The Iscariot Sanction (36 page)

Feed.

She shrank away from the body, scrabbling backwards on her hands and knees, eyes wide, her entire body shaking. When the convulsions came, they were violent and painful. She was thrown to the ground as if by unseen hands; she thrashed about, slamming her knuckles into the barn wall so hard that wood splintered, her head cracking upon the floor. Her vision swam, and became a vista of liquid purple flame, blocking out reality. Gibbering Riftborn and phantoms plagued her; spirits of the long-dead spoke to her in voices cold and measureless; every surface writhed and moved, the life of mould and woodworm and hitherto invisible creatures now revealed to her, as though everything upon which she gazed was through a magnifier of unprecedented power and clarity. She could smell hay rotting in the loft overhead, the damp grass from outside, the bovine stench of nearby farm-sheds. She smelled most of all the rot of Arthur’s body, and with it came the hunger again, the insatiable desire to claw at him, to gnaw upon his bones. Had de Montfort not warned her of the ‘ghouls’? The eaters of the dead? Had his experiment, this ‘Iscariot Sanction’, gone horribly wrong, and she had become such a creature? She saw a vision of herself, staggering through a mausoleum, heaving stone slabs from sarcophagi as she went, tearing parchment-dry flesh from skeletal remains, cramming it hungrily into her mouth.

She was going mad.

When the hunger returned, she bent double and vomited, before staggering away out of the barn, head spinning in delirium. She fell, and was immersed in freezing water that brought her to her senses so quickly she felt her brain jolt in her skull. She dragged herself from an algae-ridden pond, fingers clawing at sodden earth as she heaved herself onto a mossy bank, and closed her eyes until the visions and voices subsided. When next she dared open them, the barn in which she had been held was a black shape upon a hill some five hundred yards away. Behind her was a dark copse of skeletal trees, and the vista in between was of rolling fields in mist, dotted with livestock, and of the endless moors that stretched beyond the fields up to the swirling rose-blushed horizon.

She saw farmhouses in the far distance with a clarity that seemed impossible. But those havens were too far away; Lillian’s need was too immediate, overwhelming. She did not think, only acted. She fixed her huntress eyes upon the indistinct shapes of a small herd of cattle nearby. As she moved towards it, staggering at first, her weaving path became straighter, her poise more confident; her bare, wind-chapped legs at last felt strong as iron, carrying her towards the only thing in the world that mattered.

Blood.

Finding Top Farm had not been easy. Several hours spent riding the lanes on an unsaddled horse, hiding from other travellers, had proven laborious. Logic dictated that the name was a colloquial one, and probably referred to the farm’s physical position, and so John and Smythe had wended their way along the high lanes, looking for hillside farms bordering the moorland around Commondale. The first farm they had tried as a likely candidate had proven deserted, save for two vicious dogs shut up inside that threw themselves at the doors and windows ferociously. The occupants of the house had been dead for some time, their bodies drained of blood and left to rot on the kitchen floor, where the dogs had gnawed at their bones. One of the dogs was so sick that John killed it as a kindness. The other, he set free—better it take its chances on the moors.

As sunset approached and the two agents were succumbing to tiredness and hunger, Smythe’s keen eyes had spotted a small wooden sign in a hedgerow, pointing up a tree-covered bank.

H
ILLTOP
F
ARM
.

They had not been far from the village—their path had been a winding one, taking them to the limits of the district and then back, dangerously close to Commondale. They had decided that, even if Hilltop Farm was not the one they sought, they would have little choice but to rest there for the night. When the door was answered—somewhat cautiously—by an old woman named Cattermole, John almost laughed giddily out of sheer relief.

* * *

‘Might as well ’ave some stew as you’re ’ere,’ the Widow Cattermole said, shuffling into her spacious kitchen and pointing at a large pot over the fire. John and Smythe needed no second invitation and were soon seated by the fire, stuffing broth-soaked bread into their mouths hungrily.

‘Your hospitality is appreciated,’ John said, half his stew already devoured. ‘We have had a trying day.’

‘I’m sure,’ said the old woman.

‘We were told that you may have had… a disturbance here last night. We came to investigate.’

‘Investigate, eh?’ the old woman chuckled. ‘And did they send you? I’ve told them ’undred times, there’s nowt they can do to me. I’m an old woman, and I’ve got nowt left to give, and none left to give it to. I keep meself to meself, and if that i’n’t enough for ’em, they know what they can do.’

She folded her arms and nodded to signify her final word had been said.

John and Smythe exchanged looks. John cleared his throat. ‘Actually, Mrs. Cattermole, we have come from London. We are here to find out what’s been happening in the north… we are here to help.’ Trusting the woman was a risk, but John reasoned that she did not seem best disposed towards the Knights Iscariot, and she was but an old woman, living alone on an isolated farm. Even if she wished to give them away, it would take an hour or more for her to reach help, and she posed no threat to them alone.

‘London, eh?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Took your time.’

‘Yes, we’ve rather heard that once or twice already,’ Smythe intervened.

‘Well, you’re ’ere now, I s’pose,’ she said. ‘I ’spect you’ve seen the goings-on in t’ village?’

‘We have,’ John said. ‘It concerns us greatly.’

‘Right it should! Used to be nowt but good folk round ’ere, or so you’d think. But they changed soon enough when their own necks were on the block. Oh aye, Commondale is a village o’ traitors, and it’s not the only one. Bloody disgrace!’

‘Mrs. Cattermole, we do not wish to drag you into these affairs and endanger you unnecessarily. We have reason to believe that you have information vital to our investigation.’

‘Oh?’ The old woman looked suspicious.

‘We spoke with one Mrs. Galtress, at the post office,’ John said.

‘Agnes? She were in a bad way when last we spoke. How is she?’

‘Faring little better, I’m afraid. She was… not entirely the full shilling.’

‘No, she wouldn’t be. Them bloody “knights” took both her bairns when it all started, before it calmed down and they took over the running o’ the place, an’ she never got over that. How could she? Her ’usband is a sly one—bloody coward n’all. As good as turned over his own daughter to them monsters; barely fifteen she were.’

‘You said “before it calmed down”?’ John asked.

‘Oh aye. Heard tell of elections and fancy talk elsewhere, but not ’ere. They come in from the moors one day, monsters, killin’ anyone who stood up—my old man amongst them—and taking the wee ones away to who-knows-where. We’ve seen bad times ’ere, Mr. Hardwick—we’ve all lost someone—which is why it beggars belief that them villagers turn on their own kind to save their own skins. Makes me sick. Only mercy is that I’ll be dead soon, so I won’t have to suffer their cowardice much longer.’

‘It is just such traitorous behaviour that has brought us to you, Mrs. Cattermole. Two of our people went missing last night, and we believe that Mr. Galtress was involved in their abduction. He was… unavailable, and so we spoke with his wife. She pointed us to you.’

‘Aye, sounds well. Explains a few things an’ all.’

‘Such as?’ John asked, eager to get to the point.

‘Summat set the dog off last night. ’Ee’s an old sod, so it takes a lot t’ get ’im riled. Saw some lanterns over yon, by the barn. Too far for me t’ walk nowadays, and I learned long ago t’ keep me nose out when queer folk is abroad. Like I said, I keep meself to meself. That’s why I’m still ’ere.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Can’t rightly be sure. Well past midnight in any case. I bolted me door and went back abed. No point worrying about the likes o’ them. If they come, they come. If they leave me be, I’ll see out another day. Makes no mind to me in any case.’

‘We would very much like to inspect the barn tonight.’

‘Be my guest. You’ll forgive me if I don’t come along. Me legs aren’t what they used t’ be.’

‘Of course. Mrs. Cattermole, do you have horses?’

‘No, not no more. But I got a saddle you can borrow. Saw you riding bareback like a gypsy. Thought to meself you might have got into a spot o’ bother, had to make off quick, like.’

‘Very astute,’ quipped Smythe. ‘Perhaps you missed your vocation, madam.’

‘There’s two types o’ people in the north these days, Mr. Smythe—them’s pays attention, an’ them who’s dead.’

Smythe slurped the last of his broth, and rolled his eyes surreptitiously at John.

‘Well, Mrs. Cattermole,’ John said, ‘we will take up no more of your time. If we may take a saddle, we would be for ever grateful. Is there anything else you can think of that might help us in our search?’

The woman thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Ar. Don’t expect t’see your friends in one piece. If the knights caught ’em, they’d have been dead by dawn.’

* * *

John stood outside the barn, struggling to light a cigarette with trembling hands.

‘Sir Arthur Furnival was the best Majestic I’ve ever met,’ John said, taking a long draw on his cigarette but feeling no comfort from it. ‘They… bled him dry.’

‘Perhaps…’ Smythe’s voice cracked; he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t the knights. Perhaps the Riftborn finally caught up with him. You know what Cherleten always says about the Nightwatch? About how they have one foot in the afterlife, always waiting for their ghosts to catch up with them?’

‘It was no ghost who did that,’ John said. ‘And where is Lillian?’

Smythe had no answer. John could only think of Mrs. Cattermole’s harsh words.
Don’t expect t’see your friends in one piece.

John looked across the dark fields, stained bruise-purple by the faint glimmer of liquid fire in the night sky. Shadows moved in swirling patterns across moors and fields; and then John realised that something really was moving, further down the hill. Tiny points of light danced about, appearing to flicker as they passed between ink-black trees. Perhaps a dozen lights, less than a mile away—men, carrying lanterns and torches. Were they searching for him and Smythe? Or for something else?

John felt his nerves settle immediately. His face grew hot as anger took hold of him.

‘There,’ he said to Smythe, pointing down the hill and across the field.

‘The mob?’ Smythe asked.

‘Come on. We have some unfinished business with the men of Commondale.’

‘John, I…’

‘We still hang traitors, don’t we?’

With that, John started down the hill with nothing more in his mind than violent revenge.

* * *

The sight of the first slaughtered cow had barely thrown John off his stride; he was numb to the activities of the Knights Iscariot now, and full of rage. The second, however, gave him pause. Its throat had been torn out as if by a wild animal, and its blood had turned the rough grass thereabout into foul-smelling sludge. The third made him stop, as did the alarmed shouts that carried towards the two agents upon the freezing wind.

Ahead, through a cluster of bushes and brambles, where lanterns and torches swayed, men cried out. Some jeered, others sounded alarmed. John crept forwards, Smythe by his side, and soon it became apparent that a dozen or so men had formed a loose circle, and were in turn dashing back and forth into its centre, as if they had trapped some wild beast. Their shouts were garbled, hurried, indistinct.

‘Get in there, lad…’

‘No, no, not to me, bloody ’ell!’

‘Bring the rope. Now—now, you fool!’

Something moved in the circle of firelight—darting and stooped, lithe and bestial. John would have believed, after the briefest glimpse of the thing in shadow, that it was a wolf, cornered and snarling. And then he heard the creature cry out.

A snarl became a high wail, which in turn became a scream of fury and hate and frustration. It was barely human, and yet all too human, all too familiar.

Lillian.

John felt Smythe snatch at his arm to restrain him, but he shrugged his partner away and raced forward, leaping over an irrigation ditch, through a hedgerow that snagged at his clothes, and into the midst of the Commondale mob.

He saw the men’s leering faces, some angry, some hateful, others fearful, more than one lascivious. Galtress, tall and spindly, barked instructions while hopping about on his good leg. They circled a dead horse, its innards spilled out onto the scrub, its neck opened much like the cows’. Beside the horse was Lillian, half naked and caked in gore, fingers curved like talons, legs bent, carrying her body low to the ground, ready to strike; her face was turned upwards to the bobbing lights carried by the men, making her eyes shine bright. Violet eyes, sparkling like diamonds, and filled with hate. Her lips were turned back, revealing bloodstained teeth in a bestial snarl.