‘I did not,’ said Symond. As the black-clad man walked on, Symond caught Makepeace’s eye, and grinned.
‘Halloo the chase,’ he whispered. ‘Stay close to me.’
The confused crowd poured into the fog, and promptly lost track of each other. Shouts echoed through the gloom.
‘Over there! I see him! Halt!’
‘Don’t let him reach the trees!’
Then there were two sharp cracks, like boughs breaking in a storm.
‘The traitor’s on the ground — fetch the chirurgeon!’
Symond sprinted towards the last call, and Makepeace hurried after him, mouth dry. There were two men standing over a third, who lay sprawled at their feet. A man with a leather bag ran out of the house and across the lawn to kneel next to the fallen man. Makepeace guessed that he must be a chirurgeon.
‘Can you mend him?’ called one of the officers. ‘He has questions to answer!’
‘Some genius put a bullet in his head at close range!’ retorted the chirurgeon. ‘I’d need a ladle even to collect his brains!’
Makepeace could smell gunsmoke. It was not like the sweet, half-living smoke from cooking or woodfires. It had a bitter, metallic tang, and for a moment she wondered if hellfire smelt that way.
‘We need a stretcher!’ called one of the soldiers. The other had pulled a bible out of his pocket, and was peering closely at the page as he tried to read it aloud, half blinded by the fog.
Symond approached the body, and knelt next to it. He reminded Makepeace of a cat at a mousehole. Then he stiffened, as if that cat had seen the shadowy flick of a mouse’s tail. Makepeace had seen something too, a hazy tendril above the body that was neither smoke nor mist.
It was a ghost, sure enough, a very faint and ragged one. It had sensed the haven inside Symond, and was wavering unsteadily towards his face.
Only Makepeace was close enough to see Symond smile. As it drew closer, he suddenly bared his teeth and hissed in a deep breath, as if to draw the whole ghost into his lungs. His eyes gleamed with predatory excitement.
The ghost recoiled. For a second it flailed in confusion, then Makepeace saw it streak away across the lawn, the grass blades flattening slightly as it passed. A little bush shivered almost imperceptibly as if nudged, little beads of moisture falling from its leaves. Only Makepeace and Symond noticed; everybody else nearby was focused upon the body.
Symond leaped nimbly to his feet and pursued. Makepeace followed a few yards behind, trying to keep him in sight. He zigzagged, and she guessed that the spy’s ghost must be weaving in an attempt to throw off pursuit, as the man had when alive. Now Symond was sprinting towards the treeline. Perhaps the ghost was still clinging to its last hope while living, that if it reached the woodland it would be safe.
Makepeace followed her kinsman into the woods, bracken thrashing at her knees. Now and then mist-veiled boughs loomed suddenly at face-height, forcing her to duck. Still she could see Symond’s pale hair and dark coat ahead of her, weaving between the trunks.
Scrambling over a fallen tree, she stumbled into a little clearing, and found Symond on his knees, both hands gripping the dead leaves, and his eyes shut.
At the sound of her approach, he opened his eyes and gave a grin of perfect complacency.
‘I have him,’ he said.
For a fraction of a second, his face spasmed. Just for that moment it seemed that somebody else was looking out of his eyes in an agony of terror and despair. Then his predatory grin returned and he was Symond again.
‘What have you done?’ she asked, too aghast to be respectful.
‘I’ve captured a traitor,’ said Symond, and Makepeace suspected that he was enjoying her reaction.
‘The spy’s ghost is inside you?’ Makepeace saw the little spasm occur again. ‘Why? Why did you do it?’
‘Well, you see, my “new friends” in Parliament’s army are very demanding. They keep wanting me to provide them with more information they can use against the Royalist side. I need to keep them happy if I want to inherit my rightful estates. The problem is, I’ve already told them most of what I know. They want me to find out more by turning spy, but that would mean risking my neck. I’ve found a better way of getting information. Are you squeamish?’
Makepeace shook her head slowly.
‘Good. I wouldn’t want you fainting, and distracting me from my interview. Let’s see if he’s ready to talk.’ He lowered his eyes, and when he spoke again his words did not seem to be directed to Makepeace.
‘Now then, my good fellow. Why don’t you unburden your soul, and give me a list of your accomplices? Then you can tell me where you hide your papers, and help me with a couple of ciphers . . .’
There was a pause, then Symond tutted and laughed.
‘Now he’s panicking, and demanding to know where he is, and why it’s so dark. They usually do. But when I start drinking away their soul a little at a time, they become a lot more helpful. For a while, at least. Until their minds break.’
‘What do you mean?’ croaked Makepeace.
‘I told you I had made a study of ghosts. I also told you that ghosts inside our bodies can draw on our strength. But I have discovered something much more interesting. If we are stronger than a ghost, it can work the other way too. Someone with my gift — our gift — can draw the strength out of a lone ghost, and burn it up like fuel.
‘It took a lot of practice, starting with the weakest and most tattered ghosts I could find. Bedlam was a good place for those. Ever since, I’ve been taking on stronger and stronger spirits, so that I became stronger. Thank God I did, or that wounded Elder-ghost from Sir Anthony would have done for me!
‘Do you understand? Do you see what God intended us to be? We’re not ditches waiting for rivers, or trees meekly feeding mistletoe. We’re hunters, Kitchen-Makepeace. We’re predators. And if you serve me very well indeed, I will teach you the tricks of it.’
Symond looked away, and to judge by his smile he had turned his attention to his captive once more. His face spasmed again and again. Each time the fleeting expression was more terrified and anguished.
Makepeace had said that she was not squeamish. She had skinned countless animals. Even cutting gangrene out of a man’s flesh had not turned her stomach like this.
She did not have well-considered ideas on the subject of evil. There were sins that sent you to Hell, of course, and she had heard them listed often enough. There were terrible things that she did not want to happen to her or anybody she cared about, but the threat of those was just the way of the world. Goodness was a luxury, and God clearly had no time for her.
But she discovered, to her surprise, that her gut had opinions of its own. It knew that there were unbearable evils in the world, and that right now she was looking at one.
And deeper in her soul, she could hear Bear’s answering rumble of a growl. It understood pain. It understood torture.
‘Stop it,’ Makepeace said aloud. ‘Let the ghost go.’ She was warm now, and shaking from head to foot. Bear’s breath was in her ear.
Symond gave her a look of mild contempt. ‘Don’t disappoint me now. I was just starting to hope that you might be useful. And don’t distract me. My traitor friend is just about to break . . .’
As Symond looked away from her again, Makepeace snatched up a piece of broken branch, and swung it at him. Mid-swing, she felt the movement gain extra strength from Bear’s anger. It hit Symond in the back of the neck, pitching him forward. She thought she saw a faint, mutilated strand of shadow wisp away from him as the captive ghost escaped and melted.
Makepeace roared. For a moment her vision blackened, and she wanted to hit Symond again. No. If she did, she would kill him.