The Midnight Witch (50 page)

Louis nods curtly, and the two go inside.

Lilith is just as Bram left her, lying on the chaise longue, looking heartbreakingly serene and beautiful. Bram hears Louis gasp at the sight of her, his hand flying to his mouth. Bram stands beside him. “She … she told me the Great Secret,” he says.

“You?”
Louis is incredulous. “But…”

“There was no one else. She knew she was dying. She was frantic at the thought she would take the knowledge with her to her grave.”

“She could have told me afterward, though I can’t expect
you
to understand that. She could have come to me as a spirit and told me.”

“For pity’s sake, I don’t know why she told me. Perhaps she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to come back … that you wouldn’t be able to reach her. I don’t know, I don’t know! All I do know is that she trusted me to tell you, and I will, but you must promise me one thing first.”

“How can you stand there and strike bargains? How can you think about making gains for yourself when Lilith lies here…” He cannot bring himself to name her state.

“I want nothing for myself,” Bram says. “I want you to use the Elixir. Use it on Lilith.”

“What!?”

“You can save her. You are a senior witch. You know the spells, she told me all the senior witches learn them. I have the Elixir.” He thrusts the box into Louis’s hands.

“But such a thing is forbidden. And anyway, to attempt such a thing alone would be folly of the highest order.”

“For pity’s sake, Harcourt, think of Lilith.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve never … what you ask is beyond anything I have ever done. It is far from simple, and success is far from certain.”

“There is not time to perfect the skill. It is now Lilith needs you.” Seeing that Louis is unconvinced he goes on. “She is so young. She is such a good person. She cared more about me, and more about protecting the Great Secret, than about anything else. She was prepared to give her life for it. But she doesn’t have to, don’t you see? We can save her. She told me what it meant to be a necromancer. I can’t pretend I understood everything she said, it’s so much to take in, so much to comprehend … but I believed every word of what she said.”

Louis looks down at Lilith. He briskly wipes a tear from his eye.

Bram tries to find the right words. “If it goes wrong, you can say I made you do it. That I wouldn’t pass on the Great Secret to you unless you tried.”

Louis’s face hardens. “If it goes wrong, we will damn her to the Darkness—did she tell you that? Did she talk of the hell that waits for spirits who are lost? Have you any true conception of what risk we are taking here, not just for Lilith but for ourselves, too?” He stands, shaking his head, still clutching the box that holds the Elixir and the Montgomery diamonds, staring at it.

Bram sighs. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then puts his hand on Louis’s arm and says, “I won’t make you do it. I can’t. To use what I know, to withhold it from you … that would be wrong. It would not be what Lilith would want. I will tell you the Great Secret, whatever you decide to do. But I believe saving her would be right.” He reaches down and touches Lilith’s sleek, shiny hair. Looking back up at Louis, he says quietly, “Bring her back to us. If you love her, please, bring her back to us.”

*   *   *

Stricklend finds himself in an unaccustomed state of agitation and is amused to realize that the experience is not unpleasant. He has been waiting for this moment for so long, has planned for it, worked for it, killed for it, and now the hour has come: he is to have the complete Elixir in his hand and use it to bring a dead man back to life. The anticipation is exquisite torture. He allows himself to pace the narrow path between the headstones and funereal statuary. The cemetery is still and quiet, with not a breath of wind to stir the trees or whistle around the tombstones. He takes out his gold pocket watch. Its face is clearly readable in the light of the full moon. Two o’clock. Perry has been gone over an hour, and must surely return soon. There are not many hours of darkness left, nighttime being unhelpfully short these late spring months. He requires the cover of the night not only to shield his activities from curious eyes but also to strengthen his magic. As a Sentinel, he has long practiced spellcraft of many sorts, but never before has he attempted Infernal Necromancy. He knows that such rituals as are needed work best before sunrise. With the Elixir in his possession, the Coven of Lazarus all but vanquished, there is one step left to be taken. Proof of the efficacy of the potion. A successful application of the Elixir before he announces to the group that he has it, and none will be able to question his authority as the most able, the most powerful necromancer the modern age as ever seen.

Stricklend cannot help congratulating himself on a plan, thus far, excellently executed. The Dark Spirit was able to eavesdrop on Lilith’s final words as she divulged the Great Secret to Bram. As Stricklend had known she would. To have what he has striven to obtain all these long years is thrilling enough; to know that the Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven is dead is an extra delight. Willoughby assured him that he listened to Lilith Montgomery’s final utterances and watched her die before making haste to join Stricklend at the duke’s grave and give him the vital information. Perry had all too readily agreed to go in search of the blood of a newborn. Stricklend had instructed him to go to the nearest hospital, posing as a medical student, armed with enough money to bribe all but the most pious of midwives.

Hearing brisk footsteps, Stricklend turns and sees Perry striding through the yew trees. He has to stop himself sprinting forward to demand the final Elixir ingredient from him. At last the younger man reaches the duke of Radnor’s graveside. He holds out a small bottle with a cork stopper.

“Here.” He speaks urgently, with a tremor in his voice, whether from excitement or fear Stricklend cannot know. “I have it. I have it.”

He takes the bottle from him and holds it up, letting the moon’s beams gleam through the dark red liquid it contains. “We must hurry. There is not much time,” he says. The grave has become a makeshift altar. Stricklend already has all the other ingredients for the Elixir assembled, right down to the diamond dust. He has long had in his possession the incantations, but now that the final essential part of the Elixir is his, nothing can stop him.

Stricklend has had a quantity of the incomplete concoction kept in readiness for this very moment. All it requires is the addition of the blood of the newborn, and the ritual can begin. With great care, he adds the required amount of the still-warm ruby liquid to the black, pre-prepared potion. At once, his heightened senses detect a stirring of spirits about him. As if they know something momentous has begun. He turns to face Perry.

“Are you still willing?” he asks.

Perry nods. “I am.”

“Your loyalty, your bravery, your sacrifice, will be rewarded.”

“My reward will be my immortality. I will be the first revenant raised by the Sentinels in centuries. Many will come after me, but I will be the one to take the first step and herald a new era where the Sentinels have dominion over death.” With an edgy eagerness he moves to the grave. The ceremonial objects have been arranged in such a way as to allow space for him to lie among them. He quickly settles himself on the cold, hard stone that covers the grave.

Stricklend moves closer. He swiftly conjures a Sleeping Spell, so that Perry is asleep in a matter of seconds. Then, more slowly, with more deliberation and care, he casts a Stopping Spell. He has chosen a kind, painless one, but one that he has used before and knows to be effective and reliable. Perry’s slumbering form seems to tense slightly, and then his hands jerk once, twice, three times. There follows silence. Stricklend feels for a pulse at the young man’s throat. Finding none, he is satisfied that Peregrine Smith is indeed dead.

The quiet is broken by an eerie wind that appears from nowhere. It makes a mournful sound but does not cause the leaves or branches of the nearby trees to move. It brings with it a coldness that settles upon Stricklend. He remains unperturbed. He knows enough to expect a disturbance among the deceased. His studies have taught him to proceed with caution, for in raising one dead soul, others may attempt to free themselves from the constraints of death. Some will be human, some will not.

He picks up the vial of bone dust and sprinkles its contents over the altar, rubbing the last grains between his palms. He lays his hands upon Perry’s cooling body and begins to recite the words he has carried in his head for years in anticipation of this night. He continues with the chants and prayers, all the while aware of the growing restlessness among the residents of the cemetery. He can hear their calls and cries now, as plainly as if they were standing next to him. As he proceeds, he catches fleeting glimpses of ephemeral figures as they flit about the graveyard.

Stricklend raises his arms and lifts his voice to the night sky.
“Exurgent mortui et ad me veniunt!”
He calls back Perry’s spirit, knowing as he does so that others will answer the call. He repeats the summons two, three times more. Next he places his hand over Perry’s eyes.

“When these eyes open again, they will see.”

He touches his brow.

“When this mind stirs once more, it will think.”

He touches his mouth.

“When these lips part, they will speak.”

He puts his hand on his chest.

“When this heartbeats again, it will feel.”

Stricklend picks up the Elixir and pours a tiny amount into the ceremonial chalice, which he raises high, saying a short prayer sacred to the Sentinels. He takes from his waistcoat pocket a tiny, perfect diamond. Closing his palm around it he utters the words that will reduce it to a fine powder, so that he is then able to add it to the Elixir. He stoops over Perry and slips his hand beneath the dead man’s neck, so that he can tilt his head forward. He places the edge of the chalice to his lips, letting three drops of the necromantic liquid drip into his slightly open mouth. Setting down the chalice, he leans over and takes Perry in his arms, lifting him up as if he weighed no more than a child.

“Wake up, now, boy,” he tells him, with more fondness than he has ever spoken to anyone in his life. “Wake up, and be born again!”

For a long moment there is a supernatural stillness, as a calm before a storm. Stricklend feels the body in his arms grow suddenly heavier. So heavy that he is forced to set him down on the gravestone once more. As he watches, Perry starts to twitch and to tremble. His eyes spring open. He tries to speak. At first he can make no sound, then, spluttering a little, he finds his voice.

“Yes! I am returned … I…” He turns over and pushes himself up so that he is kneeling. His movements are unsteady and erratic, but he quickly begins to regain his strength. He stretches out his arms, examining his hands, looking at his skin, touching his face, taking deep, deep breaths. He looks up at Stricklend. “It works!” he cries, beginning to laugh loudly. “It works, Stricklend, it truly works. Look at me! Look!”

And Stricklend does look, and what he sees when he looks almost stops his own heart.

For though the flush of youthful life did indeed return to Perry’s face in the first moments of his reanimation, now he is undergoing a further change. A terrible, terrible change. As Stricklend watches, the young man’s skin starts to pock and wither with terrifying rapidity, so that soon his whole face is covered in scarred, shriveled skin, as if he were not simply aging but decaying, rotting, at a greatly accelerated rate.

Stricklend’s expression alerts Perry to his own hideousness. His hands fly to his face a second time, and then he, too, screams as he sees the condition of his putrefying hands.

“No! What is happening? Something has gone wrong! Stricklend, make it stop! Make it stop!”

But Stricklend cannot make it stop. The spell has been cast, the magic evoked, the Elixir given. There is no turning back now, no preventing the process running its course. It is clear, as Perry begins to writhe upon the ground as his internal organs also start upon the path of horribly rapid decomposition, that something has indeed gone wrong. While the Elixir and the spell were powerful enough to call up life once more, there is only flawed magic to sustain that life. And what magic there is now churns and flails within Perry, fighting to maintain its hold, unable to stabilize, to regulate either itself or the transformation it has brought about.

If Stricklend thought to attempt anything to help Perry, he is prevented from doing so by a cacophonous rumbling that heralds the opening up of a fissure between himself and the pulsating young man in front of him. The unrestrained power of the corrupted spell has reached the creatures of the Darkness and affected their release. As Perry at last falls still, nothing more than an empty corpse once more, the raw hole in the ground next to him belches forth foul-smelling smoke, and the roars of beings who were never intended to tread the earth. A clawlike hand reaches up from the depths and takes hold of Perry’s ankle. In one unnaturally quick movement it pulls his body into the pit. Stricklend starts to walk backward, slowly, keeping his eyes on the entrance to the abyss. He sees a demon, crouched low, scramble up the far side of the crater and bound away among the tombstones. Another, slightly larger, with a bulbous head and small, piggy eyes, hauls itself up onto the grass. It cocks its head on one side as if considering Stricklend very carefully.

“What a foul little beast you are,” he tells it. “So very unattractive and so very unwelcome.” He speaks to gain precious time, all the while casting a Suffering Spell in the demon’s direction. When it strikes home the creature squeals, thrashing wildly at its invisible assailant. Stricklend seizes the advantage and begins to use the incantations he has learned from his study of the necromancer’s art. Incantations against just such an event. Spells and chants which, he sincerely hopes, will send the escaping monsters back where they belong, and seal the wound in the earth that is allowing them out. All around him spirits whisper or cry out. He observes several specters wandering among the graves. The power of the Lazarus Coven is only now revealed to him, and he finds himself in awe of it. It takes all his concentration, all his considerable skill, to slowly drive back the emerging demons. As he battles on, he begins to feel his own strength waning.