Midnight's Angels - 03 (9 page)

Amelia Hobart peered at the doctor who was standing in front of her, unable to decipher the patterns that his moving lips were making. Or perhaps -- it occurred to her -- she didn’t
want
to make sense of what the man was telling her. It had been two whole months of anguished waiting. Now, she had her husband back. But not all of him, apparently.

The doctor’s words started to even out into comprehensible sentences at last. But it was still painful to hear them.

“Memory loss at this stage,” the man was saying, “would appear to be almost total. He has enough left to function. But as to what his job is, who his friends and acquaintances are, even his family …”

He faltered. They were standing in the corridor outside Saul’s room, a harsh fluorescent strip fizzing above them. Amelia felt herself beginning to grow faint.

“He doesn’t know who I am?”

The doctor adjusted a pen in the top pocket of his coat. “I’m afraid not.”

“The children?”

He dropped his gaze a little. “The same. As of right now, Saul doesn’t even know which town he’s living in, much less recall its history.”

He didn’t know about the witchcraft or the dangerous things that came here, then. And that had to put him in a lot of danger.

There seemed to be a hard obstruction in her throat. Amelia had to swallow before she could get her next words out.

“How long before it starts to come back?”

The doctor, who’d been honest and straightforward up until this point, was finding it increasingly difficult to look at her.

“There’s no way of predicting. It’s different in every case.”

“But sooner or later?” she insisted. “He
will
get his memory back, won’t he?”

“The human brain’s a complex thing. Saul might make a full recovery in the next couple of days. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst …?”

And the way he left that hanging raised Amelia’s deepest fears. That Saul might be this way permanently. Unable to recall that he was a police lieutenant.  A foreigner to the experiences that had brought him to that place. Mystified as to the names, the births, or even the existence of his own three daughters. As to their relationship, their years together and their wedding day …?

He might not even remember why he’d come to love her. And how would their lives unfold from this point, if that was the case?

No, she was being selfish, and Amelia saw that quickly. Saul was the real injured party here, not her. He was the one who’d almost died. It had to be frightening for him, waking up into a world he didn’t know. So what she had to do was very clear indeed. She had to do her best for him. Always had, and always would. He was the kindest, noblest man she’d ever come across, and he deserved it.

She returned to the door and pushed it open a crack. Enough that she could see her husband but he did not notice her. Saul had been such a massive presence in her life. But now, he looked slightly shrunken.

A bunch of pillows was stacked up behind him. He was half-sitting, half-lying, and was watching the small television that was fastened to the wall. It had been tuned to RLKB, to the local news, in an attempt to revive his recollection of the place.

But it didn’t seem to be working. His face was utterly blank. His eyes were darkly mystified. It was all a puzzle to him. As she watched, his lips began to move a little.

It took her a few seconds to understand what he was doing. He was silently repeating place names and the names of local people. Union Square. Sycamore Hill. Richard Vallencourt. Mayor Edgar Aldernay. But he was doing it without the slightest sign of comprehension. Simply echoing the words.

Amelia felt despair wash through her. Saul was normally so capable. Always on the ball, on top of things. It felt like he’d been lost to her, the real Saul spirited away and replaced by this vacant-minded changeling.

She looked at the doctor again, her mouth coming open. But he’d already anticipated her next question.

“He needs as much human contact as possible, with you and the children especially. Show him old photos, videos you’ve made, your wedding album. He’s got commendations from the department? Show him those as well. I want him discharged as soon as he’s ready. Saul is better off at home, amongst familiar surroundings. Like I said, each case is unique. Which means that there’s no telling what might trigger off a recollection.”

He was going to add something more, but a low moan from inside the room suddenly cut across him. It started gently, but then gathered in strength, in sheer painful intensity.

And turned into an anguished bellow.

Amelia went rushing through the door, the doctor hard on her heels. A terrifying sight swelled up in front of them.

Saul -- in his pale blue hospital robe -- was sitting up on his bed, with the sheets pushed back. But he was also doubled forward, both huge palms pressed to his head. His eyes were squeezed shut and his teeth were gritted. And his big oval face with its prominently jutting jaw was mangled up with pain.

The doctor pushed past and started trying to examine him. Amelia froze, her pulse thumping through her entire body. Saul had been shot in the chest. That was what had put him here. So why was he clutching his head?

The doctor tried to move Saul’s hands away and examine his eyes. But Saul shoved the man off, gripped his temples harder and let out another bellow.

Then a word came out between his clenched teeth. And he repeated it, several times.

Amelia thought at first that it might be a person’s name. And then she figured out the truth. He was repeating the place-name of the strangest neighborhood in the whole of Raine’s Landing.

“Tyburn,” he kept on grunting. “Tyburn.”

* * *

As the night grew thicker, the creature that had once been Pastor Alan Clary came scuttling out from the front doorway of St. Edmund’s, going hands-first down the short flight of stone steps. A flickering white glow emerged behind it. The third angel slid into view, its face contorted horribly, its eyes like blank holes in a twisted Halloween mask.

When they started toward Greenwood Terrace, it was almost as if they were teamed, the floating creature hovering idly above the thing it had created. A few people in the surrounding houses noticed the glow coming from it. Drapes were yanked aside, faces appearing at windows. But the people who got a look at the thing seemed to guess straight away how dangerous it was. Most went to their telephones, to call the authorities. But no one ventured out. It headed on, completely unimpeded.

Greenwood Terrace was a different story. It was one of the largest, busiest thoroughfares in town, running in a straight line from the west edge to the east. And there was still plenty of traffic on it, people headed out for the evening or else coming back home late from work. A constant thrum of vehicles. A steady stream of headlamps in one direction, taillights in the other.

Faced with this obstruction, both of the creatures came to a halt. Passing drivers started noticing them, their cars wobbling but not stopping. Lanes were abandoned. A few vehicles lost strips of paintwork down their sides, but thankfully there was no worse damage. Horns blasted out.

The thing that had been Alan Clary squatted a little lower. Its lightless eyes followed the passing movement. It let out a hiss. And then seemed to come to a decision. Got up on all fours again, and started moving quickly forward. And the angel followed it at the same steady rate.

They both began to cross the pavement. The cars approaching them swerved and braked, their tires screeching. There were several crunches. People yelled.

One station wagon came within a yard of hitting the hunched moving figure, but avoided it in time.

A driver got out from his SUV, took in properly what he was looking at and decided to turn and run. Most of the others merely gawped out through their windshields.

And, within a few more seconds, the strange figures had disappeared from view.

Last seen, they were going south, into the dark heart of the neighborhood called Tyburn.

“Hecate, blessed Goddess of the moon, answer our prayers. Grant power to those gathered here, your children, your True Believers. Grant us dominion over the laws of science and the laws of nature. This we beseech you!”

A pure white cockerel was held up by its feet, which had been bound. Its throat was briskly slit. Hot blood spattered down across a black marble altar before being directed into a pair of silver goblets, one of them studded with jet and one with opal. The light of the rising moon caught the edges of the cups, making them wink like lightning bugs.

Emaline Pendramere, a High Witch from one of Tyburn’s oldest clans, dropped the limp corpse to one side, then turned to face her congregation.

There were perhaps six hundred people gathered, many of them dressed in robes of midnight black. They ranged from pensioners in their eighties to a few tiny babes in arms. And they were uniformly pale of skin. The inhabitants of this district did not spend much time in the sun if they could help it.

They were gathered in a small park -- surrounded by houses, so it really was a garden square -- deep in the heart of the neighborhood. Rows of tall trees ran along its outer edges, making this a private place. They had not been pollarded in decades, and grew wildly. And the grass underfoot had not been mown all year. Weeds and wild flowers were growing everywhere. Elsewhere in the Landing, this would not have been allowed. But the people who lived here did not let such mundane things as tidiness bother them too much.

Evidence of that could be found in the narrow streets which threaded out from here like the strands of a cobweb. The tall, narrow houses -- brick-built -- were densely clad with climbing plants and ivy. There’d been few attempts to cut it back. Most of the yards were like miniature jungles, whole sections of fence-work broken and the roots of big trees bulging through the dirt. Shingles on the roofs were loose, and a few chimney pots were halfway broken.

None of which was of any concern, either, to the families present here tonight. Venture inside any of their homes and you’d find equal disarray. They saw their lives as spiritual ones, with only the thinnest bond to everyday reality. The rituals of witchcraft were the central aspect of their lives. The practice of it, and the belief in its boundless power, gave them most things that they needed.

There were no such things as adepts in Tyburn. It was a concept alien to the people of this place. An adept was a conjurer -- usually descended from the Salem refugees -- who stood head and shoulders above the rest of the population when it came to skillfulness in magic arts. Whereas, in this part of town, they were all fairly skillful. There were High Witches like Emaline, for sure. But they rose to such positions by means of charisma, their ability to lead a crowd.

It had been this way for well in excess of two hundred years. Tyburn had remained a normal part of town for the first few decades after Regan Farrow had hexed the place. But gradually, the people here had started asking,
why pretend that we are living normal lives?

The power that the Salem witches had brought to this town … why not view it as a blessing? And they’d decided to make the very most of what they had been given, shaping their existences around it.

They had broken away, embracing the magic arts completely, cutting themselves adrift from the rest of the community.

They attended ceremonies like this one on a regular, sometimes nightly, basis. The tall houses around them were practically empty. Almost every other activity had stopped.

The congregation watched as Emaline stepped forward, raising one of the goblets. Then the people swayed gently, began to chant.

“Hecate, grant us your blessing!”

Emaline dipped her forefinger into the blood and drew a symbol on her brow. She was a tall, striking woman with long curly hair the color of cornstalks and eyes of such a pale hazel that they were nearly yellow.

“Hecate, show us a sign!”

“
A sign!
” Emaline repeated, bellowing the words.

She drew herself up to her full height, spread her arms out wide. And then she turned back to the altar.

And stopped dead.

The whole crowd gasped.

* * *

Emaline’s first thought was that some small child from the congregation had given its parents the slip, snuck around, and climbed onto the big dark block of marble while her back was turned. What sacrilege! She’d have the brat’s family ostracized for several months!

Then she took in the fact that the shape in front of her was not that of a child at all. She squinted closer.

No, it was in actual fact a fully-grown man in his thirties, but hunched over so tightly that it made him look much smaller than he should have been. He was thin and prematurely bald, his face colorless and twisted in the moonlight. And, in spite of the fact that she knew everyone around these parts, she didn’t recognize him.

His knees were pressed up almost to his chin, and he was staring at her fixedly, his own gaze strangely glassy. Emaline took in the fact -- it seemed a bizarre additional detail -- that he was wearing the plain white collar of a heathen Christian priest.

What kind of intrusion was this? He was obviously from some other part of town. She took a step back involuntarily, driven by surprise and shock. But righteous outrage cancelled that out.

“What do you think you’re doing, heathen?” she yelled.

She could hear the crowd start murmuring behind her, but did not let it divert her. Opened her right hand. The goblet dropped, splashing blood. Then she flexed her fingers, getting ready to work magic.

But no. She was not inhumane. It would be better to give this disbeliever one final chance before unleashing anything on him.

“This is a holy ritual. How dare you disturb it in this way?” she demanded. “Have you come here to preach to us about the son-god on his bed of sticks?”

The hunched figure did not reply. It tipped its head a little to the side. The motion seemed more insect-like than human, and unnerved Emaline badly. What was wrong with this peculiar man … was he an escapee from some faraway madhouse?

No matter. This could be fixed in an instant. If he was not prepared to talk, then she could wrench the answers out of him.

She was about to use her powers when something new began moving through the dimness of the park in her direction. Her face swung toward it and her jaw dropped open wide.

The congregation had seen it too. The next gasp they let out was even louder, higher pitched.

This new shape … it was floating above the ground. Drifting along like a tiny white cloud, casting out a flickering pale light. And it had wings. She was amazed by it, fixated. It seemed more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen.

She tried to understand what she was looking at. Obviously some form of supernatural entity. And finally, she got it.

This was some form of messenger, sent to them this evening by the great Moon Goddess. Their prayers had at last been answered. Ordinary magic was already in their grasp. But tonight …

They would be given the ability to transcend it. They would be granted almost supreme power. Emaline felt sure of that.

There were more startled yells. She turned back to the crowd, and could see some of the congregation’s faces swiveling around blankly.

When she glanced from side to side the way that they were doing, her amazement grew. Two more of these divine creatures were moving in from either end, coming across the wrought-iron gates and through the tangled branches. They were floating too. And both had equally gorgeous countenances. She felt more certain than ever that Hecate had decided to reward her.

Except that some of her flock did not seem sure of that. Panicked cries went up, and a few parents started trying to hustle their children away. She turned to them quickly, stretching out her arms.

“My people, my lambs!” she called out. “Stay where you are, please! Do not be afraid!”

And she had always been extremely good at convincing them to follow her. Those who had been trying to retreat stopped in their tracks, although a lot of their faces were still tense with fright.

“Can’t you see what’s happening this evening?” she explained to them in a gentler tone. “We are being blessed.”

Her voice almost cracked, it was so full of joy.

“These are emissaries of the Goddess. Let them pass among you freely.”

Why?
the worried  faces asked.

“They’ll give us the higher powers that we’ve always craved! I promise you!  I promise!”

Many of the folks in front of her relaxed and even brightened.  And the few who still looked doubtful stayed put, obviously afraid of angering the rest. It was the children who appeared the most concerned. Their small gazes were wide. Hands went to mouths. But they’d soon find out that they were worrying about nothing, bless them.

The bright celestial beings reached the outer edges of the crowd. And then started tipping lengthways, ducking down, their long necks stretching and their beautiful faces pressing up close to the people. Emaline strained to see what they were doing.

They were …
kissing
all her congregation. One by one. The entire throng. Maybe they imparted power that way. Oh, how very
wonderful
!

But what of the hunched man-thing that was still behind her on the altar? Emaline turned calmly around to face it once again.

“And what of you, homunculus?” she murmured in a reverent tone. “What aspect of the Goddess do you serve?”

When it jumped down and started getting closer, the High Witch did not allow herself to flinch. Not even when its mouth started coming open.