After a moment, Meg decided Dee was no threat. She delved into her sack and withdrew a bunch of wilting herbs and the mortar. When she looked up again, her breath caught in her throat. Dee had stood silently and was peering at the wall as if he could see through it. The looking glass lay upon the bed.
‘Stay calm, my love,’ she whispered in honeyed tones, ‘and I will stroke your brow and soothe away all your worries.’ Usually the alchemist fell under the spell of her voice and returned to his dazed state, but this time he dropped to his knees and brushed aside the rushes on the floor with a feverish intensity. Meg watched him at work, wondering what strange thoughts were running through his head. He seemed oblivious of her presence. In all the time she had administered her concoction, never had she seen this reaction before.
Dipping into a hidden pocket in his cloak of furs, Dee withdrew a piece of chalk and began to draw a circle on the boards. His feverish fingers flew across the familiar design, inscribing inexplicable symbols at points along the arc.
Meg stroked his long hair. ‘You are troubled, my love,’ she pressed, her tone a little more insistent than she had intended. ‘Put aside these things and return to the bed. Enjoy the pleasures of my thighs one final time before sleep.’
Dee ignored her, the first time he had refused her charms. She felt worried by the alchemist’s actions now. He seemed possessed, his eyes glinting with an inner fire.
Finally he stopped his inscribing, squatting in the centre of the chalk circle. Her hand felt for her dagger once more. If she had to, she could wound him enough to incapacitate him until she had him aboard the ship bound for her homeland.
Before she could move, Dee’s head jerked up and his eyes swivelled towards her. His lips unfurled from his yellowing teeth and he uttered one word, one sound that made no sense to her, but it made the heavens ring.
CHAPTER FIVE
Thunder rumbled away to the west. Will paused at the end of the urine-reeking alley and glanced along the deserted high street. If the Unseelie Court were abroad there near the centre of Liverpool, they were keeping away from candles and lamps. He darted through the deep shadow under the overhanging eaves until he saw the grim faces of Launceston, Carpenter and Strangewayes. They waited for him at the assigned spot, in the lee of the silent stone bulk of the town hall.
‘Good news, lads,’ he said, forcing a cheery tone. ‘Or not. Our Irish vixen has made her lair in one Moll Higgins’s rooming house. Now the moment we dreaded must be addressed. Can we bear the lash of Dr Dee’s sour tongue all the way back to London, or should we leave him to his fate? Make your case now, and be quick about it.’
‘We have friends in Liverpool,’ Launceston said in his familiar monotone. ‘The kind of friends who would turn our bones to straw and mount us on sticks to scare the crows till Judgement Day.’
Will nodded. ‘I encountered those pale fiends too. They also search for Dee. The risks here are doubled, men. We must fly like arrows if we are to prevent this from becoming a disaster.’ He looked round the solemn faces. Not one of them, not even the raw Tobias Strangewayes, gave a hint that a mere four spies was a poor force against the supernatural might of the Unseelie Court. Will felt proud of them. ‘Come, then, good lads. There will be wine and doxies aplenty once this work is done.’
The spies weaved through the deserted streets back towards the jumble of stews and inns near the quayside. The night-time drunken revelry had started up again. Shouts and singing and the calls of women rang over the rooftops. Carpenter demanded directions from a whore pissing in the street and within moments they were picking their way among rat-infested rubbish heaps in pitch-black alleys where the eaves almost closed over their heads.
Moll Higgins’s rooming house squatted on the edge of the dockside squalor. It was the perfect hideaway for the Irish spy and her charge, Will thought: close enough to reach the ship speedily, but far enough away from the bustle of the port to maintain a degree of anonymity. It was a tall house of four storeys, leaning in a precarious manner down the slope as if it were about to skid towards the water. Spice-smelling merchants’ stores jammed hard against it.
Will looked up at the dingy whitewashed walls. Most of the small windows were dark, but a candle flickered in one on the second floor and another in the roof. The storm rolled around the town, throwing off spears of lightning and clashes of thunder. The wind tugged at his hair, slamming shutters and unlatched doors.
Beside him, Launceston and Carpenter were watching the rooftops for any sign of the Unseelie Court. Strangewayes stood a few paces down the slope, watching for an attack at their backs.
‘They are here,’ Carpenter said in a flat, low voice. Blood dripped from his nose, and Will could feel the familiar knot in the pit of his stomach as his senses rebelled against the alien presences that drew near. Across the roofs, grey shapes began to flicker against the night sky, circling, like wolves.
‘No time to lose now,’ he whispered, drawing his rapier. He felt comforted by the weight of the steel in his hand. ‘In and out with Dee. Cut down any who stand in our way.’
‘And that includes the Irish woman?’ Carpenter asked with a pointed stare.
Will hesitated for only the briefest moment. ‘If she stands in our way.’ Meg will not sacrifice her life for even a treasure like Dee, he thought; he hoped.
The moon chose that instant to break through the roiling clouds, and as Will glanced up one last time he glimpsed a sight that chilled his blood. With arms and legs spread out, grey figures crawled across the tiles and down vertiginous walls like spiders, drawing in upon the rooming house from all directions.
‘I wish I had a fire to burn out this infestation,’ Launceston hummed, ‘even if it took down all Liverpool.’
Will snatched open the door that backed on to the alley and led the way into a small scullery that smelled of lamb fat and cheap beer. Dirty cooking pots from that evening’s meal were stacked on a trestle to one side. Instantly, the spy recognized an unnatural feeling to the house. A chill hung in the air and intermittent tremors ran through the walls and floor under the old, dry rushes.
‘What is wrong here?’ Strangewayes hissed as he darted in behind the others and closed the door. He drew the bolt with a resonant clank.
Will sifted through his impressions for some clue to whatever was unnerving him. His face hardened, his eyes flickering around for any sign of threat. Raising his arm, he flicked his fingers forward and his men followed him without question, into a silent, cold kitchen and then into a hallway that smelled of damp. Everywhere was dark. A passage ran alongside a flight of ramshackle stairs. Though the gale whistled around the eaves, inside the house was so still it seemed devoid of life. Will felt troubled by the quiet — any rooming house was filled with a symphony of creaks, footsteps, snores and conversation for most hours of the day — and he could see from Carpenter’s darting eyes that his companion felt the same.
‘We go up,’ he said.
The first board protested like a wheezing old man. They all halted, listening. When no response came, they continued to climb.
Halfway up the first flight, a throaty laugh rolled out just above them, low and resonant. Behind him, Will felt his men bristle, their rapiers at the ready. Will’s eyes narrowed. He searched the dark at the top of the stairs for any sign of movement, and listened for a soft tread on the boards. After a moment of quiet, someone began to hum an old sea-song, a man’s deep voice, the melody punctuated by another laugh.
The four spies looked at each other, curious.
Will bounded up the remaining steps and rounded on to the second flight. A man in a dirty undershirt and stained breeches slumped halfway up the rise, his head against the wall. His greasy brown hair hung lankly around his unshaven face, but his eyes had rolled back so only the whites were visible. He waved one hand in front of his face as if in time to music, and then hummed the sea-song once more.