The Five Faces (The Markhat Files) Read online

“What’s she up to, Mama?” I asked.

  “Don’t know just yet. I told her what we saw that witch-woman do, defiling them places of rest. Granny was keen to come with us this morning. She’s awful protective of her dead folks.”

  Granny stopped in the shade of a tall oak and was having an animated if hushed conversation with people only she could see.

  Buttercup escaped Darla’s grasp and scampered away. I looked around to see if any of the half dozen old folks wandering through the cemetery took notice of the little girl skipping blithely through gravewards, but no one appeared to be alarmed.

  “Shall I go fetch her?” asked Darla as Buttercup began to dance in a circle around Granny.

  “Granny doesn’t seem perturbed. Let her be.”

  After a few moments, Granny bowed, hugged half a dozen invisible acquaintances, and ambled back toward the carriage.

  Buttercup saved herself a few steps by simply vanishing from beneath the oak and reappearing by Mama.

  “Hist, ye naughty child!” said Mama, grabbing Buttercup’s hand. “I’ve told you about showing off in the eye of the public!”

  “Might as well shout at the clouds, Mama,” I said. Granny came clomping up, her expression grim.

  “There’s trouble about,” she said in a near whisper. “Oh, and dancing crows, my how your knees cook a roast, such-like and so-forth. Drive please.”

  Mama shook her owl over Granny’s head. “I take it you found them in a talkative mood?”

  “Even the dead love spreading rumors,” said Granny. “Toadstools and bedsheets.”

  I groaned inwardly. “So the rumors you spoke about earlier are rumors you’ve heard from the dead?”

  “Well, they wasn’t from the Watch. Hath thee the head of a pumpkin? Who better knows the business of the dead than the dead themselves? I spy a meddling bread. Speak not to me of rugs. We aren’t moving.”

  We weren’t. I urged the ponies ahead, and they bore us from that cemetery and on to the next.

  We visited all five graveyards. Each time, Granny went off alone, held brief but animated conversations with thin air, and returned to us more deeply troubled than before.

  By the time we reached the Pale’s fancy wrought-iron gates, Granny was barely speaking to the living at all.

  “Hold,” she said after we passed the dour, old fart napping behind his red priest’s mask. “Wait.”

  “You forgot to mention my eyeballs, or call for a pitcher of shade,” I noted. “Got to pay attention to details, Granny, or—”

  “Get us out of here,” she said. She leaned close and dug her nails into my left shoulder. “For the love of Heaven, Mr. Markhat, turn around and go.”

  I took us off the cobbled lane but I got us turned around. Then I snapped the reins and maybe the ponies were just bored or maybe they sensed whatever had Granny spooked, but we flew out of there at a full gallop, making such a racket the gate priest awoke with a start and got tangled in his robes and fell flat on his ass as we passed.

  I took us a block away for good measure before bringing us to a halt.

  “What did you see back there, Granny?”

  “No one. Nothing. The cemetery was deserted. Bake me a pie full of urchins, and I’ll fill your sled with feathers, you stoat.”

  Mama piped up. “I seen two dozen folks tidying up graves or putting down fresh flowers,” she said. “Maybe more, on up the hill.”

  “The living were there, certainly. But none of the dead.” Granny whirled, standing and waving. “You there, in the shroud! Stay a moment, I’d like to talk.”

  A few pedestrians regarded Granny with bemused stares.

  Granny hopped down, rushed to an empty street-side bench, and spoke to the air. Then she waved over a second invisible person, and a third, and as she added more invisible speakers to her impromptu street party, a small crowd of solid folk gathered to watch her antics.

  She put on a show, complete with a brief interlude of standing on the bench and preaching gibberish before breaking into song.

  The crowd responded with laughter and scattered applause. Someone put a box down by the bench, and a few coins found their way into it.

  “Disgraceful,” hissed Mama.

  “She’s got to make a living like everyone else,” I said.

  “I ain’t talking about her, boy. It’s them what’s laughin’ at a poor old lady that makes me mad.” Mama shook her owl at the crowd and rattled off a string of nonsense words.

  “That’ll fix ’em,” she said.

  I didn’t ask. Finally, Granny ran out of steam, the crowd dispersed, and I pretended not to see Granny empty the box of coins into the palm of a rail-thin, street kid who went dashing off without a thank-you or a backward glance.

  When Granny climbed into the carriage, she was pale and shaking and her grin was forced.

  “What was all that?” I asked.

  “Nothing we can speak of now, lord of doubled fishermen,” she said. “Somewhere safe first. Make room, make room! You three get in the back. You with the skull face, you can stand. Mr. Pollman, she does not want to sit in your lap so you might as well stand and let the lady have the seat.”

  Mama’s eyes went wide.

  “Boy, we are in the presence of them what has passed,” she said. She shoved the owl back in her bag and withdrew a copper wire upon which six dried sparrows were impaled. “I don’t have nothing against dead folks, but hear me now, I ain’t takin’ in no boarders!”

  “The rest of you, wait here,” shouted Granny to a bewildered passerby in a tall, white baker’s hat. “We’ll be back for the rest of you shortly.” She paused for a moment, listening. “As many trips as it takes, Mrs. Pots. You have the word of Granny Knot.”

  “Trips? What trips?” I asked. “They may have the word of Granny Knot, but I have the rented carriage of Hay-top Buggins, and he charges by the hour.”

  Granny looked me in the eye and stuck out her tongue. “Drive, stew-pot,” she said. “Mind the corners. Mr. Pollman is new to bein’ dead and likely to fall out if you takes them too fast.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  An icy cold fingertip stroked the back of my neck.

  “Somebody grab Mr. Pollman,” I said. “We’ll never find him if he falls out.”

  I snapped my reins and pulled back into the road. “Mind telling me where we’re going?” I asked.

  “Elfways,” said Granny. She slumped, and Mama caught her, and she managed to straighten back up. “Take me home and don’t spare the kidneys.”

  Mindful of unsteady ghosts, I turned us east and headed for the narrow lanes and buckled roofs of Elfways.

  I’m ashamed to admit that I made five trips from Elfways to the Pale and back again. Granny reports that we conveyed twenty-nine lost souls from the Pale’s chalky bulk to the nameless little cemetery by Granny’s shack. I can’t dispute the claim, mainly because I never saw a damned thing.

  Only after we delivered the last load of the dead did Granny regain any of her usual animation.

  “Tary whilst I close the gate,” she said, before remembering to append her statement with a long exposition concerning horses and their preferences where hats are concerned.

  We tarried. Buttercup whispered to her doll, which was sometimes a skull. Darla sat close and the way her right hand kept slipping into her purse told me it was full of sleek, silver revolvers.

  Mama shook her birds and muttered.

  “I ain’t never seen Granny rattled before,” she said as Granny closed the cemetery gates to the street. “Better get set for bad news.”

  Granny pulled out a strand of her own hair and wrapped it around the latch. “Mrs. Hog,” she called. “Attend us, if you will?”

  Mama rose.

  “Don’t step on any ghosts,” I said.

  I swear something cold stroked the back of my neck.

  Buttercup hissed, all the humor gone from her eyes. The touch of cold withdrew.

  “So this is what you do all day,” sa
id Darla. “Haul around ghosts. Watch Mama hex strangers.”

  “I’m more heroic most times. You’re just seeing me in a slump.”

  Granny and Mama spoke. Mama rummaged in her bag for just the right desiccated bird, produced a dried snake instead, and waved it over the gate.

  Granny returned to the carriage and leaned against it while Mama worked.

  “We are safe here,” she said. “Mrs. Markhat. I hope you won’t be insulted if I forgo the customary theatrics. I am weary, and we have little time.”

  Darla just nodded.

  “What just happened?” I asked. “Was all this part of the show, or was it real?”

  “It is quite real. The souls we have transported were in genuine peril. They are safe now.” She held up her hand, as if for silence. “They wish to extend to you their thanks, Mr. Markhat.”

  I felt damned foolish, but I nodded anyway. “They’re welcome. I hate to see dead people waste good shoe leather when a perfectly good carriage is handy. Granny, pretend I don’t know what the hell is going on and explain it, will you?”

  “The rumors were correct. A necromancer is among us. The person you referred to as the witch-woman has been collecting weak souls and making off with them.”

  Darla shivered by my side.

  “How?”

  “The mechanics aren’t important. This person has defiled a dozen cemeteries in the last few months. She selects a graveyard, installs a crypt, and abuses the spirits who wander the grounds.”

  “I don’t suppose the dead folks can supply me with a name?” I asked.

  “They are deceased, not stupid. Her name, or at least the consensus pronunciation thereof, is Szerzhenkap.”

  “I take it she’s not from around here.”

  “No. She last came from Prince. Before that, even the dead cannot say.”

  “So this Szerzhenkap has Rannit’s ghosts in an uproar. What were they doing outside the Pale, anyway? Hell, the rent in that neighborhood is beyond my means, and I have a solid torso.”

  “They fled,” said Granny. “But the world beyond the cemetery gates is no place for them. The dead no longer perceive the world as do you and I. They were lost, wandering, ripe for the taking.”

  “And now they can just settle down here, raise a brood of poltergeists, maybe open a shop?”

  “They are back on sacred ground. The dead may be at peace, until they are ready to move on,” said Granny. “As long as we prevent the necromancer from breaching the gate.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Darla.

  “I can,” said Granny. She paused and rolled her eyes. “I tell you I can,” she repeated. “Now go find a nice quiet place and rest.”

  “We saw the witch-woman roll right through thicker chains than yours,” I said.

  “I was not there to stop her,” said Granny. Her eyes flashed. “But she is not my main source of concern at the moment.”

  “What’s worse than a mad necromancer?”

  “The shade she has summoned,” said Granny. “The shade that the necromancer feeds with the souls she captures.”

  Mama came stomping up.

  “I hexed your gate good,” she reported. “But a half dozen Hoogas with them big Ogre clubs they favors might be a good idea too. Wants me to send word to Ogre-town?”

  Granny shook her head. “Ogres will spill my tea!” she screeched. “No Ogres. Only hexes. Hexes and thistles, better than whistles!”

  “Do tell,” muttered Mama. “Well, I expect you know best.”

  Buttercup scampered off, giggling and skipping among the dingy, leaning gravewards.

  “Any idea who this shade might have been in life?” I asked.

  Granny shook her head no. I sighed but wasn’t surprised.

  “I’ll work on finding out. Are we done here?” I asked. “Any spooks need a ride downtown?”

  “May your badgers fill cupboards with mirth and waxed spoons,” said Granny.

  “Same to you. Mama? Want a ride back to Cambrit?”

  “Thankee, boy, but I reckon I’ll stay and visit a spell.”

  “You ladies don’t stay out past Curfew.”

  Both of them guffawed. Buttercup appeared to be holding an invisible hand and smiling up at an invisible face.

  Maybe it was the sun in my eye, but when I turned to speak to Darla, I saw, just for an instant, what appeared to be a tall, thin figure wearing old-timey knee-britches and a puffed lace collar holding Buttercup’s hand.

  “Should we try to take Buttercup?” asked Darla.

  “I think not,” I said. “She’s making new friends.”

  I got us moving before she could ask.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I left a none-too-pleased Darla back at the hotel. Then I ran a few errands before heading to Avalante.

  Evis was waiting. He’d dressed himself in a new kind of armor his subterranean geniuses had concocted. It was black and tight and gave him a somewhat beetle-ish appearance, but he claimed it would turn everything short of a bullet, leaving nothing worse than a bruise.

  “No thanks. I’ll make sure to button my coat up all the way,” I said when he offered to fetch me one of the outlandish get-ups.

  “You should reconsider,” he said. His pale eyes were owlish in the dark of his office. “This is no ordinary man we may encounter.”

  According to the waybills, a street chemist named Ray-ray was due to die at ten o’clock sharp. The drawing depicted his head missing in a neat line right above his jaw. Evis claimed his people had identified the location of the murder as an alley not far from the docks.

  Evis keeps a dozen timepieces of one kind or another in his office. I’d stopped looking at them an hour ago, because they kept indicating conflicting times. Not by much. A minute here, half a minute there. But I knew damned well Evis wouldn’t allow his clocks to be anything save accurate.

  The coin remained in my right-hand pocket. I’d considered dropping it in a privy just out of spite, but realized it would only make its way back to my pants, probably without any magical cleaning in the process.

  “You should reconsider,” said Evis.

  “This is no ordinary man we may encounter,” I said before he got the words out.

  The dapper vampire frowned. “All the more reason to protect yourself as best you can,” he said.

  “Maybe next time.” I drained my beer. “Where is Stitches? I figured she’d be helping you pace and wring your hands.”

  “I do not wring my hands.” He crossed behind his desk, sat, and produced a pair of cigars. “She is making preparations of her own.”

  “Good. Maybe she’ll get lucky and reduce You Know Who to ash and we can be done with all this. Isn’t that get-up hot? Looks like you’d be baking inside it.”

  “My metabolism differs.” He blew a perfect smoke ring. “I believe her emphasis tonight is on gathering intelligence, although she did mention use of some obscure artifact as a measure of last resort.”

  I puffed on my cigar and nodded. I’d been on the deck of the Queen when the Corpsemaster dropped a rock from the sky on Hag Mary and her doomed playmates. The impact had forced the Brown River to run backwards for three entire days and left a crater so large it’s a full day’s boat-ride across. Evis didn’t know Stitches was really the Corpsemaster, and in that moment I envied him. When a wand-waver of that standing talks measures of last resort, big deep holes are the inevitable result.

  A knock sounded at the door. Evis bade them enter, and a halfdead clad in the same black gear poked his head inside the room.

  “We are ready,” he said. “The sorceress and team are assembling outside.”

  “We’ll be there in five,” said Evis. The halfdead withdrew.

  “Time to go,” he said. “We’ll need to conceal ourselves and prepare Stitches’s implements.”

  I rose. Another knock sounded, one I recognized, and as I hurried to get out of the room Gertriss came inside.

  She wore the same expression I’d last seen
on Darla. It was a mixture of hurt and apprehension at being left behind.

  “Boss,” she said, without a smile or any hint of banter in her tone.

  “We’re neither one of us popular tonight,” I said. “Blame it on our patriarchal society and upbringing.”

  “Go,” said Evis, to me. “I’ll meet you topside.”

  I went as fast as my reluctant feet could carry me.

  “I take it that went well,” I said as Evis took his seat across from me.

  “Don’t ask,” he said. The carriage door slammed shut, and after a few moments of terse exchanges by drivers and soldiers, we headed out into the night.

  I’d gotten only the briefest glimpse of Stitches, and not even that of her goodies. Whatever she was bringing had been covered with black tarps. I counted half a dozen trunk-sized forms under the tarps before I was shooed into a shiny, black carriage and told in no uncertain terms to wait quietly.

  Stitches was wearing the same odd armor as Evis and all the rest. My long, tan coat, black pants, and white shirt left me feeling overdressed.

  Evis guessed my thoughts. “Too late now,” he said, allowing himself a toothy grin. “But don’t worry. The plan is to stay well away from the action. We’ll have plenty more chances to engage before our turns come up. We just want to see what we’re up against.”

  I bit back a comment about gods and fate. No sense in both of us harboring a sense of inescapable doom.

  “So what’s in the crates? More of those repeating rifles?”

  “Something much more amusing,” he said. “Just in case the festivities get out of hand.”

  I didn’t like the way he kept on grinning after he spoke.

  “Thought tonight was just a bit of spying.”

  “You know me. I like to come prepared.”

  He wouldn’t say more than that the whole ride across town, so I contented myself to peeking out the tiny carriage window.

  Rannit was, for the most part, going to bed. Reluctantly, and with a lot of cussing and fuming, but streets were clearing and shutters were closing and locking, and even the drunks were stumbling toward home with an air of clumsy urgency.

  A couple of times I thought I saw something agile and blonde leap across rooftops, but I was never quite sure if I’d actually seen Buttercup or if the coin was showing me shafts of moonlight from a few moments hence or a few moments ago.