The Necromancer (9 page)

Such was the scourge of Haddington during the fall of 1672.

“Ambrose,” Jessica said, sitting up and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

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He nodded.

“Dreaming of your sister?”

He nodded again.

“You have not dreamt of her in a long time. Has she been heavy on your mind as of late?”

“Yes.” A tear streamed down his face. “Some days ago, I met a young maiden who was the very image of her. Since then, I have not been without her image penetrating my every thought.”

Jessica kissed his shoulder and pressed her cheek against it.

Ambrose had met her three years ago in a brothel in the East End section of London, where she worked as a prostitute. He had taken to fi nding solace in the arms of these knowledgeable women. It was all he could do to comfort himself during those years of prolonged grieving and lonely nights. He had been a reverend for several years then and could quite comfortably afford the hire of a mistress or two for the night.

By then, he had completely succumbed to his anger and had become a loyal Brother of Darkness. There was no sin to which he was not privy. No pleasure beyond his scope of experience. No pain he did not take ecstasy in. He savored his suffering, as he did all sensation, his loss of Odara the sweetest of his miseries. She had taught him love. Her death had taught him mourning and hatred, anger and vengeance. He turned his bereavement into an indulgence which opened the gateway to sin and further depravities. He mourned her loss, and he yearned for the days when they were together, but until they encountered each other again in the Hereafter, he would sin and revel in all the earthy pleasures of the fl esh.

Then he met Jessica.

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It was a cool and foggy evening early in June.

Ambrose entered a brothel he hadn’t frequented before, having heard of the exquisite breed of women employed there. He had grown bored with the prostitutes of his usual haunts and desired a change.

He rapped on the door and was greeted by a buxom beauty clad in a long red and black nightgown.

“Good evening, sir,” the woman said. “I am Ella. May I take your cape?”

Ambrose removed it and handed it to the woman, who promptly hung it up.

The interior was much as he had expected: gaudy and red.

“Please have a seat,” she said, directing him to a plush maroon sofa. “Would you care for a drink of wine? We have a fi ne sixty-seven claret.”

“That will do nicely.”

Ella walked over to a small table standing to the right of the fi replace. On it stood a large bottle of dark red wine and several wine glasses. She picked one up and wiped it thoroughly with a white handkerchief, then placed it back on the table and fi lled it.

“What manner of companion do you desire for this evening, sir? Have you any preference?” she asked, setting the wine bottle down.

“I think it best that I see for myself which lady will suit my taste for the night.”

Ambrose’s lips creased-up on the sides of his mouth.

He nodded slightly. His choice of words begot more than one meaning, and he enjoyed the quip he had made.

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Ella turned around and faced him, holding the stem of the wine glass coyly with both hands. She walked toward him wearing a pleasant smile on her face.

“Of course,” she said, handing him the glass. “I shall be but a moment.”

She left the room, the train of her gown drifting quietly across the rug.

Ambrose sipped his wine. Much to his surprise and delight, it was good. He took notice of a soft breeze whisking the curtains in and sucking them out of the open window at the far corner of the room. The wine was working on him already. It fl ushed his cheeks as it warmed its way down to his stomach. It was soothing. All the tension in his muscles evaporated with every exhalation. It was obvious he had come to the right place tonight.

As he stared off into the distance enjoying the feeling of calm that came over him, Ella returned followed by no fewer than nine women, all of whom were very beautiful and scantily clad in lingerie.

The listless trance which held Ambrose in its thrall broke and he sat up, suddenly attentive.

“Choose as you wish,” Ella said. “I’m sure you will fi nd any of my ladies quite suitable for companionship.”

He rose to his feet and approached the women,

looking them over critically, but obviously very pleased. It was diffi cult to make a decision. They were all so enticing.

There’s time enough to have them all, he thought, then decided to pick any one for the night and move on to the others afterward.

He took one of them gently by the hand—a

redhead—then froze when he looked at the doorway through 80

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which they would pass. A large bald man stood there fi xing his clothes. Behind him was a full-breasted blonde in a clinging white nightgown. She leaned against the doorjamb, her bosom heaving. Her face was fl ushed and beaded with perspiration, her long hair disheveled and falling in her eyes.

“That will be four pounds, Mr. Crowley,” Ella said.

“And worth every bloody bit of it,” he replied, digging into his pants pocket. He extracted the money and handed it to Ella, then turned back to the blonde girl. “And this is for you, my dear,” he said, kissing her on the cheek and pressing a large coin into her hand, folding her fi ngers over it.

The man left joyously, having obviously been well served and satisfi ed.

Ambrose continued to stare at her. She was young and very beautiful. He wanted her.

He unconsciously dropped the redhead’s hand and

approached the blonde girl. He took her in his arms, kissed her, then picked her up and carried her upstairs to one of the bedrooms.

Jessica had been all of fourteen back then, and though she was still young and beautiful, if not more so now, Ambrose seemed to have lost a good deal of the passion which overcame him that fi rst night he laid eyes on her. She, on the other hand, had fallen irrevocably in love with him and had since left the brothel, unable to tolerate so much as the slightest thought of being with another man.

There was never a wedding. There had only been

one woman to whom Ambrose could ever make such a commitment, and she had died in 1672. Jessica wished things were different. She wished she could be sure he loved her as much as she loved him, but she couldn’t tolerate not being 81

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with him and was willing to stay with him under whatever conditions he demanded.

It was agreed upon that Jessica could do whatever she wished with whomever she wished; Ambrose, the same.

There would be no reprimands so long as she remained loyal to him in her heart. It was the most he could give any woman at the time—perhaps forever. She would live with him as his concubine, but outwardly they would proclaim themselves husband and wife.

Now she feared she would lose him to this new

interest of his. Of course, he had had other interests in the past: other lovers, other prostitutes, even other concubines with whom she was forced to live—but never did one of these interests resemble his dead wife, whom, he had told her on several occasions, he had loved more intensely than any other woman he had ever known. She hated it when he told her that.

It hurt. It hurt dreadfully, and she was quite sure he knew it hurt, and just how much it hurt. But she couldn’t leave him.

She could never leave him. That would hurt more.

“It pains me to see you this way,” she said. She raised her head and placed her hands on his bearded cheeks. She turned his face gently toward hers.

“It is better for you to forget her. Forget what happened. You cannot resurrect her as I have seen you do with others. She is gone. I know I cannot replace her, but I am with you now—alive.” She paused for a moment, searching his eyes for recognition, but couldn’t determine what lurked beyond them.

“I love you,” she said, wiping the tears away with her thumb.

She kissed him, her open mouth inviting him in. He hesitated, then accepted the invitation. They kissed deeply, her warm tongue coaxing the longing from both of them.

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She took his hand and placed it on her breast. He cupped it fi rmly, delighting in its soft, smooth texture. It reminded him of Odara, and for a moment, in the dark, it was Odara. This is how he used to cup her breast. This is what it used to be like between them. But it wasn’t like that anymore. He fell to her breasts and sucked on her nipples. This wasn’t Odara, and as Jessica opened herself to him, he realized this woman could never fi ll the emptiness that continued to eat at his heart all these years like so many worms.

But perhaps there was one who could.

Susanna didn’t just merely resemble Odara physically.

It wasn’t as superfi cial as that. Ambrose had sensed she was Odara’s spiritual equivalent as well. Perhaps Odara’s spirit now inhabited this woman. He had to fi nd out. He had to know if it was possible. He had to see if Odara’s spirit was alive in Susanna. He could never forgive himself if he didn’t at least make the effort.

*****

to see Susanna. It was raining heavily, and the roads were treacherous with thick mud. Reverend Parris would be on his way to Boston to question Tituba further, and Ambrose knew what he would discover. His threats wouldn’t be so feared if Tituba knew she would be put to death anyway. He had to get Susanna out of prison before Parris returned, or forever face life without her.

Ambrose was beginning to regret his role as the

initiator of the witch-hunts. It would have been much more effi cient if he had simply killed Tituba and been fi nished with the matter. But that would have been too simple. There wouldn’t have been any sport in it and, more importantly, he wouldn’t have been able to punish these prudish, sanctimonious eaters of dung for their hypocrisy. No. That 83

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wouldn’t suffi ce in the least. There needed to be a huge letting of blood, and he wanted the satisfaction and credit for starting it. It was, after all, only just.

The mixed blessings which accompanied the inevitable hysteria of Salem’s new awareness of diabolism were tainting his enjoyment. Proceedings had taken off slowly, but now that they were gaining some momentum and the executions would soon be under way there had been several developments, which Ambrose uncharacteristically did not foresee.

Tituba had confessed as he had instructed her to, but she had not yet been executed. With Tituba alive, he was still at risk of being found out for his initial crime if not also arrested for practicing witchcraft. He had since cursed her, but she remained alive. For the fi rst time, his confi dence wavered. Had she access to magic as well?

The witch-hunts were also responsible for Ambrose meeting Susanna, but she was imprisoned because of them, and he would probably have some diffi culty in setting her free.

Then, he had himself to consider. He was a

magician—a black magician—and if discovered as such would surely be put to death. Of course, being a reverend of some infl uence would help allay such suspicions, but there were no guarantees. He was having too much diffi culty foreseeing the future to tell if there was any way he might possibly be captured and executed.

Nonetheless, he was forced to act now...and act fast.

When he reached the prison, he tethered his horse to a hitch and went inside. He proceeded downstairs to the dungeon.

At the bottom of the stairs, to the left of them, was an antechamber to another section of the dungeon. The door to the antechamber and the door beyond the antechamber were 84

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both open. Men and women, tied to whipping-posts, endured endless fl oggings here; others hung upside-down by their ankles from shackles mounted on the cobblestone walls, their necks bound to the walls similarly, to keep them from sitting up. The guards were at them, insisting upon confessions. An imprisoned woman kept shaking her head, saliva running from her mouth down the side of her purple face into her eye. She coughed, then a gush of blood sprang up out of her nose and mouth.

Ambrose smiled, then turned to the guard who

unlocked the door to the prison cells and let him in.

All the cells were occupied by men and women in

various states of foulness. The dungeon stank strongly of excrement, urine, vomit, and body odor. The conditions had grown much worse since he’d been here last.

He walked to Susanna’s cell, ignoring the desperate cries of the prisoners he passed on the way.

When he came to the cell, he stopped and peered in through the bars. Susanna sat sullenly in a corner of the cell, sulking and staring blankly at the fl oor near the cell door. Her face was oily and streaked with dust and tears.

It had been over a month since her sister died, but her father couldn’t bring himself to tell her until last night when he visited her. The news seemed even more devastating to her than it had been to him, and he didn’t tell her that her mother had contracted the disease as well. That, he thought—after just learning about Phoebe—would probably kill her, and she needed to be in the best of spirits now. She needed to be strong.

“Susanna, my dear child,” Roger had said to her. “I must tell you of something most dire.”

“Yes, father?”

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“It concerns your sister.” He stopped, looking into her eyes. They were troubled, as if she knew about Phoebe’s death already. She didn’t have to be psychically gifted to predict that. Phoebe had been very ill when Susanna was arrested, and considering the fact that her health had been steadily declining for some time now, the dire information which Roger was about to tell her concerning Phoebe could only be one thing.

Roger wasn’t sure he should go on, but he felt she had a right to know, and he had kept this news from her for much too long already.