Chapter Eight
Jack woke. Was it afternoon yet? He had no intention of keeping country hours but he was sufficiently awake that even if it was unfashionably early, there was no point in staying in bed. He reached up and pulled the curtain aside a little to judge the time of day from the slant of the sun but there was no sun so, grumbling, he hoisted himself from the comfort of the bed and glared out. No idea; overcast and grey, could be morning, could be afternoon.
“Damn! What’s a chap to do out here in the wilds of beyond?” He thought about it for some time. Several days he’d been here, long, dull days in which he’d dutifully stayed in the Mermaid and had kept out of trouble. However, now he was bored and game for mischief.
His good clothes were somewhat dirty and marked and, though Esme had done her best, there wasn’t a decent flat-iron in the whole place. He didn’t know how long it would be until the Susan turned up again - his rather drunken plan to stow away had not encompassed much more than the deed itself - and so he only had two changes of linen with him. Given that in this damp, cold climate clothes took a long time to dry, he was beginning to think that he was putting Esme to rather a lot of trouble. Besides, fashionable as his apricot court-suit was, it was hardly suited to paddling through the mud of this tiny provincial town.
It was no good. He really was awake now. Where was everyone? He sat up and yelled “Jem? Vansel?”
There was a thudding of boots on stairs and Jem poked his head round the door, shocked. “My lord! We weren’t expecting you up these three hours!”
“I know - it’s terribly unfashionable, but when in the sticks...” Jack paused as a thought struck him. “I say, Jem, you don’t know anyone of about my size, do you?”
Jem looked blank. “My lord?”
“I’d like to buy some clothing - the sort of stuff you wear, so poor Esme isn’t permanently washing and ironing for me. Doesn’t have to be good quality, but I’d quite like to go have a poke around town, see what there is to be seen and in my clothes I stand out like a peacock in a henhouse. Do you think you can find me something?”
“Aye, milord, I can that, but it won’t be the sort of linen you’re used to.”
“I know that, Jem.” Jack was impatient. “It will be interesting though.”
“Interesting?”
“Like dressing up for a masquerade. What fun!” Jack laughed, clapping his hands together. “I shall masquerade as a commoner.”
Jem said nothing but went red in the face and began to shake at the shoulders.
“Jem?” Jack was mystified. “Are you quite all right?”
Jem was silent for a moment before letting out a great crow of mirth that startled Jack so much that he nearly leapt off the bed.
“Masquerading as - as a commoner!” The landlord wheezed. “Oh that’s tickled me, that has!”
“Evidently...” Jack was more than a little discomfited.
“Oh, I’ll see to that, milord.” Jem leant on the doorjamb, getting his breath back slowly. “Our Esme will be tickled pink to see that, so she will! I’ll get your costume in,” he tapped the side of his nose ponderously “Forth-With!”
“Mad, the lot of ‘em!” commented Jack to the open air, and retreated to the warmth of his bed.
Hot water came first and was followed by a great deal of trying on and taking off, and then some more trying on and taking off; and a final choice of costume. Eventually (and this was a good two hours later) Jack emerged from his room and went down to the taproom where he leaned casually on the bar and, with his best approximation of a country accent, announced “Happen I’ll have a pint of best, landlord.”
Jem went back into silent hysterics. Esme’s mirth, as she emerged from the kitchen with a plate of food, was very much less restrained. “Oh my lord, you are a one!” she gurgled, plonking plate and cutlery down in front of him. “Standing there in a farmer’s clothes looking like a lord and speaking like a lord, and trying to order a pint when everyone here knows you’re too fussy to look at any kind of drink that wasn’t aged in a barrel for ten years!”
Jack clapped a hand to his chest. “Esme, I’m wounded! I was sure you’d never recognise me. I’m just crushed!”
“Oh get on with you, milord, and eat your breakfast,” she told him, bustling away; and not being one to disoblige a lady, he did just that.
Bet brought the pot of coffee down on a tray with three cups and paused to knock before taking it in to Mickel and the soldiers. She was very conscious of the soldiers staring at the bandage swathing her face, but she set the tray down and curtsied to Mickel as she had seen Madam’s chambermaid do. For a moment she saw a flicker of amusement in his eyes but he glanced away, looking bored.
“We’re all out of bread, sir. I need to go to the bakery for some more,” she volunteered, hesitant.
Mickel rummaged in his money-pouch for a coin. “Try not to dally so much this time, girl.”
“Yes sir.” She curtseyed again and left. That hadn’t been so bad. She knew she was being unnecessarily wary but Copeland’s attack had really frightened her. Still, she was a grown girl now and was not going to give in to this. Determined, she strode over to the cupboard, donned cloak and hat, and picked up a basket. From the urgency of Mickel’s words, she knew something was going on and that time was an important factor. Why the soldiers were after Vansel she didn’t know, but taking her courage in both hands she left upon her errand.
Back at the Black Cat, Madam sat down to breakfast with Mary and Nereia. The bruising that had purpled Mary’s face was starting to fade to yellow in places. Nereia’s face was unmarked. She still wore bandages on her back but the narrow wounds where Copeland had carved the outline of a pair of wings were healing quickly. The burns he had inflicted on her arms would take longer to heal and fade – and yet, Madam thought, either Mickel’s salves were amongst the best she’d ever seen or Nereia was healing inhumanly fast. Madam scolded herself for being superstitious. There was something about Nereia that made her subtly uneasy. She’d seen some traumatised women in her time, and none of them had acted like Nereia… but then did that mean that something was wrong? Madam could not say, but she was uneasy.
Madam looked up to find Nereia watching her. She smiled and looked away but a moment or two later, her gaze drawn back in that direction, she found the cold assessing stare still locked upon her.
“Reia, would you pass another piece of bread, please?” Mary asked. Her sister blinked, and abruptly was Nereia again.
“Certainly, since you ask so nicely.” Nereia’s tone was a little forced but she was evidently trying. “So what do we have in store for us today, Madam?”
Madam took a deliberate sip from her cup before answering. “I’ve put the seamstress off for another few days. There’s no point trying to sew you into a corset until the bandages come off your back, though I don’t think that will be too long. The dancing master doesn’t arrive till next week and I should imagine that he might want a day or two to unpack and settle in before he starts on your dancing lessons. As far as I know you have the morning to yourselves.” She smiled at the girls. “Why don’t you go for a walk? It’s cold but the air is fresh and clean and blowing off the sea. It would be good to see the pair of you with a bit of colour in your cheeks.”
She knew that was a mistake as soon as she’d said it. Mary’s hand strayed up to the remnants of her bruise and the black, dead look came back into Nereia’s eyes for a moment before she fought it down again.
“You’re very trusting, letting us have free rein of the town like that. Supposing we run off again?”
All of them knew how unlikely that was, but it was difficult to answer. Madam said stiffly “I shall suppose no such thing.”
“No,” mused Nereia. “I should think you wouldn’t.” The atmosphere was poisonous. Mary was sitting quietly, eyes on her plate, as absent as it was possible to be without actuall
y getting up and leaving the room. Nereia glanced across at her sister and sighed. “I’m sorry, Mary, I’m a beast. I know you hate this but I honestly can’t stop myself.” She glanced at Madam, and it was a statement of fact rather than an apology.
Madam nodded acknowledgment. She had not been happy that Copeland wanted to hold the girls in the cellar room. At that time it had seemed too dangerous to refuse, but when it had all happened the way it did... She was ashamed of having had a part in it. Bad enough when it was supposed to be threats and a few bruises; so much, much worse when Madam had gone down into that world of blood and seen the two battered bodies huddled on the floor. Words failed her that day, but an iron determination had stirred in her which she had not needed since her days following the army, and she had made her decision.
Breakfast finished, Mary went in search of something to wear on their walk but Madam stopped Nereia as she passed. “Nereia, may I have a word please? It should only take a few minutes. I’ll be waiting in the parlour.”
Copeland pulled the door to behind him and looked searchingly up and down the street before leaving the safety of his office. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the road, trying to assume the old confident walk, though it felt strangely false now. Still, if anyone was looking they would see he was the old, confident Copeland. It wasn’t that long since he’d genuinely felt that much in control... It was just that at the moment he felt beleaguered and spied upon everywhere he went. It had been days now since he had seen that bloodied figure curled up in the brothel’s basement, but he could still feel its eyes boring through and into him. But the colour of them did not change; it was more that darkness flooded them. It was not entirely human, chilling him like a wind from the graveyard at the end of the world...
He paused at the junction. To the offices or down to the processing sheds? Once upon a time he would automatically have known, or at least the plans would have fallen together in his head without him having to work it all out. These days it was so much harder to keep track of all the thoughts that rattled through his brain. Sometimes to have that running purpose, that contained torrent of intent seemed as unlikely as dropping a bag of coins and having them fall into a neat stack in front of him.
Copeland turned off the road on to the well-worn path that skirted the bottom edge of the cliff, just out of reach of the high tide. His thoughts were rolling away now. He could not keep track of them all, and it frightened him that some had got entirely out of his reach. Like what had happened to the girl. Like the burns and the rest. He wasn’t sure what scared him more, the way she reacted to him or the fact that everyone said he had done it. Maybe it was a conspiracy to make him think he was mad? Maybe it was Blakey? He didn’t remember exactly why he had begun to suspect that Blakey was not on his side, but the bodyguard was definitely up to something. However, Copeland had taken steps to deal with that.
Walking along the side of the cliff, he made his way into the obscurity of a fissure which led down into the depths, lit only by occasional lanterns hung from the walls. Yes, Blakey would have too much on his mind at the moment to get up to anything at all.
Madam ushered Nereia into the parlour, where she stood critically by one of the armchairs that faced each other across the fireplace and waited for Madam to speak.
The older woman paced over to the window and looked out. “It was not supposed to be like this. Whatever you think of me is probably justified. I know trying to apologise makes no difference at all to what you’ve gone through but still, I am sorry.”
“Very pretty.” Nereia tried not to unleash her anger, but this was too much. “What use do you think your words are to me?”
“I can’t undo what has been done.” Madam turned suddenly to face her “But it may be that I can prevent anything further from happening.”
“What can you prevent? How?”
“Mary. You’re doing this to protect her. I don’t have it worked out yet, and the gods know it’s going to be complicated, but if you will trust me I will undertake to get Mary out of this town safely and take her somewhere far enough away that Copeland will not find her. You’d be the only one to know where she was apart from me.”
Nereia sat suddenly as her legs gave out from under her. She passed a hand over her face. “If you can help her, that would help me more than anything else in this world could. Why would you risk angering Copeland?”
“What I thought was a little wrong has turned into a great wrong that I cannot stomach. The little wrong was something I was prepared to be involved in to safeguard my girls, but this is too much. I cannot let this go the way that Copeland intends. I owe you restitution and helping Mary disappear is all that is within my power. Will you accept my help?”
“I’ve heard of altruism, but there has been precious little evidence of it in this town,” replied Nereia, and this time it was, almost, an apology.
“Bear with me while I explain and perhaps you will find it more believable.” Gathering her thoughts, she looked Nereia in the eye. “In my business, there is no such thing as safety. My girls are often hurt or beaten. Though there are those of them who are willing to allow that for a fee and I do my best to make sure that that is the case, often a customer simply turns on them. It’s a dangerous game. The added complexity is Copeland, and for most of the people in this town, that’s where the danger lies. You can’t persuade him not to hurt you; but you can buy him off, and as we both know, if you can find the money, you’re safe for the time being. Or that’s how it has been for years. People knew what they had to do to be safe and that was security of a sort so in a perverse kind of way, they did not question it – or Copeland’s authority.” Despite the closed door, Madam glanced around her almost without realising she was doing it.
“In the past few weeks, though, something has changed. There have been rumours that he’s been acting oddly, not all the time but once in a while. He’s certainly been much less predictable than he used to be and all the old rules, the ones that made us feel safe – you just can’t rely on them anymore. And that makes people afraid.” She hesitated. “Then there was what he did to you two, and to Bet and Emma. Bet and Emma were doing as they were told. By the old rules, they should have been rewarded; but they were not. What he did to Emma is something we’ve never seen before, and we don’t know why he did it or how to avoid it ourselves. It feels as if the same thing could happen to any of us – to my girls, to me, to anyone. The town smells of fear. We have stopped thinking it will all be all right if we don’t call attention to ourselves. This, this is something new and fresh, a fear for our very lives which is making people stop and ask questions. Only in whispers and looks, mind, but they are starting to wonder about a great many things and not the least is whether he will attack someone else, and if it will be them.” Madam paused, struck by a sudden thought.
“I wonder if everyone we thought had gone to work in the Angel sheds did so or if some of them just disappeared... I suspect that at least some of them never made it. Either way, life is suddenly much more dangerous than we thought and for the first time, having Copeland in charge looks more certain to get you hurt than standing up to him does. His control is starting to fray around the edges, and you were a part of that. You made people sit up and pay attention, in fact – you ran. No ever runs. It’s unthinkable. But you two thought it and tried and if it hadn’t been for a coincidence, you might have got away with it too.”
“But we got caught...” Nereia whispered.
“But you might not have been, and somewhere deep down, every individual person in this town was willing you to get away. For the first time in years there was a little spark of hope, hope that there might be a way out and a life outside of Scarlock, away from Copeland. When you were caught we were all caught with you. We knew there would be trouble, but not on the scale that really happened. Copeland has changed the rules and taken away what little security there was. People are unsure and resentful of that, and
as he gets more unstable, they become more afraid of what he might do.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
“It has everything to do with you.” Madam leant on the windowsill. “Frightened people do stupid things, and they will do almost anything to achieve stability again. You and Mary have become a symbol of Copeland’s power and his ruthlessness. People look at you and see themselves. If you can get free of Copeland, even one of you, then so can they.”
“And what has that got to do with you?”
“Unfortunately, more than I’d like.” Madam smiled, rueful. “All I wanted was to retire to the country and live quietly. I’ve acquired a certain reputation from looking after my girls; unfortunately in this line of business, safety is relative at best, but I work to keep them as safe as I can. Enforcing that means the town looks on me as a person not to be trifled with, but the fact that many of the women and girls of this town are occasionally paid to help with the cooking, washing, mending, or whatever means that many of the families also respect me as a businesswoman. Some even look at the Black Cat as an alternative to a life of drudgery because all my ladies work here of their own choice, and all are educated to the extents of their aptitudes and interests. One or two have even gone on to the Radahar College and trained to become courtesans at the Radahan Courts, the only ones who have ever got out of this town, though that was a while ago now.”
“But I don’t see how it’s all connected!” Nereia was too drained to follow where this was going.
“Think, girl! You’re hardly stupid!” Madam snapped. “If people try to get rid of Copeland and get it wrong, the town will be split and there will be carnage. If this town is not to crumble into a bloody mess, I need to act.”
“I can’t believe you’re telling me this! I don’t want to know and I don’t see what that has to do with me!”
“You are caught up in this whether you want to be or not, because the entire town is watching and empathising with you!” Madam resumed her pacing once more. “Listen; it will take a little time to set it in place. You have to play along with Copeland’s plans until I can get rid of him, but - and this is the point, Nereia - if you can get through that much of it without making him suspicious, I’ll get Mary out of here and somewhere safe from Copeland.” Nereia looked up sharply. “We’ll make it look as if she’s jumped into the sea, and we’ll send her to - I don’t know...”
“Woodsedge,” Nereia whispered. “My mother’s family.”
“Perfect!” Madam drew nearer, lowering her voice. “We’ll send her to your family. Copeland thinks she’s dead. It will never be spoken but people will know that all is not as it seems – no proof, but these things have a way of being understood. So I make what amends I can to you. As you can see my reasons for doing it are not altruistic. Do you believe me now, Nereia?”
There was a moment or two of silence and then Nereia dropped her head into her hands. Her shoulders began to shake and soon she was gasping out great, tearing, uncontrollable sobs. Madam put an arm over Nereia’s shoulder and let the girl cry herself into silence.
Eventually, Nereia sat limp and exhausted on the chair. “What shall I do? What shall I do? I was dead and you want me to come to life again. I had given up, and now this? How shall I find the strength?”
“My dear, you don’t need to find the strength.” Madam stroked the girl’s hair. “You are strong enough. I’ve seen it.”
“I was once. Not now. Not after all this.”
“Sit up, Nereia, and listen to me,” Madam told her firmly. “Do you know that sometimes, since all this happened, the look in your eyes is... different? When you saw Copeland in the corridor he was afraid of you right from the start. For that matter, so was I. But did you know what you were doing?”
Nereia hesitated. “Not exactly. It wasn’t me so much as someone else.”
“Someone bad?” Madam was a little afraid of the answer though she did not show it.
“No... No, I don’t think so.” Nereia tried to assess the feel of that cold ‘other’ presence. “It is how it would be if you had no fear and no pain, but no joy or pleasure either and were just - I don’t know - utterly cold-hearted. Not evil or horrible, just totally emotionless.”
“Strong?”
“Indestructible. Forever. Frighteningly strong.” Nereia answered immediately this time.
“Frightening?”
“There is no forgiveness, no - You can’t plead with it or persuade it or apologise to it. It makes its decision and that is the way things are, though the universe itself should cry for pity.” Nereia shuddered.
“Is it evil?”
“No.” Another immediate answer. “Only... Implacable. That’s the word, implacable. But it knows about duty and need and honour and integrity; it just has no sentiment at all.” Nereia hesitated. “I think that I should be afraid of it.”
“But you aren’t.”
“It is part of me. But it isn’t me. I don’t know exactly. I thought I’d dreamt it.”
“And I hope you have, my dear, but for the moment let’s assume that it was real. When it’s there, can you take control?”
“What do you mean?” asked Nereia, troubled.
Madam took some time to think about this. “You say that it is powerful but not evil; so far so good. But it is implacable and unforgiving; less good. There is definitely something there, Nereia. I have seen the way your eyes change and it frightens me. If it is controllable at all, the only one who could control it is you. If you cannot we need to keep people out of your way before someone gets hurt. But if you can make it a part of yourself, leavened with your good sense and your own emotions and sense of pity and compassion, you will be safeguarding those around you as well as yourself.” She stood and walked back to the window. “Over the years I have travelled a long way and seen some strange things. I may be wrong but something tells me that you may be all that stands between the rest of us and something very frightening indeed. If you can harness that being and bend it to your will, it could help to make a huge difference to your life, to Mary’s life; to the lives of a great many people in this town and possibly beyond...”
Nereia said nothing but she had been listening keenly. She tried to remember what that other had felt like, how it had come and why it had gone.
“When I am angry or afraid,” she said slowly, almost to herself, “it takes a hold of me. It is very difficult to fight off; but I don’t want Mary frightened by it, and she would be frightened so I have to fight it off to come back to Mary.”
“Does it come to protect you?”
“I don’t know... It has only happened a couple of times that I know of.” Nereia stopped to think. “So far, it has been in times of trouble, I think. It comes and I can hide from everything.”
“Very well.” Madam paused. “Next time, perhaps you should not allow yourself to hide. Try to stay front and fore while this creature is here, and see if you can move it to do what you want.”
“I will try.” Nereia opened her mouth to speak and stopped.
“What is it, my girl?”
“Madam – do you think I’m going mad? Normal people don’t do this.”
“My dear, normal people do not have to go through what you and Mary have been through. Don’t think you are in the least mad, Nereia. You’ve had a terrible experience and have come through it better than any of us could have hoped; but there is something more to it than that. I have seen many things, but I’ve never come across this before. I will write to someone my mother used to know, a very wise old man who may be able to give us better advice. You are not mad, Nereia.” She paused, thoughtful. “I have my doubts about Copeland, though.”
Copeland walked down the cragged passageway that led to the Angel processing sheds. The lamplight flickered and waned as he passed, as if cackling at him. Well, it would learn.
“Look what I’ve done to Blakey!” he told it. In the confines of the tunnel his voice echoed
frighteningly so he ran the rest of the way at a slightly shamefaced half-run, the soft sand underfoot sapping him of strength and speed as if he was pursued in some unnamed nightmare.
He burst out of the other end of the tunnel and skidded to a stop in the little bay. Let the lanterns laugh in their flickering tunnel! Copeland was out in the bare daylight and free of their mocking. Now, should he go to the sheds or should he go and see the Angels? That was an easy choice. The Angels called to him. He could swear that they sang, but the water muffled it so that he could not hear properly. He walked past the low grey sheds on the beach surrounded by cliffs stretching out into the sea. His own private beach; no-one could get to it except through the tunnel and no-one wanted to, not since he had found it all those years ago. Even where the inlet opened into the sea, people avoided the area. Treacherous currents and a long, inexorable undertow from far out at sea drew things down to break on the jagged rocks of the bay. Unsuspecting boats found themselves carried along, smashed against rocks just under the surface, crushed against the sides until they broke and sank; and let the sailors swim like fish, they would never reach that beach alive. Legend had it that the inlet was cursed, but in his early days, seeing a boat drawn in, Copeland had watched the swimmers disappear one by one, not with cramp and not pulled under by the current. It was only when he investigated further that he found this second fissure in the cliff.
Entering now, he pulled open the first of the doors, shut it firmly behind him and waited a moment for his eyes to get used to the semi-darkness of a red-painted lantern. Then he opened the second door and took down a second lantern from a row burning quietly on a shelf, safe behind their red shields. He shut the door behind him so that no daylight could penetrate into the vaulted darkness, and walked forward with his lantern held low.
Copeland made his way along the twisting passage. The sound of the sea washed throughout, a long, muffled rush and sigh, rush and sigh. A line of tiny red lights dotted the tunnel, propped on little outcroppings and niches in the unfinished rock. The sea’s sibilance was underlaid with other sounds; the low murmur of the workers and the occasional clink of metal on stone as someone put down a lamp or a tool. The tunnel opened out into the main cavity in the cliff, a great cathedral space housing an underground bay, currently awash. The water glowed with a vague, green light where the daylight outside was reflected along the underwater mouth of the cave that channelled it in there. The water went in one side and out the other, cutting a deep, rounded bay from the rock, a little lopsided on one side where the current washed into the deep quiet of the side-chamber. Anything carried with the tide into that most useful of spaces was pinned there by the current and eventually marooned as the water dropped, all ready for the harvesting.
Copeland ventured closer to the rocky shelf that marked the edge. In the darkly swirling waters of the side-chamber, shadowed from the green glow of daylight, he saw beautiful blue lights processing slowly round the edges. Angels!
“Are you singing?” He could not hear in the sound of the waves. How he would love to hear their song more clearly!
Just as he had seen them on his first trip here, once again they had visited him. The waters would fall, the Angels would be caught in the nets; Copeland’s workers would gather up the nets, pick out the flotsam and jetsam and then carry them to the drying rooms where the Angels’ fragile bodies would first drain, the liquids falling down onto the channelled floors to be distilled and bottled to sell the court ladies. Angel’s Tears were all the rage as they genuinely made those who used them beautiful.
“What matter if they all look the same, so long as those faces are beautiful faces?” Copeland mocked.
Then, as the liquids dried and the Angels dried into pale crisp ghosts, the nets would be lowered to the floor and other workers would come along with shovels and brooms to crumble the delicate dried shapes into the flakes that could be sold for so much money: Angel’s Feathers.
“And what a miracle you have been for me, my lovelies!” he crooned, watching the blue lights in the water.
Hearing the tales from an old fisherman of the madness of one summer long ago when a swarm of the jellyfish had washed up on the pebbled beach in a storm and dried high above the tide-line, Copeland had been quick to spot an opportunity. Many experiments later, having perfected the drug, the Angels had allowed him to return to the city from which he had fled, confront those who had humbled him – and crush them utterly. At that point it had been a wrench to give up his ideas of returning to set up an empire there, but his newfound power came from those mysterious blue-lit creatures which were not known to approach the shore anywhere else. He dared not leave the caves for anyone else to look after in case they ousted him as effectively as he had the old gang, and so he returned to Scarlock and the threadbare grandeur of what had been his cousin’s house.
The uneasy truce he made with his contacts in the city was greatly to his advantage in getting the drug into the capital and soon, very soon it would be time to get rid of those contacts who were getting fat on their finder’s fees, and put in place his own people.
“When all the money that people pay for the Feathers ends up in my own strongboxes, we will be richer than the King, and all because of you Angels! It’s funny really.” He leant forward to the water, whispering confidentially. “When we were children, my sister Louisa always said that angels would look after us, but I never thought that my angel would be slimy and live underwater!”
Copeland picked up a shard of rock from the cave floor to drop in amongst the carousel of Angels beneath. “Are you singing? Louisa would like that.”
He did not think she would like what he had done with the Angels though, and that was not a comfortable thought; but when such an opportunity was presented to him, how could he have done anything other than take the Angels and turn them into money? And it was all so easy, for Angel Feathers were incredibly addictive. Drunk with brandy, they brought a cessation of pain or sorrow or any kind of emotion, but the taker’s body became habituated so quickly that it did not often take long before the user progressed to the last (and usually terminal) step, making a nick in the skin and rubbing the Angel Feathers in with the blood. By this point the user could not easily be identified as male or female. Their faces all gradually took on an unearthly beauty but their bodies stopped healing and became more fragile. Yes, it killed them in the end - but usually not before they had recruited more users for him.
It was interesting, Copeland thought. If one person became addicted, the bliss they showed in their comatose state was more seductive than any other kind of persuasion and one dose ‘just to see what the fuss was about’ was enough to hook the next user. Let them fight it as hard as they liked, after one taste they could never get enough of that euphoric carelessness - and the only one who had an ongoing supply of Angel Feathers was Copeland.
“You Angels, you are my secret,” he whispered as the lights danced in the water below. “I’d never have had this much influence if I hadn’t worked out that you could only be harvested here. No-one else worked that out but I did.”
The current that brought the glowing, voracious jellyfish into the bay and marooned them for the receding tide to go out meant that once the creatures had stopped moving, his men – and women and children for that matter – could gather in the nets with much less chance of being stung into immobility and consumed as the shipwrecked sailors swimming to shore invariably were.
“Of course, every so often one of the workers comes across an Angel that is only half-dead; that’s inconvenient, you know.” He shook an admonitory finger at the creatures below him. “Making the drugs needs specific skills. Fortunately I have an endless list of debts ready to call in from people who have no hope of ever paying and they’ll always go to work in the sheds if it saves their family from being beaten. So,” irritating as it might be, Copeland thought, “I don’t begrudge you the occasional worker. Besides, it’s useful sometimes. I can’t imagine what it feel
s like to be taken by Angels, but the most resistant men crumble when their child is about to go into the pool with you and find out. For the most part, of course, I try to be sparing with that sort of thing.” He waved grandiosely around but looking at the mesmerising ripples of blue along the backs of the jellyfish now, he couldn’t for the life of him think why he should want to deny them. Ah well.
Leaning back from the treacherous surface, Copeland moved away from the compelling side-bay. He raised the red light again though even on this dull day the reflected daylight gave off enough of a glow through the water to let him see the outlines of shapes. He had decreed that all lamps should be red so that the workers should retain enough of their night vision to be able to see the flickering blue lights of the captured Angels in the pool – well, that and the other reason he thought, as the red lamplight spilled across the surface of the waves. Yes... It had been a while. And of course, he hadn’t introduced Blakey to the Archangel yet.
Edging away from the slippery lip of the pool, he went back a short way to a great door which he shoved open. From here the murmurs of his workers were less muffled. He surveyed the room. This was the end of the process. The Angels had been harvested and taken away and now the nets were checked, sluiced with seawater, and mended should they need it, so as to be ready for the process to start all over again with the next tide.
Ten or eleven workers were there. Four in thick leather suits and gloves were paired off, taking the folded nets from the pile and carrying them over to the sluiceway that had been painstakingly cut into the rock so that each new swell that came into the cavern’s bay sent another rush of water through the channel. The workers swilled the nets two or three times in the sluice and then clipped the top corners to fittings that ran along a series of ropes across the cave. Once clipped on, the wet and heavy nets could be pulled across to where they were checked, hanging like outsize lace curtains while an elderly man looked them up and down for tears or snags. When he was satisfied that all was as it should be, two others pulled the net on its line across to a large, open area of the cave. Too heavy to be blown by the scant breaths of drier air, the nets dried stiffly until they were folded and, now light enough to be carried once more, were stored neatly on a series of shelves in the corner until they were needed. Because the Angels were left to dry on the nets that had caught them, a new one was needed every tide; but Copeland had plenty now and so he lost fewer workers to the occasional fragment on unwashed nets.
As Copeland walked in, the nearest worker exclaimed “Mr Copeland, sir!” and, his voice cutting through the low murmur of their chatter, all stopped work and looked for a moment before going back to what they were doing, more intensely than ever.
“Where is Blakey?”
“He said he would be in the drying sheds, sir.”
“Very well; as you were.” Copeland nodded and went back out the door. Excellent! He had known that sooner or later Blakey would not be able to resist the drying sheds, but he had not hoped that it would be so soon.
He made his way back up the tunnel, left the red lantern on the shelf with all the others, backed through the first door and shut it; opened the outside door a crack, and winced. In the time he had been in there the clouds had broken up a bit and now the sun seemed painfully bright. After a moment his vision cleared and he went out into the clear daylight. The beach was much less threatening in the sunshine and in the choppy wind, the spray from the waves gave the air a particularly fresh, clean tang.
He smiled to himself as he crunched across the shifting pebbles and over to the long stone-built sheds that marred the sweep of the bay. Let it look never so pretty, it didn’t change the fact that the Angels were drawn to the long undertow where it started out in the ocean because of all the nutrients it contained – nutrients from rotting carcases of all kinds which were gathered from far and wide in the swirling bay just as the jellyfish were, caught in that current.
As he entered the drying sheds, Copeland was hit by a wall of heat, along with the greasy smell of the jellyfish bodies, overlaid with wood smoke. The door led to a platform which ran round the edge of the deep pit in which the drying happened, so that no stray breeze could send precious flakes flying. Underneath the pit were the great firing floors. Here wood was burned, heating the air which circulated in the hypocausts under the drying room. Both the floor and the rooms were stiflingly hot and dry, desiccating the jellyfish before they could decompose. The first room was quiet; the nets hanging over the channelled floor were fresh and dripping with the liquids that would be gathered to make Angels Tears. The second room had the previous day’s net, which had long since stopped dripping. The jellyfish caught in it had shrunk considerably and become opaque, slightly pearlescent. They looked much more solid and stiff, but still had a certain amount of substance.
Copeland walked further along the platform to look over the third room, where the nets had been taken off their hooks on the wall and lowered to the floor. He picked up a long cloth from the table by the wall and tied it over his nose and mouth. Then he approached the balcony where Blakey stood watching the activity below with Den, the overseer. In the room, workers dressed in suits made of waxed canvas raked over the nets which lay on the floor.
“By this third day,” Den was explaining through the damped cloth over his nose and mouth, “the Angels have dried out so much that they’re almost in ashes. A touch will make the bodies fall into flakes which we sell for a very high price. They haul the nets back up over a central rope, sweep the flakes up from the floor and then beat the nets for every last crumb. After all that, all but one of the workers go to the door. The last one brushes ‘em down from top to toe, in case there’s any on their suits, then sweeps the floor and his own suit for any last bits and adds ‘em into the casket with the rest. They seal the casket and take it into the anteroom. Then they pass it through the hatch to me in the storage area and I add it to the stack.”
“Right...” Blakey smiled. “This is while the tide’s in, right?”
“Yes, and the other workers are in the caves, washing and mending the spare nets.” Den gestured in that direction. “When the tide goes out, them from the cavern gather in the new net with everything in it, load it on a cart and haul it up here where they hang it from the hooks. They set the barrel ready to catch the juices - that’s what they call the Angel’s Tears that fancy ladies use to beautify themselves - and after a while they go in with brooms to make sure all the Tears drain into the barrel before it can evaporate, what with the floor being so hot, see?”
“Ah yes...”
“Once that’s done they have a few hours’ rest while the tide turns; and then they take their rakes and go back to the next catch.”
Copeland went to lean on the balcony next to Blakey, who simply watched, a dreamy look on his face. Den nodded respectfully and made himself scarce, returning to the storeroom which was his domain.
Blakey had not, Copeland noted smugly, donned the facecloth that protected watchers from inhaling the highly addictive dust. “So how are you getting on with your new responsibilities?”
“Fine,” Blakey mused. “The process is simple enough. It’s quite interesting really; and the Angels in the water are really beautiful. Strange, that such tiny flakes can have such a marked effect.”
Copeland turned a quizzical gaze on him. Could it be? Yes, though it was only a week since Copeland had sent him here, the bodyguard’s face was losing its rough, haunted look and showing the first signs of the ethereal beauty that Angel Feathers brought. Copeland grinned. Inhaling Feathers in miniscule amounts might take longer to kill him but it was just as addictive, and hopefully the bodyguard would not realise how far he was gone until his body was beginning to disintegrate. And at that point either he would just keel over and die or, if necessary, a well-placed blow or two might do irreparable damage. It did not worry Copeland. It was certainly not the first time he had rid himself of a nuisance this way.
Copeland gestured to
the door. Blakey wrenched himself out of his reverie with an effort and followed his boss out of the drying sheds and into the clean air outside.
“How much do we have in hand at the moment?” Copeland asked. “Ready in the store-room.”
“We have seventeen caskets of Feathers in the store-room and twelve kegs of Tears. This tide will make it eighteen and thirteen.”
“Good. We have an order for seven half-caskets and four kegs of Tears, rebottled into the little stoppered flasks. We need it ready by this afternoon.”
“This afternoon? Won’t that get in the way of the next collection of nets?”
“It won’t have to.” Copeland shrugged.
“The only way they could get it in time is if they don’t have their breaks.”
“Then that’s the way it’ll have to be, won’t it?”
“Really?” Blakey was troubled. “The men work hard and they’ll be tired. If they make mistakes they’ll get themselves killed.”
“Men? Blakey, you’re so unobservant! Some of them are a bit on the small side for men, don’t you think? Don’t worry though - I can source you plenty more where that lot came from. The older ones teach the new ones so it’s no inconvenience really except that it slows them up a bit. That’s the way Old Emma ran it. Did you have intentions to change things substantially?” He cocked an eyebrow at the erstwhile bodyguard, enjoying this immensely. “Apart from choosing not to wear a facecloth, I mean.” He turned away, clapping a hand over his mouth where Blakey could not see him. He had not meant to let that out, not so early in the process, but maybe he had got away with it?
“There are women too?” Blakey gasped. “Mr Copeland, tell me there are no children down there!”
“Of course, there are, Blakey.” Copeland shrugged. “Whole families. We even let them work on the same shift; it’s very convenient. But don’t worry, they’re very well-trained or we wouldn’t let them in here.” Blakey gaped in disbelief. His earlier mood of vaguely contented interest had evaporated entirely.
“Come on; there’s something you need to see.” Copeland led the larger man back to the underground bay. On the way back he cut round the front edge of the rock walls. “Thought so. Bring him, Blakey.”
Blakey saw a huddled form slumped against the rock in the weak sunshine. It was a sheltered spot looking over the intricate waves of the inlet; beautiful, if you did not know what those waves were hiding. He lifted the boy to his feet, a young teenager. His eyes were smiling at something wonderful, far away and totally unaware of the present. He was very thin, his eyes big in a face painted with the mysterious beauty of the terminally addicted. Among the sores on his forearm there was a thin cut trailing a slow trickle of blood; the telltale sign of a recent fix.
Blakey pulled the boy to his feet but after a moment, he sank limply down again. This time Blakey hauled him up and held him upright. “You! What’s your name?” There was no response. He spoke louder, shook him; still nothing.
“Don’t even try to get any sense out of him.” Copeland smirked. “He’s long gone. Flying with Angels, he is.” Just like you’ll be in another couple of weeks, he didn’t add, but wanted to so badly he had to bite his lip to stay quiet. He turned and walked into the first door to the cave, gesturing Blakey to follow.
He did so, bringing the boy who stumbled along emptily, smiling that beatific smile. Blakey dragged the door shut with one hand and stood back to let Copeland through the other door, pausing only to pick up the obligatory red lamp.
“Wait there,” Copeland suggested, and disappeared into a side-room, coming out with a small oilskin-wrapped bundle tucked under his arm. “What you are about to see, Blakey, is a very great secret - you might say the secret to my success! Well, not entirely, but a part of it. Very few know the way to this room. Even fewer know the way back.” He lowered his voice confidentially to add, “Emma knew the way, though. Quite probably this is where she is now!” He shuddered. That was not a memory he was entirely comfortable with and it was a sign of his excitement that it had slipped out almost without his knowing. But then he wasn’t sure he remembered throwing her body into the water, even. Blakey had described the events of the day to him in such shocked, vivid language that he wasn’t sure whether the pictures in his mind came from his memory or from Blakey’s. But then, he mused, Blakey’s memory would evaporate completely over the next few weeks so the memory would belong to him alone, which was as good as remembering it himself, wasn’t it?
Blakey followed Copeland along the tunnel with its twin lines of red lanterns on the wall. As the fissure faded to a slender unlit tunnel, Copeland slipped round a tall rock into what appeared to be its shadow and was gone. Blakey followed cautiously, to find another branch of the cave curving sharply back in the direction from which they had just come. This cave was small, stifling and totally unlit. The red lanterns glowed feebly without really lighting anything and Blakey was very conscious of the total blackness that lurked outside those circles of red.
“Can you hear it?” Copeland murmured. “Like breathing?”
Just at the edges of hearing there was a sound. No, more a constant exchange of sounds - a great, slow inhalation; followed by a rolling sigh. Another inhalation; another sigh. Blakey felt the hairs on his neck rise, until he recognised it with some relief. “It’s the sea, isn’t it?”
“Yes; that, and the Archangel...”
“The Archangel?” Blakey rolled his eyes. Trust Copeland to have made up a fancy title for whatever it was. Knowing him, it was probably going to be a tree or something, though Blakey had to admit to himself that he didn’t know what a tree would be doing down here. But then he wasn’t even sure why he was down here. Copeland had said that he was so pleased with the way Blakey had handled the girls’ escape that, with the death of Old Emma, Blakey seemed the natural replacement for this most confidential of jobs. Blakey wasn’t sure that he believed that. He was close enough to have seen Copeland gradually starting to show signs of being unstable and of late it had been marked enough that it was hard to know what to believe sometimes.
What he believed now, however, was that Copeland had something in mind that he wouldn’t like, and he was highly suspicious about Copeland’s insistence on bringing the boy along. Blakey paused to put down the lantern, swap the boy to the other side of him and pick up the lantern again. Copeland had not waited and even with that brief gap between them, Blakey felt a moment’s panic. What he wouldn’t give for a proper, unpainted lantern now that actually gave out a proper light! Or better, to not even be here and be sitting down for a quiet pint in the Three-Legged Dog, flirting politely with the landlady and thinking that maybe later he might - no. He pushed all idea of the little snuffbox of Angel Feathers out of his mind. He might have had one the other night - well, last night - whenever, but he wasn’t going to have any more of that. Just look at what it had done to the lad stumbling blindly down the corridor beside him, for a start. No, he would not have any more Angel’s Feathers. He’d said that earlier in the week, but now he really wasn’t going to.
Copeland stopped and, pausing to put down the oil-skinned bundle he carried, took keys out of his pocket. This was a padlock and chain fastening a board in place across an opening. Clearly Copeland did not want to trust anyone but himself with this secret.
Blakey ducked through the opening lantern-first; he didn’t trust Copeland. He pulled the boy awkwardly through behind him. It seemed another area of blackness just as anonymous as the rest, but the sound of the sea was much stronger here. There was a smell too, subtle but so strong it was almost a taste in the back of the mouth; a greasy, strangely familiar smell. It was... That was it! It was the smell of the drying sheds. Blakey had a very bad feeling about this, which was compounded when Copeland said “Stand very still; I’ll only be a moment,” and shut the door. Blakey glanced frantically around him but with the lantern in one hand, supporting the now-slumped teenager with the other, there was nothing he could do unles
s he dropped the boy. And knowing Copeland as he did, Blakey did not want to leave the lad defenceless in the dark.
Blakey stood in his circle of faint red light, listening. He could not tell what Copeland was doing out there behind the door, nor could he hear anything but the breathing sea-sounds. It made him very uneasy indeed. Looking around, he became aware of the dim blue glow from the corner. It was the blue of Angels, but normally Angels had only a couple of flickering lines over their back, maybe three or four at most. To generate this amount of light...
Blakey nearly jumped out of his skin when the door clicked open, and he shielded his eyes from the now-blinding light of an orange-painted lantern.
“There we go, Blakey!” Copeland’s voice held an undertone of suppressed glee that made Blakey very cautious indeed. “I just had to light this lantern for our friend there.”
“Him? He can barely stand upright.” Blakey hauled at the lad, who seemed to have become slightly more aware of himself.
“He’ll stand up for this, I promise you!” There was an unseen splash in the corner. “Shhhh, Blakey. We have woken the Archangel!”
The melodramatic title still rang hollow, but Blakey did not feel the urge to sneer now. He let go of the boy, who teetered but stayed upright. Following Copeland across the uneven rock, Blakey leant on the natural lip running round this end of a deep black pool and tried to see what it held. “What is in there?”
“Stay there and keep back from the water.” Copeland walked round to where the lip was much lower and dangled the lantern near the surface of the pool. There was a huge surge of the black water and Copeland whipped away the lantern and placed it behind a rock. In the vague glow of his own red lantern, Blakey realised that this was not just water, but the curved surface of the biggest Angel he’d ever seen.
“Gods!” he stammered. “Gods!” He could not take his eyes from it. All of a sudden there was not a nonsense of blue lights in the pool but a dance of them, similar to that he had seen on normal Angels but much, much more complex. There was some pattern to it which just escaped him; it was mesmerising, and he found himself concentrating harder, trying to fathom it.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
Blakey stared at the pool as Copeland wandered over to the boy. “How big is it?”
“Your normal Angel may have a body anything from the size of a fist to the size of a dinner plate. When I first saw this one many, many years ago, its body was the size of a soup tureen. I’ve been feeding it ever since and now it’s as large as a dinner table, and still growing.”
“Feeding it?” Blakey murmured, only half-listening as he watched for the pattern in the lights.
“Oh yes.” Copeland gave the orange lantern to the boy and ushered him across to the pool.
Blakey was oblivious; the dancing blue glimmers were so beautiful and there were so many of them. But something was troubling him. What was it? “What do you feed it?” He ought to be paying more attention but he was watching the blue sparks dance.
Like him, the angel-faced boy staggered nearer, holding the orange lantern out to see his way to the blue lights. Nearer still, and how beautiful they were; the boy was charmed into another beatific smile. Nearer, holding the lantern close to the blackly swirling water; leaning over now, close to the water, reaching out to touch the dancing blue...
Blakey blinked as the boy blocked his view of the mesmeric lights. Recovering his wits, he leapt forward but it was too late. The boy reached into the black water. The blue lights on the curved, translucent back surged together into a single blue flash of light. The boy gasped and jerked his hand back out of the water, revealing a pulsating blue tendril wrapped around it, but he stiffened and toppled forward as Blakey’s grasp snapped shut on thin air. Blakey fell to his knees by the pool. As if in slow motion, he watched the lad disappear into the water. The orange lantern hissed into smoke as the boy’s body was outlined by a network of electric blue flashes and sparks which came running along the strands of the creature’s tendrils. The boy jerked and convulsed horribly, air escaping from his lungs in great mushrooming bubbles painted blue and red by the lights.
Blakey crawled to the edge of the pool, but now the flashes had faded he could no longer see the body. A solitary air bubble gulped to the surface. There were no more. Blakey looked into the water, now soulless, slick black, reflecting the lantern’s bloody light. The glimmers of blue had faded almost entirely or the creature had gone. For a long moment, he stared desperately, trying to see something - anything - and then he turned away, retching.
“Really, Blakey, that’s terribly melodramatic. You didn’t know him, did you?” Copeland tutted.
“No,” Blakey gasped after a moment. “Who was he?”
“I have no idea. After a while they all look the same. However, he’ll keep the Archangel going for a few months more before it needs feeding again. The reason we feed the Archangel,” he went on, crouching down beside Blakey, who was on hands and knees still, “is because every full moon if you come down here at low tide, you will find the pool so brightly lit that you don’t need a lantern. The Archangel spawns, and at high tide the little Angels make their way out between the meshes of the nets and into the wide ocean where they feed until they are large enough to be of use. Then as they are washed back here they are caught in the net. Don’t you see, Blakey? The Archangel keeps us in business; the larger it is, the more spawn it generates. The more spawn it generates, the more Angels grow large enough to be of use, good money for the picking.” He waited for a comment but the bodyguard merely retched again. Copeland jumped upright and went to pick up the lantern. “Come, Blakey, we have work to do!”
With an effort Blakey hauled himself up and staggered after the other man, afraid of being left alone in the pitch black where one wrong step might pitch him into that sinister water with the creature and the boy’s body. He stayed close as Copeland pulled the door to, and it was with some relief that he found the other red lantern still burning outside. He grabbed at it, thankful that he was no longer dependent on Copeland for a lifeline to the world outside. He followed numbly along the tunnel back into the depths of the cliff where it joined with the main corridor and its twin lines of lights along the wall, then back past the net rooms to the doors, placed his lantern on the shelf and escaped into the painful light of day.