Hide Me Among the Graves

Page 19

 

  The cage they were in was west of the zoo wall, and Christina looked out across the grass to the south, toward where the creature had burrowed into the ground, and shook her head unhappily.

  "She had sold her soul to get revenge," Trelawny went on, "to a goddess she called Andraste, which was also called Magna Mater, and Goemagot or Gogmagog. "

  Christina gripped Gabriel's arm; she started to whisper something to him, then shut her mouth and just shook her head.

  Trelawny raised an eyebrow. "We're all in the soup, I perceive. Well, the emperor Nero was ready to abandon Britain altogether, but the Roman troops under Suetonius finally caught her on Watling Street, in the very defile I had wandered into. And her army was destroyed, and she drank poison. "

  "So did Polidori," said Gabriel.

  "The last sacrament to the goddess," said Trelawny, nodding. "But by that time she had of course been bitten by the stony goddess, and so she was not permitted to lie quiet in the earth. She - came home with me. "

  "You invited her in," said Christina.

  "I couldn't just - leave her out there! - somehow. By daylight she's - well, you saw her: dwarfish, imbecilic, has to be covered against the sun. Can't speak, has to wring notes out of that violin, with her hands in quilted mitts or hidden in long sleeves. When we arrived at my house, this was five years ago, I had to carry her up the hill, near bursting my heart with the effort of it. While she's 'alive' she always weighs the same, regardless of her volume. I told my wife she was a long-lost daughter of mine, and she lived with us, even when we moved to a nearby estate, Cefn Ila. I took precautions, you understand, even though I had Shelley's jawbone - garlic and mirrors and wood and silver - she was never free to consummate a link with me or any of my family. But - "

  He exhaled a cloud of steam and cigar smoke. "My wife was no fool. To make sure of protecting our children, she left me, and I returned to London . . . with my inextricable companion, Miss B. "

  "Boadicea, queen of the Iceni," said Christina softly. "Was it about A. D. 60 that she . . . died?"

  Crawford tried unsuccessfully to catch McKee's eye. We saw some of Boadicea's ancient havoc last night, he thought.

  "You're a scholar, Miss Diamonds. And she would dearly love to destroy London again. "

  "I'm - embarrassed," Christina said, "to have seen her like" - she waved out toward the park - "like that. "

  Crawford looked out across the desolate park. One solitary walker wearing a very broad-brimmed hat was plodding west among the elm trees on this side of the frozen boating lake, the laboring silhouette merging and separating from the vertical lines of the black tree trunks.

  "She's far more dangerous now," Trelawny told Christina, "than she was when she was entirely human. " He turned to McKee. "You had an ave with you last night. Did it catch Carpace's ghost?"

  "Y-yes," said McKee, "and I went to Chichuwee, as you advised; and I got an answer - "

  Trelawny interrupted urgently: "Do you still have the ave?"

  "The ghost isn't still in it," she said. "I had got my answer, so - "

  "You dumped her?" he asked incredulously. "Into the river?"

  McKee bit her lip and nodded.

  And broke a promise in order to do it, thought Crawford. For revenge.

  "Didn't you - " began Trelawny; he took a breath and went on, "She'll never willingly answer questions, with a planchette and pencil! Didn't it occur to you that she knows - knew! - important things about the Nephilim, things that might help save your - what was it, daughter?"

  "She told me where to look for her. . . "

  "And she said that the living Polidori statue is in Highgate Cemetery!" burst out Christina. "We can trust Trelawny!" she insisted to her brother, who had grimaced fiercely at her.

  "Certainly," agreed Gabriel through his teeth. "He's only got a similar statue in his damned neck. "

  "Not precisely similar," said Trelawny. "But you can trust my ignorance. I don't know who any of you are, nor where you live. Let's maintain that lack of acquaintance; a good social policy in general, probably. " He tossed his cigar cleanly between two of the bars onto the snowy gravel lane. "Highgate Cemetery. She might be breakable through Polidori. " He fixed a glare on Christina. "How was he quickened?"

  Christina turned away so that all any of them could see was the side of her bonnet. "I, God help me, I rubbed some of my blood on the statue - and then slept with it under my pillow. "

  "She was only fourteen!" Gabriel burst out.

  For a moment Trelawny just smiled gently at her. At last, "A prodigy!" he said. He took his violin case from the shelf and stepped to the cage gate and pulled it open. "I hope you all fare better than you seem likely to do," he said when he was standing in sunlight out on the gravel. "Never speak to me again. Muster what wits you have, and exert them. "

  "And pray to God for deliverance," said Christina.

  Trelawny gave her a withering smile with his scarred mouth. "I like you, Miss Diamonds, so I won't call you a fool. " He bowed and turned away, and within moments his long stride had carried him out of the zoo lanes to the west, and soon he was a dwindling figure on the yellow grass, angling north toward the canal.

  Crawford looked away from him, to the south, and saw that the person in the broad hat he had seen walking among the trees was, though still fifty yards away, now slowly trudging north, toward the broad lane of the outer circle. If he crossed that, he'd be in among the empty cassowary and zebra cages and could hardly fail to notice the cage on the end that was occupied by four humans.

  We should get out of this, Crawford thought in embarrassment, onto the lane, like normal people.

  "So that's the infamous Trelawny," said Gabriel, still staring west. "Arrogant ass. "

  "If you two were men," McKee burst out, "you'd have overpowered him and cut that stone ball out of his neck right here!"

  Crawford blinked at her irritably, then forced himself to smile. "Well, I meant to," he said, "but the appropriate moment never presented itself. "

  "Somehow," agreed Gabriel, rocking on his heels.

  McKee scowled at both of them, but a reluctant smile was tugging at the corners of her lips. "You could have interrupted him to do it. "

  "You always were headstrong, Adelaide," Christina said with a sigh. "He might be an ally, and his devil isn't the one that threatens us. "

  Gabriel's face was blank.

  "No," said McKee, turning on her, "your uncle is that. And he and my daughter both seem to be connected to Highgate Cemetery. You know more about all this, I see, than you could possibly tell us now - come there with us. "

  Gabriel blew out a breath and shook his head. "My sister isn't well; it's out of the question. "

  "I really couldn't do it," said Christina. "But I can tell you any number of - "

  Crawford interrupted her with an involuntary gasp. The figure he had been watching was closer now, and there was something wrong with its silhouette.

  Its wide leather hat, as wide as a horse collar, had no crown and seemed to rest directly on the figure's neck, with no room for a head in between.

  The others had followed his wide-eyed gaze, and now Christina waved urgently.

  "He's blind," she whispered. "Complete silence, all of you. "

  Crawford's ears were ringing shrilly though almost inaudibly, and he could feel his heart thudding in his chest.

  Below the impossible hat the figure wore an old brown coat that trailed on the gravel of the outer circle road, and the thing was meandering back and forth in the road like someone looking for a dropped coin, but its random-looking course kept bringing it toward the row of cages. Its harsh breathing was audible already, and soon Crawford could hear it muttering to itself in a hoarse voice as resonant as someone speaking from the bottom of a well, though he couldn't make out words.

  McKee's hand was gripping Crawford's upper arm tightly. He glanced at her, but she
was staring out white-faced at the advancing thing.

  The brim of the hat flapped as the creature spoke, and Crawford's heart seemed to freeze solid when he realized that the thing's mouth was as wide as the hat brim, a yard across at least. He looked away, fearing that it might sense and track his gaze, but not before he had glimpsed two long rows of shadowed teeth and a tongue like a black sunfish.

  Its words were audible now: "My darling, my Diamonds! Do you move so fast? My sister is hurt, away under the ground in the dark; help me find her. Touch me - where are you? Take my hand! Don't you hate the sun? You know what those children sing? 'When the sky began to roar, / 'Twas like a lion at the door!'"

  Its long arms were extended as its shoes scuffled and scraped across the gravel, and its hands were hidden under the long, flapping sleeves. The breeze seemed to have halted, frozen like glass.

  Crawford was watching the thing only from the corner of his eye, and so he saw Christina open her mouth when it became clear that the thing's wobbling course would take it past the cage toward the canal, with yards to spare; but Gabriel gripped her shoulder, and she closed her mouth and gave him a guilty look. Gabriel's free hand was visibly a fist in his coat pocket, no doubt gripping his now-empty revolver.

  None of the four moved their booted feet on the sandy cage floor, but their heads slowly turned to watch the thing's hunched back and flopping hat recede in the direction Trelawny had taken.

  Several minutes passed before the shambling figure disappeared among the elms to the west, but none of the people in the cage spoke until it was out of sight, though Christina began panting.

  "That was your damned - " said Gabriel to Christina, "your - what did you call him?"

  "Mouth Boy," said Christina breathlessly. "But it was Uncle Polidori, wearing the form of my childhood nightmare. " She rubbed her eyes with trembling hands.

  "Yes. " Gabriel gave her an angry glance. "I don't know what you see in him. "

  She squinted at him. "Yes, you do. "

  "I'd have shot him if I'd had a seventh bullet. "

  Christina didn't reply. She stretched and retrieved her parasol and stepped to the cage gate. "We should separate, all be indoors by sunset. " To McKee she said, "When can we meet at Highgate Cemetery?"

  "You can't!" said Gabriel. "You're not strong - "

  "Tomorrow," said McKee.

  "I will," Christina insisted to Gabriel. "It's because I woke our uncle - and because you . . . brought him to Adelaide - that her daughter's soul is in danger. It may be that we can find his statue, and - "

  Gabriel gave her a look that seemed both cynical and pleading.

  " - and destroy it, and him," Christina went on firmly, "and free Adelaide's little girl. And you and me. " She clasped both hands on the parasol handle, possibly to keep them from shaking. "It doesn't matter if I - what my natural feelings for him still are. "

  After a grudging pause, Gabriel said, "You don't mention Lizzie. "

  Christina touched his arm. "And go some way toward saving Lizzie too," she said gently. "You believe she's shared by these two devils?"

  "I - damn it, yes. And either one could have assumed my form and . . . potency. I can't know which of them it was who - "

  Crawford thought about his practice and his rent, then sighed and quietly said to McKee, "After noon, please. "

  McKee nodded.

  Christina turned to Gabriel. "I think you'll come too. "

  Gabriel almost seemed ready to spit; but, "You're my sister," he said, "and their child might just as easily have been my daughter. And it is conceivable we might be able to do something to help Lizzie. " He heaved a windy sigh. "Yes, I'll go along. "

  Crawford forced himself not to scowl. Damn the man, he thought. Might just as easily have been his daughter indeed!

  "Get your gun loaded again," McKee told Gabriel. "Load two, if you have them. "

  CHAPTER NINE

  I have a friend in ghostland -

  Early found, ah me, how early lost! -

  Blood-red seaweeds drip along that coastland

  By the strong sea wrenched and tossed.

  In every creek there slopes a dead man's inlet,

  For there comes neither night nor day.

  - Christina Rossetti, "A Coast-Nightmare"

  THE DINNER AT La Sablonniere in Leicester Square was, Gabriel thought cautiously, going as well as could be expected. He was more comfortable with the informal dinners he served for friends at home - "nothing but oysters and of course the seediest of clothes," as he often specified in his invitations - but this dressing up for an elegant restaurant was what Lizzie had apparently wanted.

  It helped that the young poet Swinburne was there. Swinburne was twenty-five but looked a malnourished sixteen, and his wild mane of kinky hair was the same carroty color as Lizzie's, and his twitchy cheerfulness often sparked a like response in Lizzie.

  Lizzie had in fact vacillated all evening between giddy hilarity and a wooden silence, and she had drunk several glasses of Haut-Brion Blanc but had eaten only a few bites of her supreme de volaille, a chicken breast in a white sauce; Gabriel recognized all this as the effects of her damned laudanum.

  Their table for three was beside a window overlooking the streetlamp-dotted darkness of Leicester Square, and now Lizzie had pulled off her shawl to polish the glass, and her bare shoulders glowed too pale in the glare of the restaurant's wall-mounted gas jets.