A Grave Situation, page 8
part #2 of The Infernal Artefacts Trilogy Series
Before I could respond, my mother was gone.
14. Heroes and Halfwits
There were no prison guards on my side of the magical glass partition. Finn had promised me complete privacy with Alison, so that she’d feel comfortable to talk. Two guards flanked her as she came in, but they left the room once she was seated. I knew they were on the other side of the doors, watching, but they wouldn’t come in again until I asked. I was glad of the emergency button they’d given me, though.
I eyed Alison as she sat down. I was used to seeing her in flowing dresses, with her strawberry blonde hair shining and her green eyes bright. Today, her hair was lank and her eyes were dull and red-rimmed; she looked far less healthy and energetic than the woman who’d boasted to me about killing her boyfriend.
She still, however, looked younger than her years. There had always been questions as to whether she had faery ancestry, or whether she simply made good use of glamour spells. Now I knew the answer. This woman in her forties looked barely a day over twenty, even now.
‘How are you, Ned?’ she asked, her voice hoarse.
‘Oh, you know, confused, angry … wondering why you and your goons have just tried to kill my sister.’
She sat upright. ‘Angelica was attacked? Is she all right? Can she still talk?’
‘I’ll bet you’d like it if she couldn’t, seeing as it was done by two of those weirdos who came to my shop with you.’
‘Ned …’ Her voice was still hoarse. ‘They’re not my goons. They’re … look, just please tell me you were able to talk to Angelica.’
I eyed her with suspicion. ‘What do you know about my sister?’
‘I get it, Ned. I get why you’re being so defensive. I would be too, in your position. And you don’t even need to answer me, because I bet I already know – they didn’t kill her, did they? Because if they’d done that, she still would have been able to talk to you. You could have summoned her ghost, and then she might have come clean, finally, about everything she knows. Nope, they didn’t kill her. They just injured her enough so she couldn’t talk.’
‘And what does my sister know, that they’re trying so hard to stop her from telling me?’ I countered. ‘Seeing as you seem to know everything, why don’t you tell me?’
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she finally opened them, tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘I’m trying very hard to figure out what to tell you, Ned. But I don’t know where to start, and I’m afraid you won’t trust a word I say.’
I didn’t know if those were crocodile tears; all I knew was that I needed answers. ‘Start at the beginning, I suppose,’ I said.
She bowed her head. ‘Fine. The beginning. So, a long time ago, back when you were still a kid, stories started to spread around the enclave that there were zombies in our midst. I mean, I’d always heard that there were people who’d been risen from the dead, and that they stayed well away from witch-run enclaves because of something that happened centuries ago, but I never really believed it until I woke up in my own grave.’
She shuddered. ‘I didn’t know how I died. Marlon and me were together one night. We’d been at a party, and when we came home we both felt funny. The next thing we knew, we were waking up in our own coffins, while someone dragged us out of the earth. We were told we’d been brought back from the dead, and as payment for our new life, we had to work for a year. After that, we’d be free. We were brought to somewhere down below Hopeless Hollow, but we didn’t know where we were, not then. It was a network of tunnels, a whole world down there, so that the people who’d been taken wouldn’t be seen moving about. They only went above ground when they absolutely had to. My factory sits above the entrance right now. Or it did, until I burned it to the ground and blocked up the tunnels.’
She gave me a wicked smile. ‘Yeah, I set the Inferno spell. I wanted to make things as difficult as I could for those monsters. But … to get back to the past … Marlon was let in and out at night time, because there was some powerful object called the Secondary Lock that he was supposed to find. He never did find it, and we never knew what it was. I was in there all the time, making potions and powders.’ Her body rippled with yet another shudder. ‘We’d clearly been chosen for our skills. There was a woman in charge of us, a so-called healer.’
‘Oh. And Healer Croak? Did he have anything to do with any of it?’ She looked confused, so I told her about Croak’s disappearance.
‘Well if he was involved in this, it won’t have been willingly. You know as well as I do that Healer Croak is a good guy.’
‘He seemed to be,’ I agreed. ‘I mean … as good as a Samhain Street healer can be. But I’m not sure of anything anymore.’
‘Well … that’s understandable. But like I said, this was a woman. And not a nice one. It soon became clear that we were going to be stuck there for longer than a year. Maybe forever. She kept us subdued with potions and spells, while she seemed to be fully aware herself. Piece by piece, day by day, it became clear that something wasn’t right. We kept having moments of clarity. Marlon and I would look at one another and remember that we’d known each other, that we’d been in love.’
She met my eyes. ‘Not just me and Marlon. A few of us broke free, every so often. Freedom, control over our lives, our bodies, it’s something we all crave, something we know, deep down, that no one can ever take away from us. And whoever this Spellcaster was, he knew it too, and he feared it.’
‘He? You said a woman was subduing you.’
‘She wasn’t the boss, though,’ Alison explained. ‘Someone else was. The Spellcaster. We had vague memories of him being there that first night we were taken from our graves, doing some spell on us, but we could never quite remember what he looked like. Anyway, some of us were stronger than others, and it was a constant battle to keep us under control, to stop us asking questions. After a while we started to hide those moments of clarity when they came. We’d pretend we were still under control so that we could find a way out, or pick up some information about where we were or … or anything. We heard bits and pieces of conversations about what we were doing, and why we were doing it.
‘We found out that the Spellcaster had a legion of people who worked with him willingly, and an even larger workforce of Servants like us, who were anything but willing. We learned that he wanted to kill a man, a man called Rory Marvin, so he could gain more power.’
‘My dad,’ I said, my voice breaking with grief.
‘Yeah. Your dad. Also known as the Balance. But apparently the Spellcaster had gone up against the Balance time and again, and he never managed to kill him. Everything he had us doing back then was supposed to give him more power. Power to hide – the Secondary Lock Marlon was searching for was somehow involved in that. Power to make a bigger, better army. Power to eventually kill the Balance. But Marlon and me, Ned … we were getting tired. We couldn’t last much longer down there. And then … he came.’
She looked at me, a beautiful smile on her face. ‘Your father. The Balance. He came with a purple wand, and he freed us all. He told us what we’d known, deep down, the whole time we were trapped – that we’d never really died in the first place. The Spellcaster had given us a potion that made us seem as if we were dead, so that when he dug us up we didn’t exist anymore. Not officially. But your dad fixed all of that. He gave us back our lives and our identities, and we were free. He didn’t ask us for anything in return. He was just … doing his job.’
Her smile grew even brighter. ‘But we would have done anything for him, Ned. Anything he ever asked of us. Because without him, we would have been worked to death. And who would have known about it? No one. Because as far as the rest of the world was concerned, we were already dead.
‘Rory Marvin saved hundreds of us, and when we heard a few weeks later that he’d killed the Spellcaster, we thought it was the end of it. Even so …’ Her breath was shaking. ‘Even so, our lives never really went back to normal. Me and Marlon, we broke up, and we stayed that way for years and years. It’s hard to get over something like that. He didn’t like the fact that I opened up the Foul Factory, but I thought I ought to be there, so I could keep a watch, you know? So I could keep an eye on anyone opening up those old tunnels beneath Hopeless Hollow again, and watch out for more would-be necromancers. That last bit is kind of like what you do in your shop.’ She winked. ‘Right?’
Her story sounded so harrowing that I believed her, but there was still so much more I needed her to explain, and I wasn’t ready for chummy winks just yet. ‘Right. So how did it start up again, then? How did it come to you killing Marlon, and threatening to kill me? Why were you pretending to be the Spellcaster?’
I studied her face carefully as she said, ‘You asked that last question like you’re still not sure about me. Still not sure I’m not the Spellcaster. But isn’t it obvious by now that I’m not?’
‘Y’know, I was never sure you were the Spellcaster, actually,’ I told her. ‘But I’m not ruling anything out. So you need to tell me why you did everything you’ve done in recent days. Were you turned into a Servant again? Because you sure don’t look like one.’
‘No, I wasn’t – and you’re right that some of them have a certain look about them. Those hollow faces. Those sunken eyes. Never confuse their tired appearance for weakness though, Ned. Anyway, I … I wasn’t a Servant again, no, but I could tell that things were getting weird. It was just like it was last time, healthy people having heart attacks out of the blue. No one else even seemed to notice. But when you’ve lived under the Spellcaster’s rule, you recognise when something like that is coming again. So I got in touch with Marlon to ask him if he knew what was going on.’
‘And did he know anything? Like, how is any of this happening if my dad killed the Spellcaster? Do you think … do you think maybe he didn’t kill him?’
‘That’s not the only possibility, is it?’ she said. ‘You know how it works, Ned. Your dad told us all about it, years ago. This goes on and on and on, generation after generation. You’re an heir, right? Why shouldn’t the Spellcaster have an heir, too?’
I fidgeted in my seat, feeling tense and scared. Of course the Spellcaster could have an heir, just like my father did. Maybe Dad had killed him, and now I was about to face off against his child. I almost hoped that was the case – if it was, maybe I’d be facing someone who was just as much of a beginner at all of this as I was.
‘Anyway, we wound up getting back together again, me and Marlon,’ Alison continued. ‘That’s when I found out the favour he’d done for your sister, back when your dad died.’
‘She didn’t sell him the artefacts, did she?’ I guessed. ‘She gave them to him, to keep them away from me. But why?’
She held her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I don’t really know the answer to that. I know that Angelica spread a rumour that she was your dad’s heir, that she had the powers of the Balance, and everyone believed it – I mean, let’s face it, out of the two of you she seemed the more likely choice. Not only was she the older sister, but no one would dare mess with Angelica.’
I snorted. ‘Whereas I’m a soft touch?’
‘You … you’re very good at what you do, Ned. You’re loved in the enclave. But I know, and Marlon knew, that you were never really cut out for Samhain Street. You’re there because you have to be, but don’t try and tell me that you wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. And don’t try and tell me you think you’re up to being the Balance, either. Killing the Spellcaster? You think you can do that? You think you can actually kill someone?’
I looked away from her. ‘I’ll do what I have to do. Can you just get on with the story? And why Marlon? Why would Angelica ask him to hide the stuff instead of just hiding it herself?’
‘There’s a reason why he’s been such a successful dealer in objects of arguable origin all these years, Ned. His house has powerful but undetectable protection spells upon it. Nothing he keeps inside can be traced there no matter how fabulous a spell someone might use. So Marlon said yes, no question, because like I said earlier, he would have done anything for your dad. And anything for you two girls, too.’
‘So why sell my dad’s hat to Hamish, then?’ I asked. ‘What was that about?’
She winced. ‘Things were getting bad, Ned. A guy called Gill Curran contacted us – he looks like a Servant, but he seems like less of a halfwit than the others.’
‘Gill Curran?’ I said. ‘A bald guy? He’s Professor Neil Sweeney’s assistant, and he seems to have slipped Pumpkin Pauline a potion, too.’
‘Oh my stars!’ Alison looked truly devastated at the news. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She seemed to be dead at first, but I found a faint heartbeat. I’m going to try and revive her as soon as I figure out how.’
Alison nodded, letting out some breath. ‘Good. That’s good. Your dad was able to do it, so you’ll find a way too, Ned. And yeah, Gill is a bald guy,’ she confirmed. ‘He told us that if we didn’t work with the Spellcaster willingly, we’d be forced like we were before. He has people everywhere. And just like last time, if they dosed us with something that made us look like we were dead, no one would be any the wiser. He had Marlon sourcing objects again, gathering information. They started using my factory, and they opened up the tunnels below. My workers would disappear and turn up again a few days later as Servants.’
‘The hat?’ I reminded her.
‘I’m getting to that. It was a signal, from me and Marlon. A hope that you’d recognise it and get a message to Angelica, that she’d pass some power on to you, or … I don’t know, help us somehow, anyhow.’
‘You could have just asked me.’
‘We really couldn’t, Ned. They watched us all the time. Listened in on us. We hoped they wouldn’t notice Marlon taking it from his house, selling it to Hamish. We didn’t know that you were under a memory spell which would make you forget all about the artefacts.’
‘You seem to know now, though.’ I frowned at her. ‘How?’
She looked down. ‘Angelica told me, when I met her in here on my first day. Anyway, we also didn’t know that the Spellcaster had an identical set of artefacts. He might have been the one who turned us into Servants in the first place, but we were so out of it that we didn’t register a thing – not his face, not what magical objects he used, not anything. We certainly didn’t know that he’d recognise the hat when he saw it. After that, things got even worse. It wasn’t straight away – I guess it was a while before they saw Hamish with the hat. But they seemed to know, by then, that you were the Balance, not Angelica.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. And I don’t know why they waited so long to act on it, either. Hamish had the hat for months, and it was clear you didn’t recognise it, and they didn’t seem to care. But then a little while ago Gill Curran came to me and asked me to kill Marlon and steal the rest of the artefacts.’
I frowned again. ‘I mean, did they turn you into a Servant to make you do it? You said you weren’t one, this time around.’
‘Nope. But Gill told me they’d make me one again if I didn’t do what he asked. So, he gave me a knife, and I went to Marlon’s house. I told him what Gill had asked me to do. I asked him to run away with me, to forget about it all and just go somewhere else. But Marlon … he told me to go ahead and do it. Only with some exceptions. He asked to be killed with the dagger from the Infernal Artefacts, and then I was supposed to lie to Gill and tell him that the artefacts were gone when I got there.’
With a funny smile, she recalled, ‘Marlon said he’d rather we be heroes like your dad than halfwit zombies ever again. His plan was that after he was killed, I would keep the dagger with me until I could get it to you. It was the most important artefact, the one you’d need to kill the Spellcaster. Marlon had a contact who told him that when your mam reported the artefacts stolen, she said on her report that they were your inheritance.’
‘Who was this contact?’ I watched her closely.
‘I don’t know. And we just had to hold out hope that the Wayfarers would find this old report, and that they’d give the stuff to you. But if they didn’t, you’d at least have your knife, and you’d start to ask questions and – we hoped – you’d find your way to the rest of the artefacts. It was all we could think of when there were so many eyes on us all the time.’
‘Okay, but why kill him with the Dagger of Desolation?’ I pressed. ‘Because of that knife, Marlon’s soul is stuck in the Fog, Alison, and he won’t let me free him. And if you’re not the Spellcaster, how did you even use that knife?’
She bowed her head again. ‘It’s a pointy object, Ned. Even if I can’t kill the Spellcaster with it like you can, it can still do damage. And I know it seems strange to you, but right now Marlon feels safer in the Fog. Because if you don’t manage to kill the Spellcaster – if the Spellcaster kills you and gains the power of the One True Necromancer – then the world he creates is going to be Hell on Earth. And the people who disobeyed him, who fought him, they won’t get to remain dead. Marlon is terrified he’ll be reanimated – that he’ll never be free, if you don’t win this battle. That’s why he’s in the Fog, and that’s why he won’t leave until you’ve won.’
Her explanation made sense – a tragic, desperate sort of sense. She had loved Marlon, it was clear to me now – I could see her heartbreak as she spoke. But they’d been up against something horrific, and they’d done the only thing they could think of.
Marlon had sacrificed himself to get the artefacts to me. Taking them out of the safety of his house, a house where the Spellcaster couldn’t find them, or destroy them, would have been too dangerous. So he got my things to me the only way he could, because without them, there would be no way to fight this evil.
But even though I mostly believed her, there was a hole somewhere in her story, one I couldn’t put my finger on, but one I sensed. I felt the way I did when I spoke to Angelica, as if there was something she was holding back.
