“I would say it was sort of like an octopus,” she said.
“More tentacles,” he replied, leaning over the book, which was upside down to him. “It was set at a curious angle, too; almost like it was trying to peel itself off her skin.”
Cathaline rocked back from the book and drummed a rhythm on her knees as she spoke. “You heard what she said, didn’t you?”
Thaniel nodded grimly. “The Fraternity.”
“The Fraternity,” Cathaline agreed. She stood up suddenly, leaning backwards, further and further until she glided into an expert handstand, and then slowly brought her feet over to complete the manoeuvre. “We may be into something a lot more dangerous than we know,” she said, cocking her head elfishly. “Are you sure you want to follow this through?”
Thaniel leaned back in the wicker settee, the book forgotten for a moment. “Have you ever felt...” he began, stopped, and then carried on. “Have you ever felt that suddenly your choice of direction is not your own? I mean, that you should be going in some way other than the road you are travelling? It feels like I am being called, somehow. Do you understand? And it is as if I have no power over myself, you see? Suddenly, something I have not ever seriously thought of before has become irresistible.”
Cathaline linked her hands behind her back and raised an eyebrow theatrically at him. “Thaniel, you are being vague as only a man can be. Spit it out.”
“I...” he said, and halted again. “She needs me.”
“She needs you?” Cathaline asked with a grin.
Thaniel obstinately refused to take her meaning. “She is alone, and scared, and there is more to her than what we know. She has no-one else.”
There was silence. A gauzy curtain stirred in a faint breeze from somewhere.
“I want to be friends with her,” he said. “I want... something other than what I know. She is so strange to me, you see? I think that her life must have been very different from mine.” He looked up at Cathaline. “I want to know what that is like. I want to help her.”
Cathaline smiled in understanding. She always understood. She and Thaniel were kindred spirits.
“Page 127,” she said, indicating the book at his feet.
Thaniel looked down at the book and then up at her. “You knew where it was all along.”
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said, then turned suddenly grave, “before you saw it.”
“You know what it is?” he asked. “The mark? You know what it means?”
“Oh yes,” said Cathaline, and her tone told him that he would not like what he found. “It is known as a chackh’morg. It is a symbol used by followers of the Glau Meska—the Deep Ones. Thirteen years ago was the last time one was recorded; a conclave of occultists was unearthed in Cheapside, and this symbol was found to figure in many of their ceremonies.” She paused. “These people worship the more powerful wych-kin. They treat with them, offer them sacrifice, work on their behalf to gather more power for themselves.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?” Thaniel asked, a little annoyed at his ignorance.
“Cults like this were all over London, but they’re almost impossible to dig out nowadays. They’ve either learned to hide better or they’ve been swallowed by bigger cults. Besides, it’s a job for the Peelers; wych-hunters deal with wych-kin, not with hopeful little groups of people that think they can summon a demon with a ouija board and a few backwards prayers. And the Peelers have enough on their plate.”
“You are saying she was part of a cult? Part of the Fraternity?”
“Possibly,” she replied. “But the Fraternity aren’t stupid enough to tattoo themselves so that the authorities can identify all of them when one is caught. No, the chackh’morg is something else. Usually it’s burned on the skin when someone is to be sacrificed.”
Cathaline sat down on the wicker chair next to Thaniel, leaned back and stretched.
“The lore books that I have only came up with one instance when they would go to the trouble of tattooing a victim. It was when the victim was not intended for a simple death, but for possession.”
“How do they do it?”
“It’s all theory, you understand,” Cathaline said. “There’s no evidence of it ever actually working. When a spirit needs a body, the body has to be vacated by the existing spirit. A poison is administered, one that slowly kills the victim while the spirit takes residence. A spirit can’t take a dead body, but it can take over a dying one. Then the poison is neutralized before death, and the strong spirit destroys the weak one.”
“Except this time it did not happen,” said Thaniel, realization dawning on him. “The spirit did not overcome the victim, and now she is in there with Alaizabel.” He turned slowly on the settee and fixed Cathaline with a look of determination. “She is not mad. She is possessed. Someone put that thing inside her.”
Cathaline nodded. “Looks that way.”
“And what has the mark to do with this?”
“The mark is an invitation,” said Cathaline, standing up suddenly and smoothing down her dark velvet trousers. “A beacon. The spirit must know where it is going after it has been called. They fed her poison, but it didn’t work, by my guess and yours. Somehow she resisted, maybe more than they expected. And when Thatch arrived, she found the sacrifice still fighting.
“The Fraternity!” Thaniel said, getting up and pacing the room. “Remember what she said, a moment ago? The Fraternity summoned her.”
“And now the spirit is inside Alaizabel,” Cathaline said. “And it’s my guess that they want it back.” She spun suddenly, an idea striking her. “Come with me to the sanctum. I need to try something.”
Every wych-hunter had at least one sanctum somewhere. It was a place where they could carry out their rituals, procedures and experiments in safety, usually a simple room—a basement or attic. A sanctum could be created anywhere, but no matter how sparse and unfurnished they were to begin with, it was never long before the accumulation of artefacts necessary to carry out the Rites gave them a mystery and a fascination, a feeling of gravity, which inspired respect.
Thaniel and Cathaline’s sanctum was in the basement of 273 Crofter’s Gate, a large, low, square room that was reached by a door at the end of the hallway, leading to a short set of stone steps. The room was lit by the gas lamps that hid in sconces on the wall, and their glow spread over the wood panelling and bare floor of smooth black stone. The room exuded a stolid air, a sense of heaviness, seeming to frown upon them as they entered. A spiky, two-metre tree of petrified wood stood in one corner, its branches like spears as they crooked and jaunted about its stiff, thin trunk. Beneath the tiny, high-set and blacked-out window that looked up to Crofter’s Gate at the feet of passers-by, there was a hideous carving that drew the eye. Two figures were depicted, carved from a single, large block of wood. One was thickset—fat and muscular at the same time—with a horribly distended gargoyle-face that sneered and showed pointed teeth of brass behind its leathery lip; it was squatting on its haunches like a toad, leaning forward with its hands splayed to support it. The other, crouching behind it and at a slight angle, was the size of a man, with a flat, wide face and brutal features buried under a shaggy mane of hair. It wore a sleeveless shirt, and its immense, hairy arms hung down like an ape’s. Beneath them, on a plaque, was the inscription Rawhead and Bloodybones. Thaniel hated that carving, which had been his father’s, but Cathaline loved it.
The room was presided over by an altar of black marble and polished metal at the far end. This was neatly arranged with bowls, incense burners and sticks of wax. Next to it was a glass cabinet, carved of stout oak, inside which could be seen the paraphernalia of a wych-hunter’s trade; talismans, powdered blood, crucibles, tallow-catchers, soul cages, wych-posts, kris knives and many more. Artefacts of superstition and folklore, yet many of them proved to be effective against certain breeds of wych-kin. It was a well accepted fact that most legends were born from a seed of truth; many a wych-hunter had been
forced to stake their life on a legend before.
It was to the summoning-circle in the centre of the black stone floor that Cathaline led him to first. It was made of beaten gold, a simple ring set into the stone with a smaller concentric band just inside it. Sigils and Wards ran along the space between the two bands, also picked out in gold, and they seemed to creep if the eyes lingered on them too long, following each other around the edge of the circle.
A sanctum took months to create. It took a vast amount of Wards to ensure that no outside spiritual force would be able to enter and interfere with the complex Rites performed within, and also to ensure that if anything should go wrong with those Rites, then nothing could get out. Thaniel knew of several sanctums on the fringes of the Old Quarter which were derelict now, their owners killed by their carelessness or inexperience, and whatever they had summoned trapped, raging within the house or the room that the sanctum owner had brought them to. Such places quickly became known as haunted, and were avoided.
But nowhere in the sanctum was more heavily Warded than the summoning-circle. It was here that many of the Rites were performed, a spot where the laws of physics did not apply quite so strictly, where whatever stuff the wych-kin came from leaked through ever so slightly. And where things might happen that would normally be considered impossible.
It was a simple Rite that Cathaline set up; one of the most basic taught to apprentices. She drew a small stone from the pocket of her trousers, a chip of volcanic rock shaped like a pinecone. A Ward had been etched into it in deep, interconnecting grooves. Drawing a small phial of pigs blood, she poured a tiny amount delicately over the Ward, which absorbed it greedily Thaniel frowned as he crouched at the edge of the circle. “This is Strachlea’s Divination. What is this intended to prove? I could do this when I was ten.”
“I’m sure you could,” said Cathaline, withdrawing a rattle that looked like something a witch doctor would carry; it was made of crow bones, amber beads, cats’ teeth and dove feathers stained with pig blood. She began to describe small circles in the air above the stone, shaking the rattle alternately hard and softly. The noise it made set the teeth on edge; when it was quiet, it sounded like it was skulking, and when it was loud, it hurt the ears. As she did this, she kept talking: “So tell me, then, what does Strachlea’s Divination do?”
“It is for detecting wych-kin activity; where they gather thickest,” said Thaniel. “But it is very crude and inaccurate; and if you perform it in London, the presence of the Old Quarter ruins it like a magnet will ruin a compass reading.”
“Textbook answer, my young Thaniel,” said Cathaline, in a stern, schoolmistress voice. The stone in the summoning circle was beginning to shake and twitch. “The Old Quarter is south from here, am I right? Which wall is south?”
“Towards the altar,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder. It was directly behind where he crouched.
“Now watch,” she said, and the vigorous rattling stopped dead. The stone seemed to pause, suddenly freezing where it was; then it spun on its axis and darted upward, leaping off the ground and burying itself in the ceiling.
There was silence for a moment, as Cathaline looked meaningfully at Thaniel.
“Guess whose room is two floors directly above us?”
Thaniel cursed under his breath. “What does it mean?” Cathaline settled back on her haunches. “It means anything even faintly wych-like in the entire city knows exactly where she is,” she said. “She’s like a lighthouse to them. Or rather, that spirit inside her is. You can wager that if she stays here, there’ll be something looking for her tomorrow night, and the night after, until they get her.”
Thaniel stood up and raked his hair back. “Can you fashion something to stop it?”
“I know a Rite to create a charm for Alaizabel; that will mask her presence to wych-kin, at least enough so that she will not be detectable from miles away.” Cathaline got up and studied the carving of Rawhead and Bloodybones, deep in thought. “But that doesn’t solve the immediate problem. They’ll know she’s here, even if they can’t see her. If the wych-kin don’t get us, the Fraternity will.”
“How long?”
“For the Rite? Six, seven hours.”
“That’ll take us till nightfall,” he said. “I’ll set Wards all over the house. We’ll weather the night, and we’ll go at dawn tomorrow.”
“Go where, exactly?” Cathaline said, placing her hand on her hip. “The Fraternity have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Not in the Crooked Lanes,” Thaniel replied.
For the better part of two hours, Thaniel checked the perimeter of the house, placing Wards on every doorway and window. He renewed the carefully inked shapes on the floor beneath the door of his bedroom, where Alaizabel slept. He locked it again from the outside, taking the key with him. This time it was for her own protection. When he was satisfied that the fortress of their home was as impregnable as he could make it, he sat in a chair in the living room and allowed himself to drift slowly into sleep.
A DISTURBANCE IN THE NIGHT
THE FRATERNITY SHOW THEIR HAND 7
Alaizabel woke to a feeling that she was not alone.
Night had claimed the sun only a moment ago. She didn’t understand how, but she knew that, as surely as if she’d stood and watched the last of the day bleed out of the sky, the long mound of light that stretched across the horizon shrinking slowly to a thin line and then into velvety blue. She had snapped awake at almost exactly that moment, her eyes flicking open to the soft grey moonlight that seeped under the curtains of Thaniel’s room, draining down the cracks in the floorboards and throwing the hanging talismans that drifted gently about on their tassels and strings into flat relief.
But yet she was not awake, not in the sense of being alert, anyway. It was a disturbing feeling: on the one hand, she seemed clear and bright, her senses keen and her body ready for action, but on the other, her mind was fogged by a stupefying haze, desiring only to shut down and sleep again but prevented by the more alert portion of herself. It was hard to separate one feeling from another, for her slower side—undoubtedly befuddled by the sedative she had taken—was mixing up her thoughts and making them errant and slippery.
Then she got up, and that was when she realized with a terrified inner shudder that something was seriously wrong. For she had not willed herself to move, not intended to shuck off the blanket and stand. Her body was acting under someone else’s will, and it was the most deep and intense violation she could imagine. She wanted to scream, or cry for help; but her thoughts, that for her entire life had translated into movement in her muscles, provoked no response. Suddenly, it was if she was merely a brain, being transported inside the skull of some hideous fleshly machine, a piece of living cargo in someone else’s hold. In that single moment, more than any other, she truly touched madness.
But the very sedative that was dulling her brain cushioned the blow, stopped her mind breaking by simply refusing to accept what was happening. Without that, perhaps she would not have dealt with the trauma with her intelligence intact. As it was, she had no time to take it all in. She was walking over to the door, her body seeming heedless of her panic, turning the doorknob.
It was locked.
Something inside her blazed, made her cringe. It was the clear part of her mind, pacing around like a caged tiger, sharp-clawed and quick. She seemed to have no access to this part; she was aware only that it was there, and what it was doing, and that it did not belong to her.
Who are you?
!!Sit down, little girl!! came the harsh reply, lashing her like a whip. She retreated inside her own head.
I am dreaming, she thought, and suddenly it made sense that way. That was something for her to cling to, a way to deal with the impossible situation she found herself in. The sedative has made me dream, most vividly—
!!Be silent!! Be silent, I say!!
She complied. The crochety old voice sounded very unpleasant. Best to do what it said, and
wait for the dream to be over.
Her body tried the door again, a hand that seemed not to be hers turning the doorknob harder this time. Her fingers hurt a little, and her back and hips ached. She realized she was stooping, but she had no power to straighten up. Inside, she had become very calm, as the shock of what seemed to be impossible settled into her brain and cooled her panic. Raw denial replaced fear. The best explanation was that it just was not happening.
She watched as her hands began to trace a shape slowly in the air before the door. At first, it seemed as if they were merely waving about without purpose or direction (and didn’t her hands seem gnarled somehow?), but she soon saw there was repetition in the pattern. The elaborate dance of the fingertips was being enacted again and again, identical each time.
And now she could see something odd. Where the fingers had drawn invisible lines in the air, the darkness seemed to be lighter, thinner somehow, as if a piece of cloth had been worn down by chafing, exposing the fibres beneath. With each successive trace, the lines grew more defined, growing stronger, the fabric of the night wearing thinner and thinner. She felt a heat in her breast, welling up from her gut, a feeling like fire accompanied by the sound of blood crashing around her ears as her body became hypersensitized.
Then, the final trace, and as the fingers that were not hers passed over the two-dimensional shape that hung inexplicably in front of the door, a burning red light followed them, a deep arterial red that glowed like sullen coals as the lines she had drawn split open along their length like an unzipped gut, as if her fingertip was the knife. And there, for a moment, was the Ward in its entirety, hanging in the air, a horizontal doubleslash overlaying three curving lines and a variety of small circles and dots, a complexity that stunned the mind briefly before fading away in a matter of seconds, seeming to sink into the darkness from which it had come.