Mirror, page 6
“What is that?” Tommy asked.
Artemis wasn’t sure.
Her father held up the lantern as if the light could make them hear better. Either it did, or whatever the sound was grew louder.
“It seems to be coming from outside,” he said.
The three moved quickly back to the stairwell, and as they climbed the steps gusts of air buffeted against their faces.
That’s what the sound is, Artemis realized. The wind.
When they emerged into the night air again, the earlier stillness of the night was gone. Wind whipped through the trees, shaking dying leaves free and carrying them away. Artemis blinked against the dust and grass caught in the powerful gusts and tried to look around the cemetery. Then a flash lit the sky. A bolt of lightning joined another and broke off into smaller shards—more than a dozen—shooting down toward the heart of London. A dark vortex of clouds circled like a small hurricane, hovering above the city. Lightning danced off its grey edges, reaching down to the city below.
Tommy squinted up at the maelstrom. “Well, that’s not good.”
Chapter Six
The windows in his laboratory rattled as the little witch walked in a circle around the mirror. Leroux could only make out a few words of Gaelic as she sang softly to herself and circled and circled. She reeked of wormwood—dry and bitter—much like the crone herself.
Her incantations were whisper soft, but whatever she was doing was clearly working. The wind blew the shutters from one window nearly off their hinges. He hurried over to close them and re-secure them.
If the witch took notice she gave no indication of it. She walked in her small circle, around and around, singing the same song over and over. At first, he thought she was as mad as she was rumored to be. But he’d sensed her magic, sensed the dark power inside her, and knew she would be the one.
It had been easy enough to convince her. No one trusted her. No one even listened. She was a discarded person, even among her own kind. A little kindness and some food, and she was ready to do his bidding. He knew the magic pulsed inside her, begging for a way out.
He had prepared the ground and now all she had to do was reap what he had sown.
One withered hand reached up to stroke the braids of a knotted tattoo that circled her neck like a noose. The black ropes seemed to respond to her touch, a light glowing between her fingers. Her song grew stronger, louder, until it reached a crescendo. Her screams mixed with the howling of the wind as the window blew open again. Her silver hair flew about her face like a gorgon’s snakes.
Closing her black eyes she reached out with one bony finger and touched the surface of the mirror. It rippled beneath her touch, gentle wave after gentle wave emanating outward like a pebble thrown in a pond.
“Trohbad,” she said and then the wind and torrent outside stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “Trohbad.”
She opened her eyes and lifted her wrinkled face toward Leroux. “Tha e air a dhèanamh. It is done.”
As he walked over to her, Leroux’s heart filled with delight at what would be.
“You are sure? The spell is complete?”
A smile curled the corner of her lips as she brought his attention back to the mirror. The smooth surface rippled again as a grotesque clawed hand reached out from within before withdrawing.
She’d done it. She’d torn the Veil between worlds. It would not last long, but it would be enough for the nightmares to step across.
Leroux took her by the shoulders. “You have done well, Cailleach.”
Her smile widened at the use of the name.
Leroux gestured to his golem, who lumbered forward to do his bidding. The surface of the mirror stilled and Leroux inclined his head toward it.
The great hulking golem raised its stony fist and plunged it into the glass, shattering it into pieces and falling to the floor.
Leroux looked down at the reflective shards and picked one up. With only part of his reflection visible, he appeared almost handsome.
“Now about my payment?” the witch said.
“Yes, your payment,” he said, distracted.
He tendered it quickly, and then looked out into the night.
The nightmares would step through the Veil and his dear Helen would pay the price for her cruelty. All he had to do now was wait.
“We should return home!” Artemis's father cried over the howling wind.
She wasn’t about to argue, and they hurried toward the carriage. Debris swirled in the wind, and she held up her hand to protect her eyes.
Their horse danced nervously in place, pulling the carriage and the weight attached to her neck backward and forward.
Tommy ran to her side and grabbed ahold of her bridle, stroking her neck. “Easy, girl. It’s all right.”
She tossed her head in protest, eyes wild.
“Easy!”
The carriage moved back and forth as the horse fought to bolt.
Poor Dolly, Artemis thought, moving closer to help Tommy.
Her father’s hold on her arm stopped her. Shaking his head, he eased her a few paces back from the terrified animal.
Tommy held on to Dolly and said things to her Artemis could not hear; his words were caught in the wind. Despite the chaos, Tommy was soothing her. She’d stopped making the strangled sound of terror and began to calm.
Suddenly, the roaring wind collapsed into silence and the air was still.
Artemis looked back up at the storm. The last remnants of the huge, swirling black vortex shrank in on itself, then disappeared with a flash as if pulled through a hole in the heavens. The sudden quiet and stillness was somehow even more unnerving than the chaos of the storm.
“Good girl,” Tommy said, stroking her neck. Dolly gave him a loud snort and blow.
“What was that?” he asked.
Artemis's father didn’t answer and merely kept staring up at the now clear, crisp sky. Finally, he lowered his gaze. “Is she—”
“She’s all right,” he said, and scratched her jaw. “Aren’t you, girl?”
Dolly answered with a soft neigh.
“Then let’s return home,” her father said. “Whatever happened seemed to be focused on that side of the river.”
* * *
They made good time through the quiet streets. Only a few revelers, young men wearing gruesome masks and dancing around a bonfire in the street, seemed to be out. The few candles that had been lit in windows had begun to gutter and what was left of the carved turnips sitting on doorsteps were dark and abandoned.
It is eerily quiet, Artemis thought. The sudden storm must have driven people inside.
As they got closer to home, the traffic on the streets increased to more of its usual post-midnight flow. A few carriages passed by along with the odd cart or motorcar.
They came to a stop at an intersection where some debris had piled up from the wind. They and another carriage coming from the opposite direction slowed to maneuver past it, coming quite close together.
A middle-aged man popped his head out of the window of the cab. “Doctor Schäfer?”
Her father rapped on the roof of their carriage and Tommy pulled them to a stop.
“Mr. Hughes?”
The man, whose face was flush with worry, spoke in a rush. “Doctor! I just came looking for you. It’s my wife, sir. She’s in need of you. She’s in desperate pain.”
Mrs. Hughes was Mrs. Perry’s niece and one of his few young, healthy patients.
“What’s happened?”
“I don’t know, sir. She just doubled over. Wouldn’t let me touch her.”
Her father glanced anxiously at Artemis. She knew he hated to leave her now. But Mrs. Perry was like family and that made her family theirs.
“It’s all right. Go,” she said. “You have to go.”
He hesitated. It was still Samhain, still dangerous out, but he was a doctor, and if someone needed him, he had to go to them.
“Please, sir?” Mr. Hughes beseeched him.
“We’ll be all right,” she assured him.
The storm, or whatever it was, had passed. Surely, they could make it the few blocks home without him.
He stared at her for a long moment, and she readied another argument, but then his mouth flattened into a thin decisive line. “All right.”
He reached for his medical bag and was halfway out the door when he hesitated, and then said firmly, “Go home and wait for me. You understand?”
Artemis promised she would and watched as he climbed into the Hughes’ cab and drove away.
A moment later, Tommy urged Dolly on and the carriage moved forward. They’d only gotten a few more blocks when their path was obstructed again. This time, the detritus was little more than few broken crates.
“Back in a tick,” Tommy said as he clambered down from his driver’s seat to clear the way.
As she sat in the silence of the cab, a prickle of energy surged over her. Almost like static electricity.
Left from the storm?
Rubbing her arms to try to wipe away the crawling sensation, she heard a sound coming from the alley to her right. It was dark and the street was deserted. She listened some more but heard nothing.
Probably just a cat.
Then she heard it again, a deep grumbling sound.
Definitely not a cat.
Slowly, she reached for the handle to carriage door and eased it open, trying to be as quiet as possible.
There it is again.
It sounded almost like a man, but there was something different about it, deeper, more unpleasant. She couldn’t make out the words, and she moved a little closer to the mouth of the alley.
It wasn’t a long alley, perhaps no more than thirty feet from the street to the dead end where it abutted the backside of another building. She could just make out piles of crates and garbage leaning against the walls near the mouth.
She stood silent, listening for the sound, staring into the darkness, when she realized the darkness was staring back. A pair of glowing red eyes watched her from deep in the blackness. They blinked slowly and she saw there were two, no, three sets of eyes gazing back at her.
“What are you doin’?” Tommy asked, appearing suddenly at her side, making her jump. He held up a lantern and shone it toward the alley that had so caught her attention.
The light faded when it reached the far end of the alley, but even in the soft glow she could see that no one was there.
I know I saw them!
“I heard something,” she said.
“Your father said to go home,” Tommy reminded her.
She reached for her sword, drawing it from its sheath. “And we will. In a minute.”
She stepped slowly into the alley.
Behind her, Tommy grunted and then moved alongside her.
He held the lantern aloft, trying to shine the light into the dark crevasses behind the crates and discarded items that littered the alley.
“What did you hear?” Tommy asked.
Before she could respond, she heard it again. A deep voice, grumbling something unintelligible.
Tommy had heard it, too. His eyes were wide with alarm, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
“Who’s there?” she called to the darkness.
The grumbling stopped and Artemis remained still.
A crate at the end of the alley moved slightly and Tommy swung his lantern toward it.
A pudgy little creature roughly in the shape of a man and wearing a bright red cap stepped into the light. It squinted its overly large red eyes at them to ward off the light and grumbled again.
Its nose was bulbous and its mouth a harsh line resting above a long white beard, and pointed ears poked out from beneath its red cap. It wore a mottled green vest and leather breeches.
“What’s that?” Tommy gasped.
Its hands had only three long fingers and extending from each was a curved nail like a claw. It held a short pikestaff in one hand.
“A goblin, I think,” she said, vaguely remembering it from one of the books her father had given her.
“A goblin?” Tommy parroted softly, as if trying to accept the idea. “That’s bad, right?”
She tried to remember as the creature stared back at them curiously. She searched for its friends but could not see them.
“Some are friendly tricksters,” she said, “but some are—”
The creature bared a row of long pointed teeth poking out.
“Evil,” she finished, having the distinct feeling this was the latter.
The goblin eyed her curiously.
“Bonnie lassie,” it said, its deep rumbling voice thick with a Scottish accent.
Artemis wasn’t expecting that. “Thank you.”
It smiled again, its sharp teeth a counterpoint to the kind words.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Ah cood ask ye th’ sam, lassie. Bonnie, bonnie lassie.”
Its smile became distinctly feral and it reached its pike out toward her in a poking motion.
“All right, mate, shove off,” Tommy said, stepping forward.
The goblin bared its teeth again and held its pike at the ready.
“Tommy,” Artemis urged in a hushed whisper.
“What? It’s leerin’ at ya.”
Artemis's eyes flashed. “It’s a goblin,” she ground out.
Tommy was still offended on her behalf. “Don’t make it right.”
“Yoo’re in ma haym,” the creature said, poking toward her with its pike.
Artemis slapped the tip of it away. “This isn’t your home.”
The grin on its grotesque face grew. “It is noo.”
Its red eyes slid to the side, and out from behind a crate too small to even hide it, another goblin appeared, and then another, until they were surrounded by six of the creatures, each holding a pike. Slowly, the goblins began to close in.
“There’s no reason to be hasty,” Artemis said quickly, hoping to avoid what seemed inevitable now. These weren’t shades or demons. She wasn’t sure why they were here or what had happened. It felt wrong to simply kill them. “Maybe we can—”
The main goblin lunged toward her then, trying to skewer her with its pike. She knocked it aside angrily with her sword.
“—talk,” she finished, glowering at the little man.
“Marbh!” it cried before running straight for her.
Artemis parried its rush easily, her sword bursting to flame and breaking the goblin’s pike like kindling. That didn’t stop its attack. It ran for her and snatched at her skirt with its long nails.
It was too close to her to use the blade of her sword effectively and so she used the hilt like a bludgeon, knocking it on the side of the head. It stumbled to the side but gathered itself, bared its teeth and came for her again.
She had no choice and ran it through. In a burst of light it disappeared, sent back to the Otherworld.
With bloodcurdling screams the other goblins converged as one. Artemis spun and sent one to join its friend in the Otherworld with a single sweep of her blade.
Tommy swung the lantern, trying to fend off two of them. Artemis picked up the pike of the fallen goblin.
“Tommy!” She tossed the staff to him. He caught it with one hand and Artemis spun again to fight another coming at her from behind.
She made short work of it, but another had used the distraction to grab at her and try to bite her leg. It got only a mouthful of skirt. She knocked it aside just as another grabbed ahold of her arm. It bared its razor-sharp teeth, ready to bite down, when she struck it with her sword.
Behind her she heard Tommy yell out in pain.
She turned just in time to see one of the creatures hanging from Tommy’s arm, its teeth digging into the boy’s flesh. The lantern fell from his fingers and crashed to the ground.
Oh, God!
Artemis lunged forward and ran the creature through, then whirled back around to finish the last. Breathing fast and hardly able to believe what had just happened, Artemis sheathed her sword and moved toward Tommy.
She scooped up the lantern that somehow hadn’t broken when he’d dropped it and held it up to see the arm he was cradling. A row of bloody gashes showed through the torn material of his jacket.
“It bit me!” he said.
She winced in sympathy. “Does it hurt?”
His answer was a scowl.
“Sorry.”
Trying to ignore the guilt gnawing at her insides that said this was her fault, Artemis forced herself to focus.
He was bleeding fairly badly, but she had nothing with which to stop it. Almost nothing. Large rips showed through the blue fabric of her dress where the goblin had attacked her. Using her sword she cut off two pieces and used them to bind his wound.
He winced as she tightened the knot over her makeshift bandage.
She took him by his good arm and led him out of the alley. The carriage wasn’t far away, but there was no way he could drive with his wound.
She opened the door to the cab. “Get in.”
“I’m all right,” he protested, but then wobbled on his feet, undercutting his words.
“Get in,” she bossed.
He was too tired and the shock too raw to argue; thankfully he did as she said. She closed the door behind him and walked over to Dolly.
Her house was only a few blocks away. She’d seen her father mend wounds enough times. She could help Tommy. Unless the goblin bites were poisonous.
Are they poison? She couldn’t remember, but didn’t think so. If only I’d paid more attention to those books!
With one last anxious glance back at the cab, she gave the horse a few quick strokes along her neck and took hold of the bridle.
“Come on, girl,” she urged and quietly led the horse and carriage down the street.
It was a good thing the streets were nearly deserted. It was a strange picture, a girl in a torn dress leading a horse and carriage down the street. But on this night, no one seemed to notice or care.
* * *
Nearly two hours later, her father returned.
“Artemis?”
