The Devil

CHAPTER TWO

The thick fog muffled even the creaking of the sign above the entrance to the inn. Nothing of the quayside was visible, nor any of the lights of Liverpool beyond. Never had Will known such a dense mist to sweep in so quickly. In the time it had taken him to push his way past the quay master and find a hiding place outside, the grey folds had billowed in from the west, consuming all in their path.

He crouched behind the dank-smelling rain butt at the edge of the stone frontage, watching the sailors flood out of the inn and clatter across the cobbles with pitch-soaked brands to light their way. The fog swallowed them in an instant. Distorted calls and responses floated back, before they too were lost. They were simple men, easily frightened by things beyond their understanding. But Will suspected that whatever it was that accompanied the unnatural mist would dwarf their present fears.

Moisture dripped from the inn sign. An angry cry rang out from near the water’s edge. A dull querying rejoinder from somewhere further afield, the splintering of breaking wood: odd sounds, incomprehensible in their muted isolation. Will waited, his fingers clenched round the hilt of his rapier.

He sensed the strangers long before he saw them. His head throbbed, his stomach churned. Blood bubbled around his left nostril. Familiar signs, all of them. They were coming, those foul things that had thrown his entire life off its course. Cold anger burned in his chest as his thoughts took him back from that misty autumn night to the hot summer day in Warwickshire that he could never escape. Jenny was there, then, as she was always in his heart, waving to him across the cornfield, her dress the pure blue of forget-me-nots, brown hair tied back with a matching ribbon. One moment, frozen for ever, along with all the promises of shared summers yet to come. In the blink of an eye, she had vanished. No trace remained behind, no path through the corn to show where she had gone, no footprints. No body. Gone as if she had been whisked up to Heaven by a choir of angels.

Will peered round the water butt at the figures emerging from the folds of grey. No, it was these devils who had stolen Jenny away, he knew now. For what reason, he had no idea, and the mystery of it still sickened him. But never would he give up hope that she was still alive, whatever his friends said. Over the years he had learned enough to convince himself that she did still live, that she was a prisoner somewhere — perhaps across the sea, in the New World where men said the Unseelie Court made their home. Everything he did, every battle he fought, every sacrifice he made, was to find some way to bring Jenny home. She was all that mattered. Not his life and not, though he would never give voice to it in public, his Queen or country.

Four figures swooped forward with near-silent tread, at first almost as insubstantial as the fog that enshrouded them. But when a sailor sprawled across the glistening cobbles, they appeared to coalesce, and take on flesh and bone. Dread crept across the still quayside. Despite himself, Will felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Here they were, the sum of all human fears since the days of the Flood: the grey men, the Fair Folk, the Fay; their names seemed endless, a way for mortals to skirt around the essential horror that lay at their heart. Three were swathed in grey cloaks and hoods, cold faces as pale as the first snows of winter and eyes black as coals. The fourth was the leader, Will was certain. He sported a beard and moustache waxed into points, and his black hair was long and sleek. His eyes were lost to shadow, but hard lines edged his mouth and when he smiled he revealed sharp teeth.

‘My name is Lansing,’ he murmured, looming over the fallen figure. ‘Others are the wits of the High Family, or the cunning. I am the blade.’ And he whispered into the terrified man’s ear, whispered words that were poisonous and corrupt, words that piled horror upon horror — words that would drive a man mad. Will clenched his fingers round his sword-hilt tighter still, so that his knuckles grew white. He wished he could drive his blade into Fay flesh to ease his anger, though he knew he could never defeat four of them.

When the sailor curled on the cobbles whimpered, the spy recognized the balding man he’d talked to at the Eight Bells. At the same time, he heard the Fay lord say, ‘Tell me now, while you can, where I will find this man, the sorcerer John Dee. Once we have him, there will be an end to this long strife and you will know peace. All of you.’

Will cursed under his breath. The words were comforting, their true meaning deeply disturbing. If the Unseelie Court hunted the alchemist so brazenly, then the matter was more grave than he had been led to believe. He could not afford to allow the hidden Enemy to reach Dee ahead of him, for then he would have seen the last of Elizabeth’s conjurer, and most likely the last of England.

As Lansing continued to question his prisoner, Will lifted down the iron lantern beside the inn door, and wrapped his cloak around it to shield the moving light. He crept along the wall to the cover of the mounds of bales and spice-scented boxes that had been unloaded before sunset.

Running feet echoed close by. Orange light flared across the wall above his head, and he dropped to his haunches just in time. He could smell the acrid pitch-smoke and hear the sputtering of the brand. Three drunken sailors argued about what devils were loose in Liverpool. They would find out soon enough, Will thought.

Sneaking to where he could hear water lapping in the shadow of the great vessels at anchor, he used his nose to find the reeking barrel of pitch the shipwrights used to seal the hulls. He heaved the heavy butt on to its side and flung the lantern into the slopping contents. As the pitch ignited and the flames roared out, he rolled the barrel hard. The blazing keg hurtled across the quayside to where the Fay were cloaked by the fog.

Cries of alarm rang out along the water’s edge. Blazing brands flickered in the dense bank of grey cloud like fireflies on the wing, circling back to where the burning barrel painted the fog orange. The Unseelie Court worked their cruelties best in the shadows. No doubt they would melt away long before the fear-filled sailors discovered them. But had he done enough to disrupt their interrogation before they discovered Dee’s whereabouts?

As the tumult swept towards the crackling fire, Will raced into the rat’s nest of narrow streets leading away from the dock. The ghost of the Unseelie Court still lingered, a cold breath on the neck in a midnight churchyard. The town was dark, but his mood was darker still.