Eterna and Omega (32 page)

She spat at him and he spat right back with a delighted laugh. He looked around and sighed in contentment.

“I must go home, there are preparations to complete. Ah, but this place”—he sneered at Lord Denbury—“this dear, sweet, vulnerable, all too perfect place.…”

Moriel smiled with the kind of patronizing confidence that should have summoned hubris to strike him down like in tales of old, but no hand of God showed itself.

“You see, if a goodly place is
twice
overtaken,” Moriel said, holding court at the head of the putrefying table, so joyous in having an audience for his horror, “hallowed, then sullied, then hallowed and then sullied again … why, it's
twice
as powerful a conduit!”

“Only because you've trapped all the good of the place,” Denbury hissed. “Even the ghosts of my ancestral home cannot cross over this tainted threshold.”

“Indeed,” Moriel said delightedly. “No matter what happens here, this place serves as a feeding ground for what I've wrought at Vieuxhelles. If this place flourishes, or should it burn again, it all feeds the greater battery of my home estate. Death feeding my new life there, tied in the darkest of ley lines, from your home to mine,” he sneered at Denbury.

It was horribly ingenious, Clara thought, the idea of one furnace of malevolent energy lighting and fueling the fires of a second, these dual crucibles of hell.

“The good of this place is banished outside,” Moriel snarled. “I was able to Ward this house to
my
purposes, not your pathetic little solutions, because you
failed
the first time!” He snorted. “You all failed. I grew. I flourished in hiding. All my former colleagues are dead, their spirits added to my multitudes, enriching my energy and purpose by each death. There is always a displaced aristocrat ready to take up what he feels is his rightful mantle, and all of them will serve me. Eventually even the queen will have to bow.”

“I'd not be so confident—” Lord Black nearly shouted, cut off when Moriel backhanded him. The fair nobleman's face went red with the strike, then redder with fury.

“I will be confident in what I already know to be true,” Moriel insisted. “She is easily persuaded when her interests are served and her appetites are whetted. I will take advantage of any weakness and exploit it.” His smile was a ghastly thing. “I am only allowing the true and right course of the world to unfold as it should, the Summoned shall pour forth.” Here he turned to Lord Black to relish the man's discomfort. “And my triumph will culminate in demons tearing apart your cherished Parliament itself, that abomination ‘of the people,' brick by rabble-rousing brick. A shame your living eyes won't see the glory of it.”

He turned to the armed guard. “At the witching hour, close the shutters and turn on the pipes.” The lackey nodded.

Moriel strode away, calling, “Now which of my slaves wants the honor of returning me to Vieuxhelles? I wish to feel its prowess surge with such fresh fuel.”

*   *   *

The Guard of Six had been called, by their powers, to a formidable Gothic home in Greenwich. Arriving on horseback, cloaks and greatcoats whipping behind them, this secret cavalry of three men and three women slowed their thundering horses to a trot and then a huffing, shuffling, stamping mass a field away. In the air above, a large raven was hovering, squawking down at the company in a particular rhythm.

The tallest of The Guard, a fierce, brooding man all in black, dismounted and gestured for the others to do the same, tethering the whinnying, shifting beasts to nearby branches of the towering pines that marked the borders of the property. Horses easily spooked at the presence of the spectral world, and the Guard did not wish to have their transportation vanish while they dealt with it.

Between the moon and the ghosts, everything was eerily lit.

The Six strode up the winding slate walk, examining the scene that lay before them. The raven descended to perch on the shoulder of the most severe of the assembled women, tapping his beak upon her shoulder.

“Thank you, Frederic,” the woman replied to the large black bird that bore one luminous blue feather upon its breast.

There were ghosts everywhere, concentric phalanxes of them, outside a looming castle-like manor that looked as if it had been built to be haunted.

Seven specters hovered directly before the house, luminous and gray, all bobbing and swooshing forward as if trying to get in. But each came up abruptly short, as if striking an unseen barrier. These actions repeated themselves as the Guard moved in careful steps closer to the edifice.

“Something is keeping those ghosts out,” the man said, in a low rumble that carried farther than it should have given its volume. “That, my fellows, is odd.”

Generally, in The Guard's experience, ghosts moved freely, wherever they wished. So to see a haunted house keep its ghosts out in the cold … that was unprecedented in their nearly fifteen years as secret arbiters of the spirit world.

It was The Guard's purview, granted them by an ancient, unquestionable force, to monitor the actions of the unquiet dead. When those spirits wished too actively to disrupt the living, it was duty to put them in their rightful place, unbeknownst to society.

“It would seem this place is having quite the party!” said a thin, flaxen-haired man in fine clothes who planted himself beside the group's leader.

A brute of a man charged toward them from the deep shadows near the estate's front portico.

“You haven't been invited,” the brute snarled. “Who are you?”

The sharp-nosed blond held up a hand. The dim, burly man froze and stood, dazed, in his tracks.

“Wouldn't you like to know,” the well-dressed man said. “People always want to know. Nosy bastards. We
should
be on retainer from Her Majesty,” he added, “given how much we do for England—”

“Hush, Withersby,” Alexi said with a slight growl. “Do your job.”

“I did! It isn't as though he'll remember anything I say,” Withersby insisted. The man still stood there, dark eyes blinking strangely. “You're a stubborn one aren't you,” he added. “Move along now.” He waved his hand again before the man's face, more insistently. The man growled.

“There's something quite wrong with him,” said a man in a cleric's collar who crossed himself and murmured a quiet benediction.

“Look, he's now walking away,” Withersby replied, reassured. “Though it does make me wonder what's going on in there. Can't be good if there's a guard at the door. That was no footman…”

“No matter,” Alexi stated sharply. “To the Grand Work!” He raised his hands. A strange blue glow emanated from his palms. The gentle breeze coalesced into a wind.

As one, the seven ghosts shifted to face the man with the glowing hands and started gesturing wildly. The expressions on their grayscale faces changed from terror to anger to distress and back again. Some wore servants' uniforms; at the crest of the group was a beautiful woman in a fine gown. All alternately pointed to the house and clasped their hands together. Their mouths moved, but no one in the six knew what they were trying to say.

On the other side of Alexi, the intense woman spoke with crisp efficiency. “I do wish we could hear them after all these years of service. However, it seems clear they do not wish to depart and that something quite upsetting is happening in that house. Look at how desperate they are. Frederic has informed me there are a number of people trapped inside.”

The company approached the house, surrounded by the ghosts. Occasionally, a specter swooped completely through a member of The Guard, causing unfortunate bouts of chills and a few French curses from the lovely brunette at the rear of the company.

The spirits directed the livings' attention to the beveled-glass windows of the dining room. The Frenchwoman clucked her tongue. “Well, that doesn't seem very nice. They're all tied up.”

“The ghosts must want to help them, don't you think, Headmistress?” The priest asked the second-in-command.

The headmistress nodded in agreement. “But they are blocked. Is there some kind of Ward or spell keeping them out?”

Alexi made a face. “We don't deal in spells.”

“Oh, no, we're powered by ancient holy fire and all sorts of entirely magical stuffs but, no,
spells,
that's right out,” Withersby muttered.

The Frenchwoman, who seemed particularly attuned to him, elbowed him. “Some of them look familiar. Look, there.” The headmistress pointed to one side of the room, where a scowling, broad-shouldered man was seated next to a grim-looking, lighter-haired woman, with an elegant blond man to their right. “Haven't we seen them before, Alexi?”

The leader nodded. “Government.”

“Oh! I must be related to that one,” the nobleman Withersby stated.

“The blond in colorful fashion?” the Frenchwoman asked.

“Who else?”

“That one! He's the man who is obsessed with us,” the headmistress stated, nodding in the direction of said colorful blond. “That's Lord Black. He's been on the hunt for us for years now. As I recall, he's got special permission from Her Majesty to look into the ‘paranormal.'”

“The dear man,” Withersby cooed. “Should we tell him the truth about us?”

There was a chorus of “no” as the Frenchwoman drove a second elbow into his side.

“But truly, Alexi, what do we do now?” the vicar asked. “We can't leave them in this state. The ghosts are having fits.”

Alexi frowned. “I hate to say this, but … I do not believe this falls under our jurisdiction.”

“It seems to be under the ghosts' jurisdiction, and by their engagement, must we not be as well?” the blond Irishwoman asked.

“Yes,” the leader responded in a low, stern tone, “but the ghosts seem to want to help. In such cases, we always let helpful ghosts be, as the very action of their service will generally set them entirely to rest. Helping the living…” Alexi frowned. “While this is likely a matter of importance to mortal London, we have been told not to interfere in such matters.”

“We should call the police,” the headmistress said. Frederic the raven squawked once more and returned to the air.

“Ah.” Alexi rubbed his chin. “Why, yes. Yes, we can do that. The police. Good idea. Let's send them by.”

One particularly insistent spirit, the woman in the fine gown, perhaps a former lady of the house, was gesturing at the priest, toward his jacket, as if trying to reach an incorporeal hand into his pocket. The priest tried to shoo her away for a moment before making an exclamation of understanding.

“Holy water?” he asked the spirit. The shade of the woman nodded, exasperated. He withdrew a small bottle of blessed water from his coat pocket, and several spirits swooped in upon him and collectively floated the bottle out and away toward the house. From there, the ghosts hurtled it at the exterior of the house, and the bottle broke, the contents splattering across the front door and windows, causing a little shimmer of light about the perimeter.

“How very curious.” Alexi stared after the spirits and their ritualistic actions. “Well, then. Let's see if the local officials like ghost stories.…”

The Guard returned to their horses and galloped off to alert the appropriate authorities that multiple government officials were being held captive in a grand manor house in Greenwich.

*   *   *

Clara's tie to Louis had been severed due to the spirit Wards set around the estate keeping the ghosts out, but she understood such bonds well enough now to break them. The spirits could help turn the tide enough for them to escape. She had to act cleverly, and if she broke that barrier, she'd have to then worry about a seizure, but she hoped her tether to Rose could keep it at bay. Her fluttering instincts ran through iterations of action.

“Lord Denbury,” she said, “what's your favorite thing in this house? Is it still here? Something meaningful, powerful?” She leaned upon those last words enough to make his deadened blue gaze lively again.

He lifted his head, pointing with his chin at a painting mounted above the grand marble fireplace. “That portrait of Mother. The wretch Moriel was in love with her.” With affection, Denbury said, “You can see she was a striking woman.”

Denbury continued, his voice rising in conviction. “That is the one thing the bastard hasn't sullied in this whole dread place.
That
is meaningful to me.
She
is meaningful to me. In that portrait, she lives.”

The change of tense from past to present seemed to charge the atmosphere as nearly everyone turned to study the painting of the beautiful Lady Denbury.

Clara, however, looked down. She'd felt something. To her left sat Harold Spire, who had subtly inched his chair against hers and used his fingers to loosen her bindings enough for her to slide one slender wrist free. Their eyes met for a moment before she turned to check the guard's gaze. He was glancing at a noise down the hall and she used that moment to slip Spire a dull steak knife from the table. He turned it in his palm to begin working on his own bonds.

Clara freed her other hand from the chair and jumped to her feet, darting behind Lord Denbury's chair. “This will hurt a moment,” she murmured. Grabbing his hair, she pulled a thin clump free.

Following the motion, the guard turned back to the company, whipping his gun around to aim at Clara, but even as he did, a knife flew down the hall and hit him square in the throat, and the guard crumpled. Rose gasped in surprise. Spire managed to free himself and moved next to Lord Denbury's bindings.

Before the knife thrower could reveal himself, before Spire could move to cut another cloth binding, a dead-eyed, possessed man in a butler's dusty black coattails stepped into the doorway, training a pistol toward each of them alternately. When one possessed dropped, it seemed, there was an endless supply of replacements.