The fog hand reached for Timothy, and Charles shut his eyes and tried again to find that hate, but he could only find his heart, which was full of fear for the ones he loved.
“Just make it go,” he whispered to the wraiths, not even able to sense if this was possible. “Just make it go away.”
This time the ghosts turned brighter, and they grew, turning into great tall pillars around him. They leaped up and charged as one at the fog-shrouded demon. The demon shouted in rage, then turned and fled, shooting like a streak of dark light down the hall and to the stairs, the ghosts streaming behind it in a blaze of blue fire. Then the ghosts reappeared and formed a semicircle around him, each going down on one knee. Beside Charles, Timothy was making soft gurgling sounds as he came out of the enchantment.
“What do you command us, Lord?”
Timothy’s hand came down hard on his shoulder as he leaned against him, gasping for breath. Charles suddenly felt tired and unsure.
He saw the ghosts begin to fade once more.
“Madeline,” he said quickly, trying to find that centered place again. “Madeline and Jonathan. Help me free them.”
They nodded and rose. “It shall be done.”
* * *
Sticky. She was sticky, and she was cold.
These were Madeline’s first thoughts: they were floating, unconnected, unexplained shapes in her mind. Thought itself felt foreign, strange, and for a moment she tried to shoo it away. Go, she told her thoughts. Go and leave me.
But the sticky cold persisted. I have a body, she thought. I have a body, and it is cold. Deep, terrible cold. Far away. My body is very far away. Madeline tasted sweetness, sticky and sharp against her lips. I don’t want this. She tried to leave again.
Slight, strong hands closed over her shoulders. They reached deep inside her, and she felt the hands on her heart, keeping her from sliding away.
“Come,” someone whispered to her. “Come. Come home, Maddie. Come home.”
“I don’t want to go.” She hated even to form the words inside her mind. Each word was pain. She wanted no more words.
“You do not want to stay here,” the voice whispered. “Open your eyes, Madeline. Open your eyes.”
“No,” Madeline thought, but the voice, the hands made her. They pried, and the cold, sticky sensation deepened. She fought, and she felt something sliding against her like a snake. Her eyes opened, and she saw where she was. And she wished she could scream.
She was trapped inside a sticky and luminescent shell that glowed from within. She could see no farther than the tips of her fingers. Looking down, she saw the snake at her feet was a man, dark and naked and curled into a ball. He was not conscious, but when she moved, he moved with her.
White hands had plunged through the sticky membrane surrounding her, and they disappeared inside her chest. “Is he with you?” She saw no face, only the arms, but she heard a voice. “Is Jonathan with you?”
For a minute Madeline didn’t understand. She looked down at the man cocooned at her feet with new eyes and felt her heart lurch. “Yes,” she answered the voice and forced herself to add, “I don’t know if he’s alive.”
“He is.” The hands shifted, gripping her tighter. “Hold on. Hold on to him, and I will pull you both out and take you back to your bodies.”
Madeline tried to fumble for Jonathan, but it was difficult to move. She was regaining her consciousness by bits, and she’d grasped enough to know this was her spirit body, but she also knew this wasn’t the Void. She was severed from her body once again, somehow, but this time there was an edge about it. If the pale white hands were not here, she was certain she would go mad just trying to make sense of it. She thought briefly of asking who was reaching for her. It felt like a guide, and she ached at the thought that they had returned at last. But then the hands began to pull, and she had not yet grasped Jonathan. “Wait,” she cried, but the hands kept pulling. She managed at the last second to snare a lock of his hair just before the white hands pulled her from the luminescent muck.
She looked up and saw creatures all around her. They looked like clouds at first, or waves on the water, but then she saw that there were faces on the waves and arms—people, of a sort. They had empty, haunted faces, and they frightened her. Then the shapes faded, and she saw a light, that great and terrible light, and then she saw who the light was, and she forgot her fear.
Charles. Not the strange White Charles—her Charles. He was huge and powerful like the White Charles, but he was uncertain and terrified too. He had hold of more magic than even the most practiced witch would ever be allowed to have, but he had no training, no practice, and no support of any kind. It was like being rescued by a runaway cart as it rushed over a cliff.
He practically threw her at her body; her breath came in a rush, and she nearly lost herself for a moment in the effort to reclaim life. It was not the luscious rush of returning from a guide or the erotic intensity of joining with Jonathan. It was harsh and crude, an artless grasping for organs and blood and mind. Only her training saved her, the practice of coming into a body gracefully more times than she could ever count. The second she was able to move, she groped for Jonathan and Charles, putting a hand on each and barreling power back at them both, slowing Charles down, easing Jonathan in. She tightened her grip on Charles’s arm and felt him sigh as he let the extra energy roll at her; it had the strangest effect of balancing her. She gave and gave from her weak and dry well, but he kept sending more power back at her and refilling her energy at four times the rate she was losing it. Between them, they found a juddering sort of control and balance, and Jonathan slammed back into his body with enough ease to keep him from being destroyed on the spot.
But power was not the only thing Charles was sending her. He was sending her thoughts and memories, shooting them like arrows against her mind. Some of them were old, very old—hulking in shadows behind furniture as he watched his grandfather shouting at his mother on the other side of the room—and some of them were very dark, filled with horrible images of drugs and darkness and painful sex. But some were laced with fire, and she could tell by the feel of them they had been placed in his head, not seen: memories that had been grafted onto him by some other force. Memories of before he was born—only shards, but they were grislier than any of the others.
She lifted her head and looked at Charles, shocked and afraid of what she was seeing, wanting to cry No!, to shout at him and tell him this could not be real. But she only had to look at his face to see it was true. He was sobbing. He had too much inside him, and like a drowning man, he was clutching at her, pulling her with him under the water, pushing her down with the memories and the pain. He pushed more and more at her, making images tumble together in chaos inside her mind. Madeline felt someone trying to pull her away, trying to soothe her—Jonathan—but she could not let go of Charles, even though she wanted to.
Her father. She saw her father moving silently in the dark, shrouded in black robes inscribed with ancient symbols. She saw Sir Henry Carlton dressed in the same manner. They moved across the moor, across the fields, all the way to Whitby Hall, to the woman’s room. They used spells and enchantments and alchemists, and they spirited her away, away to a house in the hills. They placed her on a rough bed in a circle of candles and woke her from her trance, and while she screamed, they chanted spells as they raped her over and over and over again. Then they wiped the memory from her and took her back to her room, with no one ever the wiser.
Night after night for a month. Then they put her in bed with her mad brother and let them be found. Let her be found with child.
Their child.
Hamilton Elliott’s child.
Madeline watched the images fade, and she saw Charles, pain and misery streaming down his face.
“Brother,” she whispered. “You are my brother.”
“Yes.” She felt his sorrow like a knife as he whispered, “And here is why they did it, what they wanted to do.”
> The images came again, faster and faster and faster: they were out of control now, the images like so much water rushing over her head. She saw her father chanting and saw Sir Henry chanting, but she saw monks in robes as well, and she saw thousands and thousands of pale, beautiful people hiding in the dark. She saw the monks part the doors and saw the army rush in. She saw the knives. She saw the children’s frightened faces, saw the adults standing before them with their hands raised, begging for peace, begging them to stop.
She saw what the monks and the armies did, and she died with them.
She saw the ghosts rise up, their empty faces dead and expressionless as they moved over the earth, choking out every breath of life in their path.
And above it all stood Charles, great and mighty as a mountain, a living god. But he was not white but dark, his eyes glowing red and his body burning in an eternal ring of fire.
Then something hard and sharp came down upon their hands, and she heard a great and angry shout. The water broke and washed away, and she fell back into Jonathan’s waiting arms.
Emily clutched the walking stick against her chest and backed away, shaking, as she watched Jonathan draw Madeline away from Charles.
Now that the black fog was gone, the afternoon sun was shining in through the window, and it made everything seem falsely bright to Emily’s mind. A dismal gray day full of rain would have been more appropriate. Everyone in the room looked wasted and beaten, but worst of all were Jonathan and Madeline. Madeline in particular looked very dazed and almost lost. Emily worried she had slipped out of her mind or worse.
Charles had an angry red welt where she’d hit his wrist, but he didn’t seem to notice it or anything else. The only thing that registered at all was when Timothy crouched behind him and touched his arm. Charles made a soft cry and turned around, burying his face in the Catalian’s shoulder. “Too much,” he kept whispering. “Too much, too much, too much!”
Timothy ran hands over him and murmured softly, trying to calm him, but he spared a brusque nod to Emily. “That was good thinking, to run and get the sword stick.”
Emily looked down in alarm at the mahogany stick in her hand. Sword stick. It had seemed unnaturally heavy. Still, she lowered the tip carefully toward the floor and rested her hands on the knob.
She looked around the room at the ghosts, waiting for them to do something. But to her alarm, she saw they were beginning to fade.
“Timothy!” she cried, pointing.
Timothy lifted his head, looking first surprised, then angry.
“We cannot help him further,” a tall one said sorrowfully.
Emily didn’t like that answer at all, but it made Timothy positively furious.
“You said he was your lord. You will not help your lord?”
“Lord of death, lord of destruction, lord of blood.” Charles cried out again and clapped his hands on the side of his head. Timothy swore and tried to calm him again.
“What is this?” Jonathan asked. He had propped himself against the wall and was cradling Madeline against him, but now he squinted at the ghosts with confusion. “What are you looking at? And why are you singing?”
“Cuckoo,” Charles whispered into Timothy’s chest. “Cuckoo in the nest. Monster waiting in the dark.”
“You’ve driven him mad!” Timothy shouted.
“We are sorry,” the tall ghost said. And as one, they faded away.
“What are you shouting at?” Jonathan said again, more testily. “What is going on? How did we get here? What…?” He paused as if a memory had snagged him. “I remember water. Searching for Madeline in the water.”
“Charles said you were in the lake.” Emily’s hand tightened on the top of the sword stick. “That you and Madeline were with the beast in the lake.”
“It’s not a beast.” Madeline’s voice was quiet and weak and cold. “It is the Elliott daemon, and now it is a demon. It is not lost any longer. It is what the witches imprisoned in the lake, but they did not tell me. I do not think they knew. It lured me in as bait for Charles. Jonathan became trapped with me. He should have died, but somehow he didn’t. It was waiting for Charles—” She stopped, and a look of deep pain flashed across her face, and then she closed her eyes again.
Jonathan drew her closer, but Emily noticed she stiffened slightly in his arms. He looked at Charles, then at Timothy and Emily. “Explain.”
And so they told him—taking turns—about finding Madeline missing, about searching. About Whitby’s arrival with Alan. Emily held her breath at that part, but Timothy only said that he had “routed Whitby for the moment” and managed to find the cup and take it to safety.
Jonathan looked very relieved at that. “Where did you put it?”
“Somewhere safe,” Timothy said, carefully neutral.
Emily worried Jonathan would press further, but he seemed almost pleased that Timothy wouldn’t tell him and encouraged them to give him the rest of the story. They told him about arriving at the abbey, of finding Smith was here and searching. Emily started to tell about the secret rooms, but Timothy neatly cut her off and redirected the conversation.
“We have both had quite a bit of contact with the ghosts of the Old Ones,” he said. “They helped us sidestep Smith and led us to the tower just as Charles arrived with the pair of you, unconscious.”
“You both can see the ghosts?” Jonathan seemed impressed. “But wait—Charles arrived? With us? How? From where?”
And so they told him about what Charles had said about the Stone Circle and the Void. It sounded even more incoherent in their rehashing than when it had happened, but Jonathan only nodded through it, never once questioning their report.
“I went down to face Smith with him,” Timothy said, “but the alchemist was physically altered and clearly mad. He cast some enchantment on me before I could do a single thing, and so I did not see most of what happened. The next thing I knew Smith was a pile of ash and the ghosts were whipping around us, racing back up the stairs. Charles—”
Timothy exchanged a look with Emily. She knew what he was trying to explain, but she didn’t know how to describe what had happened, either. She didn’t know what Timothy had seen below, but when Charles came through the door, he had looked like a ball of living fire. He had looked wrong too, and so had the ghosts. They had looked too vacant, not the comforting shades she was accustomed to. In fact, they had looked almost mean.
Timothy wiped his hand over his mouth, then shook his head. “He cast some sort of spell, but I think it got away from him toward the end. The ghosts have left, and they said they cannot help further.”
Emily leaned back against the wall, still clutching the sword stick handle. It was, the more she thought on it, oddly comforting to know there was a dangerous blade inside. “What do we do now?”
Jonathan looked down at Madeline, who had fallen asleep—or passed out, as might be more accurate. Emily saw that Charles had done the same.
“We let them rest, to start.” Jonathan looked around the tower room critically. “I think we should separate them, to be safe. I will take Madeline to the bedroom below. Charles can rest in the study. We will take shifts, sitting with them.”
The vision of Charles on fire flashed through Emily’s head. She did not want to be alone with him, even for a moment. But before she could find the way to say this, Timothy spoke. “No, I will stay with Charles myself, and we will keep him here. I’ll bring up the pallet I’ve been using for his bed. I don’t want to move him and risk waking him again.”
“I can make us a small supper,” Emily said.
“We have barely any food,” Jonathan said as if realizing a new problem. “And we don’t dare go into town, not a one of us.”
This time Emily looked straight at Timothy before she said anything at all, and he inclined his head in quiet approval. “That will not be a trouble,” she said. “We…brought some things with us.”
“Emily can’t wander about alone,” Jonathan insisted. “Smith
may be gone, but Whitby isn’t. And I don’t think she—”
“Hush!” Timothy said sharply, holding up a hand. “Someone is on the stairs.”
Emily backed away from the door as Timothy and Jonathan struggled with how to carefully lower their charges, draw their weapons, and stand as quickly as possible. Jonathan started swearing when Charles stirred and began babbling again, softer this time, but it startled Madeline, and she began moving erratically in her sleep, her head threatening to bang on the stones as Jonathan struggled to get her safely down. When the footsteps sounded past the last landing, Emily found she was the only one standing and the only one armed.
“There’s a button on the side of the casing,” Jonathan whispered intensely at her. He nodded to the stick. “Push it to reveal the blade and pass it to me.”
Emily fumbled frantically with the sword stick, but she couldn’t find the button. Jonathan reached out, whispering again for her to hand it to him as it was, but when she tried to pass it over, Madeline shifted again, and he withdrew his hand.
The footsteps rounded the top of the landing, furious and intent with purpose, and the knob turned as the door began to open. Emily found the button and pressed it; the casing flew away, and she raised the shining blade over her head with a mighty shout as she placed herself between the intruder and the others.
The door swung open, and Stephen took an angry step inside. He saw Emily, paused, blanched, then stepped back, arms rising in quick surrender.
“I think Emily will be fine wandering around on her own,” Timothy said to Jonathan behind her.
Emily lowered the sword, but she kept it swinging at her side as she approached the door. “Stephen? What are you doing here?” Then she noticed his face and the bruises and swelling there, and she dropped the sword and ran to him. “What happened to you?”
The question seemed to give him his outrage back. He glared at her and raised a hand again, this time to hold her at bay. “What am I doing here? Playing the fool again, no doubt. I nearly went on to the inn without saying a word, but”—he nodded tersely at Jonathan—“I still owe you my honor, so I have come to warn you. Whitby is on the warpath. I don’t know if he’ll come tonight or in the morning, but expect him, and he’ll be coming for blood.”
The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil Page 33
