The Curse of Salamander Street Read online

  Upon the final strike of the clock, all was silent. Thomas waited for the coming of the ghost. Kate stirred from her sleep as if she was being called by a voice she knew.

  ‘Beadle!’ she screamed, sitting upright. She held her head, where the blood pounded, it felt to Kate, as if it were being cleaved in two with an axe. ‘I saw Beadle … Demurral is going to kill him!’

  Thomas didn’t reply as he stuck the knife into the lock yet again and attempted to prise it from the clasp.

  ‘It was Beadle,’ she insisted. ‘He is coming for us – Demurral knows we are here – he knows Galphus – can’t you see, Thomas? It was all a trap.’

  ‘Gaudium, that’s what’s speaking. Your ghost said she’d be back at midnight and I’m still waiting.’ Kate held her swollen face as the pain throbbed. ‘You hit me,’ she said as she looked up at him.

  ‘You would have killed me,’ he replied.

  ‘I need the Gaudium – you don’t understand. It opens your mind to see things and be someone else.’

  ‘From what I have seen it captures your soul and turns you into a murderer,’ Thomas snarled, prepared to hit her again. ‘We’ve been together for years. Thicker than blood – that’s what you said. Yet you would have killed me given half the chance.’

  ‘Galphus said …’

  ‘Said many things and told many lies – how do you know the bottles are not empty? Makes you see things, does it? What was Beadle doing, then?’

  ‘He was running through a wood – a dark place, wicked and black. Demurral was there,’ she said, and then stopped and looked about her as if the dream continued in the air. ‘I cannot see a way for us to go. Demurral’s wish will be fulfilled.’ She spoke as if all hope had gone.

  There was a sudden chill as a winter breeze blew through the room. The floor, sprinkled with crisp leaves and the petals of foxgloves, became like a forest, as if the cage were in the open air. The night was full of sound. Within the centre of the cage a thick black mist began to swirl. It spun in a dark vortex until the floor could not be seen. There was the crackling of fire and the spitting of burning twigs. Smoke billowed from the centre of a whirlwind within a whirlwind that hugged the floor like a spinning platter.

  ‘It’s Isabella …’ Kate said nervously.

  ‘She’s late,’ Thomas said as a tumbler slipped within the lock. ‘Don’t need a ghost to set me free.’

  ‘But you do need one to show you the way to freedom,’ Isabella said as she appeared from the whirlwind. All fell silent. The leaves scattered themselves upon the wooden boards. Isabella folded her arms and stared at Thomas. ‘Galphus has sent his men for you, they are coming.’

  ‘Then I will have to work to free us from this place,’ he said.

  ‘And then?’ Isabella asked as a ghostly woodmouse ran from the folds of her skirt and disappeared before them.

  ‘I’ll fight. No one will take me and Kate, no one.’

  ‘Then be quick, the guards are on the first landing,’ Isabella said as she vanished from the cage and reappeared suddenly by the door.

  Thomas slipped the knife into the lock again and tipped the final lever. The door sprang open. Kate got to her feet and staggered towards him, her wits twisted. She dizzily reached for Thomas to help her, all the time keeping her eye on the pyx. Thomas, knowing her intentions, took the pyx. He snatched it from the table and pushed it into his pocket. ‘Better I keep it,’ he said, and he dragged her towards the warehouse door.

  Kate shrugged, in the mist of the Gaudium, knowing it would be worthwhile to wait her time. The Gaudium was safe, she thought, for now anyway.

  ‘Then how do we get out?’ Thomas asked the ghost, expecting some deus ex machina to come to their aid and solve an apparently unfathomable complexity.

  ‘You may escape but you will never be free of Salamander Street, only if Galphus wants you to be,’ Isabella said. Her skin began to change like that of a chameleon. Thomas could see the dirty paint of the wall. Isabella faded. The scent of the wood began to vanish and she slipped from view.

  ‘Gone … Tricked again,’ Thomas said as he searched the gloom for any sign of her.

  ‘Quickly!’ Isabella said as she appeared behind them. ‘The Druggles are coming for you. This way.’ She pointed to a painted window much like the one that was in the tower.

  ‘Rather take my chance with the Druggles,’ Thomas said, thinking this to be a trap and remembering what Smutt had said. He grabbed the warehouse door and pulled it open. A Druggle swung at him with a thick cudgel. It clattered against the frame, splintering the wood.

  ‘DO SOMETHING!’ Kate screamed suddenly, pulling the hair from her head with her skeletal hands.

  Thomas kicked at the Druggle, knocking him back across the landing.

  ‘Bolt the door,’ Kate shouted as the Gaudium made the whole world tremble and shudder and the face of the Druggle sneered at her like a rat. ‘Do something!’ she shouted again, searching the room for Isabella.

  Thomas struggled with the door, pushing it with all his might as the Druggle beat it with the cudgel.

  ‘Isabella!’ Kate screamed hoping to see the ghost.

  Isabella appeared beside Thomas, her hands clasped behind her back.

  ‘Open the door when I tell you,’ she shouted above the sound of the beating cudgel.

  Thomas turned to her as he pressed his shoulder against the door. The sweat rolled down his face as anger welled from within. Isabella stood rigidly still, her eyes fixed on the doorway.

  ‘Now!’ she shouted.

  Thomas jumped back from the door just as the Druggle beat at it yet again. It swung violently open, knocking him from his feet and pushing him into the room. The Druggle stepped inside, and seeing Thomas on the floor began to smile.

  ‘I told you I would see to you later,’ he said as he stepped towards him and beat the cudgel against his hand. ‘Now we’ll see what will happen to you.’

  The Druggle had no realisation of the presence of the ghost. Isabella stalked him from behind, only visible to Kate and Thomas. Within a pace he lifted the cudgel to strike Thomas a blow to the legs. Isabella vanished for a second, disappearing through the floor. The warehouse began to shake, struck by a violent tremor. The Druggle stopped and looked as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. Thomas smiled; he knew what was to come.

  In a lightning crack the floor exploded from beneath, and a gust of wind blew through the boards. Dust and dead mites were scattered into the air, showering all in a thin vapour of dead skin. Another crack of light exploded from the ceiling, instantly dazzling the Druggle. He stumbled back, taking hold of the wall for comfort. It was then that Isabella appeared to them all. Kate cowered to the floor, covering her face for fear this was another hallucination of the Gaudium. Thomas looked upon the sight and hid his eyes with his hands; fear stopped him from staring at the visage of the creature that stood above him. The Druggle didn’t move. His eyes opened as wide as his dry mouth, holding his face in a lopsided smile. Terrified, he dropped the cudgel from his limp fingers as he stumbled on weak feet.

  The lad gagged and choked upon his own spittle as fear gripped his throat and made him incapable of gulping it back. He slowly lifted his hand as if to point at the creature that defied belief.

  Isabella had been transformed. Gone were the pretty dress and foxgloves. Gone the crinoline and laced-ruff neck. Now she stood, dark and sinister, a human snake that stared upon her victim through eyes of fire. Instantly she spat out her tongue to catch the lad who stood and trembled. It shot blood-red from her mouth, tipped with the heads of other dead. It was skull-laced and stank of death. Her long rat’s tail cast itself about his feet, pulling him to the floor as he fell backwards. The lad clawed for the entrance, gripping the gaps between the beams as Isabella slowly drew him towards her. He began to scream. He hollered, blank and empty and utterly feeble. He had not the strength to scare a mouse. The words dropped from his lips and summonsed no one.

  Isabella coiled throu
gh the air as if to strike. The lad rolled like a dog upon the floor, waiting for the attack. Then in a fit of madness he twisted from her grip, jumped to his feet and fled. He ran into the wall so hard he smashed the plaster, which fell in pools of dust about him. He screamed the scream of a bedwetter. His throat tightened to a breaking drum as he grabbed his sodden pants and ran from her.

  As the dust settled they heard the Druggle running down the wooden stairs whelping like a pup. Isabella was again transformed and smiled at them.

  ‘How?’ asked Thomas as he lowered his hands.

  ‘I did nothing, ’twas all in your minds – you saw what you wanted. You haunted yourselves,’ Isabella said as she smoothed her wig and made straight the ruff upon her pure, lead-white neck.

  ‘But I saw …’Thomas said

  ‘What you wanted,’ she replied.

  Kate said nothing. She had seen Thomas smile at Isabella. It was a smile he had once given to her. She knew what it meant and the Gaudium knew her envy all too well.

  ‘There’s a way across the roof into the factory and then down to the street. It’s the only way – follow me,’ Isabella said as she made off. Kate stumbled mindlessly behind, not thinking of where she would go. Reluctantly, Thomas followed, casting back his glance to the door.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, and he ran back to the door to the stairs and stacked the wooden boxes against it. ‘We need more time.’

  Isabella waved urgently for him to follow. Thomas watched as she went to the window. There was no sign of any physical movement; it was as if she had no feet but just glided without friction. She beckoned him again as she stood by the window. ‘This is the one,’ she said. ‘There is a stairway on the other side, it’ll take you across the roof.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked, as Kate drudged behind in her melancholy.

  ‘I’ll see where they are and come back to you,’ Isabella said in her shrill voice.

  ‘And tell Galphus?’ he asked, still not sure of the ghost’s heart.

  ‘It’s a chance you take. I’ll come and find you. There is your escape – take it,’ she said with a smile. With that she was gone, vanished like a spring mist.

  ‘Come on, Kate. You’ll have to go faster,’ Thomas said as he kicked open the window and stood upon a gantry high above the roofs of Salamander Street. He could see the lights of the city going on forever, glistening against the cold.

  They took to the steps in the cold night, Thomas shutting the window and slipping the lock. He followed Kate across the wooden pathway that ran across the leaded roof. It glistened in the frost, grey, cold and bitter. Thomas thought it was like the whole of the factory had been encased in sour pastry. It was the frozen skin of a vast skeleton, which traced the way of the eaves. The gantry led on by the tower along the east of the factory. Far away, Thomas could see the masts of ships. He thought of Crane and the Magenta – he would be there, somewhere, very close. They turned the corner and the scaffold took them to another window. Isabella stood graciously waiting.

  ‘This way. They look for you in the factory. The guards have gone to wake Galphus,’ she said as the window opened by itself.

  Once inside, Thomas knew where they were. To the right was a flight of stairs. Two floors below he knew would be the front door, and by its side was the room Galphus used as his laboratory.

  ‘Isabella, a favour – and one which I trust you for. Please, I need to know if there are any Druggles in the doorway below,’ Thomas said, and he reached out to touch her hand.

  Kate saw it all. It simmered in her as the Gaudium whispered in discontent. The ghost vanished from sight and then quickly returned.

  ‘Gone,’ she said. ‘I have waited for this for so long.’

  ‘Kate, you have to keep up,’ Thomas said. ‘We’ll get to the door and I’ll get the key. Galphus keeps it in the desk in the room at the side. Then we’ll be gone.’

  ‘I think I’ll die, I need some …’ Kate said.

  ‘It’ll kill you, Kate. Isabella said,’ Thomas replied.

  ‘What does she know?’ she whispered like a cauldron hag at Beltane.

  Thomas walked swiftly on. Isabella glided ahead, and Kate struggled to keep up. Everything within her felt as if it were wizened and arid. In her mind she saw herself as an old barren women, frail and decrepit. The Gaudium whispered to her again as she bided her time, waiting for the moment to steal it from him.

  The way was clear. The Druggles could be heard far away as they beat the Dragon’s Heart. Thomas looked to his bare feet, thankful he had cut the boots from them before he escaped.

  At the turn of the landing, just before the entrance to the factory, was the door to Galphus’s laboratory. It stood slightly open. A shaft of amber light came through the crack from a candle upon his desk. Thomas looked to Isabella. Again she disappeared in the blink of an eye and then was manifest again.

  ‘He’s not there, the room is empty,’ she said as she smiled at Thomas.

  Kate shook with a tremor of disdain and sniffed the air as Thomas pushed the door slowly open and peered inside.

  ‘I’ll get the key,’ he said confidently, nodding to Isabella.

  Stepping inside the room, he went to the desk by the wall. For the first time he noticed the thousands of glass jars that lined the shelves to the ceiling. The higher he looked the more he saw, until at their zenith was a single jar wrapped in cobwebs. Isabella appeared beside him as Kate stood in the hallway, arms folded and frowning.

  ‘Look,’ said Isabella. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Got nothing in them, just empty jars with writing on,’ he said.

  ‘Open that one,’ Isabella said pointing to the highest one as if giving a command.

  Thomas obeyed. Climbing the shelves like a ladder, he took the jar from the shelf and read the name that was written upon it. ‘Andreas Lib … av … ius,’ he said, stumbling upon the last name as one self-taught. With that he jumped to the floor and began to slowly prise open the cork stopper. The jar spun in his hands as if it were alive. It burnt his fingers and danced from his grip. The stopper popped from the jar and an ear-splitting bellow shrieked through the room, as if invoked by the name Thomas had spoken.

  ‘Comenius – lux – en – tenebris – ereptor – occisor!’ The strange voice screamed from the jar like the hissing of a cooking pot. As it hollered, an effervescence of green mist oozed from the lid over Thomas’s fingers.

  The ghost of Isabella recoiled, dimming in colour and shrinking before his eyes. She was like a fading candle out of wax, the wick burnt to the end.

  ‘Spirit,’ she gasped as the mist rolled about their feet like an ebbing tide. ‘LAST WORDS – HELD IN DEATH!’ she grunted. ‘Go to Pallium’s room – I will see you there. This is too much for me – too much death, too much sorrow.’ The ghost looked to the floor as inch by inch she unwillingly vanished. ‘They take my portrait – it is gone from the wall … They take me.’

  Isabella spoke harshly, her voice coarse and brutal as if it were another who spoke through her. Kate cowered in the doorway as she waited her moment. The Gaudium whispered again. It spoke secrets, opening her eyes to its visions. She looked at Thomas with scorn and saw the way he smiled at Isabella. She thought how death was a garment that suited the spectre and one that would suit Thomas well.

  Flibbertigibbet

  BEADLE gripped the back of the carriage with his fingers. He hopped, skipped and jumped upon the mud as the carriage gained pace. Raphah grasped his wrists, holding them tightly so his friend wouldn’t fall, then quickly plucked him from the mud and dragged him onto the coach. Whatever had feared Beadle was now etched on his face.

  ‘Where were you?’ Raphah asked.

  ‘Demurral,’ Beadle said, eyes wide, as he rubbed his face with dirty hands. ‘The Green Man – Demurral was waiting.’

  ‘You saw him?’ he asked.

  ‘More than that, he spoke to me,’ Beadle mumbled, unable to comprehend what had happened to him. ‘He follows us, Raphah, has done
all this time. Said that I had led him to you. Everywhere we have been, Demurral has been a step behind. He speaks of a cup, the Chalice of the Grail – said we have it.’

  Raphah looked to the bag that was strung about his neck. ‘That we do,’ he said as he opened the bag and gave Beadle a glimpse of the Chalice. ‘It’s a beggar’s cup.’

  ‘Magic?’ Beadle asked, quietened by its presence.

  ‘Deep magic. Without the need to cast a spell or kill a chicken. Magic that was won by blood and nail.’ Raphah carefully wrapped the vessel and placed it within the bag. He looked behind to the dark trail. Stark thick limbs of dead trees cut in across the path. Here the forest was at its darkest. The lamps of the coach lit the night. Forest creatures moaned and howled, the velvet black hiding all from human eyes. By the coach the hounds pressed on, never failing to keep pace.

  They said no more. Both knew that Demurral wasn’t far behind, and his presence stalked them in the night. Beadle looked back constantly, tired eyes searching the pitch for any sign. The wind rushed through the trees and rattled the branches. He begged the wheels to keep turning. Faster, faster … he urged them on in his mind, fearful they would stop. The mud grew thicker. It clung to the wheels and slowed their progress. From here on, the horses couldn’t canter; they walked, wading through the mud, dragging the carriage behind which lurched and creaked like a storm-tossed ship. The hounds kept to the soft earth of the forest. They howled as they ran, all wanting to take the lead as if they knew a great evil was following their path.