Accursed (40 page)

And yet . . .

And yet.

Foolish old man,
he thought, and he went about his business. He could not save the people from themselves, but he hoped to be able to save them from a power beyond the natural world. From true evil.

He had barely escaped with his life earlier in the day, exhausting his body and soul and the reserves of magic that were left to him by opening a second portal in the very instant the first had closed behind him. The dark realm where the Rakshasa resided, a world that existed side by side with this one, had almost claimed him. The demons had clawed at him, tearing at his clothes, and he had just barely summoned a doorway out of their dimension and slipped back into the world of his birth, shutting the door behind him.

He had survived. He could no longer feel the magic in him, but he had made it out of that dark realm alive. Still, weakened or not, his people needed him, and he would fight for them.

Once again he inhaled deeply, but this time the wind had shifted, so he choked on the filth in the air and issued a rasping, wet, ragged cough. He shuddered, catching his breath, and then continued on. He knew now where he was going. If not the precise location, at least the general direction. He strode past the vast, two-story warehouses that stored much of the cargo brought in on vessels. There were customs agents in the shadows of those massive structures, but the old man waved a hand through the air and became invisible to their eyes. He had neither time nor inclination to bother with such men, nor offer any explanation for his presence.

So it was that no human eyes watched him as he went to the Shadwell Dock Stairs and began his descent. He could have taken Wapping Old Stairs, but some of those steps, so close above the river, were chipped and crumbling, and he was an old man, after all.

Only the toads observed him.

The toads had been watching him all along. They seemed not to realize or to care that he noticed them, but he could not have missed those bulbous, sickly yellow eyes with their unnatural radiance gleaming from the darkness in dirty alleys and the thresholds of closed-up shops, from the pylons around the docks and between crates of cargo. They watched.

In fact, even without the scent, he could have tracked his prey simply by following the toads.

Now, though, as he drew closer, he could
sense
them. He no longer needed even the scent of their iniquity; their very presence radiated an unease that made him queasy. Carefully he descended the stairs, the river roiling by, far too close now.

At a landing, he started off into the darkness of a ledge that ran along just above the river, to a door that he had been certain he would find. There were other ways into the vaults beneath the London Docks, but this was the oldest, a private door, constructed in a time before these vaults were used for their present purposes.

It was a heavy iron slab with only a ring to serve as both knocker and handle. Even had it not been locked—as he was certain it was—the old man’s meager limbs could never have drawn it open. Instead he placed the flat of his hand upon the cold metal and whispered a prayer to his ancestors, and the iron door swung inward, scraping stone.

Torchlight burned within.

He entered and began to explore. Wine casks were piled on either side of the vast room. There were corridors upon corridors lined with casks and crates. He smelled spices and tea, tobacco and sugar, all of which were stored in massive quantities in that labyrinth. The vaults were like the catacombs beneath Paris or Rome, but instead of the dead, they stored the economic lifeblood of London.

There were acres and acres of tunnel vaults here. Torches burned in sconces on the walls and lanterns hung from hooks, throwing flickering shadows upon the casks. Puddles of bloodred wine had formed beneath taps. The sickly sweet smell of brandy clashed with the acrid odor of burgundy. But most remarkable of all the characteristics of this vast underground—in a city where there were so many secrets—was the fact that only a meager wall of earth and stone held back the power of the river’s current, preventing it from flooding the vaults.

It was an old place, here, filled with mystery and reeking of commerce. Only a comparative few had access to these vaults. Tonight, though, they had been invaded by things that didn’t belong, creatures that sucked the light out of the air and trailed shadows in their wake.

The old man was all too aware that he hadn’t seen a single toad since he had entered the place. Yet he had no illusion that this might indicate the absence of his enemy. Rather, it was certain that those lowly, mindless creatures, the eyes of evil, dared not come so close to their master. No, the evil that threatened London had been here, and recently.

Exhausted and in pain from the ache in his hips and knees, the brittleness of bone and muscle, he walked on and on, around corners and through the valleys between tall stacks of crates and casks. But he moved quietly.

Quietly enough that when he at last rounded a turn and entered through an arched doorway into one of the smallest, oldest, and deepest vaults under the docks, the monsters did not hear him arrive. He caught his breath in his chest as he slitted his eyes, trying to pierce the gloom.

There were four, perhaps as many as six or seven, if the shifting shadows beyond them materialized into something more substantial. His hands trembled and his heart fluttered in his chest. All of them had once been men. Some were dressed in the garb of Hindustani men, long brown tunics over ragged trousers, waists girded with sashes of black or white. Others, however . . . it was clear they had once been men who worked in this place. Sailors and customs agents whose occupation had been to inspect the goods stored there.

They were not men any longer.

They hissed in the shadows, their brown and green scales gleaming in the dim torchlight. The old man had wondered what their presence here might mean, but he thought he understood now. The customs agents had been tainted by the smuggled icons, the little gods, as retribution for their part in the atrocious theft that had been conducted for so very long by London shipping companies. With them transformed, these vaults had become a natural lair for the accursed things.

A nest of vermin.

And he would exterminate them.

With a deep breath he intoned the words of a tantric incantation.

“Om navah Shivayah. Om Shakti,”
he began. He was weakened, but not so much that he could not wield any magic at all. There was a moment when his body trembled, and then the power shuddered through him.

Once upon a time it had flowed through him, from the heart of the Earth itself, from Shiva, from the world and into his own hands. He could still touch the magic, but it was no longer inside him. Yet if he could grasp it, he could wield it. And he would. He recalled all the spells and rituals. His fingers could still weave.

Motes of golden light danced in the air around him, and he felt an unseen wind tousle his white hair. He let go of his walking stick; it clacked to the floor.

The creatures stiffened and then, as one, spun to face him. They hissed, forked tongues snaking from their mouths. Their sickly yellow eyes locked on the old man, and one by one they began to slither toward him.

“Yes,” he said. “Come to me.”

Those sparks of magic coalesced around his fingers, and once again he began to chant. He inhaled the breath of confidence, of righteousness. He had been charged with a holy mission, a sacred trust, and he would fulfill it.

A low snarl came from the archway behind him.

The old man turned, magic spilling from his hands, and blinking out as pain from the sudden movement—from the rigors of age—shot through him. He staggered without his stick, but even as he did so he saw them, two slavering demons lunging into the vault toward him. Their eyes gleamed red, and their claws slashed the air. Their snouts snuffled and they uttered low hyena laughter as they bared rows of jagged needle teeth.

Rakshasa.

They had been quieter by far than the old man.

He thought he had escaped them, but they had not allowed him to get very far. And now he was too weak to fight them. They descended upon him. He expected their claws to rend his flesh, but instead they only batted him like predators playing with a tiny rodent.

The old man fell to the ground beneath them. Their fetid breath brought bile up the back of his throat.

Then one of the Rakshasa picked him up and carried him farther underground. The old man tried to summon the strength to cast a spell, but the moment he muttered a word the other Rakshasa swatted at his head.

The darkness of unconsciousness claimed him, and all he knew was the motion of the demons running through the cavernous underground world beneath the docks.

He had failed in his sacred charge.

The curse would continue to spread. A plague upon London. A plague upon Albion.

W
illiam opened the door just a crack and peered out into the hall. There was no one in sight, so he slipped out, and then turned to gaze back into the guest room, loath to leave.

Sophia lay on her side, the pale curve of her hip causing him to flush at the sight. A smile played at the edges of her lips, and she drew a sheet up to cover her breasts. There ought not to have been any way she could be coy with him now, not after the way they had just lost themselves in each other, and yet there was something deliciously innocent about her expression.

Go,
she mouthed, and waved at him to depart.

William smiled and nodded, yet still he allowed himself one final glance before pulling the door closed. Then he rushed along the hall to the junction with the main corridor.

He had to hurry now, or he would be dreadfully late for dinner at the Algernon Club. It was quite an honor, in his estimation, that they had invited him to the event they were hosting in honor of Sir Darius Strong. Ludlow had been a member of the club, and William wondered if he had inherited membership because of his grandfather. Or if perhaps there was another purpose to the invitation—so they might evaluate him.

Whatever their reason, he intended to make a good impression. With Farris unavailable, assisting Tamara in her research, he would have to prevail upon another member of the household staff—perhaps even the new stable boy—to drive the carriage. He could have driven it himself, of course, but that would undoubtedly be viewed as unseemly for a gentleman of his status.

All these things whirled in his mind as he hurried to his room. He ran a hand over his face, wondering if the bit of rough stubble there would require him to shave. A glance in the mirror would answer that question. He realized he would probably need to bring his original invitation with him in order to be admitted, and hoped he had not misplaced it.

“Well, well . . . who’s a naughty boy?”

The words insinuated themselves into his mind, drifting from what seemed everywhere at once. But William knew that voice well, the melodious, amused, self-congratulatory tones of the enfant terrible, the poet laureate of the ghosts of Albion.

“Not another word, Byron,” William whispered, glancing about to make sure none of the servants was within hearing distance. Then he peered into the shadows along the hall. “You truly are a wretched, reprehensible lech, do you know that?”

With a sound like a violin out of tune, and a flash of ethereal light, the spectral figure of Lord Byron appeared before him, just alongside his bedroom door.

“You say the sweetest things, William. Truly you do.”

The ghost was close enough that his proximity seemed intimate, and to William that intimacy marred the pleasure he had just shared with Sophia. Determined to separate the two, he backed away several steps and crossed his arms in fury.

“My private affairs are none of your business, sir,” he insisted. “You may have prevailed upon my sister to debase herself for your amusement, convinced her to believe that because you are merely haunting this place there is no shame in your seeing her unclothed, but her inappropriate behavior should not be construed as granting you license to—”

“You have the most adorable dimple on your left buttock,” the ghost interrupted, stroking his chin and gazing at William in admiration. “I wondered if you were aware of it.”

“Byron!” he snapped, sputtering. “How . . . how
dare
you?”

The poet appeared to lean against the wall, though part of his shoulder disappeared beneath the surface. He arched an eyebrow roguishly. “What else am I to do? Have pity, dear William. I am myself denied the pleasures of the flesh. When I hear the bestial grunting and the wet slap of moist skin, it is like a siren call to me. I cannot help but be summoned to bear witness.

“Your young lady is lovely, by the way.”

William was speechless. He felt the rage and embarrassment rush to his face, felt the heat of the blood as it reddened his cheeks.

“Oh, come now, there are no secrets here. There have always been ghosts in this house, William, even when you could not see them. Now let’s get you dressed for the Algernon Club . . . and not that ridiculous coat of your father’s that you love so much. It’s quite out of date, you know. While you’re dressing, I’ll do my best to provide helpful suggestions for your future assignations with Miss Winchell. You’ve really got to use your tongue more, William. And there are some fantastic positions I learned from a Tibetan mystic that—”