The Devil

CHAPTER FIVE

Thunder rumbled away to the west. Will paused at the end of the urine-reeking alley and glanced along the deserted high street. If the Unseelie Court were abroad there near the centre of Liverpool, they were keeping away from candles and lamps. He darted through the deep shadow under the overhanging eaves until he saw the grim faces of Launceston, Carpenter and Strangewayes. They waited for him at the assigned spot, in the lee of the silent stone bulk of the town hall.

‘Good news, lads,’ he said, forcing a cheery tone. ‘Or not. Our Irish vixen has made her lair in one Moll Higgins’s rooming house. Now the moment we dreaded must be addressed. Can we bear the lash of Dr Dee’s sour tongue all the way back to London, or should we leave him to his fate? Make your case now, and be quick about it.’

‘We have friends in Liverpool,’ Launceston said in his familiar monotone. ‘The kind of friends who would turn our bones to straw and mount us on sticks to scare the crows till Judgement Day.’

Will nodded. ‘I encountered those pale fiends too. They also search for Dee. The risks here are doubled, men. We must fly like arrows if we are to prevent this from becoming a disaster.’ He looked round the solemn faces. Not one of them, not even the raw Tobias Strangewayes, gave a hint that a mere four spies was a poor force against the supernatural might of the Unseelie Court. Will felt proud of them. ‘Come, then, good lads. There will be wine and doxies aplenty once this work is done.’

The spies weaved through the deserted streets back towards the jumble of stews and inns near the quayside. The night-time drunken revelry had started up again. Shouts and singing and the calls of women rang over the rooftops. Carpenter demanded directions from a whore pissing in the street and within moments they were picking their way among rat-infested rubbish heaps in pitch-black alleys where the eaves almost closed over their heads.

Moll Higgins’s rooming house squatted on the edge of the dockside squalor. It was the perfect hideaway for the Irish spy and her charge, Will thought: close enough to reach the ship speedily, but far enough away from the bustle of the port to maintain a degree of anonymity. It was a tall house of four storeys, leaning in a precarious manner down the slope as if it were about to skid towards the water. Spice-smelling merchants’ stores jammed hard against it.

Will looked up at the dingy whitewashed walls. Most of the small windows were dark, but a candle flickered in one on the second floor and another in the roof. The storm rolled around the town, throwing off spears of lightning and clashes of thunder. The wind tugged at his hair, slamming shutters and unlatched doors.

Beside him, Launceston and Carpenter were watching the rooftops for any sign of the Unseelie Court. Strangewayes stood a few paces down the slope, watching for an attack at their backs.

‘They are here,’ Carpenter said in a flat, low voice. Blood dripped from his nose, and Will could feel the familiar knot in the pit of his stomach as his senses rebelled against the alien presences that drew near. Across the roofs, grey shapes began to flicker against the night sky, circling, like wolves.

‘No time to lose now,’ he whispered, drawing his rapier. He felt comforted by the weight of the steel in his hand. ‘In and out with Dee. Cut down any who stand in our way.’

‘And that includes the Irish woman?’ Carpenter asked with a pointed stare.

Will hesitated for only the briefest moment. ‘If she stands in our way.’ Meg will not sacrifice her life for even a treasure like Dee, he thought; he hoped.

The moon chose that instant to break through the roiling clouds, and as Will glanced up one last time he glimpsed a sight that chilled his blood. With arms and legs spread out, grey figures crawled across the tiles and down vertiginous walls like spiders, drawing in upon the rooming house from all directions.

‘I wish I had a fire to burn out this infestation,’ Launceston hummed, ‘even if it took down all Liverpool.’

Will snatched open the door that backed on to the alley and led the way into a small scullery that smelled of lamb fat and cheap beer. Dirty cooking pots from that evening’s meal were stacked on a trestle to one side. Instantly, the spy recognized an unnatural feeling to the house. A chill hung in the air and intermittent tremors ran through the walls and floor under the old, dry rushes.

‘What is wrong here?’ Strangewayes hissed as he darted in behind the others and closed the door. He drew the bolt with a resonant clank.

Will sifted through his impressions for some clue to whatever was unnerving him. His face hardened, his eyes flickering around for any sign of threat. Raising his arm, he flicked his fingers forward and his men followed him without question, into a silent, cold kitchen and then into a hallway that smelled of damp. Everywhere was dark. A passage ran alongside a flight of ramshackle stairs. Though the gale whistled around the eaves, inside the house was so still it seemed devoid of life. Will felt troubled by the quiet — any rooming house was filled with a symphony of creaks, footsteps, snores and conversation for most hours of the day — and he could see from Carpenter’s darting eyes that his companion felt the same.

‘We go up,’ he said.

The first board protested like a wheezing old man. They all halted, listening. When no response came, they continued to climb.

Halfway up the first flight, a throaty laugh rolled out just above them, low and resonant. Behind him, Will felt his men bristle, their rapiers at the ready. Will’s eyes narrowed. He searched the dark at the top of the stairs for any sign of movement, and listened for a soft tread on the boards. After a moment of quiet, someone began to hum an old sea-song, a man’s deep voice, the melody punctuated by another laugh.

The four spies looked at each other, curious.

Will bounded up the remaining steps and rounded on to the second flight. A man in a dirty undershirt and stained breeches slumped halfway up the rise, his head against the wall. His greasy brown hair hung lankly around his unshaven face, but his eyes had rolled back so only the whites were visible. He waved one hand in front of his face as if in time to music, and then hummed the sea-song once more.

‘Has he lost his wits?’ Carpenter whispered. ‘The Unseelie Court have already ventured within?’

‘If not yet, then soon while we waste our time here gabbling,’ Will hissed. He dropped low in front of the man’s face until he smelled the ale-reeking breath. ‘An Irish woman and an old man,’ he demanded. ‘Where are they?’

After a moment the man appeared to hear and raised one finger. ‘The third,’ he said. As Will made to push by, the man grabbed his arm and whispered, ‘The eyes are afire. Say your prayers.’ Will shook him off and looked up the stairs into the dark.

At the top of the second flight, he heard a clatter on the roof high overhead. Movement flashed past the small window beside him. A crash echoed from the cobbles below; a tile had been dislodged. He raised his eyes, listening, then signalled to the other men with his eyes that the Enemy had reached the rooming house.

‘They go down as we climb up,’ Launceston said without a hint of fear, ‘and where in the middle shall we meet?’

At the top of the third flight, Will found a plump, pink-faced woman crumpled on the floor beside a younger man with the marks of the pox on his cheeks: Moll Higgins, perhaps, and the man another lodger. Both lived, but spittle drooled from the corners of their mouths and they looked right through him when he shook them.

‘What has happened here? These are all fit for Bedlam,’ Strangewayes whispered. He knelt beside the woman and took her hand.

Will had no answer. The Unseelie Court still sought entry; this was the work of another. He wondered what terrible thing had happened here to drive the wits from the occupants. In the silence, dread seemed to drift down the stairs like the unnatural fog along the river.

Mistress Higgins and her lodger began to convulse, crying out in a language that no one recognized. As he climbed the stairs, Will frowned, forcing himself not to look back. Launceston held up a hand to bring them to a halt, but Will had already felt it: a cool draught sweeping down the stairs, smelling of the smoky night air. A window had slid open. The boards overhead creaked.

Catching a glimpse of uncertainty in Strangewayes’ eyes, Will whispered, ‘If we walk away and leave Dee to the Enemy, all will be lost; for England, for us. There will be no coming back for a second chance. We must do what we can, though our lives be forfeit.’

On the third floor, they searched the first two rooms, small and cramped, with beds that had not been slept in. The third was larger, but also empty. ‘This is the place,’ Will whispered, recognizing Meg’s crimson taffeta dress hanging over the end of an unmade bed. While Carpenter crouched to peer underneath, Strangewayes moved to the window and glanced out. He shook his head: the Irish woman and her prisoner could not have escaped over the nearby rooftops.

Another creak echoed above them. Will imagined grey figures prowling around the darkened top floor. Soon those things would begin to descend. He stilled his thoughts and looked around. Ropes that had clearly been used to restrain the astrologer were coiled in one corner with a blue silk gag on top. The rushes had been brushed aside and a circle had been chalked on the floor with mysterious signs scrawled around the perimeter. Had Meg allowed Dee to cast a spell, he wondered? Surely she would not have taken such a risk. But there was a fat candle, half burned, and the sweet scent of incense hung in the air.

His gaze fell upon the obsidian mirror, lying on its side beside Meg’s bag. Such an object of power would never have been discarded so easily. He pushed past Carpenter to snatch up the looking glass. It was insignificant enough; few would have given it a second glance. But as he stared into the surface, cold prickled down his spine. He felt the weight of a presence looking back at him. Before he could dismiss the sensation, the glass misted, and a face began to form in the depths. A part of him wanted to hurl the mirror away, but he felt strangely gripped by what was revealing itself. And then the face formed and the shock jolted him.

It was Jenny, his Jenny, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Carpenter jerked up, half raising his rapier in concern, but Will was caught in the grip of that vision. No illusion, this. So many years had passed since he had seen her, and yet it was Jenny as he remembered her, from that last day in the cornfield, brown hair tied back from her pale face. He reeled from the rush of emotions that accompanied the sight, the memories of quiet conversations at dusk, the sensation of her hand in his. And yet somehow he knew that this was Jenny now, and that she could see him as clearly as he saw her. Her eyes grew wider still when they took in his face, but if he expected a smile of relief, or love, he saw only worry in her features.

She vanished as quickly as she had appeared. Will almost cried out, pleading with her to return so he could see her for one moment longer, a moment that felt richer than any he had lived in the last ten years.

‘What ails you?’ Carpenter growled in annoyance.

Will began to explain, then caught himself. ‘At least we have the mirror now,’ he whispered, slipping it into the leather pouch at his side. ‘Now, let us find Dee and be away from this haunted place.’

The window rattled in the grip of the gale that now buffeted the house. ‘Perhaps they are long gone, and already aboard their ship,’ Carpenter ventured.

Will eyed the taffeta dress and flashed a reassuring smile. ‘Perhaps.’ Raising his rapier, he stepped out of the chamber and prowled towards the final flight of stairs.

For one moment, he stood, looking up into the dark. All was still.

His breath locked in his chest. He levelled his rapier, twirling the tip once, then placed his foot upon the first step.

A high-pitched whine screeched across the upper floor. Will reeled against the flaking plaster of the wall, clutching his ears in agony. Steel barbs plunged into his head. He half glimpsed the other three men stumbling back with contorted features, hands pressed against their own ears.

A moment later, a boom resounded across the floor upstairs, bringing down a shower of dust. White light flared so brightly, Will wondered whether the house had been struck by lightning or a keg of gunpowder had exploded. Bedlam erupted before he had a chance to gather his thoughts. Throat-rending shrieks ripped through the house, sounding unnervingly like the cries of ravens. More flashes of light, a billow of acrid smoke. The very foundations of the house seemed to shake.

Will grabbed the rocking banister to keep his feet. The violent tremors threw the other three men across the landing. A body burst out of one of the rooms on the final floor and wheeled down the steps to crash in a broken-limbed heap at the foot of the stairs. Fearing it was Dee, or Meg, the spy wrenched himself round.

Will felt his chest tighten in shock. The figure crumpled in front of him wore a grey shirt and breeches silvered with mildew, the cut echoing a fashion of a time long gone. The skin was bone-white, the cheeks cadaverous. The eyes had been burned out so that only charred black sockets stared back at him. He struggled to comprehend what had happened. Never had he seen one of the powerful Unseelie Court despatched so easily, so brutally. He yanked his head back to peer up the stairs through the swirling smoke, wondering what force wreaked havoc up there.

Another figure lurched from the open doorway at the top. Will glimpsed a flash of auburn hair, a pale face, a bodice and skirt of black and gold. Red Meg O’Shee clutched on to the banister, casting one wide-eyed glance back into the room she had left. Her mouth formed an O of horror. Will felt another wave of disbelief. This spy, so hardened by the fight against the English in her homeland, who had suffered all manner of threat to her life and well-being, gripped by terror.

Before he could call out to her, she propelled herself down the stairs in desperation to escape what lay at her back. In a flurry of red hair and skirts, she crashed into him, fleeting surprise lost to mounting panic. ‘Leave!’ she screamed. ‘Leave or lose your soul!’

As they turned, another tremor hurled them to one side and they crashed through the splintering banister on to the flight of stairs below. Will took the brunt of the impact, pain lancing through his ribs. Meg landed on top of him, already craning her head in fear to see what followed.

Strangewayes was pointing and crying out a warning lost beneath the booming that now sounded like a cannon barrage. Cloaked in the swirls of acrid smoke, a figure was descending the stairs at a steady pace. Will felt gripped by the sight, and by the terrifying power he sensed in that apparition. It seemed he was in the centre of a storm, with lightning crashing all around and thunder breaking overhead.

And then the figure loomed out of the cloud, and Will saw a cloak made from the pelts of many woodland creatures, the still-attached heads swaying gently. White skulls of birds and mice rattled on a silver chain to the rhythm of each step. Wild silvery hair, a wrinkled face that mapped a life lived in the shadows.

‘Dee?’ Will gasped.

The alchemist turned his terrible gaze upon the spy. The eyes flickered with blue fire, and in them Will saw nothing that was human.