Wolf in Shadow-eARC (17 page)

“So, sister, the vicar who buried you had good reason to fear you leaving your grave,” Frankie said, pulling boxes and her little paraffin stove out of a rucksack.

She placed the stove on the grave and lit it. Rhian noticed that she was careful not to touch the grave itself.

“I probably woke you when I touched your gravestone. I created a link between us that you could use. I wonder what happened on that building site to make that the contact point. Was that where you took your last body before the transfer failed? I don’t suppose you will satisfy my curiosity, and it probably doesn’t matter. Maybe it was simply that the wall was thin there.”

“The corpse thing was Ethel the witch?” Rhian asked.

“Oh yes,” Frankie replied. “Who else could it be?”

“But she’s dead now, surely? The wolf killed her.”

“The wolf—you—stopped her taking over my body, but you can’t kill a spirit. You can, however, banish her from the world.”

Rhian shut up and let Frankie get on with it. Her understanding of reality was undergoing another transformation. Witches, spirits, spells, the Otherworld, all seemed utterly unreal but she had seen them all. And she was possessed, never forget the wolf.

“It must have been a shock when the transfer failed and you found yourself in a rotting corpse, Ethel,” Frankie said, conversationally, as she worked. “Must have driven you quite out of your mind. Not that a litesch is exactly sane in the first place. It was always going to happen eventually. You must have known that?”

Frankie sprinkled herbal mixes into the stove. They burnt with a hiss, sparking and popping with sharp cracks. Vapor rolled off, not like smoke but more like a mist, spilling and pooling around the grave.

“The magic flowing around London brought you back and I woke you. That makes you my responsibility, my problem. There are enough black marks on my soul without adding to them by leaving you awake.”

Frankie raised her arms and chanted in a language Rhian did not recognise. She added more herbs to the stove, all the time talking to the grave.

“You found a hole and tried to possess the Polish worker’s body. Still didn’t work, did it? He was able to kill himself, just to keep you out. You must have despaired, but then I arrived. You already had a link to me, and I started an exorcism spell that let you yank me right into the Otherworld. There you could draw on unlimited power to make the transition into my body. You did not expect Rhian, though, did you, sister? Got more than you bargained for, hmmm?”

Frankie began to chant again. Her face looked daemonic, red light from the stove under her casting shadows in all the wrong places. The air was still with the static charge that Rhian was beginning to associate with magic. The mist swirled around the grave, illuminated by the flickering red flames. It spun faster and faster and began to rise into the air in a column not unlike a twister.

“So there you are, sister,” Frankie said. “Nice of you to join us.”

Rhian had expected the acrid wet-bonfire smell of burning herbs, but the vapor smelt more like a decaying corpse. The stench thickened until Rhian had to fight down the urge to gag. Frankie gripped the yew branch.

“
Combustio frigus,
” she shouted.

The yew branch caught fire, burning with strong green flames. Frankie thrust it into the column of mist. The grave writhed.

“
Abire
,” Frankie shouted, “
abire.
”

The branch fizzed and crackled, lighting the mist in green. There was a hollow scream that faded up into the night sky, and the column collapsed. A cloud occluded the Moon and the green flames died. The gravestone shattered in a sharp explosion, into shards that exploded in their turn. And so on until there was nothing but gravel and dust. Rhian held her hands in front of her face to protect her eyes.

Gravestones split and fell around them in a ripple that spread out in a circle from the grave. Deep in the bushes, a mausoleum collapsed in on itself.

Eventually there was silence.

“Whoops,” Frankie said.

The next morning Rhian took a bus ride up to the Tesco Express to get in the shopping. They were out of bread, milk, and almost everything required for a civilized life. Frankie would be in a foul mood all day if she missed breakfast. The woman had been still asleep when Rhian let herself quietly out of their flat.

The spells had exhausted Frankie, so the trip home from the cemetery in Mildred had been even scarier than usual. Magic seemed to drain the woman of something vital, and yesterday she had cast some amazing spells. Rhian smiled to herself. It took something very special these days for her to class it as amazing.

She walked around the supermarket, selecting items. It was surreal but calming to be occupied in so ordinary a task in a mundane world. She bypassed the queues for the tills by going to the autocheckouts. Putting her basket on the balance, she tapped the touch-sensitive screen to activate the barcode reader.

The first item worked all right, and she dropped it in the plastic carrier bag that measured the weight transfer. The computerized till beeped to itself in a self-satisfied sort of way as it ran up the sale. However, the second item took a few goes before the reader acknowledged its existence, despite Rhian turning her purchase at different angles. When she tried to put the third item through, the machine went into a sulk. A sales assistant responded to the computers frantic complaints by putting her security key in the slot to shut it up.

“I need to verify your age if you want to buy alcohol,” said the assistant.

“I am trying to buy milk,” Rhian said, showing the assistant the plastic container.

“It says alcohol here,” the assistant said, pointing to the screen.

“It’s milk,” Rhian said firmly.

The assistant peered at it and in her carrier bag, reluctant to believe that the holy of holies, the computer, could be in error. She punched a few keys on the touch-sensitive screen to reset the system and passed the milk through herself. It registered perfectly.

“You must have done something wrong,” the assistant said, accusingly. “I will watch while you put the next item through.”

Rhian gritted her teeth and put the next item over the barcode reader. It beeped, paused, and all hell broke out. The screen flickered, flashing through menu options faster and faster while emitting a string of noises like a toy robot. Rhian stepped back in alarm when she saw a thin trickle of smoke curl out of the back. There was a loud bang and all the automatic tills shut down, followed by the manned checkouts and lights.

Then the water sprinklers went off.

It was lunchtime when Rhian got home, clutching her modest bag of groceries. A new edition of the local free paper was jammed in the letter box. The lead story was about vandalism in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Frankie was up but still in her dressing gown. She was absorbed in one of her ancient books, a mug of milkless tea cooling beside her.

“You’re wet. Is it raining?” Frankie asked, vaguely.

“No,” Rhian replied, curtly.

“You’ve bought some milk?” Frankie asked. “Wonderful, and some bread, you lifesaver.”

“Sorry I was so long,” Rhian said, flopping down in her chair. “The entire electrical system in Tesco’s went haywire and I had to use a Waitrose. Cost a bit more, I’m afraid.”

“Ah,” Frankie said, in a tone that was a bit too carefully neutral.

Rhian looked at her suspiciously. “You know something?”

“Um, maybe. You didn’t touch one of their computers, did you?” Frankie asked.

“No,” Rhian replied, then thought about it. “Well, only their self-service till.”

“Which is a computer, connected to all their other computers,” Frankie said. “You have been in the Otherworld so will be soaked in magic. It tends to bugger up digital systems. Apparently it’s something to do with quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, whatever that is. Sorry, I should have warned you.”

Now she thought about it, Rhian realised that Frankie did not own a computer, or anything electronic more complicated than a basic phone.

“I work as a barmaid, Frankie. Pubs have electronic tills,” Rhian said.

“The effect will quickly wear off,” Frankie said with a smile. “It’s not as if
you
are a witch.”

She poured some milk in her tea and took a satisfying sip.

“I’ve been doing a little digging,” Frankie said, gesturing at the book. “This warrior queen you dream about, are you sure she was called
Buddug
?”

Rhian nodded.

“Do you know who Buddug was?” Frankie asked, mysteriously.

Rhian shook her head. “It sounds a bit like the Welsh word for victory. I suppose you could call her Victoria in English.”

“Possibly,” Frankie said, “but Tacitus called her Boudicca and the Victorian English Boadicea. I think scholars currently call her Boudica.”

“I know about her,” Rhian said excitedly. “She was the Queen of the Iceni who fought the Romans in the days when the Welsh ruled Britain.”

“She did more than fight them,” Frankie said. “She nearly drove them out of Britain altogether. She annihilated the Ninth Legion, the
Hispana.
Only the general and his cavalry escort survived by legging it. She burnt Colchester, St Albans, and London to the ground, slaughtering eighty thousand Romans and British Quislings. The Roman procurator in London was so shit-scared he did not stop running until he reached France. It was touch and go whether the Romans could hold the province. The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus kept his nerve and blocked the crossroads where the Fosse Way met Watling Street with two legions. He won a famous victory, which is why we are having this conversation in English rather than Welsh.”

Frankie grinned at Rhian, who ignored her. The bloody English only got more arrogant if you encouraged them.

“It has always been a bit of a mystery how Boudica possessed so much influence over the British that she could recruit an army of thirty or forty thousand warriors. The Celts were not exactly hot on feminism. Now we know the answer. If she could turn into a wolf, they would consider her Morgana’s instrument and beloved of the Gods. It would explain why the commander of the Ninth ran away. Roman generals weren’t noted for fleeing, but you can’t fight the Gods.”

Frankie paused to partake of more tea and picked up a book.

“Dio has a description of Boudica, who he describes as more intelligent than is usual with women. Cheeky sod, typical male sexist pig, it’s amazing how nothing changes. I was in the bank last month and . . .”

“Dio?” Rhian asked. Frankie was quite capable of holding forth for some time on the subject of male failings. Her abandonment by her partner, Pete, had cut deep.

“The Roman historian Dio described Boudica as tall, having long red hair, with a piercing gaze and harsh voice.”

“She sounds a charmer,” Rhian said. “Very few modern Welsh are gingas. We are normally brunette.”

“The Iceni were Belgae, or Southern English, as we now call them. Modern Welsh are descended from tribes like the Silures, who were dark-haired even in Roman times. But her hair color doesn’t matter. It’s her clothes that are interesting. Dio said she wore a thick outdoor cloak over a many-colored tunic. The cloak was attached by a Celtic broach dedicated to Morgana and depicting a wolf’s head. Could I see your pendant, Rhian?”

Rhian passed it over.

Frankie held it in one hand and rubbed the other across its surface, tracing out the letters and design. Rhian felt uneasy watching someone else touch Morgana’s brooch, James’ pendant. It seemed wrong somehow.

“I never thought I would hold Boudica’s brooch,” Frankie said, wonder in her voice.

She became more businesslike. “It currently feels magically inert. I thought it would be, or the wards guarding my flat would go off every time you came in.”

“It isn’t always inert. It has burnt people who try to touch it uninvited.”

“People?” Frankie asked. “I can’t be certain without carrying out destructive testing but I think this is a shiffoth.”

Rhian must have looked as blank as she felt because Frankie hurried to explain.

“A shiffoth is a powerful magical device connecting the wearer to the Otherworld for a variety of possible purposes. In this case it attracts a wolf spirit that allows the wearer to become a wolf daemon. The idea is that the spirit flows back to the Otherworld through the shiffoth when the user has finished with it. It’s like a radio, a transmitter and receiver for spiritual energy. The problem is that you triggered it accidentally. You had none of the warding talismans that the original owner would have used. So the wolf did not return to the Otherworld and so is within you all the time. I’m amazed you survived the transformation and that you are not permanently a wolf.”

“The shapeshift was not pleasant,” Rhian said. “It still isn’t.”

Frankie examined the pendant. “I’d guess your Welsh heritage offered some protection. This is a Celtic artifact that would have incorporated Druidic blood magic. Ever wondered why the Romans took so long to invade Britain or why they had such difficulty holding it down when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul so easily?”

“I never gave it much thought,” Rhian replied. A nice lady, Frankie, but inclined to lecture. It was best to let her get to the point in her own way.

“The Druids were taken by surprise in Gaul by the sheer speed and power of the Roman Army. They were destroyed before they could react in France, but they had time to organize a defence in Britain. It is hardly a coincidence that both of Caesar’s invasions in 54 and 55 bc were stopped by storms smashing up his fleets. The Emperor Caligula’s invasion was aborted when he went off his head at Boulogne and ordered his soldiers to collect seashells. Even Claudius’ troops initially mutinied when massed for the invasion. None of this happened by chance but by powerful magics. The Romans hated and feared the Druids for their human sacrifices, and quite right too. Blood magic is always nasty. Some of the things The Commission found buried in Anglesey . . .”

Frankie shook her head like a wet dog shaking water off its fur. The horror in her eyes suggested that she was trying to shake off memories. Rhian knew it wouldn’t work. Memories could not be disposed of so easily.