The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

Author:Chris Wooding [Wooding, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction.Historical, Fiction.Horror, Fiction.Dark Fantasy/Supernatural
ISBN: 9780786287390
Google: cKOfAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0439598516
Barnesnoble: 0439598516
Publisher: Point
Published: 2001-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

PART THREE:

THE FRATERNITY ASCENDANT

A LADY IN DISTRESS

THANIEL FIGHTS ALONE

DISASTER STRIKES

15

The chill breath of the London night stirred and swirled in the gas-glow, curling with a serpentine malevolence through the islands of man-made light. The mists from the Thames were stealthy at this hour, hiding at the edges of the clutter of Whitechapel streets. It was relatively clear for November, and the usual murk had been tattered into eddies by a sharp northerly breeze that cut through to the bone without being warmed by the intervening flesh.

The city is turning evil, Alaizabel thought. You can feel it, too, can’t you?

This last was directed at Thaniel, who walked by her side with his arm in hers, stiffly playing the role of the husband escorting his wife through the deepest hours of the dark. He glanced around with a frequency that betrayed his nervous alertness. He was a little afraid, she knew that. But fear alone did not account for the whole of his manner. Like her, he could feel the rot at the heart of London, could feel the cancerous tendrils snaking through the veins of the metropolis.

The sensation was not a new one, even to people such as Thaniel and herself—he with his highly developed intuition, honed over years of wych-kin contact; she, harbouring a slumbering spirit in her breast. Everybody in the city felt it to some degree, something so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. Always, it had been there on the edge of perception, lending speed to the footsteps of those who walked London’s streets, making eye flick away from eye in fear of contact with another who might be an agent of that nameless dread. In the last few days, however, it had gathered in strength until it was like a dull throb in the stones of the terraces, bleeding through the cement.

Today was the date that the Devil-boy predicted would bring the final Green Tack murder, and the brooding sensation that enwrapped the capital had shifted to palpable eagerness. The air was charged, like lightning straining to jump the gap to earth, desperate to complete the circuit and fulfil its promise.

The meeting with Carver had been a strange affair. Alaizabel had been initially uneasy at the sight of the neatly dressed Detective, with his trim moustache and slicked-back hair; it had taken her some time to work out why. It was an odd sensation that had seized her, as if Carver’s appearance was not so much coincidental as predetermined. He had come holding missing pieces of their jigsaw, and suddenly, all had become clear.

He had brought with him a knick-knack from one of the previous Green Tack victims, for he knew the way of wychcraft. He knew where the next killing would be, but not when. Jack performed a Rite and divined what he could. What kind of opponent they faced, he could not say. But it would strike, tonight, in Whitechapel.

There were forces at work here greater than anyone had guessed at. Alaizabel had a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.