Kronos, p.14
Kronos, page 14
We skirt the edge of the forest and then duck in, dismounting in a clearing just past the boundary.
‘It is obvious that the creature uses these woods as its hunting ground,’ Kronos announces. ‘So today we shall mark out a perimeter, a series of alarms that will allow us to know whenever someone enters here.’
‘And how do we plan to do that?’ I ask.
Grost reaches into one of the sacks he’s carrying and pulls out a length of red ribbon with a small bell attached to it. He shakes the bell and grins.
‘Anything we can do to make the vampire’s life more difficult is worth doing,’ says Grost.
‘They’re not exactly subtle,’ Carla says. ‘Red ribbons and bells … why not just place a large sign in the middle of the woods saying: “Vampire, we’re onto you!” ’
‘Why not, indeed?’ says Kronos, smiling and I realise that, as he’d mentioned during our earlier conversation, he is doing just that.
Of course, you can’t string up ribbons through a busy thoroughfare like this without catching a few unintended victims in your trap. The first is Luke Hopkins, who ends up with a ribbon wrapped around his head. Luke is a mild-mannered young man but his hangover puts him in an unreasonable mood and it is with a selection of choice language that he pulls himself free and goes on his way.
Then there is Bill Frimpton, the beer-filled farmer I mentioned to Kronos when I first wrote to him. Bill treats ale like food and I swear one day he will simply burst. He is also not best pleased to find himself surrounded by the ringing of bells and on the business end of Kronos’s sword.
‘Want to watch what you daft buggers are doing!’ he says, pushing his way free. ‘I shall have a few words of complaint about this and that’s for sure.’
Next there is Katherine Wilkins who treats the affair as a gross personal insult.
‘What do you think you’re doing,’ she asks, ‘assaulting decent folk in such a manner?’ She looks at each one of us as if we are naughty children. ‘I mean,’ she continues, ‘who do you think you are?’
By late afternoon we’re sure that most of the locals are complaining about us, something that pleases Kronos no end.
‘The more they talk, the better,’ he announces.
Determined to make one last push we split up, each of us with a pouch of ribbons.
The sun is getting low now and the woods take on that delicate quality they have at dusk, as everything begins to lose its edges in the fading light. It reminds me of earlier and I am once again extremely tired. I have started to wonder if my moment of forgetfulness was not something more than simple strain after all. I have felt slightly nauseous for most of the afternoon, that churning stomach one has when one is starving and yet my lunch did nothing whatsoever to settle it. It is an internal itch that seemingly will not be scratched. By now it’s making me irritable and I feel greatly relieved as I stretch the last length of ribbon between the branches of a young cedar.
Then I hear the sound of distant bells and for some reason that I cannot easily define it triggers a wave of panic in me. Logically I know it’s extremely unlikely to be anything but another false alarm, and yet a chill runs through me and I run towards the noise as fast as I can.
The bells ring again and this time the sound is like a punch to my quaking guts. What is it that makes me react so strongly? I am by no means immune to the idea of a human sixth sense despite the lack of medical evidence: it is another bizarre lesson I learned in the army. Several times we would be resting in camp, most of us asleep and dead to the world, and then a wave of concern would wash through the ranks. A certainty that we were about to be attacked. Some said we must have heard the advancing boots of the enemy in our sleep, others pointed out that there were those who had been asleep who nonetheless became aware of danger long before the sentry heard a whisper. The truth, they said, was that humans could be just as sensitive as animals when put in a situation where it might make the difference between life and death. Perhaps that is the case, perhaps I knew that the ringing bells were not the false alarm they had previously been.
In my haste I don’t watch where I am going and the toe of my boot catches in the loop of a tree root as I approach the jangling sound. I tumble to the ground with a pained cry, my head ringing as loudly as those damned bells as it bounces off the hard ground.
The sound comes again and I pull myself towards it, reaching for my sword. My vision is blurred and I realise what an idiot I have been to expose myself to such danger. I catch a flash of a white blouse and hear the sound of a young woman screaming. There is blood. I see it. I even imagine I taste it. Then there is darkness and my last thought is: I hope one of the others gets here soon, otherwise the latest victim of this thing is going to be me.
Thirty-Four
Carla Finds Marcus
THE LAST THING I’m expecting is the woman’s scream. At first I don’t know what to do. After a moment of standing stupidly, holding a handful of those ribbons, my brain starts working again and I run towards the noise.
Of course, I say my brain starts working but, armed only with some small bells, running towards the sound of trouble couldn’t ever be classed as clever, could it?
I don’t have to worry. The woman’s attacker is long gone. She’s lying in the middle of a small clearing, staring sightlessly up at the treetops and the sky. Though her attacker may have gone she is not alone. Lying next to her is Dr Marcus, his face pressed against the soil. I pull him onto his back and his eyelids flicker.
‘Is it …?’
‘Gone,’ I tell him. ‘What happened to you?’
He’s embarrassed to admit that he fell over and as he sits up the thick yolks of several eggs drip from the front of his shirt. There is an upturned basket nearby. The woman must have been carrying it when she was attacked.
‘Did you see anything?’ I ask him.
The doctor shakes his head as Kronos and Grost appear in the clearing. ‘Not a thing.’ He looks up to the other two. ‘I’m all right,’ he says, ‘I just fell.’
‘You fell?’ Kronos rolls his eyes. ‘You’re supposed to hit it with your sword, not throw yourself at it.’
Marcus gets to his feet, clearly embarrassed. ‘I know. I’m lucky I’m able to get back up again.’
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
He smiles at that but his smile soon vanishes as he moves over to study the girl’s body.
‘You know her?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘Not well, but she lived with her family in the village. She seemed a pleasant girl.’
‘It doesn’t matter whether she was pleasant or not,’ snaps Kronos. ‘She’s dead and we’re no closer to capturing the monster that did it.’
He circles the area, staring at the ground. ‘A monster that left no tracks,’ he says. ‘As if our job wasn’t hard enough.’
‘It’s hardly Marcus’s fault,’ I say.
Kronos stops pacing and nods. ‘You are right. Sorry, Marcus.’
‘Quite all right,’ Marcus replies, ‘I don’t blame you for being angry.’ He looks at me. ‘Though thank you for sticking up for me!’
‘This just isn’t right,’ says Kronos. He’s pacing again, this time up and down beside the woman’s body.
‘Of course it isn’t right,’ says Marcus. ‘We have another death we failed to avoid.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Kronos says. ‘Look at her! It’s different again. She is not preternaturally aged, nor has she been eviscerated like the priest.’
‘She is a much more traditional victim,’ says Grost. ‘A wound to the neck and a complexion so pale that she can only have got it by losing several pints of blood.’
‘And the flowers!’ adds Kronos. ‘Look at them.’
I squat down and realise that the entire carpet of grass and flowers beneath the corpse has withered in a large circle. If you take the dead woman’s body as its centre, the diameter stretches some twenty feet. ‘It’s all dead,’ I say, rather needlessly.
‘Surely it can’t be another one,’ says Grost. ‘Three vampires?’
‘Is it not more likely,’ Marcus asks, ‘that it is the same vampire that is learning to alter its method of feeding?’
‘Not possible,’ explains Grost. ‘That would be like a fox learning to fly so he can gobble up sparrows. Each vampire is restricted to its specific form of feeding – it can’t just swap when it feels like it.’
‘Oh,’ says Marcus. ‘Then, like you, I am at a loss to explain it.’
Kronos sighs. ‘Put her on your horse. We must take her back to the village. Her family must be told what has happened to her.’
Marcus nods but it’s plain that he has no great desire to do anything of the sort. Can you blame him? Yet again he will be the source of bad news. His reputation, already battered, is about to take another great blow.
He drapes her as ceremoniously as he can, across the front of his saddle, and we ride slowly through the forest and down the main road that leads directly to the village.
We are spotted almost right away. A small boy runs ahead to tell his parents about the strange people riding towards them. The strange people with a dead body to deliver.
‘Her family live on the far side,’ says Marcus. ‘Small house, second to last on the road.’
‘Could we not have looped round?’ I ask. ‘So we didn’t have to ride right through the middle of everybody.’
‘They have a right to see,’ he replies and I realise he has got to the stage now where he feels he deserves every bit of this bad fortune. Marcus has sunk very low indeed.
‘What’s happened?’ comes a voice just as we’re passing the churchyard. ‘Who’s been hurt.’
Marcus looks up, recognising the man. ‘Stephanie Maginn,’ he replies. ‘We found her dead in the forest.’
The man who had spoken stops in his tracks and shakes his head sadly.
One by one the villagers begin to appear from their homes, walking slowly, staring at us and our cargo as if dazed, confused by this turn of events.
Someone steps forward. He doesn’t move confidently. He is a reluctant spokesman, inched forward by the crowd. We cannot pass now and are forced to stop, there in the middle of the road.
‘Get out of our way, Hollis,’ says Marcus.
Hollis, I think … which one’s … ? Ah yes, the landlord of the White Hart.
‘I don’t think so, Marcus,’ he replies. ‘I think you should be turning around and leaving. None of you are welcome here.’
‘We have to take this poor girl to her parents,’ Marcus says. ‘That’s our duty and I’ll thank you to let us perform it.’
Hollis shakes his head. ‘You ain’t got no duty,’ he says. ‘Not here.’
A couple of people walk up to Marcus’s horse and drag Stephanie’s body from it. He doesn’t stop them.
The body is dealt with as if it were nothing but a sack of grain. It bounces on the ground as they pull it from the horse, and it is then dragged, its legs splayed and the head lolling stupidly on the neck, up the road and into the crowd. After a few moments there is a strangled cry of grief and I’m guessing that the Maginn family are present and have just been reunited with their daughter.
‘Now turn around and get out,’ says Hollis. ‘And be damned grateful we’re letting you do that.’
‘Grateful?’ asks Kronos. ‘If I required gratitude in order to do my job then the world would be a much more dangerous place. Still, this is the first time I have been met with such obvious stupidity. I am here to rid you of a plague, to destroy a monster who lies at the very heart of your community. I am not the one to fear. Look instead to whatever it is that takes your daughters, kills your priest. I can understand your anger, I welcome it, but let it point in the right direction! Save your hatred for the creature that deserves it!’
‘I’ve seen a monster in action these past few days,’ says Hollis. ‘He killed three men in the blink of an eye and then left me to dispose of the bodies.’
‘Those men wished to kill us,’ explains Kronos, ‘so as to get us out of the way.’
‘From where I’m standing,’ says Hollis, ‘that’s not so bad an idea.’
There’s a general cheer of agreement for that and Hollis is bolstered by the people’s approval, his chest swelling and his head lifting at a more confident angle.
‘So you have two choices,’ he says, in his new, more confident tone. ‘You either ride out of our village now, never to return, or we’ll pull you from those horses and make sure you never leave. Which is it to be?’
Kronos gives a low growl of irritation. This is the last thing he needs. Are three vampires not enough for him to fight? Does he have to contend with the whole town as well? ‘One last chance,’ he says. ‘Help me to face the creature that is killing your people.’
A murmur runs through the crowd. It is not the sound of reasoned consideration, rather a crescendo of unthinking public opinion, the wave that will drive us out once the creators of the noise have reached their peak of anger.
‘We need to go, Kronos,’ I say. ‘Now.’
‘She’s right,’ agrees Grost. ‘They’re about to turn nasty.’
I look at Marcus, aware that he has said nothing since Stephanie’s body was dragged from his horse. ‘Marcus?’ I ask, wanting his assent. Slowly, he nods. We turn around and ride away, the crowd cheering behind us as we leave the village.
Thirty-Five
Paul Durward is Jealous
I AM NOT a man of words. I despise polite chit-chat and dinner-party waffle. I am not a sociable man. Those things I leave to Sara.
She has always been the stronger of the two of us. When father was alive, she took her beatings with far more grace and strength than I could ever manage. I would always cry and beg. She simply adopted a calm look, a serenity, and managed to endure.
‘You must step outside yourself,’ she would say to me later as we curled up together in bed. ‘Let your mind go somewhere else. It doesn’t matter what they do to your body then because you can’t feel it.’
I would try to master the art of this, lying there in the dark, trying to push my mind out of my body and down along the corridors of the house. I never succeeded: my flesh was just too heavy.
Then father died and things became very different.
Mother retired to her rooms and now leaves them rarely. It is a terrible part of the house to visit. She will not countenance the curtains being drawn so you stumble in the darkness, choked by the oppressive, airless atmosphere. Mother does not like the world to enter: she inhabits a suffocating, dark place.
‘You should leave her to it,’ Sara says. ‘She’s made her choice – there’s no need for us to be dragged down with her, is there?’
‘She’s our mother,’ I reply. ‘We should remain faithful to her.’
‘She’s an old woman, getting more and more mad as the days go by.’ Sara smiles and stretches out across the sheets like a reclining cat. I watch her muscles tense and then relax into place – she is a wonderful thing to observe. A beauty that strikes me utterly dumb. ‘I don’t think I shall ever grow old,’ she announces. ‘I can’t abide the thought of losing who I am, having it all crumble away, body and mind.’
‘You will always be perfect,’ I tell her, running my fingers across her stomach, a smooth plain of delicious cream-coloured skin.
‘Yes,’ she agrees, ‘I think I shall.’
I don’t know why Marcus has suddenly started taking an interest in us. I do not blame him for the death of our father (even if I did I couldn’t in all honesty hate him for it: I hated my father and I am glad he’s dead) but I have no time for the doctor’s company. Does he wish to assuage his guilt? Will he pester us until mother condescends to meet him? To forgive him? He will have a long wait if so.
I can sense an undercurrent in the things that Marcus says. A suspicion. Can he believe that the deaths in the village are somehow linked to us? If so, what has made him think so? Do we not keep ourselves to ourselves? How are we involved in village life? Other than providing a modicum of work and money for the villagers we are a separate country up here, a distant nation set apart by stone walls and social class. What brings him to our door?
‘He has no idea,’ Sara assures me when I raise the matter with her. ‘People always look up when they are confused as to the reasons for something, never down. They always want to blame the person who is more important than them. It is a chain of recrimination that leads to God and therefore to no answers whatsoever.’
‘You believe there is no God?’
She laughs. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course there’s a God, but our business is none of his.’
I think about this for a while and then decide that there’s no peace to be had in such thoughts. Instead I listen to her sleep and let the calmness of her breathing carry me away to where thoughts have no weight.
The next day I feel better about things, no longer weighed down by concerns that lead nowhere. Let them think what they wish, I decide: it’s their problem, not mine.
My comfortable attitude is threatened by the behaviour of two of the servants. We have a limited retinue these days. Our needs are few and we host no dinners or balls. Clements has been with us since before I was born and he has always been a perfect member of the household. He is quiet, fastidious and seems to hold no serious opinions of his own. Such attributes make him almost invisible and therefore as perfect as a servant can be.
Over the last few days, however, he has become more obtrusive. He seems nervous, suspicious even, as if he knows something about the household that I do not. Something important. I wish I could confront him with it but in truth I don’t know what to say, how to express my dissatisfaction. One can only hope it is a passing phase.
The other manservant, the footman Blake, is a different matter entirely. I have never liked him. I dislike his easy manner and his handsome face. He is one of those men who coasts through life on looks and charm. I have frequently noticed Sara looking at him appreciatively, even talking with him, enticing him and flirting with him. It is Sara’s way, I know. I dare say she would not act on these apparent interests but her exhibiting them is more than enough to anger me. He is a servant, not someone who should be encouraged in such a way. Of course this affects his behaviour. He is becoming altogether too confident: he moves through the house as if it were his own. I have even spotted him walking around upstairs, despite the fact that his duties should restrict him to the lower levels. When I challenge him on his presence he has the damnable gall to smile at me, as if I am the one speaking out of turn.
