Pride’s Treasure: Episode 14: The Ash Army of Tarragoth
Apologies for skipping last Sunday's episode. It's been a rough few weeks since my mum got back to the UK.
To make up for it, you'll get not only this extra long episode, but a bonus chapter too.
***
Pride’s mother is dead—buried in an ancient cemetery—and she’s not a ghost, so what the hell is she? And also, “Why would she be looking for you at the British Museum?”
“Because that’s where all my grave goods are,” he says distractedly.
You have no idea what he means. “Wait, isn’t the museum on the other side of London?”
He holds up the frisbee portal. “Did you forget about this already?”
“Are you sure it still works properly?” you ask. “I don’t want to be stuck in the middle ages or something.”
“I located that particular problem. The portal was registering too many coordinates, adding a time dimension. It’s fixed, I promise.”
Cars whizz by on either side of the broad strip of pavement housing the rotunda.
“Okay, but we can’t use it here,” you tell him. “Too much traffic.”
“Best get back in there, then.” Pride nods towards the rotunda, and you follow him back inside. There’s nobody around, so he tosses it on the floor. “After you.”
You take a breath and jump in, the portal’s grip squeezing you momentarily before spitting you out at the other end. It only takes a second to get your bearings. The museum is right behind you, its classical facade lit up with a golden glow, which is reflected in the rain-soaked pavement.
The second Pride arrives, he runs for the museum steps, and you trail after him.
Two men wait for you between the giant columns, and you’re disappointed they’re not dressed in Ghostbusters jumpsuits. But they do have a uniform, a very boring combats and hoodie uniform with a company logo on it: Starbrooke Paranormal Investigations. You’re certain Kane mentioned them when you first met, when he was debating possible reasons for your presence in his shop.
“Who’s this?” one of them asks, his accent soft and southern. He’s slim, with blonde curly hair and round glasses. “I thought Cecilia was your partner.”
“You can call me Ed,” you say. “I’m just helping out.”
The man nods and holds out his hand. “I'm Oz. This is Gwyn.”
Gwyn is a stocky guy with an auburn beard, and brown hair poking out of his company branded beanie, and he smiles like he’s been looking forward to meeting you all day. You shake hands with both men, then they lead you into the museum, taking a set of stairs to the left before you even get into the main foyer. Marble statues loom over you as you jog along behind Oz and Gwyn, who take the broad stairs two at a time.
“How did you know who the ghost was?” you ask.
“She became fixated on a belt buckle, which I obviously recognised since Pride’s been wearing it ever since I’ve known him.”
You’re half tempted to ask how long that is, but the look on Pride’s face stops you. So far, mawkish venture into a Victorian graveyard aside, he's been a perky adventure buddy. Now he looks pained, like someone pierced his heart with an icy needle and dragged it through his chest on a burning thread.
“They have a replica here.” Pride sounds disturbingly flat. “What did she say?”
“It took us a while to pick up her voice,” says Gwyn, his accent Welsh.
“I asked her why she was interested in the buckle, and she said it belonged to her son,” Oz goes on. “The museum called us in when one of the security guards heard a disturbance in Room 41. It’s not the first time we’ve been called out here.”
“Last time, the figures in the pediment over the main entrance were moving,” says Gwyn. “It was way beyond our capabilities.”
“What else did she say?” asks Pride.
“It’s difficult to say,” says Oz. “Some of it sounds English, but…”
“Old English,” Pride says.
“That would explain it.” Oz leads you through a cafe and into an exhibition room filled with treasures from medieval Europe. “We called Lucifer in to translate, but he had to leave.”
Who casually name-drops Lucifer?
“She’s… frustrated,” says Gwyn. “The damage is minimal… limited to the occasional artefact dropping to the bottom of the case and the lights dimming.”
Just as he says that, the lights in the room ahead flicker.
“She’s always been dramatic,” Pride mutters before striding ahead into Room 41 and announcing, “I’m here.”
The first thing you notice is that Pride’s mother looks nothing like Simeon’s ghost. She’s all dark and bitten, like a smoky, moth-eaten shawl. She also looks nothing like Pride.
Beneath her sooty layer, she’s fair-haired, with plaits twisting around her delicate little head. Her face is pale and pinched, glowing above a dark cape. Unlike, Simeon, her feet aren’t close enough to the floor to make a sound, and she drifts. Drifts and swoops. She doesn’t seem to hear Pride at first, her wails echoing around the ceiling. She stops swooping to float beneath a skylight, suddenly silent.
Pride speaks again. “You wished to see me, Modor.”
Her body, such as it is, flips over, and her dark eyes home in on Pride. “That you, boy?”
That this tiny, pale woman dares to call the behemoth beside you boy strikes you as funnier than it should, and you bite your lip, so you don’t laugh. This is not the time for laughter.
Pride lifts his arms to the side a little, presenting himself for her inspection. “It’s me. What are you doing here? Every time you cross over, you look more and more like a colander.”
She frowns at him.
He sighs. “You probably have no idea what that is.” He starts talking in a language you don’t understand, his voice taking on a melodic sort of lilt, with more tongue-tripping and bluntness than you’ve ever heard from him.
Since you can’t understand the conversation anyway, you glance around the exhibit. In the middle of the room, encased in glass, is an eerie, ancient bronze helmet, and beside it, is a replica, showcasing how it would’ve looked in its prime. A winged dragon makes up the nose piece and eyebrows, which are lined with glittering jewels.
You read the information beside it, detailing the burial of a ship, which has long since disintegrated in the acidic soil of its final resting place, leaving only a ghostly imprint behind. There was a burial chamber inside, and all the artefacts surrounding you right now were buried with a man of great importance—a man whose body was never found—suspected to have been eaten away by the soil just like the ship had been.
Except, you’re beginning to suspect that the man of great importance is right beside you, soothing an old ghost nobody should be able to see.
The heading above the information reads: An Anglo-Saxon royal grave?
And you wonder.
“She just asked him if he ate the whole horse,” a voice says from beside you.
You jump in alarm, spinning around to find… nobody there. You glance at Oz and Gwyn, who don’t appear to have heard the voice.
“What?” you whisper.
The man laughs. “Since he’s so big, she asked if he ate the whole horse.”
He sounds vaguely familiar, but you’re not sure why.
“Don’t tell them I’m back,” the voice says. “They’re very demanding.”
“Do you know what the ghost wants?”
“She’s not a ghost,” he says. “There’s a wraith snapping at her heels, so she’s probably projected here from another plane.”
“That’s what all the smoke is?”
“Not smoke… a wraith.”
“You’re Lucifer?”
“Yes.”
“So, what does the projection want?”
What is a ghost if not a projection?
“She told him to stop pecking at her grave… to leave her be. She knocked that lid down over there.”
“Over where?” you ask, since you can’t see the man, who is presumably pointing at the lid.
“Behind the Welsh one.”
You catch sight of a kidney-shaped bejewelled something lying on the information display inside the glass case, and something about it draws you closer. “What is it?”
The writing is covered up, so you still can’t tell what the artefact is. Lucifer said it was a lid, but a lid for what? There are three hinges along the back and a clasp at the front. Your fingers run over the bum-bag at your waist, and you glance at the object again.
“She thinks his moping keeps drawing her back here, and she thinks someone is after his… bag. And his buckle.”
You jolt when you stroke the top of the bum-bag again, your fingers encountering something hard, like horn or bone, rather than the nylon fabric it’s made of.
“You look like you’ve made a discovery,” Lucifer whispers, and you wonder if you should trust him with this.
Probably not.
“What was the lid for?” you ask instead.
“Probably a pouch worn about the waist… leather, most likely. But… uh oh.”
“Uh oh, what?”
“She just told him they’ve found him again,” says Lucifer.
“Who found him again?”
“If I’m right, it’s nobody you’ve ever heard of. She says he needs to leave London as soon as possible.”
It’s too late.
Dark ash spills through the glass of the skylights above you like a volcanic cloud, smothering the lights.
Arms tighten around you. “It’s just me,” Lucifer whispers. “You’re under my shield, so they can’t see you now.”
You look at the shifting cloud again, the lights inside the glass cases the only ones still functioning well enough to illuminate it. The cloud looks like nothing more than an it. “They?”
The exhibit lights barely cut through the gloom now, and Pride is backing away from the cloud, arms outstretched to protect the ghost hunters from the stalking shadow.
“The Ash Army of Tarragoth,” Lucifer says, as purple lightning flashes from deep within the cloud.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a demon realm. This lot have been trying to find a permanent entry point to the surface for centuries. So far, this is the only form they can manifest up here.”
The cloud rumbles, a shaky ancient voice hissing from its depths.
“And it’s not scary enough already?” you ask.
“Their looks are certainly no improvement either way, but they can only manifest in a human size here.”
“As opposed to?”
“Fifteen… twenty feet. Maybe taller. It’s been a while since I had cause to visit Tarragoth.”
“What do they want with Pride?”
“When he was king… er…”
“It’s alright,” you say. “I know about that.”
“Right. Well, when he was king, he hid every object they could possibly use to create a permanent portal. He buried his bunch of replicas with his alleged body. The real body he left behind was of his friend who died in a recent battle. The funny thing is, the burial mound wasn’t raided for centuries… not until the 1500s, but they didn’t go deep enough, so they didn’t find what was left behind. They took a small stash of decoy loot.”
You haven’t taken your eyes off the shifting cloud. “What are they doing?” You nod at the ceiling where the ash is slowly drifting lower to cloak the exhibits.
Pride glances around frantically.
“He’s looking for you,” Lucifer says. “We need to leave.”
“What? We can’t just leave him here.”
“They’re not after him.”
“But you said—”
“They’re after what’s around your waist.”
You grasp the bum-bag in your palm, once again getting the strange feeling you’re touching bone rather than nylon. “They want the bum-bag?”
“And its contents.”
The ash cloud separates, as if it’s trying to sculpt itself into several human shapes. Apparently, Pride’s mother doesn’t like this. She wails her displeasure from the ceiling, where you can no longer see her. The ash fractures, unable to reform.
“She’s buying you time,” Lucifer says. “Come on.”
You reluctantly leave with Lucifer.
“Hold on to my arm,” he says once you’re back on the brown staircase.
“You’re not going to teleport me away, are you? Because I don’t want to leave him here.”
“He’s lived thousands of years without your protection, largely thanks to what you have in your possession.”
“How do I know you’re not after it for your own nefarious reasons?”
“Do you know who I am?” He sounds amused and flirtatious, and you wish you could see his face. “I don’t need a bag of tricks, honey. Not for anything. I am exceptionally skilled in… well, everything.”
“Everything except the display of modesty.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been humbled once or twice.”
You’re not sure you believe him. “Where shall we hide?”
“You’re not prepared to leave the building?”
“What if he can’t find me,” you say. “He won’t want to leave the ghost hunters unprotected.”
“That much is true, but he will be able to find you.”
You shake your head. “I’m not leaving.”
“Fine, but if you won’t let me protect you by leaving, I’ll bring more people here.”
“Who?”
“My brothers.” For a few seconds, in the place Lucifer’s voice is coming from, a golden light pulses several times. “Pride could use their help.”
“That’s how you call your brothers? With flashing lights?”
“You saw that?”
“Was I not meant to?”
Lucifer hums thoughtfully. “It means my shield is slipping. Not ideal right now, since you’ll be the first thing visible should it drop significantly.”
“Why would your shield slip?”
“This museum has treasures from all over the world, many of them stolen… kept from their beginnings… their people. And still, we cling to them in a show of paternalistic posturing and pouting. Religious artefacts, in particular, have a terrible effect on me, and there are enough of them in this building alone to start a dozen wars. In fact, Pride himself… Never mind.”
“How is it possible that he’s lived so long?”
“You’d need to ask him that.”
“So, he’s not an archangel?” you ask.
“Er, no.”
“Or a demon?”
“Definitely not.”
It’s only now you realise this staircase was much shorter on the way up. “There’s something wrong with the staircase,” you say.
Lucifer’s footsteps halt beside you. “Helix obscura,” he mutters. “Bollocks! Alright, listen. I need to translocate us out of here, or we’ll be on this ride forever. Whatever this is, it doesn’t know you’re here.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The fact that it’s not trying to fool you,” he says. “I didn’t even notice the repeating staircase. Take my arm.”
Still you hesitate. That is, until a plume of black ash erupts from the statue standing in an alcove at the top of the first flight of stairs.
You move closer to Lucifer, even though you still can’t see him. “What the hell?”
“Grab my arm!”
“I can’t see your arm,” you complain, as the ash cloud spins into human form.
“Oh, for—” Lucifer grabs your arm, and the next second, you’re in the men’s bathroom.
“This is becoming a habit,” you mutter to Lucifer, who is little more than a vague shadow to you, and is already peering out of the door to see if the coast is clear. “Pride will be wondering—”
“Stop worrying about Pride,” Lucifer says, though his mouth only moves when it’s in your peripheral vision. “He has a tether on his purse.”
“A tether?”
“Yes, it’s how he found you on your bun-throwing adventure.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Glenda told me.”
You blush a little, wondering what words the bold Yorkshire woman used about you. “So, a tether is what exactly?”
“If someone were to steal it, they would walk themselves in a big circle, straight back to Pride.”
“Tethers are rare,” says a new voice, deep and growly, just before a huge blonde man with a head like a suntanned boulder makes an appearance. “Only gods can create true, unbreakable tethers. I once knew a pirate who had a lute on a tether. Said it was a gift from the god of the sea himself.”
“This is my brother, Raphael,” Lucifer says. “Raph, this is…”
You shrug. “Everyone around here just calls me Ed.”
Raphael frowns. “Really? You look nothing like an Ed.”
Barely a second later, a man with a familiar face arrives, and you smile. Uriel Hazard hasn’t changed a bit since you left him this morning, though his shoes are far gaudier than anything you saw him wearing a hundred and however many years ago.
“Why am I here?” Uriel asks. “And why are we in a toilet?” He glances at you, doing a quick double-take before frowning in confusion. “You look… familiar. Have we met?”
You feel suddenly shy, but of course it’s not surprising that he doesn’t recognise you immediately. He’s likely met thousands of people since he last saw you. “I played your favourite cousin, Edward, once. To catch a killer.”
He purses his lips. “My favourite…”
“Faultless Molvander,” you remind him.
Then, Uriel is there, his eyes lighting up with his laughter. “Yes, my favourite cousin. So, this is your time?”
“Apparently so. Pride’s in trouble,” you tell him.
“The Ash Army of Tarragoth is currently trying to manifest in Room 41,” Lucifer explains.
“Why is your shield up?” asks Uriel, as though an army from the demon realm invading the British Museum is just an everyday occurrence. “And more importantly, why is it trying to slide right off your body?”
“You know I can’t stand to be around all this holy stuff.”
Uriel glances at you and whispers, “It’s because he doesn’t have a halo.”
“They know I don’t have a bloody halo,” Lucifer grumbles. “Everyone knows that, thanks to Azrael.”
You don’t ask since he seems so bitter about it.
“Did somebody call my name?” This is Azrael, and the low rumble of his voice makes you jump. “Why are we in a toilet?” He glances down at you with eyes almost as dark as his skin, then says to Lucifer, “Who’s this?”
Uriel wraps his arm around your shoulder. “This is my dear cousin, Edward.”
Azrael gives an impatient flare of his nostrils. “You don’t have a cousin called Edward, Uri. You don’t have cousins, full stop.”
“You can call me Ed,” you say.
Azrael leans forward to shake your hand, then shoves his own back in his pocket. “Nice to meet you. But I have questions. You do know there’s a Cascade meeting in half an hour?”
A shiver runs from your head down to your toes. Isn’t Cascade the organisation that Pride was running from the day you met him? And you had your suspicions before, but now they're confirmed. Lucifer, Raphael, Uriel, Azrael. These men are archangels.
“What do you care?” asks Uriel. “You only show up for the hymns, which… how did you convince yourself that aggressive hymn singing was the only way to start a meeting?”
Azrael pouts and shoots a pointed look in Raphael’s direction. “At least I show up.”
“I don’t have time for petty grievances,” Raphael says. “And your grievance is indeed petty.”
“Well, unlike you all, I didn’t want to be locked down here in this hellhole, thrown into battle every ten days for all eternity.”
“Not for all eternity,” Lucifer reminds him. “Just until you meet the protean.”
“I’ve met a dozen proteans,” Azrael grumbles. “And I’m not sure I believe in prophecy anymore.”
“Um… can we get going?” you say. “There’s an ash army out there.”
All four archangels turn to look at you, though you still can’t see Lucifer’s face. Your cheeks burn with embarrassment, and a quiver lets loose in your gut. Did you just order four archangels to stop bickering?
“You’re quite right,” Uriel says.
“How can the army be defeated?” you ask, as Lucifer finally opens the bathroom door and ushers everyone into the corridor beyond.
“Technically, they can’t,” Lucifer says. “They can only be banished.”
When you turn the corner, the corridor is filled with frantic whispers coming from people in all sorts of costumes from across the globe… across time.
“I thought the museum was closed,” you say, glancing at the people huddled along one wall, each one staring in the same direction. Up! “Is it some kind of cosplay thing?”
“It’s not cosplay, Edward,” Uriel says. “They’re ghosts... spirits. Think about it. They’re all leaders of some kind, and what self-respecting leader wouldn’t bear a grudge against the British Museum?”
“Fair,” you say. “But what are they all looking at?”
You tip your head back, eyes slowly rising to the ceiling, where dozens of ashy beings hover, eerily still and silent.
Uriel reaches for you, but his hand never makes contact because a shadowy cloud of ash drops from the ceiling like it’s made of bricks. Glowing purple blades appear in Uriel’s hands, and Lucifer pulls two dense black swords from his belt. You almost see him clearly for a moment before the cloud takes everything.
A figure appears in front of you, blackened as if it just crawled from a coalmine, its eyes glowing an acidic yellow. Small fissures crackle across its features, like it has lava in its veins, and a wizened black hand reaches for your waist, claws extended into three-inch, iron-like points.
You stagger backwards, belly jumping with fear, just as those claws swipe at the nylon bum-bag.
The creature lets out a frustrated howl when its claws pass through the fabric as if it’s not there.
You’re distracted momentarily by flashing lights breaking through the dense fog, one man-sized chunk at a time, as each demonic form breaks away from the ceiling and lands on the museum floor. And when the creature’s second attack comes, you almost feel it—a slight scrape of claws on the fabric of the bum-bag.
You swallow hard as it lurches closer, rifling through the bum-bag for something... anything. You can’t let this thing get you—you promised Pride you’d protect his bum-bag with your life, though it had seemed dramatic at the time—but you have no idea how to fight it once the creature becomes solid enough to launch a more efficient attack.
You inch backwards as the awful thing creeps after you, its pace slow and calculating. You’re shaking with adrenaline and fear, your belly bubbling as it attempts to ride an acidic wave. How are you going to beat this thing? You don’t know what any of the objects in the bum-bag do, and you really wish you’d asked Pride about them sooner. The only thing you can think of right now is the perfume, and you definitely don’t want to seduce it.
Something rubs gently at the back of your knees, and you glance behind you to find a rope barrier cordoning off a small area with a CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign. You quickly unhook the ropes, and lift the freed post until it rests on your shoulder like a baseball bat. Putting every ounce of strength you have into it, you swing the post at the creeping demon. The flat base of it flutters through the creature's belly, as if it's made of jelly beneath the thick black crust of its skin. With the next swing, you lose your grip on the post when it makes contact, and it clangs to the museum floor, where it rolls in an arc.
You back up into the slippery floor zone, but there's not much room behind you, and you've only managed to anger the demon, which is now snarling and growling as it closes in on you.
You swallow hard, your stomach spitting fire, and that's when you hear Pride yelling. “Duck!”
You duck, squatting on the ground as the creature looms closer, its mouth stretching into a leer of spiky iron teeth. “Pride?”
You can’t see him yet, not until his blade swipes through the creature’s torso, sending sparks and gobs of lava flying at the walls. You cover your head with your arms as the lava hisses into the walls like acid. This is definitely worse than the bun-throw.
“It’s safe,” Pride says after a minute or so.
You blink into the brighter than expected corridor. Most of the ghosts are gone, those that remain eyeing Pride speculatively. He looks just like a Saxon king, like something majestic from the time of Beowulf. And you can’t stop looking at him—your adventure buddy.
He sheathes his sword and pulls you to your feet, enveloping you in his arms. “Are you alright?”
You nod against his chest, the rough material of his sash sanding your cheek. “Just tired.” It’s not quite true. The slowly solidifying creature had been terrifying, and you’re certain your knees are still knocking together. “It didn’t get your bum-bag.”
“I know,” he says, releasing you until you’re at arm’s length, his large hands on your shoulders. He stares at you for a long time—long enough to get awkward—then turns away. “There’s a hell of a mess to clean upstairs.”
“We’ve got it,” Uriel says. “You two should go home and rest.”
You say goodbye to Uriel for the second time in one day, wondering why Bel didn’t arrive with him. You shake the other archangels’ hands, but Lucifer still doesn’t manifest.
“He just likes to be mysterious,” Pride whispers as he takes you into a quiet room—some kind of office—and drops the portal frisbee to the floor. “Ready?”
“Where are we going?”
“My place or yours?” he says, his cheeks glowing red. “To sleep. I didn’t mean—”
You laugh. “I know.” You’re tired, but you’re not ready for this to end just yet, so you say, “Let’s make it your place.”
***
This bonus page is about what's left of St Dunstan in the East church, where the remains of Pride's mother are buried.
And this one is about Room 41 of the British Museum and Pride's hideous belt buckle.
Password: SAXON
Episode 15: Wherein Kane Finally Nails it on the Wardrobe Front