Accursed (41 page)

Unable to contain himself a moment longer, William exploded.

“Byron! Shut your bloody mouth, you filthy bastard! I have heard enough of such talk to last a lifetime.” He shook his head, trying to get through to the specter. “Sophia is my . . . I love her, do you not understand that? Is there nothing in that cold, dead heart of yours that draws a line between the profligate pursuit of carnal delight and the true passion of the heart? For God’s sake, man, have you no sense of decency at all?”

The ghost blinked and then, the picture of innocence, shrugged his phantom shoulders. “Well . . . no. None worth speaking of. And look, I was only trying to be helpful. You’d thank me, really, if you’d stop being so stubbornly proper and take a moment to—”

William threw his hands up in disgust and surrender. He pushed his hand right through the ethereal essence of Byron’s body, and reached for the doorknob to enter his bedchamber.

Suddenly an unearthly howl filled the house.

It echoed down from the topmost floor, drifting in a long, shrill cry from eave to eave. The screaming, laughing voice of the demon Oblis.

The voice of his father.

“Willlllllllliam!”
the demon called.
“William!”

There was a chilling, singsong lilt to it that made him cringe, and caused a bit of the boy he had once been to wither inside.

“Willlllllllliam! I can smell her, boy. I smellllllll her. The lovely stink of your sin is on everything. I can taste it in the air. I’ll have her, one day, William! I’ll have her in ways that would cause even the eyes of Hell to turn away.”

Waves of revulsion passed through William and he glanced back the way he’d come, wondering if Sophia could hear the demon’s filth from behind closed doors, hoping that perhaps she had fallen asleep. Anxious, he turned back to Byron. The apparition seemed less substantial now, so transparent that he was barely there at all. But the ghost rolled his eyes and smirked.

“Pig,”
he said.

William did not smile. In truth, he had never been so chilled. It was all he could do to hide from Byron the way he shuddered, then, and the fear that scuttled across his skin like a thousand spiders. Once more he glanced back the way he’d come, waiting to see if Sophia would emerge. When she did not, he let out a breath of relief.

With a scowl at Byron he pushed through the ghost and into his bedroom.

He hesitated just a moment before closing the door, afraid in that moment to be alone. If he’d had the courage, he would have gone up to that small room on the third floor, the former nursery, and he would have driven a dagger through his father’s heart, just to silence the voice of the demon.

But William Swift had never been quite that brave.

N
IGEL TOWNSEND CROUCHED
over the map of ashes he and Tamara had magically created on the floor of the study. The wax-encased apple seed that was such a vital part of the spell moved swiftly across the ashen map of London. Farris muttered several times in amazement as the waxen seed floated a fraction of an inch above the floor, and made its way along streets and through squares on the map. The ashes were dark gray, almost black, but they shone with a glimmer that came not from the lamp and firelight in the room, but from the magic imbued in them.

Nigel silently admired Farris’s loyalty to the Swifts, but he would have thought after all the man had seen that something so simple as this would fail to astound him.

When the seed paused, and seemed to hover near the River Thames, Tamara smiled that beatific smile of hers, pushed back the stray lock of hair that was forever her bane, and clapped her hands like the little girl she’d once been.

“Oh, well
done,
” she said. “I’d say Tipu Gupta is still in the land of the living after all. What a relief. At the London Docks, from the looks of it. If we get down there quickly enough, I’d wager we’ll have no trouble locating him.”

Nigel nodded, but with some hesitation. “Indeed. And perhaps we’ll get some answers, as well. The docks are the threshold to Wapping and Shadwell.”

Tamara frowned, standing up straight and twirling that lock of hair around one finger in nervous contemplation.

“Yes. I’d thought of that as well. A great many things have become clear to me just lately. The archaeologist, Carstairs, was transformed into one of these reptile men, just as so many others have been. In each case, it seems proximity to one of the statuettes that Carstairs smuggled into England from India is to blame. The statuettes themselves may be cursed, but there is a greater pattern to all of this.

“And what of the Indian men who have been plagued by this curse, then transformed? Surely they weren’t wealthy enough to buy the statuettes from Carstairs. It’s possible they may have been sailors for the East India Company, but living in those slums . . . it seems unlikely.

“Could it be that the accursed icons were
purposely
given into the possession of certain men, such as the earl of Claridge; that they were actually targeted by this plague? The magic and the demons involved are all of Indian origin. When we count in the defilement at St. Paul’s, it seems to suggest some sort of malicious intent, perhaps, due to the very act of smuggling sacred relics out of India through illegal means.”

Nigel ran his tongue over his pointed teeth. His skin was cold. It was always cold, but this night it seemed a deeper chill had settled into his bones.

“Then the thefts from museums and such might be our enemy stealing back the smuggled relics,” he suggested.

“Precisely.”

Farris coughed into his fist. His eyes averted, he shrugged. “If you’ll excuse me, miss?”

“Yes, Farris?”

“Well, it’s only that, if it’s some magical bloke from Calcutta or Bombay behind all this, why curse his own, like? From what we’ve seen, there are a lot more Hindu types turned into these scaly fellows than there have been Englishmen. And the women . . . well, the ones who’ve gone through the horror of all this, having been got at by the cursed ones and giving birth to . . . it’d be a terrible thing to curse yer own people with something like that, don’t you think?”

Nigel saw something behind the girl’s eyes, then. A shadow made of sorrow and dark knowledge. It pained him to see how much of her innocence was gone.

“You’re right, Farris. It is a terrible thing. But it seems the only answer, at least for the moment. We are dealing not only with cruelty and hatred here, but with madness.” Tamara set her lips in a grim line. “I cannot imagine how it must be to live in a conquered land, to see its riches despoiled, and to know its people must bow to the will of foreign rule. Perhaps madness and hatred are a natural response. But not evil. Not this.”

Silence swallowed the room a moment before Nigel sundered it.

“It may be that our enemy has even grander plans. Dare I say it, but Farris is correct. Why curse your own people without reason? Whatever black sorcerer stands against us, he has done nothing without purpose thus far, and I can only imagine there is purpose to that aspect of the plague, as well. The toads are the eyes of our enemy, or so we’ve come to believe. The Rakshasa his servants. But the accursed ones certainly must serve his dark cause. Might it be simply a question of numbers? Could his plan require far more of the creatures than the curse of those relics can quickly create?”

Tamara nodded. “There’s logic there. But to what end?”

“I’m afraid to hear the answer to that,” Farris grunted.

“We’ll have it soon enough,” Tamara said, gesturing toward the ashen map once more, to the white waxed seed that trembled above the London Docks.

Nigel glanced down at the map, and a deep frown creased his brow.

“What’s this, then?” He scowled.

The apple seed was moving again. Swiftly.

“Oh, my,” Tamara said. “Magic propelled it before, but if it’s tracing Gupta’s movements now, he is moving awfully quickly for an old man.”

“Too quickly to be on foot,” Nigel observed, as the waxen seed raced away from the docks.

“Almost too quickly even to be in a carriage,” Farris added.

“He must be in trouble. In the grasp of our sorcerer, I’ll wager!” Tamara cried. With an air of command that came over her at such times, a confidence and courage worthy of the Protector of Albion, she threw wide her arms and lifted her chin. The candlelight cast lovely shadows upon her face.

“Lord Nelson, I need you now!” she called into the dark corners of the study, into the spectral world that existed side by side with that of the flesh. When formally summoned by the Protector, the ghosts of Albion would always hear, and appear.

A moment later, a phantom light shimmered in the corner of the room and the spirit of Horatio Nelson appeared, still clad in the uniform of the navy and with one sleeve pinned to his jacket where his arm had once been.

“You speak my name, and here I am,” Horatio announced, chin raised. “Horatio Nelson reporting for duty, my dear.”

“You must hurry, Horatio,” Tamara began, and with a gesture and an intense gleam in her eyes, she gestured to the magical map on the floor and explained its function. “Here we have a map that shows the location of our quarry. You must go after Tipu Gupta. Follow him if you can. I’d translocate there myself this instant, but I don’t think I’d be able to transport Nigel, as well, and I don’t think it wise for me to go alone.”

Nelson nodded gravely. “Yes, of course. I’ll go straightaway. But what of young William? Why can he not accompany you?”

Tamara arched an eyebrow and glanced at Nigel before replying. “My brother is off to his affair at that
gentlemen’s
club this evening. It’s up to me to locate the Protector of Bharath, and I’m perfectly capable of accomplishing the task. At the moment, however, it looks as if Mr. Gupta may have run into trouble. Let’s make certain he survives the night, shall we?”

Nigel smiled. She was headstrong, but he could not help admiring her. “Let’s see we
all
survive the night, if you don’t mind.”

A
THICK YELLOW
mist rolled along Shadwell Street, cloaking the crumbling buildings and hiding away a thousand nightly crimes. Nelson was as insubstantial as the mist itself as he appeared on a street corner. He had never entirely approved of Nigel’s presence in the Swifts’ inner circle, but he supposed the fiend had proven himself loyal enough. The two men had unpleasant history together. But the admiral would never have allowed his personal feelings to interfere with his sworn duty to Albion.

The ghost glanced quickly around to get his bearings. He was quite a distance from the river, here, though he could hear the tinkle of distant bells and thought, if he peered intently through the fog, that he could see a billowing white purer than the mist, a cloud that might well have been the sails of ships upon the Thames. And he was sure he could hear the flap of canvas, even from here. The sound brought a profound melancholy to his heart, for there was nothing Horatio missed more of life than the open sea, and the rush of wind in the sails.

There were plenty of sailors living in the hovels of Shadwell district, but this wasn’t the sort of place Lord Nelson had frequented while still alive. He started east through the mist—the direction Gupta seemed to have been moving—and quickly passed through some of the iniquity that seemed drawn to such places, or bred there. A pair of harlots, likely prostitutes, wailed as they clawed at each other, beating and scratching and then tumbling into the gutter where they rolled around, locked in bloody combat like wild animals. Dirty beggar children appeared out of the damp fog like ghosts themselves, sad-eyed creatures who watched the proceedings as though their hearts and minds had gone numb . . . which Nelson presumed they had indeed, long ago.

And the men . . . Nelson could barely stand to see the gin-soaked, grizzled shades of humanity dressed in rags and asleep in doorways. Their clothes and faces were layered in months of grime, and one in particular had open sores upon his face and a mouth left open and drooling.

Better to be dead,
Horatio thought.
Far better.