Part 20 (1/2)

”How long?”

~ Twenty-two minutes!

”Describe him.”

~ Sitting down. Leaning close. Spectacles, tortoisesh.e.l.l, round and clean. Black frock coat, don't know the tailor. Grey hair. No jaw to speak of. Four deep lines on his forehead, six when he's impatient, five when he smiles. Long beard, like the poet-what's his name, always in the newspapers? Green eyes ...

While she spoke, Jupiter stared at the lens, skull, and candle. Jessop slid a piece of paper in front of her, and put a pencil in her hand. Blindly she scratched out a series of sketches of the mysterious doctor of St. Bart's, in a number of different poses; precise but exaggerated, like faces seen in a fever or a fairground mirror.

Arthur s.h.i.+vered. The room had grown cold. The thing that possessed Jupiter wasn't a ghost, Atwood had said; only a shadow, a memory, a flicker of consciousness not quite extinguished ... But it was ghostly enough to chill Arthur's spine.

~ That's all. Then darkness.

Very well. Sun rapped the table nine times.

Jupiter closed her eyes. She breathed in deeply and shuddered. Atwood tenderly took her hand and kissed it.

”Magnificent, my dear. Magnificent.”

”Never again, Atwood. Never again.”

II: The Rite of Mercury

The next suitable hour of Mercury was shortly after dawn on Friday. The Company took a train out of town together to a farm. The farmer was a tenant of Atwood's, a strapping sunburned rustic type who treated His Lords.h.i.+p with great deference, and asked no questions about the odd party he brought with him or the paraphernalia they carried out into his cornfield.

Jessop and Arthur rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They each carried a short plank, which they used to press down a wide circle in the corn. It was the last hot day of the summer, and before long they were both sweat-soaked and thirsty, red and itching.

The rite itself involved the slaughter of a dove. Atwood-who'd changed into a white surplice back at his tenant's house-cut the bird's throat and splashed blood at the circle's edge. Then he placed its body into a small black cabinet. The cabinet also contained a crown, a Jew's harp, a gla.s.s phial filled with spring water, a sheet of parchment six inches square, some matches, and a gla.s.s bowl containing a pinch of saffron. Atwood lit a match, burned the saffron, drank the water, wrote his own name upon the parchment forward and backwards, and then walked away without a glance back, out into the golden field and away over the horizon.

The rest of the Company waited. After a while they began to make small talk, mostly about the weather. Jupiter and Miss Didot had brought parasols.

The ritual didn't require six-Atwood alone sufficed. But he was anxious about exposing himself to his enemies, and so the rest of the Company were there to protect him in the event of-well, Arthur wasn't altogether sure what. He didn't know what form the attack of the Company's enemies might take, but he knew what they would say if he asked: Watch for everything. Overlook nothing. Nothing is without meaning. That was always their answer. He'd resented it at first, but had come to see it as good advice. While he talked to Jessop he listened for every s.h.i.+ft of the wind, every insect that buzzed over the fields, every whisper of the corn; the footsteps of mice, the motions of birds overhead, the slowly inclining angle of the sun. His own increasing hunger. The itch on the back of his neck, and the tickle of sweat. The pretty ladybird that settled on Jessop's sleeve like a bright garnet cufflink. A stray grey hair on Jupiter's head. The constant s.h.i.+mmering glare of sunlight. In the middle distance there were haystacks. Everything was golden, fields and clouds both, the Earth indistinguishable at the horizon from the Sun, like one of those French paintings Josephine liked. Everything dissolved into points of light. There was a thousand times more in one single field than one could ever see and understand in a lifetime. Who needed other worlds?

Arthur laughed. Jupiter glared at him, and Miss Didot raised an eyebrow.

”Airy spirits,” Sun said, waving a hand as if swatting at a fly. ”Mercury is close, and you may find your thoughts are not wholly your own.”

After a long while, a figure approached on the horizon. Arthur tensed, and started to get to his feet; but it was only Atwood. He'd been gone for perhaps two hours. When he came closer, Arthur saw that he was smiling, and he had a boyish spring in his step. He sat down cross-legged beside the cabinet.

Jupiter lowered her parasol, and said, ”What is your name?”

Atwood grinned. Not his ordinary smile-it was wider and toothier. He didn't look himself at all, and when he spoke, his voice was high and breathy.

~ I have no name.

”What manner of thing are you?”

~ Air and light.

”Will you serve us, and go when we command?”

~ I will. I will!

”Do you know who we seek?”

~ I know many things!

”We seek the man who heard Arnold Leggum's last words. Will you find him for us?”

~ I will!

Atwood closed his eyes, and rocked back and forth. Everyone waited for perhaps forty minutes. When Atwood next opened his eyes, he was himself again, and he had learned the killer's name-one Dr William Thorold-and his address, just off Harley Street.

III: The Rite of Mars

Midnight, and the hour of Mars. The Company met at Atwood's house, in his library. In preparation for the ritual, none of them had eaten all day, or drunk anything but water, or committed any sin if they could avoid it.

They were joined by an aristocratic young fellow of Atwood's acquaintance, whom Arthur had never met before, and who seemed to be under the impression that the whole thing was a lark. Atwood seemed to be sc.r.a.ping the barrel a bit. Miss Didot sealed the door and the four corners of the library with water and salt. Jessop and Arthur and Sun and Jupiter and Miss Didot and Atwood and the new fellow each cut their left palm and intoned Adonay, Elohim, Ariel. They cut their right, intoning Amon, Barbatos, Baal. With blood and sand they marked out a hexagram on the table. Miss Therese Didot slaughtered a black crow, then quartered it, placing its parts at the points of that ugly star. She looked quite devilish as she did this, streaked with blood. Sun chanted. Sergeant Jessop brought in a bra.s.s bowl of water and placed it on the table. Miss Didot placed the eyes of the crow into the water, and then six hot coals. Lastly she screamed the name of Dr William Thorold and struck the water's surface with a knife.

Nothing appeared to happen. Afterwards the members of the Company stood around making small talk and congratulating one another on an impeccable performance of what was apparently a very difficult ritual. Atwood's footman Lewis came in with a bucket to dispose of clumps of b.l.o.o.d.y sand and bits of crow.

Arthur cornered Atwood in the hall after the others had left.

”What is all this supposed to accomplish, Atwood?”

”The consternation of our enemies. The erosion of their strength. Did you think it would be quick?”

”This is no use to Josephine! Muttering curses and cutting up crowsd.a.m.n it, Atwood, we know who our enemy is.”

”Only a madman or a fool would confront Podmore without proper preparation.”

”Preparation. You mean delay. By G.o.d, Atwood-if you spent every night by her side, listening to her every breath. If you...”

He fell silent. Atwood looked at Arthur for a long time, then steered him into one of the many empty rooms of his house.

”Sit.” Atwood gestured towards the chairs by the unlit fireplace. He fiddled with lamps. ”There's more at stake than Josephine, you know. But I agree.”

”What does that mean?”

”You mustn't breathe a word of this to the others.”