Read Book 3 - The Spy Who Haunted Me for Free Online Page A

Nothing like centuries of accumulated guilt and grievance to make you ready to take it out on someone else . . .”
    “I can See ghosts,” Coffin Jobe offered quietly. “But that’s all.”
    “And I can only fight what I can touch,” said the Dancing Fool, scowling. “No one said anything about ghosts . . .”
    “And I can only affect the world of the living,” said Strange Chloe. “That’s it. Game over. The caper is off.”
    “Wait, wait,” said Big Aus, flapping his big hands about. “Shaman, tell me you have a suggestion.”
    “Of course,” I said. “That’s what you’re paying me for.” I had to be careful here. I was skirting territory and information that Shaman Bond shouldn’t really have access to. “Traitors weren’t executed in the Bloody Tower; they were all killed on Tower Hill, well outside the castle complex. Executions were public matters in those days: public entertainments. The source of power to control the ghosts will be buried deep inside the hill. Probably something very old and very nasty. Nothing we’re equipped to deal with . . . So, if you want to avoid being detected by the ghosts, the best way is . . . not to be there.” I grinned at their confused faces. “I’m pretty sure I can get my hands on a certain very useful item that will hide us all from the ghosts’ view. For a while, anyway. Long enough for us to sneak in, do the dreadful deed, and then get the hell out of there.”
    Of course, I didn’t actually need such a device. My torc made me invisible to anyone or anything I wanted to be invisible to, and I was pretty sure I could extend that protection over the others for a while. Or until I found it necessary to drop it . . .
    “How long will it take you to acquire this device?” said Big Aus.
    “I can have it by tomorrow morning.”
    “I just know this is going to cost extra,” said Big Aus. “How much, Shaman?”
    I told him, and he winced. It had to be big enough to make sure he’d take the device seriously.
    “All right,” he said. “But if it doesn’t work, I’ll take it out of your hide!”
    “If it doesn’t work, we’ll all be dead,” I said easily.
    “We’ll hit the ravens tomorrow,” Big Aus said forcefully, rubbing his big hands together. “We go in early, like Shaman said. Five a.m. Straight in, do the necessary, and straight out. No messing. And don’t be late getting there, any of you, or we’ll start without you.”
    And just like that, we were committed to the crime of the century.
     
    I got there first, of course. To check out the lay of the land and make sure no one else was planning any surprises. You can’t be too careful, in this game. So I was there on the open causeway by Traitor’s Gate at three a.m., two good hours in advance. I stood alone on the great gray flagstones, hidden behind my torc’s glamour, invisible to all. Hopefully including the ghosts. You can never tell with the dead; they follow their own rules. I hunched my shoulders inside my long duster coat and folded my arms tightly to keep out the cold wind blowing steadily off the River Thames.
    It was only a short walk from the Tower Hill tube station through mostly empty streets. No one about but the usual revellers, old gods, and self-made monsters on their way to the next party. Things flapping high up in the sky, and voices declaiming long-forgotten languages in ancient tunnels deep under the earth. The usual. I looked the Towers over carefully with my Sight, and the whole place blazed with dazzling arcane energies. Layer upon layer of old magics and deadly protections, such as proximity mines floating unseen in midair, just waiting to hit you with all kinds of nasty medicine if you were dumb enough to approach the Towers with bad thoughts in mind. The shaped curses under the flagstones were harder to spot, lying in wait like trap-door spiders. The huge old walls containing the Towers were solid in more than three dimensions, and the Towers themselves