by Laura Powell
‘You’re in for a treat,’ Rory told him. ‘It’s a bit of a special occasion, what with Easter and so on. There’s going to be a trial.’
When the Hammers weren’t collecting money for widows and orphans, they liked to recreate famous inquisitorial trials, reading from the court transcripts and playing the parts of witchfinders, witnesses and witchkind alike.
‘Great,’ Lucas said, forcing as much enthusiasm into his voice as possible.
‘It’ll be the Berwick. What a pity it’s not one of the Stearne specials! Otherwise, we could have roped you in to play your own great-grandad or whatever, ha, ha. By the way – I asked around to see if Gideon Hale would be attending. I know you’re old school pals. But I’m afraid to say he can’t make tonight.’
‘That’s a shame.’
Lucas’s show of regret was as insincere as his enthusiasm. He had no evidence that Gideon was involved in Paterson’s schemes. In any case, he was confident his condition remained a secret, and there was no reason for Silas Paterson or any of his allies to suspect him of acting against them. But Gideon’s presence would have been a complication he was relieved to avoid.
The Hammers were starting the evening in one of the reception rooms to the side of the Great Hall. Rory lead the way. On arrival, he knocked on the door in a complicated sequence of taps. It opened a crack.
‘Maleficae dictae a maleficiendo –’ began the person on the other side.
‘– seu a male de fide sentiendo!’ Rory whispered throatily back.
This exchange gained them entry into a candlelit room full of young men and women wearing black and scarlet hooded cloaks over their suits. Several wore ornate crucifixes. They were drinking wine from silver beakers, and complaining about overtime.
Rory introduced Lucas to whoever he thought would be impressed by the Stearne name. Various people presented Lucas with various drinks. Since pretending to get drunk was part of his cover, Lucas needed little encouragement. There was a lot of laughter and mutual backslapping. As he furtively tipped his wine into somebody else’s beaker, he wondered how Glory and Troy were doing.
The room got increasingly hot and crowded, the laughter more raucous. There was a flurry of excitement with the entrance of an attractive brunette in an extremely short white shift. Lucas recognised her as Gideon’s companion at the witchcrime lecture; Zilla, he thought her name was. She must be playing the part of the witch in the trial. Shortly after her arrival, a high, bright chime rang through the room, and silence fell. The society’s president had struck a bell with the silver hammer that was their emblem.
Everyone stood to attention for the toasts. One to the Queen, one to the Witchfinder General. The third was ‘To Twenty-two Eighteen!’ Lucas bit down on the rim of his beaker. It was a reference to the Book of Exodus, chapter twenty-two, verse eighteen, and the former motto of the English Inquisition. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’
The bell was struck again. With a cheer, everyone surged out of the room and towards St Cumanus’s Church. The pretend witch got a piggyback ride from the president. A night-shift worker on the way to his desk stopped to let them pass, muttering resentfully under his breath.
Lucas stumbled along the cobbles. He kept on tripping over the hem of his cloak, which at least added to the impression that he’d had a few too many. Rory, who’d been increasingly distracted by all the other people he wanted to impress, eyed his protégé nervously. Ashton Stearne would be less than pleased if his son got drunk and disorderly on Rory’s watch.
There was a queue for the stairs down to the crypt. When they got to the bottom, Lucas hung back. ‘I’m not feeling so good,’ he mumbled to Rory. ‘I think I’d better push off.’
‘Golly, are you sure? Shall I walk you out? Or –’
‘No, no, no. I’m fine. Honestly.’ He hiccupped. ‘I mustn’t spoil your evening. ’S’OK – I’ll get Jeff whatsit to call me a cab. Dad’s not home tonight.’ Lucas clutched Rory’s arm and looked at him with drunken solemnity. ‘Thank you, though. He’s always wanted me to be a Hammer.’
As a matter of fact, Ashton Stearne thought that the Hammers were a glorified frat-house, and it was high time someone got them under control. But Rory wasn’t to know this. He gave Lucas a hearty handshake, and moved on.
Lucas stepped back to let the others pass into the body of the crypt. It was a large and surprisingly airy space, presided over by the tomb of St Cumanus, the fifteenth-century inquisitor who gave the church its name. For the Hammers’ meeting, a red velvet drape had been slung up between the pillars. It was for purely theatrical effect, but very useful for Lucas. Now everyone was gathered behind the curtain, both he and the door to the catacombs were hidden from view.
The door was iron-plated, and when he touched it the cold of the metal brushed down his spine. It couldn’t actually hurt him, or even block his fae – not unless he kept in physical contact with the metal. Still, he felt the threat it represented. It served the same purpose as the wall around the inquisitorial compound. Keep Out.
The Hammers’ president was making another speech. Under cover of the applause, Lucas fitted the key marked with a cross into the lock. He didn’t know the purpose of the second key, but the sign of a cross was appropriate for a church door. With a protesting creak, the door inched open and Lucas slipped through. He was careful to lock it behind him.
The catacombs pre-dated the church. According to legend, a religious order of medieval witchfinders had been the original settlers of the site, and had built the catacombs for their rituals. Over the centuries, they had been used as a burial place, prison and storage facility. Primarily, though, it was a place of refuge. Inquisitors had taken shelter here during the Great Plague (started by the witch Ambrose Vellum, and spread by his coven) and again during the Great Fire, when a spate of balefires got out of control and set London alight. People had also slept here during the Blitz. Although the catacombs didn’t cover a large area, the series of small stone cells was dense and maze-like. It was an ideal place for a secret captive.
The burial chambers had been cleared in the nineteenth century, and their contents moved to the Inquisitorial cemetery in Brompton. There were still a couple of urns in the alcoves, but the main visitor attraction was the wall paintings. They were very old, and apocalyptic in nature, showing lakes of fire and hideous beasts from the Book of Revelations. There were also pictures of witches at work: conducting orgies, sacrificing infants, and dancing with the Devil. Although the colours were faded and childish, the lines crude, the intensity of the artist’s vision was undimmed.
Snarling faces flared briefly into life as Lucas’s torch skimmed the walls. During a tour last year, he had found the place strange and spooky, but not sinister. He had underestimated the difference it would make coming here on his own and in such circumstances. It didn’t take long to pass beyond the official tour circuit. The further he walked, the more oppressive the silence and darkness became. The weight of earth seemed to crowd around him, ancient fears and hates sweating out from the stone. His inquisitor’s cloak dragged on the floor. He tried not to think about what had been done down here when the place was a prison.
Most of the cells were open and empty, but he found one with a broken bed frame and a chamber pot. The door had a grille at the top and there was a bag of workman’s tools on the floor; perhaps someone had been going to fix the place up. If so, the project had long been abandoned. The bag and bed were covered in cobwebs. It was time to admit defeat: the catacombs were as lifeless as the graves that had once filled them.
Lucas prepared to retrace his steps, following the chalk crosses he’d made along the way. He swept his torch around for one last look at the tunnel-like passage ahead of him, and it was only then that he saw the stairs. The passage did not lead to a dead end after all. The steps were very steep, and very worn, leading up to a squat iron door.
It was hard to keep track of direction and distance below ground, but Lucas calculated that his explor
ations had taken him north-west of the church. That meant he was somewhere in the vicinity of the Witchcrime Directorate. The building had been extended and heavily remodelled over the years, but the original structure was an old one, and odd corners of it survived. Lucas remembered something about a historic cloister. It was possible that these stairs were connected to it.
He looked at the key marked with the sword. The cross and the sword . . . the two ancient weapons of the inquisitor.
The second lock was much stiffer than the first and he had to put all his weight against the iron to push the door open. It could not have been used for a long while. The metal ached through his shoulder and arm. A lesser witch might not have been able to withstand it. But he got the door open at last. It took him into a covered walkway. When he looked through the colonnade, he saw a window he recognised. Or rather, he recognised the sundial in the courtyard outside it. The BBC news website had illustrated its witchcrime report with a photograph of Colonel Paterson at his desk; a sundial could be seen through the window behind him.
Below ground, a mounting sense of failure had added to Lucas’s claustrophobia. Up in the fresh air, he was filled with new determination. He couldn’t and wouldn’t fail – not after coming this far. Especially since one of the few useful things he’d learned at Cooper Street was Nate’s how-to guide to breaking and entering.
He hung back in the shadows of the cloister, thankful for the protection of his black cloak and hood. It was nearly nine o’clock. There were no lights on in any of the windows overlooking the courtyard. At this time of night, and on a bank holiday, the only people in the building would be a handful of night-duty officers. The inquisitorial guards would be making their usual patrols through the grounds. But they wouldn’t bother with this courtyard. It was enclosed on all sides, and the only exit or entrance was through the main building – unless, of course, you came through the catacombs.
The opportunity was too good to resist. Silas Paterson’s office had a box sash window, which was the kind Nate said was the easiest to open from the outside. The iron shutters weren’t even drawn. Once more, Lucas rehearsed his cover story. He’d been drinking with the Hammers and thought it would be a laugh to explore the catacombs. He’d got lost. He didn’t want to get in trouble. He was only trying to find a way out . . .
Lucas returned to the catacombs, and the cell with the bag of abandoned workman’s tools. It seemed like fate when he found a small hacksaw. He put on his gloves, and went back up the stairs. He crept along the cloister, under cover of the shadows and his cloak, until he reached Paterson’s window. His heart was pounding so hard his body felt like it was vibrating, yet he realised he was enjoying himself. Maybe once he’d finished spying he’d take up burglary. He slid the thin blade of the saw between the upper and lower sash, in the centre where the latch was. Mindful of Nate’s instructions, he jiggled the blade up and down until he got it against the latch, then forced the latch back. He heaved open the window and climbed through.
It was much more nerve-racking inside the office than when he’d been trying to break into it. The enormity of his actions suddenly hit home. He had to pause, waiting for the jitters to calm. The room was dark and peaceful. So was the yard outside. He had disturbed nobody and nobody would disturb him.
Silas wasn’t head of the Witchcrime Directorate just yet, but you wouldn’t know this from his office decor. His desk was antique mahogany, and a Persian carpet adorned the floor. There were no family snapshots on his desk, just framed photographs of Paterson looking grave and statesman-like alongside the US Ambassador, the Prime Minister and a minor royal. Lucas opened the top right-hand drawer to find a bottle of single malt whisky.
The other desk drawers were locked. So were the filing cabinets, though he found the key stuck on a lump of Blu-tack at the back. He wished his gloves weren’t made of such thick wool, as they slowed him down as he flipped through the paperwork. None of the budget sheets, management reports or minutes from departmental meetings seemed particularly interesting, let alone incriminating.
Time was running out. If he didn’t check out at the security gates at a reasonable time, alarms would be raised. That meant he had to leave either before or with the Hammers. If he bumped into Rory, he could always say he’d fallen asleep somewhere, or gone to the canteen for coffee. He looked at his watch again, and decided he could afford another ten minutes.
Lucas eyed the computer. That was where the secrets were kept. Something in the emails, a special folder . . . He’d need Paterson’s username and password to logon – and he knew how to get them.
There hadn’t been anything dangerous about hacking into his father’s computer. This was different. His story about being drunk and lost wouldn’t fool anybody if he got caught committing witchwork. And he’d have to take off his gloves, so his prints would be all over the place. But if he didn’t give it a go . . . Well. Who knew what Glory might or might not learn from Lady Merle? This could be their only chance.
Taking a deep breath, Lucas switched on the computer. When he removed his gloves, he realised how grimy his own hands had become during his explorations in the catacombs. He wasn’t sure if mixing dust from different sources might corrupt the witchwork in some way. All he could do was wipe his hands on his cloak, and hope for the best. He set about gathering the office dust on to paper; looking under the Persian rug, around the bookshelves and along the top of the curtain rail.
He was standing over the keyboard, sheet of dust in his hands, when he heard brisk footsteps in the corridor outside. He froze, waiting for them to pass.
The feet didn’t pass. They stopped outside. Keys jangled, the door opened. And Lucas made his first serious mistake.
His only instinct was to get out of there – back through the window, across the yard, and into the catacombs. But there was no time to think anything through. The fae, already unspooling through his body and brain, was at his fingertips. It took a hold of him. And as the door opened, he backed away in the direction of the window, and blew the dust he’d gathered – the dust of Silas Paterson’s office, and the grime of the catacombs – into the air.
He’d had some muddled idea about covering his retreat. The result exceeded all expectations. The fae-blown dust was suffused with the alarm of the moment, the dread he’d felt in the catacombs, and the grime of their ancient cells. The small grubby puff gathered into a vile-smelling fog that rolled in billows across the room.
Under cover of the cloud, as the unknown inquisitor cursed and flailed, Lucas dived for the window. He might even have made it, if he hadn’t stumbled over the wastepaper basket and got tangled in his cloak. The inquisitor blundered through the room after him, and made a grab for his sleeve. Both of them fell to the floor, thrashing about blindly in the toxic dust. Coughing and choking, Lucas’s captor dragged him to his feet.
In his worst-case imaginings, Lucas had wondered what he’d do if Silas Paterson returned early from Lady Merle’s ball. The reality was almost as bad. He was staring into the face of Gideon Hale.
CHAPTER 30
About the same time as Lucas took his first steps into the catacombs, WICA Agent Connor was sitting in Senior Witch Warden Branning’s car in a deserted car park. The film that Lucas had recorded in the Radley was playing on Jonah’s laptop.
Zoey’s face as she watched it was a blank, taut mask. It was Jonah’s second viewing of the material but, if anything, his horror of it had only increased. When the footage came to its end, a dull flush spread under his freckles.
‘On behalf of . . . that is . . . as an inquisitor, I feel I should – that it is my responsibility to –’ He swallowed painfully. ‘There are no words. But I want you to know I am truly sorry. This must confirm all your worst suspicions of us.’
‘I judge people as I find them,’ Zoey said at last, and with effort. ‘But I don’t judge a community only by its criminals. Witchkind’s history has shown us the danger of that.’
Jonah didn’t think of the In
quisition as a community, but perhaps that was because he didn’t feel like he fitted in. It was a vocation, though, and his faith in that vocation had been badly shaken.
‘Do you know where Lucas is now?’ she asked him.
‘No. He’s cut off all contact. I can’t get hold of Glory either. I’m worried the two of them have taken matters into their own hands.’
‘Well, Lucas was right to be cautious about contacting me. The Inquisition has too heavy a presence in WICA for us to make use of its resources without alerting the enemy.’
‘Can you find a way of warning Rawdon?’
‘Jack’s been away at a conference but he’s due back tomorrow. I’ll get word to him. It would help if we had some idea of what the next target is likely to be.’
She logged on to her smartphone. After accessing Rawdon’s schedule, they agreed the most likely target was a parade in Windsor for troops returning from peace-keeping duties abroad. The Director of WICA would be there to highlight the role of witch-soldiers in the armed forces. The event was taking place tomorrow and would attract large crowds. It would be the perfect opportunity for a terrorist outrage, followed by a spectacular arrest.
‘I’ll tell Jack to cancel all public engagements,’ Zoey said. ‘In the meantime, we need to deal with our teenage runaways. I know they’re trying to help, but it’s likely they’ll just make things worse. And get themselves into a hell of a lot of trouble along the way.’
Jonah rubbed his face tiredly. ‘At a guess, they’ll try to get in touch with Lady Merle. That would be the obvious place to start. But Lucas has a lot of insider info about the Inquisition. I’m worried he might try to act on it, without really knowing what he’s dealing with.’
Zoey was just about to respond when her phone rang. ‘Hmm. Not a number I recognise.’
She hit the answer button. ‘Connor,’ she said crisply.
‘Hello? Hello?’
