For This Is Hell Read online

“Well, I’ve had my fun, so enough of this,” Marlowe said. “I’d rather not kill you. So, please, unless you want me to rain the fires of holy hell down upon your corpse, don’t force my hand.” Once upon a time, in another life, the fire would always have been his first resort, but he had moved past that. Christopher Marlowe was a man of words, not of steel. “Let us speak, please, and part ways with both still able to draw breath.”

  The man snarled wordlessly and twisted, yanking his arm free of Marlowe’s grasp.

  “Well, that rather answers that, doesn’t it?” Marlowe sighed.

  His attacker stepped in again, driving the dagger up hard toward Marlowe’s midriff.

  Marlowe sidestepped the blow, barely. He felt the blade’s edge slice through shirt and skin alike, parting both with alarming ease. A sudden intense surge of heat nearly undid him. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the raging pain, and replied with a lunge of his own.

  His candle, still alight, roared then, blazing wildly into a veritable blade of fire. He stabbed at the stranger’s eyes, the tongue of flame searing sight from his enemy forever. The man screamed. It was a sickening sound, hopeless and desperate. “I tried,” Marlowe whispered. “I begged you, but you did this.”

  The man flailed about wildly, dropping the dagger. He stumbled back a step—

  —and plummeted from the open window, falling three stories to hit the ground with a sickening thud.

  Dead.

  Which, all things considered, was a most unfortunate turn of events for both of them.

  “Damn it all to the seven hells!” Marlowe spat, covering the distance to the window in three steps. He pulled it shut, closing it as gently as he could. Anyone could have been watching, and a man trying to fly out of his chamber window was not easily explained. Marlowe suspected he already knew what the assassin would have said, had he but talked: he had jilted no lovers of late, nor accrued any great debts to be called in, or even bothered to insult anyone of importance—at least, not since the incident with the placards, and that was hardly the sort to engender such a brutal response. No, there was only one group who would silence him and his work, and they’d promised as much: The Privy Council.

  They had threatened violence, and clearly felt the need to follow through. With Marlowe dead his play would remain unfinished and unseen forever.

  But the move surprised him. It was one thing to waylay him in an alleyway and make it look like a drunken accident, but to send someone to kill him in his own home? That spoke of a desperation nearing blind panic. What was it about this play that had them so concerned? It was a love story—admittedly one that did not end entirely happily, but a love story all the same. Yes, there was a queen involved, but she was no reflection upon Elizabeth, and comparison would not have been unfavorable even if she were, as Elissa was strong and clever and in control of her own life and of her court. Was it the ending? Barcas’s impossible transformation into the Phoenix, a herald of beauty and creativity? Surely not? Where was the harm in reminding all and sundry that they could rise above their fates and cast light upon the world with their creations?

  It made no sense to him. Not one whit.

  He had no proof that they had been the assassin’s employers, of course. The man hadn’t exactly been caught redhanded with a writ from the Council, seal and all, declaring Marlowe must die. Indeed, he had left behind only his dagger, which was a simple weapon, finely crafted and well cared for, but without any distinguishing marks to identify it. If Marlowe were to accuse the Privy Council it would come down to his word against theirs, and for all his fame he was just a playwright, whilst they were Her Majesty’s appointed agents.

  There was nothing he could do about it, Marlowe decided with a sigh.

  He set the dagger upon his desk, a reminder of the danger he faced, and then returned the candle to the writing surface. His fingers found the cut in his shirt and slid within to probe the tender flesh there, but already the sting had retreated, his flesh knitting. By morning it would be little more than sore.

  Well, now they knew he was no easy victim—not, at least, within the confines of his own home where his fury could blaze unabated. But for now he could only watch and wait. They would try and stop him again, he was sure of it.

  In the meantime, he had several more scenes to write before he could lose himself in the heat of coupling with his muse. Marlowe lifted his quill from where it had rolled when he had dropped it, re-sharpened the tip, dipped it in the inkwell, and began again.

  Scene Six

  Whence our hero is thwarted in art and love

  Marlowe was whistling to himself as he walked. He had a sheaf of fresh pages tucked securely under his arm, and a spring in his step. He was in high spirits, and why not? He had finished all but the last act of the play. True, he was bone tired, wrung dry, and felt as though he were viewing the world through a haze, but none of that mattered. The play was nearly finished, and it was his masterpiece.

  His good humor vanished as he came within sight of the Playhouse and saw the boards nailed savagely across its front doors.

  “No!” He broke into a run.

  A parchment had been affixed where the boards crossed. As he closed the distance he recognized the royal seal.

  “Closed by order of Her flaming Majesty,” Marlowe read aloud, his anger getting the better of him. He slammed his shoulder into the door, then backed up a pace and did it again, but the door didn’t budge. “ ‘Concerns of the public health,’ my hairy backside! Open the damned door!” He slammed a palm against the door in frustration.

  “This is a joke, a bad, bloody joke,” he muttered, turning away. He stalked around the building to the actors’ entrance in the rear. That, mercifully, remained unsealed. He threw the door open so hard it hit the limits of hinge and frame and rebounded against him. “Henslowe!”

  “I’m here, Kit,” their landlord answered from within. “We all are. Come in, lad, come in.”

  Marlowe stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He had not gone ten paces, blinking and squinting as his eyes struggled to adjust to the dimmer light, when a figure appeared out of the shadows. A tall, tall figure. Marlowe’s hand moved instinctively for his belt and the weapon sheathed there, memories of the assassin still fresh. But before he could skewer Ned the big man stepped out of the shadows and laid a hand on Marlowe’s arm. He followed his friend through the maze of back rooms to the stage. The Admiral’s Men were gathered there. The mood was sour.

  “We thought it must be you trying to beat the door down with your bare fists,” Tom Downton said with a sad laugh. “It’s not like we ever have an audience quite so eager to get in.”

  “What happened?” Marlowe asked, then supplied an answer of his own. “Those cursed bastards of the Privy Council back with their lies and accusations?”

  Henslowe shook his head. “In part, I’m sure, but not solely them. Worse, though—Kit, this is no mere vendetta against us. They’ve shut the Curtain and the Theatre as well. We are all closed down.” He looked tired. “And it’s not like the stage is alone in its suffering.”

  “All over London, businesses are shut,” Sam agreed. “Some by choice, others by force. And still others by Death himself.” The young player shuddered, and several made signs against ill omen.

  Marlowe glanced about, trying to take it all in. He found it impossible to believe that the plague had returned so virulently. He had just walked down these streets and seen no sign of fever or suffering—he remembered the bells and the carts and everything else quite clearly. The atmosphere in his city was different now, true, but it was not thick with sickness and desperation. “So, the plague? No lie?” He rubbed at his eyes.

  “Not whole neighborhoods,” Ned admitted, “but near enough as to have the whole city in panic. There were more deaths discovered this morn: a young man, barely grown into whiskers, dangling from a bridge; a lady, older and most regal, tangled in a fisherman’s nets, bloated and gone fish-belly pale; a man, escaped from Bedlam, impal
ed upon the spar of a clipper newly anchored.”

  “More madness, as well,” Ed added. “A woman running unclothed through the streets bearing a knife and a spoon, shrieking and striking at all within reach. A man dancing upon a cart, shouting that only by living within the music’s thrum could he evade the serpents at his feet. Children tearing at one another, screaming that they must slay the monsters if they are to survive.” He shivered, his usually merry face gone sallow and grim. “The world has truly gone to Hell, Kit.”

  “Aye, it has,” Marlowe agreed, frowning as he attempted to sort through their reports. If all were true, and frankly he no reason to doubt they were, matters had grown worse, and rapidly so. He felt the heat rise within him. It was one thing to know your own nature, but something else entirely to know the nature of your enemy. His had many names, but they were all the same beast. Just as he had woken, so, too, had one of his counterparts. Marlowe was a man with enemies. But his enemies were unlike most. Their enmity, for one thing, went back centuries and lives. They hunted each other across the world, vying for ascendancy. In this time and this place he had thought himself safe, at least for a while, and had given in to his urge to create and inspire. And in his vanity, this Beast had woken without him knowing. Who knew what guise it was wearing this time? As to what it wanted? Chaos. It was always thus.

  And it wasn’t like there was only one of them. Each of the elements had their own incarnations, or Beasts: Earth, Air, Water, and his own, Fire.

  Each of the deaths seemed to share the same motif: water. That limited the incarnations he might be facing. The Hydra, perhaps? The Kraken? The Dragon was not adverse to submersion, but he thought he would recognize his brother’s hand in things. Hydra and Kraken, those two were most likely, and both had an affinity for madness. He suppressed a shudder of his own. If he were facing the Hydra or the Kraken he would need to be more than wary; both were fearsome opponents, wily and powerful.

  “Like it or not, there is sod all we can do,” Henslowe was saying as Marlowe turned his thoughts and senses once more to the world around him. Slipping like that was dangerous, and given the likelihood that the Beast was abroad, could prove fatal. He needed to remain focused on the here and now. “It’s not as though we can ignore the proclamation. It’s the Queen, we’d end up in the Tower. So we’ve got no choice but to wait until the danger has past and hope that the order was rescinded. We’ll be ready to reopen the second it is, let’s just hope there’s an audience left to watch.”

  “Well, perhaps it is something of an anticlimax now, all things considered,” Marlowe stated, pulling the broadsheets from beneath his arm, “but I present to you Acts Two, Three, and Four.” He grinned. “All that remains to be penned is the final act, and that, dear friends, will be remedied soon.”

  The players stared at Marlowe, only half-believing. “You finished all that since last we rehearsed?” Martin asked. “What’s got into you, man? Some demon of the Word, no doubt. Hell’s Teeth, I can barely think and even then only half as fast as you write.”

  “Or did you simply stay awake all night? Burning the wick at both ends, so to speak, and scribbling your quill to a nub?” Ned chimed in.

  Marlowe blew out a breath and grinned, shrugging. “I don’t know how I fastened my breeches this morning, put it that way. But at least I can write now—it’s been a long time coming.”

  “Knowing you, you had that fine woman fasten them for you!” John shouted, drawing both laughs and whistles, and Marlowe gave a slight bow in reply but said nothing more. The men took that as acknowledgement, and spent several more minutes suggesting ways in which the fair Lorelei might have aided Marlowe in his attempts to clothe himself—though most of the suggestions seemed to require the exact opposite.

  Marlowe joined in as best he was able, despite the fact that his thoughts kept drifting to the Beasts, water, and the mythical incarnations tied to them. He kept thinking of the last time he had faced the Kraken and failed, losing a life he had rather enjoyed at the time—but then, he’d been reborn into this one eventually and he was rather fond of it, too. And it felt good to laugh with the company even if only for a little while. The Playhouse was closed, yes, but so were their competitors, so at least they were not losing fans to their rivals. This twist of fate would grant him time to finish the play, and for them to rehearse it. When the scare had passed and the ban was lifted they would reopen and perform Birth of the Phoenix at last, before a rapt audience. It would be a triumph.

  The players took their places and started to run through the new lines.

  *

  Marlowe’s mood had begun to sour again before the day was out. By the time he walked from the darkened theatre to the alehouse, it was black as pitch, and near as foul.

  The day’s rehearsals had gone well—very well, in fact, with everyone agreeing that the new scenes were some of the finest he had written. Everyone did their best to speak of the closure, and the chaos and death that had caused it, as only a temporary obstacle. An adversity. The plague would pass soon, and then they would perform again.

  But upon leaving the theatre that evening, Marlowe had seen the reality. The plague was growing worse.

  People wandered past him, dazed. Those that weren’t trapped in confusion were enraged, shouting and swearing, or terrified, blubbering like children and scarcely able to stumble along for fear. For the first time he noticed that many buildings showed signs of damage; there were great rents in wood and cloth and even stone as if some creature had walked the boulevard, scraping scimitar-sharp nails against them.

  That image was not so far from truth, Marlowe knew, though the Beast in question had almost certainly effected its destruction through human agents, not demonic ones. It was a taint that worked its way into the minds of all those within reach. He could smell its presence now that he was aware it had awoken, and knew that it was the source of both the rage and the fear. It was intent on driving all of London mad.

  “And so it falls to me, again, to put an end to this,” Marlowe muttered to himself as he walked, sidestepping a prone man who gibbered and howled as he scratched at the mud beneath his hands. But how? Without knowing the true nature of the Beast or where it lurked, how could he possibly stand against it? London was vast, riddled with alleys and back alleys and so many nooks and crannies the Beast could hide here forever, unseen. He himself had, he was all too aware of that. He needed to think. In part it didn’t matter—whichever Beast it was, the creature was clever. And it had certainly sensed him as well; they were bound like that, in torment. So it would have taken steps to remain hidden until such time as it desired a confrontation. He would not suddenly stumble upon it, taking the Beast unawares. That did not happen.

  He reached for the latch of the alehouse door, but a slender hand emerged from the twilight and grasped his wrist.

  “Come to me, sweet writer man,” a husky voice whispered, and he smiled even as he felt the cool, calming touch of her hand send a shiver racing up his arm.

  Marlowe grinned as Lorelei dragged him into the shadows beside the door. Her mouth found his, preventing words—not that he was particularly interested in conversation at that moment. Her body pressed against him insistently.

  As always her kisses were like a cool rain shower, refreshing him and washing away his cares, leaving him muddled and adrift in a tide of emotion and stray thought. When her hands slid into his breeches and grasped the rising heat of his hard phallus he gasped but did not pull away. His hands crept up beneath her loose blouse to cup her breasts. Her skin was almost icy to the touch.

  “Here?” he managed as he pulled back to catch his breath. Her only response was to leap upon him, her long legs wrapping about his waist, her arms coiled around his neck, drawing his head towards her so that she could kiss him again, fiercely. His hands moved lower, gripping her thighs to keep her aloft, then he stumbled a step, driving her up against the wall even as she guided him into her. Some distant part of his brain wondered that no plume
s of steam arose as his heat found her dampness and the two sizzled and seared together amid their frenzied coupling. It was not tender. There was no love. It was brutal. Animalistic. Harsh. He existed in a fog of sensation, acting without thought or restraint, high on a haze of pleasure.

  It was a miracle the Watch didn’t come running with cries of murder, so loud was she.

  Afterward she still clung to him, her hair a tangled mess of sweat-soaked tendrils that stuck to him every bit as possessively as her limbs. He kissed her neck, his lips almost numb from the sudden chill in the air, and twisted so that his back met the alehouse wall. Her skirts had slid back down behind, making them appear almost respectable.

  She stroked his cheek. “Still so serious, my love?” Lorelei whispered in his ear before biting it with sharp teeth. She stopped just short of breaking the skin. “What more can I do to make you forget your troubles?”

  “You drown my sorrows,” Marlowe answered, leaning in to kiss her and getting only her cheek as she nipped at his neck once more. “I am in a haze of bliss, unable to think beyond your body.”

  “And that is how it should be,” she agreed. “Let me sate you, body and soul, and fill you with delight. What else, sweet playwright, exists of value in this world, beyond ecstasy?”

  For an instant, Marlowe had no answer. Then the thought came, a single point of light piercing the mental fog, and his mind came alive once more.

  “The play,” he replied, grinning. “That has value. Words and deeds and emotion, wrapped together upon the stage to create and display and transfix, to enlighten and enliven. To amaze and educate and entertain. To share what is inside here,” he tapped his temple with a fingertip. “These things have value. They exist long after any physical delight is gone, lost to memory, and they carry our heritage to the peoples of the world, not just those here to see it today and tomorrow but those who will come after and after and after. Imagine that they may read my words in five hundred years. Imagine, because I barely can.”