Ghosts of Albion: Accursed (Ghosts of Albion #1)

Ghosts of Albion: Accursed (Ghosts of Albion #1) Page 9

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.

"Yet there is still more." Colonel Dunstan passed his hand through the air, and an ethereal mist swirled into existence, as if from nowhere. It spread in tendrils of gray fog. "Come. Let me show you."

Nelson had seen much in his life, and far more since his death. Things that once would have been beyond his wildest imaginings. Towering demons that breathed the fires of Hell itself, insidious shades that possessed the minds and bodies of decent people, sorcery whose sole purpose was the twisting of human flesh, and worse. As a specter, at all times, he could sense the talons of true evil, disembodied things that made the minions of Hell seem like mere animals, scratching at the windows of the world, attempting to get in.

Albion itself had a living, breathing soul, like Aquitaine, Bavaria, and so many other regions of the world. This was the power of the natural world. But there were unnatural powers, as well, and their ultimate goal was to undo all that was right with the world, and remake it in their image.

So when Colonel Dunstan's words began to echo in him, and a ghostly shiver ran through him, he recognized the feeling for what it was.

Fear.

Something terrible was afoot. It came from a distance, and they had only just begun to recognize the scope of its influence.

The solid world faded into the mist, and the two ghosts slipped into the ether once more. Together they drifted. Direction and distance had little meaning. Destination had far more to do with intent than navigation.

After only a few moments in that gray, malleable place, the mist began to clear again, and Nelson could hear the sound of the river.

The Thames.

He did not have to breathe, of course. His senses still functioned, but only because he required them. The stench of the river would have bent him over with the urge to vomit if such an act were still possible. He might retch, but there was no stomach, nothing to regurgitate. It was one of the rare times Nelson was grateful to be dead.

"That's simply awful," he muttered.

All of the filth from London's industry fed into the river. The city's sewers fed the Thames, as well, and the surface of the river was clogged with human waste. Nelson surveyed the water, and what he saw there disgusted him. He was a man at home upon the sea, and it wrenched something within him to have to bear witness to this atrocity. The Thames ought to have been London's lifeblood, and instead it was the depository of her offal.

"Look there," Colonel Dunstan said, pointing.

Only then did Nelson spot the tiny figures on the near bank of the Thames. His brows knitted and he drifted closer. At first the small things that crouched on the riverbank appeared to be toads, but the closer he drew to them the more he realized that they were not like any living creatures he had ever seen.

Their eyes were red and bulbous, tinged with yellow, as though they were blisters full of blood and pus. And when something skittered by beneath a wooden mooring, surely a river rat, the toads raised their heads, then gave pursuit, leaping into the water or under the mooring, moving as a group.

"Good Lord," Horatio whispered.

Dunstan grunted. "Let us hope so."

The ghosts floated to the river's edge, though they kept well away from that rotting wooden mooring and whatever might have been going on beneath it. Supernatural creatures such as the things that had defiled the cathedral were quite capable of injuring a ghost, of wounding the substance of a specter. What was touched by sorcery might harm a spirit as easily as it could hurt a man. Even a minister.

There was something floating in the water, large and pale. At first Nelson thought it must be a corpse. There were enough river pirates, petty thieves, and other killers working the river and the wharves that it was not unusual to see a human body callously discarded in the Thames.

But then the thing moved, and dove beneath the surface, disgusting water churning above it. It came back to the surface a short distance away, its bulbous eyes shining in the faint moonlight. The putrid waste atop the river rolled with its deep passage and it swam away from them, upriver toward the London docks.

"What was-"

"The Rakshasa are not the only things to plague the Indian sections of London town," the colonel's ghost said, voice heavy with import. "There is disease, as well, of a sort no mortal physician is prepared to treat. Women who are infected are quickly swollen as if with child, ill with fever and covered in sores. In the end, they . . . give birth. Those toads you saw, Admiral. More than a dozen Indian women have borne such creatures, carried evil within their own flesh. They are tainted forever. The fortunate ones have died. There are easily that many more already infected, and who knows how many others will come?"

"And the men?" Horatio asked. "The men who are infected, what of them?"

The shadows of Colonel Dunstan's features seemed to darken, and Nelson saw fear there.

"First they go mad, and become violent in their search for a woman with whom to mate. Then they are changed," the ghost replied. "They undergo a terrible metamorphosis, their flesh contorted until they are no longer human. What you saw in the river a moment ago . . . that used to be a man."

Like Frederick Martin, Nelson thought. Precisely like Frederick Martin.

And what of the earl of Claridge? Could he have been infected as well? Certainly, he is not a man of the slums. Yet . . .

"The Protectors' experience with this has been limited. But if what you say is true, then this plague has begun to touch the nobility, as well. I am surprised these horrors did not come to our attention sooner."

The ghost of Colonel Dunstan, this soldier who had lived his life with an English name and an Indian face, raised an eyebrow. "And why should you be surprised, Horatio? Is it so odd that the aristocracy would fail to notice the spread of evil in the slums to which they have always turned a blind eye? Why would it warrant their attention, until it arrived upon their own doorsteps?"

Nelson scowled, stung by the accusation.

"Have a care, sir! Only our long association prevents me from demanding satisfaction for that remark. The Protectors defend all of Albion, not merely the upper classes!"

"Really?" Dunstan countered, his form almost solid black now, causing him to blend with the darkness. "But you said yourself it only came to their attention when some lord or lady was affected. Indeed, Admiral, though I was born in Bombay, the home of my mother, I was guilty of the same sins until my death. Until I had the time and inclination to think about where I was really from."

WILLIAM DIDN'T SIT so much as crouch in the back of his carriage as it clattered along the streets of London.

He perched on the edge of his seat, features set in grim lines, and held the curtain aside so that he might gaze out the window. There was little enough to see this night, however. The fog made sure of that. It wasn't the worst of its sort, not enough to leave a clammy filth upon every surface it caressed, but it was dense, and reeked of the choking exhalations of chimneys and charnel houses and the putrid excrescence of the distant marshes of Kent and Essex, far to the east. William breathed through his mouth as much as possible.

How Farris managed to navigate the streets-particularly the narrow, curving alleys that provided a more direct route to their destination-was beyond him. The man wasn't a coach driver by trade, but a gentleman's gentleman. Still, the Swift household had experienced a great deal of difficulty retaining the service of its staff just lately, so they'd had to make do with a curtailed household coterie. Farris had risen to the occasion.

He had performed so well as coachman, and was so unflummoxed by the terrors that regularly presented themselves in the company of his employers, that even were they able to find a reliable driver, William thought he and Tamara would be loath to use anyone else.

He was stout of heart and of body, and excellent in a scuffle. Good with his fists. William had come to think of him as not just a servant, but also a comrade in this war he and Tamara had undertaken.

From time to time William heard the muffled sound of Farris's voice as he coaxed the horses. In the distance, there came the tolling of church bells. The buildings they passed were gray shapes in the deeper darkness, looming up out of the fog. There were street lamps on the busier roads, but their illumination was broken into diffuse streamers of light that shot through the thick blanket of mist and accomplished little.

Without warning, he heard Farris call to the horses, and the rhythm of their clopping hooves began to slow, causing the carriage to roll to a stop. The coach shifted as Farris climbed down from his seat, and William saw him through the window. He waited while Farris lowered the step, then he swung the door open, descending from the elegant interior of that conveyance that had once belonged to his grandfather, and now was a part of his father's estate.

"Master William?" Farris prompted.

He had been staring into the fog, distracted by the diffuse light of a nearby lamp. Another carriage clattered by, this one a newer, sleeker coach with only one horse, and he wondered idly where its occupant was off to. Some party or other, he was certain. A life that ought to have been his, had other duties not taken precedence.

"I'm sorry, Farris. I seem to have been lost in my head for a moment." William took a long breath and then instantly regretted it, coughing out the stink of the London night. He tugged his coat more tightly around him, hating the damp, and nodded to his servant. "Well done."

"Not at all, sir," the man replied dutifully.

There were few others out on the street this evening. Other parts of the city might be busy, particularly the pubs and theaters, but thanks to the fog, there were no casual strollers here. It took William a moment to orient himself, gazing about at the façades around him.

They had stopped at the northwest corner of Red Lion Square, just in front of the last address on Orange Street. The windows would offer a view of the square, which likely explained why the building seemed in generally better repair than its neighbors.

William started toward the front door of No. 73 Orange Street.

"Sir, are you certain you wouldn't like me to accompany you?" Farris asked, keeping his voice low. Despite the precaution, though, the fog seemed to cause his question to echo loudly.

"Thank you, Farris, but no. I'm certain I can deal with whatever I might encounter. And Her Majesty has promised to remain close at hand."

"Very good, sir. Of course." But his expression remained stern.

William smiled. Much as he had grown used to the presence of specters, Farris was still unsettled by Bodicea. William thought it the combination of her nudity and her royalty, in almost equal measure, and sometimes he thought the latter brought Farris more discomfort than the former.

Bodicea had begun the journey with them, but shortly before they had arrived she excused herself and disappeared into the ether. Nevertheless, he was sure she would return.

William strode up to the door and raised his fist to knock. There was only one door, but at least three separate flats lay within. He had been told that David Carstairs retained rooms on the second floor, but it occurred to him that if Carstairs was somehow involved in whatever had transformed Frederick Martin, the last thing he ought to do was announce his arrival.

So William glanced about to see if he was observed-almost an impossibility in the fog-and then, though it pained him to perform even the slightest criminal act, he whispered a simple spell. He ran his fingers over the doorknob, and it swung inward several inches.

The hallway inside the door was so dark that it gave him pause. He drew a long breath, then stepped inside. When he closed the door behind him, he was swallowed by the blackness. A shudder went through him as he strained to hear the movement of anyone who might be about the premises.

Perhaps a bit more caution is in order, he thought.

Carstairs had given the Martins that strange Indian idol that had cursed Frederick. Twisted his soul, mind, and body. There was evil in him now, and there was no way to know if Carstairs's excursions to India had produced other such figurines, or if he had known from the start what it would do to Frederick.

William disliked situations that presented so many questions, yet so few answers.

Closing his eyes, he focused his thoughts there in the dark, and took a moment to search his memory. A smile touched the corners of his mouth. The spell was one of the very first he and Tamara had learned in the days after their grandfather had been murdered. As such, it came to him easily.

His fingers contorted and he swept them from side to side, drawing odd geometric shapes upon the air. He opened his eyes even as a blue glow shimmered to life around him, dusting him with sparks of magic like a light snowfall. It was a protective ward, used to defend against magical attack. There was no way to know if it would keep him from being tainted by whatever dark power Carstairs had brought back from India, but without deeper knowledge of the evil he was facing, it was the best protection he could conceive.

Emboldened now, he moved forward. In that dim light, he passed the door to the first-floor flat and went to the stairs at the end of the hall. As he ascended, treading lightly, he listened again for any sound that might indicate that someone was at home, but the entire building seemed quiet. There wasn't even the scratch of rats in the walls.

A tightness formed in William's chest. A touch of excitement, mingled with fear.

He tried to keep his breathing steady as he arrived upon the second-floor landing. The door to 73B was closed, but an orange light gleamed in the crack underneath. Once again, William chose expediency and caution over propriety. In fact, it disturbed him how accustomed he was becoming to eschewing manners. But not so much that it stopped him from doing what was needed.

With a simple caress of his fingers, the door sprang open a fraction of an inch. He steadied himself, then pushed it wide, stepping into the archaeologist's sitting room. William peered quickly about, noting the lamp that was burning on a desk in one corner and the documents that were scattered about the floor. A chair had been overturned. Alarmed at this sign of conflict, he raised his hands; the blue glow around him crackled as he channeled some of the energies into a form that could be used for offense.

He paused and waited.

After a few moments, he let out a long breath and frowned. Why had he not been challenged? With the lamp still burning, the flat was surely not empty, and his entrance couldn't have gone unnoticed.

Closing the door softly behind him, William ventured farther into the flat. He noted several other rooms, but the mess in the sitting room drew his immediate attention. As he moved toward the desk, however, the lamplight flickered, and he became aware of the many artifacts on shelves and side tables around the room. It reminded him of his grandfather's chambers, laden with souvenirs of his stage shows and his travels.

But the mementos in Carstairs's sitting room were not so playful. They were, in fact, gruesome. Or at least they seemed so to William. There were statues and carved idols representing the various deities from Hindu mysticism. Though William knew little about the colony in India, he was aware that the gods worshiped there often looked terrible, but in fact represented more benevolent concepts.

Gazing upon these artifacts now, though, there seemed only to be death and cruelty. A hideous woman with many arms and massive, swollen breasts wore a garland of flowers and held a cleaver in one hand. Another statue showed a similar goddess, adorned with a wreath of snakes and bones, seated upon a corpse. She was clad in purple and yellow, and had three eyes.

Three eyes that seemed to glare at him with savage accusation.

William took a deep breath and a step backward. There were many others. Other deities. Some seemed less cruel. There were tiny carved things, many of which seemed to represent lesser demons, though none like the toad-thing Frederick Martin had.

The blue glow of William's protective ward combined with the flickering lamplight as he bent over to retrieve some of the scattered papers.

William Swift was a businessman. He knew sales records when he saw them. There were references to Carstairs's travels to India, as well as items he had brought back with him. Yet as William began to sift through the papers, gathering them up while he did so, he found no documentation for the importation of the sorts of items that decorated the flat. Rather, there seemed only bills of lading for the importation of tea, coffee, and other common goods.

Yet Carstairs had sold artifacts, as a glance around the room easily confirmed. So where the records referred to simple foodstuffs, the truth was that the scoundrel was smuggling archaeological treasures from Calcutta to London.

There were other papers as well. Things unrelated to Carstairs's enterprises. Sketches done by a crude hand, of symbols, of gods and goddesses, of monsters, all of which appeared to be related to the archaeologist's research into the Hindu tantra, the magic of that faith. Some of the designs were beautiful; some of the sketches were frightening. One depicted a goddess holding a severed head, crouched upon a pile of skulls with her knees splayed, as though about to give birth.

A shiver crept spiderlike up William's spine.

A sound reached him, then, a wet sucking noise that came from behind him. Frowning deeply, almost afraid to turn his back on the effigies in the living room despite his protective ward, he tore himself away. There was a small dining area beyond one door, and a tiny kitchen adjacent to it. Both were wholly unremarkable. William glanced through the next door, which opened into the bath. He presumed the damp noise he had heard had originated there.

At least until he opened the final door, which led into the bedchamber.

Heavy curtains had been pulled across the windows. The stench of human waste befouled the air. Rows of candles had been set in odd patterns upon the floor, but most had burned down to nothing, and puddles of wax were cooling. A few had not completely melted, and their flames guttered and danced as the opening of the door disturbed the rank air.

David Carstairs lay naked on the bed, curled into a fetal position. He shuddered and wept softly, and clutched in his arms a broken statue not unlike the others in the sitting room, save that its face and body were both beautiful and elegant, its surface as black as night. The goddess's hair was disheveled, and she held a trident in one hand. The other had been snapped off by the man's clutching grip.

"Mr. Carstairs?" William ventured, voice low, as he stepped into the room. He raised his left arm and pressed his coat sleeve to his nose to block the stench. "David?"

The archaeologist flinched at the sound of his own name, and his face contorted as though he was in pain. Then he began to chant softly under his breath, and he rocked more forcefully.

"Om Hrim Krim Kapalini Maha-kapala-priye-manase kapalasiddhim me dehi Hum Phat Svaha," he murmured once, then began again.

William took another step nearer. The blue glow of his protection spell cast a strange hue upon the man's flesh, or so William thought at first. Then he realized that it wasn't only his magic. Carstairs's flesh was tinted green.

He blinked, staring at the man. It took him a moment to understand what he was looking at. The wet, sucking sound he had heard from the other room had not come from the bath, but from David Carstairs's neck, where damp gill slits puckered and gasped at the air.

"Dear Lord," William rasped as he backed away a step.

At the mention of the Christian God, the archaeologist opened his eyes. There was a thin membrane over them that retracted after a moment, revealing black, gleaming orbs. His lips peeled back from teeth that seemed to sharpen even as William looked on, and his tongue split, thrusting out in a forked hiss.

The idol shattered in the archaeologist's hands, and now the fingers began to lengthen, claws curving into hooks. Connective tissue grew up between the fingers, pulling the flesh into amphibious webbing that had not been there only moments before.

Fragments of the Indian goddess showered onto the bare mattress, or onto the floor.

Oh, you idiot, William chided himself, for he now saw what he had interrupted. Carstairs had been clutching the goddess, chanting some kind of mantra, doing his best to hold off this transformation, this magical curse. And William himself had broken the man's concentration.

The man began to shudder violently on the bed, its frame squeaking, and in moments he was hardly a man at all anymore. So entranced was he by his own horror that William actually let out a small shout and took another step back when Carstairs abruptly sat up.

The movement was uncannily swift. His head twitched inhumanly and he turned those moist black eyes toward the intruder in his flat.

The creature hissed. That forked tongue thrust out again.

"I think not," William muttered.

In that very same moment, Carstairs leaped from the bare mattress. The frame thumped against the wall. William cursed loudly and raised his hands, his entire body shimmering with blue light. The amphibian rushed forward and crashed into him, clammy, webbed hands wrapping around his throat.

The impact knocked William back against the open door and his head collided with the thick wood. He was disoriented for a moment, but then the claws of the creature began to dig into his flesh, and he felt the scrape of its scales on his throat. The sensations cleared his head in an instant.

The thing that had once been David Carstairs hissed. Smoke rose from its hands where it gripped him. The protective ward William had cast upon himself was meant to dispel curses, not shield him from physical harm, but still it seemed to burn the demon-beast. It would not keep the creature from murdering him, but it did cause the thing to hesitate, to flinch back a moment, loosening its hold.

William twisted away, wresting his throat from the thing's moist grip, long enough to rasp out a spell. "Claustrum luminarium." Another day, he might have fumbled with the spell. The words were simple enough, but the skill it required was specific.

This day, however, his life depended upon it. Terror gave him strength and focus. The spell seemed to begin in his gut, twisting his viscera in knots, and pain cramped his stomach so that he let out an agonized gasp. The demon-beast found its grip again, one claw puncturing his throat so that a trickle of blood began flowing. It held him with one hand now, and drew back the other. He saw himself reflected in the mirror of its black, glistening eyes, and William knew it meant to disembowel him.

Then the spell erupted from him, channeled through his fingertips at first. He threw his head back and felt it surge up his gullet and spine, so that the magic erupted from his mouth and eyes simultaneously. Tears slid down his cheeks and his knees weakened.

He slid his back down the wall where the creature had pinned him, slumping to the floor. It took a moment for his vision to clear.

The hissing, spitting thing that had been David Carstairs was contained inside a sphere of crackling crimson energies, bands of light that had formed a cage around the beast.

"Ah" was all he could muster.

For long moments he only sat there, staring at the magical prison he had wrought and the horror that writhed within it. Then, as his strength slowly returned, he forced himself to his feet, and stumbled out into the sitting room. The accursed wretch would have to be dealt with, carefully examined, but it was likely too late for David Carstairs. There were others, however . . .

William slid into Carstairs's desk chair and began examining his documents again. What he wanted was the list of people who had bought artifacts from the man. There was no telling how many of them might be infected by this curse.

As he fanned through the pages, he discovered a small card among them. William held it before him and frowned as he read the words. It was an invitation to dinner at the Algernon Club the following evening, for the celebration of the birthday of Sir Darius Strong-the same event to which he, himself, had also been invited.

As he pondered this discovery, a familiar buzz filled the air, like discordant music. William glanced over and saw the ghost of Queen Bodicea materializing in the room, a golden glow emanating from her spectral form. Once he was certain it was indeed the queen, he averted his eyes.

"What have you learned, William?" Bodicea asked, her spear held tightly in one fist.

He showed her the invitation. "To begin with, it appears that Mr. Carstairs and I have both been invited to the same dinner at the Algernon Club tomorrow evening."

Bodicea frowned. "A coincidence?"

"Perhaps," William replied, unsure. "As to your question, Majesty, I have learned a great many things this evening. Not least of which is that in future, I shall await your arrival before venturing forth, regardless of how long you tarry."

"Trouble?" the ghost inquired.

William smiled. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

He could still feel the cold grasp of the monster, and warm blood still slid like a red teardrop down his throat. But he took silent pleasure in knowing that what he had told Bodicea was the truth.