The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray

by Chris Wooding

  “But perhaps,” said Alaizabel, “if there were one who had a modicum of Thatch’s wychcraft, she might be able to undo the lock.”

  The Devil-boy smiled, an expression so rare that it looked disgusting on him. “She learns,” he croaked.

  Thaniel looked up at the airship hanging above them. “Can we use the bombs aboard that thing?” he asked, motioning towards the undercarriage where two clumsy-looking finned objects were attached.

  “We must be sure,” said Jack. “We must have Thatch. Bombing the cathedral might block our way in.”

  Alaizabel was already approaching the gates, her eyes roaming the surface.

  “Do not touch it,” warned the Devil-boy. “The Wards could kill you.”

  “I will not touch it,” Alaizabel assured them, and she began to draw her Ward in the air.

  Thaniel watched her at work, faint amazement on his face. This new-found ability, a leaving present from Thatch, and she already seemed born to it. To be suddenly bestowed with such a power would unsettle the strongest mind as much as waking up with a new limb, yet Alaizabel had already accepted it. That was her power, he decided. She would never be conquered. She had been through more than he would wish on anyone in the previous week, and yet she had rode it out and remained perfectly sane. She adapted to every new situation, fitted the lock to every door.

  He thought of the kiss they had shared, and smiled to himself despite his fear, and thought of what might be when all this was over.

  Alaizabel made the last pass of the Ward as if she had done it a thousand times. It was a Ward of Negation, used to dispel other Wards. Ordinarily, she would not have had a chance of overcoming Thatch’s power; but anyone who placed a Ward could remove it just as easily, and as Alaizabel had inherited her ability from Thatch, the chances were that it would yield to her.

  She stepped back, leaving the shape hanging in the air before her.

  Nothing. Then: a blinding flash, causing them all to shield their eyes. The Wards on the door blazed bright like gunpowder and then guttered and died, burned out and useless. The gold tracing on the symbols seemed dull and tarnished now, the life within them gone.

  Alaizabel looked at Thaniel and gave him a swift smile.

  “I’ll wager that old wych will have cause to regret ever meeting Miss Alaizabel Cray,” said Carver with a grin. “To the purpose, then. Time is short.”

  The Rite of pthau’es’maik took perhaps two days in total. Every member of the Fraternity knew their part backwards. It was required that the ceremony be continuous and uninterrupted for it to be successful, but forty-eight hours was a long time for anyone to maintain concentration. Therefore, the vigil was kept in shifts, four hours at a time, changing not all at once but gradually. Cultists left and were replaced at a steady rate, so that there were never less than twenty performing the ceremony at anyone time.

  Over a thousand components went into the successful completion of the pthau’es’maik. The right prayers had to be said in the right order; the summoning circle had to have each of its one hundred and thirteen Wards individually invoked and treated; the incenses had to be prepared and burned in the correct proportions within the circle; each person performing the ceremony had to ritually purify themselves every time he or she rejoined the group; anointments had to be made ready for when Thatch joined them at the very end of the ceremony to guide the Glau Meska into the world. There were so many ways to get it wrong, and only one to get it right.

  And so, on it went, in the great hall of the cathedral, and the ceremony drew ever closer to completion.

  “Pyke! Pyke, I say! Where are you, damn your soul!”

  Thatch swept through the stone corridors of the cathedral, heading for where Pyke slept, calling all the while. The Doctor had just finished presiding over a particularly exhausting section of the pthau’es’maik, one which was too delicate to entrust to anyone else. He had hoped for rest.

  “Well, ma’am. What can ah do for you?” drawled Curien Blake, who stood outside the door to the room where Pyke slept.

  “Out of my way, you insufferable colonial twig! Be off, I say! Pyke!”

  The tall American regarded the woman who stood before him. Such a waste, he thought. That beautiful eighteen-year-old, a fine English rose if ever there was one, and they stuffed her full of thorns. Thatch had the face and body of that young lady, but she still looked old. Her healthy bones still hunched stiffly; her fine, smooth fingers still clawed with arthritis; and her voice was a sharp crow. Such a waste.

  “He’s sleepin’, Miss Thatch,” Blake said. “He said he was not to be disturbed.” Unlike the Fraternity members, Blake offered Thatch no more respect than anyone else. While they bowed and scurried to her every whim, he treated her as nothing special. It infuriated her.

  “Are you his servant now, eh? Speak up, I say! A servant?”

  “As long as this servant keeps gettin’ paid like Doctor Pyke pays, he does what the man asks.”

  “Pyke!” she hollered, and now the door opened and it was the Doctor himself, dressed in a nightshirt and pushing his glasses on to his nose.

  “Oh! Miss Thatch. What a—”

  “Someone’s opened the cathedral door!” she howled at him. “I can feel it. My Wards are all broken. Someone’s come inside, you fool!”

  It took a moment for this to sink in, and then the Doctor was fully alert and awake. “Mister Blake!” he snapped. “Find the intruders and deal with them.”

  “Pleasure,” he said, and stalked away.

  “I’ll be dressed directly,” he said to Thatch. “I confess, I did not expect anyone to get this close to us, but there are ways and means of dealing with such things.”

  * * *

  It was like walking through the arteries of some great and sleeping beast.

  The interior of the cathedral was of gold and black stone and red lacquer; gold and black and red, red and black and gold and no shade or variation in-between. Ornamented arches, votive altars, small alcoves of red with burning black candles inside. The colours were so rich and so unwavering that they forcefully overtook the eyes, oppressing those who walked in their light. Colours so plush, yet aggressive and dark and overwhelming.

  “I hate this place,” Alaizabel whispered.

  “It has a certain appeal,” Cathaline replied, who often wore red and black herself and who blended in nicely.

  “Careful,” said Carver. “They may know we are here.” His pistol was held at the ready, like those of the hunters.

  “They know,” said the Devil-boy.

  “You know, I imagine, of the type of wych-kin that has no form of its own,” said Pyke, striding down the darkened corridor. “They possess already living creatures. Cradlejacks, Dog-rats and so forth.”

  “Fool! I know everything there is to know about wych-kin!” Thatch snapped back at him.

  “Of course you do,” Pyke replied. “My deepest apologies. I mean to say, that we have been summoning these wych-kin for some time now.”

  “A simple task. Yes, simple,” Thatch said. She could hear a snarling now, and she turned and fixed Pyke with a beady eye. “What was that, eh?”

  “That was what I was talking about,” said the Doctor. “These wych-kin need a host to live, rather like you do. One of our oldest members is a breeder of particularly vicious guard dogs. We put wych-kin inside them. The results were rather spectacular, as far as our experiments went.”

  “Hmm. Be swift, I must begin my part in the ceremony soon,” she replied sharply.

  Pyke halted in front of a locked and barred door. A pair of thick-set men stood there, identified as animal handlers by their attire. The snarling came from within, deep and guttural. The Doctor handed Thatch a thin bracelet of smooth metal, with a single Ward in raised filigree crafted on to it.

  “Please put this on. We all have one. It will stop the dogs from attacking you.”

  Thatch did so, and one of the handlers unlocked the door and pushed it open. The reaction was immedi
ate. The growls erupted into frenzied barks, and the sound of chains clashing taut mixed with the sound of heavy bodies hitting thick bars as the creatures lunged at their cages. The room was pitch dark, but in the light from the doorway, Thatch could see two rows of cages and the silhouettes of the things inside.

  “Delightful, aren’t they?” Pyke said, and the two handlers stepped inside to open the cages and let free the wych-dogs.

  THE WYCH-DOGS

  PROPHECIES FULFILLED

  THE AMERICAN WAY 26

  They heard the dogs coming long before they saw them, and they knew these were no ordinary dogs.

  “There’s dozens of them!” Cathaline guessed. Carver was checking the chamber of his pistol. Thaniel’s wych-sense was growing in volume inside his head as the creatures approached.

  They stood in a tall chamber, with high, red-lacquer ribs reaching up to the sloped ceiling above them. Wooden benches and thick tables were arranged in rows, giving the place the impression of some kind of dining hall. There were two pointed archways—one that they had entered from and one directly opposite—and two further small doors set in the other walls.

  The sounds were coming from the large archway ahead of them, and coming fast.

  “Turn over the tables!” Carver shouted. “Make barricades!”

  They did so, hefting two of the great tables up against the archway where the dogs would come from. After that, they tipped the rest of the tables and benches, turning the hall into a broken maze of obstacles. It was all accomplished within a minute and they retreated, to wait. They had laid out three rough rows of the heavy tables, so they could fall back from each one to new cover if they were overwhelmed. Gaps had been left in the tables behind them, allowing them to dart through and then slide the tables together to form a strong barrier. Now they took position behind the foremost one, their eyes fixed on the gaping archway through which the baying of the hounds was approaching.

  Thaniel handed Alaizabel a short, narrow-bladed sword that had hung at his belt. “In case they get too close,” he said. Alaizabel took it and said nothing.

  The first dogs reached them then, two of the creatures springing over the blockade in the archway and landing foursquare on the flagstones. Cathaline swore under her breath at the sight of them. There was no question that they were wych-kin. They had the vague shape of dogs, but they seemed swollen and twisted from the inside. Barrel-chested, legs knotted with muscles so thick as to be grotesque, their teeth had overgrown their gums and splintered in their mouths, making their drool pink with blood. Their eyes were blank and dark, set within prominent ridges of bone that shadowed them. Their fur was a bristly black, but they were bathed in the red light that filled the room from outside, making them seem hellish in aspect.

  Thaniel was the first to fire, and the others followed a moment later. The first two dogs were shot to pieces by the initial salvo, but there were already more pouncing and scrabbling over the blockade, howling at the scent. Thaniel levelled and took the head off one of them as it tried to pull itself up and over the tables by its forepaws; Carver and Cathaline both discharged their weapons into the flank of another. Two more fell that way, picked off as they tried to clamber over the barricade, and then four of the wych-dogs took the blockade at once, and the tables tipped forward and collapsed under their great weight. The creatures burst in, pistols roared, and two of them fell dead. But the dogs would not be stopped, and they had numbers now. Racing across the room, they threw themselves at the overturned tables behind which the intruders hid. One of them scrambled over the top, only to find a pistol barrel in its mouth and its brains liberated from its skull. Still, the tide could not be turned back, and another wych-dog appeared from nowhere, squeezing through a gap between the tables and rushing at Alaizabel; but she lifted her blade two-handed like a dagger, and thrust it into the creature’s side. It yowled in agony, skidding past her, and a moment later Carver was there to finish it off with a bullet. He pulled the blade from the dead thing’s ribs and threw it back to Alaizabel, not able to spare another instant as the dogs were pouring into the room now. He shot at another dog that had got stuck wriggling through the tables, missed and hit wood, and Cathaline cried out as a thick, blunt splinter hit her just above the eye. Thaniel killed the dog with his sabre before it could free itself.

  “Fall back!” Cathaline cried, and they did so, ducking through the gaps between the next row of tables and sliding them shut to block out the enemy.

  Thaniel was frantically reloading as the second wave struck. Cathaline wiped the trickle of blood from her forehead and took aim again. The damned things were relentless, coming from all sides now. The brighter ones had learned not to try and climb the tables or scramble through, but to run around the edges of the room and attack from the sides, slipping in behind the barricades. Thaniel looked round and saw one such dog wrestling with the Devil-boy, scratching at him with vicious claws as he fought to keep its snapping teeth away from his face. The Devil-boy produced a dart, feathered with exotic colours, and stabbed it into the creature on top of him. As it struck, the dog shrieked and exploded into ochre flame. The creatures paused, taken aback by the sight of their kin writhing in agony as the Devil-boy threw it off. And then something was arcing through the air, thrown by Cathaline, rattling to a halt...

  The air was torn with an ear-shattering explosion and a flash of light bright enough to dazzle. One of Cathaline’s flash bombs, with a little extra added for noise.

  Gunfire erupted again, but this time it was from behind them. It took a few seconds for Thaniel to realize that it was not Cathaline or Carver, but someone else, shooting at them! He whirled round to see four men, two dressed incongruously in dinner jackets, one in a Stetson and riding leathers, and the last in a crimson robe with his cowl gathered around his shoulders. They were standing in the archway from which the intruders had entered the room, the overturned tables blocking a clear firing line. They were sandwiched; the wych-dogs on one side, the Fraternity on the other.

  “Stay together!” Cathaline shouted, but her voice was drowned out by another flash bomb, this time aimed at the cultists.

  “You must see this to the end, you and Thaniel,” hissed the Devil-boy suddenly, appearing at Alaizabel’s elbow.

  “What? Where are you going?” she cried.

  “My time is now. I will not be—”

  He was cut short as Curien Blake levelled and fired, and Alaizabel shrieked and shuddered as blood sprayed the wooden surface of the table and lashed up her dress and across her face and hair. The Devil-boy slumped forward into her, and she shrieked again as she pushed him off, staggering backwards. She felt herself being pulled up to her feet. It was Thaniel, firing over her shoulder at a wych-dog that leaped to intercept.

  “Now!” Curien Blake called over the racket, and he and his two remaining companions sprang around the sides of their table and rushed towards the defenders. Egmont, the man in the crimson robes, lay dead nearby, having taken one of Cathaline’s bullets in his heart. Darston, one of those who wore a dinner suit—for he had not yet taken his part in the pthau’es’maik—was dropped before he could reach the spot where Cathaline, Carver, Thaniel and Alaizabel sheltered. But Blake had timed his attack to coincide with the moment when the few remaining wych-dogs had launched their final assault, and so Carver and Thaniel had been occupied with keeping them back; there was only Cathaline’s gun to oppose them, and as she turned it towards Blake, he shot her in the hand.

  She screamed against the pain, recoiling as Blake and his surviving companion, Hodge, vaulted the tables and brought their guns up. Carver spun, but Blake’s gun roared and he was thrown backwards over a table where he slumped, still. The click of the hammers on their pistols signalled an end to the conflict; Hodge’s gun was pressed to Thaniel’s head, and Blake’s was pointed at Cathaline where she knelt on the floor, clutching the red mess of her hand. Alaizabel froze where she was.

  “Sure hate to shoot a lady, ma’am, but you don’t
leave a man much choice,” he drawled.

  “Bastard,” Cathaline hissed through gritted teeth, trying to flex her fingers and only managing to make them twitch. There was a hole through her palm, ragged with bleeding flesh so dark that it seemed black in the red light.

  “Mercy, and ah thought English women were all manners,” he said with a grin. There was a snarl, and Blake whipped out a second pistol with his free hand and shot the last wych-dog as it clambered over the barrier of tables. “Devilish hard to control, they are. Can’t have ’em chewin’ on mah captives.”

  “I know you,” said Thaniel, and Blake turned to face him, tipping his hat.

  “Curien Blake, best wych-hunter in the whole damn States. And I know you, sir. Thaniel Fox, if ah ain’t mistaken. Son of the best wych-hunter in all of England, so ah’m told.”

  “Mr Blake, we should deal with them now,” Hodge said. “Now you hush up, Hodge,” said the American. “Ah got business to attend to here. Nobody’s goin’ nowhere; Pyke’s precious ceremony is safe. Ah want to have some fun.”

  Hodge subsided doubtfully, keeping his weapon trained on Thaniel.

  “Now, sir,” Blake said to Thaniel. “I wonder if you’d do me a great honour.”

  “I doubt that,” said Thaniel. “Since you seem to have aligned yourself against me.”

  “Well, ah go where the money’s greatest, that’s true,” said Blake, in his infuriating drawl. “But ah can’t pass up an opportunity like this. The greatest in the States, against the greatest in the Kingdom. Ah’d always wanted to take on your father, boy. But folks say the sons got the same mettle. You and me, Thaniel Fox. Let’s see who walks away.”

  “You’re asking him for a duel?” Cathaline exclaimed in disbelief.

  “Well, either that or ah shoot you both right now,” Blake replied. “And that pretty lil’ thing over there.” He motioned at where Hodge had gathered Alaizabel to them, holding her by the arm while he kept his gun on Thaniel.

  Hodge now: “Mr Blake, I really must protest.”