Darkness Falls

by J. M. Robinson

  “Good evening Mr Kable. My name is Miss Algate.”

  Miss Algate was young, she appeared no older than twenty. She had long black hair that hung loose across her shoulders and wore a long white dress that might have been a robe. She moved across the room without appearing to take a step. Graham stood up so quickly that he almost knocked the heavy chair over.

  “Please, stay seated Mr Kable,” Miss Algate said.

  Graham sat back down.

  “You were sent here by Mr Park?” Miss Algate said.

  Graham nodded but his tongue wouldn’t move and he couldn’t speak.

  “You may address me if you wish.”

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  She smiled and sat down in the chair opposite him. “You are searching for someone?”

  “Park told you?” Graham said.

  Miss Algate shook her head and her dark hair slid across her shoulders. “I help people find things that they have lost,” she said. “He wouldn’t have sent you to me for any other reason.”

  “You can help me then?” Graham said.

  “Oh I expect so.” She fanned the deck of cards across the table and looked up at Graham. “Please choose a card.”

  He looked at the deck and wondered what she was planning to do. Perhaps a simple trick to impress him before she asked for money. Graham tried to let go of the thought and reminded himself that he had seen enough of the world to believe in stranger things than this. But it was difficult to overcome a lifetime of scepticism.

  The cards were face down so that he couldn’t tell them apart. He reached towards the middle of the deck and picked up the first one he came to. He handed it to the woman.

  Miss Algate placed the card face up on the table. Graham was surprised to see that there was nothing on it. The young woman frowned.

  “What is it?” Graham said.

  She shook her head and looked up at him. “Please take another.”

  Graham selected another card from the edge of the deck and handed it to her. The face was as blank as the first. This time Miss Algate didn’t look back at him.

  “One more time please,” Miss Algate said.

  Graham selected another card from the other end of the deck and it was also blank. Miss Algate looked at them for a moment. She seemed to fall easily into the sort of trance that Graham recognised from his time in the mind space.

  She snapped her head up suddenly and picked up the three blank cards. She scooped the rest of the deck into a pile and placed the three cards on top.

  “Did it tell you something?” Graham said.

  The young witch shook her head. “It’s most unusual. There is some powerful magic at work here.”

  Graham nodded and tried not to feel disappointed. If she couldn’t help him then he was no worse off than he had been before coming to see her. He would go back out into the city and visit every church he could find. He would search every building in the country. If it took his whole life he would find his daughter.

  “You have lost something important to you?” Miss Algate said.

  “My daughter.”

  Miss Algate licked her bottom lip thoughtfully. After a moment she stood up and Graham thought that the meeting was over. He was prepared to let his hope die and live on with only grim determination. “There is something else,” Miss Algate said.

  Graham nodded but he didn’t think it would come to anything. The Church had powerful magic and there was nothing that she could do to counter it.

  “You have the sight, don’t you?” Miss Algate said.

  He had heard it called that before. His connection with Bridget didn’t feel like any sort of ‘sight’ but he knew what she meant. Graham nodded.

  “Then there might be another way. Wait here.”

  Graham remained in his chair while Miss Algate left the room through another door that he had not noticed. He looked at the deck of cards and, after a moment, he could no longer resist. He turned over the first card. He expected it to be blank because she had put the three cards that he had chosen on top. But when he turned over the card he saw a skull grinning back at him.

  He picked up the next one and found a picture of a grey tower. On the next one he found a picture of a snake. He decided that he must not have seen what she had done with the three cards he had chosen and picked up the whole pile. Graham looked at each card in search of the three blank ones that he had drawn but found that each and every one of them had a picture on it.

  Footsteps came from behind the door and he quickly put the deck down where he had found it. A moment later the door opened and he turned to see the witch walking towards him. In her hand she had a tiny glass bottle filled with a pale yellow liquid. She walked around the table and sat down again.

  She placed the bottle in the middle beside the deck of cards.

  “What is it?” Graham said.

  “This, Mr Kable, is called Tracer.”

  “What does it do?”

  She tapped the bottle lid. It was corked and sealed with red wax. “Your ability to connect with your daughter is temporary,” Miss Algate said. “And it is limited to her. But that needn’t be a negative.” She tapped the bottle again. “A drop of this will allow you to take advantage of your unique connection.”

  “What will it do?” Graham said.

  “Every effect has a cause Mr Kable. You cannot have magic without consequence. It causes damage to the world wherever it is performed.

  “Those of us who understand this, and care, are able to repair the damage and make the world right again. But magic leaves a trace and this will enable you to see it. If I were to take this, Mr Kable, the world would become an unimaginable horror as every piece of magic that had recently been used would be revealed to me. It would serve no purpose other than to give me a terrific headache. You, however, are only able to see your daughters magic and that will allow you to find her.”

  Graham didn’t need much more of an incentive than that. He reached for the bottle but Miss Algate quickly took it away. He looked at her for an explanation.

  “I warn you detective that this is a temporary effect. You will need to be quick if you intend to use it to find your daughter.”

  Graham nodded. “I will stop for nothing.”

  He reached out for the bottle, he barely dared hope that it would do what she said. He wanted to open it right away but her warning was still fresh in his mind and he had no reason to think that he would find any trace of Bridget in the witch’s house.

  “Thank you,” Graham said.

  Miss Algate didn’t follow him out and when he looked back at her chair she was gone. Graham left the way he had come with the bottle clasped firmly in his right hand. He felt sure that he was nearly there and that soon he would have Bridget back with him.

  CHAPTER 8

  THERE WASN’T MUCH LEFT OF THE OLD BUILDING but it was the last place he knew that Bridget had been. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since he and Park had stormed into the building where the priests, Mrs White, and Hayes had been holding Bridget. The only thing left of it now was a knee high wall marking the perimeter.

  Graham walked up to what had been the front of the house. The floor inside was covered with a layer of black sludge that had hardened and cracked.

  He could hear the river behind him and knew roughly which direction they had travelled from there. But he couldn’t trust that memory to show him the way.

  Graham took the bottle out of his pocket. It was dark but the liquid still sparkled as though lit by something inside. He found a seam and peeled off the wax lid. He pulled out the cork and held it to his nose. It smelled of perfume.

  He took a final look around but he was the only one on the street and he couldn’t hear anyone close by. He put the bottle to his lips and allowed a little of the liquid to enter his mouth. He swallowed and waited.

  A moment passed but there was no discernible affect.

  The bottle seemed to gain the weight of disappointment. Whatever t
he witch had expected to happen hadn’t. Graham looked at the bottle and considered throwing it into the river. He turned to face the water and saw that a golden light had spread through the air above it.

  It hovered above the surface like a million tiny fireflies. Graham walked towards it, too surprised to understand that this was the trace the Witch had described to him.

  As he watched the delicate golden mist began to move as if caught in a breeze. He watched the swirling patterns that twisted the light as far along the river as he could see.

  A paper bag was caught in the same breeze, it scraped along the ground towards him. He put his boot down to keep it from floating away. He bent and picked it up. When he stood again she was standing there.

  Agnes floated a foot above the ground. Lit by the same internal light as he had seen the last time they had met. Her eyes were white marbles that seemed to look right through him.

  Graham stepped back and put his hands in the air. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his breath coming out in quick, shallow little gasps. “Agnes,” Graham said. He took another step back. “Agnes please.”

  She moved towards him slowly. She opened her mouth and she closed it as if she was trying to speak but the only thing he heard was the howl of animals in pain.

  “Agnes please,” Graham said. He thought he’d calmed her restless spirit, he thought that he’d sent her away. “Agnes I’ve almost found her.”

  Her lips continued to stretch. They opened to reveal a black pit where her mouth would have been. Wider and wider, it opened until every bone in her jaw should have broken.

  She screamed. It was the worst sound that Graham had ever heard. It was finger nails on a slate and cats fighting. It was the pain of losing a child and the sorrow of not being able to do anything about it. She screamed until windows should have broken and until Graham could no longer tell whether he was speaking or not.

  His fear of her overwhelmed him. Graham turned on the spot and started to run.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw her coming after him. A weightless corpse hanging in the air and filling it with her angry noise. He forgot all about the pain in his legs and ran as quickly as his body would let him.

  It didn’t matter where he went and he quickly lost track of where he was. Down dark alleyways and along abandoned roads. He ran without care for what he passed.

  Agnes continued to follow him. Her hideous scream louder than his heavy feet on the floor. She held her arms apart as if she intended to embrace him. The light that filled her had turned to fire. To Graham the sorrow now more like anger.

  He knew why she was angry with him. For the same reason he was angry with himself. He had stood aside and done nothing while Bridget had been kept from them. Their little girl alone and scared and he had cared more about his job than finding her. He didn’t pretend that his own inaction had been any less to blame than the betrayal of Mrs White. If he had just been there for her, been there for them both, he might have found Bridget long ago and Agnes would still be with them.

  Her scream drowned out everything but his own guilt. There was nothing but the pounding blood in his head and the unsteady rhythm of his boots on the ground.

  Graham ran until the whole world started to spin and he knew that another step would be the death of him. He stopped and, in a moment or two, he realised that the world had become quiet again.

  Graham turned around slowly. He wasn’t convinced that his wife’s ghost had actually gone but he couldn’t see her. The air was calm. What little of the golden trail that he could still see wasn’t moving. There was no sign of her. It was as if she had never been there at all.

  Cautiously he walked towards the golden light. It was beginning to fade now, as the potion wore off, but he could still make out a glimmer in the air.

  Despite running he had not ended up far from the river. He felt for the bottle in his pocket and pulled it out. He was relieved that it was still intact and full, apart from the tiny amount he had already tasted. He put it away to use later.

  Graham still felt uneasy. Agnes had gone for now but he didn’t know why. If he didn’t know why then, he thought, she could come back at any time.

  He shook his head. He couldn’t afford to think about that, just like he couldn’t afford to think about the men from The Church and The Grigori who had, no doubt, been following him all evening. The important thing to focus on was that he had a way to find Bridget. There was no point waisting time on anything else.

  Graham straightened himself up and put his hands in his pockets. He played with the reassuring weight of the bottle between his fingers. He walked towards the golden yellow light determined to follow it wherever it might lead.

  CHAPTER 9

  ARTHUR STARED INTO THE FIRE AND WATCHED THE flames dancing, throwing sparks and cracking. He couldn’t see Lucy but she was somewhere near by. He could feel her like a splinter, like a hand clasped around his chest, making it uncomfortable to breath. She was watching him from somewhere in the darkness.

  The fire was a habit rather than a necessity for either of them. The cold was nothing he needed to fear and she burned with an internal heat. Neither did they need it to see by, but it was there.

  Shadowbank had sent him to find her but that had never been his real purpose. She hadn’t been difficult to locate. The real reason he had been sent was to both help and spy on her.

  An army solely under her command would be a dangerous thing. She and Shadowbank wanted the same thing but she was an unknown. She was the daughter of the angel who had tried to take power from Jehovah and the woman who had tried to share it with Adam. Shadowbank did not trust her to rule.

  With Arthur by her side, Shadowbank believed, Lucy could be controlled. Arthur had no idea why he thought so and, seconds after meeting her, he had realised that she couldn’t. The woman was a product of her parentage and she would not be told what to do by anyone.

  Arthur heard movement in the forest behind him. He turned and peered into the darkness. If there had been anyone there he would have seen them, but there was no one. He relaxed and turned back to the fire, wondering what Elizabeth was doing and swearing that Shadowbank would pay for taking her.

  He picked up a forked stick and prodded the fire. It was dying and he had no intention of lighting it again.

  Suddenly she was sitting beside him. He hadn’t seen her approach. He wasn’t used to people being able to do that to him. She tucked her knees up under her chin and turned to look at him.

  “Are you okay?” Lucy said.

  Arthur had told her about Elizabeth but he knew that she didn’t understand. She was practically a god and had different concerns to him.

  “Are you thinking about her?”

  “No,” Arthur said. It was a lie. “Where have you been?”

  “Azeel lives somewhere nearby. I thought I might be able to find him.”

  “No luck?”

  She shook her head and they sat in silence for a moment.

  “Do you want me to look?” Arthur said.

  “If you like,” Lucy said.

  Arthur stood. He might not have been able to feel the cold but it still affected him. His knees creaked and he wondered when the last time he’d had blood was. Too long, probably, Elizabeth was locked away and there was no one else he was prepared to feed with.

  Lucy stood beside him. He hadn’t been aware of her moving. “We can go together.”

  He didn’t argue. They walked together into the darkness, in search of the demon. “Where did you look?” Arthur said.

  “Around,” Lucy said. She didn’t have a very good understanding of human geography. He supposed that was to be expected of someone who lived in a world so unlike his own. He didn’t really understand what her world was like but she had told him that being in the human realm for her was like only existing as a drawing on a piece of paper would be for him. It was restrictive and uncomfortable.

  “Do you think this war can be won?” Arthur said. He
wasn’t sure that he cared very much.

  “I asked my father the same thing once,” Lucy said.

  “And what did he say?” Arthur asked.

  She sighed. “He said that it didn’t matter whether they won or not. The important thing was that opposing Jehovah was the right thing to do.”

  ”Is that what you think?” Arthur said.

  “I don’t know,” Lucy said and he thought that was an honest response. “Maybe, but wouldn’t it be better to wait until you thought you could actually win?”

  Arthur said nothing and they continued to walk for a little longer. He wondered if this time was any different to the last time.

  Lucy led him along a faint path through the overgrown forest. They weren’t far outside of the city and they wouldn’t stay there for long. It was strange that so much seemed to focus around Lunden. So many of the fallen had been drawn there that it had to be more than a coincidence.

  The forest parted and then they were crossing a field. The grass was moist and beads of water clung to his trousers. They weren’t far from the place where Bridget Kable had been taken.

  He didn’t like to admit it, not even to himself, but he had thought more than once that it might have been better if he’d killed the girl. One final horror to stain his conscience but maybe he could have consoled himself with the knowledge that it had saved the world. He might have been able to live with that and he would still have been with Elizabeth.

  At the bottom of a hill they found the entrance to a cave. He followed Lucy towards it but stopped before he was inside.

  “What is it?” Lucy said.

  Arthur didn’t want to admit that he was apprehensive about going into another cave but it was the truth. He shook his head. “It’s nothing. You think he’s in here?”

  “It’s where I would hide if I was stuck here,” Lucy said.

  “That’s good enough for me then,” he said. He walked past her and into the cave first. It was darker than the night but his eyes quickly adjusted.

  It was nothing like the cave he and Elizabeth had hidden in. That had been rough and natural, inside this cave the walls were smooth and shined like black pearls.