Free The Curse of Salamander Street by G.P. Taylor Page A

oven and singed his rear upon the scalding door. ‘Sleep? How can I sleep when we have trouble with us? That’s what Barghast is – TROUBLE. I can smell it a mile off and it’ll follow us all the way to London.’
    ‘And all I can smell is a burning Beadle.’ Raphah laughed as Beadle wafted the smoke from his burnt trousers. ‘Whatever Barghast may be will not concern us. In the morning we will be gone to Peveril.’
    ‘But why does he follow?’
    ‘That we shall soon discover,’ Raphah replied calmly as he snuggled himself into the blanket and closed his eyes wearily.
    ‘Blast, bother, boiling blood.’ Beadle fussed as he pulled every item of flotsam from his coat pocket and burnt it in the stove fire. ‘Everyone sleeps and Beadle paces … Clock ticks on and I’m on my own.’ He reluctantly began to climb the ladder to the bed.
    Lying next to Raphah he gazed down to the wooden floor far below. With the coming of the night it was as if the house began to yawn and tremble. From all around came the sound of strange groaning. Footsteps beat wearily above his head; far away he could hear words spoken in whispers. The gnawing of rats echoed in the walls and as all in the house fell into dreams, Beadle stared about the room.
    In his mind he suddenly entertained the thought that he now missed life with Demurral. He had his place in the order of theworld and had walked in the glow of being the master’s servant. Beadle felt quite alone as his thoughts raced. He wondered how circumstances had come and tattered his life like scoundrels and vagabonds stealing all he had.
    Late into the dark hours, Beadle twisted and turned in sleeplessness. He was hot and bothered in his high bed, and itched as if every crawling creature had taken to eating him alive. The house had fallen into silence as all the travellers slept. ‘Last to taste sleep,’ he muttered. ‘Hate it, hate it …’
    Wide awake, he looked on as a small mouse crawled from a cobwebbed corner of the scullery and climbed the carved table leg. It scurried in and out of the covered plates and every now and then took hold of a crumb in its claws and feasted merrily upon it. The creature then sat, rubbing its whiskers, looking at Beadle. The candles flickered against the whitewashed plaster. To hurry sleep, Beadle counted the slats of the wooden shutters again and again. Half-drowsy, he listened to another set of footsteps pounding the stairs, making their way to the outside privy. Something in their stealthy and somewhat sinister bearing made him listen more intently. It was as if they stopped at every doorway of the passageway above Beadle’s head. Time and twice time they walked quietly across the bare boards, stopping and starting and moving from door to door. At every doorway the footsteps entered the rooms above his head, then moments later shuffled their way along the passageway.
    He thought for a moment, knowing that this was not just the nocturnal wanderings of a weary traveller. ‘Can you hear it, Raphah?’ Beadle asked as he nudged his companion. There was no reply. Raphah slept soundly, wrapped in the quilted blanket.
    The sound of the footsteps carried on across the landing and then, slowly and carefully, began to descend the wide staircase that led into the hallway. From beneath the scullery door, Beadlecould see the flickering of shadowy light. It moved with each pace taken, coming quietly closer by the second.
    ‘There’s someone coming,’ Beadle whispered as close to Raphah as he dared without being overheard from the hallway. ‘Outside – listen.’
    Raphah didn’t stir. He snored gently, a smile etched in his dreaming like a contented cat filled with cream. The footsteps stopped outside the door. Beadle could tell that whoever was walking the house did so with great ease, not fearing or showing concern that they would be discovered.
    The large brass door handle began to slowly turn. Beadle pulled the covers up about him and peered quietly