Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (23 page)

“I do.”

“Good.” She thought about it a little more and said, “I think Wyndham got under my skin more than I realised, not so much with the attacks, more with what he made me see in the tunnels.”

“I know, and I wish you didn’t have to contend with such things. I wish for your sake above all that I could be like any other boy, I really do.” She shook her head, but he said, “I dreamt about you today.”

“What did you dream?”

“I dreamt we were sitting in a meadow here, in the sun, and you told me about the battle fought here long ago and the bones that lay under the grass.” She smiled, understanding his comment about the ossuary earlier. “And we kissed, just a normal kiss, the likes of which I can remember now only in my dreams. We were young and in love and the sun was shining – is that too much to ask or hope for?”

Eloise shook her head, but didn’t speak, only moved closer and held on to him, burying her head into his shoulder. He held her back, stroking her hair, releasing the blossom smell of it that was itself a reminder of another summer.

“Do you dream of me?”

She held him tighter, a reflex response, and her voice was muffled as she said, “All the time.” He could feel the heat of her mouth through his shirt, her heart beating against his chest.

“Good dreams or bad dreams?”

She laughed this time as she said, “Good dreams.”

She pulled away then, but reached up, holding his face in her hands as she said, “Maybe you have those dreams for a reason. You know, maybe your destiny is that you’ll be cured of this, that you’ll …” She stopped, perhaps struggling to believe it herself.

And he smiled. She had to go now, he knew that,
but she dreamt of him, and he had learned a long time ago to take comfort where he might, so he would take comfort in that.

A
s the taxi driver pulled to the side of the road, he said, “You don’t need to get back tonight I hope? The way this snow’s coming down I don’t see any cars getting along this road later.”

“We’ll be fine, thank you.”

The driver looked beyond the metal gates, the house just visible in the darkness, and only then because it was framed in snow.

“You sure you don’t want to check they’re in first? I can’t see any lights on.”

Will was in the passenger seat and as the other two got out, he smiled at the driver and said, “How much do we owe you?”

By the time he joined them, Marcus had unwrapped the sabres from the black shawl they were in. Eloise took the shawl from him and tied it round her neck.

They stood there for a moment, gathering snow, as the taxi lumbered around in a big circle and started back towards the city, the car itself hinting at its driver’s
confusion. As the tail lights disappeared, the three of them approached the gates which were locked by way of a heavy chain.

Eloise pointed and said, “That’s what you’d do if you were going away for a while, don’t you think? You wouldn’t lock it like that if you were inside.”

“Perhaps not,” said Will. “But if Wyndham isn’t at home, it will make our main business here all the easier.”

Will took hold of the chain and snapped it apart, the two broken halves of the link flying away into the snow. He took a sabre from Marcus and said, “Stay close to me whenever possible.” He looked at Eloise as he added, “I don’t want to make the same mistake I made last time.”

She nodded and he pushed open the gate, closing it again once all three of them were inside. As Marcus had suggested, there were cameras on the top of the gateposts, and though they looked inactive, it hardly mattered to Will if Wyndham knew they were here. Even if he didn’t, he would know soon enough.

The drive was lost in the single smooth expanse of snow that covered the parkland, suggesting no car had driven here in at least two days. They took the most direct route to the house and were halfway there when Will stopped and listened. The other two stopped with
him and then he moved around them, gesturing for them to stand back.

They were not visible yet, but he could hear two dogs, then a third, running towards them. They didn’t bark, but when they became visible, three black, muscular shapes pounding through the snow towards them, their intent was clear enough.

Marcus said, “I’ll take the one on the left if you can do the other two.”

Will smiled, certain they’d found a fine ally in Marcus Jenkins, but he said, “There will be no need for that, trust me.”

The dogs were bearing down on them now, teeth bared, eyes focused. All at once, the three of them appeared to pick Will out as their target and, all at once, they became aware of his stare. They stopped quite suddenly, one of them stumbling in the snow, righting itself in a panic.

They stared in confusion and the first hint of fear. One tested a growl, but immediately followed it by slinking down to the ground and shuffling backwards. Will continued to stare out at them, and all three were backing away now, before finally they turned, and ran back to the side of the house, not in fear, but as if they could no longer remember why they had run out there.

“They won’t trouble us again,” said Will and carried on towards the house.

Marcus laughed. “Where I come from, you could make a lot of money with a trick like that.”

Eloise laughed too, but then said, “We didn’t ask you how you got to the cellars – is there a side door or something?”

“No, I went from the main hall inside the house. We went through the front door.”

Will said, “Then that’s what we’ll do tonight.”

They reached the imposing Georgian façade and climbed the steps between stone columns. They stood there, under the portico, as they brushed the snow from their coats and hair.

Will had his back to the door as he did this, looking out at the fresh snow adding to the soft, white mantle that already covered the world, the new flakes erasing their footsteps as he watched. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself the same little fantasy, that the thaw would come and reveal the world as he had known it long ago.

“Will, are you ready?” He turned, and smiled to see Eloise’s face, her beautiful eyes, her pale cheeks with a slight bloom of red on them from the cold. He wouldn’t want a thaw that revealed a world without her.

“I’m ready.”

He approached the two wooden doors, a large metal doorknob on each. He was about to put his hands on to get a sense of the mechanism, but he hesitated, his hearing picking up something indistinct, coming from the doors themselves. He stepped closer, listening without making contact.

“He knows the power I have over locks. There is a current running through these doors – if I touch the handles, I’ll be electrocuted.”

Marcus said, “He uses electricity to keep the vampires under control.”

Will nodded and said, “That answers that question. Electricity must hurt us the same way light does.”

Eloise said, “You didn’t know that already?”

“I’m lucky enough never to have been struck by lightning or electrocuted by accident – it never occurred to me to try it on purpose.”

Marcus said, “But if you can’t do your stuff on the locks, how do we get in?”

Will took a step back and planted the sole of his foot between the two handles with a fierce kick. The doors cracked apart and burst open, one of them looking as if it might come off its hinges, then rebounded before opening a second time and staying open.

Will stepped forward into the marble expanse of the hall, and Eloise and Marcus followed in after him. They
turned on their torches, but aimed them to the sides of the room, subduing the beams enough for Will not to be troubled by them.

Marcus pointed at the large staircase rising up directly ahead and said, “The door to the cellars is round the back of the main staircase, to the right.”

They walked in that direction and Eloise said, “Marcus, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you. Whatever happens tonight, as soon as we get back to school …” She paused for effect. “We’re going to stretch your jumper – doesn’t it bother you that it fits so well?”

Marcus laughed a little, but said, “After tonight, I don’t think my scholarship’s likely to be good for much longer.”

“Then we’ll find another way, won’t we, Will? You have to stay at Marland now.”

Will turned and offered a smile of encouragement, which appeared to cheer Marcus, though Will couldn’t quite imagine how he could secure Marcus’s education. Will stared for a moment longer at the two of them then, impressed by the thought that this union had always been meant to take place, as if Marcus too was part of his destiny.

Eloise said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” said Will. “Only it feels right that the three of us are here together.”

“I agree,” said Marcus. “You might laugh at me, but that night by the river, I felt like I’d been waiting for that moment my whole life.”

Eloise smiled at him, touched, as she said, “Other people might laugh at that, but they don’t know the things we know.”

“Indeed,” said Will, and pushed open the door that led to the cellar steps.

His mood became instantly more serious. He could hear someone shouting, beyond the reach of Eloise and Marcus’s hearing, but he could hear it quite clearly, a frightened, almost hysterical cry.

“He’s here! He’s here! He’s here,” repeated again and again.

T
hey moved quickly down the steps, then along the short corridor at the bottom, which ended at a heavy metal door. There was no current running through this one, nor was there a normal lock, only three large bolts.

Even Marcus and Eloise could hear the cry from inside now, and Marcus whispered, “That’s the one that talks – he’s like that all the time.”

“He’s here! He’s here!”

To Will’s ears the cries had become deafening.

They pulled the bolts open and stepped into the room. Marcus closed the door behind them as Will stood, getting used to the subdued light in there, taking in everything he could see.

Other rooms led off it, but this was a cavernous cellar, with all manner of instruments, electrical devices, chemistry apparatus, specimens in jars along one wall. It was like the mad scientist’s laboratory of storybooks. The far side of the room was filled with a cage structure,
split into four, though with solid metal walls separating them from each other.

One cage, on the far right, was empty. The one on the far left housed the vampire who shouted. He was sitting in the middle of the enclosure, his mind apparently quite unhinged, but looking remarkably healthy. His clothes looked of the nineteenth century and were shabby, but his hair was fair and appeared to have been cut, and his face was that of a man in his twenties, no more. Only the madness in his eyes spoke of the blood-hunger.

The creatures in the other two cages were very different, and creatures was the only word Will could find appropriate. They pounced towards the bars at the sight of Marcus and Eloise, immediately being thrown back by an electric shock, and then punished further by spotlights that came on and beamed at them for a few seconds, both vampires screaming and trying to shield their eyes.

Their clothes were torn and burned so badly that it was impossible to say in which era they’d originated. Their hair had grown wild and matted. Worst of all, their faces and hands bore terrible burns. It was clear that Wyndham had experimented on them, tortured them, learning what it was that could damage them. The end result was that these creatures now looked as if they had never been human.

As soon as the spotlights turned off, and despite the recent pain, they immediately started pacing back and forth in the cages, as if building up to another attempt on the bars.

“He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!”

All three had long fangs, the ferocious appearance of which only served to make the vampires look all the more pathetic in their cages. They were like exotic wild animals being paraded for public amusement in a forgotten zoo.

Eloise looked sickened and disturbed by the sight. Marcus, who’d seen it before, pointed at a door to the left of the cages and said, “The other one is through there, but Wyndham didn’t let me go in there.”

Will nodded and looked at the empty cage. A creature had been kept in there too, he imagined. He felt no particular empathy for these creatures, and had been so alone for so long that he struggled even to think of them as fellow sufferers of the same sickness, but he was saddened to think of how many creatures might have been tortured to death in Wyndham’s search for knowledge.

Will waved the sabre towards the cages and said, “I suspect we’ll learn little from these. If Asmund’s master is beyond that door, that’s where we should begin.”

They started to move across the room, but were
brought to a halt within a step or two as a loud buzzing noise sounded, almost but not quite drowned out by the repeated shouts of the vampire on the left.

The noise stopped again, and then, surprisingly, so did the vampire. He looked about himself, puzzled by some development. The other two continued to pace back and forth, sniffing at the air, edging towards the bars at the front and then back again.

Will, Eloise and Marcus stared at the cages, listened – silence – and then finally Eloise said, “Marcus, do you know what that noise was?”

He shook his head, mystified, but started cautiously towards the cages as he said, “I think he turned the current off.”

Sure enough, the two creatures grabbed hold of the bars and started, with some effort, to bend them. They jumped back from them again as another brief buzzing sounded, but then, with no further warning, the doors of all four cages slid open.

The vampire on the left remained seated as before, staring in silent confusion. The other two needed no further encouragement. They leapt from the cages. One made for Marcus, fangs already bared, a violent need for life, and now out of the cage they could see he was tall, and Marcus insignificant in front of him.

It was over with astonishing speed. Suddenly a light
shone from Marcus’s hand into the eyes of the creature. Its pace faltered and in that moment, Marcus’s other hand swung round in a graceful arc, slicing through the creature’s neck.