“Her name is Johanna.”
“Yes. Where is she?”
“Your man switched the glasses. Ach! I think I puked, in front of everybody.”
“No, not a bit,” McKee reassured the frail ghost. “It was as dignified a death as I ever saw. Where is Johanna?”
“I told you she died. At a different time than now.”
“Yes. But then you said that she is still alive.”
“Aye, she’s alive, but—”
McKee waved her open hand. “But…?”
“She’s not well, to speak of.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“Why can’t I think? Promise you’ll put me back in the ave.”
“I promise.”
“Hope to die?”
“Hope to die.”
“Fair enough. She’s alive but pledged to death and eventual resurrection.” The boiling water emitted several pops that Crawford thought might have indicated laughter. “I … adopted her out to the Nephilim.”
Even though it was just an inorganic whisper, the last word seemed to concuss the still air.
Crawford gripped his elbows and held his breath so that it wouldn’t hitch audibly. His mother and father had used the term Nephilim to describe the supernatural tribe they had escaped and spent the rest of their lives hiding from.
And he remembered his encounter with Girard, after Girard’s death on the river … and the thing he and McKee had encountered seven years ago on Waterloo Bridge.
And, it occurred to him, the woman who had been with Trelawny tonight.
Can we … oppose those things? he wondered; surely not. But he was surprised at the anxiety and grief he felt for a daughter he had only learned of today and who he had thought was dead until an hour ago.
McKee’s face in profile looked older and haggard, but she said, “Where can we find her?”
Crawford shuddered.
“This will be my first dawn, as a bird,” babbled the steam.
“Where can we find Johanna?”
“Put me back in my ave and I’ll take you there, over the rooftops.”
“You’ll move too fast. We need to walk where we go. Where can we find her?”
The steam said, “The river, now — it’s cold and dark, and full of eely things.”
McKee opened her mouth to repeat her question, but the steam went on, “Her father is swallowed in Highgate; she brings him flowers.”
“Swallowed,” said McKee, frowning, “flowers — is he buried? Is he buried in Highgate Cemetery?”
“Often I’ve seen Johanna there,” whispered the blurry oval over the globe of water, “at night. Perhaps I’ll fly to her now.”
“Does she … live at the cemetery?”
“For now she does, I think. Soon she’ll be busy being dead there.”
McKee nodded at Chichuwee, then straightened up and took her birdcage from the shelf and handed it to Crawford. “Take this into the other room,” she told him. “I don’t want her getting back in.”
Chichuwee was dropping handfuls of rusty nails and screws into the water now, and it stopped boiling.
Crawford nodded and crawled back through the curtain into the shaking cacophony of cheeping birds, and stepped down from the wagon to the creaking wooden floor. He walked quickly to the archway through which they had entered, and looked at the bright-eyed bird in the little cage he was holding.
“I imagine you’re glad to be rid of her,” he said quietly.
The bird just blinked at him.
A moment later Chichuwee and McKee emerged from the low wagon doorway; the old dwarf sat down on the wagon bed, nearly invisible again below the bright glare of the lantern, and McKee walked down the steps and crossed to where Crawford stood.
“Piping bullfinches,” came Chichuwee’s deep voice. “Two dozen of ’em.”
Crawford saw McKee wince.
“And four dozen miscellaneous,” the old dwarf added.
“That’d be larks and linnets, mostly, in winter,” McKee said.
“Fine. And scrapings of church bells, Fleetditch or St. Catherine’s.” He glanced at the excited birds and then looked squarely at Crawford. “Any reason you got cat ghosts following you?”
Crawford actually looked behind himself but saw no diaphanous cat forms. “Uh,” he said, “I’m an animal doctor. I—”
Chichuwee interrupted with a wave like a benediction. “You’re mad if you try to find the girl,” he said, “but in any case don’t get killed before you pay me. Travel by day, wear metal, and do you know the crossing sweeper who takes only a ha’penny?”
“I know him,” said McKee.
“Pass through the eye of his needle when you can.”
“And you keep your dice rolling,” said McKee.
She turned away and led Crawford back into the spiral tunnel, and the light quickly faded behind them. Crawford couldn’t see at all now in the darkness after the hard light of the paraffin lantern. He remembered to keep his head down.
“Carpace won’t get a bird to live in,” he guessed. “An ave.”
“No,” came McKee’s voice from ahead of him. “She’s spilled into the sewers, and good enough for her — she’ll wind up in the river with everybody else.”
Crawford didn’t say anything.
“Promises to ghosts don’t count,” McKee said. “They’re promises to nobody.” She plodded through the wet sand for a few moments, then went on, “Piping bullfinches he’ll wait for, they need training, but he’ll want the miscellaneous pretty quick. I’ll have to bring my nets out to Hampstead or Tottenham — used to be I could get hundreds at Primrose Hill, but the railway has frightened them all away. But—” Crawford heard her fist hit the damp brick wall. “But merciful God, how will we get her away from the devils? She was such a sweet-natured baby!”
“I’d — bring a priest,” said Crawford helplessly. “Two priests, big ones.”
“I’m not sure what side of the line priests would see her on. But at least she hasn’t died yet.”
“If Carpace was telling the truth, in any of this.”
“Ghosts are stupid, but they can’t lie.”
Crawford could tell by the curve of the brick wall under his sliding hand that the tunnel was straightening, and soon they were able to stand up in what must have been the circular chamber with the seven arches and the hole in the ceiling, though he still couldn’t see anything.
From some direction he heard again the gasping, moaning sound he’d heard on the way down, and it seemed louder, or closer, now.
“How do we get back up the well?” he asked, barely remembering to whisper.
“We don’t go back up it. Come on.” She patted his arm and took hold of his hand and began leading him forward. “Two to the left from Chichuwee’s is the way out.” They were moving up a slope now.
“What is that noise?”
“Vox cloacarum, the voice of the sewers. Tide and pressure changes force air through all the clogged channels, and you get that.”
The sound trailed off in indistinct syllables this time, though, and Crawford thought he heard sand shifting and rocks grating in the blackness behind and below them. His forehead was cold, and he was suddenly achingly aware of the vast volumes of earth above him, between the windy streets of London and this dark intestine of the earth.
McKee’s hand brushed his face, and then one of her fingers pressed firmly against his lips; and she began tugging him along more quickly.
From behind them, echoing, came a woman’s voice: “John.”
Crawford’s ribs went tinglingly cold. He didn’t stop, but he looked back — a dim blue glow stained the darkness behind them, possibly beyond the curve of the low ceiling.