Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (11 page)

He could feel another wave of hunger, an emptiness so complete that he felt he was outside of himself. Something deep within him screamed for blood, his thoughts falling away one by one until the scream seemed the only thing left.

But Will had underestimated the power of the cold. No one, it seemed, had chosen to stay in the open this night. He passed the gutted warehouse where he’d found Jex, continued on to the river, found the doorway in which he’d first encountered Eloise.

And here, for the first time, he picked up a human scent – it made the hunger more intense, knowing he was so close to feeding it. He walked a little further and saw him there, an old man slumped with his bags in another doorway. Will’s hopes lifted and he moved quickly, but as soon as he got close he realised it was futile, that this old man had too little life left in him to satisfy Will’s need for more than a few days. It hardly seemed worth it for such a short respite.

Will approached him anyway. His face and hands were blue with cold. He looked up and saw Will and smiled, his eyes looking remarkably youthful, a striking contrast to the craggy face and white beard.

Will said, “You shouldn’t be out on a night like this. There’s a shelter not far from here.”

The man gave a little shake of his head and said in a voice that betrayed his old age, “I can’t get there tonight, son.”

“I’ll help you. You need to be somewhere warm.”

“You’re a good lad, but I’ve no time for shelters, not tonight.”

Will knew it to be true, that the old man was dying, that he would probably die even if Will carried him to the shelter. He crouched down and then sat on the step with him.

“You should get inside yourself. I’ll be OK.”

Will smiled and said, “I’ll just stay for a little while. I’m not cold. Are you from here?”

“Hereabouts. Family’s always lived here in the city or hereabouts.”

“What happened?”

As cold as he was, the old man gave a mischievous grin and made a half-hearted attempt to find something. Will saw it was a bottle of cheap brandy. He took the top off and held the bottle to the old man’s lips, letting him drink deep from it.

“You’re a good lad,” he said as Will put the bottle back. He spoke slowly, his voice weak at the edges. “Lost everything, me, a long time ago. This is what it comes to. No one else’s fault, only mine. That’s what it is. Yep, that’s what it is.”

Will looked at the old man and saw that a single tear had formed and rolled down his frozen cheek. His eyes appeared lost in some distant memory, perhaps of when life had still been full of hope for him, perhaps of the things he had lost along the way.

Will reached out and took his hand, which was as cold as his own. Just as a baby’s would, the old man’s fingers closed round Will’s.

“You’re as cold as me, lad. You should get going.”

“I’m not cold.” Will looked him in the eye and said, “Can I tell you a secret?” The old man didn’t answer, but gave the slightest nod. “I’m nearly eight hundred years old. I’m un … I’m a vampire, but I’m also the Earl of Mercia by right, and you are no less my duty than all your ancestors were before you.”

“I don’t understand you, lad.”

Will realised he hadn’t made sense, and that his identity hardly mattered to this man anyway, not now.

“You don’t need to understand, but what I want you to know is that this isn’t the end, there is more beyond. This life is not the end of it.”

The old man probably thought Will no more than a teenager with strange ideas, but he had heard his words and whatever he thought of the speaker, he sounded hopeful as he said, “You think so?”

“I do.” Will stared into his eyes, capturing him now.
“Think about when you were happy, think back, your childhood, some sunny afternoon. Can you see it?”

There again, there appeared the slightest nod, and the old man smiled a little and his eyes, locked on to that faraway vision, sparkled with life, and remained like that a few minutes longer. Then for a moment his grip tightened round Will’s hand before slowly releasing it as the last vestiges of life slipped away.

Will sat for a little while, thinking on the mystery of the life that had just ended before him, of all those that had come and gone before it. For a moment, his mind drifted back to a childhood afternoon of his own, but dream as he might, the cold would not claim him.

He stood again and looked about him. Such an emptiness, within and without. Nothing would come of this night to offer him sustenance, he knew that for certain. Dejected, he walked back the way he’d come and in through the city walls.

The Whole Earth was in total darkness, including those parts of the living quarters above that looked out on to the street. He thought of Chris and Rachel asleep inside, wondering whether they slept well, whether Chris’s loyalty even mattered now that the focus was at Marland.

Will walked on, the floodlit cathedral spire ahead of him, its lights hazy in the frosty air. He let himself in by
the side door and walked slowly up the nave, taking a seat in the front pew before the altar.

He felt at peace there, and though it didn’t nourish him the way being with Eloise did, being here in this church at least tempered his hunger, enough to make it bearable for the time being. It held him fast, this place, and offered him hope.

And as he sat there beneath the illuminated dust that had so entranced Eloise, he thought back on what he’d told the old man. He’d told him there was something else, something beyond this life, and he had to believe it – had he not seen spirits? Had he not seen the spirit of his own brother, a familiarity which could not have been faked by any sorcerer?

Yet he could take no comfort from such a thought if it was true that he’d dispossessed his victims of their souls, of their very ability to experience anything beyond the lives they had led. It was a regret compounded by the knowledge that most of his victims had hardly lived the fullest or richest of lives in the first place.

Will stood up quickly, as if swift movement could help him escape such thoughts, and headed towards the crypt. He had said it to Fairburn and he believed it to be true – he would know if he carried the souls of others within him. If their souls had been imprisoned, if it was not merely another of Wyndham’s tricks, then
they had been imprisoned elsewhere, some place beyond his power.

Perhaps they would be released when Will uncovered his destiny, when he found Lorcan Labraid. But that thought too filled him with frustration. A notebook, a meeting with Asmund, riddles and confusions and nothing since. Where was Asmund’s master? Where were the guides? Why could he not hear the call of Lorcan Labraid?

He lifted the stone between the tombs and descended, and when he reached his own chambers, he toured each of the rooms as if returning after a long absence – the pool, the empty chamber with the partly buried casket, the main room with his furniture and chests.

He opened one of the chests and took out Jex’s notebook, then sat back in his chair and turned through the pages, stopping at each garbled line of prophecy. He wanted to understand, but most of all, he wanted to dream, to drift away into some sunlit afternoon as he had helped the old man to do. Only Will’s sunlit afternoon was not in the past, nor in any future he could hope for.

L
ate the next afternoon, once darkness had fallen, Will made his way out of the church, pausing only to listen to the sweet chants of choral evensong being practised by the cathedral choir. No one noticed him and he left unobserved.

He made his way to the taxi rank and smiled when he realised the first car was being driven by the same man who’d brought him into the city the previous night. He looked in the rear-view mirror as Will climbed in and said, “Where to?” His face showed not even a hint of recognition.

“Marland.”

“School?”

“No, the new house.”

The driver started the meter and pulled away even as he said, “You sure? I don’t think there’s anyone there at this time of year.”

“I’m sure, thank you.”

“You’re paying. It’s funny, I was out at Marland
last night, picked up … who was it now? One of the teachers, I think, You’re not at the school then?”

“If you don’t mind, I prefer not to talk.”

“Suit yourself.”

They drove away from the lights of the city, the car picking up speed on the open country roads. The driver looked at Will in the mirror occasionally, just as he had the night before. Will looked at the driver too, trying not to think about how many weeks his blood might give him.

Once back at the new house, he went inside to check that nothing had gone amiss during the time he’d been away. Then, thinking forward to the night ahead, he took the sabre from the billiard room and went down to one of the cellars for a torch, conscious that it had served them well in the fight against Asmund and could again.

Even being in the cellars briefly made him grateful that he’d spent the day in his own chambers. The boredom of those cellars would have been a challenge at any time, but with his need for blood dictating his moods, it was a desperate prison. This could not continue, Will knew that – they had to make progress soon or give up.

It was still early, so he put the sword and the torch in the library and sat there for a while, watching the clock tick slowly towards a time when he might expect
Eloise to be free. Several times he considered going back into the tunnels without her, but he’d promised her he wouldn’t, and he reasoned that if Wyndham was so keen to harm her, Will probably needed her more than he realised.

When he walked across to the school, she had already sneaked out and was heading towards the spot where he normally waited. She saw him and changed course slightly, walking fast as if she was about to throw her arms round him. Then, checking herself, she slowed and stopped short of reaching him.

For a moment, Will wished she had held him, even though it was always as much trial as pleasure. Instead they stood a little shy of each other, like two people still lacking the courage to say how they really felt.

Will said, “You haven’t been waiting?”

“No, I just got here.”

“Me too. I stayed in my chambers last night.”

She looked confused for a second and he wondered if it was because he’d referred to night when he meant day, but then she said, “In the cathedral? You went into the city?” She sounded suspicious, but looked at him closely and said, “You haven’t fed though.”

“No.”

She looked pleased, as if it had been an act of self-restraint on his part, not an absence of suitable victims.
Surely she understood that he would have to kill sooner or later, that they were unlikely to make progress fast enough to avoid it. And yet Will had to admit to himself that he had no way of knowing what they’d encounter tonight beyond the gateway, nor how close they really were to the end of all this.

They needed to press on now, but before walking away, he looked towards the Dangrave House common room. Marcus was there, deep in conversation with a boy and a girl. For once, as if they had reached some sort of understanding, Marcus did not look to the window to meet Will’s gaze.

“I spoke to him last night too.”

Eloise looked at the school building, struggling to see who was in the common room, then saying in disbelief, “Marcus Jenkins?”

“Yes, he was watching us the whole time we were in the maze.”

“So you just had a chat? You didn’t think of putting a stop to him?”

“What would you have me do? Kill him, feed off him, is that it? Do you see his death as a neat solution, an acceptable way to sate my appetites?” He was disappointed in some way, perhaps at the contrast between Eloise’s comment and the boy’s fierce house loyalty the previous evening.

She didn’t answer at first, but she knew that had been the implication. Eventually she said, “No, I didn’t mean it like that, and actually, he seems OK in a weird way. It’s just that he’s working against us, spying on us – you just said so yourself.”

“True, and if I kill him, I’ll rid the school of one spy.” Will put his hands on her shoulders, giving the appearance to any watcher that they were exchanging intimacies. “Don’t look now, but there’s a darkened window on the top floor, the room I checked last night, a storeroom. Someone’s watching us from up there right now. I can feel it, and they’ve been watching every evening that I’ve been here. What’s more, I think it’s the same person who drew the chalk diagrams under your bed.”

“Not Marcus?”

Will shook his head. “No, he’s still in the common room, and he thinks he’s the only person in the school working for Wyndham. Oh, and for what it might be worth, he swore that he would do nothing to harm you.”

Eloise laughed a little and said, “And you believe that?”

“As it happens, I do. Of course, everything he does could harm you indirectly, but Marcus Jenkins was not in your room.”

She nodded, accepting his assurances, then said, “Well who knows, after tonight, it might not matter who’s spying on us.”

“We can but hope.”

They set off across the parkland and Eloise said, “Did you go and see Rachel and Chris while you were in the city?”

“No, it was very late when I arrived. I just needed the solace of spending some time in my own chambers. I’m finding the cellars a trial, particularly now that my hunger has returned.”

“I do think of you, you know, during the day. I think of you pacing around down there, but it must be difficult, never sleeping, day after day on your own.”

“Not since I met you, though that makes the solitude even harder to bear, having something to compare it with.”

“But you’ve had companions before, friends?”

Will shook his head. “Fleeting friendships, none quite like yours, though I met people I might have cherished had I been mortal.”

“Girls?”

He thought of poor Kate who he’d seen again so recently, all the life stripped out of her, of Arabella, whom he had certainly loved in his own way.

“Yes, girls. But I’ve had no friendship of any kind for two centuries and more.”

“Unbelievable.”

“But it’s true.”