by Ben Galley
‘Now Karrigan Hark has been proven a traitor, some of the Emerald Lords and Ladies have apparently taken it upon themselves to take matters into their own hands. They break away from the law. Now, I imagine that would trouble you rather deeply?’
Witchazel did not dignify that with an answer.
‘Fortunately, our good Lord Dizali has stepped forwards to put an end to all this … grabbery. He has put Harker Sheer under his guard,’ Fever idly chatted as he examined each of the tools, showing their mechanisms or razor edges to Witchazel, or testing them on the air. Fever looked up from his tools and fixed him with a curious stare.
Witchazel looked away. The floor, ceiling, either of the stoic Norse twins—he didn’t care, anywhere but those questing pupils.
‘You’ll be pleased to hear, Mr Witchazel, that fortunately an artefact, shall we say, of the late Bulldog’s was recovered by Dizali’s men.’ Fever reached into his waistcoat and produced a black iron key. A key, Witchazel was very sorry to say, he had seen many times before. A key Karrigan should have entrusted to him, instead of insisting on his secretive shenanigans.
‘Do you recognise this?’
Witchazel was busy cursing silently, jaw muscles bunching. He hated himself for it.
Fever grinned. ‘I know that look very well!’ he exclaimed. He even went as far as to clap, as if he had just enjoyed several hours of opera. ‘You will tell me everything you know. Forget the deeds. Forget everything else. All you have to do, is tell me what lock this opens.’
Witchazel tore his eyes away, and managed a shrug. ‘No. I don’t recognise it.’
Fever rubbed the creases in his forehead, finger and thumb. He sighed dramatically. ‘I was hoping you would cooperate, Mr Witchazel, given what I’ve brought to show you.’ Eyes flicked to the briefcase, and its glittering tools of surgical precision, all wrapped up in black velvet and leather straps.
‘I have never seen that key in my life.’
Fever stared at him for a moment, testing his gaze. Then he shook his head, and nodded to Sval and Sven.
Large men should not be so fast, thought Witchazel, as he was dragged to the stone floor. Either be big and slow, or lithe and fast. Both is just unfair. His skull knocked against the floor as he was pinned down, both arms and legs. From somewhere deep within him, Witchazel found the energy to struggle. Fear will make you do marvellous things on occasion.
Fever had removed a long, serrated scalpel from the case, and was now standing over him, holding it aloft. Witchazel groaned and spat whatever saliva he could dredge from his cracked mouth. This was very different indeed. It reeked of impatience, desperation, and people will do awful things to each other in such a state. The powerful. The greedy. The dying.
Fever waved the knife in a slow circle. ‘I will at least let you choose.’
‘Choose what?’ Witchazel panted.
‘What you get to lose.’
‘Lose?’
Fever grinned, a hint of madness in his tired eyes. That terrified Witchazel, and he did not mind admitting it. ‘An ear, a nose, a foot? Maybe even some teeth, or, then again, we could be more inventive. His shirt, if you please, gentlemen.’
Witchazel almost fought them off for a moment, for a teasing, flicker of a second. But they were just slightly taken aback by the man’s sudden thrashing. But down came the strong hands, and off came the shirt. Fever knelt over him, a clamp now in his other hand.
The torturer’s eyes roved over him, like an artist about to throw the first splash of colour on a blank, albeit beaten, canvas. Fever smirked, gazing at a point on his chest; it was hard to see when a thick, rough hand kept pushing Witchazel’s head down.
The clamp was cold against the skin around his nipple, deathly cold. So was the blade of the knife, as it rested against the filed teeth of the clamp. ‘You said I get to choose,’ Witchazel rasped. It was a futile complaint, more a feeble attempt at appealing to whatever gentleman Fever tried so very hard to be.
‘And so you do!’ Fever cried. ‘You can choose whether to answer my question, or to lose a nipple. You have ten seconds. One.’
Witchazel wheezed, in and out, his breath rapid in his throat. He was panicked.
‘Two.’
Surely he can’t be serious, Witchazel inwardly cried.
‘Three.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t I? Four.’
Witchazel look to Sven, then to Sval, but both wore their faces like a mask, devoid of emotion.
‘Five.’
The lawyer’s mind was a tiny hall full of screaming.
‘Six.’
‘This is madness!’ Witchazel roared.
‘Seven. Getting close, Mr Witchazel.’
He had to tell them, let the Seed confound them, buy more time …
‘Eight.’
‘Please!’ It was the first time he had begged.
‘Nine’
Witchazel screwed up his face as the words fought to burst from his lips. Those treacherous, foolish words. Think of the boy!
‘Ten.’
The knife was so sharp the cut barely registered, and for the briefest of moments, Witchazel thought it had been a trick all along. But then came the pain, swelling up and spreading across his chest like a poison. It was excruciating. Witchazel howled and he bellowed, fighting to look down at the bloody circle of raw flesh that had replaced his left nipple.
Fever was kind enough to place it atop the table that held the briefcase. He tutted to himself as he picked out a large, wickedly curved blade.
‘Please …’ Witchazel moaned.
Not a second was spared to let him wallow in pain. Fever stood over him again and nodded to the twins. ‘Let’s move on, shall we, Mr Witchazel?’ he asked. ‘Gentlemen, his trousers.’
‘No!’ Witchazel yelled, but the pain had weakened him. The twins turned him into a naked, bloody thing in seconds.
Once again came the clamp, clutching him in his most private of places, the metal cold and painfully tight. Witchazel thrashed as hard as he could, but he was like an infant in their hands, mewling and defenceless.
Fever raised his curved knife, no doubt forged specifically for this sick purpose. ‘What does the key unlock?’
Witchazel just seethed, foaming at the mouth now, his eyes locked on the blank ceiling, praying it would just crush him.
‘One …’
‘ALRIGHT!’ Witchazel roared. ‘I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you.’
Fever withdrew the clamp and leant closer. The fervour in his eyes was nothing short of alarming. Witchazel could almost hear his thoughts. They seemed to seep out of his mad gaze. An answer, the first in days. Dizali will be pleased. ‘What does the key unlock?’ he repeated.
‘Hold it up,’ Witchazel whispered. ‘With the teeth held in your hand. Match it to the window.’ The bastard words slipped out of him. He bared his teeth and scrunched up his eyes in pain and despondency. Death, all of a sudden, did not seem so alluring and peaceful. His carnal heart had spoken up, and demanded to be heard. He felt the cold fear flush him.
‘Well, well!’ Fever announced, getting to his feet. He placed his tools back in his briefcase, all the while shaking his head in wonder. ‘We finally have you cooperating, at last. Twelve long days it’s been, but we have got there. Dizali will be most pleased.’
Witchazel said nothing, only groaning.
Fever was already making for the door. ‘Patch that wound up, gentlemen, and fetch him something to eat. He’s earned it.’
Slam, went the door, and Sven and Sval went about their tasks. Bandages were brought, some stinging alcohol too that burnt and bubbled and set him writhing on the cold floor, as naked as he had been when he first entered the world. Food came next, when they had finished: a mealy slop and a stunted apple, teetering on a cardboard tray. No cutlery. Fever had learnt that lesson. Witchazel watched it all through half-closed eyes, his face still wrinkled in pain.
Only when the door closed with a mu
ffled thud, and the bolts were shoved into place, did Witchazel move. More slowly than a corpse, admittedly, but he moved all the same, propping himself up against the cold wall.
‘Twelve days,’ he whispered to the silence. Enough time to cross an ocean, surely.
Witchazel just hoped he had held out long enough to give Gunderton a chance of finding the boy. This whole play of his hinged mightily upon it.
That, and the Orange Seed.
*
Had Witchazel had possession of a window, and the strength to haul himself to it and look out upon the sunlight and patchwork cloud of a day, he would have found his hope dashed against rocks. Gunderton, was in fact, nowhere near the boy. Not rocking back and forth with the sway of a ship. Nor was he striding across a landscape, drenched in hot sun.
He was in fact standing on the street corner, hands in pockets and hat low, staring with half-closed eyes at the black carriage parked on the cobbles, outside the featureless building. It was an old storage building, most likely, all brick and windowless. In any case, Gunderton had been watching it for the last hour. He had seen the carriage arrive. He had seen its occupants step onto the kerb and dart into the building, quick with eagerness. He had even managed to brush past it without the driver or guards noticing, noting the fresher paint over its door. It was the same carriage he had followed, and subsequently lost, not three days before. The Prime Lord was a slippery one.
Gunderton stretched, kneading his aching shoulder. He wrestled again with his choices. To walk away, and leave the lawyer to his awful fate, or to do what he had been told, what Karrigan would no doubt have asked of him, had he not been food for the worms.
Gunderton snarled to himself as he juggled that same old question. He found a moment of distraction as a fat cargo ship droned overhead, battling the breeze that had sprung up from the muddy estuary. Gunderton stared at its white underbelly, at its shining engines, shaking with the twist of the propellers. He watched it until it had disappeared behind the chimney pots, off to Francia, or Prussia. Anywhere but here.
Where that damn Witchazel should be heading, Gunderton grunted underneath his breath. And I too. But Gunderton had never been one for right decisions.
There was a muffled thud from across the street and he spied the guards snapping to attention. Whether he bade them to or not, he did not know, but his feet began to move, striding across the cobbles towards the carriage. He barged past several people, ignoring their curses, his hands already slipping inside his coat.
It could have been his arrow-straight course or the dark look plastered across his face, he was not sure, but in any case, the guards spotted him within moments. One stood up on the driver’s seat and yelled. Another appeared from behind it, clad in a dark suit and grey hat, tattoos on the bones of his bare hands.
Gunderton threw his head back and let the blood run down his throat, a crimson surge. It was in his veins in a second, already swirling up to his skull. But these men were fast. Faster even than he was. Gunderton cursed as the nearest stamped his foot on the street. A wave of magick ripped outward, splitting the cobbles with a thundercrack.
Gunderton rolled to the side, cursing his old bones as they protested. The rippling wall of air flew past him, breaking the windows of the shop he had been leaning against. Screams and cries began to rise as the street descended into panic. Gunderton retaliated, pushing his magick into his legs and bursting forward. His fist caught the nearest man in the stomach with blistering speed. He crumpled to the ground with a gurgle. Gunderton left him to curl up in the middle of the street as he sprinted for the carriage.
Horses could always be trusted to run at the first whiff of magick. Gunderton had cursed them before for it, and he cursed them now as the carriage jolted forward. Doors slammed. Hooves clattered against the cobbles. The driver’s whip cracked.
‘Dizali!’ Gunderton bellowed, as the carriage evaded his grasp by inches. The second guard had found a revolver and was now firing wildly over the carriage roof as it escaped down the street. Gunderton dodged and ducked as the bullets ricocheted off the cobbles. One grazed his knee and he threw himself into an alleyway. It was over as swiftly as it had begun. Gunderton lay on his back, breathing hard, letting the magick die away. It was only when he heard the creak of a door and boots on the pavement that he moved. He slipped deeper into the shade between the buildings and found a spot behind empty ale barrels.
Two blonde giants of men prowled the street behind him. One had a rifle in his huge hands, the other a large knife. Gunderton hissed and sank lower behind the barrel, cursing his luck and timing. He stared up at the sliver of sky between the roofs and angrily clenched his teeth.
‘You a fool, Dow, a damn fool,’ he hissed to himself. He could hear the screeching of the police whistles now, inching closer by the moment.
Another airship slid into view, its bulbous hull crossing the patchwork sky like a bridge fording a river. Gunderton stared up at it, arguing with himself, back and forth, back and forth, until he forced himself from the stone and deeper into the alley.
With the whistles and shouts ringing in his ears, he hobbled east, to a spur of the docks he knew very well indeed. Where the airship captains drank their land-borne boredom away, pint by pint, until it was time to fly again.
Witchazel was right. ‘Almighty’s balls, he was right.’
Chapter XVIII
THE FINER POINTS OF CRIMSON
12th July, 1867
Merion had never understood the phrase ‘second guessing’. Especially not now. They should have called it ‘third guessing’ or, in his own case, ‘umpteenth guessing’. His brain had never worked so hard in all his life.
As the tangle of countryside rattled past his greasy window, he once again tried to unravel his thoughts and suspicions, knitted as they were after two days of toying with them.
To his own surprise, he had managed to keep silent on the matter, even to Rhin. The faerie was with Nelle Neams in the seat behind, and they were murmuring back and forth about the faerie’s next performance. He seemed far too preoccupied with thoughts of banshees and circus cages for Merion to think of bothering him with further suspicions. Merion knew better than that.
Lilain was far too engrossed in chatting about the finer points of crimson with Sheen, several seats down, where she had set up camp for most of the last day or two.
And Lurker was also immersed in his own world, only his consisted of dozing beneath the brim of his hat and occasionally mumbling something bitter whenever laughter rang out from the seats behind.
Merion had spent the best part of an hour staring at him. Out of the members of his strange little family, only Lurker might have had the inclination to listen, and better yet, agree. He wasn’t exactly a fan of Kadabra’s famed hospitality at this very moment. Merion needed help. This young Hark would not be duped twice, and this time he held matters in his own hands.
He had carefully moulded and pummelled an idea into being. Underhanded, indeed, but with Lurker’s flask and reserves of patience empty, and another few hours before they stopped, it was all too easy.
The young Hark bit his lip as he leant forward, prodding Lurker in the knee. Nothing. Merion poked again, and was rewarded by a snort.
‘What?’ It was more of a statement than a question, really, more of a grunt than a word. Lurker kept his hat low and his arms crossed.
‘Fancy a walk?’
‘We’re on a train, boy,’ came the gruff answer.
‘I’m aware of that, Lurker. A stretch of the legs, then, up and down the carriage?’
‘No. An’ we call it a car.’
Merion knuckled his temples and looked out at the countryside, which had grown decidedly greener over the past few hours, broken only by the tentacles of silver rivers reaching across the flat, seemingly endless landscape. To eyes seared with hot sands and rugged deserts, the landscape was an odd but welcome sight, even if it was still barren in its own way. He had heard the name Indiana mentioned more t
han once that morning.
‘I heard Itch say something about some moonshine in the animal car …’ Merion muttered, half to himself.
A gloved hand rose up to tilt the hat, and Merion met Lurker’s dark and curious eyes. He shrugged for effect. ‘That’s what I heard anyway,’ said the boy.
‘A walk it is.’ Lurker slapped his knee and got to his feet, grunting as if it irked his bones to do so.
Merion led the way, weaving in between the wooden seats and out through the door. The hot wind harried them as they stepped out between the carriages—or cars. Lurker had to hold on to his hat.
With care, they stepped between the couplings and in through the door of the next carriage, and so on, until they came to a wide wooden carriage at the back of the train, taller and wider than the others, jolting up and down with the railroad’s every wiggle and bump.
Inisde, it stank. The stench of animals and their assorted dung, along with the bitter-sweet smell of straw forced them to breathe through their mouths. Merion was careful not to tread too close to the irritable beasts, pushed so close together in the carriage that the big cats could trade swipes between their bars. Sunlight snuck in sheets and spears through the myriad gaps in the wooden cladding, illuminating a furry face here, or a snarling mouth there.
Merion led them to the rear of the carriage, where barrels and boxes had been stacked high in front of the last door. The boy hopped onto one and let his legs dangle. Lurker cast about, sniffing. ‘I don’t smell any moonshine, only shit and animals.’
‘That’s because there is none,’ Merion confessed.
Lurker crossed his arms with a squeak of leather. ‘Then I’ll take an explanation instead. I was havin’ a good dream.’
The boy sighed. ‘You’re the only one I can talk to about this.’
Lurker made a face. ‘Look, Merion. I ain’t no good for that. If you’re goin’ through changes, then your aunt …’
Merion held up his hands. ‘No, Lurker, you idiot. I need to talk about the circus.’
‘Oh.’ Lurker huffed. ‘Fine, spit it out, boy.’
