The Relic Guild (25 page)

Van Bam tried to interject,
Nonetheless—

No
! Simply understand what I am telling you, my idiot. When
Charlie Hemlock gives us the information we need, all he
’ll likely tell us is that Marney is a prisoner
in a place the Relic Guild cannot reach.

Van Bam’s grip tightened on his cane, and his gaze shifted to the black, glassy surface of the portal. An eruption of laughter came from the warehousemen as they shared some joke or another with the police officers. Such a happy sound seemed inappropriate as the Resident’s mind raced.

So
,
Gideon purred,
instead of wasting time trying your hardest not
to think about all those sweaty moments you and Marney
once shared, perhaps you should focus your energies on something
more productive than trying to save her. Accept the fact
that unless Fabian Moor invites you through one of his
portals, Marney is as lost as Spiral in Oldest Place
.

In the forecourt the warehousemen had finished unloading the platform. Before disembarking and allowing the next cargo tram through, the crew took a quick break. Each of them, including the police officers, sipped hot drinks poured from flasks. Two of them smoked pipes. These simple actions suddenly seemed unnervingly normal to Van Bam.

No
, he told Gideon.
I will
not accept that
.

And thus this conversation becomes boring,
Gideon replied, returning to his spitefully amused tones.
Remain in
denial if you wish, but please spare some time to
remember your duties, especially as Captain Jeter needs to talk
to you.

Van Bam’s attention was snapped away from the warehousemen and thoughts of Marney.
Jeter?

Yes, he’s
waiting for you in his office, my idiot. Apparently, the
lunatics have taken over the asylum.

By the time Samuel and Clara reached their destination in the western district the sky was light blue, and the morning sun was clearing the boundary wall. Shafts of light speared through gaps between buildings, and long shadows were cast upon the cobbled streets. Samuel disembarked from the Resident’s tram, with Clara close behind him, and he took a deep breath. The nip of Silver Moon still lingered, but the air was clean and growing warm.

Leaving the tram on the street, Samuel led the way into the plaza of shops. Just as Van Bam had promised, the area was free of police presence, and no denizens were up and about at this time in the morning. He strode towards Briar’s Boutique. Wedged between a bookshop and a jeweller’s, the antiques store looked as sleepy and peaceful in the light of the dawning sun as it had from the observatory at the Nightshade.

His eyes alert, Samuel stopped before the shop’s door. Clara stepped forwards and looked through the display window.

‘Can you smell or hear anything?’ he asked the changeling.

‘No,’ she said and pressed her forehead against the glass. ‘But I think I can see someone lying on the floor inside. Whoever it is isn’t moving.’

Samuel tried the door. It was locked. Kneeling before it, he took a lock-picking kit from his utility belt. The slim tools were tricky for his thick fingers to handle. He made an angry noise as he failed to open the lock, and the tools tumbled from his grasp.

Clara smiled down at him. ‘I hope you’re a better bounty hunter than you are a burglar,’ she joked.

‘Quiet,’ Samuel snapped.

Clara bristled, but he ignored her, snatching up his tools and trying the lock again.

Almost immediately, he regretted his sharpness. Through so many years of living and working alone he had grown used to the isolation of his life. Was that part of the reason why Clara’s youth and naivety irritated him so much? Had he grown intolerant of company of any kind? Or perhaps he was acknowledging a sense of guilt and shame from the strange circumstances that had brought them together. Maybe it was neither; maybe it was something else that was bothering the old bounty hunter.

I never remember the wolf
, Clara had said.

She had no control over her magic …

Samuel swore as he again failed with the lock. Just as he decided that kicking the door open was a much more preferable option, Clara reached down and took the lock-picking tools from his hands.

‘Here,’ she said softly. ‘Let me try.’

Grudgingly, Samuel moved out of the way, and Clara crouched before the door.

‘Maybe the only advantage of being a whore is that you meet people from all walks of life,’ she said, toying with the lock. ‘And it’s a smart woman who takes the time to learn a new trick or two. Or so my mothers used to say.’

There was a small click, and Clara stood up to open the door into Briar’s Boutique. A bell jingled lightly. Clara smiled at Samuel, clearly pleased with her lock-picking skills and anticipating some kind of praise. But he simply retrieved his tools, and then drew his revolver.

‘Stay behind me,’ he ordered as he walked through the doorway. He heard Clara mutter, ‘You’re welcome,’ but paid her sarcasm no mind.

The antiques shop was a scene of devastation. Shelving and racks, along with the antiques they had once displayed, lay in pieces, strewn across a floor of thick carpet. Wall mounted glow lamps had been smashed. The air felt charged, as it did before a lightning storm, and it prickled upon Samuel’s skin.

‘
Whoa
,’ Clara said. ‘Do you feel that?’

‘It’s magic,’ Samuel explained. ‘It sometimes clings to the air. What you’re feeling now is what Van Bam saw from the Nightshade.’

He stared down at the floor, where a pair of feet in expensive slippers protruded from beneath the smashed wood of some racking. Holstering his revolver, Samuel moved forwards and cleared away the debris until he revealed a figure wearing a nightshirt and gown, lying flat on its back.

Samuel stared at it for a moment, and his gut tightened.

‘Well,’ he said sourly, ‘at least we can be sure Moor’s been here.’

Clara stood beside him and gulped. ‘Is that the shop owner?’

‘What’s left of him.’

In truth, it was impossible to tell if it was man or woman lying there. All flesh and bone had turned to dry and cracked grey stone. The head was bald and lumpy, and the disfigured face had no more than ragged holes for eyes, nostrils and its gaping mouth.

‘Fabian Moor did this to him?’ Clara asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Samuel nodded. ‘It’s the end result of a virus he spreads when he feeds.’

‘Feeds?’ Clara’s tone had risen in pitch.

‘Fabian Moor did terrible things to himself to gain access to the Labyrinth, Clara. Feeding on the blood of denizens is the only way he can sustain his life.’

Clara licked her lips nervously. ‘The old stories said that he tried to spread a plague. Is this how he did it – by drinking blood?’

Samuel shook his head. ‘The virus is only a by-product of Moor’s condition. But if allowed to take its full course, it will turn a person into stone, into a golem.’

Clara stared down at the ruins of the shop owner. ‘Last night,’ she said, ‘out in the Great Labyrinth, I think things like this were with Hemlock, dressed as priests. Carrying guns.’

‘Yes,’ Samuel said. ‘Golems are stupid but loyal to their creator. This shopkeeper must have been too weak to survive the process.’

He tapped the golem’s head with the toe of his boot. It crumbled to fine powder.

Samuel looked around the wreckage on the floor. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why would Moor come somewhere as public as a shop to feed? There are more secluded places in the Labrys Town.’

‘Hemlock said that he was looking for something,’ Clara said, and she gestured to the smashed wares around her. ‘An antique, maybe?’

Before anything further could be said, Samuel heard someone calling his name. Looking through the boutique’s open door, he saw a ghostly figure holding a cane of green glass.

‘Is … is that Van Bam?’ Clara asked in surprise.

Samuel didn’t answer and walked outside with the changeling hot on his heels.

Van Bam gave a small smile as they approached. Samuel noted that Clara seemed perturbed by the Resident’s presence, as though she wanted to reach out a hand to touch him, to see if he was real. Again, her naivety irritated him. Surely, after all she had witnessed already, Clara could fathom that this was nothing but an image projected from the Nightshade through the eyes in the plaza.

Van Bam turned his metal eyes to Samuel. ‘What have you found?’ he asked, his voice crackling slightly.

‘Moor’s definitely been here,’ Samuel replied. ‘One of his golems is inside. It’s dead.’

‘Any indication of why he came to this boutique?’

Samuel shook his head. ‘He might’ve been looking for a relic, but even if so, there’s no way of telling if he found it, or where he went to next.’

‘Ah, but there is, Samuel,’ said Van Bam. ‘Captain Jeter has contacted the Nightshade. He reports another disturbance, at the asylum in the eastern district.’

‘I know East Side Asylum,’ Clara said. ‘It’s a grim place.’

‘Reports so far have been vague,’ Van Bam’s image continued. ‘Something has disrupted the asylum’s eye devices and I cannot see inside it, but what I have managed to learn sounds suspiciously like the symptoms of Moor’s virus. And the disturbance is continuing even as we speak.’

‘We’re on our way,’ Samuel said.

‘A word of caution, Samuel. The police have been advised that the Relic Guild is active once again, and will be present at the asylum. As far as they are concerned, we are tracking a wild demon.’

Samuel snorted. ‘That sounds familiar.’

‘Be mindful around them, Samuel.’

He sighed. ‘Understood.’

‘Good. There is a police tram outside the Nightshade. I will ride it to the asylum and meet you there.’

As Van Bam’s image disappeared, Clara said, ‘What did that mean? Be mindful of what?’

But Samuel was already heading for the Resident’s black tram, which waited outside the plaza. ‘It means you keep your face hidden and your mouth shut,’ he called back. ‘Now, come on!’

The old bounty hunter was his usual reticent self as the tram headed into the eastern district. Clara was glad of his silence now. She didn’t want to hear any more answers to her questions. Samuel had pulled none of his punches when explaining exactly what they might be facing when they reached East Side Asylum. Clara fidgeted in her seat, wringing her hands as she tried not to think about it.

Animals, Samuel had called the victims of Fabian Moor’s virus. The Genii’s bite caused madness and a violent thirst for blood that rivalled that of the wild demons of the Retrospective. The infected lost all sense of reason, gave no regard to personal safety. There was no cure for their condition. Only a bullet to the head could end their insane lusts, unless the virus ran its full course and turned flesh and blood into the stone of a golem. But while Fabian Moor’s victims remained bestial, they too could spread the virus with a single bite.

Clara watched the buildings of the eastern district passing the tram’s windows. She recognised the area. East Side Asylum wasn’t very far away.

Clara’s skin itched. Finally she looked across the carriage into Samuel’s pale blue eyes. ‘I want a gun,’ she said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘I won’t get bitten, Samuel. I want something to protect myself with.’

‘Clara, have you even held a gun before?’

‘Well, no, but—’

‘Then you have your answer.’ Samuel stopped her before she could argue further. ‘You don’t need a gun while I’m with you. Put it from your mind.’

His arrogance needled her. ‘Easy for you to say,’ she grumbled, ‘you’ve got two already,’ and she turned back to the window.

Golems
. In part, Clara could understand what it felt like to lose yourself, to forget who you were and everything you had done – she had experienced it herself, briefly, during her childhood, on those rare occasions when she had been unable to hold back the metamorphosis into the wolf – but to lose yourself forever? To become a mindless servant, unable to make even the simplest decisions, to be stripped of all conscience? Becoming a golem didn’t bear thinking about.

‘Now listen to me, Clara,’ Samuel said as they neared the asylum. ‘The police believe the Relic Guild is hunting down a wild demon. It’s the same cover story we used the last time Fabian Moor was around. He and the Genii must not be mentioned to anyone, understand?’

Turning from the window, Clara gave him a miserable glare. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

‘All the same,’ Samuel said in a slow, deliberate tone, ‘it’s best if you let me do the talking until Van Bam arrives. Agreed?’

Clara shrugged.

Samuel opened his coat and pulled from an inside pocket what Clara at first mistook for a roll of dark grey material. But when Samuel shook it out, it proved to be a rumpled, wide-brimmed hat.

‘It’s been forty years since the Relic Guild was last active,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a lot of curious people at the asylum, but we always keep our true identities secret.’

Samuel put the hat on. The wide brim cast a shadow so dense it was as if his face had been shrouded in a thick, black cloth. No matter how Clara adjusted her position, or how close she peered, not one of his features was discernible.

‘This hat’s made from an Aelfirian material,’ Samuel explained. ‘It’s charmed. Even Van Bam can’t see through the effect. The hood of your jumper is made from the same stuff.’

‘Really?’ Clara pulled the hood over her head, but didn’t feel any different beneath the charmed material. However, when she looked at Samuel he confirmed with a nod that the predicted effect had taken place.

Samuel looked out the window. ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Remember – let me do the talking.’

Outside, the wall surrounding East Side Asylum loomed broad and solid. The tram stopped, waiting as two street patrolmen opened a set of tall, black iron gates, and then it trundled forwards slowly along the tracks into the asylum’s forecourt. A cluster of police officers parted as it went through. Clara could see many of them trying to peer through the tinted windows, undoubtedly hoping to catch a glimpse of the passengers inside, the agents of a guild only known from old stories.