by Kim Wilkins
“I have no misgivings,” Anne said easily. “All is well. We shall do it.”
Deborah sat up with a start. Had she dreamed it?
No, no dream, for the sound still rang in her ears and was as unmistakable as the sound of cannon fire, though infinitely quieter. One note, sweet and splendid, from her demon key.
Her sisters had resolved to patricide.
Her thoughts had kept her awake for two hours after Lazodeus’s proposal, and now Mary had decided there was no point in trying to sleep through such excitement. She found her way to her secret room only to find it torn to pieces.
“Deborah,” she hissed. Then put all thoughts of her sister aside. It was her stepmother she wanted to hurt. She called Lazodeus.
“Mary?” he said. “I thought I told you we must limit our contact over the next crucial days.”
“Anne sleeps a troubled sleep. She tosses and turns as one possessed. I know not if she is capable of such a great service to you.” She launched herself into his arms. “She does not love you as much as I love you.”
He held her close and stroked her hair. “Do not compete with Anne. It is not fair on her. She has none of your charms and she is ugly and thin.”
Instant gratification. “I want to scare Betty,” she said.
His mouth tightened momentarily as with impatience, but then he found his smile. “As you wish.”
“I know you can’t harm anyone, but can I make her ill? A little ill?”
He inclined his head and thought about it. “I can furnish you with a charm, like the fire charm. If you put it under her pillow it will be dissolved by morning and she will be gripped for a day by a vomiting malady.”
Mary clapped her hands together. “It sounds perfect.”
“Only be careful not to name an illness while she suffers. The magical illness you give her will instantly transform into the one you name.”
She wondered if he told her this to tempt her into the very thing he warned against. “I see,” she said, mock-seriously, “so I should be careful not to say ‘measles’ or ‘whooping cough’.”
He nodded. “Precisely.” He extended his hand and a black charm lay in his palm.
She picked it up and popped it in her placket. “How about ‘small pox’.”
He held out a stern finger. “Now, don’t you go too far. I trust you.”
She closed her lips around his finger and rolled her tongue around its tip.
He pushed her away gently. “Mary, I am too anxious to consider love.”
“I am not anxious, and I am the one who must kill him.”
Lazodeus touched her hair gently, and his gentleness caused a swooning desire to race up through her body. “Please?” she asked.
“No, I must go. I will see you again, soon.”
“Very soon?”
He smiled. “When your Father is dead, we will be together all the time.”
“I yearn for the day.”
A moment later he was gone. Mary climbed out onto the ledge and took a moment to breathe. As she looked down she saw a white shape huddled outside the house across from theirs. It took her a moment to realise what it was.
“Max?” she said under her breath. Suddenly she couldn’t get into the house quick enough. She had thought the dog asleep in Father’s study, where he had taken to sleeping since the fire. She raced down the stairs and out into the street, not caring who she woke. He had seemed so very still.
“Max!” she cried, running across the street and scooping him up. He was still warm. She felt his side. He still breathed. But he whimpered softly. “Oh, oh, where does it hurt? What has happened to you?”
“What is going on?” This was Father, calling out from the front door.
“My dog is hurt,” Mary cried, whirling around. Betty stood at his shoulder smiling. “You!” she said in sudden realisation. “What have you done to him?”
“He was underfoot so I gave him a beating and turned him out,” Betty said defiantly.
Father frowned. “Betty, such extremes are not necessary.”
Mary advanced, Max in her arms. She should have taken better care of him; she should never have let him sleep in Father’s study; she should not have been so involved with the angel that the poor creature whimpered on the street in pain while she enjoyed herself. But all her rage directed itself towards Betty. “You are evil,” she said, her voice shaking with her attempt to control her anger.
“Nonsense. It is just a dog.”
“I return to my slumber,” Father said. “And so should both of you. Mary, your dog will likely recover. Calm yourself.”
Mary suddenly remembered the charm in her pocket, and she produced a perfect smile for Betty. “Yes, let us return to our beds, Betty. I shall keep Max upstairs away from you, as we agreed.”
Betty looked at her with suspicion in her eyes, but no fear. How she would regret that.
Dawn was a half hour off the horizon when Mary crept down to Betty’s bedroom. Silently, silently as a ghost she slipped the charm under her stepmother’s pillow. Betty frowned in her sleep and whimpered, but didn’t wake. Mary leaned close and whispered, no louder than the sound of a drawn breath, “A plague on you, Mother.” And once again for good measure. “A plague.”
24
The River of Oblivion
Deborah had no idea whether Amelia’s house on Leadenhall Street had survived the fire. As she walked down through Cripplegate, past the ruined Guildhall and along still smouldering Cornhill, she prepared herself for the eventuality that Amelia may have gone. If that were so, she didn’t know who she would turn to.
The stench of a million burned substances curled around her. In places, despite the recent rain and the passage of a week, embers glowed in hollows of wrack. Black smoke still surged in columns from the ruins of larger buildings, where wood had turned to black dust, and stone had calcified to purest white. To look around was not to recognise that this place had ever been a city. The close, dark buildings had been transformed into a flattened landscape of wreckage and smoke.
She cursed herself for a fool for giving Lazodeus a chance to prove his trustworthiness. Perhaps she had just wanted so badly to believe that the exchange she had witnessed between him and Lucifer was only part of some other scheme which she did not understand. Perhaps some of the spellbinding ways which had snared her sisters had worked on her. Perhaps the idea of Father’s fortune being restored seemed worth the risk. But now, there could be no doubt. Her sisters were contemplating the murder of her Father, and Lazodeus was clearly the instigator.
As Deborah picked her way over blackened remnants of buildings, up Cornhill, she was rewarded by the sight of intact buildings ahead on Leadenhall Street. Although everything to the west of Gracechurch Street was ruined, St Peter’s on the other side was still standing — scarred with shadows of flames and the trees all around burned — but still standing. She advanced up the road, finding Amelia’s house and pausing a few moments out front to consider.
Amelia would not be happy to see her. She had stolen the demon key and not returned. But Amelia was responsible for calling Lazodeus to them in the first place, so only she could tell Deborah how to banish him back to where he came from.
“Miss Deborah?”
Deborah turned to see Gisela approaching, a basket on her back.
“Gisela.”
“We haven’t seen you for an age.”
“Is Amelia here?”
“She was in the garden when I left. Go through.”
Deborah hesitated. “Will she want to see me?”
Gisela stroked her wrinkled chin. “I reckon so.”
Deborah followed Gisela inside. She had already decided that if Amelia wanted the demon key in exchange for information, she would give it to her. They went through the citrus-scented lounge room and the echoing kitchen out into the garden. Amelia bent her head to tending a bush of tiny, coloured berries.
“Amelia, Miss Deborah is here.”
Amelia straightened her b
ack but did not turn around. “And why should I wish to see Deborah Milton?”
“I have come to return the demon key.”
She turned her head and glanced at Deborah over her shoulder. “How mightily decent of you,” she said sarcastically. “Am I to believe that is the only reason you are here?”
“No, I —”
“Gisela, you are dismissed. Deborah approach. We shall discuss it further.”
Deborah had never seen Amelia’s garden before. It was laid out perfectly, with flagstones running a path through four distinct beds and towards a carved bench under the wall. The beds were marked out by neat rows of sheep bones, their bleached knuckles stark white against the deep green of the plants.
“I recognise none of these shrubs and flowers,” Deborah said, fingering a shiny leaf.
Amelia pointed around. “Rue, angelica, wormwood, mandrake, burdock and henbane. I use them in my practice.”
Deborah tilted her head sceptically. “Not in healing?”
“Yes, in healing.”
“But the Royal College of Physicians has said —”
“Why have you come to me?”
She took the demon key from around her neck and held it out. “Here. I am sorry that I stole it.”
“Thank you.” Amelia picked it up gently and hung it around her own neck. “You are in some kind of desperate straits are you not? I do not believe you would have returned to me otherwise.”
“Indeed I am. I need to banish Lazodeus.”
“Why?”
“My sisters plan to kill my father. I suspect that if Lazodeus were gone they would not go through with it. They are under his spell, and his absence will return them to their true selves.”
Amelia eyed her carefully. “Are you certain?”
“I hope so.”
“And if you banish Lazodeus and your sisters still kill your father?”
“I will stop them by any means possible. But first I will rid our household of the angel, of their supernatural assistance.”
Amelia returned her attention to her plants. “I cannot tell you how to do that.”
A rage stormed up inside her. “What? But you must! ’Tis your doing that he was given to us, and now —”
“Do not lose your temper. I would tell you how to banish Lazodeus if I knew how, but I do not. Ordinarily, a prudent commander would be able to banish her angel merely by telling him to go. But your sister broke the bond of command very early on. It is irreversible.”
“You jest with me. You are angry with me and you mock me with this.”
“No jest, no mocking. I am sorry, Deborah.”
Amelia moved about her garden, from plant to plant, trimming leaves and flicking bugs away. Deborah watched her with a barren longing in her chest. How was she to protect Father? She remembered something Amelia had told her long ago, and now she began to turn it over in her head.
“Amelia, what if I set about acquiring an angel key?”
Amelia sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But tell me, if I had an angel key, could I banish Lazodeus?”
“I will not encourage such a foolish notion.”
“Tell me. You owe it to me to tell me.”
Amelia whirled around. “I owe you nothing.”
“My father may die.”
“We all die.”
“I love him. I would do anything to preserve him.”
Amelia sighed and sank down on the bench. She put down her basket and touched the seat next to her. “Come here.”
Deborah obediently sat next to her. In the sunlight, Amelia looked much older, with tired lines under her eyes and along the sides of her mouth.
“With an angel key,” Amelia said, “you could annihilate Lazodeus. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“Yes, destroy him completely. The only way to kill an immortal creature.” Deborah felt excitement build in her chest. Not just banish him back to his own realm, but to erase him forever.
“But an angel key is an extremely dangerous prospect. You may die in trying to obtain it.”
“I care not.” She did care, but hoped that feigning bravery would help her to feel it.
“And how would you help your father if you were dead?”
“’Tis not just my father who is at stake. ’Tis also my sisters. I must break the spell he holds over them. They tried to kill me, Amelia. They are not themselves.”
“Perhaps they are themselves. Perhaps this is merely a side of them you have never seen ere now.”
Deborah shook her head. “Not Anne. I hate to despise her. I hate to be her enemy. And Mary … we were friends once. I loved my sisters, Amelia. I would like them returned to me.”
Amelia patted Deborah’s knee. “I may do you a great favour by not telling you.”
“You already told me once. Vaguely.”
“But you were not so keen on the idea then. I told you to discourage you, for one needs to be —”
“On the point of death, I remember.”
“There is no guarantee you will remain alive long enough to command angels. And even if you do, they are said to extract the highest price.”
“I wish to risk it,” Deborah said decisively, and knew it to be true.
“I cannot let you risk it.”
Deborah jumped up and turned on Amelia. “How dare you be so prudent when you are usually so reckless! ’Tis mightily unfair.”
“Lower your voice,” Amelia said imperiously.
“No, I shall not. You carelessly command spirits, you have demons to love you, you recommend the learning of necromancy and never stop to think it may be dangerous to your soul’s health. And yet you now draw a line in front of learning and say, no, she may not cross this line. How do you dare, Amelia Lewis?”
“Because I do not wish you harmed.”
“Harmed? Has not my family already been irrevocably harmed? My sisters are enchanted into evil, my father is under threat, I nearly burned to death in Paul’s! I would put a stop to all this and return things to the way they were.”
“You may die. And things will never be the way they were. All things change, and they change forever.”
“I shall not listen to you,” Deborah said, leaning forward to press her index finger into Amelia’s chest. “You know so little but pretend to know so much.”
“You are an arrogant brat who has only one way of looking at the world.”
Deborah pulled herself up to her full height. “I have enough information on the angel key, and I shall go to the river and dive in, and you will not stop me.”
“I will not be party to a young woman’s death,” Amelia said calmly as Deborah turned to leave.
“A large part of this suffering is attributable to you,” Deborah called over her shoulder. “Perhaps you should not have been party to a young woman’s ruin.”
“How are you feeling, Betty?”
Betty woke up suddenly. “What? Who’s there?”
Mary crept out of the shadows. “’Tis only me. I merely asked how you were feeling.”
Betty shifted uncomfortably in her bed. “I am ill. Do not vex me so, Mary.”
“You are ill?” Mary said, enjoying her stepmother’s discomfort.
“Yes. Where is Liza? Tell her I am awake.”
“Liza has fled the house.”
“What nonsense are you speaking?” Betty was trying to sound forceful but managing only to sound weak and sick. As yet, she did not know how sick she was.
“Yes, for she no longer wishes to share your bed.”
Betty shook her head. “Leave me alone, Mary, and do not torment me with your prattle. There will be time enough for us to quarrel again when I am feeling better.”
“If you should recover.”
Betty turned her back to Mary as if she intended to sleep again.
“For when Liza changed your clothes this morning she was most shocked to find something,” Mary continued.
Betty was silent, but her breaths were
not the slow breaths of sleep. They were shallow and anxious.
“Do you not want to know what she found?”
“Leave me be, Mary.”
“Is your throat not raw? Are you not uncomfortable in all your joints?” Mary eased herself onto the bed next to Betty, stretched out beside her and stroked the back of her hair. “Check beneath the pits of your arms, Mother. You may find them all swollen with buboes.”
Betty turned violently and shoved Mary away. “I said leave me be!”
“There can be no doubt that it is the plague you suffer.”
“It cannot be. The sores beneath my arms are some other malady, for it takes many days for such sores to develop.”
“Unless, of course, the illness is attributable to magic.”
Betty was suddenly racked by a fit of coughing.
“Oh, oh,” Mary said, in a small, mock-sympathetic voice. “Poor Betty, your illness advances apace. Never mind, ‘Twill all be over soon.” Mary sprang off the bed and stood at the foot a few moments. “Max is feeling better, by the way. At least one of you will live and prosper.”
Betty shook her head from side to side, racked with coughs, then sank back on the pillows, her eyes closed. Her breathing was laboured and wheezy. Mary leaned forward to pat her hand, then returned to her room.
Lazodeus was waiting for her.
“What do you think you are doing?” he demanded, and her delight at seeing him was suddenly replaced with an awful anxiety.
“I was visiting my stepmother.”
“Yes, but what have you done to her?” His blue-green eyes were glittering with anger.
“I gave her an illness.”
“Did I not warn you not to take it too far?”
“She beat Max! The poor thing can barely move he is so sore.”
Lazodeus moved forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. “This looks very bad for me, because it was my angel magic which was used. I am under oath to injure nobody.”
“That was a silly oath. Surely you should not be concerned for it now.”
“I am, because the laws of the cosmos are inexorable on such things. Mary, I told you not to take it too far.” He shook her lightly and she suddenly became aware of the massive physical strength which resided in his hands, the hands that had touched her so tenderly and so expertly.
