Cursed

by Sue Tingey

  “Lady Kayla?” Kerfuffle said, glancing toward the cart where her body rested. “When did she tell you this?”

  “How would she have known?” asked Shenanigans.

  “What is it exactly you lot don’t understand about Lady Lucinda being the Soulseer?” Jinx asked in exasperation.

  “You mean Lady Kayla is here? Now?” Shenanigans asked, glancing around us.

  “Yes,” I said, “but you mustn’t tell Vaybian. It will only upset him.”

  “Why hasn’t she passed over?” Kerfuffle asked.

  “She didn’t want to leave me,” I said.

  “Trust her,” Kerfuffle said. “She always had to be difficult.”

  “I heard that,” she said.

  “But he can’t hear you, Kayla. It’s not like when we were in the Overlands.”

  “Well, I suppose I wasn’t really a ghost then,” she said.

  “This is weird,” Kerfuffle said with a scowl, “I’m never going to know if she’s talking to us or not.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said, turning toward the palace entrance. “Let’s get down to the dungeons.”

  Jamie grabbed me by the arm. “Are you sure?”

  Jamie and Jinx exchanged a glance.

  “I’m not certain you want to see what goes on down there,” Jinx said.

  “I shouldn’t think much is going on at the moment.”

  “Just because Amaliel is no longer Court Chief Enforcer, it doesn’t mean there aren’t others down in the Chambers of Rectification carrying out punishments,” Jamie said.

  “Then I will just have to try and not look.”

  “You know you don’t have anything to prove,” Jinx said.

  “Maybe not, but we have to find Angela, and I have to find out how to release the spirits in the great hall and at Dark Mountain from the curse.”

  “We know how to release them,” Jinx said, surprised.

  “We do?”

  “The Sicarii chanted the words.”

  “I didn’t understand a thing they said.”

  Jinx grinned at me. “I did.”

  “Can you remember it?” He gave me a you-cannot-be-serious look. “Well I suppose that’s something.”

  “So can I,” Jamie said. “It wasn’t that difficult actually.”

  Now they were making me grumpy. “All right, all right, I’m the idiot that flunked Latin at school.”

  “It was ancient Egyptian actually, a bastardization of spells from the Book of the Dead,” Jinx said. Now that I had heard of.

  “So—no arguments—I’m coming with you.”

  “I suppose we could tie her up,” Jinx said, resting his chin on his fist, “but then she’d be really cranky when we got back.”

  “Hmm,” Jamie said, mirroring Jinx, “she probably wouldn’t talk to us for hours.”

  “You tie me up and we’re talking weeks, maybe months,” I told them.

  “We’d have to toss her for who got to sleep in the bed and who got the floor.”

  “No argument,” I said, “I’m the princess—I get the bed.”

  “I think being the Deathbringer and Guardian outranks royalty.”

  “She is the Soulseer,” Jamie said.

  “True,” Jinx said. “I suppose there’s no way round it; she’ll have to come with us. But,” Jinx raised a finger, “if you start spewing you hold your own hair.”

  I flicked him the V, and when he looked perplexed I stuck out my tongue. Why Jinx sometimes made me act like a small child I had no idea, but for whatever reason it usually made me feel better.

  “We’ll be going with you,” Shenanigans said.

  “Aye,” Kerfuffle said, “we will be going with you.”

  Jamie and Jinx exchanged a glance. Jamie nodded. “Your choice,” he said.

  “I will join you in this,” Kubeck said.

  “And don’t forget me and the drakon,” Kayla said, “I’m really looking forward to seeing Amaliel get his just desserts.”

  “Why don’t we sell tickets?” Jinx said.

  “The way people feel about Amaliel you’d probably make a fortune,” Kerfuffle mumbled and with that we set off.

  Sixteen

  Everyone grew quiet as we descended the stairs toward the dreaded Chambers of Rectification. Shenanigans and Kubeck had both spent time in its depths; I hadn’t, yet I still felt cold inside.

  The steps were wide; wide enough for a large demon to be escorted either side by two even larger demon guards. There was no decoration here, just broad stone steps flanked by gray stone walls, and once we had descended below the ground floor the air grew colder until our breath left plumes of mist every time we exhaled.

  Down here dark patches, reminiscent of the mold-like blemishes upon the Sicarii’s skin, stained the walls. There was even a slight scent on the air of something having turned bad.

  Then we reached the corridor leading to the Chambers of Rectification. No one had to tell me we had reached our destination. I could feel it, I could smell it and I could hear it. Cells lined each side of the passageway and from inside them I could hear low moans and sobbing. Pyrites shrank to the size of a bird to perch upon my shoulder and Jamie took hold of my hand; as usual they both knew how I was feeling.

  “Let’s get this done with and get out,” Jinx said, “this place makes me want to puke.”

  “Well, if you do you can hold your own hair,” I told him, which brought a small smile back to his face.

  We didn’t look in the cells. If we had it would have been so very hard not to set the occupants free and, if we did, this could take us to a very bad place indeed; probably the very same cells we had emptied.

  The corridor opened out into a large chamber, and again, no one had to explain what this was used for. A large crocodile-skinned demon was washing blood off a huge, wooden butcher’s table in the middle of the room, while a smaller demon with long dreadlocks and a boar’s snout mopped the floor.

  The larger demon paused to look up at us. “Can I help you?” he said.

  “We’re looking for Amaliel Cheriour’s private quarters,” Jinx said.

  The smaller demon leaned on his mop and eyed us up and down. “You can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?” Jinx asked.

  “The clue’s in what you said. Amaliel Cheriour’s private quarters.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” Kerfuffle said, marching up to the demon and scowling up at him.

  “Well, I know at least two of you have spent time in these chambers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did so again,” he said, plunging his mop back into the bucket and splashing Kerfuffle’s boots.

  “Bloody upstart,” Kerfuffle said.

  “Want to make something of it?” the demon said, brandishing his mop.

  “Now then, now then,” the other demon said, “we don’t want any trouble here. What is your business?”

  “We have been ordered by Lord Baltheza to find and arrest Amaliel Cheriour. We need to take a look at his private quarters to see if there are any clues to his whereabouts,” Jinx said.

  “So, it’s come to that, has it?” The demon threw his scrubbing brush down onto the table and lumbered toward a doorway at the back of the room. He opened the door and beyond it was another corridor.

  “His chamber is the last door on the right. The one opposite goes through to where he plies his trade.”

  “Not here?” Jamie asked, gesturing to the room behind us.

  “Nah, this is where the ordinary felons are questioned and punished: common thieves, poachers, murderers and the like. He looks after the important inmates: insurgents, demons guilty of treason and crimes against the state, that sort of thing.”

  “I see,” Jamie said.

  “Don’t mess up his room and don’t break anything, just in case Baltheza has a change of heart,” the large demon said, going back to the table.

  “I don’t think that’s likely to happen,” Jinx said, “Amaliel murdered Baltheza
’s daughter.”

  “Lady Kayla?” the demon with the mop said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Jamie said.

  The large demon picked up his scrubbing brush again. “In that case, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”

  “Nor I,” said his mate and they both got on with their cleaning, leaving us to investigate on our own.

  “Which room first?” Jamie said when we reached the end of the corridor.

  “His. I doubt he’d leave anything incriminating in his torture chamber; too many others might see it,” Shenanigans said.

  “We don’t need proof he’s bad, we just need to find the way down to the underground tunnels,” I said, turning to Kayla. “I don’t s’pose you know?”

  “The entrance is beneath his bed,” Kayla said. “There’s a trap door leading onto some stairs.”

  Jamie paused, hand on doorknob. “Why do I feel like I’m about to enter the depths of hell?”

  “If there is a hell, it’s where he should be,” Jinx said.

  “You don’t know whether there’s a hell or not?” I asked.

  Jinx tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. “Trade secret.”

  “Judging by those things that carried of the Sicarii, I’m guessing it’s not much of a secret anymore,” Kerfuffle said with a shudder.

  “True,” Jinx said and gestured for Jamie to open the door.

  I had expected a dark, tomb-like chamber. I wasn’t disappointed; the decor was either black, or shades of it. A large, black desk littered with scrolls, books and papers filled one end. On the other side of the room was a narrow bed, but it had no pillow or covers.

  “It appears he really doesn’t sleep,” Shenanigans said as he followed us in.

  Jinx lit a lamp, but if anything it made the room look even creepier. Lines of shelves filled the wall behind the desk and in between leather-bound books there were shiny glass jars of varying shapes and sizes that reflected the lamplight, giving the impression they were filled with flickering flames.

  “Might be worth taking a look to see if there’s anything that might give us a clue to what he’s likely to do next,” Jinx said as he wandered around the desk to take a look at the shelves lining the walls behind it. Jamie began to paw through the papers and other bits and pieces while Kubeck stayed in the doorway and Shenanigans waited just inside. Kerfuffle joined Jamie at the desk picking up and discarding scrolls and manuscripts.

  “Nothing much of interest here,” Kerfuffle said.

  “What’s in the jars?” I asked Jinx.

  He turned to me with a grimace. “You really don’t want to know.”

  Jamie looked up from the desk and joined Jinx in front of the shelves. “That is so disgusting,” Jamie said, and when he turned I could see his face had gone very pale.

  “The trapdoor is under the bed,” I told them.

  Shenanigans and Kubeck lifted the bed and moved it to one side. “If there is one, I can’t see it,” Kubeck said, looking down at the stone slabs.

  “Kayla?”

  She knelt down on the floor and ran her fingers over the stone. Out of habit I guess—if there was anything there she wouldn’t be able to feel it. “It’s here somewhere.”

  “Did you see how he opened it?” I asked.

  She shook her head and the vipers in her hair hissed. “No, he had his back to me, but he touched or pressed something around here somewhere,” she said. Jinx got down on one knee beside her and drew his finger along the join between the wall and the floor.

  “If there is an entrance here I’ll find it.”

  “Well there is, so you’d better,” Kayla said.

  “Even in death you’re bossy,” he said, concentrating on the floor, his hands gliding back and forth.

  “We could always take a hammer and chisel to it,” Kerfuffle said.

  “Very subtle,” Jinx said.

  “Just saying.”

  “If we can’t find the way in we’ll have little choice,” Shenanigans said.

  “One: he will hear us, and two: so will half the palace,” Jinx said. “Ah ha! Here we go,” and there was a click and a grinding sound as a slab slid back under the wall leaving a rectangular hole in the floor. Jinx hopped to his feet. “Pass me the lamp, brother.” Jamie handed it to Jinx, who peered down into the dark. “I’ll go first,” Jinx said.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Jamie said.

  “Shenanigans and Kerfuffle, you come next and Kubeck—you watch Lucky’s back. Pyrites, stay where you are,” Jinx said and Pyrites puffed warm air against my neck and snuggled down upon my shoulder.

  I shivered as I watched Jinx and then Jamie disappear down into the hole. There was something very disturbing about seeing them descend into the darkness; like the way they sank into the ground was some ill omen. I immediately wished I hadn’t thought of this; as though my thinking of it might make something bad happen.

  I wanted to hurry down behind them and be next to them, but Shenanigans and Kerfuffle were having none of it. “We are to go next, mistress,” Shenanigans said, and I couldn’t argue with him, he was doing his job.

  “I’ll go ahead and make sure they don’t get into any trouble,” Kayla said. As Kayla and trouble usually went together hand in hand this didn’t offer me any comfort. I didn’t try to dissuade her though; she probably needed something to do as much as I did.

  The stairs led down to a long, narrow corridor. Jinx and Jamie could probably just about walk side by side, but Shenanigans, and I guess Kubeck, who was behind me, filled the space. Shenanigans’ broad shoulders were almost brushing the walls on either side of him and he had to stoop down to keep his head from scraping the ceiling.

  Our breath smoked the air and our footsteps echoed, bouncing off the gray stone walls. I wished I had a hand to hold. Pyrites knew how I was feeling and nestled close against my head.

  No one spoke and the tension was palpable as we crept along the passageway, our shadows dancing against the walls as the flame in the lamp Jinx was carrying flickered and leapt. Kerfuffle had drawn his dagger and Pyrites sat up, alert upon my shoulder. Kayla wafted past Jamie and Jinx; I hoped she would warn us if there was trouble ahead.

  We came to another door. Jinx and Jamie waited until we were right behind them before Jinx reached out to turn the ringed handle. The door swung open with a gentle swish.

  The room beyond was large, dark and empty, just four gray stone walls, a ceiling and a slab floor. A door beckoned from the opposite wall. Jamie exhaled as Jinx moved across the slabs and we all followed. Again, Jinx waited until we were all ready. This door also swung open with a soft whisper and led onto another corridor, this one lined with open doors on either side.

  Jinx paused by the first doorway and lifted the lamp to see. I moved forward past my guards to peer inside. It was a prison cell that probably doubled up as a torture chamber. An overturned brazier lay in the corner along with a haphazard pile of ironmongery; long pointed pokers and pincers were only the half of it. Jinx lowered the lamp and moved on to more of the same.

  Each time he paused I expected a Sicarii, or one of the brown-robed minions, or even Henri to appear, a lethal weapon raised above their heads. By the last open doorway I was ready to jump three feet in the air if someone so much as coughed.

  Vaporous figures began to drift out of the open doors, watching us pass in silence. How many hundreds or maybe even thousands had Amaliel executed and murdered over the years? He had probably been alive a very long time, so it could even run into tens of thousands, and the thought of all the terrible suffering he had inflected made me want to kill him even more.

  The final door was at the end of the passage. This was where we would find trouble; I could feel it. Jinx reached for the door handle.

  “Wait,” I said, and although I whispered, my voice sounded too loud in the confined corridor. Jamie and Jinx turned to look at me, their eyes glittering in the lamplight, lips tight; they were feeling the tension too. “Let Kayla go first.”<
br />
  “Good thinking,” Jinx said, his voice a soft murmur.

  Kayla grinned at me and wafted past them and through the door. She was gone for less than a second.

  “It’s a torture chamber,” she told us, “full of really nasty stuff, but no sign of Amaliel or Henri.”

  “Any other doors?” Jinx asked.

  “Two,” she said, holding up a thumb and forefinger, “one on the far side, the other to the left.”

  “Want to see what’s behind each of those doors?” he asked.

  “Too right,” she said and was off through the door again while we waited. When she came back her good humor had disappeared. “The door straight ahead leads to another chamber like Amaliel’s room upstairs: books, papers and jars full of body parts,” she said. “Amaliel is through the door to the left with Henri, Philip and Angela. He knows you’re coming. He has a knife to the child’s throat, and from experience I’m guessing he’s quite prepared to use it.” Her hand rose to her own throat as she spoke.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “Wait,” Kayla said, putting a finger to her lips and passing back through the door.

  I repeated the instruction and what she’d told me to the others.

  “Philip’s coming,” Kayla said as she reappeared through the door. “Don’t trust him.”

  Jinx and Jamie took a step back from the door as the handle slowly began to turn and the door opened a crack.

  “It’s me—it’s Philip,” a voice said and he stepped through, both hands raised as though he was in an old western movie.

  “What do you want?” Jamie asked with undisguised animosity, and he hadn’t even heard Kayla’s warning.

  “He has my daughter and says he’ll kill her if either you or him”—he gestured at Jinx—“enter the next room.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “You, he wants. It’s always been you he wanted.”

  “Figures,” Jamie said.

  “You’d better go back to your master and tell him that where Lucinda goes, we go,” Jinx said, “because there is no way in the whole of the Underlands I’m letting her anywhere near Amaliel Cheriour or Henri le Dent on her own.”

  “He’ll kill my daughter,” he said and turned to me. “Please Lucky, there’s no time. Come with me.”