The Secrets of Life and Death (33 page)

‘Except that it was really a diary, by Kelley. He was much more willing to share the darker aspects of sorcery than Dee.’

‘Sorcery.’ She looked at her hands, sadness settling on her like dust. ‘Something murky and unnatural.’
My whole existence.
‘What did McNamara called it?’ She glanced over at the inquisitor and dropped her voice. ‘An abomination.’

Felix put his hand over hers, warmed her fingers. ‘I’m not religious, Jack. But I believe there’s something out there. Maybe God is the totality of all human belief. And I’m sure borrowed timers’ souls are as valid as anyone else’s.’

‘And you’re going along with his belief that this is Elizabeth Báthory – the actual four-hundred-year-old serial killer?’

‘He’s told me things about these people, plural, Jack. Women who drink the blood of dozens, maybe hundreds, of young girls to stay healthy, and every few years create a borrowed timer so they can exsanguinate them.’

‘So, how come we haven’t heard of them before?’

Felix rubbed her hand between his. ‘You’re still cold.’

Her eyes warned him that McNamara was in earshot. ‘How many of these things are there?’

The inquisitor answered from behind her. ‘We know of sixteen. Most are less than a hundred years old, but several are much older.’

‘Name one,’ Jack scoffed.

‘Catalina de los Rios y Lisperguer.’ McNamara drew a line in his notes. ‘Born at the beginning of the seventeenth century. She was turned into a revenant as a child. She was last heard of running a children’s orphanage in Romania in 1989. She got away, that time, but we have a team tracking her.’

‘What?’ Jack looked at Felix. ‘Really?’

Felix smiled sadly. ‘Mac showed me some of the files, some of the photographs. They called her La Quintrala; she murdered her tenants, as much from her sadistic sexual needs as the blood.’

McNamara spoke in his quiet voice. ‘There was also de Borgomanero, back in the thirteen hundreds, in Italy. She was finally killed by the leader of my order, Father Konrad von Schönborn, two hundred years later. There was a Russian who tortured young servant girls, like Báthory. They called her Saltychikha. Another, a male, was created during the Second World War in Algeria—’

‘OK, I get it.’ She turned to Felix. ‘And you believe all this, just because he told you? He’s the enemy, the fucking Inquisition!’

McNamara coughed to get their attention and Felix dropped her hand.

‘I’ve found two churches that stand out,’ the inquisitor said. ‘One is being restored and is vacant at weekends. The other is part of an old mental hospital called St Francis’s, which is being converted into flats. It, too, will be vacant today. I think it is the more likely of the two.’

Jack turned, trying not to stagger, her whole body heavy with cold. ‘Let’s go, then.’

McNamara also stood, and stepped close enough for her to have to tilt her head back to look up at him. ‘You should stay here. You will slow us down.’ He turned to Felix. ‘Your knowledge of Dee may be helpful. But the fiend is powerful and deadly, we cannot be distracted.’

Jack looked at Felix, seeing uncertainty there.

‘You
are
tired,’ he said. ‘You could leave us to check them out. She may not be at either location.’ Then he half smiled, as if he knew what she was going to say.

She took a deep breath. ‘You need me because I know more about borrowed time than either of you. I may not be a witch, but I’m your secret weapon.’

‘Being sound of body and mind, I bequeath all my English goods to my sister-in-law for the sustenance of her sons, my nephews. I leave my best doublet to her eldest son, Rychard Kelley, and the French boots in my luggage to her son Robert Kelley. Any monies and belongings I hold in foreign lands, I leave to my wife Jane Kelley, that she might educate and care for her children, Eliza and John. My personal jewellery I leave to Mistress Jane Dee in brotherly love, and if he should survive, my books and journals to Doctor John Dee, my friend and master. If he does not, I pray that his end, as mine, is swift and that God smiles upon us with forgiveness.’

The will of Edward Kelley
Dated 16 or 17 December 1585
Csejte Castle, Transylvania

We waited until the count had left the dungeon, before Konrad spoke.

‘Tell me you have not done it,’ he asked urgently. ‘The sorcery.’

‘We have not, yet.’ I answered. ‘But we have little choice but to help the countess, unless we seek our own deaths.’

‘You condemn her soul, and yours, to endless damnation if you help her.’

Dee looked at me, speaking fast before anyone came within earshot. ‘We believe that we have been brought here to save the countess, for some reason we cannot divine but believe to be innocent. We have been visited by angels, indeed, they brought us here.’

Konrad turned to me. ‘I beg you, Master Kelley, as one I know in his heart to be a good Catholic. Stop your master being persuaded by these delusions. This is the work of demons.’

I stared at him. He had the authority of a prince, as well as a papal emissary. ‘My lord, I am sure we are guided by creatures of God.’ Even as I said the word, my doubts must have shaped my brow.

‘Angels?’ He did not mock, nor scoff, but a look of grief came over his features. ‘I should have told you before, I know …’ He paused, as if gathering his authority around himself, and beckoned us closer.

Dee leaned in, and dropped his voice. ‘We are gravely afflicted by doubts and concerns, my lord. If you can advise us, without prejudice nor agenda …’

‘Have you ever heard of the Contessa de Borgomanero?’ He hunched his shoulders against the cold and looked at the guards, who were straining to listen.

We looked at each other, as he spoke again. ‘She, Lady Adeliza, was born sickly, but she was her mother’s only child, and they coddled her. They tried every remedy they knew to strengthen her.’

Konrad stared into my eyes, his own almost black in the low light, as if trying to divine my response. ‘What did they do, Father?’ I whispered.

‘They owned a villa in Velletri, near Rome, where an old stone tablet was carved over the entrance to the atrium. This described a ritual, which was used to save a dying landowner who was struck by falling masonry during an earthquake.’ He looked at the guards, who were muttering to each other. ‘The ritual included symbols, and these were inscribed within each room. They realised the child prospered within these chambers, but sickened when she left them. They had jewellery made that covered the child in the sigils, and she began to thrive and grow.’

‘Do we have any record of these shapes?’ I said.

‘We do not, as the villa was destroyed by the local people. The plaques were crushed to rubble, and thrown in the river.’

‘Why?’ I noticed the guards’ arguments growing stronger, and saw hands caressing sword hilts.

‘When she grew to womanhood, she inherited her parents’ lands, and young men went to court her. She welcomed in the youngest lovers, took them to her bed, and they were never seen again.’

We looked at each other. ‘What happened to them?’ Dee asked.

‘For years, no one knew. When dozens of young men had disappeared, the body of a youth washed up on the shore of the lake. His body was completely white, drained of blood, and his arms and neck were cut, as if he’d been bled by a butcher. That is when the locals raised a force against the
strega
, the witch, as they called her. They stormed her lakeside retreat, but she was already gone.’

‘How is this relevant to us?’ asked Dee, his mouth tight with impatience.

‘I have seen her.’ Konrad sighed, his hands resting on the bars. ‘I was a young man, travelling with my father and elder brother to Venice, when we stopped at an inn for wine, and to shelter from the heat of the afternoon. My companions stopped to talk to other travellers, but I was curious about the sound of singing from the back of the inn. A beautiful woman was resting in a courtyard with a young minstrel. The woman spoke to me, and plied me with wine. After a while, I realised we were no longer attended by her servants, and after that, we were in her room, although I had no memory of how we came there. We passed the afternoon in the tryst, and I found myself growing languid and weak after my labours. When she caressed me with a dagger, I found I could not resist, nor stop her cutting into my arm and lapping at the blood like a cat. Indeed,’ he said, looking away for a moment, ‘never have I felt such erotic pleasure.’ He shook himself, as if throwing off the spell his words were weaving. ‘My father and brother beat down the door, and found me dazed and bleeding. They staunched my wound.’ He pulled up his wide, velvet sleeve, to show a linen bandage around his forearm, the marks of old blood brown upon it. ‘It has never healed.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘We questioned the innkeeper, and he knew her only as Lady Adeliza who visited the place once or twice a year on her way from Venice. He said servants, who were at the inn before he was, recall her visiting for many years, as long as they could remember, although she remained youthful-looking.’ He pulled his sleeve down, wincing a little. ‘The wound festers. It has been touched by death.’

Dee nudged me, and I looked to see Lord Miklós stepping off the lowest stair and barking an order that rang through the dungeon.

‘It is time,’ he snapped at us.

Dee turned to Konrad, his voice urgent. ‘My lord, what was the nature of this fiend, this witch?’

‘The sorcery had turned her into a
morturi masticantes
. She is no longer subject to mortal death through age, but sustains her life with the blood of others.’ He grasped Dee’s coat through the iron bars that confined him. ‘Master Dee, you must not perform this sorcery. You do not know what you will create, a monster that cannot die but will prey upon children. Her dying body will be animated by a demonic being.’

A guard pulled me away, and I staggered. Konrad called after us, as we were manhandled onto the stairs. ‘You will create a creature without a soul, without remorse. I have hunted the contessa all my adult life, and still she lives.’

Dee called back to Konrad, even as he was bundled up the stairs. ‘No one is immortal.’

Only I caught Konrad’s shouted response. ‘When I met her, Adeliza de Borgomanero was more than two hundred years old.’

Sadie woke feeling cold and weak, cramped into a huddle on the floor. The chapel was now lit by candles, the windows black. The woman looked younger.

‘Can I have some more of that water?’ Sadie’s voice was croaky.

The woman lifted her head from the trance she was in, and carried a bottle over. Sadie took it in her good hand, cradling the purpled bite against her. It took some fumbling to get the top off, but a long drink refreshed her a little.

‘Who are you?’ She looked at the woman, now walking between the various circles.

‘I am a countess. In this century there is no respect for that. But once I had a name of great honour and antiquity.’

‘Why did you bring me here?’ She tried to keep her voice level.

‘You are here to rejuvenate me. And you are here to be released.’

Sadie stood, dizziness making her sway. She inched to the edge of the circle, but even half a foot over the edge started the retching. She spat a mouthful of watery bile onto the floor.

‘People will come and stop you,’ she managed to say, choking. ‘Jack will come for me.’

‘The witch?’ The countess laughed, her voice warmer than it had been. ‘Zsuzsanna, Zsófia, all that tribe can do is serve us, they cannot destroy us.’

‘And the Inquisition? Can’t they kill you?’ Sadie perched on the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

‘They are just human, weak.’ She turned to Sadie. ‘It is time. We must begin the ritual.’

She reached into her bag, unzipped a pocket, and brought out a long shape wrapped in what looked like a silk scarf. Unrolling it reverently, she placed it on a folding table she had set up. When she moved aside, Sadie could see the outline of a handle, maybe the length of her palm, and what looked like a shiny blade twice as long. The countess brought out a gleaming gold cup, and set it down with a clink. She lifted the dagger from the scarf and kissed the blade, for a moment lost in her thoughts, then turned to Sadie with a smile. The upward twitch of her lips wasn’t reassuring, and as she advanced towards Sadie she held out her other hand.

‘This will be painful. But it will all be over in an hour or two.’

She stepped close enough to reach the girl, who lurched to her feet and clutched the chair for protection.

The woman’s smile stretched her cheeks with amusement. ‘I can taste your energy from here. Your death is recent, the magic strong.’

‘I’m warning you.’ Sadie swung the chair in the direction of the woman, pain stabbing through the bite on her hand. She caught her breath with the effort, already too close to the edge of the circle to do more than flap weakly in the countess’s direction.

‘Does the mouse threaten the cat?’ The countess waved the knife, and to Sadie’s horror, her own fingers unclenched and the metal chair clattered to the floor. ‘Come and be eaten, little mouse. It is over. You are alone.’

Sadie’s resistance evaporated, even as her mind raged, her mouth slackened, wordless. She sagged as the woman approached, lifted Sadie’s limp arm and reached down with the silver blade. ‘You can’t fight me. You don’t even want to fight me.’

Jack’s voice sounded like a bell around the echoing church.

‘Then
I
will fight you.’

‘And I pray: For this cause, take ye the armoure of God, that ye maye be able to resiste in the evil day, and stande perfecte in all thinges. Stande firm therfore, and gyrde yr loines aboute with the trueth, havinge on the breast plate of righteousnes, and shod yor feet with the gospell of peace, that ye maye be prepared: Above all thinges take holde of the shielde of faith, wherewith ye maye quenche all the fierye darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, & the sworde of the spirite, which is the worde of God.’

Edward Kelley
Quoting Epistle to the Ephesians 6:13-17
Myles Coverdale Bible (1535)