The madness, p.21
The Madness, page 21
“This group operates outside of London as well,” I add. “There’s a tie to Cysgod Castle. Right here in Tylluan. Rhiannon told me that Seren was due to go on some kind of date at Cysgod, and she had the same business card given to the girls who went to the club.”
Singer nods. “I followed the pockets of murders and symptoms over the years up and down the country and discovered a pattern. One or two women every few months since my daughter went missing fifteen years ago.”
She waits for that to sink in.
Quincey leans forward, elbows on her knees. “More than ten a year, for a decade and a half? That’s...a lot. Harold Shipman territory!”
“You don’t say,” Singer says sardonically.
“Right, I guess that’s my cue.” Quincey claps her hands. “We’ve learned that official routes for information are being blocked. My access to information regarding Cysgod and its goings-on is severely limited, even at my clearance level.”
“That’s a bloody understatement,” Singer says, scoffing. “This is an organized effort at the highest levels.” She leans forward. “Vulnerable, young, poor women, all of the ones we know about, display the same symptoms. I have a list. Most of them go missing after a bout of illness. Some are never seen again. Others are found dead.”
“What we don’t know yet,” I say, nodding at Singer, “is how Lucy slots into all of this. She doesn’t fit the pattern—she’s not young, or poor, or vulnerable, not someone whose symptoms are likely to get overlooked. She’s also still safely at home.”
“And we know almost nothing about the group itself,” Quincey adds.
“Well, we know some things,” Singer says. “Girls on the fringe are recruited to the club with no name. They are sexually abused—” she slides a piece of paper across Mam’s glass-top wicker coffee table “—before they are either released so near to death that their passing is almost a certainty, or perhaps they die at the club before having their bodies transported to innocuous places, places that obscure the true way they died. Some turn up within a few days or weeks of going missing. Others seem to be held at the club for a while before being transported to remote locations across the UK, like Cysgod—about twice a year—before they vanish or turn up dead.”
“How do you know all this?” Quincey asks sharply as she takes the paper and looks at it.
“With the Cysgod lead, I began looking for references in back forums on the dark web. These men, the ones involved, they’re talking about it. Some of them are roped in by blackmail and are trying to get out but find that they can’t. Others are willing participants until they prove themselves and are what they call ‘converted.’ They mostly talk in code, like it’s some sort of cult.”
“Did they know you were watching?” I ask quickly. “If they find out—”
Singer gives me a look. “I should be insulted. Anyway, they don’t seem very worried about law enforcement.”
“Nor do they need to be,” Quincey says. “When my inquiries about Seren were blocked, I started checking records at the crime agency they sent it to. The search warrant for Cysgod wasn’t even issued. And what’s more—this has happened before. A body was discovered near Cysgod years ago on the beach. Looked washed up. Autopsy report was redacted, except mention of a minor rash, and no follow-up investigation was carried out. Both instances were signed off by the chief of police at the time. This goes all the way up.”
“My God,” I whisper. Then another thought occurs to me. “You said years ago—when, exactly, was this?”
“1956,” Quincey says, and the room is silent, letting the magnitude of her answer set in.
“Just how far back does this go?” I ask.
“And just how wide?” Quincey chimes in.
I lean forward. “What do you mean?” But as the words escape my lips, I realize how naive we’ve been. We’ve been assuming this is contained to the United Kingdom. But really...who knows how far the web spreads?
I can’t ignore it anymore. I can’t deny it. This is not the work of a mortal man, but of an ageless creature. A creature who has needed to feed for as long as he’s been alive...which could be more decades, centuries or millennia than I can fathom. Mam was right all along.
I glance at her to find she is already staring at me.
And if this really is...a Fampir, why would something as trivial as a land boundary contain his path of destruction? And the people that aid and abet him—why would they ever stop there?
I fiddle with my polo neck and force myself to think about something else. Anything other than the memory of his teeth in my flesh, of how close he came to—
Stop.
I get up and pace the room. The others watch me but say nothing. My panic is growing like a virus again. I have to stop it. Quell it. Crush it.
Keep it together, Murray. You’re a doctor, remember? Reason and rationality, even in chaos.
“Are you ready to tell them, love?” Mam asks quietly.
I give her a pointed look. “Not now, please.”
Quincey and Singer glance between us.
“What?” Singer says sharply. “What do you know?”
“You brought us all here for a reason,” Mam says gently. “If we’re going to do this together, then they need to know the truth.”
There’s no oxygen in this room. I hurry to the window and throw it open, leaning out into the night; the wind is churning harder, the rain smattering into a storm. I can smell it like fog.
I take several deep, loamy breaths and then feel Mam’s warm hand on my shoulder.
“It’s time, love.”
I shake my head, deflating. “I don’t know what the truth is anymore. I don’t know what’s real.”
I turn back into the room, hugging myself, and Mam smiles at the two women staring at us, bewildered. “Quincey has lived here long enough to be able to accept that there’s more to life than what is conventionally known,” she tells me. “You have to trust them, Mina.”
I sigh and squeeze the bridge of my nose. I really don’t want to do this. It goes against all my strongest instincts, the rules and barriers that have kept my life ordered and controlled, kept me safe all these years.
“Tell us,” Quincey says, squaring her shoulders.
“My mother is of the opinion...” I hesitate, laughing.
“Spit it out, Murray,” Singer says gruffly. “We’ve got a girl to save.”
I give them an apologetic look and then I do spit it out. “My mother is of the opinion that Lucy is being targeted by what we know of here in Wales as a Fampir—more conventionally, a vampire.”
I expect their silence. I expect their confounded expressions. I can tell, as Quincey searches my face, her frown so deep it’s practically cutting her face in half, that she doesn’t think I’m quite compos mentis—and, really, can I blame her?
“With all due respect, Mrs. M., you think Lucy—and all these other women—are being attacked by a vampire?” Quincey asks. I can tell she’s trying not to openly scoff.
“The Sugnwr Gwaed are nothing new.” My mother raises her chin and keeps her gaze full on Quincey. “Tales of those who consume the blood of the living have haunted nearly every culture around the world for centuries. The undead of the Grettis Saga; Sekhmet, the bloodthirsty Egyptian goddess; Lilith, depicted as surviving on the blood of infants.” Her eyes dart to me. “Most people refuse to acknowledge—”
I feel my hackles rise. “There’s a good reason, Mother. Are we to believe everything from offering tribute to King Vortigern’s red dragon to gathering beneath the Llangernyw Yew to hear the Angelystor proclaim the yearly list of the soon-to-be departed?”
The heat rises in her cheeks, and she counts off her fingers. “The Greek Striges, the Hebrew Motetz Dam, the Icelandic Draugr, the Romanian Strigoi, the Hungarian Izcacus, Croation Kulzac, the Hindu Vetaal, the Spanish Guaxa, the Asanbosam of the Akan people, the Adze of the Ewe people, the Madagascan Ramanga—countless tales of the same creature over and over, but please, go ahead and dismiss them!”
She’s breathing furiously, her eyes wide with a barely suppressed rage. I swallow and look away. I know now that there is truth to what she’s saying, that there has been all along. But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.
“I’ve seen plenty of human monsters and the evil they do,” Quincey says.
I sigh, my voice pleading. “Yes, but that doesn’t explain the blood loss or the rash that looks like their body has been poisoned from the inside.”
“You believe her?” she asks quietly, her eyebrows slightly raised.
I realize everything hinges on my answer. “I...” I trail off, not knowing where to start. “There’s obviously a lot of folklore here, and some history. Until recently, I was the staunchest of skeptics—Mam can attest to the number of fights we’ve had over our clashing beliefs. But something...happened recently that’s made me look at everything differently.”
Unbidden, my eyes cut to my mother’s. Her eyebrows rise in surprise, but I can’t read more than that in her face, and right now, I don’t want to pause to imagine what’s going on in her mind.
“Given the scope of what we’re talking about here,” I continue, “I think she’s right that we need to think bigger. We know that this goes beyond any one man. We’re dealing with an elaborate, well-planned conspiracy. We’re only beginning to grasp its scale. Look at how far back this goes—we know there have been cases dating back to 1956, and that may only be the tip of the iceberg. These dates...it suggests something beyond any one person’s—any human’s—lifetime. That timeline could be explained by a conspiracy spanning many generations...or it could be explained by something else.”
Quincey’s lips purse as she looks from myself to Mam and back. “I only care about saving Lucy,” she says, and I can see her face shutter, the impasse setting in. It’s the same look I’ve doubtless given my mother a million times before, and for the first time, I understand how she must have felt, faced with such instinctual disbelief. “I... I have to go. This is a lot to process.”
“Quincey, wait—” I begin to stand up to head after her, but Mam grabs my arm, holding me back. She shakes her head, signaling for me to sit back down.
“I’m sorry, Mina,” Quincey calls back as she leaves. “I just need some time.”
The door rattles shut and we’re quiet for a moment. What I don’t expect is for Singer to get to her feet and say, “Right. I’ll expand my search to include any vampiric references.”
“Wait—what? I didn’t think—”
She raises her eyebrows. “You know how I spend my time, Mina. I’ve seen and heard far stranger things on the internet.”
“Fair enough.”
“This might be among the strangest,” she mutters to herself. “I’ll also include hits on a global scale,” she adds, matter of fact. “Mina, why don’t you look into translating the words on the crypt? Those feel more relevant now. Let’s meet back here in—” Singer looks at her watch “—eight hours?”
And with that, she heads out the front door, leaving Mam and I alone in the darkened room.
Mam looks at me then, her open, knowing glance an invitation, and for the first time, maybe ever, I take it.
“Can you make another pot of tea?” I sink down beside her on the couch, weary but also ready. “I have a story to tell you.”
Today 6:04 a.m.
Mina Murray
Quincey, are you ready to talk?
Mina Murray
We’re reconvening this morning.
Mina Murray
Listen, I know it sounds impossible to
believe, but does it really matter if it’s
true? We still need to figure out who
—or what—is doing all of this...
Man or monster.
Mina Murray
Lucy will die if we don’t.
Quincey Morris
What time are you meeting?
28
It’s half past eight in the morning, and Quincey still hasn’t shown up.
“I don’t think she’s coming, Mina,” Singer says impatiently.
“She texted she’d come,” I insist, staring down at my cold tea.
“She’ll return when she’s good and ready, love,” Mam says gently. There’s a kindness in her tone, in her gaze, I haven’t seen in years—maybe ever. “You did.”
It’s difficult to face the years of ridicule I threw in her face. Difficult to admit to my own ignorance, and how I thought her crazy for so long, like everyone else in this village.
Last night, after I told her everything about why I ran away, we sat in the swirling darkness silently accepting the new shape our relationship was taking. I know one conversation can’t possibly heal the years of hurt between us, but everything has to begin somewhere, and it’s a start. In the meantime, we have a shared goal to bind us.
“Right, then, I’ve got a lot to update you both with.” Singer pulls out her laptop. “Did you decipher the text from the crypt?”
I look at Mam and shake my head. After my confession, she and I stayed up late trying to decipher it. “We checked every language we could think of—I even pulled records from Oxford’s online library. It’s too ancient. Perhaps a dead language.”
Singer sighs. “Well, I used images of Seren’s rash to do an advanced search through sealed medical records around the world.”
Mam shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “Maybe it’s a good thing Quincey isn’t here. Who knows how many laws that broke?”
Singer shoots her a look. “I found girls and women across the globe. Clusters in Miami, Tokyo, Sydney...many major metropolitan areas. I honestly can’t believe I never thought to look overseas before.”
My stomach is twisted into knots. How can we fight something this enormous?
“Pretty much squashes Quincey’s lone-serial-killer theory. This is big.” Singer purses her lips as she keeps typing. “And what’s more...it’s always methodical. The girls come from impoverished or seedy areas dispersed throughout the city at even intervals. Of course, there are gaps—my abilities only take me so far—but that pattern is there.”
I close my eyes, wondering just how far this venom spreads. How many innocent lives have been lost, swept under the rug to feed the system? How many of the women I’ve treated have brushed against this evil?
“I also looked into your theory about the assaults being vampiric rather than human. The symptoms, the blood loss, the confusion, the rash...” Singer closes her laptop then and looks long and hard at my mother. “I’m going to tell you something you probably aren’t used to hearing. Frankly, I’m not either. You were right, Van. I believe you.”
The corners of Mam’s lips twitch, but she just stands up, her knees cracking, and shuffles toward the kettle at the Rayburn. While she’s still turned toward the kettle, I think I hear the faintest “Thank you.”
After putting the kettle on the stove, she goes to the mammoth oak chest that has sat under the window since before I was born. She hesitates, then takes a steadying breath like she’s made a decision, and lifts the lid. She reaches into the bottom of the chest and pulls out a large book bound in leather, the pages rumpled like wrinkled skin. I frown, biting back my annoyance at another thing I don’t know about.
I clear the table of used mugs and a bowl of fruit as she brings it over. She lays it down for us to see.
“This,” she says, stroking the brown cover, “is the oldest Grimoire in Wales. It’s been in my family for generations. We call it y Llyfr Gwaed.”
I frown. “The Bleeding Book?”
Mam nods. “We’ve always just called it the Book of Blood.”
Singer snorts. “Clive Barker would be thrilled.”
Something stirs in my memory. A stormy night, howling at the window, many candles lit around the room. The outside gates banging like hammers, my father yelling and throwing something wet at the walls. Mam bent over a giant book, reading from pages scrawled with symbols.
I’ve seen this book before.
I reach out to touch it, but stop, sensing Mam tense. She clears her throat. “This book,” she says, “describes old lore of women being preyed upon by monsters for centuries—maybe millennia.”
She heaves it open, flipping to the last page. It releases a plume of musk as she turns the pages and I sneeze. An intrusive image of me snorting straight bleach—chemicals dissolving my sinuses—makes me flinch. Scrawls of numbers in two neatly inked rows litter the endpapers like kitten scratches.
“The monsters go by different names in different cultures and folklore, but the pattern you just described has been written here since before I was born. These creatures live forever, are all-powerful and alluring, and they prey on the vulnerable. They also share the venom of their master. When one Fampir creates another, it passes on its venom, binding them forever.”
“You’ve known this all along?” I ask, searching her face. “You’ve had this knowledge and never told me?”
“You wouldn’t listen,” Mam says. It isn’t a rebuke, but it might as well be. “You needed to get here on your own.”
Had I been willing to hear this, could I have saved Renée?
Singer brings her hand to her face, rubbing her thumb across her lips. “Do you think this is one central group that moves across the globe, or many clusters?”
“There’s likely one master who binds them all,” Mam says. “A head of the snake, so to speak.”
Renée’s words come back to me now. She’d called for “Master” in the psych ward. Perhaps the maker of them all. Could it be possible that the head of the snake is here, in Tylluan, my own backyard? I lean my elbows on my knees.
“If these things are immortal—and if the master is all-powerful—then why hide? Why go through such great lengths to stay on the move?”
