Ravensclaw (20 page)

As long ago as 850 B.C., a hill-fort settlement had stood where Edinburgh Castle rose now.

His vision blurred. He blinked. He feared to close his eyes for long lest he’d not be able to open them again.

Unbidden words and images beat at his brain.

Edinburgh. Castles and ghosts.

He inhaled. Smells seemed sharper to him. Edinburgh stank of the smoke and soot of countless coal fires.

Another scent flooded his nostrils, mysterious and dark. Bergamot, sandalwood, musk. A hint of burning amber.

The athame in its sheathe stirred.

In some dim recess of his mind he was aware of the need for food and water. The things that sustained mortal man.

He no longer knew if he was mortal. If, indeed, he was a man.

Sometimes, though there was no one present, he heard a woman’s screams.

Sometimes he felt like screaming himself.

They might scream until hell froze over, and it would make no difference.

He dug his fingernails into his rotting flesh.

A word and a stone let go cannot be called back.

(Romanian proverb)

When it came to bridge-building Edinburgh had no equal, which was perhaps not surprising since there was a mountain in the middle of the city, causing unexpected alternations of heights and depths.

Bridges blended into existing streets. The gaps they spanned had been filled in, developed, and built up, buildings constructed above and on either side until the mighty structures were almost concealed. The arched, bricked-in vaults were a warren of nooks, crannies, and tunnels used for wine storage, leather works, and a multitude of small businesses; and used as well as living quarters for the city’s unwanted and unseen poor. Also stored there were cadavers resurrected from fresh graves or plucked from the streets and sold to Edinburgh’s Medical School.

Drogo whined, sensing his master’s mood. Val touched the wolf’s sleek head.
Dog,
he reminded himself.
Rare Carpathian copoi.
Believe that and I’ll sell you a fine barren moor.
It was due to the ungrateful Miss Dinwiddie that they were out so early, Val’s dark spectacles set firmly on his nose. If sunlight posed his flesh no danger after so long a time, it still caused discomfort to his eyes. After several hundred more years had passed, provided he survived them, he might be able to put the spectacles aside.

Several hundred more years. Val felt like crushing the spectacles in his bare hands. Several hundred years ago he had married Ana, in a ceremony that began when his spokesman, Cezar, had gone to her family’s home to woo her with the tale of a young emperor and a flower which couldn’t bear fruit until it was planted in the proper soil. Then Val had been obliged to solve a series of riddles to prove his cleverness. Following that were three days of ceremonies, ending with a dance of masks. Ana had worn a traditional costume and flowers in her hair.

Val wondered how Andrei would react to the discovery that Ana had returned to them, and why, and what use Cezar might make of a ghost. Val had delayed telling them, perhaps in an attempt to protect Ana, and more likely himself.

Time had passed more quickly than he could have imagined. Several hundred years from now, when he could venture into the sunlight without dark glasses, Emily would have long since shuffled off this mortal coil. Would have gone the way of all flesh. Would be dead as mutton, and Val very much feared he would still be missing her. Would Emily haunt him then, as Ana was doing now? Demand he make her corporeal so she could tup someone, but not him, because he was
vampir?

Vampir.
Condemned to lifetimes of loneliness. Yearning to live and love like an ordinary man. Feeling bloody mortal. How damnably trite of him.

Had any of Ravensclaw’s acquaintance been out and about so early (which was unlikely), and had they encountered him in this particular part of the Old Town (which was even more unlikely), they would have deduced from his expression that he was appalled to find himself so far from his bed. Drogo knew better. He pressed closer, and whined again.

“You’re right.” Val rubbed the wolf’s ears. “I’m as addle-brained as those three oafs we sent to the docks.” Because Emily had been worried about her inept assailants, he’d volunteered them for a sealing expedition sailing from the Port of Leith, thereby hopefully removing them from underfoot without doing lasting harm. Val didn’t delude himself that Emily would be grateful. She would probably demand he rescue the seals.

The addition of a sticky-fingered chimneysweep to his retinue had been sufficient. Val refused to introduce any marine life with webbed flippers into his household.

These ruminations took him past the Lawnmarket, along a passage between two houses, into a dark courtyard surrounded by ancient high buildings, down a short flight of stone steps that ended at two doors. Drogo leaned his weight against the left. The door swung open. Val stepped inside. It occurred to him that he was acting in Emily’s best interests without consulting her, again.

This place was not unfamiliar to him, though he did not know the little man who bustled out of a back room. “Mr. Abercrombie, I presume. I see you have not changed the decor. Hello, Styx.” The raven flew down from its perch to alight on his shoulder and mutter in his ear. Mr. Abercrombie’s wandering eye moved from Val to the raven and then to Drogo, who had padded forward to rest his damp nose against the little man’s thigh. Mr. Abercrombie squeaked, “And may I know who you are, sir?”

Val took off his dark glasses. “I am Ravensclaw.”

Mr. Abercrombie smoothed a hand over his balding pate and professed his desire to be of service. Would the gentleman be interested in a crescent-shaped charm made from a boar’s tusk, or a chicken’s wishing bone? A cure for the ague? He had recently acquired an especially fine batch of bull’s-horn plantain. Maybe, some alchemical supplies?

“Thank you, no,” Val interrupted. “A young woman came here recently. Red-haired. Freckled. Inquisitive.”

“Aye. I recognize her, er, companion.” The shopkeeper looked startled, as if he’d meant to say something else.

“You will tell me what you told her.”

Looking even more bewildered, Mr. Abercrombie obeyed. Val was briefly distracted by the notion of Emily in conjunction with a Love Drawing Oil. “The young woman was well protected,” the shopkeeper added. “Might you know where she found that pendant, sir?”

“What pendant is that?”

“Ah. Yes, indeed. As you say. Perhaps I might interest you in a recipe for Raven’s Feather Ink?”

“You may not.” Val lifted the indignant raven back up on its perch; moved around the cluttered shop, inspecting the jumble of books and bottles, the muddle of merchandise in the cabinets and on the shelves. “Tell me what you know about Michael Ross.”

Mr. Abercrombie hesitated. Drogo nudged him. The shopkeeper looked down at the wolf, whose jaws were uncomfortably close to his most vulnerable parts. “Like I told the young lady, he bought a vraja
,
in addition to some mastic pearls, yarrow, and bloodstone. That’s all I know. I swear.”

The shopkeeper appeared as innocent as a babe newborn. Ravensclaw wasn’t deceived. Things of power rested in this room, amid the cobwebs and clutter.
Tell me everything you know of Michael Ross. Now. Do not waste my time.

In the end, Mr. Abercrombie did not know much. Michael Ross had sold the shopkeeper a number of books — an English translation of the
Rosarium Philosophorum; Geber’s Discovery of Secrets; An Hundred Aphorisms Containing the Whole Body of Magic, 1321;
though Mr. Abercrombie had passed on a tattered copy of
The Hermaphrodite Child of the Sun and Moon
— and had in turn been most anxious to procure a copy of
The Book of Thoth.
The Egyptian god Thoth had been credited with the invention of both magic and writing. To possess a copy of his book was to command and control destiny itself.

Were Mr. Abercrombie in possession of the secrets of the universe, he tittered, he would hardly be tending this dusty little shop. He had sent the young man off with
The Book of Raziel
instead.

So. Michael Ross had sold a number of volumes concerning the manipulation of natural forces and powers to achieve a predetermined end. Sorcery, in a word. The sort of volumes that might have once resided in the Dinwiddie Society’s vaults.

Val had a sense that time was running short. But, since he was here— “What would you recommend as the best way to rid oneself of a ghost?”

Mr. Abercrombie ruminated. Had the gentleman tried stuffing his keyholes full of fennel? Burning powdered bistort? Throwing beans at the apparition? Alternately, one could place three peeled cloves of garlic in a bowl with a handful of sea salt and fresh rosemary leaves, grind and mash them together, and sprinkle the result to create a boundary.

Val doubted anything so mundane would inspire Ana to depart. He put on his spectacles and climbed the stair.

The Book of Raziel
had been written by a sympathetic angel and given to Adam to compensate for his exile from Eden. Val was familiar with the tome. For that matter, he also had in his possession
The Book of Thoth,
although he had no sense of controlling destiny, not even his own. Miss Dinwiddie had seen to that.

Even as he thought of her, Val felt Emily’s presence, some distance away.

She was frightened. Val reached out with his senses and found her, backed into a dark dead-end alleyway by an amorphous blob that sometimes seemed to be a snake and sometimes to have wings. She was holding the pendant out in front of her and chanting. The gem was black as coal.

Jamie and Lady Alberta had been tasked with guarding Miss Dinwiddie. Yet even with the added efforts of Zizi and Bela, Lilian and Isidore, they had apparently been unable to keep her safely within doors.

Believe nothing of what you hear,

and only half of what you see
.

(Romanian proverb)

Emily was draped about with all her various items of protection. Unfortunately, her assorted charms were proving no more useful in this moment than her sharp-pointed umbrella, or her little gun. Only Marie d’Auvergne’s pendant kept the thing before her from gobbling her down like a tasty snack.

No question that it had been foolish to come out alone. But the note slipped to Emily had demanded secrecy and stealth, and promised her questions would be answered if she complied.
Not only foolish, but gullible!
She clutched the pendant so tightly that her fingers burned.

The thing, whatever it was — most likely a demon — continually changed shape. In one instant it was snake-like, then winged with cloven hooves; a manlike figure with an unnatural number of fingers and something monstrous about its mouth and teeth; a pillar of smoke; wavering lights. In all its configurations, piercing dark eyes nailed her to the ground. The thing advanced, retreated, circled, writhed.

Emily struggled to free herself from paralysis. She wasn’t so foolish as to wish to do battle with an otherworldly creature; she wanted to run away. At least, that’s what she thought she wanted. Difficult to concentrate her mind when reality was shifting all about. She even thought she heard the howling of a wolf. The monster must have shared her auditory hallucination; it turned away. In that instant, as its attention wavered, Emily saw through the illusion. Her assailant was a winged manlike being of terrible beauty. She had but a brief glimpse before he changed again, into a great scaled fire-breathing dragon with vicious curved talons like those of a bird of prey.

Demons,
Emily told herself.
To name a demon was to lessen its power. But there were 4,601,200 demons, according to the
Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Or 7,409,127 commanded by seventy-nine princes, if one preferred the sixteenth-century physician Jean Weir. According to legend, King Solomon of Israel shut up seventy-two rebellious kings into a brass vessel and threw it into a deep lake. In an attempt to locate great treasure, the Babylonians had broken open the vessel, allowing the demons to escape into the world.

Focus, you ninny!
“Glasyalabolas,” she muttered. “Raum. Flauros. Seere, Andromalius, Balaam.” Now that the demon’s attention was no longer fixed on her, Emily found that she could move.

A scuffle behind her, the sound of struggle, a snarl and yelp. Emily spun around. Drogo sprawled on the filthy pavement, blood streaming from a deep gash in his flank. She dropped to her knees beside the wolf, pulling at his thick fur as if she could hold the edges of the wound together and staunch the flow of blood. Drogo whined.
Emily!
came Val’s voice in her mind.
Leave this place, at once.

Ravensclaw?
Emily raised her head. Her thoughts moved slowly as molasses in wintertime.

This was not Val as she knew him. His face was leaner, harsher, his fangs fully extended; he seemed taller, broader in build. Viciously sharp claws extended from his fingertips. His eyes bled black fire.
Go!
he said again.

I won’t!
Emily took a firmer grip on Drogo’s sodden fur, gasped as the demon slashed at Val and drew blood. Emily was no stranger (though she should have been) to the gentlemanly art of fisticuffs, but in a struggle between vampire and demon, the ordinary rules did not apply. Here was no boxing in Mendoza’s scientific style, no cross-and-jostle work or application of Jack Broughton’s favorite hard right to the abdomen. This was a struggle to the death with talons and fangs. Val caught the demon and flung it against the side of a building with such force that, had the thing hit, the ancient structure might have tumbled down. Instead the demon dissolved into mist, and reformed itself as a huge apelike creature with powerful arms and huge hands and a coat of silver-yellow hair. Val slammed the beast to the ground. It was erect in an instant, and delivered a rib-breaking blow. Val grunted. The demon raked him with its claws, severing tendon and sinew.