Excerpt: Malady

The Curse
Prologue

Nathaniel Moore wished he had never left home that night. It was pouring, and the cobbled streets were ankle deep in water. The alley in which he stood provided little shelter, and his thick woollen coat was long since soaked through.
This was not a good night for hunting, especially not such dangerous prey. The rain made it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of him, and being half frozen and soaked to the skin was extremely distracting. Not to mention the fact that he should have been with his wife.
Charlotte was big with child, and due any day now. Nathaniel could not help but worry that the baby would come tonight and that something dreadful would happen if he were not present. He shifted his weight, trying to work some of the nervous tension out of his shoulders.
“Steady Nate,” Stephen Archer whispered from behind him, giving his shoulder a gruff squeeze. “We’ve taken down worse demons than this. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Nathaniel rolled his eyes and looked up at the second floor window of the house across the street. “When have I ever been afraid of a demon?” he asked, keeping his voice soft. He was a good twenty years younger than the other man, and Stephen didn’t seem to be able to look past that fact. “I just want this over with quickly, that’s all.”
“You’ll want to be getting back to Charlotte, I expect.” Stephen said in a knowledgeable tone. “It’s normal enough for a first time father to be nervous. Why, I remember when my son was born…”
Nathaniel let the older man’s words fade into the background, and instead he concentrated on the task ahead. Stephen was right, they had destroyed worse demons than the one they stalked tonight, but the case bothered him.
Over the last six months children had been vanishing from their bedrooms all over the city, the rich and the poor alike. At first it had seemed like a mundane crime, a job for Scotland Yard, but recent developments had shown otherwise. At the scene of the last abduction, bones had been found beneath the dormitory windows. Children’s bones, carefully picked clean of flesh.
He had investigated the bones himself, and he remembered how small they had felt in his hands. Remembered the marks that showed they had been gnawed on.
Despite himself, Nathaniel shuddered. Life as a member of the Night Watch had hardened him to a lot of things, but the death of children was something he would never get used to.
The list of child devouring demons was endless, but Nathaniel guessed the creature responsible was either a Black Annis or a Rawhead. However none of the usual methods of tracking the demon responsible had worked, and the whole case had seemed hopeless. Until finally one of the clairvoyants employed by the Watch had a vision that seemed to be a breakthrough. Not much, just a glimpse of some hellish horror, a rush of terror, and a name; Katie Warner.
Nathaniel shifted again and pulled the collar of his jacket tighter around him, trying in vain to stop water running down his neck. “Do you think this child is really going to be the next victim?” He asked, more to interrupt Stephen’s rambling account of wife’s third pregnancy than out of any real desire to hear an answer.
Stephen grunted. “No idea,” he said. “The higher ups certainly seem to think so. No guarantee it’ll come for her tonight in any case. Seers are never very precise with that sort of thing. ” He looked mournfully up into the murky sky. “Wish it would stop raining.”
Nathaniel sighed. “Not much chance of that.”
They lapsed into silence. Nathaniel pulled out his pocket watch, straining to read the time in the semi-darkness. It was two in the morning, still another hour before the second team would come to relieve them and he could go home.
He looked up at the window again, behind which Katie Warner would be sleeping peacefully in her bed, unaware of the danger she was in. With any luck, she would never have to know.
A swirling wisp of fog caught his eye, and he watched its lazy process along the street. There was something hypnotic about the way it danced and spun, it seemed almost alive. Nathaniel felt his eyelids droop as the fog began to drift upwards towards Katie Warner’s window.
It was then that he realised it was moving against the wind.
His eyes snapped open. “Stephen!” he cried, pulling the ensorcelled sword from the scabbard at his hip and starting forward, but even as he did there was a scream from the house.
Nathaniel dashed across the street, slipping a little on the wet cobble stones. He cursed as a second scream sounded from above, and hurled his weight against the locked front door. He bounced off, his shoulder aching, and would have tried again only Stephen reached him and dragged him back.
“Wait.” The older man pulled a bunch of talismans from his breast pocket, fumbling through the sculpted hierograms.
“Hurry up,” Nathaniel snapped. Whatever was happening in the room above, the child was no longer screaming, and he took that as a very bad sign.
“You’re not helping,” Stephen muttered, then swore as the wet metal slipped from his fingers, splashing into a puddle.
Nathaniel bent down and snatched up the talismans, sorting through until he found one of unlocking. He shut his eyes, and pressed it to the door, whispering words that would bring the runes to life. His desperation gave the spell strength, and instead of simply unlocking the door the flare of magic blew it right off its hinges.
He didn’t hesitate. Sword in hand he took the stairs two at a time, pushing past a screaming woman at the top and forcing his way into the child’s bedroom. The room was empty, the sheets torn from the bed, the window open to the night.
The protective runes and charms that had been laid by a member of the Watch masquerading as a window cleaner earlier that day had been warped beyond all recognition. Whatever had been in this room, it was powerful. There was a scent in the room too, sweet and intoxicating.
Nathaniel noticed all of this as he raced to the window ledge, and leaned out just in time to see a tendril of fog disappear into a grate in the street leading to the sewer.
“Blast it!”
He had already sheathed his sword and was half way out the window when Stephen entered the room, the now sobbing woman, who Nathaniel presumed was the child’s mother, at his heels.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Stephen demanded.
“It has taken the girl,” Nathaniel said. “I am pursuing.”
He lowered himself as far as he could on his arms, ignoring his screaming muscles, then dropped to the street below. He bent his knees as he landed, but he still felt the shock the whole way up his legs. Wincing he bent and heaved the manhole cover out of the way. A foul stench rose up and he coughed, feeling his stomach roll. The hole that led to the sewer was dark, and cramped looking, but with a little luck he would fit. At a glance he could tell that Stephen would not.
“Nathaniel!” Stephen was at the door, his face grave. “Did you smell it?”
“The flowers? Yes.” Nathaniel replied. He didn’t see why that mattered just at the moment.
“Amaranth,” Stephen intoned, as though it held great significance. “Beauty that never fades, and it changed itself to mist. Nate, this isn’t an Annis or any other minor hellspawn, it’s Lamia. ”
Nathaniel paused in the midst of squeezing himself into the hole. “What in God’s name is a Greater Demon doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen said. “But I won't fit down there and you can’t chase after her alone. We need to wait for more men.”
“No time.” Nathaniel shook his head, waiting for back up simply wasn’t an option. “If I don’t go now then that little girl is going to die.” He ignored Stephen’s further protests and made his way down.
The smell got worse as he descended, and by the time his feet touched solid ground it was almost intolerable. Nathaniel forced down nausea and felt the talismans he had taken from Stephen, running his finger tips over the twisted shapes of the runes until he found the spell for light. With a small effort of his will, the talisman lit up like a miniature sun.
He raised it high above his head, and there ahead far ahead of him, was a woman in a white dress. She had pale skin and wild dark hair, and clutched in her arms was the child. The girl seemed to be asleep or unconscious, though it was difficult to tell at this distance. The woman glanced back at him then vanished around the corner.
“Nate! Nate listen to me.”
Nathaniel glanced up to see Stephen peering down at him.
“Be careful.” The older man looked more worried than Nathaniel had ever saw him. His face was strained and grey in the spell light. “Don’t look into her eyes, don’t let her touch you, and whatever you do, don’t let her speak.”
Nathaniel nodded and set off along the tunnel, his footsteps echoing loudly from the walls. It was rather unnerving that the demon was in the shape of a woman, he had been expecting some kind of beast. Only the worst demons took human form, and that made them all the more difficult to fight. It was too easy to forget what kind of evil lay behind the human face.
His hand went to his sword hilt, then he changed his mind and drew his pistol instead. He wasn’t as comfortable with the weapon as he was with a blade, but he was a good shot, and from what Stephen had said it would be a better idea to deal with Lamia at a distance if possible. The gun was loaded with bullets made from consecrated iron, with runes of purification and destruction carved by the most talented mages at the Watch. More than enough to kill any demon in a single shot.
He flipped the safety off as he ran, and turned the corner. Then with a hiss of frustration he skidded to a stop. The tunnel forked in two directions, and he had no way of knowing which path Lamia had taken. He took a deep breath, trying to once again catch the scent of amaranth, but all he could smell was the putrid water that flowed beside the walkway.
Nathaniel swore loudly, he would have to attempt a tracking spell, though that would mean either putting away either his weapon or the light. After a seconds indecision he stuffed the pistol into his belt and raised the miniature compass he wore on a chain around his neck, pressing his thumb to the hierogram carved on its back and whispering the name of the single ward it contained.
Every attempt so far to track the demon had met with failure, so instead Nathaniel concentrated his thought on the girl. A brief glimpse that afternoon had given him a visual to go on. Katie Warner, seven years old, small for her age, pale and pinched with fair hair. He traced his fingertip over rune carved in the base of the compass, whispering its name.
The faintest of whimpers met his ears. Nathaniel let go of the compass, the spell energy that had been building in his mind and in his hands dissipated with a soft sigh like a dying breath. Nathaniel stood very still, listening. The silence stretched on and on, then just as he was beginning to think he’d imagined it, the sound came again, a little louder this time.
It came from the left hand tunnel and Nathaniel set off again at a slow jog. After a moment he could make out something up ahead of him. Something pale hung from one of the overhead pipes, swaying a little in the faint breeze that made its way down from the street above.
Curious, Nathaniel stopped beneath it and reached out his hand to touch it, then yanked it back when he realised what it was. Too late, his fingertips brushed the cold damp surface of the human skin, coming away sticky with blood. Nathaniel felt his stomach roll and wiped his hand violently on his coat.
There were more bloody strips of skin hanging from the pipes up ahead, as if Lamia was marking her territory. Nathaniel forced down his disgust, there would be time to be upset later, when the child was safe. He couldn't afford to lose his head.
“Is there someone there?”
The voice was faint and vulnerable, a child's voice. But it could easily be a trap. Greater demons could spin illusions, reshape reality to fit their own wishes. He raised the pistol, aiming at the source of the voice.
“Please, help me.”
A child stepped into the light of his talisman, her blonde hair glinting in the golden light. Katie Warner looked up at him with frightened eyes.
Nathaniel hesitated a second longer, but all his instincts told him this wasn't a trick. He lowered the weapon and knelt down.
“Where's the woman who took you?” He glanced around as he spoke, but nothing stirred in the darkness.
“I don't know.” The child was trembling badly, silent tears pouring down her pale cheeks. “I want to go home.”
“It is alright, ” Nathaniel said. “My name is Nathaniel, and I am going to take you home. Just stay close to me.”
The little girl nodded and clung to his coat sleeve as he straightened up again. The darkness seemed alive now, every shadow holding a threat. Lamia was obviously trying to put him at ease, releasing the child, staying quiet, hoping he would drop his guard.
Even though he knew this, nothing could have prepared him for her sudden attack. She came shrieking out of the shadows, slamming into him in a mass of whirling claws. Nathaniel had the curious sensation of being weightless for an instant, and then he fell into the canal of waste that ran alongside the walk way. He cried out as the putrid water closed over his head, filling his nose and mouth.
He fought desperately, striking out with the talismans, not even sure what spell he was trying to cast. There was a flash of violent green light and Lamia released him. He broke the surface coughing, his eyes and throat burning.
“Nathaniel!” Katie wailed.
He moved instinctively towards her voice, half blinded. “Run,” he gasped, but no sound came out. He retched, coughed and tried again. “For God's sake, run!”
She obeyed him, dashing of towards the tunnel that led to the ladder up to the street and safety.
Nathaniel pulled himself back onto the walkway, blinking rapidly to try and clear his eyes of filth. He was bleeding, he couldn't tell how badly, and his pistol was gone.
He swore and drew his sword, staggering to his feet.
“Silly little demon hunter.”
Nathaniel spun towards the voice, but in the next second the world exploded into fragments. He gasped, and his vision turned to grey mist. When it cleared he was lying flat on his back, a pain beyond description throbbing his chest.
Lamia was standing over him, a beautiful smile on her eerily perfect face. She was holding his pistol loosely in one hand, the barrel still smoking faintly. It took Nathaniel a further second to realise she had shot him.
“Humans make such crude weapons, but I suppose they have their uses.” She bent over him, her nails extending into talons. “We demons however, are always far more creative in our methods of dealing death.”
Nathaniel's mind was racing. He had to do something, he couldn't just lie here and die. He was going to be a father, His sword was at his side, he could feel the metal beneath his fingers. He tried to grasp the hilt, but his fingers wouldn't obey. Everything felt disconnected, as though his body didn't belong to him any more.
Lamia continued to smile as she brushed her fingertips over the locket he wore at his throat. It popped open, as if at her command, revealing the lock of ebony hair within.
Her smile widened. “Charlotte,” she said.
Nathaniel felt his eyes widen as she spoke the name, his wife's name. Then he choked as she suddenly lunged forwards, digging her razor sharp talons into his chest. It felt like icicles piercing his skin, bitter cold spreading through his veins. Lamia was chanting in a low lilting language, the sound rising and falling like waves.
The scene before Nathaniel's eyes burst into bright lights like exploding stars and reformed. A bedroom, his bedroom. A woman on the bed, Charlotte, her face twisted with pain. White sheets stained bright red with blood. Far too much blood. A baby's first cry. His wife's last breath.
“No!” The voice was his, though it seemed to come from galaxies away.
Then he was suddenly in motion, his sword somehow in his hand. He plunged the blade into Lamia's heart, putting all of his strength behind the blow. His aim was true, and she fell back, transfixed by his sword. The runes of destruction and purification flared into vibrant life, flooding into her body as an unstoppable tide.
But she was smiling.
The lock of Charlotte's hair was clasped in her hand, sticky with his blood.
“I always knew you would be my death,” she said. “Long before you were ever born. But I will have justice. My curse has been cast Nathaniel Moore, not on you but on your child. She shall bring doom to any she touches. Your wife was only the first. She will be a malady to all she loves.”