The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray

by Chris Wooding

  “There must be dozens of them!” Carver said.

  They needed nobody to instruct them in what to do next; there was still something of the primal man in their souls, a prehistoric instinct that quailed in fear at the sound of a wolf pack at hunt. They ran.

  The first wolf clambered through the gap and on to the platform before they were halfway to the other end of the station, where a new arch waited to take them further along the Piccadilly line. It ran hungrily from the darkness into the lantern-light, tongue lolling, and though Cathaline’s first shot missed, Thaniel’s did not. The wolf dropped, shot through the neck.

  Three more were coming through even before the reports of their weapons had ceased bouncing around the walls.

  “Alaizabel!” Thaniel cried. “Take the others into the tunnel. We can hold them off.”

  Alaizabel wordlessly obeyed, leading the others in a run, leaving Thaniel, Cathaline and Carver to face the oncoming hordes.

  Thaniel hefted his lantern towards the oncoming creatures, shattering it and spreading a slick of burning oil across the platform. Though it was pitched too far to stop the three that were coming at them, the extra light would give them more chance to shoot any further attackers, and the fire would certainly put them off.

  Three guns roared, and three wolves dropped dead.

  They could see the other wolves gathering on the far side of the blaze, their eyes glinting amber in the light. Cathaline looked back to where the others were clambering down on to the tracks on the other side of the train.

  “Shall we make our exit?” she asked.

  “I think,” said Carver, “that would be wise.”

  They fled and, as if at a signal, the wolves came for them. They burst through the flames, some with smoking pelts and some as frenzied fireballs, driven by some insane hunger, yelping and howling. Thaniel, Carver and Cathaline turned in horror at the sight, their pistols coming up, and they continued to back away as they aimed at the hellish, fiery things racing towards them.

  “Get me up there, for God’s sake! I can still shoot a wolf!” Crott demanded as he was hurried by Armand into the tunnel, but he was ignored.

  A fresh volley of pistol shots sounded through the station, but they could not see up to the platform where their companions were; the train blocked their view.

  “Alaizabel has an idea,” said the Devil-boy softly, motioning towards where she stood. Their attention fell on her. She appeared to be drawing in the dirt on the flat end of the train, tracing a shape over and over, slow and unhurried.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Crott asked, but she did not reply and did not need to. For she was making the final pass over her Ward now, lava-like red light glowing in the wake of her finger, defining the curling shape, making it sear the eye and then burst into bright life before suddenly fading.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then a tortured shriek filled the air, making them clamp their hands to their ears.

  On the platform, the wolves’ assault stuttered as they flinched at the sound. Those who had not jumped the blaze looked about in confusion. Those who had, kept on coming.

  For Carver and the others, the situation was desperate. Already, the stretch of platform between the flaming lantern oil and where they were was littered with wolf bodies, and the air was full of the nauseating smell of burning flesh. They had backed up almost to the end of the platform now, but the wolves still howled and hurtled towards them. Carver shot at one of the flaming things, making it stumble but not bringing it down. It took Cathaline’s second shot to finally end its life. But behind the flaming creature was a second wolf, one who had jumped the blaze relatively unscathed. Thaniel brought up a pistol but it clicked empty, and suddenly the thing was upon them.

  In amid the chaos, the shriek became louder, until it seemed it could not strain any more. At that moment, there was a monolithic wrench, and the train began to grind forward, slowly, centimetre by centimetre, wheels that had long rusted turning after twenty years. The wolves howled, and some of the cleverest ones scampered back into the tunnel from where they had come to prevent themselves becoming trapped. But some were paralysed with indecision, frightened by the terrible noise, and they yelped and ran in circles. One ran too near the fire and its tail caught like a brush, bursting into flame; and in its agony and fear it ran between its fellows, and they shied away from it, fearing the burning thing.

  The wolf that Thaniel had failed to shoot pounced, barrelling into Cathaline and knocking her into the hard wall. She shrieked in pain as its claws slashed through her coat, and scrabbled for a knife, but Thaniel was upon it, falling on its back with a knife of his own, driving it into the base of the wolfs neck and severing its spinal cord. It fell limp, dead instantly. Cathaline’s lantern had somehow survived the fall, and was rolling noisily on its side. Carver scooped it up and pitched it in one smooth motion, sending it arcing over the fire that Thaniel had made and smashing in the midst of the gathered wolves. The wolf who was on fire became the unwitting match to the oil that sprayed them, and the creatures were engulfed in a river of flame amid a cacophony of dying howls.

  There was a deafening crash as the train drove itself into the tunnel that was a little too small for it, the metal of its sides screeching against the sagging stone of the walls, and then finally it stopped. The wolves’ lament faded to a soft crackling as they burned; the wail of the train had ceased, having plugged the tunnel they had come from, and all was silence once more.

  “Did it get you?” Thaniel was asking, helping Cathaline up. “Are you hurt?”

  She shucked off one arm of her coat, rolled up her sleeve and looked. Deep gouges had been made in her forearm. She flexed her fingers, squeezing a fresh wash of blood from the wounds.

  “Tourniquet and a bandage,” she said offhandedly. “I’ll be all right. Let’s get going; I can do it as we travel.”

  They went on, and their exertion warmed their bodies and damp clothes; but the cold refused to abate. They had fewer lanterns now, and the dark crowded hungrily closer about them. Thaniel helped Cathaline bind her wounds, and they managed to staunch the blood quite effectively with clotting reagents and bandages that she had brought in her pack. Injury was part of a wych-hunters occupation, and medical supplies were as necessary as guns and charms; they never went without them. Thaniel counted her lucky that it was a wolf and not a Cradlejack that scratched her. Down here, there would be no help if something like that occurred.

  They passed through Arsenal without incident, treading carefully along the tracks with wary eyes on the platform to their right. Each of them privately entertained thoughts of clambering up and heading up the stairs to the outside; anything to get out of the terrible blackness that swamped them. Crott was weakening step by step; that much was obvious. But Arsenal station was ruined and impassable, and they had to keep on. Back into the tunnel they went, the final stretch through the foul cold in this dark, damnable place.

  “Stop,” said Alaizabel suddenly. It could have been a mere minute or half an hour since they had left Arsenal; none of them could tell, and none had the heart to look at their pocket watches.

  They turned to her. She breathed out heavily, and a wispy cloud of vapour outlined her exhalation.

  “It is getting colder,” she said. “Very fast.”

  She was right. They all felt it now. The temperature was dropping sharply plunging towards freezing. Thaniel felt a creeping dread in his breast.

  Armand was rubbing his tongue with the back of his hand, as if to rid it of something horrible. Crott noticed him first, and then understood.

  “The air tastes salty,” he declared.

  The Devil-boy came as close to alarm then as anyone had ever seen him. Alaizabel jerked her head around to look at Crott, horrified realization dawning on her face.

  “The Draug,” the Devil-boy rasped. “The Drowned Folk. They come for us.”

  Alaizabel quailed, remembering the night when she had come within a hair’s bre
adth of meeting one of the creatures. She had never heard them named before, but she well knew the acrid taste of the sea and freezing temperatures that heralded their arrival.

  “Stand together, all of you!” Jack barked, then drew a thick piece of black stone from inside his coat. He walked hurriedly around them, drawing a wide circle by scratching the stone along the floor, running it over tracks and sleepers alike. Even by lantern-light, they could not see any sign of the circle he drew; the stone left no mark. But to the Devil-boy’s blind eyes, it was as clear as day.

  “Cold!” Armand moaned, hugging Crott to him for warmth.

  “I think I can make us warmer,” Alaizabel suggested. She knew the Ward for heat, though she was not quite sure how to apply it.

  “Do not use Wards within this circle,” the Devil-boy hissed, still working. “We must conceal ourselves. The circle will make us invisible to them. Warding will draw them like a tide to the moon.”

  The wet slap of a webbed foot drifted softly through the darkness, coming from the direction they were heading.

  “Put out your lanterns,” Jack instructed. They hesitated. “Do it, or we shall all die!”

  The lanterns went out, and the phantoms of fear crept up behind them to squeeze their throats and hearts. The blackness was utter and complete. There was only the cold, the terrible cold, and the scratching sound of Jack completing his circle, for the Devil-boy was already blind and did not need light. Their clothes, which had warmed a little on their skin, began to dew. Thaniel felt his hair slicken with moisture, chill droplets of salty water. The dark, freezing abyss of the bottomless sea wrapped around them, their breath clouding invisibly about them.

  “Make not a sound,” the Devil-boy whispered, huddling inside the circle. He heard Crott repeat the instruction to Armand, the simpleton, though Crott’s words were so badly slurred as to be barely understandable. In his weakened state, the cold was affecting him far worse than the rest of them, and he was getting hypothermia.

  The echo of slapping feet multiplied. Slow, deliberate footsteps, heavy and dolorous. The things seemed to drag themselves, for each laboured step was accompanied by a sound halfway between a scrape and a slither, and the sound bespoke something larger than human. They drew closer and closer towards the huddled and terrified group that stood blind in the centre of the tracks, penned within an invisible circle, their trust placed entirely in a process they did not understand. Only the Devil-boy knew his business; even Cathaline had not heard of this kind of Rite.

  Alaizabel hugged herself to Thaniel, and this time, in the dark, he responded, slipping his arms around her and holding her close to his chest, feeling her heart thump against his.

  The next sound was so close that she nearly made a small cry of fright, but it died in her throat. She could feel Armand becoming jittery next to her, could almost imagine his lip trembling as he fought to contain a wail of distress.

  Then they were all around, their wet scent of rotting fish forcing itself down throats and into nostrils. She could hear the wheezy gurgle of their breath, feel them lumber about, sniffing, questing for their prey. The Draug knew the humans were nearby, yet they could not understand why they could not find them.

  Cathaline held herself still as something slid past her, making the fine hairs on her arm prickle beneath the torn sleeve of her coat. She swallowed back terror, the primal fear of the dark that tried to climb the inside of her ribcage and squeeze up her throat and out. She realized then that she had never been in total darkness before. In this world of gaslights and lanterns, who would ever need to be? And even in the countryside, there was always the moon and the ambient night-glow of the world around her, providing enough light so that even the cloudiest midnight was not pitch black.

  But here, there was no light. Nothing, not one scrap that the eye could fasten on and utilize. An utter, aching void that threatened to suck their hearts and wills out of their bodies and crush them.

  Thaniel stood stonily, fighting to control the trembling that shook his body. The Draug shuffled and gurgled about, terrifyingly close. The wet thump of a tail being dragged over a train track, the bubbling of the wych-kin’s breath, the feel of movement as they passed close again and again, searching, searching. They seemed to pass around the circle as if not realizing it was there, yet they were well aware their prey was very close, and they were not soon giving up. The terrible cold emptiness, the lightless salty dark of the deepest seas, and Cathaline felt that the ordeal would never end.

  Dark, dark. All is dark.

  Alaizabel gave a tiny whimper as a blast of foetid breath blew into her face, a Draug so close that she might have touched it with her nose. The sound, miniscule though it was, fell into silence. The Draug had stopped moving, frozen at the instant the noise escaped her lips. Alaizabel felt her heart sink in terror. They had heard her.

  The shuffling now was more deliberate, heavy with purpose. Those who were further away were moving back towards the circle. Thaniel felt something slimy pass by his face, so close that fine tendrils ran across his lips and he almost gagged. The Draug were reaching in for them, into the circle, and it was only a matter of seconds before they were touched and found.

  The anguished wail that made them all start was enough to make Thaniel think his time had come, but after a moment, he recognized the dull, nasal tone. It was Armand, and as he realized it he felt himself jostled, and knew that Armand had broken from the circle, yelling and roaring wordlessly, into the blackness. Thaniel held Alaizabel tightly to him as the sounds reached their ears, the suddenly rapid scrape and lunge of the Draug, the howling of Armand, the slither and bump and thud, and Armand’s voice gradually fading, dropping down to a sob, then to a gurgle, and finally to nothing.

  The quiet that returned was utter. The sounds of the Draug had gone. For what seemed an hour, nobody moved. The atmosphere was no longer salty, and it had warmed considerably.

  “Are they gone?” Carver asked at last, his voice barely audible.

  The hiss of a match and the swell of light from the Devil-boys lantern was his answer. In moments, all the remaining lanterns were lit, spreading healing illumination through the terror-slick darkness. Thaniel was shaking; Alaizabel began to shudder also, within the circle of his arms.

  Of the Beggar Lord, Crott, and his giant companion, there was not a sign.

  GENERAL MONTPELIER

  LONDON BY AIRSHIP

  THE HEART OF EVIL 24

  Finsbury Park airstrip sat low under the boiling roof of black cloud, a long rectangle of high walls and jagged strips of iron fencing. Lights shone from within, electric bulbs powered by generators over in Hampstead Heath. On the western side, a hollow square of squat, flat buildings was alive with slits of illumination, reflecting shakily on the sodden tarmacadam of the main quad. The eastern side of the enclosure was the airstrip proper, little more than a wide slab of empty space with tall lamp-posts glowing around its edge. Two great airships sat idle there, resting on their gondolas with their balloons like the carapaces of vast, seamed beetles chained to the ground. The rain poured, the sky flashed and roared, stunning the scene in white light, and soldiers ran to and from the quad and across the airstrip, rifles in hand. Over the boom of the thunder the crack of gunfire could be heard. The airstrip sat alone, an island of light amid a barrier of darkened fields, and it was here that the Piccadilly line came to an end.

  The Finsbury Park Underground station had fallen into disuse after the Vernichtung and the collapse of Caledonian Road and Arsenal. It was an unfortunate mistake of the city planning authorities that the airstrip should be built around the station building. After the bombing of London and the acquisition of airship technology by the British, the intention was to repair the fallen subway stations, restore the Piccadilly line, and build the newly conceived airstrip over the old Finsbury Park station. The military were to fund the building of the airstrip, while the city councils were to resurrect the fallen stations. Construction of the airstrip had alread
y begun when the wych-kin first began to appear, and the councils suddenly found themselves with far more pressing matters than an old Underground line to contend with. The money was spent on other things, the stations were never repaired, and in the end the airstrip was built at the end of a dead line.

  The station itself had been assimilated into the main group of buildings, a heavily guarded iron doorway forming the link between the Underground and the airstrip proper. It stood on the ground level of the administration wing, Wards set on it to deter any wych-kin that might creep up from the darkness, with two jacketed officers on the airstrip side carrying pistols and sabres.

  The guards had been briefed about Carvers telegram, but neither of them believed that anyone would make it through several kilometres of Underground tunnels to reach the airstrip. Consequently, when there was a heavy rapping on the door, they both exchanged a glance of alarm.

  “State your name!” one of them called after a moment.

  “Its Detective Carver!” cried an exasperated voice. “Who were you expecting?”

  They slid back a viewing-slot in the door, and hastily unbolted it, saluting as the ragged band stumbled into the room, shivering and exhausted.

  “Send for General Montpelier,” one of the guards instructed the other. “And take them to some quarters. Get them warm, for Gods sake.”

  They were taken to a briefing room, a sterile grey square with hard wooden benches set against the walls and chalkboards at one end. Small tables were set in rows facing the chalkboards, and high, small windows let in the flashes of light from the storm outside. But most importantly, there was a fire, and during the winter it was kept always burning for the benefit of those pilots and soldiers who had to sit here in the cruel cold to learn about their assignments. They huddled around it, letting its precious heat sink into their chilled bones and turn their wet, icy clothes into damp, lukewarm ones. Once out of the Underground, where the sun never reached, the temperature had become quite bearable again, and soggy clothes were an inevitability in this kind of weather. Thaniel found himself worrying about getting influenza, and laughed at his own ridiculousness. A bout of flu would be a small price to pay if they could only survive this night.