The click of the lock as it was disengaged sounded like a pistol report.
The door swung inward gently, opening a gap of perhaps ten centimetres of pure, utter darkness.
Silence, and stillness.
When Cathaline returned from hunting that morning, she was scratched and scuffed, but otherwise unharmed. The night had been unsuccessful. The roofcreepers were gone when she got there, and the rest of the night had been a pursuit in which she had never quite caught up with them.
She found Thaniel sitting in an armchair with a brandy in his hand.
“Good morning,” she announced cheerily. Thaniel didn’t reply.
She walked over to him and sat in a chair next to him. He picked up another brandy and offered it to her.
“For me? Thaniel, you are sweet,” she said.
“There has been a development,” he told her.
Cathaline settled into the chair. “Sounds bad.”
“I heard Alaizabel screaming this morning. When I found her, she was half-insane with fright and babbling. It took me an hour to calm her and for her to tell me what had occurred.”
“And what was that?” Cathaline asked.
He told her then about Alaizabel’s night and the intruder on the landing.
“I gave her a sedative afterward. She sleeps now, and will not wake for a while.”
“And you heard nothing of the intruder?” she prompted.
“Nothing,” he replied. “What do you think about what she said?”
Cathaline took a long time to reply, swirling the brandy around the bottom of the glass to warm it in her hand. “I am inclined to think she is mad,” she replied slowly.
Thaniel did not speak for a while, the shifting play of cold morning light and warm fire rendering his still features animate.
“You believe her,” Cathaline stated, her voice echoing in his glass as he took a sip of brandy.
“It was the way she described it....” he said thoughtfully. “How could she have made that up? It was a Draug, I’m sure of it.”
“It was a textbook description of a Draug,” Cathaline replied. “And that’s why I doubt her. She could have read it somewhere; we know nothing of her past, remember. And besides, in all recorded lore, there have only been two confirmed encounters with the Drowned Folk.”
“I examined the scene,” Thaniel said, getting up and pacing about the room, which was brightening fast as the sun gathered strength. “It was damp. And the Wards you drew around the door frame had been tampered with. They were twisted and incoherent. Something had sorely tested the barrier you put up.”
“Or someone had erased them and scribbled new ones,” Cathaline said. “It’s not inconceivable. Listen, Thaniel, she is just a lost girl. Who would send a Draug after her, for pity’s sake? Do you know how hard it is to summon one of those things?”
Thaniel sat against the window sill, the cool, flat light from outside turning the back of his head and shoulders into a blazing smudge of white and throwing his face into shadow. Cathaline sighed and stood, rolling her arms in their sockets before walking over to face her former apprentice.
“I know you want her to be sane,” she said. “God knows, you meet few enough people in this line of work, living at night, always on the hunt. You can only be solitary for so long, Thaniel. You’re seventeen. People need friends.”
“I have you,” Thaniel replied.
“I don’t count,” she said, ruffling his hair. “I was your teacher first and foremost, and besides, I’m too old for you.” She shrugged. “I’m just saying, Thaniel. Make sure of her before you start hoping. I know you too well. You’re thinking of keeping her.”
Thaniel laughed suddenly. “Keep her? Where would I put her? I would want my bed back eventually.” For a moment, it seemed that he would continue, but then he seemed to sag a little, and he drew a letter out of his pocket. “This came an hour ago,” he said, and put it into Cathaline’s hand. Then he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Cathaline turned the open envelope over in her hand, reading the return address. It came from Doctor Pyke, up at Redford Acres. Withdrawing the letter inside, she read it.
My dear sir,
I hope this letter finds you well. Further to your visit in regard to the girl that you encountered in the Old Quarter, I have made enquiries to the owners of two other asylums in the London area. It seems that Doctor Hart of Crockerly Grange has recently had a fire in a wing of his establishment, resulting in the deaths of several inmates. During the course of the fire, the upper floor of the wing collapsed, destroying the outer wall and allowing the surviving inmates to escape the blaze. Three inmates are still unaccounted for; two males and a female. This girl, whose name is Alaizabel Cray, is of approximately seventeen or eighteen years of age and does not, alas, match the description of your own stray, having rather blonde hair and green eyes, but I am sorry to say this was the only evidence I could find of a possible escaped patient in London. I regret that I cannot be of further help. Please let me know how your enquiries conclude.
Yours,
Doctor Mammon Pyke
Cathaline reread the letter twice before folding it neatly and replacing it in the envelope. Something was sinking in her chest. “Oh, Thaniel,” she said sorrowfully.
Out in the hallway, the telephone rang.
A RACE AGAINST TIME
MAYCRAFT
THANIEL GETS A SECOND CHANCE 5
“In here!” cried a voice, and Cathaline and Thaniel rushed past the distressed housemaid and headed up the stairs towards its source. It was a spacious Kensington property, set back from the tree-lined avenue, with three wide steps flanked by black iron railings climbing to its stout, green front door. The young woman who had opened the door to them followed them up, her black-and-white pinafore flapping about her ankles. “To the right!” she called after them. “The master’s study!” Cathaline threw open the door and she and Thaniel burst into the room. It was softly lit by gaslights on the wall, and a fire burned in a small grate to ward off the November cold. Fine, carven oak chairs had been overturned, and several books had fallen from the shelves that occupied one wall, their pages bent and crumpled as they lay face down and open. At the foot of the bookshelves, a man and a woman were crouched over a supine figure; the woman had an infant in her arms, who was crying at the top of his lungs.
“Get away from him!” Cathaline cried as she entered the room, causing man and woman both to jump out of their skins and the baby to redouble the force of its howling.
“Bennett! What the bloody hell do you think you’re about?” the man snapped as he turned around. Thaniel recognized him immediately: Regillen Maycraft, Chief Inspector of the Cheap-side Peelers. He was a tall, stocky fellow with a stiff salt-and-pepper moustache and thinning hair of the same colour, running to baldness on the top of his pate. He wore a stout and battered greatcoat of faded creamy beige.
The lady looked similarly shocked. “He’s my husband,” she protested weakly, meaning the man on the floor.
“He wont be for long, madam,” said Cathaline, pushing them aside and crouching where they had been, “and if he takes it upon himself to bite or scratch either of you, then you’ll be following him.”
Thaniel squatted next to her as Maycraft and the lady retreated a few paces to the other side of the study where the maid waited anxiously. The man before them had been young and strong, with a fine head of blond hair and a firm jaw. Now he lay on his side, his fingers spasming into claws, his face and clothes soaked in acrid-smelling sweat. His pallor was already a ghastly porridge colour, the arteries on either side of his neck standing out sharply. He was breathing fast and shallow, like a wounded hare or a mouse in a cats jaws.
“His eyes have turned,” Thaniel observed quietly, and Cathaline nodded. The mans eyes were indeed the colour of dark honey, and his pupils had become hourglass-shaped and horizontal. Cathaline roughly pushed back the mans upper lip, revealing needle-point teeth set i
n greying gums. The eyes followed her, but their owner seemed too weak to move.
Cathaline looked over her shoulder at the lady. “You are the one who called us?”
“Hettie called,” she replied, stroking the bawling baby’s head and indicating the maid. “But I found Johnaten. He said... he had heard a noise in the nursery and gone in to investigate. There was someone... something in there. He fought it off, he cut it, I think, with a knife, but it went through the window and escaped. When I found him, he was bleeding from a bite wound on his hand. We called the police, but by the time Inspector Maycraft got here, he was like this.”
Thaniel glanced at the lady; she was Mrs Turner, obviously, for they had been told when they were called by Hettie that the address they were required at was the Turner residence. She seemed unusually calm considering what had happened: her husband stricken, her child nearly abducted. Not even that was enough to break through her aristocratic conditioning and cause her to appear more than a little distressed.
“He has been bitten by a Cradlejack,” said Thaniel. “I encountered the selfsame creature two nights ago, I’d guess. Take the baby downstairs, and have someone watch over it until daybreak. How long has it been since it happened?”
“An hour, perhaps a little longer,” she said, handing the squalling child to the maid. “Do as he says, Hettie,” she instructed. Hettie looked momentarily surprised that her mistress was taking orders from a seventeen-year-old boy, but she obeyed and took the wailing thing from the study.
Cathaline cursed under her breath, hurriedly opening a bag she had brought along.
“What’s going on, Bennett?” Maycraft demanded, feeling a little embarrassed at being sidelined.
Cathaline waved irritably at him over her shoulder, as if dismissing a fly. Thaniel stood up and looked the Chief Inspector square in the eye.
“He was bitten by a Cradlejack over an hour ago. That means, unless we perform a Rite immediately, he is going to become one. It may already be too late.”
Mrs Turner’s hands covered her mouth in horror.
“And what then?” Maycraft said. “What if it is too late?” Thaniel didn’t reply, but his iron gaze said it all.
Mrs Turner made a little “oh!” noise behind the cage of her fingers.
“Thaniel!” Cathaline called, passing him a brass instrument similar to a pair of tongs. “Prise his jaws.”
Thaniel moved to comply without hesitation. He was a different person when he was dealing with wych-kin. No doubts clouded his head, no hesitation. People respected a wych-hunter, even one as young as himself, and he was strong, confident, self-assured. He was the son of a legend, after all. He had a lot to live up to.
Before the weakened husk that was Johnaten Turner knew what was happening, Thaniel had shoved the tongs into one side of his mouth and roughly pulled his jaw open, as if he was dealing with an animal and not a man. He jerked and tried to pull back, but Thaniel had inserted them in such a way that it was more painful to resist. Quick as mercury, Cathaline had unstoppered a phial of thick, clear liquid, and now she poured it between the prone man’s open lips, directly down his throat. Johnaten gagged and swallowed automatically.
“You two! Pin his arms!” she ordered, without taking her eyes off the thing that was now writhing and spasming beneath her, trapped by Thaniel’s tongs like a fish on a hook. Maycraft grabbed one wrist and knelt on it; then, seeing that the lady of the house had no intention of trying to hold down her husband, he deftly snatched the other one and held that, too.
Cathaline reached over Maycraft—who was necessarily getting in her way—and brought to bear a new item that she had taken from her bag. This was a thin band of gold-plated steel, hinged in the middle, with a tiny padlock at the other end. With Thaniel driving Johnaten’s head down to the floor of the study by the teeth, she snapped the band around the victim’s throat and clicked the padlock home.
“It’s too tight,” Thaniel said, noticing how deeply it bit into his skin. Johnaten had something of a bull neck, although it was wasting slowly away as they watched.
“No time,” Cathaline replied brusquely. “Maycraft, let Thaniel take one of the wrists. Spread him out.”
Thaniel released the tongs and withdrew them, and almost instantly Johnaten snapped at his fingers, like a rabid dog. He had expected it, and was well clear, but Maycraft jerked back in surprise, releasing his hold on one of the wrists. Thaniel grabbed it fast, slamming it down to the floor and kneeling on it so that Johnaten was held in a crucifix position, with his arms wide and with Cathaline sitting on his upper knees. He thrashed and twisted, but he could not move, and he could not stretch to bite any of them. Mrs Turner whimpered in the background.
“If you don’t want to end up like this, Maycraft, try and be more careful,” Cathaline said. Maycraft seethed visibly, but he held his tongue.
His hands now free, Thaniel passed to Cathaline a pot of thick, viscous pig blood from his bag, and a deeply stained brush with thick bristles. She tore open the shirt of the thing that was rapidly becoming less and less like Johnaten Turner, exposing a chest that was thin and emaciated where it had previously been strong and muscled. The skin was yellowed, like parchment.
Thaniel shook his head. It could well be too late for this man. He watched as Cathaline set about painting a Ward on the creature’s chest. The stripes of blood that she drew in the wake of the brush began to form a symbol, a curling, odd shape interspersed with short, urgent lines. Like most Wards, it had a curious wrongness about it, as if its form defied the laws of trigonometry; it hurt the eyes to look at it for too long, and a headache would shortly follow for those who were not used to their effects. As Cathaline drew near to completion, those in the room felt a disturbing, tugging sensation, as if they were leaning forward towards the Ward, tipping over on to it, unbalancing. And then the final stroke was complete, and the sensation disappeared, snapping them back to normality.
Johnaten had fallen suddenly still, only his horizontal hourglass eyes roving desperately in their orbits.
“You can let him go now,” Thaniel said to Maycraft. The Chief Inspector released his captive arm slowly, and stepped away. Thaniel did likewise. Cathaline was already busying herself in her bag.
“What did you do to him?” Mrs Turner asked, her voice small.
“He is Warded,” Thaniel replied. “He cannot move. Now we can perform the Rite, to drive the Cradlejack out of him.”
“Ill handle it, Thaniel,” Cathaline said, taking a lump of red wax and drawing an octagon on the floor around the still form of Johnaten. “The lady there said that Johnaten wounded the thing; that means there will be blood in the nursery. You and Maycraft go out there and find it. I’ll not have it trying this again with another baby.”
Thaniel drew a pistol, opened it, spun the chamber to check he had a full load of bullets, and snapped it shut.
“My pleasure,” he said.
Maycraft had to admit, he was impressed. The boy knew what he was about, that was for certain. In fact, if anything, he was a little chilling in his efficiency. Wych-hunters made him nervous, though he would rather be eaten alive than admit it out loud.
It had taken a matter of moments for Thaniel to locate the blood of the wych-kin on the floor of the nursery. The cot had been overturned, and the window hung open, flapping in the cold night wind, allowing in thin wisps of fog. There were several splashes drying on the floor, dark red stains soaking into the grain of the wood. Thaniel picked one, dabbed his finger into it and tasted it, spat and then went on to the next one. This one, though he spat it out also, he appeared satisfied with.
“Wych-kin blood tastes different,” he said in response to Maycraft’s quizzical gaze. “More watery. Tinny.”
He had swiftly scraped some into a small container that he had in the pocket of his long coat, the same container that now monopolized his attention as Maycraft’s carriage took them south through the streets of London, towards the Thames. Maycraft watched him c
losely as he unscrewed it, keeping it steady against the rough jolting of the carriage. It was a globe of glass, surrounded by a webwork of gold fibres that served to strengthen and contain it while still allowing its contents to be seen. It hung on a triple chain attached to a single sphere the size of a musket ball; these chains were attached to the top half of the globe. The bottom half Thaniel now held in his palm, detached from the rest of the container; it was stained with a swirl of Cradlejack blood, that pooled at the bottom.
“What was all that about before?” Maycraft asked.
Thaniel’s reply was conducted as he drew out the small phial of sulphur solution that he had used the last time he faced the Cradlejack. “A Cradlejack is not the creature you see on the outside. That is what is left of the poor wretch it inhabits. I have no idea what a Cradlejack looks like before it takes over a victim; nobody has ever seen one, to my knowledge.” He glanced at Maycraft, to check the elder man was still following him. “They have a particular relationship with sulphur. It is attracted to them, but they hate it. That is what Cathaline poured down Turners throat.”
Maycraft’s eyes widened. “Sulphur? But that’s—”
“Poisonous,” Thaniel finished, putting a few drops of the stuff into the Cradlejack blood and replacing the phial. “Not in those quantities. People take sulphur tablets to drive out illness, do they not?”
“And what about the gold collar?”
“Cradlejacks despise the touch of gold. It slows down the progress of the transformation.”
“Why?” Maycraft demanded, seeming almost angry that he was forced to admit such ignorance.
Thaniel screwed the globe back together and hung it from its chain. “Who knows?” he said.
“You don’t know?” blurted the other.
Thaniel looked at him, brushing back his floppy blond hair with one hand. “Wych-kin do not follow the rules of science, sir. The laws that apply to earthly things do not apply to them.”