The Witch Watch (12 page)

“I suppose they are intellectual when compared to other sorts of villains. But Lord Mordaunt is not ‘brutish’, as you put it. His book is old. This was not an abrupt or hasty undertaking. No fit of passion led him to these things. I imagine he’s been working on this since before I was born. His studies have been careful and thorough, and his writings contain much that is new and original. Or at least, much that does not appear in any other of our many confiscated books. His aim was clearly to become a lich, but there are many pages here that do not contribute to that purpose at all, but are simply essays in grotesque knowledge and a salve for profane curiosity.”

“What about Sophie? Have you discovered a cure for her?”

She yawned. “No, I have not unwound that secret yet. And if I spend all of our time answering your questions I will never see to my own.”

Alice sat upright with a jolt. A furious banging had awoken her, and now her mind was groping for purchase. She had apparently fallen asleep in the library, again. The candles had all expended themselves. The curtains were drawn, and fingers of daylight reached between through the gaps. Her fingers were blackened with ink.

The abomination -
Gilbert,
she reminded herself - was sitting in the middle of the room. The men had left, save for poor Archer, who had once again been chosen to guard her in the last hours of the night. But he had inadvertently abandoned his duty by falling asleep in his chair.

Another series of pounding blows came, followed by a bell. The door! Archer was startled from sleep by the sound, and military reflex compelled him to leap to attention. His rifle, which had been reclining in his lap, now clattered to the floor. He wobbled slightly and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll answer it,” he said blearily.

What time was it? Alice often thought she should add a clock to the room. It would make her more able to see when it was time to go to bed, and make it less confusing the next morning after she had failed to do so. But she only ever thought of it in moments like this, and forgot about it once she was fully awake.

She heard the door open downstairs, followed by the sound of something heavy being dropped. There was the sound of raised voices, which did not belong to anyone she knew.

She motioned to Gilbert to keep quiet and hurried downstairs.

“Get off!” shouted Archer as Alice reached the entryway. Two young men in shabby clothes were sitting on him. A few more were standing by, rummaging through her things. All of them wore red sashes about their waist. Those that did not bear swords were carrying rope. An old man, whose face was stern and encumbered by great hanging jowls, stood in the center of the room holding a high scepter. The scepter matched his height, and at the top was a great bronze circle with a star affixed in the center. The Church had come to visit.

“What is this?” Alice demanded. “You are all trespassing on the property of
His Royal Highness
Prince Albert, Duke of Saxony. Furthermore, this organization is under the leadership of Ethereal Affairs Minister Sir Robin Moxley, and you have no authority or right of arrest over us.”

The man looked at her disdainfully and snorted, as if he believed these were the most blatant and offensive lies she could possibly have contrived. “You have named many honorable titles, but none of them are yours. I take it you are Alice White?”

“I am,” she said defiantly.

“I am Hierarch Prothero. We are here seeking the unholy abomination you and your associates willfully brought into this house only yesterday. It must be destroyed.”

“You have no authority,” she repeated, but her voice faltered. She knew her words could not turn away this many armed and determined men.

“The church has tolerated your blasphemous collection of unholy knowledge, but you have tested God’s patience one time too many, Miss White. You are a witch and a transvestite. Give over your contraband and you will be shown mercy.”

Alice struggled to master her fear and anger. She saw her situation was hopeless. Archer was overpowered, she was unarmed, and their adversaries had come with tools of violence. Her only thought was that she could perhaps delay the Hierarch until other members of the watch happened to arrive, or until she could contrive an escape. “God has not expressed any impatience to me,” she told him. “Perhaps you are mistaken. Perhaps you should ask again. And while you are at it, you could find someone to teach you the proper meaning of the word ‘witch’.”

“You are perverse,” he said hotly. “And your words will be added to the charges against you.”

“Perverse? I would say that an organization that murders suspects and burns evidence in the course of conducting an ‘investigation’ is perverse. And again, you have no right over us.”

“We have the right to seek out and execute witches throughout the British Empire, which includes your
borrowed
house. A house which you have defiled by making it into a den of sorcery.”

There was a great deal of noise and activity in the room. The men were treating the place roughly, searching where they pleased.

“You presume much, and with no evidence, as is your custom,” Alice said. “But evidence is in small demand when the suspects are executed before they can speak for themselves. Do you intend to furnish proofs, or are your swords your only arguments?”

“The trial does not take place during the arrest, Miss White.”

“Or at all, when your kind is involved,” she retorted.

“You want to see the evidence? So do I.” With that, Hierarch Prothero marched upstairs. “Bring her,” he commanded his men.

The men grasped her and dragged her upstairs to the library, where she was deposited on the floor. She was hedged in by men with red sashes. She heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

Alice looked up, and found the room different from how she had left it. Gilbert was not in the center of the room. Instead, one of the rugs had been taken from its proper place and placed over the sorcery circle that she had drawn. The open books had been shut. For a moment she thought he had vanished through some act of sorcery, but then she saw the coffin was once again occupied. His hands were posed on his breast.

Alice stood. She tried to move to see him more closely, but the men shoved her back. Curiously, several of her tools were around the coffin, and a small vice was clamped to Gilbert’s jaw.

The red sash that had drawn his blade was standing over Gilbert. With a nod from the Hierarch, he began stabbing Gilbert in the chest. The first stroke was bold and triumphant, but when it did not provoke a response he stabbed again and again. He became frustrated and angry, finally hewing at the coffin itself in humiliation and rage. Finally he looked back to the Hierarch and shrugged.

“Is this what you came here to do, you holiness? Break into my home and defile a corpse?”

“It is wickedness to keep a body indoors like this.”

“Then you should correct your wayward religion for its evil practice of holding funerals.”

“A funeral is for showing reverence for the departed.”

“A more obvious way of showing reverence would be to avoid mincing them with swords,” she retorted, gesturing to the man standing over Gilbert’s coffin and panting.

“I should very much like to know what you are doing with a corpse,” Hierarch Prothero said. His arrogance had faded, and he sounded defensive now.

“Investigating, gathering evidence. I am not surprised the process looks unfamiliar to you. We do this so that we don’t inflict punishment on the innocent.”

“We are guided by the hand of God, who protects the innocent,” he said.

“Was your corpse abuse done at His direction?”

Hierarch Prothero struck his scepter against the floor, and his men filed out. A moment later the front door slammed, and they were gone.

Alice sat on the steps and wept for several minutes as her anger and nervous energy worked their way out of her system. Downstairs, Archer picked himself up and washed his face; they had slammed him against the floor for resisting, and he had a bloody nose.

“It’s safe,” Alice said. “They’re gone now.”

As morning ran out, the captain arrived at Grayhouse with a few of the other men. They came to relieve Archer and find out how the research had progressed overnight. They were enraged when Alice explained what had happened with the church. They gathered in the library to discuss matters.

Turpin paced the room, shaking his head. “What would possess them to behave this way?”

“I’m sure they were after Gilbert,” she said. “They had news of him. The Hierarch knew exactly where to go to find him. They came directly to the library.”

“Who could have told them? Perhaps Moxley was afraid of discovery, and so gave us over?”

“Captain, they knew when to strike. They came in the morning when Archer was my only guard.” Alice did not mention that Archer had been sleeping. She was actually grateful. If he had been more awake (and if he hadn’t left his rifle upstairs) he might have tried to defend the house alone. There would have been bloodshed, and he would certainly have been killed.

“Perhaps they were watching the house?” the captain thought aloud. “But that doesn’t explain how they knew about the library.”

“Captain, when was the last time anyone saw Lieutenant Stanway?”

The captain nodded, but said nothing more. Jack hadn’t been with them since they arrived home the previous morning.

“We are lucky the church holds ignorance in such high esteem,” Alice said. “If the Hierarch knew anything about the unliving, they would have taken Gilbert’s head and not simply hacked away at his bones.”

“Their stupidity has always been our greatest asset, even from our founding. What I don’t understand was how you got out of your circle and back into your coffin.” The captain said this to Gilbert.

“I walked out,” Gilbert said with a shrug.

“I have a confession,” said Alice timidly. “The circle I put around Gilbert was just for show. There is no such spell. Not that I know of, at any rate. But I knew everyone was terrified that he was going to run off and do some horrible thing, and this seemed like the best way to put the popular fears to rest.”

“I am not pleased to find I have been the victim of deception,” the captain said. “And it makes me wonder what other lies you may have built that have not been exposed.”

“None that we should inventory now, I think.”

“Well, your deception probably saved your life. I suppose I would rather have you breathing than sinless. But how did
he
know the circle was harmless?” At this the captain gestured towards Gilbert.

Gilbert spoke for himself, “I didn’t. At least, I wasn’t sure. I thought her spell seemed a bit convenient, and it also occurred to me that if such a thing existed that it would make dealing with feral unliving very easy. When the church arrived, I heard the talk downstairs, and realized things would go very badly for Alice if I was discovered. I figured that if the spell was real, the circle would kill me and they would find nothing more incriminating than a corpse. If it wasn’t real, I might be able to hide her work some other way.”

Alice saw that this made an impression on the men. To their shame, they had been in bed when danger struck. One of their own had betrayed them. And yet the abomination had risked its own neck to set things right and protect her. From that point on, they took Gilbert at his word and allowed him to move unhindered.

“What I don’t understand,” said Alice with amusement, “Is why you screwed my vice to your jaw.”

“I thought there needed to be some explanation for why you had a corpse, and that the vice would make it look as if you were somehow working on me. Perhaps looking at my teeth? I don’t know. I’ve never studied a corpse. It was at hand, and I trusted you would find an excuse if you needed one.”

“Thank you, Gilbert. You are as decent and honorable a corpse as I’ve met.”

Gilbert bowed.

“But you must let me do something about your outfit,” she said, “What that man did to you is simply ghastly.” Gilbert’s white gown had been slashed to pieces, and the bits of him that showed through were not attractive.

One of the storage rooms upstairs held unwanted clothes. Most of it had belonged to her father, but bits of it were from other men who had been a part of Ethereal Affairs and had left things behind when they died or found other work. With great relish Alice mined these heaps, looking for items that might fit Gilbert.