Page 57 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Weatherby was clearing a path through the swaying and at times bellowing crowd. Animalistic noises came from many a patient. A young man stood facing a wall, knocking his head hard against it and baying like a hound with each strike. Another stood in the centre of the corridor, swaying but going nowhere, rubbing at his arms like he felt every inch of the chill. At intervals he squawked like a frenzied monkey.

The corridor was terribly long, its end hidden behind the meandering bodies that filled it. Plain white doors, all with narrow viewing panels, stood like pale sentinels along the way. The rooms that Pitch could see into held a mix of camp beds and wrought-iron dormitory beds, crammed into every available space. One particular room emitted the most pungent odour of piss, and Pitch considering pulling up his lapels and hiding his nose.

He glimpsed a skinny fellow laid out in another room, naked and with a chain about his wrist, its other end about the bedhead. Pitch looked away quickly, not liking how it reminded him of his incarceration at Harvington Hall.

‘This is horrendous,’ Silas said at a whisper. ‘We cannot leave him here, surely?’

Pitch stayed quiet. He had no idea if they were on a rescue mission or simple reconnaissance, and he’d make no false promises to Silas. But he agreed, the place was dire. Pitch did not know whom he was most furious at: himself or the lieutenant’s family for reducing the man so low.

Silas touched his hand to Pitch’s arm, encouraging him to slow.

‘What is it?’ Pitch asked.

That Silas looked worried was hardly unexpected in this place. ‘It is strange.’ He was leaning close, speaking at a whisper, and Pitch savoured the warmth of his breath against his ear. ‘The bandalore is acting very strange.’

Pitch looked up at him. ‘As opposed to what?’

‘I could swear I felt it move about in my pocket a moment ago.’

‘A teratism is near?’ Gods, that would be all they needed right now.

‘No. Nothing like that.’ Silas shook his head but had no opportunity to say any more as a shockingly overweight man, with feet bright pink and shedding cracked and dry skin, shoved his way between them. He was crying, calling out for his mother.

Weatherby stopped at the only door that did not have a viewing panel. ‘Mr Edwards was taken to one of the padded cells for his own safety. We will need to go down to the lower levels.’

‘Is Mr Charters attempting to harm himself?’ Silas’s horror rang clear. ‘Why is he in need of a padded room?’

Weatherby nodded, his most fitting expression of moroseness in place. ‘The new patients often have some difficulty settling in. He’s had a bit more issues than most.’

Pitch pulled his gaze away from a young man barely old enough to have the fuzz growing upon his face, who was picking at his thumbnail so hard it was dripping blood onto the floor. ‘Because he does not wish to be here?’ Pitch was caustic. ‘You can hardly call the man mad for that.’

‘But we can for a variety of other reasons. Paranoia and dreadful melancholy, not to mention believing he has fornicated with a being of transcendent beauty and light, one he believes might be a god.’

Pitch focused very hard on not reacting in the slightest.

‘How many levels does this place have?’ Silas asked, a hint of worry there. After so much time spent in his grave, the idea of heading underground must be unpleasant.

‘Just the one subterranean level.’ Weatherby was casual, almost flippant. Something in the way he spoke had Pitch giving him a second glance. ‘Some patients cannot tolerate daylight well, nor the noise. The lower level caters better to their needs.’

The fellow was unctuous, no two ways about it, but Pitch could not decide if that was what bothered him, or something more.

Weatherby’s gaze flicked between him and Silas, never landing too long upon one or the other. It would be most inconvenient if their true auras were starting to show, but Pitch had doubts that was the case. The chap was edgy aboutsomething,no doubt, but he was not nearly so fearful as a lowly yako would be were he to come face to face with a daemon and an ankou, let alone those from the Order. The yako were generally fearful of the shadows they did not have. Pitch shrugged his shoulders, trying to stretch the skin pressed tight his corset. Anything to alleviate the blasted intolerable itching at his back.

Pitch cleared his throat. ‘Do you think we could hurry along?’

‘Of course, of course,’ Mr Weatherby sniffed, rattling his keys.

Pitch glanced at Silas. He was uncomfortable. The ankou’s signs were becoming more apparent to Pitch with each passing day. He chewed at the inside of his cheek, which usually meant unhappiness at something. Pitch was considering having him wait behind, to save Silas the trauma of heading underground when the ankou himself ruined the plan.

The moment Weatherby had the door open, Silas stepped through and headed at once down the dimly lit set of stairs. Pitch confused himself with which bloody name to call out, and by the time he’d settled on Mr Knight, Silas had disappeared.

‘Fuck.’

He hurried past Mr Weatherby, who stood holding the door whilst warding off an elderly man with a gruesomely twisted spine who was coming to investigate the new exit.

‘Back you go, Zachary. You’ve had more than your fair share of time down there. Go on with you.’

Pitch glanced up the stairs to see Weatherby give the old man a bodily shove which would have thrown him off his feet were it not for the fact there were too many people milling about for there to be space to fall. The door clanged shut, the sound echoing down the stairwell.