He waved a hand dismissively. “If they are conducting a dangerous magical experiment at that factory, it is my duty as a magician to investigate it. Let them catch me—and then let Sir Hector and Mr. Wright explain themselves.”
He set the case beneath his bed, and sat down at the desk, rifling through his notebook. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and laying my head in my hands. The headache had not been improved by our conversation, and the leaden feeling in my stomach made me feel as though I would be sick.
“Are you feeling well?” Hal said, startling me into looking up. He was frowning at me. “Perhaps a tonic?”
“Yes—I think I need it,” I said. “Whatever spell they are using at that factory—it was very strong.”
He pulled the case back out from under the bed, taking out a jar of tonic and handing it over to me. “The more reason to investigate,” he said. “If you are reacting to it like this—it can mean nothing good.”
I took the jar from him, pulling off the lid. I stared down into its clear depths for a moment. “Perhaps that is a reason not to investigate at all,” I said. “I fear—there is something dangerous in that factory, Hal. Mr. Bonham tried to tell us so.”
He was silent for a moment. “I will go alone, then. If it makes you so ill, perhaps you had better remain here.”
I shook my head vigorously. “That’s not the point. You didn’t—if you could have seen Mr. Bonham’s face when he said not to go to the factory—he was serious. As serious as I have ever seen him.”
Hal sat back down at the desk, rubbing his chin. “And if he was, what then? I can’t leave it alone merely because it is dangerous—else I would accomplish nothing.”
I took a drink of the tonic; it was cool against my throat, and I felt the headache diminishing. “Mr. Bonham has never discouraged you before—he has warned you of danger, but never told you not to act. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“It does,” he said quietly. “I have thought of that as well. But—it is Father’s spell. Or it was. I can’t leave it.”
I took another drink of the tonic and set it down on the table beside my bed with a sigh. Hal had made up his mind—I didn’t think anything I could say would dissuade him from his purpose now. I lay back against the bed, listening to Hal’s pencil scratch against the paper, while the tonic lulled me into drowsiness.
I must have fallen asleep without realizing it, for the next thing I knew, Hal was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see him standing over me, with a candle in his hand.
“Come,” he said. “It is time now—the factory has shut down for the night.”
I sat up, rubbing my eyes blearily, and took my coat from where I had laid it over the bed. I shrugged it on, while Hal took up the case at his feet and went to the door, where he waited for me impatiently. When I had put my coat on, and made my way, yawning, to the door, he pushed it open, and looked into the passage before beckoning me to follow. I followed him down the stairs and through the pub, empty and silent now in the darkness, and out into the street.
We hurried down the cobbled paths, under the streetlamps. The streets, usually so crowded and busy, were empty now, save for a few stumbling drunks and here and there a person sleeping in a doorway under a blanket of newspaper. The thrum of industrial magic was quiet now—not entirely silent, but so faint as to be almost undetectable, only a whisper at the edge of my magic sense. Even then, I could not find my father’s signature in it—even when all spells were nearly silent, his did not stand out.
Hal strode ahead of me, his footsteps unnaturally loud in the near-silence of the street. I felt the tug of uneasiness at my stomach once more. I could not forget how Mr. Bonham’s face had looked when he warned us away from the factory, though I didn’t think I could describe it to Hal—and I could not forget how Hal’s face had looked after the encounter with the spirit at Foxfire. I rubbed at my forehead, forcing myself to keep pace with him, but the leaden feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach did not abate. Finally, we reached the factory; I made for the front gate, but Hal pulled me back.
“They will certainly have a watchman standing guard,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Surely you didn’t think we would simply walk in?”
“I didn’t know what we would do,” I whispered back. “Not being in the habit of burgling factories.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. Just follow me.”
I did as I was told, following him around to the back of the factory, away from the gate and the night watchman. There we were greeted by the enormous brick wall that stood between the factory and the city. I glanced at Hal.
“Well, what now?” I said. “Do we climb it?”
“Don’t be absurd,” he said. “We are magicians, Jem—have you forgotten?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” I said irritably. “Magicians or not, we’ll have to find a way over that wall.”
“Not over it,” Hal said. “Through it.”
He set down the case, and pulled a bit of chalk from his pocket. In a few quick strokes, he had drawn an earth spell—the gnome, symbol of earth spirits, with the sequence of characters that named the particular spirit he would call, and the circle to bind it all together. He pressed his hand against this, and a warm, loamy smell filled the air, like bricks being fired. The wall made a creaking sound, and the bricks began to rearrange themselves, moving aside and turning inward, to create an opening. When the bricks had stopped moving, Hal stepped back and turned to me.
“There you are,” he said. “That is what magic had to do with it.”
He said it offhand, as though it had been the easiest thing in the world—but, in fact, Hal was the only magician I knew who could cast spells so simply. It was no easy thing to find a spirit and learn its name, but Hal had memorized all the known spirits years ago, and had learned more besides. I looked at the doorway he had created, with all the effort one might put into taking a book from a shelf, and shook my head.
“I might have known you had a plan for this,” I said. “Well, let’s get on with it.”
He frowned at me, but said nothing more, simply taking up the case and slipping through the doorway, into the dimly lit yard of the factory. I followed him, waiting as he closed the doorway behind us. As the last brick slid into place, I turned back to him.
“What now?” I said. “We haven’t any idea where the engines even are.”
“That is where you make yourself useful,” he said. “I could have done it myself, of course, but it will be much simpler with you here. Can’t you sense the spell?”
I closed my eyes, turning my focus to the aether-spell that I had sensed before, picking it out from among all the other spells that lay quiet now from all about the factory. I caught the feel of the aether-spirits—the strange, lightning-tinged smell of it, the quick white heat that flew through my veins when my mind touched their energy. I did not even attempt to look for my father’s signature, focusing all my attention on following the spirit’s trace. I opened my eyes, staring in the direction of the office building where we had seen Simon’s body—where we had met with Alec earlier in the day.
“In there,” I said, pointing it out to Hal. “That’s where the spell is, at any rate.”
“Curious,” he murmured, frowning in the direction I was pointing, and then he was off again, striding purposefully toward the building, while I trailed behind him, hurrying to catch up.
The building was locked, of course—but Hal opened the lock with another earth spell, and soon we were within. The factory building, dead as it had been on the morning we had first seen it, was now eerily silent. The machines were at rest, the spells dormant and waiting for the morning, when they would be active again. Hal stood in the center of the floor, hands in his pockets, rubbing at his chin.
“Well?” he said, after a moment. “Where are they?”
I rubbed at my forehead. “Somewhere in this building—I can’t say more than
that.”
He frowned at me, then headed in the direction of the stairs—taking them two at a time up to the office. I went after him, following him into the office once he had opened the door. The desk was covered with reams of paper, cabinets overflowing with it. The strange, acrid scent of the curse lingered here, and with it came a violent flash of memory—Simon’s body, with its rictus mask of terror. I closed my eyes and pressed my sleeve against my nose, trying vainly to rid myself of both odor and memory.
“What are we doing here?” I whispered. “You know the engines can’t be in here.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “The engines could not be here—but the plans for them might well be. As well as—other things of interest.”
I frowned at him, puzzled—but he did not elaborate. He simply sat down in the chair behind the desk, and began rifling through the papers. I sat down on the floor, and began my own work of sorting through the papers there. We must have sat for hours going through the reams of paper—almost all of it completely irrelevant. The headache that had been building all day had become a throbbing pain behind my left eye, and my neck had gone stiff and aching by the time Hal finally sat up.
“Aha!” he cried, holding a small object aloft. I blinked at it; in the dim light, it took a moment for me to realize that he held a key.
“Much good it does us,” I said. “We haven’t any idea what it goes to.”
“Then we shall have to try every drawer and cabinet until we have found it,” he said. He proceeded to do so, trying it in the cabinets and in the drawers of the desk. At length, he discovered that it opened the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk. This he opened, and pulled out a lock-box, not dissimilar to the one that sat in his own desk at home.
“And we haven’t a key for it,” I said, shaking my head. The headache made me weary, and I had a strange feeling at the back of my neck—the familiar feeling of being watched. I glanced around the office, but saw only the shadows cast by our lamp. “This has been a waste, Hal. Let’s leave it.”
“Not yet,” he said, setting the box down on the desk. There was a strange gleam in his eye—the look he always got when the solution to a thorny problem was at hand. He took the chalk from his pocket, and drew another spell upon the lid of the box. He laid his hand upon it, and the box sprang open, paper spilling out from it.
He began going through it, tossing papers aside as he reviewed them and discarded them as useless. Finally, he lit upon a sheaf of paper bound in ribbon. He undid the ribbon, and began perusing the papers, brow creasing as he read. I glanced impulsively out of the window of the office, looking out over the factory floor. For a moment, I thought I saw a pair of red eyes gleaming out from the shadows, and a shudder passed over my spine, but when I looked back, they were gone.
“This is it.” Hal’s voice drew my attention back from the window, and I turned to see him staring down at the pages, his face pale. “It’s encoded—I’ll have to decipher it—but it’s magic, for certain. This must be it—else why keep it hidden?”
I went to stand behind him, reading the paper over his shoulder. It looked like nonsense to me—not unlike the reams of paper that Father had left behind for Hal to sort through after his death. Looking at it put a cold lump in the pit of my stomach, and I looked away.
“Well, you’ve found it then,” I said. I glanced nervously back out the window. “Let’s get back to the inn, Hal. Before we’re discovered.”
He frowned at me, folding the papers and tucking them into his coat pocket. “Are you well? You’re looking pale.”
“Headache,” I said shortly. Said headache was throbbing insistently at my temples, and there was a knot in my back—and behind all of that, the strong, urgent need to leave, to get out of the building. I looked back out of the window. “Come on, Hal. I think we’re being watched.”
His frown deepened, and he rose from the chair. He paused just a moment, his attention evidently caught by something else in the box. He pushed aside a few of the papers, and drew out an envelope—old and weather-beaten. He looked it over.
“Well, well—what is this?” he murmured, half-to-himself. “This could be something of interest.”
“Then take it and go,” I said. “We have to . . .”
My words were cut off in a sudden rush of air. A powerful heat filled the room, pushing out the air that had been in it; even the candle went out, and for a moment, everything was dark. Hal shouted something I could not hear, and then there was a mighty roar, and everywhere we were surrounded by flames. I was choking on the heat and smoke, half-blinded by the sudden brightness of the fire and the thick and building cloud of smoke.
Something took hold of my arm, and I tried to jerk away, coughing as my eyes stung. I had to find Hal—we had to get out. I pulled at my arm, but the grip was too strong.
“Jem, it’s me.” Hal’s voice was at my ear, sharp and urgent. “Come—we haven’t much time.”
I let him pull me from the room. The smoke was filling my lungs—acrid-tasting and corrosive. I stumbled down the stairs, half-dragged by Hal. We had not escaped the fire by the leaving the office—flames licked up the sides of the building, consuming the machines on the floor. Smoke blanketed the whole of the building, and my ears were filled with the rushing sound of the flames. I could not draw a breath; I felt as though my lungs had been filled to the brim with smoke, pushing out all the air. My throat burned and my chest ached; I could feel my strength slipping away from me, and I stumbled, falling to my knees on the floor.
Hal kept hold of my arm, pulling me back to my feet. He said nothing—only kept dragging me toward the door, holding my arm in an iron grip. At last we reached the door, and he pulled me through. I felt the cold air on my face, but it could not reach my lungs. I watched the ground slide past me as Hal pulled me away from the building. He was saying something, but I could not hear him; and then the ground went out from under me, and everything was dark.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I opened my eyes and, much to my surprise, found myself on my feet. It was bitter cold, and I shivered in the dark, looking around for Hal. I blinked, and the darkness gave way to a kind of mist; I blinked again, and I could see a scene playing out, vaguely, beyond the mist. Hal was there, kneeling down on the ground, shouting something frantically to someone I could not see. I tried to call out to him, but I could make no sound. The mist shifted slightly, and I saw what Hal knelt beside; I felt a burst of cold in my stomach—for there I lay, pale and still. I tried to call again, but once more no sound left my mouth—I could do nothing but watch, helplessly, as the scene played out before me, Hal shaking my shoulders and shouting for help. I watched the night watchman run over to him—watched his expression shift into horror as he looked at the factory building, still burning. I watched him run, no doubt for help, as Hal remained at my side, trying vainly to wake me.
I heard the sound of hooves behind me, and a horse’s snorting breath. I turned, and there stood the dark horse and his rider, headless, with two red eyes glowing out from the crook of his arm. I stepped back, but the rider moved with me—not that the horse took a single step, but only that the distance between us was no less than it had been before.
“What—what do you want with me?” I said, my voice hoarse. I felt a jolt of surprise that I had managed to speak, and glanced behind me to where Hal still knelt.
“He cannot hear you,” the rider said, as though reading my thoughts. “He is on the other side.”
“The other side?” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “The other side of what?”
“Of life and death,” the rider said, his voice low and rumbling, but calm. “I am the servant of death—I am its harbinger.”
I looked back over to the mist, where the picture was growing ever fainter, and saw Hal shaking my limp and lifeless body, my face white under its coating of soot. “Am I—am I dead?”
“Not yet,” the rider said, placing its head atop its neck and urging the horse closer to me
. “Though you are not far from it. You have been to this side before. Do you not remember?”
I shook my head, but then a memory flashed across my mind—a reckoning is due. What Hal had told me about my childhood illness—my mother’s death. I felt a shudder run down my spine. “Then—is this the reckoning?”
“No—far from it,” the rider said. “This was a flaw in the plan. You must not die here. I have been sent by my master to take you from this side to the other—I am the only one who could do so.”
“Plan?” I choked out. “What plan? I don’t—what do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” the rider said. “I only do the bidding of my master. As for the plan—you will know it when the time comes. For now, you must be returned.”
He urged his horse still closer, bringing it right alongside me, and reached out a skeletal hand. I ducked away from his touch, and he went still, giving me a strange look.
“Don’t you want to be returned?” he said, in that same low and rumbling tone. “I can force you, if I must—but your people are so fond of life. The one for whom I have come here—he clings to it. I will ride him down in time—even if I must ride down all his blood before him—but he clings fiercely. You—I do not understand.”
“Of course I want to be returned,” I said, glancing once more at the scene in the mist—where a crowd had now gathered; a fire brigade tending to the building, while a small group huddled around my body. I caught sight of Hal’s stricken face, and I closed my eyes. “Yes, of course I want to live. But—the plan. I want to know . . .”
“There is nothing I can tell you,” the rider said, extending his hand once more. “I say again, you will know it when the time comes.”
He brushed my forehead with the tips of his skeletal fingers, and all was dark once more. A rush of cold air filled my lungs, and I felt the aching burn as they expanded; felt the mud against my back and smelled the smoke of the fire.
The Phantom of the Marshes Page 12
