The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls (10 page)

Folly was completely unaware of Vincent’s discomfort. She was rigid at the lakeside, staring at the approaching figure. When it reached the very edge of the tar, she braced herself and
looked it straight in the face.

It was no less horrific than the last time. The rotting flesh, the exposed skull, the sunken eyes. Domna, the smell! The appalling stink of decay and evil. The Lurid’s recent foray back
into the world of the living had done little to improve its appearance. Its face was as ravaged and repulsive as ever. It was almost opaque, but Folly knew that if she touched it, it would be cold,
the sort of cold that burns like a white-hot poker.

But there was no doubt as to its identity. This repulsive creature was Axel. This was her brother.

‘Axel, it’s me.’

Folly was unsure how aware Axel in his present form was of his surroundings. The last time they had met he had been under the pernicious influence of Leopold Kamptulicon and his controlling
ambergris pendant. She preferred not to remember what had happened after that, when Axel had taken over her body. It had been a vile, vile sensation.

Axel contorted his gaping mouth. ‘Dear Folly,’ he said, and his eerily pitched voice sounded almost amused. ‘So you finally found the guts to call me to shore. I’ve seen
you here, night after night. I did so wonder if you would dare.’

Folly remained unmoved. She knew when dealing with Lurids it was best not to rise to their bait. They were fickle, untrustworthy creatures, regardless of their earthly origins, with only one
overwhelming desire: to be free. Axel continued in the same mocking vein. ‘But where is the boy, Vincent? Surely you have both come to set me free again?’ He asked the question with
such sincerity that Folly was caught quite off guard.

‘I, er. . .’

Axel laughed, and Folly was reminded again that he now inhabited another realm. It was not a human laugh, but the laugh of a bitter shade condemned to a crepuscular existence, like a shadow in
twilight, in the Supermundane realms. He snorted with derision and it was a horrible wet sound.

‘Dear sister, I know why you are here. You have come to see what I know that could be useful to you.’

Folly nodded slowly. ‘Yes, that is true. I want to ask what I was prevented from asking before. And other things. But also I came to see how . . . you are.’

‘How I am? This is how I am.’ Axel opened his mouth and breathed deliberately all over her, and she coughed and choked from the stink of the gut-wrenching miasma and took a step
backwards.

‘How do you think I am?’ he hissed, all pretence of brotherly affection gone. ‘Condemned for the rest of my existence to this pit of horror. Have you not seen the ghouls whose
company I keep? Look at them. Hear how they shriek and wail.’ Then his tone changed again. ‘Ah, sister, my only friend in the world, I am sorry,’ he wheedled. ‘I did not
mean to frighten you. What is it you wish to know? Haven’t you read about it in the
Degringolade Daily
? I murdered an Urban Guardsman and I robbed a perfumer.’

‘So it
was
you who stole the ambergris for Kamptulicon. I guessed as much.’

‘Yes, but I was tricked by your friend, the oil seller.’ Axel sounded indignant.

‘Leopold Kamptulicon is not my friend.’ Folly regarded her spectral brother with deep suspicion. ‘And if you are so blameless, why then are you here? Only the guilty are
condemned to spend eternity as a Lurid in the Tar Pit.’

Axel snarled, his temper as unpredictable as mercury. ‘I tell you, Kamptulicon made me do it.’

‘How?’

‘He threatened all sorts if I didn’t help him. He knew about you – I don’t know how. I didn’t want to do any of it, but he drugged me and tortured me and blinded me
with this bright light, coming and going, coming and going. Then, when he had no more use for me, he gave me over to the DUG. I was hanged and found myself here, but he came back and used the
ambergris I stole to control me.’

He seemed to calm down a little and began to whine again. ‘Dear Folly, can you not bring yourself to find some ragamuffin on the street, some good-for-nothing little thief whose body I can
assume? At least let me have a taste again of what it is like to be alive. There are strange things going on these days – I could help you.’

Folly could feel Axel’s cold breath on her cheeks and the smell of him was beginning to make her feel quite ill. He interpreted her silence as a refusal. ‘I see then you
haven’t changed. Always thinking you’re better than me, our father’s favourite. Well, it ain’t good to spurn your own. He taught you all the tricks – now it’s
time to do what is right.’ He opened his mouth and screeched, ‘
Free me!
’

Behind him the host of Lurids took up the cry. ‘
Free meeee! Freeee meeee!
’

‘No,’ muttered Folly. ‘I cannot. I must not.’

Without warning, Axel lurched forward and stretched out his arms to their full extent. His fingertips just managed to touch her on the face. Folly yelped at the burning sting and jumped
backwards. Then, drawing her Natron disperser from her coat, she aimed it straight at the furious Lurid. Axel put his hands up, and it was disarming to see such a vile creature make a gesture of
submission.

‘No!’ he cried.

Folly lowered her weapon. ‘Where is your Blivet?’

Axel was now flitting about the shore’s edge as if in a state of indecision. ‘My Blivet? So that’s what you want. And to kill me. Again.’

‘I didn’t kill you,’ said Folly. ‘You were already dead.’ She repeated the question.

Axel came back to the edge of the lake, the limit of his world, and snarled, his face a mask of rage. ‘And why should I give it to you? If I even knew where it was.’

‘I need it.’

A sly look came over the Lurid’s face. ‘Kamptulicon will help me if you don’t. And then you will have no control over me.’

She remained expressionless. ‘Kamptulicon? What do you know of his business?’

Axel danced away, teasingly, but he hadn’t gone far before Folly barked out a word in Quodlatin and he came back, compelled by its utterance. Calmly she spoke. ‘Very well, I agree.
If you tell me where your Blivet is, I will do my best to find a way to free you. But not for long. You are a murderer after all.’

Axel released a long sigh. ‘I’ll tell you, but you won’t like it. And how can I trust you to keep your promise?’

Folly brought her hand up to her heart. ‘On our father’s soul, I will keep my word.’

‘Very well. Kamptulicon took my Blivet when he set me up for the murder.’

‘So he has it?’

Axel darted about a bit before answering, sulkily, ‘No, Leucer d’Avidus has it now; he keeps it in the Governor’s Residence.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Because I was there, after the torture, waiting for the Urgs to take me. Kamptulicon gave it to Leucer and I saw him put it in the safe. Now, when will you do it, sister? When will you
keep your promise?’

‘Soon, brother,’ said Folly softly. ‘Soon. It’s not easy, once you’ve been expelled from a body. I thought you would know—’

Axel made another grab at Folly and this time he was too quick for her. His hands encircled her neck and he began to haul her towards the tar’s edge. With a roar Vincent rushed forward and
hurled fistfuls of black beans at the Lurid and, with a wail, Axel released Folly and tried to rake up the beans even as they sank. Then he began to sob and wring his scabby hands before finally
fleeing to join those whom he so despised.

Vincent helped Folly to her feet.

‘Kew,’ she managed to croak. ‘He nearly had me!’

‘We can get the Blivet now,’ said Vincent excitedly. ‘I can steal it from Leucer’s safe.’ He had a sudden vision of himself wielding the triple-tined platinum
weapon. He imagined how it would feel to bliv a Pluribus next time he saw one. And if he got the chance maybe he would stick it in Kamptulicon too. What effect would it have on a human? Was
Kamptulicon even human? He looked at his metal hand and wondered.

Folly just stared at him blankly, rubbing her neck where the imprint of Axel’s hands had been burned into the skin. He realized that perhaps he was being too presumptuous. Maybe Axel was
telling the truth and had been set up. Domne! What a place to spend eternity if you were innocent.

‘I’m sorry. What Axel said – is he really innocent?’

Folly’s laugh had an edge of sadness to it. ‘So he fooled you, did he? I’ll admit he is very plausible. But he is a Lurid, Vincent, and there’s not a one in the Tar Pit
would admit to its crime, whatever the evidence. I have little doubt my brother deserves to be in that Tar Pit, no matter how much he protests his innocence.’

‘Oh,’ said Vincent quietly. ‘Surely then you did not mean it, that you would free him?’

‘I made a promise,’ she said, and Vincent thought he detected the hint of a tremor in Folly’s normally cool tones. ‘I don’t break promises, but I
was
telling the truth. He has already assumed a body. That makes it a hundred times harder to release him again. But maybe Kamptulicon knows a way. He is a Cunningman; I am not. So much has changed I
can’t tell any more what is possible and what is not.’

With Lux fast approaching, the two made their way silently back to the Komaterion and the safety of the Kryptos. On the threshold Folly turned to Vincent and smiled briefly.

‘So, my burglar friend, how do you propose to get the Blivet? The Governor’s Residence is at the top of Collis Hill, reached only by the funicular railway. It’s well guarded.
You haven’t broken in there yet.’

Vincent set his mouth in a firm line. ‘Yet,’ came the laconic reply.

‘Cockles!’ exclaimed Jonah. ‘What in Poseidon is that?’

Citrine, pedalating cautiously round the perimeter of Mercator Square on the way to the Caveat Emptorium, shot a fleeting glance at the thirteen pillars of the Kronometer and saw what Jonah
meant. Each pillar was a-flutter and a-jingle with a multitude of tokens tied on by the superstitious residents of the city. There were all manner of offerings ranging from simple dolls fashioned
from straw (the sort of thing a child might make) to silver pendants and bottles of rare oil and even coins punched and tied together like a necklace. And the value of the offerings also ranged
from one end of the spectrum to the other; the donors knew that no one would dare to steal them for fear of dreadful Supermundane repercussions.

‘Gifts to the Supermundane, to appease the entities. Everyone is upset. The business down at the Tar Pit was bad enough, then the earthquake and now the Kronometer stopping. This is the
Degringoladian way of coping,’ explained Citrine.

‘I ain’t never seen nanything like that before.’

Citrine resisted the urge to point out the multiple negatives in Jonah’s declaration and concentrated on passing through the marketplace as quickly as possible. It was Prax, and she had
thought that by now Mercator Square would be deserted, but in actuality it was quite alive with people and, more alarmingly, Urgs. They stood in groups, easily identified by their headgear, eyeing
the passers-by and watching the traffic.

‘You know,’ said Jonah thoughtfully, trying to make himself as small as possible inside the vehicle. ‘I’m not sure how long we can keep using this Trikuklos. The Urgs
know we have one, and yours does stick out like a swordfish in a school of sardines.’

Citrine knew he was right. Generally people rode about on horseback or in carriages, and although Trikukloi were becoming more and more common, they were still an object of curiosity and
attracted unwanted attention. And, given the fact that the other Trikukloi were single-seaters, Citrine’s, being double and longer and wider, stood out even more.

Jonah continued. ‘Vincent said that the Urgs have been ordered to stop and search all Trikuklos drivers, hoping to find us.’

Citrine pressed harder on the pedals, turned out of the square and shortly afterwards stopped down the dead-end alley beside Claude Caballoux’s horsemeat shop. Together she and Jonah
hurried across the road and Citrine pushed open the door of the Caveat Emptorium to the tuneless accompaniment of the shop bell. When Jonah stepped inside, his huge bulk blocked almost completely
the dull early-evening light.

‘Would it surprise you to know,’ Citrine whispered, ‘I have never been in this shop?’

Jonah was not surprised. Wenceslas Wincheap’s Caveat Emptorium, indeed any such establishment of barter, was not the typical haunt of a family such as the Capodels.

Citrine couldn’t help but feel excited at this new experience. The last year in the Capodel Townhouse with Edgar had been very difficult. He had kept her on a short lead, isolated her from
her friends and saddled her with a strict governess. She would never have thought that it would take a charge of murder to escape him. Of course, the prospect of the noose still hung over her head
like the sword of Damocles, and she felt wretched about poor Florian, but there was no denying she was enjoying her new-found freedom, despite the complications that came with it.

‘I’ve been here once or twice,’ said Jonah. ‘There’s good fishing down near the lighthouse – but you must watch out for those gulls, vicious they are –
and Wenceslas always has a supply of fish hooks and bait buckets.’

Their eyes had barely adjusted to the poor light when a voice boomed out from somewhere further back in the shop. ‘Well, well! I believes I could get meself a few hundred sequenturies if I
turned youse in!’

The rotund figure of Wenceslas Wincheap manifested itself from the shadows and stepped into the light of his own manuslantern, which he helpfully held above his head. Citrine and Jonah stood
aside as he squeezed past them and locked the door.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Citrine, who had paled at the sound of the turning key. ‘It ain’t to keep you in, more to keep unwelcome visitors out. Now I can give you
me full attention. Suma said I was to look out fer youse.’