Ghosts of Albion: Accursed, page 15
“The creature has magical properties, Tamara. Dangerously powerful magic. It is a representation of the goddess Bharati. The Hindu goddess of sacrifice.”
Bodicea removed her hand from the creature’s head and floated away from it. In the gloom of that room, she seemed almost solid, and that was a comfort to Tamara.
“I’m afraid something terrible has come to London. And that this will be only the beginning.” Bodicea’s words sent a chill down Tamara’s spine.
“Let us go to Helena’s room. Perhaps we shall find a clue there.”
Tamara moved toward the door, but stopped at the threshold to take one final look at the figurine. At length she tore her gaze away, and Bodicea followed her upstairs.
Helena’s rooms were decorated in pale ivories and lavenders. The bed was neatly made, as if it had never been slept in, but was merely an exhibit. The whole room felt devoid of any humanity.
With a glance into the hall to see that she was not observed, Tamara closed the door and walked over to the small dresser. It did not contain toiletries, but instead was awash in delicate pen-and-ink and charcoal sketches.
Helena’s sketches.
Tamara picked up a small portrait of Farris that Helena must have drawn the day before at Ludlow House. It was an excellent likeness, capturing the dignity and sincerity of the kindhearted man who was more friend than servant to the Swifts. She laid that sketch down on the bed and picked up another, a self-portrait Helena had drawn in pen and ink. Tamara touched the rough paper with a shaky hand. Her eyes began to burn with the threat of tears, and she gnawed on her lower lip.
“Oh, Bodicea, why? Why Helena?”
The spectral queen’s eyes were sad, but she did not reply.
Tamara put the sketch down and walked over to Helena’s bed. She picked up a small brown doll that sat primly against the pillow, and cradled it in her arms. Helena had loved this doll, which she had named Mrs. Scrumples, to everyone’s amusement. But she put the doll down, and hardened herself with purpose.
“There has to be something here. Something to tell us what really happened,” Tamara said. She began to pace the room, her blue eyes raking in its contents.
“There has to be something—”
Then the something caught her eye. Under the dresser was a piece of sketch paper. Tamara knelt and picked it up. It was an unfinished sketch of the little lapis-and-jasper creature in the study with:
FOR TAMARA
inked above it. Tamara held the paper out, faceup so that the warrior queen could see the subject matter.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Tamara asked. “If this figurine was responsible for Frederick’s transformation . . . Helena was exposed to it for a time as well, yet it did not affect her. Could it be that the curse it carried had no effect on women?”
“She has left the sketch unfinished . . .”
Tamara nodded. “Yes, unfinished. And Helena was compulsively thorough about her work. She would never have left this sketch undone, not without cause.”
Bodicea rapped her spear on the carpet. “Unless something prevented her from completing it.”
Tamara turned the sketch over and was surprised to find a short sentence scribbled on its back. She squinted to make out the words:
BEHIND THE DRESSER
With a breathless glance at Bodicea, Tamara went to the dresser and slid it forward on the carpet. A small, leather-bound book had been wedged behind it, which now fell onto the floor with a dry thump. Tamara picked it up and opened the cover.
“Her journal,” she whispered, holding the little volume reverently in her hands. “Shall I?” she asked Bodicea.
The warrior queen nodded. “It can do her no harm in death.” Her ghostly features had thinned, and Tamara could see the canopied bed through her face.
Thus encouraged, Tamara flipped the pages until she reached the final entry. There were large tearstains obscuring some of the letters. Tamara put her hand to her mouth as she silently read:
I have decided to end my life rather than allow the shame of Frederick’s act to destroy my family. These words shall be my last. I only pray that my estimation of my dearest friend is accurate, and that it is you, Tamara, who has discovered this journal. I trust you and only you to be its keeper, and know you shall not let it fall into my family’s hands.
They would be forever shamed by the knowledge of what has happened. My half brother, Frederick, forced himself upon me this very night. I cannot bear the shame of it, and worse yet, this strange certainty in my heart that something unnatural has overcome him, and perhaps laid its seed in me as well. Yet I could not leave this world without imparting the truth to someone.
Tamara, please understand that there was no option. Forgive me for my cowardice. I love you always, Helena.
The tears she had been fighting welled up in Tamara’s eyes, obscuring her sight, and as she took a long, shuddering breath, they slid down her cheeks. Her lower lip quivered. Her chest ached and her stomach felt as though it were filled with ice. Only one thought echoed in her mind.
I will destroy you, Frederick Martin.
On that ethereal plane where ghosts lingered between the corporeal world and the afterlife, there were countless wandering spirits. The very substance of the place was made up of those long-dead phantoms, spirits who could not or would not tear themselves away from the lives they had lived, and move on to their final rest.
Most of those who remained behind did so for selfish reasons, and would tarry until they had reconciled with whatever they were hesitant to leave behind. Others, however, had different pursuits. Many remained behind to do mischief, or out of hatred or rage. Those could be quite dangerous to anyone still among the living, manifesting as poltergeists and other malicious apparitions. Often they were conscripted into the service of other, even darker forces.
There was a war going on. And Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson never turned his back on a good war. All his life he had fought for a cause, and his death had not persuaded him to surrender. In truth, he was more fervent than ever. He was a soldier in service to Albion, to the great battle waged by the Protectors and by his nation’s other defenders. There were forces for evil, both in this world and in the others. The forces wanted to corrupt Albion, to claim it for themselves.
The demon lord Balberith was one among many of these enemies. In this, the greatest war of all, Balberith represented the darkness, and Nelson fought on the side of the light. So long as he was capable of aiding in that struggle, he would remain upon the ethereal plane as a shade, a specter.
Truth be told, he relished it. What thrill, what pleasure, might be found in Heaven if the war against Hell was being fought on other shores . . . on other seas?
No, he would eschew Heaven for the nobility of this forever war. The admiral would stand upon the deck of a phantom ship whose prow nosed through a spectral ocean, until Armageddon came and the scales were balanced.
As his ghost moved through the ether, that was how he imagined it. The strength of his spirit seemed to bend the mists of the death-realm, binding them to his every whim, so that gray clouds rose in waves and he could almost see the masts and sails towering above him. The phantom vessel carried him across the churning ocean of souls. In the twilight of eternity, he imagined it would also carry him farther into the afterlife.
And what, then, he did not know.
For now, he rode the transient souls and the whispers of the restless dead and he kept his single eye vigilant for anything amiss. There were dark things at large in London, and even darker deeds afoot. Albion was tainted by some new manifestation of evil, and he and his comrades would aid the Swifts in discovering and eradicating its source.
Nelson knew he ought to return to Ludlow House but for the moment he had had enough of Byron’s company, and though Bodicea was a stalwart ally, her presence always unnerved him. The poet had his own circle of friends and associates in the spectral realm—degenerates, each and every one—and Queen Bodicea had numerous wandering ghosts who bowed to Her Majesty.
But Horatio preferred oftentimes to make his own way, and so he had made many acquaintances in this strange, misty, endless place. Where there was war, there were soldiers, and the spirits of a great many young men who had died before their time.
No, for now, until such time as Master William or Mistress Tamara should summon him, he would continue to seek any trace of—
Admiral . . .
In the swirling mists of that shadow realm, Lord Nelson paused, the sails of his ghostly ship flapping silently even as they dissolved around him. The spirit held himself still, allowing the soul stuff to churn like the surf.
“Who calls?” he said, his words merging with the fabric of that realm.
Horatio, come this way. We must speak.
Obeying a new master now, the mist seemed to separate, forming a path that stretched away in front of him. He might have suspected a trap, had he not now recognized the voice as belonging to a friend. With but the command of his mind, he sped through the ether, the soul mist rippling and rolling back at his passage.
Piercing the fog, he approached the world of the living. But from his vantage, it was as though the inhabitants of the world were the ghosts, and he was a creature of flesh and blood.
It was night in London, and horses clopped along the cobblestones. Firelight flickered in lanterns; laughter erupted from a passing carriage. A coachman shouted at his horses to pick up their pace. A policeman stood on a street corner, whistling tunelessly.
Horatio saw it all, and yet he hardly took notice. His attention was focused on the source of the voice, the elegant combination of late Renaissance and baroque design that was St. Paul’s Cathedral in all its beauty.
It had been called the triumph of its architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and there was truth in that. The façade sported two tiers of Corinthian columns that intentionally echoed those of the Louvre in Paris, and towers inspired by the church of St. Agnes in Rome. Wren had borrowed the breathtaking dome from Bramante, and the curved porches from DaCortona.
The man’s greatest achievement was nothing more than a collection of elements he’d nicked from other architects.
Arrogant fool, Horatio thought. But he had nurtured a certain bitterness toward Wren throughout his ghostly existence. First, because the man was a foppish buffoon. At least his ghost was. Second, and more specifically, because Nelson’s remains had been laid to rest within St. Paul’s. Though he knew it was irrational, Nelson somehow connected the thought of Wren to the acknowledgment of his own death.
He had lost an arm and an eye during his life, and suffered other wounds, as well. But still Admiral Lord Nelson had clung to his flesh and blood, and he missed the life he had led, missed it terribly.
So whenever he found himself in the vicinity of Wren’s masterpiece, a certain melancholy descended upon him like a shroud. It was unsettling to know that what remained of his fleshly form, his bones and bits of dried skin and hair, still lay in that tomb, deep within the cathedral.
Yet he was a soldier, and if the battle took him into unpleasant territory, he would not shirk in his duty.
He drifted across the road, invisible to the gaze of those who still drew breath, and passed through the stone walls of the cathedral. A small smile touched the corners of his mouth. Wouldn’t William Swift have been thrilled to learn that he had such a knowledge of architecture?
But to him, this was just a church. No, not even that. It was just another building.
The cathedral was as he remembered it. The Whispering Gallery shushed now not with the mutterings of playful children but with the susurrus of ghostly dialogue. There were many ghosts in St. Paul’s. Nelson saw their flitting, translucent forms darting about as he entered, hiding themselves away so that they might observe his intentions without revealing themselves. But their whispers still lingered, and it was clear that they were agitated. He sensed their alarm, but it wasn’t his arrival that had disturbed them.
It was the presence of monsters.
The creatures—demons—were gone now, he gathered that much immediately. But they had wound the cathedral’s dead up into a frenzy.
Horatio ignored them all for the moment. Perhaps they might have told him something useful, but he was responding to the summons of a friend, and he refused to allow himself to be distracted. Ignoring the presence of the altar, and blurring past the nearly 150-year-old organ upon which Mendelssohn had once played, he went directly to the shadowed corner where his tomb had been laid. Columns rose high above, and there was his name engraved in the stone of the ridiculously elaborate tomb.
HORATIO VICS NELSON
A figure stood in front of the tomb, hands clasped behind his back, studying the plaque that adorned the stone. The ghost was also dressed in uniform, but where the admiral represented Her Majesty’s Navy, his summoner was an infantryman.
Colonel Richard Dunstan had served under both Cornwallis and Wellesley during their governor generalships of the holdings of the East India Company. He was a good man. After his death, Colonel Dunstan had freely volunteered his services in the defense of Albion. He had never been a close confidant of Sir Ludlow Swift, but he had been an invaluable ally both as a scout and as a warrior.
“Colonel,” Nelson said.
Dunstan turned to face him. His features were distinct in the shadows. He had been handsome in life, his skin a bronze hue thanks to his mixed parentage. Dunstan’s father had been a wealthy English trader, his mother the beautiful daughter of a Bombay merchant of similar station. It would have been no simple thing for his Indian origins to go unnoticed at home, but abroad, he had been considered a vital asset to the governors general, able to immerse himself in both British and Indian cultures.
The colonel was generally an amiable sort. This evening, however, his expression was grim.
“Admiral,” Colonel Dunstan said. He nodded once. They had never bothered with formal salutes or anything of the kind, but their titles remained. “I apologize for having brought you to this place. Since my death, I have never once visited the repository of my . . . remains . . . and if the idea gives you a fraction of the trouble it does me, well, I can only beg your indulgence.”
Nelson cleared his throat and raised his chin. Though he could have manifested himself to appear as he had at any point in his life, he always chose to be seen by other ghosts as he had been at the time of his death. One arm. One eye. He had lost their mates in service to the Crown, and that was a source of pride to him. So it was that he could look upon Dunstan with only one eye, but he did so now with utter gravity.
“And you have my indulgence, Colonel. Your aid is ever appreciated. However, I confess that it is a bit unnerving, even to an old sea dog such as myself, to be so close to . . . well, you’ve already said as much. So if you’ll be kind enough to proceed, we can quit this place all the sooner.”
Dunstan motioned as though to smooth his uniform. It seemed an unconscious motion, and though there was no cloth there to be smoothed, the ether responded appropriately. Indeed, he was smoothing the fabric of his spirit.
“Come with me,” the colonel said.
Horatio followed, and they sifted themselves through stone and mortar and wood. Soon enough they were standing in a dark chamber, dank to all appearances, though they felt none of it. A black iron gate stood before them. Something had torn it apart, twisted the bars as though they were taffy, even cracked the metal in some places.
“They came through not far from here,” Colonel Dunstan said, chin up, hands behind his back, feet spread apart. “A portal was opened, surely through some dark sorcery, and most likely not performed by the demons themselves.”
Nelson nodded, examining the bars. “Do you have any idea what sort of demons we’re dealing with here? And what their purpose might be?”
“I have my suspicions. Come this way,” Dunstan said.
The colonel led him back the way they had come. Inside the main chamber of the cathedral, in sight of the High Altar, Dunstan showed him a stain on the stone floor. Candlelight threw shuddering shadows upon the walls, but there was no sight of any worshiper or minister. Merely that dark stain, where blood had seeped into the porous stone. Some poor servant had likely already been set to the task of its removal, but Horatio was certain the stain would never truly come out. It was more than blood. Dark magic had tainted the floor of St. Paul’s.
Only now, in the midst of that empty cathedral, did he feel the power of faith that vibrated in every stone. At last he realized what Dunstan was attempting to show him.
“Whatever did this . . . whoever is responsible . . . it wields powerful magic.”
“Oh, yes. Quite,” Dunstan agreed. He crouched and touched insubstantial fingers to the bloodstained floor. Where the blood lay, tainted by sorcery, his fingers actually came into contact with it. “Normally base, foul beasts such as Rakshasa would never be able to trammel upon sacred ground.”
Rakshasa. Nelson had never heard the word.
“These Rakshasa are the demons you spoke of?”
“The legends are from India. Simply put, they are monsters. Some stories claim they have the ability to alter their appearance, but I have never seen proof of this. The few times I have encountered such horrific creatures, they have been hideous to behold.”
Horatio ruminated on this news for a few moments, and then he recalled where he was. Perhaps St. Paul’s was more than just a building. A ripple of distaste went through him, and he was seized with the urge to depart.
“You have my thanks, and that of the Protectors, Colonel Dunstan. I’m curious, however, about the Indian origin of these monsters. Another situation has arisen that seems to have ties to that colony, as well, and I’m forced to wonder if the two incidents might be related.”
The dark glimmer in Dunstan’s eyes was enough to quiet Nelson.
“Indeed, Admiral,” the ghostly colonel said gravely. “This is merely the latest such appearance. In the areas near the docks where so many former employees of the East India Company live in squalor, there have been several strange events in recent weeks. Rakshasa have been sighted, and there has been a mysterious stranger, a woman unknown to anyone, who wanders the streets late at night. Perhaps the legends of the Rakshasa are true, and she is one of them. Or perhaps she is merely a woman. My mother’s people are very superstitious.
