Bones and Ashes Page 15
From his appearance, Raiden knew he was the necromancer responsible for raising the zombies. All necromancers were sickly. They had their feet too far in the world of the dead.
“They require our assistance,” the young man who had brought them said.
Aren cleared his throat. “My name is Aren Feralis. This is my cousin, Lady Raiden Feralis.”
“Feralis.” Coughing racked the old man’s frail body. He held a lace handkerchief to his lips; it came away spotted with blood. “You’re related to the Grey Lady?”
“The Grey Lady?” Raiden asked.
“It’s an old title. It’s what the dead call the Duchess of Northumberland.”
She had never heard her grandmother referred to in that way before. “The Duchess is my grandmother and Aren’s great aunt.”
He waved a skeletal hand toward two chairs. “Please sit down.” Raiden sat down next to Aren. “They call me the Marquess. I used to be one, before the Inquisition seized my lands and abolished my title. The boy is my son, Lord Blackwood. He should have been an earl.” He turned to his son. “Fetch us some tea.”
Lord Blackwood left the room to do as his father commanded.
“Are you related to the Grimwoods?” Raiden asked.
The Marquess snorted. “They’re no relation of mine. Lady Grimwood was crazy. She murdered her own children. The Grimwoods always considered themselves to be the most powerful necromancers in the country. Yet my family still remains while they are gone.”
Lord Blackwood returned, trailed by a maid bearing a tea service. She set it down and placed a teacup and saucer in front of each of them. Lord Blackwood remained standing; his father hadn’t invited him to sit.
“Lady Feralis, will you pour the tea?” the Marquess asked.
Raiden stripped off her gloves. Remembering her lessons on etiquette, she carefully poured tea for each of them. There were only three cups. She rose from her chair and took the third one to Lord Blackwood. She offered him the cup and saucer. He hesitated before he took it from her. He nodded to her in thanks.
The Marquess sipped his tea. “It’s been so long since I enjoyed the company of others from my social class.” He set his teacup down, his hand trembling. It seemed too heavy for him to hold it for long. “We used to be wealthy. We were one of the richest families in the country. Then the Inquisition seized all our wealth and assets and we had to turn to other means to survive.” There was a deep bitterness in his voice. “We’re kin in a way. Two halves of a coin. The living dead need both of us to exist. You summon back the spirit; we give the body life again. And yet while necromancers are persecuted and feared, they leave the evokers alone. You never lost your lands, you were never hunted. There’s no mirror for us. We don’t get that luxury.”
“They came here to ask for your help, father,” Lord Blackwood said, interrupting his tirade.
“I haven’t forgotten. How can I help you?”
Aren drew out a card from his breast pocket and offered it to the Marquess. “I work for Smallpeace, Dawes and Pumprey, the solicitors. A man died last week in a fire. He’s now a ghost. I had his body exhumed to get a piece of his bone so I could make him cross over, but when we opened the coffin it was empty; his body was gone. It had been stolen, although the protections were still intact. We need to find the body. Without it I can’t get rid of the ghost. You’re the only ones who could remove a body without destroying the protections.”
“It wasn’t us,” the Marquess said, squinting at the card. “If he died in a fire, the body would be too badly damaged to be of value to us. We can sew wounds back together, but we can’t repair burns. We only take those who died cleanly. He could have been taken for the medical schools for dissection. They pay quite well for a corpse.”
Raiden spoke up. “But the protections on the coffin were still intact. No one else could remove a body without destroying the protections except you.”
“You’re sure the protections were still intact?” the Marquess asked.
“I was there when the body was exhumed,” Aren said. “The mortsafe hadn’t been broken.”
“It’s not impossible to get through a mortsafe, but it’s difficult and time consuming. We wouldn’t bother. It would be quicker to find another body. We could take three for the time it took to get your friend out of his coffin. Which cemetery was he stolen from?”
“Brompton,” Aren said.
“Have we done any jobs up there recently?” The question was directed to his son.
“Not that I know of.” Lord Blackwood opened a drawer in the desk and took out a ledger. Lists of graveyards with dates and numbers filled the pages. He scanned it quickly, flicking through the pages. He slammed the ledger shut and strode over to the mirror and stepped through. He returned holding the collar of a thin man, who struggled in his grasp. The man’s face was narrow, like a rat’s, with a mop of untidy brown hair. Pockmarks scarred his cheeks and hands. Lord Blackwood dumped him in the centre of the room.
“Come here, Ludvig.” The Marquess beckoned him over with a bony finger. Ludvig approached, his eyes darting about. “Did you do a job at Brompton recently?” the Marquess asked.
Ludvig hesitated before answering. “No.”
“So, if I asked Gomerey, he would say you haven’t been up there this week?”
Ludvig shifted from foot to foot. “There was one job. It was small. I didn’t want to bother you, so I took care of it.”
“Who was the job for?” Lord Blackwood asked.
Ludvig didn’t answer. “I deserved it. I do all the work. I dig them up. I choose which ones to take. I dress them and comb their hair and make them look nice.”
“You decided to have that zombie raised yesterday,” Lord Blackwood said. “I told you to wait before you sold him, but you didn’t listen and then someone recognised him and traced him back here.”
“Who did you do the job at Brompton for?” the Marquess asked.
“He will kill me if I tell you.”
“And I will kill you if you don’t.”
Ludvig twisted his hands together. “It was the Duke. He didn’t come himself. He sent his manservant to arrange it, but he was there when we dug the corpse up. He wanted to check we got the right body.”
“Which duke?” Raiden asked, although she already knew what his answer would be.
“The Duke of Exeter.”
A sick feeling filled her stomach. The Duke had red hair. He had been at the boarding house. He had threatened the landlady. He had also been there the night her mother had died, but he hadn’t been trying to save her. As a fire witch he wouldn’t need to be in the room to start a fire. He was responsible for her mother’s death. But why did he kill her? And how was he connected to the lady in the mirror?
“What did you do with the body?” Aren asked.
“I threw it in the river. The creatures ate it.”
They would never be able to get rid of Matherson’s ghost now, not without his body.
“We can forget about this,” Ludvig said. “It will never happen again.”
“I don’t think I can,” the Marquess said.
Ludvig backed away. “I was going to tell you about it. I swear.”
“Of course you were.” The Marquess smiled, causing his thin lips to crack and bleed.
“I’ll make it up to you. I’ll work for free.”
The Marquess turned to his son. “Take him away. I will deal with his treachery later.”
Lord Blackwood seized his arm and dragged him from the room. He didn’t take him through the mirror; instead he took him through a door into the manor
“I suspected he was cheating us, but I could never find any proof,” the Marquess said when they had gone.
“What are you going to do to him?” Raiden asked.
“I give life to the dead. I can also take it away from the living.” He chuckled. His laughter turned into coughing.
Lord Blackwood returned. He put his arm around his father to support him as
coughing raked his frail body. “You should leave now. He needs to rest.”
“We’re grateful for your assistance,” Aren said, rising from the table.
“Wait,” the Marquess said, struggling to get his breath. “There’s a war coming between the living and the dead. My children are whispering. There was a time when the Inquisition feared us. They feared our power. We must stand together against them.” He would have said more, but the coughing overtook him.
Lord Blackwood placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Rest, father. I will see them out.”
The Marquess’s head lolled back against the chair. He looked dead.
They followed Lord Blackwood back through the two mirrors, into the office of the warehouse.
“Thank you for your assistance,” Aren said, as Lord Blackwood showed them to the door.
Lord Blackwood nodded. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help you more. Just in case you decide to come back, the mirror will be relocated. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” Aren said.
Once they were outside, Raiden breathed in the air, relieved to be away from the stale smell of the warehouse.
“I should report them to the Inquisition,” Aren said, as they made their way to the carriage.
“But they helped us.”
“They’re not just zombies, Raiden, in the wrong hands they could be an army. They need to be destroyed. Even if they relocate the mirror, the Inquisition might still be able to trace them.”
“What would happen to the zombies if the Inquisition find them?” she asked.
“With that many zombies the Inquisition won’t bother having a necromancer lay them to rest,” Aren said, his voice grim. “They’ll simply lock them in the warehouse and burn them.”
Aren helped her into the carriage. The zombie sat there, unmoving. Aren took the seat next to him.
“What are we going to do about Matherson?” Raiden asked.
“There’s no way to get rid of him now, not without a link. Unless he chooses to cross over, he’s trapped here forever,” Aren said.
“And the Duke?”
Aren shook his head. “We have no proof he did anything.”
“He’s responsible for my mother’s death. He must be. He was there the night she died and he was there at the boarding house.”
“All we know for certain is he had a corpse dug up and disposed of. That doesn’t prove anything.”
“What if Matherson testified against him?” Raiden suggested.
“He’s too unstable,” Aren said. “A court would never accept his testimony; that’s even if he decided to talk to us.” He sighed. “I have to go to the Inquisition and tell them about the Resurrection Men.”
“What about my zombie?” Raiden asked. “I can’t take him back to school.”
“Leave the zombie with me.”
“You won’t turn him over to the Inquisition?”
“No. I’ll find somewhere to put him until I can get a necromancer to lay him to rest. He can stay in my office for the moment. We keep some spare coffins for our clients.”
Raiden looked back at the warehouse as the carriage pulled away. She could imagine the zombies, their eyes staring blankly ahead as they burned. She wondered if they could feel pain.
Chapter Thirteen
Raiden trudged up the stairs to her room, pulling the pins from her hair as she went. Her head ached. She didn’t know if Aren had done the right thing by going to the Inquisition about the Resurrection Men. It was wrong they were stealing corpses from their graves, but it wasn’t right to simply burn them. The zombies hadn’t asked to be brought back.
She opened the door to her bedroom and stopped. Spiders covered the walls and swarmed over the floor. Their black bodies formed a writhing carpet. The spiders were part of the school’s inner defences. Someone or something had tried to break into her room. The curtains fluttered, stirred by a breeze. When she had left that morning, the window had been closed. The spiders parted for her as she went to the window and pulled it shut. A faint trail of fine powder covered the windowsill. She ran her gloved finger over the residue. It came away with dust that glittered. A fairy had been in her room.
She had seen the same residue on the windowsill at the boarding house. The Duke had been at the boarding house as well. What had they been looking for?
With the intruder gone, the spiders began to leave. They disappeared back into the cracks in the stones and up into the fireplace. She was careful not to step on those that still remained.
She brushed a spider from the chair and sat down at her dressing table. She unhooked the pouches of bones and ashes from her waist. Unlacing the strings from Marielle’s pouch, she lifted the amulet out. She held the dull gem up to the light. It had to be what they were looking for, but why? She turned it over. Years of dirt and grime had tarnished the setting. She rubbed her thumb over it. The edges were jagged and sharp as though it had been broken from something before it had been fixed to the back of the amulet. She rubbed the surface with a corner of her sleeve. Gradually, her reflection appeared in the broken fragment. She held it up to her face. An eye peered back at her.
Raiden slammed the amulet down on the dressing table, covering it with her hand. Her heart pounded. The eye had been dark brown, fringed with lashes. Attached to the back of the amulet was a piece of a mirror. She knew what it was. She recognised the shape. It was the last missing piece of the broken mirror that had been in Matherson’s house. Someone had attached it to the back of the amulet. Had the lady in the mirror seen her? She needed the mirror to be whole to escape. And now Raiden had the last missing piece.
She opened the pouch and tipped the amulet inside. She pulled the strings tight and knotted them. She stared at the pouch, afraid in case the lady could somehow see her through the leather.
Suddenly, a scream came from outside her bedroom. Raiden tied the pouch to her waist and ran from the room. Heather stood on a chair in the sitting room, screaming. Glacia leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, unimpressed with the earth witch’s hysterics.
“What happened?” Raiden asked.
For a moment, she didn’t think Glacia would answer her. “She says she saw an imp.” The ice witch didn’t look at Raiden as she spoke.
“It was right there by the fireplace,” Heather said.
Glacia sighed. “I’ll get Mrs Lynch.” She left to find the teacher before Raiden could stop her.
Raiden slipped back into her bedroom. “Deg,” she said softly. A small green head peeked out from beneath her bed. She knelt down by him.
“Deg baad,” he said.
“You should have stayed hidden.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Deg, but you have to go.” She should have set him free days ago, but she had become fond of him.
He looked up at her. “Go?” he said in his little croaky voice, tilting his head to one side.
Was he just repeating the word or did he know what it meant? “Yes, go. You have to go away, but this time you mustn’t come back.”
He shook his head. “Deg stay wiv Raadin.”
“Not anymore. You don’t belong here. You belong with other demons. I would get into trouble if one of the teachers saw you. Tomorrow, I’ll take you into the city and you can find somewhere else to live.”
He looked down at his lap. Raiden turned her back to him, before she gave in. Across the hall, Mrs Lynch was searching the sitting room, a broom in her hand. The spiders hadn’t appeared; in fact they hadn’t reacted to Deg at all. He was somehow immune to the school’s protections.
Raiden took her reading book from the shelf. She opened the book, but she couldn’t focus on the words. Her hand was drawn to the pouch at her waist. She felt the outline of the amulet through the soft leather. The lady in the mirror was going to want the last piece of her mirror back.
****
“What are you going to do about the imp?” Cassade asked as they headed down the stairs to class the next day.
In the classroom, Miss Rudge was setting up the apparatus for the lesson. “Are you all here?” she asked. No one answered. She was the youngest teacher at the school at only five and twenty years. Her top two teeth jutted out giving her the appearance of a rabbit, and she had a tendency to nibble her lower lip when she was nervous, which was most of the time. Her hands were stained with ink and her frazzled brown hair was tied back in a braid.
They all gathered round the benches. “This morning we’re going to look at electricity,” Miss Rudge said. “It’s important to know how electricity works. Electric lights are becoming more and more common. Already some houses in London are being lit by it.”
“We don’t need to know about electricity,” Blaize said. “Only people without magic would be interested in it. Like Raiden.” Blaize smiled at her.
Miss Rudge cleared her throat to get their attention. “The electrical current passes through the filament inside the bulb. The glass is very important. If the oxygen were to get to the filament, it could cause combustion.”
Raiden struggled to pay attention as Miss Rudge explained to them how electricity worked. She hadn’t slept well the night before. Her dreams had been filled with zombies and broken mirrors. Her reflection was reflected back to her over and over again in the broken fragments. In every one her reflection had black eyes. She had dreamed of arms reaching out of the mirrors, trying to lock around her throat as zombies chased her.
“I’ve heard it’s possible to use electricity to raise a corpse,” Cassade said.
Miss Rudge chewed her bottom lip. “There have been a number of experiments carried out. They’ve succeeded in stimulating the corpse of a frog to move, but the effect is only temporary. As soon as the electrical current stops, the corpse stops moving.”