Hellforged (20 page)
Authors: Nancy Holzner
Tags: #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #General, #Demonology
By the time Mab tapped on the door, bearing a tray with the teapot and a mug, I was sitting in bed, leaning against a pillow, my feet thawing under the covers. Mab set the tray on the nightstand, then poured tea through a strainer into the mug. It smelled as warm and safe as it had in the kitchen.
“Drink this, then sleep,” she said, handing me the mug. “No one will wake you.” She sat on the edge of my bed and smoothed back my hair with her cool hand. “All’s well for now, child.”
For now.
Well, so be it. I was in no shape at the moment to fight whatever waited to do battle with me.
Well, so be it. I was in no shape at the moment to fight whatever waited to do battle with me.
I took the mug in both hands and sipped. The tea tasted even better than it smelled. Its warmth wrapped me in a soft blanket, inside and out. Although it was hot, I drank it greedily. The warmth spread, along with a feeling of utter well-being. I slid down the pillow and curled up on my side. It felt good, so good, to close my eyes, and I was asleep before Mab clicked off the light.
16
I AWOKE TO GOLDEN LIGHT STREAMING THROUGH THE window. I didn’t need to look at the clock to know what time it was: an hour past sunrise at the latest. The early-morning light at Maenllyd has a special quality I’ve never seen anywhere else. It saturates everything it touches with a deep golden hue, intensifying colors and shooting them through with a magical quality that seems to purify the whole world.
My bedroom was cold. I wrapped the comforter around me and got up to look outside. The rag rug felt cozy under my feet, but stepping from it onto the wide floorboards was almost like stepping onto the frost that covered the lawn.
My breath fogged the pane; I wiped it clean with my sleeve. The scene below me, still and somehow holy in this light, was one I’d gazed on countless times. When I came here as Mab’s apprentice, there was nothing to do in this room besides study the stack of books Mab gave me and look out the window. I spent a lot of time at the window. I could have drawn its view from memory. Maenllyd is a big, L-shaped house. From the side wing, where my room was, I could see the main wing. Chimneys, four of them visible from here, bristled along the slate roof. The house was built of stone—
Maenllyd
means “gray stones” in Welsh—although the morning light washed the house with gold. The front door was at the far end of the main wing, with wide stone steps leading down to the gravel courtyard—the “coaching yard,” Mab called it. From the coaching yard, the driveway ran in a long, sweeping curve to the front gate. Past that, the road wound over the hills toward Rhydgoch in one direction and in the other toward the distant mountains, faint purple shadows against the sky.
Maenllyd
means “gray stones” in Welsh—although the morning light washed the house with gold. The front door was at the far end of the main wing, with wide stone steps leading down to the gravel courtyard—the “coaching yard,” Mab called it. From the coaching yard, the driveway ran in a long, sweeping curve to the front gate. Past that, the road wound over the hills toward Rhydgoch in one direction and in the other toward the distant mountains, faint purple shadows against the sky.
Frost traced icy cobwebs in the windowpanes’ corners. My toes felt like icicles, and I turned away to find my clothes. My duffel bag was stashed under the bed, empty. Someone, Mab or Rose, had unpacked it as I slept. I found a pair of socks in the top dresser drawer and pulled them onto my grateful feet. What I really needed to warm me up was a shower—and showers were a particular pleasure at Maenllyd.
Years ago, after I’d chosen the third-floor maid’s room for my bedroom, Mab had surprised me when I returned the next summer with a luxury bathroom installed just for me. Two former servants’ rooms had been knocked into one and fitted with marble tile, gold taps—the works. In my bathroom, the floor would be warm, thanks to under-floor heating. But the best part was the shower, in a stall separate from the sunken whirlpool tub. Multiple showerheads streamed hot water from several directions and heights. After yesterday’s endless trip, a shower was going to feel glorious.
I found my underwear in the dresser and took a soft gray sweater and a pair of jeans from the wardrobe. I carried the bundle of clothes into the bathroom. Yup, the floor was warm; someone had cranked up the heat for me. I turned on the shower, then yanked the nightgown over my head and stepped into the shower stall. Jets of water soothed away the aches of travel. I lathered up with lavender-scented soap and washed my hair with shampoo that smelled like a whole bouquet of flowers.
I dried off with a thick, white towel, massaging wakefulness into my limbs. Then I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair. Despite yesterday’s trials, I looked like myself today—no dark circles under my eyes, no exhaustion-induced sag to my skin. I was ready to face the world.
Almost. Mab insisted on a neatly made bed. In Boston, I wasn’t always so meticulous; it was nice sometimes to come back to the apartment and crawl into a messy nest. But that wasn’t an option at Maenllyd. I punched the pillow into shape, tightened the sheets, and dragged up the comforter. Smoothing out wrinkles, I realized how good I felt. Awake. Alive. Not only had I snoozed ’round the clock without interruption, I hadn’t dreamed. Hadn’t even worried about dreaming. It felt like I’d been born anew with that beautiful morning light.
That tea was good stuff. If my Drude-tormented clients could get hold of it, I’d be out of business.
I ran down the narrow back stairs from the third floor to the second. In the upstairs hall, I crossed the faded Persian rug to the main staircase. Here was where the décor got fancy—a carved teak banister, polished within an inch of its life, curved along wide stairs that descended gracefully into the front hall. I knew Mab would be in the kitchen at this hour, so it would have been more direct to take the back stairs, but it was a tradition for me to come down the grand staircase my first morning at Maenllyd.
Mab wasn’t in the kitchen. She stood waiting at the foot of the stairs, her hand on the newel post. Most people would find the thin, straight line of her mouth austere, but I could see the almost-invisible upturn at the corners that showed my aunt was smiling.
“Now I can say it: Welcome home, child.” Her smile quirked up another degree. “How are you feeling?”
I ran down the last few stairs and planted a kiss on her papery cheek. “Wonderful. Better than new.”
Her eyes scrutinized my face, and she gave a short, sharp nod. “Good. Because we must start work immediately after breakfast.”
“WHERE’S ROSE?” I ASKED AS WE ENTERED THE EMPTY KITCHEN.
“At the cottage. She and Jenkins are preparing for a shopping trip to the village.” So they were giving us privacy to talk. “Rose brewed a pot of coffee for you.”
After yesterday, my stomach clenched in rebellion at the thought of more coffee, but the delicious aroma won out, and I poured myself a mug. I was starving. I toasted two slices of bread, then slathered them with butter and Rose’s homemade strawberry jam. Mab watched me, sipping tea. She never drank coffee.
Plate in one hand, mug in the other, I sat in my usual place. My aunt watched me intently, her clear eyes—amber like mine—never leaving my face as I took a big bite of toast.
Mmm.
Rose made the world’s best strawberry jam.
Mmm.
Rose made the world’s best strawberry jam.
“So,” I said, swallowing, “tell me about Pryce.”
“First, child, you must inform me of everything that’s happened since autumn. How long since you bound the Destroyer to yourself?”
She fixed me with her patented Mab stare, which blasted all thoughts of arguing. Okay, I’d go first—but she was going to answer my questions, too. “Nearly three months. It was the only way I could think of to send it back to Hell. I thought I’d defeated it.” Blood rose in my face. “Now I know that was dumb. But for months, it stayed away. For the first time in years, my demon mark was quiet.”
“No rages?”
“None at all. That’s why—”
“You should have told me, child.” Her voice sounded wistful, nothing like the reprimand I expected. I looked up in surprise. Mab had never gone easy on me. Not once. Now, her expression showed something like compassion. “If I’d known, we’d be better prepared, that’s all. But one can only begin from where one stands.” She blinked, and the brisk, no-nonsense Mab I knew was back. “You said the Destroyer spoke of Uffern, yes?”
“That’s right. You told me it means Hell.”
“Yes. The Destroyer is using your dreamscape to expand Uffern’s territory.”
Uffern overspills its boundaries.
“That’s why it could appear in my dreams even though I banished it to Hell.”
“That’s why it could appear in my dreams even though I banished it to Hell.”
“Precisely. And that’s also why it was so important for you not to sleep until I could give you that tea. Your dreamscape has been breached.”
Remembering yesterday’s exhausting journey sent a wave of tiredness through me. “You couldn’t give me the recipe over the phone?”
Mab tutted. “Is there an aisle in one of your American-style supermarkets where you can buy comfrey leaves gathered with a sickle-shaped silver knife on the east slope of a hill during a cloudless night of a new moon?”
You could pick up a lot of essentials at Star Market, but no, that wasn’t one of them. The witch-supply stores in Brookline weren’t even that picky about their herbs.
“It’s not just the Destroyer showing up in my dreams and creeping me out.” I told Mab about the three zombies who’d died. “Each victim was the last zombie I’d spoken to before I had a dream-encounter with the Destroyer. But their deaths were nothing like how the Destroyer kills.” I described the scene I’d encountered at Creature Comforts and in the lobby of my building and told Mab about the lab guy’s report.
She pursed her lips. “So it’s true. The Morfran is gathering.”
I glanced nervously at the teapot, then at the old cooking fireplace. The last time I’d tried to ask about the Morfran, Mab’s kitchen had filled with smoke. Today, though, not a puff.
“The Destroyer mentioned that,” I said. “ ‘ The Morfran emerges.’ What does it mean?”
“
Morfran
comes from two Welsh words that mean ‘great crow.’ The best way to describe it is …” Her eyes went vague as she thought. “As a spirit of insatiable, destructive hunger. For centuries, most of the Morfran has been imprisoned, only wisps of it loose in the world. Sometimes, one of those wisps of Morfran will possess a human and drive that person to commit terrible, destructive acts. Serial murderers, for example, are usually possessed by the Morfran.”
Morfran
comes from two Welsh words that mean ‘great crow.’ The best way to describe it is …” Her eyes went vague as she thought. “As a spirit of insatiable, destructive hunger. For centuries, most of the Morfran has been imprisoned, only wisps of it loose in the world. Sometimes, one of those wisps of Morfran will possess a human and drive that person to commit terrible, destructive acts. Serial murderers, for example, are usually possessed by the Morfran.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That can’t be it. There’s no way a norm could have done that to those zombies.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. But I hadn’t finished. It seems that Boston has attracted enough free-floating Morfran that the spirit doesn’t need to possess a human.”
“Why?”
“It’s your zombies, the walking dead. Crows are carrion-eaters. And the essence of the Morfran is hunger.”
It was like Daniel’s lab guy had said. T.J.—and by extension, Gary and Sykes—had been eaten. I closed my eyes, remembering the horror of black goo and leftover scraps of flesh. It must have been a real feeding frenzy.
There was one thing I didn’t understand. “The zombies have been around for three years. Why is this happening now?”
“There’s been only a very small amount of the Morfran free in the world, although I suspect that has changed in recent weeks. Even so, it would take time for enough free Morfran to find its way to Boston, coalesce, and consume one of your zombies. Presumably, wisps of the Morfran have been feeding on previously deceased Bostonians all along—an unexplained hole in a face or limb, a finger or toe missing.”
Yeah, we had zombies like that. Medical researchers labeled the condition “leprosy-like necrosis.” They thought it was an aftereffect of the virus. Wouldn’t they be surprised to learn it was a hungry spirit gnawing on zombie flesh?
Mab continued: “The Morfran cannot act on its own. It’s a feeling, a hunger, and it needs direction. The Destroyer used you as a lens to focus the Morfran’s destructive energies.”
Guilt stabbed at me. It was all my fault. Difethwr needed a bridge to send the Morfran after those zombies, and I’d lay down and said,
Hey, why don’t you just walk over me?
Hey, why don’t you just walk over me?
Mab sat in silence. I figured it was time for me to get some answers. “Who’s Pryce?” I asked. “Why does he call himself my cousin? And how could he be descended from Ceridwen and not be Cerddorion?”
“Where did he approach you?”
I gave her a long look to show I knew she was avoiding my questions. At least she was addressing the topic, sort of. “At the train station. I thought you’d sent him to pick me up.”
“I didn’t know when you were arriving, or I’d have been there to meet you myself.”
“I tried to let you know. I called before I boarded at Euston and left a message with the cleaner at the Cross and Crow.”
“No message arrived here; Cadogan usually sends along any phone messages with the postman. So Pryce intercepted it, probably by chatting up the girl at the pub. He can be quite charming when he wants something.” She pulled a notebook and pencil from her pocket and made a note. “He must be staying there. I’ll ask Cadogan to keep an eye on him.”
“Pryce doesn’t live around here?”
“No. But I’m not surprised he’s arrived. Or that he tried to influence your first impression of him before I could warn you.”
No hurry there. It was like pulling teeth trying to get her to say two words about Pryce. “Well, now’s your chance.”
“Don’t be cheeky, child. I promise you’ll understand before the morning is done. What I can tell you now is that yes, I expected Pryce to come here. I’ve expected it ever since the Destroyer interrupted our communication.”
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