The Devil's Apprentice Page 29

  Seeing the waiting figure, they halted. ‘You,’ said the procuress. ‘I heard you was dead.’ The words were sharp but there was fear at the back of them.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ghost. He sat in the chair with one leg hooked over the arm. His face flickered in the torchlight, thin and pale as a corpse.

  ‘You go,’ he said to the mute, ‘while you still can.’

  The mute was staring past him at the rustle in the shadows, seeing the pairs of eyes gathering there, five pairs, ten, a dozen – small greeny eyes set close together, gleaming with a luminous gleam.

  He hesitated only an instant, then ran out into Close Shave Alley.

  Big Belinda loomed over the chair and its occupant. ‘I ain’t afraid of you,’ she said. ‘I ain’t afraid of nobody. I’ve eaten bigger men than you for breakfast, tossed in the soup like chicken bones. Like chicken bones, do you hear? I run this city, not scum like you. The plague don’t touch me; the king himself wouldn’t raise a hand to me. See this?’ She pulled a knife from the folds of her dress. It was big and ugly and the blade was saw-edged from much use. ‘It’s bigger than that knife o’ yours, bigger and meaner. I’m going to carve you like a chicken and break your bones in my soup. I’ll let the blood out of your skinny little body – if there’s any in there–’

  She lunged at him with the knife, but he caught her wrist in one hand and twisted it till she dropped her weapon. The pipe-music was running in his veins and he felt as strong as a god and as light as a dancer. His own knife leaped out, drawing down her arm, opening the flesh. She pulled herself backwards, clutching the wound, her mouth thinning with contempt.

  ‘That ain’t a killing cut. You can’t kill me. You ain’t got the goolies for it.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to kill you,’ he said. ‘I only wanted the rats to smell your blood.’

  And then he began to play in earnest, and the music was like birdsong and ratsong, like trilling and shrilling and squeaking, and the rats flowed across the floor towards her, clambering up her skirts, tearing through satin and brocade, through gown and petticoat and padding. She tried to shake them off, to bat them off, but her blood spattered across them and the music went on and the rats surged over her like a tidal wave over a mountain of sand. Within minutes she was borne to the ground, submerged under a heaving, squirming mass. She had begun to scream, but the scream opened a hole and the rats dived in and eventually it stopped. After a while, though the rat-pile still twitched and writhed, Ghost thought that what was underneath no longer moved. And gradually, though more and more rats came, the pile seemed to shrink, growing smaller, and smaller, until the ribs of empty corseting stuck out of the rat-tide, and bloodied ends of bone, and torn shreds of cloth, and an indigestible ball of hair whose original colour was lost.

  Ghost ceased playing and stood up. The rats drew back from him; some started to trickle away. He stepped over what was left of Big Belinda and went down the stair to the cellar. He wouldn’t have to wait for Cherub; the door was still open, and he blew on the pipes again, a brief whistling call, a summons, a reminder. The rats who still remained turned to watch him. Then he set off down the passage to the Duke’s house.

  London, twenty-first century

  JINX SAT IN the doorway, thinking. Mostly, she was thinking about Bartlemy. She had tried to find him by magic, and she had tried to find him by research, and both trails had led to Bygone House and vanished there. Maybe it was time to try using her head. She knew she wasn’t clever like Pen, who was clearly the sort of person who got A-stars in everything, or even like Gavin, who she suspected had more brains than he bothered to use, but she was older than both of them, in years and experience, and she was a witch of sorts, and that should give her an edge.

  Bartlemy discovered this address, she reminded herself. He might have come here – he would have come here. He would have known the true nature of the house, even without entering; he was a wizard, after all, though he rarely used his Gift. And he would have wanted to look inside, she was sure, he would have found a way to get in, it was his house, his charge, his duty, and Bartlemy was never one to evade his duties. But he didn’t go through 7A – he had no keys and Andrew Pyewackett would have had to let him in, Quorum would have seen him – not through a window, that was too clumsy and he was too fat for illicit ingress. He must have found another way, through another door... The house was full of doors. Doors that went anywhere, doors that closed – and opened. Of course.

  Bartlemy isn’t missing, she thought. He’s here – he’s in the house. There were doors into the past; there would be doors into the present. And Bartlemy, of all people, would have known how to locate such a door... from the other side. He got in like the witch-girl in Gavin’s dream, and then, inevitably, he opened another door, crossed a threshold...

  There was one person who would know.

  ‘Stiltz!’ she called, in something close to a growl. ‘I’ll summon you if you don’t come! Never mind Hoover – I need to talk to you now. Now, do you hear?’

  The goblin appeared furtively, hunched on the hall table in the lee of the vase, which was bigger than he was.

  ‘Tell me about the wizard!’ Jinx ordered. ‘You knew what he was – you’d know a wizard when you saw one. He came here, didn’t he? Didn’t he? He came in through one of the doors, right?’

  The goblin gave a little whimper of affirmation. His skin had turned pale as a lemon and his gaze shifted nervously between Jinx and the dog.

  ‘You didn’t think to mention it? You knew it was important – you must have known. Why didn’t you tell us? And don’t say You didn’t ask, or I’ll wring your scrawny neck, you disgusting little Gollum!’ Perhaps fortunately, Stiltz wasn’t familiar with Lord of the Rings, and the insult meant nothing to him. ‘He must have got in, looked around, and opened another door. Only he’d have wedged it, or put something in the gap so it couldn’t close. He’s not a fool, not Barty. That’s what he did, isn’t it? But you...’ Her words came more slowly as the picture grew clearer and clearer in her mind. ‘You moved it... whatever it was. You moved it, and the door closed, and he was lost...’

  ‘Don’t like doors left open,’ mumbled the goblin. ‘Things come through. And he might see us – might see in, see us hiding from him...’

  ‘You’re starting to talk like Gollum,’ said Jinx. ‘A little yellow Gollum, scared of doorses and devilses. Barty did nothing to hurt you, he never does anything mean, but I do, I’m as mean as mean gets, and if you don’t tell me everything right now I’ll shrivel you in your skin like last year’s walnuts. Right now: understand?’

  ‘He came from upstairs,’ Stiltz admitted at last. ‘The Fat Man.’ Jinx could hear capital letters. ‘He walked very quiet, for all he was so big, quiet as a wee mousie. Upstairs, that’s where you’re getting near the Present, sithee. He didn’t look like he come out of the Past. Them as come from the Past, there’s a reek about them; you can’t mistake it. Maistens, they look addled, and pale as a boggart. But the Fat Man, he wasn’t e’en mithered. He seed me, though I wasn’t up for being noticed, but he didn’t say nothing. Just give me a nod, like. Then...’

  ‘Then?’ Jinx prompted sharply.

  ‘He opened the door. Like you said. He opened one door just to look, then another, and he went through, and didn’t come back. I waited, I waited a while and a while, but he niver come again. Wasn’t my blame...’

  ‘You closed the door...’

  ‘Doors mustn’t be left open,’ the goblin reiterated sullenly. ‘Too dangerous. Anyways, I didn’t shut it deliberate, did I? I just wanted to look... They were good ones, see? Sturdy – very sturdy – but the stitching like elf-stitch... Not cheap, not shoddy, like those.’

  ‘What?’ Jinx was bemused.

  Stiltz glanced towards the object she had used for a wedge. One of her pumps, the toe-tip thrust under the door. It was all that had come to hand at the time.

  ‘He used his shoes,’ said Jinx, light dawning. ‘He took off his shoes and le
ft them in the gap. He was indoors, after all. So it must have been indoors on the other side... Have you still got them?’

  ‘Hid them,’ said the goblin.

  ‘You’d better find them,’ said Jinx. ‘Or else... Which door was it? No – don’t tell me. I’ve been stupid but I’m not being stupid any more. I can guess...’

  Beyond the Doors

  London, seventeenth century

  THE DUKE WAS at dinner. It was a dinner such as Ghost and the Lost Boys had never seen, with pies and pasties and puddings, roasted meats and baked meats, poupetons and syllabubs – with a dozen different smells vying for air space and platter nudging on platter along an overcrowded table. Wine swilled into goblets and gurgled down throats, silver cutlery scrunched and scraped over expensive porcelain, eddying footmen scooped and served, poured and filled and re-filled. The Duke sat at the head of the table under a pyramid of caramel curls, the lace foaming over his torso like whipped cream, embroidered fruits ramping across his waistcoated stomach, so he resembled a vast sumptuous dessert, save for his eyes, which were cold and dry and watchful as a lizard’s. His companions ate greedily, gorging their food and gulping their wine, their lead-whitened faces flushing under the powder, their dripping mouths crunching and chewing and chattering all at once. But the Duke ate like a chameleon, hardly moving, his hand conveying morsel to mouth before returning to curl itself round the stem of his glass, the many rings casting red glints of light across the table-linen. Above, a massive chandelier depended like a cloud full of hail, its fifty candles dropping hot wax onto the central dishes.

  Presently the Duke murmured something into a footman’s ear, and the servant went out, returning a few minutes later leading a boy by the hand. Cherub. Cherub washed and scrubbed and scented, his curls pomaded, his teeth polished, dressed in a wispy Grecian tunic pinned on one shoulder and shivering a little, perhaps from the cold. At a gesture from the Duke he sang, a few verses from an old ballad, the high notes clear and strong if slightly off key once or twice, but his audience was not musical. They paused between mouthfuls to praise and gush – what a treasure, an innocent, a jewel, such a rarity in today’s city, where the plague had slaughtered and spoiled so many, where pretty children were few and hard to find. That milky skin – those perfect tones – he was Eros, he was Ganymede, a seraph with the voice of a skylark, a thing of beauty formed for the entertainment of the gods. The Duke was fortunate indeed to have found himself such a prize. No doubt the price had been high...?

  ‘Very high,’ said the Duke, and though they probed and prodded, he told them nothing more.

  Cherub was removed until the Duke should require him again, and the footmen were sent for more sweetmeats and dainties and brandy. The other guests contended with one another in their fulsomeness, their envy, their allusions to gilded youths of classical legend. None of them realised that the boy whose beauty and high notes so enraptured them had picked their pockets not so long ago. The Duke probably knew – he always knew – but he didn’t care. Cherub was his creature now.

  The footmen were slow in returning so another was dispatched to hasten them, and when he too failed to reappear the Duke frowned, tugging on the bellrope. His companions – you would not call them friends – gradually fell silent, comprehending that something was not right in their world of gluttony and pleasure. The wine was sinking, the Duke was scowling, the candles guttered and smoked in the chandelier. And then the far door opened, and a boy walked in.

  Not a boy like the one they had just seen, pure and perfect as Ganymede. This boy was thin and dirty and dressed in rags. His feet left prints on the floor from the mud of the streets. His face was bony and hard beyond his years, with eyes like bits of stone.

  He walked forward to the end of the table, facing the Duke.

  The guests gasped and swooned, fanned themselves with painted fans, sniffed at perfumed pomanders.

  The Duke said: ‘Quiet!’ and they were quiet.

  Then he fixed the boy with his lizard’s stare. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve come for Cherub and Tomkin,’ said the intruder. ‘But I will give you something in return.’

  ‘You’re the boy with the knife,’ said the Duke. ‘The one they call Ghost. I’ve heard of you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ghost. ‘It’s the last thing you’ll ever hear.’

  They saw him place the pipes to his lips and blow, emitting a cascade of notes like chirps and chirrups and squeaks transformed into a tune. A rat ran into the room and jumped on the table, dodging between the dishes, snatching a mouthful as it ran. The guests squealed. The Duke moved very swiftly for a man of his bulk, thrusting his chair back, drawing his rapier and spitting the rodent in a single stroke.

  ‘Now,’ said the Duke, tossing the dead rat aside and circling the table towards Ghost, ‘it’s your turn.’

  Ghost took a step back. ‘Rats carry plague,’ he said as another scurried across the floor, and another. ‘That’s what I have to give you. Plague.’

  The Duke sprang at him, sword extended, but a rat bit him on the ankle and he stumbled, slashing downwards, nicking his own leg. The other guests gibbered with fear.

  Then Ghost played the pipes – played and played – feeling the music in his blood, in his soul, a wild rat-fandango of leaping paws and whirling whiskers and twirling tails. And somewhere inside the music were the words, a spellsong or a summons in a language that spoke to both man and beast – words that went straight to the hindbrain and became a part of the beat in his head.

  Hark to the piper who pipes the call –

  the call of Hunger and Greed!

  Through mousehole and drainhole and hole-in-the-wall –

  hurry and scurry to dance at the ball –

  to leap on the tables and skip down the hall –

  Come fat rats and thin rats, come large rats and small!

  follow the piper and FEED!

  They came from all over the city, from kitchen and midden, from cellar and cesspit, through the underground passage, through holes and tunnels and chinks in walls – great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats – brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats – spilling into the room ten deep, twenty deep, scrambling over table and guests and rodent kin, till screeches and jabbers, flailing fists and threshing limbs were all overwhelmed, and diners and dinner became one huge ravening orgy. And still Ghost played, till the rats fell on each other, and the strong devoured the weak, and the fat devoured the lean, and the blood ran down the table like red gravy and the stragglers licked it clean.

  But the Duke wasn’t there. He came from a long line of survivors who knew when to fight and when to run away. He could stab one rat or a dozen but not a hundred, not a thousand. He was gone even as the first wave hit, slamming the door on his guests, spearing any vermin who slipped through in his wake. Outside the dining room, the servants had fled, forewarned by Ghost. The Duke heard the door rattle behind him from the weight of rats hurling themselves against it and he ran on, through the house, up stair after stair, along corridor and gallery, till he came to the tower, relic of an older building long pulled down. Solid oaken doors thudded into place as he passed, ancient bolts scraped home. At the top there was a circular chamber, with narrow windows and only one door. He barricaded himself in and sat down to wait, binding his bleeding ankle with the torn ruffles from his shirt.

  In the dining room, Ghost stopped playing at last. The rats, released from the spell, tottered back to their holes with bulging stomachs and bloodied fangs. Ghost went to free Cherub and Tomkin from the room where he had locked them for safe-keeping. Cherub was sulking, embarrassed by the tunic – ‘It’s almost a dress!’ – and Tomkin looked furtive and weepy, little like the boy they remembered.

  ‘What happened?’ Cherub demanded, looking at the dead rats, and the overturned furniture, and the red pawmarks on floor and walls.

  But Ghost didn’t answer.

  They went through the underground passage and up the stairs to
the barber’s shop. Cherub stared at the debris of Big Belinda and asked no more questions. Ghost found the bag of coins, almost undamaged; gold cannot be eaten, even by rats.

  Back in the loft the others greeted them with relief. Mags hugged Cherub, who grimaced, and tried to hug Tomkin, but he cried and shrank away.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Ghost, hoping it was true, ‘in the end. Look after him. You’re family now, all three of you. Take this money, go into the country, find somewhere nobody knows you, somewhere you can be free. You can do honest work – be a maid – a stableboy – jobs like that. If you stick together, you’ll survive.’

  ‘What about you?’ said Mags.

  ‘I’m going with these two. I have to.’ He didn’t want to, but he felt the touch of Fate, laying her fingertip on the back of his neck. ‘Go quickly, before another Big Belinda comes along, or another Mr Sheen.’

  ‘Or another Ghost?’ said Cherub.

  Ghost nodded. His face was so hard and tight it hurt.

  ‘Goodbye, Random Horwood,’ said Mags, and her expression screwed up as if in pain. ‘I’ll always remember you.’

  She kissed his cheek, hastily, and he pulled back, hastily, and then he, and Pen, and Gavin climbed down the ladder, and went through Groper’s Alley and Running Lane into the yard, and there was Jinx, watching the door, with her arm around Hoover. The three of them stepped through, and she removed the pump she had used as a wedge, and shut out the city and everyone in it, and Ghost stood staring round him at the twenty-first century, not knowing where or when he was.

  ‘You need a bath,’ said Pen.

  ‘Possibly several,’ added Gavin.

  Jinx remembered what Stiltz had said about the people from the Past, and thought he had a point.