Speaks the Nightbird (Matthew Corbett #1)

Speaks the Nightbird (Matthew Corbett #1) Page 40

MaTTHEW'S FIRST REaLIZaTION of his descent to Hell was the odor.

It was as strong as demon's sweat and twice as nasty. It entered his nostrils like burning irons, penetrated to the back of his throat, and he was suddenly aware that he was being wracked by a fit of coughing though he had not heard it begin.

When the smell went away and his coughing ended, he tried to open his eyes. The lids were heavy, as if weighted by the coins due Charon for his ferry trip across the Styx. He couldn't open them. He heard now a rising and falling voice that must surely be the first of untold many souls lamenting their scorched fate. The language sounded near Latin, but Latin was God's language. This must be Greek, which was more suitably earthy.

a few more breaths, and Matthew became knowledgeable of the torment of Hell as well as its odor. a fierce, stabbing, white-hot pain had begun to throb at his left shoulder and down the arm. The ribs on that side also began an agonizing complaint. There was a pain at his forehead too, but that was mild compared to the others. again he tried to open his eyes and again he failed.

Neither could he move, in this state of eternal damnation. He thought he was attempting to move, but he couldn't be sure.

There was so much pain, growing worse by the second, that he decided it was more reasonable to give up and conserve his energy, as surely he would need it when he walked through the brimstone valley. He heard the crackling of a fire - of course, a fire! - and felt an oppressive, terrible heat as if he were being roasted over an inferno.

But now a new feeling began to come over him: anger. It threatened to burst into full-flamed rage, which would put him right at home here.

He had considered himself a Christian and had tried his very best to follow the Godly path. To find himself cast into Hell like this, with no court to hear his case, was a damned and unreasonable sin. He wondered in his increasing fury what it was he'd done that had doomed him. Run with the orphans and young thugs on the Manhattan harbori Flung a horse-apple at the back of a merchant's head, and stolen a few coins from the dirty pocket of a capsized drunki Or had it been more recent wrongdoing, such as creeping into Seth Hazelton's barn and later cutting the man's face with a tin lantern. Yes, that might be it. Well, he would be here to greet that lover of mares when Hazelton arrived, and by that time Matthew hoped to have built up some seniority in this den of lawyers.

The pain was now excruciating, and Matthew clenched his teeth but he felt the cry rising up from his parched throat. He couldn't restrain it. He was going to have to scream, and what would the company of diaboliques then think of bis fortitudei

His mouth opened, and he let loose not a scream but a dry, rattling whisper. Even so, it was enough to further drain him. He was aware that the murmuring had ceased.

a hand - so rough-fleshed it might have been covered with treebark - touched his face, the fingers starting at his chin and sliding up his right cheek. The singsong murmuring began once more, still in that undecipherable language. What felt like a thumb and finger went to his right eye, and endeavored to push the lid up.

Matthew had had enough of this blindness. He gave a soft gasp at the effort it involved, but he forced his eyes open of his own accord.

Immediately he wished he had not. In the red, leaping light and drifting smoke of Hades, the visage of a true demon greeted him.

This creature had a narrow, long-chinned brown face with small black eyes, its flesh wrinkled and weathered like ancient wood. Blue whorls decorated the gaunt cheeks, and a third eye -  daubed bright yellow as the sun - was painted in the center of the forehead. The earlobes were pierced with hooks from which dangled acorns and snail shells. The head was bald save for a topknot of long gray hair that grew from the back of the scalp and was adorned with green leaves and the bones of small animals.

To make Matthew's induction to Hell even worse, the demon opened its mouth and displayed a set of teeth that might have served as a sawblade. "ayo pokapa, " the creature said, nodding. Or at least that was the sound Matthew heard. "ayo pokapa, " the demon spoke again, and lifted to its lips half of a broken clay dish in which something was densely smoking. With a quick inhalation, the creature pulled smoke into its mouth and then blew the noxious fumes- - that nasty demon's-sweat odor - into Matthew's nostrils.

Matthew attempted to turn his head aside, and that was when he realized his skull was bound in some way to whatever hard pallet he lay upon. avoiding the smoke was impossible.

"Yante te napha te, " the creature began to murmur. "Saba yante napha te." It slowly rocked back and forth, eyes half-closed. The light from one or more hellfires glowed red through the dense pall of smoke that drifted above Matthew. What sounded like a pineknot burst, and then there came a hissing noise like a roomful of rattlesnakes from beyond the murmuring, rocking di-abolist. The acrid woodsmoke seemed to thicken, and Matthew feared that the little breath he could grasp would soon be poisoned. "Yante te napha te, saba yante napha te, " went the repeated, rising and falling voice. again the ritual with the broken dish and the inhalation was repeated, and again the smoke -  damn Hell, if there was such a powerful stink to be smelled for eternity! - was blown up Matthew's nostrils.

He couldn't move, and assumed that not only his head was bound down but also both wrists and ankles. He wished to be a man about this, but tears sprang to his eyes.

"ai!" the demon said, and patted his cheek. "Mouk takani soba se ha ha." Then it was back to the steady murmuring and rocking, and another blast of smoke up the nose.

after a half-dozen draughts, Matthew was feeling no pain. The cogwheels that usually regulated the order of his mind had lost their timing, and one rocking motion by the demon stretched to the speed of the snails whose shells hung from the earlobe hooks, while the next was gone past in an eyeblink. Matthew felt as if he were floating in a red-flamed, smoky void, though he could of course sense the hard pallet at his back.

and then Matthew knew he must be truly insane, for he suddenly realized something very strange about the piece of broken dish from which the murmuring, smoke-blowing creature was inhaling.

It was white. and on it was a decoration of small red hearts.

Yes, he was insane now. absolutely insane, and ready for Hell's Bedlam. For that was the same dish Lucretia Vaughan had thrown into the fount, only then it had been whole and contained a sweet yam pie.

"Yante te napha te, " the demon crooned, "saba yante napha te."

Matthew was fading again. Losing himself to the swelling dark. Reality - such as it was in the Land of Chaos - disappeared in bits and pieces, as if the darkness were a living thing that hungered first for sound, then light, and then smell.

If it was possible to die a death in the country of the dead, then that was Matthew's accomplishment.

But he found that such a death was fleeting, and there was very little peace in it. The pain grew again, and again ebbed. He opened his eyes, saw moving, blurred figures or shadows, and closed them for fear of what had arrived to visit him. He thought he slept, or died, or suffered nightmares of Jack One Eye running him down in a bloody clearing while the ratcatcher rode the bear's back and thrust at him with the five-bladed sticker. He awakened sweating summer floods, and fell to sleep again dry as a winter leaf.

The smoke-breathing demon returned, to continue its tortures. Matthew once more saw that the broken dish was white, with small red hearts. He dared to speak to the creature, in a feeble and fearful voice, "Who are youi" The murmured chant went on.

"What are youi" Matthew asked. But no answer was given.

He slept and waked, slept and waked. Time had no meaning. He was tended to by two more demons, these more in the female shape with long black hair similarly adorned by leaves and bones. They lifted the mat of woven grasses, moss, feathers, and such that covered his nakedness, cleaned him when he needed to be cleaned, fed him a gray paste-like food that tasted strongly of fish, and put a wooden ladle of water to his lips.

Fire and smoke. Shifting shadows in the gloom. That murmured, singsong chanting. Yes, this was surely Hell, Matthew thought.

and then came the moment when he opened his eyes and found Rachel standing beside him in this realm of flames and fumes. "Rachel!" he whispered. "You tooi Oh... my God... the bear..."

She said nothing, but pressed a finger to her lips. Though dead, her eyes were as bright as gold coins. Her hair cascaded in ebony waves about her shoulders, and Matthew would have been lying if he'd said the infernal light didn't make her heart-achingly beautiful. She was wearing a dark green shift decorated around the neck with intricate blue beadwork. He stared at the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat, and saw moisture glisten on her cheeks and forehead.

It must be said, these demons did excellent work at the illusion of life.

He tried to angle his face toward her, but still his head was confined as were his arms and legs. "Rachel... I'm sorry, " he whispered. "You shouldn't be here. Your time in Hell... was already served on earth."

Her finger went to his lips, to bid him be silent.

"Can you ever... ever forgive mei" he asked. "For bringing you to... such a bad endi" Smoke drifted between them, and somewhere beyond Rachel the fires crackled and seethed.

She gave him an eloquent answer. Leaning down, she pressed her lips to his own. The kiss lingered, and became needful.

His body - the illusion of a body, after all - reacted to this kiss as it would have done in the earthly sphere. Which didn't surprise Matthew, for it was a well-known fact Heaven would be full of angelic lutes and Hell full of flesh flutes. In that particular regard, perhaps it was not such a disagreeable place.

Rachel pulled back. Her face remained within his field of vision, her lips damp. Her eyes were shining, and the fire shadows licked her cheek.

She reached back and undid something. Suddenly the blue-beaded garment slipped off her and fell to the ground.

Her hands returned, lifting the woven mat from Matthew's body. Then she stepped up onto what must be a platform of some kind and slowly, gently eased her naked body down against his own, after which she pulled the grass mat over them again and kissed his mouth with longing.

He wanted to ask her if she knew what she was doing. He wanted to ask her if this was love, or passion, or if she looked at him and saw Daniel's face.

But he didn't. Instead, he surrendered to the moment; to be more accurate, the moment demanded him. He returned her kiss with a soul-deep longing of his own, and her body pressed against his with undeniable urgency.

as they kissed, Rachel's hand found the scrivener's readied instrument. Her fingers closed about him. With a slow shifting of her thighs, she eased him into her, into the moist and heated opening that relaxed to allow entry and then more firmly grasped once he was sheathed deep.

Matthew was unable to move, but Rachel was unrestricted. Her hips began a leisurely, circular motion punctuated by stronger thrusts. a groan left Matthew's mouth at the incredible, otherworldly sensation, and Rachel echoed it with her own. They kissed as if eager to merge one into the other. as the woodsmoke swirled about them and the fires burned, as their lips sought and held and Rachel's hips moved up and then down to push him still deeper, Matthew cried out with a pleasure that was verging on pain. Even this central act, he thought in his state of sweating rapture, was a cooperation of God and Devil.

Then he just stopped thinking and allowed nature to rule.

Rachel's movements were steadily strengthening. Her mouth was against his ear, her pine-scented hair in his face. She was breathing quickly and harshly. His heartbeat slammed, and hers pounded against his damp chest. She gave two more thrusts and her back arched, her head coming up and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She shivered and her mouth opened to release a long, soft moan. an instant later, the feeling of pleasure did translate into a white flashing pain for Matthew, a fierce jolt that rippled from the top of his head down his spine. In the midst of this riot of sensations, he was aware of his burst into Rachel's clinging humidity, an explosion that brought a grimace to his face and a cry from his lips. Rachel kissed him again, so ardently as if she wished to capture that cry and keep it forever like a golden locket in the secret center of her soul.

With a strengthless sigh, Rachel settled against him yet supported herself on her elbows and knees so as not to rest all her weight. He was still inside her, and still firm. His virginity was a thing of the past and its passage left him with a delicious aching, but his flame had not yet been extinguished. and obviously neither had Rachel's, for she looked him in the face, her wondrous eyes sparkling in the firelight and her hair damp from the heat of exertion, and began to move upon him once again.

If this was indeed Hell, Matthew thought, no wonder everyone was in such a fever to make their reservations.

The second time was slower-paced, though even more intense than the first. Matthew could only lie and vainly attempt to match Rachel's motions. Even if his movements had been totally free, a weakness that affected every muscle save one had claimed his strength.

Finally, she pressed down on him and - though he'd tried to restrain it for as long as he might - he again experienced the almost-blinding combination of pleasure and pain that signalled the imminent nearing of a destination two lovers so vigorously sought to reach.

Then, in the warm wet aftermath, as they breathed and kissed and played a game of tongues, Matthew knew the coach must by necessity be retired to its barn, as the horses had gone their distance.

Presently, he closed his eyes and slumbered again. When he opened them - who knew how much later - the demon with a yellow third eye was at his side, using a white stone to crush up a foul-looking brown mixture of seeds, berries, and fetid whatnot - and the whatnot was the worst of it - in a small wooden bowl. Then the demon gave a combination grunt-and-whistle and pushed some of the stuff toward Matthew's mouth between thumb and forefinger.

ah ha! Matthew thought. Now the true torments were to begin! The mixture being forced upon him looked like dog excrement and smelled like vomit. Matthew clamped his lips shut. The demon pushed at his mouth, grunting and whistling in obvious irritation, but Matthew steadfastly refused to accept it.

another figure emerged from the smoke and stood beside Matthew's pallet. He looked into her face. Without speaking, she took up a pinch of the exquisite garbage and put it into her own mouth, chewing it as a display of its worth.

Matthew couldn't believe his eyes. Not because she'd voluntarily eaten it, but because she was the dark-haired, thin mute girl he'd last seen at Shawcombe's tavern. Only she was much changed, both in demeanor and dress. Her hair was clean and shining, more chestnut colored than truly dark brown, and on her head was a tiara-like toque formed of densely woven, red-dyed grass. Smudges of ruddy paint had been applied to her cheekbones. Her eyes were no longer glazed and weak but held determined purpose. also, she wore a deerskin garment adorned with a pattern of red and purple beads down the front.

"You!" Matthew said. "What are you doing h - " The thumb and forefinger struck, getting some of that gutter porridge past his lips. Matthew's first impulse was to spit, but the demon had already clamped one hand to his mouth and was massaging his throat with the other.

Matthew had no choice but to swallow it. The stuff had a strange, oily texture, but he'd tasted cheese that was worse. In fact, it had a complexity of tastes, some sour and some sweet, that actually... well, that actually called for a second helping.

The girl - Girl, he recalled abner saying with a laugh when Matthew had asked her name - moved away into the fire-thrown shadows before he could ask her anything else. The demon continued to feed him until the bowl was empty.

"What is this placei" Matthew asked, his tongue picking at seeds in his teeth. There was no answer. The demon took his bowl and began to also move away. "This is Hell, isn't iti" Matthew asked.

"Se hapna ta ami, " the demon said, and then made a clucking noise.

In another moment Matthew sensed he was alone. Up above, he now could make out through the smoke haze what looked to be wooden rafters - or rather, small pinetrees with the bark still on them.

It wasn't long before his eyelids grew heavy. There was no resisting this sleep; it crashed over him like a green sea wave and took him down to depths unknown.

Dreamless. Drifting. a sleep for the ages, absolute in its peace and silence. and then, a voice.

"Matthewi"

Her voice.

"Can you hear mei"

"ahhhhh, " he answered: a sustained, relaxed exhalation of breath.

"Can you open your eyesi"

With only a little difficulty - and regret, really, for his rest had been so deeply satisfying - he did. There was Rachel, her face close to his. He could see her clearly by the flickering firelight. The dense smoke had gone away.

"They want you to try to stand up, " she said.

"Theyi" He had a burned, ashy taste in his mouth. "Whoi"

The demon, who no longer wore the third eye, came up and stood beside her. With an uplifting motion of the hands and a guttural grunting, the meaning was made plain.

Two of the females who'd attended Matthew appeared, and began to work around his head. He heard something being cut -  a leather strap, he thought it might be - and suddenly his head was free to move, which immediately put a cramping pain in his neck muscles.

"I want you to know, " Rachel said as the two females continued to cut Matthew free from his pinewood pallet, "that you've been terribly injured. The bear - "

"Yes, the bear, " Matthew interrupted. "Killed me, and you as well."

She frowned. "Whati"

"The bear. It killed - " He felt the straps give way around his left wrist, then around the right. He'd stopped speaking because he realized Rachel wore her wedding dress. On it were grass stains. He swallowed thickly. "are we... not deadi"

"No, we're very much alive. You nearly died, though. If they hadn't come when they did, you would have bled to death. One of them bound your arm to stop the flow."

"My arm." Matthew remembered now the terrible pain in his shoulder and the blood dripping from his fingers. He couldn't move - or even feel - the fingers of his left hand. He had a sickened sensation in the pit of his stomach. Dreading to even glance at the limb, he asked, "Do I still have iti"

"You do, " Rachel answered grimly, "but... the wound was very bad. as deep as the bone, and the bone broken."

"and what elsei"

"Your left side. You took an awful blow. Two, three ribs... how many were broken I don't know."

Matthew lifted his right arm, unscathed save for a scabbed wound on his elbow, and gingerly touched his side. He found a large patch of clay covering the area, adhered by some sort of sticky brown substance, with a bulge underneath that to indicate something else pressed directly to the wound.

"The doctor made a poultice, " Rachel said. "Herbs, and tobacco leaves, and... I don't know what all."

"What doctori"

"Um." Rachel glanced toward the watchful demon. "This is their physician."

"My God!" Matthew said, dumbstruck. "I must be in Hell! If not, then wherei"

"We have been brought, " Rachel answered calmly, "to an Indian village. How far it is from Fount Royal, I can't say. We travelled over an hour from where the bear attacked you."

"an Indian villagei You mean... I've been doctored by an Indiani" This was absolutely unthinkable! He would have preferred a demonic doctor to a savage one!

"Yes. and well doctored, too. They have been very kind to me, Matthew. I've had no reason to fear them."

"Pok!" the doctor said, motioning for Matthew to stand. The two women had cut the leather thongs that had secured his ankles, then had withdrawn. "Hapape pok pokati!" He reached out, picked up the woven mat that covered Matthew's torso, and threw it aside, leaving Matthew naked to the world. "Puh! Puh!" the doctor insisted, slapping his patient's legs.

Reflexively, Matthew started to cover his private area with both hands. His right hand went quickly enough, but a searing pain shot through his shoulder at the mere nerve impulse of moving the left. He gritted his teeth, fresh sweat on his face, and made himself look at the injury.

His shoulder all the way past his elbow was wrapped in clay, and presumably other so-called medicines were pressed to the wound beneath the earthen bandage. The clay also was smoothed over a wooden splint, and his elbow was immobilized in a slightly bent position. From the edge of the clay to the fingertips, the flesh was mottled with ugly black and purple bruises. It was a ghastly sight, but at least he still had the arm. He lifted his free hand to touch his forehead. He found another clay dressing, secured with the sticky paste-like material.

"Your head was gashed, " Rachel said. "Do you think you can standi"

"I might, if I don't fall to pieces." He looked at the doctor. "Clothes! Do you understand mei I need clothes!"

"Puh! Puh!" the doctor said, again slapping Matthew's legs.

Matthew directed his appeal at Rachel. "Might you please get me some clothesi"

"You have none, " she told him. "Everything you wore was covered with blood. They performed some kind of ritual over them, the first night, and burned them."

What she'd said sent a spear through him. "The first nighti How long have we been herei"

"This is the fifth morning."

Four whole days in the grasp of the Indians! Matthew couldn't believe it. Four whole days, and they still had their scalps! Were they waiting for him to get well enough to slaughter both him and Rachel togetheri

"I think we've been summoned by their mayor, or chief, or whatever he is. I've not seen him yet, but there's some special activity going on."

"Puh! Puh!" the doctor insisted. "Se hapape ta mook!"

"all right, " Matthew said, choosing to face the inevitable. "I'll try to stand."

With Rachel's help, he eased down off the pallet onto a dirt floor. Modesty called him but he couldn't answer. His legs held him though they were fairly stiff. The clay dressing on his broken arm was heavy, but the way the splint crooked his elbow made it bearable. at his left side his ribs thundered with dull pain under the clay and poultice, but that too could be borne if he didn't try to breathe too deeply.

He knew he would have been instantly killed if Jack One Eye himself hadn't been so old and infirm. To meet that beast in its younger years would have meant a quick decapitation, or a long suffering death by disembowelment such as Maude's husband had endured.

The Indian doctor - who would have been naked himself but for a small buckskin garment and strap covering his groin -  walked ahead, to the far side of the rectangular wooden structure that housed a number of pallets. Matthew realized it was their version of an infirmary. a small fire crackled in a pit ringed with stones, but from the huge pile of ashes nearby it was evident a smoky inferno had raged in here.

He leaned on Rachel for support, if just until his legs grew used to holding him up again. His mind was still hazed. It wasn't clear to him now if his amorous encounter with Rachel had been real or a fevered dream brought on by his injuries. Surely she wouldn't have crawled up on that pallet to make love to a dying man! From her there was no indication that anything had occurred between them.

Yet still... might it have happenedi

But here was something real that he'd imagined to be a figment of his dreams: on the floor, along with other clay cups and wooden bowls and carved bone pipes around the fire, was the broken half of Lucretia Vaughan's heart-decorated pie dish.

The healing savage - who would have made his compatriot Dr. Shields blanch with terror - drew aside a heavy black-furred bearskin from the infirmary's entryway.

Blinding white sunlight flooded across the floor, making Matthew squeeze his eyes shut and stagger. "I have you, " Rachel said, leaning into him so he might not fall.

There was a great excited clamor from outside, complete with squeals, whoops, and giggling. Matthew was aware of a brown mass of grinning faces pressing forward. The Indian doctor began to shout in a voice whose irritated tone was universal: Stand back, and give us space to breathe!

Rachel led Matthew, naked and dazed, into the light.