Empire of the Dead
"MEPHISTOPHELES:
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be."
Dr Faustus, Christopher Marlowe
Scarlett shivers as a gust of wind sweeps through the cemetery, scattering the crisp autumn leaves. She pulls her coat tight, buries her gloved hands deep in the pockets, and glances back at George.
The collar of his navy woollen overcoat is turned up against the biting New Hampshire air. He looks different outside of Europe; it's strange to finally see him in America, in the world where he grew up. It doesn't suit him. Especially here, framed against the trees, their leaves a fireburst of gold and orange and red.
She never realised how much he resembled his mother, whose portrait adorns the polished black tombstone. It makes Scarlett uneasy, that grave; black and glossy, it reminds her of obsidian, a substance which the ancient Aztecs believed could be used to contact the dead.
George places the flowers on the grave, bends his head as if communing with his mother's ghost. She wishes he wouldn't; if there's one person who Scarlett believes can reach back across the barrier between the afterlife and the living world, it's George's mother.
They'd never met in person, had only ever spoken on the phone, and the stark disapproval she'd sent spiralling down the phoneline somehow managed to cross the Atlantic ocean and make the temperature in Scarlett's Hampstead living room drop a few degrees. And it had already been a cold London day, with the rain striking the window in thick sheets. Despite her frustration at George continuing to ignore her calls, Scarlett had been impressed.
The wind snatches at her hair like a spiteful child, pinches at her cheeks. She hates the cold, hates how it burrows into her bones, makes her joints ache. She longs for warmth. She'd like to go to Turkey again with him, relive their first week there: the filthy hotel, the fake wedding ring on her finger, and George, wrapped around her and inside her all at once, his lips crushed against hers.
But he'd never say yes.
The leaves come together, form into the shape of a man. A man, formed of gold, and russet and amber, of fallen dead things caught in the grip of a bitter wind. It breaks apart, and she tells herself that she's seeing things. That it was just a trick of the light. Except she knows it's not.
Leaves crunch like bones beneath her boots. The figure had stood behind an old, untended grave. She kneels on the overgrown grass, trying not to think of the long-forgotten corpse deep in the ground below. She tells herself she's not afraid of the dead.
The words on the stone are so worn she can't make them out It's just an old epitaph, but the marks tug at her memory. It's a strange sensation, like a forgotten word dancing just beyond conscious reach.
The trees bend double against the wind. A cold breath chills the exposed nape of her neck. She frowns, and touches the stone. It's so cold the tips of her fingers go numb even through her gloves.
A breath of wind sends leaves scattering around her. She draws in a sharp breath, scrambles to her feet.
Something grabs her arm. She cries out, jerks away so quickly she almost trips.
"What's wrong?" George looks alarmed.
"Nothing. You startled me, that's all. Finished?"
He glances back towards the grave. "Yeah. All done. Thanks."
"For what?"
"For coming. I know you didn't like my mom much."
"That isn't true," she says, although it sort of is. From what she's learned of his mother, she's pretty sure they wouldn't have got on. "She didn't like me."
"She never got the chance to know you," he says, wrapping his arm around her back. It's an unthinking gesture, a mark of possession. The wind whips up, the trees shaking their branches, a whispering chorus of watchers.
"She blamed me for what happened in Turkey."
"Yeah well, it was your fault, Scarlett. You did leave me to rot in jail." But to show he's joking, he pulls her closer. And, even though his grip is so tight she feels she can hardly breathe, she feels a little warmer pressed against him.
"What about Paris?" she asks before she can stop herself. "Was that my fault too?"
He stiffens. A look of of pain and fear flashes across his face.
Scarlett swears inwardly. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "George, I–"
Something whips towards her, so sudden it makes her flinch. It slaps against her coat, and she cries out, pressing against George.
Nothing but a leaf, splayed against the sage-green wool.
George laughs, his fear forgotten. Hers is anything but. "You're jumpy today," he says, and plucks the leaf from her coat.
"We're in a bloody cemetery the day before Hallowe'en. Of course I'm jumpy." There's a tremble in her voice she can't seem to master.
He holds the leaf up to the dull October light, where it glows, translucent as vellum. It's a dead thing, but he smiles as he twirls it beneath his finger and thumb. "It's the same colour as your hair."
In the deep pockets of her coat her hands tighten into fists. "No, it isn't."
"Yeah, it is. Look." He holds it up to her hair, eyes warm. She feels its touch against the fragile skin above her temple. Cold and dry. Scratching at her like a fingernail.
She takes his wrist and plucks the leaf from his fingers, stares at the veins that trace it. And then she casts it aside, lets the wind snatch it away. He pulls her close, kisses the top of her head. She presses her face into his coat, smells wood smoke and his cologne. Concentrates on the weight and warmth of his arms around her, and tries not to think about the figure in the leaves or cold breath on her neck. It's a trick of her imagination. Just like Paris.
Only despite what George says, she knows what happened in Paris was real.
Around her George's arms tighten. She glances up at him, sees that his eyes have filled with tears.
"You're crying."
"It's the cold," he says.
"I thought you weren't even that close to your mum," she said, and then regrets it. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." God, why does she sound so stilted? So bloody fake?
"I wasn't crying." They start back towards the car. "I told you, it's the cold."
Except for George's bedroom, the snug is one of the only places in his mother's house where Scarlett feels remotely at home, where she doesn't sense the constant baleful presence of his mother. But shit, she needs to stop thinking of this as his mother's house – it's George's house now.
She presses the rim of a tumbler of whisky against her lips, staring at her father's notebook, closed on the coffee table. It's a battered leather thing, the expensive rich paper within its covers scrawled with her father's notes, filled snatches of translations, the Rose Key, notes on alchemy, on Enochian runes, on necromancy and incantations.
This is the first time she's got it out since Paris. Since they'd crawled out from the world beneath the city, filthy and stinking and covered in blood. It was a wonder they made it back to the hotel room without getting arrested. She'd thrown it on the bed, and they'd both stood staring at it, shivering and shell shocked until Scarlett had shoved it to the bottom of her suitcase, piled clothes on top of it. She hadn't been able to look at it since. Until now. Memories of the catacombs, of bones shifting beneath her weight, of George dying in front of her, threaten to overwhelm her like a tide.
She takes a breath. A shot of whisky. Opens the notebook.
Nothing happens. She exhales.
And once she's started she can't stop. She flicks through the pages, traces her fingers over the writing, not daring to read a single word. Even so she feels the indentations his pen has left on the page like Braille. As if she can soak the knowledge into herself without actively having to read the words.
Footsteps in the corridor and George, glances inside. "Here you are." His smile slips when he sees what she's reading, the notebook open beneath her questing fingers. "Are you coming to bed?"
"In a minute."
He crosses to her, and lean down, presses his lips against hers. It's a lingering kiss, deep and loving and something inside Scarlett unknots and unfurls. She thinks that maybe things can be simpler after all.
George draws back, licks his lips. "You taste of heather."
She lifts the tumbler, smiling. "Your mother had good taste in whisky." His hand clasps over hers on the glass.
"Come to bed, Scarlett."
"I will," she says. "In a minute."
And she means it. But then she hears the wind outside, the whispering of the tree, and, when she looks down at the notebook, the image of the tombstone lingers in her mind. She takes her fountain pen, a gift from George, as solid in her hand as he is, and the slick smoothness of the ink glides against the heavyweight paper. She recreates the worn carvings on the stone. Copies out what she remembers, over and over again, as if the repetition could lend the fragments meaning. She is lost to it, and when she comes to, she realises it's gone midnight; she promised George she'd be up soon two hours ago.
Where has the time gone? Her gaze drops to the notebook. To the fragmented words that she's no longer sure are words.
George is asleep. The covers tangles around his waist, leaving his chest uncovered. He's left the curtains undrawn, and the tree outside casts shadows on the wall. She draws the curtains, and George stirs at the noise of the rings rattling along the pole. He rolls over, glances at the clock. "Happy Hallowe'en," he murmurs.
He watches her undress, his eyes dark, his head pillowed on his hand. And when she slips in beside him, he kisses her hard, his fingers combing through her hair. She nestles into him, slides her hand down over his stomach. He catches it before it reaches its destination, brings it up to his mouth. He hesitates, staring at her ink-stained fingers. In the darkness, the ink could be blood. Then he kisses the pad of each finger in turn. But he's too tired to take things further; she's left it too late.
Story of her bloody life.
In the dream she's the one who's dying. George is above her, his hands on the ragged wound in her neck. His forehead presses against hers while she bleeds the last of her life into the cold, unforgiving rock. He presses his mouth to her ear, his breath hot against her skin. "Don't leave me again," he whispers, his voice thick with tears. The stone, she wants to tell him, because now she's dying she's come to understand something, the secret that's been dangling out of reach, like Tantalus's grapes. Was this the secret her father learned before he died? Was this what he would have tell her if she'd only listened?
And over his shoulder the dead are waiting. Her father is there, and George's brother. And the others. The ones she took with her into the catacombs. The ones who are dead now because of her.
She opens her eyes. Stares down at herself. At the bed below, where George lies entwined with a woman who wears her face. That isn't me. The covers are tangled around their legs, and the Scarlett who is not Scarlett lies nestled in the crook of his elbow. Her face is a mask, a plaster replica, the features sly and cruel.
Her heart skitters against her ribs. There's a shape beside her in the bed. Pressing close, its limbs entwined with hers. Its skin is cold as stone. She turns, stares into a face of rock, a gaping mouth, eyes like empty holes. A hand clamps around her throat, choking off her breath. She struggles, fighting, trying to scream. And below her, far below, George shifts in unquiet dreams, calling out her name while she dies.
The next day is Hallowe'en. The end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, a foreshadow of the hardships to come. Scarlett wakes to an empty bed. Her hand runs over the rumpled sheet, finds it cold to the touch. At a clatter from downstairs, she slips from the bed. She picks up the dressing gown draped over a chair, and pulls it on over her naked body, knots the cord. It's warm and thick, expensive. She isn't used to such luxurious things; all her money is tied up in the crumbling Victorian house in Hampstead, worth a bloody fortune thanks to the location, but prone to damp and leaks and mould. The house and her father's slowly rotting books: it's not an insignificant amount of capital, but hardly liquid.
She finds George in the enormous kitchen. It looks more like a set on a TV show than somewhere where people actually create food. All sleek and modern and chrome, it doesn't look real, and she could not imagine anyone more out of place here than George. His hair is scruffed and he's unshaven, cooking eggs and bacon on a gleaming stove that looks like it's never been used.
She thinks about his flat in Paris, the tiny galley kitchen barely big enough for them both to fit in at the same time. All his things, his clutter and books left behind when they'd fled. He'd almost collapsed in the corridor outside, unable to breathe because the walls were closing in on him. And a place that he loved had become a place of terror.
He had lost everything because of her.
He glances at her, smiles ruefully as he snaps off the heat. "Did I wake you?"
She leans against the door frame. "How long have you been up?"
"Um..." He ruffles his hair. "I'm not sure. A while. Thought I'd make you breakfast in bed." And then he grins, takes the frying pan from the stove and scrapes the food onto two waiting plates. "Or are you too hungover?"
"Maybe a little."
"How much whisky did you have to drink anyway?" He comes over to her, wraps his arms around her. Kisses her, then pushes aside her hair, presses his lips to her neck.
"George?" Her voice is throaty.
"Mm?" His hands rise to the cord of her dressing gown, tugging it a little looser,
"My breakfast is getting cold."
He groans, pulls away from her. "Damn it, Scarlett. I thought you weren't hungry?"
She pushes past him, picks up the plates. "Funny thing, I don't remember saying that."
"Christ." He leans against the door, runs his hand over his face. "You're gonna be the death of me."
He's still half asleep; he doesn't realise what he's said until he's said it. The realisation hits and his shoulders stiffen. His hand is over his eyes, but she sees his mouth, how his lips press together in a tight line.
And then he shakes it off. She sees the exact instant he tells himself the lie, the moment when he takes the confusion and fear and locks them away inside where he thinks they're safe.
He's still sorting through his mother's things, parcelling up the intimate detritus of a woman's life. It's a seemingly endless task, and Scarlet wonders if he's deliberately dragging it out because once he's done with his mother's things, he'll have to start on his brother's room, so far left untouched.
She keeps out of his way, returning to the work she started the night before. When she opens the notebook she knows she's onto something.
There's something familiar about the lines she's sketched out, and she flicks back through page after page of her father's dense handwriting. Notes on cryptography and astrology. On the Templar knights and the Cabala and the multitude of spirits raised by John Dee and Edward Kelley in the sixteenth century. And she sees it then; a pattern springs up at her from the copied Enochian alphabet, carefully etched in her father's hand.
She reaches for her pen, and begins to transcribe,combining the Enochian runes and the fragments from the grave. And it fits; the runes slot into place. Not letters at all, but symbols, worn away by time and the elements. A coded message, just like the symbols on Flamel's grave. Waiting for her.
She runs the pads of her fingers over the letters, and then she presses those fingers to her lips, breath catching in her throat.
"Oh my God."
She feels a shiver, an echo of power. It's the same sensation she felt in the caves in Iran, in the moments before she found the Rose Key, the missing link in her father's quest for the Philosopher's Stone. Power prickles over her skin, raises goosebumps on her flesh. it feels like the crest of a wave about to come crashing down, or the instant before the peak of an orgasm; and she bites her lip, feels cold breath on her neck and the flicker of something that might be a tongue.
Almost as if–
The phone, sudden and shrill, makes her jump. She flinches, and in that moment she's back in the cold dank catacombs, the handset pressed against her ear. Her father's voice, speaking across time and death, rasps at the edge of her hearing.
Why won't you talk to me, Scarlett?
It's just the phone, she thinks. Just the fucking phone.
But what if it isn't?
She hears George's footsteps, and the ringing cuts off as he answers.. She sits frozen, feeling as if a hand is pressing her into the cushions, crushing the breath from her lungs. But there's nothing but George's voice, low and murmuring, and she fights to control her panicked breathing as she listens, trying to make out words. He speaks too quietly for her to hear. He hangs up, not slamming the receiver down in terror, but replacing it softly, and she sinks down into the cushions, wraps her arms around her knees.
Just the phone.
She pours herself a glass of whisky, her hand trembling so hard she spills it. Knocks it back, and pours herself another glass, wondering if she's ever going to stop flinching every time she hears a telephone ring?
George appears in the doorway. "Hey, Scarlett, I was thinking about–" He breaks off, taking her in. Her father's notebook on the table, the glass of whisky in her trembling hand, the tears on her cheeks. He forms his hand into a fist, thumps it against the door frame. "Shit. The phone?"
She nods, and he grimaces, crosses over to her and sits beside her. She leans against him, feeling the solid weight of his body, the soft caress of his cashmere jumper against her skin. "I should have unplugged the damn thing."
"It's just a phone," she says, but the tremble in her voice belies her words.
He's staring at her father's notebook, and Scarlett shivers with alarm. She shifts against him, raises the glass of whisky to his lips. His dark eyes meet hers as he drinks. And then she kisses him, chasing away her fear with the taste of the whisky on his lips.
It's still early, but after they've made love Scarlett falls asleep. Slips sideways into a dream-world where the dead are waiting for her. And although their faces are concealed behind featureless masks, she knows who they are: Papillon and Siouxie and Benji. All dead because of her. And as she turns to run from them, she sees another figure, his pale grey jumper stiff with dried blood, a death mask concealing his face.
Watching her.
"George?"
He doesn't answer. She can see the wound in his neck, crusted with dried blood. On the wall behind him a frieze of skulls is arranged in a decorative pattern.
And she knows he's dead; he died down here. She lost him forever.
This isn't the dream. This is reality. She's still trapped in the hell beneath Paris. Escaping, saving George's life: that's the dream.
She jerks awake. A shadow looms above her, and she strikes out at it, sobbing. It catches her arms, holds her close. And while Scarlett snatches at her breath in terror, she feels the warmth of George's body, smells the familiar smell of his cologne mingling with sweat and the scent of recent sex. His stubble scrapes against her cheek as he whispers to her, meaningless comforting things.
"George?" she whispers. "Shit. You're..."
"I'm what?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing. I'm sorry." He's alive. She was dreaming. But she can't seem to stop the tears. She shrinks away from him, covers her face.
"Hey..." He catches her wrists, pulls her hands down so he can kiss the tears from her cheeks. "It's okay. I'm right here, Scarlett. I'm not going anywhere."
No, it's not, she thinks, but she settles down next to him. She feels safe when she's with him. As long as she's awake.
The shrieks of children echo down the street. "We're gonna need to get up soon," he says.
"Do we have to?"
He sighs. "Not unless we want them to egg the damn house." But he doesn't get up.
"How long was I asleep?"
"About an hour. "
"And you were just lying here?" Her fingers tracing shapes on his chest, slow lazy circles. It takes her a few moments to realise she's tracing Enochian symbols on his skin. She stops, shivering, and he draws her closer.
"I was thinking," he says.
"About?"
George is silent for a moment. With her head on his chest she can hear his heart pounding. Her hand rests against his neck, on the exact spot where his throat had been ripped open. "About us, Scarlett," he says finally. "If you want to go back to England, stay on at UCL–"
"George..."
He carries on talking like he hasn't heard her. Like he's too afraid to stop speaking, in case he hears something he doesn't want to hear. "–I can sell this place. Or rent it out if the market's bad. We can use the money for renovations on the house in London. Christ knows it needs it. It's worse than..." And he falters. She feels his heart skitter, feels it skip a beat. Feels the empty spaces between, the moments when he might as well be dead.
It wasn't just his throat that got ripped open underneath Paris. There's another wound inside him, one that she couldn't heal, even with the questionable power of the Philosopher's Stone
"Worse than the catacombs?" Scarlett suggests, shifting against him. He glances down at her, eyes hardening as he closes off the wound inside himself. And then his expression smooths over and he smiles. She wonders if he realises the extent of the lies he tells himself.
"Maybe not quite that bad," he says. "But we could fix the roof, replace the windows. Modernise the whole building. It makes financial sense. A beautiful Victorian house left like that to rot. Christ knows the damage the damp is doing to your father's books..."
"I haven't had the money to fix it."
"No. But you do now. Or you will when we get my mom's house sold. Now that–"
"Now that what?"
He swallows, then sets his jaw. "Now that you're done with the Indiana Jones shit."
"George..."
"Turkey. Jordan. Fucking Iran, for God's sake. I still can't believe you went to goddamn Iran."
"I'm not done with it. It's my fucking job–"
"It's going to get you killed."
"And I'm not done with it. You don't get to decide when I'm done with it. How dare you?" She pulls away from him, rises up on her knees, her cheeks burning with fury.
His eyes drop to her breasts then he tears them away. He's fighting to keep his voice calm; trying to be the reasonable one, she thinks through her rage.
"After what happened in Paris–"
"Yes?" she demands. "And what did happen in Paris?"
He's lost. He stares at her, the colour stripped from his cheeks. The wound inside him has been wrenched open. Scarlett remembers his dreams, how he cries out in the night, and guilt rises up inside her. She forces herself to slow down, tamps down her rage. She doesn't want to do this, not to him.
"I'm sorry," she says, taking his hand. "George, I'm sorry. I am. But I'm not done with it. Something happened in the catacombs. It changed both of us. But this life you're creating for yourself? Some boring old academic, mouldering away in a library somewhere? That's not you. That isn't what you want to be, is it?" And she leans closer, presses her lips against his neck. Feels him shiver. "Remember Turkey?"
"I remember prison," he mutters. She chuckles, and nips at his earlobe. "I'm not going back to Paris."
"No," she agrees."Not Paris."
He goes still. "Jesus, Scarlett. Where now?"
"Prague."
"'Prague?' What the–?"
"It's a beautiful city. Romantic. Think of it as a weekend city break, if you have to. The Charles Bridge. The square..." And then she pauses, licking her lips, her excitement rising. "I've found something, George." And now she can't help it, she's pushing herself out of bed, rising from the warmth and safety and the familiar scent of them both that clings to the sheets, mingling on the rich Egyptian cotton.
"Scarlett, what the hell are you doing?"
"Hold on," she says. "I'll be back in a minute."
She returns with the notebook. His expression darkens at the sight of it, his eyes closing in defeat. He sinks back into the pillows, runs both hands through his hair. "Jesus..." he whispers.
She ignores him, sits cross-legged on the bed. "I know. I know. It's crazy, I wasn't sure I believed it myself, but I know what I saw..." She turns the bedside light on and opens the notebook, flips to the last page. He sighs and tugs the notebook towards him.
Scarlett feels a thrill shiver down her spine, because nothing's changed. Not even Paris could change him. He's still here with her, letting himself get sucked in to the chase in her wake. He never could resist it; he's just like her. The two of them, two halves of the same coin.
He throws up his hands. "I give up. What the hell am I looking at?"
She traces her fingers reverently over the symbols. "I wasn't sure either at first. But I'm right. It's Enochian, George."
His eyes are unreadable. "Enochian?"
She nods.
He drops his gaze to the notebook, taps his finger against the paper. "Scarlett... there's no such thing as Enochian. It's a bullshit made up language, created by a credulous man who put too much faith in a shyster. You know this."
"No. It's not... My father knew... He knew it was real. Look." And she snatches the notebook from him, rifles through the pages. Flicks to a reference to John Dee's days in Prague. "Look. Here. Edward Kelley. He was in possession of a powered red substance, thought to be a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone. He used it to create gold while he was there. That's why... that's why they were so desperate to get him back to England, because... because... Because they knew what he was doing was real." George's eyes are on her. He doesn't look angry any more, or even frightened: just sad, and she hears her own words as if he was repeating them back to her. She hears how crazy she sounds, how like her father. She stumbles over her words, stuttering. Her eyes fill with tears. She isn't going to let herself cry. "I'll show you, We'll go back to the graveyard. I'll show you."
"C'mon. Scarlett..." He huffs out a frustrated breath. "This is insane."
"Please, George!"
"Okay. Okay." And he wraps his arms around her. Safe in the warm haven of his body she sinks down into the bed with him. She buries her face in the crook of his arm. "We'll go. You'll show me. But Scarlett..." He pushes her hair back. "You know there's gonna be nothing there, right?"
I'm not crazy, she thinks. I'm not.
The graveyard looks different in the gathering twilight. She almost can't find the grave at first, and she stumbles, afraid that she's imagined it after all, that she's following in the footsteps of her father. Then she sees the leaves, caught in a guttering eddy of wind. A place of dead things. She wants to turn to George, to ask him if he can see what she sees, but his expression is full of shadows and she can't bring herself to speak. Instead she slips her hand into his pocket, squeezes his hand with hers. He squeezes back and it lends her strength.
"I'm not imagining it, George," she says.
"I didn't say you were. But Scarlett..."
"What?"
He doesn't answer.
The grave is just as she remembered. She feels a shivery thrill as she sees the letters, because she knows that she's right about the symbols, the hidden message. And she glances at George, smiling, but her smile falters when she sees his cautious expression. "What am I meant to be looking at?" he asks.
She sighs, but she hadn't recognised it at first either. She pulls out her dad's notebook. and shows him the message, the Enochian symbols she's fit into the lines. "You see?" she says.
He stares down at the page, his expression unreadable, then he raises his gaze to hers. "You are kidding," he says. "Scarlett, this..." He presses his hand to his mouth, glances at the gravestone. "This is what you want to go to Prague for? This?"
"Oh come on, George. Are you seriously telling me you can't see it?"
"Can't see what? Some unreadable words on an old gravestone?"
The caution in his eyes makes her falter. She's seen that look before, in her mother's eyes when she looked at Scarlett's father. And to have that look turned upon her now is almost more than she can bear. He moves towards her, and she jerks away, then relents, lets him pull her into an embrace. "It's not just words," she says, trying to make him see. "It's a message..."
"A message?" his voice soft. "From who?"
"I think..." She falters. Because she's just processed what she's about to say and she's realised how insane it's going to sound. How insane it is. She swallows, feels George's hand on her back. Don't say it. She doesn't want to say it. But she can't stop herself now. "I think from my father."
"Ohhh." George sighs. "Oh God. Scarlett."
She starts to shake. The pity in his voice fills her with a wild uncontrollable fury. She presses her hand against his chest, shoves him away. "I'm not crazy. This is real." As real as her father's voice on a telephone in the catacombs of Paris. As real as a lost dead boy, searching for his brother. Hell is empty, she thinks. And all the demons are here. "It is a message, and..."
"And it's telling you to go to Prague?"
She counts to three. Tries again. "You'd like Prague, George. Maybe we could..."
He grips her shoulders, turns her round. "Look at the grave, Scarlett. Look at it."
"It's..." She breaks off. Closes her eyes. Looks again. And this time she sees nothing but a rough-hewn block of stone, the words worn away. No symbols.
Nothing more than a lost epitaph for a long-forgotten corpse.
She sags against George. He wraps his arms around her chest, holds her up. "There's nothing there, Scarlett. There's no message. It's just a grave."
She closes her eyes. "I know what I saw."
His breath is warm against her cheek. She feels his tears against her skin. "Why can't you let go?" he whispers.
At the car, George unlocks the doors. Scarlett sinks down onto the passenger seat, into an interior that smells too new. It's the wrong car for George, who should by rights be driving a battered Citroen, not this sleek shining monstrosity.
George falters, his hand on the door. Scarlett glances up at him, sees his face is taut and pale. He's breathing hard, on the verge of a panic attack. He'd looked the same way on the flight from Paris, his eyes fixed on back of the seat in front, his hands white-knuckled on the arm rests.
She says his name softly, and he doesn't respond. Scarlett hesitates, then climbs out of the car, moves around to his side.
"George?"
Still he doesn't answer, and she says his name again, more insistently. He goes rigid, rolls his eyes towards her, showing the whites of his eyes.
"We don't have to take the car," she tells him. "We can walk. It's a nice evening."
He makes a soft scoffing sound. She leans against him, wishing she could slip her hands underneath his coat, feel his skin. He takes control of himself, his eyes fluttering closed briefly. "It's freezing, Scarlett," he says. And he goes to get back in the car again, but stops. She hears his breathing, the rasp in his throat, the growing panic.
"What is it, George? What do you see?" she asks.
His expression hardens. "I don't see anything," he says, his voice so cold and sharp she knows he's lying. "It's claustrophobia, Scarlett. That's all."
He's right; it is freezing. But she grew up in London, and George is an honourary European at heart. Neither of them minds the walk back, even if the silence highlights the gulf that's grown between them. Scarlett's not sure they'll ever be able to bridge it. She'd almost forgotten that it's Hallowe'en until she sees the children starting on their rounds. Groups of them, going from from house to house, with their buckets of sweets.
Candy, she thinks. Not sweets.
She stops at the sight of one group, clamouring in excitement, young faces concealed behind rubber masks, but it's the girl shepherding them who draws Scarlett's gaze. Her face is powdered into an unnatural pallor, her eyes delineated by a mask of red paint. Her hair is a bushy tangle.
I'm seeing things. Scarlett closes her eyes, and when she looks again it's just a bored-looking teenage girl dressed like the corpse bride. Pallid skin and heavily kholled eyes, defying the freezing weather in a skimpy white dress.
George is watching the children too. Or maybe it's the girl he's watching. The twitch and sway of her hips under the skirt. She's painfully thin. "None of it was real, Scarlett," he says softly, finally breaking the silence. She wonders if it's because of the girl, if he saw it too. "None of it. We lost our minds down there. That's all."
"What the hell was it if it wasn't real?"
"Some kind of mass hallucination? We got trapped, we panicked. Christ, I know I panicked."
"A gas leak?" she suggested. "Or maybe Papillon slipped us some hallucinogens while we weren't looking?"
"Maybe."
"For fuck's sake. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."
"And what's the alternative? We found ourselves in hell?" He swings towards her. She stares at him, a strange cold sensation like a fist around her throat. Because she's seen him die. Felt his body still beneath her. She had kissed his unmoving lips, had pressed her hands against his throat and felt the gash closing up beneath her touch. She brought him back to life, and now he denies it.
What happened to the man she knew in Turkey? To the wild, original man who broke into ancient buildings to commit acts of altruism, who fought against the staid predictability of his father's life? Brilliant and damaged. Just like her. They used to be two halves of the same coin, but he left part of himself behind in the Paris catacombs. And maybe he wasn't the only one.
Further down the street, one of his neighbours is burning leaves in the back garden. She can smell wood smoke, can see the smoke rising above the house. The thought of fire makes her think of Papillon, and of the burning car beneath Paris. Papillon, who had died because he couldn't accept the truth.
She takes a breath."You're lying, George." she says, and he swings towards her.
"Okay. You want to know what I think happened? What I really believe?" He takes her shoulders, so close he might be about to kiss her. "I believe we almost died down there. That you almost got us killed. And that it's a fucking miracle any of us got out alive. That's what I believe. Although..."
"Although what?"
His eyes darken. "Sometimes I think maybe we did die down there. We did die and this is..."
"Heaven?"
He studies her. His eyes are bitter. "Yeah," he says. "'Heaven'. My Heaven is me watching you walk away. Just like in Turkey. Watching you rip out my heart over and over again."
"I'm hardly walking away," she says. "I'm just going to Prague. We'll go together."
And he lets out a bitter laugh. "Oh fucking hell. No. No, Scarlett. I'm done with all that. I was done with that in Paris and you still managed to waltz in and tip my life upside down. All I want now is a nice quiet position in a university somewhere. Tenure. Peace and quiet and a life with no damn surprises. That's it."
"Sounds like you're turning into your bloody father."
He turns on her, almost spits out the words. "And maybe you're turning into yours."
She flinches.
He closes his eyes. He's silent for a long moment, and Scarlett watches the leaves, whipping along the pavement – sidewalk, she corrects – until he takes her hand.
"I didn't mean that," George says. "I shouldn't have said–"
"No." Her voice is hollow. "Probably not."
Is he right?
She turns to him, about to speak, but her words stop in her throat. He's staring up the street, watching a figure in a black cloak, a pointed hood silhouetted against the sky. Beneath the hood, the face is concealed by a mask. "George?" she whispers. He's staring at the figure, can't seem to tear his gaze away. She can feel him trembling against her. "You see it, don't you? The cloak? The mask?"
"It's Hallowe'en," he says, his voice numb. "Everyone's wearing a fucking mask."
"George."
"Yeah. Yeah, I see it."
"Because it's real. And you know that, don't you?" Her voice is soft, delicate. She catches his cheek, turns his face towards her. "George..."
His eyes are full of despair. "What do you want me to say, Scarlett? That we went to hell? That we almost died? That every day I'm scared that I'll wake up and find that this, us escaping, was all a dream, or worse? I remember dying. I remember..."
Her mouth dry. "What did you see?"
"Nothing. There was... nothing. And then I opened my eyes and I saw you."
His hand tightens around hers. She wriggles it free, places her hand on her father's notebook. "See?" she says. "It was real. All of it. And so is this. These symbols are real. My father–"
"Oh Christ. Scarlett, listen to yourself." He cups her cheeks. She's crying now, the tears rising up unbidden. George kisses her, presses his forehead against hers. "Even if it is real, so what? Is it worth dying over? Is it worth losing your mind?"
"I don't know..." she whispers. "I used to think so." The leaves whipping up, and form into a shape. A figure with hair like burning fire. It breaks apart.
"And now?"
"No." She closes her eyes. "No, it's not worth it." He kisses her, and she reaches up, places her hand on his neck, thinking that maybe this is the dream. And George is dead. That she left his body to rot somewhere underneath Paris. One more corpse hidden amongst the countless dead.
No wonder she can't let go. She wants to believe; she has to believe. Because if she's crazy, then that means he died in Paris. How could she have brought him back if none of it was real? She buries her face in his coat, crying now. "Oh God." George wraps his arms around her. "Is this real? Or are we..." She swallows. "Are we still in hell?"
"Honestly?" He pulls back and meets her gaze, his hand on her hair. "I don't know. But I think I know a way we can find out."
She draws in a shaky breath. "What's that?"
"Don't go to fucking Prague," he says. She laughs, the sound loud and startling. Presses her hand over her mouth, stifling it. There's a shadow of a smile on his lips, warmth in his eyes. And he plucks the notebook from her hands, flicks through the pages, not looking at the contents. "Don't leave me. Stay here and marry me, Scarlett. Or we'll go to London and I'll marry you. We'll lead boring scholarly lives and have a litter of kids, all with red hair. And not one of them will ever learn a single word of Latin or Greek or fucking Aramaic. And this right here?" He holds up the notebook. "We burn the damn thing."
She remembers the bonfire. The rising smoke. She draws in a frightened breath, takes the notebook from him.
Her father's work. His obsession, and hers. Laid bare like a butterfly skewered on the heavyweight paper. "I can't," she says. "It's everything he worked for. It's..." She remembers George's body, stretched out on the cold stone. Her hands tighten on the leather. Do it, she thinks. Fucking do it.
But this is George, and burning knowledge does not come naturally to him. He's already faltering."You don't have to," he says. "We can–"
"Yes."
"What?"
"I said yes." She bites her lip, holds up the notebook. "It got my father killed. It got you killed."
"Yeah," he mutters. "Don't remind me."
"So fuck it. You're right. No good can come of this. So I'm out. No more Indiana Jones shit."
"Wait, seriously? You're serious?"
"I'm serious." She swallows. "I think."
She flinches as a child runs past her, screeching. George pushes his arm through hers as they walk down the street to his neighbour's house. They are being watched now. Here and there, a masked child stands unnaturally still and silent among the clamouring throng. George knocks on his neighbour's door, and as they confer, Scarlett watches the street. The cloaked figure emerges from a doorway.
George puts his hand on her arm, watching the figure warily. "Ready?" he asks.
And in his neighbour's garden, the smell of wood smoke fills her lungs. As she opens her father's notebook, she smells her father's pipe.
Her hand rests on the paper. On her father's words, the intricacies of his madness made form.
George draws in a frightened breath. She glances up at him, follows his gaze. They're here: Benji and Papillon and Siouxie at the front flanking the masked figure. And behind them wait George's brother Danny and her father.
This is real, she thinks. This is real, but I can still let go. And she tries not to think about George, and whether the real George could ever bear to burn a book filled with knowledge. Even one filled with her father's madness. Even one that almost got them killed.
Scarlett turns her gaze back to the crackling bonfire of dead leaves. Sees skulls burning in the embers. She counts to three, and then she throws the notebook on the fire, watches the flames catch. The Enochian runes flare bright with fire. She clings tight to George's hand, concentrating on him. If she's with him, this can't be hell. Not his hell, anyway.
It might still be hers.