Midnight's Angels - 03 (31 page)

A bitter sense of gloom descended on us not long after that, in spite of the warm sunlight out beyond the blinds. We’d thought that we were finally on top of things. Working this whole puzzle out and coming to understand it. Instead of which, everything had been turned on its head in a way we couldn’t possibly have imagined.

Emaline in particular looked troubled and guilty. So much for her advice, her concept of the blood of a woman holding everything in balance. But -- even though she was experienced in magic -- she couldn’t have predicted an outcome like this. No one had ever come across a device like the Clavis. And I reassured her of that. This was not the time to go assigning blame or beating yourself up.

I was genuinely fond of Martha, and the idea that she’d wound up somewhere bad was not exactly soothing. There were no clues where she had been taken to. So I tried to think what we ought to do next. Wherever she’d gone, there had to be a way to get her back.

But I could only come up with generalities. So I consulted with the others.

“We switched the Clavis on, we made it work,” I said, “opening a doorway between different places. But we didn’t tell it which. What would it do?”

The vacant gloss in the eyes staring back told me the guys around me didn’t have the faintest notion.

“It would … I’m not sure,” Willets mumbled.

“It’s a device, isn’t it? Almost the same word as ‘machine.’ What would a machine do?”

The look on Gaspar Vernon’s face told me he was starting to see what I was driving at.

“Like those computers in the library?”

“I guess.”

Which meant -- when we really thought about it -- the Clavis would most probably opt for some kind of default setting. But what exactly might that be? It was possible that Harmon Luce had been the only person who knew that. But I wasn’t willing to give up so easily. I struggled to figure this thing out.

Emaline was staring at me oddly.

“It would go back to its source, wouldn’t it?”

“You mean Erin Luce’s house?” asked Willets.

But I thought I’d got the outline of a bigger picture, and corrected him on that.

“That’s what we keep getting wrong. We keep on concentrating on the wife. But it was the
husband
who created this thing.”

“And you know plenty about her,” Emaline put in, picking up the thread. “But how much do you really know about her far less famous spouse? My guess would be, practically nothing.”

“There are public records right here in this building. How far back do they go?”

Gaspar puffed his jowls out, trying to remember.

“The middle of the Nineteenth Century, at least.”

And they were stored in the basement. So we headed down there. Which meant we had to resort to lamps again. It might be daytime, but the power was still out.

We went down the big spiral stairway, but it was narrower steps, at the rear of the building, that led us to the lower level. They were well worn from constant use. Bare brick walls surrounded us.

And we were all on the alert as we descended. There might still be hominids down here.

Light bulbs in metal shades hung uselessly from the ceiling. Narrow passages were running off ahead of us, making their tortuous way through six-foot rows of cabinets and shelves. Nothing moved in the deep shadows. But that didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.

The paint on the ceiling was flaking away, showing patches of brown in some places. The earth seemed to press down on us, adding to the sense of claustrophobia. And old documents have the weirdest smell, like mummified history, slowly decaying human thought.

There were tens of thousands of such documents down here, some in wooden drawers, and a whole lot more in cardboard boxes with letters and numerals on them in magic marker. It was like a cemetery for our past. Everything that led to what we had become was down here.

The birth certificates were in an array of rosewood sliding cabinets over by the rear wall. So many lives taken note of, lived, then lost. I had to be in there somewhere, and so did my folks. But there was no time for sentimental visits of that kind. We hunted for the cabinets marked ‘L.’ And when we found them, there was a great deal of rummaging, the sheer urgency gripping us.

Willets straightened.

“Got it!” he announced.

He held a yellowing document up. The penmanship on it was faded, and was mostly in exaggerated curlicues. But I could make out the name Harmon Evan Rayburn Luce quite clearly.

“Oh,” the doctor whispered, glancing further down the sheet of paper.

Then he held it up again.

“I never knew this. I’m not sure anyone did. But the man was born in Tyburn.”

Which held us frozen for a few seconds. We’d not been expecting that.

Emaline stepped up and took the certificate from him, handling it as carefully as a newborn child. Which was just as well, because it crackled like a dry leaf every time a finger touched it. Her expression became thoughtful.

“Does anybody know,” she asked in an ominously quiet tone, “when the device was first created?”

I remembered that entry I’d read in Erin Luce’s journal.

“August,” I said. “1898.”

Which seemed to mean something to the High Witch. Her face came up briskly, and her cornstalk-colored eyes were almost glowing.

“Then I think I know,” she told us, “where the Clavis originally came from.”

* * *

“We still call it the Desecration,” she went on. “Capital D. It was that much of a big thing for us.”

She looked around, her features tense in the battery-powered light. This really seemed to be troubling her.

“There are many altars in Tyburn. Many hundreds of them, and we use them all the time. A lot of them are like the altars in your churches.”

There was a slight derisive note when she said that last word.

“But the most important one of all? Is just a natural lump of granite, five feet wide and four feet tall. It marks the spot,” she told us, “where Regan Farrow used to live, before the Christian mob came for her.”

My grandfather had told me this story, back when I had been a little child. It had sounded like a rather ugly fairytale back then, but was grounded in fact. Perhaps the most significant event in this town’s past.

Regan Farrow had been one of the original witches who had come here from Salem. She’d been instrumental, in other words, in making this community the place it was today. But while the others had kept their heads down at first, hidden their true nature, Regan had made little secret of her magic powers.

She’d used them to beguile and to seduce. To get her own way. And she did it unashamedly, until her willful manner became too much to bear. An angry mob had stormed her house one night. They’d burned it down, then dragged her to a stake set up on open ground. And burned her too.

Her anguished, dying final words had been the curse that kept us trapped here.

I knew she’d lived out on the far edge of what had been, in those days, little more than a village. But I’d had no idea it had been as far off as Tyburn. Regan must have really valued her privacy. But how exactly was that relevant?

“One night, in August 1898,” Emaline continued, “someone stole into the Farrow Chapel --“

“Hold it,” I said, trying to get everything straight in my head. “You’re saying someone put another building where her house was?”

And the High Witch nodded.

“It was built in tribute to her, an enormous hall of worship. It’s been there for two hundred and thirty years. We built it piece by piece with our own hands. It’s the most sacred place in Tyburn.”

I’d never even heard of it. But it was obvious these people had a good deal more regard for the memory of Regan Farrow than the rest of us. It was possible that what we thought of as a curse, the Tyburners regarded as a blessing, allowing them to pursue their own way of life, completely free of interference from the outside world.

“That night,” Emaline continued, “someone broke in. And by whatever means, broke a chunk off the corner of the Great Altar. When people saw what had been done, there was furious uproar throughout our community. We hunted high and low for weeks, used every spell we could. But the culprit and the stone were never found.”

It was not hard, in retrospect, to figure out why. These people had only looked in their own district. They’d never once suspected that the perpetrator might have headed away to another part of town.

I began to get a clearer picture of this Harmon Luce. A self-contained and very private man. Someone with big secrets in his past. How much had even his wife -- powerful although she might be -- really known about the guy? He seemed to have no more real substance than a shadow cast across the ground.

“It is possible the stone has returned to its source,” Emaline said, fixing us with a challenging stare. “And if that is the case, then it’s inside Farrow Chapel.”

In the first part of town which had fallen to the Dweller in the Dark, in other words.

Which meant the angels had it.

We went back outside and started to organize what might be our final expedition out, the High Witch going over to her people and briefing them. In fact, it was only Tyburners that I was taking with me. My regard for them had risen in the past few hours. They worked together as a perfect team, which was precisely what was needed.

When they found out what was going on, Vallencourt and Saul Hobart hurried across and offered to help. Saul hadn’t got back too much of his memory, but was relearning stuff, Ritchie tutoring him. And was starting to look like an experienced cop again. Perhaps his instincts had survived intact, because the man looked primed for action.

I had to tell them to remain behind. It didn’t go down well.

“I only want people who can’t be transformed.”

“What makes you the exception to that?” Saul asked me crossly.

But I ignored him.

“If we fail, there needs to be a next line of defense. And that’s you guys.”

And the same went for the remaining adepts. If we didn’t make it and the Dweller in the Dark arrived, their sorcery would be needed as never before. Saul looked like he still wanted to argue the point, but I didn’t know how much time we had left. So I cut across him.

“There’s one way you can really help,” I said. “We need as many side arms as we can lay our hands on. Shotguns are no good. Most of your men carry a spare piece. Can you get them for us?”

He remained annoyed, but got on his radio.

Union Square was awash with pale amber daylight, the sun higher than before. When I looked across to the west side, the Tyburners were preparing themselves quietly. Taking these guys in particular was starting to make a great deal of sense. They knew both the district and the building, where the rest of us would be in unknown territory.

Emaline walked across to me a few minutes later, smiling unconcernedly, tinkering with the small Beretta she had recently acquired.

“You got the safety on?” I asked her.

“Safety’s such a dull word, isn’t it?”

I grunted, then realized all the adults from her neighborhood were climbing to their feet. There was not one single exception. Some teenagers were being left in charge of the handful of little kids, and seemed to be taking that responsibility wholly in their stride.

“You’re
sure
about this? You’re risking your whole community.”

She looked straight in my eyes, her gaze unflinching.

“Every last one of them volunteered. There was no coercion. What is it you people say? ‘In for a dime, in for a dollar’? Did I get that right? I’m not too good with money.”

I figured out why she was looking so relaxed. And why her people seemed far calmer than they should have done.

“The will of the Goddess, right?”

“You’re starting to see the light.”

Which was when a hand descended on my shoulder. And I knew who was behind me, even before I turned around. The bond between us was that strong. But I wasn’t sure why she had suddenly shown up. Either somebody had told her what was going down, or it was simply her fine-tuned nose for trouble.

I took in her colorless, drawn features and the dullness in her eyes. Cass didn’t seem to belong here in the sunlight anymore. And was a long way from her simple life back in the forest. I felt lousy about that, but tried to hide it.

“How’s Quinn?” I asked.

She shrugged exhaustedly. “He’s still weak, but stable. The doctor reckons he should pull through fine.”

She managed a tired grin.

“He’s sleeping at the moment,” she added, “So he ought to be okay without me for a while.”

I could see the direction that her thoughts were headed.

“Cass, this is a Tyburn-only gig.”

Which carried no weight with her.

“You think you’re going into Boogeyman Central without me?”

“I’ve managed without you for the past two months.”

“And you’ve done a bang-up job, I gotta say. Look at the
state
of this place. I can’t even go home.”

Her words might be ironic, but she fixed me with the sternest of expressions.

“If you leave me behind, I’ll just follow along. So for once in your life, stop fighting the inevitable.”

And I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t really need to. But I was seriously glad to have her with us.

* * *

There were too many of us for cars to be practical, so we went on foot. Emaline and I led the way, Cassie at my other side. And the Tyburners followed along behind us in a steady, determined stream, each of them carrying a light side arm of some description.They didn’t sing. They didn’t chant. Not a murmur passed between them. When I looked back, they were grim-faced, and I could sympathize with  that. We were taking the battle onto their own turf. It was time for scores to be settled, and territory reclaimed.

We headed south, exiting the square by way of Minster Street, going past the unlit storefronts there. Everything around us was abandoned, looked unnatural. We reached Cavell, and a wall of darkness stood before us. But not one of us even paused, stepping into the gloom unflinchingly.

I had brought along two lights, a heavy rubber-handled number and a smaller metal one. Everyone had something. We must have looked like a touring party exploring the Carlsbad Caverns. Wherever our beams went there was ruin and debris. But nothing was coming our way. And I noticed for the first time that there wasn’t even so much as a faint hint of a breeze. Had that been true on previous occasions, another aspect of the angels’ spell?

No sign of them or other creatures anywhere. But I was pretty sure that wouldn’t last for long.

We kept on going, heading down along the western edge of Crealley Street Park. You couldn’t even see the lake from here. It usually picks up some sort of glimmer, even on the darkest night. But this was not a natural darkness, so it couldn’t seem to do that.

Then we were on the smaller residential roads that would lead us down to Greenwood Terrace.

We finally reached it, paused. It only took a few more steps to cross this street, but mentally it was a massive jump. The broad avenue was completely deserted, a few cars parked along the curb. Even they’d been rifled through, and who’d go hiding a stone in one of those? Across the way was Tyburn itself.

I stared at the houses and felt my throat tighten. There was no way of telling what was waiting for us there.

“Home sweet home,” Emaline murmured almost happily.

Which snapped me out of it, and we pressed on.

* * *

Our lamps started picking out the poorly tended shambles that this district was. The unkempt front yards full of spindly trees, and the weathered brickwork. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t falling to bits. It just hadn’t been taken real good care of.

But we weren’t here to photograph the place for Home & Garden. We kept heading in, the High Witch directing me quietly.

There was no sign that the creatures had been searching in this district. No doors thrown wide, nothing strewn about. And so perhaps the Dweller understood the Clavis’s history. And that made me even more uncomfortable, the thought that there might be a great dark eye out there, a consciousness, observing everything we did.

It had been there before the start of existence. Which made it what exactly, the flip side of God? I tried to put such thoughts out of my mind, since they genuinely weren’t helping very much.

The streets grew even narrower, winding. Little room for front yards now. The doors of houses opened up directly onto the sidewalk. But there were still big old trees planted along the curb. So I guessed that, even in broad daylight, the inner parts of Tyburn would remain partially sunken in shadow.

We’d still not come across any low, hunched shapes. And I wondered where they were. My neck started prickling, warning me that they were close. Cassie’s too, apparently -- one of her hands went to a pistol.

And then we got our answer as we rounded the next bend.

A hulking structure became apparent. A massive building, mostly dome-shaped, but going to a sharp peak at its very top. It put me in mind of photographs I’d seen, of onion-shaped churches off in Russia. And it looked pretty incongruous in a town like ours. But that was Tyburn for you.

“The chapel?” I asked.

Emaline nodded proudly.

And I thought I knew why I’d never seen it from the center of town, even from high up. We were heading down a gradient by this stage. The chapel had been built between two hills. Which meant you couldn’t see it until you were right close up. And maybe that was the intention.

Huddled between us and it was every single person who’d been changed into a hominid.