Perfect Shadows (20 page)

“Do you remember how you would mock me, kind Kit? I do,” he said
softly, and turned his smile on me. My gut knotted at that smile, and I knew
that he meant to kill me. After a time he continued. “I have spent weary years
searching in vain for the philosopher’s stone, not for vain gold, but for
immortality, and now you, a baseborn little cobbler’s son, you have the
immortality I’ve squandered my life to gain. I mean to have it and you will
give it to me.” I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. “No matter,” the
earl laughed without humor. “I have the knowledge and the wherewithal to take
it, Marlowe, Marley, Merlin.” He was prodding me as he ever had, upon my
commoner’s name, and that I had, for time in the pride-filled way of youth,
assumed the name of the great wizard. He left the room then, his laughter trailing
behind him as dry and lifeless as November leaves.

The window faced north, and while the diffused daylight did me
no direct damage, it broke my rest, tormenting me, causing me to toss and strain
against the manacles that held me. Seven such days and nights passed without so
much as footsteps on the other side of the door. I thought I should go mad from
the pain of my cramping limbs, the shackle-galls, and my rising hunger, my
thoughts forever whirling around Northumberland’s words. An old friend and
patron, he had said, and that could only be Thomas Walsingham. Had Tommy
bartered my life away once more? On the seventh night Northumberland returned,
and such was my state that I was almost glad to see him. He viewed my tortured
body with satisfaction, and motioned to those behind him into the room. A
heavy-set serving man entered, dragging a frightened boy along. The hunger
coiled in me, I could smell the blood I needed, smell it even over the reek of
unwashed bodies, theirs and my own. The earl took the arm of the struggling
child, holding it firmly against my mouth. The hunger wrenched and twisted
inside me like a living thing as I turned my head, forcing my lips away from
the terrified boy. After a few minutes the earl released his hold and left the
room, followed swiftly by the servant and the boy. This was repeated on the
following nights, until upon the third night the hunger overpowered me and I
fed.

I was allowed no more than a mouthful before the boy was wrested
from me and bundled out of the room. Another night passed before Northumberland
returned with a man, dwarfish in stature and obviously foreign. The earl stood
gloating, then knelt on a cushion that the little man had placed on the floor
beside my cot. He smiled as his doublet sleeve was removed and shirtsleeve
turned up above his elbow. “You are in no doubt, Doctor?” he asked absently,
not taking his eyes off me.

“None whatsoever,” the dwarf replied. “It is no different than
being bled, my lord.” The earl nodded and pressed the vein in his wrist against
my lips. The hunger possessed me and I sunk my teeth into the vein, filling my
mouth and letting my pleasure overflow into the man who fed me until the
connection was forcibly broken by the dwarf. “That will do, my lord. That is
enough.” The earl collapsed against the side of the cot, his eyes heavy with
satisfaction.

“Oh no,” he said, “oh, not at all like being bled, and not
nearly enough.”

They kept me hungry, and my need forced me to continue feeding
from the earl. In the fourth week of my captivity, the pattern changed. After I
had fed, the earl took a dagger and slit my shirtsleeves from wrist to
shoulder, then motioned to the doctor, who advanced slowly, holding a cup in
his left hand. Ashe approached; he drew his right hand from the folds of his
gown. I struggled against my bonds, straining futilely to break them when I
recognized the object the little man held: a fleam. The dwarf placed the point
against the vein in my inner elbow and gave the bar a quick firm tap with the
cup, lowering it quickly to catch the dark blood that flowed freely from the
wound. The knife was not made of steel, but of some hardened wood, so that the
wound would remain open in my undead flesh. When the cup was full he handed it
to the earl and swiftly bandaged the cut to close it.

Northumberland, a self-satisfied smile on his face, raised the
cup in a salute, and drained it. I felt tears of despair scald my cheek, and I
turned my face away. The act of blood exchange was meant to be a gift, a loving
act of sharing. This was a violation, a defilement, and it left me feeling
broken, degraded.

Time passed, maybe a week, maybe more, every night bringing a
repetition of the bloodletting, and some nights more than one. I had retreated
into a silence, distancing myself from what was being done to me in an effort
not to go mad; I fed mechanically and no longer fought the knife. One night,
after handing the empty cup to the doctor, the earl spoke to me. “How many times
must the exchange take place?” I looked beyond him, making no response, even
when the earl ripped the rags of my shirt from my body and nodded to the little
man at the brazier they had set burning in the corner. An instant later a
scream tore from my throat as the earl pressed the glowing end of a burning
oaken brand against the skin of my chest, then tossed it aside and repeated his
question. When no answer came he reached for another brand.

“Three times, maybe four,” I whispered, staring at the end of the
brand, glowing cherry-red and cunningly carved into a circled five pointed
star.

“But I wonder if that’s true?” the earl murmured, a mad luster
glazing his murky, opaque eyes. He applied the brand again, to the other side
of my chest, crooning almost as a lover when my scream rent the air and sank
into a whimper. After a few moments he shook himself and stood, smoothing the
velvet of his gown. “Well, then, I suppose it must be. Did you hear, Doctor
Montague? We shall proceed tomorrow night,” he said, and turned back to me,
asking what he could expect, how he would rise from the grave, and if I
hesitated to answer the earl dragged a rough nail across my burned and
blistered skin. An eternity later he turned to go, stopping almost as if in
afterthought. “There’s someone waiting to see you,” he said with spiteful good
humor, and threw open the door. I recognized the scent, civet and ambergris,
before I even saw him. It was Tom.

He gave a cry at the sight of me, taking in the torn and
stinking clothing, my matted hair and wasted frame, the sores where the wooden
shackles had galled my flesh. His eyes swept the inflamed wounds along the
veins in my arms, and the blackened blisters on my chest. I turned my head, my
blood-smeared lips forming themselves into a travesty of a smile.

“Well, Tommy, it seems that I should not have dismissed your
competence at vengeance quite so casually. How now, do you mislike what you
have made?” My voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. Tom took a step back.

“I—I never intended this—”

“Never mind, Tommy,” I interrupted him wearily. “I forgive you.
Now run along.” Tom opened his mouth as if to speak again, then fled the room,
leaving Northumberland snickering behind him.

The next night, after vague dreams of being manhandled, I woke in
a different room. The rags of my clothing had been stripped from me, and I was
bound spread-eagled on a cold wooden floor. The wooden shackles still encircled
my wrists and ankles, the collar still in place around my neck, and I was
pegged tightly to the floor beneath me. I could turn my head enough make out
the broad lines of a pentacle chalked around me, but not enough to read its
intent. My chest itched from the designs and symbols painted there with a
stinking paste mixed from soot and shit. Presently the earl, robed in red,
entered with his diminutive helper, robed in black. They set about their
business, ignoring me as I waited helpless in the middle of the floor. Before
long their preparations were completed and the invocation started, making it plain
that they were about to conjure a demon into the circle with me.

I knew then that I would die this night, and desired only that
whatever was conjured would make a quick end to me. The room filled with the
smoke of the burning herbs, which did not rise from the braziers, but spilled
out over the floor like a filthy ground fog. I had closed my eye against the
acrid smoke, but opened it wide at the peak of the chant when a burst of power
tore through the room, slamming the earl against a wall. It was as if a portal
that should have opened only a crack had been thrust full wide to accommodate .
. . what?

I realized that I was no longer alone inside the circle. A young
man sat facing me, a beautiful young man, with hair of silver-gilt, and a naked
form that set my heart racing. I stared at the high cheekbones, the long,
slanting, lilac-colored and slit-pupiled eyes, at the mouth that cried out to
be kissed. The demon raised a slender long-fingered hand to cradle my cheek,
and I turned away, trying to hide my disfigured face. I well knew what Frizer’s
dagger had done to my looks. An angry jagged scar puckered my eyelid and the
lids were caught together with tiny stitches of silk, against the ruin behind
them. I was aware of the sour smell of my soiled and defiled body, my filthy
hair and unshaven beard. At least, being undead, I was spared the further
humiliation of being louse-ridden. How could such beauty bear to look at my
disfigurement?

“What, dost thou turn from me yet again, my Kit? Dost thou not
know me?” The voice matched the form to perfection: low and musical, with a
ringing purity of tone. “How then, wouldst thou also rather I take the form of
an old friar? I did not think it of thee.” His last words took on a husky,
insinuating tone.

“Mephistophilis,” I breathed, and turned back to look my fill at
my own personal demon. He nodded, and trailed a talon-tipped finger down my
chest, wrenching a shuddering sigh from me. The talons, iridescent as
mother-of-pearl, only added to the perfection of those hands. “Why,” I started,
but the demon silenced me with a kiss.

“Dids’t thou think that I would let another come for thee, my
Kit? Or dost thou think mayhap that I would not be let to come to thee?

“Dost thou believe that there are no
reprieves,

No solaces in Hell, my Kit? There are,

There are, to make our damnation sharper,”

Mephistophilis said, and laughed low in his throat at my
startled reaction.

“Canst thou wonder at my speech when ’tis
thou

That didst teach it me? Oh, most knowing
pen,

Should I then speak thee less fair than
Faustus?”

My voice was torn between fear and longing as I asked, “Am I
damned, then? Art thou come for me?” but my demon shook his head.

“Thou hast chosen another way, my Kit: I might else have come
for thee at Deptford. Now I but caught at an opening, and it will be many and
many a long year ere I come to thee again.”

“Had I as many souls as there be stars,

I’d give them all for Mephistophilis,”

I whispered brokenly.

“It is, withal, the courtesy of Hell, to let Marlowe word his own
damnation,” he agreed softly, then broke my fetters with a snap of his fingers.
He helped me to sit up, and wiped the noisome glyphs from my chest with
arose-scented handkerchief that appeared from nowhere and vanished accordingly.
He leant to brush his exquisite lips against the burns on my chest, and I
shuddered at the exquisite mingling of pain and pleasure. I raised a wondering
hand to that flawless face, formed of my dreams and for my damnation, and
Mephistophilis caught it in his own, holding it against his cheek and leaning
over to kiss me deeply and searchingly.

“Ah, my Kit, my poor crippled creator, thou couldst not make me
now! I must take my leave of thee forthwith; my task is accomplished, thou art
safe and my time hath sped.” He vanished in a cloud of silvery-lilac rose
petals that exactly matched his eyes.

Geoffrey pushed his way through the smashed window, easing
himself into the firelit room, taking in the black candles and other paraphernalia,
his nostrils flaring at the stench of burning herbs. His eyes moved to the
pentacle and Marlowe on his knees in the center, empty hands cupped before him,
empty eyes fixed upon nothing, with an expression of incalculable loss. Jehan’s
wolf shape hurtled through the windows behind Geoffrey, his form changing
before he hit the floor. The big man took a step forward but was held back by
Geoffrey, who called softly to those outside. Sir Walter crawled through the
window and glanced with some bemusement at a naked serving man where a beast
should be, but dragged his attention to the pentacle. He drew a sharp breath at
the condition of the unseeing form within it.” Christ Jesú!” he exclaimed, and
that blank face turned to him for a second before the body crumpled to the
floor and lay unmoving.

Nicolas soon followed the others in and shook his head at
Geoffrey’s unspoken question before vanishing into the bowels of the house. Sir
Walter had circled the pentacle, kicking over the braziers and stamping out the
embers, then carefully rubbing some of the chalked figures out with the toe of
his boot, muttering with disgust. He finally nodded at Jehan, who sprang to his
master’s side in an instant, cradling the man in his arms.

“A thoroughly loathsome piece of work,” Ralegh growled to
Geoffrey. “He was trying to conjure Cadavedere, a minor demon, ‘the eater of
the dead’, into the circle with Kit.” Before they could explore the
ramifications of this Nicolas returned, his mouth twisted with revulsion.