Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (8 page)

Three separate sets of rails ran through Clapham
Junction. On the center track there sat a charcoal black steam engine with the
number one painted on its face in silver. Rain pelted it, making it gleam even
in the dark. No steam rose from the engine, but it seemed a watchful thing,
just the same, as though it might burst to sudden life at any moment. Behind it
was a single coal tender, and attached to that, two elegant Pullman cars with
crimson wooden panels beneath each window and gilt stenciling above. It was a
private train and spoke of powerful wealth.

Gull leaped from the platform into the rain. It streamed
down his misshapen face, a moist caress that only served to remind him of his
appearance. He shook off the rain and dipped his chin, feeling the storm at his
back as he crossed the first set of tracks. The engine’s cab was dark but that
was his first stop. Gull climbed up inside Number One and found it empty as he
had expected.

He moved more quietly now, slipping out of the cab to the
ground. The rain was cold and cruel, punishing him as he crept slowly along
beside the tender until he reached the steps up onto the first Pullman. Hand on
the rail, he went up and then found himself before the ornate door of the car. Gull
muttered to himself a few words of ancient Aramaic, and the fingers of his left
hand began to burn with a tainted yellow light. For illumination, and for
defense, in case his instincts were wrong and the culprit remained.

The door swung open easily. Gull moved into the car and
raised his hand, splashing a sickly golden glow across the car. His breath
caught. The opulence of the Pullman was startling. The floor was covered with
Oriental carpet, the windows curtained by velvet drapes. A trio of crystal
chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, and the windows were etched glass. The
wood gleamed richly.

The car was empty.

Gull would have sensed anything lurking in the shadows
through his light. There was nothing beneath the tables here.

He hurried, now, moving through the Pullman as swiftly as
he was able. When he reached the door at the other end he paused only a moment
before drawing open the door.

The dead girl lay on the platform between trains. Her
hair was dark, but might have been lighter were it not sodden with the rain. Her
body had been forced through an opening in the ornate railings and she was
splayed there, her arms spread out, her head hanging several inches from the
platform, thrown back, mouth wide open.

She was unclothed, her flesh pale, save where arcane
symbols had been carved into her. The storm had washed the blood away. Tiny
puddles of rainwater had accumulated in the hollows of her eyes, and the storm
had filled her open mouth as well. Rain dribbled from one corner of her lips,
sluicing down her cheek and falling down into the space between cars.

She was no more than seven.

Nigel Gull knew his own heart. There was little therein
that was spectacularly noble. Yet the sight tore at him. The villain was gone,
the one responsible for the girl’s death, who had killed her in ritual
sacrifice as part of some spell to hide himself. He had attempted to murder
King Edward on this eve of his coronation, not expecting other mages to be there
to prevent it. Then he had fled here.

Had he found the girl somewhere along the way, or kept
her awaiting her demise as a prisoner in the luxury of his private train . . .
just in case he needed her life? Gull found he did not want to know the answer.

But he
needed
to know.

And though it made him shudder to think of it, though his
spirit cried out that it was an abomination in itself, he realized he knew a
way to retrieve that information. Nigel Gull had learned from the greatest of
mages, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, the man many called Sweetblood, the literal
translation of his name. The mage’s other apprentice had been horrified, but
Sanguedolce himself had not passed judgment at all, when Gull had looked too
deeply into ancient Egyptian magicks that had been forbidden even to the high
priests of that age. He had acquired certain hideous skills on that night, at
the cost of his face, and he had never yet employed them.

But this . . . it seemed almost as though his sacrifice
on that evening several years past had been in preparation for this. For one of
those skills was The Voice of the Dead.

Sickened, stomach churning, but more determined now than
he had ever felt, Gull stepped through the opening in the railing and straddled
the platforms between the two Pullman cars. He clutched the railing and leaned
over far enough that he could slide his free hand beneath the dangling head of
the dead girl. Rain spilled off of her eyes, and some slid from her mouth. One
of the sigils sliced in her chest opened slightly, the wound resembled an
eyelid, leaking pink tears.

Gull stared into her face. Perfect, shattered innocence. He
closed his own eyes tightly and drew a breath to steady himself. Then he pulled
her head toward him and placed his lips over hers in a grotesque kiss. Lifting
and tilting her head all at once, he drank the rainwater from the mouth of the
dead girl as though her skull was his goblet.

"Dear God, Gull! What are you doing?"

Startled, he let the girl’s head drop, leaving her wedged
into the railing, and crossed over the small gap above the coupling to the
second Pullman car, turning all in the same motion to face the figure who had
appeared so suddenly behind him. The horror and disgust in the new arrival’s
tone was engraved upon his features as well, but the man did not seem
surprised. It was, rather, as though his discovery of Gull in the midst of such
an apparently odious act only confirmed what he had always believed.

"Well, well, well . . ." Gull said, feeling the
magick working within him, feeling the thoughts and feelings of the dead girl
fill him. Her name had been Carolyn but everyone called her Cass. She was from
Derbyshire. The sorcerer had stolen her from her own bed before coming to
London to kill the king.

"Speak up, man!" the other demanded.

Even as Gull continued on. "If it isn’t
Sir
Arthur."

Conan Doyle flinched. Rain dripped from his mustache,
plastering it to his face. Gull wanted to smile at the sight of the distaste in
his eyes, but he was too connected now to the echo of the girl that was inside
him. Still, he saw it. Even as he tried to make sense of what he’d found Gull
engaged in, Conan Doyle was bristling at the insult. For during the coronation
ceremony, he had been knighted by the king. The man had spent his life in
service to his country as a doctor, a writer, and an outspoken private citizen,
working tirelessly against the enemies of the Crown, but disdained the idea of
a reward. In truth he had accepted only to avoid insult to the king, and the
wrath of his aging mother.

Gull knew this, and it made him all the more bitter. Conan
Doyle was his friend and his fellow apprentice to Sanguedolce, but he had not
the other man’s station or experience. He would have sacrificed almost anything
for such an honor.

"I’ll have an answer," Conan Doyle said, the
suspicion in his gaze now burning with a crackle of blue magick. The energy
misted from his eyes and sparked around his fingers.

"Ah, you think me the villain now," Gull said. "Of
course. The freak, the twisted one, is tainted so he must be evil. You’re so
very predictable, Sir Arthur."

"Stop calling me that!" Conan Doyle snarled.

A fight was in the offing. But Gull knew they could not
afford the indulgence. The true villain was escaping, and the dead, violated
flesh of the innocent he had destroyed was only growing colder.

"My name is Cass," he said . . . but it was not
really Gull who spoke. His mouth moved, and he generated the words as if
reading them from the echoes of the dead girl’s spirit that moved within him,
but it was her voice.

The Voice of the Dead.

"He is a tall man, thin, and he wears spectacles. His
jacket is long and fancy. His name is Graham," Gull went on, the sweet,
angelic voice of the murdered girl issuing from his lips.

Conan Doyle recoiled, taking a step back into the open
door of the Pullman. "What black sorcery is this, Gull? This is the gift
you received from Anubis, the power for which you let yourself be disfigured?"

"Only one of them," Gull replied, still in the
voice of the dead girl. "Only one. And would you not listen, now, Arthur? Is
your disdain so great you will not hear the voice of this savaged child, so
that we might find her defiler?"

Conan Doyle’s mouth opened, his expression revealing his
intent to deliver a righteous tirade. But then his gaze shifted to the naked,
carved body of the girl, and he faltered. Anger burned in his eyes but the
spark of magick in them receded. His fists clenched at his side, and he nodded
once.

"Go on."

Gull felt for the echoes within him again and once more
spoke in the Voice of the Dead, searching the fragments of her spirit for the
clues that would lead them to her killer. He felt confident it would work. It
must work. The friendship he had shared with Conan Doyle, tenuous as it had
always been, would never be the same after this. Gull knew it even then. But he
was no stranger to sacrifice, when the stakes were high enough, and he accepted
this loss without hesitation.

"He spoke of Norwich as home," said the dead
girl’s voice.

Conan Doyle nodded. "That may be where he’s headed."

After he had finished conferring with his agents about their
assignment in Greece, Conan Doyle excused himself and retreated deeper into the
house. It was pleasant to have them all together beneath his roof, and he knew
they would take some small time to socialize. This was only right and natural. And
it was important, as well, for them to continue to get to know one another
better, to develop their relationships. Sanguedolce had issued dire warnings
upon Conan Doyle’s last encounter with him, and there was no doubt that the
menagerie would be needed once again before long. He had not revealed to them
all of what Sanguedolce had said to him about The DemoGorgon, an entity of
cosmic evil that was, even now, making its way across the universe toward this
world. He would bear the weight of that threat himself, for the moment, and do
all he could to see that when the DemoGorgon arrived at last, they were
prepared.

But that was for another day, another year. Perhaps even
another lifetime. For now, there were other threats and other concerns.

Smoothing his jacket, tugging at his sleeves, he stood a bit
straighter and made his way up the stairs. The banister was smooth under his
touch. Upon the wall beside the stairs hung portraits of long ago friends such
as Houdini and Barrie and Colonel Cody. Elsewhere in the house there were
portraits of Innes and Jean and the Ma’am. All were remnants of another life,
melancholy echoes of another age. Yet rather than sadden him, their presence
comforted him and lent him strength.

A smile pushed up the ends of his mustache as he crested the
landing. Conan Doyle made his way down a long corridor, turned and followed
another, and with every step he could feel the electric tingle of magick in the
air. He breathed deeply, and on the air he caught the scent of flowers so sweet
they could only grow in Faerie. That alone soothed him, the air of Faerie
filling his lungs, refreshing him.

Ceridwen stood at the end of the corridor, her long, lithe
form draped in sheer silk the deep blue of the horizon just before sunset. The
wind from Faerie blew through an open door, each gust causing the silk to cling
to her sensuous form in such a way as to make his breath catch in his throat. The
pain of regret still lingered between them and he had not dared to suggest that
they might put aside the harms of the past, but there was no denying the
emotion that remained.

The door was the very one Conan Doyle had once used to leave
her, to leave Faerie — he had thought forever. He had sealed it behind
him, this passage between worlds, and only recently had been forced by
circumstance to open it again, to return and plead for her aid. In the crisis
that ensued, the passageway had been destroyed.

Now, Ceridwen had rebuilt it. The question in Conan Doyle’s
heart was, to what end?

"You can return home, now," he said, damning
himself for the quaver in his voice.

Ceridwen stared a moment longer through the door. As Conan
Doyle joined her, he could see the trees and hills of Faerie and a stream that
flowed gently along a curving path, burbling over stones.

Then the elemental sorceress, the niece of King Finvarra of
the Fey, turned to him. Her features were fine and noble, cheekbones high,
violet eyes wide and commanding. Yet he knew her. Loved her as no one ever had.
And he saw the sadness and doubt in her gaze.

"I could," she agreed. A glint of magic sparkled
in her gaze. "And I could return, from time to time. This passage makes it
convenient enough. For now, though . . . it seems to me that the recent
troubles in Faerie were inextricably tied to the misery that befell this world.
The connection between the two seems stronger than it has been in quite some
time, so that what threatens one realm threatens them all. It may be that a new
dark age is imminent. If so, I believe that I will do more good working with
you and your clan here than at home."

Her proud gaze faltered a moment and she glanced away. Then
she lifted her chin and met his eye. "That is, if you have no objection."

Conan Doyle wanted to reach out to her, to pull her into his
embrace and feel the soft silk of her robes beneath his touch. He wanted to
laugh with surprise and pleasure. But Ceridwen would not have approved. He had
hurt her badly, once upon a time. Perhaps there would come a time when all the
detritus of their past could be brushed aside and the simple adoration they had
once felt for each other could be reborn. For now, though, they were separated
by the ruin of things that might have been. But Ceridwen wanted to stay, and
that meant there was hope.