A Fever of the Blood

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘Then she must be more frightening than me,’ Marigold mocked. Lord Cecil shifted his weight from leg to leg, and the witch enjoyed his discomfort. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’

  He wiped cold sweat from his forehead, his eyes fixed on the hairy head of the enormous bat. ‘Indeed, ma’am.’

  ‘I told you. If you have children, they’ll be miserable souls.’

  ‘My wife is desperate.’

  ‘You don’t know what desperate means, son.’

  She stared at him, utterly motionless, and then the black cat jumped on to her lap, licking blood off its whiskers.

  ‘Your children will have untimely ends, gruesome destinies. And you still want them? Is this to preserve your ancestry? To keep the mighty bloodline?’

  Lord Cecil stood still like a stone, barely even breathing.

  Marigold stroked the cat. ‘You aristocrats disgust me.’

  The shaking man seemed puzzled, not knowing whether to speak, stay still or go. Marigold did not speak until the man’s nerves seemed about to collapse.

  ‘We’ll help you, but only because I owe your father.’

  She owed his father! Britain’s prime minister. Not only did he know about the witches, but he’d done favours for them! I gasped, and Joel elbowed me in the ribs to keep me quiet.

  I could not tell what was going on in Lord Cecil’s head. He seemed relieved and terrified in equal measure.

  Marigold stood up. The cat jumped down and sprinted towards the same shelf the old crone was headed for, where countless jars were neatly aligned.

  ‘It’s an easy job,’ she said, looking at the handwritten labels. She opened a large jar, sniffed the contents and then poured some crushed herbs on to her palm. ‘One of my sisters will visit your wife soon. In the meantime, make her a brew out of a spoonful of this, with plenty of honey; it should be the first thing she drinks in the morning and the last thing she drinks at night. It will prepare her.’ Unceremoniously, she poured the powder into Lord Cecil’s top hat. He looked at her with pathetically grateful eyes, as if he would drop to his knees and kiss the hem of the hag’s skirts.

  ‘How can I ever repay you?’

  Marigold smirked. ‘Oh, we’ll let you know, William. In due course.’ Then she grabbed his arm, her eyes widened a little and I managed to see a hint of grey pupils. ‘There will be problems,’ she said, erasing the man’s smile at once. ‘And they’ll come soon. I warned you well.’

  Saying no more, she turned back to her seat, but the bat kept its sinister eyes on Cecil, its furry neck contorted at an impossible angle.

  ‘Wha– what shall I do when … when problems come?’

  She waved her hand dismissively. ‘If you can’t handle it yourself, you know how to find us.’

  ‘The green?’

  ‘Yes, the green. Now go.’

  Cecil could say no more. The tall guard, who had been there all the time, pulled him by the shoulder as if manhandling a begging child. They left and soon Lord Cecil’s whimpers faded away. The door, however, did not close, and a female figure appeared.

  It was Redfern, her cloak still damp from melted snowflakes. She rushed to greet Marigold, bowing low and slowly, offering a hand engulfed in a black leather glove.

  The witch shook her hand hastily. ‘Did you bring them?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. They’re outside.’

  Marigold snapped her fingers and a procession of sorry figures came in.

  First came two of her guards, snorting and jerking as they pulled along Nine-Nails McGray. He was gagged and blindfolded, still putting up a fight, even though his heavy steps revealed that he was exhausted.

  One of the men kicked his calf as they both pushed him to his knees, not a yard from where Marigold sat.

  Behind came another man, slightly shorter than the other two, carrying Caroline’s inert body. I heard Joel inhale sharply as he saw his daughter; her head, still wrapped in the filthy bag, dangled limply from her slender neck. Joel’s hand scratched at the stone, and I had to squeeze his shoulder to remind him of the thin ice on which we stood.

  Then, after them all, came somebody else, guarded by a fourth brute. It was a young woman, her head bent in shame, her small, pale hands tightly interlaced in front of her. I blinked in disbelief when I saw her face.

  Miss Oakley.

  I’d been certain she was dead! Why had Joel not told me? I could only wonder what had happened on that hill. How had her bloodstained apron ended up there?

  ‘What a nasty pile of filth,’ said Marigold, her voice sending McGray into a fit of rage. The guards kicked him right in the spine. ‘Keep him quiet. I want to talk to this little traitor first.’

  She pointed at Oakley, and the girl’s legs nearly failed her, her face as white as bones. The guard behind her thrust her forwards and she barely managed to keep her feet as Marigold addressed her.

  ‘This is all your fault, you useless swine!’

  Oakley’s lip trembled. She did not even have a chance to move when Marigold jumped to her feet, as quick as a fox, to strike her with that long hand, her nails catching the skin, leaving three long scratches on Oakley’s cheek.

  The girl fell sideways, screeching in pain, and curled up on the floor, covering her head with shaking hands.

  Marigold hovered over her, the bat’s wings spread as the animal tried to keep its balance.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about that stupid Pimblett – but Greenwood! Greenwood is dead. One of my most promising girls! And her death brought these police bastards upon us! Now they’ve even found our most precious stocks! How could you be such an imbecile?’ She grabbed the girl by the hair, pulling her head up. ‘At least have the decency to look at me when I speak!’

  Oakley’s chest was heaving. Terrified as she was, there was a spark of fury in her eyes.

  ‘Our most important rule,’ Marigold barked. ‘Only write in Grimorium. Keep it all in your damned head otherwise. Two hundred years of our work, and you left it all in the open. I wish I had left you and your bastard child to die in the slums when you came begging for help. Your wretched parents must be turning in their grave.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Oakley managed to say, but there was only anger in her voice.

  ‘Not sorry enough,’ Marigold retorted, ‘but you will be. You know what we do to witches who go astray, don’t you?’ Marigold produced a long, shiny glass knife from the folds of her skirts, and Oakley’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. ‘Yes, you do know. We cut their tongues out and send them into the wild, my dear.’

  I shuddered, thinking of poor old Nettle, and how the only sounds she could utter were groans from her throat.

  Marigold pushed Oakley away. ‘We’ll deal with you properly in due course.’

  Then the witch turned to McGray, the sharp knife reflecting the many quivering flames in the room. Her eyes widened gradually, from mere dark slits to yellow, veiny globes. She pointed at him with the knife and the guards pulled away the blindfold and the filthy rag from his mouth.

  Nine-Nails shook his head and moved his numb jaw sideways. When his eyes met Marigold’s he made a frank retch.

  ‘Yer one ugly bitch.’

  She smirked, taking a small step closer to him, the knife aiming directly at Nine-Nails’ right eye, but he did not move an inch.

  Marigold brought the knife closer and closer to McGray, and just as I thought it would pierce his cornea she pulled a green apple out of a pocket, and with a swift movement she cut out a wedge, which she fed to her repulsive pet.

  ‘No, I won’t spoil you yet. First I want you to tell me a few things. How did you find our warehouse? Was it the imbecile Judge Spotson?’

  ‘Bugger off,’ McGray answered, but it was as if Marigold could read his mind.

  ‘We didn’t give him the proper dose, then,’ she said. ‘We have controlled the Lancaster judges for a long time: they give us leeway to do our business through those ports. Occasionally we have to compromise, like when a
shipment of opium was discovered by a damn customs officer who wouldn’t take a bribe. Pimblett had to be the scapegoat and claim he’d been working alone. Unfortunate man; we had agreed to reward him most handsomely when he came out of jail.’ She shrugged. ‘Better for us; saved us quite a bit of money at the end of the day.

  ‘Spotson was particularly helpful that time. He had to be; he owed us a few favours. Oh yes, we have boosted many, many careers in the past century. Sadly, we have to silence people when they’re of no use to us any more, but we have to do it discreetly. We prefer to kill them, of course, but we can’t do it all the time, or the new judges wouldn’t want to help us.

  ‘Spotson must remember more than I would like …’ She scratched the furry head of her bat. ‘I suppose he is old and frail enough to die without arousing much suspicion.’ She turned to Redfern. ‘Make sure it happens soon. We can’t take more risks right now.’

  Marigold went back to McGray. ‘My last question, before we let you – rest in peace.’

  She ran a knotty, twisted finger along McGray’s jaw, a repulsive nail pressing just hard enough not to tear his skin. ‘Why, young man, are you so interested in our affairs?’

  He held her nasty stare. ‘Doing my job, ye stinking hag.’

  Marigold laughed. ‘Yes, doing your job. A little too well. We know how your … police works. Why follow Ardglass all the way here and so desperately? You went well beyond the line of duty.’

  Her fingernail stopped and she pressed harder. A second later I saw a trickle of blood running down Nine-Nails’ cheek.

  ‘I came all the way here …’ he began, ‘ ’cos I wanted to say how now to Lancashire’s ugliest midnight hags.’

  She slapped him, but McGray’s head did not even move. Then she tossed the apple aside to seize McGray with one hand, wielding the knife with the other. The blade rushed towards McGray’s eye, catching the light of the candles before –

  ‘His sister spoke to Joel!’ Oakley screeched, and Marigold’s head immediately turned to her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This man’s sister is also an inmate in Lord Ardglass’s asylum.’

  A wide grin appeared on Marigold’s face, wrinkling that dry skin like sheets of parchment. The bulging eyes, mad with delight, were bloodcurdling.

  ‘Tell me more, dear,’ she whispered, dropping McGray’s face and once more leaning over Oakley. ‘What makes that “talk” so special?’

  The girl cowered. ‘That girl’s crazy. She hadn’t spoken a word in more than five years. I heard the head nurse telling Dr Clouston that Miss McGray had spoken for the first time. She had spoken to Ardglass. I am sure Mr McGray wants to know what she said. Everyone in Edinburgh knows he’s obsessed with his mad sister.’

  Nine-Nails growled. ‘Ye bitch! How come Joel didnae shove some poison down yer bloody throat?’

  Marigold was clicking her tongue, looking back at him with the most derisive stare. ‘Is that all?’

  McGray did not have to reply; his grimace was eloquent enough.

  ‘Then I seriously overestimated you,’ Marigold said. ‘On good grounds, though. You have a reputation, Adolphus, of being far too interested in us witches. My girls heard many times about the nine-fingered man who was too keen to find witchcraft books, demonologies, cures for curses … At least now I’m sure you’re no threat.’

  Marigold went back to her ornate chair, all of us staring at her expectantly. Nobody spoke or moved until she bid so, and she seemed to take her time. She wiped the knife before pocketing it, and then interlaced her fingers, studying Oakley, McGray, and then Caroline.

  When at last she did speak, her words were poison.

  ‘Prepare the Ardglass girl for the stake. I want it done with before dawn.’

  Joel could not hold back a hiss, and I knew I should not even attempt to silence him. I saw the black cat pacing alarmingly close to the fireplace, its big, yellow eyes perusing the fake brick wall.

  Fortunately Marigold was much too busy to look at her cat.

  ‘And the Scot?’ asked Redfern as soon as the large man had taken Caroline away.

  ‘Kill him as soon as you can,’ Marigold said, as if ordering milk in her tea. McGray seemed rather unaffected, but he did react upon the witch’s next words. ‘And send someone to take care of that insane sister of his, as a matter of urgency. Ardglass might have shared our secrets with her too.’

  ‘The fuck, ye will!’ McGray roared, so loud I thought the walls shook, and struggled as the two men forced him out. ‘I’m gonnae kill ye myself, ye auld crock! I’m gonnae kill all o’ youse!’

  McGray’s raucous yelling took a while to fade; his booming voice must have been heard throughout Cobden Hall.

  We could still hear the echoes as Marigold snapped at Oakley, for the girl was still crouched miserably against the crammed shelves.

  ‘Get out of my sight! You’re a disgrace to us all! You’ll be lucky if you and your bastard brat live to tell the tale.’

  Oakley dragged herself out of the room, her legs barely responding, her wails mixing with McGray’s distant echoes.

  Redfern was the only one left. Old as she was, her skin appeared smooth next to Marigold’s, and her commanding tone seemed reduced to the weepy voice of a teenager: ‘What shall we do about that beacon?’

  Marigold slapped at the bat, and the animal flew up to perch upside down by one of the ceiling beams, wrapping itself in its sinewy wings.

  ‘That blasted beacon!’ she sneered. ‘Appearing when we least needed it.’

  I assumed they were talking about the fire Joel had started by the ash tree.

  ‘Are all our sisters here?’ Marigold asked.

  ‘Nearly all, ma’am, but we’re still missing a few.’

  ‘And the ravens?’

  Redfern frowned and her crow’s feet deepened. ‘We sent a couple, ma’am, but none has returned yet.’

  The oldest witch scratched a wart on her chin. Now that everyone had gone, she allowed herself to show some self-doubt.

  ‘Did you say Ardglass was fluent in the code?’

  Redfern frowned again, visibly embarrassed. ‘Enough to fool me, ma’am.’

  Marigold rolled those hideous eyes. ‘We can’t risk it. Send three men – men only. If it’s a trap, we can spare brainless muscle.’

  Redfern bowed again, and like the others she walked away. Mercifully, the black cat ran after her.

  Marigold remained in her chair for a moment, her fingertips pressed together and her eyes now dark slits again, almost as if she could retract them back into their sockets at will. We could have waited there for a very long time, but then there came the roar of a very familiar, very Scottish voice. Then thumping, female shouting and cats hissing.

  The witch leaned forwards, as the panicked voice of one of the thugs called out.

  ‘The Scot’s escaping!’

  Marigold jumped to her feet, grabbed a bloodstained cleaver from her work bench and hurried out.

  Joel groped about and I heard the tinkle of metal. He was pulling on rusty iron rings nailed into the stone. ‘Step back, son.’

  As I did so he was already pulling the entire wall, also made of pumice, which opened inwards to create a gap barely wide enough to let us through. Some burning ashes stuck to our boots as Joel sprinted through the fireplace and into the witches’ lair.

  39

  I leaped after him, the flames licking at my trousers, and I had no choice but to pat them out with my bare hands.

  Joel did not lose an instant. He was already throwing jars into his leather bag. One of them was full of little spiders, and I caught a glimpse of the characteristic red spots of black widows.

  ‘Witches,’ I said scornfully, staring at that collection of sinister paraphernalia. ‘They do not do magic! It is all trickery and show and lies.’

  ‘It’s not that black and white, son.’ Then he looked at me with the sternest of expressions. ‘We’re getting Caroline.’

  I had to laugh. �
��That is bloody suicide!’

  He aimed his pistol directly at my face. ‘I said it would pain me to shoot you, not that I would not do it. Step out and do as I say.’

  I stood my ground.

  ‘Your friend is out there too!’

  Just as he barked that, I heard McGray hollering again.

  ‘That “friend” has got me cornered in this blasted place as much as –’

  ‘Step out!’ he roared, pushing the gun against my chest, and before I knew it I was out in a gloomy corridor, the yelling of women and thugs coming from all directions.

  A very tall man approached, a wall of muscles emerging out of the darkness. I barely registered the waxed moustache we’d seen in Lancaster, and his eyes had not even time to widen before Joel shot him right between them.

  The man fell on his back with a resounding thud, and there was an immediate uproar of voices. The shot must have been heard throughout the manor, for there came a crescendo of heavy footsteps; I could even feel the wooden floors shaking. We both sprinted away aimlessly, neither of us knowing the building’s layout.

  ‘How many are there?’ I panted.

  ‘No idea,’ Joel said, finally handing me one of the three guns.

  We reached a corner of the corridor, just as a small figure rushed into Marigold’s office: Oakley, jumping over the large corpse without even glancing down.

  I thought she caught a glimpse of me, but she disappeared through the door and then I heard her gasp, surely at the open fireplace.

  ‘Is she running away? What the –’

  Joel slapped the back of my head and pressed a finger to his lips. He was not looking at me though; his eyes were fixed on the next corner, further along the corridor, where I could hear female whispers. He moved as silently as a hunting wolf, his gun held tightly, and I readied myself too.

  We sneaked forwards carefully, and as soon as we reached the corner Joel leaped ahead, pointing his guns at the two women we found there and shouting madly.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’

  A plump, middle-aged woman stood there, white faced, with a young girl crouching right beside her.