Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (25 page)

T
he man was unarmed, but looked quite unconcerned as he said, “You know who I am, but for the sake of form, do allow me to introduce myself. My name is Phillip Wyndham.” Will tensed, but Wyndham smiled. “Save your energy, William of Mercia. I’m not so foolish as to be here in person. This is merely an image and I am safely far away.”

“Why do you wish to destroy me?”

“Because you’re evil, because everything that will come from you is evil.”

“That’s a lie,” shouted Eloise.

“And what would you know? What have you learned in your sixteen years that I have not in several centuries? I showed you the truth and you refused to believe it.” His image looked real, but it appeared to face the wrong way now as it said, “As did poor Marcus. See what you did by bringing him here.”

Will ignored his comment and walked to the door
of the cage in which the vampire sat and said, “Where is Lorcan Labraid?”

“He won’t answer you,” said Wyndham. “He has been conditioned to tell me where
you
are.”

“Then why is he silent now?” It was true – the vampire had not uttered a single word since the death of the queen, and had failed to respond at all to Wyndham’s apparition. Will saw what Wyndham clearly did not. “You are a fool, Wyndham. He was not informing you of anything, he was informing his queen, Elfleda. What vanity of yours to assume that your powers are greater than ours.”

Wyndham laughed and called out, “Edgar, where is he now?”

The vampire rocked silently.

“Edgar, you know what I can do, now where is he?”

Will allowed a few more moments of silence to pass before he said, “Let that be one small sign of your misplaced arrogance.”

“Nonsense – he has been unhinged by the evening’s events, but …”

Edgar looked up at Will and said, “William of Mercia, I have dreamt of this day. I was a nobleman too, though you would hardly believe it to see me now.” If he hadn’t been so astonished, Will would have contradicted
him because he was lucid and clear-eyed now and looked strong. “He is right in that I can tell you little – my role was merely … What does it matter. I ask only this: do for me what you did for them.”

Will shook his head. “There has been too much killing here already.”

“You would take nothing from me that he has not already stolen.” He looked urgently at Will. “Burn this house, burn it from the cellars to the timbers and he will be weakened.”

Wyndham shouted, “Edgar, silence!”

Something happened and Edgar winced and held his head, letting out a little yelp before saying, “His power rests in the objects he has here as much as in his knowledge, I am certain of it. Burn it all.”

“Edgar!”

Edgar screamed and held his skull. Whatever punishment Wyndham was inflicting he was doing it remotely, and Will couldn’t help but think of the similarity with the way Elfleda had punished Asmund for disobeying her. It was as if Wyndham had become more than a little like the creatures he detested so violently.

“Lorcan Labraid, Edgar, where can I find Lorcan Labraid? How can I reach him?”

Edgar clenched his teeth together, screaming and holding his skull.

“You have been there, you know it. You know the place. You have been there.” He seemed in terrible agony, struggling to think more than one word at once.

Will said, “The gate is blocked, Edgar. I need a new gateway.”

He was still holding his head with his hands, but he shook it, saying, “No, you have been there, you know it …” He let out a piercing scream.

Will heard Eloise say, “Oh God, Will, you have to do something for him.”

“We’ll take him away from here, beyond Wyndham’s power.” Even as he said it, he thought through the implications, knowing that Edgar too would need blood.

Wyndham laughed again, saying, “Nothing is beyond my power.”

“It is true,” said Edgar between his stifled screams. “It’s inside me. Please …” He screamed again, clutching his skull as if he would tear it apart himself if he could.

Suddenly Edgar stood, rising to his full height before stepping out of the cage and collapsing on his knees in front of Will. He pulled his shirt apart with both hands, exposing his neck, and looked up at Will. “Burn this house!”

He screamed again, tearing his shirt and screwing his eyes closed. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Please, I beg of you, allow me to follow my queen.” He kept his teeth
clenched as he tried to stifle the scream that followed.

Will waited no longer, removing Edgar’s head, closing his eyes against the light that burst out of him. Even with his eyes closed, the blue flashed inside them, and he heard the sound of something small falling to the floor.

When he opened his eyes again, he looked, but Eloise had seen it fall and was first to reach down and pick it up. She held it up for Will to see. He had no idea what it was until she explained.

“It’s some sort of electronic chip – Wyndham must have implanted it in Edgar’s skull – that’s how he managed to inflict pain on him like that.”

The sound of slow clapping emerged from the apparition and he said, “Well done, little girl, you’ve learned one of my secrets, but don’t allow Edgar to trick you into thinking I rely on technology alone.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Will. “You raise the dead, you who call me evil.”

“I raise the dead for the sake of good! And have they not come willingly? Yes, because they know what you are.”

“What is it to you, who I am? Tell me that, Mr Wyndham, what is the nature of your personal vendetta against me?”

Wyndham smiled, full of malice, as he said, “I could
tell you, but I won’t because I see it bothers you and that pleases me.”

Will nodded, looking around the room, at the position of the lifelike apparition, at the walls and ceiling, then said, “So you can see us now, Mr Wyndham?”

“That I can.”

“Then observe me well because the next time you see this face will be when I kill you. Now look upon your house for the last time.”

Spotlights flashed on around the room, but Will simply took out his dark glasses and put them on. If anything, Eloise probably winced more than he did with the sudden brightness.

Wyndham’s apparition sounded confident as it said, “It would be a mistake to follow Edgar’s advice. For one thing …”

Will turned and threw his sword at a small box fitted to the wall above the door where they’d entered. It sparked and fused and the apparition disappeared.

He turned to Eloise and said, “We’ll do as Edgar said.”

She nodded. “We can’t leave Marcus in here though – I can’t bear the thought of him being burned as well.”

“I’ll carry him outside.”

“I’ll find something to light the fires.”

“You’re sure you feel well enough?”

She nodded, though he could tell from her movements
that she was still tender. He could tell too that she needed to be doing something, that the psychological wounds of this night would take longer to heal than the physical.

He picked up Marcus’s body and carried him out, up the stairs and through the main hall. He carried him outside, a little distance from the house, on what he thought might be the drive, and laid him down in the snow. It was still falling heavily and Will feared it would cover the body before it was found.

He stood for a moment, but was distracted by a sound he recognised. He looked to his left and the three guard dogs were trotting towards them through the snow. There was no attack in them and when they came close, they edged round Will, still nervous of him. Then they lay in the snow, one near Marcus’s head, the others at either arm, facing outwards as if guarding the body.

Will took a step back, but the dogs did not stir, and he looked at the odd cruciform shape they made with Marcus’s body at the centre. And he could not help but think again of the skull in the ossuary at Marland. For here in front of him, though his life had denied it till the very end, was a true warrior.

When Will got back to the house, he called for a taxi and, despite the earlier driver’s doubts about the weather, it was agreed instantly. He was about to head
back down the cellar steps when Eloise called out, “Will, I’m in here.”

He walked through into a drawing room where she had made a small bonfire of possessions, various small pieces of furniture stacked round a curtain she’d pulled from the windows. She was pouring liquid from a bottle on to the pyre.

“Formaldehyde. There’s another bottle on the table there, and two more at the top of the cellar steps. I think enough got spilt in the cellar already without us worrying about that.”

Will nodded and carried one of the bottles into the next room, a library and study. As much as it pained him to destroy books, he doused the shelves with the liquid, then carried the second bottle through to the dining room on the other side of the hall as Eloise walked off to find the kitchen.

He could hear her busily doing something, opening drawers, smashing glass, as he soaked the furnishings and the curtains, and could still hear her as he took the remaining two bottles and smashed them in the upstairs rooms.

When he came back down, she was in the hall with three wine bottles, each with a piece of ripped cloth stuffed into the neck. She held a box of matches.

“One for the cellar, one for the library, one for the
bonfire in the drawing room.” She looked momentarily lost, but said, “The rest should take care of itself.”

“I’ll take the one for the cellar.”

She shook her head. “I know you’re not good with fire. I’ll do them all.”

Will didn’t argue, but followed her down to the cellar. She lit the cloth in the end of the bottle and said, “Get ready to slam the door as soon as I throw this.”

He nodded and she threw the bottle. Will slammed the door shut as the cellar went up in a percussive thud of flames. They ran up the stairs then and lit the two others, but this time Will insisted on taking one, much as the flames troubled him.

He threw it into the library and retreated, and as they reached the hall again, Eloise threw the last one at the makeshift bonfire in the drawing room. The pile of furniture was immediately swept with flames, shooting up towards the ceiling, licking at the walls. They watched for a moment then left.

Eloise stopped a little way from the house to look at Marcus, his features already lost beneath a thin white crust of snow, but his position marked by the dogs, which refused to move. They looked at Will as he passed, but were quite passive now.

And as Will and Eloise walked down the drive, Will thought of that bonfire she’d built in the drawing room
and how, as it burned, it had reminded him of the pyre on which those women had been killed so long ago. Where were the witches now, he wondered. Why did they not come to advise and give comfort as they had done after Asmund’s death?

But no spirits came and the two of them walked alone through the falling snow. When they reached the road, Will closed the gates again and tied the broken chain tight around them to slow the progress of any fire engine that came. The house was already glowing bright with flames in several of the windows.

They waited in silence for a while, and Eloise reached out and put her hand in his. Only as the taxi pulled in did Will say, “You should go to a hospital.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Someone should look at you.”

She looked at him and said, “OK, but not the hospital,” and he understood who she meant.

The taxi driver lowered his window and said, “Blimey, is that place on fire?”

Will leaned in to give him his instructions.

G
iven the late hour, they went to the back door and knocked. They waited only a few seconds before Rachel appeared, her face becoming immediately wracked with concern and fear as she opened the door.

“Oh my God! What’s happened?”

“I took a bit of a knock, that’s all. Will wanted me to go to the hospital, but I’m fine, really I am.”

“Come in, quickly.” She ushered them in and brushed the snow off Eloise’s coat, then turned without thinking and did the same for Will. “Where are you hurt?”

“Just my head, and my ribs maybe.”

“OK, come upstairs, but I’m warning you, if it’s beyond my first-aid skills, I’m calling a doctor.” They headed out of the kitchen as Rachel said, “Make yourself comfortable, Will.”

He walked through into the room with the sofas and bookshelves and sat down. He was there for some minutes before Chris emerged from his office, as if he’d only just become aware that they had visitors.

“Hello, Will! What brings this …”

“Eloise is hurt. Rachel’s taking a look at her.”

“Not seriously?”

Will shrugged and said, “We went to Wyndham’s house.” Chris appeared to be struggling to find the right response so Will continued, “He was keeping vampires imprisoned in his basement, some of them among those who were meant to help me, but they’d become so deranged with his tortures, it was pointless.”

“So what happened to them?” He sat on the sofa opposite Will.

“All killed, as was a new friend of ours, and very nearly Eloise.” He looked Chris in the eyes as he said, “Is it still so hard to believe this is the Wyndham you know?”

“Actually, yeah, it is, but … I guess Wyndham wasn’t there.” Will shook his head. “So you wasted your time.”

“Oh, it was no victory for me, but it was most certainly a defeat for Wyndham. We destroyed the vampires he’d captured and Wyndham’s house will by now have been razed to the ground.”

As he said the words, Will saw the irony in them. They had wiped out a nest of vampires and destroyed it in flames – could Wyndham not see that his hateful pursuit had turned things upside down, to the extent that their roles were now reversed?

He heard Rachel and Eloise making their way back
down as Chris said, “Then at least you struck a blow against him, even if it was at a heavy cost.” His thoughts appeared to be racing, his eyes jumping about, and he added, “A shame though, that you didn’t find out anything from the vampires before you killed them, but if they were deranged like you say …”

Will said, “The frustration is no less than it was with Asmund, that none of these creatures seem capable of telling me what I must know, but I’ve come to understand that we are told things even when we think we are not.” Chris offered a weak smile, confused. “I learned a great deal this evening.”