Alice (6 page)

‘There’ll be plenty waiting for me too,’ said Thorne. ‘I helped Grimalkin for several years, and there are a fair number whose lives I ended with just my own blades. That’s all the more reason to move quickly. Let’s make for the gate without further delay.’

What she said made sense. The longer we waited up here, the more likely it was that our enemies would be able to sniff us out. So we began to descend the slope towards the town.

As we walked, I decided to bring up the subject of the dead drinking blood. There were things that I needed to know, and I also wanted to make up for my reaction when Thorne had drunk the skelt’s blood. It was best to get it out into the open and find out what the situation was.

‘So the dead need blood. What happens if you resist and don’t drink it?’ I asked.

‘It’s impossible to resist.’ Thorne’s voice was full of passion, and I knew she must have struggled to fight against it. ‘The hunger for blood just grows and grows until you can’t resist it any more.’

‘So what about me?’ I asked. ‘Is the rule different for someone who enters the dark while still alive?’ I had felt no urge to drink the blood of that dead skelt, only disgust. ‘The truth is, I ain’t
hungry for food at all. I just get thirsty from time to time.’

‘I’ve got bad news for you, Alice. All you
can
do is drink water. You can’t afford to eat anything here. If you drink blood or eat anything at all, you can never go back to the world of the living. That’s just the way things are here – one of the rules that you have to follow. It’s not likely that you’ll feel any urge to eat. But the truth is, at the moment you are using up your body’s life-force. That’s what’s feeding you. You’re drawing on your own reserves. Stay in the dark too long and you’d use it all up. You’d return a dry husk and wouldn’t live for more than a few weeks – or even days. So that’s all the more reason to find what you need quickly and get out of here.’

It was usually good to know the truth, but every new piece of information made my situation appear worse. However, there were many more reasons other than my own survival to hasten my return to the County.

‘You’re right, Thorne,’ I told her. ‘I have to get back with the dagger in time to complete the ritual at Halloween. Grimalkin may be powerful, but she can’t keep the Fiend’s head out of the clutches of his supporters for ever. There are too many of them and they’ll catch up with her one day. I need to get back before that happens. Is that one of the reasons why you’re helping me, Thorne – to help Grimalkin?’

By way of reply, Thorne gave a barely perceptible nod. She had died at the hands of the Fiend’s servants. No doubt revenge was another of her motives. Then I thought of another question. It was something I didn’t really want to dwell on, but I had to know the worst.

‘What happens to those who die here in the dark?’

‘If the dead die again here, they crumble away to nothing and cease to exist – it means oblivion. After a while some of the dead don’t struggle to survive any more. They’d rather be nothing than exist in eternal torment here in the dark. That would be my fate. But I don’t know about the consequences for you, Alice. I’ve seen no other living people here. Maybe there are others who know what happens . . .’

I hadn’t intended to linger in the dark longer than necessary anyway, but none of this was good to hear.

It was then, as we drew closer, that I noticed something about the town below us. It was mainly formed of a network of narrow streets and small houses that led down to the shingle beach, but there were a few larger buildings. One of these looked a bit like a castle, and there was at least one church and a couple of what looked like warehouses which, back on earth, might have been used to store grain.

‘Is that a castle?’ I pointed at the largest structure that was set on the very highest of the streets.

‘No. That’s the basilica – it’s a big church, like a cathedral back on earth,’ Thorne replied.

I frowned in puzzlement. The only cathedral I’d ever seen before was the one in Priestown, the most important church in the County, which had a really tall steeple. This building had a square tower rather than a spire, but its size was impressive. What would a big church like that be doing in the dark?

‘Do people go to church and pray in the dark?’

‘Yes, they pray,’ replied Thorne. ‘But it’s not like back
on earth where folk say their prayers to God. As you know, the dead here mostly worship the Fiend, though some pray to other dark deities like the Morrigan or Golgoth, the Lord of Winter. Well, there are altars to all of them in the basilica.’

‘There must be some who don’t bow to any god – some who are enemies of the Fiend here too?’ I was wondering if somebody might be able to protect us as we travelled through this domain.

‘There are a few who might just help us if we get into serious trouble,’ Thorne told me. ‘We do have friends here that we could call upon if our need is great enough. But I wouldn’t count on it. We can only do that if our situation is dire – we’d be putting them in serious danger.’

I could only hope that it wouldn’t come to that. But I would do whatever it took to get the dagger back to Tom. ‘So whereabouts is the exit from this domain?’ I asked Thorne next.

‘The gate never stays in the same place for long; it drifts around; I know that some of the stronger entities here can manipulate its location. Sometimes they charge a price for using it. We’ll have to search for it. We’ll sniff it out eventually.’

‘But you left this domain once before, Thorne. Did you have to pay a price then?’

Thorne nodded. ‘Blood is the currency here. I paid them in blood.’

I didn’t like to think about what she’d been forced to do, but I had to question her. I thought I should know all the details of what I might have to face. But before I could speak, Thorne had turned her back on me and was striding along at a rapid pace.

We came to the foot of the slope, and the ground levelled out. Between us and the first buildings, which showed no lights in their windows, was an area of flat soggy ground with a few dead trees and tufts of marsh grass. Thorne led the way and we squelched forward, our pointy shoes sinking deeper into the marsh the further we walked.

In the distance I could just see a few figures. The moon was behind the buildings and it was hard to make them out in the gloom, but there were both men and women. They walked along, apparently aimlessly. One was going round in a circle; I heard a faint muttering but couldn’t catch any words.

‘They’re known as “the Lost”,’ Thorne explained. ‘They don’t know that they’re dead, and their memories of earth are muddled. They’re the easiest prey of all – their blood is easy to take so they don’t last long.’

At last the ground became firmer. As we left the marsh, however, I suddenly started to feel as if I was being watched, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. Twice I looked over my shoulder, but there was nobody there. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement.

‘There’s something over there to our left . . .’ I kept my voice low. A shadowy thing had seemed to rise up from the marsh but had disappeared as soon as I’d glanced at it.

‘Just keep walking and don’t look at it directly,’ Thorne advised. ‘Don’t worry – the things that inhabit these dark dwellings and the outer marsh are usually the ones that aren’t strong enough to survive in the town. It’s most likely a glipp.’

I had never heard the term, but Thorne explained: ‘It’s a low-level elemental that likes mud and stagnant pools. A daemon would gobble it up in an instant, and it’s probably nervous of us, but I know that sometimes they get really hungry, and that can make them desperate.’

We reached the first of the buildings – a two-storey house with cracked windows and tattered lace curtains. It was dark inside, but I spotted a curtain twitching, and then something thin and grey moving away, back into the front room.

‘That’s probably nothing to worry about, either,’ said Thorne. ‘As I said, the most dangerous entities congregate either near the waterfront, or in and around the basilica.’

I could only hope that she was right. She was the only friend I had down here.

We were now walking along a narrow alley between two stone buildings, but I could see lights ahead and hear the murmur of voices. Moments later we emerged onto a busy cobbled street that sloped upwards, away from us. Candles flickered behind windows, and there were torches on wall-brackets on the dark side of the street, which was untouched by the baleful glare of the blood-moon. But this was like no place on earth.

For one thing, rather than being grey, as they usually were in the County, these cobbles were black and shiny like cobs of coal. But the most sinister thing was the drain channel that ran beside the street, close to the houses on our left. A dark liquid trickled along it towards us. I gasped as I realized that it looked like old blood – the stuff that is swept from the floor of
a butcher’s shop when the day’s business is over. I could smell it; there was a sickening coppery taint in the air.

There were people too – the dead, who shuffled along with their eyes fixed on the cobbles. Mostly their clothes were in tatters, their shoes down-at-heel. One woman with dark, matted hair had a red gash in her throat, from which protruded the hilt of a dagger; blood was trickling from it and the front of her dress was saturated.

I glanced sideways at Thorne. Her mutilated hands were still bleeding too. So, the manner of your death was carried over into the dark domain of the dead . . . If I was right, then I might soon see far worse horrors than these.

‘Fix your eyes on the ground!’ Thorne hissed. ‘Otherwise you’ll draw attention to us!’

I glanced sideways and saw that she was walking with her head bowed. I did the same, though I wondered why it mattered.

‘Everyone is looking at the ground anyway, so how can they notice how we carry ourselves?’ I whispered back.

‘There’ll be more time for questions later, Alice.’ Thorne muttered this so low I could hardly hear her. ‘It’s not these folk we have to worry about. These are what we call the downcast dead – poor weak souls who are mostly just prey. What do you think the strong feed on? These dead are just a source of blood – that’s the currency here!’

WE TURNED A
corner, and another similar street stretched ahead, still continuing upwards. There were more of the same shuffling dead, and more candle-lit windows too – behind which I sensed unseen hostile eyes watching us.

Suddenly I heard an eerie screech in the distance. I shivered, filled with dread. I knew I had heard that sound before . . . Where was it?

The cry came again. This time it was much louder. Whatever had made it was travelling fast and heading our way.

The third time it echoed along that narrow cobbled street, I realized that it was coming from the sky. And instantly I knew what it was. It was the screech of a corpsefowl,
sometimes called a nightjar; a bird that flies by night in the County. I’d used that eldritch cry myself as a secret night-time signal when I wanted to contact Agnes Sowerbutts. How could I have forgotten? Then a chill went down my spine as I remembered someone who’d had one as a familiar. Someone whom Grimalkin had killed and sent here to the dark: Morwena, the most powerful of the water witches and another child of the Fiend.

The prospect of meeting her filled me with dread. She’d had great strength and speed, and a blood-eye that could freeze you to the spot while she ripped you to pieces and drank your blood. She’d been dangerous in life, and might be even more terrible now that she was dead. My heart began to race with anxiety.

The bird came into sight and swooped low over the rooftops, its plumage lit to fire by the light of the blood-moon. To my surprise, within seconds it had disappeared, and when I heard its cry again, it sounded some distance away. Was it still looking for us, just as it had searched for Tom Ward in the marsh near Bill Arkwright’s watermill? If it had indeed spotted us, its terrifying mistress would soon appear – of this I was certain.

With Tom Ward’s help, Grimalkin had killed both Morwena and her familiar. And I’d certainly played my part in the days that led up to her death – as she would no doubt have learned from others in the dark. I was her enemy and she’d be out for revenge.

There was one thing that worked in my favour, though; something that made the threat from her less immediate.
Morwena’s natural environment was water and she could not survive out of a wet or marshy environment for too long. Away from water, she soon weakened. And this city was full of cobbled streets; the only liquid I’d seen so far was blood.

But what if the rules were different here? After all, she was one of the dead. Did she still need a watery environment to protect her?

Then, in the distance, from the direction of the basilica, I heard a bell begin to toll, each powerful chime vibrating through my teeth and jaw; it seemed that even the black cobbles beneath my feet were resonating with that terrible sound.

Thorne took my arm, pulling me off the street and into a narrow alley. She pressed down on my shoulder, indicating that we should crouch.