The familiar sense of paranoia and unease sank into his bones. It was expected: the presence of a daemon unsettled people on a primitive level. But here in the wine cellar where he’d killed his niece, the feeling was particularly sharp. Ghosts gathered in the dark. Sweat trickled through his hair as he fought the urge to look over his shoulder.
She’s not there. There’s nobody there.
The daemon began to take shape inside the summoning circle. It was a wisp, nothing more. A barely conscious thing like a smudge on the eye. It curled and billowed this way and that, but the resonator poles kept it from escaping. Once he was satisfied it was stable, Crake turned to the second resonator, and set about matching the vibration of the iron ring to the daemon. The wisp was pulled, gently at first and then insistently, tugged closer to the object until it was sucked inside and disappeared.
Crake eased off both resonators steadily, keeping the vibrations matched until he was sure the daemon was securely thralled to the iron band. The paranoia receded as he did so. Finally he powered down the resonators and with that, the first summoning was done.
He reached into the circle and picked up the iron band. It looked entirely normal, but his tuned senses detected the daemonic life within.
Well, that had gone well enough. But that was the easy part. He switched round some wires so that the iron band was connected to the oscilloscope and carried it over to where Condred lay. If things went to plan, the daemon in the band would feed back readings to the gauges that he could record.
He looked down at his brother’s face, and was assailed with sudden doubt. Did he really want to do this? Would it be better if Condred never woke, if he was spared the pain of seeing his daughter’s murderer again?
He shook his head angrily at himself. That was cowardice talking. He was merely afraid to face his brother’s justified wrath. He’d save his brother, and face his punishment. It was what a gentleman would do.
He lifted Condred’s head and placed the iron band on his brow. Then he retreated to stand before the trolley rack. The daemon would already be working. Invisible tendrils were spreading through Condred’s body, seeking out illness and corruption.
Crake waited. The only sounds were the soft hum of the resonator and the buzz of the electric lights that stood on poles around him. Beyond that lay the swarming dark of the cellar.
One of the lights crackled and stuttered. It flickered for a moment, stabilised again. Crake glanced over his shoulder and frowned, then returned to the oscilloscope. He should have been getting readings by now. The first hint of doubt crept into his mind. Had he performed the summoning properly? Everything had seemed to go right, but it was always hard to be sure.
The light fluttered again. He scowled at it. What was wrong with the electrics in this place? And why was it so damned cold in here?
When he turned back he saw that the gauges of the oscilloscope had come to life, needles swinging back and forth at random. He watched them with growing concern. Surely some malfunction? He tapped the side of the machine, but the needles kept swinging with no rhythm or sense to them.
Suddenly Condred bucked as if hit by an electric jolt. Crake looked up in alarm. His brother bucked again, his body jerking with the violence of it, and then went still.
Crake’s mouth dried up. No, no, this was wrong! There was nothing in the procedure that could possibly harm him. The daemon in the band was as mild as the one in the earcuffs the crew of the Ketty Jay wore. He hit the switch to kill the oscilloscope and hurried over to Condred.
‘Condred? Can you hear me?’
Abruptly Condred began to spasm. His limbs shook and juddered. His eyes flew open and his face contorted into an awful grimace. Spittle flew from his lips and his heels drummed on the bench.
Crake grabbed the iron band and pulled it off Condred’s head, but the spasms only grew more violent. Crake tried to restrain him, but even in the midst of crisis, something held him back and he didn’t apply all his strength. He and his brother never touched; it felt wrong.
Condred jerked and slipped off the bench. Crake only just managed to stop his head hitting the stone floor.
Spit and blood, not again! he thought as he clutched his brother helplessly. What have I done? What have I done?
The light that had been flickering blew out in a shower of sparks. His skin prickled with goose-bumps; fear crawled down his spine. He looked around desperately, as if there were somebody nearby that could help him. A small figure in a nightdress ran by, glimpsed at the edge of the light, gone in an instant.
His heart stopped in his chest. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t.
Condred’s shuddering was becoming ever more violent. His fists clenched and unclenched and his eyes rolled up in his head. Crake searched his mind for anything of use but came up blank. He was no medical man. He didn’t know what to do.
A thin line of blood trickled from Condred’s nostril. He stared at it in horror.
From the dark came a wet clicking sound. He heard it distinctly. The sound a little girl fighting to draw breath into punctured lungs.
‘You’re not here!’ he screamed.
But this had happened before, and he was wise to the trick. He’d been tormented this way in the past. In another sanctum, beneath Plome’s house in Tarlock Cove. When he’d been trying to cage a daemon.
A daemon was here. Not that tiny spark that he’d brought from the aether. Something stronger, darker, worse. But where had it come from? It hadn’t been here before. Unless. .
He looked down at Condred, eyes wide with horrified realisation. His brother thrashed and twisted, gurning and mugging blindly.
Unless the daemon was inside Condred.
Another lamp blew out, showering him in glass. He felt a dozen tiny sharp bites across his cheek and nape and the back of his hand.
There was a daemon inside his brother. It had awoken at the presence of the new daemon Crake had introduced, risen up to defend its territory. And unless Crake stopped it, it would kill its host in its fury.
A movement in the dark. He looked up and saw a bloody face, slack with anguish. The face of a little girl, gone in a blink. Crake felt his throat seize tight. He wanted to scream again.
But he didn’t. He knew this game. He knew how daemons played on a man’s fears, dredging up his sins and teasing out the thing that frightened him most. For Crake, that was Bess. Always Bess. Except her memory didn’t have the power over him that it once had. He’d faced the truth of what he’d done. It couldn’t break him now.
Condred needed him. He had to get the daemon out.
He cast around the sanctum for an answer. The summoning circle? No time. He’d have to recalibrate all the resonator masts. Condred was bleeding freely from the nose, his back arching fit to snap. No time. So what else? What else?
The echo chamber.
As soon as he thought of it, he was on his way, rushing over to the control panel attached to the metal bathysphere. He threw the switch to activate it. A sinister drone of suppressed power grew out of the silence. He returned to Condred and reached down to lift him up. Just for a moment it was Bess there instead, her white nightdress reddened and pierced with many cuts.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Not here.
When he opened them, there was Condred again, his lips bloodied and his eyes roving like those of a frenzied horse. Crake slipped his arms beneath his brother’s, encircling his chest, and yanked him along the floor, haste making him rough.
‘It hurts so bad, Uncle Grayther,’ came a little girl’s voice from the dark. ‘Hurts so bad.’