The Secrets of Life and Death (24 page)

‘Did it work?’

‘I’m afraid the story is that each child was drained of blood completely, but the Pope refused the libations, and died. They all died. Terrible.’

‘So blood, human blood, has been used in that way?’

Dee chose his words with care. ‘There is a belief, even within the educated, that many mysteries of life are contained within the blood of children. Jesus himself offered us his blood, his body. I cannot, myself, see that to use children in this way is anything but a heresy.’

‘But, could it work?’ I sat on a stool and watched him struggle with our problem.

‘We must ask our angelic guides. You must let me speak to Saraquel.’

‘I can’t …’ Even as I spoke, the ringing started. ‘Please, blessed Lord—’

I was in the trance before I could complete the thought. The sensation of boiling water filled me up, bloating me, as if my tiny body could not hold the giant angel. It overwhelmed my senses. I was blinded by the brightness, as if my eyes could no longer stand the light from the tiny window, nor from the small fire. Somewhere inside, I cried out at the pain of it, or if not pain, the
wrongness
of it. Every limb stiffened, and I could feel myself stand upon my toes, held up as if from heaven itself. My shoulder blades cramped with an unfamiliar pulling, and I felt the weight of great wings, the feathers brushing the air around me with a sharp heat, like that of a blacksmith’s forge.

Dee knelt in prayer, recognising the change in my face and body, but I could no longer move.

‘Lord Saraquel,’ he said. ‘Advise us, please.’

The angel spoke. I couldn’t understand it, although my lips and tongue moved and Dee answered. I was deafened by the ringing of a thousand bells in my head. My hands swept the air before me, and my body almost fell. He – Saraquel – put out his great wings, which at once felt as if my shoulder blades were ripping from my back, and my fingers were somehow brushing the walls on both sides of the chamber. Pain shrank me to a dream, and time flowed away from me. Then, with a snap, Saraquel was gone, and I was poured back into my body like ale into a bucket.

I collapsed, my muscles disobedient until I had located them all. Dee softened the drop, and laid me upon the floor until I regained my senses.

‘What … what did he say?’ I managed to ask.

‘I’m not sure I understand. He showed me how to save the lady, but he also told me of the terrible consequence if we do.’ His face was ashen, the lines on his face drawn tight like a man of eighty. ‘I cannot divine what he wants us to do. It seems as if he tempts us. He showed me some signs.’

The room smelled of some flower, like violets or lilies, and it refreshed me.

‘So, we can devise a cure for the lady and leave for Prague.’ I wiped my drenched brow on my sleeve, my hand shaking with exhaustion. ‘Master?’

‘Edward, if you knew the horrors that will befall the countess and her people …’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘I must pray on this, Edward.’

Pray, pray indeed, for our souls and our deliverance, thought I. For the message I received was plain – there was nothing but a terrible death for us if we failed.

Before Maggie had turned her phone off, Sadie watched the kitchen door implode, the frame skewing in and the lock flying off. She slid to her feet, to see a tall man in a grey suit and tie, brush his hands clean and advance towards Maggie. The older woman fell back before him, reaching a hand behind her for Sadie’s. A heavier man brushed through the doorway into the front room, pausing to look around.

‘Ah.’ He stretched his vowels like a pizza advert on TV. He was dressed in a dark suit. ‘Sadie Williams. It seems we are only just in time.
She
is closing in.’ He gestured at the cracked walls, and stepped forward. Sadie pressed back as far as she could without stepping out of the circle.

‘What … what do you want?’ She grabbed Ches’s collar as the dog lurched towards the man. Her voice was meant to be confident, defiant, anything but thin and childish. She cleared her throat. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am a doctor who specialises in your –
malattia
. Condition.’ He glanced up at the ceiling, eyes focused on the sigils. ‘Medieval, but I suppose, effective.’

Sadie had to kneel to use both arms to restrain the dog, who pulled against her weight. ‘If you don’t get out of here, I’ll let him go.’

‘I would hate to shoot him, he’s quite a beauty.’

Sadie looked at Maggie, who seemed frozen. ‘What do you want with me?’

He turned, and spoke to the younger man in a foreign language. Maggie slid along the wall and crouched, putting her arms around the girl and the dog.

‘I’m so sorry, Sadie.’ She realised Maggie was shaking. ‘I can’t imagine how they found us.’

Sadie looked at the older man again, who smiled.

‘She’s wondering whether someone from her world has betrayed your location. A lot of people would like to meet you, Sadie.’

‘So, how did you find me, then?’

‘Our forensic experts, of course, traced your energy signature to the boot of Ms Hammond’s car, and her address was located from her registration.’ He turned to Maggie. ‘Leave us,
strega
.’

Maggie hugged tighter. ‘I’m staying.’

He brushed the sofa with one hand, and sat.

‘You will leave and live, or stay and die.
Preparare la vettura
.’

Sadie saw the younger man standing just inside the kitchen. He nodded, and then looked at her with something strange in his eyes. Sadness? She stumbled to her feet, shaking off Maggie, and shouted at the older man.

‘Don’t hurt Maggie. She saved my life. She was trying to help me.’

He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘By locking you up in this … hovel? My poor child, you were denied everlasting life by hags, and witches. This state you are in is unnatural,
un abominio
.’

Sadie had no difficulty distrusting
my poor child
.

‘So, you are here to rescue me?’ She let her voice rise into a childish note and added uncertainty.

‘Of course.’ He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He had very clean, very white hands. ‘Our car is equipped with the latest medical devices to keep you safe.’

Leaning forward to spit the words at him, Maggie spoke. ‘Your kind don’t show compassion to girls like Sadie.’

He smiled without warmth, showing very white teeth. He spoke directly to Sadie. ‘My orders are to bring you safely into our care.’ He shrugged. ‘In your present condition, we have to make that decision for you. If you come quietly, we will spare the witch and her mongrel.’

Sadie thought fast. ‘Can she help me get changed?’

‘That is unnecessary. We have very generous donors who ensure the care of special cases like you.’

‘I just want my own clothes. My mum bought me the jeans.’ She let her voice rise to a whine. ‘And my dad gave me the necklace for Christmas,’ she lied.

A flicker of some expression crossed his face but Sadie couldn’t decipher it.

‘Two minutes, then.’

Sadie paused. ‘But I can’t get dressed by myself. I need Maggie.’ She made her voice as weak and breathless as she could. ‘I think I need to pee, as well. Five minutes. I don’t want to wet myself in your car.’

That expression again. Distaste. It was enough to get him to stand up. ‘Hurry.’

As he walked into the kitchen, Sadie could hear him giving commands, but couldn’t understand them.

‘Maggie?’ It came out more of a whimper than a whisper, but Maggie was shaking.

‘He’s an inquisitor.’ The older woman dragged Ches, now whining, over to the door to the priest hole. ‘He’ll kill me and he’ll burn the house down. We’ve got to get you out of here.’

‘What … ?’ Sadie opened the door to the priest hole; stale air drifted out with more than a hint of dog crap and disinfectant. Without his lead, the dog was difficult to move. It took both of them to lift him over the threshold, and tip him down the steps.

‘Go.’ Maggie pushed her. ‘I’ll make them think we got away. I can lock the priest hole. There’s some loose planks at the end of your old bed, the tunnel is safe, it comes out in the garage. Jack is coming.’

‘What about you?’ Sadie grabbed a handful of Maggie’s sleeve. ‘They’ll kill you.’

Maggie smiled, her mouth was tight but there was a gleam in her eyes. ‘They’ll have to catch me first.’

The panel snapped shut behind Sadie, followed by the clunk of the lock.

The priest hole was dark, just a crack of light around one edge of the secret door. Fumbling in the dark, Sadie found the wind-up lantern and gave the handle a few turns. The whirring seemed loud, but the light was welcome, illuminating the tiny cell. The walls were mostly stone, but behind the bed was a square of painted planks. A crack suggested some of the boards were loose. She got a finger into a knothole, and the panel moved. Tugging harder, it fell into her hands with a cloud of dust and the smell of decay. Shining the lamp into the hole, she could see a square hatch, lined with stones that gleamed with moisture. White growths, like cotton wool, hung down from the roof of the dark space in fungal garlands. She placed the light in the tunnel, trying to avoid the mould. The light revealed ancient stones, each one inscribed with a sigil. It was just high enough for someone lying flat.

Behind her, in the stone cell, Ches’s eyes gleamed, and he looked more wolf than dog in the low light. Hoping he would follow, she lifted her weight onto her hands and tipped head first into the passageway, trying not to touch the damp mounds of mildew.

‘Ches. Ches!’ she hissed. ‘Come on, boy.’

It was bigger inside than the opening suggested, uneven across its width. She could hear the dog whine, as she wriggled on her elbows inside the gap, hands cold on the stones and her hair brushing the roof in places. The air was sour, and she started to shiver. She fought for another few feet on her elbows as the floor of the tunnel started to dip. Sliding downhill, she felt suffocated. The energy seemed to leach out of her muscles as a wave of exhaustion and nausea overtook her. Shit – the sigils. In front of her, a pile of stones and black soil suggested part of the wall had given way. The light flickered and went out. Sadie dropped her head on one arm, and swallowed acid spit …

The dog’s snuffling on the leg of her jeans brought Sadie back to consciousness. One of his feet was scratching the back of her knee, the claws digging, pain creeping up her thigh.

‘Ow … Ches, stop it.’ A huff from the dog filled the air with warm meatiness, but at least he stopped scrabbling at her calf. She forced one arm out in front of her, then leaned on it, dragging herself a few inches, feeling for the lantern. Both shoulders were tight against the sides of the tunnel, as she inched past the collapsed wall.
Don’t fall down, don’t bury me alive …
She squeezed her shoulders through, and pushed the lamp in front of her. It clattered away, and the light flickered and faded. Darkness, and the sound of her gasps, pressed in like a smothering blanket. She could hardly breathe now, and the air stank.
I’m going to get stuck
. Her heartbeat wavered.

The thought of the house being set on fire, the flames reaching into the tunnel, spurred her on. She pulled the rough floor with her arms until she was sliding forward. Banging her head on the roof sent stabs of light through the darkness, but her fingers found the lamp. Fumbling, her breath coming in sobs, she found the wind-up handle. The dim bulb wavered into life.

The roof was bulging down but under the dip she could see a wider passage running a short distance.

‘Come on, Ches. Come on boy.’ She commando-crawled under the dip, catching her socks on the rough stone. She stopped to wind the handle on the torch for another minute as she let the dog catch up. There was enough room now for him to slide alongside her, his head at her waist, and when she reached down his warm tongue curved around her fingers. The sigils were undisturbed here, her breathing easier. The tunnel reached around a corner, then abruptly stopped. When the torch went out again, a sliver of grey light glowed around the corner of a panel ahead. She could smell oil, car smells. The dog wriggled his way forward, his claws scratching with a metallic sound on the stones, until he could lick her chin.

‘Shut up, they’ll hear you,’ she hissed.

Someone was talking, clipped words ringing as if in the yard. The sound of an engine starting up turned the voices into shouts, as a car revved up and crashed through something, rattling away from the house. As it roared away, Sadie could hear another car start up. It screeched away after the first one. Sadie waited for a long, long moment. No sounds. She put her head on her hands and rested. Tears rose up, whether from the adrenaline that was making her heart thump slowly, like a drum, or from fear for Maggie, she couldn’t tell. Her mouth filled with vomit. She could feel her chest tighten, and her breath felt bubbly, as she began to drown.

Jack tore over the cattle grid and into the yard. The fence at the back of the garden was flattened, and tyre tracks wound through the field gate, which hung from one hinge, the post and padlock ripped out of the ground.

The back door was open and the kitchen stank of petrol. The sound of distant sirens suggested there was something going on in the village, and some emergency vehicle shot past the cottage. Jack raced through the house, straight to the locked panel. She wrenched it open and shouted into the dark cell for Sadie, and for Ches. Nothing, no one. She raced around to the garage with its inspection pit in the floor. The wooden boarding that lined the pit was old and gave way in a shower of rotten splinters as she tore it with her hands, then a chisel from the toolbox. Slowly, a rectangular opening was revealed to the sound of whining. She reached in and grasped Ches by his collar, and heaved him towards her. He wriggled, shot out into her arms, and knocked her to her knees. He leaped around, whimpering with pleasure, and jumped to lick her face.

‘Sadie!’ Jack stood, pushed the dog down, and leaned into the dark to feel for the girl. She could just reach the dark shape that turned out to be Sadie’s head. ‘Wake up!’ When Sadie didn’t move, Jack grabbed a clump of hair, and pulled.