It had been early superstition that had bestowed the name of wych-kin upon the things that plagued London. Demons, devils, ghosts, spirits... none knew what they were, but all agreed on one thing: they were kin to the wyches, those who conspired with the supernatural. It was a credit to the Age of Reason that new wych-hunts had not begun then, of the kind such as they had seen all across Europe in the previous centuries; but the British were too reserved now, too mannered to act on such foolishness. In their hearts, they needed wychcraft to account for the wych-kin, but they would never admit to such a thing.
Wych-kin, then. It was as good a name as any to place on the unnamable.
With the new horror came those who desired to exterminate, adopting the somewhat misleading title of wych-hunters. Not like the wych-hunters of old, who sought out scapegoats for disease and illness that had long been explained by science; these were a new breed, men and women who hunted the darkness that spread across London. Wych-hunters.
The inn that Thaniel and Alaizabel came to was a low, squat jumble of dark timbers with a stout wooden board hanging outside, swinging in the evening light. It was painted with the faded image of a winged lady wielding a sword, wearing a dress of lime. The Green Angel stood on the northern edge of Battersea, not far from the Thames, and it crouched down a side street where the shops and warehouses leaned in over the cracked cobbles, so close that they nearly shut out the sky. Alaizabel looked it over doubtfully, listening to the raised voices from within. Shadows lurched and swayed across latticed panes of smoky glass.
“The sun will be down soon,” Thaniel said. “I mean to have you out of the Old Quarter by then. We shall not stay here long.”
Alaizabel steeled herself. “Let us go inside,” she said. “I must know.” And yet, curiously, she was once again struck by her own lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of finding out about her parents.
The interior of the Green Angel was hot and dark and reeked of smoke and sweat. The people that drank and ate there were swarthy and unshaven, laughing through rotted teeth, their skin dark with dirt. Cold eyes fell on Alaizabel as she followed Thaniel inside, and she felt a threat from each of them; but she held herself tall, and did not shrink from their gazes. Thaniel led her without hesitation to a round table in a dim corner, where a squat, fat man chewed on a turkey leg. He drew out a chair for her to sit on, and then sat down himself. The fat man never looked up at them.
Alaizabel glanced uncertainly at Thaniel, but Thaniel simply waited. She looked back at the man at the tabic. His jowls were covered with a patchy map of bristly stubble, and one of his eyes was filmed with a milky cataract. He snorted as he ate, and turkey juice dripped down his chin on to his belly. Alaizabel had seen people as repulsive before, but she was sure that she had never been so close to one out of choice.
“You better not have been followed,” the man grizzled suddenly, without looking up at them.
“We were not,” Thaniel said calmly.
He tore another chunk from the turkey leg and cast his good eye at Alaizabel. “This her?” he asked around a mouthful of flesh.
“Alaizabel Cray, it is my pleasure to introduce Perris the Boar,” Thaniel said. He knew this man by reputation.
“Boar like the pig,” their host added.
“Really,” Alaizabel said blandly.
“Oho! She thinks she’s clever!” he said, with a nasty edge to his voice. “Think you’re better than me, do you?” He jabbed his turkey leg at her. “You won’t think so when I’m done.”
“Crott does not pay you to give us cryptic hints,” Thaniel said. “You have the information he asked for?”
“Indeed I do. Though why this fine lady couldn’t tell you herself, I can’t imagine.”
“That is not your business,” Thaniel replied. “Talk.”
Perris the Boar harumphed and snorted, wiping his mouth with his cuff. He glanced around the room to be sure nobody was listening, and then began.
“Elisander and Sanforth Cray married young. They were middle class and not so well off, with a newborn child to support, but Elisander was a talented musician and Sanforth was the heir to a merchant shipping company. They were young, full of life, but they were troubled. See, Elisander’s talents were wasted in small orchestras, and she was beginning to despair of ever getting noticed by anyone who mattered; and Sanforth’s father wouldn’t give control of his company to his son until he himself had died. Sanforth had spent his youth making merry with the allowance his father gave him, and it was generally thought that he was something of a rogue and a wastrel. Hope this is meeting with your satisfaction so far, Miss Cray.”
Alaizabel showed no reaction, sitting there as cold and still as a porcelain doll. It was evident that beneath the disgusting exterior of this man beat the heart of a storyteller, but the story he was telling called up memories that she was not sure she wanted back.
He continued nonetheless. “But those very features captured Elisander’s heart, and they were deeply in love. And when finally Sanforth’s father succumbed to consumption and died, their future was assured... or so they thought.”
Thaniel glanced at Alaizabel, his heart sinking a little. He had always surmised that there was something dark lurking in her past, but he had hoped he might be wrong. He wanted her to be made happy by the news.
“For a time, everything was wonderful for them,” Perris said, pausing to take another bite from the rapidly diminishing turkey leg. “The business was doing well, although Sanforth had little interest in running it; and now that he had money, a word in the right ear got Elisander the audition she deserved, and within a year she was playing cello in the Queens own orchestra. Miss Cray, you’d have been six or seven at that time.”
“I remember,” she said, her voice flat.
“But it was not to last. Sanforth simply didn’t possess the temperament to be a businessman. He left his fathers legacy in the hands of inept managers, content to take the profits while doing none of the work, and soon the lure of so much money began to take him over. He gambled and debauched, and his lady with him, while leaving their child in the care of nannies, to be educated in the ways of a high society she would never reach.”
Thaniel looked at Alaizabel again. Her face was impassive. He felt uncomfortable that Perris should be talking about her as if she were not here, laying her life open to them like an autopsy. But that was his way. The man might have been repulsive to look at, but he could find things out.
“That was almost ten years ago,” the Boar continued, “and it was not long before tales about the two of them began to circulate throughout society. Dark stories, whispers and rumours: opium dens, terrible perversions, things a respectable person would flinch at, and—”
“That’s enough, Perris,” Thaniel said quietly. “I will not have you gloat.”
“Oh, but you can’t say you aren’t curious to hear the rest!” Perris said with a rotten grin. “Let me assure you, it gets worse!”
“Thaniel,” said Alaizabel calmly. She smiled faintly at him. “I must hear.”
Thaniel hesitated. He was beginning to wish he had not brought her, so that she could be spared this. “Miss Alaizabel, I—”
“Please, I insist,” she interrupted, her green eyes searching his. “Some things must be faced, no matter how unpleasant.”
“May I continue?” the Boar asked eagerly, surveying his audience. Without waiting for a reply, he went on. “Well, anyway, the two of them lost their jobs and fortunes in quick succession; Sanforth through neglect and Elisander through scandal. Sanforth had chosen poorly the people to run his empire, and they embezzled from him until his fathers business collapsed. Elisander was too steeped in dark rumours to hold a position in the Queens orchestra, however great her talent. Had it been just the narcotics and the dubious virtues of the lady, she might have survived there by dint of her great skill. But there was other talk, too. For, as their tastes for sin increased, the bland debaucheries of the upper class began to bore them,
and they turned to darker pleasures. Talk abounded of a coven that they had joined, an unholy league of aristocrats, politicians, lawyers and other powerful individuals.”
Perris’s voice dropped and he leaned close. “They are known, as I’m sure you are both aware, by the name of the Fraternity.”
Thaniel’s eyes closed and his head dipped slightly. It was the one name he had not wanted to hear.
“He’s right,” said Alaizabel suddenly. Thaniel turned to her. “He’s right,” she repeated. “I remember now. All of it. The name was never spoken to me, but... it was the Fraternity. I know it.”
“Ah, of course, I was forgetting the beautiful Alaizabel,” Perris said. “While her parents were indulging in activities that would put Sweeney Todd to shame, she was becoming increasingly distant from them. Her parents’ fortunes took a remarkable upswing after joining the Fraternity, and they were soon moneyed once more. But she was still much the same as she had always been: cared for by a succession of nannies, living in expensive boarding schools. She was a troubled adolescent, causing all kinds of mischief wherever she went, but Sanforth and Elisander scarcely noticed. And no matter what she did, she could not seem to get the attention she craved from them.”
Thaniel glanced again at Alaizabel, wondering at her reaction to such impertinent statements about her character. She had reverted to her impassive stillness, and showed him nothing.
“That was all there was. Until a week ago,” Perris said, rising to a crescendo. “For at that time the whole Cray family disappeared, without trace, from their manor house in Kent. It was one of the rare times when the three of them were together. They went to bed one night, and when the sun rose... they were gone.”
“And what then?” Thaniel asked.
“Nothing,” said Perris. “Nothing for days. It was never reported in the papers. The police did not act on it. A prominent society family disappeared without trace, and nobody knew a thing.”
“Flow can that be?” Alaizabel asked. She felt curiously distant from the whole affair, as if she was hearing about someone else’s life rather than her own.
“This is the Fraternity I’m speaking of,” the Boar said, scratching the side of his nose. “Police, newspaper editors, businessmen... believe me, miss, they decide what the public gets to know.”
Alaizabel gazed into the Boars gimlet eyes. “There is more,” she said.
“There is,” he said, and even he seemed to sadden a little then. “There is an unhappy postscript to my tale. Four days ago, the bodies of Elisander and Sanforth Cray were fished out of the Thames. They apparently jumped from Tower Bridge.”
Inspector Maycraft slumped down in his seat at his desk, his stomach still turning cartwheels, the rank smell of bloodied rain in his nostrils. Damn it all! He had seen some vile things in his time, but... well, this time he knew her! It was different when it was some faceless wretch or distant aristocrat, but this lady he had seen less than a week ago, had talked to her, had tried in vain to make her laugh with a little pun about the Peelers.
He shut his eyes, but the darkness only gave him a better canvas to paint the mental image of what he had seen, so he opened them again. He went to the window, leaving a trail of drips on the floor, and looked out over the foggy lanes of night-cloaked London, imitating Carvers habit of doing the same. The thought of Carver led him to the telephone. He should call Carver, let him know about this...
No, he thought, changing his mind. No, hell find out in the morning, right enough. Best keep him out of it fior now. He didn’t want Carver to see him like this; the man was a bright spark, and he’d make connections. It was hard to hide things from a man like Carver; he had an intuition bordering on phenomenal.
The phone rang in front of him, making him jump. He picked up the earpiece hurriedly, to shut off the infernal clattering tinkle of the bells.
“Inspector Maycraft,” he said into the mouthpiece, wiping his rain-dewed face and slicking back the few wisps of hair that still clung to his pate.
“Someone is on to us,” came the reply.
It took a moment for Maycraft to puzzle out who was calling him. “It was a message,” he replied, when he had established in his mind who the other voice belonged to. “A warning, I think.”
“Who would dare to warn us:
Maycraft paused for a moment, then answered. “Stitch-face.”
“Stitch-face?”
“I know Stitch-face. This is his work. Its unmistakable.”
“What business does he have with us?”
“I don’t know, do I?”
Silence.
“No matter. He may know about us, but he’s too late. By the Sabbath, the first ceremony will be complete. After that, there’ll be nowhere the girl can hide from us.”
“Sunday? That’s two bloody days from now! I thought wed have a week to prepare!”
“Two days, Maycraft. I suggest that you be sure any family and friends you have that are not part of our little circle are not in London at that time. You, of course, will stay like the rest of us, and partake of the amusement.”
Maycraft held his tongue, stilling the retort he wanted to make. “What about Stitch-face?”
“Do what you can. I trust he’ll remain as evasive as always. In the meantime, you might be interested to know that I’ve enlisted a little extra help in the search for our erstwhile Lady Thatch. Who better to find a wych than a wych-hunter?”
“Him? You called him?” Maycraft cried. “I hope you remembered to tell him we need the girl alive when she reaches us.”
“Oh, he’s quite clear on that,” came the reply, and the phone went dead.
Maycraft slammed the earpiece back into its cradle with a force that nearly broke it. Getting up, he stalked agitatedly around the room. A cigar; a cigar would calm his nerves. He sat down, drew one from his inside pocket, clipped it and lit the end. He let the smoke drift around the inside of his mouth, trying to relax, but nothing could so easily dispel the unquiet that he felt. In frustration, he poured himself a stiff whisky from a decanter that he kept in his desk, tipped it down his throat in one swallow, and poured another.
Stitch-face! That damnable fiend! In his own strange way, Maycraft had felt something for the lady whose sundered corpse he had just hid his eves on. An affection, a longing for the cold, stern woman. Maybe if things had gone another way, they might have become closer. Maybe.
But no matter how he tried, he could not shake the image from his mind. The wet, dank alley. The pouring rain. The rickety, corrugated shelter. The symbol of the chackh’morg, painted thickly in blood on the dry bricks of the wall. And then there was the victim, scarcely recognizable as human any more, and the nails and the knives and what he’d done to her face...
Maycraft downed the whisky to prevent himself from retching. Don’t think about it, don’t think. Carver had been right, as usual. That deaf woman had got away from him, so Stitch-face had killed again in the same area. Only this time it was Lucinda Watt, Doctor Pyke’s secretary and the woman the lonely Inspector might have loved.
Stitch-face knew about the Fraternity. He had known Lucinda was part of it. That meant he might know about the rest of them.
Maycraft looked at the map of London behind him, his face a grimace of hatred, He scanned the pins that dotted its surface, interspersed with the green tacks.
One more of those green tacks, my friend, and nothing can stop us. But I wish you hadn’t chosen her, Stitch-face.
HONOUR AMONG VAGABONDS
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY 14
Dawn was breaking over the Crooked Lanes, the low, furious yellow of the sun shining through the haze, the edges of its disc broken in little waves as it climbed. The chill of the night was still upon London, but where the sunlight touched it brought a promise of an unseasonable warmth to come.
On the flat rooftop garden of a tall, narrow building that used to be an apothecary, Alaizabel stood and looked out over the opening eye of the city. She was leaning on her elbo
ws against the chest-high stone wall that circumscribed the rooftop, her hands bunched distractedly in the sun-tipped blonde fall of hair on either side of her head. Behind her, rows of low greenhouses were a riot of colour, and troughs of potatoes and carrots were hidden under strips of coarse leaves.
She sensed his arrival even though she did not hear him come up the stairs and out into the open air. Pretending she was unaware, she kept her gaze on the jumble of rickety streets below her.
“Miss Alaizabel?”
“Hello, Thaniel,” she said, turning around. He looked a little dishevelled, but the clouding of broken capillaries in his eyes had all but disappeared now, and he looked immeasurably better for it.
“You must be tired,” he observed awkwardly.
“It has been a trying night,” she said. “But I do not think I shall be sleeping soon. You?”
“I sleep very little,” Thaniel said. “I’ve seen too many godless things to rest easy at night.” He paused. “May I stay here with you for a while?”
“It would be my pleasure,” she said.
They stood together for a time, taking in the strange beauty of the urban panorama before them.
“I feel nothing,” Alaizabel said at last.
“Sometimes grief begins that way,” he said quietly.
“No,” she replied. “This is different. I hated my parents. I knew nannies, many of them. But my parents... they were giants, and my job was to stay out from underfoot. Am I truly that wicked, Thaniel?”
“Love sours easily to hate,” Thaniel replied. “I do not think you wicked. Perhaps it was they who were at fault.”