Kronos, p.18
Kronos, page 18
‘Yes,’ Carla replied. ‘And if I didn’t think Kronos was mad before, I certainly do now.’
‘Quite mad.’ I accepted her judgement. ‘But that may well be an advantage in our line of work.’
‘Or an inevitable symptom.’
I nodded, impressed once again by her perspicacity. ‘That, too.’
‘So now what do we do?’ she asked.
‘We prepare,’ Kronos replied. ‘And then we take the fight to the Durwards.’
‘You’re sure it’s them?’ Carla asked.
‘Who else could it be?’ I replied. ‘They have the money and the influence.’
‘I suppose so,’ she agreed, moving over to stand by the window.
‘I need to get a fire burning,’ I said, ‘to melt down those candlesticks.’
‘Shush!’ hissed Carla, waving her hands at me, still staring out of the window. ‘I just saw someone moving outside.’
Kronos leaped from his seat in the coach doorway and joined her at the window.
‘Well?’ I asked, with some considerable impatience.
‘Looks to be about twenty of them,’ he replied, running around and extinguishing the lights. ‘Locals – here to lynch us, probably.’
‘Oh good,’ said Carla. ‘My night needed that.’
‘Where are you going?’ I asked as Kronos jumped towards the hayloft. He just grinned, his big teeth glinting in the moonlight, and pointed upwards.
‘Wonderful,’ I said, fetching a crossbow from the back of the coach. ‘Twenty irate villagers and one smug vampire hunter – how can this not end well?’
I told Carla to stay silent and we both stood to one side of the window, watching the villagers enter the courtyard. Naturally, Clyde Lorrimer was at the front: it was no great surprise to me that he was the ringleader. I also recognised the large man we’d met in the forest, Ted Somerton, the father of poor Freddie Gluckhaven’s love, Sally.
He still looked like the sort of man I really wouldn’t want to pick a fight with. Yet here I was, picking a fight …
Lorrimer, Somerton and one other broke away from the main pack and went inside the house. ‘Nothing for you there, gentlemen,’ I whispered, watching as the remaining group wandered around nervously, weighing up their weapons and looking startled at every stray noise.
‘Where’s Kronos?’ whispered Carla.
Which was when he jumped off the roof.
Kronos has always enjoyed dramatic entrances. He is also a great believer in being emotionally centred before engaging in battle. I could easily picture him sitting up there, legs crossed, eyes closed, briefly meditating before picking the fattest villager and aiming right for him.
The crowd erupted in panic as one of their number was crushed beneath Kronos’s impact.
He drew his swords and spun around, disarming the handful of men who were quick enough to attack after his surprise appearance. It looked as though it was all going to be over in a matter of seconds. They might have the advantage of numbers but they could never hope to match him for skill.
Then one of them struck lucky. The small blacksmith – Saul Wilkins, if memory serves – swung his hammer and let go. It flew towards Kronos and, though he noticed it at the last second and tried to duck, it caught him on the shoulder and brought him down. He was swinging his legs in an arc, lashing out at his attackers as well as trying to get upright again, when their sheer force of numbers pinned him down.
‘What are we going to do?’ Carla asked as one of the villagers raised a sword to strike.
I kicked open the door to the stables and stepped out, crossbow raised.
‘Don’t move!’ I shouted. ‘Or I’ll drop you where you stand.’
‘Now there’s a thing,’ came a voice from my left. I looked to see Lorrimer, Somerton and a third man, one with a drawn bow and an arrow pointed right at me. ‘I was just about to say the same.’
Forty-Four
Freddie Gluckhaven Leaves Home
‘YOU COMING OR not?’ Clyde Lorrimer asks me. ‘I told you,’ I reply. ‘I’ve got nothing against the strangers. They seemed like decent people to me.’
‘Decent people?’ Lorrimer acts as if I have just named the Lord Himself as a man who is partial to wearing a frock. ‘They’re cold-blooded killers, that’s what they are!’
‘So you say,’ I reply. ‘Far as I can tell the only people who we know for a fact they’ve killed had it coming. You can’t say we’ll be sad to see the back of Kerro and his boys.’
‘What about Dr Marcus?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You must have been mistaken – they were good friends, the lot of them. There’s no way they’d do what you say.’
‘Ah, to hell with you, then.’ Lorrimer storms off out of the house, away to get his rabble together, his lynch mob. I should do something about it, I know: warn Kronos and his friends. Truth is, though, I find it hard to do much since Sally died.
‘When are you going to take the cows in?’ mother asks, shouting from the next room.
I’m not, I think. Let them rot out there for all I care.
‘Freddie?’ she shouts. ‘Answer me, Freddie Gluckhaven. You’re not so old that a mother can’t give you a lesson with her stick, you know!’
Oh, I think I am, I decide. Plenty old enough, in fact.
‘Son?’ It’s father, holding onto the door frame for support. She’s got him so scared that he’s come hunting for me. ‘Better get on, son,’ he says. ‘And answer your mother – she’s worried about you.’
‘She’s worried about her cows.’
He shrugs. ‘Them, too – they are all we have, you know, Freddie.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘All you have.’
I get up and go to my room. There’s a few things I want to collect: a chain of Sally’s, a couple of letters she wrote to me, things to remember her by.
‘Freddie!’ Mother is roaring now, her voice harsh and distorted as she tightens up her throat to fling her anger even further. ‘Freddie, I know you can hear me! You just get yourself in here where I can see you!’
No, I think. No goodbyes.
I step out of the front door and walk away from the house, the sound of mother’s screaming following me all the way into the dark of the forest.
I don’t know where I’m going. But it’ll be anywhere but here.
Forty-Five
Carla Takes a Bite
WHAT CAN WE do? Kronos is held down, a sword point about to pierce his throat. If Grost shoots the man holding that sword then he’ll have an arrow in his head before his bolt has even found its mark. We are trapped, none of us wanting to make a move first.
Well, except me, of course. Nobody’s ever been able to make me behave.
‘Stop this,’ I shout, stepping out into the courtyard. ‘A good man has died tonight and now you want to kill one more?’
‘I see no good man,’ sneers Lorrimer.
I walk up to him, hands on my hips. ‘For once, Clyde Lorrimer, I quite agree with you!’
That’s him told.
‘You’re all attacking the wrong people,’ I shout. ‘The real enemies here are the Durwards. They are not what they appear, and unless you let us go they’ll destroy everyone in this village one by one.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ says Lorrimer. ‘You’ll say anything to save your skin.’
Suddenly there is a groan from behind me and I turn to see a man bring his sword down on the man threatening Kronos. The sword takes his arm off above the elbow and the impasse is broken.
‘Get away from him!’ shouts Luke Hawkins, turning his aim towards the new aggressor. Grost takes the opportunity as soon as it’s offered, changing his aim and shooting Luke before he can loose his own arrow. As Luke is hit, the arrow goes wild, hitting someone in the crowd.
Kronos is on his feet, both swords back in his hands as he spins and roars in a mixture of rage and pleasure.
Lorrimer charges forward with his axe but Somerton grabs it from him and claims it for his own.
‘You killed my Sally!’ he shouts and runs at Kronos.
‘No,’ says the helpful new stranger as he skips out of the way and strikes his sword against Somerton’s legs. The big man falls and the stranger is quick to kick the axe to one side. ‘Consider yourself lucky,’ he says, reversing his sword and swinging the hilt down so that it whacks Somerton right in the head. The big man is out for the count.
And what do I do? You might well ask …
‘Lorrimer!’ I shout and jump on the panicking little pig as he tries to run away. ‘Lend me your ears!’ I ask him, leaning down to sink in my teeth.
Lorrimer screams and I let him run.
When I turn back I see that most of the villagers are chasing after him, bar the few that will be running nowhere anytime soon.
‘So,’ says the stranger, whose name turns out to be Freddie Gluckhaven. ‘You say it’s the Durwards that killed my Sally? Tell me more …’
Forty-Six
Barton Sorrell Falls Again
WILL I EVER stop falling? I thought I’d hit the ground a long time ago when I lay there, eyes watering from the brightness of the sun and the pain in my shattered legs. Then I began to doubt, when I held Ann, sobbing, in my arms. Then again when I held her for the last time. Surely now, I thought, gazing on the cold, dead face of my beloved sister, surely now I have finally fallen as far as any man can possibly fall.
But maybe not.
Pa is sitting on the porch, staring at the stars and smoking his pipe, Sometimes he forgets to light it, then I do it for him and he carries on, occasionally puffing out small clouds to float up and obscure the moon.
Isabella is finding it harder to cope than she would ever admit. Between my anger and Pa’s emptiness, she just doesn’t know what to do with herself. Of course, I could try and help, could stop raging at everything that comes into reach. I could do that.
But I wish it would all just burn. I honestly think that’s the only thing that would please me now, to watch it all burn.
The coach comes rattling up the track before stopping outside the house.
‘Is that the Durwards?’ I wonder. ‘What do they want?’
Then I see what steps out and walks slowly up to the front porch.
Pa doesn’t see it properly for a moment, just stares at it without thinking. Then he notices and the screaming brings my sister running.
‘Oh, dear God,’ she says, as it raises one hand to tear out Pa’s throat. The hand knocks the lantern swinging from the corner of the porch and the orange light sweeps backwards and forwards so that the sight of Pa being torn apart steps in and out of shadow. ‘What is it?’ she screams as she runs back into the house to find something to fight with.
‘That, dear sister,’ I say, ‘is what’s going to tear a hole in the guts of the world itself.’
She doesn’t appear as pleased about it as me. But then, Isabella always was the awkward one.
‘Yes,’ I say, eagerly dropping to my knees and breathing deep of the steam that comes from my dead father’s carcass. ‘Let’s fall together!’
Forty-Seven
Brothers in Blood – The Memoirs of Professor Herbert Grost: Volume One (Unpublished)
WE TOLD YOUNG Freddie Gluckhaven all we knew and much of what we suspected.
He was a changed man since last we’d seen him. He carried with him a sense of determination and … was it detachment? Yes … I rather think it was. The frothing emotion of before had boiled away, leaving a man who had decided what he must do and who would not be stopped from doing it.
Dear God, but he reminded me of Kronos.
‘So we must take the fight to the Durwards,’ he said.
‘Indeed,’ I replied. ‘But we have a great deal to prepare first.’
‘What’s to prepare?’ he asked. ‘We know who the enemy is, we have a sword in our hand, so let’s get on with it.’
‘Your sword will do you no good,’ said Kronos. ‘Have you not been listening? Every vampire bloodline has a different weakness. These creatures are killed by silver.’
‘Both of them?’ Freddie asked.
‘They may have different feeding habits,’ I explained. ‘One feeds on youth, the other simply kills in a frenzy. But silver will kill them both.’
‘So,’ Freddie said, ‘Paul and Sara Durward … I’m surprised … well, no, I can believe anything of Sara but Paul always seemed … I don’t know: cold, but decent enough.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said, ‘bearing in mind everything that Marcus told us about both of them. Paul Durward is a quiet, repressed individual, someone who has always been held back and pushed down by others.’
‘You think this lunatic that’s tearing people apart is his animal side?’ Carla asked.
‘It’s possible,’ Kronos agreed. ‘He may not even know what he becomes … a creature of pure instinct let loose!’
‘Not for long,’ said Freddie. ‘We’ll see to that. So when do we attack?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Kronos. ‘We shall tear that family—’
There was a terrible scream from somewhere out in the woods.
‘Quickly!’ Kronos shouted. He jumped to his feet and ran into the darkness.
I went to the stables, strapped a saddle on our fastest horse and chased after him.
I followed the sound of screaming as well as the occasional glimpses of Kronos in the moonlight. It was the Sorrell household, I realised as we drew close. Marcus had said that they lived close-by.
There was a soft noise, like a sheet whipping in the wind, and then the forest was lit by a blaze of fire.
‘Kronos!’ I shouted, coming alongside him so he could climb up and take the reins.
We rode towards the Sorrell’s home, unable to miss it now that it was a fireball in the middle of the forest.
‘They’ve been here!’ said Kronos, leaping off the horse as we came to the front of the small house.
He scanned the ground, noting the tracks left by a coach as it had sped away from the scene of destruction.
‘Dear Lord,’ I said, looking down on what must have been the remains of George Sorrell. He had been torn apart. ‘That’s not just the result of the coach running over him, surely,’ I said.
Kronos squatted down to examine the body. ‘No, he was attacked, as if by an animal. This last …’ he pointed to where the man’s right arm had been severed ‘… is where the coach ran over him. But the rest was done by hand.’
‘By hand?’
‘This creature is incredibly strong, my friend,’ said Kronos. ‘You can see where the skin and muscle was torn – that’s no weapon, that’s teeth and nails.’
I stared into the heat of the fire. ‘Poor family,’ I said. ‘They got them all in the end.’ I could just see what was left of the brother and sister. The boy was propped up in the corner of the porch, what looked like the remains of a crutch sticking up from the top of his head like the antenna of an insect. The girl was hanging from the far end of the roof: the flames had caught her clothes and she had burned like a foul candle. The shadow of her cremated bones was showing through the flames.
‘Don’t worry, my friend,’ said Kronos. ‘This will be the end of it. Nobody else dies now except the foul creatures that did this. Tomorrow we finish this business once and for all.’
Forty-Eight
Carla Is Not Patient
I’M NOT GOOD at waiting. Never have been. If I know that something needs doing then I’m the sort of person that just has to get on and do it (or hide and pretend it didn’t really need doing – you know, if it’s one of those things that you’re supposed to do but really don’t want to).
This business of waiting a whole day before we attack the Durwards, well … By mid-morning I’m nearly out of my mind. Freddie’s not much better.
‘Surely it would make more sense to attack during the day?’ he asks Grost. ‘Aren’t vampires scared of sun-light?’
‘They’re not scared of anything,’ he replies. ‘And as we will be fighting them inside it really doesn’t matter a great deal, does it? “Excuse me,” ’ he joked, ‘“would you mind awfully coming over here to the window while we’re duelling?”’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ says Freddie and heads off outside for a sulk.
I decide to stay and watch Grost for a while. It’s fascinating to see him go about the business of melting down the candlesticks, puffing the bellows to build the flames higher and higher.
‘You could have been a smith,’ I tell him.
‘I’ve done most jobs in my time,’ he admits. ‘The worst, by far, was nursemaiding, the best was probably when I worked as a food tester.’
‘Food tester?’
‘For a mad old earl who was convinced that his cook was trying to poison him. He wasn’t, of course – I mean these are civilised times! Still, there was no convincing him so I had to eat a portion of everything he did. I put on a great deal of weight and lived a happy life.’
‘What went wrong?’
‘I fell out with the cook.’
‘So?’
‘Well … I thought he might try to poison me.’
‘Silly man.’
Once the candlesticks are melted, Grost tips the liquid metal into a mould. ‘Right,’ he says, ‘that’s that for a while. Let’s busy ourselves with other matters.’
‘Other matters?’
‘Indeed! I won’t have Kronos going into battle without first making sure that I have taken care of every possible eventuality.’
‘Such as?’ Grost can be hard work when he wants to be.
‘I was thinking of how the vampire that feeds on youth ensnared its victims. Marcus described Ann Sorrell being left in a daze. Some vampires possess a kind of mesmerism, an ability to freeze you in your tracks. All they have to do is make eye contact with you.’
‘Right – so don’t look at their eyes.’
‘Easier said than done,’ Grost replies. ‘I have something better in mind.’ He taps the surface of Marcus’s mirror. ‘Now all I have to do is find a big enough diamond to cut it.’
