A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) Read online

  Darting inside the shop, Harold wrote out a small card which stated ‘closed due to sickness in the family’. Harold left it in the shop window being careful not to damage the hard work the spider had put into making its web. The card was an explanation for the sudden disappearance. Part of him still hoped that things would go back to normal one day and that they could keep on the good side of his clients. Janet’s boy would not be there for a few days and Harold hoped that the little scribbled message marked by his own hand would be enough to give him something to return to when all this was over. That done and the store locked up, Harold left it in charge of his new eight-legged friend and made for Muriel’s house, hoping that she would be home.

  The journey was sparingly uneventful and gave Harold time to rest his exhausted mind. He spent most of the journey dreaming about the little charcoal coloured rat he had seen giving a rat catcher the slip as it darted under one of the many bridges that crossed the canals on the Trade Road. The daydream over and Harold stood on Muriel’s doorstep with a lump in his throat. Harold prayed that she would welcome him to stay. If she did not then he had no idea where he would go. The image of the summer house flashed across his mind. Port Lust was not all that far, Harold could escape there and start a new life by the sea.

  It was not the first time Harold had thought of fleeing the city since all this started. He was trying to be a hero and it really didn’t suit him, he should just go, he thought to himself, as he stood with his hand hovering above the knocker. Harold made up his mind, that was where he would go. If he could not even bring himself to knock on Muriel’s door how could he save the city. Port Lust it was to be. He turned his back to make his way to the Neeskmouth Ridge and the road out across the plains when the door opened behind him. Muriel stood in its opening with her bright red hair caught in the wind that rattled down the alleyway. She wore the same dress as before. It was definitely a summer dress and not designed for the cold of Thresh; it was low-cut around her bosom and a thin belt was pulled tight around her slim waist. It was plain, a dull, off -white and showed signs of age. The woollen outline of the dress had begun to bubble around the edges and the once tightly knit pattern looked weathered and loose. The small lace leaves at the cuffs had stretched and looked more like misshaped palm trees.

  Harold felt his nerves tingle and run rampant within his stomach as his eyes traced her outline. These observations all happened in a moment and Harold prayed she had not noticed his scrutiny. His eyes ran back over her curves and towards her eyes, but not before Harold noticed her skin had puckered into goose bumps in the seconds that had past. She smiled and greeted him.

  “Harold. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you knocking. You’re lucky I happened to be passing the door and saw your shadow in the glass.” She shot him a warming smile and Harold was glad that she seemed happy to see him again.

  “I didn’t knock.” Harold replied, cursing himself as soon as the words left his lips. The moment felt too awkward and Harold was not thinking straight. He was confused and focused on why it felt awkward. The last time Harold had felt like this was for Massey Jane when he was still in school shorts.

  “Oh, good, then you’ve not been there long then.” Muriel said with a playful twang to her words. She smiled again and Harold noticed for the first time she wore makeup on her lips, something most prostitutes could not afford and if they did Harold could not think of a time they would need to use it. It looked freshly put on and Harold briefly wondered if she had put it on just for him. The sarcastic tone to her voice told him that she knew Harold had stood outside for a long time. It had been at least ten minutes or so as Harold tried to pluck up the courage to knock at the door. Muriel giggled at the silence and his heart fluttered, missing a beat. The noise was so young and fresh.

  “Can I come in? It’s cold out here.” Harold asked through quickly reddening cheeks. He felt as flustered as a child.

  “Yes of course, sorry.” Muriel replied, flashing him another one of her sweet little smiles. She stepped aside, though not far enough to allow him clear access to her home and Harold had to brush past her to squeeze into the door. She was teasing him, clearly able to see Harold was uncomfortable. Harold guessed it came from her line of work that she could see if a man liked her. It was part of her stock and trade. Walking in front of Muriel, Harold made his way to her lounge and took a seat by the table. Harold should have waited, really, for her to offer him a seat but he felt so at home there. A quick glance towards the fireplace confirmed his first impression. The room was as cold as ice and the fire was still bare from his last visit.

  “So, you kept your word and came back then. I was not sure if I would get to see you again. Glad I have. What’s new?” Muriel asked, glancing at the bag as Harold slid it under his feet.

  “Have you seen the papers?” Harold asked taking her attention away from his belongings for the moment. He wanted to wait for the right time to ask if he could stay for a few nights.

  “I’ve not left the house.” Muriel replied, and Harold knew it was because she was too scared after what she had seen. She was a brave woman but Harold should have known the sight of three guard officers being ripped apart would have done more damage than it had appeared to.

  “What about money, surely you need to work?” Harold asked, realising it was rude but needing to know. Muriel had been so desperate for money the first time he had met her and God only knows what would happen if she did not meet the street charge imposed on her by the O’Brien’s. The confident smile fell from Muriel’s lips and her gaze fell down to her feet.

  “It’s not safe for a working girl with that thing out there.” She said, confirming his hunch she was as scared as he was.

  “I’ll get him, I promise.” Harold told her, meaning it with all his heart. Harold had started to develop feelings for Muriel in the few days he had known her and was already willing to throw himself at William just to make her feel safe. That combined with his overwhelming urge not to rot to death in a prison meaning he’d have to find him anyway.

  “How do you plan to do that? You have seen what he can do. Sacellum alive, he will lay a gentleman like you on his arse in seconds.” Muriel’s reply came quickly and Harold could see the concern in her eyes. It was true, Harold was not scrawny because of his job loading barrels, but he had never been a fighter. It left him with no answer to give. Harold had no idea how he would stop William.

  “I’ll think of something, I promise. I want him gone as much as you do.” Harold said half just to convince himself. “I have a favour to ask of you though, a big one. The guard are still looking for me. My home is unsafe and I do not have anyone I can trust but you. I know we have only just met-” Harold did not know how to finish the sentence but thankfully, Muriel interrupted him. It was not her best quality, and made him fleetingly think of his father.

  “I saw the bag as you came in. I know what you want. You can stay here, but I have only one room. You can either bunk with me upstairs or you can sleep down here. I have some spare bedding but it’s still deathly cold down here at night.” Muriel said, giving little preference for either option. For a moment, Harold saw a sparkle flash across her face again. Harold was not sure if she had really meant for him to sleep upstairs, or if it was a joke. He knew she would be forward if she had really wanted him to bed with her, being shy and a working girl did not go together. However, as much as the thought of sharing a bed with Muriel pleased him, it was not proper and most definitely not appropriate. Harold could not afford to lose himself in the madness that swirled around him.

  “I’ll stay down here. I have some money for the rent, and you won’t have to work until this is over. I will give you sixpence for some firewood too.” Harold said, trying to sound sincere but it was all for his own benefit. The house was freezing and he could already feel his skin turning purple.

  “You don’t have to pay.” She said and Harold knew she would have let him stay for free. That said a lot without the need for words. The girl
was ‘unfortunate’ as the city called them. She was a working girl and for her to allow him to stay for nothing meant she must have seen him as a friend at the very least. Putting aside his confusing feelings Harold was happy that her friendship would be enough for now. For at that moment he needed a friend he could rely on.

  “I know, but I want to pay my way.” Harold replied and so it was that he moved into Muriel’s house.

  The place warmed up quickly with the fire roaring. Even with the price of coal being so high, his sixpence had bought a lot of fuel and Muriel had taken the initiative to use some of the money to buy some food as well. Harold sat alone in the lounge waiting for her to prepare it. If it was not for everything that was going on, Harold thought, he could feel comfortable there. The smell from the kitchen wafted through and Harold waited eagerly for the lovely mutton stew, turnips and fresh bread still warm from the baker’s oven. Harold sat alone listening to the clattering from the other room. It gave him plenty of time to think.

  He decided that he would have to find out what brought William back. Harold had to know what he was before he could stop him. After seeing Muriel risk starvation rather than working the streets for fear of William, Harold knew now that stopping him was more important than proving his innocence. With the strength William had demonstrated he would take weeks if not months to catch, and in that time, he would claim hundreds of victims if Harold didn’t do something about him. There were only a few places Harold could think of to look for information on what William might be. The occult was not common reading in the city, with most references to magic being removed in one of the many book burnings that Malcolm Benedict had instigated. Harold personally knew nothing of it. The rumour of the devil’s club that the upper classes could pay to join went through his mind, they were a cult that believed they could join the demon that threatened Valadfar and had dealings in some horrid acts hidden behind closed doors, but Harold doubted this was anything to do with William. It was a drinking club and gave bored, rich people something else to waste money on. His only other lead would be the papers, maybe they would know more. Harold doubted it though, which led him on to think of William’s family again. They might have known something, but Harold could not face them, he just was not strong enough. That left but one other choice that he could think of. Harold would need to break into the guard station, find their reports on both William’s death and the incidents since.

  His heart sank at the thought of what the world had turned him into but fate had dealt him these cards and Harold had to play the hand out. Harold would go out and check with the Times first thing in the morning. If, as he suspected, that didn’t expose William for what he was then Harold would prepare for something that seemed insane; Harold would break into the courthouse.

  Chapter 13: A Meeting with Ernest and Neil As Harold prepared for his first night at Muriel’s, Reverend Paul Augustus was fighting with his own insanity. His lack of sleep over the last few days was nothing in comparison to the weeks in which Paul had suffered insomnia. His paranoia was growing and only added to his madness. He had not been home since William had attacked him for he was too scared of what would happen while he slept. The hovel of a room was not definable against the Rakta Ishvara, whereas Paul had turned the catacombs below Saint Anne’s into a fortress. With the last of his dwindling strength he had scattered sprigs of the Abrus herb, which was volatile to the vampire leech, around the stairs making the decent down to the darkness painful for William if he came that way. To slow his would-be attacker down even further, Paul had upturned the table he had previously been using for his experiments and pressed it, along with two unearthed coffins he had dragged across to the foot of the stairs, their forever sleeping occupants still inside as silent guards.

  Paul remained in the catacombs, feeling it was the only safe place for him. His insanity and paranoia had peaked to the point he now feared the city would learn his secrets. It had not just been his home that Paul had avoided. He had barely left his sanctuary since William’s attack. He continued to carry out sermons from the church above so as not to raise suspicion, but as soon as they were over, he scurried back into the dark and clambered over his sleeping watchmen, where he sat in silence waiting and watching. So afraid of leaving the stone walled safety of the church had Paul become, that he even had to send an altar boy tasked with going to find one of O'Brien’s associates. The young boy found the two brothers not far from the Greenway.

  They were still busy looking for Harold after he gave them the slip at the hospital after being escorted away by the guards. When they found out that the man named William, whom Harold had sent them after, was a dead man, it had infuriated them and meant that in their eyes Harold was definitely guilty. They would have killed him and Harold should have been dead long before he made it to Muriel’s but they did not know his exact address and for that Harold should have been thankful. The day the altar boy found the O’Brien’s only a few doors down from Harold’s home, he would have still been there. The boy had rushed back to tell Paul his achievements, sure it would buy him a coin or two but Paul had killed him off quickly, bludgeoning him to death with a copper candlestick holder. In his insanity Paul had decided that the young child had been too much of a risk to let live. He had seen the catacombs and knew who Paul was after. He was as bad as the rest, all conspiring to stop his work. Paul hadn’t bothered to experiment on the boy’s body. Instead he had thrown the limp cooling body into the hole beneath the sarcophagus that led down into the labyrinth below the city, all the while continuing to rant to the silence around him.

  “ Hush, too much crying, too much noise from the darkness. Darkness calls to me, calls for blood. It called for women, called for pets, and now for my altar boy. Given everything to darkness, just like the dark skinned ones, soon to be blessed by the dark god. The Rakta Ishvara will soon cure me. Make me well, make me a god and then you’ll all stop crying. You’ll all stop screaming at me. You had to die, you just had to, now, all be ushered in to the darkness. Leave me in peace.” Paul whimpered. He had often talked to the darkness as he called it. The screams of his victims always rang in his ears like the tolls of the bell at the top of the tower of Saint Anne’s.

  The O’Brien brothers finally gave up their search for Harold and decided to accept the request that the altar boy had given them, to go and see the priest on Enwek morning, they made their way to Saint Anne’s chapel where they would meet with Reverend Paul. It made even two brutes like the O’Brien’s feel their skin crawl as they clambered down into that darkness and into the sight of the makeshift defences that Reverend Paul had built.

  When they found him Paul was still chattering to himself in a nervous rant. He had accepted in his own mind that he had lost his grip on sanity, and in his brief lucid moments, even pondered if it was just fear of being found out for what he had done, or a sickness that drove him insane, had he perhaps caught scurvy from one of the brasses he had brought in to experiment on.

  In the cold darkness the two thugs kept a close eye on the twitching vicar in front of them. His stance unnerved them and they kept their backs close to the stairs that they just clambered down. Their eyes darting back and forth wondering just what the hell was going on.

  “ You called for us vicar.” Ernest asked nervously, the sight of the blood splattered across the floor making him nervous. Ernest wasn’t squeamish around bodily fluids normally but he could sense something wasn’t right here and there was the smell to. It smelt like death. It reminded him of the time he’d found the sack washed up on the side of the canals and decided to open it to find the poor helpless corpses of some unwanted kittens. The smell was the same just stronger. There were dead things close by, he just knew it. “I did not think you would have wanted to see us again after our little-” He paused, taking his time to remove his hat. “Yes, our little chats in your confession box. You know that girl has still not shown up. If this meeting is not of any benefit to us, maybe they can have a chat about that and the m
oney you lost us.” Ernest continued, trying to take command of the situation. Ernest was the clever one of the two brothers and no matter how scared he really was, he would not show it. With his father’s death it would be him that would go on to lead the underworld of Neeskmouth’s vice.

  “You dare come into the Lord’s sanctuary and threaten me? I know you are blasphemers and rogues, I will not permit you to foul this place.” Paul ranted, not believing in the creator himself any more but still knowing the power his words commanded even through his dementia. Ernest looked back at the unearthed coffins they had clambered over.

  “ What do you call that over there then, priest?” He asked. “Looks like you are doing a good job at fouling this place yourself. What is that goddamn smell? Something died down here?” Ernest flicked his finger back towards the bulwark as he asked the questions.

  “It’s just a minor precaution.” Paul said with a shrug. To his twisted and sleep deprived mind at that time, having a pile of coffins and leaves on the stairs was just a matter of necessity and made perfect sense.

  Ernest nervously flicked a coin between his fingers in his pocket. He was a gambling man and knew it was his tell but he couldn’t help it. He always fiddled with a coin when he was nervous and at that moment he was very aware he was stuck in a room with two men who were clearly insane. Neill had not even seemed fazed by the smell of dead bodies or the fact he’d had to clamber over coffins to get into the room, and busily dug at something stuck between his teeth.