The Secrets of Life and Death

by Rebecca Alexander

Konrad threw his leg over one, as if he had flown onto its back. I leaned on the nearest mount, fumbling for stirrups, then climbed into one of the high saddles. A strong hand grasped my bridle, and dragged my animal into a canter. No longer able to disguise the sound of the hooves, we came upon the mob at the main gates, and they turned for a moment towards us. Then a roar of words were thrown at us, one of which I’m sure was czarownica, the local word for witch. As we rode them down, slashing and smashing our swords against the peasants, I saw the faces of servants, people who had served me food, brought me clean linens, even the old woman who had bathed me. Their faces were twisted with hate and madness. In a few hoof beats, they were behind us and we were on the road, our horses toiling beneath us.

  Chapter 62

  As the inquisitor opened the car door, the light showed the full extent of his injuries. His face was a mass of bruises, he favoured one shoulder and dragged one foot. The front of his chest was soaked in blood. He helped Felix place Sadie on the back seat and they returned for Jack.

  She hadn’t moved, and Felix realised she had passed out. Her pulse was strong – maybe too strong, leaping under his fingers. McNamara helped Felix lift Jack, and directed him to lay her in the boot. As he placed her in the car, Felix realised it was decorated with the sigils, top and bottom. It was also filled with chains and cuffs anchored to the metal of the floor.

  ‘You aren’t going to …’ Felix watched as Jack groaned, rolled her head to one side, as if she was waking up.

  ‘It’s a precaution. See to the child.’

  Felix left Jack reluctantly, leaving McNamara to secure her. Sadie sighed when he touched her, and he covered her with a coat he found on the back seat.

  He shut the door, and came around to look at Jack, shackled in the boot like a wild animal. She was still out.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man’s voice was cool, convincing. Nevertheless, he reached around Jack to pull out a tarpaulin and cover her body. He added a jacket, wrapping it around her. ‘She is very cold, and in shock.’

  ‘She’s resilient.’ Felix brushed his hand through his hair and was surprised to find it was still wet. It was raining gently around them.

  McNamara shook his head as he shut the boot with a heavy click. ‘She was dying. They slow down, they run out of vital force as the years pass. She probably had a couple of years left at best. Twenty years is about the maximum most of them last, some much less.’

  ‘And now?’ The man wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  ‘Now – she is something else. Something I have pledged my life to eliminate.’

  Felix held out his hand. ‘Give me the keys. You’re in no condition to drive.’

  For a moment, McNamara looked down at him, then handed them over. He limped around the bonnet, and slumped in the passenger seat. He collapsed against the chair and groaned.

  ‘Was that really the Elizabeth Báthory?’ The car purred into life, and Felix eased through the northern gate and onto the road as a police car, lights blazing, tore past in a shower of gravel towards the chapel.

  McNamara rolled his head towards Felix and sighed. ‘That is what she became. We’ve been following her progress for more than four hundred years. She’s killed hundreds of girls and left thousands half dead.’

  ‘We. You mean, the Inquisition.’ It still sounded strange to Felix.

  ‘Yes, the Inquisition. I know you are emotionally involved with these women, but surely, seeing what they are must make you realise we can’t perpetuate their unnatural existence.’

  ‘Or what?’ Felix braked a little hard, hearing McNamara groan as he was thrown forward in the seat. ‘Sorry. Maybe you are right, and neither should have been saved. But here they are. They have feelings, and memories, and I can’t just put them down like rabid dogs.’

  ‘I can’t work … with witches and revenants.’ McNamara’s voice was weaker. Felix looked at him. His face was pale, his eyes closed.

  ‘Maybe I should drop you at a hospital.’

  ‘No! No, I will be fine.’ He winced. ‘I’ve been worse. And this time, we won.’

  Felix drove towards his house, listening for the sound that one of them was waking. McNamara leaned back several times to feel Sadie’s pulse, but apart from confirming she was alive, said nothing else.

  A car was in the drive already, and as he parked behind it, Charley ran out of the porch.

  ‘Where’s Jack?’ She raced past him to wrench open the back door, and uncovered the unconscious girl. ‘Sadie!’

  ‘Jack’s in the boot.’ Felix struggled out of his seat, feeling pulled muscles and bruises.

  Charley stared at him, her face paled. ‘What—?’

  ‘She’s still alive,’ he added, then stalled as he tried to explain what had happened.

  ‘Mum!’ Charley called.

  Felix looked back at the porch, to see the older woman, arm in a sling, watching him. ‘They’re alive,’ he said.

  ‘Bring them in, then.’ Maggie’s eyes were on the inquisitor, silent and still in the passenger seat. ‘What about him? Is he dead?’

  ‘He’s injured. I hoped you would be able to help him.’ Felix reached into the car to lift the girl in his arms. She moaned, and he carried her into the house to lay her on the blanket someone had placed in the centre of the circle.

  When he returned, McNamara was standing, leaning against the porch, Maggie beside him. She turned to Felix, her face angry.

  ‘He won’t unlock the boot.’

  ‘You won’t like what’s in there.’ McNamara was swaying against the wall. ‘That’s not your friend any more. I have to go.’

  Felix slid an arm around his waist and a shoulder under his good arm. ‘Come in, man, before you collapse. Maggie. Maggie!’

  She turned her face towards Felix. ‘But Jack …’

  ‘She’ll be fine for another minute. Help me with McNamara, and then I’ll bring Jack in.’

  Reluctantly, she stepped over to McNamara, and then her face changed as the light from the porch fell on him.

  ‘Good God, what happened to you?’ As they half dragged the injured man through the doorway, the light shone on an expanse of blood drenching his shirt, and soaking through his jacket. They propped him in a kitchen chair and Maggie grabbed a tea towel, pressing it to his chest. ‘Get Jack. I’ll look after him.’

  Felix patted McNamara’s pockets, coming up with a small set of keys. The man made one weak effort to speak, but Felix ignored him, and walked back down the drive, the muscles in his legs shaking with tiredness. Despite his show of confidence, he hesitated when he laid his hand on the boot of the car.

  The memory of Elizabeth Báthory – or the monster that inhabited her mortal remains, anyway – rose in his mind. He turned the key in the lock, to find Jack much as he left her, collapsed and shackled. As he bent forward to unlock the first handcuff, around her arm, she didn’t move. He leaned across her to do the other one, and as his face came within a foot of hers, he glanced down. Her eyes were open, gazing at him steadily. He froze.

  ‘Kill me.’ She breathed, so soft he wondered if he had imagined it. ‘Kill me.’ She repeated, louder, then cleared her throat and licked her lips. She grimaced.

  ‘No.’ He unshackled her ankles, and reached for her. She put a hand against his chest, holding him at bay.

  ‘You saw … you saw it. What I will become.’

  ‘You are nothing like her. You never were.’

  ‘I felt it. I felt the power of it. I don’t know if I can handle that.’ Her hand wavered, and he put his arms under her shoulders and knees to lift her out, wondering if he had the strength left. ‘Felix, please …’

  The tears in her eyes almost undid him, and for a moment he felt the weight of her in his arms before leaning back, pulling her out of the car. She cried out with pain from one of what must, he thought, be many injuries. One hand clutched the front of his jacket as he set her on her feet. He stood for a moment in the pre-dawn cold
, holding her as she shuddered against him.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said urgently, while he held her. ‘We’ve survived this far, we’ve defeated something that people have been trying to kill for four hundred years. I know who you are, Jack. I know your compassion, your courage …’

  ‘I’m all right. You can let me go.’ She pushed against his chest, and after a moment, he let her stagger back half a pace. She’d lost a boot in the battle, and he winced in sympathy as she set her shoeless foot on the cold concrete of the path. Then she reached up for him, and he leaned down, and they kissed. Her lips were icy, but warmed under his. He imagined she still tasted of the coppery rust of his blood. They supported each other as they limped towards the house.

  Charley seemed to have used stable tactics on the chilled Sadie, rubbing her down with the blanket and towel like a wet pony, and wrapping her in duvets to keep warm. The teenager was as silent and pale as the very first night, her sporadic breaths hissing.

  Felix bent over the girl. ‘Will she survive?’

  Charley shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s as if she’s hibernating.’

  Jack knelt beside her, and took Sadie’s hand. ‘She tried to fight the witch.’ Her hands were shaking as she looked up at Felix. ‘She lost so much blood. I can’t believe what that woman did to her.’

  Charley crouched down beside Jack and wrapped her arms around her. ‘She’s still alive, just about. We have to warm her up.’ She looked up at Felix, then back at Jack, her eyes wide with curiosity. ‘Mum’s brewing some potion now.’

  Felix left them together. He entered the kitchen, which was steamed up with aromatic herbs, to find Maggie working fast and efficiently on the injured man. She had his shirt off, revealing cuts and bruises that were developing in purple blotches. A piece of bloodied wood, the size and sharpness of a knife blade, lay on the table.

  ‘I took that out of his chest,’ she said. ‘He’s nicked a vein rather than an artery or he’d be long dead.’ She eyed Felix. ‘But he’s lost a lot of blood. I think he has fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, maybe a concussion. He needs to be in a hospital.’

  McNamara opened his eyes. ‘We have our own doctors.’ He leaned back in the chair, fighting for breath.

  ‘Can the Inquisition do anything for Sadie?’ Felix met Maggie’s eyes for a moment, then looked back at the other man. ‘Do they have any knowledge of this?’

  ‘Even if they do, it’s policy to release all the undead.’

  Maggie snorted. ‘Release.’ She peeled the paper off a large white dressing and stuck it to the ragged wound in the man’s side. ‘The right spell from me and we could release you.’ She relented. ‘That’s stopped bleeding, for now, but it needs proper cleaning and stitching. There’s only so much a healing spell can do.’

  The man was silent for a long time. ‘If they thought I had helped Sadie I would be impeached. Maybe executed.’

  Felix could feel his fingernails cutting into his palms. ‘Even if she helped destroy a monster who has been preying on people for hundreds of years?’

  ‘Creating another such as Báthory will never be condoned.’ McNamara sighed, coughed, then bent over, hugging his side with one bandaged arm. ‘If I make a full report, the whole department will come after Sadie and Jack.’

  ‘You don’t know that Elizabeth Báthory was a borrowed timer.’ Felix reached his hands out for emphasis. ‘I read the account Edward Kelley wrote. Báthory was a third-generation survivor of this ritual, and she used all sorts of sorcery and necromancy to stay alive. One part of which was draining the blood of innocent girls. Jack and Sadie have never done anything like that.’

  ‘Until now.’ McNamara looked up at Maggie. ‘Surely you understand? Your friend is on the same path as the countess. She took blood.’

  Maggie frowned. ‘What?’

  McNamara reached up one hand, touched her wrist for a moment. ‘Your friend, Jack, drank his blood. It gave her great energy, but it turned her. She’s already infected.’ He twisted his mouth into a grimace, something between sympathy and contempt. ‘This isn’t a harmless bit of spellcraft, witch. This is an abomination against God.’

  Maggie’s hands trembled as she pulled away from McNamara. She glanced up at Felix, her eyes hard. He nodded back.

  ‘Whatever your beliefs, you were there. Jack released the elemental. Jack killed her.’ Felix kept his voice calm.

  The inquisitor shut his eyes, lying back in the chair. ‘Báthory’s own pride killed her. She was arrogant enough to think she could control the heat of life itself.’ He looked at Felix. ‘I need to go somewhere safe, where my colleagues can collect me.’

  ‘Now you’ve killed Báthory, what will you do?’

  ‘I’ve learned a lot,’ the man said, wincing as he moved in the chair. ‘There are others, some almost as old and just as dangerous. My work is just beginning.’

  ‘Others?’ Felix met Maggie’s eyes. ‘Will they come after Jack or Sadie?’

  Finally the man smiled with genuine warmth. ‘I will do everything I can to make certain they don’t.’

  Chapter 63

  ‘The Transylvanian nobles pride themselves upon their hunts, when they ride out upon sure-footed horses barely larger than the giant wolfhounds they breed, and sport in the great forests for days, sometimes feasting upon the animals they slay, and sleeping under shelters formed of cut pine branches. And servants follow with furs and wines, that all may be as comfortable as in their own castles.’

  Sir Jerome Bowes

  Travels in Russia, Poland, Hungary and the East (1584)

  British Library

  We raced, in single file, through trees and brush, disturbing the shapes of bison and deer as we traversed the forest in the palest of dawn light. Under the shadow of thickets, my horse breasted mounds of pine needles, stumbled on tree roots and slipped on muddy tracks. I watched as one of the guards was flung off as his mount crashed forward, its leg twisted under itself as it landed on its nose. The guard limped over towards us, swung his leg over the spare horse Konrad was dragging along by its bridle, and carried on. On we raced, away from the pink of dawn, from one shadowy copse to another, forcing our wretched horses through chest-high ferns and thorns. When we pulled up, they were panting, and the men bent over their withers to rest.

  Konrad spurred his horse, shocking it into a trot in my direction. ‘Can you hear anything?’

  I sat, listening to the forest, the jingling of bridles and bits, the creaking of leather, the breath whistling in my own throat … and the beat of hooves on the ground, several, sweeping around us.

  ‘We are followed,’ I wheezed, then smothered a cough.

  ‘Then onwards! We stand little chance in battle.’ Konrad waved us on, and Lord János, the side of his grey steed stained with blood, took the lead. We journeyed on, the ground falling away gently at first, then steeper, until the horses were struggling to keep their footing. At the bottom of the slope a muddy river, quite shallow, had to be forded. Then up the bank, slipping again, two riders dismounted but no one hurt, my own pony as agile as a cat. Dee, who had fallen into the river, looked white-faced and exhausted as he clambered back into the saddle.

  The sound, when it came to us from the pursuers, was that of a hunt, the laughter of men and women floating down to us. We fought with tired horses, onwards, pulling them up when their heads fell to their knees. We goaded them over the next rise, through the boughs of a fallen tree and between great rocks. Past my shoulder, I glimpsed a flash of crimson, and renewed my flailing of my poor mount. Another figure, this one a deeper red, caught sight of through branches, then the baying of questing hounds. The dogs were dark shapes sliding through trees, clearing obstacles, their scarlet tongues lolling.

  Lord János rounded the next outcrop of trees, and pulled his grey back onto its haunches. Other mounts crashed into his, the riders panting and shouting, as I dragged my own animal up. I saw dogs between the horses’ legs, and arrows hissing
through the air, thudding into the men. I saw one, two men fall, then János, an arrow in his throat, his eyes bulging and the blood pumping from him, even as he slid from his saddle.

  I turned to see a way behind us, but already there were three Magyar riders in furs holding short bows, their sights upon us. Konrad had his sword upraised, an arrow protruding from his other shoulder, buried almost up to the flights in his body.

  ‘Hold!’ he called, and stood in his stirrups to bellow with all the authority a knight of the Holy Roman Empire can muster. ‘Who attacks the Pope’s own soldiers?’

  The first thing I saw of their leader was the scarlet cloak then the ornate riding boots on slim, boyish legs, and finally the mass of hair rolling down her – for it was a woman’s – shoulders. She ignored Konrad and looked at me. ‘Don’t you recognise me, Master Kelley?’

  Her voice was filled with warmth and strength, ringing across the forest like a bell. I had not at first, her cheeks rounded and pink with the ride and the cold air, her lips reddened with exercise.

  ‘My lady?’ I was astonished, as she urged her horse nearer to me.

  ‘It worked, I am restored.’ She lifted her face up to the pinking dawn light, her eyes shut with greedy pleasure. ‘Ah, to be strong again, to be young.’

  She looked at me, her eyes intense, and her mouth curved in a smile. Her horse sidled, tossing his head and fidgeting as if he was nervous of the Diana upon his back. ‘Stay, Edward. Together we may find much more about sorcery, and your alchemy.’

  ‘I cannot, my lady,’ I stammered.

  ‘Then you will go with Konrad to face the Inquisition? An Englishman in Rome?’ Her voice was full of laughter. ‘Better damned with us in luxury than redeemed by the torments of the Church.’

  I stared, anguished, at Konrad then at Dee, both grave-faced. I gathered my courage. ‘I must live my conscience, my lady Erzsébet.’

  ‘Then go, for you cannot harm us now.’ She smiled, and her beauty was indeed wondrous, despite the evil that had formed her. Then, in a voice meant only for me, she leaned forward and murmured: ‘Go, Edward. But remember me as Saraquel.’