The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross (22 page)

“Mark me!” they all cried. “Mark me!” And the mist with its strange words came from their mouths.

Anubis shoved me off his staff with a foot to free up the weapon, and then I was gone.

But not before I grabbed Marlowe’s skull as I fell and ripped it from his skeleton.

I woke lying on books. I sat up and looked around. I was still in the same room. No more than seconds could have passed, because little had changed. There was a bloody, blackened hole in my chest, although it didn’t hurt anymore. The dead were still emerging from their hiding places, the Black Guard were still readying their weapons, the Scholar was still screaming like a little girl. Marlowe’s body had slumped to its knees but remained there, headless, the Black Quill useless in its hand. Morgana stared at me, speechless. I dared not look at Amelia to see what she thought.

“The devil take thy soul!” said a voice from my hand. I looked down to see I was holding Marlowe’s skull, wreathed in fading letters.

“Whatever my fate, we’re going to share it,” I said to Marlowe. That is, that’s what I tried to say. But the lines that came out of my mouth were entirely different once again.

“Take thy fingers from my throat,” I said, “and hold off thy hand.” And now the mist came out of my mouth as well. I didn’t even bother trying to decipher the words it formed.

Then I cast Marlowe’s skull from me, across the room. Or rather, some force took control of my body again and made me throw the skull across the room. It clattered on the ground and came to a rest, glaring back at me. I was possessed once more.

“What is the reason that you used me thus?” I said to Marlowe. Or rather, the ghost forced me to say. “I loved you ever, but it is no matter.”

“Tis almost against my conscience,” Marlowe said. More lines from
Hamlet
. He was being forced to say them as well.

So we were both possessed. I hadn’t been sure if my little trick of grabbing Marlowe’s skull would work or not. Whenever I’d died in the play before, I’d wound up here in the power of the ghost. When Amelia had started the play with me, I figured the same thing would probably happen again. I’d grabbed Marlowe because I thought maybe the possession would extend to anything that I was holding. The book Polonius had given me on that first visit here had travelled back with me, after all. And Marlowe was kind of dead to begin with anyway, so it was a bit of a two-for-one for the ghost.

Peaseblossom staggered up to us out of the crowd of the dead. “I am but hurt,” he said.

The Black Guard with all the arms struck out with one of her blades and separated Peaseblossom’s head from his body. The head fell to the ground and rolled across the books, staining them with its blood.

“To be or not to be,” Peaseblossom’s head said. “Aye, that is the question.”

That seemed to trigger something with the Black Guard. They fell upon the dead in the room then. They struck them down with their blades and claws and massive stone fists. The dead fell, some of them in pieces, but didn’t seem to notice their attackers. And they certainly didn’t die again. They spouted more lines from the play even as they fell.

“I have to admit, this is delightful,” Morgana said. Then she threw herself at Anubis with her knife and the room erupted into true chaos as the faerie court leapt into battle with the Black Guard.

I stared, powerless, as Peaseblossom’s body walked over to Marlowe’s skull and picked it up. The body shoved it onto the gushing stump of its neck and then turned to me.

“Mark me,” Marlowe said. I could almost see him straining to look about for the quill. But it remained useless in the hand of his abandoned skeleton.

“I will,” I said.

And then someone tossed rapiers from the melee, and we each caught one, even though I desperately didn’t want to catch mine. The ghost threw us at each other, and our blades met.

“Mark me!” Marlowe roared again.

“Mark me!” I roared back at him.

All around us in the crowd, the dead uttered their own lines from the play.

“Things standing thus unknown, shall live!”

“Read on this book!”

“I have no life to breathe!”

I was able to manage a glance around the room, and I saw the Black Guard striking down not only scores of the dead, but also the faerie and the fey. Anubis and Morgana were involved in a leaping, whirling dance with their weapons, and then Amelia came out of the fray and threw herself onto Anubis’s back, sinking a knife deep into his neck. Beyond her, Mustardseed ducked under the fists of the stone creature and lashed out with two blades dripping a foul-looking green substance, scoring sizzling gashes in the stone.

“I am dead,” I said, words issuing from my mouth and circling my head.

“Never believe it,” Marlowe said to me, hacking through those words at my head with the rapier blade. I had a feeling he wasn’t fighting his possession now. In fact, I had a feeling he was encouraging the ghost to kill me. I dodged the blow and went for his stomach with my blade, but he blocked it. I wanted to hurry to Amelia’s side to help her, but I could not. I had mostly lost control of my body with my death.

Anubis lashed backward with his staff, but Amelia ducked underneath it, supernaturally fast. It seemed she’d picked up a trick or two during her time in the faerie court. Morgana used the opportunity to dart in and slash Anubis on his snout and he howled at her. The sound threatened to shatter my eardrums.

“Thou livest,” Marlowe said to me. “Report me and my cause.”

“Tell my story,” I said.

“Tell my story!” the dead all cried. And now the faerie and fey that the Black Guard had struck down were rising again. They joined the chorus of the dead, all of us shouting lines from
Hamlet
. The words came in no order or consistency, though. We all spoke the words of different characters, and different scenes. It was as if whatever possessed us was mad.

And we were powerless to do anything about it. We were as helpless as the ghosts I’d seen in the Tower of London, who were forced to play their roles over and over for the rest of eternity, unaware of the world around them.

And then I finally understood what was happening.

There was no ghost from the forgotten play haunting the faerie productions of
Hamlet
. The ghost was the forgotten play itself. Will’s ink and maybe even the Black Quill had given life to the play, not merely one of its characters. And now the play was using the dead it killed in the faerie productions to act itself out again—to live! It was collecting a cast and audience for itself.

What was it the ghost at the Drury Lane theatre had said?
As long as I have my role, I am no more dead than you.

Of course, that knowledge did me little good, as I was now trapped in the ghost play along with all the other dead. Unlike the other dead, though, I had one saving grace.

Marlowe and I came together a few more times, trading blows, and then I had my opportunity. Our blades crossed in a parry and we strained against each other, chest to chest, face to face. I still couldn’t take control of my body back, but I didn’t need it. All I needed was to touch him. And lo and behold, the back of my hand holding the rapier grazed his jawbone. It was all I needed.

I used that second to draw the grace back out of him, the grace that I’d used to grant him life back in that theatre props room. I wasn’t doing anything that seemed to go against the stage directions of the play, so whatever was possessing me didn’t appear to notice.

Marlowe, though, he definitely noticed. His eye sockets seemed to grow wider, as if he realized what was happening.

“O, I am undone,” he cried.

And then the grace was within me and I resurrected.

I stumbled away from Marlowe atop Peaseblossom’s body as life surged back into me.

“Here I lie, never to rise again,” Marlowe sighed. He turned and waved his rapier at another of the dead, who seemed more than happy to engage him in battle.

“Mark me!” the dead all cried again.

I looked down at my chest and saw the wound Anubis had given me had already healed. But I couldn’t afford to die again. I had no more grace left after I had drained Marlowe. If I died this time, I’d be trapped in the ghost play along with the other dead, for who knew how long.

I turned and saw Anubis reach back and grab hold of Amelia’s arm. He threw her from him, into the midst of the battling faerie. A pile of them fell to the ground and Anubis rushed forward to finish her off, ignoring the bleeding wound in his neck Amelia had given him. But then Morgana was in his path, her knife in one hand and a newfound sword in the other.

“You will not have her,” she said. “Not as long as any of my court remain!”

Anubis slashed at her head with the staff, and she brought the sword up to parry the strike. But the move was just a feint, as Anubis snapped at her arm with his jackal’s jaws. She cried out as his teeth bit deep, and then he let out another eardrum-shattering howl and released her as I ran him through from behind with the rapier.

“You’ll not have either of them,” I said. “Not as long as I live!”

Anubis spun around to face me, ripping the rapier from my grip. Now I was weaponless. But then Morgana tossed me her sword and I caught it. She grabbed hold of my rapier and pulled it free of Anubis’s back as he came at me with the staff that he’d already used to kill me once. Her wound didn’t seem to be slowing her down any, even though I could see black bone gleaming through the tears in her skin.

“I knew you’d return to me,” Morgana said. “It takes more than death to stop you.”

Her words of praise gave me heart, and I parried a half dozen blows from Anubis with cheer. That warm feeling inside me quickly faded when I took a look around to see how the battle was going, though.

The Black Guard were slaughtering everything in the room. They had struck down a good number of the faerie and fey now, but the dead just rose again, in the thrall of the play. The Black Guard were striking down the dead, too, but the wounds didn’t seem to make any difference to the fallen.

I saw Polonius a few feet away, missing an arm. With the hand of his other arm, he held Marlowe’s skull.

“I knew him!” he cried.

“To what base uses we may return,” Marlowe said.

The headless body of Peaseblossom was wandering about, as if in search of its missing part, which I had lost track of. Others among the dead were acting out different scenes from
Hamlet
. None of them fought back against the Black Guard. It was as if the ghost possessing them wasn’t aware of the Black Guard or didn’t care about them. And why should it? The Black Guard were only giving the ghost a greater blood sacrifice and adding more cast members for it to use.

I resolved that if I ever got out of here I was going to have to do something to help the dead escape their fate. And then I’d figure out how to help the ghosts of the Tower rest at last, for this was not something anyone should have to endure.

Except for maybe Will. He had a lot to answer for.

Anubis snapped at me with his jaws, but I just slipped to the side, putting the dead Polonius in between us. I took the moment to deliver a kick to the headless body of Marlowe. I meant to break some of those bones, but they were made of sturdier stuff than that. The body just tumbled back into the melee, taking the Black Quill with it. I hoped no one else knew the quill for what it was.

“I still don’t understand something,” I said to Morgana. “You say you birthed Amelia to thank me for saving you. But I’ll be the first to admit there were other times when I was not so charitable.”

“Like the time you abandoned me in the goblins’ caverns?” she asked. She stabbed Anubis in the back with the rapier again, rather viciously I thought. He barely seemed to notice it this time, he was so intent on me.

“I knew you’d find your way out before they caught up to you,” I said, backing up some more. I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I needed to buy some time so I could figure out a plan of action that might yet save us. “Besides, you were going to do the same to me.”

Anubis came after me but hesitated when the skull of Marlowe rolled out of the fray and into his path.

“How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?” Marlowe cried.

Morgana pulled the rapier from Anubis’s back once more, and this time he just swung the staff in a casual arc behind him to make her dance out of range. She bumped up against Mustardseed, who was backing away from the sasquatch thing with its claws dripping blood. Mustardseed had lost one of his blades and was clutching his side, but he was grinning like he was having the time of his life. I lost track of him when Anubis stepped around Marlowe’s skull and came after me again.

I kept backing up because that elusive plan of action wasn’t showing itself. But things were getting worse by the second. We didn’t seem to be able to harm the Black Guard with our weapons, which didn’t bode well for us escaping here alive, let alone putting an end to the haunting.

Then Cobweb somersaulted through the scene, blowing a handful of spider’s silk at Anubis. The web covered his face and Anubis stumbled blindly to the side, clawing at himself in an attempt to see again. Cobweb flashed a smile at us and leapt back into the battle.

Polonius wandered after him, stopping briefly to pick up Marlowe again with his remaining hand.

Morgana strode up to me and waved the knife in my face. “Or do you mean the time you invited the dwarves to visit our court?” she asked, carrying on our conversation.

“To be fair, I didn’t really know much about them then,” I said. “I just thought they liked to drink.”

A blade stabbed at her back from somewhere in the crowd, but she knocked it aside with the rapier without looking. I saw a veil of cobwebs covered the wound where Anubis had bit her on the arm.

“Or perhaps you mean the time you brought us the holy wine as a gift?” she asked.

“I didn’t know it was holy wine,” I said. “Just because I found it in an angel’s lair—”

“And the other angels came looking for it,” she said. “Is that one of those times you mean?”

“Yes,” I said. “After all those . . . let’s say misunderstandings, why would you still want to grant me any favours?”

She smiled at me. “Because you were almost faerie in those moments,” she said, “and I couldn’t help but feel some affection for you because of that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know whether that’s an insult or a compliment,” I said.

I looked for Amelia again. She had risen from the ground and stood at the edge of a small group of surviving faerie and fey. The Scholar was among them, trying to bury himself under a pile of books. Puck was there too, unfortunately, and the woman with the donkey’s head. I looked around for Alice and saw her still on the spider. It was clinging to one of the walls, seemingly entranced by the bubbles Alice was blowing from her mouth. Wherever they hit books they burst and the books crumbled into dust. There were more books behind them, though.

“Why do you continue to torment me then?” I said. “Why all the business with my soul and the ring and everything else?”

Morgana laughed. “I am still the queen of the faerie,” she said. “I cannot help my nature any more than Puck can help his.”

The Black Guard with all the arms came at us then, slashing at me with one sword and hacking at Morgana with another. We both dodged the blows, throwing ourselves backward. The Black Guard struck off Polonius’s other arm with a third of its many blades, and Marlowe’s skull fell to the floor again.

“O, I am slain,” Polonius said, and wandered away. Marlowe just let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Well, I hope the fact that I died for you means we’re even again,” I said to Morgana. I jumped over a cut at my feet and then ducked a hack at my head a second later. The Black Guard hissed at me but I just nodded at her. I’d been on a battlefield or two in my lives, and it wasn’t the first time I’d fought someone with an extra set of arms.

“Perhaps,” Morgana said. “Until the next time.” She turned her body sideways to slide nimbly between a double thrust from the Black Guard. Morgana slashed down with her knife and cut the wrist of one of the arms, and blood sprayed all over the three of us. The Black Guard dropped the sword from that hand and Morgana danced back again, smiling that evil smile.

I saw Mustardseed and Cobweb stagger out of the dead and into the remainder of the faerie court. Mustardseed was weaponless now and sporting a slash down one side of his face to match the wound in his side. Cobweb was missing his right hand. They both had mad grins on their faces, though.

I kicked the Black Guard’s sword away while dodging another cut aimed at my head and parrying the thrust at my stomach. I glanced at Anubis but he was still struggling with the web.

“This is not going well,” Morgana remarked, rather unnecessarily I thought.

“No,” I agreed.

“If we are going to die, we should at least die at our daughter’s side,” she said.

“That sounds like as good a plan as any,” I said. This time I didn’t try to argue that Amelia wasn’t her daughter. I figured she’d earned the right to say that.

I feinted at the Black Guard’s throat and she brought up two blades in a double parry. But I just wanted those blades out of the way so I could dart past her, to the group of remaining faerie and fey. The Black Guard spun after me, and Morgana came around the other side, sliding under the Black Guard’s other blades. We joined Amelia and the others at the same time. I gave Amelia a once-over to make sure she wasn’t wounded. She had a few minor cuts, but nothing more serious than that. Still, that didn’t matter much if we couldn’t find a way out of here.

The Black Guard closed in on us in a tightening circle, smashing the dead out of the way as they came. So far we hadn’t managed to kill one of them. They didn’t even seem inconvenienced by the wounds we had given them. And now Anubis had freed himself of the web again. He came at me, growling. It was a sound that shook the room.

“I really hate these guys,” I sighed.

“The book!” the Scholar cried from under the pile of books he’d made to hide himself. “Give me the book before it’s too late!”

“You’ll have plenty of time to read when we’re all dead,” I said. But his words gave me an idea. “Alice!” I cried. “I need you!”

Alice slipped off the spider’s back and slid down the wall to the floor. The spider remained where it was, still entranced by all the bubbles floating around it, as Alice skipped through the crowd to us. She went through the legs of the yeti thing that was surrounded with all the snow. It smashed its hands down at her, and there was a shower of ice and blood.

“Alice!” I screamed.

But then she came out of the snow, jumping on one foot in some invisible game of hopscotch. The Black Guard stared down at what it had struck. It was the remains of a snowman that had been wearing identical clothes to Alice. The Black Guard was now surrounded by a ring of snowmen, all in the form of Alice, all wearing the same identical clothes.

Alice hopped to a stop in front of us and curtseyed. “This story is very exciting!” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to end. I don’t think the author even knows how it’s going to end!”

“Why don’t you be the author and end it for us?” I said.

Alice clapped her hands. “I know just what it needs!” she said. “More books!”

Morgana shook her head and raised her blades to the oncoming Black Guard, who were almost within range now. “This is just like that time with the giants,” she said.

“I told you before, I didn’t know you guys had a history,” I said.

I pulled Alice close, so none of the Black Guard could reach her with their weapons.

“Alice, you know how you travel between libraries?” I said.

She nodded. “I remember it,” she said. “It’s like walking, only I’m walking between books instead of places.”

“How incredibly whimsical,” Morgana said, flipping the knife in her hand as she waited for the inevitable rush by the Black Guard.

I ignored her and stayed focused on Alice.

“Can you reverse it?” I asked.

“You mean go back to libraries I’ve been to before?” she said. “But there are so many interesting ones I haven’t been to yet.”

“No, I mean can you bring a library to you?” I said. “Or at least one book?”

“The book,” the Scholar moaned from under his pile.

Alice smiled and nodded. “Oh yes, I do that all the time,” she said. “But sometimes I have trouble putting the books back. They usually wind up out of place.”

Maybe that was how I was always able to find Alice by using books that had been mis-shelved in libraries, I thought, then shook my head to clear it. This was not the moment to be thinking about that sort of thing. We had only seconds before we were all about to join the ghost play, and I had a feeling that this time it would be a permanent stay.