The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross Read Online Free Page A

I’d seen had been
Hamlet
, not
Macbeth
.
    “Not a bad guess,” I said, “but it’s the wrong play.”
    “Not if someone was infected with the curse during a previous production of
Macbeth
,” Baal said. “Perhaps they brought it with them to this new play.”
    The symbols from his tea had made it around the room and now circled his head. I continued to keep an eye on them.
    “Curses can infect people?” I asked. That was a useful piece of information, although I wasn’t quite sure yet how it was useful.
    Baal shrugged. “Magical curses are by their very nature unpredictable,” he said. “Sometimes the spell latches on to actors and follows them to other plays. It can even move from player to player. Usually the actors develop a bad reputation and stop getting work, and that’s the end of that. But not always.”
    This is why it’s good to sometimes talk to angels rather than just kill them outright. Occasionally, they have something interesting to say. Occasionally.
    “So what do you do to get rid of the curse?” I asked. “It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing where a prescription can help.”
    “No, in these cases an intervention is usually necessary,” Baal said.
    “I’m guessing that means more than throwing salt over your shoulder or running out of the theatre and spinning in a circle three times,” I said, thinking about the usual antidotes. Actors loved their silly rituals, even though they rarely seemed to work. Sometimes I think it was the faerie who came up with them, having a little fun at the expense of mortals. They had a long history with the theatre, the faerie did.
    “It would definitely require something more dramatic than that,” Baal said. “Sometimes it is best to fight witchcraft with things darker than witchcraft.”
    He eyed the bookshelf beside us, but I held up a hand before he could reach for anything.
    “We’re not going to even open any of those, let alone read the words in them,” I said.
    I’d had enough of ancient tomes after one of them had killed the infamous playwright Christopher Marlowe, who had been one of my few friends when he’d been alive. Well, in all honesty, Marlowe was responsible for his own death. But he had a lot of help from a book, if you could even call it that. Most books were just books, but some weren’t. Some books were other things entirely.
    Baal raised an eyebrow but left it alone.
    “Have you tried talking to the Witches?” he asked.
    I sighed. “I was hoping to avoid that,” I said. “That’s why I’m sitting here talking to you.”
    “There are worse things in the world than the Witches,” he said.
    “And there are a whole lot of better things in the world too,” I said, although I may have been overly optimistic about that.
    “Perhaps you should seek out—,” Baal said, but I cut him off before he could finish.
    “I’m not going to him for help again,” I said.
    Baal nodded and paid attention to his tea again, and we shared a moment of silence while I thought things over. I ended the moment with another sigh. There was no getting around it. I was going to have to meet with the Witches. This night just kept getting better and better.
    “Is there anything else?” Baal asked.
    I gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I need your grace,” I said.
    He frowned at me. “I thought we had an arrangement,” he said.
    “What can I say?” I said, shrugging. “I’m a fallen man.”
    Now it was his turn to sigh. “I expected more of you,” he said.
    “Everyone does,” I said.
    “Give me a moment,” he said.
    “Of course,” I said.
    He finished the tea and put the cup down on the bookshelf. Then we stopped carrying on like civilized beings.
    The arcane symbols from the tea’s steam didn’t do anything to help him. They were just that: symbols.

DOUBLE, DOUBLE
TOIL AND TROUBLE
    I left the row house burning behind me and went down the street as the familiar sound of sirens started up in the distance. I