Witchery: A Ghosts of Albion Novel

Chapter Fifteen

The ghosts hung their heads. Then the leader, whose sword was still unsheathed, began to lift it. Before he could complete the motion, before Bodicea could learn his intentions, a scream filled the air.
“No,” she said, twisting around to stare back through the dense woods toward the river. Toward Slaughterbridge.
“Tamara.”
TAMARA SWIFT WATCHED OUT THE WINDOW of the carriage as Bodicea disappeared into the forest.
Her fingers were curled into tight fists where they rested in her lap. There were too many mysteries here, too many variables. When this had all begun she’d thought it a simple case of murder or mischief, likely some demon dragging off unsuspecting innocents. Now there were ghostly knights and ancient witches and the legends of King Arthur and his bastard son, Mordred.
It all began to seem too large for her to contend with, even with Bodicea along. Perhaps it was time to summon William to Cornwall. Yet every moment that passed moved the abducted girls closer to death, and she had come out to Slaughterbridge in an attempt to confront the witches, to destroy them if she could.
The carriage began to slow. She heard Farris call to the horses.
“Ah, our handsome Farris,” Serena said, clutching her hands to her breast as she flitted around within the carriage. “Loyal and strong, he is.”
Tamara smiled. “Yes. He is.”
The carriage stopped and shifted as Farris climbed down. Tamara did not wait for him, but flung open the door and dropped to the ground in particularly unladylike fashion. There was witchery afoot, and she could not be bothered with propriety.
The forest loomed ominously against the night sky and she was pleased that their path had not taken them into those dark woods. She was hardly dressed for another such trek. Yet even here on the clear, broad expanse of grass and beaten path between trees and riverbank, the dark woods seemed to encroach upon them, as though they bent toward them with malicious intent.
Tamara shivered. She had relished the chance to get out of London, but now she missed her home.
“Here we are, miss,” Farris said, gesturing toward the bank, where the ancient arch of Slaughterbridge spanned the river.
As she surveyed the stone bridge, covered in moss and vines, the river running swiftly at this narrow point, Tamara put her doubts behind her. She was here now. The thought of another girl being snatched away, just because she hesitated, was too much for her to bear. She could not return to Camelford without attempting to draw the witches to her.
With the musical trill of her wings soft in the air, Serena flew toward Farris, making circles above his head.
“Ye best be careful now, brave Farris. Our heart is shattered if anything happens to ye,” the sprite said.
“Not to worry, little one,” the stout man said.
He reached up to the seat of the carriage and drew down a large pouch. From within, he produced two large revolvers that Tamara had seen him wield before. “Allen’s pepperbox” they were called. A gift from his brother.
From his father, Farris had received the elder’s regimental saber, and now he reached up once more, lifting it down.
Farris was ready for a fight. That pleased her. He was courageous, but not versed in magic, and certainly he had none of the power that was the Protectors’ legacy. For her own part, she only needed the tools and ingredients necessary for the summoning spell she would use to draw the witches.
Tamara smiled. “I’d best get my own materials.”
Tamara reached into the carriage to retrieve them, her mind traveling forward as she went over the spell step by step. Farris and Serena were speaking behind her, but she wasn’t paying attention to their conversation.
A shriek from the night sky above shattered her thoughts.
“Miss— ” Farris began.
“Witches!” Serena cried, cutting him off, and she darted toward Tamara.
As she spun, Tamara raised her fists, and a rich golden light crackled like metallic fire around her hands— magic summoned up from the soul of Albion and channeled through her own body, enabling her to protect herself.
Two figures hovered in the darkness above, black garments whipping in the wind like banners unfurling at the front of death’s army. They were long and thin, bodies skeletal beneath those ragged robes, and darker than the night, like dreadful holes torn in the fabric of the sky, the deepest black Tamara had ever seen. Her heart fluttered at the sight of them and she felt ice travel through her every muscle, a cold unlike any she had known.
She looked at the witches, their gray, hideously contorted faces staring down at her, and she understood the touch of evil better than she ever had before. Tamara had fought one of the Lords of Hell, had faced him down without flinching, but the witches were worse. They were all that was good in humanity, twisted and bent to demonic purpose.
The witches descended, cutting through the darkness in utter silence.
Tamara screamed out her terror even as she raised her hands and sketched her fingers in the air. To hell with defense. She went on the attack.
“Malleus lux!” she shouted.
Golden light erupted from her hands and shot upward, illuminating the whole of the riverbank and the bridge. But this was no mere light. Nearly solid, the blast struck the witches. One of them took the brunt and it threw the witch out over the water, where the creature was lost in the darkness as the light diminished. The other was only glanced by the attack and fell, spinning, onto the carriage, landing with a splinter of breaking wood.
The horses neighed in terror, reared, and started to run.
Farris shouted for them to stop. He might have gone after them, but Serena screamed, drawing his attention.
The witch who’d taken the worst of the attack came streaking back across the night even as the other rose into a crouch on the back of the careening carriage. With only a gesture, she struck the horses dead.
The animals fell in a heap with the crack of breaking bone, and the carriage jittered to a stop, driving them into the dirt.
Serena flew into the air, darting directly at the eyes of the witch that dove for Tamara. It raised its twisted, taloned hands to shield its face.
Farris raised the twin pepperbox revolvers and pulled the triggers. The gunshots echoed across the nearby woods and the river. The witch that Serena was harrying only twitched as one of the bullets found its mark, punching a hole in the thing’s darkness that the moonlight streamed through.
The darkness flowed, closing the wound.
Tamara saw this all in a moment, even as she turned toward the other witch. The wraith perched on the edge of the carriage, and was about to launch itself toward her. Or so she thought.
“The girls,” Tamara said gravely. “I want them.”
She lifted her fists again, preparing to attack once more, with an enchantment that would imprison the witch— at least long enough for her to deal with the other one. Spells ran through her mind, magic she could use to destroy them.
The witch thrust its hands out, spindly claws pointed at the ground. The blackness of its garments stretched out, a living darkness, and touched the earth.
“Stupid girl,” it said, its voice like breaking glass. “You think you can best the daughters of Morgan le Fey?”
It laughed, then— not it, she— and Tamara had never heard a sound more terrible.
The soil shifted. Stone and root cracked. Fingers emerged from the earth and then the ground itself bucked and tore apart. Three figures rose up, formed of dirt and rock and clay, and reached for her. Homunculi, enslaved by the witches.
One of the creatures grabbed Tamara from behind, arm encircling her throat, choking her.
She cast a silent spell upon the nearest one and it exploded, showering dirt and stones all around. From within she saw emerge the ghost of a knight in armor, a pitiful creature whose eyes were full of terror. It had been the core of the homunculus. Now, set free, it fled into the night, dissipating in the air, crossing into the spirit realm, perhaps never to return.
Now I know what it is they fear, Tamara thought.
By then, the other homunculus had her in its arms and they crushed her between them, pinning her hands to her body, driving her down beneath their inexorable weight. Dirt spilled upon her and for a moment it was like being buried alive.
Then a ribbon of the darkness from the witch’s robe slid over her, wrapped around her head, and covered her mouth far more effectively than a simple gag. Tamara could not scream, could not speak enchantments, could not use her hands. Still, there was raw power in her and she struck out with instinctual magic, the primal strength of the Protector.
The witch was unfazed.
The homunculus released her and Tamara’s feet left the ground and suddenly she was flying, careening through the night in the grip of the witch’s robe, its spidery talons grabbing hold of her.
“It is your good fortune that you are pure, sorceress. Your virginity saves you. Now you are the tenth, and we have only three more to gather.”
She caught a glimpse of the trees far below, heard a gunshot as Farris shot at the other witch. Her last sight was of that creature batting Serena out of the sky, sending the sprite tumbling down, trailing dimming glitter, and Farris reaching up to catch her.
Then the witch left them, following her sister.
Tamara had a moment to feel relief that her friends would live. Then darkness spread over her eyes, and she could see nothing more.
Nigel Townsend stood in the parlor at Ludlow House, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from an antique crystal decanter that was nearly as old as he was.
Though he bickered constantly with Nelson’s ghost, and though the man had once had him clapped in irons on board the Agamemnon, he found he was worried. It was no simple matter to harm a ghost, but it could be done.
Of course, he was concerned for William as well, but Nigel’s relationship with the young master Swift was even more contentious. They treated each other as allies, but William never had fully trusted him, and likely never would. In truth, Nigel felt the same. William had been improving both his store of sorcerous knowledge and his skill at spellcasting, but he had neither the natural facility nor the inclinations that were evident in his sister. Whether it be business or romance that distracted him, William seemed always to have some other priority that competed with his duties as Protector of Albion.
“One day,” Nigel said aloud, raising his glass and studying the facets of color in crystal and whiskey, rotating the drink in his hand, “it will be the death of you, I’m afraid.”
Someone passed by in the corridor and he turned, but saw only the swaying hem of a skirt before she was out of sight. One of the maids, certainly. Though if it was Sophia, that would be interesting. The girl was William’s intended, and loved him, to be sure. But Nigel knew she was fascinated by him, and by what he was. Despite William’s suspicions to the contrary, Nigel would not betray him by pursuing the girl as long as he could help himself.
He did his best not to be caught in close proximity to her.
To her credit, Sophia’s fascination seemed not to have corrupted her devotion to William. For all her faults, the girl was loyal.
Yet it wasn’t entirely his own loyalty to the Swifts that prevented him from attempting to bed her, or to taste of her blood. Once upon a time there had been a young girl he had truly adored, a girl in the care of Ludlow Swift. One day his love for her, and her fascination with his curse— which she saw as a gift— had been the end of her, and that had spelled the death of his own heart.
It had laid ruin to his relationship with Ludlow, as well. They had renewed their friendship in time, but nothing was ever the same after that.
Nigel sniffed, and took a sip of the whiskey. Such ruminations were unhealthy, he decided. He put them all from his mind.
He sniffed again, and arched an eyebrow, mischief growing in his heart. There was a scent— one he recognized. Neither Martha, the aging maid who ran the household, nor Sophia had been the one who just passed. No, it had been Melanie, a young maid who had only been in the service of the Swifts for half a year or so. A pretty thing he had his eye on.
Nigel drained the last of his whiskey and set the glass down, then went out into the corridor in quiet pursuit of the girl. He never took blood from the unwilling, but there was nothing more exciting than finding a girl who was eager to give him all that he wanted of her, both her body and her blood. He wondered if Melanie would be the playful sort.
Breathing in her scent, he followed the maid. She had gone off toward the observatory. Nigel stole after her, keeping to the shadows where the lamplight did not reach.
From ahead of him, a scream echoed through the corridor.
He enjoyed playing at the role of predator, but now Nigel gave up the game and ran. The door to the observatory was open, and he rushed into the room to find Melanie standing with her hands covering her face in fright.
The view from the window revealed the grounds of Ludlow House cast in moonlight, and the scene was beautiful.
But the moonlight revealed something else, as well. The ghost of Queen Bodicea knelt in the center of the room, as if weary from battle, spear held before her as though it was the only thing that kept her from falling over.
“Mr. Townsend ,” Melanie said breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have screamed. But the— I’m I’m not used to such haunts, and she just appeared there in front of me. I don’t— ”
“Hush, girl,” Nigel said grimly. “It’s all right. Go about your business.”
With a grateful look, the maid rushed from the room.
“Bodicea, what’s happened?” Nigel asked, moving to her side. He reached out and, though he himself was a supernatural and ought to have been able to make contact with her, his fingers passed through her as if through mist.
The queen looked up at him, and her mouth twisted in a snarl. “William. I must speak with him immediately.”
She stood, ever regal despite her nudity. Even though she was a ghost, the war paint she had smeared upon her naked flesh seemed primitive and imposing.
“He’s gone, on an errand,” Nigel replied. “William and Nelson both. Only Byron and I are here.”
Bodicea inhaled deeply, swelling her bosom. Nigel could not help but admire her, though the fierceness of her gaze was daunting.
“Calamity has befallen our endeavor in Cornwall,” the specter admitted. Normally she was imperious, but at this news she lowered her gaze. “I left her side for but a moment, and at her instruction, but I am afraid that Tamara has been taken from us.”
Nigel narrowed his eyes and shook his head, as if denying the words. He bared his fangs in anger.
“Speak sense, woman. Tamara cannot be dead or William would have felt it and returned. She cannot ”
His temples thrummed with an imaginary pulse. Nigel’s heart had not beaten in centuries, but this night he felt as if it must. He thought he had given up on love, but what he felt now proved otherwise. He might not wish to court Tamara, but still he cherished her.
“I did not say that she was dead,” Bodicea snapped. “She has been abducted, Mr. Townsend, by the very same witches that have taken so many other victims in that region, human and fairy alike.”
“Witches? There hasn’t been a witch in England in— ”
“Enough!” Bodicea shouted, and she shook her spear at him. “You waste precious moments. Farris and his smitten sprite are safe, but I must see them back to the inn. The very instant William returns, you shall inform him, and instruct him to translocate to the Mason’s Arms in Camelford, where he will find Farris awaiting him.
“I will be in search of Tamara, and the damnable creatures who have taken her.”
Nigel would have bristled at her commanding tone, but before he could say a word, Bodicea vanished.
Alone in the observatory, he shook his head and gazed out at the moonlit lawns and gardens of Ludlow House.
“Perhaps it isn’t William I ought to have been worrying about.”
PETER DAVID, the master of the hounds, was weary. He had a gentle heart, and with each young lady of Camelford who had vanished into the darkness, more and more of his genial demeanor had departed from him.
Peter was a quiet man who prided himself on his reputation, and on the fact that he had at the very least a friendly acquaintance with most of the people who lived in Camelford. That wasn’t to say that the girls who had gone missing were like his own daughters, but certainly he was fond of them.
Like the other men who were searching— brothers and fathers, uncles and friends— he imagined the worst, and it curdled his soul.
“Come on, my darlings,” he said to the hounds. “If we don’t get some rest tonight, we’ll be of no use to anyone come morning.”
The dogs were all leashed by ropes that were tied to a single loop, and Peter held fast to the loop. Most of them would not wander far, but here in the deep forest, tucked away in the hills, even the best-behaved of them could be tempted to dash into the underbrush in pursuit of a squirrel or hare. He hadn’t the energy or patience to round them up tonight, and so he kept a firm grip upon the loop, alternately tugging them along and being tugged himself. They weren’t following a scent now— only his gentle proddings urging them to return home for the night.
In the morning, they would start again. He only prayed that the night would pass without another poor girl gone missing.
For much of the afternoon and early evening, he had been with Richard Kirk and young Frankie Turner, both men he had seen grown from infancy. Their passion had helped to drive him on, keeping him out after dark. But even with the moonlight making a surreal landscape of the woods, silver light filtering through branches and making clearings the stuff of fairy tales, it was simply too dark to do any real good now.
Reluctantly, they had all agreed to surrender their hopes for another night.
He’d said goodbye to the boys a mile back, but Peter’s own home was outside of Camelford; even in the darkened woods he knew the direction well enough. His stomach rumbled hungrily, and he knew the hounds must be starving, as well. It wasn’t a kind master who kept his beasts running so long without food.
“Just a little farther, friends,” he said, voice low.
There was no path here. This particular area of the forest was unfamiliar. But the stars were the stars, and the hills did not lie. He had struck out on the right course, and had no doubt that it would take him home.
Yet as he dragged the dogs along, he found himself peering more closely into the nighttime shadows where the moonlight did not reach. Something horrid crept along the back of his neck, but when he reached up to brush it away, thinking a spider had fallen upon him, there was nothing there.
The wind seemed to have died.
Halfway up a long, sloping hill dense with old forest, Peter paused, unsure now of his direction. That was what he told himself. In his heart, he knew differently. His path was true, but he hesitated to continue.
“You’re a fool, Peter David,” he said, too loudly, trying to dispel his fear with the sound of his own voice. It helped a bit, for it did make him feel foolish. Not since he was a boy had he been afraid of the dark, of the woods.
But now, for the first time, he had an opportunity to wonder what had truly become of the missing girls. His hope was waning. If the hounds could not locate a useful trace of any of them, then they simply could not be found. But if that was the case, then what had happened to them?
What else was out here in the woods tonight?
“Come,” he said sharply. Fist tight, he pulled the loop, dragging the hounds together. One of the largest, Hercules, tripped over his own legs while turning round, and stumbled. A thin, ugly mutt he called Gruesome nipped at Hercules’s hind legs to get him up and moving again, and then Peter found himself pulled uphill.
His pulse raced, but he tried to keep his eyes on the woods ahead, ignoring the shadows to either side. He kept as best he could to wide spaces and clearings so that the hounds would not wrap their leads around trees. They yipped and growled low, murmuring far more than they usually did. The collective panting and grunting of the dogs was a familiar comfort to him, but this night he sensed that his animals were as tentative and unsettled as he was.
At the top of the hill, he reached a clearing that was bathed in silver moonlight, and he breathed a sigh of relief, even chuckled at himself. Peter sighed and scratched at the back of his head as the hounds moved restlessly, tired of one another’s company.
The master of hounds started off again, moving due west, across the clearing and between two ancient oaks whose branches hung low, heavy with age. He wasn’t an old man, but tonight he felt much like the oaks.
The hounds would not move.
He tried to tug them along with him, but they resisted stubbornly, digging paws into the ground, clawing up dirt.
“Come on, then, darlings. That’s enough of that.”
But his voice didn’t soothe them the way it had his own anxious heart. Hercules began to whine. The best of them was Achilles, a tall, proud beast with bright eyes and a strong back. A growl came up from deep in his belly, and it spread to the others. Gruesome threw his head back and howled.
“Enough of your damnable music, lads! Enough! Come along!” Peter shouted, hearing the fear in his own voice, and hating it.
He gripped the loop with both hands and bent into the work, trying to haul them away from the clearing, and back into the trees. Still they did not budge. Now all six hounds began to howl and bark and snap at one another. Zeus foamed at the mouth, yellow drool sliding over his fangs and black quivering lip, and spilling to the dirt.
“Lord, Jesus.”
Peter froze, staring at them.
The wind carried a stench into the clearing, rustling the leaves and making him flinch. He turned his nose away and held his breath.
The dogs bolted.
A frenzy came over them. They barked and snarled and tore up dirt as they ran in the very same direction he had tried to drag them. One moment whatever lay in those trees had terrified them, and the next they seemed determined to tear it to pieces.
“Stop, damn you!” Peter roared.
The hounds ignored their master. They reached the end of their leashes and his grip on the loop was such that they yanked him forward. He was flung through the air and landed hard on the ground, the wind knocked out of him. His fist opened and the loop came free, dragging away across the ground behind his animals.
Madness had overtaken them. Like ravenous wild things they raced for the trees. Peter lay with his considerable belly upon the ground, blinking dirt from his eyes. Where the moonlight reached into the woods around the clearing, he saw a single obelisk, a standing stone that marked a place of worship that was hundreds of years old.
Beyond it stood the grim reaper.
No, not the reaper. Death, he thought.
The tall, black shrouded thing was thin as a praying mantis. The terrible, cruel features were those of a woman, and that made it somehow worse.
She pointed.
The dogs halted. They began to whine now, even worse than before. Achilles was the first to turn, and they all followed suit. Peter’s darlings looked at him, large, damp eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Gruesome growled, and raced toward him.
Hercules followed, and then so did the rest.
A terrible sadness clutched at his heart. The master of the hounds had known everyone in town, but not well. Never well. The dogs had been his greatest love, his closest friends. It wasn’t fear but sorrow that wrapped him in a frigid embrace, alone there in the moonlight. More alone than ever.
They fell silent as they reached him.
Achilles bit first, fangs tearing through his jacket, ripping flesh and muscle from his shoulder. Then the others darted in, jaws snapping, pulling him apart.
Peter screamed.
And he wept.
And he died.
JOHN HAVERSHAM STOOD IN THE DARK, just inside the doors of Swift’s of London. All of the hand-painted lamps were unlit. Chairs were set against desks in orderly fashion. Not a single piece of paper was out of place. Of course, that was how the proper Mr. Swift would run his business. Haversham was surprised that there were flowers arranged in pots in several places around the main room of the bank. A bit chaotic for William.
He smiled to himself. He was selling the man short, he knew that. William wasn’t quite as bad as all that. But there was a part of John that wanted so very badly to get him into the ring where he often engaged his pugilistic tendencies, and beat him bloody. No magic, just his fists.
Of course, that was the only way he’d have a chance in hell of winning against one of the Protectors of Albion. He knew it well. Just as he knew that Lord Blackheath and the rest of the board would have him flogged— or worse— if he did anything to disrupt the nascent relationship they’d forged with the Swifts. They were thrilled to count the Protectors among their membership, despite the indignity they had to endure of suffering a woman to sit on the board of so exclusive a gentleman’s club.
What was worse, John actually liked William— when the man wasn’t being a prig about his interest in Tamara. William did have a tendency to be a suspicious prat.
Not that his suspicions were entirely without cause.
It had been ridiculously simple for Haversham to break into the bank. A well-placed spell and his own natural stealth got him in without being seen, without unlocking a door, without breaking a window or removing a bar. He had no innate magical power, but he knew enough spellcraft, and he was an excellent thief.
The air was warm and stiflingly close inside the bank, as though the anxiety of the thief filled every room. The place was all wood and glass, and the only dust was what had fallen since transactions had ended for the day. Yes, William Swift ran his father’s business as a tight ship. Haversham could only imagine how much it must have gnawed at him to know that he was being robbed, that the sanctity of Swift’s had been breached, and that there seemed nothing at all he could do about it.
Unless, of course, he had come down here himself and waited for the robber to strike again.
Ah, but William was otherwise engaged. His attentions were torn between his impending wedding to Haversham’s petulant cousin Sophia, and William’s own duties as Protector.