Vanished (24 page)

Nothing happened for a while. The air around the crypt seemed a bit brighter than the air farther away, but it didn’t seem particularly energized and there was no sign of specific ghosts, only a single hot line of blue energy that struck through the crypt from the east side. Then something pale white seeped up from the dirty stones and wreathed around the three statues. The plastic sheeting billowed in opposition to the prevailing wind of passing traffic. A second flush of colored mist and spiderweb light crept up the figures and played over their faces, casting shadows that made them seem alive.

“Go away,” one of the statues moaned.

“It’s much too early to get up,” another groused. “Can’t you come back later?”

A girl giggled, a slightly cracked sound like someone on the verge of a breakdown, while the covered one muttered unintelligible word gravel.

None of them were actually moving at all, yet the voices seemed to come from them into my ears, not straight into my head the way some ghosts did. Michael was staring at them with eyes wider than the church doors. I motioned him to get back to his job. If he could make out the presence of whatever animated the caryatids, it was a safe bet others might, too, and that wouldn’t do.

“Mornin’, my dears,” Marsden said.

A muffled voice spoke from somewhere inside the crypt, rising upward, “Is that my Peter?”

“Of course it’s Peter. No one else bothers to come talk to us.”

“I can’t see him. Could you move aside, please?”

Someone scoffed, and the Grey pall over the second caryatid from the left rippled and turned pink, giving the statue a startling semblance of life. The eyes of the statue seemed to blink and the shadow of a smile played across the mouth. The caryatid next to it frowned.

“Good morning, Peter,” the pink one trilled in a voice so excessively sweet it could have given diabetes to abstemious sheep. “It’s so lovely to see you again. It’s been a very long time since you visited.”

“Gad,” the darker one in the middle muttered in a surprisingly deep voice. “I may be unwell if she keeps on.”

“Don’t be snippy,” the one on the far end chastised. “We don’t get so many visitors who actually listen anymore.”

“But do we have to put up with that for it?”

“Do they have to be so loud?” I asked, casting a glance at the pass ersby on the sidewalk.

“I ’spect it’s the iron column inside ’em,” Marsden said in a low voice. “Resonates.” He turned back to the pink caryatid. “Good morning, Hope, and you, too, Temperance, Prudence.” I guessed that was the dark, grumpy one and the pale, cautious one, in order.

The Tyvek rattled and deflated.

“What are you doing?” the statue in the middle snapped—Temperance, I thought.

“I can’t see anything—there’s a bag on my head!” a new voice whined.

“Chastity!” Prudence, the one at the open end, called. “Come over here and share with me. Leave Tempe alone. You know how she gets.”

The fourth voice muttered something that might have been “old bat,” and moved to the far end, making the shape and visage of the caryatid’s face blur and ripple.

They were like the caricatures of their names. “Don’t tell me,” I muttered. “The four on the south side are the other virtues: Faith, Justice, Fortitude, and Charity.”

“No idea. Them four don’t talk.” Marsden turned back to the masonry sisters. “I am havin’ a problem, so naturally I come to you for help.”

“Oh? What sort of problem?” Prudence asked.

“Something unsavory, I’ve no doubt,” Temperance added with a sniff.

“Do you suppose it’s very unsavory?” Chastity’s voice asked, giggling a little.

“Oh, I’m sure not!” Hope twittered. “And of course we’ll help. Of course we will!”

“Let us hear what it is he wants first, Hope,” Prudence cautioned. “Don’t be so, so . . .”

“Intemperate?” Temperance supplied.

“Well . . . yes. What is it that you want of us, Peter?”

“You see the lad there? He’s lost his brother—taken away by the vampires and their kin. This . . . young woman is lookin’ for him, but we don’t know which of the clans might have taken the fella or where.”

“It might have something to do with some amphorae—or not,” I added.

“You mean the jars . . . with the blood?” Chastity asked with a hint of avidity.

“Ewww!” Hope squealed.

Marsden turned his eyeless face toward me. I shrugged. “They keep coming up. Jakob and Purcell were connected to them and Sekhmet wasn’t happy about them. They were kept at Sotheby’s for a while, which is the last place anyone seems to have seen Will. Whoever has the amphorae knows something about all this.”

He grunted.

“They’ve been broken,” Chastity mourned.

“Good,” said Temperance. “They sound entirely unsavory.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Barnaby told me.”

I glanced at Marsden again. He hadn’t turned his face away and seemed to know I was looking at him. “Probably one of the dead in the crypt,” he said.

I turned my attention back to the caryatids. “How would Barnaby know anything about them? How do you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“How indeed!” Prudence declared, rippling a bit as if she were trying to glare at the other spirit sharing her statue.

“Barnaby Smith is a drunkard and a liar for all that he kept the church records at St. James’s,” Tempe stated. “You should consider his every word with suspicion.”

“I like him!” Chastity flared, turning the statue she shared with Prudence shocking red. “He’s not a prig like you!”

“Oh, Chassy, please!” Hope twittered.

“My dears, we’ve no time for this,” Marsden cut in. “There’s a fella gone missing and the longer he’s among their kind . . . Well, you know what might happen.”

The arguing statues fell silent.

Marsden waved at me to continue.

“Chastity, how did you know about the amphorae?” I asked.

“They passed this way in the Underground. I was just . . . I was bored. I just thought I’d take a look in the tunnel. . . . There’s so many funny little bits of tunnel and sometimes I can catch someone staring at me. It’s fun to see their faces! Oo! A haunt!” She giggled the same slightly unbalanced laugh I’d heard when we arrived. Time was not being easy on her.

“Who had them and what were they doing with them?”

“Oh. Some lot of Red Guard. But they didn’t notice me. Dull old duffers, the lot of them—no fun at all. They just wanted to carry their boxes off, never mind me. They were taking them toward Islington. I could smell that the jars had blood in them and it was so wonderfully gothic—just like a novel!—and I so wanted to know what they were going to do. Some kind of ritual or something, I thought. But no. They just carried them off and broke them, Barnaby said.” The disappointment of her ghoulish hopes was palpable as a settling green fog around the farthest caryatid.

I hid my disgust. “How did Barnaby know?” I inquired.

“Oh. I asked him and some of the others if they’d go a-haunting for me, keep an eye out and all. And Barnaby said he’d seen the jars down under the old priory and then they were all smashed up the next night. It was so disappointing.”

“Which priory was that?”

She sighed as if she thought me very stupid. “The priory of St. John, of course, in the parish of St. James Clerkenwell. Barnaby used to keep the parish records at St. James’s. And since St. James’s is near one of the Underground stops, I thought he might be able to watch for me. I asked some of the others, but they didn’t see anything.”

All roads lead to Clerkenwell, I thought. “Why didn’t you go yourself?”

“I can’t go far from the church here, can I?” she snapped. “I’m not a proper ghost at all. It’s so unfair!”

“There’s no need for that sort of histrionics, my girl,” Temperance chided. “Things could be quite a bit worse for you.”

“Worse! You haven’t got a bag over your head day and night!”

“Chastity, really. It’s just temporary,” said Prudence.

Hope chimed in. “And you’ll be the prettiest of us all when they’re done!”

Chastity made a dismissive noise. “Phooey.”

“Chastity,” I interrupted. “Could I talk to Barnaby for a few minutes?”

“No,” she replied in a petulant tone. “I would have to go fetch him and who knows what I’d miss?”

“I promise we won’t say anything while you’re gone. Would you please fetch Barnaby?”

“Don’t be contrary,” Prudence said.

“Well . . . I shall, but only if the handsome one asks me to.”

“Excuse me?”

“That lad you brought. He hasn’t even looked at me. I want him to ask me.”

“Chastity, don’t be such a goose. The lad doesn’t even know you’re here,” Prudence said.

“He is rather nice-looking, though,” Hope added.

“I shall be decidedly ill if this continues,” Temperance muttered.

Nothing like playing matchmaker to a ghost—or not-quite-ghost. I turned and tapped Michael on the shoulder.

“Hey, I need a favor.”

“What?”

“Have you been following any of this?”

“Only you and creepy-face.”

Marsden snorted.

“OK, a little, but not much,” Michael admitted. “Why?”

“This is nuts . . .” I said.

“Well, yeah. It’s all been pretty nuts for a while. What nutty thing are we doing now?”

“There’s this . . . spirit here in one of the caryatids. We need her to go get another ghost named Barnaby for us to talk to. But she says she wants you to ask her. She thinks you’re cute.”

“Me? What? She what? OK, that is absolutely the biggest chunk in the fruitcake so far. She wants me to ask her to get this Barnaby?”

“Because she thinks you’re handsome,” I added, nodding.

He raised his eyebrows and blew a silent whistle. “Well . . . all right . . .”

I pointed him toward the right statue. “Her name’s Chastity,” I whispered.

Michael turned pink and looked up at the statue. He tried to smile, but it was a nervous grimace. “Umm . . . Chastity . . . would you please—oh, man this is so freakin’ weird.” He cleared his throat and restarted. “Chastity, would you please get Barnaby for us? Umm . . . please?”

He looked at me, wrinkling his face into an unspoken question.

I put up a finger to tell him to wait while I listened for the caryatid’s response.

“He doesn’t seem very sincere,” Chastity complained.

“Give over, my girl! Surely you’re satisfied that the lad’s made the effort at all? Gad, he probably can’t even hear you! I say take what you’ve got and be happy with it, you silly little chit!”

“Tempe!” Hope gasped.

“Oh, dear . . .” sighed Prudence.

“Oh . . . all right! He is very pretty. And he did ask. Though I wish he’d cut his hair so I could see his eyes. . . .”

“What’s going on?” Michael murmured, looking uncomfortable.

“They’re arguing about how well you did. And if you should cut your hair,” I said.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Michael stared back up at the caryatids. “Please, you guys, just help us out! Harper says she needs to talk to Barnaby so we can find my brother. Please get Barnaby. Please? I just want my brother back. . . .”

Temperance sniffed, no doubt put off by Michael’s taking the Lord’s name in vain, but Prudence and Hope both glittered and smiled.

The changeable shadow of Chastity wavered. “Oh . . . all right,” she said. “I’ll fetch him.” She flickered away, drawing down into the crypt.

“None of us are thrilled, believe me.”

“We’re not. I swear there are ghosts and vampires and we are doing what we can with one to stop the other and get Will back. I know you don’t have a good reason to trust me, but try. I do care what happens to your brother and I’m not messing with you.”

His shoulders slumped. “It’s just so crazy. . . .”

“I know.” I’d have said more, but a misty figure pushed its way out of the crypt through the red doors so it stood on the grass with us.

He was a tall man who stooped horribly and had a small potbelly, so he looked like a numeral six. His hair had thinned into a monk’s tonsure and the bags under his eyes were heavier than those in an industrial laundry. Even pale in death, his nose, cheeks, and ears were reddened by the spiderweb veins of alcohol abuse. He shifted back and forth, as if constantly shuffling his feet.

He addressed himself to Marsden. “I am . . . I am Barnaby Smith. Of . . . umm . . . St. James’s in Clerkenwell. Miss Chastity said you wished to . . . talk to me?” His voice rose to a squeak at the end.

No wonder he’d been a drunk: The world scared him senseless.

Marsden pointed at me. “She’ll ask the questions.”

“Oh. I . . . well. All right. I’m at your service Miss . . . umm . . . Miss . . . ?”

“Blaine,” I said.

“Blaine? Are you by chance related to Anselm Blaine of Peartree Court?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I replied.

“Oh. Pity. I always thought him a fine fellow. I . . . you must pardon me; I find it rather hard to hear you.”

I shifted a little closer to the Grey, watching the colors of the grid and the shapes of ghostly things grow brighter and more solid. Smith looked a bit more like a person in the mist-world, but not so much that I could forget he was long dead. “Is that better?”

“Oh, yes! Quite improved. Thank you.”

This was going to take forever at this rate. I kept my impatience under control and turned my gaze full on Barnaby Smith.

“Mr. Smith, Chastity said you’d seen some Greek amphorae under St. John’s priory. Can you tell me more about them and when you saw them last?”

“Oh. Those. Umm . . . well. Nasty business. They contained blood and body parts—gruesome, to say the least. I did see them in the old catacomb. That’s under the current crypt—very old, quite probably part of the original foundations from the twelfth century. Terrible condition. Terrible.”

I gave him a stern glance.

“Oh! I am sorry. I—Oh. Ha-ha,” he laughed nervously. “Yes, not to the point. I am sorry. Umm . . . I’m not sure what they were up to, but the Red Guard who brought them left them for a . . . ah . . . a sorcerer,” he whispered. “And some of the Red Brothers—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. I don’t know who you mean. Could you fill me in?”

He blinked at me. “Oh! I just assumed. . . . You’re with . . . him. I thought you knew.”

“I don’t. I’m not from the area. I don’t know all the players.”

“ ‘ Players.’ Ah, that is a fine description. But, oh my . . . if you don’t know—”

“I assume they’re vampires, but what else?”

“Oh! Yes, you do know! What a relief. I found my life a nightmare when I realized—Oh, but that’s not what you want to know.”

“Yes. I need to know about the amphorae, who had them, what happened to them, and if you know anything about a man called William Novak. Or John Purcell.”

“Purcell!” He raised a silvery hand and pressed it to his chest. “My—my stars. Mr. Purcell. I believe he’s a prisoner! I can’t say I have much pity for them, but it’s cruel to see what they do to one another. They don’t die easily, you know. Would that I had been a stronger man in life—but no. I suppose it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He noticed me crinkling my brow.

“Oh. I do apologize. Here, let me explain.”

“Go right ahead,” I invited. I knew he’d dither less if allowed to tell his tale his own way and I sat on my impatience as he did.