Seven Stones to Stand or Fall Read online

  “Talk to the other driver,” he shouted at his own, half visible on the box. “Find out why the comte has come here! Find out what he’s doing!”

  Nothing good. He was sure of that. Though he couldn’t imagine why anyone would kidnap a nun and drag her out of Paris in the dark, only to stop at the edge of a public cemetery. Unless…half-heard rumors of depraved men who murdered and dismembered their victims, even those who ate…His wame rose and he nearly vomited, but it wasn’t possible to vomit and run at the same time, and he could see a pale splotch on the darkness that he thought—he hoped, he feared—must be Joan.

  Suddenly the night burst into flower. A huge puff of green fire bloomed in the darkness, and by its eerie glow he saw her clearly, her hair flying in the wind.

  He opened his mouth to shout, to call out to her, but he had no breath, and before he could recover it she vanished into the ground, the comte following her, torch in hand.

  He reached the shaft moments later, and he saw below the faintest green glow, just vanishing down a tunnel. Without an instant’s hesitation, he flung himself down the ladder.

  “DO YOU HEAR anything?” the comte kept asking her as they stumbled along the white-walled tunnels, he grasping her so hard by the arm that he’d surely leave bruises on her skin.

  “No,” she gasped. “What…am I listening for?”

  He merely shook his head in a displeased way, but more as though he was listening for something himself than because he was angry with her for not hearing it.

  She had some hopes that he’d meant what he said and would take her back. He did mean to go back himself; he’d lit several torches and left them burning along their way. So he wasn’t about to disappear into the hill altogether, taking her with him to the lighted ballroom where people danced all night with the Fine Folk, unaware that their own world slipped past beyond the stones of the hill.

  The comte stopped abruptly, hand squeezing harder round her arm.

  “Be still,” he said very quietly, though she wasn’t making any noise. “Listen.”

  She listened as hard as possible—and thought she did hear something. What she thought she heard, though, was footsteps, far in the distance. Behind them. Her heart seized up for a moment.

  “What—what do you hear?” she thought of asking. He glanced down at her, but not as though he really saw her.

  “Them,” he said. “The stones. They make a buzzing sound, most of the time. If it’s close to a fire feast or a sun feast, though, they begin to sing.”

  “Do they?” she said faintly. He was hearing something, and evidently it wasn’t the footsteps she’d heard. The footsteps had stopped now, as though whoever followed was waiting, maybe stealing along, one step at a time, careful to make no sound.

  “Yes,” he said, and his face was intent. He looked at her sharply again, and this time he saw her.

  “You don’t hear them,” he said with certainty, and she shook her head. He pressed his lips tight together but after a moment lifted his chin, gesturing toward another tunnel, where there seemed to be something painted on the chalk.

  He paused there to light another torch—this one burned a brilliant yellow and stank of sulfur—and she saw by its light the wavering shape of the Virgin and Child. Her heart lifted at the sight, for surely faeries would have no such thing in their lair.

  “Come,” he said, and now took her by the hand. His own was cold.

  MICHAEL CAUGHT A glimpse of them as they moved into a side tunnel. The comte had lit another torch, a red one this time—how did he do that?—and it was easy to follow its glow.

  How far down in the bowels of the earth were they? He had long since lost track of the turnings, though he might be able to get back by following the torches—assuming they hadn’t all burned out.

  He still had no plan in mind, other than to follow them until they stopped. Then he’d make himself known and…well, take Joan away, by whatever means proved necessary.

  Swallowing hard, rosary still wrapped around his left hand and penknife in his right, he stepped into the shadows.

  THE CHAMBER WAS round and quite large. Big enough that the torchlight didn’t reach all the edges, but it lit the pentagram inscribed into the floor in the center.

  The noise was making Rakoczy’s bones ache, and as often as he had heard it, it never failed to make his heart race and his hands sweat. He let go of the nun’s hand for a moment to wipe his palm on the skirts of his coat, not wanting to disgust her. She looked scared but not terrified, and if she heard it, surely she—

  Her eyes had widened suddenly.

  “Who’s that?” she said.

  He whirled, to see Raymond standing tranquilly in the center of the pentagram.

  “Bon soir, mademoiselle,” the frog said, bowing politely.

  “Ah…bon soir,” the girl replied faintly.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Rakoczy interposed his body between Raymond and the nun.

  “Very likely the same thing you are,” the frog replied. “Might you introduce your petite amie, sir?”

  Shock, anger, and sheer confusion robbed Rakoczy of speech for a moment. What was the infernal creature doing here? Wait—the girl! The lost daughter he’d mentioned: the nun was the daughter! He’d discovered her whereabouts and somehow followed them to this place. Rakoczy took hold of the girl’s arm again, firmly.

  “She is a Scotch,” he said. “And, as you see, a nun. No concern of yours.”

  The frog looked amused, cool and unruffled. Rakoczy was sweating, the noise beating against his skin in waves. He could feel the little bag of stones in his pocket, a hard lump against his heart. They seemed to be warm, warmer even than his skin.

  “I doubt that she is, really,” said Raymond. “Why is she a concern of yours, though?”

  “That’s also none of your business.” He was trying to think. He couldn’t lay out the stones, not with the damned frog standing there. Could he just leave with the girl? But if the frog meant him harm…and if the girl truly wasn’t…

  Raymond ignored the incivility and bowed again to the girl.

  “I am Master Raymond, my dear,” he said. “And you?”

  “Joan Mac—” she said. “Er…Sister Gregory, I mean.” She tried to pull away from Rakoczy’s grip. “Um. If I’m not the concern of either of you gentlemen—”

  “She’s my concern, gentlemen.” The voice was high with nerves, but firm. Rakoczy looked round, shocked to see the young wine merchant walk into the chamber, disheveled and dirty but eyes fixed on the girl. At Rakoczy’s side, the nun gasped.

  “Sister.” The merchant bowed. He was white-faced but not sweating. He looked as though the chill of the cavern had seeped into his bones, but he put out a hand, from which the beads of a wooden rosary swung. “You dropped your rosary.”

  JOAN THOUGHT SHE might faint from sheer relief. Her knees wobbled from terror and exhaustion, but she summoned enough strength to wrench free of the comte and run, stumbling, into Michael’s arms. He grabbed her and hauled her away from the comte, half-dragging her.

  The comte made an angry sound and took a step in Joan’s direction, but Michael said, “Stop right there, ye wicked bugger!” just as the little froggy-faced man said sharply, “Stop!”

  The comte swung toward first one and then the other. He looked…crazed. Joan swallowed and nudged Michael, urging him toward the chamber’s door, only then noticing the penknife in his hand.

  “What were ye going to do wi’ that?” she whispered. “Shave him?”

  “Let the air out of him,” Michael muttered. He lowered his hand but didn’t put the knife away and kept his eyes on the two men.

  “Your daughter,” the comte said hoarsely to the man who called himself Master Raymond. “You were looking for a lost daughter. I’ve found her for you.”

  Raymond’s brows shot up, and he glanced at Joan.

  “Mine?” he said, astonished. “She isn’t one of mine. Can’t you tell?”

 
The comte drew a breath so deep it cracked in his throat.

  “Tell? But—”

  The frog looked impatient.

  “Can you not see auras? The electrical fluid that surrounds people,” he elucidated, waving a hand around his own head.

  The comte rubbed a hand hard over his face. “I can’t—”

  “For goodness sake, come in here!” Raymond stepped to the edge of the star, reached across, and seized the comte’s hand.

  RAKOCZY STIFFENED AT the touch. Blue light exploded from their linked hands, and he gasped, feeling a surge of energy such as he had never before experienced. Raymond pulled hard, and Rakoczy stepped across the line into the pentagram.

  Silence. The buzzing had stopped. He nearly wept with the relief of it.

  “I—you—” he stammered, looking at the linked hands.

  “You didn’t know?” Raymond looked surprised.

  “That you were a—” He waved at the pentagram. “I thought you might be.”

  “Not that,” Raymond said, almost gently. “That you were one of mine.”

  “Yours?” Rakoczy looked down again; the blue light was pulsing gently now, surrounding their fingers.

  “Everyone has an aura of some kind,” Raymond said. “But only my…people…have this.”

  In the blessed silence, it was possible to think again. And the first thing that came to mind was the Star Chamber, the king looking on as they had faced each other over a poisoned cup. And now he knew why the frog hadn’t killed him.

  HIS MIND BUBBLED with questions. La Dame Blanche, blue light, Mélisande, and Madeleine…Thought of Madeleine and what grew in her womb nearly stopped him, but the urge to find out, to know at last, was too strong.

  “Can you—can we—go forward?”

  Raymond hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  “Yes. But it’s not safe. Not safe at all.”

  “Will you show me?”

  “I mean it.” The frog’s grip tightened on his. “It’s not a safe thing to know, let alone to do.”

  Rakoczy laughed, feeling all at once exhilarated, full of joy. Why should he fear knowledge? Perhaps the passage would kill him—but he had a pocket full of gems, and, besides, what was the point of waiting to die slowly?

  “Tell me!” he said, squeezing the other’s hand. “For the sake of our shared blood!”

  JOAN STOOD STOCK-STILL, amazed. Michael’s arm was still around her, but she scarcely noticed.

  “He is!” she whispered. “He truly is! They both are!”

  “Are what?” Michael gaped at her.

  “Auld Folk! Faeries!”

  He looked wildly back at the scene before them. The two men stood face-to-face, hands locked together, their mouths moving in animated conversation—in total silence. It was like watching mimes but even less interesting.

  “I dinna care what they are. Loons, criminals, demons, angels…Come on!” He dropped his arm and seized her hand, but she was planted solid as an oak sapling, her eyes growing wide and wider.

  She gripped his hand hard enough to grind the bones and shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Don’t do it!!”

  He whirled round just in time to see them vanish.

  THEY STUMBLED TOGETHER down the long, pale passages, bathed in the flickering light of dying torches, red, yellow, blue, green, a ghastly purple that made Joan’s face look drowned.

  “Des feux d’artifice,” Michael said. His voice sounded queer, echoing in the empty tunnels. “A conjurer’s trick.”

  “What?” Joan looked drugged, her eyes black with shock.

  “The fires. The…colors. Have ye never heard of fireworks?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” It seemed too much a struggle to explain, and they went on in silence, hurrying as much as they could, to reach the shaft before the light died entirely.

  At the bottom, he paused to let her go first, thinking too late that he should have gone first—she’d think he meant to look up her dress….He turned hastily away, face burning.

  “D’ye think he was? That they were?” She was hanging on to the ladder, a few feet above him. Beyond her, he could see the stars, serene in a velvet sky.

  “Were what?” He looked at her face, so as not to risk her modesty. She was looking better now but very serious.

  “Were they Auld Folk? Faeries?”

  “I suppose they must ha’ been.” His mind was moving very slowly; he didn’t want to have to try to think. He motioned to her to climb and followed her up, his eyes tightly shut. If they were Auld Ones, then likely so was Auntie Claire. He truly didn’t want to think about that.

  He drew the fresh air gratefully into his lungs. The wind was toward the city now, coming off the fields, full of the resinous cool scent of pine trees and the breath of grass and cattle. He felt Joan breathe it in, sigh deeply, and then she turned to him, put her arms around him, and rested her forehead on his chest. He put his arms round her and they stood for some time, in peace.

  Finally, she stirred and straightened up.

  “Ye’d best take me back, then,” she said. “The sisters will be half out o’ their minds.”

  He was conscious of a sharp sense of disappointment but turned obediently toward the coach, standing in the distance. Then he turned back.

  “Ye’re sure?” he said. “Did your voices tell ye to go back?”

  She made a sound that wasn’t quite a rueful laugh.

  “I dinna need a voice to tell me that.” She brushed a hand through her hair, smoothing it off her face. “In the Highlands, if a man’s widowed, he takes another wife as soon as he can get one; he’s got to have someone to mend his shirt and rear his bairns. But Sister Philomène says it’s different in Paris; that a man might mourn for a year.”

  “He might,” he said, after a short silence. Would a year be enough, he wondered, to heal the great hole where Lillie had been? He knew he would never forget—never stop looking for her—but he didn’t forget what Ian had told him, either.

  “But after a time, ye find ye’re in a different place than ye were. A different person than ye were. And then ye look about and see what’s there with ye. Ye’ll maybe find a use for yourself.”

  Joan’s face was pale and serious in the moonlight, her mouth gentle.

  “It’s a year before a postulant makes up her mind. Whether to stay and become a novice—or…or leave. It takes time. To know.”

  “Aye,” he said softly. “Aye, it does.”

  He turned to go, but she stopped him, a hand on his arm.

  “Michael,” she said. “Kiss me, aye? I think I should maybe know that, before I decide.”

  A PLAGUE OF ZOMBIES

  INTRODUCTION

  THE THING ABOUT Lord John’s situation and career—unmarried, no fixed establishment, discreet political connections, fairly high-ranking officer—is that he can easily take part in far-flung adventures rather than being bound to a pedestrian daily life. To be honest, once I started doing “bulges” (that is, shorter pieces of fiction) involving him, I just looked at which year it was and then consulted one of my historical timeline references to see what kinds of interesting events happened in that year. That’s how he happened to find himself in Quebec for the battle there.

  In terms of this story, though, the impetus came from two different sources, both “trails” leading back from the main book of the series—Voyager, in this case. To wit: I knew that Lord John was the governor of Jamaica in 1766, when Claire met him aboard the Porpoise; it wasn’t by any means impossible for a man with connections and no experience to be appointed to such a post—but it was more likely for a man who had had experience in the territory to which he was appointed. “Plague” is set in 1761, and is the story of how Lord John gained that experience. I knew also that Geillis Duncan wasn’t dead and where she was. And, after all, with a story set in Jamaica, how could I possibly resist zombies?

  Spanish Town, Jamaica

  June 1761

  THERE WAS A SNAKE on the d
rawing-room table. A small snake, but still. Lord John Grey wondered whether to say anything about it.

  The governor, appearing quite oblivious of the coiled reptile’s presence, picked up a cut-crystal decanter that stood not six inches from the snake. Perhaps it was a pet, or perhaps the residents of Jamaica were accustomed to keeping a tame snake in residence, to kill rats. Judging from the number of rats Grey had seen since leaving the ship, this was sensible—though this particular snake didn’t appear large enough to take on even your average mouse.

  The wine was decent, but served at body heat, and it seemed to pass directly through Grey’s gullet and into his blood. He’d had nothing to eat since before dawn and felt the muscles of his lower back begin to tingle and relax. He put the glass down; he wanted a clear head.

  “I cannot tell you, sir, how happy I am to receive you,” said the governor, putting down his own glass, empty. “The position is acute.”

  “So you said in your letter to Lord North. The situation has not changed appreciably since then?” It had been nearly three months since that letter was written; a lot could change in three months.

  He thought Governor Warren shuddered, despite the temperature in the room.

  “It has become worse,” the governor said, picking up the decanter. “Much worse.”

  Grey felt his shoulders tense, but spoke calmly.

  “In what way? Have there been more—” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “More demonstrations?” It was a mild word to describe the burning of cane fields, the looting of plantations, and the wholesale liberation of slaves.

  Warren gave a hollow laugh. His handsome face was beading with sweat. There was a crumpled handkerchief on the arm of his chair, and he picked it up to mop at his skin. He hadn’t shaved this morning—or, quite possibly, yesterday; Grey could hear the faint rasp of his dark whiskers on the cloth.

  “Yes. More destruction. They burnt a sugar press last month, though still in the remoter parts of the island. Now, though…” He paused, licking dry lips as he poured more wine. He made a cursory motion toward Grey’s glass, but Grey shook his head.