Kronos, p.21
Kronos, page 21
There is the sound of scurrying in the darkness and I keep my sword raised. I wonder how effective Hagen’s eyes are in the dark. I imagine, since he’s chosen to live down here, that they’re better than mine.
A gentle growl comes from some way away. He’s leading me deeper.
I become aware of something beneath my feet and lower the candle to take a closer look. Bones. Wonderful. I have stepped into Hagen’s larder.
Raising the candle to eye level again I come face to face with Kerro. Or what is left of him. He is hanging upside down, like a ripening pheasant. His colleagues are next to him, as is a young woman and an older man. These two are staff by the looks of them: they wear the uniforms of domestic service. I back away and immediately feel a rush of air as Hagen runs past, lashing out at my back as he passes. I swing the sword around in the hope of hitting him but he is long gone.
My back feels hot. Blood is running down to the waist of my britches. I cannot afford to play these games, otherwise I will be dead of blood loss and my corpse will be hanging up with the rest of them.
The problem is the candle. Without it I can’t see but with it I’m an easy target, one that he can track right through the cellar. I snuff it out and poke it into my belt.
The darkness is now absolute and the cellars could be an infinite space. I am adrift in here, uprooted from the physical world. I close my eyes and hold the sword out in front of me. The darkness is only a disadvantage if I allow it to be so. I have other senses than my sight. I can hear Hagen as he scampers to and fro, like a fat rat here beneath the ground. I can hear him sniffing me out, that pustule-covered nose of his catching my scent … my scent.
I move forward, stepping as quietly as I can while I reach out for the hanging bodies.
My hand brushes a dead face. Kerro, I can tell from the beard. I turn and squeeze in between the hanging cadavers. The sword held with its blade up, touching my nose. I breathe out – slowly, quietly – and find my centre.
The others laugh at my meditation, I know. Because they do not understand it. They think it’s about sitting still and having a short sleep. It is not. It is about becoming everything and nothing. About emptying yourself of every useless thought and placing yourself at the very centre of existence. About achieving a perfect state of calm. About becoming aware, really aware of the world and your place in it.
I can feel Hagen coming. I can hear the soles of his feet on the dusty bricks. I can hear his breathing, trying to sniff me out, trying to catch my scent above the sweet taint of his food store. I can even hear his heart, pounding in his chest. That engine of life, even for a vampire. The organ you rupture with your stake. Burn with the sun. Boil with Holy Water or slice asunder with silver!
I thrust the sword forward, yelling with triumph as I feel its point push against a resistance out there in the darkness. I step out from among the swinging carcasses, back into the real world, into the physical realm of the cellar beneath Durward Hall and the screaming, dying animal on the end of my sword.
I push forward even further and I feel the sword slide through the creature’s back and embed itself in something behind him. Hagen howls, pinned hopelessly.
I let go of the sword. I want to see.
I pull the candle from my belt and light it with the tinderbox in my pocket. In the warm orange light I see Hagen, pinned through the heart, the sword stuck fast in a wooden pillar. He convulses as the poisonous silver courses through him. His mouth is wide open, though it would seem he can no longer scream. His hands clutch at the air. His eyes are wide, catching the light from my candle and reflecting its hot fire like a pair of suns.
I watch him die. Slowly. And I consider it good.
Hagen slumps around the sword, and his flesh finally remembers the grave that he should have been in long ago. It rots from his corrupt bones and wastes away in pieces on the cold cellar floor. The last sound: his skeleton, breaking up and dropping, like hollow wind chimes, to the ground.
My job is done.
Fifty-Two
Carla Finds Her Road
WHEN KRONOS COMES back up from the cellar he is not a pretty sight. And, given how good he normally looks, that tells you something.
‘It is done,’ he announces, in that stiff tone of his. And promptly walks through the drawing room and straight out of the house.
‘It’s a good job he’s good at killing vampires,’ I say, ‘because he’d be adrift in life if he was forced to rely on his charm.’
Paul Durward is not a well man. He sits on the floor of the entrance hall, staring into space. ‘Sorry, daddy,’ he says as we walk over. ‘I’m such a bad boy.’
‘Go on,’ says Sara. ‘I’ll look after him. Always have, always will.’
I look to Freddie, thinking that he may suggest something. But he simply shakes his head and leads me outside.
‘That’s their mess,’ he says once the cool of a late summer breeze has gone some way towards clearing the smell of death from our nostrils. ‘Let them deal with it.’
And with that he starts to cry. I hold onto him and we sit down on the front step while he lets out every last bit of sadness for the woman he loved. No, loves. Her death hasn’t changed his feelings – only time will do that.
‘Look.’ Grost stands in front of us, shifting awkwardly and looking after Kronos who is climbing on his horse and riding away. ‘I had better …’
‘Come here first,’ I say.
I kiss him and whisper into his ear: ‘Never stop fighting the monsters you beautiful man.’
He looks at me and I realise that he may be about to cry as well. What is it with men these days?
‘Go on!’ I say. ‘And look after him.’
‘Thank you.’ He runs after Kronos, climbs on his own horse and gallops away.
I doubt that I shall see either of them again.
‘Sorry,’ says Freddie, wiping at his face. ‘So stupid …’
‘Not at all,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve earned the right to shed every single tear.’
He sniffs and looks up at the stars. Sighs, rubs at his face. ‘We did well,’ he says eventually.
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘Very well. And now there’s a choice: either you let go of the past and find your future or you become like those two.’ I nod towards where the sound of horses can still be heard. ‘Which is it to be?’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Doesn’t matter about me,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got my road. It starts here and ends up who knows where. I’ll find out when I get there.’
‘It might be horrible,’ he says, smiling slightly.
‘Or it might be the best place you ever saw.’
‘True.’
And one day we’ll find out.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446492093
Published by Arrow Books in association with Hammer 2011
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Guy Adams 2011
Guy Adams has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
Kronos is based on the classic Hammer film, Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, written and directed by Brian Clemens and released in 1974
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between these fictional characters and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Arrow Books in association with Hammer
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
www.hammerfilms.com
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be
found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099556244
Guy Adams, Kronos
