Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (14 page)

The next night we took a position in a tower high above the courtyard. The kitchen was below us and Rossinière reasoned that the smell of foodstuffs would prevent the demon from picking up our scents. There was a waxing half-moon in a clear sky, so our eyes were also quick to adjust to the gloom
.

It served no purpose, for no one appeared in the courtyard. We slept the following day and returned as darkness fell. This time our patience was rewarded
.

No sooner had the night established itself than a figure slipped across the courtyard. We lost sight of it quickly, and assumed it had made for the castle gates. Just as we were waiting to hear them open, I spotted the shadow of the demon again – it had leapt up on to the castle walls and now bounded over them as easily as a cat might have scaled a garden wall
.

He was gone, but we waited, and four hours later we saw him reappear in the same place and return across the courtyard. Both of us knew that he must have leapt
the height of six men or else scaled a sheer wall. It would take all of our acquired powers and more to match such a demon as this
.

There was no attack that night, so sensing that the demon didn’t restrict himself to wandering when he needed to feed, we decided we would set a trap each night until he reappeared
.

“They fear light and crucifixes,” said Rossinière. “We’ll arm ourselves of course, but light and crucifixes will be our greatest weapons.”

The following night, some of the castle’s trusted servants were positioned behind the doors that opened on to the courtyard, each with a torch soaked in oil and a candle with which to light it. Rossinière, the nobleman and I were all fully armed and hidden in different locations to maximise our chances of seeing the demon as he stepped into the courtyard
.

We didn’t expect him to come two nights in a row, but come he did, and I can only presume in retrospect that the demon suffered boredom as much as any of us. He emerged from a doorway and took a few steps across the courtyard before coming to a stop
.

He lifted his face to the air, as if able to smell that something was wrong. He seemed torn as to whether he should proceed or turn back, but then Rossinière’s cry rang through the courtyard, “Now!”

The nobleman and I emerged from our hiding places, as did Rossinière, so that we were surrounding the demon to some degree. For one tense moment nothing else happened but then doors opened all around us and the courtyard suddenly blazed with the light of the burning torches
.

The violent change hurt my eyes so I had a certain sympathy for the demon as he screamed in pain in the centre of the courtyard. My vision adjusted, but his did not and even as he tried to observe what was happening around him, he continued to grimace and squint against the glare
.

We had the chance to observe him and he was something to behold, wearing the clothes of an earlier age, but looking as strong and healthy as the young man he’d been. What was more, the family resemblance was obvious, so much so that the nobleman looked astounded by his appearance
.

As the demon calmed somewhat, still shielding his eyes but looking dangerous now, ready to strike out at his persecutors, Rossinière stepped forward brandishing a large gold crucifix. The demon backed away from him until he was against a wall, and there, in limited shadow, he finally opened his eyes
.

Rossinière continued to press him until he stood immediately before the demon, holding him at bay with
the crucifix. He shouted, “Don’t look into its eyes – I see it has some mesmerising power.”

He stared himself though – Rossinière and I had already developed our own powers beyond the point of being caught up in the demon’s hypnotic spell
.

Yet Rossinière had counted too much on the knowledge of others, based as it was upon half-truths and superstition. Just as he seemed to have the demon under his control, the creature smiled, revealing its unsightly fangs, then pulled the crucifix from Rossinière’s hand and kissed it before saying, “What have I to fear from this?”

Without looking, he threw the crucifix away, sending it spinning across the courtyard and impaling one of the servants in the chest. The servant let out a single shocked cry and fell with his burning torch. Another servant dropped his torch at the sight of it and ran from the courtyard
.

Rossinière made for his sword, but the initiative was lost, and I heard a terrible cracking noise and saw Rossinière’s body hurtle across the courtyard where it slammed against the castle wall and fell like a broken doll
.

For a moment, none of us knew what to do, and I was rendered incapable by the sight of Rossinière’s lifeless body, a man who’d been the best of brothers to me for
the last twenty-five years, killed in a careless instant
.

The demon turned to the nobleman and started slowly towards him, saying, “That you, of all people, would conspire with these villains to undo me. Do family ties mean nothing to you, nor all our shared history?”

The nobleman could not answer and looked distraught, as if he feared he had indeed betrayed his own flesh and blood. I was pulled back from my grief though by curiosity, by hearing the demon talk of family loyalty, of villains, as if he were still very much the man he’d once been. Not that I doubted for a second that he would kill his noble descendant as readily as he would kill the rest of us if it suited his needs
.

He was still walking towards the nobleman, but I glanced one more time at Rossinière and did not hesitate. I drew my sword and grabbed a flaming torch from a servant who stood nearby. We had been wrong about the crucifix, but I had seen the pain caused by light or fire
.

The demon knew it too. He lunged forward and pulled the sword from the nobleman’s sheath, thrusting him to one side, almost as if wishing to push him out of harm’s way. He turned and drew a fast stroke through the air, but I responded by swiping the flaming torch at him. He jumped back and I stepped into his retreat and drove my blade into his body
.

The demon closed his eyes against the torch which was now at my side, but he held the blade where it entered his body and struck out with his own sword, a shattering blow which left only a flesh wound, but which, I later found, had broken my shoulder. In shock, I dropped the torch, but it fell towards him and he jumped back, his body pulling free of the sword as if it had left no injury
.

I knew he was fast and strong so even as pain seared through my shoulder, I kicked the fallen torch towards him and the flames leapt at his clothes as if finding dry tinder, immediately engulfing him. He let out a bellowing scream and swung his sword furiously at the torch, but seemed momentarily frozen to the spot in shock or pain
.

I could not be sure the flames would be enough, even with that terrible scream filling the air and the fire eating up his clothes and flesh, and so I did what instinct told me to do. With my good arm, I swung my sword as hard as I could muster and struck his neck
.

Silence followed, and a brief dazzling blue light, and the nobleman’s sword clattered to the floor as the flames died back to the fallen torch. Nothing of the demon remained, nothing whatsoever. I saw him disappear, even as I rested my sword on the floor like a walking cane, as I fell slowly next to it, then slipped into unconsciousness
.

There was so much still to learn of the world, but I would have to learn it alone. Rossinière was dead. And when I woke the next day, bandaged and nursed, my shock was as great as the nobleman’s must have been, for I’d aged ten years and I never really got those years back
.

Word of what I had done spread amongst the nobility of the region and I sought out and destroyed other vampires over the next several years, each time getting stronger, learning more, developing my own black arts that I might be still better equipped to destroy this evil
.

Yet even as I fought and did what I believed to be my duty, I knew a greater duty was demanded of me. Back in the early years of that century I was now certain my mother had encountered a vampire. And now, at the century’s end, I knew the time had come to return home and complete the journey on which she had set me all those years before
.

E
loise was able to sit on one of the sofas in the library, but Will had still failed to get any further response from her. He’d put on one small lamp, but Eloise stared ahead as if blind to everything around her, not blinking, registering nothing.

Will heard a car approaching, coming to a stop on the gravel outside; he heard their voices and the light knocking on the main door. He didn’t want to leave her at all, and not just because of the fragile state she was in, but because he still couldn’t be sure that Wyndham’s attacks had ceased.

He had no choice though, and crouched in front of her, saying, “I’ll be back in a moment. I’ll be able to hear if you call.” Her eyes stared through him.

He walked quickly through the house and opened the door. It had been the only choice, the only thing he could think of, and ironically, he had never been happier to see them. Chris and Rachel stood there, both looking equally concerned.

Chris stepped through the doorway first, saying, “What’s happened?”

“Please tell me she’s not hurt,” said Rachel.

Will closed the door and said, “She’s not hurt, not physically. Do you need more light or can you see well enough?”

“We’re fine,” said Chris.

“Then follow me. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

As they walked, Will explained briefly what had happened. And when they reached the library, they stopped together just inside the doorway, all looking at Eloise where she sat on the sofa, as blank as the ghosts of Will’s victims had been.

Rachel said, “She hasn’t said anything at all since it happened?”

“She said, ‘I saw’, but couldn’t tell me what, and has said no more since.”

Rachel walked across to Eloise and the others followed. She knelt down in front of her, took her hands, looked into her eyes. Will noticed Eloise’s hands holding on to Rachel’s, responding to her touch in a way they had failed to do to his. This is why he’d called Rachel and Chris, because she needed people with human warmth, people who could coax her back, but it only served to remind him again of how inadequate he was.

Rachel’s voice was almost a whisper as she spoke to
Eloise. Will and Chris looked on, then Rachel turned to them and said, “It might help if the two of you left us alone for a little while. Let me talk to her.”

Chris looked around the room as if to ask where they could go, but Will said, “Come, I’ll show you where it happened.”

It didn’t matter now if Chris was working in Wyndham’s interests. The sorcerer already knew everything and more of what Will knew. Perhaps too, if Chris saw Wyndham’s determination to hurt Eloise, it might make him question his allegiances.

That was all on the assumption that Chris
had
betrayed him. If he hadn’t, showing him the tunnels would reinforce in his mind that Will trusted him. And Will did want to trust him because this incident had proved that his own powers were unlikely to be enough on their own.

They entered the first secret passage and found the wall to the second still open. Chris hesitated, looking at the steps.

Will went first and said, “Come.”

Chris followed him, along the tunnel and into the labyrinth proper where he immediately stalled, poring over the inscriptions and pictures that covered the walls. Will didn’t slow down, but hesitated at each turn or junction to ensure Chris was still behind him.

“This is incredible,” said Chris, his interest in the paranormal taking over. “From an archaeological point of view of course, but in terms of the occult, this could add so much to the field of knowledge.”

Will didn’t respond directly, but said, “Look how solid these walls are, how the tunnels appear to be carved out of the rock itself, yet walls moved down here, blocking off tunnels, closing in on chambers. They moved as easily as you might open and close a door. Wyndham did that, I’m certain of it.”

Chris looked uneasy, perhaps only concerned that his expression shouldn’t make him look guilty when he wasn’t, and he said, “You think he’s been attacking her?”

“I know he has – the witches told me as much. Three times so far, each different, each equally disturbing. And I fear he hasn’t finished with her yet.”

Chris looked astounded and said, “Once again, if the Wyndham I met is the same person, and I still find that unlikely …”

“It’s him,” said Will. “However unlikely, it’s him.”

“But the person I’ve met just doesn’t seem capable of things like that – I don’t mean the magic, I mean attacking a defenceless girl.”

“Have you seen him since we spoke?”

“No. As it happens, I contacted Breakstorm after that because I wanted to meet him again, knowing what
you’d said about him, but they told me he was away.”

“Busy perhaps, but not away.” They turned a corner and Will pointed ahead to the demolished wall. He knew his own strength and yet still he was surprised to see the damage he had inflicted in his desperation. “This is where he trapped her, beyond that wall. I only wish I knew what she saw in there, what he made her see.”

Chris approached and stared across at the small chamber from the edge of the broken wall, apparently nervous of stepping inside. Then he looked at the wall itself.

“You broke through this?” Will nodded. “Wow.”

“You can climb through the gap – it’s stable enough.”

Chris started to shake his head slowly and said, “I’ll pass on that, I think. I don’t know what it is, but there’s a strange atmosphere in there, something … I don’t know, but something sinister.”

Will stepped over the broken wall and looked around, putting his hands on the stone here and there, and said, “I don’t feel anything.” It was true now that he thought of it; the previously uncomfortable atmosphere that had filled the labyrinth had disappeared.