, then leaving only to dine at Hancock's on Rupert Street. Or, on special occasions, dressing down his appearance and his accent enough to pass as a working Scot at the Highland Mary.
There, he would take off his shirt and pull a few bloody noses, just for the love of sparring and the free whiskey his skill brought him.
Boxing was a love he had acquired at university, but it was only while in Bowmore that he realized what an asset he possessed. In the public houses of the small Scottish village at the head of the Loch Indaal, he had honed his skill, using his hands to butcher flesh with a beauty and grace that won him many an admirer-male and female.
John had found that, once they knew what he was capable of doing, the men who worked under him respected him, and did what he asked. He was able to win their allegiance in a way that his fortune could never have accomplished. This was a whole new world for him, far from the one in which he had been raised, and he found that he liked the coarseness of the working class, their drunken embellishments and homespun kindnesses, far more than the pretensions of the upper classes.
Tomorrow night, if all went as he intended, he would put on his rough clothes, and he and Colin would go out to the Isle of Dogs, looking to fight. It would be a reward he gave himself for all the hard work he had put into negotiating this evening's outing with Tamara Swift.
"Excuse me, sir?" Colin had returned, and his voice cut through his ruminations. John looked up to find the valet standing in the doorway, one eyebrow raised curiously.
"Yes, Colin?"
"A Mr. Llewellyn requests a moment of your time," Colin announced. He had an odd look on his face that piqued John's curiosity.
"Show him in, please."
Colin bowed and left the room, only to return moments later with a little old gentleman. It was the same fellow John had watched fighting the flow of pedestrian traffic on the street several minutes earlier.
"Good morning, Mr. Haversham," the man began. "Charles Llewellyn, from the club. The director has sent me with a note," he continued, pulling a white envelope from his pocket. "This is for you."
The fellow's wizened face was small and ratlike, his eyes two black coals lodged in sunken sockets. John held out his hand, and wondered which gutter in Blackheath had produced this fellow. Llewellyn reached out and surrendered the envelope. It was light as a feather.
"Thank you," John said. The old man grinned, revealing rotten teeth, or what was left of them.
Colin reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a farthing, handing it to the old man, who nodded happily and made a grand bow to both host and servant. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he disappeared right in front of them.
"What the Hell-" John began, but then he stopped, realizing that this "Mr. Llewellyn" was more than a simple messenger.
"I suppose that's what we get for associating ourselves with magicians," he finished, offering a crooked smile. Colin nodded, but still he looked around the room to make sure the old man had really gone.
John tore open the envelope and pulled out a crisp sheet of starched paper. Colin crooked his neck to get a look at the note's contents.
"What's it say, then?"
John looked up, smiling broadly now. "It appears our excursion to the Isle of Dogs must wait. I've been summoned to the Algernon Club tomorrow at noon. I think our work has received some notice, Colin, my boy. Now let us pray that our evening at the Egyptian shall bear fruit."
Tonight, he would further endear himself to Tamara Swift, thus gaining a foothold in the famous Swift family. Thank God his cousin Sophia was so easily manipulated to do exactly what he required of her. She had facilitated his invitation to the Wintertons' the night before. Without her, certainly, he would still have found a way to encounter the Swifts, but her connections made his job that much easier.
His only real challenge came in the guise of Tamara's brother, William.
He and William had met only once before, though he doubted that the easily agitated Mr. Swift would remember their first encounter. It had been a long time ago. Well, better that he know me by reputation than experience, John thought wisely.
He handed Colin the invitation, which the valet read hungrily.
"I think you're coming up finely, John. Finely indeed," Colin said, nodding at the invitation.
"I'll be exactly where we'd like in no time at all-if our luck continues to hold," John agreed.
"It's not luck, John," Colin countered. "It's magic."
THE MINISTER OF the choristers was looking for a pair of truant boys. He was sure they had slipped away from the others earlier in the afternoon, and he thought he knew exactly where to find them.
During the course of the year, it was typical to find a new chorister or two trying out the acoustics in the Whispering Gallery. He was sure that he would find the boys there, one on either side of the gallery. One would be speaking in low tones, the other listening intently. Even he, many years ago as a young chorister, had experimented with the seemingly arcane trick that carried the spoken word up and across the elliptical dome, clear as a bell.
As he walked past the choir stalls, the minister marveled at the beauty of St. Paul's. The old cathedral had been destroyed in the Great London Fire of 1666, and it had taken more than a decade before a design was approved by king and clergy, and rebuilding had begun in earnest. Now, almost two hundred years later, he could only give thanks that the architect, Christopher Wren, had seen fit to outfit the cathedral with its extended nave and spacious quire, elevating St. Paul's, in his humble opinion, above all other Anglican edifices.
He had always loved the quire best, probably because it had been the scene of many of his schoolboy triumphs. But there was still something to be said for the rich oak of the stalls and benches, the way his feet tapped out staccato beats as he walked on the cold stone floor.
Somewhere in the distance he heard raised voices, and a childish squeal. This wasn't play, though-it sounded like alarm. It made him pick up his pace, worry propelling him forward.
He knew there were others in the church who felt that he didn't discipline the boys harshly enough, but he was of the belief that in teaching one should spare the rod and spoil the child. He was known to be extremely lenient with his charges, and would punish them only if they showed genuine waywardness.
I hope this evening will be a case in point; that the Whispering Gallery will be my only stop, he thought.
Yet there was something in the air, something that made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand at attention. Something that told him this night was going to be different.
The voices were coming from the southern edge of the Great Circle. He made a left and followed the sounds to where the southern transept connected to the nave.
"Boys . . . ?" he began, but stopped at the sound of hurried footsteps.
The two missing boys seemed to appear from out of nowhere, and ran directly at him. The minister of choristers stepped out of the way just in time to avoid being knocked over by the younger of the two, Benjamin Reynolds. The boy paused for an instant in midstride as he turned his wild-eyed gaze on the minister, then continued onward as fast as his feet could carry him.
"Boys!" he called out, angrily now, hoping to stop them in their flight. But they ignored him. He listened to the clattering of their feet, then heard the crash of doors as they found their way out through the west entrance.
The silence that followed was uncanny.
What in Heaven's name? the minister of choristers thought as he stood in the empty cathedral. Never in all his many years had he experienced someone else's terror so intimately. The very air around him seemed unnaturally cold.
A shudder went through him as he turned to gaze into the shadows from whence they'd come.
A young woman stood there, barely more than a girl. She was an exotic beauty, clad in red and gold, with skin like caramel and eyes that seemed to reflect myriad colors in the flickering lamplight. Behind her there were only shadows.
"What's this, then?" the minister asked. "What are you doing back there, miss?"
With a smile that stirred forbidden desires within him, she took a step backward and seemed to be swallowed by the shadows.
"See here, miss, you can't-" he began, but then stopped himself. He had the strangest feeling that she was not merely hidden in darkness, but no longer there at all-that he was talking to himself.
The minister frowned, thinking again of those terrified boys. Surely they had not been frightened by the sudden appearance of a beautiful woman. Boys were boys, after all.
Confused, he went to the narrow stairs and started down to the catacombs beneath the cathedral. He had never enjoyed going down here, had always found the place a bit morbid, in fact. But he did so now, and wondered where the woman had gone, and why the boys had chosen to wander among the crypts. As youngsters he and his friends had avoided the place, but then again, he had never been terribly adventurous.
If it had been chilly up above, it was colder down here than he liked. He had never been partial to London weather, but this was different. There was something strange about this coldness, as though all the warmth had been leached away. He felt chill bumps rise all over his body, and his chest ached as he drew in a frigid breath.
He smelled them before he saw them.
They were enormous things, with a reptilian aspect that conjured ancient, primal terror in his heart. Their skulls were swollen approximations of human heads, their skin varying shades of mottled brown and green, rough as though covered with scales. They plunged their long arms and thick, webbed hands into a tomb that had been forced open, stone fragments scattered in a tumble on the ground.
Others had been shattered, as well. The withered remains of the honored dead had been torn from their crypts, bones and rotting clothing strewn across the floor. Lord Nelson's beautiful black marble tomb was in ruins. Some had merely been staved in, but many were destroyed.
One of the monsters was gnawing on a jawbone. Some of the cadavers were fresh enough to have flesh and muscle still attached to the bone, but the creatures seemed more interested in the desecration of the tombs than in feasting on the dead.
This was sacrilege. An abomination.
He gasped with terror.
At the sound, three pairs of wide yellow eyes turned to regard him. He took a step back and slipped on something wet, then fell to the stone floor. With his free hand, he reached out and touched the substance, recoiling immediately from the trail of viscous filth the monsters had left in their passing.
The stench of the place-of the demons-filled his nostrils, and he retched. The minister scrabbled backward, trying to get his feet beneath him, to pick himself up and run away.
The trio of demons came for him, then, a grotesque rictus etched on their faces, exposing sharp, pointed teeth.
Only when they at last descended upon him, claws and teeth tearing his flesh, did it occur to him to scream. The sounds of his terror-of his murder-traveled up the stairs, all the way to the Whispering Gallery. Forever after, choristers would insist that they could hear the echoes up there, beneath the dome of the cathedral.
That morning, every stone trembled with the sound.