Blood of Angels (Curse of Weyrmouth Series Book 2)

by David Longhorn

  Eventually, the scrum cleared and they were back in the main room. Park began to close the door. The golden light filling the small room suddenly grew more intense, and Kayll heard Meg's voice. He could not make out her words but the girl sounded alarmed, her tone questioning. Then the door was closed. A muffled scream was just audible.

  “Gentlemen,” said Park, heading back towards the long dining table, “let us finish this fine repast. We may be in for a long night.”

  After a brief pause, the Shadow Council members began to help themselves to more food and drink. Kayll hung back, glanced at the door. A golden glow was leaking through the gap. It grew brighter for a second, and Kayll heard another scream. The men in the room began to speak more loudly, talking of commonplace things – business, their families, the terrible weather.

  “Do not lose heart, Brother James,” said Dayton, handing Kayll a mug of wine. “Come, our leader has something to say to you. Something of profound importance!”

  As Dayton led him through the small crowd to Park, Kayll was aware of significant glances and grins between the others. There were low words, chuckles, a guffaw of ribald laughter, and the fat merchant nudged another local worthy in the ribs.

  Everyone else is in on this, Kayll thought, a sinking sensation in his stomach. Whatever it is. They kept something from me.

  As if reading his mind, Park said, “Yes, James, my friend. I did not confide in you about tonight's invocation. I regret the necessity.”

  “We were afraid your tender-hearted nature might lead to – problems,” put in Dayton, smiling.

  “What do you mean by this?” asked Kayll. “What is being done to that poor creature?”

  “Nothing that hasn't been done a hundred times before,” smirked Dayton.

  “Enough of that, Brother,” warned Park, glowering at the younger man. “This is a solemn occasion. And, I hope, a joyous one.”

  There was another scream from the small room next door, followed by frantic sobbing, cries for help. The light leaking around the door was so bright, now, that Kayll did not need to turn to see it. The unnatural radiance rivaled that of Park's fine array of candles.

  “What have you done?” demanded Kayll.

  “What we have done,” said Park, quietly, “is facilitate a union of spirit and flesh of a kind not seen since the morning of the world.”

  “It seems – monstrous,” blurted Kayll, unable to dissemble any longer.

  Park shook his head.

  “And that is why you could not be told. Unlike the rest of us, you are not a man of steadfast character. You are too kind, Brother James – always giving free treatment to beggars and wastrels, waiving your fees whenever someone tells you a sob-story. No wonder you could not afford to marry.”

  Park raised his eyes from Kayll's face and looked towards the doorway.

  “Until now, that is,” he added. “This council will ensure that you receive a substantial dowry.”

  “Marry?” exclaimed Kayll. “But–”

  “Friend,” said Dayton, taking Kayll by the arm, “a child needs a father. And I'm sure Meg will be suitably grateful.”

  The sobbing and pleading from next door faded, became a low, despairing moan.

  “Assuming the trollop can talk at all, of course,” added Park.

  There was another guffaw from the group behind Kayll.

  ***

  “Christmas is nearly here,” said Kayll. “Don't let me forget to gather mistletoe. And remind me to buy spices for the mulled wine!”

  “You keep saying that, James,” said Meg, smiling up at him from the bench by the fire. “You're so excited about something that happens once a year, without fail. Sometimes it feels like I have two children to worry about.”

  “Well, it is little Benjamin's first Christmas,” he pointed out. “And our first Yuletide together. We must have the best celebration possible!”

  Kayll bent down and kissed Meg on the forehead.

  “Are you wearing your good woolens?” she asked. “It snowed last night, didn't it?”

  “It did,” he said. “I'm always amazed by this instinct you have. How do you –”

  Kayll bit his tongue. But Meg's smile did not falter.

  “They say the other senses grow sharper,” said his wife. “But I reckon we just learn to use them more. I sense snow because the air is – sharper, somehow. And then I remember what it looked like.”

  Kayll spent a moment gazing down into his wife's face. Her features, like her figure, were noticeably fuller and healthier than those of the hapless girl of a year ago. Her hair was longer, shinier, too.

  If only I could remember what color her eyes were, he thought for the thousandth time. Somehow, it seems important. Why can't I recall?

  “Oh, he's waking up at last!” breathed Meg, turning her face to the swaddled bundle in her arms. A tiny pink hand emerged from the wrappings, waved. Kayll reached down, touched the flawless palm. Five fingers and a thumb gripped his index finger. He looked into the bundle and saw a small face staring back at him. Kayll smiled, then put out a tongue. His step-son continued to gaze up at Kayll, as if sizing up his character. Then the baby made a fretful sound, released Kayll's finger.

  “When will you – when will you do it?” asked Meg, beginning to unbutton her blouse.”

  “Take off the extra finger?” he said. “When he is at least a year old, and far stronger, my love. And I'll do it in the summer time, when the influenza is long past.”

  Content with the answer, Meg opened her blouse and began to suckle Benjamin.

  “Well,” said Kayll, speaking a little too loudly, “I must go down and open the shop, or customers will be queuing outside. You know how they grumble.”

  “You shouldn't be embarrassed after all this time,” chided Meg. “It's not as if you haven't seen my–”

  “You know me too well,” he murmured. “The shy bachelor still asserts himself from time to time.”

  Kayll bent down quickly and kissed her again.

  “But I really must go, my dear.”

  “Say goodbye to Dada, Benjamin,” urged Meg quietly, detaching the infant from her breast. “Say 'Goodbye Dada'!”

  “My dear,” Kayll began. “Even I know that children do not talk at three–”

  “Oo-by Gaga,” mouthed Benjamin, looking up at Kayll. “Oo-by.”

  The two adults were stunned into silence for a moment, then Meg began to shower praises on her son.

  “He's such a clever boy,” she beamed. “Such a clever boy, isn't he James?”

  “Yes,” said Kayll, trying to feign enthusiasm he did not feel.

  Does she not remember? Perhaps not. Perhaps the drugs I unwittingly provided blanked out much of the experience.

  They had never discussed Benjamin's conception.

  “I must go!” he repeated, and left Meg cooing over her son, and urging him to speak again. As Kayll descended the stairs, the baby's attempt to form simple words echoed in his head. The voice had indeed been that of an infant. But there had been something about the syllables that chilled Kayll to the core.

  In the background, just barely perceptible, was the pure and inhuman sound of the angel's voice.

  Chapter 1: Monday Morning Blues

  In the recurring dream, Erin Cale was dancing, though her feet were on fire. Her hands were on fire, too, but that did not seem very relevant. It certainly did not hamper her from grabbing the pole.

  She left little gobbets of flame across the stage as she danced. The audience did not seem to care. As it was a dream, burning feet seemed normal to Erin, too. But then she noticed her mother in the front row, and felt angry and embarrassed.

  Erin went over to the edge of the stage, squatted down.

  “Goddam it, Mom!” she shouted over the insistent throb of the music. “Can't you see I'm working?”

  Marybeth Cale wagged a finger at her daughter.

  “I did not teach you take the Lord's name in vain, girl! Stop that cussing!”
<
br />   The rest of the audience started to jeer and whistle. Erin saw Fat Ricky, the club boss, by the side of the stage. Fat Ricky shook his head, made a throat cutting gesture. Then the dream cut to backstage and Ricky was in the dressing room.

  “You gotta see me, right,” said Ricky. He was paunchy, sweaty, with strands of mousy hair slicked over his bald patch. “I pay you good, you don't dance right. Is that any way to treat a professor of archaeology?”

  Fat Ricky was indeed Professor Lindeman, now, sober academic and flabby lecher blending into a seamless nightmare freak. The dressing room was the lecture hall, and Erin was in her underwear in front of the other students. They were taking notes. One put up her hand.

  “Yes, Miss Rogers?” said Lindeman-Ricky.

  “Why is Erin Cale on fire?” asked the student.

  “Good question, though one might more properly ask 'Why is Erin Cale partially on fire',” corrected the professor. “Miss Cale, would you care to elaborate?”

  “I'm on fire because I need to raise money for college and dancing is way better than waiting tables,” snapped Erin. “Why doesn't anyone ask proper questions?”

  Another student's hand shot up, a young man this time.

  “Why do you have too many fingers and toes?” he demanded. “It's disgusting, but strangely attractive all at once.”

  “Yeah, good point, she's one sexy freak,” said Lindeman-Ricky, to general murmurs of approval.

  Then Erin was back in the scuzzy dressing room of the Flamingo Room in Vegas, and Fat Ricky was pushing his paunch into her, running his hands over her.

  “Just this once, sugar,” he was saying.

  “There isn't enough cash in the whole wide world, hon,” Erin replied, cupping his greasy face in six-fingered hands. Flames flowed from her hands around Ricky's head, and the fatty flesh began to boil off his skull. His mouth opened in a soundless scream, his tongue smoking like burned bacon. The golden fire covered the nightclub owner's body and it fell to the floor, charred and shriveled.

  “I think you may have over-reacted, Miss.”

  A cop was looking on from the doorway, taking out a notebook.

  “Could I have your name please, Miss?” he asked politely, pen poised. “Your true name, that is? Only that can give us power over you.”

  “Don't tell him, honey,” said Erin's father. The tiny dressing room was getting very crowded.

  “Dad?” she asked. “You're dead, how come I see more of you now than I did when you were alive?”

  Erin's dad put a hand over his heart. A six-fingered hand.

  “That hurts, kid,” he said. “Your mom told me to go, so I went. You know how she gets. But I've been watching over you. Me and the gang.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting this heart-warming reunion, folks,” said the cop, drawing his revolver. He had an angelic face framed with long, golden hair. “But I may have to shoot both of you dead at this difficult juncture. Just to keep things neat and tidy. After all, there is a war on. In Heaven.”

  Erin woke to a throbbing pain in her hands and feet.

  Well, she thought, that was a doozy. Some interesting details I don't recall from last time.

  Erin turned on her bedside lamp and swung her legs off the bed. Her feet, though encased in thick socks over the dressings, still stung when she put them down onto the thin bedroom carpet. She took two painkillers from the container on the bedside table and swallowed them, followed by a gulp of water.

  Like they'll make any damn difference. I should ask that cute Doctor Black to prescribe some of the good stuff. He probably wouldn't do it, but at least I'd get to gaze longingly at him again.

  She put the glass down, picked up the remote, flicked on the TV. It was early morning, and a local news program was rehashing the so-called Cathedral Massacre. One of the hosts began to talk about the dangers posed by packs of stray dogs. Erin turned over to a kids' cartoon, stared blankly for a while at colorful moving shapes.

  Yeah, wild dogs. That's a great cover story. Nice and simple.

  Erin thought back to the chaotic violence that had ended the attempt to put on a Mystery Play in Weyrmouth Cathedral. Thought the carnage had happened only a few weeks earlier her impressions were jumbled, out of sync. She remembered the Seven, ghosts of children murdered seven hundred years earlier. Somehow, the boys' souls had become one with the great cathedral tower, protecting it against the elements. Down the centuries, they had captured other souls to feed the stones of the tower, restoring it after storms, floods, or other damage.

  Yes, but what else? The Seven were just part of it.

  The being calling itself Nick had tried to replace some of the trapped souls with those of new victims, including Erin. Nick's Wish-Hounds had killed Park and Holy Joe, two very different men who had had tried to stop the process. But then things grew hazy. Erin recalled fighting Nick, somehow, in a dark place where her dad had intervened. She had discovered a power within her. She had survived, albeit badly burned her hands and feet. Others had not been so fortunate.

  The tower didn't fall. Some new souls were trapped, preserving it. But how long before more are needed? What happened to Nick and his hounds? Why haven't I seen the Seven again?

  Erin lay back down on the bed and channel-hopped some more. Many interrupted nights, thanks to the discomfort in hands and feet, kept her permanently tired. After half an hour, she began to doze off. When she woke fully it was nearly eight and the kids' show had given way to more news.

  World's still going to hell in a handcart, she thought. And I'm lying here, supposedly convalescing.

  “Going stir crazy, more like,” she muttered, turning off the TV.

  Another week of this and I will go crazy. Doc says I'm well enough to work. So I'm gonna work, whatever the boss says.

  She heaved herself off the bed again and picked up her crutches.

  “Okay, first challenge,” she said, levering herself upright. “Getting dressed without falling over and breaking something. Like me, for instance.”

  ***

  Mike Smith was preparing himself for battle. His objective was to defeat an enemy who was already wounded and – he hoped – demoralized. His weapons were unpleasant truths, internet rumors, and some very awkward questions.

  I've got enough on her now, he thought. More than enough. When the Museums and Galleries Committee see this lot, they'll sack her straight away.

  Erin Cale had stolen the job that was rightly his. It was obvious to Smith that he was the right person for the job of deputy director of Weyrmouth Museum. That someone from outside should have taken what was rightfully his was galling. That the intruder was foreign and female made it unbearable.

  Arrogant bitch, he thought, watching more printouts emerge. Overbearing, with that passive aggressive 'Oh, I'm new to this so you'll have to help poor little me' line.

  And it was as if fate agreed with him. Erin Cale had been badly injured just a few days after taking up her post. This meant she had been off work for over a month. During that time, Smith had returned to his old role as acting deputy director. As before, he had worked hard to impress his boss, Louise Tarrant, hoping that she would see the error of her ways and let the American go.

  But she didn't, did she? No, whenever I so much as hinted that she could reverse her stupid decision that arrogant cow smacked me down. Well, I'll show her. I'll show them all.

  The printer finished churning out sheets of paper, fell silent. Smith reached down and began to check the printouts. It would not do to present sloppy research to the Museums and Galleries Committee. When Smith went to City Hall this morning, he intended to take a cast-iron case against his enemy.

  “I'll show them all,” he muttered. “Yep, all present and correct.”

  The printouts, read with the right frame of mind, told the story of Erin Cale's life. It had not been easy. Without the Internet's capacity to record everything ever posted it would have been impossible. Smith had spent hours every evening searching archived U
S news items, police reports, court records, and other sources. Eventually, he had built a picture of Erin Cale as a wayward, troubled, and often violent individual. After weeks of diligent research, he had concluded that he had enough to hang the woman, metaphorically speaking

  “If only I could hang her for real,” he said. “But getting her out of my life will have to suffice.”

  Smith stood, stretched, felt a knot of tension in his back give with a satisfying click.

  “You're a bad man.”

  Smith froze, then spun round. He could see no one in his small study. The door was shut, there was nowhere to hide. Yet he had heard the words. An urgent whisper, a child's voice, close to his ear. Smith paused, waiting to see if the speaker would reveal themselves. Then he relaxed and smiled.

  I've been working too hard, he thought. Stressing out, losing sleep. All that hassle thanks to both of those bitches.

  Smith clipped together his dossier and put it into his briefcase, ready to take to City Hall first thing in the morning. He had already exchanged emails with Roker, one of the committee members, who had promised Smith a hearing.

  That's all I need, a chance to put my case, he thought. Then she'll be gone, and we can get back to normal. With me lined up to replace Her Ladyship when she goes.

  Smith smiled as he anticipated taking over as Louise Tarrant's deputy. He would be loyal and diligent on the surface, of course. But there were many ways to work behind the scenes to undermine her authority. Expressing concern about her mental fragility was one. After the bizarre incident at Weyrmouth Cathedral before Christmas, which put Cale in hospital, Louise had been off her game.

  If she carries on coasting like this, he thought, I'll have her out before the end of the year.

  “Bad man!”

  Again, the voice hissed its admonition from behind him. And once more, there was nobody there.

  Am I hearing things?

  Then a blast of dance music came through the floor from the flat downstairs. After a moment of pure shock, Smith laughed with relief.