Page 51 of A Case of Possession
It was filthy. A choking charnel foulness, like thick wet cobweb, over his face and eyes and mouth, crawling in his ears, up his nose, through his body. He tried to scream and the tendrils dug deeper. He could hear an insane muttering in his mind, fragments of rage and fury and accusation and a horrible glee as the thing tapped into somewhere deep and wrenched. The power lit in his blood, but it was snatched greedily, dragging at his flesh and bones, nothing like what Stephen did. This was a rape. He shook his head violently because he could do nothing else, and the dead man’s soul settled to feed, pushing a film over his eyes as he stared in helpless horror at the bowl of foaming, churning blood.
The spout jerked abruptly. It straightened again, steadied, then lurched sideways once more, and streaks of red shone bright through the dirty brown. Monk, standing like a puppet with loose strings, jerked too, lifting his head. The spout began to spasm, more violently, whipping from side to side, its rhythm breaking and restabilising and breaking again. Xan’s ghost gave a terrible keening howl and dug impalpable claws into Crane’s mind, but he could feel the other pull now. It was rushing through his veins in a storm of black and white wings, and from somewhere deep inside, he welcomed it, reached out, let the birds take over.
I am the Magpie Lord, he insisted to himself, through Xan’s screams. Weare the Magpie Lord. Let them fly, Stephen, fly with them, and get this monster out of my mind!
Xan’s talons dug into him with a desperate effort. Crane yelled aloud, a cry of pain and defiance that was echoed by the shrieks of birds that weren’t there, the sharp stabbing of beaks, the thunder of invisible wings beating around and through him.
The bowl exploded. Shards of earthenware went flying across the room, and the blood sprayed into a bright red cloud, in which hung, for just a fraction of a second, the image of a bird, before the spray dissipated into nothing. The creature in Crane’s body was ripped away, howling. Crane gasped for breath, head stabbing with sudden agony. Monk began to scream in earnest. And the thick wooden door burst inwards as though punched by a giant’s fist.
Stephen came in running, ducking through the splinters, Esther Gold just behind him. He threw out a hand as he ran, sending Monk tumbling backwards, and sprinted towards Crane, eyes blazing gold and black in his white face. Town cried out in rage and pulled a pistol, and an urchin boy—no, it was Jenny Saint in trousers and a cap—ran at him, up through the air, as if mounting invisible steps, and kicked him ferociously in the face. Town fell, and she landed on him hard and booted his hand, sending the gun skittering across the floor.
Janossi, Merrick and Leonora were in now. Merrick saw his master, swore with gusto and ran forward. Leonora followed, pausing to kick Town in the balls with force and accuracy. Stephen turned away from Monk, looking up at Crane, starting to speak, but Crane only had eyes for Monk’s slumped body. His old friend looked like himself once more with no alien consciousness there, and Crane gathered every scrap of strength he had left to bellow, “Rats!”
There was a fractional moment of total stillness. Then the rats came.
They flooded in from every corner and crevice. Not the few that had almost killed Leo, but hundreds, tumbling over one another, growing as he watched, flinging themselves forward with snarls like dogs. They met a wave of power from Esther and Stephen which flung them over and over backwards, and bounced up and came on again, with a dreadful shrill squealing and a scrape and dry rustle of claws on earth and stone.
“Get him free!” Stephen yelled at Merrick, as Esther shoved Leonora behind her. The four justiciars formed a semicircle in front of Crane, shoulder to shoulder, hurling power. A rat leapt at Esther and its skull exploded like a rotten orange. Behind them, Merrick hopped up onto the table with his pocketknife in his hand, and began to saw at the thick ropes that pinioned Crane.
“Hoi!” he shouted at Leonora. “Up here, give me a hand.” He pulled out another knife. “And you, Vaudrey, on your feet.”
“You try,” slurred Crane, stiffening his legs under him as best he could to stop his body slumping.
“Shit.” Merrick was working furiously. “The fuck did they do to you?”
“Put that thing in me. Shaman ghost.”
“Fuck.”
“S’alright.”
“It’s not,” said Leo grimly, sawing at his other wrist.
Crane looked round her. The rats were filling the room now, in their hundreds, clambering over each other, with savage, single-minded killing determination. The four justiciars were holding their ground, somehow keeping a corridor of space in front of themselves, but there were so many rats that the pile of dead was two feet deep already and the creatures kept on coming. A rat leapt over the top, over their heads, its limbs spread wide in attack. Saint rose high in the air to punch it away, and the other three all cried, “Hold the line!”, swaying back in unison.
Crane glanced to his left and yelled, “Janossi!”
The man had good reflexes, which saved his life. He didn’t look at Crane but to his other side, and that meant he was able to twist away from Town’s attack so that the blade aimed at his heart scraped off ribs and stabbed the flesh below his shoulder.
Janossi bellowed with pain and released a bolt of power that sent Town flying back into the wall, and as he did so, the rats surged in.
“Hold the damned line!” Stephen screamed. “Resonance three over eight andgo.”
All four justiciars hissed indrawn breaths in violent unison. A terrible high-pitched vibration filled Crane’s head. Leonora clapped her free hand to one ear, twisting her neck in a fruitless effort to turn away from the sound. The pitch rose slightly higher and became a feeling, a buzzing in the teeth and eyeballs. The rats hauled back, hesitating, squealing in confusion, and Saint gave a savage cry of triumph as the justiciars pushed forward at a command from Esther, sending rat parts flying, but the creatures turned again in a smoothly coordinated wave and reattacked with as much savagery as before.
“Will you cut that blasted rope!” Stephen shouted.
“Nearly there, sir,” called Merrick, sawing patiently away with the knife.
Knife.
Town had held the knife competently, a man who knew how to stab someone to death…
“Why did they kill Willetts?” Crane asked aloud.
“Who gives a fuck?” grunted Merrick. “Yes.” The thick rope parted, the last strands breaking as he and Crane wrenched at it. Merrick immediately moved to help Leo with the other rope.
“He doesn’t need a spell, look at him.”Hewas Xan; Crane was not going to speak that name aloud. “And he doesn’t need an amulet to control the rats, either. So why kill Willetts? What did Willetts know?”
